One of the things I love about our church building is its age. Our present church building was built in 1917. Although it's one of the smaller churches on "church row" in Kirksville, it is one of the more attractive ones, built in the style of an old English church. Outside, it shows its age. It definitely needs tuckpointing. But you can still tell there's something different about it. I've been told it was designed by an architect named Dunbar, who did several churches in Missouri and was one of the more noted architects of the time.
Inside, it's the classic old Anglican style, with the upside down boat shaped ceiling and the timbers running across the sides of the "boat." although the altar, pulpit, and rail are newer, the rest is pretty much what was put in at the time it was built.
Honestly, it's the wood in the church that fascinates me. There's something about wood that allows one to reflect upon life. I like to think about the wood in the pews, the floor, the beams. The pews certainly must have wood in them that are 40 or 50 years older than the church because people still used old growth forest in those days. The beams could be older. It's odd to think about wood in your church that was still around when Americans owned slaves. When those trees were alive, they were most certainly harvested with horse-drawn labor. The sense of connection with history just from the wooden parts of my church can sometimes be an overwhelming feeling.
I would love to see pictures of the construction of the church; I wonder if any exist. The foundation was certainly hand dug with laborers and pickaxes. Most of the workmen must have traveled to their job by wagon or horseback as very few people owned a car in 1916-17. WWI had not yet touched the United States but it was getting very close when they started construction on that church. Kirksville was not yet 20 years out from the devastating tornado that hit it in 1899. Probably very few trees of any size were on Harrison or Mulanix streets, the corner where Trinity sits.
I like to think of how the congregation felt, sitting in their brand new church for the first time, in 1917. It's funny to think about them using the 1892 Book of Common Prayer. (I can barely imagine even sitting through a service with the 1892 BCP and saying all those "thee's", "thou's," and "beeseeches"!) That grand old girl that is my church has seen a lot of change, for sure.
I think about her magic in a world where the fancy, auditorium sized megachurch is the hot ticket. Yet she is alive and well, not a dinosaur at all, in a world of churches made to make her feel like a dinosaur. God dwells in her in a way that may never happen in a lot of church buildings because people will be obsessed with new and shiny. Yet this was not by design. The congregation in 1917 had a shiny new church and they were probably very happy about the new and shiny parts of it. Then somehow, over time, the congregation sees the magic of being in something grand and old. This had to be an imperceptible change. Funny how things like that happen, isn't it?
Lately, I've become fascinated with the rhetoric espoused by both the secular and the religious sector that implies evil can be surgically removed, like a cancer. Much of the talk centered on "winning" in Iraq or Afghanistan hinges around the suggestion that by removing a few key players, almost as if they were tumors, could "cure" the situation. Fundamentalist Christians embody evil in a discrete entity--Satan--and work off the assumption that if you just drive Satan away, well, only good will remain. Good. Evil. It's so simple and easy to grasp--so why muddy the waters by complicating it?
Here's the truth: Even when you surgically remove a cancer, you take good tissue out with it. The surgeon doesn't have microscopic vision. Instead, a rim of normal tissue is always taken out with the cancer. Even then, what grossly looks normal isn't always "normal" when scrutinized under the pathologist's microscope. Occasionally, microscopic foci of tumor extend to the edges of that "normal-looking" margin, and then more good tissue must be re-excised for a surgical cure.
Therein, I believe, lies the true nature of evil. Sure, there is obvious evil. Line up 100 people and they'll tell you Adolph Hitler was evil. But sometimes, evil is more subjective...or not evident until exposed to the frame of passing time...or adjucated by which side you were on in the event. Westward expansion didn't seem evil when Americans felt we had to fulfil our "manifest destiny" but the displacement and massacre of tens of thousands of Native Americans, in retrospect, certainly has elements of evil entertwined within it.
It's interesting that we have a human tendency to stratify sin when all sin is capable of giving a person the feeling of "separation from God." We lump all the things we think of as "really bad sins" in the "evil" category and all the little piddly wrongdoings as "failings" or "shortcomings" or whatnot. Yet, in our times of tribulation, we can feel our self-distancing from God for something small just as acutely as for something big. At the same time, we can be blithely unaware of sins not yet come to light, that turn out to be significant failings on our part.
In my mind, this is why I think the concept of being able to perform an "evil-ectomy" is an impossible task. The margins of the "tumor" are so blurred it can never be fully excised. If the prayer "God, please remove all evil in the world" could be answered, who of us would be left standing? Nobody--and that is our divine paradox. Each of us, made in the Creator's image, has to work our way through this co-mingling of our divine nature and our sin nature. The tumorous portions of our soul are not discrete lesions but more like a miscible pair of liquids. One simply can't be separated from the other. Yet in this murky, opaque mix of two totally opposite entities, we still see the light of God shining in people. Go figure!
I know, I know...I do not like to foray into church politics a whole lot on this blog...but once in a while something comes up that I have to say something. This time it is the proposed Anglican Communion Draft Covenant. The short version is: This appears to me to be a very carefully worded document filled with hidden language that appears innocuous but in reality, is not, and gives power to the primates of the AC that have never been historical aspects of the governance of the American church.
I particularly take issue to two parts of it: One, that in part 2, #5, the 39 Articles of Religion and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer are the guiding bases of our faith; and two, under part 6, #6, it is the primates' call on when "member churches choose not to fulfill the substance of the covenant."
I'll address my last beef first.
Yes, our bishops in the ECUSA have apostolic succession, but our church is self-governed, and has been that way since we broke from the Church of England during the revolutionary period. "We the people" decide through our House of Bishops, House of Deputies, and the General Convention what our church policies are. The wonderful thing is there is lay representation in this process. Frankly, this is what is so "American" about ECUSA. We don't take dictums from higher ups, even in spiritual matters. This is the heart of what the Reformation was all about...that lay people have the power to interpret Scripture. Yes, I defer to a vicar's or a bishop's scholarship, but I don't necessarily defer to his or her view on what Scripture means to ME.
The primates of the Global South wish for a governance more like the church of Rome. This is what the heart of the impairment between the GS and the ECUSA is, but they are conveniently using the issues of ordaining the XX Chromosome Crowd and homosexuality as the whipping boys/girls of their larger agenda.
The AC needs to understand that they are a communion, not a hierarchy.
Now on to my first beef...
Ok, I am going back to the catechism in the 1979 BCP for this (italics mine):
| Under "The Creeds": |
Q: What are the creeds?
A: The creeds are statements of our basic beliefs about God.
Q: How many creeds does this Church use in its worship?
A: This Church uses two creeds: The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed.
Our church is based on a view of Scripture as outlined by the creeds; part of the "Scripture" leg of the classic "3 legged stool of our church--Scripture, Tradition, and Reason". The 39 Articles of Religion and the 1662 BCP are historical documents, part of the "Tradition" leg of the same stool. It seems to me that certain segments of the AC want to merge these legs into one leg, and take the leg of "Reason" away from the laity, give it to the primates, and say, "Here, this is what this leg is supposed to look like. Build your three legged stool however you want, as long as the other legs match this leg."
Meanwhile, I think we have perfectly fine three-legged stool crafters here in the US, and we should be left alone to make them.
I'm having one of those weeks where I'm "thinking heretical thoughts". I get those once in a while. Many of these thoughts I've harbored since childhood, only expanded on them a little as my mind expanded.
We're always told that Jesus was "fully human and fully divine." (We've been "officially" saying that since the adoption of a doctrinal statement created at the Council Chalcedon in 491 C.E., anyway.) Fully human. Fully divine. That is just a really hard concept to wrap one's mind around. Allow me to expound on my heresy:
If we totally bought, hook, line and sinker, the concept of a "sinless Christ" (which seems to be the party line in more fundamental denominations)...Wouldn’t anyone have noticed that Jesus, while growing up, was one weird little kid?
I mean, if you follow the notion of Christ’s deity and sinlessness literally, here’s this kid, who’s God made flesh...who never does anything wrong. Never gets sick. Never beats the crap out of his brother. Never taunts little girls with frogs or snakes. Never got his buns warmed by his parents. Never had a temper tantrum.
That notion creates in my mind this extremely un-endearing, disgustingly perfect little kid that, had I been one of Jesus’ playmates as a child, would have schemed up some way to get his little goody-goody behind in trouble. (Now THERE's another concept to wrap one's mind around--I have to live with the notion that I am flawed to the point I would, as a child, like to have left Jesus "holding the bag" on some scheme to get him in trouble. If there's a great white throne of judgement, I'll certainly be squirming while answering that one.)
Wouldn’t the other kids in town have ragged on Jesus for being such a goody-two-shoes?
Wouldn’t Mary and Joseph had ever thought, “Wait a minute...what’s wrong with this kid????” (Sure, they know the score about who He was, but they would have HAD to have some wild dinner conversations....)
"Joseph, doesn't it ever bother you that Jesus never does anything wrong?"
"Well, yeah, but I've never reared the Son of God before, Mary...what do you want ME to do about it. Besides, really, he's more YOUR kid than mine."
How could a kid like that NOT have attracted attention in town?
"What's up with that Jesus kid anyway? He never steals fruit off my fruit stand like the other kids."
"Yeah, and who does he think he is anyway, talking about 'his father in Heaven' all the time. Everyone knows he's the carpenter's kid."
"Well, maybe he's not REALLY the carpenter's kid. I heard she was already knocked up by someone else--I heard some Roman soldier got to her--and Joseph just didn't want to make a big deal about it. That Joseph is a bigger man than I am, if he could do that."
But then I find I have to reconcile myself to the notion that the human form of Jesus had to have SOME kind of human frailties somehow. I say that b/c of the temple story. Let’s look at what happened:
He took off away from his parents for 5 days. Obviously, his parents would not consider that being “led by the spirit.”
If I had told my dad, “Don’t you know I’m in my Father’s house” after they found me, he wouldn’t have gone, “Oh. Ok.” It would have been more like, “We’ve been looking all over Hell’s Half Acre for you for 3 days, don’t you DARE give me any lip! Whaddy’a mean ‘my father’s house’? I’M your father, you ungrateful little turd!” and would have dragged my sorry smart-mouthed butt out of the temple and whipped it raw.
My mom certainly would not have “treasured” that incident, either. “Look, I know you’re smart, but don’t you be going all prima donna precocious on me here. I didn’t raise you that way. I’m not going to listen to all the mothers in town rag me for you being a precocious, spoiled brat. You need to learn a little more humility. Don’t you ever take off on us like that again, or I’m telling you, there’ll be hell to pay.”
So, really, he did something wrong here. He took off from his parents without their permission and gave them what would have appeared to be a rebellious, smart-alecky answer when they find him after 3 days. So Jesus the human HAD to have some human failings. He may well have been a perfect soul, but he HAD to be an imperfect human or at least had committed some acts that people around him would have deemed “wrong.”
I think where the mental disconnect takes place when one thinks about this problem is we undervalue Christ's humanity and at the same time, undervalue our divinity. We tend to virtually ignore the possibility that Jesus was truly "one of us"--fully human. To be fully human means you make mistakes, or at the very least, commit acts that others perceive as "sin". There are plenty of statements He makes in the Gospels that I think, "Well, gee, that was a little harsh." (Cursing the fig tree comes to mind. That smacks too much of impetuous parlor magic to suit me.) See--there I go again. Curses were considered to be "wrong" in His day, or at the very least, not fit for polite company--but there He is, ragging on the fig tree.
(I won't even begin to go into how Mark has him cursing it BEFORE He entered the temple, and Matthew says it was AFTER he went into the temple--that's a subject for another day.)
I realize this might attract some grief from the more fundamentalist crowd, but I just have one request if I'm going to be nailed for heresy--use wet wood when you burn me at the stake so I die of smoke inhalation first.
This week's sermon was based on the text in John where the Jews ask Jesus to just 'fess up and say he's the Messiah (probably to catch him in a "confession" of his "crimes") and Jesus answers him in a roundabout way, talking about how they are not "His sheep" and that His sheep not only know Him, but He knows His sheep.
Two things stuck out in my mind as Wallace delivered the sermon. One is “How long will you keep us in suspense?” How many times do we ask God that in our own trials and tribulations? I thought about how God tends to answer us in His own time frame, not ours. I know I have caught myself doing that...say I have some pressing issue that I’m trying to find clarity about through my prayer life and have literally just pounded on God about it...”God, why don’t you just TELL ME about xyz because I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing about this...” “God, I know this is going to have a bad outcome, so why don’t you just let it happen so I can get it over with...” “God, I’ve been asking you to help me figure out abc for x number of weeks now and You ain’t told me squat...just tell me SOMETHING...” The suspense really kills you at those moments. You want resolution. God ain’t really delivering it (by YOUR standards)...then again, in the long run, in retrospect, you find out maybe he is.
The other thing is one that may not be picked up on so easily, because, really, it may well be as we move to a more non-agrarian society, this one is going to simply get a little lost. It’s about the sheep hearing the shepherd’s voice. It’s something I am not sure a person would really grasp unless you owned livestock.
Since I own livestock myself, I can understand this in a different way. Not only do they know my voice, they know my pickup truck! They hear or see my truck coming down the road after work and they head to the feed lot way before I get in the driveway. If I’m a little late, they are waiting on me already at the feedlot hearing about my tardiness in no uncertain terms! They not only know the sound of my voice, and what my truck looks like, they know WHAT TIME IT IS TO EAT! Now, never mind in the summer they have a whole pasture full of grass, they know what time they get grain and they are not going to miss out. They are always mad at me when the time changes b/c I am not feeding them “on time.”
I love to stand there and watch them eat. I enjoy their contentment as they eat. I'm sure non-livestock owners may wonder why in the world someone would want to "bond" with a cow or a sheep, but let me assure you, that even the "dumbest" of the pasture animals have a bond with the person who feeds them, as well as a level of trust that can cut through instinctual behavior at times.
Sure, there are times I am going to be late feeding, but I try not to be late as best I can, b/c they are expecting to be fed. It becomes a mutual bonding thing. We are all “one” at dinner time. I like the fact they come running at supper time b/c it means I mean something very important to them. I am the one they can trust to give them their “good” meal—their grain. Sure, they can get by on grass but they still love their grain.
Now, sometimes they “game” me. On Sundays, when I get back early, they run up to be fed and holler and carry on and I yell, “It’s not time to eat! You’re not getting fed till later! You know it’s not suppertime! Go on back out in the pasture!”
That is sort of what Jesus is trying to tell His questioners in a converse sort of way. He’s saying, “You can’t understand b/c I’m not the guy who feeds you.” Notice he doesn’t just say his sheep know him, he says also that HE KNOWS HIS SHEEP. Anyone who feeds livestock knows “their” livestock. My neighbor Garry brings some of his sheep over to my place every summer. Once in a while, he’ll bring another one after he’s brought the first bunch. After they have been at my place for a while, and he brings another one, I come home and look at them and without counting them, can say, “Wait a minute...where did that ewe come from? She wasn’t there yesterday.” I didn’t count them, I didn’t name them or anything, but I know that’s one that wasn’t there before. Jesus is saying, “Look guys, I know my sheep when I see ‘em and y’all ain’t my sheep.”
Now, put the two things I noticed together. When I am asking God, “Why are you keeping me waiting on xyz,” and not getting a clear answer....it’s simply because IT’S NOT TIME FOR ME TO EAT. It’s God’s way of saying, “Look....you’re one of my sheep. You KNOW I’m going to feed you your grain. But it is NOT supper time yet. Go back out in the pasture and eat some grass. When it’s supper time, you’ll hear me coming. You’ll get some grain and everything will be good.” At times, I believe, God is not ready to feed us because we need to ruminate on what we are getting in the pasture in order to understand the goodness of the grain.
I have to confess...since I enjoy fishing, I really like all the "fish stories" in the Bible. So when the third Sunday in Easter's Gospel was the "Fish Story after the Resurrection" in John, well...I always listen to fish stories.
Now, if I’m remembering right, this is one of those stories that is only in John and not in the other three Gospels. So I’m always wondering “what is it that the author of John was trying to get across?” This is a set of verses I've heard preached upon many, many times, but it seems that I always find something different in it.
Over the years, I know the “classic” stuff in that text (mainly Jesus asking Peter to affirm his love for Him, one for each time Peter denied him, so Peter’s “even” now, in a manner of sorts) but I still always wonder what the significance of 153 fish is
But the part that resonated with me was towards the end of the text, the part about a belt being put around Peter to take him where he did not wish to go. It was part of that same text that was used in the litany that was recited at the UCC congregation's service following the brutal Va. Tech murders...there was a part about “Take us, O God, to places we are reluctant to go, to the wounded places, the shattered places, the terrified places. There may we feed your lambs with compassion, tend your sheep with healing, feed your flock with hope. There, with Peter, may we move from denial to discipleship, and thus find strength in the midst of this week's sorrow and rage, to sing again the Easter song, ‘Alleluia, Christ is risen!’"
That, to me is kind of the backstory in the text: Jesus is telling Peter that he is going to be going to a place where our hearts know exists, but we don’t like to visit, and like to pretend it’s not there. That sometimes in those places we go reluctantly is where great joy exists, but only if you can go to that place and accept that what happens, happens--to allow yourself to be changed by it.
At the moment in the Gospel story, all Peter wants to do is go home and sort this all out. There must have been tremendous disillusionment in his soul with all the things that had happened in the past few days. He didn't know what to do so he went home to do what he knew he was able to do. But there is no satisfaction in it (no fish). They didn’t know it was Jesus on the beach telling them where to cast their net. You know Peter is thinking, “Who IS that bozo, yelling ‘cast your net over on the right'...oh, what the hell,” and does it anyway. He is surprised to be the recipient of 153 fish, shocked, in fact...and then he sees it’s Jesus (I think the “naked” thing where Peter jumps into the water because he's naked is allegorical to the shame of Adam and Eve when they were seen naked). Now he’s REALLY confused.
Then Jesus asks him “do you love me?” three times and you know Peter is thinking, “DUH! I done told you twice!” Maybe he has already caught on to this “three times” thing and he’s thinking, “Do you HAVE to rub it in about me denying you?” But then what Jesus tells him is also a surprise...but the wealth in that surprise is yet to be seen.
This is always a "reader's aspect" to this story that attracts me for the same reason that I enjoy Hitchcock movies. You know what is in store for Peter, good and bad, but HE doesn't know yet. (It's very reminiscent of that scene in "The Birds" where you see the birds perching on the jungle gym but Tippi Hedren doesn't see them behind her while she's smoking a cigarette. You know what the birds are up to but Tippi doesn't know they're there.) There's no resolution in the story, only a forboding sense of what will happen...but only to the reader, not the subject of the story. There is no resolution in this story, only a sense of what is yet to come.
This "non-ending" is a beginning, as are the "non-endings" we get in our own life story. Maybe THAT is the true meaning of this story!
Ok, with Lent/Easter over, maybe I can find a little more time to blog. This week, the sermon was one of the Easter season classics--"Doubting Thomas".
Actually, I have decided Thomas wasn't so much of a doubter after all. He was just a guy who needed a little empirical evidence with his belief.
I always think of that story in terms of what I know about Jewish law and custom. It would have been TOTALLY uncool to touch a dead body, b/c then you’d be unclean for seven days. So for Thomas to even give it a go, he had to have at least SOME belief. So he gets a bad rap about being a doubter. No self respecting orthodox Jew would go poking on a dead body for kicks. And, I think we lose part of the power of the story by not thinking about it in terms of the whole “uncleanliness” thing. To even TOUCH the resurrected Christ took real faith, because who wants to be unclean for 7 days? Then tack on the fact that you are not supposed to disturb the internal organs of dead bodies in the Orthodox tradition. That is a lot of uncleanliness to risk.
Based on that, I'm convinced Thomas thought he was looking at a living person. Perhaps his doubt was that it was Jesus on the cross, or that Jesus had ever died to begin with. But I don't think he, for one minute, thought he was looking at anything other than a living person.
I have to laugh, though, b/c one of the things I have wanted to know for a long time (and is on my list of “thing’s I just HAVE to ask when I get to the place where light perpetual shines on me) was just WHAT Thomas felt when he stuck his hand in there that made him go, “My Lord and my God!” Of course, I suppose most people in that story imagine him just kind of poking his finger in there and I imagine him stuffing it in up to the elbow! But just WHAT did he feel? Nothing? Jesus’ spleen? Something grabbing his hand in there? Someday, I just gotta find out!
