Tim LaHaye- Fish in a Barrel

OK, I hate to pick on Tim LaHaye. He's living proof of the old axiom "If he's so dumb, how come he's so rich?" Yes, his series Left Behind has been an international phenomena.Yes, he's got more money than most of us right now... Yes, he got Kirk Cameron to come out of retirement. Yes, he has really wicked looking plastic surgery. Yes, I have spent hours of my life watching him on TV.

However, this stuff he purports as "biblically-based" is a bunch of, well, sensationalistic, isogetical, poop, and he's pumped lots of money out of people's fears. He's turned God and a beautiful book of poetry (Revelation) and made it an entertainment franchise. He seems awfully sure about what's going to happen (and has the color flowcharts to prove it!)

This probably is too easy-- like shooting fish in a barrel, but what the hey--

He wins "Religious Nutjob site of the Day." I must honor his nuttiness. It is epic.

Religious Nutjob Site of the Day-- February 5, 2009

Left Behind Dog Tags!

If you get raptured, how are you going to let people know that you were taken (and they were left behind?)

These folks have a great solution to this problem-- Were U Left Dog Tags.

The site reads:

If you have been directed here by a set of dog tags you found, one of two things is true.

Either the person to whom the dog tags belonged lost them or the person to whom the dog tags belonged has been raptured (caught away) by Christ, with His church. If there are many folks missing then the latter is most likely true and you, like the dog tags, have been left behind. This site is intended, in either case, to offer you hope and to give information on what you might expect next.

This is really creative Evangelism! Let's say you're hanging out with your buddy, you "turn around, he's gone" just like the song says, and you find these dogtags. You can come here and it will give you instructions on what to do next.

Kind of like medicalert bracelets for the saved.

New Feature

I am starting a new feature that will somehow fill the void that not having a TV has left me (especially late at night when I used to watch religious programming).

It is called "Religious Nutjob Site of the Day"

We begin with a dandy-- Rapture Ready.

A full-service, pre-tribulation website! You can leave left behind letters to your unsaved loved ones. (I wonder if I have any. I know they probably take a dim view of us Whiskeypalians).

It also has a top ten feature listing the ten most alarming modern events that are pointing to the rapture!

You can get entertaining wallpaper for your computer or look at their 10 most likely candidates for the antichrist. (Hey, President Obama looks really good in Renaissance versions of Middle Eastern clothing! I'd bet Jesus actually looked more like him than he does the white dudes with beards we see in Sunday School rooms!)

This site is fantastic. Read it and get ready.

(I just hope that I'm not driving my heathen 14 year old around when it comes or cooking eggs!! Oh Lawd!!!!)

Evaluation-- Forgiveness- Light

One of the ever-present realities of this journey toward Priesthood that I am on is that I feel like I am constantly being evaluated. And I suppose that I am because I am in school right now and I have lots of stuff to do that people with lots of letters next to their names are going to get to evaluate. I think that evaluation is a real struggle for me. You wouldn't know it from the look of things sometimes (because I am kind of a slacker when it comes down to it sometimes) but I am pretty hard on myself. I am much harder and less forgiving to myself than I am to others and they are to me, in fact.

I am probably not alone in this, though. Get a room full of people- especially Pastors and pastor wannabes like me, and you will probably find people who have fairly high standards for themselves most of the time. You will probably find people who care deeply about others and genuinely feel other people's pain and are comfortable with descending into the abyss with others to bring hope. Good, kind, compassionate folks line the halls of Candler Seminary- some of the greatest human beings this world has to offer, truly. But what I have come to realize about myself this Advent season is that I am really tough on myself. And I feel bad that others are probably the same way.

I think that this is kind of a sin, though. Not to compound things and make anyone feel worse- but if you look at sin as something that "separates" us from God, then when we are too hard on ourselves, we are calling bullshit on God's grace. We are hedging God's forgiveness. "I know you forgave me God, but I still feel horrible..." we seem to say. As a wise man told me recently, we have a God who forgives everything..... period.... So, we should do the same for ourselves, since our creator has done it already... Easier said than done.

The same wise man recalled Martin Luther for me and how his confessor, Van Staupitz, said to him once, "Martin you are wrong-- God is not mad at you!!!" Even Martin Luther had a hard time with forgiving himself.

This Advent, good people, I pray for all of us the grace to forgive ourselves, give ourselves a big fat hairy break and the room to bask in the forgiving grace of God. Let us chip away at our darkness this Advent so when the light of Christ comes on Christmas, we can soak it in and share it with everyone else as truly forgiven people. The good news is that God has done the work through Jesus. We just have to believe it for ourselves.

For Faith, Risk Everything-June Johnson

Advent gets short shrift in Christendom. Another reason I'm a fan of The Episcopal Church is that we try a little harder at paying attention to Advent in preparation for Christmas.

One of my classmates, June Johnson- a most lovely, engaging, and extremely gifted lady who is a Postulant from The Diocese of Georgia- did this sermon for Wednesday Night Eucharist at Candler. It really spoke to me, so I asked her if I could post it here. I hope someone reads it on this blog.

For God Risk Everything…

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again

CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!!!!

Each Sunday as we prepare to celebrate the Eucharist we affirm these mysteries of our faith – that Christ died for us, that Christ conquered death and that Christ will come again into our world. We say these things because the truth expressed is at the very core of our faith. Our readings today help us to understand what we affirm in these words.

Isaiah asks that God tear open the heavens and come down to earth – God did just that when Jesus came to us in flesh just like ours and offered Himself as a Sacrifice for our redemption. The greatness of God humbled and contained in the flesh of men and women – God proving to us that we are loved so deeply that God chose to become like us.

Jesus in the flesh who contained all of the power and mercy of God and all of the sin and helplessness and aspirations to goodness of humanity – revealing to us the way of reconciliation and eternal life.

In our Gospel reading we hear Jesus teaching the disciples that they must stay awake and alert – that the Son of Man would return to the earth with great power and glory – rending once again the heavens and sweeping away all darkness and fear, gathering the beloved children of God into eternal life. Jesus speaks of the sun being darkened and the stars falling out of the sky.

I must admit to you that I have never been a great fan of apocalyptic writings, even the book of Revelation. The “Left Behind” series will never appear on my reading list! In part, this is because it seems to me that half the horror books and movies take the images of “end times” in the Scripture and present them in blood-drenched, squirm-inducing, fang-flashing prose or pictures. Not my favorite way to spend “entertainment” time! More than that, these books and movies always miss the point.

We are not given these images the second coming to frighten us – we are told these things so that we will be assured of God’s love and power to save us. We are promised not just that we are saved from sin and evil – a glorious mercy in itself – but that we are saved to be with God in life everlasting AND that God will come again to bring us into eternal light with God’s own being, with Jesus Christ the Lord.

Advent reminds us that God fulfills the promises that God has made in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Our life everlasting with God is here and now as we love and serve Jesus and will continue throughout eternity because God holds us in God’s heart.

Advent calls on us to live everyday not as if it is our last,

but as if it is the last day before the Lord returns --

our last chance to mend our relationships and

heal the hurts we have caused others

our last down in service to others in Christ’s name

our last at bat to confess our sins and open ourselves to forgiveness

the final putt to good stewardship of our wealth and possessions

the final chorus of our praise and worship of the one true God.

Advent reminds us that we have forever with God, but not forever here on earth to work for justice, for the welfare of those in need, for peace with our enemies. There will be an end to this world and our time in it. There will come a moment when we face all of our words and deeds in the clear light of God’s judgment. We will be able to offer to God only what we have done in Jesus’s name – not what we intended to do or would have done if only…

Advent calls us to sit on the very edge of time and see what has been,

what is and what will be all coming together. To reflect on the power of a God who came into our world loving us enough to put the fullness of God into the life of Jesus. To reflect on the power and love of a God who comes to live inside our hearts and minds in the form of the Holy Spirit and never, ever leaves us, who knits us to Christ Jesus by threads that will never become loosened. God sought us, God seeks us and God will never let us go from God’s self. What have we to fear?

We have to fear our own smallness, our inability to lift our eyes to the magnificence of the glory of God. We must fear our indifference to the gifts of God, our restrictions on the blessings we are willing to receive, our inattention to the work of God in us and around us. Our refusal to stand at the heart of Advent and to see the promise of what will be in the promise of what has been.

The poet Thomas Troeger writes these words:

For God risk everything!

since everything we own,

our laughter, tears, the songs we sing,

our breath, our flesh and bone,

are no more ours to keep

than the wind that rushes by

or dreams that flicker in our sleep

or clouds that fade to sky.

How shriveled, Lord, the soul

that grips what it receives

and dares not free its anxious hold

but foolishly believes

that you are too severe

to pardon any loss,

forgetting how your son made clear

forgiveness on the cross.

From hearts that hide and hoard

the treasures that you send,

free us, till we by faith, O Lord,

shall act as you intend,

till we risk all for you,

risk everything you give,

and risking learn what Jesus knew:

by risking all we live.

-Troeger, #45, Above the Moon Earth Rises

Oxford University Press, 2002

Advent calls us to risk everything on the future with God. Everything!

Are you ready to do that?

Our Song

I preached this last Summer at the Feast of the Virgin Mary Holy Eucharist at the UGA Episcopal Center. I had a really great time there and enjoyed hanging out with Fr. Dann Brown and the Epsicopal students.


This is the first pilgrimage I have made to your blessed city for Church. Most of my life, I have come here for music- but now I get to come and talk about music of a different sort-the Magnificat, or the Song of Mary.

It’s fitting that I get to preach about a song in Athens. Athens is a city where many songs that have been a part of my life have been created.

Play any REM song off their first 4 or 5 album-
you are listening to the soundtrack for my first two years of college.

Play any song off of “Fables of the Reconstruction,” in particular (and my sentimental favorite of REM albums) and you’ll hear songs with strong musical memories that are tagged with North Georgia, in particular.

There’s an old song they did called “Driver 8” that I think is my song every time I hear it. It seems like Michael Stipe and company wrote that song for me because

Every time I hear that song I think about, well,
driving to Athens. I see the long stretch of road between Gainesville and Athens. When Michael Stipe sings, “The power lines have floaters so the airplanes don’t get snagged..”

I see those giant orange balls on the power lines on the side of the road through Arcade and Pendegrass. Whenever I see those floaters on the power lines, wherever I am, I sing that line from driver 8.
I’ve incorporated the song into my life—it is my song.

There are hundreds of other songs that are incorporated into my life and I am sure yours as well. We could spend all night talking about this- listing them:

Any song by Journey takes me back to any day of my freshman year of high school.

Any song off of Who’s Next or Quadrophenia makes me remember riding around with my High School buddy and tennis partner John Carter in his green 1974 Gran Torino.

Any song by The Police and I think about my best friend from growing up, Scott Adams.

Any hymn in the Baptist Hymnal and I flash the red carpet and humongous chandeliers of First Baptist Gainesville, where I grew up. I remember the boredom of half-hour long sermons and give thanks that I found the Episcopal Church…

The Mozart Alleluia always makes me remember my wedding day because our friend Sharon Blackwood sang it for us.

The folk song “Turn Around” (sing a few lines) guarantees tears from my Mom, wife (or any mother over the age of 30 with children, for that matter.

Our songs remind us of things that are true for us – They help me remember our lives— help us remember where we have been no matter where we happen to be at the moment…

My kids all have songs that are “their songs…” these songs happened to playing in the room while they were, of all things, being born.

Our oldest, Madeline was born to one called “Galileo” by the Indigo Girls.
It’s really weird, But this song is about the difficulties of believing in reincarnation. The singer asks, “How long till my soul gets it right??” I like to think that my daughter feels like her soul has finally gotten it “right” this time around…
Every time I hear it, I think about the moment she was born, which was one of the happiest days of my life. When I hear “Galileo” I often ask the question—how long until our souls get it “right.” What is it that our souls need- what song do we need to get it “right??”

The Gospel Writer gives us what is known as The Magnificat to sum up who he thinks God really us and to help us remember who we really are. He gives us The Magnificat to, maybe, in the words of Amy Ray, help us “get it right.” Luke was pretty sharp in how he took language from the old testament- took a religious Pop song the greek-speaking Jewish people of the day knew and turned it on its head- made it about this new way that Jesus was going to show us.
He gave us a song with notions of God that were entirely different from what people might have thought about God then- from what we think about God now!

Luke hammers home some radically different assumptions about this savior, Jesus.

The Magnificat is kind of ironic, though-a song of hope in spite of the fact that any girl in Mary’s day would, under normal circumstances, be pretty hopeless in her predicament. It’s an anthem of God’s truth and greatness with words we might have heard from a warrior- from a psalmist- from someone of import but yet it is delivered by a nobody. Mary is a kid- some think around 13 years old, an unwed mother to be. She has no immediate prospects for marriage at the moment- she has no reason to believe that Joseph is going to be a good guy and father this child that is not his. She is one of “the lowly”- what they called the anawim in the ancient Hebrew culture Anawim were often looked upon by their community as people who had lost favor with God. Their songs were unheard by the larger community- they were discounted and left for dead by the culture- pariahs. The anawim were the undocumented Mexican laborer of their day, the Federal Prison Inmate, the people I see lining up at the food stamp distribution center downtown- the man who bathes in red mud every morning in my neighborhood, they were those people…

Yet she sings of favor! She rejoices that she is the one to bring Jesus to this world-
This lowly nobody! The mother of Christ!

The Magnificat is no soft, sweet lullaby.

It’s song of revolution and upheaval and change.

Mary’s voice is a voice that we must heed if we are to build God’s kingdom, Luke is telling us. This anawim voice is a voice that tells us who we really are and who we can be.

Our culture today, not unlike the culture Mary was in, is inundated with voices. People have always been oversaturated with white noise from authorities who are all convinced that they know who we are and what we need.

Bob Dylan once sang, “Come gather round people wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around your head grown and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.. Oh the times, they are a changing..” Mary’s voice brings us a new song that tells us that times then, indeed, were changing- would keep changing, with the arrival of this Jesus.

A song …that, like all good songs from Dylan and others, calls us to see a world drastically different from the one we know . We are called, with this song, to give this life a different soundtrack. A soundtrack that is radically different from the one that is convinced that some basic, dog eat dog assumptions about the world are true-

It is a song that is as revolutionary as any protest song every penned by Dylan and as full of upheaval. This little girl sings to us that the coming savior will turn the world upside down.
I like what a favorite preacher of mine, Fred Craddock, says- he says Mary’s song has within it not one, but 3 revolutions- that are spiritual, social and economic…
-Spiritual in that God is a God who scatters the proud in the plans of their hearts….
Christianity is the death of pride. With Jesus, we have the freedom to push our needs aside, our wants aside and make room for others through the grace of God. We can look beyond politics NS beyond religion and beyond all the things that we perceive are so important and realize that , in the end, we all need one another and we need God.

Social in that He casts down the mighty and exalts the Humble- a social revolution for us all—Christ, we realize when we really hear this song, died for all humanity.
What Christ did was for everyone so, everyone, in the end, matters. The implications of this are mind-boggling…

Economic, in that “he has filled those who are hungry – those who are rich he has sent away empty..” is, and this is really hard for all us.. economic.. Christ calls us who have to “get so we can give away…” This is a hard one for us, but true.

Making the song of Mary our song is a terrifying leap of faith, isn’t it?
Suddenly, we have a new notion of the messiah that runs counter to everything we are lead to believe about this life from our surrounding culture-Runs counter to our instincts for survival and success.
But, We must seek ways to sing The Magnificat..

Let us challenge assumptions (like the ones we will surely be hammered with in the impending election ) that will galvanize us all into red and blue and (unfortunately) good and evil. Challenge assumptions that make us forget that we are all children of God. Challenge assumptions that make us want more without giving any.

The Magnificat gives us a new soundtrack for our lives that can remind us constantly that we are (and I mean all of us) are and always will be children of God.

The voice that God will give us in the coming days of Advent and Christmas will bring this song to life…

May we remember its sweet melody in the coming year.

And Make the Magnificat our song.

Theologian Inspired Shots

Some ideas for drink recipes

the schleiermacher

1 ounce of jagermeister, chilled
one ounce of pepper vodka, chilled
drink it and dont pray to God to make the taste or burn go away

the bishop of wittenberg

1 glass of german beer
1 shot of goldschlager

drop goldschlager in beer and drink quickly and enjoy the gold part

the calvin

From Fire Insurance to Blessed Assurance

From “Fire Insurance” to “Blessed Assurance” – A Shared History
In his book “How Then Shall We Live,” Wayne Muller talks about the importance of knowing who we are. He says, “Many spiritual traditions begin with a single question: Who am I?” I have asked myself this question many times during my life but have asked it even more at seminary. And, I have wondered many times , “Who is the Episcopal Church?” Like many people, I had little previous understanding of who began The Episcopal Church. The Church as I knew it seemed to be kind of foreign and impersonal. I could not and did not think of the church in a personal way and know who “she” was.
In John, Jesus talks about the “church as the bride of Christ. ” This imagery always bothered me with all of its sexual connotations and patriarchal language. But I understand now that John’s Jesus was thinking of The Church as a living being with whom we are all in relation. I think I have had a hard time seeing the church as a living being. However, my introduction to the history of our church has lead me to understand her in a more personal way and to identify with her better. I am learning her story and starting to find points with which I can identify with the church as a living creation and know who she is and also know better who I am as well.
One of the most interesting experiences that I have had reading Prichard’s “History of the Episcopal Church” is that I am constantly comforted in the fact that some chapters of the story of the Episcopal Church seems to be my story in many ways. Like most members of the human race, I tend to search for commonalities between myself and other people in order to establish connections with them and build a relationship. I see tensions that have existed in the church and I recognize these same tensions in my own life.
In particular, I was especially touched by the fact that within our own church we have had an historic tension between people who are aligned with “covenantal” theology and people whose theology is more of what Pritchett calls “conversion oriented. Learning these things about The Episcopal Church’s story has been a bit like getting to know someone and then feeling as if we have been friends for a long time. I find a reflection of my own struggles to reconcile who I am today with who I once was. I read in the history a story that is fairly parallel to my own in some ways.
I became Episcopalian about 13 years ago when I was 29 years old. Up until then, I had spent most of my life in the Southern Baptist Church. I grew up with a “confessional” theology that centered on conversion and avoiding Hell and recruiting others to my brand of Christianity. Little did I know that these same tensions existed in The Episcopal Church between more “evangelical” priests and believers whose theologies were “conversion” based. I was surprised when I read the following lines in a sermon by Rev. Whitefield, who preached wrote and taught in The Episcopal Church back around 1740 that had him saying to the congregation, “Now, my dear friends, did God ever show to you that you have no faith? Were you ever made to bewail a hard heart of unbelief?” This sermon sounded like ones that I heard growing up in the Baptist Church.
I was genuinely surprised that there were Anglicans who had appealed to emotion in their preaching and teaching in order to “convert” people. Prichard describes it well in his “History.” He describes “sentimentalist” approaches to theology, saying, “It was not enough to understand the basic Reformation doctrine of justification by faith; one had to ‘feel’ that doctrine on a personal level”. Now I am all for appealing to emotion in church teaching sometimes, but one of the things that I found in common with my story is that I grew up in a tradition that made regular, if not weekly, appeals using this kind of approach that asked believers to “feel” doctrine. Every service in the Baptist Church ended with urgent pleas to the congregation for people to make “decisions of faith” and “walk the aisle and come to Jesus.” Religion was based almost exclusively on emotion and not intellect.
I “walked the aisles” when I was seven years old and came to what the Baptists liked to call “A Decision of Faith.” I do not doubt the veracity of that decision, even to this day. But, I have no doubt that it was influenced heavily by the kind of preaching Rev. Whitefield did in the Episcopal Church. I remember when I decided to do this I had just been to a week-long series of revival services in the church. During one of the sermons, the guest preacher spent a long time describing what Hell was going to be like and how we who were not believers were going to go there and be separated from Jesus. He described how Jesus was broken-hearted that we were going to go there as well. I was terrified, touched and sad that this man, Jesus, was going to be sad that I would be missing from his fold, so I “walked the aisles” and joined the Church and was baptized by full immersion a few weeks later.
One thing that I have sincerely struggled with since becoming Episcopalian (and that I have reconciled, I think) is this tension between a “fire insurance” type of faith and a more “covenantal” faith. I found it profoundly moving a few weeks ago when we were talking about baptism and Bishop Whitemore reminded us that what our baptism meant was that we did not have to “do” anything to receive God’s blessing, salvation or love. In baptism God “reaches down” and “saves” us without our having to have thought out or decided upon or felt emotionallythat our faith is “real.” The God that I grew up with the Baptist church damns pretty much everyone to Hell, really, other than the Baptists (and a few other righteous folk). The God we were describing saved us all and not once in a walk down red-carpeted aisles. This God saved us over and over throughout a life lived together.
Learning about the “confessional” element within The Episcopal Church has given me the opportunity to grow closer to my church by seeing that we share some personal history. Like the church I am living within as a member and a Postulant, however, this personal history has not defined me and has been something that I have had to reconcile with the present theological realities I have matured into over the past 13 years as an Episcopalian. I appreciate the emotional and confessional parts of my history and regard them as important aspects of my whole spiritual history. They are no longer at the center of “who I am,” however, much in the same way that they have not taken over the Episcopal Church. I have been able to move (like my church, I think) from a theology of “fire insurance” to “blessed assurance” and learned that I am, (to paraphrase Rev. Temple) saved “today, was saved yesterday and will continue being saved tomorrow.”

"Christianists"

While it is never my job to judge someone (especially as an Anglican) I think it is OK to ask ourselves questions (often unanswerable) about other people. Like most people American, I have lots of questions about Gov. Palin.

Jean Fitzpatrick, on The Daily Episcopalian has a great column that asks some honest, valid questions of our own (well, not mine but you know what I mean) Republican Party.

"It's worrisome, seeing a Vice Presidential candidate who calls herself as a "bible-based Christian," prays for a natural gas pipeline, and thinks the U.S. mission in Iraq is a task from God. "A lot of people were praying," James Dobson said recently, "and I believe Sarah Palin is God's answer." What was the question?"

Read it yourself, cause she proposes we start using Andrew Sullivan's term for fundies who propose Christianity as Empire- "christianists." Wikipedia, (my favorite place for info-junk) links it (and rightfully so) to dominionism. Dominionism is a scary theology that is widely embraced by many people in the present Republican power structure. It supports things like having a theocratic government- including features like death camps for Gays and Lesbians and stoning adulterers. It is promoted by scary people like RJ Rushdoony and Francis Schaeffer.
These two "thinkers" work undergirds much (if not most) of the crap that spews forth from the Religious Right, and I wish they would get honest and out themselves for who they really are. Read it yourself (OK it is wikipedia, but it is interesting)

I think Sarah Palin's root theology is terrifying. I see it as being radical, anti-American and hateful. As Fitzgerald points out , "The God who loves me loves Muslims and Jews and atheists, blacks, whites, and browns, gays, straights, wearers of flag pins, snowmobile racers, Eastern elites, moms of special needs babies, teens who have abortions, Republicans and Democrats, loves us all."

I don't think our favorite future Grandma will say much of this in her invective.

OK I judged her, but hey, she's Christian so I guess she can forgive me.

Biology Happens

I sort of like what Don Sipple, on of Bush 2's minions said  in this New York Times Article,  "When you combine the special needs infant with the pregnant teen, some voters might wonder why she is pursuing political ambitions at the expense of maternal or family responsibilities..."

Her son is deployed to Iraq, she's still got a state to run, her lovely daughter, Bristol, is with child, and she wants to run for office to be the first alternate for the most powerful person in the world??    I'm just speculating here, but I wonder if she would have treated, say Hillary Clinton with this much generosity if Chelsea had wound up in the family way? 

I admire the fact that Bristol is having her baby and that she is supported so warmly and unconditionally by her family.  The Palin family seems like a great family.  (And, you know, there's a lot of cold dark weather up there- maybe not enough for the teens to do??  It could happen to anyone's kid).  They are susceptible to the same kinds of problems we are, after all.

And, seeing that this blog is about "Househusbandry," let's not underestimate Todd's importance in all of this.  I suppose he's going to take off time from snowmobiling  to help young Levi and  take Bristol to her Obstetric appointments and Lamaze Classes.  I suppose he is going to send out the invites to the baby shower to Laura and Cindy and Mrs. Dobson and all the gang, buy the chick filet party platters and keep the wine (or should I say beverage) glasses full while Sarah is on the road helping John Mccain.

What I find confusing, however, is that  she is getting  a pass from her conservative brethren (especially the "Evangelical" end of the bench) on a lot of her own personal accountability as a Mother and Parent of a Teenager.  How much of this came about because of abstinence-based education that she so stridently supported?  Could it be true that the blessed event might have happened while Mom was at the state house?   Sarah owes us all a little mea culpa.  Biology happens, but when it happens to a teenager, I think any parent would agree that they are somewhat responsible for the "mistake." (Even though many fine children from great families like the Palin's get pregnant). 

"Mistakes" like teen pregnancy don't happen in a vacuum, they happen in, around and (often) because of an environment of permissiveness, neglect and, well, good old-fashioned hormones.  Teen pregnancy happens because kids get the opportunity to be alone and unsupervised.  It happens because teenage boys "give love to get sex" and teenage girls often "give sex to get love" as a Priest I know once said. (Or, to paraphrase Billy Crystal, "Teenagers don't need a reason to have sex... just a place...")

Fundamentalist Evanglicals are no strangers to guilt. In fact, I think they help us all remember how to exercise it for our own good, on occasion.  I'd just like to see a little from Mr. and Mrs. Todd Palin.  Just a word or two  acknowledging the fact that some of the choices they made as the adults who were presumably in charge of this girl perhaps provided her and Levi with the opportunity to make a baby.  Maybe they could offer  some advice to parents of teenagers like me so we can help our kid avoid "growing up too soon."   Biology does happen, but it happens more often when Mom and Dad aren't around.  I think their taking just a bit of responsibility for her lack of supervision might make me happier.

Of course, I'm  a rookie parent of a teenager and I have a lot to learn about their care and feeding.  I just don't think I'm going to be able to learn much from Mrs. Palin or Todd.  

I wonder what Hillary would say?

The Fisherman who Could Not Swim

I preached this sermon on August 10th at St. Dunstan's here in Atlanta.

A story has been circulating for some time that I need to correct. I need to set the record straight with you all about this water-walking that Jesus and I did together. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to any of you why I did not just swim back to the boat that night??

Why I didn’t just call it a night, laugh off the fact that I had gotten all wet and crawl back into the boat?

Why I couldn’t extract myself from the waves??

I’m just going to say it to get this over with-

I was a fisherman who could not swim.

Years of fishing- ever since I was a child- I never learned! I never stepped out of the boat…I was afraid of the water! But no one knew until recently. My secret was safe. I had made a life out of staying out of the water and in the boat:

Whenever the nets needed to be pulled off of the barnacles on the bottom of the boat- I got one of the other guys to pull them off. One of my brothers or one of the other young boys that worked the boats with me. Whenever someone had to jump out of the boat into deep water to unhook a line off of some coral or brush someone else was always around to do the dirty work for me.

I never learned to swim! I lived under the assumption that I could fool everyone all the time- That I could fool even Jesus with my secret.

I am the Rock, after all, I would think with great pride- an impregnable fortress!! They would never know—

Not too long ago, though one day-
Jesus was tired and he needed a rest. He’d been keeping a busy schedule of healing and feeding and preaching. Jesus told us to go for a sail while he took some time for himself alone.

“I’m gonna walk up there,” he pointed up a hill, “and believe it or not, I am going to take a nap. Why don’t you all go out on the boat and relax yourselves..”

It was late in the day- getting a little cloudy too-
We all resisted---

He smiled and said “Looks like a great day for a sail to me!! And that’s an order!!”

So we sailed the boat out to the middle of the lake- Jesus walked up the hill to be alone. I was getting kind of drowsy myself… I settled in a corner of the boat and drifted off to sleep.

I woke up after I don’t know how long- I must have been really tired because it was dark outside- there was a huge moon shining on the lake that night.

Everything was foggy- In spite of the silvery light, I could barely see the others sitting on the boat. I heard thunder off in the distance and the wind started to raise a bit the waves started getting white capped and the lake swollen--

Then, we all heard a rhythmic splish-splashing off the side of the boat!! Splish-splash- splish splash-

“Who on earth is swimming out there right now??” we all asked one another. But it wasn’t quite the sounds of someone swimming.

Then, we all see something in the distance- hovering just above the water. Our breath stops- a ghost, a phantom- some kind of devil??

This demon looks like Jesus, this phantom- - —walking on water.

I see this ghost motioning towards us- saying, I think to me, “Come on out here!!” I figure I’m dreaming. Or if I am not, then surely a ghost won’t know who I am-

So, As usual, I opened my mouth…

“If you’re Jesus… then… who am I???”

“Peter…. “ I heard him in the distance.. “Come on out here.. I want to tell you something..”

“Peter!!!”

I looked around the boat…

Yes you! You see any other people named Peter on the boat!! Come on out here!!!

I am not sleeping, I realize- and I also realize that Jesus- or whoever this is, wants me out of the boat!!

“Peter- come on over I want to tell you something!!!”

So, I stepped out of the boat.

WALKED ON WATER—like it was the street running in front of my house- like it was the beach.. Water has kind of a squshy feeling under your feet.
Kind of a cross between mud and wet sand. It felt good under my feet!!!

But then I realized-

IM WALKING ON WATER AND I CANT SWIM!!

I looked down –

AND I SANK!

(Like the Rock I am).

I figured it was all over- maybe one of the others would brave the cold water and rescue me. But as I sank underneath the waves… All I could think was , “LORD HELP ME!!”

And, then I see an arm reach under the water. It grabs my hand, pulls me up and makes me stand up again on the water… I stood there- shaking- freezing from the cold water- from the wind blowing – the fog and the elements

Jesus laughed!

“You’re all wet, Peter!!! Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t swim! “
“But how did you know??”
“It wasn’t that hard- The way you looked every time we got near the boats or waded in the water…I think we all knew…”

We stood there together and he told me something I never forgot.

" Peter- I love you even though sometimes you are rather rock like- you’re hard- hard headed- hard-hearted. Even when you feel your most helpless know that I will always be there trying to get through – trying to get you out of the boat…”

We walked back to the boat-

“And yes,” he added, “you need to learn to swim. That's why I put all these other people here in the boat with you…”

But master , I told him,, “I can’t….”

He cut me off- “You of little faith, why do you doubt?’ Peter- The first thing I ask if you is to love me and the second?”

“Love everyone else..”

Right.

I realized then that when I trust my brothers and sisters with my weakness I am letting them in- loving them- letting them be a part of who I really am as one of God’s children. I am stepping out of the boat.

I am learning to have faith that is rock like.

What this Rock learned that night is that we are all here to help each other swim- survive- thrive.

Jesus said to me, “Keep your eyes on me—on the love that I have brought here for you to share- to live out—and you will never sink…”

I once thought that ours was a God who did not suffer fools lightly. A god that did not tolerate weakness of any sort…Not a God who loved our weaknesses as much as our strengths. Not a God who required us to trust one another in our weakness- have faith in one another and God that we could overcome with God’s help..

Faith is a word we use in our little group quite a bit-

Some people say it is believing without seeing- Believing in things beyond understanding- beyond comprehension.

Faith is something we do, though, when we step out of the boat. When Christ calls us out of the boat, even though our gut tells us we will sink-


Faith beckons us to own up to our weakness-to own up to the weaknesses of others-to love ourselves and one another. It calls us to use our strength to bring those among us who are under the waves up upon the water and to throw our power and our resources- (in spite of all of our reasonable objections)- behind his children- the LEAST of all these – to bring them up out of the depths in spite of our obvious shortcomings that put us there in the first place.

We not only learn to swim-

We- walk on water.

Amen

Father Terry Starts a New World

I'm a regular (well, was a regular reader) of the Blog "Father Jake Stops the World." About a month ago or so, I was greeted with this startling post from "Father Jake, " (aka Father Terry Martin):

" After much thought, prayer, and consultation with others, I’ve decided that it is time to close down Jake’s place.

This is not an easy decision. In some ways, it feels like a part of me is dying.

There’s many reasons for making this decision:

.....I believe that a constant exposure to some of the toxic rhetoric found on the net has had a negative impact on my spiritual health. I find it more difficult to discern the glory of God. Most likely this is because I’ve become too preoccupied with the depravity of man. I need to take care of myself."

At first, I was kind of sad to see him go. I had lots of online friends from the comments posting section on the website. I was a daily reader of his blog- he had kept me up to speed with all the stuff going on in TEC.

Then, I was greeted with this a few weeks later - a new website called "Father Terry Listens to the World."

I would commend everyone to check it out. Father Terry has taken on a great notion that many of us in the Episcopal Church (and other so-called "liberal" denominations have taken) that it is high time that we begin to practice evangelism. It is high time to take back the concept- the duty - the work of evangelism - from the hellfire and damnation crowd to take the loving, inclusive and all-encompassing embrace of God's love through Christ to the world.

He had this to say:
"We begin evangelism by listening. And then we listen some more. It is only when we really hear the stories of others that we will know how to proclaim the good news in ways that can be heard."

Amen.

I'm glad he's back.

Already There

I preached this sermon last Sunday (May 4th) on Acts 1.

I am seeing more and more families with small children here, and one of the distinct pleasures you will have as they grow older will be taking road trips together

We have taken lots of them over the years- traveling to Myrtle Beach to see friends and Family .. to DC.. to Orlando..to the Floriday panhandle… My children, like most children on roadtrips get impatient. They want the trip to be finished.
Inevitably, they ask me many times, “Are we there yet?”
I have a few stock responses:

“No, we’re here…”
“Look out the window at the cows….”
“Hunt for license plates from other states..”
And MY personal favorite, “Well, you look around and tell me where we are.”
And I often use the old standard, “Not yet..”
Or, better yet, “We’ll get there when we get there..”

But grown ups are also obsessed with “getting there.”

Take a look next time you are out on the highway at the other cars. You’ll see GPS receivers in at least every 4th car.

GPS receivers that tell people where they are with nearly pinpoint accuracy. They tell them when exactly they will arrive at their destination. It’s an electronic answer to the question, “Are we there yet?”
It seems that each moment of our road-trip, we want a little guide to tell us exactly where we stand on the road, where we are in relation to the end and how to stay on the path.
It’s very comforting.
It satisfies our impatience with not knowing where, exactly, we are headed.

Our Apostles today ask Jesus, “Lord is this the time when your Kingdom will come?” They might as well have asked Jesus, “Are we there yet?”

They want answers! They want surety, security-on the road – on their journey following Christ. They’re unsure about their exact place on the path, unsure about their place in the universe, unsure about when they will arrive in God’s kingdom or when it will come to them and how, exactly, it will happen.

They’re uneasy, uncomfortable and scared because they are not going to have Jesus- their guide, their friend, their savior- in a bodily form.
They want to be finished with their journey- to have God’s kingdom now. They want a map: a spelled out, detailed plan that takes away their uncertainty and delivers them to their final destination.

Jesus gives them a good “front seat” answer to their “Are we there yet?”- reassuring and still vague! :

“….you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

You will he assures them. Not you may or you can or you have to option. You will! You will get there and you WILL be OK.
.
But, in spite of hearing all of this from the Son of God (and I find this kind of amusing) they continue to gaze heavenward, wondering wistfully just when, exactly, all of this will happen.
They don’t realize that the answer is already among them in the present.

Sounds kind of like all of us, doesn’t it?

We often find ourselves gazing heavenward, wondering when God will come. Then, the Holy Spirit comes and suddenly we find ourselves making unexpected pit stops on the road
We find ourselves doing things that we might not normally do!
The Holy Spirit moves us beyond the borders of our mapped territory The Holy Spirit moves our eyes to the road as it unfolds before us.

This life of the Spirit is kind of scary and unpredictable, isn’t it?
There is a certain lack of control we must live into - discomfort we must live with- to find our place on the journey. Our discomfort makes us wonder , “When, Lord, will you do what we want you to do?”

We want answers- we want certainty- we want to know just where , exactly, this road of the Spirit lead us to??

When the apostles ask a form of the question, “Are we there yet?”-

“Is this the time your kingdom will come, Jesus?”

Jesus says to them ““You’ll get there when you get there” by admonishing them with, “It is not for you to know the times or periods the Father has set by his own authority…”

Then, After watching Jesus ascend into the clouds, their gazes are still locked upward, wondering (wistfully) when exactly he will return. Then two “men clothed in white” (I like to think of them as angels), give them a nice scolding, I think, as they look upward for Jesus, instead of all around themselves and ahead..

They say, “Why do you stand looking up to heaven?”

God’s kingdom- is not up there- they tell them- God’s kingdom will come only through the love that Christ has set in motion with his life and his death. God’s kingdom will come but only with the help of the Holy Spirit- with “God’s help” (as we like to say in our prayer book) and the love of Christ.

Love Christ set in motion through faithfulness that lead to his death on a cross. See, they don’t realize that Christ has already
given them the map they need to get there.

I like the movie Bruce Almighty. God, Morgan Freeman, says to Jim, a man who is “playing God” in the movie, “People want me to do everything for them. What they don't realize is that they have the power. You want to see a miracle? Be the miracle.”

God urges Bruce to look ahead by directing his gaze downward, seeking God’s kingdom through being the miracle.

Next week, at Pentecost , the “miracle” will happen to us, the Church. The Holy Spirit will come. The church will be born
But, we hear that right now, right now- we are to be the miracle!

We are supposed to be God’s kingdom…

What does this kingdom look like,? What is it God has set us free to do- right now- with God’s Holy Spirit? What exactly do we do while we are “on the road?” How do we “be the miracle?” Is it through sacramental purity?? Biblical accuracy?? Orthodoxy??

I think maybe not…
A way I feel we can do it is we practice what my friend Father Terry Martin calls “radical inclusion.”Radical inclusion chooses grace and love as the default position when all else is in doubt.
Radical inclusion causes us to open our arms to all people and say “You- each and every one of you- are a child of God.”

I liked what Bishop Gene Robinson had to say when he was interviewed recently by Terri Gross on Fresh Air upon the release of his memoir, “Eye of the Storm..”

This specific question was regarding his lack of invitation to the Lambeth conference- he was not invited, like all the other bishops of the world, specifically because of who he is as a Gay man. I expected anger and bitterness.

Instead he gave us all a lesson on the Holy Spirit.

He said, “ Jesus says this amazing thing on the night before he died. He says to his disciples, ‘there are many more things I want share with you but you are not able to bear them right now.
so I will send you the Holy Spirit to lead you to all truth. ‘ “

He further commented, “I will go on to argue that full inclusion of Gay and Lesbian people is just simply another way that the Holy Spirit is leading us to a fuller understanding of God’s love for all of God’s children.”

I can imagine he has wondered, as a Gay man, “are we there yet?” as he walks on his journey

On days when he had to bear death threats- days when he had to wear a bullet proof vest to mass- the day he did not get his invitation to Lambeth.

But, his experience has not left him gazing heavenward,
asking God, “When???” It has lead him to a fuller understanding of the Holy Spirit.

We can learn this week that The Church- all of us who are God’s children-all of us who feel bewildered and lost -wondering why we are on this journey and where will it lead us-

We can learn we are called to find our place by directing our gaze down from the heavens to here on earth, where we are.

Here , where we can find a fuller understanding of God’s love and be lead to God’s Love through the Holy Spirit. Not from any “road maps” we feel compelled to follow and certainly not from craning our necks looking upward for Jesus in the clouds.

The kingdom of God comes – we get there- when we affirm to one another and treat one another as if we are all precious, Holy children of God.

Then we are already “there.”

Response from Ms. Pratt

I thought it was classy of her to write me back and her response was very thoughtful. I think the lesson I have learned is to always, always, always try to understand before making my (usually highly flawed )OPINION known??

Actually, I don’t lean either way in reporting, but the people I interview certainly do, on both sides. Each only wants to see his/her own viewpoint represented! So much for freedom of speech. It’s a human characteristic and is true across denominations that we only want our own viewpoint mentioned. Anything else is perceived as bias or “negative.” Newspapers by design can only hit a few high points on any story, television even less with sound bytes. Now we have the Internet and blogs so that every viewpoint can be expressed to exhaustion! We are in an interesting time of transition in communications.

Back to the story, we don’t have that many Episcopalians in Lubbock, so until it heats up locally, we don’t do a lot of reporting on the issue, although we do run AP stories on the national developments.

Looks like if this new church start goes through here, the issue will become more local. Even so, the numbers are small compared to other churches here.

The bigger story is the future of the institutional church of whatever denomination. Will it recover or retool? Will people tire of doing their own thing? The latest trend predictions I’ve heard say that the churches with ultra-liturgical or ultra-contemporary worship styles will thrive and the various combinations between will struggle.

I don't think I would like being a Religion reporter... Not an easy job today seeing how polarized religion has gotten. "May we all be one..."

Online can be Rude

OK I caught myself commiting the one sin of online writing- emailing that I would never do. I was really rude to a reporter in an email response I sent her regarding her article in lubbockonline about The Episcopal Church. Yikes. I was on the second day of a fast and was grumpy and it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I think one of the pitfalls of the Internet is that it gives us all one or two degrees of separation from one another and allows a little more rudeness that we would normally show towards one another.

OK. Judge for yourself- here is a link to the article by Beth Pratt ( a reporter from Lubbock and a lovely person, I am sure). Here is my email response to the article:

"Never mind that the system that they propose we live and believe under denies the dignity of all persons (re: homosexuals). You would have only gotten that bit of truth if you had talked to someone from The Episcopal Church. But, it seems that you are under the sway of either your distaste for gays, the PR machine of the Religious Wrong or an arch-conservative editor. Seems like in Journalism school (or did you go??) they would have taught you to tell the truth (try to get both sides in the story). However, it seems you must have skipped class that day. How unfortunate for your readers that they did not get the chance to hear from all voices in this story and get the perspective of The Episcopal Church. "

OK I could have edited a couple of jabs- the one about journalism school in particular...

Here is Ms. Pratt's response:

"Or. Possibly you just missed the first story from the church’s viewpoint. Or, you could be a member of the head-in-the-sand group that would like to pretend nothing is happening. If they would just go away quietly, no one would be disturbed. Right?"

OK so here is the article from the Church's viewpoint:

http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/031007/rel_031007041.shtml

Judge for yourself. Don't email reporters when you are on the second day of a fast if you want to seem like a nice person.

Epiphany 1 Sermon

The Stars Shift
There’s a line in one of my favorite John Lennon songs, “Beautiful Boy,” that says “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” We find ourselves busy with our daily lives, doing what comes normal for us every day and wham- something comes along and our plans change- life happens.
When I read the story in Matthew about the Magi, I see people who were busy making other plans and who had their lives turned upside down.
These magi- mysterious members of the cast of characters in our Epiphany gospel today-were probably people who made a comfortable living trying to divine the will of God or The Gods through what they saw in the stars. (If they lived today we would probably call them Astrologers- and would read a column by one of them in the daily paper).
Then, one day, the heavens moved- something new appeared in the eastern sky. A constellation moved a bit, or a new, bright star- perhaps a Supernova exploded- or a planet passed close by the earth much like Mars is doing now. Something miraculous happened, and they had to go and see what it was.
These people were observers- scientists, of sorts. The heavens were orderly for them, moved in pretty predictable patterns and made sense, most of the time. Then one day a new light appeared in the east and they started seeing strange things in the skies that were once so familiar to them.
Jesus birth, the gospel writer tells us, put their stars out of whack.
They were to pack up their stuff, load their animals and trek to a little town nine miles east of the seat of power in Jerusalem to Bethlehem (what we are to believe is hundreds of miles) to find the origins of this astrological change.
Imagine with me for a second the scene that Matthew tries to paint for us in this story. I see their departure from the camel yards, heavy laden with their telescopes and water jugs and formal turbans, talking excitedly about what they’re going to find underneath this new star. One jokes with the others that there might be some good parties for them when they get there, complete with dancing girls and music and a huge spread of food. They all figure that a person great enough to warrant a change in the skies will be full of pomp and circumstance and power. Little do they know what awaits them at the end-a humble child of working parents-a son of a carpenter and teenage girl.
This story has all the elements of a great adventure story. It is even complete with a maniacal, angry, frightened king who wants to find our hero, Jesus, and kill him because he feels threatened. Harod meets with our Magi and asks them to find this king “so I can come and worship him.” (We know better, though- and know that Harod wants to find the source of this astronomical change and snuff it out).
I also imagine their surprise when they see that the stars point to wherever this child, this poor child is living. I see them checking and re-checking their calculations. I hear one turning to the other and saying “This can’t be right” and the other telling him “I know I am right” and the third maybe saying “I told you we should have asked for directions back in Judea!!”
Upon arriving at the humble dwelling where Jesus and his family are living, they shrug their shoulders, hop off their camels pick up their gifts, and approach the humble dwelling from which they hear the cries and coos of the Christ Child and take their gifts to him in puzzlement.
We are pretty certain now that there were not three of these men. There probably were no camels. (And in deference to my friends at Mary and Martha’s place- )we don’t even know that they were men, either. The Gospel story tells us that there was no manger when they came by- they visited a house in Bethlehem. We do know that there were gifts for this “king,”this Christ child, living beneath the star. Much of the rest that we assume to be true about the Magi is legend- adornments to the story that have been added through the ages.
We do recognize them as a vital part of the Epiphany- the truth made plain – about Jesus Christ.
I like what Walter Bruegemann says about them- he says that “rather than hesitate or resist, they reorganize their wealth and learning, and reorient themselves and their lives around a baby with no credentials.”
How can we reorganize our lives around a “baby with no credentials?”
Epiphany calls us all to allow the presence of Christ in our lives to put our stars out of whack- to let Jesus shift our constellations- make us see things in a new light.
It is no accident, I think, that custom has us make resolutions during this time of the year - to make changes for the new year that will (hopefully) make our lives better. All of us, every year, try to re-align our own stars with promises to exercise more, eat better, sleep more, read more books, fight less with our big sisters or brothers.
I like how one writer I read this week put it. He said that instead of making “resolutions” for the new year we should “re-solution” our lives. I like that. When we “re-solution,” or come up with new ways to see the light in others and ourselves, we are following the Epiphany star. How will we “re-solution” our lives this year?? How can we drop what we are doing, let the Christ child happen to us while we go about our lives, making other plans?? I had a few:
-Instead of looking for new worlds to conquer, perhaps we can find new worlds to save.
-Instead of making our voice heard, perhaps we can learn to listen more.
-Instead of indulging all our appetites, perhaps we can find ways to want less.
-Instead of filling our lives with more stuff, maybe we can “re-solution” by clearing out space in our lives for more people.
-Instead of trying to lead through dominating others, maybe we can we can lead by serving all.
-Bringing this home to the Anglican Communion- now that a rift is a foregone conclusion, instead of being angry with the folks who have left us now, perhaps we can look at the folks who have left The Episcopal Church with compassion, realizing that in the end, whether we like it or not, we are still all the body of Christ and we need each other. They still need us.
Epiphany tells us that seeing the star is not the end of the journey.
In the end of our story the magi, being warned by God in a dream that Harod is out for the life of the Christ Child (and now perhaps them as well) , returned home by another road.
Once we meet the Christ child, the road we walk down is never the same. Christ calls us to continue seeking his star- continue being saved by him day in and day out through the power of one thing and one thing only- love.
Christ has come- the stars have changed for us now and we must walk a new road home with a new plan. Amen.

Politics... Argh...Thomas Merton

I love The Peanuts cartoons- in particular, I love the exclamation of disgust/frustration/anger that Lucy (I think) used to do: it went something like this "ARRGGGHH!"

The one thing I loved about the Episcopal Church was that it was (seemingly) evolved beyond all the BS that I grew up with in The Southern Baptist Convention. Events of the last 4-5 years have proven otherwise. Lucky for me, I live in a liberal Diocese with a great Bishop (IMHO) and the politics have been agreeable to me thus far (at least on the local level).

Recent events in California are another matter. For the play by play, I defer to my friend "Father Jake." I find what happened at St. Nicholas in California most disconcerting. However, read the accounts of what transpired yesterday and you will see a classic example of how I feel the Holy Spirit can work in the worst of situations. I project myself into a "difficult" church situation like that someday and wonder what it would be like. Fr. Fred indeed experienced a "thin time" yesterday- I hope that he knows we are with him in prayer and spirit.

I also defer to Thomas Merton. I like this prayer for times like this:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.


Shalom

timmah

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

I was talking to Liz, my therapist, last week about Christmas. I had decided that I did not like it much and that maybe that was the originating point for the funk that I was in. Funny, when I admitted to not liking it much, I actually started to feel much better. (Admitting the problem is half the battle, they say??)

But over the last few days I have been falling in love again with this season, much to my surprise. The Holy Spirit must have intervened in my house because we are finished shopping and 90% of all of our wrapping is finished. Today I had one of those things happen where I happened to take a nice gift for Tricia, the Priest I am working with at St. Dunstan's, and she had an excellent gift for me. She bought me my first Book of Common Prayer- Hymnal Combo like the ones that Priests use that have all the ribbons and the leather binding. I was struck down by her generosity (those things ain't cheap) and by the fact that it was SO appropriate to get my first "real" prayer book from her. (Luckily, I had purchased for her a creamer/ sugar bowl set from my good friend Polly the Potter! Generosity reigns supreme!)

To top it all off, I had the privelege of being a shepherd in the annual Christmas Pageant at St. Dunstan's. I think the moment that finally sucked me in to the Christmas spirit was when all the 2 and 3 year olds came up as the Heavenly Host with their little foil wings and halos and white robes. No more bah, humbug for me, I am afraid.

God works in mysterious ways- sometimes through tiny children, apparently.

Crisis Mode- Advent One Sermon

Note- This was the sermon I preached for the Advent One RCL scriptures for the Wednesday Night Eucharist at Candler Seminary. 3 weeks later, here it is:


Dead asleep…..2 AM. Something- a cockroach, dog, child getting water, inadvertently activates the motion detector on your burglar alarm system... You bolt upright, grabbing your robe.. your slippers.. the baseball bat or 9-iron underneath your bed. In a show of true valor you call the dog over and tell him to "go downstairs boy- see who's here..."

You inch down the steps looking for a burglar, heart racing uncontrollably, hands shaking. You check all the windows and doors. You wait for the alarm company to call so you can give them the code word and call off the police and then go back up to bed and try to calm down enough to go to sleep...the thief in the night was a phantom of electronics…

A “thief in the night” breaking in is a looming reality in my neighborhood. Recently, neighbors up the hill on Dekalb Avenue had their door broken down by robbers who then started shooting- one of them jumped from his balcony, suffering horrible injuries to his face and teeth. Thank God, no one was killed- but my neighbors are scarred for life.

I can't imagine anything scarier than someone invading the safe, secure place we make for our children and ourselves.. home. This horrible possibility puts us all into crisis mode- fight or flight, some call it. The worst part of even the possibility of a home invasion is that matter how much work you do- no matter if you stay up all night (as Jesus describes in the Gospel) you cannot know whether or not your preparation will keep you safe. You are truly out of control, in the end.

A lot of work has been done in the science of the brain on how we react to crisis. Dr. Paul Mclean, a Neuropsychiatrist, discovered years about that each of us has a "mammal brain" and a "lizard brain." Our "lizard brain" or reptilian brain is the part of our brain that is in charge of keeping us alive- in charge of things that are not the best of humanity: rage, territoriality, fear of strangers and our fight or flight response- keeping us alert to all danger. The lizard brain causes our heart rate to skyrocket, our blood pressure to go up, the surface temperature of our skin falls , our pupils dilate- it makes us ready to fight and defend ourselves.

When I hear someone telling me things like Jesus does in this Matthew 24, I find myself thinking with my "lizard brain." A thief in the night is unacceptable, frightening, and induces us to our worst, violent behavior in an effort to defend family and territory.

The Gospel writer has Jesus give us more terrifying one-liners in Matthew 24- the stuff of horror movies: "they will hand you over to be tortured and you will be put to death" in 24:9. He speaks of "desolating sacrilege" in 24:15 and he tells the disciples that "the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven." The Gospel writer also has Jesus saying that he will "send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

Our Advent lessons begin for us with a horror show, of sorts, scary stuff that could be taken to mean watch out... God is coming.. he is angry and you'd better take care, it seems to be telling us.

I'm a big fan of the Horror genre. Jesus does make us pay attention to when the Gospel has him sounding scary in Matthew 24. Why the apocalypse during a period when we are supposed to be happy- reinforcing for us a nasty underbelly of our month filled with family, friends, parties and all-round debauchery that is supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year?”

Why all the things going bump in the night when we want sleigh bells and Christmas carolers? Why all the Stephen King when we want Santa and Frosty the Snowman and Baby Jesus in a nice, soft, manger? How are we to understand these passages that throw us into a crisis mentality instead of a peaceful state of joy and peace?

Two Psychiatrists published a study in which they studied the effects of fear and crisis on the Amygdala- an area of our brain that is important in processing memory and emotion. What they discovered was that things that produced outright terror used a small part of the Amygdala (the lizard brain I mentioned earlier). This was not surprising. The interesting thing, though is that hey also discovered that ambiguity- not knowing exactly what is going on or what will happen- makes the brain more alert than things that produce outright fear. They said in their study that "vigilance is the body's reaction to something new that promotes the various system's need to be alert to potentially important information." Vigilance is when we are truly awake. We use our whole brain- and perhaps our whole being and attention.

And see, Jesus ends the string of terrifying images with some great advice that helps us, during this often dark time of the lectionary year. He urges us to be alert - to be vigilant and awake and (most of all) to not be afraid. “
"Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" “…for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

Keep awake. Be ready. Be vigilant.

He urges us to use our whole brain, our whole being, and get ready for Christmas during Advent. The Gospel has him telling us that we can release ourselves from the things that paralyze us- fear, darkness, anxiety, busyness- that are so much a part of what the culture calls “The Christmas Season- not through terror- through self desctructive emotional and mental energy but through vigilance and readiness.

How do we develop vigilance? How do we get ready for Christmas? Do we spend our time trying to stay off the naughty list ? And anyway, could any of us ever NOT be one it? (Well, my Mom is here, and she is definitely not on it, but the rest of us… I am not so sure…) Are we ever really ready for the kind of love God offers us through Jesus when Christmas does arrive? Are we ever good enough, clean enough, observant enough, or spiritual enough?
No- nothing we can do- no amount of vigilance we practice to conquer the fear and darkness of winter can get us prepared for God’s “wondrous love.”

God does not care a whit if we are ready or vigilant. In spite of all of our anxiety-hurry- busyness- over the holiday- Christmas comes anyway- whether we want it to or not- kind of like a thief in the night.

Jesus invades the territory of our lives and insists upon being taking part in who we are- ready or not. God insists upon coming into the earth- so much so that he finds the most humble, ordinary route possible in getting here- a young, impoverished, unmarried teenager, and shows up- ready or not.

Our God desperately wants to be a part of our lives and we are to prepare ourselves, during Advent, for this reality!

God’s going to come whether we like it or not - but not as a boogieman who steals us away during the night or on a white horse in the clouds or a behind the pulpit of a church , but as a tiny baby.

Some friends in my liturgy class gave me this poem by Madeline L’Engle. Listen how she reminds us that God did not wait for anything and showed up for us at Christmas:

First Coming- by Madeline L’Engle
God did not wait till the world was ready,
till . . . nations were at peace.
God came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time.
God came when the need was deep and great.
God dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. God did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy God came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
God came, and God’s Light would not go out.

God came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

May you remember during advent to raise your songs in joyful voice sharing a God who came with love to heal the tangles of this world in the word made flesh.

Amen.

Seven Words

OK so some of the stuff I write for seminary gets put to good use... I am back to blogging. Here is the text of my first sermon I ever wrote and preached at St. Dunstan's Episcopal here in Atlanta.

More in the coming days. I got a veritable treasure trove of stuff to put up here that I wrote this semester! Some of it not even that bad, either.

Seven Words--

“Let’s pray about it.” Four words we have heard a lot during these last few, seemingly apocalyptic, days of wildfires, drought and middle-east foreign policy insanity.
I recently read this item in a small North Georgia church’s newsletter; written by a person I know.
“The latest ‘Let’s pray about it’ activity has been centered around the drought we are suffering. As Marge and I catch shower water to keep our withering plants alive, I get weary thinking that not a day goes by that I don’t hear someone wanting to organize a prayer meeting to ask God for some rain. It seems to me that if that were the drill, then somebody’s prayer would have been a winner by now. Seems as if our chances of buying a winning lottery ticket are better than that.”
The writer continues:
“I find it difficult to accept a theology that tells me God is sitting up in heaven somewhere jerking strings to make us behave. What about the 300,000+ people in California who have lost their homes to a raging fire caused by, as the insurance companies would say, ‘an Act of God?’ What did they collectively do to incur God’s wrath? Not so, you say? Then why do we pray for safe travel, for rain, for money, for a new car, etc., etc.? If we don’t get a good answer, does that mean we need to clean up our act and ask again?
“I don’t have any answers, except to believe that I am slowly growing in my ability to find a quiet place, clear my mind of the present and allow myself the luxury of feeling the presence of God.”
When the rains dry up or when they fall in plenty we look for some kind of justification. “Was it something we did, through global warming or maybe in the way of the Old Testament, the sins of our Fathers and Mothers, that caused God to stop the rains?” We wonder. “Why are all of these bad things happening to us,” we ask. Or, on the other side, when good things happen, we try to take credit for them ourselves, or we count ourselves lucky that we are not one of them – one of the folks “less fortunate” than we.
When pray for and get rain, someone else does not get rain. We pray that the storms miss our home, yet they destroy someone else’s. We pray that we win the lottery, the contract, the college admission, yet we forget that someone else loses. Life, it seems, can be a zero sum game for many of us, and it can seem hopeless when we inhabit the losing side and overwhelmingly hopeful when we are winning.
How can we, as our writer tells us, “find a quiet place, clear our mind of the present and allow ourselves the luxury of feeling the presence of God.”
What levels us out as God’s children? Is it righteous acts- is it charity- is it what we think or who we are?
Jesus shows us today how prayer and honesty with God will bring us back to who we really are, and he even gives us a template of sorts with seven, simple words – “God, have mercy on me a sinner.” It’s a prayer many people have called “The Jesus Prayer.”
Prayer and meditation have been getting a lot of attention around my school this last two weeks, in part because we have another set of exams coming up this week and also because of a new professor at Emory named His Holiness Dalai Lama. During his time at Emory, Dalai Llama did a lecture that was open to the Tibetan Buddhist community, and in it he said over and over that we are all light and that the harmful things we do (sin) are all contrary to that true nature.
Maybe it is getting to our true nature – who we really are- that is at the heart of “allowing ourselves the luxury of feeling the presence of God.”
Three different times in the Gospel we get variations of this prayer- - A blind man sitting on the side of the road in Jericho intones – “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Ten lepers cry out, “Jesus, Master, take pity on us' and our publican prays from the back of the temple, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
Who are these people in our parable today- this Tax Collector and Pharisee?
I don’t think they are so different from us. One of them is at the very top of his game, the Pharisee. The other, perhaps, at the bottom of the pit, the tax collector. We sometimes feel as if they are different because they are from an ancient world but I think they live among us. I think at different times they are we.

We might say, to paraphrase the comic strip character, Pogo, “we have met the Pharisee, and he is us.
In fact, if Jesus had been born in Gainesville, as Clarence Jordan offers in his Cotton Patch Gospel, the parable we read today might have gone something like this:
“Two men went to church one Sunday morning. One was a deacon, and the other a mortgage banker. Times had been hard around the city, and he had recently foreclosed on the houses of four church members’ houses.
The deacon sat in the front row and the mortgage banker sat in the back of the huge sanctuary that morning. The Deacon prayed to himself, “Dear Lord, I am soooo thankful for my life, that I am a good man who pays his mortgage, that I have not lost my home. Thank you Lord. Thank you for my good job, my great house and my three beautiful children. Thank you for this church I come to three times a week. I pray for forgiveness for that man back there who took away my friends’ homes.”
Our mortgage banker, sitting in the back, doesn’t even feel as if he can pray, “This has been a hard week. I had to take four houses away from people. My children hate me, my wife won’t speak to me and I hate my job. Dear Lord, have mercy on me – I can’t seem to do anything right.”
We know these two men, don’t we, and at various times in our lives “they are us.”
Who were these men in Jesus day, though?
The community hated tax collectors in Jesus’ day. They would profit from other people’s misfortune and oppression by pre-paying the taxes owed by their neighbors to the Romans, and then collect back from people what was owed and skim off the top everything that was left over. They would “hold the paper” on the debt owed to the government or the bank.
Pharisees were self-important jerks, sometimes, but they sort of get a bad rap; from Luke, especially. Some scholars believed that they were Christianity’s main “competition” and that perhaps these folks are usually cast as villains.
In their day, though, they were the pillars of the community.
They did the daily office, gave their money to the poor, went to church every chance they got, served on all the committees and ran the place. If they sat among us today, we would look to them as examples.
The “publican “ or the “tax collector” or “mortgage banker” might be pretty repugnant to us as well, though, perhaps because of the choices they had made in life or because of a collection they had made from our bank account.
Don’t we encounter people that we might call “repugnant.” How many times do we see people and catch ourselves thanking God we are “not like them?”
I know I catch myself looking out the window of my house or car sometimes thinking “Thank you, Lord I am not him” or “Thank you God, my day is not as bad as hers.”
How many of us have driven down the highway in any given rush hour, have seen the broken down car in the heat of the day, or the wreck, and thought- “At least I am not him.”
Jesus shows us that even when we believe we are at the bottom of the heap or when we are at the top, we are blessed by God.
Jesus offers that simple prayer that can draw us closer to God and, most importantly, closer to one another; “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This prayer comes from an outcast, the hated character in our parable. From a notorious sinner we don’t get excuses like “Well, God, next week I will collect the taxes honestly, so hear my prayer,” or, “Thanks, God, for the profit I made tax collecting the last month. I’ll give some away, so forgive me.” We get seven humble words. He realizes who he is (lost and separated from God), and he speaks the truth to God saying when he says “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
The Pharisee is all of us when we are at our best. When we have made the sale, survived the recession, made the “A” on the exam, or beaten the traffic home. From a notoriously righteous person we hear words that use earthly evidence of success as signs of God’s favor. We see someone comparing himself their self to others to justify their self before God by saying, “Thanks be to God I am not like other men.”
When we are at the bottom financially, emotionally, physically, or spiritually even, we can have what my friends in recovery call “a moment of clarity” and remember, as our tax collector does, that God still just might love us in spite of it all, and we can say, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
When we are at the top sometimes we can forget that our success comes at the expense of others. That our successes, like our failures, can be opportunities to search the fabric of reality for evidence of God’s grace and not just a time of personal triumph or loss. Our accomplishment and piety does not make us loved any more or less than those less fortunate than we.
What would it be like if, when we walked out of the doors of our temple, we remembered always, first and foremost, that we are, as Tricia says in her blessing, born blessed?

What would it be like if we remembered, as we breathed in and out during the day, that God’s grace is enough to get us through the day?
Our friends who know Latin know that Sin, after all, means separation. Prayer is, Jesus offers us, the ultimate opportunity to remove that separation, no matter how desperate or difficult our present circumstances.
Our own Jesus prayers can take many forms. Sometimes they might sound like, “God help me, I am broke! Have mercy on me, a sinner.”
We are all equally loved by God, mortgage banker and deacon alike, rich man and poor.
Or, we might pray, “God thank you for this rain, this check that came in the mail, my health…”
We are all constantly loved, even in times of darkness, even though we separate ourselves from what Basil the Great called “The mad love of God.”
“God please help me because everything I do and say is wrong, it seems.”
We place ourselves at the bottom, away from God, wallowing in our erroneous comparisons with other people or our self-pity.
Or, our Jesus prayer might say, “God, please find me because I am lost.”
We place ourselves at the top, reveling in our latest victory or our good fortune, forgetting that we are there on the mountaintop by the grace of God.
“God help me to see you in the good times and the bad…” we might pray…
By our own doing, we divide ourselves into tribes, families, exclusive communities of faith, groupings that separate us from God and one another.
Maybe we pray this Jesus prayer, “God help us remember you are with us always no matter who we are or what we do or where we go.”
We are, in spite of what we come to believe about ourselves, as our Tibetan brother might have said last week, the light of God.
God be merciful to me, a sinner, Jesus teaches us to pray.
Seven simple words.