St. Martin of Tours

Scripture in Everyday Life

 

In Memory of Ernestine V. Maruca 9 January 1932 - 25 November 2007

All life experiences are connected and by God’s grace and healing we are invited to become whole, well, integrated, fully alive, members of a universal society.  Such is what this quilt of Tina’s expresses for it takes on the character of a two key words.   

The first key word is “peregrinatio.”    “Peregrinatio” is a Latin word and was used explain the Celtic way to "journey with God, not knowing where you are going, but you will find out when you get there."  This is what we have been doing over these last several years here at St. Martin’s, via our common life. We have been attending to Scripture, participating in the Sacraments, opening ourselves up for ministry and mission in our neighborhood. We, like Tina, also have been on a faith journey, a peregrinatio. 

The second key word is mandala.   A mandala is an image that takes life’s contradictions and brings them into a full and integrated expression of wholeness, expressing a sense of “all is well, all is well.” 

Tina’s quilt is a visual expression of both of these key words: a faith journey in the Celtic sense, and a visual presentation of wholeness.  [A picture of her quilt will be posted here.] 

As a mandala it embraces life’s opposites, it’s contradictions. It does so upon the backdrop of a star filled night sky, but in which even the night speaks of life’s wholeness.  It is as if Tina were quoting the Psalm, If I say,

“Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night,”Darkness is not dark to you;the night is as bright as the day;    darkness and light to you are both alike.  Ps. 139:10-11 

I will have more to say on this point further on. 

As I look upon Tina’s quilt, I see it as a reflection of our last several years, and our growth personally and as a congregation. For in the short course of our time together, we have gone through some hellish times and some grand times. Each of us has a list for detailing times fraught with contradictions, the coming to the surface of deep questions, not least of which was whether these doors were going to be closed. We found ourselves living out the questions. “Who am I, Who are we?”  “What were we trying to do, for just to stay open and alive, seemed to be beyond our reach?”  “Can I, Can we truly make it?”  Yet, we kept on, within the context of our personal situations, and our common life together here at St. Martin’s. It can be said, “We persevered.” But you know, we did so much more than just persevere. We came to know we were not alone. We opened up a church to the neighborhood, in the midst of our night, we embraced life and the larger family in which we are a part.  Like Tina’s quilt, we embraced and celebrated life, ourselves as a part of a community in formation. We did so, like Tina’s quilt indicates, in the midst of contradictions.   

Let’s look closely at Tina’s quilt for it is such a magnificent gift of the affirmation and celebration of life in the midst of all our struggles.   

Notice the back ground.  It’s a dark blue, and it looks like in the midst of it, there are paired stars. This dark blue background is like finding ourselves within the vastness of the universe itself.  However, if you look closely at these paired stars, they are butterflies, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of butterflies, with white wings and a red body.  

This pairing and integrating of opposites happens over and over again in this quilt. Nothing is one sided, all life’s contradictions become continuously embraced and integrated. Now look at the four squares that together almost form a circle. The shape of the white pattern is like an abstract of  Leonardo Di Vinci’s  drawings of the human figure, two arms raised, two legs, gathered and joined as if in a circular dance around the center most square, in which we are again confronted with the night and the vastness of the universe, however, here this center most square of the night is embraced from the four corners and the dance.         

Now comes a surprise. 

Each of the four white Di Vinci type figures have at their center, four hearts in a crucifix form, each visually breaking forth as a flower in full bloom.  That’s a surprise.  But the surprise becomes even more dramatic when upon a careful look at the center most square, in short, at the very center of our life’s experience, where we face life at its darkest moment, and it would seem where all hope is lost, … there (or here, I’m unclear as to which would be correct), Tina has again the four hearts as a cross forming a flower in full bloom. What is found in the white dancing figures is repeated in the centermost square as well.  

What is affirmed at the center, or the heart of the matter, is the source from which all things flow, or in this case is now echoed in full day light, in the four white figures caught up in a circle dance of life, around such a center. In this respect we have Good Friday and Easter as one, or in the tradition of St. John who used the single phrase to say it all, “He was lifted up.”   

Here’s another way to approach this quilt or mandala of Tina’s. 

From the four corners, note how ones ascent / descent is centered in the night that is no night. Then note from the axis of the horizontal and the vertical, we again our centered in the cross and a sense of dance as we move to the heart of life’s vastness, its mystery.  In the partial and limited character of the known – there is this experience, visually celebrated, of the cross of Life. It is now celebrated as the flower we are in full bloom, for “the night is not night to you, O Lord, our God, our Life, and no longer is it night for us.” 

Like all faith journeys and mandalas, these few words do not exhaust what is before us. Each of us brings to it our own way of entry into this way of speaking of life and wholeness, this sense of “all is well, all is well.” 

Thank you, Tina. Thank you, Frank, for letting me share Tina’s faith journey, her peregrinatio, her mandala.  

"The Art of Listening" Series 

November 8, 2008
From Trinity cathedral, Davenport, IA
Conducted by Chaplain Marlin Whitmer, retired
St. Luke's / Genesis Hospital

Greetings One and All,

The Art of Listening Session meets Sunday, November 8th, 9:30 - 10:15 AM, in the chapel. Our topic: "leap froging: Staying with the story being told is not as easy as it sounds."

Next month: "Emotions and Listening"

The Gospel for this Sunday has Jesus taking in the sights and sounds of the Temple while teaching. We are again under Mark's guidance in seeing for understanding (susnesis) in order to make connections. Or could we say Mark's way of writing reflects the Jesus he is writing about. The sights and sounds of Jesus provides a voice that goes with Mark. I have a fascinating book with the title "My Voice Goes with You." We might say Mark sees differently because of the way Jesus sees reality. He tells the story to help us make the same transformation/transition.

The words observe, observing, observation, all have serv in the middle, "originally referred to tending sheep." (Thomas Moore, "Care of the Soul," p. 5) We are at the source of pastoral care words, including tendare, to care in the Latin.

Jesus, continually tending the sheep, observes the outward behavior of the scribes, one group of religious leaders of his time. Stuck in the middle of the observation is a scathing remark, "they devour widow's houses." 

Then Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, he positions himself to watch outward behavior. The posture of sitting down conveys a willingness to take his time. The orientation metaphor "opposite" prepares us for an "opposite" view point as well. Jesus watches the crowd putting money into the treasury. Since they can't do this all at once we can assume time is being given for this observation. We have many rich with large sums and the contrast, a poor widow. She represents a socially disenfranchised member of their society as a widow. In spite of that, her contribution is greater, out of her poverty.

What observations do we need to make, tending sheep, serving pastoral care in the Name of Christ? Listening is a needed skill and our Lord demonstrates his ability,

Shalom, Fr. Whitmer

Mark 12:38-44

Teaching in the temple, Jesus said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

Member's Reflections on their faith and work 

• Parables for Guidance, Sermon by Deacon Kim Roberts, June 14, 2009
• Job's Challenge, God's Response, Sermon by Fr. Ron Whitmer, June 21, 2009

Deacon Kim Roberts

St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Second Sunday of Pentecost, June 14, 2009  

Sermon, Deacon Kim Roberts
June 14, 2009  •  Mark 4:26-34

Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."
It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."

Here’s a riddle for you.

“What is stronger than God,
more evil than the devil,
poor people have it,
rich people don’t need it,
and if you eat it, you’ll die?”
(Repeat)  

The answer is: “Nothing.”
 
A parable is like a riddle. They are stories that leave the listener with the responsibility of figuring out just what they mean. Jesus told more than 40 parables during his ministry, and he only explained one of them to his disciples, so that left the disciples with a lot of figuring out to do. And then Jesus took the answers with him when he ascended into heaven. So here we are, some 2000 years later, still pondering what Jesus must have meant when he told the story of The Wedding Feast, or The Dishonest Steward, or The Good Samaritan.
 
German theologian Helmut Thielke says that we cannot comprehend the parables of Jesus until we see ourselves in the story. Like a small child, recognizing herself in the mirror for the very first time, when we see ourselves represented in the story, then we finally get it. Then we realize that we’re the snotty younger son who ran away with his father’s fortune. We’re the Levite who passed by the beaten man on the road to Jericho. You might even be the wise man who built his house upon the rock, and I might be the fool who built my house on the sand. Once we see ourselves in the story, the story takes on a whole new meaning, and then we understand.

In the Gospel today, Jesus is telling us about the Kingdom of God – but he is using  parables to do it.

So, the first parable describes the Kingdom as the seeds planted through Jesus’ ministry that will lead to a crop that we, as His disciples, must be ready to harvest when it is ripe.

The second parable is the story of the mustard seed. The mustard seed is a well-known story about the insignificant becoming great. The story has even spawned a cottage industry among the manufacturers of religious items. One can purchase all kinds of “mustard seed” products. I myself once owned a mustard seed necklace.

But what can these nice stories mean for us at St. Martin’s?
 
Well, we certainly know a thing or two about insignificance. And like St. Martin’s, Jesus, by today’s standards, would not have been seen as a success.

Jesus was just a lowly carpenter from Nazareth. And because he taught the truth, he gained followers, and because he gained followers, the rich and powerful of the time became suspicious – he upset the status quo. For this, he was put to death in the most humiliating way possible. His death was meant to be an example to his followers or anyone else who may want to undermine the authority of the Roman Empire. Well – his death was an example, all right. Two thousand years later, we no longer have a Roman Empire, but we have millions of followers of Christ.

These two parables offered hope at a time of persecution and oppression. Now we live in a restless time – a time of instant access, instant gratification. Can we at St. Martin’s find hope in the parables?

St. Martin’s isn’t exactly pulling in SRO crowds. Our coffers are not overflowing. Our beautiful historic building has many flaws and does not lend itself easily to today’s modern ministry.

And true – any one of us could find another church that would suit us – perhaps one of the “mega-churches.” I understand that those ”McChurches” have a ministry that would fit any type of person – or they think they do.
 
But, here we are. The small, the broke, the tired. Sometimes we may feel annoyed, disgusted or hopeless. But in this sad and restless time, here we are. Through God’s good graces, the tireless work of our interim Rector, Father Ron, the incredible faithfulness of our laity, we have a new roof, we’ve started an amazing outreach ministry with South High and community agencies, we’ve started educating our members – and we are singing.

We are also networking with other South Omaha entities. Through our involvement with IHS, we may have the opportunity to have an exhibit of Latino youth art through a program called Arts for All.

In a little more than a month, we will meet as a faith community to determine the future direction of St. Martin’s. I encourage you all to think about that tiny mustard seed before we gather in July. A lot could have happened to it on the way to becoming the greatest of all shrubs.

It could have died of neglect. It might have been mistaken for a weed and pulled up. It could have been in the way of progress – or too expensive to take care of. Instead, it grew large enough so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

Sometimes it is important to hang on to a belief. I hope that you can hang on to the belief that sometimes our least efforts can yield unexpected abundance through the gift of God’s presence in our lives and in the world.

Here’s a prayer I use at times of discernment. It’s Thomas Merton’s prayer from “Thoughts in Solitude.”

God, we have no idea where we are going. We do not see the road ahead of us. We cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do we really know ourselves, and the fact that we think we are following you does not mean that we are actually doing so. But we believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And we hope that we will never do anything apart from that desire. And we know that if we do this, you will lead us by the right road, though we may know nothing about it. Therefore, we will trust you always. Amen.

 

Job's Challenge, God's Reponse

Implications for St. Martin’s
Fr. Ron Whitmer, June 21, 2008

Job challenged God, and God responded. That response is what we heard read to us this morning by Brittany.  “Old Story, New Lives: The Book of Job,” so read the course outline for a course to be taught at Yale Divinity a few years back by David Michalek.  Job confronts us with our lack of understanding grievous loss, human suffering, to the point of crying out, “I want to die!”  In chapter 38 of Job, we heard God’s reply and the possibility for experiencing our human condition in a new way.  Among some of the later writings of Carl Gustav Jung was the book he titled “Job.” [In this book Jung suggested that Job’s challenge of how one is to make sense of our human condition called forth the theophany of chapter 38 as in implicit statement of Presence and compassion. It would become explicit in the Word made flesh of the Gospels.]

What Job was invited to hear, know and appreciate is that all, with capital letters, ALL, resides within a larger context, an overarching, fully present and abiding relationship with the One Present from the beginning and on to the end. This is asserted as a truth most essential, and even, when we are overwhelmed in those times of loss, abandonment, grave illness and suffering, including times when we just want to die. Death itself is bound up within the Life of Creation and all life forms as an on-going phenomenon.  This is what chapter 38 of Job gives witness to. Job found himself in the midst of the human condition and in the intensities of the experience, with no sense of the Presence of God.  The human condition continues, in its intensities. However, as our stories unfold, there comes an awakening of  God’s presence with us, a Word made flesh, awaking us to this larger context and network of relationships within which we reside as we are, where we are, in our human condition.

Job in chapter 38, provides St. Paul with the background that enables him to say what he says. For he too, like the author of Job, integrates our human condition within this larger framework, taking the down side of experience and letting it become available to the full Presence of God.

So also in the Gospel of Mark this morning, a similar transformative reality arises with the disciples caught in a small boat, threatened by the fierce storm. This story invites us to read it mytho-poetically. As we do, we have another encounter with our human condition. Filled with fear, the disciples had the sense to awaken their Lord. In their fear they awoke to the Presence of the Lord. And so do we have this same opportunity. As we do, like the disciples, we also experience our human condition radically altered. 

This is what this 38th chapter of Job seeks to call to mind, as do St. Paul’s words to us in this passage from his Second Letter to Corinthians, and in the disciples experience of a raging storm.

Did Job listen,  … did the Corinthians, … the disciples in the boat, … are we listening?

It’s important to note that for most of us, compassion and the experience of a new context within which to experience our human condition, doesn’t happen quickly. We have to live a bit for it to truly take hold and discovering this transforming place among us.  I would suggest that compassion and especially the embracing of compassion in the midst of the human condition of loss, chronic suffering and pain, and life threatening events, arrives slowly. It takes years. Yes, growing older has benefits.  Here is how T.S. Eliot expresses it.

                                              As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment,
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. …
Old men ought to be explorers
                 T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, ‘East Coker.’

The benefit that arises as we grow older is a sense of context and relationship and at some point of all residing with all and which we can now encounter as “explorers.”  We gain with time a inkling of the universe whole and as one. That’s what God’s word was to Job: his awakening to a sense of the wholeness of all. In the context of our human condition there is this larger context of the whole within which we reside and are.

We awaken slowly, in fits and starts.
Experience unfolds,
Wooing us towards frontiers of consciousness.
Imprints of Reality approach and embrace us speaking their affirming “YES!” 

Now let’s see what the implications of this might be for us here at St. Martin’s.

I commend this orientation of the whole, contexts within contexts, all in relation as one, as we envision our future.

When I speak of this time as our time to awaken to being led by the future, it means to be open to this larger relational context within which we are living. It is from within this frame, this foundation, that we are invited to work matters out, concretely, specifically, and pragmatically.  Doing so sets us into the context of that acceptable time of the Lord. It is not our time, but the Lord’s time within which we are invited to attend.

As St. Paul reminds us today: “Now” is that time. This is the time of the Lord’s. It is a time that is continually breaking in upon us.  We are reaping its benefits and its blessings. This is what enables us to proceed.

Debbie in her note to us this morning wrote “this mustard seed is taking root.” What a grand insight she has shared with us. It’s her way to say, “I am working at developing roots within this soil in which my life is to be lived.” So it is to be for all of us. Her insight is our insight, and each of us will find the proper language by which to express it for ourselves, and for St. Martin’s.

Some may not find this a very satisfying response. Some may want greater assurance, and specifically in terms of what we would call “practical matters.”

My answer to that is “Practical matters find their resolution within the context of compassion, mercy, love, and friendship. These are the larger contexts of meaning and value  -  of what’s important and why it is so.”  Here is where discernment, seeking understanding,  enters into the picture and becomes our critical work. 

It is a work we are to do together, within the larger family within which we are membered.  Not only this family of St. Martin’s, but the Episcopal family here in the Omaha area, and not only here, but the family here in South Omaha, and especially those with whom we have already partnered as collaborators over this last year, with those at the high school across the street, with the staff of visiting nurses and educare, with those who are part of the Interfaith Health Service organization, with Mosaic Community Development, with Word Made Flesh, and others each of us can name as co-workers in mission and ministry.

For whatever is to be discerned and understood about our future, it is an understanding to be informed and expressed within the larger context of a compassionate and sacred world opening up before us and in these initial and preliminary relationships.

Our envisioning time will be one to see St. Martin’s and ourselves and the world in which we are living not as a collection of isolated and fragmented things or problems or persons, but as a whole together, in all the variety of contexts within which we reside, becoming drawn into a network of ever expanding relationships, contexts within contexts informed by compassion and the presence of God. 

Our challenge will be to see and know, concretely and practically, the implications of this network of relationships of the whole. Here we come to know who we are, what we are to be about, and yes, even to know ourselves equipped by grace with sufficient capacity to engage in the work we are called to do.

If anything has impressed me over the course of these two years, it is that even small groups can accomplish wonders when open to God’s joy and love and goading presence to embody that same joy and love in relationships where we are --- like the people in the school across the street, the kids in our neighborhood, and the people among whom we live and work. Are we doing it perfectly?  No, but we have done it sufficiently to know that our hand has been put to the plow.

Do we have all the answers?  No, not at all, but the critical question has to do with whether we are open to being drawn further into those relationships within which God has already established us, for he is already here, waiting and ready to empower us even more so.  It is for us to give witness in our practice, in our worship, in our formation, and as called ones alongside with our neighbors. How, in the specifics and within this context of the whole, this remains for us to work on. We have been working on this, we are, and we will be July 25th and following.

Closing Prayer:  Lord, be present with us, not only to awake us to the fullness of your Presence in the context of our human condition and the multiplicities of our relations; but also awake us to the pragmatic opportunities appropriate for us in how we worship you, are formed by you, and express your caring for one another and our neighbors, here at St. Martin’s and in South Omaha. We seek your guidance Lord, in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

_____________________

Awaken Christ
Daily Reading for June 21  •  The Third Sunday after Pentecost   •  The Episcopal Cafe

When you have to listen to abuse, that means you are being buffeted by the wind. When your anger is roused, you are being tossed by the waves. So when the winds blow and the waves mount high, the boat is in danger, your heart is imperiled, your heart is taking a battering. On hearing yourself insulted, you long to retaliate; but the joy of revenge brings with it another kind of misfortune—shipwreck. Why is this?  Because Christ is asleep in you. What do I mean? I mean you have forgotten his presence. Rouse him, then; remember him, let him keep watch within you, pay heed to him. . . . A temptation arises: it is the wind. It disturbs you: it is the surging of the sea. This is the moment to awaken Christ and let him remind you of those words: “Who can this be? Even the winds and the sea obey him.”

From a sermon of Augustine of Hippo, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998). Posted by Vicki K. Black on June 21, 2009 4:00 AM

  

Brittany Hanson

St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Fifth Sunday after Easter, May 10, 2009

Fr. Ron invited me to share on and explore two main points in my personal journey this morning.

1) The ministry of presence
2) What motivated me toward this work, or way of being in the world

To begin:
I am a community organizer, yes, but what does that mean and what does that have to do with being present in the community, and what does it have to do with my/our spirituality? 

Logistically speaking, as a community organizer:
I canvas the neighborhood with flyers about events in the community, walking up and down Park Avenue. 
I knock on doors of churches until clergy agree to sit down and chat. 
I send loads and loads of e-mails, followed by phone call after phone call. 
I recruit volunteers.
I build relationships in the community and then I connect people to each other. 
I organize meetings. 
I write agendas. 
I facilitate group discussions. 
I write action plans and provide accountability to leaders. 
I spend time at the local laundry mat getting to know neighbors. 
I attend City Council meetings. 
I mediate conflict. 
I encourage the inter-faith community to work together.
I live in the neighborhood in which I work…(describe neighborhood)
On and on it goes…

In terms of the more intangible: 
I build bridges and relationships. 
I listen. 
I learn. 
I respond. 
I work hard to earn respect.
I work to provide opportunities for folks to move beyond isolation to community, hatred, fear and misperception to relationship and reconciliation, hopelessness to hope. 
I succeed. 
I fail. 
I collaborate.
I invite people to discover commonalities and accept differences. 
I cry and I laugh and I don’t sleep enough. 
And I am no super-heroine, and therefore I do none of it alone.

My work is about reconciliation—with self, one another, our environment, and God—and the intertwining of each of these aspects.  Our relationships with each other, with the poor in our community, those of ethnicities, social classes and cultures outside of our own do matter; in fact, they matter dearly.  It matters that we treat out neighbors well; it matters that some neighborhoods have easy access to necessary services, and others do not.  It matters that we know, accept, refine and believe in who we are, individually and collectively.  It matters that all things will be made new, and that we have the opportunity, we have been extended the invitation to obediently participate in the Kindgom’s arrival and coming today, tomorrow, and while we are present in this physical world. 

This is the work my profession embodies—though not all view or perceive it in the context of the Kingdom of God, and that is okay and in fact some of the excitement.  For me, I am working with my neighbors toward the kind of neighborhood embodied in Zechariah 8:

“Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets, each with a cane in hand because of his and her age.  The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.  The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops and the heavens will drop their dew.”

As for how I have come to where I am:
My own journey remains very much a mystery to me—some seasons have been hopeful, others terribly agonizing.  Yet, in this ambiguity there are signposts and lessons which I am certain have formed me into who I am and who I continue to become—and that I know I count on to continue guiding me in the future.

My random family: 
Diverse—religiously, culturally and racially.
Traumatic—at times, unloving, hurtful, and yet an incubator for patience and perseverance.
My mother is a rock.  She is resilient and is very much responsible for who I have become.

My Unexpected Spiritual Teachers:  Tupac Shakur, Maya Angelou, bell hooks, Lauryn Hill, Nina Simone, James Baldwin and Richard Wright.
Instilled me a sense of the world outside my own.
Challenged me to examine my inner self.
Encouraged me toward creativity and imagination.
Taught me responsibility for self and others.

Community:  my amended, revised family.
Hope for recovery, restoration, and a future I want to live in to.
Courage to face fear and darkness.
Commitment to presence regardless of outcome or change.
Love, un-ending, without strings, and hopeful.

In closing, as we talk about the ministry of presence this morning, it is fitting that our Epistle lesson for this fifth Sunday after Easter is from the third chapter of First John.  The text indicates that love is the guidepost by which we will know we have passed from death to new life—and that the qualification for the presence of this life-giving love is not merely speech, but also truth and action.

Read Text. 1 John 4:7-21

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

Interestingly and importantly, in the next chapter we find that the writer of the text intuitively elevates this somewhat ambiguous discussion of loving one another by noting that that very human and natural force called fear is an inevitable part of this conversation. 

He writes:  “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in her. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”

We are afraid.  At times we are afraid for good reason:  violence in our communities, an economic system that is unstable and unsustainable, convincing media and political rhetoric indicating irreconcilable religious divides. 

Yet, we are also simply afraid of that and those we do not know. 

bell hooks imagines the text in this way:  "When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us."

In truth, though it is not always easy to swallow, we find life in loving one another.  In loving one another, even and especially those we consider to be ‘the least of these’ we discover our common humanity.  In discovering our common humanity, we are empowered to examine the implications and consequences of our right (or many times, wrong) relationship with one another, self, society, environment and God.  In patiently examining such relationships, we are motivated to become participants in the Incarnation.  For love is both the process and the product of our ongoing conversion.

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Looking Ahead: Last Sunday after the Epiphany

The Transfiguration:  2 Kings 2:1-12;  Psalm 50:1-6;  2 Corinthians 4:3-6;  Mark 9:2-9

Mark 9:2-9 

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.  

 "Besides the theme of the disciples' blindness (or stupidity) in Mark, there is also the theme of Jesus' faithfulness to his blind disciples. Given the choice of glory on a mountain or death on a cross, which is more attractive? Jesus comes down the mountain. He will not give up on his disciples. He not give up his divine mission for the sake of all humanity."

Brian P. Stoffregan, "Exegetical Notes"
http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark9x2.htm

 

Contents of postings on this page  

• Redefining the Boundaries, from "sensing God," Roger Ferlo
• Insiders / Outsiders, Sixth Sunday in Epiphany, Readings
• Join Hands, Reach Out, and Lift up, The Most Rev. Jefferts Schori, 2/8/09
• What is the source of Jesus' authority?
• Poetic Expression on Jesus' authority
• Two Key Words: "henini" and "parakaleo"
• Rowan Williams Christmas Sermon
• Reflection of the Parable of the Talents
• The Coin Question, Mt. 22:15-22
• Parable of the Wedding Feast, Mt. 22:1-14
• The Charge Given to us as Disciples, Mt. 18
• Who do you say I am? Mt. 16:13-20

Latest Offering  

Redefining the boundaries

Daily Reading for February 15 • The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/thesoul/daily_reading/redefinition.html

When Jesus chooses to touch the leper he is not just curing him of chronic eczema or psoriasis. Nor is he simply forgiving the man’s sins, although most people who have assumed that the leper’s crawling skin was both the result and the sign of sinfulness. By stretching out his hand and touching the leper, Jesus muddies the boundary separating the clean from the unclean, what is socially acceptable from what is socially anathema.

Such a touch has political as well as therapeutic implications. In effect, it redefines how God acts in the world. Jesus tells the man he is to show himself to the priests, thus starting a process of political and social reintegration that will restore the healed leper to full status in the ritual system that once had cast him out. But Jesus’ touch, as Mark describes it, is more powerful than even Jesus himself had imagined. Instead of going quietly to the priests, the leper spreads the news through all the neighboring towns. It is not a story that can be kept quiet. In the gospel’s larger picture, the leper’s new wholeness is a sign that the entire system that had separated clean from unclean is in jeopardy, about to be blown wide open.

From "Sensing God: Reading Scripture With All Our Senses" by Roger Ferlo (Cowley Publications, 2002). Posted by Vicki K. Black on February 15, 2009 4:00 AM

All things are clean

[Less we should think that the interpretation noted above is unique to our time, hear the words of Origen, 185-254.]

And why did Jesus touch the leper, since the law forbade the touching of a leper? He touched him to show that “all things are clean to the clean.” Because the filth that is in one person does not adhere to others, nor does external uncleanness defile the clean of heart. So he touches him in his untouchability, that he might instruct us in humility; that he might teach us that we should despise no one, or abhor them, or regard them as pitiable, because of some wound of their body or some blemish for which they might be called to render an account. . . . So, stretching forth his hand to touch, the leprosy immediately departs. The hand of the Lord is found to have touched not a leper, but a body made clean! Let us consider here, beloved, if there be anyone here that has the taint of leprosy in his soul, or the contamination of guilt in his heart? If he has, instantly adoring God, let him say: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

From Origen’s Fragments on Matthew, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament II, Mark, edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).  

Insiders / Outsiders

Looking ahead to Sixth Sunday of Epiphany: Readings: II Kings 5:1-4; I Corinthians 9: 24027;   Mark 1:40-45

The theme of "insiders" and "outsiders" is present in both the readings from II Kings and the Gospel of Mark. In both of these text, the stories speak of such a distinction as questionable. 

The dividing of the peoples of the world into some who are insiders and others who are outsiders is set aside for a new way in which the community is to order itself.

My suggestion would be to read the above texts, then offer this prayer:

Lord, may our perception of you be derived from having "fixed our minds on things that are above."  

Read again the texts, particularly II Kings and Mark, then ask yourself these two questions:

Is our perception of You, Lord, one that divides the world into "insiders and outsiders," or it such a perception in your eyes meaningless?

If the distinction is meaningless in your eyes Lord, then, does it not also follow, that to walk in your footsteps, as sons and daughters of God, we also are to proclaim life and to offer life, in short, that we are to be servants and healers also, doing as you did, empowering the powerless?

For Jesus, this distinction  "insider / outsider," was not something that determined what he would do or not do. He lived within an "open circle." 

Mark's Jesus accordingly moves quickly from baptism to proclamation to healing.  Jesus moves from proclaiming this God to acting on the basis of his proclamation: knowing a God who is effervescently about life means being in touch with this God's power of life, a power of healing, a power of restoration, a power of calling all into the divine circle of insiders, a circle that essentially has no outsiders except those who resist this completely open circle and so place themselves outside its circle. The latter still operate according to the old gods of the sacred who insist on an insider/outsider structure, and they thus exclude themselves from the true God's inclusivity. For those who accept Jesus' invitation, there is healing of body but also healing of the old divisions and old idolatries. The leper is not only cleansed in body but also restored to community.

http://girardianlectionary.net/year_b/epiphany6b.htm 

Join Hands, Reach Out, and Lift up

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
26th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 08, 2009

Mark 1:29-39; 5th Sunday after the Epiphany   http://day1.org/1197-join_hands_reach_out_and_lift_up

       I had news recently of the death of a friend's brother-in-law.  He was a 60-year old Viet Nam War vet, a man possessed by the demons of war, until he was finally released in death.  The last several decades of his life were filled with midnight terrors and round-the-clock attempts at self-medication.  As I wrote his family, I prayed that his wounded life might be resurrected in the healing of God's ultimate grace.  There are increasing numbers of haunted souls like him, each in need of healing.  
       Healing the sick and similarly possessed was a central part of Jesus' earthly ministry.  His gift of physical and spiritual healing restored human beings to full participation in their communities.  Healing and deliverance from pain and illness is a hallmark of the great prophetic dream called the Reign of God, where no one goes hungry, the ill and grieving are healed, and those in various kinds of prisons are set free for abundant life.  Over and over again in the gospels we hear that Jesus "went about healing many who were sick or possessed by demons."  It is a foundational image of the work we share as his followers.
       When Jesus went to Simon's house, he had just come from healing a man like that veteran.  Simon's mother-in-law was sick with a fever, and Jesus walked over, took her by the hand, and "raised her up."  That same word for raised or lifted up is used on Easter morn -- "he is not here, he is risen" -- but it is also used of Jesus being lifted up on the cross.  Simon Peter's mother-in-law is raised up from her illness, and what does she do?  She begins to minister, to serve.  She is the first active witness to what a resurrected life in Jesus looks like.  At baptism, we too are raised into a new life of service or ministry to others and acknowledge that ministry is a matter of lifting up our crosses daily.
       We may not know her name, but the mother of Simon's wife is a model for our own servant ministry.  Touched and healed by Jesus, she becomes minister of healing herself.  She gets up from her bed and presumably begins to feed people, as any good Jewish housewife of the day would do for her son in law and his honored guests. 
       The very next encounter that Jesus has in Mark's gospel is also about touching and healing someone -- this time a leper.  The leper is told to keep quiet about his healing, but he can't do it -- he has to tell the world.  The upshot is that Jesus can't even enter a town without being besieged.  The world is desperate for healing.  Like the street outside Simon's mother-in-law's home, the streets out there are also filled with the sick and possessed, each one eager to be made whole.
       The touch of a hand can heal, restore life, and exorcise our demons as well.  Michelangelo used that powerful image of life-giving touch when he pictured creation as God reaching out a hand to Adam, offering life.  We often say that Christians are the hands and feet of Jesus in the world.  How do our hands serve as instruments of healing, and help to raise others to new life?
       Simon's mother-in-law gets up and serves a meal.  Food and feasting and the heavenly banquet are central images of a healed creation.  The Good Samaritan ensures that the robbery victim he lifts up and takes to an inn is provided with food and drink for healing.  The resurrected Jesus shares breakfast on the beach with his grieving and dispirited disciples.  You and I have abundant opportunities to feed the hungry – through soup kitchens, reformed farm policies, and development that helps people around the globe to grow nutritious and affordable food.
       The touch of healing is obviously about caring for those with physical illness.  Our hands may be put to healing work in literally tending the sick, infirm, or housebound, but, equally importantly, ensuring that all members of the community have access to medical care.  Our hands may serve in the voting booth or the sickroom. 
       Hands can also heal psychic illness.  My friend's brother-in-law had the demon called "no hope."  He didn't meet the needed hand of healing in this life; we pray that the good shepherd hands that led him home will bind up his wounds.  Yet we see others who do find the needed touch of weal, whether in a person who will sit and listen to the pain behind the war stories or the searching hands and eyes that will take a fallen comrade to shelter or hospital.
       Hands may provide hope in surprising ways.  I visited a congregation in Florida recently which has for many years been host to an Ethiopian Orthodox community, nearly all of them refugees.  That community worshiped with us on a Sunday morning, and shared a joyful telling of the story of Israel going down into Egypt and being led out by the hand of God.  That was what we were told before the story began; and as the chanting started, we may not have understood the words, but we did hear and see the liberation of that journey to freedom.  During the lengthy singing a young woman beat the rhythm of the tale on a large and powerful drum, three feet across and five feet long.  She alternated between loud booming beats on the large end and staccato conversation on the small end.  Her hands held the whole of the singing group together.  Those who sat in the congregation accompanied her with complex clapping rhythms and hula-like movements of their hands.  Together a varied and disparate group of hundreds formed one whole, focused on the power of God to lead us into wholeness and holiness.
       Where have you met the healing hand of God?  Where has that hand, gloved in human flesh, reached out to lift you up?  Maybe that hand has fed you or soothed your troubled and fevered brow.  Perhaps that hand has even shaken you to greater wakefulness, to notice the lonely soul or the suffering mob in the street outside.
       Jesus' healing touch was grounded in open vulnerability.  He received the yearning masses, healing as many as he could.  He taught the crowds about the present reality of God's reign, breaking in all around them, and he offered hope.  He silenced the demons who would cry out that there is no hope.  He formed disciples by letting them try the work themselves, even though they frequently failed.  He held himself open to whatever and whomever the day presented, even the terror of execution at the hands of an occupying government.  His service was one of constant lifting up, in the face of forces that would tear down.
       Will you let yourself be taken by the hand and lifted up?  Where and how will you join hands, reach out, and lift up others to healing?  For, indeed, as Simon and his companions said to Jesus when they found him at prayer, "everyone is searching for" that physician of hope.

Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.  
--Thomas A. Dorsey, 1932

Let us pray.
O God, your loving hand has made us in your own image, given us all we possess, and redeemed us through Jesus your Son:  reach out your hand again and heal us, that we may respond in kind, offering your hope and healing to all who are broken in body or spirit, that together we may be your whole and healed and holy Body on this earth.  This we pray in the name of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

What is the source of Jesus’ authority?

Fr. Ron Whitmer, January 30, 2009

A reflection on the development of the Teen Mother and Father Program as a collaborative work here in South Omaha with South Omaha High School, its 85 teen mothers, the Visiting Nurses Association, Educare Omaha, Mosaic Community Development, St. Martin's and a gathering of surrounding churches.

I share with you rough notes on two levels. The first level is the text itself for this coming Sunday, Mark 2:21-28. The second level arises in the context of this ongoing conversation between text and experience.

In the text for this coming Sunday, we read,

They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority,
and not as the scribes.

What was the difference between what they were experiencing in their encounter with Jesus and what they had come to know with the scribes?

The structure of this sentence is most curious.  It does not say that this authority was under the ownership of Jesus. Rather the structure “having authority” suggests more about the relationship within which “having authority” arises.

What was or is that source from which the authority of Jesus arose that set it apart so dramatically with the authority of the scribes?

I am fumbling for words and language here. Might it not be that it is the very ground of being within which/whom Jesus lived, moved, worked, and made known that marked the difference?

In short, Jesus was available to a larger framing or source.  It was that of the universe whole.

In him, all was one. The community of all together was what was real. It was not as it is for us, a broken, or even a community in formation. It was and is a community already formed, fully present, there for us as our calling, vocation, and mission.

When there is that kind of in-breaking, it conveys its own authority.

The world of unreality, the world fragmented, is under judgment. But not only is the world of unreality and fragments brought under judgment, it is also confronted by this authority of the whole with its own demise and final destruction.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Now having said the above as a preamble, I want now to say something about these last 6-9 months. The count is somewhat arbitrary, but it is sufficient for trying to contain my thoughts and bring the threads of these last number of months into some kind of coherence.

When the question was raised that we give thought to looking at the South Omaha area as a region for working toward doing mission and ministry together, as was expressed by Canon Judi Yeates to me in a meeting with her at the Cathedral, a process began to take form, beginning slowly, and gradually finding traction, and then in mid September, following a meeting with Cara Riggs, the new principal at South Omaha High School, several of us felt we were poised upon a beach head of some significance for doing just what had been raised as a question four months earlier. Cara Riggs identified that they had an unmet need of 85 teen mothers. The staff of the school were overwhelmed, yet moved to care, but lacked resources to do so.  Three of us in her office that September afternoon were asked if, as persons from the outside community, networked as we were, we might be able to help.

Within the framing of that request there was presented an opportunity to be a community in formation, and to re-acquaint ourselves with the authority and healing power that resides in the end toward which such a formation is moved. We were being teased to move toward that authority that stood in stark contrast to the authority of the world and the scribes. I suspect that at the time, none of us knew or understood, and we still may not, the authority which is moving us to respond and move forward as we are. But we are being teased to give consideration to something much larger than ourselves in the mix of what's happening!

It began with an identifiable need. There was a recognition that the need was larger than what any single individual or agency could responsibly by themselves address. It would take a coming together of multiple talents, resources, and agencies, willing to come together, act collaboratively, openly, to be one with all, alongside. Yes, we are a community in formation, and what I have discovered, it is filled with one surprise after another.  As the community widens and grows it is as if we are under the leadership and guidance of some one, some thing, not yet named, save by inklings in texts like this coming Sunday. I am teased to think that the one leading and guiding us is that same the authority of this text, now awakening us here, of the end toward which we and all are continuing to be moved and directed by. 

It is as if we are being led by an “emergent future” (Otto Scharmer, “Presence’) or to use more Biblical language, it is as if we are being led by the Spirit in this ministry of reconciliation, of living the community whole, present, one with another as we are in our several needs for healing and restoration, discovering our true identity, calling, vocation, and mission.

What I can give witness to over these last 6-9 months is that we are privileged, humbled, and so grateful that what is underway is happening, and so alive with a future which we can almost literally taste. It is so very, very good.

This coming Tuesday, we launch the Teen Mothers and Fathers Program. For full details, you can read in two reports of the Task Group, how it unfolded, and stands ready to begin. It is a comprehensive program, complete with an infant store, presentations by those who have walked the walk, tutoring, and nurture on issues of health, child care, nutrition, finances, and so much more. But above all, we proceed from where we are as a community together with a future leading us toward our flourishing as a people.

Call 85 teen mothers an unmet need, call it a wound within our body public, call it an awakening of wounded healers as we all are, call it a community-in-formation, call it becoming a people together --- whatever the language, something lovely is happening here in South Omaha. 

A Poetic Expression Arising Out of our “Yes” and Our “No”

I’m hung on this matter of the parts and their relation to the whole:
 
So to say “No” to the whole is to be grounded in the parts, or
       the “fickle” fragments,
       becoming a “party man.” (F.D. Maurice)

To say “Yes” is to be grounded in the universe as a whole,
       the shalom of the Presence of God,
       open to becoming ‘parakaleo’ together. 

So it is, or so it seems, our movement away from an orientation embedded in fragments
       toward the universe whole is a movement toward “perpetual progress,’ or
       discovering ourselves as a community in formation.  (Gregory of Nyssa)

That sounds right.
 
May it be that in such a way we proceed,
Here, there, and everywhere.

The in-breaking of the Kingdom is always local,
       out on the margins there to be seen
       at best, imperfectly.

We are at such a margin.        

 Fr. Ron Whitmer,  1/29/09

A comment from Fr. Marlin Whitmer  

Clinical Pastoral Educator, Practitioner for OnLine Learning

In my early studies on the term body, and in the body parts in Scripture, the Greeks used body in a sense of the whole when they talked about the body civic. I have not seen this any place, but I think Paul, in his Epistles in reference to body and members whereby we become one body in Christ, is drawing on the background of the word out of both the Hebrew and Greek language.

Each body part has its own authority by responding and being responsible to the whole body of which it is a part. This is a highly metaphorical approach and will be misunderstood on the literal level. Since the Scribes were the more literal in their approach to the law perhaps those in the Gospel reading for  Sunday are picking up on the larger meaning. This would also explain in part why the unclean spirit was threatened since the unclean spirit has now been called into question when seen as part of the larger whole and the greater meaning.

Marlin,  

I like this. It grounds even more deeply our understandings of the relation of the parts with the whole in the emergence of our historical consciousness both in the Greek world view as well as in the Hebraic world view. I hope you are right! I hope we have a way of reclaiming this insight again.  Though it would seem that at various and sundry times it has been reclaimed, like with Gregory of Nyssa, Frederick Maurice, William Temple, and a few others that could be named. I would cite Jesus’ the Parable of the Sower as being in this same tradition --- the abundant and extravagant sowing of "community-builders and seed-sowers."  --- Ron 

Two Key Words:

"henini"  -  "Here am I, send me"

"parakaleo"  -  "called one alongside (together)"

The offering below comes from Fr. Marlin Whitmer, Scripture Ministry in Everyday Life.  

[The passage from I Samuel 3:1-10(11-20) provides him with the grist in the mill for this reflection on two key words at the heart of our discipleship and being co-workers for the inbreaking of God's Kingdom.  The Scripture is posted following Marlin's comments.]

Greetings One and All,

Since coming across the meaning of the Hebrew word henini, here am I, I have been delighted to find how it connects with the Greek, parakaleo, a called one alongside. Both relate well to our calling, vocation, epiphanies, beginnings, the relational and ongoing aspect of our Faith and life stories, etc.

Like Eli my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, my eyes grew dim so that I did not see the rest of the story. I now perceive something new. After “here am I” we have “your servant is listening.” Twice we have “your servant is listening.” Listening becomes the response after presence. And then what is heard is shared. Now Eli has his ears open to the extent he too wants to know what is heard. He becomes a part of “here am I” even though it is not the best of news for him. He is ready to see it through to some kind of conclusion. The impact of what is heard effects the larger community in time where all “knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.”

The pattern and dynamic embedded in the singularity of the Samuel/Eli story may have a universal application for all of us to take to heart. Samuel initially thought the call was coming from Eli. Eli misses the cue initially. Thank goodness the Lord is persistent. Thank goodness Eli realizes there is more than meets the eye. Let us keep our ears open to be attentive to the persistence of the Lord. First Responders may find there is more to the message. The Lord is with us as we grow up to the intended meaning. Eli also demonstrates the importance of mentoring. Growing up may be a life long process. and more than one mentor may be needed for the journey.

The Miracle on the Hudson brings out story after story of henini and parakaleo.

I wonder if others had their eyes opened to perceive something more with a second reading, a closer reading, of the Samuel/Eli encounter.

Shalom,
Marlin

1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, `Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening." [Then the LORD said to Samuel, "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever."

Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, "Samuel, my son." He said, "Here I am." Eli said, "What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you." So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, "It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him."

As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. TAnd all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.]  

Christmas joy and peace to all from all of us at St. Martin of Tours Episcopal Church

Below is the Christmas Sermon of our Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.  In summary form his message drawn from this Word made flesh in the incarnation of our Lord is "look not for larger than life heroes, rather, let us look to ourselves and the grace now poured out upon us, where we are, as we are."

Rowan Williams Christmas Sermon, December 25, 2008

'There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus'; we've very likely heard those words many, many times in carol services, like an overture to the great drama of the Christmas story. The emperor Augustus would have been delighted, I'm sure, to be told that his name would still be recalled after twenty centuries - but more than a little dismayed that it would be simply because he happened to be around at the time of Christ's birth. There were all sorts of things for which he would have wanted to be remembered, and many of his contemporaries were not slow in telling him about them. And in fairness he had quite a good claim to fame: he had, after all, restored order to the Roman state and consolidated its global influence as never before. For many decades, a kind of peace prevailed from Germany to Syria – enforced by typical Roman brutality when any signs of dissent appeared, but still probably better than the chaos of the Roman civil war that had been going on before. It made sense to hail him as restorer of peace, and to look forward to a long period of stability and prosperity.

It didn't turn out quite like that, of course; but Augustus's reign was for many people a sort of golden age. In later generations, new emperors set themselves the goal of bringing back something of that stability and confidence, and they would describe themselves on their coins and statues as the rescuers of the world's good order – as 'saviours': something that had already been common among the kings of the Middle East in earlier centuries.

So if you'd asked people of Jesus' day what the word 'saviour' meant, the answer would be pretty plain. It was someone who would bring back the golden age, who would put an end to conflict; you could almost say it was someone who would stop things happening. Salvation was the end of history, brought about by one unique charismatic leader.

Curious that, all these years later, the same language still survives. Twentieth century totalitarian systems looked forward to a state of things where all conflict was over and change and struggle stopped. On the other side, after the end of the Cold War, some scholars were writing about the 'end of history', and an American President spoke of a 'new world order'. In recent weeks, we've seen some of Barack Obama's advisers and colleagues warning about the level of messianic expectation loaded on to the President-elect - wisely recognising the risks involved in tapping in to this vein of excited imagination always just below the surface of even the most cynical society. We have certainly not, as human beings, grown out of the fascination of saviours who will restore the good times. The Lord has bared his arm and is once and for all returning to Zion; surely that is real salvation?

And as always the gospel comes in with a sober 'Yes, but...' The saviour arrives, but goes unrecognised. He is hidden in the form of poverty and insecurity, a displaced person. Instead of peace and the golden age restored, there is conflict, a trial, a cross and a mysterious new dawn breaking unlike anything that has gone before. He was in the world and the world did not know him. Yet to those who recognise him and trust him, he gives authority (not just 'power', as our translations have it) to become something of what he is – to share in the manifesting of his saving work.

So what's happening here to the idea of a saviour? The gospel tells us something hard to hear - that there is not going to be a single charismatic leader or a dedicated political campaign or a war to end all wars that will bring the golden age; it tells us that history will end when God decides, not when we think we have sorted all our problems out; that we cannot turn the kingdoms of this world into the kingdom of God and his anointed; that we cannot reverse what has happened and restore a golden age. But it tells us something that at the same time explodes all our pessimism and world-weariness. There is a saviour, born so that all may have life in abundance, a saviour whose authority does not come from popularity, problem-solving or anything else in the human world. He is the presence of the power of creation itself. He is the indestructible divine life, and the illumination he gives cannot be shrouded or defeated by the darkness of human failure.

But he has become flesh. He has come to live as part of a world in which conflict comes back again and again, and history does not stop, a world in which change and insecurity are not halted by a magic word, by a stroke of pen or sword on the part of some great leader, some genius. He will change the world and – as he himself says later in John's gospel – he will overcome the world simply by allowing into the world the unrestricted force and flood of divine life, poured out in self-sacrifice. It is not the restoring of a golden age, not even a return to the Garden of Eden; it is more – a new creation, a new horizon for us all.

And it can be brought into being only in 'flesh': not by material force, not by brilliant negotiation but by making real in human affairs the depth of divine life and love; by showing 'glory' – the intensity and radiance of unqualified joy, eternal self-giving. Only in the heart of the ordinary vulnerability of human life can this be shown in such a way, so that we are saved from the terrible temptation of confusing it with earthly power and success. This is, in Isaiah's words, 'the salvation of our God' – not of anything or anyone else.

For those who accept this revelation and receive the promised authority, what can be done to show his glory? So often the answer to this lies in the small and local gestures, the unique difference made in some particular corner of the world, the way in which we witness to the fact that history not only goes on but is also capable of being shifted towards compassion and hope. This year as every year, we remember in our prayers the crises and sufferings of the peoples of the Holy Land: how tempting it is to think that somehow there will be a 'saviour' here – a new US president with a fresh vision, an election in Israel or Palestine that will deliver some new negotiating strategy...It's perfectly proper to go on praying for a visionary leadership in all those contexts; but meanwhile, the 'saving' work is already under way, not delayed until there is a comprehensive settlement.

This last year, one of the calendars in my study, one of the things that provides me with images for reflection e very day, has been the one issued by Families for Peace – a network of people from both communities in the Holy Land who have lost children or relatives in the continuing conflict; people who expose themselves to the risk of meeting the family of someone who killed their son or daughter, the risk of being asked to sympathise with someone whose son or daughter was killed by activists promoting what you regard as a just cause. The Parents Circle and Families Forum organised by this network are labouring to bring hope into a situation of terrible struggle simply by making the issues 'flesh', making them about individuals with faces and stories. When I have met these people, I have been overwhelmed by their courage; but also left with no illusions about how hard it is, and how they are made to feel again and again that they come to their own and their own refuse to know them. Yet if I had to identify where you might begin to speak of witnesses to 'salvation' in the Holy Land, I should unhesitatingly point to them.

In any such situation, the same holds true. In recent days, I have been catching up with news of other enterprises in the Holy Land, especially from the Christian hospitals in Bethlehem and Nazareth, struggling with all kinds of pressure on them from various sources and with the chronic problem of desperately small resources, yet still obstinately serving all who come to them, from whatever background. And last week I spoke with someone helping to run a small community theatre project in Bulawayo, supported by local churches, working to deepen the confidence and the hope of those living in the middle of some of the worst destitution even Zimbabwe can show. Signs of salvation; not a magical restoration of the golden age, but the stubborn insistence that there is another order, another reality, at work in the midst of moral and political chaos; the reality that is the eternal 'Logos', St John's Greek term that means not simply a word but a pattern of harmonious relation.

That is what is made flesh at Christmas. And our own following of the Word made flesh is what gives us the resources to be perennially suspicious of claims about the end of history or the coming of some other saviour exercising some other sort of power. To follow him is to take the risks of working at these small and stubborn outposts of newness, taking our responsibility and authority. In the months ahead it will mean in our own country asking repeatedly what is asked of us locally to care for those who bear the heaviest burdens in the wake of our economic crisis – without waiting for the magical solution, let alone the return of the good times. Internationally, it is remembering that our personal involvement in prayer and giving is utterly essential, whatever pressure we may rightly want to bring to bear on governments and organisations.

Isaiah looked towards the day when the guards on the deserted city's wall would see the return of the Lord 'face to face'. So much of our witness to salvation depends on this face to face encounter (and yes, that was one of the ideals that helped to shape the work of this year's Lambeth Conference). We can't pass the buck to Caesar Augustus, Barack Obama or even Canterbury City Council – though we may pray for them all and hope that they will play their part in witnessing to new possibilities. To follow the Word made flesh is to embark, with a fair bit of fear and trembling, it may be, on making history - not waiting for it to stop. And that means speaking and working for Christ in the myriad face to face encounters in which he asks us to be his witnesses – to see and to show his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.

© Rowan Williams 2008

Contents of Archived Offerings  

1.  Reflection of the Parable of the Talents

2.  The Coin Question: Matthew 22:15-22

3.  Parable of the Wedding Feast: Matthew 22:1-14

4.  The Charge Given to us as Disciples: Matthew 18

5.  Who do you say I am?  Matthew 16:13-20

 

1.  The Parable of the Talents

Gospel Text: Matthew 25:14-30

Jesus said, "For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, `Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.' His master said to him, `Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, `Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.' His master said to him, `Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, `Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master replied, `You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' "

Four questions, culminating in one final question,
leading toward a future that continues to break in upon us

____________________

ABSTRACT: The struggle to get beyond our perverted notions of God and how life is to be lived may begin when we ask ourselves under what form of desire do we want to live. The parable of the talents may well be an illustration of three forms of desire. It is fair to say that none of these three forms of desire serve us well. It would appear, and this will come as a surprise to many of us, that the third servant because of the desire to minimize fear, may have provided the most accessible place for his awakening to the Lord’s presence of love, forgiveness, health, and the flourishing of life, and from a different base than that of the world’s (man’s) order, and even from the place of his outer darkness.

First Question:   Who is the master in this parable?

Keep in mind that the master is defined for us as a “man, ” (anthropos).  At no time in this parable is the actor presented as God. It is man and the way in which he has ordered our common life who is the actor. It is the worldly order that rewards the first two servants and punishes the third.

Second Question:   What kind of desire is being manifested by the actors in the parable?

The desire of the master    To increase his wealth, power, and security

The desire of the first servant    To maximize wealth, regardless of risk (Wall Street prior to September 08)

The desire of the second servant     To maximize wealth, but with some degree of prudence (following the principle of a balanced portfolio, prudence in making ones career choice, and living simply, avoiding conspicuous consumption)

The desire of the third servant    To minimize fear, given the knowledge he had of the master it seemed wise to bury his talent and way of living in this world’s order by building a protective shell around himself, all the while aware of his fear, and a terrible unmet need to live in a most inhospitable world.

Third Question:     With whom does your God and Lord identify as manifested on the cross and his being raised to life?

This is a question each of us needs to ask and work on.

Fourth Question:   But with whom does he have access or with whom has a place become available, i.e., whose situation makes possible an opportunity for presence, the presence of surprise?

If one is finding some measure of reward within the world’s present order and has some measure of control over the uncertainties of life, what need is there for the Lord?  I would suggest that the one whose conditions provides the maximum place for the presence of the Lord is the one cast into the outer darkness, who has no place in the set ups of our worldly order, and its pursuits for wealth, power, and security. The fact that he did not participate in the use of the world’s talents, albeit out of fear, brought the wrath of the world’s powers down upon him. He was not a player, and by virtue of that has no place within the way in which the world operates. CAST HIM OUT!

Final Question:  “Where do you find the Messiah? You find him amongst the poor and the wounded, outside the gates of the city…”

So it has happened.  I suspect that were it not for our continuing lingering hubris (pride) more of us would recognize just how poor and wounded we truly are.  And for those who have ...

We share with you where we have found our Messiah. We have found Him upon a Cross outside the gates of the city, arms outstretched in love and forgiveness for us all, even for us who have as yet provided little or no place for him in our world of self-satisfaction. Though it would appear now in this post September ’08 world, there may be more of us who in this experience of the harshness of our world’s order may make a more hospitable place for the presence of the Living Lord. 

Are we not today in the process of encountering anew the brokenness of our world's order and operations, and in the midst of this, at one and the same time encountering our poverty and wounds.  (cf. Henri Nouwen, and his story “The Wounded Healer.”)

Another take on this same Parable of the Talents

Sarah Laughed: Dylan’s Lectionary Blog
http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2005/11/proper_28_year_.html

[The material below was prepared in 2005, yet it has an uncanny timeliness given the context of our last several months from Wall Street to Main Street. rdw]

      This Sunday's gospel is yet another reason to get out of the habit of seeing all of Jesus' parables as allegories in which one character represents God or Jesus. That isn't what's happening here. Take a hard look at the behavior of the master: he's an absentee landlord who doesn't do any work himself, but lives off of the labor of his slaves. Take a look at the behavior this master wants of his slaves: the profit-making that the master demands would be seen in Jesus' culture would of necessity come at the expense of other more honest people; it would be seen as greedy and grasping rather than smart or virtuous. The master tells the slave whom he treats most harshly that the punishment is specifically for refusing to break God's commandment against usury (Matthew 25:27), a practice consistently condemned in both the Hebrew bible and the New Testament. And the Greek word for "talent" very specifically means a unit of money; it has no relationship whatsoever to the word for an ability, so this is NOT a parable about us being the best we can be, no matter how much our culture of achievement wants to twist it into that. There are versions of that message that can be helpful, but it just isn't what the parable is about.

      So what's the message of the story, if it isn't about us using the abilities God gave us? Jesus gives it to us explicitly in verse 29: "to all who have, more will be given, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." In other words, "the rich get richer, and the destitute lose everything."

      Is the behavior of the master in the parable something that God would commend, let alone imitate? Is this kind of behavior what Jesus expects of God's people? Heck no! If you've got any doubts of that, read what comes immediately after this story: read the prophesy (it isn't a parable) of the sheep and the goats, which tells us that when the Son of Man comes, judgment will not be on the basis of how much money we made, or for that matter on how religious we were or whether we said a "sinner's prayer," but rather on whether we saw that the least of our sisters and brothers in the human family, whether in or out of prison, had food, clothing, and health care. We serve Jesus himself to the extent that we do these things, and we neglect Jesus himself to the extent that we don't.

      In short, PLEASE don't tell people that the message of this Sunday's gospel is anything along the lines of "make the most of the talents you've got," as its message is much closer to "care for those whom the world would leave destitute." Reading the parable in the context in which it appears in Matthew tells us how Jesus finishes that thought: We shouldn't be like the master in the parable because the world in which people like that come out on top is passing away. Jesus will bring his work in the world to completion; God's kingdom will come and God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, as Jesus taught us to pray. You know that wave I talked about last week? Jesus' parable in this Sunday's gospel is telling us that we should line ourselves up to ride it. It's coming -- bank on that, not on what our culture says is most profitable!

      The live question for us, I think, about this Sunday's gospel is whether we can really believe that, if we really can trust in that enough to risk living as Jesus taught us rather than according to the demands of those who try to set themselves up in Jesus' place as our lord, who try to enslave us to wordly standards by telling us that our security is in acquiring resources for ourselves and striking out at our enemies.

      I believe we can. We can because it's Jesus who told us this, and Jesus is absolutely trustworthy. And as we inch toward Advent, I want to encourage y'all to look for the signs that Jesus was right, the signs happening in the world right now that the Spirit Jesus sent is living and moving and active in the world to accomplish Jesus' work among us.

      They're out there: large and small signs. Here's a large one: over two million Americans have signed the ONE campaign's pledge to use their vote and their voice to eliminate extreme poverty in this generation. By 2008, it's expected that over five million will have signed, making this campaign bigger than the National Rifle Association, speaking good news to the poor not only with the moral authority of the cause, but with the power in numbers to make it happen.

      I remember when the Berlin Wall came down. That was big. People were dancing in the street; students at the seminary I was at were leaving in droves to dance on the Wall itself as it came down, bringing graffiti-covered chips home to remember the moment. It was big -- the moment of a lifetime, some people would say. But I believe that a moment bigger than that is on its way. It's not a pipe dream; many of our world's top economists think it's attainable in our lifetime. Imagine with me for a moment what the party is going to be like in streets around the world when we're celebrating the end of poverty. Imagine telling your children or grandchildren about that.

      That's a vision that made me want to dance, much as it made Mary want to sing:

"Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
      and holy is his name. 
His mercy is for those who fear him
      from generation to generation. 
He has shown strength with his arm;
      he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
      and lifted up the lowly; 
he has filled the hungry with good things,
      and sent the rich away empty. 
He has helped his servant Israel,
      in remembrance of his mercy, 
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
      to Abraham and to his descendants for ever."

      That's what Jesus came to do among us. It's what we pray for when we pray as Jesus taught us. And it's the future we can bank on.     

      Thanks be to God!

2.  THE COIN QUESTION, Matthew 22:15-22 

The coin question in this coming Sunday’s Gospel is a question of what trumps what. I share with you these thoughts.

What trumps what provisionally? As the news these last weeks have made clear, it is the state that trumps economics; and it is the nations of this world that trump the multinational corporations. All at this level begins, proceeds, and ends provisionally.

Thus, a more fundamental question needs to be asked.

What trumps what triumphantly and eternally?

It is the Cross, and the one who accepted its reality with arms outstretched in forgiveness, mercy, and agapaic love (kenosis).

This is the rock. He, this God/man, is the rock.

Could it be that the stone the builders rejected has become the chief building stone? Yes, indeed it has.

Shall we play the game we played as children again? The game I am speaking about is “Paper, Scissors, Rock.”  As children we played it in innocence.  But now, as adults, we may recognize that it was a game played as a rehearsal.  It was played so that we might be ready when in the midst of the crisis of life we would know what trumps what. 

In short the sovereignty of God, present from the beginning, and now made even more clear through the Incarnation, death, resurrection, and the outpouring of the Spirit both defines and demonstrates what trumps what, and where this rock is to be found.

The question arises: Where is this Messiah, this rock, to be found?

In the story of the wounded healer we hear these words, “You always find the Messiah where he is to be found. He is outside the gates of the city, amongst the poor and the wounded, saying to himself, I must be ready, someone may need me.”

God in his Son, wounded, healed, ready, available, outside the gates of the city, arms outstretched, He is the Rock, and there he is found, with us in our woundedness, in the midst of the crisis of our lives. 

In Him, the wounded healer, we are so modeled, yes, "imaged" to use the ancient language, inescapably, for we stand here in our woundedness, aware or unaware, upon this rock.

This is the rock upon which all creation and its unfolding history is embedded with the capacity for being and living as now “the called ones alongside,” Parakaleo, and with our arms outstretched in forgiveness, mercy, and love.

Lord, assist us continually in moving into our woundedness, that with you, we may be part of your Body as healers , restorers of trust, where we are, in our respective neighborhoods. 

Fr. Ron

3.  The Parable of the Wedding Feast: Matthew 22:1-14

This week I ran across two essays presenting an alternative interpretation for the Parable of the Wedding Feast.  Each essay identified the poor fellow who was cast out because he failed to have proper attire as the one with whom our Lord identifies and is present, arms outstretched, ready to embrace as one of His own. If that is an interpretation of merit, then the closing statement, "many are called, few are chosen," is another example of irony, doubling back upon itself, again and again and again. The very worldly and violent king, wrecking revenge with any and all who fail to do his bidding, calling many, but with the results of only one being chosen, and he is the one who is thrown out.  We have here a foreshadowing of Golgatha.

The first essay is by Marty Aiken, "The Kingdom of Heaven Suffers Violence: Discerning the Suffering Servant in the Parable of the Wedding Banquet."   Her paper begins

"I propose in this paper a new reading of the parable of the wedding Banquet in Matthew (Matt. 22:1-14)  My proposal is that Jesus uses this parable to declare to the ruler’s representatives, and the world, that Jesus’ authority will be the authority of the suffering servant.  Jesus does this by structuring the parable so that he can introduce into the parable the figure of “suffering servant’ from Isaiah, especially Isaiah 52:13-53:12.  The servant figure in the parable with whom Jesus identifies is the man without the wedding garment who suffers expulsion, and worse, at the hand of the king.

"The universally accepted reading of this parable comes to the exact opposite conclusion.  The king introduced at the beginning of the parable is understood as a reference to God, and the violence the king calls down upon the unrobed man is interpreted as sacred violence levied in judgment for the man’s absolute recalcitrance at accepting God’s invitation into his kingdom.
I will make no effort to harmonize these two readings, largely because I see no way they can complement each other.  I want to caution the reader to be aware of the enormous inertial pull of the accepted reading.  Gravity is the effect one body exerts on another, and the accepted reading has acquired such  mass that it almost transforms Jesus’ words and Matthew’s text into a black hole that pulls into itself any attempt to read the parable differently.  If I can be forgiven for being caught up in my own imagery, I’d like to show that it is possible for there to be a new sun that could shine a new, different light on this text." 

"The Kingdom of Heaven Suffers Violence:Discerning the Suffering Servant in the Parable of the Wedding Banquet." by Marty Aiken, Racine, Wisconsin, 2003, 23 pages, martyaiken@aya.yale.edu, innsbruck2003_Aiken_Paper.doc

The second essay is by Frederick A Niedner, "Bride and Groom from the Dungpit." It links Isaiah 25:1-9, the Old Testament reading for Oct. 12th, but with the addition of verse 10 and 11, and as the essay indicates, with good cause.

A paragraph from "Bride and Groom from the Dungpit:"

"Perhaps, we can place the crucified Christ in this parable also. In the traditional reading, which sees this parable as an allegory about the destruction of Jerusalem as God's punishment for the rejection of Jesus, the crucified Christ would appear among the servants whom the invited guests abused and killed. Oddly enough, given what finally happened to Jesus, the treatment he received makes him most like the man at the end of the parable, the one thrown out. In another way, however, the Christ remains absent from the story because this parable lacks its two most important characters, namely, the bride and the groom. Enter, then, the crucified and risen Christ as the groom. And the bride? That's you, and me -- all of us."

This essay appears in a booklet of homiletic reflections called "Proclaiming the Cruciform Eschaton," from the Institute of Liturgical Studies, Valparaiso University, April 1998.

We are the ones invited to be without the world's attire, qualifying to be thrown out!  Or, better yet, to be discerning what we put on and what we leave off. Ah yes, echoes of transforming imperatives, "be-attitudes" ....

“BE – ATTITUDES” that result in changes in how we act.

EXPERIENCING         -     BE ATTENTIVE
UNDERSTANDING     -     BE INTELLIGENT
JUDGING                   -     BE REASONABLE
DECIDING                 -     BE RESPONSIBLE
ACTING                     -     BE LOVING

Bernard Lonergan argues that the canons of the “Be-Attitudes” are inherent in the operations we spontaneously experience as humans. The spontaneous desires of our hearts and minds impel us

• to be aware rather than oblivious;
• to be intelligent rather than stupid;
• to have reasons for what we choose and do, rather than doing and choosing for no reason at all;
• to accept responsibility for our choices and actions;
• to act lovingly rather than apathetically, selfishly or hatefully.

Excerpt from “Cultural Barriers,” Richard G. Malloy, S.J.,
Saint Joseph’s University, March 2007
http://www.prrucs.org/pdfs/PRRUCS_CulturalBarrier.pdf

I would suspect that for most of us, as we have probed into the depths of our life stories, we will find ourselves with a memory or two of those times when we were outside the centers of power for having failed to be properly attired in the ways of the world. And, should we have an inclination to choose to be in opposition again with the ways of this world, lacking proper attire, we can anticipate the results. To not be in compliance with the ways of the world is to be cast out.  Sometimes it happens subtly, sometimes, not so subtly, but there in this world beyond, we find the Christ with us, expelled long before, and even more raised, alive, awaiting us in the true Eucharistic Feast of the Age to Come.

Yes, let us sing, "Crucem tuam, Adoramus Domine!"

Both essays are referenced at http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper23a.htm This is an excellent resource with weekly reflections on the propers for the coming Sundays.

4.  The Charge Given to us as Disciples: Matthew 18  

I found myself struggling with the Gospel text for Sunday, September 7th. The reason for the struggle is because of what's omitted before and after. Even the whole of chapter 18 requires consideration for what precedes it and follows after it.  Here are my notes which I will use in someway to address what's said and what is not at St. Martin's Sunday, 9 AM.

Matthew 18:1-35
An excerpt from Raymond Brown on Chapter 18 from An Introduction to the New Testament, p. 191f.

This somewhat disparate collection of ethical teaching, much of it once addressed to Jesus’ disciples, has been given a perspective that makes it strikingly suited to an established church, the type of church that only Matthew has Jesus mention (16:18)…. [E]ven if a structured church becomes the way in which the tradition and memory of Jesus are preserved, Matthew recognized the danger that any structure set up in this world tends to take its values from the other structures that surround it. This chapter is meant to insure that those values do not smother the values of Jesus.  To readers who struggle with church issues today, this may be the most helpful Matthean discourse. (cf. W.G.Thompson, “Matthew’s Advice to a Divided Community.”) 

For these values of Jesus not to be ‘smothered’ in legalistic and arrogantly held doctrinal formulations, it requires that we also keep the fullness of the Gospel disclosed, not only in the whole of chapter 18, but with what precedes and what follows.  This includes not only the continuing movement of the Spirit in the four Gospels, but also in the work and writings of Paul, James, Timothy, John, but also in the work of the Spirit down through the ages and now resting upon each of us here, in our lives and conflicts, and abroad throughout the conflicts of the whole planet. 

And so the Spirit rests (dwells) and is received as we practice what grace makes possible ---  openness, humility, hospitality, compassion, and yes, forgiveness, radical, unbelievable, forgiveness, continuously! 

Herein lies our charge as disciples then and now. We are charged by Jesus not to build shelters around any expressed notion and language that we may have latched hold of. We are charged to listen to the movement of God’s Spirit of grace and forgiveness in the language of the other, and rejoice in having heard, yes even among Gentiles and tax collectors and all the other outsiders of any age.  “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there.”  In listening we are gathered, and are the church.

Outline of Chapter 18

1. Dispute about who’s the greatest in the Kingdom  [18:1-5]
2. Condemnation of scandals and temptations [18:6-9]
3. Importance of seeking out the lost  [18:10-14]
4. Instruction on reproving one’s brother and sister [18:15-20] 
5. Peter’s question about forgiving the other, how many times? [18:21-22]
6. The answer is offered by the parable of the unforgiving servant  [18:23-35]

As the community of believers, seeking to listen to Jesus speaking to his disciples in this chapter, His Spirit will be known to be alive in us as our arms are outstretched in forgiveness for the other and ourselves.  In so doing we are picking up our cross, in forgiving the other, and in forgiving ourselves, where they/we are, as they/we are.

Listening, Fr. Ron Whitmer

5.  Who do you say I am?  Matthew 16:13-20

What saddens me these days is how many Christians I meet who identify themselves as “heretics”—jokingly if they are still in churches and defiantly if they are not. For some, the issue is that they believe less than they think they should about Jesus. They are not troubled by the thought that he may have had two parents instead of one, or that his real presence with his disciples after his death may have been more metaphysical than physical. The glory they behold in him has more to do with the nature of his being than with the number of his miracles, but they have suffered enough at the hands of other Christians to learn to keep their mouths shut.

For others, the issue is that they believe more than Jesus. Having beheld his glory, they find themselves better equipped to recognize God’s glory all over the place, including places where Christian doctrine says that it should not be. I know Christians who have beheld God’s glory in a Lakota sweat lodge, in a sacred Celtic grove, at the edge of a Hawaiian volcano and in a Hindu temple during the festival of lights, as well as in dreams and visions that they are afraid to tell anyone else about at all. These heretics not only fear being shunned for their unorthodox narratives; they also fear sharing some of the most powerful things that have ever happened to them with people who may ridicule them.

Given the history of Christians as a people who started out beholding what was beyond belief in the person of Jesus, this strikes me as a lamentable state of affairs, both for those who have learned to see no more than they are supposed to see as well as for those who have excused themselves from traditional churches because they see too little or too much. If it is true that God exceeds all our efforts to contain God, then is it too big a stretch to declare that

dumbfoundedness is what all Christians have most in common? Or that coming together to confess all that we do not know as we reach out to one another is at least as sacred an activity as declaring what we think we do?

From “Way Beyond Belief: The Call to Behold” by Barbara Brown Taylor,
quoted in Shouts and Whispers: Twenty-One Writers Speak about Their Writing and Their Faith,
edited by Jennifer L. Holberg (Eerdmans, 2006). [ www.episcopalcafe.com/thesoul ]

                                         _________________________

In this week's gospel text from Matthew, Jesus asks his disciples two questions.  The first question is "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" and the second, "But who do you say that I am?"

The first question is somewhat academic and enables the disciples answering the question to maintain a certain distance between themselves and their answer.  However, the second question completely removes this distance, and requires each of them to consider their response.  He asks for their answer, no one else.

Shall we not hear that it is the second question that is also put to us?  What basis do we have for making our answer, however, incomplete, however primitive in terms of its adequacy?

Peter, who gave answer to the second question, has as a basis for his answer. He has had several years of being with Jesus, listening to his teachings, his parables, witnessing to healings, and just the week prior dramatically being pulled out of the water when his faith gave out in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. At the conclusion of that episode the disciples, to a person, had said, "Truly you are the Son of God."  Yes, Peter had a basis for his reply to this second question. "You are the Messiah (the Christ), the Son of the Living God." 

As we will discover next week, the words were correct, but the understanding of his words was not.  What I find most fascinating here is that for all of Peter's short comings, the Lord remained with him, and not only with him, but with all his disciples. He remained with them as they are where they are. 

So, I draw this conclusion, not as a final reflection, but appropriate as to where I am today: To be disciples means to be part of an on-going learning community, as we are, where we are. Our Lord remains with us through the Spirit, alongside, and through this presence, we grow and our maturing continues.  It is this relationship that forms the basis for proffering what answers we can, as we can.  I would add this is so whether we are aware of this relationship or not.

Yes, indeed, some of us are disciples, unawares.  Whenever there is the taking of a second look, fraught with a desire to understand, there is present a relationship, we don't move toward some degree of understandings in a vacuum.  Whenever there is an act of kindness and compassion, for another, for ourselves, there is being witnessed the presence of ourselves as members of a community. In such ways as this we are provided a basis for furthering our learning, our continued growth, and it leads toward the flourishing of us all together.

We are all members together in this on-going learning community by this fundamental basis of the presence of God with us, continuing his relationship with us where we are.

6.  WHAT MAKES A "GREAT FAITH"?  Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

The Canaanite woman is described by Jesus has having a "great faith" (v. 28). This is the only occurrence of that adjective describing faith in Matthew. Yet, she didn't walk on water, as Peter did last week. She didn't move a mountain. She probably had never been to church in her life. She certainly had never read the Bible. What's so great about her faith?
                                Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes, 
                                http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt15x10.htm

COLLECT:  Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Genesis 45:1-15

Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, "Send everyone away from me." So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come closer to me." And they came closer. He said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, `Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there-- since there are five more years of famine to come-- so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.' And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here." Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Psalm 133 Page 787, BCP
1  Oh, how good and pleasant it is, *
        when brethren live together in unity!
2  It is like fine oil upon the head *
        that runs down upon the beard,
3  Upon the beard of Aaron, *
        and runs down upon the collar of his robe.
4  It is like the dew of Hermon *
        that falls upon the hills of Zion.
5  For there the LORD has ordained the blessing: *
        life for evermore.

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

[Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." Then the disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit." But Peter said to him, "Explain this parable to us." Then he said, "Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile."]

Jesus left Gennesaret and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

Lectionary readings for August 10th

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33

Theme: We need not be give in to our fears. There is another center from which we are invited to live.

Following the readings a reflection or two will be posted. 

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

Now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, "Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them." He answered, "Here I am." So he said to him, "Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me." So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, "What are you seeking?" "I am seeking my brothers," he said; "tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock." The man said, "They have gone away, for I heard them say, `Let us go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, "Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams." But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, "Let us not take his life." Reuben said to them, "Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him" -- that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh." And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

Howard Wallace provides an excellent intro in this and next week's reading on the Joseph saga. cf.  http://hwallace.unitingchurch.org.au/WebOTcomments/OrdinaryA/Pentecost13.html

Romans 10:5-15

Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that "the person who does these things will live by them." But the righteousness that comes from faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say?

"The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart"

(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For,

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

William Loader, a United Methodist Theologian, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, offers this reflection of Paul's insight of Christ's presence within us "liberating us for life."  http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AEpPentecost13.htm

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

Link of the Week:

"Don't Be Afraid,"
Rev. Todd Weir, bloomingcactus, 2005.

"Fear comes in many forms, private and public. 
It knows no ideological boundaries
and none of us are ever completely free of it in making decisions. 
Letting go of fear and facing ourselves
is as frightening as the thought and stepping out of our safe boats
and walking across the water as if it were dry land."

------

".... My inner dialogue is full of fear.  As I council my homeless residents at Hillcrest, I fear I will not have good answers for them and I am inadequate to help.  As I read the paper in the morning, I fear where the world is going.  I fear that my work isn’t making a difference in face of the world’s problems, I fear offending people, I fear people won’t like me if they know who I really am.  Most of the time these fears flash through my mind almost unnoticed and influence my decisions great and small throughout the day.  They are each like little moments of facing death, the ultimate fear.  They are moments when I, like Peter, lose sight of Jesus and begin to sink in the waves and need help.  Who am I to think I could walk on water anyway?

"Most of the residents at Hillcrest House, where I work, are recovering from drug addictions.  When they are fearful about the future, they often do irrational and self-destructive things (like any of the rest of us.)   Fear launches a blame game.  People start pointing fingers and accusing others and being the source of their predicament.  If a resident starts making noise about everyone else is relapsing and using drugs, it is often a sign that they are headed in that direction.  We will pull them in, give them a drug test and remind them to keep the focus on what they need to do to live a sober lifestyle.  Keep to the 12 steps, get back in touch with your higher power, focus on what you can do to change and let go of what you can’t control.  Perhaps we should also say, “Do not be afraid.” 

"Dealing with fear and anxiety lies at the core of faithful living.  Fear is the hidden slave-driver that often controls us and robs us of our God-given freedom.  The New York Times recently had an editorial about this glitch in human nature.  (See Scarring Us Senseless by Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Sunday, July 24) Taleb says that the great fallacy of Western thought from Aristotle through the Enlightenment is that we are always rational beings. Neurobiologists accurately show that our risk avoidance behavior is governed by our emotional system, not our intellect.  Taleb writes, “This emotional system can be an extremely naive statistician, because it was built for a primitive environment with simple dangers.  That might work for you the next time you run into a snake or a tiger.  But because the emotional system is impressionable and prefers shallow, social and anecdotal information to abstract data, it hinders our ability to cope with the more sophisticated risks that afflict modern life.”  This is why we might be more dissuaded from riding a motorcycle by the death of one person we know than by a reasoned article about the dangers of riding a motorcycle.  It is also why people will pay more money for “terrorism insurance” before a flight than for regular insurance, which covers the same thing.  Fear is a powerful irrational motivator....

"Fear comes in many forms, private and public.  It knows no ideological boundaries and none of us are ever completely free of it in making decisions.  Letting go of fear and facing ourselves is as frightening as the thought and stepping out of our safe boats and walking across the water as if it were dry land.  I’m not sure Jesus really expected Peter to walk on water and I certainly don’t expect to walk on water any time soon.  I struggle to have faith and to honestly face my fears.  But I’m willing to believe that there is life outside the boat, constantly rowing into the wind. I trust in faith that Jesus point the way to the shore.  With Jesus near me, the rising seas of my fears will not have me."

To read more, go to http://bloomingcactus.typepad.com/bloomingcactus/2005/11/matthew_142233_.html 

August 9, 2008

Gathering the broken pieces
Daily Reading for August 9, Episcopal Cafe/Speaking to the Soul

There is a great waste of power in our failure to appreciate our opportunities. ‘If I only had the gifts that this man has I would do the large and beautiful things that he does. But I never have the chance of doing such things. Nothing ever comes to my hand but opportunities for little commonplace things.’ Now, the truth is that nothing is commonplace. The giving of a cup of cold water is one of the smallest kindnesses anyone can show to another, yet Jesus said that God takes notice of this act amid all the events of the whole world, any busy day, and rewards it. It may not be cabled half round the world and announced with great headlines in the newspapers, but it is noticed in heaven. We do not begin to understand what great waste we are allowing when we fail to put the true value on little opportunities of serving others. Somehow we get the feeling that any cross-bearing worthwhile must be a costly sacrifice, something that puts nails through our hands, something that hurts till we bleed. . . .

When the great miracle of the loaves had been wrought, Jesus sent his disciples to gather up the broken pieces, ‘that nothing be lost’. The Master is continually giving us the same command. Every hour’s talk we have with a friend leaves fragments that we ought to gather up and keep to feed our heart’s hunger or the hunger of others’ hearts, as we go on. When we hear good words spoken or read a good book, we should gather up the fragments of knowledge, the suggestions of helpful thoughts, the broken pieces, and fix them in our hearts for use in our lives. We allow large values of the good things we hear or read to turn to waste continually because we are poor listeners or do not try to keep what we hear. We let the broken pieces be lost and thereby are great losers. If only we would gather up and keep all the good things that come to us through conversations and through reading, we would soon have great treasures of knowledge and wisdom.

From The Book of Comfort by James Russell Miller, quoted in The Westminster Collection of Christian Meditations, compiled by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).
Posted by Vicki K. Black on August 9, 2008 4:00 AM

August 7, 2008

Last evening at the gathering at Holy Spirit in Bellevue we began to imagine our future in mission and ministry in the South Omaha area as a work to be done together.  In what form this may take, no one at this stage of our journey knows.  What we do know is that a first step was taken to share and to listen as to where we are in the respective settings of St. Martin's of Tours, South Omaha, Holy Spirit, Bellevue, and St. Martha's, Papillion. A second gathering is now scheduled for us to continue exploring how we may do mission / ministry together.  This meeting will be Saturday, September 6th, at St. Martha's. [For addition details on these meetings see "Our Mission and Goal" under the News section of this web site.]

It is clear that we must begin with relationship building.  We have stories that need to be shared. We have careful listening to do.  From such a work as this, there may arise new understandings, new forms and ways to be and do mission and ministry not as separate churches, but as a more integrated and collaborative effort in this southern part of metro Omaha.

In the opening phase of the meeting last night, we were asked to share what energizes us  most about the church.  Dean Ernesto spoke of the joy he experiences when we encounter God in our reading of Scriptures and in our daily experiences.  It was this comment that triggered for me, a need to have a page on our web site where we share precisely this kind of "excitement."

This week's contribution comes from an exchange between my older brother and myself.  Marlin was the founder of Scripture Ministry in Daily Life, some 9 years ago. It continues as a marvelous resource for reflecting on Scripture in Everyday Life. Here is a sample. 

Further reflections on Matthew 13 and his parables: Nudgings of the Spirit arising from sharing, listening, leading toward new understandings, new ways to witness the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God.

To: SCRIPTURE-MINISTRY@yahoogroups.com
From: outreach@gmtel.net
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 07:57:58 -0500
Subject: Re: [SCRIPTURE-MINISTRY] Parables of Matthew

Greetings All on August 7, 2008

I am still stalled out on Matthew 13.  Or said another way, I am mining the message.

People in a crisis situation move familiar words to the describe the unfamiliar. I heard people do this over and over as a hospital chaplain. Jesus does the same in Matthew 13. In chapters 11 and 12 he is rejected by the religious authorities and by the home town folks. To cope with what is happening and what lies ahead he moves familiar everyday stories and experiences to the unfamiliar.

The parables are metaphors housing the dynamics of this process....

(As noted in a) previous reflection, this makes the repetition of the orientation metaphors of hear (13) and understand (7) even more characteristic.

The methodology of Lambeth conference followed the same process with the small groups where in Bible study, the stories of Scriptures were related and personal stories shared.

Ron shared with me a comment by Bishop Pachard, Bishop for the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy.

“+George Packard, Bishop for Chaplaincies, TEC, argues that it is the stories learned from other Bishops that will have lasting influence:

‘On this last day of the Conference our bible study ended with the question, "How can the glory of God and the wounds of crucifixion be reflected in us as we are sent in Jesus' name?" I needed help with this...personal frailties, wounds, I can account for easily...but glory? A brother from Brazil said he felt that there is glory in the life stories we have shared during during our days together. That appealed to me because nothing will make eyes glaze over quicker at home--or out visiting chaplains--than going on and on about the Windsor Report, the Covenant, and the general tinkering with all things Anglican for 17 days. Indeed, it's the stories.’ “

Or we could say, it’s the parables. We remember them more than the conflict leading to their telling in the midst of a crisis.

Shalom, Marlin  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I replied as follows: 

Marlin and all,

Marlin, in regard to your reflection below on the importance of continuing to mine these parables of Matthew --- metaphors for transformation and the ushering in of the Kingdom --- and the comment from Bishop Pachard coming out of Lambeth that it will be the stories "that will have lasting influence," I have another piece of feed back to reinforce "hearing or listening," "understanding," and transformation.  This piece comes from a Bishop from the Northern region of India:

        Phil Groves, who led the Listening Process for the Anglican Communion Office received this letter and permission to share it:

From: Pradeep Kumar Samantaroy Sent: 02 August 2008 20:35 To: Phil Groves Subject: Love Unites

Dear Phil,

It was nice to talk to you this evening. I thank God for your ministry of listening. I know it is one of the most important yet challenging ministries of the Church today. I wish to share some of my thoughts with you.

I am serving the people of the Diocese of Amritsar, Church of North India, in the states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. I came to attend the Lambeth Conference with lot of questions in my mind about the issue of human sexuality as I knew this issue has threatened the unity in the Anglican Communion. Coming from a conservative back-ground I was not even prepared to listen to any person who supported the gay and lesbian people. However, the Indaba experience has changed my opinion. After listening to the stories of bishops coming from different cultural contexts I have become aware of the pain and agony people have bear because of our attitude towards each other. Further, I am convinced that despite their different and often opposite positions all are committed to live and grow within the Anglican family. The binding force in a family is love. If we love one another we learn to transcend our differences and don't hesitate to sacrifice our own interests for the sake of the family unity. This is possible only when we are willing to listen to each other. The amount of sacrifices I make is dependent on the depth of my love and intimacy of my relationship.

As for me I have decided not to be hasty in judging the gay and the lesbians. I wish to learn more about their life and problems. I have also decided to regularly pray for them. I wish to encourage the other members of the Anglican Communion to do the same.

You may share my thoughts with other like-minded persons.

Prayerfully, Bunu (Bishop P. K. Samantaroy)

P.S. Please feel free to edit my letter as English is not my first language

                               Posted by Jim Naughton on August 7, 2008; Episcopal Cafe/Lead

This is not only a letter reflecting having listened, but it now reflects this bishop living forward his being one of the called ones alongside (parakaleo) where prior to Lambeth he saw no way to warrant such a way of being present.

Shalom indeed, one step at a time, one relationship at a time,
Ron

Millennium Development Goals

The MDGs represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the world's main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.