ben | 
07 31st, 2009| 
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Jul
31
The Friday Letters
31 July 2009
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The saint memorialized on this Friday spent time in a cave living as a hermit and reading the main work written by last Friday’s saint, Thomas á Kempis. He also founded the Society of Jesus, better known by their now-official nickname, the Jesuits. Some fascinating history around this man and the order of Priests Regular he began. The Jesuits have always been my favorites of the Roman orders, mostly because I attended one of their Universities and then in Seminary they always threw the best parties. I know, you’d think it would have been the Franciscans, but there you are.
Ignatius’s name lives on in the still very much used spiritual retreats based on his own spiritual practices. Ignatian retreats are of eight, twelve, or (if you’ve got lots of vacation time to spend) thirty days. These are retreats of serious contemplation for Christians of serious discipline, and they are less uncommon than one might think. There are members of CECoP that have partaken of this experience and found it life changing, or perhaps more accurately as I understand it, life clarifying.
The various terminologies used to describe the spiritual journey are lacking both in clarity and in accuracy. Spiritual Retreat: ‘retreat’ is a word with both military and defeated overtones, neither of which are particularly useful. Christian Education: ‘education’ is good, but this implies an overly bookish kind of learning, which is part, but surely not all, of what Christians must learn. Spiritual Growth: ‘growth is getting better, as it seems organic and progress related, but still, it implies that we are currently immature and must grow up, which is an overly linear description I think. Spiritual Journey: this is my favorite metaphor, which you probably know because I use it all the time. It says movement but not inevitable or single-path movement. It offers the possibility of traveling alone or in company, through pleasant fields or rocky terrain.
When I was in Seminary it was all the rage to replace the words Christian Education with the vastly superior words Christian Formation. Some of this was the apparently bottomless well of desire we human beings have of wanting to rename things for no good reason. Political correctness I guess, except there wasn’t anything incorrect about the original words. Thank God for the people that like to rename things, because without them half of what I find hilarious about the world would disappear.
Still, they may be onto something here. Formation is a great word for Christians. It implies that there is something about us which is unformed; you can call this something sin if you like the old fashioned words, or you can call it potential divinity if you prefer the updated version. Formation also implies a process yet unfinished and perhaps unfinishable in our earthly incarnations.
The Jesuits have always been a fairly militaristic order. The head of the Jesuits is not just the Father, but the Father-General. Retreat works well for them. I’m going to try formation out for awhile. See where that gets me.
Peace,
Ben.
Jul
26
A sermon by Benjamin J. Newland on the eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12)
In the past couple weeks we have begun to suspect that King David was a little more politically savvy that we had expected. It’s been hard to tell if he was really as righteous as he said he was, or if he was just a clever manipulator of the people and willing to use God as another tool in his reelection campaign. This week’s story puts an end to our wondering as David is revealed not only as a manipulator, but as an adulterer and a murderer.
Before we get into the story itself, allow me to share with you what I think is the single most mind-boggling aspect of the eleventh chapter of the book of Second Samuel: namely, that it exists at all. We’ve all heard that history is written by the victors. We all know that when we tell our own stories we tend to tell them in as rosy a light as possible. This is true of leaders and nations even more so than it is true of us individually. In the absence of an influential opposition or an empowered free press, why, oh why, would David have allowed this story to be told about him? There are possible answers to that question, but none that I’ve heard thus far are convincing to me.
Well. Let us look at the story itself then. This week we have the first half of the story, the sin, the cover-up, and the set-up. We’ll have to wait until next week to read the conclusion to the story, which of course, you already know. There will be a few verses skipped over between this week and next week, but rest assured, I shall reveal them to you as per usual.
You can tell that this is going to be a bad story by the first line. “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him” David, who impressed Saul by facing Goliath alone, and who was proclaimed King by a military that was looking for someone to lead them from the front, no longer leaves his palace to face his enemies. That this whole episode takes place while David is at home and his armies are at war is not coincidental.
David gets up from his afternoon nap and takes a stroll on his rooftop. The King’s rooftop is higher than everyone else’s rooftop of course, so he can see down onto the rooftop of the home of Bathsheba, where she is bathing with every expectation of privacy. David sends some lackeys to find out who this beautiful woman is, and then he sends some more to bring her to him. Then David has sex with her. I know, I know, it’s Sunday morning and we’re in church and I shouldn’t say such things so directly. The Bible itself glosses over the actual act with a kind of pre-Seinfeldian yadda-yadda-yadda. Yet I feel that it is important to be explicit here: this is a story about lust.
And it would have been the end of the story had not Bathsheba gotten pregnant. But she did. And David, faced with getting caught, takes the route that politicians of all times and places always take. He tries to cover it up. Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, is off with David’s army fighting David’s war. It will be obvious, when Bathsheba gives birth, that the child could not have been Uriah’s. So David calls Uriah back from the fighting in hopes that he will visit his wife (see, there’s that yadda-yadda-yadda again) and let David off the hook.
Uriah won’t do it. He will obey his King and leave the front lines, but he will not do what he sees as dishonoring his soldiers and take his ease at home with his wife (yadda). David tries a couple different tacks but Uriah will not do what David needs him to do.
And so the King goes from lust, to falsehood, to murder. He sends Uriah back to the front, and with him he sends word that Uriah is to be moved to the forefront of the fighting and then abandoned there to get killed. Here ends the reading; stay tuned for next week when the inevitable happens.
There are many lessons to be learned from this story. Lessons about the temptations of power. Lessons about how one sin leads inevitably to more. We will save these lessons for next week when we hear the end of the story. For now, I wish to emphasize the unrelenting wrongness of what David has done.
Ever since this story was written down, and this goes back to the wonder that it was ever written down at all, people have been trying to explain it away, or at least mitigate David’s culpability. From the ancient rabbis through medieval theologians to modern scholars, many and many have taken their turn at this story. This is generally done in three different ways: by romanticizing the story, by rationalizing the story, or by finding a scapegoat for the story.
To romanticize this story is to say that David and Bathsheba’s tale is a love story. That David was overcome, not by lust, but by love. Bathsheba has to be complicit in this of course, for it wouldn’t be much of a love story if she wasn’t interested. This explanation is wrong. Though not exactly full of matrimonial bliss as we understand it, the Bible has its ways of telling us about love between man and wife, and none of that is present. David isn’t even interested in Bathsheba after the initial encounter until he discovers that she is pregnant.
To rationalize the story is to say that it was Uriah’s fault. Uriah is a foreigner, so David rightly replaces him. Also, Uriah was probably a bad husband, maybe even beating Bathsheba, so David rescues her from this horrible situation. The problem with that, of course, is that none of it is in the Biblical story, and surely it would have to be if it were really part of the story.
The worst possible way to justify this tale about King David is to scapegoat Bathsheba. This is the most commonly employed means of casting doubt on whether or not David was entirely at fault. It goes like this: Bathsheba wanted David to see her; she was bathing on the rooftop in order to catch his eye. She was the instigator and the seducer, seeking to claim the King for herself. To suggest that Bathsheba was at fault for this story is the equivalent of saying that the victim of rape deserved it. It is an evil, evil thing to say, and it cannot be true.
There is no way to justify David’s actions in this story. At the end of this story we will be able to say something good about David, though it won’t erase what he’s done here. I am still amazed that this story exists, so negatively does it reflect on David, the greatest King of Israel. A few weeks ago David sang of Saul and Jonathan, “How the mighty have fallen.” Now we must sing the same of David, though he has not fallen in battle, but in far less glorious ways. This story is to be continued.
A brief word on the Gospel, before I finish. This story too is split across this Sunday and the next. Here are the missing verses from last week’s text: the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus’ walking on water trick. Like all the great miracle stories, I am captured not by the miracle itself but by the circumstances that surround it and the words Jesus uses to define it.
Here they are, gathered before a huge crowd, and Jesus asks his disciples, how can we feed this many? Philip points out that six months worth of wages would not be enough even to buy them bread. Andrew tries a bit harder, and finds a boy with food he’s willing to share, but you can hear the resignation in Andrews voice as he says about the five loaves and two fish, “what are these among so many?”
We become accustomed to imagining that these disciples are wrong; that they have made a mistake by not having enough faith or something. Easy for us to say, since we know how this will turn out. It is telling, I think, that Jesus, who is generally ready to point out to his disciples when they are displaying a lack of faith, does not accuse them of that lack here. He does not even respond to them in words. They are right. Six months wages, which they don’t have, wouldn’t be enough. Five loaves and two fish are nothing amongst so many. This knowledge is true, this math correct.
The point is that at the end of knowledge stands Jesus, and Jesus is always enough, no matter what knowledge tells us. That is a comforting thing to hear, if you are a disciple. I warn you not to be too comfortable however, for in this story you are not the disciples, and I hardly need to tell you that I am not Jesus. In this story, you, and I mean you exactly in this case and not rhetorically, you Christ Episcopal Church of Puyallup, you are not the disciples of this story—you are the bread and fish in the midst of five thousand hungry seekers. Your job is to be broken, and to be passed around, and to be gathered up again, more than you were before.
AMEN.
Jul
24
The Friday Letters
24 July 2009
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Clearly, I spoke too soon when complaining about the heat last week. The next few days are supposed to be the hottest of the year and far too hot for south facing condominiums. As soon as Eucharist is finished on Sunday I am getting the heck out of dodge and going somewhere—anywhere—cool. Cooler, anyways.
Today is the feast day of Thomas á Kempis, whom we know little about except that he wrote a famous late medieval work on spirituality called The Imitation of Christ. Here is a passage from that work:
When God bestows Spiritual comfort, receive it with a grateful heart; but remember that it comes of God’s free gift, and not of your own merit. Do not be proud, nor over joyful, nor foolishly presumptuous; rather, be the more humble for this gift, more cautious, and more prudent in all your doings, for this hour will pass, and temptation will follow it. When comfort is withdrawn, do not immediately despair, but humbly and patiently await the will of Heaven; for God is able to restore you to a consolation even richer than before. This is nothing new or strange to those who know the ways of God, for the great Saints and Prophets of old often experienced these changes. …Indeed, the temptation that precedes is often a sign of comfort to follow. For heavenly comfort is promised to those who have been tried and tempted.” To him who overcomes,” says God, “I will give to eat of the Tree of Life.”
The pursuit of a Christian life can sometimes feel as if you are being forced to make it up as you go along. With each new situation, be it crisis or opportunity, you must pause and try to decide what to do, how to think, which prayer to offer. The seeking after these questions is part and parcel of a life lived in faith, and we need to ask and answer them constantly. Yet, we need not do so alone. The Holy Scriptures themselves are our primary resource, of course, but even they are not all. Many people have gone before us, made their efforts at living a Christian life, and left us their thoughts to help us along. Here then are some thoughts left for us by a monk who died five hundred and thirty-eight years ago, and still very much applicable.
Peace,
Ben.
Jul
19
A sermon by Benjamin J. Newland on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 11)
The Gospel portion assigned today is from chapter six. We read verses 30 to 34, then 53 to 56. This should immediately make you suspicious. Or, if you have a more gracious outlook on life than I do, it should at least make you curious. Why these two short bits of scripture from the same chapter? And more importantly, what came between them that we did not read?
The first five verses tell of the return of the Apostles from the mission that Jesus sent them on two weeks ago. Go forth, two by two he said, and take no food or money with you, just your sandals and the shirt on your back. So they went forth and now they have returned and they report to Jesus on all that they taught and all that they did. Both Jesus and the Apostles are in the midst of a jostling, pressing crowd, all of whom are interested in what Jesus and his followers have to offer.
Jesus suggests that they go away to have some quiet time apart. He was in the habit of doing this for himself, and now that the disciples are starting to take on his ministry he offers the same kind of retreat to them. They go off to be alone, but they were seen, and the crowds, desperate for healing and teaching, ran ahead and cut them off. Despite this aggressive and childish behavior, Jesus is gracious and begins to teach them.
Then the story jumps. The scripture it jumps to is essentially the same scene again. Why did we need to hear this story twice? And what did we skip over in order to get to the same story again?
Let’s allow that question to percolate while we consider the other two texts for this morning. The passage from 2 Samuel is another text where little seems to happen but much of importance is going on. David, having moved the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem last week, is feeling badly that he sits in a palace made of Cedar while the Lord of Hosts dwells in the same dusty tent he’s been living in since Moses scarpered out of Egypt. He decides to build a temple. Nathan, the prophet who will fill the difficult space between the God of Israel and Israel’s most infamous King, thinks this is a grand plan.
Either Nathan miscalculated or God changed his divine mind. That night, God visits Nathan in a dream and says no, David will not build God a house. Instead, God will build David a house. As a consolation, David’s son shall rule after him, and that son shall be allowed to build the Lord of Hosts a dwelling place. As usual there is a Hebrew word at the heart of this text which has multiple meanings. (Sometimes I wish I could speak more Hebrew, as it is hard to imagine how such a language could be used to communicate anything at all. It seemed like all of their words mean at least twelve different things!)
The word in this passage is bayet, or ‘house’. When the Gospel of Matthew is telling of the birth of Jesus, it very carefully notes that Jesus is of the bayet David, the House of David. So, bayet means house. It also means dwelling, which is less architecturally specific and more homey. It also means palace, which is a rather specific kind of dwelling. Or, it could mean temple, which isn’t a dwelling for humans at all. Then again, it can mean dynasty, which is the sense in which Jesus lives in the bayet of David, though this dynasty, as we have seen before and will see more of in the weeks to come, is not exactly the respectable pedigree you’d like your divinely appointed kings to have.
At any rate, the conversation between David and God via Nathan goes like this:
David: O God, I will build you a house
God: No, I will build you a house. Then I will build your house, and a member of that house can build me a house.
Everything clear now? Good. Moving on.
Paul’s words in this morning’s portion of the letter to the Ephesians are particularly apropos for us today. He writes on a subject we have heard him write on many times before. Circumcised or uncircumcised—Jew or Gentile? He seems to have a softer heart for the Ephesians, however, than he does for his colleagues in Jerusalem, so instead of berating them for their insistence on Law over Grace, Paul gently reminds the Ephesians that there was a time before they knew Jesus Christ, but now they know him, and this changes everything. The whole point of God’s action in Jesus, says Paul, was to abolish such divisions among humanity. He continues,
For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.
It is this radically peace making and barrier shattering action upon which Christianity is founded. It is a fundamental truth that is easy to forget, even for those who practiced the faith in the decades immediately after Jesus’ presence in the world.
Circumcision is not the issue today that it once was, but we need not look far to find similar divisions. Then it was Circumcised vs. Uncircumcised. Now it’s Left vs. Right, or Orthodox vs. Progressive, or Conservative vs. Liberal. We dream of a day when our side wins, but Paul dreams of a day when both sides are one, eschatologically united in Christ. Division is healed not by reconciling one side to another, but both sides to God.
We are desperately in need of such reconciliation. Our divisions must be healed before they can destroy us. It is this desperation for healing that Mark conveys to us in the Gospel text. The passages we skipped over are indeed significant. Between verse 34 and verse 56, two stories take place. You will recognize both. In the first story, five thousand people are fed bread and fish. In the second, Jesus walks across the waters of Lake Galilee to catch up to his disciples who have gone ahead in the boats.
These are not insignificant stories, obviously. The parts of scripture we are left with are far less flashy and not nearly so memorable. So, why read two similar scenes about crowds desperate for Jesus and skip the scenes where Jesus does amazing things? Maybe we need to understand the desperation more. Perhaps, like those crowds, we too are desperate for the Peace Jesus has to offer. None of us are going to stampede up to the altar rail when it’s time for communion. I can’t imagine any of you running ahead of me as I go home to ask for more sermons. Yet that does not mean that we are not just as hungry as those crowds that followed Jesus in Mark’s Gospel. It does not mean that we do not know desperation in our own lives as well.
Mark uses extreme characters and actions to illustrate the urgency and importance of his message. Today it is Paul who bears us the good news:
So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him [all] of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.
AMEN.
Jul
17
The Friday Letters
17 July 2009
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It seems a highly unlikely summer to me. I was told that it was never hot here. I was told that, at most, you’d want an air conditioner for ‘a couple days’ each summer. I was told that even when it was sunny and warm, the rain would always make a come back. Liars! I know I’m one of the very odd—one of those that actually enjoys rainy days. I like cool weather and grey skies and drizzle with the occasional downpour. Normally, the Pacific Northwest is a haven for odd folks like me. This summer seems to be the exception.
I guess I should take heart. When the only thing you have to complain about is that the weather is a bit warmer than you really prefer your life is clearly a charmed one. Plus, there’s always the mornings and the evenings, when the air is as close to perfect as one could want.
Your Vestry met this past Tuesday and I am happy to report to you that all is as well as you could want. Your quarterly giving statements will be coming out soon, along with a letter from me and some news from the Vestry. We continue to be extraordinarily blessed by the gracious and generous giving of our parish. In the midst of economic crisis and cut budgets everywhere, we too are behind, but not nearly so far behind as we could be. Thank you for sharing your resources with this very special church, and, if you are a few donations behind because of family vacations and such, we will gladly accept your make-up contributions with absolutely no late fee!
The most exciting work the Vestry is doing right now is just to watch the momentum for next Fall’s New Sunday School continue to build. I hope to be making specific announcements regarding that in the near future. For now, if you are curious and/or would like to get in on the ground floor of an excitingly re-vamped ministry, we are meeting this Sunday at 9am in the upstairs classrooms, and every two weeks at the same time and place until Sunday School starts on September 13th.
For today, enjoy the sunshine (I’ll try), and seek to be mindful of the many gifts we have in our place and in our people. May God bless our persistent efforts to bring about the Kingdom here.
Peace,
Ben.
Jul
12
A sermon by Benjamin J. Newland on the sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10.
2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29
Last week, Jesus sent forth his disciples with a packing list of items to carry with them and items to leave behind. Next week those disciples will return from their missions and there will be a celebration where some five thousand people have bread and fish for dinner on the shores of Lake Galilee. Between these two story-halves comes this week’s lesson from the Gospel of Mark—an interlude of horror—the tale of John the Baptist’s ending at the hands of Herod Antipas.
The story opens with Herod having a kind of nightmare. Speculation on Jesus’ identity comes in several places throughout the Gospel accounts. Here it is taking place in Caesarea Tiberius, the city Herod Antipas built to flatter the Emperor of Rome. Some say Jesus is Elijah come again. Some argue that he’s another prophet from of old. Some believe that he is John the Baptist risen from the dead, and it is this possibility that terrifies Herod, who then has a flashback to the night he had John killed.
John had been speaking out against Herod, on account of he had committed adultery with his brother’s wife, Herodias. This did not endear John to Herodias, and she used her influence over Herod to have the Baptist imprisoned. Then comes the night of the fateful party, a Gospel scene rendered into art, and theatre, and opera many times since. Pleased with himself and no doubt a wee bit drunk, Herod promises his daughter Salome anything she asks. Prodded by her mother, she asks for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Now Herod has a choice: to do the right thing (for he knows John has spoken nothing but the truth), or to do the expedient thing and keep his hastily made promise in front of his supporters and family.
While Herod thinks that over, let us see what David has been up to since we last saw him taking down Goliath. It isn’t the action that takes place in this morning’s reading from the Second Book of Samuel that makes this passage important. The action itself is fairly simple: David accompanies the Ark of the Covenant from its previous resting place to Jerusalem. Much is made of David’s half-naked dancing and all of the instruments employed in the procession, but the transfer itself is straightforward.
The significance of this story lies in the meanings behind this action. The Ark of the Covenant is the holiest, most central symbol of tribal Israel. For all the years of their wanderings in the wilderness, and all of the long years of occupying the promised land, the Ark of the Covenant was carried with them, housed in its own tent, handled and viewed by only the most elite of the priestly class. Now David, greatest in a line of kings that God was reluctant to allow, moves this deepest symbol from the hands of the priests into the hands of the monarch—from the sanctuary of the faith to the capitol of the nation.
In doing this, David becomes the religious king that Saul before him never was. In doing this, Jerusalem, the City of David, is inaugurated as the religious and political capital of all Israel. In this passage from 2 Samuel is the remembered liturgical procession that foreshadowed all the liturgical processions to come. Here is a blending of secular power and religious authority that the descendants of Abraham had not previously known.
It is in this blending of realms that I find the power of this story, particularly in how that blending manifests itself within the person of David himself. In this action, David has made himself a king more powerful than any king Israel had ever know, and more powerful than any that would come after him. He goes through the motions of proper respect and piety, but one can’t help wondering if he isn’t just doing this for political advantage. Is David authentically pious? Does he really believe that God blesses him and would like for him to combine the role of High Priest and King in himself? Or is this all just a show? Is David going through the motions because it is politically expedient—the fastest and most efficient way to absolute power?
David is not one of the good guys. He’s not one of the bad guys either. The power of David’s character in the Bible is in that imperfection of his character that comes through to us in the text so often. He is perfectly capable of manipulating the entire Kingdom of Israel. He is also perfectly capable of emptying himself to be God’s vessel in the world. More importantly, and most interestingly, he is capable of doing both things at the same time.
This questioning of the motives of political leaders is not something we’ve ever been able to stop doing. You can ask the same questions of Barrack Obama or George W. Bush that you can ask of King David. You will likely get similarly unclear answers. The intersection of public life and religious values has always been, and continues to be, a very dangerous intersection. Yet it is not an intersection we can easily avoid, for to deny religious critique of public life is to give up too much of our moral selves.
If David’s motivations are unclear, Herod’s are not. There was never much doubt about how that fateful dinner party was going to turn out, but Mark wouldn’t have recorded it here if there wasn’t some possibility for hope. Indeed, Prophet and King understand each other well enough to know that there is a slim possibility here for redemption. Herod Antipas could have said no. John the Baptist, while certainly an abrasive presence, would not have been there if he didn’t think it worthwhile to try and save Antipas. And yet, Herod will play to John the part of Pontius Pilate to Jesus. Both Herod and Pilate wished to release their prisoners but felt that their hands were tied. Both Herod and Pilate found the political expediency of pleasing their constituencies to be more important than justice. And while both felt that they were acting against their better judgment, both condemned innocent men to death anyways.
Here then, is the other side of that intersection between public life and religious values—this the dark path too often taken. It is telling then that both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ will have their broken bodies recovered by disciples and buried. Telling also, that both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ will have a far greater impact on the world through their policies than either of the public leaders who attempted to silence them ever did.
These are some pretty dark waters to swim in, where faith and nation come together. Yet here we all are, treading those waters as best we can. May God grant our leaders the integrity and strength of character to serve justice and not expedience. May God grant us the wisdom to choose our leaders wisely and to hold them to account. And may God grant all of us the patience and courage needed to live a public life of faith. AMEN.
