A Generational Disconnect?

Over the past couple of years, I've had a bunch of parishioners die. That's the reality in an aging congregation. We've had "the new prayerbook" for 30 years now and, for the most part, people "get" the theological and practice shifts that are embodied in it. Sure, there are folks who choose to kneel during the post-Sanctus, and there probably always will be. What I've observed, however, doesn't have anything to do with rubrics per se.

In the past two years, 12 souls have entered new life. For all of them, their deaths were blessings that ended suffering and dysfunction. Of those 10, the surviving relatives who knew of their loved one's commitment to the parish didn't bother to contact the parish and didn't bury them from any church.

The "Concerning the Service" notes on page 268 say that "Baptized Christians are properly buried from the church." There is more to it, but this is actually enough.

What I don't get is the children/nephews/nieces not contacting the parish. In these cases, they were raised in this parish and know that their mom/dad/aunt/uncle had a particular fondness for the place.

Now, I've done enough funerals that I'm really not looking to add to my coup stick, so that's not my motivation for bringing this up. (I have done more than twice as many funerals as baptisms and marriages combined.) Our Burial Offices are some of the best liturgical and theological rites around. They get it right, it's not too much, it's not too little. They make it very clear that 1) funerals are Easter Events (thanks to +Hays Rockwell for that one) and 2) that they are for those who remain anchored in this place.

When the church gets left out of the final rites, it seems to me that a few things happen.

1. In the particular instances I know of, the wishes of the parishioner seem to have been ignored. One of mine actually had funeral plans on file.
2. The community that has been a part of the departed's life is robbed of the opportunity to simultaneously say 'goodbye' to their friend and welcome their friend into his/her new life with God. 
3. The church is robbed of its role in caring for its members from baptism to the grave. As pastors, that's what we've signed up for. 
4. I know its minor, but, when the church doesn't know about them, then the parish registers don't get updated. These are always a problem, anyway, but this behavior just exacerbates an already out-of-control situation.

I think its the first in the list that bothers me the most. Whether there was no conversation about what was to happen or whether the family chose to ignore those wishes, I don't know. Perhaps it is because the survivors aren't attending church anymore, perhaps that's why they don't seem to understand that their relative's parish was really important to them.

I can't say what the problem really is, nor can I offer a solution. My only suggestion is that individually, each of us makes sure that our relatives know what is to happen to us. Of course, saying this in this forum won't help most of my parishioners because they don't do email much less read the rantings of their parish priest.

Is violence endemic to us?

Since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, there has been much media, social, political, and religious attention focused on gun control.  I can’t count the number of voices calling for stricter regulations and tighter controls. There are at least an equal number who want to maintain the status quo. The rhetoric has been deafening.

What strikes me as odd is that we didn’t have similarly boisterous outcries following Columbine, Gabrielle Giffords, or the Aurora Theatre shootings. Perhaps that’s because there were so many children who were innocent victims.  I suppose the reasons are unimportant, but I think the conversation is very important.  I’m afraid the conversation won’t be addressing the real problem.  I think Porky Pine, speaking to Pogo Possum captured it perfectly:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

French Literature professor and literary critic René Girard made a profound discovery.  While looking for what made a truly great novel, he observed that conflict relationships always seemed to include a third-party. This most often is an object, a thing, and it is the source of the conflict.  He suggests that all of our desires, what we want, are derived from someone else.  We “borrow” them.  He called this “mimetic desire”.  Mimesis, from which the word ‘mime’ is derived, is imitation, mimicry, or representation.  This leads to mimetic rivalry: one party has something (Girard calls it the ‘mediator’) that the other desires.  It manifests itself in many ways. Perhaps the easiest to see is ‘the desire to have what someone else has.’  Advertising seems to be oriented toward convincing us that we really want to possess the newest product.

From here, it is a short jump to violence as a method of acquiring the mediator.  If you think about novels you’ve read, you can probably already identify some examples of this.

The last concept he identified is the ‘scapegoat mechanism’. This, he holds, as foundational to sacrifice and human culture itself. He sees religion as the development of a mechanism to combat mimetic rivalry.

A few examples from the Bible:

• Cain kills Abel because God preferred Abel’s offering over that of Cain.
• Jacob tricks Isaac into giving him Esau’s birthright. Rachel helped out in this one, so we have conspiracy.
• Joseph is cast into a pit by his brothers because he is Jacob’s favorite son.
•  The Apostles blame the Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion (Acts). This one is complicated: Mimetic rivalry is behind Jesus’ trial; the Apostles are scapegoating the Jews; in a theological view, Jesus is the scapegoat for humanity.

There are many, many more examples throughout the Bible.

With Girard's perspective in view, it would seem like violence is endemic to the human race. I think the question that remains is: Is there anything we can do to change this? I don't like being a pessimist, but I'm not hopeful. My lack of hope stems from a sense that we, as humans, don't spend a lot of time thinking on our motivations for the things we do. I'll not suggest that we give over too much to the reptilian brain we each possess, but it does seem like it at times. I know when I find myself getting angry, one of the last thoughts is "Why am I getting angry?" It probably ought to be one of the first thoughts. Maybe the first thought should be, "Is this how God would want me to behave?" Something about the second of the Great Commandments comes to mind.

What it’s really all about is our failure to live into the Kingdom of God, to live into our full stature as Children of God.  We keep forgetting or ignoring Jesus’ commandment to us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” It’s only what God has been after us to do since the beginning.  I wonder why it is that we can’t seem to do it. 

Laetare Sunday

Today is the 4th Sunday in Lent, variously known as Laetare Sunday. This comes from the introit for the day Laetare Jerusalem, from Isaiah 66:10:

"Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation."

Another designation is "Refreshment Sunday" - a bit of a respite in the midst of Lent as it is the "middle" Sunday in the season.

Yet another manifestation is the use of Rose colored vestments and paraments - another way in which the Lenten mood is lightened.

More significant than any of these is the idea swarming around in out texts for today. Joshua 5:9-12 recounts a Passover observance in the Promised Land, marking the transition of the Israelites from  a nomadic to a people of place and from dependence on God for sustenance to their new life as an agrarian society, one capable of providing for themselves. Luke 15:11-32 is the parable of the Prodigal Son, well known in its own right. The younger son has demanded his inheritance, gone off and squandered it in sinful living, is forced to (gasp) work for a living, and realizes that his father's servants live better. He resolves to go home, confess to his father and ask to be treated as one of the servants. His father sees him coming and with great rejoicing organizes a banquet and treats his son royally. Psalm 32 rejoices in the forgiveness of God. Paul's words to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 speak of our reconciled relationship with God through Jesus sacrifice on the cross.

A rabbi friend says that Jewish festivals can be characterized by three simple sentences:

"They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat!"

Neither of today's feasts quite fit that model. It's more like:

Jesus died. Jesus reconciles us to God. Jesus feeds us all.

Two feasts and forgiveness. You see, we are God's prodigal daughters and sons. We fail at living into our identities as Children of God. When we come to God's table seeking forgiveness and transformation, we open the door to let God teach and lead and mold us to God's purpose. Our weekly trip to God's table is a banquet prepared for us, welcoming us home, and declaring us to be God's treasured children. It is through our confession of our failings and feeding on Jesus' body and blood that we are saved and transformed into the new creations of which Paul speaks. The Collect of the Day frames it all:

"Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him."

 And so we lay our failings at Jesus' feet, confident of God's forgiveness, open to transformation, and knowing we will all be fed.

I've been bad...

Yes, it's Lent and I have been bad. It's been a month and a half since my last addition to this blog. It's not that I haven't had anything to say. It is, in fact, simply because I didn't make the time to write something. What can I say, it's been a little busy or preoccupied or...

I've written before that Doc had a breast cancer diagnosis. After a segmental mastectomy with questionable margins, she and I began talking quite earnestly about the path forward. We had a re-excision scheduled at M.D. Anderson for 4 February, but both of us seemed to think that didn't make a lot of sense, particularly given her family history: her mother and her mother's two sisters all have had it. In light of this information, it seems like the question of cancer was not "if" but "when." Given the extent of DCIS that Doc seemed to have, we felt like the odds were not favorable for this procedure being the end of it. After a lot of talking and thinking and praying, we arrived at a decision: bilateral mastectomy with concomitant reconstruction.

The next question loomed: Stay at M.D. Anderson or bring it home? We interviewed surgeons, one whom I've known since burying his mother-in-law almost 6 years ago, met with a medical oncologist and decided we could have just as good a team as in Houston. No more 7-hour drives!

Surgery happened on 6 February. The surgeons were very pleased and follow-up visits went fine. The last drains were removed on 18 February and everything was looking great. Until the 25th. Doc woke to red, angry skin. We were concerned, but we had an appointment with the surgeon that afternoon. Tuesday, Doc had surgery to debride the area and explant the tissue expanders. New antibiotic course started and Doc's feeling pretty good, in spite of it all. She's a trouper. Stay tuned.

Luke's Baptism of Jesus

A personal point of priviledge. Doc has decided (it was joint, but it is her body) to take a "scorched earth" approach to her breast cancer. There were just too many possibilities for future recurrence or new occurrence, so she's scheduled for bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction on 4 February. It has been a long and grueling road to get here, there's more in front of us, but it's where we want to go. I haven't exactly been rigorous about writing here, but I suspect I'll be a bit distracted around that time.  If you think about it around the date, please add Doc and her health care team to your prayers. Julian provides a bit of an anchor for me: "All will be well, and all manner of things will be well."
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Now for the main event:
This week's Gospel is Luke's account of the Baptism of Jesus.

The RCL continues the BCP Lectionary tradition of hop-scotching, but adds v. 3:17 to the lesson, continuing the speech of John the Baptist:

"His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

I'm not sure what motivated them to include that verse. Whatever. Then we skip over John's arrest by Herod the Tetrarch. That omission helps us see that he (Herod) is no better than his father, Herod the Great. As I look around, it seems like many leaders have taken to Herod the Tetrarch's practice of imprisoning those who cause problems for them. But, I digress.

The balance of the passage is very parallel to that of Mark. A few differences:

Mark: ...he saw the heavens torn apart...
Luke: ...the heaven was opened...


Mark: ...the Spirit descending like a dove on him.
Luke: ...the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.

The final verse is identical between them: "And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

Scholars agree that Luke knew of (if not possessed) the Gospel According to Mark. So did Matthew, but their versions are very different. In Matthew, Jesus goes to John to be baptized and John resists and finally capitulates. The sequences above come out differently for Matthew, as well:

"And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'"

In Luke & Mark, the heavens are opened/torn apart versus Matthew's phrasing, above. I think it's interesting that Mark's 'torn apart' is linguistically the same as the tearing of the curtain in the Temple at Jesus' death. Luke and Matthew kept that, but changed the action of the heavens. As readers, of Mark & Luke, we know to whom the final verse is addressed: it is to Jesus; what we cannot know is who else can hear the voice. In Matthew, it seems pretty clear that the voice is speaking to all people. (John's gospel is even more straightforward, but we don't read it on Sundays.) Given Luke's preference, it kind of surprised me that Matthew's phrasing wasn't in Luke. It seem to me that, given the balance of Matthew's focus for the Gospel, his gospel would have the Markan phrasing.

It is really interesting to me that all four of the canonical gospels include a baptism story. The lingering question, I think, is: "Why?" An Argument can be made for Mark's version that it is Jesus' adoption by God, but not for any of the others. So, why was it so important for them? I'll give you a hint: this is the first Sunday after The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just as I said last week about Luke's shepherds and Matthew's magi really being about the same thing, the announcement of Jesus' arrival and the economia of God, I think the accounts in all four of the canonical gospels are continuations of The Epiphany and formally marking the beginning of Jesus' ministry. As readers, we get to hear the sotto voce and soliloquy speeches. We're supposed to hear them, because WE are the intended audience. It is for us to recognize that God has marked Jesus as God's son for all of us to see. Through the Gospels, we can anamnetically remember the event of Jesus' baptism. He didn't need to be baptized - he was already divine. It is you and me that need to be baptized, to be reborn to a new life in Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is our induction into the priesthood of all believers, it is our way of salvation.

A great day to be baptized. At our parish, when we don't have candidates for baptism and after renewing our baptismal covenant, we process to the font, sing the Thanksgiving over Water and then asperse the people with the water as a reminder of their own baptisms. I thing that's important because almost all in the parish were baptized as infants or very small children. It gives us a way to build a memory of our baptism, one that we can come back to time and time again, and remember the greatest gift that God has ever given - God's own self for us.

The visit of the Magi

This Sunday's Gospel is Matthew's account of the visit of the Magi (the Wise Men) to Bethlehem.  I've shared some thoughts about that in my previous post "The Holy Innocents", so I'll skip that here.

There is a ton of apocryphal information.

First is how many. Matthew never says, but he does tell us about the three gifts. I guess the idea was that each gift was borne by a different person. Oh, and yes, they were all men; even though women were probably just as wise if not wiser. That's a sign of the first century times.

Somewhere along the line, the three wise men got names and countries of origin. Balthasar from Arabia, Melchior from Persia, and Caspar (or Gaspar) from India. No one knows what happened to them after they left Bethlehem. One story is that St. Thomas baptized one of them when he brought the faith to India. I'd have to guess that it was Caspar; I've got a one in three chance, right?

Matthew is explicit in the gifts that were brought: gold, myrrh, and frankincense. But he doesn't say what they represent. Again, suppositions. Gold - for a king, a measure of the respect and honor for the king, not to mention adding to his coffers. Myrrh has at least two possible explanations. First, myrrh was used as a burial ointment; something to cover the smell. This explanation would seem to point to Jesus' death and burial. Second, myrrh is used in the preparation of anointing oils (even today) for Olio infirmatum and Chrism. This would seem to point to Jesus as high priest. Finally, frankincense would be an offering to God, pointing to Jesus' incarnation as human yet remaining divine.

So, Matthew identifies Jesus as king, priest/victim, and God. That's pretty significant by itself, but the whole Epiphany idea, that is, disclosing/revealing/manifesting Jesus' identity to the world is a way bigger deal. Jesus was not hidden from the wise and discerning (the wise men), nor was he hidden from ordinary people. Think Luke's shepherds. Think about Jesus' ministry among the marginalized and outcast of his society.

Jesus came to the ordinary. Today we'd see him with street people, prostitutes, mentally ill, working poor, just to name a few. I think that emphasizes how much God really wants to be in relationship with us. Jesus, living among us as the Incarnate Son of God, opening God's self to the cruelties and inhumanities we perpetrate tells me that God is either totally off the rails or so loves us so completely that it makes no difference what happens. That is kenotic, self-emptying love. God gives away God's self for our benefit. I think there's no greater gift than the Incarnation.