God and Wealth

 

I admit that I had already written this sermon for our clergy conference in the spring. But I did make a few minor changes, but I stuck with this reading in part because it is a really hard one to grapple with and also I felt that my congregation and I needed to take a break from hearing their former journalist priest talk about the headlines, especially my angst and anger at the assault on the First Amendment. 

Instead, I talked about wealth. See what you think.

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Text: Luke 16: 1-13

If this morning’s Gospel left you a bit confused…you are in excellent company.

This is one of the tougher of the Lukan parables.

We looked at this one in our Lenten study this past spring… that class I called “Playing with the Parables.”

To be kind and fair to everyone in the group…we started out with the most beloved of Sunday School stories…staging and discussing the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.

Those are well-known…and everyone could get into the spirit of the class…acting out the different roles so we could then dig into them a little deeper.

Then I gave them this particular parable of the dishonest manager.

And—whew—when we’d played the scene once…it was almost as if I could see the question marks…and a few exclamation points and tildas and such…hanging over everyone’s heads.

 This story is strange and one that is tough for us to wrap our heads around.

Even biblical scholars find this parable difficult to decipher.

I mean…the two main characters are not great people.

The rich man decides to fire the manager based on a rumor that the guy is squandering the rich man’s property.

And the manager…realizing his boss hadn’t even bothered to check the books… decides to strike back by slashing what people owe the rich man in the hopes that by lowering the bills…the people will love him…and he’ll have a place to sleep tonight.

The class really wrestled with this one.

They noted that we don’t know the tone of voice of the rich man.

Was he impressed or annoyed with the how clever the manager had acted?

The people who played the parts of having their bills reduced were happy…but they also said they weren’t entirely free either.

They still were in debt to the rich man…and now they owed something to the manager.

And we also talked about to whom Jesus was sharing this parable.

We’re told that he’s speaking to his disciples.

But…if we were to look to the end of Luke Chapter 15… only moments ago…he was addressing a crowd which included tax collectors…the guys who weren’t the best Jews and were notorious for tacking on extra charges so they could pocket some money for themselves. 

Also in the crowd were some Pharisees.

They’ve been eavesdropping on his teaching and mumbling about the company Jesus keeps.

So when Jesus starts painting this verbal picture of a rich man given to snap judgments…and his dishonest manager figuring out how to save his own skin….he’s speaking to the whole cross-section of the community: the very poor…the very rich…and the very despised.

All of them cogs in the wheel of a system that is about the haves and the have nots with their attention fixed on money.

Who has it.

Who doesn’t.

Who owes what to whom.

How much is owed.

Jesus uses this dishonest manager working inside an inherently oppressive system to make a point about how the “children of the world” operate shrewdly.

Notice that he doesn’t say the manager acted justly.

He says the manager is shrewd….cunning.

He knows how to work this system so that he can land on his feet.

Because the manager only shaves off some of the cost of the oil and wheat…he still retains an advantage over the very poor.

He now appears to be something like a Robin Hood hero to them.

After his hasty refiguring of the accounts…he’s hoping they will see him as a “good guy” and make sure he doesn’t end up homeless.

In his own small way…this dishonest manager’s self-interested move injects a little more fairness into an unjust and oppressive system.

But only a little.

Because the debts haven’t been excused.

That’s how this economic system works… for the world.

That isn’t the way of God’s economy.

In God’s economy…debts are forgiven.

Period.

In God’s dream for the world…nobody would owe the rich man anything.

In fact…there wouldn’t be such an unequal balance of power and privilege…and the dishonest steward would have toppled the whole system and not have to worry about couch-surfing.

 

That’s how the world would begin to resemble heaven. And all eyes would be on God.

We’re all caught up in systems in our society that challenge the church…those of us who follow Jesus and see ourselves as children of light…to wrestle with systems that have us participating in oppression.

For example…we’ve inherited the legacy of the idea of private property.

But really the land doesn’t belong to us.

First…it belonged to God.

Then there were the people who were here long before many of our ancestors got on boats to cross the ocean to get here.

The Seminoles, the Creek, the Timucua and the Hitchitee Tribes all lived in this area which was once called Troupville.

Governments take land…give it to others…and still others after that…

We pave over legacies or turn them into parks.

Some profit.

Others are left in search of affordable housing.

Some win. Others lose.

Now we may not be able to completely dismantle these systems that are so entrenched.

But we can question them…and we can find ways to challenge them…and consider a question I posed a couple of weeks ago:

What are the things that we are willing to give up to follow God?

Can we conceive of a world where we are willing to let go of “things”…such as anxiety over money…to help build a stronger community for all of us?

There are a few things that we are doing to disrupt and shrink the chasm between rich and poor.

We’ve made a start here with our basket out in the narthex…taking up a collection of food that we can distribute to those who come to our door in need.

And some of what we take in goes to LAMP as they care for those without food and shelter who come to them.

Our congregation converted beer money into donations to my discretionary fund….and because you did that…I was able to help someone with a medical need this past week.

We can even look at our patron saint Anna Alexander…who we will be celebrating this Wednesday.

This deaconess of the church navigated many obstacles to open a school in Pennick.  

And through her faith and determination…she helped educate generations of children…opening the doors for them to better lives…despite the way the world wanted to limit those who were the poor…both blacks and whites.

And she did it without the financial help and backing of the Episcopal diocese…even though she was using our Prayer Book as her textbook… and running the school on the grounds of the Church of the Good Shepherd…the church she planted in Pennick.

If we are serving the God of life and liberation…then we need to keep chipping away at the barriers that hold people back…and not give into our own temptations to put money above making a way forward for a better world.

We can and we must be willing to put our best efforts out there to be agents of change that helps others…even if what we do feels like just a drop in the ocean.

Because each one of our drops makes a difference…and sometimes helps us to transform lives without us even knowing it.

Jesus so aptly puts it…that if we are children of the light…we cannot serve both God and wealth.

Choose God. Let the rest follow.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

Lessons We Can Learn: Paul, Peter, and the Start of Their Missions-A Sermon for 3 Easter

The conversion of Paul by Nicolas-Bernard Lepicie, circa 1767.

 I know: that's a VERY long title for this sermon, but it sums up nicely what I was endeavoring to say in this message. This is one of the longer sermons I've preached at St. Barnabas. It also didn't fully exhaust all the thoughts that I was having on the Gospel. That's what happens when your First Reading and your Gospel are both compelling and important stories. 

Honestly, given the rampant conspiracy theories in this country and the Russian shelling and destruction of Ukraine, today's lectionary points the way toward a better reality.

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In our Collect for the Day this morning…we remembered how Jesus became known to the disciples in the breaking of the bread. This is an allusion to a Gospel story in Luke about the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus…and their “A-ha” post-resurrection moment with Jesus.

That’s NOT the story we heard today from our Gospel.

Instead, we have a couple of other important moments with Jesus where his revelation serves to not only make himself known, but to start the ball rolling for Peter and Paul to become key leaders in the church.

Now there’s a lot to say about our Gospel lesson…tons and tons to say and notice and think about…and I hope some wheels are spinning in your heads.

I’ll get to Peter in a moment.

The story I really want us to focus on is from our reading out of the Acts of the Apostles… and the conversion of Saul…a-k-a…Paul. 

To me…this story says a lot that is helpful for us in the times in which we are living today.

Saul is on the move. He’s a regular hothead.

As a little background… he was in the crowd when they were stoning death poor Stephen…the first official deacon of the church. Saul was the one holding the coats of the rock throwers. He took delight in seeing this young Stephen lynched for having confessed believing in Jesus as the Messiah. Now...he was on his way to Damascus looking to round up more followers of the Way…men and women…to be tried and pummeled to death.

Suddenly—BAM—the brightest light sends him stumbling to the ground…and he hears Jesus:

“Saul, Saul. Why do you persecute me?”

Now…at first…he doesn’t know this is Jesus.

Think back to the Book of Exodus: bright light…and not knowing the voice…this all sounds a little bit like what happened to Moses with the burning bush.

This is holy ground we’re treading on here with Saul.

After Jesus asks “why are you persecuting me”…Jesus says “But get up and go into the city and you will be told what you are to do.”

Jesus has a plan.

Saul doesn’t know what’s coming…and now he’s blind…literally…and must rely upon the kindness of his fellow travelers to get him into Damascus.

In the meantime…Jesus visits Ananias…a follower of the Way…in a vision.

He tells Ananias to go looking for Saul who will be anticipating this appointment with the good follower of Jesus.

Ananias is no dummy.

He’s heard all about Saul.

He knows that Saul is bad news, and everyone is on edge hearing that this persecutor of the church is coming after them in Damascus. So when Jesus asks Ananias to go toward this dangerous man, he’s like…

”What?!”

Jesus: “Just do it. Trust me.”

Again…remember…this is holy ground.

I’ve just spent a week learning about the ways in which conflict arises…and how to find equilibrium when it feels as if the earth is shifting beneath our feet. And while the word “conflict” conjures up negative feelings in most of us…it’s also the opening to new things…and healthier ways.

In fact…the Chinese word for conflict consists of two characters: the first is the character for “Danger” and the second is the one which means, “Change Point.”

In this scene…two mortal enemies are being brought together. The stronger has become weak and dependent; the weaker is now the one who can help restore the stronger.

Jesus stands in the middle…an equal partner with both.

Ananias prays and heals Saul.

Saul having regained his sight…looks into the face of his healer.

He can see the Jesus in Ananias and becomes a convert to the risen Christ.

What an amazing message in this day and age in which we have become so polarized that we can’t even see the same facts.

What a powerful vision of God’s love for both the “us’es” and the “them’s” in the midst of conflict…threat…and division.

Two who were once enemies are now joined through Jesus and compelled to work together for the building up…rather than the tearing down of people.

At a time of war in Europe and feuding over just about anything “the other side” says or does in this country…this is the scripture for those who need to cling to the hope promised by God that God is with us in our struggles.

This is the scripture that can lead the psalmist to proclaim:

How good and pleasant it is when brethren live together in unity! (Ps.133:1)

This is the start of Saul…soon to be Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles.

But spreading the Gospel was not Paul’s work alone.

Back now to our Gospel and our dear brother Peter.

Peter…having received the Holy Spirit in that locked room when Thomas was off some place else last week…announces that he’s gonna go fishing.

OK…wait a minute.

Peter gets the Holy Spirit and decides he’s going to go BACK to what he was doing before?

Huh??

That’s not how that’s supposed to work. Once the Spirit gets into your body…there’s no going back to how things used to be. Right??

Fortunately…scholars have said this last chapter of John’s Gospel we heard today is a much later addition…an epilogue…and was written by someone other than John.

Still…there’s a lot for us here…and it gives us another moment of redemption and reconciliation.  

You might recall that Peter was the guy who was standing by a charcoal fire in the courtyard of the high priest on the night of Jesus’ arrest. People pick up on his Galilean accent.

They know he “isn’t from around here.”

They question him about his association with Jesus three times.

And all three times…Peter says, “I don’t know this guy?” Then the rooster crows…and Peter…remembering Jesus’ prediction that Peter would deny him three times…becomes mortified and ashamed.

He failed his friend. Big time.

So…here they are.  Another charcoal fire. This time on the beach…by the water. Water often plays a role in transformations in scripture. In my field of bodywork…water is associated with emotions. And we can imagine that with everything that has transpired…emotions are running pretty high for the disciples…especially Peter.

After they’ve feasted on fish at breakfast…Jesus takes Peter aside.

“Do you love me?”

“Yes, I love you.”

“Feed my sheep.”

Do you love me?”

“Yes, I love you.”

“Tend my flock.”

“Do you love me?”

“Oh, c’mon, man. Haven’t you heard me? Yes, I love you.”

“Feed my sheep.”

Peter’s denial is undone.  Jesus has once more laid the trust upon this imperfect disciple to be that rock of the church…and to become the leader Jesus needs him to be for the sake of seeking out the lost, the lonely, and the disinherited ones.

Just as with Saul…Jesus is telling Peter what he will do: feed my sheep.

That’s only half the mission.

The other half involves Peter going where he does not want to go.

We can hear the danger…and the change point in Jesus’ words. Having tested the depth of Peter’s love…the warning is that love does not equal security.

This is where we meet Jesus today.

This is holy ground. We are in the post-resurrection celebratory days of Easter.

And Jesus is calling us to feed the sheep and go into the city…including the places where we may not want to go.

This may mean we have to face a person who does not agree with us or even like us very much.

And…just like Peter…we go into those places with that love of Jesus in our heart.

Living and moving out of that place of love makes a big difference in how people experience Jesus…and perceive the .church of today.

It’s now on us to make known the risen and compassionate Lord…the one we celebrate at this table… as we head back out into our communities this week. Go forth…and do good.

Absalom Jones and the Beatitudes: A Sermon for the 6th Sunday After the Epiphany

 

When I first looked at the Gospel lesson for this week, I was drawn to the part where it says how Jesus and his disciples came down (from the mountain) to "the level place." I had all kinds of thoughts on that idea. And then, as I was walking with my spouse to her job, I remembered that February 13th is Absalom Jones Day in the Episcopal Calendar. His story had captured my imagination from the first time I heard it when Fr. Lee Graham preached about him at 12:10 service at St. John's. I thought about his bold move to walk out of St. George's when he was being told, for no reason besides racial prejudice, that he needed to sit in the balcony. Everything clicked in my head...and this is the sermon that came out through my fingers.

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Prayer: O God of love and liberty, may what I say today reflect your will…may our ears be open to your Word and may our hearts be on fire for love of you. Amen.

 

Believe it or not, today is a saint day in our Episcopal calendar.

Not one of the major feasts, and not one we recognize to be celebrated on a Sunday…which is why we are sticking with the usual lectionary readings.

But as I was reading through our Gospel lesson of Luke’s beatitudes…and looking at this day of February 13^th…it seemed only fitting to share the story of our “saint of the day” in our calendar…a priest by the name of Absalom Jones.

Who is Absalom Jones?

He was an African-American…born into slavery in Delaware in 1746. He was owned by an Anglican planter named Abraham Wynkoop.

Wynkoop recognized that the young Absalom was an intelligent child and so he moved him from working in the field to being a house slave.

When the elder Wynkoop died, Absalom became the property of a son. That son moved Jones and his mother and siblings to Philadelphia. That’s where he granted Absalom Jones the right to attend night school with the Quakers and kept him working in a store during the day.

As a young adult, Jones met and married another slave, Mary Thomas. He used the money he’d been saving to buy her freedom, and would eventually he would buy his own.

Absalom and Mary started attending St. George’s Methodist Church where another free African-American, Richard Allen, was a lay preacher. Jones and Allen became good friends. They started the Free African Society, which provided aid to people in need and would hold additional religious services during the week.

Jones and Allen became great evangelists for St. George’s, helping to attract more black members to join the congregation.

But then… in a surprise move…the white vestry of St. George’s decided that the black parishioners should be moved to the balcony.

There came a Sunday…during the middle of the prayers…that the ushers tried to forcibly move Absalom Jones from his seat and ordered him to go to the balcony.

Instead…Jones led a walk out with Richard Allen and all the other African-Americans. They marched out of the church never to come back again.

The Free African Society went on conducting services on their own with the help of a priest from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Eventually, the group decided it wanted to affiliate with the Episcopal Church on three conditions:

1. They would be recognized as an organized body;

2. They would have control over their local affairs and

3. That Absalom Jones would be recognized as their lay leader and, if he qualified, would be ordained a priest.

Bishop William White of Pennsylvania received this new church…called the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas…and Jones became the first African-American Episcopal priest in 1802. That church…by the way… is still active and meeting to this day.

Meanwhile…Absalom’s friend…Richard Allen…didn’t want to be an Episcopalian and instead he began the African Methodist Episcopal or AME Church.

Blessed are those who are ordered upstairs. Woe to those who let their prejudices rule their hearts.

Jones and Allen knew that their rightful place at St. George’s was not up in some balcony separated from the rest of the congregation. And Luke’s version of the beatitudes envisions Jesus also at the ground level.

Unlike Matthew’s version, where Jesus is preaching his Sermon on the Mount, here Jesus has been up on the mountain and now is coming down to “a level place.”

This is the vision of God meeting with us on equal ground. No person…not even Jesus…is elevated over another. And all these people…with their hurts…their doubts…their desires…they’re reaching out to touch Jesus.

Instead of running away from them…he has come to them. And more than that…he’s blessing them.

You who are poor.

You who are hungry.

You who weep.

You who are being excluded and hated.

Blessed are you! You are exactly the ones for whom the psalmist says will “bear fruit in due season.” All those qualities that the world will count as weakness and will use as a reason to discount you…God rejoices and lifts up as fulfilling the promise that nobody is seen as a less-than.

Think about what happened to Absalom Jones. A man who started out his life being told by an unjust system that he was only three-fifths of a person.  As a fully whole person… he showed how much he could contribute to the life of his church. And then the church told him to get upstairs to the nosebleed section…tried to reduce his worth. But he stood up…moved on…and achieved a place of honor in the history of the Episcopal Church.

What others had intended for evil…God made sure something good happened instead.

God’s abundant love and deep desire to meet us in that level place should be an inspiration for all of us.

I imagine any one of us at some point in time has experienced what it means to be poor…or in mourning over a loss. Maybe we’ve even known the pain of being hated or rejected…told to get out or go up to some balcony where we can be ignored.

I know the Georgia Assembly is in session as is the Florida legislature. One of my friends in Florida recently posted on Facebook how tough it is for her to go before the elected leaders only to have them ignore or even ridicule her advocacy on behalf of marginalized groups. She attempts to put a human face on whatever lawmakers are debating as an “issue.”

Too often…she leaves having seen those human faces reduced to specimens in a petri dish…problems that need to be solved.

I know public school teachers who have felt similarly frustrated as politicians who have no connection to the classroom make laws that add more burdens to their workload…while administrators do nothing to support them in their efforts to teach.

The Gospel addresses those concerns: “Woe to those who speak well of you for that is what they did to their false prophets!”

Jesus is harkening back to the days of the prophet Jeremiah who was ignored and even beaten for his efforts to warn about the coming destruction of Jerusalem. The powerful didn’t want to hear it…and neither did the general public for that matter. The leaders…the false prophets and priests…drowned out Jeremiah’s voice and repeated platitudes that made the people happy and kept them blissfully unaware of the trouble that was brewing on their doorstep.

Jerusalem learned the hard and very traumatic way what happens when you ignore the prophets.

Woe to them and blessed are those who tell the hard truths, those who advocate for the underdogs, and dare to stand up to the powerful when justice demands it.

Those are the people who are walking in the way of an Absalom Jones…which is nothing less than walking in the way of Jesus. May God grant us all that strength and courage to follow in those footsteps leading to the cross.

 

Pulse: A Year Later

The bells of St. John's Episcopal Church solemnly tolled 49 times at noon today, the one year anniversary of the deadly hate crime committed against the black and Latinx LGBTQ+ community in Orlando's Pulse nightclub. Each echoing ring a remembrance of one of the people killed that night by a twisted and angry individual armed with an assault rifle. The attack shocked all of us who identify as LGBTQ+ because clubs such as Pulse have traditionally been the places that have harbored us, especially when we are young and just beginning to understand our orientation and identity.

I lit a rainbow candle and then sat quietly on a bench in the church's columbarium, closing my eyes to pray as the bells sounded. I couldn't remember all the names of the dead, but I could remember their faces. Most were so young, not even yet 30 years old. And there was the one name and face I could remember: Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, a mother of eleven children and a two-time breast cancer survivor who had gone out to the Latin Night at Pulse with her gay son. They were there to celebrate Orlando's Pride Week. When the gunman began his shooting spree, Brenda reportedly told her son to get down, and put her body in the way of the bullets. I began to sob, my tears co-mingling with the misty rain.

How much more death?
How much more grief?
How little progress have we made since that horrible night?
How? How? How?

Even since Pulse, there still have been violent shooting incidents in this country. None with same body count, but every incident--in Illinois, Texas, California, New York, Alabama--all of those killed had a family that is left to bury their dead and grieve that loss.

There was no will power to address the issue during the Obama administration. And now, we have the NRA's poster child in the White House, and federal lawmakers are actually proposing legislation to relax some of the restrictions on guns. Even Florida Congressman Neal Dunn (R-D2) has signed on to a bill to make it easier to purchase silencers. In our state legislature, there were twice as many pro-gun laws proposed to the ones that were gun control measures. Thankfully, a couple of Republican lawmakers from South Florida complained of "gun fatigue" which resulted in many of the bills dying quietly in committee.

But for Florida to have done nothing to address gun violence after Pulse is...well...repulsive. If any state should be taking the lead on limiting people's access to these weapons of warfare such as the one used at Pulse it should be Florida. I'm losing patience with politicians who want to offer their remembrances of this tragic day.  I would rather they use the power given to them by the voters to do something constructive to stem the violence. No citizen needs to own an AR-15 or any other multiple-shooting device. There is also technology in the works that will make it harder for someone other than the actual owner of a weapon to fire it. These types of technological developments deserve funding and support.

As the bells finished tolling, and I wiped away my tears, I felt a sense of peace come over me. I prayed the Lord's Prayer with special emphasis...

Our Father who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come 
thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses 
as we forgive those who trespass against us. 
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

St. Thomas and The March for Science

I couldn't help myself this past Sunday.

Our deacon finished reading the assigned Gospel lesson from John, which is always the story of the apostle, Thomas, who insists that he must be able to see Jesus for himself and stick his fingers in his wounds in order to believe that Christ really had risen from the dead. I leaned over to one of my fellow choir members, a scientist, and whispered:

"Thomas just wanted peer review."

Joking aside, I think there's definitely an element of truth to that idea. All the other apostles had seen the resurrected Jesus, and were telling him all about it. But Thomas had his doubts about the veracity of their statements and wanted proof.

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’
 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ (John 20:24-29)

Whenever I hear people talk about this story, it's always presented as "doubting Thomas," as if there is something wrong with him. If Thomas had had more faith, then he wouldn't have needed this proof. And maybe it was just the juxtaposition of hearing this Gospel story after spending a few hours of my Saturday marching in Tallahassee along side scientists and science lovers that I gained a new insight into one of my favorite apostles. I've liked Thomas because of this moment of being so completely real to the way we are as humans and having our doubts about something we haven't seen for ourselves.

And, if we think about Thomas as if he really were a scientist requiring an extra study to prove this "fact" that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, then his doubt can be seen as a legitimate and necessary inquiry. Certainly, Jesus didn't seem to have a problem appearing again for Thomas' benefit, and even challenged him to follow through on the experiment he wanted to do of sticking his fingers and hand into his wounds. Thomas doesn't; the appearance alone was enough for him to say, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus gives him the nudge: "Oh, so now because you have seen me you believe. Blessed are the ones who haven't been so lucky and yet have come to believe."

In his sermon at our church (which happens to be St. Thomas Episcopal Church), Bishop Scott Benhase drew the distinction between having "belief" and having "faith." "Belief" is about having certainty and proof of a truth beyond a shadow of a doubt. "Faith" requires a trust in the movement of God's grace in our lives. Thinking of this moment again with Thomas...his need to experience the risen Jesus first-hand, and not just hear the stories from his fellow apostles...speaks to Thomas wanting a verifiable truth that would fit with his belief system. And you can imagine, he must have believed what made the most sense to him and to any rational person: there is no way Jesus defeated death because nobody does that. Thomas must have thought the rest of the apostles were high.

But the other part of faith, and definitely the way of Jesus, is to not fit into our rational idea of what constitutes "the way things are" because faith, and most definitely Jesus, doesn't adhere to those kinds of rules. As the prophet Isaiah said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the Lord." The whole mission of Jesus is to turn our belief, that commitment to concrete answers and certitude, on its head and get us to give up on the mission to find "the truth" in favor of trusting in God's unending revelation of truth through faith. That's the work of grace.

This is where the sciences, and the scientists, come in. There's been such bad blood between those who make it their life's work to search out truth, in the universe or the earth or the seas or the mind, and those who are content to live into a hope that trusts God will unveil all things in God's time. I'm sorry there's been such a binary split between science and religion that people tend to pick sides and set up straw men that they can knock down to prove that they're right and the other side is wrong. Personally, I think God loves scientists as much as any other group and delights in their Thomas-like inquiry and demand for proof, and seeking out signs that point to a "truth." Scientists are the ones cracking the codes of the mysterious for us. They are helping us to find out more about our world, our ecosystems, and how to be the good stewards of this planet we were commanded to be. And, for me, rather than their discoveries proving there is no need for a belief in God, I think they're just taking us deeper into the mystery. It's like one of those Russian dolls where you open one, there's another one. And another one. And another one. It's endless! Once a hypothesis is tested, and tested again, and the "truth" remains elusive, the best scientists are the ones who eventually say, "We just don't know."

Here enters faith and the hope and trust that it's OK not to have all the answers. And this is the place where I believe God meets us to say, "You don't know it all. But keep going. Keep probing. Keep seeking. I'm here. And I delight in your curiosity!" Science is cool. So is God.

Icons and Idols

Children protesting against the League of the South's pro-Confederate flag demonstration in Tallahassee, Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend.

It's been awhile since I've posted here, and not because I haven't been thinking, pondering, praying, and wanting to post. I simply don't have a lot of time to sit and organize coherent thoughts into a blog. My prayer life lately has involved some deep and amazing dips into the pool of the vast waters of God. And perhaps that has kept me from writing as well. So here goes nothing as I attempt to explain this title of "Icons and Idols."

A few weeks ago, over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, the League of the South, some of them donning black shirts with white supremacist logos, were out in front of the Florida Capitol building waving their Stars and Bars flags. Apparently, there is legislation to ban the flag from being flown over public buildings. If you are from outside the United States, or simply have managed not to hear any of the history of this controversy, the so-called "Confederate Flag" has been held up as a symbol of Southern heritage; however this particular design of the flag really came into vogue when "Southern heritage" meant fighting against desegregation in the 1950s and 60s. This was not their battle flag used during the Civil War when the South rebelled against the United States from 1861-65. The people who seem to be the most attached to this flag also seem to be the most anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Jew...basically "anti" anything that isn't considered part of "white" culture. 

A young woman in Tallahassee got wind of their demonstration and in 48-hours gathered a bunch of us to be counter demonstrators. She had asked that we American flags to our rally. This was interesting because the people gathered in our group were not your typical "rah rah" America types. We took up a position on the opposite side of the busy intersection of Monroe and Apalachee Parkway, each side competing to see who would get the attention of drivers passing by. It was all pretty tame as protests go. Our group of 25 people couldn't get it together to sing any of the old standard Civil Rights songs to save our lives, but we smiled and waved and held our two fingers up in the peace sign. Then the guy from the League of the South dared to taunt us by calling out the presence of the American flag in our group.

"When I see that Yankee rag, I see prison bars!" he bellowed.

I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. "Yankee rag"? Seriously?! For the first time in my life, every patriotic mitochondria in my body started firing up as I shouted back across the road:

"I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!"

And our group of counter demonstrating social justice activists fell into the familiar grade school cadence of the pledge:

"AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS...ONE NATION...UNDER GOD...INDIVISIBLE...WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!!" 

Had we really just said the pledge with that much gusto and true feeling? Do we really feel that much deep attachment to a flag? And what is up with the hanging on so tightly by so many to the Stars and Bars? The Civil War was over 150 years ago. How can anyone still be saying the United States is an occupier of the southeastern United States?

I know that the pledge rings hollow for those who still are feeling like the left behind and the disenfranchised in this country. That was me, too, not that long ago. When I was in junior high and we had to stand each morning to recite the pledge, I would respectfully stand, and say nothing. I didn't understand pledging allegiance to a flag. Shouldn't we pledge allegiance to something a little more than sewn fabric? Later, as I came out, I felt that pledge was like another broken promise. "Liberty and justice" was for some, but definitely wasn't available to all. 

But when faced with such hatred of the symbol of this flawed and imperfect union, even I was willing to rally in defense of what I believe this nation yearns to be: a place where people are able to gather on street corners in support and dissent of the country and have that freedom without the need to resort to bombing each other. I can hope the four bloody years of our ancestors killing each other during the Civil War might have taught us not to know war between each other that way again. And yet, there are some who press on as if we are still at war. Sigh.

Perhaps it was that experience of reciting the pledge with patriotic fervor that has also helped to take my prayer life in a further move toward God. Because even while I was shouting at the League of the South, my burning passion was for the words of the pledge and I was longing for them to lay down their sesquicentennial grudge, and realize that the war is over. 

In so many ways, I think, this is part of what our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is encouraging us to see in the words and actions of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus longed for his fellow Jews of his day to see that the way to eternal life was through loving more, paying attention to their neighbors more, putting God first more and not making idols of rituals that had become more important than the actual thing for which the ritual was intended to celebrate. 

And even Jesus seems to desire that we not get fixated on him, the human being, but to see through him the way to that Eternal which gives life. This is really the purpose of icons, such as The Trinity by Andrei Rublev. The Russian monk and iconographer designed this as a means by which people may gaze and see God through the art and enter into prayer, which is our line to the One. I happened on this image as I prepped for the 12:10 service at St. John's last Friday. As I looked into those heads all bent in each other's direction and their blue tunic connection, my mind went back to verse from John's gospel:

Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.--John 5:19

These words had been part of Morning Prayer the Wednesday before and as I heard them, I had a revelation of the "both/and" nature of this statement. When we hear the phrase "Son of Man" (or, in this case, it was "Son of God") this is both about Jesus and humanity. Humanity has the chance, especially through following in the footsteps of Jesus, to be at one with God, who is the source of life. This "life" goes beyond the day-to-day arguments over flags, and asks us to tap into our interconnectedness with all things and people. My own belief and placing my own life in the stream of this Great Consciousness is, I think, the reason that while I shouted the Pledge of Allegiance with conviction, it wasn't out of pure anger, but out of a place of sorrow and frustration for the breakdown that leads someone to cling desperately to a past that is no longer the future. That, to my mind, is the path toward death and not life. 

I don't hate those who hate me. My work with the Prayer for Our Enemies has been about teaching me to see the anger and rage that is within me and aimed at me, and deflect it without letting it become the thing that penetrates my heart. This is how I bend my head, and knee, to Jesus. This is how the power of God working in me can help me--like Jesus--do infinitely more than I can ask or imagine.