Welcome, Welcome, Welcome

Yesterday, I overheard a parishioner who pays very close attention to the weather saying, “We got four inches of rain last week. That was more than we did all last summer.” Over the weekend tropical storm Cindy brought significant rain and serious winds through the Tennessee Valley, as well as most of the Southeast. What I noticed more than usual in regards to weather was how this storm, which made landfall in Texas, brought with it the climate of the humid coastline there. I walked outside on Friday and thought I was in muggy Houston, then hurriedly ran back inside. Welcoming the climate of somewhere else felt hard.

On the other hand, waking up this morning—after storms had all passed by the Decatur area—and taking a walk I could not help but smile. The weather could not be better, as the weekend's storm pushed both heat and humidity away for a couple days. Quite easily I accepted how it felt outside. Isn’t it strange that even with forces like the weather that are neutral—I mean apolitical, amoral, and without opinion—we can deem some of it good, while we call some of it bad? Imagine what we do with things that we do view as political, moralistic, opinionated, or religious! In other words, we are bad at welcoming almost all change in life, even though change is the substance of life.

The Gospel text for this coming Sunday stands out as surprisingly shorter than many in this Season after Pentecost in Year A. It is only two verses long! Perhaps the framers of the Revised Common Lectionary did this so we would focus on the word that is repeated over and over again: welcome. Welcome appears six times in two verses, and really the idea of welcoming pervades every word within this teaching. Jesus cannot seem to stress enough his desire for the hearer to welcome!

In Matthew 10:40-42 Jesus challenges us to welcome one another, him, the one who sent him, prophets, righteous people, and disciples. Truly, this was a starting point, as Jesus want us to expand that welcome even more. Unsurprisingly when I hear the word welcome I cannot help but recall a prayer attributed to Fr. Thomas Keating called—you guessed it—“The Welcoming Prayer.”

The prayer reads as follows:

“Welcome, welcome, welcome. I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing. I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions. I let go of my desire for power and control. I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval, and pleasure. I let go of my desire for survival or security. I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself. I open to the love and presence of God and His healing action within.”

This prayer is radical. No, I do not mean this in the Ninja Turtle sense, like bodacious or awesome! I mean that what Keating proposes requires us to radically shift our priorities, our vision, and our lives. If I say the above words and mean them, then I believe something different as I welcome even those difficult changes that come my way. The challenge is hearing this prayer not as a self-help mantra, but as the invitation that it is to allow God to be present within us, to heal us, and to act in our lives.

When we open up to and welcome what is happening by the hand of God we discover something far beyond our own desires and even our imaginations. Our lives at this very moment are woven intricately together in a vast web with each of our strands coming together to form the quilt that is Life. While we may think that we have control over a vast swath of what is happening, the truth is that this Life is brought together by the force within, between, and beyond, which we often call God. Before believing that we are merely bystanders to our own life let me add one more element.

The Welcoming Prayer coupled with Jesus’ teaching on welcoming pushes me to believe that what God yearns for is a co-creative dance that opens us up to Life flowing within, between, and among us. This is not easy. We are taught especially in American culture to be independent, in control, and in charge of our lives. We take on the mantra of Frank Sinatra, as we want to say, “I did it my way.” And yet, that is not how life in Christ and this welcoming of God’s weaving works. A final helpful analogy comes to mind.

We may not have control over all things in our lives. Instead we may just be like a hand. For a hand to receive something it must be open. For a hand to give something it must be open. Often though what we want is to hold onto something—a moment, a time in life, a prized possession, how we see the world, the way we have always done things, etc.—and so we close the hand thinking this will stop life from continuing or change from happening. Perhaps, for a time things keep on going as they have, but nothing new comes in and we cannot pass along those things that we hold so valuable. Eventually the hand becomes a clinched fist that is ready to fight, as it feels the fearful myth of scarcity. Those gifts clinched within the fist are not passed on to others and so others find them strange and antiquated. Without the openness to both give and receive the hand is nearly useless.

This week I invite us to let the clinched fists go. Hear Jesus’ words of welcoming. Live into the radical nature of the welcoming prayer. Open our hands in love to serve others and receive from those with whom we serve. Allow our lives to become a co-created tapestry in which God weaves together all of Life.

Glory

Not too long ago Evan and I were in a Presbyterian church for a funeral. As we sat in the congregation, he leaned over to me before the service started to remind me that “trespasses” and “trespass” in the Lord’s Prayer were replaced with “debts” and “debtors”.

On Christmas Eve I find myself spellbound listening to the broadcast of the Lessons and Carols service at King’s College in Cambridge, England. One of the moments that most captivates me comes when the congregation prays the Lord’s Prayer with distinct differences: “Our Father, which art in heaven,” (not who art in heaven) “in earth as it is in heaven,” (not on earth) and “as we forgive them that trespass against us” (not those).

On Thursday mornings during Centering Prayer we end our twenty minutes of resting in God’s presence with the Lord’s Prayer. Sometimes as we speak those words slowly and intentionally I forget a phrase, as I am wrapped up in words that have just left my mouth. If I am not careful I will not think about the words of prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and us.

At the end of the version we most often pray there is a phrase that stands out to me on this Wednesday in Holy Week: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” These words do not appear in our translation of Luke’s or Matthew’s telling of the Good News from which we get this prayer that is a part of our every liturgy together. It was not until 1662 that our Anglican forebears added this big finish, so from where does it originate?

Allegedly the Early Church added these words. They added them so early in fact that some of the first Gospel manuscripts carried this doxological statement. While most scholars will attest that Jesus probably did not speak these words when teaching his disciples how to pray, we still gain so much by uttering this statement that caps off the Lord’s Prayer. We are reminded at the last that it is God’s Kingdom, Power, and Glory that we seek, not our own. What does this look like though?

In today’s Gospel account we find ourselves reclining around a table with Jesus and the disciples at dusk on Maundy Thursday. In John’s telling of the story Christ Jesus through whom the entire cosmos came into being remains in control, even of his betrayal by Judas. When Jesus gives Judas the piece of bread only then does Satan enter the disciple, so that he carries out the terrible deed. Jesus even adds on, “Do quickly what you are going to do,” revealing his complete humanity alongside his entire divinity. Right as Judas leaves to betray his teacher Jesus turns the conversation to glory.

The text puts it in the following way: “When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.’” Perhaps you find this to be completely normal, but I see this connection as completely paradoxical! Betrayal glorifies God? Judas’ action to go out to hand over Jesus is the way in which God will glorify both the Father and the Son? How can this be?

We live in a self-glorifying age, and if I am not careful I fall victim to self-aggrandizing feelings, actions, and thoughts. Sometimes those of us who profess faith in God attempt to clothe our showy behavior in a shroud of false humility. One example immediately pops into my mind: well-intending athletes who after scoring a touchdown point up to heaven or who after winning a tournament say in an interview that God was responsible for this victory. This happens at award shows and elsewhere too in our society, but seemingly athletes exhibit this behavior most readily.

On the surface nothing is wrong with this action of turning the attention off of oneself. In fact, if it is sincere this stands out as an admirable recognition that all things stem from God. And yet, this is also where the dilemma arises. In Jesus’ words it is not a moment of triumph that is celebrated as God’s glory, but instead the darkest betrayal of all time! God’s glory is revealed not in victory or accomplishment, but in defeat and even death. Returning to our athlete analogy this would be the equivalent of striking out in the bottom of the ninth on a full count with the bases loaded in game seven of the World Series, and then pointing skyward to give God the credit. This would be like an athlete fumbling the ball on the one yard line and having it returned for a touchdown to lose the Super Bowl, and then getting down on one knee to thank God. In a world of competition the type of glory that Jesus embodies does not make sense, but to tell you the Truth trophies, gold, and recognition are not part of the Kingdom that Jesus inaugurated this week long ago.

The Son of Man, the Eternal Word, Christ Jesus came to show us the fullest extent of reality by transforming the most shameful instrument of torture into the ultimate expression of God’s love. God’s glory may best be seen in the complete failings of human beings to recognize God among us—as instead of accepting Jesus we crucified him—and still in that moment and throughout all time God says to us there is no way that we may escape God’s love. This is the glory that we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, not a type of pride that pats us on the back, but an overwhelming love that turns the most gruesome defeat into the greatest victory of all time!

“Increase Our Faith!”

Every week at our St. John’s Church staff meeting we start by reading the coming Sunday’s Gospel reading. Before we could even read Luke 17:5-10 I started to chuckle. A thought ran through my head that was too funny not to laugh out loud.

 

The passage for Sunday recounts the Apostles imploring Jesus as they said, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied with famous words of a faith the size of a mustard seed, but I thought of him saying something different. Instead, what if Jesus had just replied to the Apostles request by saying, “Okay.”? When I shared this insight with the rest of the staff we all snickered for a moment, but now I keep thinking why is having even a little faith so tough? Why can’t Our Lord just grant our request? Why do we have to slowly build up our faith like a seed blossoming into a bush? Simply put, I think it is because having faith is tough stuff.

There are a lot of things that come easy to some of us. Each of us has different talents. That is one of the great things about our human race and Christ’s Body, we possess different skills that we may share with one another and with all Creation. Faith though seems a little bit trickier. Of all the spiritual gifts it feels like one that is both hard to come by and hard to sustain. How is this essential part of developing a deeper relationship with God so difficult to develop? Mostly, I believe it is difficult because it goes against some pretty primal instincts that we have developed as a species.

Faith is believing in the unseen. Faith requires having hope even in the face of fear. Faith means trusting even when there is no evidence or even evidence to the contrary. We say that we have an immortal God, but our invisible God who may even be in our midst can feel so hard to find. Often this may be because we are so focused on the trees that we cannot see the forest. Or, as I recently heard Father Carl Arico put it, “We are too busy focusing on a tiny chalk mark to see the entire blackboard,” which is God’s reality or the Ultimate Reality. 

I believe many of us want our faith to increase, just like the Apostles did; however, this process--because of our human nature--requires a lot to develop. This is not unlike a mustard seed taking time, water, light, and good soil to grow. Having faith is not as simple as God saying, “Okay!” instead we must daily relinquish our own control to God. This means that if we really yearn for a faith growth we must give the time, nourishment, energy, and environment for that to actually happen.

Relationships with loved ones and friends (just like our relationships with God) often start with a spark, but they take years of shared experiences, conversations, time, energy, and so much more to blossom into relationships that we give our entire trust. God loves us regardless of the time that we put into our relationship with God; however, what we get when we work on trusting God is a more fruitful existence that can navigate the ups and downs, the twists and turns of life. 

When we take time out of our day to put away other distractions, intentionally focus on God, sit in silence, say the Daily Office, read a devotional, rest in God through Centering Prayer, spend time serving others, or so many other disciplines we practice having faith in God by relinquishing our own control. Even one of these small practices can grow over time into something much larger, such that we trust that our entire lives are lived in the Ultimate Reality of God’s loving embrace. We may want Jesus to simply say, “Okay!” to our request of increasing our faith. And yet, the life-long journey of faithfully letting go of what we desire and consenting to God’s will that encompasses what we yearn for and what God dreams for us bears much more fruit... It is even more fruit than a mustard bush!

Keeping Watch

The night before brave souls would be knighted by King Arthur they had to fulfill one last requirement. In the chapel, all through the small hours of the morning, they had to keep watch. I remember hearing the stories of the knights of the Round Table as a child when I went to Camp Winnataska. These legends remain an important strand in the weave of the camp's ethos. Today though, I wonder how readily available are opportunities for night watches or watches of any kind.

This coming Sunday's Gospel lesson from Luke challenges us to "be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that [we] may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks" (12:36). As I admitted in yesterday's blog I am quite impatient, so how do I (and how do we) learn to wait in a society devoid of rituals that bid us to practice the art of waiting on the Lord? We must take a page from King Arthur's book and bring back the vigil, but perhaps in a different way.

Every Maundy Thursday growing up at St. Andrew's Church in Birmingham I found myself with family members and strangers alike sitting in St. Mary's Chapel waiting. Many churches have this practice on remembering Jesus' call to stay awake with him praying, like he did in the Garden of Gethsemane. So, for an entire hour I was compelled to sit in silence. This was awfully challenging when I was a rambunctious tween. I could read or draw very politely, but that was it. "What a bore!" I thought. My mom did wisely provide the proverbial carrot of pizza at the end of that hour vigil, but this was my only real world link to what I had heard in the stories of King Arthur's knights, and I did not much like it.

Fast forward to college when Chaplain Tom Ward invited some friends and me to take part in a type of Christian meditation. I felt a little pressured by them to come along, but quickly I discovered through Tom's excitement about this type of prayer that this was not just some strange new theological fad. No, this was and very much still is a way of vigilantly waiting for Christ's knocking at our hearts. For most of my sophomore year I tried out this type of prayer, and I still recall that being the most grounded year of college. Then, I lost touch with Centering Prayer, which calls for one to focus on a word that centers one's entire being on resting in God's presence. That was until I met my wife.

About four years ago I met Kim at a meeting for our seminary's flag football team (I know right?). Immediately I felt a connection with her, and one of the ways that we immediately bonded was through Centering Prayer. I was in serious need of some spiritual depth as I entered my final year of MDiv. studies. I felt like God was pounding on the door of my heart, but how could I get down to unlock it and let Christ inside? Kim invited me to practice this type of patient prayer, which I struggled with this time around. However, the more I practice it the more it fills me up and allows me to realize that it is not about the practice of prayer, but how our lives become a life of waiting and watching.

Cursillo Reunion groups ask the question, "What was your closest moment to Christ this week?" I feel like what Jesus attempts to say to us through this week's reading is wait and watch for my coming. Centering Prayer wakes me up to a contemplative life in which I am constantly wondering where will I see God's handiwork next. This Cursillo question does likewise. So, how will you wait for God? Through prayer? Through a Cursillo Reunion or other small group? Through serving others? Through looking for Christ in the Holy Eucharist? We all are charged with the task of keeping watch. How do you wait for God?

Wonders and Signs

Wonders can be distracting from the signs that direct us.

John 4:43-54 inspires this homily.

A couple of weeks before I was ordained a priest (a little over a year ago) my sister Elin called to check in with me. Elin is my only sibling, eight years older than me. She is married to a wonderful man, they have three beautiful children, and she is an Episcopalian of the high church variety. When she and I get together we typically get into trouble. Our mother has actually forbid us from going to any future Ash Wednesday services together because one year right before my sister led the singing of the Psalm at that solemn liturgy, I said to her, “Remember you are but dust and to butt dust you shall return.” So when she called me to talk about my ordination, I hoped there was more to the call than just some questions about the service.

She asked me, “Well, what am I supposed to call you once you are ordained a priest?” Good Episcopalians like my sister call their priests either “Father” or “Mother.” I could hear my sister smiling through the phone, but I was not sure what she should call me. Then, she questioned, “Am I supposed to call you Father Brother?” I burst out laughing. She continues to call me Father Brother. Of course, the silliness of this encounter paled in comparison to what my mother said a couple of days later, “Well, I would like to call you Father Son.” “What?” I replied, “You are not going to call me that.” My mom continued, “Of course, it would be great if you could find a girl named Holy Spirit, then I could introduce you as, ‘Father Son’ and ‘Holy Spirit.’” When my family joked with me in this way I realized just like Jesus that ministers, like prophets have a hard go of it in their own country, within their own community, and especially with their own family.

It is not easy ministering to people who changed your diapers, washed your mouth out with soap, or picked fights with you over who got to ride shotgun. Someone asked me if I would ever want to go back to work at my home church. I immediately thought, “NO!” They may love me now, but what kind of expectations exist for home-grown ministers? Christ himself performed his deeds of power, taught ferociously, and showed signs of God in Galilee and Jerusalem rather than in his hometown of Nazareth.

So what? Are we supposed to escape from the foolishness of our youth by moving away from home so we can show how great we are to people who do not know us? Do we ignore the things that our children do that make us think of the Divine? Are we never to notice God’s presence in those who are right next to us?

We may struggle with seeing God in those closest to us for many reasons. We might think we know who she really is. We may believe that God could not possibly work through him. We could be holding astronomically high expectations for anyone and everyone who claims to be a servant of God.

Jesus said, “Unless you see signs and wonders you do not believe.” We can so easily fall into this trap of searching for signs and wonders from those around us and even more so from God. Maybe you have said prayers, as I have, like “Father, let my team win” or “God, help my enemy to change his mind” or even “Jesus, help me find my keys.” Our prayer life can devolve into directing God to do exactly what we want God to do. This is not praying though, this is demanding. Jesus says to us too, “Unless you see signs and wonders you do not believe.” Are we only interested in the wonders or are we looking where the signs are pointing?

A couple of years ago I began again a practice I had learned about during my time undergraduate studies at Sewanee. Almost every day I practice Centering Prayer. In Centering Prayer one rests in the presence of God dwelling in quiet for twenty minutes or so. The purpose is not getting rid of thoughts or pushing away any activity in one’s mind, but to familiarize ourselves with God’s first language of silence. We do not ask for anything. We just look within at where the signs are pointing. Our life of prayer and our Faith cannot hinge upon God answering all our prayers just as we think best. Rather, we must learn that God constantly speaks in and with us yearning to be in deeper relationship with us.

We can take our concerns to the Jesus as the royal official did, for Christ always listens. And yet, our Faith grows, as we learn not just to speak, but also to listen for God. The Divine is all around us in the people nearest and dearest to us AND in the people who we typically walk passed. Are you too busy looking for the wonders to see where the signs are pointing?