Merton (born on this day in 1915) on the work of peace compared to the work of war


"If this task of building a peaceful world is the most important task of our time, it is also the most difficult. It will, in fact, require far more discipline, more sacrifice, more planning, more thought, more cooperation and more heroism than war ever demanded."

-Thomas Merton, who was born on this day in 1915
(died Dec. 10, 1968)


Cross-posted on Facebook.

Canons of Deconstruction

Well, still on my blogging sabbatical, working on a law review article on the role of theology in the RCC sex abuse crisis. The interesting thing I've been finding is a complete lack of comprehension on the part of non-Catholics of the Church's rationale underlying its defensiveness and secrecy, and, on the other hand, a complete lack of comprehension on the part of the hierarchy and its defenders of the outrage secular society (as well as, of course, many Catholics) feel as a result of the scandal. To a surprising extent, a large part of what I'm doing is interpreting each side's position, and trying to put it in a context the other might understand.

That doesn't mean that I think the RCC position is valid; I don't. But it's a position that has roots all the way back to the Twelfth Century, and that's not a tradition that one can just be written off as a post-hoc rationalization. It's been fascinating, too, spelunking through medieval history and theology, and reacquainting myself with such towering figures as Henry II, Thomas Becket, Augustine, Aquinas, and John Henry Newman. And meeting several new figures, including Gilbert Foliot, whose complexity of thought and moderation make him much more than a critic of Becket.

I'll link to the essay when it's finished.

Wulfstan of Worcester: Anniversary

Today is the 9th anniversary of my formal reception into the Episcopal Church and the feast of Wulfstan of Worcester, about whom I wrote at some length two years ago.

Bishop Wulfstan's Crypt, Worcester Cathedral, England

Telling stories

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A Sunday, January 19, 2011
John 1:20-42 (43-51)

“Let me tell you a story…” “Once upon a time…” “I remember when…” “Daddy (Mommy, Grandpa), tell me a story…”

Something happens when we tell a story. The people who study this kind of thing tell us that when we start a story off like this, something happens in our brains. With the right equipment they can see it happen right before their very eyes. They say that when our brains are scanned in a certain way, and we start to tell a story, the researchers looking at their screens see whole parts of our brains light up with color that had just a minute before been dormant. It is as if a different part of the brain from what we use every day is activated. We are not just talking about facts; we are painting images in our minds.

Once upon a time, when I was a kid, my father had a study with a drafting table, and in this was a old tabletop AM/FM/SW radio about the size of a modern-day microwave oven. He set me up with my own little drafting table, and he would work on these great big drawings of electrical gee-gaws that did I-don’t-know-what except that I was sure he was drawing plans that would one day land a man on the moon. On Saturdays, when he would work in the study, I would sit at my little drafting table and we’d listen to the baseball game together over that big radio, and he during those times, he taught me keep the box score. You did not need television to visualize a baseball game, just a careful ear, imagination and a yellow number two pencil.

When my children came home for Christmas a month or so ago, they asked that we hold off putting up the tree until they were both there and then we scheduled a time when we all could work on decorating it together. I don’t know about you but we have a very eclectic collection of Christmas ornaments. Very few are store-bought anymore. Lots were made by our children as they grew up. Some are associated with special events: Our First Christmas, 1979. Baby’s First Christmas, 1981 and 1988. And they love to hear the stories connected with each one.

Sometimes they tell them to each other. They say, “Hey, this is your ornament. Remember when…?” “Remember when…?” is another phrase that takes us to a special kind of imagination.
Stories are important parts of our living. They tell us who we are, what is important to us and how we understand ourselves. The stories could be from books or movies or plays or shows, or they could be something as simple as telling about a picnic or a day at work or funny thing that happened at the store.

Have you heard a group of people who have all seen the same play in the same game tell each other exactly what they saw? “Did you see that?” Or how many times have you seen a group of people talk about a really great movie? They recall scenes, repeat memorable lines, and talk about emotional moments. We are not just sharing information or confirming what the other person saw. We are experiencing the story over and over again with someone else. Telling the story is like shining a light down a dark path and then walking along that way together.

I particularly love today’s Gospel story. The first half of the first chapter of John’s Gospel is that great liturgical hymn to the Logos, the word of God. We heard that on Christmas Day. Today, we hear part of second (much longer) half of that first chapter. It is one of my very favorite Gospel passages because it is all about how people tell the story of the Logos. Think of the first chapter of John this way: first comes the idea then comes the story. The Word, the Logos is real, but it is the story that makes God’s Word, Jesus, real.

The gospel story today consists of a whole sequence of people telling each other they have seen Jesus and who they think Jesus is. So John the Baptist points to Jesus and because of that, the Beloved Disciple and Andrew decide to peel off from John’s band and follow Jesus. Then Andrew goes and tells Peter who then goes to Jesus and, after meeting him, follows him too. Next, in a part of the Gospel we don’t get to hear today, Jesus calls Philip, who then goes and tells his brother Nathaniel, who—while scoffing—goes to see to Jesus anyway and because Jesus knows him, he follows too. And it not just John the Baptist, or Andrew or Philip pointing to Jesus: it is also the Beloved Disciple, who through his Gospel is telling us that Jesus is the Messiah and bidding us to “come and see” and to tell what we have seen and heard.

So what does this all mean? It means that the Logos, God’s Own Best Expression of Godself, Jesus, is made known through people who tell the story. At the end of the first chapter of John, Jesus says to Nathaniel that this process of hearing, telling, of coming and seeing Jesus, is just like Jacob’s vision of angels ascending and descending to earth from heaven. God comes to our world, but no one knows it until, after we come and see, we then go and tell. This is how God’s word breaks into our world and changes everything: when people who have discovered God’s love and learned God’s love have also shared God’s love.

When we tell the Gospel story it becomes a part of us. We find that the telling of how God came to us in the past makes us more conscious, more aware, of how God is at work in us now. God calls us to be story-tellers, we are wired to tell stories because we are also wired to be at home with God. And this, finally is what we are looking for. The stories point us to what is really pulling us, calling us, attracting us. We are looking for a home. Looking for a place to be.

In the middle of the Gospel lesson today we hear Jesus ask the two disciples "What are you looking for?" That question is for us, too. "What are you looking for?" He doesn't ask "What do you want?" or "Who are you?" He asks “What are you looking for?” The heart of the story is that the disciples don’t just tell the story, they don’t just point to Jesus. They stay with Jesus. They meet him and he meets them.

The thing about telling a Gospel story is that people who hear and respond it are not looking for information. Anyone today can look on Wikipedia or watch the Discovery Channel or go to the library and find all the information they want. We don’t lack for information. The story is compelling for other reasons that have to do with people’s hearts much more than people’s minds.

In the Gospel today, two disciples did not ask Jesus “what are you doing?” They asked, "Where are you staying?" They go and see "where he was staying and they stayed with him that day." Yes, the disciples were curious, but what they are looking for is not information. They are looking for a place to be, a place to rest, a place—and a person with whom the can “abide.”

What we are all looking for—often without knowing it—is a place to stay, a place to remain always, a place to be. Jesus is that place, a person who is himself a home, who is himself a place to belong, a person with whom we live a whole way of life. Jesus knows that what the disciples really want is a place to belong. He meets them at the point of their greatest need and invites them to "Come and see." They go with him. They end up staying, and his story becomes their way of life. And after they came and saw, they invited someone else to that home, too.

We have people in this congregation who have been Gospel story-tellers, who have pointed the way so that others can find a home, a place to be. There are a lot of you but I will call out one of them out because she is not here to defend herself (and when I’ve told this to her face, she didn’t believe me): I’ve always been impressed with MJ’s ability to point the way; the way in which she shines that light down a dark path and then walks with people. She is a natural: most of the time she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. For a while it seemed as if the whole radiology department of a local hospital came to Saturday night service. And today, Shaun and Tracy and their son Connor are part of our community because their friend said to them “come and see.”

MJ is not alone. There are more of you. We are all story-tellers. Because we are also ones who have found a home, not just in a parish, but in God’s Best Expression of Godself, Jesus Christ, and we point the way. When we welcome a person to AA or treat a Soup Kitchen guest with dignity or when we bring a meal to the home of a home-bound stranger through Meals on Wheels or go to the Keystone Blood Bank and say “I’m from Trinity Church, Easton” when we give our pint of blood, we are beginning to tell the story. Our deeds say much, but like John’s Gospel, the way the Word is really made known in when we move from idea to story. From concept to invitation. Maybe we haven’t found the words yet to go with our actions, but make no mistake, we all have a Gospel story to tell. And it is through story-tellers like us that God’s power, God’s love, God’s peace breaks into the world and changes everything.

"What are you looking for?" says Jesus to people who were told by someone else where he could be found. To people who wondered if they had a place in Jesus’ story, he said “Come and see.” The thing that moves people from one question to the other, from "What are you looking for?" to "Come and see" to “We have found the Messiah!” is the story the church is called to tell. In fact, the only story the church has to tell! For all the things we do, for all the activity and program and worship, the only thing we have to offer is the story of our home, from which we draw hope and strength and power. That place, that home to which we invite people to “come and see,” is a person, Jesus Christ, and the best way to tell his story—perhaps the only way—is with our lives.

My beloved

First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord.
Sunday, January 9, 2011

Maybe you saw them? During the run-up to Christmas there were these billboards over the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and they a part of a strange sort of war of words and images.

Last Christmas a group called American Atheists put up a billboard in that can’t miss spot over the entrances to the tunnels on the New Jersey side where all the cars are funneled through the toll booths. It pictured a stylized nativity scene complete with star and wise men, with the words “You know it’s a myth.” Well, on the other side of the tunnel—in not nearly as prominent location, because it depended on which tube you used to enter the city--the Catholic League put up an identical looking bulletin board that said “You know it’s true.” Another Christian group bought up the choice billboard spot on the Jersey side and replaced the atheist billboard with a Christian one.

This is the level that most people experience religious (and for that matter political) discourse: harangue and counter-harangue. Spin and counter-spin. Vitriol piled upon vitriol. And look at where it has gotten us.

This morning we come together in this strange mix of fear and uncertainty on the one side and hope and wonder on the other side. We are mindful of the news that yesterday someone attempted to assassinate a sitting member of Congress in her district and killed 6 other people, including a Federal Judge, in the process. (Read this.) And this morning we will be baptizing Mikaela and Brielle, initiating them into the Body of Christ and welcoming them into our community of faith.

You know, every time a person who has not walked into a church for a very long time and makes their way up those front steps through those red doors and makes their way into one these pews requires a remarkable degree of courage. We have done a lot to make this church barrier-free, but there are some barriers we can’t fix with ramps because they are in the heart. For the seeker or the person returning to church, even if it is for a baptism, wedding or funeral, I suspect that there is a certain hesitancy in the hearts of some of those people.

About a month ago, I had a small taste of this when I went to Florida for my daughter’s graduation and walked into a strange church in civilian clothes. What to expect in the service? What will they expect from me? Will I hear words of comfort and empowerment or will they be words of judgment and defensive exclusion? Will I experience nostalgia or a flash-back? Will they make me stand up and introduce myself?

And this experience put me in touch with the deepest question of all: Does this faith community have the capacity to hear our deepest concerns and questions? Will we be listened to and valued? Can we take each others questions seriously or dismiss them as an annoyance?

There are other people, the ones who have grounded their lives in their faith and in their faith community, that I am also thinking of. These are the ones who find great peace in their faith, and who are able to connect the dots between their faith and their everyday living. We know of people of faith who have shown incredible mercy, done incredible good, and put themselves at incredible risk. These are the people, whether we are people of faith or not, whom we look at and wish we could be like when we grow up.

That's because if we are at all engaged in life, we are always looking for something more. Something that gives us hope and meaning. Something that tells us that God is present and at work. And sometimes we see it in each other. Sometimes we see it when we least expect it. Our hearts keep drifting back, if not through those red doors, at least in the doors of our hearts, because our spirits long for a connection, a relationship with God and of a faith can give us grounding, purpose and direction.

In this community, we have been nourished and taught by people of prayer and commitment to Christ's mission in the world. They hang in with communities of faith like ours not because we are perfect but because they know that, despite all our foibles and failings, God is at work through ordinary humans doing extraordinary things. These everyday Christians come back, with a kind of clear-eyed, realistic hope, because there is no other places they’d rather be. They know that we are beloved.

This room is filled with both kinds of people and every one in between. And so I ask us, we who come to the waters of baptism: What is the message will we bring? Will it be a harangue or will it be hope?

A long time ago, I found myself as a chaplain to a residential mental health facility where people were dealing with everything from addictions to schizophrenia to chronic mental illness, and I was asked to run a spirituality group. The goal was to help these wonderful yet profoundly fragile people work on the spiritual side of their emotional and mental health. The person I followed ran it like a church service and I was told that the response was either passivity or near-riot. I decided that, following the lead of the author and spiritual director Henri Nouwen, I would lead with one message and one message only: God’s words at the baptism of Jesus: “This is my son, my beloved.” My question was always: “Do you know that you are beloved.”

One of the things about the John the Baptist is that he sure could yell. In the popular imagination, he is the epitome of the religious prophet who stands in his camel-skins, holding his staff, with wild look and he tells the powers that be exactly who they are---a brood of vipers—and exactly where they can go. There is a certain emotional satisfaction is being able to shut off the super-ego for just one minute, open the window and yell, just like Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network, “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take this anymore!” But as cathartic as that may feel, it will take one so far. We may like the idea of a John the Baptist—telling off the powers that be—but we don’t want to be on the receiving end, and it is a terrible thing to live life where the only thing you have to say is a harangue, or anger, or a cry of frustration.

Into this mix comes Jesus. Isn’t it strange that Jesus even chose to be baptized at all? I mean, if Jesus is who we say he is, someone like us in every way yet without sin, why would he need to be baptized?

Well, let's re-imagine repentance. We tend to think of repentance as turning away from something—giving up something bad. Okay, but let's go a little deeper. Another way to look at repentance as turning towards something—towards God. A life of repentance is a life of continual reorientation towards God. Jesus lived a life oriented towards and constantly re-oriented towards God. And in his baptism, he joins with us in our desire to be oriented towards God.

And in his baptism, Jesus ends up turning John’s message on its head, or at least re-orienting it. When the voice of God is heard, when the voice that can split the cedars of Lebanon and make mountains skip is heard, is it a voice of condemnation? No. Is it a voice of judgment or divine vengeance? No. When God speaks, and the Spirit descends, here is what we hear: “This is my beloved ”

If we start with the notion that at the root of it all, and despite all the evil that humanity can dish out, we are beloved, then everything changes.

Instead of living life trying to adhere to all the rules so that we might earn God’s love, we discover that we already have it.

Instead of trying to convince ourselves and others that we are lovable, we find that we are and always have been loved.

We find that God’s work in coming to us in Jesus Christ, and the work of the church in our common and sacramental life is not to try to fix a mistake, our common life and our sacraments give us the tools, the power, the support to live as the people God made us to be.

Because we are beloved, we find that God goes to incredible lengths to overcome the evil, the fear, the violence that marks our lives. We find that God comes to us as one of us, and dies so that we might live. All of this is to restore what God has in mind for us and all creation. God does all this because, God believes we are worth the effort. We are beloved.

We've learned yesterday in a tragic way the consequence of the loose and careless way we use words. We see that the price of a religious and political discourse built on harangue and spin leads to both spiritual and physical death and violence. But God also gives us tangible signs of hope.

Across the globe, our brothers and sisters in Christ, our neighbors, in Southern Sudan are finally trading the legacy of 50 years of civil war for a future determined in the ballot box. Our partners in mission in Kajo-Keji are joining the rest of Southern Sudan and voting on independence. They are voting--not fighting-- for their own future. So far, from what I’ve heard and read, it looks like whatever the outcome, it will be a peaceful one. What happens after that is neither easy nor predictable. But they can do it, if they can make this transition without resorting to violence, then it will be a welcome hallmark in the history of that troubled nation.

And here is another sign of hope. Today, we bring two children, named for guardian angels, to the waters of baptism. We will as a community promise to uphold them in their life in Christ. So we have a choice. It's not that whether we will convey to them values. We can’t help that. It’s a given. Just what values will we bring them? What Good News can we bring them in a world of violence and beauty, war and community? A harangue or a message of hope?

These two children come to a family who perhaps only dreamed that this day might come but worried that perhaps it was not to be. But like some biblical parents of old, they have here signs of new life, new hope, and a new journey. Words make a difference. God spoke words of hope and affirmation and redemption that continue to break open our hearts today. If we, as family, friends, and as a community of faith, can say one things to each other and to these girls, let it repeat God's words at Jesus' baptism, over and over again:

“You are my beloved.”

“You are my beloved.”

“You are my beloved.”