That it may please thee to bless and keep all thy people,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.
Wow, this one is a shortie!
I got to thinking about the classic “Aaronic Blessing”:
May the LORD bless us and keep us;
May the LORD make his face to shine upon us, and be gracious to us;
May the LORD lift up the light of his countenance upon us, and grant us peace, this day, and always.
Amen.
In the original Hebrew, “baruch” (bless) literally means “to kneel.” “Shamar” (keep) means literally “to guard.” So in the original historical context, we are honoring God (figuratively “kneeling”), asking God to guard us, and that he illuminate the wholeness of his being within us, sending us into the world whole and complete.
It is funny...one of the times I very intensely feel the connections I’ve made with years of participating in Jewish activities with my retired friend M.J. is during the Aaronic Blessing. The other is during Lent, when the priest recites the Great Commandment at the beginning of the service. When we do that at Trinity, I mutter to myself, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai, Eloheinu, Adonai, Echad. Baruch shem kavod malkhuto le’olam va ed.” (I need to memorize the 2nd half.)
So I guess I’ll tell you an interesting story this week, where this “Jewish/Christian” overlap kind of fits.
One of the “odd things” I have fallen into as an “unpaid activity” is at times, I think at times I have filled in as the “Jewish chaplain” for the little handful of Jewish students, interns, and residents we have every year. This year, I have a very smart and put together student, D. She works hard at being as observant a Jew as she can be, 90 miles from the nearest synagogue
She came by the office to talk about the fact she was getting an excused absence to go home for Passover, and what she was going to need to study while she was gone, and about the lab she would have to make up. So she gets to talking about how she has just recently started in recent years to “sit back and feel” the Passover seder. When she lived closer to home, she was more worried about “getting things ready” with her mom. When she went to services when she lived closer to home, she was always one of the younger members of the congregation who “Got things ready for Rabbi.”
We had a really good chat about “learning to feel the presence of God” in a temple service, or a seder, and we kind of “compared notes” as to the “drama” of our respective liturgies. I said something like, “Well, when we bring the Gospel book down the aisle to read the Gospel, it would be for me like it would be for you when they take the Torah out of the Ark and hold it up and parade it around the temple...the word of God, going out among the people, like God among us.” Her eyes lit up and she goes, “YEAH! I know exactly what you mean! Some weeks it feels like God is RIGHT THERE.”
So I was telling her, “When you go home to Indiana for the seder, or go down to Columbia for services, just take some time to sit with it and feel it, now that you don’t have to worry about always getting things ready.”
Then she got to talking about how this year, despite being a busy medical student, trying to “honor her Sabbath better.” She knows she has to study, but she has been holding off on studying unless absolutely necessary from sundown Fri. to sundown Sat. She has been trying to only do “what’s necessary” on Saturdays, using the day more for relaxation, prayer and Torah/Talmud study. I told her how in recent months I have learned “quiet Saturdays” are important to me, more than I realized, so there was probably something in that. I was thinking, “Wow. She’s like 26 and she is so incredibly put together spiritually compared to when I was 26. I was still busy being a renegade.” Yet she sensed this trust in me that we could talk about these things from two different religious cultures.
She was talking about how hard it is to be a medical student and be a spiritually disciplined person. I told her that I was absolutely sure that she had as much to be gained from her spiritual disciplines, and to not think of them as two separate things but something that is “one thing” with these fitting together like puzzle pieces. I said, “The spiritual side of you can help you be a better medical student and eventually a better physician; the medical student side of you will spur you to study as vigorously as possible, because medical students are good at studying.”
So today, as I think about this blessing that is a key blessing in two religions, I am sort of in awe how the same things happen in the hearts of the practitioners of both brands of “spiritual discipline.”
That it may please thee to illumine all bishops, priests, and
deacons, with true knowledge and understanding of thy
Word; and that both by their preaching and living, they may
set it forth, and show it accordingly,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.
Hmmm. I am not so sure if I publicly want to admit my priestly blogfriends are "illuminated," but ok, they are. (grunt.)
Naw...seriously...
That’s a pretty big request. Because of this blog, I have gotten more than my share of "collared friends" on this blog and on Facebook. I also have a tendency to be friends with my own clergy folk. I probably dig their humanness as much as I dig their priestliness. In small towns, because everyone knows everyone, and boundaries are not quite so firm and well-defined, well, it's a little sticky at times. There are times we can all hurt each others feelings in a way that wouldn't happen in larger parishes. But these days, there probably isn't a day go by that I don't think about the special burdens of my own clergy folk and my clergy blogfriends, and my clergy Facebook friends.
After all, y’all are human. And honestly, I don’t have any more expectations for you that you have any more “true knowledge and understanding of the world” than I do. But where the boundary fence stands, where I have to respect you for your priestliness, is you all took vows that said:
1. You believe you were called to the priesthood;
2. You trust the Church to lead you in that commitment;
3. You’ll respect and mind the bishop;
4. You’ll be diligent in reading and studying the Scriptures;
5. You’ll basically be an ambassador to Christ through what you deliver via the Word and Sacraments;
6. You’ll be faithful to your parish and work with them and other clergy to “build up the family of God”;
7. You’ll strive to live a “Christ-like” life;
8. You’ll persevere in prayer, not just public but in your own private prayer life.
That’s a pretty big and heavy list.
Then again, I signed on to a pretty heavy list myself. When I was sworn into the medical profession, I was administered the Oath of Geneva, which said:
1. I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity :
2. I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due;
3. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity;
4. The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration;
5. I will respect the secrets which are confided in me;
6. I will maintain by all means in my power, the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession;
7. My colleagues will be my brothers and sisters;
8. I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient;
9. I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of its conception, even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity.
I always wonder if all the clergy folk in my life ever go to bed at night and lay awake, and think, “I didn’t do my list that I swore to very well today?” I know with my own list I sure have. Sometimes my list feels pretty heavy. It’s hard some days to see how I’m doing these things when I’m cleaning up problems in the office, or fussing about the billing or paperwork. I suppose some people might hold my feet to #9, since I’m pro-choice, but I think #9 doesn’t exactly mean what they think it might mean.
But I imagine you all go to bed some nights feeling a little impotent about “your list” same as I do mine. I imagine the weight of your list cuts into your shoulders on some days. I think some days you might “yearn to be ordinary,” but you can no more be ordinary than I can, I suppose.
You clergy followers of this blog might be a little surprised about this, but I read “your list” now and then, on pages 531 and 532 of the Book of Common Prayer. One of the ways I pray for all of you, is I read “your list” in the BCP. I ask for God to strengthen you in all the things on the list. I ask myself what parts of the list are the parts where I can help you live up to these things, even in the distance of cyberspace, and how I can do that. I ask God to keep you aware of the ways I can, and will help you with your list. I also know my own energy, and anal-retentiveness and occasional personal paranoias can be oppressive at times, and there can be occasional days we could clash here and there. That is certainly true with me and all my friends. When I'm a little out of sorts in that category, I think about the parts of your list where maybe I let you down a little, even if it was not on purpose, or the times I let your collars get in the way of me being totally revealing in the way I would a non-collared person, or the times I might feel (whether true or not in reality; remember, I do have a hyperactive paranoid gland on some days) that you all might be using your collar to "poke at me," or the times you might have misunderstood me and felt like I wasn’t mindful of you, or your list. Oh, I understand where it comes from. Sometimes I get tired of people wanting to make too much "medical talk" with me and I get weary of thinking "when to do it/when not to do it" and I am sure the priestly class has the very same problem!
But having all you "collared friends" is kind of fun, actually. I like feeling like I'm the kind of a person you all can open up with, as much as you feel comfortable doing. I recognize your need for "outlets" here and there. I joke all the time that one of my local functions is "parishioner that clergy can cuss in front of." The flip side is I get a LOT of spiritual insight from a lot of perspectives. As a person who loves to "take things apart and examine them," that is like giving me an entire workshop to play in!
But you have to know I take this part of The Great Litany very seriously with you clergy readers of this blog, because you DO have special burdens, and I take them very seriously!
I just learned of the tragic death of the daughter of one of my dearest blogfriends. I, like Bosco and his family, am devastated.
There are no words, there is no rationale, there is no comfort in the early days of this, when bad things happen to good people. There is only prayer, and the longing that we are reunited again with the ones we lost and loved on this earth.
I am feeling especially connected to their grief, having grown up in the shadow of my uncle R.'s death at age 11. When I heard and read of the news, I could feel that old old feeling of deep grief that was not directly "mine" but realized I owned a piece of it through the pain of others.
Please take time to pray for Bosco, his wife Helen, son Jonathan, and for the soul of their dear departed Catherine.
We sinners do beseech thee to hear us, O Lord God; and that
it may please thee to rule and govern thy holy Church
Universal in the right way,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.
Well, looks like we’re moving from “delivering” to “beseeching”!
This is kind of an interesting request here, because it’s one I don’t think much about but perhaps ought to.
I don’t worry so much about how I, as a lay person, “govern the Church Universal.” I think I pretty much confine my “beseeching God” to making sure I do a good job committing my works to the Church Local!
Honestly, although I sort of casually follow the political issues of TEC, and I certainly have my opinion, I don’t really invest myself in them. It’s too easy for them to get in the way of my faith. No one ever gets all of what they want in politics. That includes church politics. I think what weirds me out about church politics at the national level is, although I think the certainly do need to exist, and it is part of the “vehicle for change” in how we view things, I also think it’s important not to remember that individuals in prayer also change things, and all change should be considered prayerfully.
I observed a couple of very interesting things in our book club at Trinity this week. We are doing the book "Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer" for Lent, which has been as much fun for cradle 'Piskies as well as newbies, and relative newbies like me. One was someone got to discussing how the new Episcopal church in Columbia, Hope Church (Columbia, MO now has TWO Episcopal congregations) “not using prayer books and hymnals.” A projector shows the texts and hymn words. I could feel visible tension sort of fill the room, when this person just TOLD THE STORY. More on that in a second.
I could see why those of you who were in TEC in the days of transition from the 1928 to the 1979 prayer book found that time of transition a time of “hesitant transition.” To change from “familiar” language (even though “familiar” was Elizabethan English) to “unfamiliar” language, had to be a little unsettling, even if you did welcome more modern language. To change from Morning Prayer being the “usual” form of worship to the Eucharistic service being the “usual” form of worship, oddly enough, might have been unsettling. But I also realize that by the time I came along and darkened the door of the church, long after this change had been made, was precisely what drew me to the Episcopal church. I was familiar with the Eucharist being every Sunday, having been reared Lutheran.
But it was very interesting how the word “projector” literally made some in the room stiffen up. I think the BCP as a book will not be going away any time soon. You want my gut feeling? Now, remember, this is from a person who loathes "PowerPoints in church" (mostly because I have to deal with PowerPoint in teaching all week long and I need a reprieve from it) and, for the most part, can't deal well with "Praise music" (too sappy. I kind of feel about it like I do country music--I like the more mournful stuff, but the other stuff you can keep.) I think a “bookless” church would work, but only if the physical space in the room would allow the words to be projected in an unobtrusive fashion so as not to detract from the altar.
At least on Sundays, I don’t even LOOK in the BCP because the words are now committed to my heart. (Holidays are another matter.) Oddly enough, I have a feeling if the words were projected, MORE people would eventually memorize them. People would look up to sing; not down, in the hymnal. But still, the book is not going anywhere soon. Everyone is going on about the Amazon.com Kindle gizmo. A lot of people find the Kindle hard to read. But I would not be aurprised if some day, we will all have digital reading devices, and we’d all walk iinto church and plug them in at the doorway and download the entire BCP on your first visit...and maybe that would not be all bad, b/c then you would take home the entire BCP on your personal device...welcome to 22nd century evangelism, ha!
However, there is no doubt, I love the tactile aspect of a book. I love to hold a book. You don’t need batteries to read a book. You can read a book anywhere. But, I digress. Studying the BCP in the book club for Lent and getting this part of The Great Litany for reflection after the book club is a great non-coincidence.
The other thing I noticed was when the group was talking about the 1928 book, and the green book, and the zebra book, and the 1979 book, was following that business about the liturgy becoming more affirming and less penitential. It is interesting that the breakaway so-called Anglicans usually go back to the 1928 prayer book, and that they WANT to return to a more penitential state.
But I was thinking how the changes that led to the 1979 prayer book are the same as the changes in me. I am wanting myself to be more affirming, more full of joy and grace, and less penitential.
Another thing that crosses my mind, as I think about this in relation to the book club, is that “how we worship” is a driving force in “how we, as lay people, govern the Church Universal.” Nowadays, the big changes in TEC are more related to “how we affirm our Baptismal Covenant with regards to GLBT folks.” The news paints this as “political.” I keep thinking to myself, “No, this is about how we worship. Some people, for whatever reason, no matter how I feel about their opinion, have a thing with both the ‘gay cooties’ and the ‘priestess cooties’ in terms of their theological mindset. It’s ultimately about worship.” It’s ultimately on how they view their relationship with God, and their interpretation of the Bible, and if you get right down to it, in some ways the whole fight is over the speed at which things do or don’t happen, maybe not so much about the issues themselves. There’s nothing going on in TEC that doesn’t mirror society in general.
What is kind of ironic is that in my lifetime, the cultural view in the news of TEC has moved from a denomination more associated with conservatism to one assoicated with liberalism. (I think back to my late grandmother, who in my childhood once told me as we drove by St. James in Macon, “That’s where the rich Republicans go to church.”) Well, although our individual congregation is fairly liberal as a whole, I don’t think that is true necessarily in general. There are plenty of Episcopalians who are more politically conservative or moderate—if there weren’t, why would we be having the struggles over GLBT inclusion? But the conservative and moderate ones that are weathering the changes in the GLBT issues, while remaining in the church (and I think there are probably more of them than I realize, and they are silently weathering the change and we just don’t hear about them, b/c the “breakaway Anglicans” are noisier, just as the “very liberal” in TEC can also be fairly noisy) are weathering them because they are “trusting the Eucharist.” In other words, having an Anglican mindset--”In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
Let’s be real—people can get uncomfortable about worship for far smaller reasons. Some congregations would have balked at our “Liturgy at the Lake.” The year we did Morning Prayer during Lent instead of the Eucharist, and cut the music down to almost nothing by Holy Week made some people uncomfortable (mostly the people who came to church because of our choir, whether in the choir or not). I am betting if we used more of the “alternative Eucharistic Prayers” more, since we mostly do EP-A and EP-C, it would make some people uncomfortable, simply because even though they are in the Enriching Our Worship series, instead of "the red BCP." Our congregation is so used to form III of Prayers of the People; the others might be sort of uncomfortable if we used them more often. So it doesn’t have to be an earth-shaker like GLBT’s in the Apostolic Succession to put people in a tizzy—it can be far less.
I have had people from more conservative denominations sort of cross-examine me about “doesn’t it bother you about (fill in the blank about some inane remark about GLBT’s in TEC)?” and my standard answer is, “Whuuuuut? What are you talking about? I go to church, I sing, I pass the peace, I get the sacrament, I go to coffee hour...and so does everyone else. You think we have people in leather singing “YMCA” in church or something?”
But that, I believe, is the ticket. Ultimately, I think governing the Church Universal is all about worship. I have a feeling that the most important thing I can do as an individual to govern the Church Universal sounds incredibly naive but is the heart of the matter—to simply feel myself in the worship, and live by my Baptismal Covenant, and let the chips fall where they may. I need to concentrate on how I am or am not living my Baptismal Covenant, and not worry about how someone else is. Not just to talk inclusivity, but live it. Not just to hear the Gospel, but live it. Live the Great Commandment, and realize all the rest is commentary.
Sometimes, I feel bad that I don't live within the city limits of Kirksville, because I wish I could help my friends that run for city council with my vote. This morning, I'm kind of glad I'm out of the loop. Click here to see the video on the lone vote against adding the words "sexual orientation" to the Kirksville city rental code. What makes this a bigger eye-roller for me is that this councilman is also a Baptist minister. (The big thought of, "Thanks be to God that this dude is not MY clergy," rolls through my mind...)
I am particularly intrigued that he compares "discriminating against homosexuals" as no different than "discriminating against people with pets." There are TWO legit reasons to discriminate in rental property: That the renters are tearing up your house, or that they are breaking the law in your rental house. Even though I am a pet owner, I understand perfectly and agree that pets create wear and tear on your house. I have the rug stains and the scratch marks and the chewed up rugs to prove it. But I am not sure exactly how GLBT people tear up your house, I missed the memo on that. Also, last time I checked, Missouri got the "consenual varied sex acts" off the books as part of the sodomy laws, so I don't see anything illegal about it. So no matter how this councilman feels about homosexuality in a personal sense, um....what's the problem here?
Last time I checked, gay money is just as green as straight money. I am curious if he would refuse "known gay money" from his offering plate. I hope he at least is consistent.
I have a modest proposal for the councilman. If he is in the rental business, or ever goes in the rental business, I suggest he have his renters sign a sexual code policy and outline specifically which sex acts will be prohibited on his property. I also suggest he have them leave a heftier deposit so if any sexual activities damage his house, they will be covered. Perhaps a maximum nookie limit (similar to the Kirksville city rental ordinance prohibiting anything over three pets) is in order for the next city council meeting. He may not want to rent to dancers, card-players, movie-watchers, or liquor-drinkers, while we're at it. Hell, that might be legit. ALL those things could tear up the house!
I am sorry his denomination tends not to believe in "creeds" (even though they are derived from Biblical texts). If they did, I would remind him of the vow I took in my own Baptismal Covenant, "to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves." But he did not sign on to that one, so I will not hold his feet to it. I just don't understand how some folks think the "gay cooties" will harm them. I have yet to find one thing any homosexual person ever did in my presence that has ever harmed my straightness. I'm pretty sure gays haven't caused the economy to tank, and I'm dead certain that more heterosexuals have trashed rental property and committed crimes in rental property in Kirksville than gays ever will, just by sheer numbers. I have not found a single thing that any homosexual has done that has ever interfered with my relationship with God. I can seem to mess that one up just fine by myself. Maybe I'm just just naive and don't get it, in his world, but ok...whatever.
I admire that you wish to "walk like Christ." But on this topic, I'm afraid he didn't say squat about it. So it sounds to me that this is less about your emulation of Christ than it is about Old Testament law (which bewilders me somewhat, since evangelicals like to point out Christ FREED us from the law), and about Paul's letters. Many learned Biblical historians disagree on what Paul was talking about in his letters on those topics. Many believe he was actually referring to the Roman practice of pederasty, not a committed homosexual relationship, and some other forms of homosexual exploitation and abuse. So I would submit there is room for disagreement in human interpretation here. Which brings us back to Jesus, who didn't say "boo" about the topic. This makes me strongly feel "we're on our own, here," so what you say, to my heart and mind, sounds an awful lot like "hiding behind Daddy's pant leg" and going "Yeah, so there."
Sir...believe what you wish. This is America and you have that right. Vote your conscience and let your record (and your interviews) speak for themselves, and if you choose to run for re-election, it wil be your cross to bear. You might discover that "most people in Kirksville" do not feel the way you do, that perhaps most people in Kirksville are not bothered by this with regards to renting property. I have a hunch that, as a long-time native of the area, people may well have strong and varied moral opinions about homosexuality, but probably not so strong when it comes to collecting Ben Franklins every month from a renter. But please consider what's Caesar's and what's God's.
In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in
the hour of death, and in the day of judgment,
Good Lord, deliver us.
This particular stanza has a great deal of personal meaning to me, as it is one of the prayers I use when I engage in repetitive prayer, and for an odd reason...it’s that line of “in all time of our prosperity.”
It is incredibly comparatively easy to ask for God to deliver us in our times of tribulation.
It is absolutely understandable to ask for God to deliver us from the fear of that moment of transition from life to death.
It is almost a natural reaction to ask God to deliver us from judgments we fear will be harsh.
But to “deliver us from our times of prosperity?” Hmmm.
I am probably no different from anyone else when it comes to the times of my own prosperity. “When it’s all goin’ good for me,” I am sometimes so caught up in the business of enjoying these times, that I strap on an incredibly large pair of blinders to the tribulations of others. The problems of others just don’t seem to be such a big deal when my life is good. I am less likely to want to carry others’ pain when my life is seeming easier. I am more fearful of risking the possibility that the trials of others might rain on my own parade.
The problem, of course, is those are the times I probably ought to reach out and “give till it hurts a little,” whether that is to open up my checkbook and help in that fashion, or to give of myself to the point I feel the cross someone else is bearing just a little keener.
Obviously, I’m not saying to emotionally martyr oneself. We all recognize situations and personality types where we know, deep down inside, we would be in danger of allowing ourselves to be swallowed up in the depth of emotional parasitism. But we also know the situations where we can reach out a little harder, let go of our own egos a little more loosely, and give up a little of our own creature comforts a little more generously. But for some reason, our own times of prosperity can get in the way and cause us to engage in “protectionism” a little more.
Our bishop likes to emphasize “living Eucharistically.” It is an attractive phrase and an attractive concept for me. But it’s always important to remember that “living Eucharistically” means to give of our own body and blood!
By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion;
by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection
and Ascension; and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost,
Good Lord, deliver us.
You know, I’ll tell you what kind of puzzles me about a lot of the modern megachurches. You look around inside, and they appear more to be like performance halls, or auditoriums, and you may look all over the place and never see a cross. Somehow, in this modern push to embrace “feel good” Christianity, that “cross thing” never seems to be part of it. But I do not know how I could possibly embrace the full impact of a Resurrection theology if I did not spend some time thinking about that “beaten, scourged, ridiculed, nailed on a cross to die in an agonizing fashion like the scummiest of common criminals, all in the name of local politics,” part.
The human mind has a need to understand “both 180’s” in order to understand “the full 360.” That is just how we are wired. We can’t understand “hot” if we have never experienced “cold.” We can’t understand “joy” without knowing “despair.” We don’t appreciate “health” unless we have experienced “sickness.”
I have thought about many of the things in my own life that it was apparent that others sacrificed for me. The thing that made it special was I KNEW those people “gave up something in order to give to me.” I realize I have sacrificed for others. These are things, that, “if we’re doin’ it right,” and not doing it simply to feed some kind of weird martyr complex, if we are doing it from the best parts of our heart, these realizations become very profound because it drives home the total value of the gift.
I think sometimes about the O. Henry story “The Gift of the Magi,” where unbeknownst to each other, Jim sells his watch to buy Della a set of combs for her beautiful hair and Della has her long tresses cut off to buy Jim a watch chain.
“And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.”
What ARE the greatest treasures of our houses? Have we ever taken inventory? Maybe this season is a time to ponder that.
