Monday, December 22, 2014

A Recent Article in the Ocean Springs Gazette

       Turn on the radio of late and you are likely to hear Taylor Swift singing “Shake It Off.”  Swift dedicates the song to her detractors.  She says you cannot control what other people say or do, you can only control your own reaction.  Swift admonishes us not to let what others do or say “get under our skin,” but rather we should “shake it off.”  That phrase, “shake it off” is evocative.  The phrase is reminiscent of one of the admonitions of Jesus: “...shake the dust off your feet.” British theologian John Oman called this admonition of Jesus "The Forgotten Sacrament.”
When Jesus sent his disciples out on mission, he said “When people refuse to welcome you and the gospel you preach, refuse to offer hospitality, shake the dust off your feet.”  Shake the dust off your feet and move on.
Jesus knew his disciples would face rejection and failure.  We run into our own limitations and the limitations of others.  We do our best and our best is not good enough.  Others do their best and their best is not good enough.  And, sometimes our worst gets involved too, and so do others’ worst.  To untangle the knot of responsibility is beyond our capabilities.
So Jesus, in his wisdom and mercy, has given us this sacrament, the shaking off of the dust, what Oman called "The Sacrament of Failure."  It is an acknowledgment that we have done all we can do, all we should do, and it is time to let go and move on.
Sometimes we are tempted to move too quickly.  The desert fathers and mothers advised: "Leave no place easily." There may be still much to learn there.  But, there are times when the most redemptive thing for you and for the other is to shake the dust off your feet and move on. It is a mercy to us and it is a mercy to them. It gives them and us another chance.  We acknowledge the failure, ours and theirs, and move on.
Taylor Swift, whether she knows it or not, is giving sound theological advice when she sings to us:  “Shake it off.”

Monday, November 3, 2014

Article for the Ocean Springs Gazette

     J. B. Phillips, famous for his translation work (he translated the “New Testament in Modern English,” 1958), was the author of a book entitled “Your God is Too Small” (published in 1961).  “Your God is Too Small” begins with these memorable words:  “The trouble with many people today is that they have not found a God big enough...”  Not much has changed since 1961 with regard to the “size” of our conceptions of God.  We still tend to think “too small.”
The problem of a God who is too small is not, however, relegated to the middle of the Twentieth Century (or the beginning of the Twenty-First).  The prophet Isaiah challenges the “size” of God as imagined by his contemporaries.  And, he  told them that their God was too small.  He speaks of their attitude toward “foreigners” and speaking for God says:  “...my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
Isaiah’s vision is still challenging us.  Turns out, not much has changed in this regard since the Tenth Century.
A few weeks ago St. John’s Episcopal Church hosted the viewing of the documentary “Besa.”  The film concerns the Muslims who saved Jews during the holocaust.  The audience included a Rabbi, a Priest, and an Imam.  Afterward, the Imam and I had our picture taken in front of a bulletin board entitled “Children of Abraham.”  Everyone in attendance wrote their name on a “star” and the stars were pinned to the bulletin board.  Each and everyone a child of Abraham.  Jews, Christians, Muslims--one and all--a child of Abraham.  It was a good night for Ocean Springs and for people of faith.
Such evenings, however, stretch our theology.  And, truth be told, our theology needs stretching.  Isaiah knew the theology of Israel in exile needed stretching.  Jesus came, still stretching the theology of his day.  The Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Rome, would need to stretch their theologizing upon such matters.  Our conceptions of God have to be stretched because, time after time, our conceptions of God are, as J. B. Phillips suggested, “too small.”

Saturday, June 7, 2014

The "Priest-in-Charge" and the "Priest Associate" of St. John's, Ocean Springs are happy!



https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10100674569878364&l=6034065047131156521

Saturday, May 24, 2014

A prayer for Memorial Day

From the Book of Common Prayer

O Judge of the nations,
we remember before you with grateful hearts
the men and women of our country who in the day of decision
ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy.
Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land
share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines.
This we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thanksgiving for Heroic Service, BCP 1979

Monday, April 28, 2014

Working on my sermon for Easter 3


The Servant-Girl at Emmaus (a painting by Velasquez) by Denise Levertov

She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his – the one
who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seer her? Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
<La_mulata,_by_Diego_Velázquez.jpg>Hands he’d laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face-?

The man they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don’t recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching the winejug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening.

swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Tenebrae


The name Tenebrae (the Latin word for “darkness” or “shadows”) has for centuries been applied to the ancient monastic night and early morning services (Matins and Lauds) of the last three days of Holy Week, which in medieval times came to be celebrated on the preceding evenings.

Apart from the chant of the Lamentations (in which each verse is introduced by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet), the most conspicuous feature of the service is the gradual extinguishing of candles and other lights in the church until only a single candle, considered a symbol of our Lord, remains. Toward the end of the service this candle is hidden, typifying the apparent victory of the forces of evil. At the very end, a loud noise is made, symbolizing the earthquake at the time of the resurrection (Matthew 28:2), the hidden candle is restored to its place, and by its light all depart in silence.

In [The Book of Occasional Services], provision is made for Tenebrae on Wednesday evening only, in order that the proper liturgies of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday may find their place as the principal services of those days. By drawing upon material from each of the former three offices of Tenebrae, this service provides an extended meditation upon, and a prelude to, the events in our Lord’s life between the Last Supper and the Resurrection.

--from the Book of Occasional Services, p. 74. 

Come and experience the service of Tenebrae this Holy Week:  Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. at St. John's Episcopal Church, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

What is "Palm Sunday"?

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four canonical Gospels.

In many Christian churches, Palm Sunday includes a procession of the assembled worshipers carrying palms, representing the palm branches the crowd scattered in front of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem.
In the accounts of the four canonical Gospels, Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalemtakes place about a week before his Resurrection.

The symbolism is captured in Zechariah 9:9 "The Coming of Zion's King – See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”.
According to the Gospels, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, and the celebrating people there laid down their cloaks in front of him, and also laid down small branches of trees. The people sang part of Psalm 118: 25–26 – ... Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord ....

In many lands in the ancient Near East, it was customary to cover in some way the path of someone thought worthy of the highest honour. The Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 9:13) reports that Jehu, son of Jehoshaphat, was treated this way. Both the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John report that people gave Jesus this form of honour. However, in the synoptics they are only reported as laying their garments and cut rushes on the street, whereas John specifies fronds of palm (Greek phoinix).

In Revelation 7:9, the white-clad multitude stand before the throne and Lamb holding palm branches.
In the Episcopal and many other Anglican churches and in Lutheran churches, as well, the day is called "The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday"; in practice, though, it is usually termed "Palm Sunday."

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Science and Faith in the News ("On Sceptics")

A couple of weeks ago, scientists announced findings consistent with the so-called “Big Bang Theory.“  Gravitational waves, dating back to the “birth” of the universe, 13.7 billion years ago, were recorded.

A few weeks prior, a televised debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye made the news.  The bow-tied Bill Nye, the Science Guy, is familiar to television-viewing audiences, but Ken Ham was a new name to many.  Ham is a biblical literalist who heads both the Creation Museum and Answers in Genesis (AiG), the leading voice of “young Earth” creationism.  I met Ham once when I was doing a short documentary on the museum for a class I was taking at the time.

Ham is a skeptic when it comes to the claims of science.  Nye is a skeptic when it comes to Ham’s religious notions.

David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher, also questioned science’s findings. Hume identified, what he called, “the problem of induction.”  On the predictive value of observational data, he wrote: “Although the sun arose every single morning of my life, I cannot assume that it will necessarily do so tomorrow.” Why not? Because “if we proceed not upon some fact, present to the memory or senses, our reasonings would be merely hypothetical.”

The problem of establishing an incontestable link between cause and effect, in Hume’s view, relates to the credibility of past events. Both prediction and historical accounts require a certain degree of trust.

Hume’s insistence that we cannot definitively prove causal relationships notwithstanding, practically speaking, most of us cannot live comfortably without trust, even if we recognize that some cause-event-connections and witnesses are more trustworthy than others.

Skeptics endure doubt-filled lives since there are many claims about the nature of reality that we cannot test and confirm for ourselves.

See http://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/science-vs-bible-reasons-why-debate-will-never-be-settled-—-peter-han.  Han is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago.  His recent article inspired my blog entry above.


Tuesday, March 4, 2014

On giving away guns as an evangelism tool

To state the obvious: the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s gun-giveaway evangelism is ill-concieved.  Using instruments of violence to lure men to a sales pitch for the Prince of Peace, is wrong on so many levels.


My Baptist friend and clergy colleague the Rev. Joe Phelps has commented:  “Surely there is more to a faith experience than wandering into a church service that is veiled as an outdoor store. You show up like an unsuspecting deer at a feeder near a deer-blind, on the off-chance of winning a gun, but to your surprise amidst the jokes and hunting tales you hear an entirely new philosophy of life which awakens you from your nightmare of materialism and the love of violent weapons which drew you like an junkie to this event in the first place. In this sudden awakening you believe that you have so thoroughly examined the strengths and weaknesses of this radically new value system that you make a decision more life-altering than signing the lease on that new fully-loaded truck without telling your wife or best friend, a decision that could possibly dissuade you from owning the very weapons that drew you to this evening’s program in the first place.”