Today's Sermon: Luke 24:36b-48

If anyone wonders whether or not knowing Christ is a full-body experience, this passage from the Gospel of Luke answers those doubts.

I mean, after all…broiled fish?

It is a little surprising, that line about the broiled fish, isn’t it?

Easter time, all that talk about Jesus’ glorious resurrection, and we’re talking a little halibut here.

Sort of brings it back down to earth. You can smell the rich salty aroma of the fish, can’t you? Maybe a little rice, some pita bread, a cup of wine…Jesus fed the 5000 with some bread and some fish, and now here he is, asking for a bit of what he offered back in the early days of his ministry.

And that’s the whole point of this gospel passage: Jesus wants to bring it back down to earth, to prove that he is back down to earth. And how does he do it? With a little nosh. Some broiled fish, to be specific.

Luke tells us that the apostles already knew that Jesus had risen from the dead – they were talking about it among themselves when Jesus showed up – but even though they knew that Jesus had risen, when he showed up, they were frightened. They thought they were seeing a ghost. They didn’t fully understand that he was real. So he invited them to touch him, to see that he was real, to see his hands and his feet (because in that culture, ghosts were not supposed to have hands or feet) .

He understood that they needed the full-body experience of the risen Christ to understand all that had happened.

Before he addressed their fear and mental confusion, reminding them of the prophecies fulfilled in him, before he opened their minds to the scriptures, before he called on them to act as witnesses to the repentance and forgiveness of sins that his passion and death brought…before he did any of these things, he let them touch him, and he sat down and ate with them.

Knowing Christ is a full-body experience.

It is no wonder that those who are on a spiritual journey speak of their hunger to know truth, to know God. It is a gnawing in the gut, that hunger. It is visceral. It is no wonder that at the important markers of our lives – birth, marriage, death – physical acts like food or dance or even special clothing are a necessary piece of living into transitions. It is not only about the spirit – it is about the body as well.

And since I’m the sort of person who tends to live “in her head,” I need to preach this to myself regularly.

I think of a time when I had to meet someone who had betrayed me. Not surprisingly, I was feeling ill at the very thought of having to be in the same room as him. As I sat in a chair in the room, wondering what would happen next, wondering if I could stand the anger and the pain that I felt, I prayed that Jesus would be with me. I prayed that I could get through the meeting with my dignity and my roiling stomach intact. I prayed for the physical sensation that Jesus was with me, that I was not alone in this time when I felt abandoned and isolated and in the wilderness, much like those disciples, trying to figure out what would happen next.

And Jesus was there with me. I felt his arms around me, a warmth and a peace I hadn’t felt in a long time.

It wasn’t something I’d call a miracle. It was more like an awakening to the realization that he had been there all along. By stopping and asking to be awake to his presence, I made room to feel Jesus with me, in me, around me. Not just in my heart, but the physical sensation of his presence.

Knowing Christ is a full-body experience.

During Communion, on the fourth Sunday of every month, we have the healing rail. If you are struggling with something in need of healing, in your body or in your heart, or if you want to pray for someone you know in need of healing, you come to that rail. You kneel. The prayer team gathers around you and prays with you and for you, laying their hands on you, asking God for healing. Your forehead is anointed with blessed oil, in a ritual that dates back to Jesus and that jar of expensive nard that Mary Magdelene poured on his head, and back beyond that, to the anointing of David. The sign of the cross is made on your forehead. The warmth of those hands, the pressure of them on your head and on your shoulders, the soothing oil, the creaking of your knees, the sensation of Jesus with you, in you, around you.
Knowing Christ is a full-body experience.

In a few minutes, we will share God’s peace with one another. This isn’t a prayer that we say standing in place, our arms firmly clamped to our sides. No, here, we move, we hug, we kiss, we hold hands, we look each other in the eye for a few moments. The physical connection is the reminder of the spiritual connection.

And a few minutes after that, we will share in the bread and wine. We will commune with each other and with God in the sacrament of his body and blood. Real bread, real wine. The taste of it on our tongue, the warmth of it in our bellies and in our hearts.

This Risen Lord is a full-body experience. We cannot try to limit our relationship with God to a mere intellectual exercise. And that is why, as we end this Eucharistic meal together today, we are sent out with a dismissal : “Alleluia, alleluia – Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” Having received the gift of the meal, God in us, we then turn around to face the world, to witness to the living Christ just as Jesus told us to in the Gospel. We do that with our voices when we share the word, with our hands when we help others, with our feet when we walk to help others….

Knowing Christ is a full-body experience. May we rejoice in that, as we approach his altar.

Amen.

Yes, It's Saturday, Folks....

...and completely out of character for me, the sermon for tomorrow isn't written yet. I've been in the midst of a full court press incorporating revisions from my outside reader into my thesis, so it can be done,done,done forever. For the sermon, I have some vague ideas about how sitting down at a meal is what makes a relationship real, how it's so easy to label someone "other" until you've shared a table with them...I'm hoping the Spirit will grace me with some more ideas and that the sermon will flow.

I showed three icons (Sophia, Paul, Angel) at the Big Old Seminary art show. Got lots of props from folks, including my thesis advisor, who doesn't know she will receive the Paul as a gift after grades are turned in. Several folks wanted to buy or commission, but that's not really what icon-writing is about, for me. I occasionally give them as gifts, but it doesn't feel like something I could ask money for.

Job search is still job search. I'm waiting for the final go-ahead from the bishop to apply for clergy-in-charge positions. I should get that okay, but I can't really do anything until he says yes officially. and I got passed over (yet again) by a nearby parish because it is a youth ministry job and I'm too old. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

I'm also thinking creatively about an idea that's a little outside the box, but would also need the diocese to buy in...still chewing on some of this stuff.

Other school stuff: there are a couple of odds and ends in my Young Adult Minsitry class to tend to, but they are quite manageable. I've got to get kicking on the research project now that the thesis is winding down.

Grateful that my eyes haven't given out yet from all the reading I've been doing (and not fun stuff, either). Amazed that in less than 30 days I will have a Master of Divinity degree.

it's time, God. Give me a job.

Thesis Redux

I got the comments from the outside reader for my thesis. 7 pages worth. He has raised some interesting questions, some that indicate he didn't read it quite as closely as my advisor did, and some that I outright disagree with. I will meet sometime over the next day or two with my advisor to figure out which we will address in the final.

He did, however, say "the exegetical discussion...is strong, well-informed, and insightful. The writing style is clear and lucid...I enjoyed reading it."

PH tells me that the reader's level of engagement with the thesis is indicative of the quality of my work, that the reader wouldn't have given me such detailed notes if this was just a blah piece of work. I'm just trying to figure out what work needs to be done to get this puppy done.

Signs of the Times

I now own several clergy shirts, plus the requisite "Clericool" collars. No, that's not me on the right. I'm much cuter!

I also now own a white stole from Juliet Hemingray in England (can't show you a picture since she blocks downloading the pictures) and a red stole from Amani ya Juu - http://www.amaniafrica.org/ - in Rwanda (that's the one on the left). I'm still planning on the purple one (my SIL may be bringing me back some purple silk from the souq in Doha). Saint Middle School might be giving me a green one as they have with seminarians in the past. The stoles are gifts out of my stole fund - a year or two ago, I told family members that in lieu of gifts, I'd like a contribution to a fund to buy these things, since they can be rather pricey.

I've already got an alb and a cassock and surplice and a black wool cape for wintertime.

Now all I need is a place to wear them. Sigh.

Friday Five (Hours, That Is)

Actually more like 5.5 hours of driving down and up Rte 95. For a 25 minute meeting, but that's okay.

The bishop said my plan made sense and we talked through some possibilities. He wants to confer with the suffragan and the coadjutor, since he will retire in a few months and they will have to live with me once he's gone, but he is still the Grand Fromage, so I am hopeful that the plan will work.

Now I need to start looking closer at some of the options and figure out how this might work...

Note to self: next time, take the car with the automatic transmission if you're going to be stuck in stop and go traffic.

Stuff

The thesis went out yesterday to the outside reader. He has two weeks to read and comment, then I've got a week to incorporate changes and give it to my advisor. She said a number of wonderful things as we wrapped it up, including "I've really become more and more convinced by your argument" and "It was a privilege to work with you on this project." Given the fact that she is well known to be over-the-top brilliant and measures the rest of the world to her ridiculously high standard, usually finding it wanting, it was very moving to hear this. Getting the thesis done in the midst of three hospitalizations and one surgery was rather insane. I'm grateful that it is (mostly) over and the thesis is (mostly) quite good.

I had an interview for a job in a lovely Southern small city near the place where Nick Nolte and Robert DeNiro had a scary movie conflict. This one is an associate job in a large multi-clergy parish. Focus on pastoral care and family ministry, which are both strengths. Sounds promising. We shall see.

I will be meeting with my bishop tomorrow afternoon to see if he will let me interview for vicar or rector jobs now, despite the fact that this isn't the norm in our diocese. I am cautiously optimistic (see below).

I had a great conversation with my field ed supervisor, who continues to insist that I am ready to be clergy-in-charge someplace, perhaps even at Saint Middle School. He was going to call the bishop this afternoon to say the bishop should let me do that. Since Field Ed Supervisor is held in very high regard by the bishop, that may help. And the fact that FES is willing to ask it of the bishop as a favor is quite wonderful. So say a prayer that the meeting with the Bishop goes well.

I'm trying to keep my game on for the last class I am taking at Big Old Seminary, but I've got a whiff of senioritis. When I stopped by the public library, I got an armload of books that wouldn't qualify as edifying by anyone's standards. On the other hand, the last time I was there, I found a book that gave me a great quote for the last chapter of the thesis:


“This dialogue with Others has never been and will never be easy…[the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity] says that thinking is formed on the basis of language, and as we speak different languages, each of us creates his own image of the world, unlike any other. These images are not compatible and are not replaceable. For this reason, dialogue, though not impossible, demands a serious effort, patience, and the will of its participants to understand and communicate. Being aware of the fact that in conversing with the Other I am communing with someone who at the same time sees the world differently from me and understands it another way is important in creating a positive atmosphere for dialogue.”
----Ryszard Kapuściński, “The Other”

...and that is why I really love going to the library.

Easter Sermon: Noli Me Tangere

So you want to hear the story, eh? You want to hear it from this old woman, this old crone who was in that garden that day?

I’ve told it so many times over these decades since it happened. I am tired…but no.. I will tell it to you again, because I see the hunger in your eyes. You want to know what happened? Sit down there, by the door, where you can feel a breeze on this hot afternoon, and I will tell you.

It was a strange day, after an even stranger week. We started out thinking we would be sharing our Passover dinner together, in Jerusalem, a blessed time. There are others who say differently, that we had that Passover dinner, but this is my story…we dined, and the Teacher blessed that dinner, but it was no Seder…it was something else. But we hardly understood how different this meal, those days would be.

They killed him, you know. It was ugly. The chief priests had made a devil’s deal with Pilate; they had aroused the passions of the crowd. Pilate didn’t really want to do it, but shrewd politician that he was, he did the deed without taking any of the blame for his acts.

They killed him. It was vile and ugly, as crucifixions always are, but this one was even uglier, because this was a gentlest, most loving Teacher. He had done nothing wrong.

Jealousy.

Pigheadedness.

Odd to accuse those righteous priests and scribes of a quality of an unclean animal, but there it is. They refused to hear what he was teaching. They simply saw him as a threat to their established order. So they used the power of the Roman Empire to dispose of someone they hated, not because they thought his teachings were wrong or sinful, but because they thought he would take their power away.

Men! Consumed with themselves, with power, with control.

We women know better…only God has power. Only God has control.

Where was I? Yes….he died. Miserable pain. Only a little sour wine at the end to ease his agony. He died, and Pilate did the one gracious thing in his power…he let Joseph, that rich man , Arimathean, take the body of our poor dead teacher.

Good man, that Joseph. He put the Teacher’s body in his very own tomb. A nice tomb it was, freshly hewn, no animals in there, just a stone slab on which to lay him down. A hard bed, but at least a clean one. Nicodemus came, too…he brought the spices, the myrrh, the aloes. We buried him properly, wrapped in fine linen, with the spices in the folds of the cloth, as was our custom in those days. And Joseph and Nicodemus and four of Joseph’s servants heaved a great stone across the opening. None could get in to disturb dear Teacher in his resting place.

And so we left. Our eyes were dry. There were no tears left to weep. The beloved one, with his arm around Mary, Jesus’ mother…they were both beyond words. The rest of us, too, feeling nothing but the hard cold emptiness of our loss.

I could not sleep. No surprise…my mind always raced ahead at breakneck speed, trying to understand the Teacher’s beautiful words. But now there would be no more words…I wanted to repeat them, over and over, so I would never forget. But it was not enough.

And so I got up, before the sun’s rays warmed the air, and went back.

Back to the tomb, back to the Teacher. The words were not enough. I wanted…no, I needed, to be near him.

I wandered down path, tripping over stones in the darkness, hearing the cries of animals around me. I was frightened. Darkness is a harsh world. You imagine much evil that you cannot see in the dark. And evil had been all around me these past days.

When I got to the cave where we had buried him, I stopped. I thought it was a trick of the light, as the sun crept over the horizon…no…it was true…the stone was rolled away. There could be only one reason – some evil ones had rolled away that stone and taken the Teacher’s body.

I had been frightened walking in the dark…now I was even more frightened, and angry, too. Who had done this? Where had they taken him? It was more than I could bear…first they killed him, then they took him. Why? To what purpose?

So I turned and I ran. I ran faster than I had ever run before, most certainly much faster than these old legs could carry me now. I found Peter and the beloved one, and told them…He’s gone. Someone has taken him from the tomb. I don’t know where he is.
And now they were running, the two of them, running even faster than I had, and the beloved one – oh how he loved the Teacher! – he got there first, but when he looked in and saw, he would not go in. But Peter, he did go in, and it was a strange thing he found there…

The linens cloths, neatly folded. The head wrapping rolled up separately on the slab. But no Teacher. And the beloved one went in, too, and saw it…they did not know what to make of it, I tell you, nor did I. They said not a word to me, but their faces were greatly troubled…they simply left. Walked back home.

But I could not leave. This was the final insult to my dear teacher, to have him taken from us by death and now by…what? Who? I did not know. So I sat on the ground and wept.

I had thought my tears were spent. I was wrong. I cried, and I looked into the tomb.

You know, it is foolishness to look once and see nothing, then look again as if something might magically be there. And perhaps I was a fool to look, but I did, as if I could once again imagine his body there as we had left it.

This fool looked, and saw something beyond belief…two angels. Perhaps I was mad with grief, but I tell you now, they were real. There were two of them sitting on that cold hard slab of rock, one at the head, one at the foot. They saw me weeping there, and asked me why I wept.

Why did I weep? Why should I not weep? The pain..first, to see the Teacher killed, then to have his body removed from the tomb? Such ridiculous questions…I turned away again in my anger.

And there was a man standing there. I thought he was the gardener at first…his face was in shadow, my eyes were blinded by my tears. And he asked the same question “Why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?”

I thought he might have been the one to take the Teacher away, so I asked him where he had put him…

My eyes were blinded by my tears, but my ears were not. I should have recognized that voice, shouldn’t I? But it was only when he said my name, “Mary” that I knew. It was my teacher. He was alive…I reached for him

Dear Teacher, let me touch you and hold you! Let me embrace you!

But he said no.

I could not touch him. He would not let me.

But the tomb was empty! He was alive! He had conquered death!

I wanted to embrace him.

But he had something else in mind… to tell the others what I had seen, and that he was ascending to the father in heaven.

I wanted to hold on to the old Teacher, the man I had known, had anointed with nard, had dined with. But this Teacher was something new and wondrous. He was no longer someone for human embrace…all I could say to the others was the truth “I have seen the Lord.”

So that, my young friend, is the story. The years have taught me what I did not understand then. The human embrace would never have been enough. It was when I embraced this risen Teacher by living as he taught me, by teaching others as he so often did, by loving my brothers and sisters with the depth of the oceans and by loving my God more than anything or anyone….that was the true embrace. The miracle of that moment in the garden was the release from clinging to the man so that I could reach out with those same hungry arms to hold on to the world that he came to save.

And I am tired now. Even now, decades later, the story still has the power to make me emotional. I have tried to be faithful to the Teacher, and I suppose the best way I know to do that is to pass on the story to the young ones, like you.

So will you go and do the same? I would like that, and I know that the Teacher would, too.

Amen.

So Here's the Deal...

The standard model of post-seminary life is that one gets a job as an assistant in a parish for a few years.

That model works well if you're young, (generally) male, and you want to focus on youth ministry, since most rectors want someone to bring in young families, and it is their perception that young deacons/priests do that.

I am not young chronologically. I have done youth ministry, and can do it well, particularly if the work is around recruiting, motivating, and training lay persons to do the work. Junior High lock-ins, not so much.

Nevertheless, it has become clear that I have a tough time even getting into an interview because committees and rectors look at my resume and think "Hmmm, middle-aged female. Academic chops, great preacher, lots of major league life experience. This is not what feels like a youth ministry assistant." And the resume goes into the B or C pile.

As I've mentioned before, this passing over has happened several times now, and in one case I was told I was overqualified for such a job.

So here's the epiphany moment: yes, I am overqualified for most of these jobs. So maybe these aren't the jobs I should be applying for. Maybe my husband, my Field Ed supervisor, and the last guy who turned me down for a job are right.

Henceforth, I'll be focusing my efforts on vicar and rector positions. Smaller places with challenges like prior conflict, dwindling membership in changing neighborhoods, confusion about their mission. Calls that would utilize my skills in conflict resolution, transitional ministry, and administration as well as preaching, pastoral care, and spiritual formation.

Now, this bucks the Standard Operating Procedure in a number of ways. I will be ordained to the Transitional Diaconate right after I graduate, so there is that sticky problem of what to do about Eucharist for the six months between ordination to the diaconate and priesting...not insurmountable, since there are retired priests in many of the areas where i'm looking at positions. If I stay in this diocese, I would need for my bishop to do something that hasn't been done here before in approving a deacon to take the reins of a parish. it's been done successfully elsewhere, though. And if I didn't think I could make a good case for it, I wouldn't be going down this road.

This will also most likely mean it will take me a bit longer to find a job than I thought, but Lord knows I'm not beating off offers right now.

Don't know, but it feels like the Spirit nudging me. What do you think?

Random Dots of Monday

• I emailed the final draft of the thesis to my advisor and will meet with her tomorrow at 2 to go over it. When I saw her today and told her it was done, she gave me a hug. She is by nature a very reserved person, so it felt rather like a hug from Queen Elizabeth. Then again, QEII tolerated an arm around her back by our First Lady last week, so I suppose all sorts of miracles occur. We shall see if the advisor still wants to hug me after she reads all 70+ pages of the thing.

• Still not much happening on the job front. I have decided to put it all aside until after Holy Week, since I've got the revisions to the thesis to do, plus sermons for Good Friday and Easter as well as presiding at our Tenebrae service tomorrow night and the Good Friday service, plus assisting at Maundy Thursday and Easter, and singing the Vittoria Improperia at the Good Friday morning service at Big Old Seminary. I'm bummed that I'm not working anywhere where I could chant the Exsultet, but maybe next year, wherever I am.

• I was pleasantly surprised when I checked into the price of auto insurance with the company that has the spokesGecko. Turned out they will charge me some $800 less per year than the company we have been with for the past several years, namely the one with the spokesSnoopy. The gecko is, after all, leaner than the beagle.

• StrongOpinions is back at school after her last week's meltdown. We've got her hooked up with some resources up there that I hope will help the remainder of the semester go more smoothly. I love her madly, but it was not a good week for her to have a meltdown. I suppose it could have been worse - it could have been this week, and I would have required much chocolate and red wine to get through it all. I will still need the chocolate and the wine for this week, just in slightly lesser quantities.

• I wrote an email to a deployment officer in a diocese not my own that shall remain nameless and got a rather snarky reply: "We are the coolest most desirable diocese on earth and everyone wants to come here, so why should we be interested in you? Why are you wasting my precious time?" Oh, dear, I thought we were the church or something. I thought perhaps I was overreacting to it so I passed it along to PH, who shook his head and suggested that it was downright rude. Proves once again that the church is a human institution with all the attendant human frailties.

• I finished the icon of Sophia, the Wisdom of god. She is off getting varnished. I hope to have her back next Saturday, at which time I will post a picture of the very strange but lovely finished product. Next in the queue is an icon of Christ Pantocrator.

• We went out to dinner with in-law family (sister-in-law's brother and wife and daughters). It was a lovely evening, but that glass of sangria with dinner and another glass at their hotel suite after dinner really whomped me one. Getting up today was a challenge, and I'm still not feeling 100%. Lovely evening otherwise, although they would have been game to chitchat for another hour or two when we said we had to leave at 10 pm. We are old wusses, I guess.

• The prayers for the week, then, are that two sermons get written, that all the bulletins I've modified and proofed for this week for Saint Middle School are printed with no fatal errors, that the revisions from the advisor are within the realm of reasonability, that I will be able to fit into my rather snug cassock, and that God gives me some hints on the job front. Oh, and no rain on Sunday morning for our outdoor service on the land.

Prayer for today:

Thank you God for the wonderful sermon by DG at noon Eucharist at BOS. It was just what we all needed to refocus. Thank you, too, for folks who care even in the midst of their own struggles, and for Saint Middle School, where I have been given extraordinary responsibilities and have been applauded for my work. Keep me focused on what is really important this week. Keep me from obsessing over things I cannot change. Hold me in your hand when I feel small and in need of warmth. Bless me and give me the courage to do your work, because it is only with you and through you and in you that the work really gets done.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Mostly Because I Need To Remind Myself of This Every Day

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. ~Thomas Merton

(TOH to RDM, who brought this prayer back to the forefront of my memory.)

Page Count Update - Thursday Edition

Now 71 pages, and pretty much done. I've got maybe a page more to do on the conclusion section, and another page to finish excursus II. Then it's all copy-editing. It should be ready for the advisor on Monday morning. Wow.

Various and Sundry

Only added one more page to the thesis today - a lot of stuff to be tended to that made the day get away from me. Tomorrow will be productive. I swear it!

Another turn-down on a job, but for a novel reason: I am "overqualified." Don't know whether to laugh or cry. Thank goodness I had a meeting with my spiritual director today.

Time to do some more reading....

Page Count Update - Tuesday

I'm now at 66 pages. Finished Chapter Five and am into Chapter Six, the final one. I still have another page or two to do on the second excursus, but I've decided to come back to that after this chapter is done.

This horse is heading toward the stable. If I don't get it done by Friday night, it will definitely be done by Monday, when I meet with my advisor.

The first list of seniors' new jobs was posted this morning. Two surprises, one not-so-much surprise, a few others that I had heard were in the works. The Diocese of Texas folks are in the home stretch of finalizing their curacy placements - the diocese places them. Okay, God, give me a clue here. Most of us don't have jobs yet. Just a wee bit stressful. Sigh.

Page Count Update - Saturday Noon

At 54 pages, into Chapter Five. Through the "signs and wonders" at the end of 27, now discussing the centurion and his response to what happened. I restructured some of the earlier material to create two "excursus" sections, and the second one will need some more work. I am getting more hopeful that the draft will be done by the end of this week. Whew.

Page Count Update - Friday

Only up to 50 pages today, but I did some extensive editing of earlier pages and I pretty much finished Chapter 4, so I can live with that. I will also do some writing tomorrow. My hope, insane as it seems, is to get this draft done by April 6th, when I meet again with my advisor. I think I'm done for today.

Have a good weekend.

Page Count Update - Thursday

Only up to 47 pages. Three and a half today. A little drama that needed attending to, plus a job interview that is probably not the right place for me, ate into the day in a very annoying way. Still about five pages away from being done with the chapter. Maybe tomorrow I can wrap that up and start in on Chapter Five. That shouldn't be more than twelve pages (famous last words) and the Conclusion chapter no more than five. If I can get this draft written prior to Holy Week, it will be a.good.thing. I've got three sermons to write for Holy Week. Dang. Time to pray: " The day is over. What is done is done..."

Oh, and StrongOpinions got another tattoo this evening.

Parenthood is hard work. Writing a thesis is hard work. Thank God for God.

Many Miles, Many Questions

I had a good but exhausting day yesterday.

Left home at 0 dark 30 to drive down to the land of Mr. Jefferson's academical village.

I met with a member of a search committee who is also a friend. Her church, a fascinating little multicultural place in the midst of a university town, will be posting their position announcement for a new vicar the day after Easter. They have been through a bad patch with a vicar who wasn't the right fit, and the aftermath of that experience has taken a couple of years to work through. My friend is convinced that I might have the right skill set to help this place move forward and grow again.

Then I spent several hours with an old friend who is the rector of a large church (ASA 511 over two services) about 20 minutes away from the downtown of the same university town. He is looking for an associate rector. His current one is leaving because her husband is going back to school elsewhere. The area is growing, the church is financially healthy, the parishioners are an interesting mix of old and new (and the old welcomed the new), and they have a beautiful new organ and a growing music program. I also went to lunch with the rector and his former senior warden, who is on the search committee. It was one of those job interviews that masquerade as "it's just lunch." I suspect this job would be mine if I wanted it.

Then there is St Middle School, which is still in play and is wonderful but complicated. I would be the easy choice for them. They know me, I know them, we'd remain in the general area where PH works so he could maintain his existing practice, but the cost of living is higher.

The choices look something like this:
1) a place where I would be boss, would work a zillion hours, be in an extraordinarily cool place with very interesting parishioners, would be a hero if I turned it around after it went through some very hard times, and if it worked out I could stay there for a decade, making it worthwhile for PH to start a new practice;
2) a place where I could learn how to be a priest by apprenticing with an experienced, generous and successful priest who is also a grown-up, work a 40-hour week, be a part of a team but not the boss, and would get itchy to leave in two years (which is a challenge for poor PH, for whom building a new practice takes a few years);
3) a place where I would be boss of a sub-unit of a resource-sized parish (vicar of the mission) part of the time plus assistant for outreach and mission the rest of the time, probably work less hours than # 1 but more than #2, have to live out in the 'burbs, a little further out than I would like, but not have to move PH from his practice, and might be a place to stay for several years if it continued to grow, but would involve working with a wonderful but challenging rector (visionary, not detail-oriented, doesn't always close the loop).

Adding to the mix is the fact that this diocese does not normally name transitional deacons to head churches, even as vicars, which would mean the Bishop doing something potentially precedent-setting by approving me for either #1 or #3. That said, I do have the skill set to do the job. Mostly.

Suffice to say, I have a lot to chew on. What say ye?

Page Count Update: Tuesday Edition

Up to 44 pages as of today. I thought it was 45. Wishful thinking. Close, though.

The analysis of the Canaanite woman's story is done, and I'm on to the formation of the church, the last section of Chapter Four. Tomorrow will be a road day, so no new pages, but I've got some reading material with me in case I have a break to prepare for the next section. I think my eyes need the change - looking off down the road for a few hours in each direction will be a break from looking at small print (why do commentaries have those sections that aren't even footnotes but are written in 7 pt fonts?) and at the computer.

Road trip! Road trip!

Page Count Update

As of 4:30 this afternoon, I was at a total of 38 pages. A lot of progress in a single day. I'm hoping tomorrow will be as productive, and Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That would take me to 66, which is a good number. I've got maybe 3 more pages in this section of this chapter, then maybe 10-12 on the final section in this chapter. Next chapter will be shorter, perhaps 12-15 pages, then the conclusion, which I doubt will run more than 6 pages. An end in sight, maybe.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Editing will follow. I may have a few brain cells left when I am done. Maybe.

Yeah, I'm still alive.

Cranked out another 20 pages of thesis these past few days. Aiming for another 20 this coming week, which is spring break at Big Old Seminary. Add another 10 or 15 and I'll be done. The advisor likes what I've done thus far, but the clock is ticking. It has to be sent to the outside reader on April 15th.

I've got conversations with two different churches this Wednesday in the vicinity of lovely C-Ville, home of Mr. Jefferson's academical village. Although this is not the direction we wanted to move to, they are both interesting opportunities (very different) and the Albemarle County area is wonderful. So I'll get in the car at 6:30 on Wednesday morning and head southwest.

It's a rather remarkable story, how I found out about these opportunities. I had gotten rather unhappy about the invisibility of assistant rector jobs, and how it all seemed like an old-boy network, and how they only seemed to want to talk to young guys and not experienced women. So when I met with the Commission on Ministry, and they asked how things were going, I said, "Frankly, I'm getting a bit frustrated in my job search...you all have been so supportive and such an important part of my formation - now I need you to help me in this next step. I need you to be MY search committee, helping me to find out what is available out there." And remarkably, two women from the committee approached me as I was leaving to tell me about the first of these two opportunities.

Even more remarkably, the rector of this church was the former assistant at my sponsoring parish, and he had assisted at my wedding to PH.

More remarkable still, when I contacted him, he had already offered the job to someone else, but a week later, when the candidate had turned down his offer, he called me and wanted to talk.

And the other opportunity is with the mission parish of the woman who gave me the lead on the first job - they will be posting the job the day after Easter.

Something is happening here. I hope it is the Holy Spirit working, as usual, in ways I never expected. In any case, we shall see what happens next.

Meanwhile, I'm chilling out this weekend while PH is away at a conference in Charm City. Tomorrow is Saint Middle School (which is still in play as an opportunity as well) followed by my Lay Committee. Eight more weeks there as their seminarian. Wow.

Today's Sermon: Lent 3, John 2:13-22

When the world turns upside down, it’s surprising what things you will cling to. It may well not be the things you’d expect – the things that have monetary value. It seems that every time people are driven out of their homes by natural disaster, what they grab to save are things that mark what is close to their heart – a picture album, a china cup that was Grandma’s, the family Bible.

I think of being part of a work crew in Pascagoula MS after Hurricane Katrina. We worked on a house owned by a sweet older lady, Miss Virginia. When the hurricane hit, she was in mourning because her beloved husband of fifty years had recently passed after a long bout with Alzheimer’s. That death had been preceded only a few years before by the death of Miss Virginia’s mother, whom she had nursed for almost a decade. In the aftermath of the hurricane, Miss Virginia was understandably depressed, living in a claustrophobic FEMA trailer in her front yard, all alone on a street where everyone else had left town. She had nowhere to go. As the team was clearing out her home – it was to all purposes an interior demolition, since the storm surge had brought a seven-foot wall of water through the one-story bungalow – they noticed something in the back yard. A bit of colored plastic, nothing much. One of the men bent over to pick it up – it was Miss Virginia’s husband’s driver’s license. The man went over and knocked on flimsy door of the trailer of this dear woman who made the workers a pot of coffee every morning and gave her the discolored, storm soaked memento. Miss Virginia burst into tears, hugged the fellow and said, “All of our pictures were lost in the storm. This is the only picture I have of my husband. Thank you so much.”

In the aftermath of the storm, her world turned upside down, the thing that was most precious to Miss Virginia was a marker of her most important relationship. The things of the world – her lost jewelry, the bank books, antique furniture – were worthless in comparison to what mattered most – the memory of a precious relationship, a blessed relationship. To her insurance adjuster, the recovery of that driver’s license didn’t fit in to the equation of what Miss Virginia had lost – what she had found that was so precious to her was not something that could be quantified in the ways of the world. What she had found was, in the words of St Paul in today’s reading from first Corinthians, foolishness.

But God’s foolishness, the foolishness of the heart, is wiser than the so-called wisdom of the world, so we often miss the true value of it, just as on the face of it, a Messiah who dies on the cross doesn’t seem like a success for the good guys.


This past week has been a difficult one at my seminary. Because of the awful economy which has meant great losses in our endowment fund, the Dean announced a restructuring plan that meant that several people would lose their jobs. Others would be taking early retirement. Suffice to say there was great sadness and some anger at this change from the world as we knew it to a harsher, more difficult reality. The grief was to a large extent for relationships that would be broken, or at least changed, as these people left us. We were left to cling to memories of one of them advising a student going through a personal crisis, another of them fixing a problem with a computer, yet another doing the sort of behind the scenes work that made the seminary such a smoothly running place. With the world turned upside down, the memories of the relationships were the only comfort, the most important things to cling to.

This sort of event is no news to many of us here in St Gabriel’s. Some of us have lost our jobs, or have seen our small businesses struggle with lack of customers. For others of us, our retirements are in jeopardy, and we are wondering how the bills will get paid.

It is a world turned upside down, and it is disconcerting, to say the least.

In hard times like these, we do figure out what is truly important.

Think about our Gospel passage today. Jesus goes into the Temple. He sees the money-changers exchanging the Roman coins for ritually acceptable tender. He sees the sheep-sellers, the pigeon merchants, offering animals for sacrifice. He is so infuriated by the commerce going on in the Temple, in a house of prayer, that he weaves together a makeshift whip and drives the merchants out, yelling at them, saying that they had desecrated the Temple – his Father’s house - by their actions. He turns the table upside down.

Now if you’re a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem, you know that much of the work and worship of the Temple is predicated on sacrifice and on monetary offerings. The Book of Leviticus has vast lists of what kind of animal you sacrifice in response to a particular malady or sin. There were prescriptions for guilt offerings, for sin offerings, for peace offerings, and in most cases, the priests got a part of those sacrificial offerings for their own meals after the sacrifice was made. So imagine this Galilean shows up and drives away the people who provide the animals and the appropriate coins for the tithes. You are going to be deprived of the ability to do the work that is outlined in Torah, in Leviticus, the work of making sacrifices that relieve people of the burden of their sins. You are also going to be deprived of your livelihood.

Suffice to say, you’re going to be angry at this Galilean. So you ask him “What gives you the right to do this thing? What gives you the right to turn these tables upside down, to upset our system and our ways of worship?” And the response is so strange, so incomprehensible, that it makes your head reel: “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.”

What? Three days? The Temple is enormous. It took over forty years to build. Three days? That’s absurd. But Jesus is speaking of another temple, the temple of his own body, which will be destroyed and yet be resurrected at Easter. And at that time, the disciples will remember that Jesus said this.

Jesus was speaking at a time when there were a number of reform movements or sects within the Jewish religion; ultimately the Pharisees, who were just such a reform movement and who got such bad press in the gospels, became the predominant voice in how the faith of Israel would be lived. It is safe to assume that Jesus was not the only one who spoke against conducting commerce within the Temple, but he was certainly the only one who said he was the son of God. It would have gotten the attention of the religious leaders who had a vested interest in keeping things exactly as they were. The disaster to come – the increased oppression of the Jewish people and their unsuccessful revolt against Rome – was not yet visible to those religious leaders. To them, maintaining the status quo was important. Jesus, knowing what was to come for them and for himself, spoke out against the accepted way of doing things, the way that was of the world. He turned the tables upside down, said things that didn’t fit in with the world as the people around him knew it.

And in the aftermath of that world turned upside down, what was preserved by Jesus’ death and glorified by his resurrection was indeed a relationship – our relationship with God, through the risen Christ. Like the driver’s license recovered in that back yard covered with the detritus of the storm, our relationship with God was recovered on a hill outside of Jerusalem.

The story of Jesus cleansing the Temple is a foreshadowing of the turning upside down of the world that is coming during Holy Week, completed on Easter morning. Jesus is giving us a preview of what is to come, in his angry actions in that Temple courtyard. As we see the storm clouds gathering in the distance and hear the weather report that a hurricane is coming, we may not understand the larger picture of what is to come. But we start to understand that we may need to figure out what is really important, what relationships endure through the storm, and what God will do to preserve them.

Amen.

Some Up and Some Down on Friday

I had a good meeting with my marvelous and slightly scary thesis advisor this morning. The first five minutes, like all meetings at Big Old Seminary now, was a discussion of the state of our little world on the Holy Hill, and the angst around the restructuring. Once we got past the requisite pastoral check in ("How are you doing with all this? Do you need to talk?") we got down to the business at hand, and she very much liked what I had done thus far, so I am grateful. I was braced for some comment about how little I've actually written thus far, but there was none of that, thanks be to God. I know, however, that I've got to turn out at least fifteen pages a week for the next couple of weeks to make the deadline, and that's a scary number. I am happier now that I am out of the Matthean context stuff and into exegetical work. I can rock on that. My study carrel looks like a bookmobile projectile-vomited into it, what with the various books and journals with thousands of post-it notes and such. Remarkably, I know where everything is. Chance favors a disorganized mind?

BTW, this picture is NOT my study carrel. I have a laptop...

In the category of "God has a sense of humor", I had written to an old friend who, I was told, had a job opening. He had emailed back, saying he had already extended an offer to someone, but would be happy to talk to me about opportunities in his area. When we finally got around to talking yesterday, he said that it now seemed likely that the person to whom he had extended the offer was going to take another job, and he might be reopening the search. He, of course, saw the Holy Spirit in all this, and so do I, but until I know that a) the other person tells him the other offer is the choice and b) my friend is reopening the search and is interested in me, I'm simply going to keep on praying for patience and not assign it to anything except the world turning on its axis. It was, however, a nice counterbalance to another job for which I had applied and from which I had received a "no thanks" today. I've got a meeting with someone on Monday afternoon. We shall see where this all goes. My Diocesan Deployment Officer is away at a meeting of the Transition Ministry Network, and that may bear fruit. Oh, this is a slow and less than rewarding process - there must be a better way.

I'm getting some good work done in a number of other areas that require my attention, some of which even pay me. On the non-income side, I may actually be preaching on Easter, a prospect that scares the {insert metaphor of your choice} out of me. I'm preaching this Sunday and the sermon isn't done yet. My poor folks at Saint Middle School - they deserve better than this, but I'm too swamped to do more.

Tomorrow morning is another field work morning. I've got a couple of other hours of fieldwork this coming week (mostly evenings) - it turns out writing up the field notes is extraordinarily time-consuming. On the other hand, it is paying better than anything else I'm doing right now, and money is tight, so it seems worth the effort.

Ancora imparo.

Mud and Daffoldils

Walking around the campus of Big Old Seminary today, I squished through some mud heading for the library. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two daffodils, the first ones I've spotted this season. It was colder today, after a few days of downright summery weather, and I was shivering in my light jacket. The daffodils, so rich a shade of yellow against the green and brown, warmed me a bit.

That bit of warmth was a needful thing. Today we got word of some of the people on staff who have been told their jobs are being eliminated. One is a mentor and dear friend, another an admirable staff person who always answers our silly questions with gentle grace. I don't know who the others are yet. No matter. It hurts losing any member of the BOS family.

The Dean met with the community this afternoon. A couple of things struck me about that meeting. First, people are hurt and angry, as anyone would be at the loss of a dear family member. Second, I suspect the Board pressed the Dean hard for this solution, and it was not his first choice. Third, because he was willing to stand in front of the community and answer questions, he bore the brunt of the anger and pain.

I am not sure that the choice that the Board and the Dean made was the right one. Some elements of the plan seem to be wrongheaded in tone if not in result. Time will tell. Nevertheless, the decision has been made, and it seems better to expend our energy on helping those who have lost their jobs and praying for the future of the institution than on banging on the one person in the leadership who was willing to face us.

It puts an ugly punctuation mark at the end of my time at seminary, but it is reflective of the larger world.

It would be nicer to have to tread through less mud right now, and see more lovely daffodils waving their yellow faces in the breeze. But I guess we're still in mud season here, whatever the temperature, and all we can do is to pray for warmth and sunlight and flowers, not just for us, but for a troubled world.

Miscellany

The first two sections of the thesis are written. Five more, each of which will be somewhat lengthier than these first two, await. I'll be doing some serious writing over spring break. I'm grateful the logjam has broken. PH tells me when I complain that it is going slowly that folks working on dissertations expect to get one good page a day done. I'm doing better than that, but that factoid helps me be realistic in my expectations. I have had occasion to knock out a 20 page paper in three days, but this is a whole different kind of writing, and it is impossible to work that quickly. My thesis advisor and I will meet on Friday morning, and we shall see what she thinks of what I've done thus far.

I have a job interview on Monday. Some things about this job make it a good fit, some do not, but I like the rector and am looking forward to further conversations with him. It just feels good after not even getting in to interview on some jobs to finally have one set up.

Big Old Seminary is, like so many other institutions, struggling with the economy. Our endowment is still larger than any of the other Episcopal seminaries', and we're not crashing and burning, but it seems there will be some staff cuts in the near future. Folks are pretty edgy around here. There is some wondering about the impact of all this on scholarships and such, so that adds to the nasty brew. Rumors are flying, and it will be healthier once people know the full extent of the cuts and what it means. Having been in several organizations that had to lay off staff (and having had to do the laying off on a couple of occasions), I know how distracting and painful it is. Let it not be too bad, and let those who are laid off find other employment quickly.

StrongOpinions has the mid-term wimwams at her new school in the Big Apple. I can sympathize. Going from a small, very freeform college to an Ivy is intimidating. On the other hand, she has just gotten word that another piece of hers will be published, this time in a literary anthology. As she said, "A real book that will be on the shelves of real bookstores!"

It seems that all my kids and grandkids will be coming down here for my ordination. I haven't had everybody (all eleven of the contingent) in my house in forever, so it will be a trip in every sense of the word. PH's family will come for the commencement at BOS, which is a week and a half earlier. Probably a good distribution of family over the time period. I still have to figure out what we'll do in the way of party or whatever after each event. Can't be distracted by that until after I get the thesis done.

It dawns on me that I've got about 8 and a half more weeks at BOS. Shocking. Scary. Joyful. Wow.

Today's Sermon: Mark 8:31-38

How many people here have worked in technology businesses? Software engineering? Government contractors? High-tech manufacturing?

And how many of you have worked in start-up businesses?

An interesting world, isn’t it?

I’ve been associated with six high-tech startup businesses. In two, I was one of the founders. In the others, I was an early-stage employee, paid more in stock that we hoped would someday be valuable than in real dollars.

In each case where I was an employee, the companies were led by charismatic visionaries.

These were men with big ideas. Our job was to implement those big ideas. Both the blessing and the curse of those leaders was what Alan Greenspan used to refer to as “irrational exuberance.” They believed, with great fervor, that their idea was the best, that this company could make millions of dollars, that the market would adore us and our product. We, as mere employees, would worry about the promises the visionary leader had made to investors, to potential customers, to us. We were the ones who would actually deliver the product, and we suspected how hard that task would be.

So when I hear this gospel story today, with a powerful and charismatic Jesus who suddenly starts talking about things that make the disciples distinctly uncomfortable, I know exactly what Peter is talking about when he starts to rebuke Jesus. I can imagine what he is saying in that rebuke: “Wait a minute, Lord. Don’t talk like that. You’re scaring all the people away. You’re making promises that frighten us, all this talk about how you’re going to suffer and die and rise again.” Peter, a pragmatic and rational fisherman, thinks his leader has gone a little crazy, and wants to talk him off the proverbial ledge.

Peter, after all, has just answered that question that Jesus asked him last week: “Who do you say that I am?” And he’s answered it correctly. “You are the Messiah.” That’s a remarkable exchange, because generally, in the gospel of Mark, the disciples are slow learners who don’t answer any question correctly. Jesus regularly gets impatient with their inability to understand what he has been saying. And here, suddenly Peter gets it right, but he’s only the prize student for a few moments, because when Jesus starts to talk about what will happen to him, and Peter says, “Boss, stop, you’re scaring the guys,” he gets the dunce cap. “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
That’s harsh. He’s telling Peter that he is not only wrong, he’s wicked. He’s a tempter, trying to get Jesus to do something bad.

But wait! There’s more! Jesus isn’t done saying scary things. He starts to tell the disciples what it really means to follow him. It is not only Jesus who will suffer in this work, they will, too. The work is a cross that they must bear. They must deny themselves.

The cost of discipleship. It is high. It is frightening.

But it is not without its reward: if you lose your life for Jesus’ sake and the sake of the gospel, you will save it. It is not about this world, it is about being with God the Father in the heavenly kingdom. The glory isn’t here. It’s in another place, another time beyond time, and it is a glory that must be earned.

Peter got it right – this is the Messiah. But the Messiah, the Chosen, the Anointed one isn’t an earthly king, rescuing the people of Israel from their miserable life under the thumb of the Roman Empire and the Jewish representatives of that empire in Jerusalem.

No, Jesus is offering different, something much more… but it comes at a price. Here’s the hard lesson: there is glory to be gained, there is eternal life, there is that wonderful heavenly banquet. But, here, now, there is only the road to the Cross, because that’s the road of following Christ.

Do you wonder what that means, that road to the Cross? Do the stories of Jesus’ disciples in the gospel seem so alien, so different, that you can’t imagine what discipleship looks like? This is a road that many of us are walking on right now.

If you’ve lost your job and are struggling to find another, and you have an encouraging conversation with another person who’s in the same boat, you’re a disciple on the road to the Cross.

If you’ve received a diagnosis that means difficult and frightening treatment, and you keep praying not only for yourself but for all who suffer from illnesses, you’re a disciple on the road to the Cross.

If your child is failing in school, and you don’t know what to do, and you lovingly encourage your child even though you’re tempted to yell at him, you’re a disciple on the road to the Cross.

If you look at your savings and realize you may never be able to retire, and you send money to a charity that helps those with even less than you, you’re a disciple on the road to the Cross.

If someone you love is dying, and you give them the gift of companionship as well as your prayers, you’re a disciple on the road to the Cross.

As Jesus’ messiahship required that he die for us before he was raised in glory, our discipleship requires that we do the hard work of following, of serving, of living in an imperfect and sometimes painful world, before we are rewarded in the heavenly kingdom.

And that is hard work. It would be easier if Jesus only required that we believe in Him. But our belief must be made visible in what we do. It must be made visible in all that we do.

There’s a wonderful hymn that talks about the work that lies ahead for those of us who want to follow Jesus: Take up your cross, the Savior said, if you would my disciple be, take up your cross with willing heart, and humbly follow after me. This is the message we hear in this gospel. If we want to follow Jesus, we’ve got to lift up that cross. Why? The last verse of the hymn gives us the same reason we heard in the gospel: For only those who bear the cross may hope to wear the glorious crown.

Yes, we get that now. But the carrying of a cross is a hard thing. Our arms get tired, the palms of our hands get sweaty and blistered. Our back hurts. How can we do this work of discipleship? The answer is hidden in the middle verse of the hymn: Take up your cross, let not its weight fill your weak spirit with alarm; his strength shall bear your spirit up, and brace your heart and nerve your arm.

I think we forget sometimes, when we’re walking the hard road of discipleship, that we are not alone. Jesus walks before us on the road. We follow him. His broad shoulders block the wind, and shade us from the sun. He helps us even as he carries his own crushingly heavy cross to Calvary.

So on this second Sunday of our Lenten journey, we stop, catch our breath, hoist the cross on our shoulder again, and resume walking. Being a good person doesn’t guarantee us an easy life; it’s just the opposite. It guarantees us a hard life, because being a Christian in this world is a daily challenge, and following what Christ told us to do will cause some to question our sanity or our motives. But in that work, on that journey, we will see glimmers of the glory that Jesus promises, not in this world but the next.

What Jesus tells us is neither irrational, nor exuberant, unlike the founders of the high-tech start-ups I worked with. It is honest, and the promise of the reward at the end is infinitely better than stock options…especially in today’s market. So it is worth the work, worth the pain, the blistered hands and tired backs….and we sing what we know is true: take up the cross, and follow Christ, nor think till death to lay it down; for only those who bear the cross may hope to wear the glorious crown.

Amen.

Random Dots of Friday

Good news on the diaconal ordination front - my interview with the Commission on the Priesthood went swimmingly.

Bad news on the job front - I won't be getting a call to interview at two different places because they think I am too old for their job opening. Ageism still lives in the church. The frustrating thing is that if I could have an interview, I could overcome their objections. But without a foot in the door, it's impossible, even with the best resume in the world. Nothing like being assigned the label "crone" at a glance. Ah, well, the rant is now officially over. Ever so slowly, there are other opportunities opening up, and I am hoping that someone will want to talk to me. God wants me to do this. I know it, and everyone who knows me agrees. Now I just need to find the place God wants me to be.

Semi-good news on the thesis front. I seem to have broken the logjam that was blocking my writing. It isn't going quickly, but I got another few pages done, and have mapped out the next few.

Speaking of logjams and other unsightly messes, there was a miscommunication about when I was supposed to preach next. I was told the 15th. I found out yesterday that I am expected to preach on Sunday. So yesterday afternoon and this morning were spent churning out a sermon. It ain't pretty, but it has a good take-away, I think, so thanks, Holy Spirit, for bailing us all out once again. It's good to know that I can imitate my beloved Calvin Trillin, the "Deadline Poet," and turn out something that's a step above doggerel when necessary and on a tight deadline.

Prayers, please, for a parishioner whose son had a heart attack and was found after he had been without blood to his brain for an hour. His body lives, but his brain does not, and she is in such misery. Parents are never ready to lose their child.

Writer's Block

I'm just miserably blocked right now on the thesis, and worrying about it makes it more so.

I'm in a loop where I can edit the stuff I've already written just fine, but can't seem to get any new sections written. Too much information floating in my head, and I haven't found the hook yet. I got seven pages done last week. I should do another ten this week, and I don't know how that will happen.

I guess I'm thinking of the question I need to answer for the next section (namely, something like what are the key elements of the Matthean community that might have shaped that gospel narrative and how do they differ from the world of Jesus 50 years earlier) and trying to come up with a fresh way of laying out the answer. As I said, I've got tons of material. It's the sorting/discarding/laying out that seems to elude me right now. Veni creator spiritus!

I suspect that part of the answer to the problem is that there is a little voice lurking at the back of my skull reminding me of the meeting with the Commission on Ministry (now renamed the Commission on the Priesthood) that will occur on Friday, along with a meeting with our bishop-to-be. Rational me says that all the other meetings went swimmingly, and this one will be no different. Irrational me says that it's time for the shoe to drop - apologies for the mixed metaphors - and it will all fall apart now, after almost three years of hard work at Big Old Seminary and much money. And our coadjutor is a lovely man, and we've met before, and there is no indicator that there will be any problem with him. But under stress, old insecurities awaken from deep slumber and grumble and gnaw.

Meanwhile, I look at our ever-dwindling nest egg and wonder what the future holds. C'mon, Lord, give me a clue, okay? I need a little something to warm me up.

On a happier note, StoneMason called up this afternoon and was quite chipper. His birthday (23) is in a couple of weeks, and he asked us to contribute to an inexpensive bicycle for him to ride as the weather improves way up north. I suspect he's tired of paying to fix his old car every week or two, and likes the idea of something more mechanically simple to get to and from work.

March, in fact, is the month for three birthdays amongst my sons and stepsons. That alone makes me smile again. And I will have dinner with two of my favorite galpals tomorrow evening.

I am blessed, though blocked.

Miscellany

Yesterday was a verrrrrryyyyy long day. I got up at 0 dark 30, drive the 100 miles down to Richmond. Blessing of the ride (outside of the traffic thinning out when I got 30 miles down the road) was a group of six deer nibbling in a field while bits of fog still layered the ground. I met with the psychologist for the 2nd psych eval. For my first one, I only was required to do a single online test. This psychologist was much more test-oriented, so I had to do an MMPI, a depression scale, some neurocognitive stuff, and an interview. Meh. He was more focused on my MS and whether or not I showed any indicators of neurocognitive deficit (I did not), but it wasn't bad, and I have heard nothing from him indicating that I had problematic scores on any of the tests, as he had told me he would do, so I am presuming he passed me. Since the diocese pays for this eval, I won't see his report unless I specifically request it from the diocesan folks. Frankly, that's not high on my list of things to ask for.

Then I met with our Diocesan Deployment Officer. It turned out to be a fun time - we walked to a downtown church for their lunch and sermon series. Lovely meal, interesting sermon by a Baptist pastor in a church with the most gorgeous Tiffany windows. It is a place where Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis worshipped and it still has some feel of Southern privilege, but the folks in the pews were probably 40% people of color. I wonder what old Jeff Davis would think of that.

Then the long drive back. Did I tell you that I have a miserable nasty cold and cough? The good news is that my platelets have remained in normal range, and in the past when I got something like this, they would drop precipitously, so that seems to indicate that the splenectomy did what it was supposed to do. The bad news is that it is still a nasty cold and cough, so I spent the day carefully dosing myself with nondrowsy cold meds and sucking on mentholyptus cough drops. This worked pretty well - I did have some coughing, but nothing too bad - but when I had to drive north, I was already pretty tired. By the time I was 2/3 of the way up, I was feeling really sleepy, so I pulled off to make a couple of phone calls and get a doughnut. The sugar and fat gave me enough of a boost to make through the drive and the next meeting. Not a healthy choice, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

So I made it into DC in time for my 4 pm appointment with the Canon for Deployment for the Diocese of Washington. Gracious, encouraging, although she doesn't have anything right now, had some astute observations and suggestions about my resume. It was a good meeting and a good personal connection to make, and I'm glad I was awake enugh to present myself reasonably well.

I made it back home in time to crash on the couch. A 14 hour day on Ash Wednesday and a 12 hour day yesterday in the midst of a bad cold had pretty much used me up, so PH called for some Chinese food to be delivered (home delivery of food is something we've done maybe three times in the almost 15 years we've been together) - an indicator of how pooped we both are right now - and it was an early night.

I'm spending today on the couch, trying to knock the cold out of me. PH is off to Dallas for a 2.5 day meeting. Poor thing has a cold, too, but his doesn't have the coughing piece. I wish he didn't have to fly with a cold, since it's such misery, but he is well-armed with decongestants and such.

Tea. Time to drink much tea.

Long Weekend Past, Long Week to Come

This past week seemed to be focused primarily on pastoral care for some folks with troubled hearts, bodies and minds. I had several very intense conversations, for which I felt only modestly equipped. I came away from them exhausted but feeling that at least I did no harm.

StrongOpinions was down for the weekend. She appears to be headed into another depressive cycle, but it is remarkable that she manages to keep going. I wish she were a more fundamentally cheerful person, and I wish I could let go of trying to "fix" things with her, since it doesn't work. I was just fried by the time she headed back to the Big Apple.

Now that GOe results are behind me, the next hurdle is my psych evaluation on Thursday. Since there are no folks currently on the approved list in northern Virginia, I will have to drive down to Richmond (2 hours south) for it. And since the person who did my eval for postulancy is not doing them anymore, I will have to explain myself all over again to a new guy (while in the midst of feeling very much not myself due to the steroids). The good news is that the diocese pays for this eval, as opposed to the first one. My plan is to listen to favorite music and podcasts on my iPod while driving down, drink no coffee, and trust that God will get me through it. While down there, I'll also be meeting with our Diocesan Deployment officer regarding my job search and the status of the search for a new vicar at Saint Middle School (no, the parish profile still isn't done yet). Two of the jobs I thought I might be a candidate for have been filled, both by folks already ordained to the priesthood. It is a challenge right now, it seems, to find something if you are not yet priested. Sighing and trying really, really hard to trust that God has a place for me. On the same day, I'll go into Your Nation's Capitol to meet with the DDO there for an informal conversation. They have fewer openings than in VA, but it's worthwhile to at least have the conversation.

Remarkably, I have no anxiety whatsoever about the Ash Wednesday service I'll lead Wednesday evening at Saint Middle School. We've planned it, I know what I'm going to do (with the exception of the sermon, which isn't done yet), and I know I can do it. I also know that if I mess up, or if something else goes awry, we will still get through it, I will still place ashes on people's foreheads, and Lent will go on.

We had a guest supply priest yesterday, not one of our usual rotation, and what a joy it was to serve with him at the altar! He was calm, knew what he was doing, gave a great sermon on the Transfiguration, adjusted to our way of doing things but also had some ideas we might consider with sound theology behind the suggestions. It was a gift.

I'll have supervision with my supervisor from our mother church on Wednesday. I should put together an agenda for the meeting, but we seem to drift far afield from it when we meet. Better to have something to start from, though, than simply to drift, I suppose.

The thesis is going more slowly than it should. I work in fits and starts. Some of it is the steroids fogging my brain, some of it is February, but I've got to get moving on it. Yes, another thing to worry about! That really helps, doesn't it?

Friday Five: Taking a Break

A great Friday Five from Songbird today:

"Where we live, it's February School Vacation Week!

Yes, that's an odd thing, a vacation extending President's Day. But it's part of our lives here. Some people go South or go skiing, but we always stay home and find more humble amusements.

In that spirit, I offer this Taking a Break Friday Five. Tell us how you would spend:

1. a 15 minute break
2. an afternoon off
3. an unexpected free day
4. a week's vacation
5. a sabbatical."


I wish this was break time for us, but in fact we are hot and heavy into the Spring Semester, and won't have a break until late March. I can fantasize, though, and I can certainly have little bitty breaks.

1. 15 minutes? A cup of tea, a brief conversation with a friend standing outside the library (my home away from home these days until the thesis is done), two games of computer solitaire, a prayer.

2. The best kind of afternoon off would be one where PH is also free, and we can go for a ride or visit one of Your Nation's Capitol's wonderful and free museums. A side trip to a local coffee shop cum bakery. A nap.

3. An unexpected free day doesn't happen. At least not in recent memory. If such a miracle occurred, though, it might mean simply a longer version of #2, with lunch someplace ethnic, cheap, fun.

4. You can go pretty far in a week - I could imagine a trip to visit our relatives in the Middle East (really!), a trip to Italy, visiting grandbabies in New England, any number of lovely places. I could also imagine that my next full week's vacation that is truly a vacation as opposed to school break will be spent packing our house in anticipation of a move to my first call (please, Lord?)

5. A sabbatical might be built around the big international preaching conference held every two years, and might also include some study of preaching in transitional/interim/expat settings. It might also be built around the shaping of liturgy in different places as a reflection of context. It'll be a while before I have to chew on what to do on sabbatical, so these are very tentative nibblings around the edges of ideas.

Okay, enough Friday procrastination - time to do some work.

Yes, it Will Be...

...a celebratory dinner. Thank you, Jesus, Holy Spirit, all those who prayed for us, and a good work ethic. On to the next challenge.

No News Tuesday

The GOE scores didn't arrive in our mailboxes today. Drag. I just want to see what they are so I can deal with them, whatever the result. The waiting is not fun.

Nevertheless, I decided this morning that I was sick of feeling cranky and ready to burst out of my skin so I (mirabile dictu) went downstairs first thing this morning and worked out. Not much - some time on the elliptical and some gentle weights - yes the doctor okayed this - and stretches.

The result is that I was in much better humor today, and was actually able to do some good work on the thesis, and do a good job serving as co-leader of a group that I am mentoring. Of course, it may have been that I used up all my crankiness on Monday. I'm trying to convince myself that it was the exercise, though, so I keep doing that.

I did get one bit of news: one of the jobs that I applied for was filled. They really wanted someone already ordained to the priesthood, and the person who got the job is a great priest, so I have a hard time feeling bad about it. God has a place for me. It will be interesting to learn where that place is, and I sure hope God doesn't wait too long to reveal it.

Since we didn't get around to celebrating Valentine's Day this weekend what with the Conference on Ministry and all that, PH and I are taking advantage of DC Restaurant Week and enjoying a nice prix-fixe dinner at a favorite restaurant tomorrow night. If the GOE scores arrive and are good, it will be an additional cause for celebration. If they arrive and aren't so good, it will be a consolation. If they don't arrive tomorrow, I'll simply celebrate that the important thing is that I have someone wonderful who loves me no matter what. And that's the best Valentine's present of all.

Cranky Monday

I'm on the couch, having given up on doing reading for the thesis - my brain is tired, and the prednisone is taking its toll today.

Tomorrow the results from our General Ordination Exams should arrive in the mail. I alternate between being terrified that I've failed and annoyed with the flawed system of evaluation.

I have heard virtually nothing from the various and sundry places to whom I have sent resumes. This is the down side of church work. Usually much of the preliminary work of screening and reviewing is done by a volunteer lay committee, which may or may not meet more than once a month. They may not have clarity about what they are looking for yet, or may feel no sense of urgency. Meanwhile we dangle in the breeze. In other dioceses, the bishop places the new seminarian in the first job, or at least gives the person three parishes to interview at and choose from. It would be nice to have the stress of "where" taken away. Then again, that hasn't always worked out very well for some folks I know. All I know is that this is a process where I have to relinquish control, and that's not one of my strong suits, so I'm trying to just pray my way through it.

Meanwhile, in light of the academic evaluation in the form of the GOEs, I am reflecting again on the holes in our practical preparation (how to actually DO the premarital meetings, how to run a budget meeting, models for handling walk-ins requesting financial help, dealing with funeral homes, dealing with first responders in traumatic situations). There is a tacit assumption that these things are handled as part of on-the-job training in our first cures, following behind the rector. But that's not the model for every one of us.

So is seminary an academic institution? Is it a priestly professional training school? Is it a place where we more deeply understand our relationship with God and our call to serve? As much as I love my seminary and am grateful for those who have taught me and mentored me there, it seems it, they, I, and our church as an institution are all confused as to what seminary is supposed to be, and GOEs are merely one symptom of the problem.

And for all the screening, there are still some deeply troubled folks going through the system, and no one seems to want to take the responsibility for pulling them off the ordination track at least long enough to get them some help.

Yeah, it's Monday, all right. I think I need some coffee and chocolate.

Weekend Updates

This weekend is the COnference on Ministry at Bog Old Seminary. Prospective students and their partners/spouses/parents/significants come for the weekend. Last night was the dinner and Eucharist (I conducted the choir), today they've been in various and sundry meetings and on tours, then will have dinner at faculty or students homes, then we'll have the variety show tonight. since we will move out of this seminary off-campus housing in June (assuming I get a job), we opened up our place for an off-campus housing tour. We had about 40 folks walk through, I think. They had clearly hit information overload by the afternoon, poor things, but I hope they liked what they saw. Not that we've got a dog in that fight, but since we fixed up the basement, we'd like to see a seminary family get the benefit instead of the property management company.

Looking at their faces, I remembered what it was like for us three years ago. So many fears, so many questions. Remarkable that we've come so far. A gift of God's grace.

I got to meet David, who frequently lurks here and occasionally speaks up, and his lovely bride, who will most likely be at BOS next year. What a pleasure!


So I'm spending Valentine's night singing a bowdlerized version of "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd for the variety show. Not quite as romantic as I'd like - PH and I are going out for dinner on Wednesday night to have our personal, belated Valentines Day celebration, but fun nonetheless. I will miss this place, and these people.

What were you doing when ...?

TOH to Rev. dr. Mom for this one. It's about the limit of my mental capacity at this point today.

1. Challenger space shuttle exploded (1986):

In a taxicab with a sales rep for a professional magazine who was trying to sell me ad space. I was massively pregnant with StoneMason at the time. I was amazed that she took me out to lunch (a very expensive one at La Colline) and continued to try and close the deal.

2. Berlin Wall falls down (1989):

Changing sheets in my son's bedroom, with the tears running down my face.

3. Oklahoma City federal building bombing (1995):

Working on Capital Hill. Strange times. That is all I can say about it.

4. OJ Verdict (1995):

Working on Capital Hill. Watched the verdict with the rest of the staff of my committee. Somehow we knew that there was so much more to this than the particular decision being made.

5. Princess Diana dies (1997):

A beautiful sunny day, and the incongruity of the news on the television. Great sadness and anger at what our media-driven culture had become. Those poor boys, and that utterly clueless family.

6. Columbine massacre (1999):

Working downtown in Gucci Gulch. Fear for my own children, that there would be copycat events.


7. JFK Jr. Plane crash (1999):

I couldn't believe the feeding frenzy of the media. Again. I was so tired of hearing the phrase "Greek tragedy."


8. Bush/Gore crazy election (2000):

Part of the great morass of lobbyists trying to avoid writing yet another check, and watching horrified at the way the Constitution was being squashed and twisted.


9. September 11, (2001):

I worked two blocks from the White House. I came out of the gym I belonged to and saw the news report on the tv. Walked a block to my office, where we were glued to the tv for further news. We saw black smoke in the distance, and couldn't tell if it was from the White House, or the Old Executive Office Building, or something further down. the phone lines were jammed. Our building was evacuated at 9:15, and I got back across to Virginia just before they closed the bridges. I could see the Pentagon burning, and people walking from the city. I couldn't get a hold of the school or my bosses in another city or other family. We watched the towers fall on tv and wondered what would happen next. Sounds of fighter jets overhead. Church at three in the afternoon. I wondered how many of my colleagues in New York at the WTC had died - six, it turned out. I lost no close friends at the Pentagon, although a sister church lost eight. I preached on it this past 9/11. I was amazed at how, even seven years later, the emotions were so close to the surface.

10. Space ship Columbia disintegrates (2003):

The tv was on as I cleaned house. Disbelief. Wonderment that we seemed to do so little to protect these astronauts.

11. Hurricane Katrina hits (2005):

I watched, I cried, I watched more, I cried more. I was part of a corporate diversity council, and seeing the event through the eyes of my African-American colleagues was wrenching. I could see our racism so very, very clearly.

12. A couple of bonuses for us old folks:

John Kennedy's assassination November 22, 1963

I was in seventh grade in a Roman Catholic school run by Irish-American nuns, for whom JFK was pretty close to the second coming. It was announced over the intercom, even as we were watching a PBS French class on the television. I hadn't a clue what it all meant. I just knew it was bad.

MLK's assassination April 1968

Fear and great sadness. I worked in Newark NJ as a church organist. That following Sunday was not a good day.

RFK's assassination June 1968

Very little memory of this except a sense that the world made no sense, and that all that was hopeful was gone.

And now we seem to have some hope again, but our expectations are so very, very high, and we fly like Icarus too close to the sun. I pray hope won't melt, that we temper our expectations, that we have patience, that we wait on the Lord.

Home Again

I was released form the hospital today at noontime. It is wonderful to be home with PH and the cats, stretched out on the sofa, eating my own food. The surgery wasn't bad, all things considered. They were able to do it laparoscopically, which means I have two tiny incisions each about a half inch wide, and two larger incisions about two to 2.5 inches wide. They didn't need to cut muscle tissue, which makes the mending much easier. One thing they do with this kind of surgery is to pump you full of air so the organs are spread out a bit. Once the surgery is done, there is nowhere for the air to go, so it floats around, slowly absorbing. And it hurts, considerably more than the incisions. So yesterday was a pretty painful day, although I took the morphine when I really needed it. That air-pain is much less today. I'm just very stiff and very tired.

We won't know if the surgery solved the problem with my ITP for another few weeks. I will wean off of the prednisone, which artificially increases my platelet count, and then we will watch and see. There are three things that can kill off your platelets: the spleen, the liver and the bone marrow. The spleen can be removed, and is the most likely cause, but you can't do much about an aberrant liver or bone marrow, so here's hoping that this fixes the problem.

I'm just grateful to have this thing over with, to have wonderful doctors, and to have medical insurance. And I'm especially grateful to have so many friends who have prayed me through this. Thanks be!

Taking a Blog Hiatus for a Little While

I'll be having my surgery first thing tomorrow morning, so I won't be blogging for a little while. For those of you who know me on That Social Networking space, PH will be posting updates on my status since he can access my page. Prayers would be appreciated. I'll be back when I'm feeling like myself again.

Sunlight on a February Day

This morning it was gently snowing. Beautiful, but cold and gray. All I could think of, after his recent visit, was how when Litigator was just 1, one of his earlist words was "snow." He didn't say it as "snow," though - it was more like "schnooooo." How he morphed that pronunciation, heaven only knows, but it was quite remarkable. Just thinking of it makes me smile, even as I've been shivering with the cold.

So all morning, with the various classes and such, we were wrapped in wintry raw cold. But now in the late afternoon, we've got some sunshine. This is a hellacious busy day, with one thing right on top of another, but that sunshine has given me just enough extra oomph to make it through.

I've got to go over to the hospital for one more pre-op screening test. Drat. I will be so glad to have this over with.

Gotta Love a Denomination That Can Poke Fun At Itself

Today's Sermon - 4th Sunday after Epiphany

Feb 2009 – Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

So this week we had a storm. Snow. Lots of ice. Schools were closed. And our new president, who comes from Chicago, suggested that we Washingtonians needed to man up a bit – get some of that “flinty toughness” that his compatriots from the Windy City have when it comes to bad weather.

What a hue and cry! You would have thought he’d attacked the beauty of the cherry blossoms, or the inevitability of lobbyists having a steak dinner at the Palm, or that FedEx Field should really go back to being named “The Jack!” How dare he – a Chicagoan – take a shot at a city he had just moved to?

We sure as heck didn’t want to hear a message – an uncomfortable and unexpected message – from a source who had not yet established his credibility on the topic with us.

Sometimes it’s hard to open our ears to strange messages from unexpected people.

A story from many, many years ago: It was noontime Mass at the Church of St Francis in midtown Manhattan. It was Lent, and the church was full. As we sat there, listening to a reading from the Gospel, a man started meandering up and down the side aisles. Singing. He looked a little odd, dressed in many layers of clothing. He smelled even more odd. Wafts of body odor and cheap wine preceded him as he wandered. He was singing “Panis Angelicus,” a hymn about the bread of angels. A lovely voice, although he got some of the words wrong. We sat there, half-distracted, half-annoyed, trying to hear the Scripture. But I found myself thinking in the midst of this, what am I supposed to take from this experience? Is this just another homeless guy acting strange in a place he sees as safe, or is this something more? His voice was surprisingly beautiful, and it wasn’t long before I was lost in meditation on the words of that hymn written by Thomas Aquinas: “the angelic bread of heaven becomes the bread of men…we beg of you, visit us as we worship you.” God was there, in that overpacked church, in the voice of the strange singer in the aisles. Sometimes the message comes from a strange messenger, doesn’t it?

It will come as no surprise to you that there are sometimes some very strange people in church. Gee, there are days when WE are the strange people in church. We are asked to welcome them as Christ welcomed the outsiders, the unconventional ones, the odd people, in his ministry. Strange messengers are part of the deal when we become part of the Body of Christ…look at John the Baptist, that weird guy wearing animal skins, with the smell of locusts and honey on his breath. It’s as if God realizes that he has to do something pretty dramatic to get our attention. The big gesture, the strange messenger or the odd symbolism to get God’s point across…we in our inability to see God face to face need something else to understand who God is, what God is saying to us, what we’re supposed to do with it.

That is the heart of what is going on in the Gospel of Mark today. Jesus comes in to Capernaum and walks in to the synagogue. As was the custom of the day, he as a traveling rabbi begins to teach, and everyone is impressed by this teacher. Mark gets a dig in on the local religious leaders: Jesus taught with authority, and not like the scribes, the local teachers, who presumably were not very good at their jobs. Everyone was intrigued with what they were hearing. Everyone, that is, except the local crazy guy, or at least the demons within him. The demons cried out : “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have to you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

Can you imagine the Hollywood treatment of the scene? Perhaps Brad Pitt, or even better Clive Owens, playing Jesus, the tall well-spoken teacher, and someone really strange – Robert Downey Jr or Mickey Rourke playing the possessed man…that odd otherworldly voice coming out, challenging Jesus, identifying him as the Holy One of God? And we’re all sitting in that synagogue, having heard this teacher, thinking that he’s a pretty good preacher…and this crazy person says that this is the Holy One of God.

Do we believe that naming? Does this message from this crazy man sound wonderful, or scary, or just plain ridiculous? Does it convince us that this is the Messiah, or does it simply make us shake our heads…because the thought of being able to see the Messiah is utterly alien to us? Does the oddness of the messenger make it difficult for us to hear the message?

God does strange things to get our attention. God uses unorthodox messengers to make us hear.

And that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? If the messenger is strange, or if the message is unorthodox, it’s hard for us to accept it as real. And we’re modern people, so when we read this, it all seems very strange and far away. We don’t know people possessed by demons…or do we? We haven’t seen God intervene in that very direct way that Jesus does in this Gospel story…or have we? What is God’s message, and can I hear it?

If we were those synagogue people sitting around the room, watching this rabbi Jesus of Nazareth come in, teach with brilliance and authority, be identified as the anointed one by a possessed man and cast out the demons from that possessed man, we’d be wondering what this was about, what it meant. If that identification of Jesus as Messiah came from the Chief Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem, we’d probably be a little more comfortable with the situation – maybe – but a crazy guy? How could we process this message?

And that’s really the hard part – is it real? How do I interpret it? Because we’re afraid we’ll get it wrong. Think about the warning in the passage from Deuteronomy this morning, when the Lord reminds the people that he will send another prophet after Moses is gone: “Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak-- that prophet shall die." Makes it really hard to get enthusiastic about those prophets, doesn’t it? If we don’t pay attention to the words the prophet speaks, God will hold us accountable. If the prophet is a false prophet, he dies. How do I know if somebody is a false prophet, because if it’s a real prophet, no matter how strange the words he speaks, I’ve got to obey, and if I don’t, I get punished, and if he’s a false prophet, I don’t figure it out until he dies…but does it have to be a dramatic fire and brimstone death for me to know that he got zapped by God for being a false prophet? Sorting out the messengers and their messages can be confusing.

It’s like here’s the good news: You’re not alone because God will give you a prophet. Here’s the bad news: there may be some false prophets out there. You figure it out.

And that’s one of the core problems we face. The world is full of false prophets, with messages that sound strange. But sometimes the message of God is hard to make sense of as well. We get all twisted up trying to figure out what the message really is.

That’s precisely the sort of twisting up that the Corinthians are experiencing in the reading from Paul’s epistle that we heard. Here’s the starting point of the story: the Christians in Corinth live in a society that is dominated by pagan temples and pagan religious practices. One of those practices is offering of meat in sacrifice to pagan gods. That food is available after those cultic sacrifices for eating. The Christians want an opinion from Paul: they know they don’t believe in the pagan gods, so the fact that the meat has been offered in those sacrifices is irrelevant, right? They can eat the meat, right? It’s just meat, after all.
And Paul says, “you folks are thinking you’re so smart, but you’re not thinking the problem all the way through. Technically, you’re right. The meat is just meat. Technically, you’re right. Nothing really happened in that pagan ritual that changed that meat.” Paul continues: “…but you’re not getting the full message here, and what’s more, you’re sending a message by eating that stuff. There are those who are newer to the faith, and maybe they’re people who used to go to those temples and participate in those sacrifices. You don’t think it confuses them, when you eat that meat? You don’t think it might lead them to believe that they can stay with one foot in the pagan world and one foot in Christianity? The message you send is just as important as the knowledge, the message, you’ve received. So don’t mess with that meat, and by the way, I, Paul, am now a vegetarian, so I don’t send any mixed messages about this stuff.” And why does Paul talk to the Corinthians this way? Because he wants them to get the full import of the message: we are responsible for each other. What we are supposed to do for each other must be grounded in love of God expressed as loving each other.

That’s the test of the message, and of the messenger: what we are supposed to do must be grounded in love of God expressed as loving each other.

That’s why when someone says if I send in my money to a particular church, God will make me rich, I know that this is not Jesus’s message, because if I get rich, it will be at the expense of another. That’s not love of God, that’s love of my own desires.

That’s why when someone says that that person over there is evil because he doesn’t worship at my church, I know that this is not Jesus’ message, because Jesus welcomed all and died for us all, not just the ones who look and sound like me. That’s not love of God, that’s love of that which is familiar and comfortable.

That’s why when someone says that terrorists attacked us because we are sinful people because we are moving toward justice for gay and lesbian people, I know that this is not Jesus’ message, because Jesus embraced the most unlikely people, the ones whom society looked down upon, and called them beloved. That’s not love of God, that’s injustice.

So here’s the test we use when we’re faced with an unlikely messenger or a message that we cannot parse out. Paul tells us clearly that the answer is that love. If we love God, we’ll be able to tell whether the message is true, whether that messenger is a true prophet. God will help us understand if what we are doing is something that shows our love of him by loving each other. That simple.

So was the President right in his message about the weather? Maybe, maybe not. I’d have preferred to think about the safety of drivers and pedestrians on black ice, than whether we were tough enough. But maybe flinty toughness is a necessary thing in hard times, to help each other through. Maybe calling each other to grit our teeth to make hard choices about medical insurance for an asthmatic child in Southeast, or fighting to get food and water to refugee camps in Somalia are precisely what we need to think about.

Where’s God in the message? Where’s the love? That’s what we need to ask.

Amen.