October 14, 2020

 There's a long history of how fishing is tied to the Gospel story. Depending on which story you read, fishermen were the first four people Jesus called to be his disciples. There are several stories about Jesus being with his disciples while they were fishing. In one of them, Jesus tells the fishermen to let down their nets on the other side of the boat (as if fish new the difference between one side or the other) and they ended up catching many fish. And Jesus tells Simon, “From now on you will fish for people.”

The pastor of the Methodist church across the street from us in Montana was (and is) fisherman. He uses fishing stories and the gospel like I use football. And the only time I ever wanted to be a Methodist was on the Third Sunday of Easter in Year C when the assigned Gospel came from John and Jesus is cooking fish for the disciples. Pastor Ben would designated this as Communion Sunday and he would use fish he caught and smoked for the event.

We are in the fishing business, so to speak. We are charged by Jesus to go out and fish for people, bringing them into the net of the kingdom. This is about where this analogy breaks down though, because, unlike fishermen, we don't kill the fish we've caught. Instead, we work to nurture them as disciples. So maybe we participate more in the “catch and release” variety of fishing rather than the “catch and keep.” That is, we catch, nurture, feed, and grow the fish so they can become fishers of people themselves.

But this world has a way of taking something good and misusing it, turning it from its intended purpose to sinful purposes. And that has happened with fishing.

Fishing has been hijacked to become phishing. Instead of fishing for people to become disciples, phishing has become a new way to scam people. The idea behind phishing is to cast as wide a net as possible, usually with a “oh poor pitiful me” or a “poor pitiful person in need” story in an attempt to get people to bite and steal their money.

Some of you received an e-mail from “me” a few weeks ago asking for some kind of emergency assistance. Thankfully enough of you questioned that request, brought it to my attention, and I was able to get word out about the scam. You may have received an e-mail from “Bishop Sutton” requesting assistance in the form of purchasing gift cards. As a matter of fact, I received one of those e-mails myself while in a clergy meeting with the Bishop this past Monday.

Be wary of anyone asking for financial help via e-mail or other virtual formats (a player in Words with Friends tried to pull the “I need gift cards” scam on me recently).

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.” – Matthew 13:47-48

We are in the business of fishing. Honest fishing will yield good results; dishonest phishing, however, will result in the bad phish being thrown out. Know the difference.

Blessings,

October 7, 2020

 

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus – Philippians 2:3-5

These verses were part of the assigned reading from two weeks ago. A parishioner asked me about this, saying they had trouble seeing others as “better than” themselves; equal, yes, but not necessarily better than.

One of the ways to look at this is to, as Paul said, “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

In various places Jesus talks about himself coming to serve others, not to be served by them. When two disciples try to secure their place of honor, Jesus pointed out that whoever wants to be great must serve others. When he says, “The last shall be first,” he's reiterating this position of servanthood. And on the evening of his betrayal and arrest, one of the last things the eternal, omnipotent, God-incarnate did was to humble himself and wash the feet of his twelve disciples, including the feet of the one who would betray him to the authorities.

It may be difficult to see others as better than yourself, and that's understandable. But if that feels problematic, try having the same mind that was in Christ – and that is to see yourself as a servant. As it so happens, this idea of servanthood is built into our own mission statement: Worship, Welcome, Serve, and Encourage. How, especially now in this pandemic, can we position ourselves to serve others? This probably means more than giving away food and/or clothing, although those things certainly help. But how can we look to serve others in ways that have long-term effects?

Part of being able to do that, I think, is to be willing to humble ourselves in such a way that we see ourselves as servants, not necessarily as the ones with all the answers. By humbling ourselves, by emptying ourselves as Christ emptied himself, we can be in a position to both take in the other as well as give ourselves to the other. As Ilia Delio said in, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, “A self that is 'full of itself' can neither receive the other nor make genuine movement toward the other” (p. 134).

Serving others requires that we humble and empty ourselves in order to build others up. Serving others can be difficult when we are asked to make sacrifices or give up things to which we've grown accustomed to having.

When we are asked to empty ourselves, let us not focus on what we are losing, but instead let us focus on what the served and server are gaining.

September 30, 2020

 Three weeks ago I was invited to be interviewed for a podcast having to do with technology and the church during the COVID pandemic. Because I wanted to be prepared, I asked you to give me your thoughts to a few questions the interviewer had given me ahead of time.

As it turns out, I was only asked one scripted question as we spent most of the time discussing how the liturgy was/is impacted during this time We finished up by talking about a few blessings and challenges.

All in all it was a good conversation that lasted about 35 minutes.

So today, your Wednesday Word is an all-audio event. Click the link to listen, or copy and paste into your web browser.

https://lakelandsinstitute.com/?powerpress_pinw=1140-podcast

September 23, 2020

The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland has been dealing with the topic of reparations for possibly 20-some years, although that number could be wrong since I've only been here four years and have only heard a few discussions about how long this conversation has gone on. Regardless, 20, 10, or 5, the Diocese of Maryland has been dealing with this topic for some time.

Maryland itself was a slave state, but had divided loyalties between pro- and anti-slavery. Many of the churches in the diocese were purchased and built with slave labor. And in our own history, the Rev. Thomas Pitt Irving, who served this parish from 1813 – 1816, owned two slaves when he arrived and purchased one more during his time here.

Slavery in Maryland has a long history. This state and the churches of this diocese benefited greatly from that evil institution. Much of what we have today is a direct result of that free, forced labor of people whose lives were valued less than their owners pets.

And so we have been talking about reparations.

Reparations is a word that has its roots in repair. We are working at repairing the damage done by one group of people against another group of people; damage done based solely on skin color. When we talk about reparations, we are talking about a system of reconciliation that leads to restoration. Reparations, as the Diocese of Maryland envisions it, is a systemic solution to a systemic problem.

It's important to know how the leaders of our diocese view reparations. Reparations is not apologetic. That is, there is a recognition that nobody alive today participated in the institution of slavery, so therefore nobody alive today needs to apologize for slavery. Reparations is not a system of paying back. That is, the leaders of our diocese have not placed a dollar figure on slave labor and committed to paying back that amount to descendants of slaves.

Reparations, as the leaders of our diocese see it, is based in a theology of new beginnings. It is based on the fact that people have been taken advantage of, disrespected, abused, and marginalized for far too long and it is time to put God's justice into play. It is time to recognize that there is no more Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, black or white in the kingdom of God. It is time to recognize that, moving forward from here, those who have benefited from systemic inequalities must now step up to help eliminate those inequalities and work to make things better.

At our diocesan convention earlier this month, Resolution 2020-06 was overwhelmingly approved. This resolution called for the initial establishment of $1,000,000 to begin the work of reparations. It also called for all congregations and affiliated schools to consider committing a percentage of their endowments to this work (percentages to be determined by each individual congregation/school).

Why do this now? Because it is past time that we who have benefited from systems of discrimination begin doing the work of repairing that damage and begin doing the work of God's justice. It reminds me of planting trees: the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now.

This is certainly not the end of the story, but only the beginning. Today we are planting a tree of justice, and today we are beginning the work of repairing centuries of damage.

Blessings,

September 16, 2020

 “Information has come to define reality.” Quoted from Being Digital in The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, by Ilia Delio, p. 160

I'm currently in Chapter 9 of this book about how God and evolution are intertwined, and this chapter has to do with how evolving technology is shaping our lives and our world. As I read through it, I couldn't help but think of movies like, The Matrix and Surrogates, or the Star Trek episodes, “The Gamesters of Triskelion” and, “Return to Tomorrow,” among others, where physical bodies have been replaced through technological evolution.

And while the chapter focuses on how humanity and technology are intertwined and adapting together, this short sentence got me thinking about the environment in which we are currently living.

We are now living in a world where disinformation, alternative facts, and conspiracy theories have become mainstream. People no longer even pretend to care about the actual truth, they simply spout blatant lies and conspiracy theories so loudly and so often that people eventually take them as truth. Planes full of black-robed armed militia coming to take away your freedoms, political parties and agencies that actively work to kidnap children into sex trafficking rings, Q-Anon conspiracies of an international cabal of satanic-worshiping baby eaters, and more, have entered regular conversations.

The thing is that these unfounded conspiracies and outright lies have been stated, repeated, and spread through the internet so often that they have begun to pass for fact and taken as normal. This “information” has come to define reality for many, many people.

The one thing I've noticed about all of these conspiracy theories and lies is that they are based in fear – fear of losing property, fear of losing status, fear of losing a way of life, fear of just about anything new and everything different.

But as Christians, we are called to live beyond fear. As Christians we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves and respect the dignity of every human being. As Christians we are called to welcome the stranger, the outsider, and work for justice and peace. As Christians we are called to live in love, not fear. As Christians we are called to recognize that which is fearful and hateful and call it out for what it is: antichrist.

As things heat up, pay attention to the information you are paying attention to. Are you letting that information define your reality? At the very least, we should be asking ourselves how the information we're being fed aligns with the life of Christ. And we should probably do a lot of research.

We can either be defined by the information and reality of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a life and death based in love; or we can be defined by misinformation and alternative realities that are based in fear.

Blessings,

Todd+

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

 Shameless Plug

I'm part of a Facebook group called, “Online Worship – Best Practices/Sharing.” Unlike some other worship groups I'm part of, there's no sniping at each other about rubrics, what bishop is committing heresy, why a liturgical practice should be banned, or where the BCP is all wrong. This particular group is solely concerned with, “What have you found to be helpful during COVID?” So it's a place where people share, get ideas, ask about equipment, and the like.

One member of the group, the Rev. Steven D. Martin, is the founder of The Lakelands Institute and is highly involved with helping churches cope and succeed in this new COVID world of technology and worship. Last week he put up a post asking if anyone would be willing to be part of his podcast, Online Ministry Mastermind. Well, I bit and said yes.

So this afternoon at 4:00 he will be interviewing me about how we are handling our worship and technology at Saint John's. I won't know exactly when it will be put up for listening until after the interview, but when it is, I will let you all know.

He sent me a list of questions he wants to get to, and I want to share two of those with you in the hopes that you all will be willing to help me answer:

1. If money was not object, how would you handle things? Dream a little.

2. Thinking about the recent experience, what has been an unexpected gift?

Normally I write the Wednesday Word to give you something to think about or to provide something positive during the week. Today, though, not only I am making you think (see question #1) and giving you something positive to ponder (see question #2), but I'm also asking you to share those thoughts with me. And then I will take some of those thoughts and blessings and use them in the interview.

But remember – the interview is at 4:00 today, so please e-mail before 3:00 eastern.

Blessings,

Todd+

September 2, 2020

There Are No Correct Answers

Every once in awhile I listen to a podcast. The time I choose to listen most often is usually when I'm putting in a longer time on my elliptical machine. One of those I listen to is called, “The Areopagus,” and is hosted by an Orthodox priest and Protestant pastor. The show's description says, “This podcast is about the encounter of historic Christianity with other religious traditions.” It's also long, most episodes are 1-1/2 hours, or longer, so it's perfect listening for those long days on the clothes rack.

In their most recent episode the hosts were talking about how churches in general, and their congregations in particular, were dealing with worship in the era of COVID. How do we as leaders and parishioners deal with things like neighboring churches being opened when ours isn't? Or one bishop authorizing limited in-person worship while another one hasn't (which is more of an issue in places close to diocesan boundaries)? How do we “do church” in a virtual setting? How do we maintain our faith community when we can't physically gather together? And many more questions that, I'm sure, we've all asked ourselves at one point or another.

At one point Fr. Andrew said, “I've learned that there are no correct answers.”

I think he's mostly right. Through all of this we – the broader 'we' of church, state, corporate, and home – have made decisions based on the best available information at the time. As we've seen, there are many different thoughts about how best to proceed. And I say he's “mostly right” because things like wearing masks, limiting the number of people in one gathering, washing hands, and other things along those line are clearly correct answers to dealing with our situation.

But he was talking more about the big picture of COVID in the life of the church. Do we live-stream? Do we prerecord? Do we not offer the Sacraments? Do we offer Sacraments in limited numbers? In other words, “How in the world do we do this??”

Each of us has some thought or idea about how to best “do this.” We may agree or disagree about those thoughts/ideas, and we may agree/disagree with the same person at different times. But we must all remember that there is no one correct answer sheet, so in that respect there are no correct answers.

Most of what I've seen and heard from people arguing against decisions made, or arguing for decisions not made, are done strictly from an individualistic point of view – how did that decision or non-decision affect me personally? The problem with that, though, is that we forget we are part of a larger community and most decisions made are made with an eye toward doing what is best for all, not just the one. Any leader will make incorrect decisions at times; and in this time of COVID, that incorrectness seems to happen more often.

We are all in different leadership positions – at home, at work, or in public. Please remember that there are no correct answers. But also remember that we are all doing the best we can with what we've got, so be gentle with each other.

Blessings,