Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Faith and Humility

The faith that lives within me has grown and sometimes waned with my years.  When I was a child, I accepted the faith of my parents, went to Sunday school, sang in the choir, served as an acolyte and watched my church community do what church communities do:  rise and fall in relation to their own faith, or lack of it.  The amazing thing about churches is that they develop their own politics that generally have nothing at all to do with faith, but is connected tightly to power.  Those who achieve power are not necessarily the most faithful in the congregation.  We have all seen instances where the need to continue to use or gain power is more the issue than faith.  Trusting in God sometimes becomes a side issue in the management of churches.  The real issue, however  before us as Christians is always the same:  how do we acquire and exhibit our faith?

            I once served on a vestry that was given an unrestricted gift of $25,000.  There was a strong difference of opinion on the vestry about what to do with the money.  One group wanted to do something to help the hungry in the town and another group wanted to put new carpeting in the church.  There was no compromise offered by either side.   The argument went on and on, became somewhat public in the church, and eventually the money went to replace the pledges of the people who left the church because of the argument.  There was no faith at all attached to this dispute.  It was simply about one group getting power over the other, and a horrible example of what happens when we demand our own way.

            When I went to college and left home, my faith deteriorated markedly.  It wasn’t until I was married and had children that a desire to return to church came about.  Our kids were baptized and Rosie was confirmed, and we began to follow a faith.  That faith was markedly improved from the way that I followed God as a child.  I began to see a change in my own life and a renewal of the beauty that faith can produce.  It was also there for me during the changes   that happened.  When my father died, I watched my mother cope with the way that her life changed.  She was remarkable in her ability to lean into the changes that were required of her.  I was sometimes touched deeply by her ability to live the life that was in front of her, rather that the life that she felt that she was owed.   She lived with us for awhile, then went on to live with her sister, who had also lost her husband, and they seemed to find comfort in one another.     

            Later, when the television station that I was working for went bankrupt, I was out of work and wondering what to do.  The idea of ministry occurred to me, I don’t think entirely of my own volition.  I talked to my rector and had a meeting with my bishop, who approved me quickly and I found myself in Virginia Seminary that fall.  This was in the days when this kind of thing didn’t involve elaborate hoop jumping.  I think that I knew immediately that I had done the right thing.  Ministry appealed to me and the three years of seminary education passed quickly, with a lot of family turmoil.  Rosie had to work outside the home, the kids schooling was disrupted and sometimes chaotic, but somehow the money was produced to get us through these years and we eventually arrived at our first parish.  I saw in hindsight that faith was what had gotten us there and I began my ministry enthused about this new work.   Faith isn’t visible very much in the good times.  It is when the world falls apart that sometimes we can see what faith offers.           

            In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus in Capernaum encounters a Roman centurion who asks him to heal his slave who is sick.  He humbly tells Jesus that he is not worthy that Jesus come under his roof, but that his dear slave needs Jesus healing touch.  Jesus is amazed at the centurion’s faith and heals the slave.  The slave needed desperately to be healed.  Your faith has made you whole, said Jesus on a number of occasions.  Here he is again at the bottom of someone’s life, bringing hope out of faith.   As elusive as a firm definition of faith is, looking for it with humility in the darkness is a good place to start.  It seems to shun the light that is produced by our pride.  Maybe that is what is happening in our churches.  When the power struggle produces chaos, faith and humility might be the great healing force that gets us back on track.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

God's Presence in the Middle of Suffering


            I heard a young clergyman preach a sermon about the Trinity on Trinity Sunday a number of years ago at the beautiful cathedral in Coventry, England where we were visiting.  It was a good sermon, one of the best that I have heard from a preacher trying to explain the unexplainable.  I resolved that day never to preach on Trinity Sunday, at least never to try to explain what I don’t understand.  From that moment on, I always had my assistants preach on Trinity Sunday.  I always enjoyed listening to them. 

            In a sense, all of our religion is unexplainable.  Who can even try to interpret the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  It certainly makes no sense in any factual way.  There have been those who have tried to prove it through the centuries, but that has never worked.  It is much easier to disprove.  Who has ever seen a resurrection?  There isn’t any reason at all to believe in it.  But reason is not what we are after here.  Faith is the only thing that matters, not even belief, which for me always seems tied to doctrine.   Faith is what draws us close to our God.  That out of all of the wonders and wreckage that humanity and religion is and has created, God reigns.  That is, I think, all that we need to know about what God is about in this world. 

            But this is a difficult world.  As I write this, a tornado has devastated Moore, Oklahoma and many people have been killed and injured.  Particularly a grade school was inundated and destroyed.  Workers are trying to recover bodies and find any survivors who might remain in the wreckage of the building.  Parents are stunned and the whole community grieves.  It is in this context that we look for God’s presence and comfort.  The comfort comes from each of us when we encounter situations like this.  We do what we can to bring hope and comfort in the middle of unbelievable pain.  God is present in the pain.  I am reminded of Jesus’ words on the cross:  My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?  These are the words that tell me of God’s presence in our most horrible moments. 
           
            The devastation doesn’t have to be as terrible as what the city of Moore is experiencing.  Sometimes in our lives, the loss of income or our health, or the death of loved ones can be as overwhelming to us.  Where is God in these terrible moments of our lives?  Where is the Holy Spirit, our comforter who Jesus promised to send to us?  Where was God when Jesus called out to him on the cross?  It is only in the moments of my absolute devastation that I know that the Holy Spirit is present.  It certainly isn’t in the good times, when I can take care of myself without any help from anyone.  My self-sufficiency is one of the clearest barriers to the presence of God that exists.  Only when that falls away is it possible for God to somehow penetrate my hardened soul.

            When my brain tumor was diagnosed, I lived in a state of quiet anxiety.  The doctors prescribed a treatment that involved radical surgery, to remove the tumor and provide some kind of rehabilitation.  It was only on the operating table, right before the anesthetic was given to me that a remarkable calm penetrated my body.  I knew then that whatever happened that day, whatever the outcome, I would be all right.  That wasn’t much comfort to my family who all waited for me, but it was a deep touch of God for me.  After the surgery, it took several years for me to recover completely, with the help of a remarkable family and community of faithful people, but from the moment of that touch of the divine, I knew the ending.  I have kept that moment with me from that time forward.  God came to me in the middle of my devastation to give me hope.  That was not a promise of anything other than presence.  I knew that at the time. 

            That to me is the essence of faith.  Faith is not about outcome, it is about presence.  It is about God’s touch at every moment, whether I am aware of it or not.  With the love of my family, I don’t need anything more.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Love, Humility and Pentecost


            There is certainly no end to human arrogance.  It has been with us since we were created.  I know that when I was an older brother, I tormented my younger brother unmercifully.  The reason was simply that I was older and bigger than he was.    My granddaughter has two sons, one is three, the other has just had his first birthday.  When I watch the two of them play together, they remind me of my own antics when I was their age.  The youngest has just learned to walk, and tries to get around his brother.  With a snarky look on his face, his older sibling won’t let him get by.  It isn’t just to be mean, it is the arrogance of being a bigger brother and calling the shots.  They will work this out in time.  One of these days, the youngest will punch his brother in the nose and they will be on their way to a solution.  This isn’t how we would like things to be, but given our tendency to want control and our arrogance in exercising it, it is the way that things will be.

            It isn’t much different in adult affairs.  Political parties don’t get along well either.  Neither do nations.  That is why we have had a continual arms race since we have created countries and borders.  The strongest always wants to control the weakest.  We don’t say it that way, but it certainly works out like that.  The Middle Eastern countries are currently trying to work out their differences, religious, political and economic and are having a terrible time getting to a place of agreement.  Mostly there have been wars and rebellions.  They will work things out also, but only when the armies retire and there is some way to come to an agreement over the things that divide them.  We would love for all of this to happen without bloodshed, but the problem is that power is what the different factions seek and there is very little humility abroad in those lands.

            The same thing is true in our country.  Washington is rocked with division that paralyzes our congress and keeps anything at all from getting done.  It is disgusting that something as simple as requiring background checks for those who want to buy weapons can’t pass congress although some ninety percent of Americans believe that it needs to be our law.  This is because of the terrible lack of humility on both sides of this argument.  It won’t end until there is leadership that demands action. 

            In the earliest of times, human beings decided to build the tower of Babel to reach to the heavens and control the world.  God confused human language and destroyed the tower and it never happened.  We turned our attention instead to controlling one another.  If you read the Old Testament, it is one war after another.   You will read of God leading the armies of the Hebrews against the armies of the Philistines, or the armies of the Babylonians defeating the Hebrews and leading them off to captivity, and the armies of the Romans defeating the Hebrews and occupying their land with little freedom for anyone. 

            Finally, sick of it all, God sent his Son to come into this world to teach us humility and Love.  That is what the Gospels are all about.  But Jesus didn’t stop the arrogance.  Because of his preaching and his Love, he was crucified and buried.  It was then that God caused Jesus to rise from the dead and promise  to his disciples that the Spirit would come to comfort and to lead them. 

            That is what the Day of Pentecost is all about.  The coming of the Spirit of God into the world to continue what Jesus began.  In the Acts of the Apostles, we have the story of the Spirit alighting like flames on the heads of the apostles giving them the ability to speak in the multiple languages of the crowds, thus curing temporarily the problem of Babel.  This day is obviously not the end of the problem, the church itself has proved that through the years since, with all of its own wars and petty squabbles, but it is an example to all of us of what we need to do to get this world into some kind of order.  Love and Humility is the key.  Jesus told us to love one another as he loved us.  When we are able to do this, the arrogance falls away and we are able to do wonders-- even be the church in a world that needs it so desperately.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Resurrection and Ascension


            When we were in Israel, we went to the top of the mountain outside of the city where Jesus was reputed to have ascended into Heaven.  There was a stone with a footprint in it, which our guide solemnly told us was certainly Jesus’ footprint as he leaped off this earth and arose into the presence of His Father and the angels.  There was also another stone with such a footprint at another location which I have forgotten.  All of this was presented to us as incontrovertible fact that was proof of the ascension.  On a couple of levels, I have a problem with that.

            First, is the role of faith in all of this.  Without faith, we have nothing in regard to Jesus’ promises to us and the way that his life ended and the resurrection took place.  We have no facts to back these things up.  Certainly, the medieval church produced pieces of the “true cross”, which has been lodged in various places and the Shroud of Turin is purported to be the cloth that covered Jesus’ body in the tomb.  We are hungry for proof that all of this took place.  We want to know, not suppose that our Lord did all that he promised.  Faith is what makes this possible.  Facts are hardly proof of much of anything.  Look at the way that “facts” are used by politicians to prove what they want us all to believe.  So often, these “facts” have turned out to be either false or overstated.  Science can only go so far.

            The second thing that bothers me about all of this is that my religion is intensely important to me.  It secures me in this life and in the life to come in the fellowship of all of the saints, and of my God.  I really don’t want to muddy it all up with dogma that has to be believed if we are going to be true to our faith.  One of the things that I love about the Episcopal church is the recitation of the creed as a statement of our belief system.  Thankfully, the creed is vague enough to encompass all of our notions about our God and we are free to worship as we please.  I think that the Council of Nicaea was full of genius and gave us a gift that we have embraced and used to our advantage through all of the doctrinal wars that have been fought in the name of religion .  Thank God for this great gift.

            During countless funerals, the whole notion of resurrection and ascension has been very important to me and to the families of those who lie in death, and whose lives we celebrate.   We are able to assure them of the wonderful truth of rising from the dead and the possibility of reunion at some point.  That has always been a wonderful truth to me.  I have preached it over and over again and hold it to be true in the depths of my being. 

            Jesus’ final prayer with his disciples is a beautiful statement of his relationship with his Father and his hope for his disciples.  He prays: Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

            What a beautiful statement of love and care for all of us.  It helps that we continue to worship our risen and ascended Lord until the time comes for us all to join Him in the court of God.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

How Do We Find Peace?


            Rosie and I spent the last week at the beach.  I officiated at the wedding of my nephew in a small town in North Carolina. We then went to the beach to find the peace that the shore offers in abundance.  I hunger for that peace.  We used to own a beach house on the ocean until a winter storm in 1993 took it away from us.  I remember sitting on the deck for hours watching the ocean and meditating.  It was glorious peace.  That is what we were looking for this time when we visited the shore.  

            I’m well aware that “peace” is a relative word.  Peace in the context of struggle is something that we all yearn for.  It is the strain of striving that makes our hearts yearn for peace.  But peace isn’t simply quiet and serenity.  It involves an inner calm that works even in the midst of whatever life presents to us.  

            Jesus speaks to his disciples about peace.  This is his last gift to them before he returns to his Father in heaven.  He says to them:  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. And how does the world give peace?  Certainly the world does not give peace easily.  I think of all of the trouble spots in the world, Israel and the Palestinians, Syria and the rebels, even congress and the president or husbands and wives.  Peace isn’t easily accomplished.  What we always need is an inner calm in the presence of the turmoil that offers the possibility that lies beyond the political or the familial problems.   

            With the Boston Marathon bombing in our recent experience and the loss of the children and teachers at Newtown, we are well aware that peace isn’t easily achieved.  The congress seems immune to pressure to regulate guns, and we have no idea how it is that we will provide hope to the victims who cry out for some kind of redress.

            What Jesus’ disciples faced in their efforts to follow the Lord was endless difficulty.  The Romans and the Jews surrounded them.  They were always being pursued by those who wanted them to stop their preaching and adhere to the religion that had been theirs before the Christ came into their lives.  Maintaining the peace that Jesus provided for them was sometimes a very difficult task.   So it is for all of us. We also live in a world of contradictions.  It is a world that seems to be losing its faith rather than engaging in it.  Churches are not full anymore.  It takes a great deal to start a new parish.  Within denominations, there is constant struggle.  Certainly what we all went through in Pittsburgh is a validation of that.  When even Christianity itself seems to split apart, where is the peace?  How do we find it?  

            Jesus greatest gift to this world was his resurrection and the promise of the Holy Spirit to walk with us in this life.  That is the only source of peace that we will ever find.  It is what sustained Peter and the apostles through years of turmoil that ended in their deaths.  Even John on Patmos speaks of struggle and pain as he searched for peace in that lonely cave.  I know that he found it, and that we can all find it too, even with all that faces us in our lives.

            The beach was cold and sometimes rainy in the week that we spent there, yet there was a gentle peace that we found with each other and simply with the joy of being together.  That is something to celebrate, and it was a gift to bring home with us.