My Protestant Reformation Part II

One night, I was sitting in a movie theater, watching Jan Troell’s The New Land starring Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow. The new Swedish community was gathered in a barn for a church service. This consisted mainly of an angry preacher berating his flock for actual and potential transgressions. Kristina (Ullman) had to slip out to deal with one of her children who’d had a potty accident. She ducked back in clearly hoping not to have been caught in this irreverent task. Surprisingly, all I could feel during this scene was envy. I envied these people for having a church. Never mind that I would never have stood for this sort of church. It was just church that I needed.

But a Protestant church? Even though my fear of hell had faded away, I still had gnawing doubts that I could find God in that setting, much less that I could ever be "right" with God after years of nothing. Twenty plus years of teaching don't vanish in an instant. Nevertheless, this urge for church was too strong to ignore. 

After many years, I have realized that I am not happy unless I am going to church regularly. There are people who can take church or leave it. There are even some who feel that church actually stifles their relationship with God. I am not one of those people.

A few weeks later, in the middle of February, I took myself to a Thursday night service at St Mary’s Episcopal Church. Eucharist was held in the Lady Chapel (a new concept for me). The service was so beautiful that I think I was numb for most of it. Raised Catholic, I could, of course, follow the prayers without even looking at the book, but the reverence with which the worship was conducted was entirely new to me.

I’d say it was the priest, but it was the people, too. Their devotion was so natural. I went home with my head in the clouds. I returned Sunday after Sunday, Thursday after Thursday.

Deeply in love as I was with the Episcopal Church, I had to come to grips with this matter of Protestantism. I had prejudices, stumbling blocks left over from my upbringing. Familiar as it was, there were some features of my new religion that tripped me up. Here are some of them:

Married Clergy The first time Father Atlee, rector at St Mary’s, referred to his wife, I think I blushed to the roots of my hair. I knew Protestant clergy could marry; I’d read the 39 Articles after all. Still it took a while to get used to. Soon, however, I became very close with the rector’s wife and his daughters, the youngest of whom was our baby sitter.

Words - like Sunday School, fellowship, acolyte (as opposed to altar boy) Scripture. Not unfamiliar words, but not ones I’d ever heard in the Catholic Church.

“Scripture” was the Epistle and the Gospel read aloud on Sundays, period. Compared with the magisterium of the church, the Bible has limited authority for Catholics. We did not use Biblical references.  “Bible Study” was a code term for heresy, maybe even anarchy.

“Fellowship” sounded a bit touchy feely for me, but as it has found its way into the Baptismal Covenant in the 1978 Prayer Book, I have made my peace with it.

 “Sunday School” was, of course, the most Protestant term of all. A friend at St Mary’s advised me to simply call it “church school.”  It had worked for him.

Psalms played little or no part in Catholic worship. I was naturally suspicions of them, as if they might contain some heretical nuance. Characters reciting the 23^rd Psalm on television shows were always Protestants. It’s taken me quite a while to hold the psalms close. I love them now.

The Vestry I could not believe how much power lay people had in the Episcopal Church. How could the unordained decide matters for the ordained? How could the holiness of the rector, by virtue of his (no female clergy yet) celebrating the Eucharist, not trump the lesser holiness of the lay persons? And how could regular parishioners elect Vestry members? It was all so topsy turvy.

Greeting the rector on the way out of church.  Often parishioners even comment on the sermon. This still feels strange to me, to be honest. Catholic clergy did not expose themselves to the congregation with such reckless abandon. I never know what to say. I refuse to compliment a priest on her (plenty of female clergy now) or his sermon. For me a teaching is to be received, not evaluated. When shaking hands, the most I can muster is “thank you, Father.”

*******

I have found real joy in the Episcopal Church. My first parish, St Mary’s in Wayne, Pennsylvania*, was my own beautiful home for not enough years. All the things I thought I’d lost along the way, I found there. But more than that, I grew in grace. I learned to pray, at last. I found out a little bit about life and death and salvation. Father Atlee, patiently guided me through instructions and I was received into the Episcopal Church.

Twenty or so years ago when we moved from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, I was in search of a new Episcopal Church. Churches here are much “lower” (less solemn, less formal) than those back home. I realized that I would have to become even more Protestant than I already was.

Could I do it? Quite honestly, it took some adjustment. I did some grumbling. But realizing that I am that same person who envied Liv Ullmann and company for standing around in a freezing barn being yelled at, making peace with fewer candles, less incense, a guitar or two on odd occasions seemed, in the end, surprisingly easy. I say “Sunday School” now with ease.

I can now attend services in any sort of church without discomfort. I view the Protestant Reformation of the 16^th Century with awe and gratitude. I see its heroes as great saints and its revolutionary teachings as a massive step forward for humankind. I am proud to wear the badge of Protestant.

God did not use a cookie cutter when he created us. We are unique. The many ways we come to God are unique, beautiful and always successful. In one of the first meetings I had with Father Atlee, he suggested that perhaps God would win out for each of us in the end, that we would all be glorified. Such a shocking thing to say to a Catholic girl! But I wasn't shocked. I was converted. Father Atlee is gone now. I know I'm not the only one whose heart he opened to Christ. His obituary is here.

God was working in my life when I wandered into St Mary’s on that cold night in February. God was also working in my life when I spent those years with no faith, no church, no religion. Far from seeing those years as “sinful” as I‘d been taught, I know they were years of deprivation and of preparation. They led me to receive God’s grace and to know the love of Jesus. 

* The Atlees gave me this print on my last Sunday at St Mary's. Yes, we really were as happy as we look in the picture. 

My Protestant Reformation - Part One

Many people leave the Roman Catholic church to become Protestants. They all have their reasons. Many have, likewise, ventured in the other direction, also for their own reasons. I believe that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ and all share in eternal life. My own story is neither dramatic nor unique. Nevertheless, blogs being what they are, I feel I must tell it.

As a Catholic, I was what you could call “devout.” No one I knew doubted the truth of the Catholic church, much less the existence of God. Did I feel the presence of God in my life then as I do now, or was it my family, church and school whose presence I felt? I’ll never know. I do know that I prayed earnestly and was faithful in the sacraments, teachings and practice. Church was a big part of my life. It surrounded and defined me.

This is not going to be a post about how damaging the Catholic church is - or was. I went to Catholic school for 12 years, and I do not regret one day of it. I was “raised by nuns” some of whom I disliked, but most of whom I loved dearly. I parted company with the church over some issues, but I have no personal beef with it.

My understanding of Protestantism was that people believed they were already “saved” by Christ’s death and Resurrection and that they had no fear of hell. To be a Protestant was, therefore, to take the easy road. We learned that the Reformation took place because so many people were unwilling to embrace the rigors of true religion. Protestants certainly had nothing to teach me.

Then there came a time in my life when, without being too specific, it became very easy for me to “fall into sin.” I don’t live easily with cognitive dissonance so, to make my life simple, I rejected religion completely. I was like the fundamentalist who, when told that it is a sin to wear shorts, announces that she never believed in God anyhow. I met a lot of new people who were talking about a lot of things besides religion.

There was rock ‘n roll; there was philosophy; there was Civil Rights; there was feminism; there was art and literature. Who needed God with all this great stuff?

I became enamored of myself and my ideas. I loved other people insofar as they agreed with me. I was right. I was righteous. I was militant.

Do you know anyone like that? Big personality. Full of passion and zeal. Committed to a better world and always having a boyfriend. How can someone so irresistible be so unhappy? In the midst of all this, I felt that terrible emptiness that only comes when God is far away.

In those days, I often reviewed my non-belief, backing it up with logic and my own observation of a broken world and meaningless existence. Surely any God was so far away, so laissez-faire, that invoking him or her would be a waste of time. Maybe the universe hung together on its own. Maybe there was a system, like astrology or tarot or something that underlay it all. Maybe I needed to find out.

I ended all my friendships, moved to a new apartment, sold all my records and most of my furniture. All that was left was a Siamese cat and a hundred or so books. I decided to study anthropology, informally, on my own. I read many dozens of books, one book leading to another as so often happens. This study gave me a lot of answers about human behavior. For example,  the first things to develop in a culture are structure and ritual. Rules about families, rules about food, rules about work. It showed me what I knew as a small child, that religious practice is central to our lives.

What drives people to organize their lives this way? Why are ritual and structure so satisfying? Even before an actual God is envisioned, humans conduct themselves worshipfully. Why is this so? Where does this need come from? Holiness is natural, it seemed.  Why had I let it go?

"Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you." 1 John 27

Next week: what happened next!

The Bengali Tea Boy

Did you know that Buddhism has saints? It does. One in particular was Atisha, a monk and teacher who had renounced the magic of Tantra in favor of the Buddha’s teachings. He became so admired that he was invited to bring the teachings to Tibet.

Atisha had a tea boy who was sullen and disrespectful. Daily the teacher had to overcome his own pride and sense of self to show loving kindness to his tea boy. The tea boy was never grateful for this but continued in his bad tempered ways.

When Atisha finally accepted the Tibetan invitation, he heard that the people in that country were so cheerful and mild mannered that he feared he would have no one on whom to practice his compassion training. So he brought his tea boy to Tibet with him.

Is the lesson in this as obvious to you as it was to me?

In my last job, I had dealings with a contractor who constantly resisted the requirements in his contract. He made long and self-righteous claims as to why he should not have to comply. He invoked my (deceased) predecessor, wishing he were still in place. He went above my head to elected officials to court their approval and support. He was my Bengali tea boy.

Far from growing to despise this person, I actually came to love him. It was a miracle. His resistance, his whining simply made me value him all the more. I decided I would see the face of Christ in this person because I know it was there. I would treat him like a great sage, a highly valued colleague. I would listen to him with an open heart and I would say kind things about him afterward. My intention to love him became reality. 

I was not able to bend the rules for him as my predecessor had done, nor was I inclined to. He worked for an outstanding organization that did fine work and I praised it and him whenever I could. I was ruthless about the contract and fulsome in praise for all the good that they accomplished. I made friends with his co-workers and clients.

Did he grow to like me? I honestly doubt it. But that wasn't the point. I wasn't after getting him to like me. I was after getting myself to like him. And that did happen. Now that I am retired, I miss him most of all.

Everyone has a Bengali tea boy in her or his life. Everyone can learn to love and value that tea boy. Everyone can don the virtues of patience and kindness and direct all of that to the tea boy.

But, one last piece from this lesson, one closing, disturbing possibility…am I someone else’s Bengali tea boy?

 

If I am, Dear God, let that person find the grace that I found. Let her or him see the face of Christ in me.

Vanity of Vanities

Suppose in church one Sunday, after the Gospel is read and you and all the congregation have seated yourselves comfortably, smoothing out the creases in your Sunday attire, the preacher were to embark on a sermon that said nothing was worth anything. Imagine the preacher continued to explain that a stillborn child is luckier that a person who lives many years. Or what if the preacher said that because both rich and poor, wise and foolish, die alike, there is no reason to exert yourself?

Last week my study group undertook the Book of Ecclesiastes. We were told that because God has already created and made everything as it is, there is no point in exerting ourselves (3:14). We also found that there is no sure promise of afterlife (3:21) and that, though wisdom is better than foolishness, in the end, the fool meets the same end as the sage (7:15)

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Vanity of vanities. All is vanity says the preacher (1:2).

Throughout Ecclesiastes the “preacher” reminds us that all our strivings, all our arguments, all our accomplishments are vanity. He adds that they are chasing after the wind.

There has been some study of the word “vanity” which is repeated many times in this book. The Latin vanitas was used by Jerome when he translated the Bible into Latin. So when translators wrote the book in English, the word “vanity” seemed the obvious choice. Some modern scholars have interpreted the word to better mean meaninglessness. If, however, we go back to the Hebrew word hebel, we find that it is mostly used to refer to smoke or mist or fog.

I prefer an actual image over a concept every time, so, for me,  mist it is. But if all my work is mist (as opposed to vanity), I’m still not very satisfied with the result. Granted “mist” seems a bit less condemnatory than “vanity”. Nevertheless, mist is nothing to be proud of.

Is there any comfort here at all? I think there is a little.

If I am working tirelessly to have my own bookstore (or anything) and even after all my effort and received advice, my effort fails, I am comforted that every other thing that anyone has ever done will also fade into nothingness eventually. I can look with some distance on my work. I can take a long view.

Suppose I have a child. Suppose then she grows up to be an addict. This does not reflect on me. She is the same as everyone else in the end. She is mist, just like an Olympic medalist or a poet or a priest.

Is there any comfort in that at all? Not a lot.

Granted, there is some value in seeing our efforts as meager before God and eternity. People get so enthralled with their own "legacy" that they fail to understand their place in the whole of God's order. Paul tells us not to live for earthly concerns but to live in the Spirit. The problem is, Ecclesiastes doesn't give us the Spirit.

Our faith is a faith of reward. Rewards are promised to us and Ecclesiastes sees no reward beyond the merest daily pleasure in work, food and drink (8:15). Certainly the Old Testament was heavy on rewards: the Promised Land, prosperity, reputation, issue, triumph over enemies.

But what rewards are promised to the follower of Jesus? Certainly no land or goods. No money, no Mercedes Benz. Not even victory in sports or war.

The Christian lives his or her life with the promise of a heavenly reward, right? Actually, I am going to walk right past this promise of heaven because I have no idea what heaven is like and it’s too abstract for me.

Paul said in Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” What things? Is God promising us safety? He is not. Look around. Many people, many faithful people do not live in safety. Nor do they live in prosperity. Christians starve, sicken, die. Christians are poor and homeless. Christians suffer and mourn. What is our promised reward? What does God give us?

Very simply, the reward promised to the follower of Jesus is Jesus, is God.

Let’s go all the way back to Genesis 2. Here we are in the Garden with God, made in his image and given lovely tasks to perform. This is our reward. Certainly our imperfection surfaced and we lost that intimacy with God, but, thanks to our Redeemer, we can have it back. Do we get it back in heaven? On earth? We get it back on earth as in heaven.

Every act of Christian kindness, every loving word, every brave proclamation lands us, for that moment, right in the kingdom of God. We do not have to wait for heaven. We are to live our lives on earth as in heaven.

The preacher in the beginning of this post better have something pretty terrific up his or her sleeve or people are either going to force an intervention or just walk out.. The preacher, Ecclesiastes, had nothing particular up his sleeve. He ended with an exhortation to obey the law of God and await his judgment. 

I’m sure Ecclesiastes is now in the presence of God and feeling much better about things. After all, no lesser American treasure than Pete Seeger wrote a song based on his third chapter and no lesser 60’s icon than the Byrds covered it. You call that mist?

Obedience

If there is one word in the English language that is bound to infuriate me, it is the word “obedience”. I have a visceral reaction to it. A naturally compliant person, I can only imagine how other, more rebellious types react.

Obedience was a stated requirement at home, at school and, of course, at church. We were to obey God, the priest, parents, teachers, civil authorities and anyone who was placed in authority over us. “All authority comes from God”. I've read that in the Bible myself.

Such a lot of obeying. How did any of us survive?

As a parent, myself, I never used this word with my children. I did ask them to do some things and refrain from doing others. Sometimes it worked out. Other times it did not. But I could not “pull rank” on them. The word “obedience” was not employed.

So decades later, when I think I am finally freed of this oppressive concept, I am reading Macrina Wiederkehr’s wonderful book Abide on lectio divina and she tells her readers to “take the scriptural passages in obedience”. We must obey the passage. She says, “When you have finished reading the assigned Scripture text, it is time to LISTEN OBEDIENTLY” (emphasis hers) “Many of us are not eager for obedience,” she understates. I feel the old resistance stiffening my spine, but I proceed on trust.

Continuing, Macrina writes, “The obedience referred to here, though, is a listening so deep we are drawn into the Spirit of Jesus and given a wisdom that enables us to know how to respond to the Word…. You are being invited to be formed by the Word of God”.

formed by the word of God...

The assigned texts are not always passages of moral teachings. In one instance, Jesus prays to be glorified in his Apostles. How can I obey that? The next one was the “vine and the branches” speech. There is something to obey there; be fruitful or you’ll get pruned. I don’t like ultimatums, but I decided I would take the passages into myself. I tried to accept them as if they were quite natural to me, almost as if I might have written them myself. Was this obedience?

Obedience plays a big part in Scripture. Abraham’s obedience. Adam’s disobedience. Israel’s disobedience. Jesus’ obedience. I begin to wonder if there isn't more to obedience than I’d been given to understand in grade school.

I look closely at Abraham’s obedience. It is stunning. He looks up to God and God tells him to move here, to move there, to separate from his kinsman, Lot. Then drastically he is asked to offer his own son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, and, even then, he is prepared to obey. Without question. It is as if he had been formed by the Word of God.

How to understand such obedience? Is it ignorance? Is it blindness? Does he not care about these people or this place? Is he a puppet?

Paul again and again cites the faithfulness of Abraham. It is what sets Abraham apart; it is what made God choose him to be the patriarch of his people. This gift that Abraham has is more than what I have understood as obedience; it’s a oneness of will. Abraham’s will is one with God’s will. His faith which “was reckoned righteousness” is such that he can receive the will of God as if it is his own. In fact, it is his own. He is that faithful.

For the sake of contrast, let’s look at an instance of disobedience, the most famous one, the sin of Adam and Eve. Here are two humans who have definitely been formed by the Word of God. Their union with God was perfect. And yet, they flouted the one rule they were given. There were not asked to give up anything precious or to inconvenience themselves at all.

In many ways their disobedience is as hard to fathom as is Abraham’s obedience.  But their disobedience, their disunion with God, their failure to be formed by God’s Word is the emblematic act of our fall, our imperfection.

Paul likes to consider Jesus as the corrective of Adam (and Eve) and, by extension, all of humanity. Jesus is the supreme example of obedience, receiving the Father’s will as his own. His birth, his life, his ministry and his passion and death, were all taken in obedience out of a shared will, a common purpose, manifesting the perfection of faith. Thus our redemption.

If we seek unity with God, this obedience is part it. This is not like eating your vegetables or being quiet during class or cleaning your room. 

This is the big time. This is about being formed by the Word of God.  

God is seeking to perfect his creation and each one of us in Christ is asked to make that task ours as well. It’s an invitation, not a commandment. Our paths are constantly being revealed to us. God is gently shining a light on them.

Will we obey? Will I?

Are We A Tribe?

I used to envy my Jewish friends. They had a connection to each other before they ever even met. It was blood, it was family, it was history and it was God. Nothing, no academic rivalry or romantic furor could undermine the identity they shared so easily. And it was big. It stretched back thousands of years and all across the globe.

When God sent Abraham off to Egypt, he promised him protection. He also promised him many descendents. This multitude of people issuing from Abraham became the people of Israel. Their history which we know so well, is a tribal history. They were ethnically connected. They were bound by belief and by the covenant under which they operated. They had enemies and fought them, sometimes winning. They have a history which they, even now, repeat to themselves and to each other with regularity. They are a tribe. They are one.

To this day, these people are a People; they see themselves as a people. Do they have their differences of opinion? Most definitely. But the identity which the Bible tells us God created in them is still there. After nearly four thousand years of history and despite a Diaspora stretching across the face of the earth, this people, this tribe, still lives their story and practices their faith.

Christianity, of course, proceeds from Judaism. We Christians continue the story of the Israelites on a tangent, so to speak. Our Messiah is the Messiah for which Jews waited and prayed all through their history. Our faith is based on Jesus’ fulfilling the Mosaic law and the Hebrew prophets. But are we a tribe? What unity can we claim?

Jesus set us on a different path with a different idea of unity. The old ties were no longer enough. 

Did Jesus care about blood ties? He said that his brothers and sisters were those who heard the word of God. (Luke 8:21) 

Did he care about nations? He rebuked tribe-only attitudes and almost got himself assassinated for it. (Luke 4:25-29) 

Did he care about property? He advocated divesting oneself of all property and following him. (Matthew 19:16-22) 

Did he care about rules? He ate with sinners, healed on the Sabbath and violated purity rules. (Luke 5:27-32; Mark 3:1-6; Mark 2:19-20)

Yes he was a devout Jew observing all feasts, quoting scripture, praying, blessing, and teaching, but he preached a togetherness that went far beyond his own people. Or, rather, he considered his own people to be all those who accepted his word.

This was a new concept and one that we still have trouble with. There are some 41,000 different denominations of Christianity. Some get along quite well with their neighbors; others are in a constant war of words with everyone else. When Jesus prayed that his disciples, and those who believe because of them (ourselves, in other words) become one with him and one with the Father through him, I think he meant a oneness that transcends our small divisions.

There is but one Gospel. There is but one Messiah. There is just one God and Father of all. I do believe that Jesus’ vision will come true somehow. I have to believe that the Gospel will enlighten everyone who hears it, that a seed of truth will be planted in every heart.

People are weak. Our petty concerns and squabbles are nothing but dust against the power of God and the will of Christ. Our errors can be wiped away in the blink of an eye when the time is right.

This means that I have to find a sense of oneness, of tribe, if you will, with all my Christian sisters and brothers. That means finding oneness with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church as well as with the snake handler in Kentucky; with the Lutheran congregant who's almost just like me and with the "Evangelical" sitting in a mega church looking at a jumbotron; with my own dear vicar as well as with Mark Driscoll.

I cannot write anyone off.

This is not a human bond; it does not appeal in human terms. It does not offer the cozy feeling of family. It is a unity of spirit. As our Savior reminded his apostles,we are no longer of the world. We are of the Spirit and our hearts must live on spiritual things. Following Christ, living the Gospel, bringing the kingdom of God – this is our purpose and it is one we share with every Christian.

I have much pride in my church. I'm a bit of a snob both liturgically and doctrinally. I have spoken disdainfully of those “others” who do not worship or understand as I do. I have spoken worse about those who use their religion to hurt others, to wield power, to shame, to deride. This has not helped me spiritually, nor has it served Christendom. It has not brought even one person to know Christ.

I cannot write anyone off.

If God can see around all my flaws, I should be able to stand back from my own sense of rightness to find the soul in whoever it is that is before me at the moment. The Body of Christ into which we were Baptized and called daily is one Body. However differently and imperfectly we manifest our faith, the love that we find for each other is the only thing that will bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

The Cold

I live in the Upper Midwest of the United States, and in winter it gets very cold here. It’s not the coldest place on earth, but, as we like to say, you notice it. On January 6, this year, the Feast of the Epiphany, the temperature dropped to -23 degrees. That’s Fahrenheit. It was cold.

As I must do every day, I ventured out in the early morning to run some errands and I certainly noticed it. In fact, the cold that day was so aggressive, so omnipresent, that, for the few moments I was out in it, I could think of nothing else.

The Psalmist tells us that all of God’s creatures praise him, Everything owes its existence to God. Everything by its existence glorifies God. I wondered how the cold was glorifying God on that Monday.

I was unable to ignore the cold. Everything I did was because of the cold. I could feel the cold penetrate my down filled coat and my fleece lined hat and mittens. The cold contorted my face, hurried my steps, and quickened my breathing. It wouldn’t let me be. It was all I could think of.

The cold was merely being itself, being true to its nature. But by being so raw and relentless it pushed its nature onto everyone and everything.

Because God is creator, all of God’s creatures show his glory. “Heaven and earth are full of your glory” we sing each Sunday. To see the glory of God in a tree or an elk or a mountain we make an intention to do so, We go there, take in the sight and reflect. In a blade of grass, in the face of a neighbor, in a mud puddle, God can be found. But I did not find God in the cold. In stead, God found me.

If only I could glorify God that way. If only I could be so true to my own nature that God’s creation of me would be undeniable. How true, how pure can I be? How much of my lifetime of accretions can be rubbed away so that I can be like the cold?

I believe that Christ, by his Incarnation, gave us the power to be as profound and insistent as the cold. His sanctifying presence on this earth released a spark into all of creation. How would the world look if we, as followers of Christ, were as bold as the north wind, as inclusive as a blanket of snow?

This is not a call to aggressive evangelism. It is a call to bring forth our true natures as Christ’s own to cover the earth with love, to be obviously God’s own. Can we be that?