January 25, 2017

What am I waiting for?

We have just come through our first annual meeting together. It was, in my experience, neither the best nor the worst annual meeting in which I've ever participated. Nor was it the shortest or the longest. As far as annual meetings go, it served its purpose. Veterans of St. John's annual meetings will know that this was the first one in recent memory, maybe ever, where we had to go to a third nominating ballot in order to finally elect Susan S; and there weren't even any hanging chads! Bill A, Sr., took to the microphone to remind everyone that it wasn't about the budget, it was about evangelism. And at the preceding services, I preached a sermon around the topic of immediately following Jesus in the ministry of the church.

I find it interesting then, and maybe even a little providential, that on Monday morning as I was reading The Living Church I came across two articles having to do with getting us out into the world. One was on Prayer Book revision, which I'll address next week. The other one was entitled “Twelve-Hour Coffee Hour.”

In that article the author wrote about priests who had made an effort to get out of the office and into the community. One priest did this by sitting in a coffee shop offering to listen to people's stories. Another one walked around the community where the church was located and talked with people. When I was in Montana, I hung out in the local bars on a regular basis. These are all good things. These are things I want to begin doing because, as Bill, Sr., pointed out, it's not about the budget, it's about evangelism. And evangelism is more than simply unlocking the church doors on Sunday.

The issue I face, though, is, “When?” Between people scheduling time to meet with me in the office, staff meetings, planning meetings, mid-week Eucharist, sermon writing, Wednesday Words, various clergy gatherings, commission meetings, vestry meetings, parishioner visits, and hospital visits, when? Because, really, I can't exactly announce on Sunday morning that there will be no sermon today since I was hanging out at the bar. Add to that a confession that I haven't really gone out looking for places to be (bars, coffee shops, or otherwise) because trudging through downtown when it's cold, wet, and dreary, looking for spots to hang out and meet people, isn't necessarily my idea of a good time.

Maybe I'll wait until it gets warmer. Maybe I'll wait until my schedule clears up.

Maybe I need to quit waiting for the perfect time and just go. After all, isn't that what the whole “Immediately” thing of this past Sunday's gospel was all about?

Jesus is calling me. What am I waiting for?

Amen.

January 18, 2017

Eucharistic Thoughts

I have a clergy friend who served with me in Montana. While I was at two congregations in the southwest corner of the state, he had three congregations a little north and west of where I was. He liked good steaks and good cigars, and he has since been called to serve a congregation in Oklahoma.

He posted a rather lengthy quote on his Facebook page from J.R.R. Tolkien the other day. You probably know him as the author of “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings.” But he was also quite the theologian, a member of the Anglican church, and good friends with C.S. Lewis.

I won't copy the whole thing here (because it's long), but I want to put up the part that caught my attention. When discussing the Eucharist, Tolkien said:

Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your Communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children—from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn—open-necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to Communion with them (and pray for them). It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand—after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.

I think this caught my attention for two reasons. First, these past two Sundays, for me personally, have been Sundays of extraordinary joy. We baptized three young people into the household of God and we had a service the following week where nothing particularly special happened other than it was a day on which people seemed to be genuinely happy to be here. These past two Sundays have confirmed for me in their own very different ways that St. John's is a special place and I am blessed to be part of it.

And Second, we are approaching our Annual Meeting, which will be held after the 10:15 service this Sunday. Part of that meeting will be to look at where this church has been in the past year, and part of it will be to look at where we might be going in the upcoming year. As we move forward I hope you all see the value of being present in the life of this parish. I hope that you come to see St. John's not as a weekly obligation to be fulfilled, or as a place to come every so often when it fits into your schedule, but I hope you see it as a place of regular nourishment.

And when you come for nourishment, know that you are coming to a place with a sometimes proud, vulgar, and self-important priest. Know that you are coming to a place where things aren't always as well-placed and people aren't always as well-behaved as we think they should be. Know that you are coming to be among the 5000, the rabble, to be fed and nourished by this foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

The more you participate in this holy mystery, the more you participate in this feast, the more you participate in the celebration and wonder, the more you participate in the Eucharist, the more you will learn to see the face of Christ in others; and maybe, just maybe, the more you will see Christ present in your own life.

This is the Eucharist. May you come often enough to be nourished regularly.

Amen.

January 11, 2017

Hi. Wassup?

One of the other places at which I was involved in a search process was just a little east of Buffalo on the shore of Lake Erie. During our site visit we were given the obligatory tour of the two churches (it was a two-point call). As we were being taken through one church I noticed a large mailbox in the narthex. I had never seen a mailbox in a narthex before, so I asked our tour guide what it was for.

She explained that they had a program for the Sunday school children where they could write letters to God. They would put their letters in the mailbox and then either she or the priest would answer them. She told me it was a way for the kids to ask any and all questions without feeling pressured, and without the possibility of being ridiculed in public. She also told us that they got all kinds of questions from, “Do I have to drink the wine at Communion?” to, “Why do people have to die?”

We thought this was a great idea and were either a) looking forward to seeing it in practice should we end up in New York, or b) looking forward to implementing a similar program should we end up elsewhere.

We obviously ended up elsewhere, and shortly after I arrived I told Margaret about it and asked her to find a way to get it going. After getting through the Christmas season, she was able to concentrate more fully on the Letters to God program and dropped the first set of letters to my office this past Monday. One of the first letters included this gem, “Hi. Wassup?”

So, God . . . Wassup?

Wassup is that there were three new people adopted into the household and this branch of the family tree.

Wassup is that there were a whole lot of people on hand to witness that event and pledge their support for these newest family members.

Wassup is there are still far too many people being victimized, abused, and neglected in the name of God.

Wassup is that far too many people are working to bend God's will to their own, rather than their will to God's.

Wassup is that too many people see no problem with Monday through Friday behaviors that conflict with Sunday statements of belief.

Wassup is that in the good and the bad, in the celebratory and the sorrowful, in the winning and losing, God is with us. The trick is to discern the difference between what God wants and what we want. And that takes a good bit of patience and a lot of time to listen.

So, God . . . Wassup?

Amen.

January 4, 2017

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me eleven pipers piping

Frederic Austin, 1909

Merry Christmas! on this eleventh day of Christmastide.

As I've said before elsewhere, this has been a holiday season unlike any other I've experienced. I won't restate those reasons here; but one of the reasons this holiday season has been so different is because of various posts and/or comments I've seen on Facebook. I'm not talking about politics or weird news stories that show up or any of that. Instead, I have been taken by surprise at how many comments I've seen from people who apparently had no idea that the 12 Days of Christmas began on Christmas Day.

I can't remember a time when it seemed to me that so many people were unaware of this fact. To make matters worse, most of those comments were made by people on any number of clergy posts. At one point I asked myself, “What are we (clergy) doing wrong that even our Facebook friends don't know Christmas Day is the first day of the season?”

With this past Monday being a holiday, Joelene and I took the opportunity to run some errands. One of the things we did was exchange a gift that was too small for a proper size and to pick up a couple of gifts for the Epiphany party this coming Friday night. We also needed to buy wrapping paper since that was an item we opted to leave behind in the move. The wrapping paper and all things Christmas had been moved to the back corner of the store as the employees were busy cleaning out every reminder of Christmas and making room for their Easter displays.

Yes, Easter.

It's no wonder people don't know the Christmas season begins on December 25 and runs through January 5 what with the stores removing decorations as fast as they can to begin prepping for the spring candy-fest that is still just over three months away. It's not only the stores. A house I pass every day really gets into holiday lights – I first noticed them at Halloween. They even go to the trouble of synchronizing their lights to music played on 89.5 FM. It's actually kind of fun to watch. But even that holiday light show has come down.

The Church year, though, gives us a different rhythm. Instead of frantically clearing out and cleaning up from the most recent holiday to begin prepping for the next one on the horizon, the Church year asks us to sit with the season for a time. Advent gives us a slow, methodical time of preparation. Christmas is a 12-day celebration of the arrival of God Incarnate. Epiphany is a time for us to make known to the world what we witnessed during Christmas. Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and the Season after Pentecost all have their own focal points.

This is the genius and the blessing of the Church year – that it allows us to step back from how the world thinks things should be run to seeing another way. It really is a counter-cultural system.

As we move into 2017, maybe we should resolve to pay more attention to the rhythms and cycles of the Church year and pay less attention to the frenetic pace of a world focused on what's next.

Amen.