Loving our Neighbor

     We’ve just gone through a terribly complex storm that created much turmoil in the eastern part of our country.  There were floods in many cities, snow covered West Virginia and winds destroyed trees and homes in many places.  Some people called this thing the “Frankenstorm” to emphasize the horror of it.

What always intrigues me in this kind of situation is how those of us who are moderately or not at all inconvenienced respond to it.  Presently there are volunteers heading for the distressed areas and FEMA is providing aid that is very much needed and there are shelters being created to take care of those who have lost their homes.  What is wonderful about all of this is that there isn’t very much notice taken of who is being helped and who is not.  The question is simply what is the need, nothing else.   This is, for me a model of how we ought to behave in non-crisis times.  We seem to mobilize when the need presents itself, but otherwise, we continue on our way that segregates need from justice.

This political season seems to conjure up differences among us that sometimes either don’t exist, or are irrelevant.  The “47 percent” that were talked about as being moochers is only one example.  I think if I hear one more candidate tick off the five points of his plan, or describe himself as a “job creator,” I will consider throwing my television set out of my window.  We spend a lot of time dividing ourselves into communities that seem to be opposite one another in terms of need.

The storm throws all of that aside and lets us deal with each other in terms of human need.  The lesson that we need to learn from this is that we need to do this all of the time, not just in times of crisis.

In Mark’s Gospel, one of the scribes asked Jesus “which commandment is first of all?”  Jesus replied citing the great statement from Deuteronomy: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And then he added the familiar,  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  In our worship, we call this simple statement, “The summary of the Law”.  It is an easy description of how we need to treat each other from day to day, regardless of whatever crisis may threaten us.

Loving our neighbor as a person like ourselves is a creed that can be adopted by all of us.  I think that the time of crisis brings this out in us, but what a wonderful thing it would be if we simply learned to do this day to day.

Restoration and Hope

We had a tremendous resurrection in the diocese of Pittsburgh last Saturday when The Rev. Dorsey Winter Marsden McConnell was consecrated as the eighth diocesan bishop of Pittsburgh.   Resurrection, however doesn’t happen without a death.  For Jesus it was the terrible event of Calvary when he was crucified and died.  It was his resurrection three days later that we celebrate as Easter.  Last Saturday, it felt very much like an Easter experience when I watched that magnificent three hour service that brought us out of the gloom of depression and night into the brightness of a new day.  When we left Calvary Church, I felt that something wonderful had happened and that we were on a new path.

It all began, of course with the schism that was brought to us by our previous bishop, the now deposed Robert Duncan who took a majority of our parishes with him into what he described as The Anglican Church of North America, a loose confederation of churches that have felt alienated from the Episcopal Church from the days of the 1928 Prayer book, through the conflict around the ordination of women and ultimately women as bishops to the anger generated by Bishop Gene Robinson’s election as Bishop of New Hampshire and the inclusion of gay people not only in our parishes, but a members of our clergy.  We had some profound struggles around all of this.  The leadership of our diocese didn’t help us to get through the arguments and get on with our mission.  They instead intensified the arguments and created the final schism that took us far from each other.

It was fitting that the consecration on Saturday took place at Calvary church in Shadyside.  It was at their rector, Dr. Harold Lewis’ behest that a lawsuit was filed that secured the property of the Episcopal Diocese from being taken by the churches who chose to leave for the Anglican diocese.  Parenthetically, it is certainly notable that our provisional bishop, The Rt. Rev. Kenneth Price has always held out an olive branch to those who have left, offering to include them back into their old diocese at any time.  I think that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has done wonders in terms of keeping the Gospel at the forefront of what we have done.

Restoration is the theme of the Book of Job.  In the final chapters, Job cries out to God for an answer to his question, Why me?  Why has all of this happened to me?  God never gives Job an answer to his question.  Job has endured not only the horrible things that have happened to him, the loss of his family and his wealth, but also the constant abuse by his friends who have told him over and over again that he must be a horrible sinner to have had all of these things put upon him by God.  At the end, Job confesses to God that he doesn’t understand anything of why these things have happened to him, but he prays for his friends.  And God does a wonderful thing:  God restores the fortunes of Job and gives him not only family but untold riches.  Restoration is what happens to Job.

Restoration is what has happened to the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  The God to whom we have been faithful through all of this turmoil has given us back our mission and our hope.  With Bishop McConnell, we will move forward and reclaim the mission that we had before all of the difficulties began.  Thank God for restoration and hope!

The Sanctity of the Vote

       There is a troubling article in this month’s Harper's.  It is written by Victoria Collier and it details how to steal an election electronically.  It is a story of how a couple of right leaning companies have gotten a virtual monopoly on election software and in close elections have the means to manipulate the vote count so that the side that they prefer wins.  I was horrified by what she says in this piece.  I am also in wonder why the mass media hasn’t picked up on this.  It is a good story in this close presidential race.  In the past, one of the companies, an Ohio firm, Diebold was implicated in some chicanery involving their then CEO Walden O’Dell promising publicly to “deliver” Ohio’s electoral votes to George W. Bush.  O’Dell stepped down before a class action suit was filed against his firm.

I think that my vote ought to be sacrosanct.  I don’t want somebody messing around with my vote or anyone else’s vote.  In this democracy, we have a right to select our leadership by legitimate voting that ought not to be subjected to anyone’s manipulation.  After reading Collier’s article, I’m not sure that my vote has any certainty at all.  We certainly need someone or some way to watch over this problem so that we don’t have an election that dissolves into uncertainty and chaos.  I am sure that if there is a very close contest, not only for the presidency, but also for senatorial and congressional races, there will be questions raised as to the ways that the votes were counted.  After the mess that we had with the Bush/Gore election in Florida and the “hanging chads”, we don’t need another episode of that.

But what can we do if no one takes notice?  With the extreme right making such a statement in our culture, there is a danger of not only the stealing of an election or two, but simply uncertainty of the outcome.  That will create a danger to our society that we simply don’t need.  With the gridlock in Congress, I don’t know how we can work this all out before the coming election.  I am frightened that what we are able to do at this moment in time just won’t be enough.

Camels and Needles

       This election season is concentrating on how our wealth is distributed.  It seems to me that there are those who think that the wealthy ought not only to keep what they have, but to radically increase it.  They ought to pay small taxes and use their riches primarily for themselves.  The logic behind this is that they are “job creators”, although there is scant evidence that lots of jobs have been created by them.  Job creators is a name that the rich have chosen for themselves to sound as if they are the creators of benefits for those who don’t prosper quite as well as they do.  It is a little less than a lie, it is only a gross exaggeration, but it has the effect of raising the rich to a level above the rest of us.  They are our benefactors.  We ought to place them on a pedestal and allow them all of the benefits that they have earned,  whether they have really earned them or not.

There seems to be a lot of concern on the part of God about what we do with our wealth.  We have another of those perplexing statements from Jesus in the Gospel of Mark:  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.  I think that I have heard that one all of my life.  I can remember kids in Sunday school cutting camels out of paper and somehow getting them through the eye of a large needle.  What Jesus is trying to say to the disciples is however, as it is categorically impossible for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, so it is also impossible for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

When I think about the Kingdom of God, my mind doesn’t automatically go to Heaven, where God constantly reigns.  I think of this planet where we live, where Jesus came to teach us, and where he gave his life for the salvation of all of us.  It is also here where the poor live constantly among us and where all of our wealth resides.  The words of Jesus about the Kingdom of God is about creating it here on earth; in the words of the Lord’s Prayer:  thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  That is the mission of Jesus, to create on earth the same powerful conditions that govern what goes on constantly around the throne of God.  We never quite get that straight because we become so focused on our wealth that we can conveniently ignore the poor who live all around us.

In Amos’ prophecy, he talks about what God will do to those who not only neglect the poor, but use them for their own gain.  He says:

                                    Therefore because you trample on the poor 
and take from them levies of grain, you have 
built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not 
live in them;  you have planted pleasant
vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

  Quite an indictment by God and a warning to all of us about the use of our wealth for things other than what God has in mind.  We ignore it, of course,  enticed by what we can gather for ourselves from the bounty around us.

So what are we to do?  I know that our very existence depends on what we do for those who have nothing.  Caring for the poor needs to be the business not only of our churches and our communities, but of the whole nation.  None of us will really be rich until all of us are provided for.  That is what creating the Kingdom of God is all about.  Sops thrown to the poor to keep them quiet are not enough.  We need to focus all of our wealth on the care of all of us.  That is the only thing that really makes sense.

Partnership and Hope

      Rosie and I have been married for 57 years.  That is an awesome number when you think about it.  Fifty-seven years of marriage.  It hasn’t always been easy.  I think that I have given her more than enough reason to break it off at times.  She has put up  with me in a lot of different moods, not always pleasant.  And she has also put up with a lot of change.  We have moved some 27 times in all of those years, and downsized several times.  Our most recent move was from a beautiful home in Charleston, West Virginia back to Pittsburgh to a small condominium so that we could be close to our kids.  This has been a fantastic move.   We see our daughters often and we are enjoying our grandchildren and our two great-grandchildren.  We joined St. Brendan’s, a church that I had a hand is starting twenty-five years ago when I was the rector of Christ Church, North Hills.  They will celebrate their silver anniversary this month and I look forward to preaching at the service that will commemorate that on October 21.

But back to marriage.  In the Book of Genesis, God says, It is not good that the 
man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.  And God created Eve as a partner for Adam.  That partnership had its ups and downs.  The partnership that Rosie and I share is what has made our marriage work.  We have shared in the raising of our daughters and in the joy of watching our kids grow up and have children of their own.  There has also been grief and pain as we have buried our parents and lost uncles and aunts as age has taken them from us.

     Rosie has been with me through career change.  She found me at a radio station booth at the Indiana County fair and we had a career in radio and television for a number of years, then she was my partner when I went to seminary.  She worked outside the home to help us pay the bills with three kids and tuition and many other obligations.  When I look back on all of that, I have no idea how it worked out.  But she was the glue.  She is the one that made it happen.  We have been very fortunate.

When I became a parish priest, Rosie was a clergy wife.  That has its own dynamic.  The expectations of a parish for the wife of the rector is sometimes overwhelming.  She has carried it off with an expertise that I have always admired.  It isn’t an easy job.  There are always those who want to interfere in the household of the clergy.  She was a master of handling even the most difficult cases.  I have thanked God many, many times for the intelligence and the beauty that she has brought to this marriage and the help that she has been in our career together.

Over the course of my work in the Episcopal Church, I have done a number of weddings.  Sometimes, these have worked out very well.  Sometimes, not.  When I do a wedding, I always think of what Rosie and I offer as an example.  I know that the love that is present on the wedding day is powerful and can keep a couple together for a lifetime.

But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.   I have counseled a number of couples who have divorced.  I have helped them in their pain and have witnessed the turmoil that has been a part of their lives in the middle of trying to work out relationships that have been irretrievably broken.  The anguish of this is sometimes overwhelming to everyone involved..  I have seen in these moments though, that God’s love is also powerful.  I have watched people who have survived divorce and have created other relationships.  This is never easy, but these people are great examples to the rest of us as proof that brokenness can be overcome.  Forgiveness and hope surpass pain and destruction.  I have seen it work over and over again.

     The key to it all is community.  Together we can help each other survive with hope the pain and the joy that we all experience in this life.  May God bless us in our lives as we stay together and help each other in our fragile partnerships.   And when they are broken, may God bless us in finding hope again.