The non-profit, “A Faith that Does Justice,” has published another contribution of mine as “The Weekly Word.” Beginning with the Confession of St. Peter, it maintains that Christians “discover who they are “by discovering who Jesus is.” And they “discover that the way to self-fulfillment in life is through self-denial. These paradoxes lie at the heart of the gospel.”
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS AND OUR COVENANT WITH GOD AND ONE ANOTHER
The Boston non-profit, A Faith that Does Justice, has published another submission of mine. This meditation examines Jesus as the “Beloved Son” of God who as such faces a difficult life as did Isaac and Jacob who were also “beloved sons.” It connects this account with the Baptismal Covenant of the Episcopal Church in which a promise is made “to respect the dignity of every human being.” Please read more!
“COSTLY GRACE”
Today the non-profit. A Faith that Does Justice, published my newest contribution urging Christians (and my secular audience as well) “to speak up and act whenever we see racism and intolerance in the world around us, that is, whenever we see an affront to the dignity of any human person.”
I speak as a retired Episcopal priest and as a Professor of Religion, who has published numerous articles on migration, refugees, and asylum seekers.
REPOST: THE LOAF KEEPER OF ALL CREATION
The non-profit, A Faith that Does Justice,” has republished a widely read blogpost of mine from this site, “In These Times.” Here is the link to the repost:
“ALL SAINTS DAY IS A CALL TO FAITH IN ACTION”
I am happy to announce that my mediation for All Saints Day appeared as “The Weekly Word” for the non-profit organization, A Faith that Does Justice.
A Faith That Does Justice is an interfaith organization that challenges people to experience God by living their faith intentionally in service to others. We do this by showing how unjust societal structures marginalize people and by acting to help those in need. Our vision is people intentionally living their faith in action.”
TO SOJOURN AND NOT TO DWELL
In Mt. 25: 1-13, we find Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids which concerns their preparedness at the parousia, the return of the Jesus the bridegroom at his second coming: five were ready when the bridegroom returned at an unannounced time, but five were not. The five who were prepared with oil in their lamps could not share what they had because, readiness is not something you can share. It is something you have to cultivate within..
This story of the bridesmaids allows me to do something I rarely do in the pulpit and that is to connect what I have been writing on as an academic with what I preach. In the past ten years I have published numerous articles and chapters on the work of Giorgio Agamben. (You can find the bibliographic information on the page of this blog listing my academic publications.)
Giorgio Agamben is one of the most prominent continental philosophers alive today. He is a former student of Martin Heidegger, and even though he could be described as an atheist and somewhat of a philosophical anarchist, his work is based primarily on religious and theological texts, including a commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and a book on St. Francis and monastic rules. I became interested in him because he was the Italian editor of the writings of Walter Benjamin on whom I wrote one half of my doctoral dissertation and because of his use of theological texts in his non-religious philosophy. Agamben, I might add, is not easy to read or to understand.
In March 2009, Agamben was invited to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to give a lecture on his critique from his own philosophical perspective on the Roman Catholic Church. This address was subsequently published as The Church and the Kingdom. [1]
The earliest Christians, as is evident in the parable of the wise and the foolish bridesmaids in the Gospel of Matthew and in St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians expected that the crucified and resurrected Jesus might return at any moment. St. Paul told Christians in his early writings that they should make no drastic changes to their life because Jesus was going to return any moment. If they were not married, for example, they should hold off marrying because the Lord might return at any moment. The present form of the world, he said more or less, is passing away, so don’t get too attached to it. (1 Cor. 7:31).
In his address in Paris, Agamben observed that “the Christian church has ceased…to sojourn as a foreigner,” and begun to dwell in the world and “live as a citizen in the world and thus function like any other worldly institution.” As the years went on and Christ did not return, the church began to settle in the world and put down roots. It ceased to sojourn and began to dwell. This for Agamben is the root of his critique of the church. [2]
The difference between sojourning and dwelling is something like the difference between being nomadic and settling down and building permanent dwellings. When you begin to dwell you get tied down to your own possessions and lose the ability to move quickly when needed, or adapt to changes.
St. Paul proclaimed freedom from the law. He urged Christians to live in the Holy Spirit in joyous freedom from the law. When the church began to dwell in the world, it became like other worldly institutions and set up legal structures that effectively replaced the law from which they, in Christ, had been freed. Agamben investigates St. Francis and other monastic rules, which in Latin are called regula (from which we derive our English word regular) to see if he could provide an alternative today for law (Latin, lex), investigating how one might free oneself from servitude to law in all of its contemporary manifestations.
To address this, Agamben does something quite interesting. He turns to St. Francis of Assisi and the first Franciscans. Francis wanted to live his life according to one rule only, namely that he live as Jesus Christ lived. He, therefore, renounced all his possessions so that he would be free from them and thus able to respond to Jesus in every area of his life. Francis became a kind of nomad. He gave up the idolatry of his possessions and found freedom. In his poverty he found exhilaration and joy. In subsequent centuries after Francis, Franciscans tried to figure out how, if they were going to live a life of perfect poverty, they could “use” things without owning them. Agamben turns to these texts and discussions to glean what he can for his own philosophical and political work.[3]
Returning to the story of the bridesmaids, five of them were ready but five were not. Why were the other five not ready? The story doesn’t tell us. Without reading too much into the parable we could surmise that they had been busy. They put off getting oil because they had other things to do, which at the time seemed more important.
Could it be that they had ceased to sojourn, and begun to dwell? They had become so attached to the things of this world and to the care of them, that they were not ready and prepared when the bridegroom (who in this story is clearly the person of Jesus Christ) returned. They had been claimed by what they owned and not by the person who owned them, Jesus Christ. This idolatry of things and possessions prevented them from the freedom to follow Jesus wherever he led.
The parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids ends with these words, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” We know neither the day nor the hour of the Lord’s return. So, prepare yourselves. Begin by examining the things that hold you back—that tie you down—that enslave you— that keep you from responding to Jesus and his call to you. Can you begin to use things without owning them? Can you begin let go of the things that hold you back that keep you tied down? You can only be prepared for yourself. You cannot be prepared for someone else. “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour when the bridegroom will return.” The question for you is, “when he does return, will you be ready?”
[1]Agamben, Giorgio, Leland De la Durantaye, and Alice Attie. The Church and the Kingdom. (London ; New York: Seagull Books, 2012).
[2] “…The Christian church has ceased to paroikein, to sojourn as a foreigner, so as to begin to katoiken, to live as a citizen and thus function like any other worldly institution. See Agamben, The Church and the Kingdom, p. 4.
[3] Agamben, The Highest Poverty. Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life. (Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 2013.
CRITIQUE AND EDIFICATION
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4: 11-13).
St. Paul describes the church as the body of Christ in which those within it are given gifts to use to build up that body so that every person is brought to Christian maturity.
May 1, 2022, marks the 41st anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. When I graduated from seminary in 1979, I felt called to ordained pastoral ministry and to a ministry of teaching. I have not always found it easy to combine these mutual vocations. After graduation, I spent one year in clinical training as a hospital chaplain. Following that, I was placed in charge of two congregations in rural Oklahoma as a lay vicar. Five months later, and four days after our first child was born, I was ordained to the diaconate. During this time, I wrestled with the idea of a vocation that combined both ministry and teaching. Six years later, after working in St. Louis for a couple of years, I decided to go back to graduate school to pursue a doctorate in theology and ethics at Duke University. Within a few months of my arrival in Durham, North Carolina, I began to serve as regular supply priest in rural congregations. Soon I was serving in part-time interim ministry, sometimes in more than one congregation at a time. My working life was divided between teaching at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill and work in interim parish ministry. I mention this because these experiences provided me with a perspective from which to see the church in a different light.
The purpose of the church at its best is to build us up so that we become knitted together in the body of Christ. Its purpose, therefore, is to edify us, that is, to build us up, both personally and communally. Moving between these two environments in my career provided me with the insights I would like to share with you here.
The purpose of the university at its best is to critique every idea or procedure and from that process to arrive at new understandings in every area of our lives, from the medicine we need to heal our bodies, to an understanding of our universe in all its complexity, to questions concerning the meaning of our lives.
In the academic world a distinction is made between “criticism” and “critique.” Criticism points to minor errors and inconsistencies in the work under examination. Critique, on the other hand, seeks to find if and how the entire work under examination is inconsistent with its own principles, and whether as a result the work or project is flawed from the start. In graduate school, students are taught how to tear academic positions on any topic to shreds. They are taught, in other words, to critique everything they read or hear. Graduate education teaches students to categorize thought and quickly make suggestions as to the error, faults, and even the impossibility, or utter contradiction in the work under examination.
I remember a particular graduate seminar I taught at Temple University in which we examined the work of the French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu. I was trying to make a point using an idea suggested by Bourdieu. My students rushed in to condemn the way in which Bourdieu constructed his argument. I tried to defend the usefulness of his position despite its inherent weaknesses, but my students would not hear of it. When I reflected later in the day on the feeling and emotion behind their arguments, I realized that they were only doing what they were being taught to do. They were demonstrating to me that they could engage in a vigorous philosophical critique of their assigned readings.
This emphasis on critique is why university professors and other academics are often charged with being nihilists. If every position is equally flawed, then how can one ever endorse any position or idea? How then does one live her or his life? That is one of the dilemmas one faces in the university environment.
The life of the university thrives on critique, that is, on the process of challenging dominant assumptions and formulating in their place different and oftentimes unpopular ways of looking at things. This is an important task and I by no means want to belittle it. New ideas and approaches to more ancient problems, more often than not, are enriching and enlivening.
In contrast to the university, the central task of the church is neither critique nor criticism, although that is how life within it often feels for lay and clergy alike. At its worst the church is a critical and unsupportive place. Because we all are imperfect people, it is not surprising that we often see the fault in others, before we see that same fault in ourselves. Jesus recognized this when he asked his hearers, “why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”
At its best, the task of the church is not to tear us down but to edify and to build us up. If we want the church to become a supportive place, we must pay attention to the ways in which we respond positively to the needs and desires of others. If we ourselves want to be supported, we first must learn to become supportive of others. Together, and only together, can we grow “to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
“THE LORD LIKES BLUE CHEESE”
Many people are committed to working for God in the church. As they go about the tasks at hand, they hope that they are doing what they call “God’s will.” In my experience, persons on Vestries and other committees of the church facing difficult decisions don’t often stop their meetings to ask aloud what “God’s will” might be for their church in the decision at hand. And so, they figure that if they just proceed as they normally would, God will bless all their endeavors done in God’s name with success.
If you find yourself having to make decisions like this, I would like you to ask yourself this question: are you doing “works for God” or are you doing “God’s work”? There is a difference. Works done for God may be performed merely out of self-interest. Doing God’s work means that you have taken the time to discern with your sisters and brothers in Christ exactly what “God’s work” might be at a particular time and in a particular situation.
Thomas Green, a Roman Catholic priest who served in the Philippines, illustrates the difference between God’s work and works done for God. He develops his ideas in two inter-connected books, When the Well Runs Dry and Darkness in the Marketplace.1 Citing the story of Mary and Martha in the gospel of Luke, Green observes that Martha was busy doing works for Jesus while Mary was sitting at the Lord’s feet “listening to his teaching (Luke 10:38-42). While both of their labors were important, Martha, as Jesus reminded her, needed to stop her busy-ness and listen to the words of her Lord: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful.”
Fr. Green remembers how, when friends travelled back to the United States for visits, they would often ask him if he would like them to bring anything back for him. He told them he would love some blue cheese, an item not easily found in the Philippines. Many of his friends who themselves did not like blue cheese would return with something “better” in place of the cheese he had requested. Fr. Green observes that he knew he had a true friend, that is, one who truly cared about him, when the friend who personally hated blue cheese nonetheless brought some back as a gift. Fr. Green concludes that God is like that. God often asks us for blue cheese but we feel the need to do something “better.” When we try to do something “better”, are we busy doing works for God or are we doing God’s work? Are we so “anxious and troubled about many things” that we do whatever we want, or are we doing what “is needful?, that is, what God may be asking us to do.
As you think about what God wants from us, take time to reflect on the difference between “God’s work” and “works for God.” Remember: “the Lord likes blue cheese!”
1Thomas H Green, S.J., When the Well Runs Dry: Prayer Beyond the Beginnings (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1979); Darkness in the Marketplace: The Christian at Prayer in the World (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1981).
WRITTEN ON OUR HEARTS
This meditation is taken in part from the sermon I preached at the Ordination of Daniel Paul Spors to the Priesthood on January 18, 2017
The hymn, “Come labor on” (The Hymnal 1982, #541) begins with a call to action:
“Come labor on. Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain, while all around us waves the golden grain? And to each servant does the Master say, ‘Go work today.’”
It is a call to action—a call to follow Jesus—to attend to the harvest to which Jesus, the Son of Man calls each and every person who desires to follow him. My favorite verse, however, is the third:
“Come labor on. Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear! No arm so weak but may do service here: by feeblest agents may our God fulfill his righteous will”.
The verse tells of how God takes our feeble efforts and uses them for God’s glory and God’s purposes. How does God do that? We will never know, but thanks be to God, God does it.
Working as a priest in parish ministry has many challenges. One thing is eminently true. You will never be able to please all the people all the time. You can try to “be all things to all people” as St. Paul once wrote, but you will never please everyone. All you can do is to strive to be faithful to God.
And the most wonderful thing about our respective ministries— and you have one whether you are ordained or a layperson —is that God will work in and through you even when you are sure that you have failed—that no one has heard you—that you have not said enough—or done enough. God, mysteriously, will have a way of creating something good out of even the smallest and imperfect fragments of your work. It is a mystery—a wonderful mystery—how God speaks, works, and acts through us, despite ourselves. That is the wondrous work of the Holy Spirit!
It’s true with most jobs that people will rarely tell you that you are doing a good job, but quick to tell you when you are doing something wrong. As a priest, it is no different. We are rarely told that what we have done, or said, or not said made any difference in the lives of those to whom we minister. That is in part because we human beings—all of us— rarely recognize it at the time we are being helped. That recognition only comes later. For that reason, we clergy often do and do, never knowing if what we do makes any difference at all in the lives of those to whom we minister. In ministry, there are times when we will not know if we are doing a good enough job or not. We can only trust that if we are doing all in your power to be faithful to God, that God will use us, even if, despite our very best efforts, we feel that we have failed. All we can do is to be faithful to our call to the priesthood because God will always be faithful to us.
The Welsh poet R. S. Thomas, ordained to the priesthood in the church of Wales in 1936, wrote a poem entitled “The Country Clergy” that speaks to the situation I have described in words that transcend my meager words on this topic.
I see them working in old rectories
By the sun’s light, by candlelight,
Venerable men, their black cloth
A little dusty, a little green
With holy mildew. And yet their skulls,
Ripening over so many prayers,
Toppled into the same grave
With oafs and yokels. They left no books,
Memorial to their lonely thought
In grey parishes; rather they wrote
On men’s hearts and in the minds
Of young children sublime words
Too soon forgotten. God in his time
Or out of time will correct this.[1]
In the second letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul says that he does not need a written letter of recommendation to attest to the work of his ministry, because the people to whom he ministered in Corinth, imperfect as they are, in fact, serve as his letter of recommendation. “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Cor. 3:2-3).
Other people may not appreciate what you are doing when you do it, or even remember what you have done, but if you put your trust in God, and not in what people think of you, God in God’s time works all things for good. You will “write” on the hearts and minds of men and women, and young children. God takes whatever we have to give and makes the most of it. God is always faithful.
[1] “The Country Clergy” in R. S. Thomas, Collected Poems: 1945-1990. (London: Orion Books, 1993), 82.
IN THESE TIMES 