Disturbing Grace

Last Sunday, my colleague Jim Quigley preached a rousing and challenging sermon, using as his text the story of Naboth’s vineyard. The Bible tells us that Ahab, the King of Israel, came to Naboth and tried to purchase the vineyard from him, but that Naboth refused. When Ahab goes off in a snit, Queen Jezebel intervenes, framing Naboth for a capital crime and having him killed, so that Ahab can have the vineyard after all. It is a challenging and subversive story, so much so that it’s surprising it was allowed to be in Scripture at all. But Jim focused in on one moment in the tale, when Ahab is feasting, unaware that Naboth is being killed. Jim asked, What is it that allows us to feast, to sleep at night, to go on with our lives when we are aware that so much pain is happening all around us, that so much evil is being done in our names?

It’s a great question, and it was a great sermon, but in it there was line with which I take exception: Jim suggested that the reason we are able to sleep at night is grace, God’s grace. I do not believe that grace lulls us to sleep. We do enough of that on our own. Left to our own devices, we sleepwalk through life, dull to the lives of those around us, blind to the needs of those we do not know, half-deaf even to the murmurs of our own soul, calling us to live deeply, not to drug ourselves out of awareness with speed and busyness and consumption of one form or another, but to dare to learn who we really are.

No, grace is what shakes us awake when we’d rather go on sleeping. It is not the false murmur that thinks of a dying child and shrugs, “Oh well, he’s in the hands of God,” but the force that impels us out of our own home and down the road to find him, to bring him to safety and shelter.

Grace rocks our world. It turns our conception of who we are upside-down. It tears us willingly from our own small lives, and empties us of our self-conceit, and hurls us at challenges we know we are too small to solve, except that we cannot draw breath freely in this good air unless we try. When Philip Berrigan poured blood on a warhead, when Gandhi took off his shoes, when St. Paul fell off his horse and learned that he’d been persecuting the very God he sought all his life, that was grace.

And, yes, sometimes it lets us sleep: when we have done the best we can, or at least tried; when we need to gather our strength; when we have refused to look away from another’s pain. When we have taken it all — what we can bear and what we cannot — and have prayed it to the foot of the Cross. But not before that. Until then, it’s only cheap grace, the excuses we give ourselves that allow us to remain small, not the true grace God gives us so that we might become what, in truth, we are: blessed.

The words below are not mine, but they say what I would like to pray for you:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide,
be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

Graduations

This has been a nice couple of days away. Jonnie Sue and I traveled to Montpelier, Vermont, last Friday in order to be at the graduation of one of our granddaughters from the New England Culinary Institute. Jonnie Sue was in Augusta, Maine, a month earlier for the graduation of one of our grandsons, the NECI grad’s brother, from the University of Maine. Between the two, we were in Little Washington, Virginia, for the graduation of another granddaughter from high school. At the NECI graduation, one of the speakers, a faculty member there for 22 years, said that she never tired of graduations; that they validated all the effort and caring that the teachers put into making the students what they had become. I thought that was a great way to view it, that the graduates had not just learned to do something; they had become something.

It is a wonderful thing that teachers do, in every walk of life and at all levels of formality, from short on-the-job training in specific tasks, to medical specialization. They literally transform people into something they were not by showing how to do something they could not, such as saying one’s ABC’s, or flying a fighter plane in combat, or filling a cavity in a tooth, or defending a client before a judge and jury, or welding a joint in an oil pipeline or a seam in a fuel storage tank. Before there is an instance of a successful accomplishment, there is someone showing how. It is another of those miraculous processes that we take for granted because it is going on all around us all the time.

The graduations were wonderful for us also, to see the culmination of the years of effort; the successful completion of a task undertaken years earlier; the validation of the choices made by the graduates when they first indicated their fields of interest, choices which emerged from something within them and which we could not have guessed. I found myself recalling, but without much specificity, I’m afraid, thoughts from Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” and the song by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young “Teach your children well.”
Of course, these reflections on the meaning of it all are the province of grandparents. The graduates themselves are moving swiftly on to the next milestones in their lives, enrolling in the University of Maryland, getting started in a career, and finding a mate. They seem to not be looking back at all, and rightly so.

So let us then all praise graduations and the transformations they mark, signify, and honor, and especially all the teachers in our lives.

Ron Hicks, Parish Verger, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC, 18-June-2013

A Pastoral Word for the Imperfect

Without doubt yesterday (Father’s Day) was a day of mixed blessings.  For every family that experienced a glorious day of togetherness there were throngs of us who muddled through the day with a sense of incompleteness and wonder.  After church services I made two pastoral calls, one to someone whose father had died the day before and another to a friend and a father who’s son is no longer able to wish him a happy day.  For a host of us yesterday was a day when finding the silver lining in a dark cloud was a matter of faith and not sight.

For me yesterday presented one of those “life is a cruel joke” moments.  While walking across the campus at Georgetown University I approached a group of three female college students, one of whom reminded me of my daughter.  As I passed them one of the girls looked to another and said, “You have the most awesome family!”  Another added,  “Everybody should have parents like yours!” I couldn’t help but wonder about what made the parents so “awesome.” Was it a new car presented for a semester of straight A’s at Georgetown? An upcoming family vacation in Europe?  Doubtful that what made this girl’s family awesome were years of pretense and isolation that eventually led to honest negotiations resulting in multiple household addresses.   But who knows?

It’s ironic that a more or less singular picture of the perfect family became an icon for Christianity in the twentieth century.  From the outset the Hebrew Scriptures portray families plagued by multitudes of dysfunction.  After a period of perfection that lasts about as long as the proverbial blink of an eye the first families of God, beginning in the garden and continuing with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and ending with Joseph, are hardly picture-perfect. These stories are riddled with sibling rivalry, favoritism and questionable parenting.

In the New Testament stories about the importance of community – caring for those whose for whom familial structures of support have gone missing – are paramount;  there’s nary a narrative about a perfect family.  Aside from the Holy family itself (which has controversial beginnings, to say the least), most implications of families are only implied via stories related to Jesus’ acts of healing (Jarius’ daughter, Peter’s mother, the parents of the man blind from birth in John, etc.). Even Luke’s brilliant and poetic story of the Prodigal’s son, in the end, is beset with still unfinished family business.

For those who found yesterday difficult, even if by means of hyperbole the stories of Holy Scripture can be helpful. We aren’t told if Abraham lost any sleep after binding his son Isaac but we can imagine that he did when in another story we are told that he was “distressed” when he cast off Hagar and his  “other” son into the wilderness.  Did Rebekah lament after manipulating one son to steal another’s blessing?  Were Joseph’s brothers haunted much by the fact that in the midst of their jealousy they lied to their father about Joesph’s death rather then telling him that they sold their brother for twenty pieces of silver? In the end of that story, when Joseph reveals to his brothers that he is in fact their long lost brother (and the one who holds their future his hands) he tells them “do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Later Joseph “kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.”

Time and time again in the bible many painful realities become, in due course, opportunities for God’s glory to be revealed.  As people of faith seeking silver linings to life’s dark clouds we can say that no situation is life is devoid of God’s redemption. We know that our lives and our families (whether together or apart or muddling through) are far from perfect but, somehow, never far from God’s guiding hand even (and perhaps especially) when we feel like covering our nakedness with sackcloth and ashes.  Some of us struggle with greater issues than others but every one of us at St. Alban’s is a member of a family of faith – a family of love and support with a loving Father despite our imperfections.  Knowing this, and after what for many of us was a difficult day yesterday, today we can move forward.

Jim

Things to Know, Things to Share

Recently the newly formed Incorporation Committee at St. Alban’s Parish met to talk about the ways in which we “incorporate,” those who come to our door–from the first-time visitor, to the new member, to those who have been members for even up to two years.

One piece of communication that we would like to develop and give to those visiting St. Alban’s is a short list of maybe 10 things (because I like lists and am a fan of a base ten system of numbering) that visitors should know about St. Alban’s.  What are the 10 bullet points of information that visitors should take with them back out into the world after worshiping with us on a Sunday morning?

Each of the members of the Incorporation Committee has been tasked with coming up with their own Top 10 list, but I would like to open this up to a larger audience of those familiar with all of the ways St. Alban’s could be attractive to a first-time visitor.

So, take a moment and think about what information you think would be most beneficial to a visitor who comes to St. Alban’s.  Think about smaller, more easily digestible pieces of information…think about what information could be given to those who are looking for a new parish to call home, or those who are simply visiting from out of town.

What are the top 10 bullet points of information you would want to put into the hands of visitors to St. Alban’s?  What are the information points you would want to have and know about as a visitor to St. Alban’s, or wish that someone had shared with YOU when YOU first came to St. Alban’s?

Got your list?  Great!  Now take a moment and email me your top 10.  I look forward to hearing from as many people as possible with this project.   Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Peace and Blessings,

Let Your Darkness Shine

When I was a child, I used to put my allowance into a special purse. It was an off-white, knotted purse from Greece, and it had a strange, almost magical, property: what went into it did not come out. My allowance was only twenty-five cents a week, but I had managed to build up a stash of more than forty dollars in that purse. I was convinced that if I saved it and saved it, I could do something splendid with it.

In truth, I have no idea how it was used. I took it with me when my family went on vacation to Jamaica, and it was stolen from our hotel room. That little stash that looked like a treasure to a small girl must have looked about the same to the woman who cleaned our room, except that, when I looked at it, I saw records and seashells and rare stones, and I imagine that she saw bread for her children, or some medicine, or maybe a clean shirt. Once I got over the theft, I realized that she’d probably made better use of it than I would have: if it fed a child, my money did do something splendid. I only wish I had been the one who thought of it.

Perhaps that’s why I so like Barnabas, the saint we commemorated yesterday. Unlike many of the apostles, Barnabas’ acts seem attainable in my life. He doesn’t ask us to go somewhere and be martyred; he doesn’t ask us to leave everything and preach Jesus on street-corners; he just takes what he has and shares it, so that everybody in the Jerusalem church can eat. Later, when Saul has been struck off his horse and blinded and healed and made to see again, it is Barnabas who introduces this new convert to the church, attesting that this man, who had once persecuted them, is now working with them for Christ. As with his money, so with his Gospel: Barnabas shares what he has with those who need it.

I find myself wondering whether he was always open-handed, or whether, like me, he came to it late. Was it his nature to give, or did he fight against his desire to have, to hold, to keep enough for a time of need, fight so hard and so long that he became known for his generosity? When I look at my own life, it is often the struggle against the worst in myself that brings out what people think are virtues; they don’t know what it cost me to live that way.

The poet Henry Vaughan wrote, “There is in God — some say — a deep but dazzling darkness.” It dwells within us, the place where we have gone so far from our fears that our lives look like courage. Our west becomes east; our very darkness shines with the light of God. Let your life shine — even what seems to repel the light.

Secrets

“That which is whispered in the bedroom will be shouted from the housetops.” It’s in the Bible somewhere, but I couldn’t find it this evening. Anyway. everyone has things they want to keep secret, and everyone else is eager to ferret out the secrets of others. From personal secrets to family secrets to national security secrets, the keeping of secrets and the discovery of secrets is a human activity of high intensity.

The latest disclosure by an intelligence contractor of the NSA has everyone in a furor, and for good reason. Disclosure of national intelligence information, if it even hints at the sources, gets people killed and destroys intelligence gathering networks that were years in the making. This furor though is over electronic eavesdropping on the citizenry at large. In a way it seems to me that the intrusion into the minutiae of our day to day lives by social media networks, commercial data gatherers, and the government, is doing nothing more than returning us to the reality of what life was like in small communities before transportation in anything faster than a horse and buggy. Back then, in small towns, and the neighborhoods of cities, everyone knew each other and had for years. You knew whom to trust, whom to count on, whom to avoid, whom to pity, whom to help and so forth because you knew them, really knew them. Your mother probably knew their mother. When a stranger came to town, everyone knew it, and the immediate reaction was suspicion which lasted until there was proven reason for acceptance. Then came the auto and all that followed. And a new phenomenon – anonymity. The degree of anonymity to which we have become accustomed may be a new phenomenon in human history, and has been encouraged and sustained by mobility technology. Now technology is being employed to tear it away. Surveillance cameras are the new eyes of your neighbors rocking on the porch or looking out the kitchen window. I’m not sure it is a bad thing. The cover of anonymity has allowed some really terrible people to do some really terrible things.

Oh, I did find the quote. Luke 12:3. Here’s the NIV version. “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” Good ol’ Google. It came through where my Strong’s Concordance failed me.

Ron Hicks, Parish Verger, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC, 11-June-2013.

Om Shanti

In the last two days many have asked, “How were the bones? or, How did the bones go?”  Most at St. Alban’s parish will recognize the referent here – the question about the bones referring to the culmination of the One Million Bones installation on the National Mall that several of us have participated in one way or another over the last couple of months. 

Here’s the best answer I can offer just now.  Tonight we picked up what was left.  Last night at the vigil, which concluded the One Million Bones event in regard to the art, we heard testimonies from John Prendergast, Carl Wilkens and Eva Kor, among others.  A summary of their work and witness here would not do justice to their lives and their work.  Look them up.  What resonates in my soul still now, however, are the words that Sister Jenna Mahraj left us with last night: The only genocide worth fighting against is the genocide of our own souls.

The genocide of our souls is an algae, in Jenna’s metaphor, a blight on the waters of our spirit.  I’m not a biologist and regardless of what might could well be a positive connotation in regard to science (I’m way out of my intellectual ken here) in Jenna’s  reflection the genocide we must fight is in fact an algae – algae being an acronym for what mucks up our ability to be vessels for peace and for life for all that lives (Om Shanti): Anger; Lust; Greed; Attachment; Ego.

As we left the National Mall last night and as I struggled through the day today I wrestled with my own algae and with the questions:  How were the bones? In the midst of that and with the help of friends, we went back to the National Mall tonight to pick up what was left, in the rain, most of which were questions we had to ask of ourselves.

Jim