Words have power: Passing the Peace

We’ve been having a conversation about how to approach the problem of gun violence. Ideas are like a fresh pack of double A batteries, shiny and full of potential to fuel all kinds of action. We certainly can’t power everything, so we are trying to discern what we might do as individuals and as a parish to help reduce gun violence and to help increase peace.

While I admit that I do have some thoughts about what we all might do as a parish in that regard, I thought it best to start with my personal contribution– one person in the midst of a beloved community. What keeps coming to mind is to go back to the underlying causes of violence– to first principles. Violence is caused by the perception of a threat, a lack of peace. And one of the common sources of threat in our society is the careless or intentionally aggressive word. If, at the heart of all words is the template for the first word: THE Word, then I ‘d like to consider how well I mirror (or don’t) that Word. Words have power, and without even thinking about it, we can propagate the cultural perversion of language to a violent perspective. An example of this is the frequency with which we have uttered phrases like, “kill two birds with one stone” or “Do you have questions? Fire away!” How about “Right on target?”

Violent speech can consist of weapon-associated metaphors, threatening manner by means of tone, or even exclusionary words tossed out thoughtlessly.  I’ve done all of those things, and in the name of bringing more peace to the community, I’ve had enough. My New Year’s resolution for 2013 is to scrub my speech to reduce violence. This in no way means to reduce my vocabulary to a bland and perfunctory set of tools, but it means a commitment to bring a rich peacefulness and more harmonious conversation to the community.

In order to introduce some sort of accountability, I have committed my intention as part of my support for the Charter for Compassion (http://charterforcompassion.org/). In fulfillment of my baptismal responsibility, I will try very hard to communicate with you clearly and lovingly, doing my best to mirror the Word. I invite you to hold me accountable for this pledge, and I see it as a way of passing the peace 24/7. The next time we wish someone the peace of the Lord at worship, let’s do more than wish– let’s bring it.

Please consider sharing your ideas for passing the peace– we can do amazing things if we all work together.

 

Grace

As we get closer to Labor Day, I begin to feel a sense of hope that has historically been coupled to the start of the school year for me. No matter what has transpired in the previous school year, each new one afforded the opportunity to wipe the slate clean, learn something new and maybe make some new friends. As an adult, whenever I get to the middle of August, I still begin to have that feeling of anticipation. Labor Day has always been my New Year’s Day.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about grace. It has been draped so generously over my life, that every day feels like that opportunity to start with a clean slate, learn something new and make some new friends.  And there is no catch, because the very meaning of grace is that it is unearned. There is no payment required.

Even while anticipating new and exciting things, it is true that with each new day there are some tough things and some joyful things that remain from days that we have already lived.  But the other constant to which we awaken each day is grace. So even though we will never get any day back that has already been lived, there will still be grace today and tomorrow. And that is pretty cool.

Saturday is a good day to be us!

Saturday is a special day for three of us at St. Stephen’s. We are going to the Cathedral to officially join the family of The Episcopal Church through our diocese. Why is this so cool? I cannot speak for Robert or for Raphael, but here is my take:

We formally acknowledge our Christian relationship to God with our baptism. I was a teenager, so I knew what it meant in an abstract way, but in my 15-year-old brain, because I was baptized and confirmed at the same occasion, I thought of the whole ritual as merely joining a group of Christians like joining a club. Now I see two separate commitments.  My baptism is a formal contract I made with the Holy Trinity in which I accept the grace of a relationship to the Divine under the New Covenant that began with Jesus’ appearance on Earth. My confirmation was a contract to support a specific church—a family of people pursuing The Way in a manner that has some distinctions that differentiate it from other flavors of churches.  I did not give a thought to the specific theology of one flavor of Christianity as opposed to another—I joined the church I could walk to from where I lived as a teenager.  Theology and liturgical style were not a factor.

As an adult, I take both the theology and the liturgical approach of my choice seriously because these aspects of the team with which I choose to manifest the Kingdom of Heaven in D. C. are key to my happiness and effectiveness as a messenger of the Good News to this community.  So I “re-married” my St. Stephen’s family when I moved back to the D. C. area and rejected the “go-it-alone” mentality I had embraced for the past 35 years.  That decision was as much Grace, emotion and local commitment to my hometown community as it was to a theological and liturgical approach. The reason why I wanted to officially declare my association to The Episcopal Church is because it is the institution that not only embraces a theological approach with which I am comfortable, but also because TEC is us—not some disembodied entity—but us.  We can throw our lot in with a specific parish and not think too much about the larger structure, but consider this: why stop at the parish level?  If we ALL shoulder the responsibility for TEC in this city or in this country? It’s a matter of scale, that’s all—why limit our reach or responsibility as a Christian? Go for the Big Picture! The Kingdom of Heaven is vast.  There is a lot to do.

Everything about following The Way has been a choice.  Jesus made an offer to include me at His table. I chose to accept it.  St. Stephen & The Incarnation chose to include me at its table, and I chose to accept the parish as my family. The Episcopal Church says all are welcome and to come as we are.  So I say YES.  I will come as I am, and it is not only a fulfillment of my baptismal vows, but also an AWESOME coming home to the Kingdom of Heaven in D.C.

Just as it is a matter of personal choice to accept my relationship with Jesus, it is a matter of personal choice to accept the offered relationship and responsibility for the continued health of the Episcopal Church beyond my parish.  It has been there through a dynamic history of social change, and whether it remains healthy and grows is a matter of our personal and collective commitment and relationship to it.  With all of our hearts, and all of our minds and all of our talents, we can build something amazing.

So Saturday is a good day to be Raphael and Robert and me.

The Transit of Venus

Last night, Venus passed between the Earth and the Sun, which is a relatively rare event in human lifetimes. It was stunning to see that little ball in front of that big and fiery solar background, and it reminded me of some conversations I’ve recently had with others about relationships, proximity and timing.

In nature, location and timing are so important that systems are made and broken as a function of these two things.  It’s not just who the players are in a relationship, it’s where they are in time and space with respect to one another that determines the nature of the bond and behaviors between them, whether we’re talking about people or planets or crystal structures.

And most importantly, this holds true for our relationships with the Holy Trinity, with one another, and with this amazing garden that we tend– this beautiful blue marble circling the sun. When we sense the underlying presence of God in all things,  act under the dynamic influence of the Holy Spirit and use Jesus as the path to right relationship with God, we become the most we can be, and relationships with everything else become clearer.  It is at those times that we fulfill that once-in-lifetime opportunity,  backlit by the Son, on our Holy transit through space and time.

Image from NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory

Question of the Week: Does Orthodoxy Matter?

This is not a yes or no question, but one which invites discussion. First, what is orthodoxy? The word itself means “right opinion.” Christianity historically defines orthodoxy by means of the seven ecumenical councils that stretch from the fourth through the eighth centuries of the Christian era. The Bible itself is not the standard of orthodoxy. Rather, the Church first established the canonical tests of what in fact belonged in the Bible. Nor is the Bible self-authenticating, despite what many biblicists argue to the contrary.

We live in an age where it is commonly held to be true that each individual is free to come up with his or her own religious understandings, and that one person’s is as good as another’s. Is this true? And if it is, how do you know? If it is not, how are you sure?

Is the Church–St. Stephen’s, for example–responsible for teaching Christian orthodoxy, the received faith as found in the Prayer Book Catechism, for instance? Or are we responsible for encouraging people to find their own faith regardless of how well or not it accords with Christian teaching?

Every day is Earth Day

We are given so much grace to help us on our Way.

Svalbard
Photo by P. Conrad

While there is no question that I’d rather be at St. Stephen’s on a Sunday morning than anywhere else, today I was in the Mojave Desert. I looked at the beautiful pink sandstone at our field site and I thought about some of the other breathtaking places I’ve been privileged to see. Some of them are struggling: the arctic, for example.

For political or economic reasons, people might argue about whether or not they believe in global warming, but after seven arctic field seasons, I can tell you that I have seen the glaciers retreating from year to year with my own eyes. The ice is melting. Our planet has a voice, and if we listen we can hear it.  Not listening to its voice should be as unthinkable to a Christian as not reading the Bible.

So back to the Mojave– we were in the midst of beautiful rocky splendor, and it reminded me of a desert tomb with its stone seal mysteriously displaced. I am trying to spend every day of Easter thinking about resurrection and its implications. So for today, when it comes to resurrection, what gets in the way of resurrecting this amazing garden where we live? God has placed the responsibility for this planet in our hands, so its particular resurrection must be delivered by us.  We have the tools. Do we have the will to use them?

Veni Sancte Spiritus: Sermon for the Second Sunday in Easter by Rev. Linda Kaufman

Veni Sancte Spiritus.

Come Holy Spirit

Jesus appeared among them and said,

o   Peace be with you

o   He showed them his hands and his side

o   Peace be with you

o   Breathed on them

o   Receive the Holy Spirit

And then what?

World peace?  No

Give up everything?  No

Take up your cross and follow me?  No!

Only this:  forgive the sins of any and they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

What is this about?

The first appearance to the gathered community;

No fireworks, no theatrics,

Just: receive the holy spirit and FORGIVE

You are probably tired of hearing about this but my life changed with the coming of our new bishop.

When I decided to get serious about my life as a Christian and prepared to preach at the consecration.

What, I wondered, is the first act of the new Bishop.  Leading us in the confession of faith, leading us in the Nicene Creed.

One of the things I spent time with, in the preparation, was the Creed.

And I wondered, why would the Council at Nicaea put forgiveness in the top 7:

1.     God

2.     Jesus

3.     Holy Spirit

4.     Church

5.     Baptism for the forgiveness of sins

6.     Resurrection of the dead

7.     Life of the world to come

Why is forgiveness in the top 7 hit parade of faith?

Every morning in my quiet time, I have a very informal litany I use.  It changes. I don’t even really plan the changes; I just notice it.

I used to say, I believe in God.

Now I say, having learned from Marcus Borg,

I give my heart to you, O God.

I give my whole heart to you, Jesus

I give my heart to the church.

I give my heart to forgiveness.

I give my whole heart to forgiveness.

What would life be like if I could do this?

o   What if I could truly forgive my father for the ways he damaged me

o   What if I could forgive my son for the ways he has hurt me and disappointed me

o   What if I could ask and give forgiveness to Liane.  Yesterday we had a corker of a fight about whether to serve sliders or hamburgers.  When we went to pick up the bread, we got in the fight again and had to leave the store.  Where would we be if I could not say to her, “I am sorry.  Will you forgive me?”  We could not maintain a relationship without forgiveness.

What if we as a country could be a Christian nation in this aspect?

o   What if we had forgiven Osama bin Laden

o   Acknowledged our sin and

o   Humbly asked for forgiveness

o   What if we asked for forgiveness of those

o   This country enslaved

o   For the native population we tried to erase

What would our country be if we acknowledged that we do so many things to gain political points?

And decided to do what is right, regardless of politics?  When I was an activist in Alexandria, I asked Jim Moran, who was then the mayor of Alexandria, why he would not do what we all knew was the right thing to do.  “If I did that,” he said, “I would never get re-elected.”

What if we offered forgiveness to our enemies?

What if we humbly asked forgiveness when we sinned?

What if we believed that forgiveness is not just a nicety, not just courtesy, but CENTRAL to our faith?

Jesus appeared to the gathered community.

He offered his peace to them

Breathed on them

They received the Holy Spirit

And then he told them to forgive.

———–

My first experience of the Episcopal Church was

Charismatic

Evangelical

Bible-believing

And although I don’t agree with everything I learned then,

I am very grateful for what I learned.

I learned the Bible – in song and study

I learned to receive the Holy Spirit

I learned to have a personal relationship to God

I learned to tithe

And I learned about the personal and powerful manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

In 1977, I asked for a received the baptism in the Holy Spirit

And spoke in tongues

And in my arrogant innocence, I believed that my way was the only way.

That all persons must experience Pentecost as I had:

With a mighty wind and a speaking in tongues

And I am grateful for that experience.

Every morning as I prepare to preach

I stop, kneel down

And ask for God’s presence in my preaching

And I pray in tongues to open my heart.

But now I have come to realize that there are some who have a Pentecost experience

Which is wild and crazy – like a mighty wind and tongues of fire!!!  I am, after all, the one who brings party poppers and bomb bags to trainings, who shouts and cries from the pulpit.  It is probably no surprise that I would receive the Spirit with the same wildness.

And there are also those who receive the Holy Spirit as the gathered community did 2,000 years ago

As quietly as breath

With no visible and outward signs

With quiet receptiveness

In the gloom of the evening

In fear

Behind closed doors

Last night at dinner with friends, Perry said, “I have never doubted my faith”

In the quietness of his gathered community he knew.

Perry has no moment of conversion; he always knew.

———————–

Jesus appeared among them

And breathed on them

Receive the Holy Spirit

———————–

For the past month, I have had an ear worm

You know, the song that plays over and over in your head

It’s a Taize chant:

Veni Sancte Spiritus (sung)  Come Holy Spirit

Over and over

Walking down the street:                         Veni Sancte Spiritus (sung) 

 Going to sleep                                            Veni Sancte Spiritus (sung) 

 Driving                                                        Veni Sancte Spiritus (sung) 

 

As we begin this new spirit of Easter,

I invite you to sing into Easter.

Veni Sancte Spiritus (sung) 

 

            I invite you to sing into forgiveness

 

                        Veni Sancte Spiritus (sung)

 

For forgiveness is not something to be demanded or grasped,

But opened to

And received like breath

 

Veni Sancte Spiritus (sung by all for a while)