Thursday, October 26, 2017

Reflection and Poem for Reformation Sunday



Reformation Sunday Service of Emmanuel Lutheran and All Saints Episcopal        Reflection October 29, 2017            Southern Shores, NC              Thomas E. Wilson, Episcopal Rector
Jeremiah 31:31-34       Psalm 46          Romans 3:19-28            John 8:31-36
Re-Form-Ation
The question for today for meditation is “How are you continuing your re-forming of your relationship with God and neighbor?

Years ago, before I had my mid-life crisis, a kind of reformation, which led to my going to seminary, I was teaching Social Work and Counseling in a College. It was about this time of year, mid-term, when I would have a “Come–To–Jesus” session with my students on how to do essay questions, especially in one class, “Social Welfare As A Social Institution”, that I taught every fall semester. In it I had a section on 12 ways of dealing with the poor that has been tried throughout history, from Number 1: “Let Them Starve, by Happenstance or Design” to Number 12: “The British Health System”, where societal equal vulnerability during the World War II Bombing Blitz led health care to be seen as a right not a privilege. Every midterm I would have an essay question asking students to compare and contrast three of the twelve ways; the three changed every year. 

This was a question that called for analytical thinking about the purposes and consequences, advantages and disadvantages, of each approach. However, many of the students had been taught in high school to memorize things they heard any person in authority say and regurgitate them back on tests. Or, they unthinkingly parroted their parents’ opinions that people were poor or unable to afford food, shelter, or medical care or to have good marriages because of their own laziness or sinful predilections or God’s Social Darwinism of thinning out the species of the weak members. I was not asking them to feed me back the company line of either me, their parents, or anybody else, but to think, to have a coherent response to real life, to use the brain that God had blessed them with. As the 6th century BC Poet Theognis of Megara commented: "It is easier to beget and rear a man than to put good sense in him.”  Yet we try, against the backdrop of what passes for education calling for the parroting back of the slogans of the conforming order of the dominant culture instead of learning to ask of, struggle with, and honestly answer questions of worth. My employer being a Baptist college, I would quote Scripture, Paul from his Epistle to the Romans: “Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

In Romans, Paul posits transformation sets us free from the past, which the Gospel of John passage for today echoes. Martin Luther was especially indebted to the Book of Romans. Martin had a Confessor, Johann von Staupitz, who saw Luther as imprisoned by the old form of sinful shame. Luther was reported to say that if it had not been for Johann, he would have “sunk into hell”. He was so conformed to the company line of sin and hell that he spent hours trying to follow that company line to perfection, dwelling in the hell of his own making. Von Stupitz saw an opening, a release from the old form of damnation, by arranging for Luther to teach students to re-vision Scripture from a book of law to a love song from God. With his students' help, Luther, by the re-forming of his thinking and his faith, transformed his life and the history of the world. This re-formation of thinking led him to confront the conforming party line of the larger powerful Church, He had not been the first reformer; there had been many over the centuries, and some had been incorporated by tolerance into the larger church. St. Francis, for instance, was a reformer several centuries before Luther, but he did not mess with the church’s sources of money or power; he found a way into the heart of God by reforming himself away from the love of money and power and did not waste his time by picking a fight over who was right. Francis became, as one writer affirmed, “… the most admired and least imitated saint in the church.”

Most of our heroes are those who get into fights about who is right, and Luther was one of those. Insisting on dualistic thinking of “right and wrong” leads to conflicts of intellects, of persons, of nations, religions, and civilizations where one side wins a Pyrrhic victory and everybody loses. Erasmus, who was an early admirer of Luther’s scholarship, wrote warning Phillip Melanchthon, Luther’s Deputy, in 1524: 
I know nothing of your church; at the very least it contains people who will, I fear, overturn the whole system and drive the princes into using force to restrain good men and bad alike. The gospel, the word of God, faith, Christ, and Holy Spirit – these words are always on their lips; look at their lives and they speak quite another language.

Luther’s insights in theology, as well as the other Reformers like Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, and the Counter Reformation on the other side, were hijacked by political figures who had their own agendas for power and money, where the world was treated to spectacles of brutality as different followers of the Prince of Peace tortured and slaughtered each other to get their version of God’s approval. 

The problem with the Reformation is that it did not go far enough. Jeremiah has a vision where God sings of the time of a new covenant which God will “write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,”

The Biblical word “know” does not mean an intellectual understanding, like I know that the City of Omaha is in Nebraska, not Kansas, but the kind of “knowing” of an intimate nature, the joining of hearts and bodies into one where questions of intellect become irrelevant. Knowing is about love, vulnerability, joy of discovery of differences, respect of the other, working toward a common goal, the awareness of our own flaws, forgiveness, and the grace that flows between, in, over, under, and through us.

Today we have an opportunity as Emmanuel Lutheran and All Saints’ Episcopal come together for a Luther-palian service of Communion and Baptism. The child that the Episcopal Priest and Lutheran Pastor will baptize together has an Episcopal father and Lutheran mother, and they have been going back and forth between the two congregations in two different parts of the building complex on the same campus. Whose book in which this child’s name is enrolled is irrelevant because both congregations, in the name of the Savior who is greater than the both, is us combined, and we will give our promises of support.

Reformation is not something that happened 500 years ago. It is something that we are called to continue daily in our own lives and our churches so that we and our places of worship might be transformed into being the body of Christ in this world and the next.

Re-Form-Ation
The old form for us was Jesus is dead,
killed by the long ago far away others,
not only the people that Jesus bothers
but all the thoughts dwelling in my head
that slithers out to become sins of mortal,
as opposed to the ones of nature venial
only calling for some actions remedial,
kills grace, calls for soul’s death immortal.
New form is re-visioned in images of dove
changing the threat of shame and hellfire
to living Christ burning within holy desire
entering into union; omega point of love
as undying spirit writes new manuscripts
on hearts, setting us free from our crypts.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Seeing God's Back Poem for 22 October



On 22 October our summer seminarian is back for the service in which we will have a baptism. He will preach. If I were preaching I would talk about the lesson about Moses wanting to see God face to face but sometimes we can only see God as God moves away. This is the poem that came to me when I reflected on this lesson and on a pastoral session.


Seeing God’s Back
Moses asks to see God’s glory face to face.
But a voice said, “No, you can’t handle it,
rather let you see  full when a scene is quit
and action done, leaving the candle of grace.

The young man came in, a boy of once ago
that I lifted high in the air, but now his feet
stray in no-man’s land, one step from street
living while he  wrestles with an ancient foe.

We talk, I listen, scriptures is once again read
of Jesus wrestling with those selfsame doubts
of light or dark and which to follow its shouts
to walk its path through this life until we’re dead.

God’s breath was shed by our breaths in prayer,
leaves blessings for walking on holy ground fair.


Thursday, October 12, 2017

What Keeps You From Rejoicing?



A Reflection for XIX Pentecost                     All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. October 15, 1017                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Question: What keeps you from rejoicing?

Matthew continues his remembrances of Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson with “Once more Jesus spoke to the people with parables” -  except that what follows is not a parable but an allegory.
A parable is a story where the point is in the surprise in the story which tells us something about God, as in the case of the Parable of the Prodigal Son where the Father forgives the sinner before he asks, or the Parable of the Lost Sheep where the Shepherd does not stop searching until the lost sheep is found. An allegory, on the other hand, is a story where the point of the story is in the details of the characters and events stand in for the message. Allegories are teaching tools that serve to convey a moral message with standard rewards and punishments, as in this story. 

When Luke, speaking to a Gentile community, tells this story, it is a parable and there is  no killing of the messengers by those who refuse to attend the banquet, no slaughter of the ones who do not show up, no burning down of the cities, no person not wearing the right wedding garment, no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The message of Luke’s Parable is that there is more than enough room for all sorts and conditions of people, and Jesus is God’s party. The one word summation would be “Rejoice!”

For Matthew, speaking to a Jewish community, the point of the story is the rehashing of the history of the people of Israel who killed the prophets and were then taken into exile and their cities destroyed. He makes the point that the same fate awaits those who do not respond to the Prophet Jesus’ invitation to join the Christian community. The message to the community addressed by Matthew is “This invitation by God the Father of the Bridegroom Jesus must be accepted right now, or there is hell to pay.” The one word summation would be “Beware!”

The Bible is not A Book but it is a Library of Books that has been gathered together, and sometimes, as in all libraries, the books don’t always agree, but God has been big enough to handle paradox. In the case of the story that Jesus tells about a wedding feast, the shape of the story is about making commitments, and both Luke and Matthew remember the story but they remember it in different ways and for different purposes. 

We are in the process of the Stewardship Pledge Campaign and we can see the different presenters telling their stories of commitment in vastly different ways. My joy is that the stories of commitment are all different and yet at the core, the paradox has a living coherence.  One of the things I did last week was to work with people who want to be preachers in different places in the Diocese. I assigned them the lessons for last week, and each of them approached the same lessons in a different way. So who chose the right way? And, of course, the answer is “Yes”.  I reminded them that at the core of all of the different ways of preaching they chose had to be God’s love. As Paul reminds us all in the first letter to the Church in Corinth: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

We turn again to Paul in the second lesson for today from Paul’s letter to the Philippians where he uses noun and verb variations of the word, chara “joy” or chairo “rejoice” fifteen times - four chapters, fifteen times. Paul writes this letter from jail. Here is another paradox - Paul is in jail and yet he writes with joy as the center of his message. He sings: “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” He sings of joy in the middle of the paradox because he knows, as he says, that “the God of peace” is with him. 

Paul is like the Psalmist for today who is in the valley of the shadow of death.  His enemies are in front of him, and yet in this place of peril, he finds that he is able to enter the Peace that passes all understanding because he knows that God is with him at all times. Joy does not come from the outer circumstances of life, joy comes from the inclinations of the heart of our soul, the center of our being. Therefore there is no real excuse not to rejoice. In the Wedding Feast Parable both in Matthew and in Luke, the invited people have their own agendas of grabbing after things and think they have no time for joy.

For me, joy comes when I slow down in a busy life and notice all that there is I do not usually notice and look upon with awe.

Joy is noticing that my neighbors are people just like I am, and we are both blessed when we share our joy.
Joy is seeing that the little child I knew as a baby is growing up.
Joy is the sound from my office window out on the playground.
Joy is the sound of music well played.
Joy is the sweat expelled working on a project to make the world a better place.
Joy is seeing time spent and dinner shared with someone who is going through a rough time.
Joy is when I have been ministered unto when I have gone through rough times in my life.
Joy is visiting a person who is dying and thinking on how the world has been blessed by them.
Joy is the touch of a living lover or the memory of a loved one who is long since dead.
Joy is seeing the moon and stars and marveling at the hand that made them.
Joy is the sharing of a meal.
Joy is joining as a witness to promises and commitments made in baptisms, weddings, pledges, and projects.
Joy is breathing deeply and entering into listening for God.
Joy is watching a movie, seeing a play, attending a concert, reading a book, seeing an piece of art and admiring the talent and skill of the artists, the musicians, the actors, the directors, the artisans and the sheer courage it took to try.
Joy is . . .life itself and a choice we make.


Rejoice
Aware I‘m wanting to always rejoice
but I see lives slipping through fingers
joining as sadness of my losses lingers,
I'd like to just stop to give pity a voice.
Seductive shadows smirk straight faced
about how all our enemies who we share
and how I ought to join the fight to dare
give my full approval with all due haste
boycotting the wedding feast invitations
where two hearts join in grateful hope
giving a vision to a much wider scope
having glasses lift bubbling  libations
participating in the  new future to leave
past behind, beginning dreams to weave.


Thursday, October 5, 2017

Consultation of Sinai October 8, 2017



I am not Preaching at All Saints this week- I will be leading an educational event for Deacons on how to Preach and this is the reflection that will give on Sunday morning.


A Reflection on the Occasion of a Preaching Workshop         October 8, 2017
Trinity Conference Center 
Thomas E. Wilson

Consultation of Sinai

This has been an interesting week, starting last Sunday night with the 

Blessing and Dedication of the renovated organ, the Quimby Opus 74, at 

Evensong. Oh, the sounds from that organ leading and blending with the 

singing of the choir and of the congregation of members and visitors. It was 

as if we were participating in God’s song of the soul. I walked away that 

evening and went home swimming in the music as it resonated with the 

song in my soul. How seldom do we allow ourselves to be still enough to 

hear and sing our divine soul song? There is an invitation in Act 5 of The 

Merchant of Venice where Shakespeare has Lorenzo invite Jessica to be 

still   in the moonlight to hear the music of the heavens:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
  
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

 Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.

There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

 But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.


Such harmony is in immortal souls,

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”

Last Sunday, there were so many moments when I was able to escape the 

tyranny of my schedules and the ego of this “muddy vesture of decay” of 

my body and limited life - when I was able to hear the harmony of my 

immortal soul.

There is an ancient Hebrew tradition of Interpretation of Scripture done by 

the Rabbis, called Midrash, which has four levels - PaRDeS, named for the 

first letter of each level: the Peshat or the plain level, the Remez or the deep 

meaning, the Derash or the seeking the connections level, and the Sod or 

the mystery level, the Holy mystery not to be solved but lived into. Most 

people opt to stay on the surface, but going deeper into scripture is a 

spiritual journey and not to be taken literally. 
 

In the Hebrew Testament story for today, Moses goes to the darkness of 

Mount Sinai to touch the “floor of heaven” and to hear the soul song of 

God. In my mind as I enter into this foundation story of the children of 

Israel’s identity, I picture God’s arms surrounding Moses as God sings the 

song of the Ten Words, the meaning of life for all those who know that they 

are made in the image of God. The Hebrew Scripture does not call them 

“Commandments” but “Words”. In my imagination these were Words of 

Love. I have tried to look at these 10 words like the Rabbi Jesus did, who 

knew the song of God in his soul, when he asked which Commandment was

the most important, and he entered into Midrash saying: “The first 

Commandment is this that you shall love the LORD, your God, with all 

your heart and all your mind and all your soul and the second is like unto it, 

Thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself. On these two Words hang all the 

Law and the Prophets”

In my journey, I go past the literal plain text and descend to the Remez level. 

I hear God singing the 10 words and I re-imagine their core:
1) I am the One, who creates you in my own image,
2) You’ll find strength loving into that living image,
3) when our spirits are knitted together into one,
4) so every moment becomes Holy Day as we unite.
5) Parenting’s hard, they need love and forgiveness.
6) Your life and lives of others are gifts treasured by us
7) Love is my space between every relationship; join us
8) as we together respect what neighbors love and have.
9) I am in and under every breath, in each word uttered
10) and gift given for you to make it through each day.

I imagine God planting this God song into Moses’ soul, and he went down to sing that song to his people at the foot of the mountain, for in his Derash, he made the connections with these words and the vision of a new kind of society based on God’s love, inviting them to enter in Sod, the mystery of God’s song. But once he got down there he saw that the people had wandered far away from listening to God’s song and started to compose songs of their own egos. He smashed the tablets containing the 10 words on to the ground.

In my imagination the leaders of the religious establishment, the people in charge of the Organized Religion, the Mass, the “Massmen”, did not like the sound of God’s song and decided to harden God’s heart and turn love into laws of “should” and “ought” and consulted with Moses to draft it into legalese. I wrote a poem of that imaginary conference:
Hey God, as your Massman looks over the tablets,
got to tell you your dreams need more punch,
screams for hard rules, laws to nail down habits,
or grace will seem like invitation to a free lunch.
Scare people a bit with a snarl of frayed nerves
they’ll walk softly around you, making your day
I mean, doesn’t fearful worship do what serves,
make ‘em think twice before they begin to pray.
No damn good people’ll live down to base level.
You’ll help ‘em by working up a good scare or two
Remind them who’s boss before turn over to devil,
with gory tales, divine revenge and turns of screw.
Theological focus groups says you got to be tough
If want to sell’em on all the heavenly reward stuff.

I told you what it was like on Sunday evening to hear God’s song in my soul. Then there was Monday morning, when I began to hear of the slaughter in Las Vegas and I wondered where God’s song was in the middle of the souls of the victims and of the murdered. I could hear God’s song in the lives of the first responders who rushed into danger to help strangers. I heard God’s song in the prayers of the people witnessing these events.

I think one of the things that happens to people is that they no longer hear God’s soul song of love. I went inside myself and found out how easy it is to stop listening. For the next several days as I got busier and busier, I found myself getting annoyed, especially over the fact that every day, sometimes several times each day, I would drive back to the office and there were people parking in the space that was clearly marked “Clergy Parking”. Possible explanations ranged from an unforeseen influx of ordained clergy of unknown faiths, or an inexplicable attack of mass illiteracy where people lost the ability to read, or a paranoid thought of a concerted attack on my “WMP”, White Male Privilege. Shutting off the vibrations of God’s soul song, hardening my heart by paying attention to my bruised ego, I entertained fantasies of response. Should I put a nasty note on the trespassing car to shame them? Or should I park my car right behind them, blocking them in to show my power? Or should I go into the kitchen to get a knife to slash the tires to make them fearful of my displeasure? Or should I get a gun and shoot up the sinner’s car? Or should I not stop, as the shooter in Las Vegas on Sunday night did not, and get 20 some guns and vent my rage on as many people as who did not pay me enough worth and worship me.

The way out of this madness was to be still and listen again to God’s loving song. Commandments without love have no power to change behavior. There is a movement by some to post copies of the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls, but then they just become a way of ascribing Divine Sanction as an attempt to keep societal control. Do the word association -Law and Order, Crime and Punishment. Without love there is no justice, and all we do is use law to protect the status quo of the powerful.

This weekend we have been talking about Preaching. The purpose of Preaching is not to impress them with what you know, or straighten people out, or persuade them to think like as we do, or to make them do what you want them to do, or to follow the correct procedure, or obey the Commandments, or to shame sinners, or to threaten backsliders. But rather it is to invite them to join you in a deeper life of love, listening to God’s love song in their souls so they can remember who, and in whose image, they are. As Paul reminds us in his first Letter to the Corinthians, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”