Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 72

11 years a Priest

11 years ago today, on the Feast of St. Barnabas, I was ordained a priest. Thank you to everyone who has journeyed with me this far. You will all no doubt receive a jewel or two in your crowns on the other side of veil for enduring the weirdness that is me. (Here is the obligatory photo from last night's Mass at St. Stephen's looking much more holy than I actually am -- thanks, Gin​)

Holy Trinity

Pentecost

7 Easter

6 Easter

Rogation SundayMay 10, 2015
Acts 10.44-48; 1 John 5.1-6; John 15.6-17

+ Many of you have probably heard the events that have been going on in the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida this past week. There, at the Cathedral of St. Luke in Orlando, a gay couple were seeking to have their son baptized. A date had even been set.  Then, all of a sudden, the dean of the cathedral informed the couple that they would have to postpone the baptism because some of members of the cathedral had an issue with the fact that the parents were gay. There was, of course, an uproar. The Bishop, Greg Brewer, got involved. And now, it seems, the baptism is back on.
Personally, I was at a loss throughout all of this. I have never heard of a baptism being canceled or postponed because the congregation didn’t support the parents.
It is particularly and almost strangely fortuitous that we have our scripture reading for today from the book of Acts, which just happens  In our reading form Acts we find Peter asking hat very important question:
“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing….”
As you all know, I am very outspoken when it comes to issues of baptism. So this situation in Central Florida really hit me hard on a few levels.  I am appalled by any situation in which someone is actually being denied baptism (which is the real issue here). Especially—especially—in the Episcopal Church.
I’ve never heard of it. Ever. Even from the most conservatively orthodox people.  It absolutely boggles my mind.
Now, I of course, have had my own friendly debates on the issue of Baptism with people who are both very liberal and conservative (and I apologize for throwing those terms around. I’m not certain anyone is 100% either conservative or liberal, especially in the Episcopal Church)
There are some of my more liberal friends who think it’s crazy that we here at St. Stephen’s baptize on any Sunday other than the Sundays designated as appropriate in the Book of Common Prayer—those being namely  the Easter Vigil, Pentecost Sunday, All Saints, and the Baptism of Our Lord.
Others are really perplexed by the fact that we do what others may call “private” baptisms—namely, baptisms that are done outside of the regularly scheduled Sunday Eucharist. Of course my argument has always been that there is no such thing as a “private” baptism. As long as two or three are gathered together in the name of Christ, the Church is present. And with Christ present, there is nothing “private” being done.
I, of course, quote our reading from Acts from last week in which Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch right there in the river. I seriously doubt that was done on a Sunday designated as appropriate by the Book of Common Prayer, nor was it done in the context of a regularly scheduled Sunday Eucharist.
Sigh.
Now, I am not playing the rebel here. I am not trying to be a maverick.  Any of you who have heard my sermons on a more than regular basis know that I hold baptism as so incredibly important. The only thing I preach about more than baptism is…
…love. Which you’re also getting this morning as well.
But, no, I am not being a rebel or a maverick about this. I am simply striving not to withhold the waters of baptism from anyone. When I appear before the throne one day, I will take my chances that I erred on the side of baptizing anyone under any circumstances rather than upholding some orthodox standard.  And the rules that the Church—capital C—applies to people does, often, withhold those waters, whether that is the intent or not.
And I, as a simple priest trying to love God and love others, am simply not in the place to withhold anything as a powerful and as incredible as baptism from anyone. Nor should I. Not should any of us.
Because—and I never preach about God’s disappointment, never, but if God is going to disappointed with us, if Jesus is going to wag a finger at us, it is for issues like this. If when the Church—capital C—acts more like a bureaucratic museum upholding its some kind of pseudo-orthodoxy rather than radically proclaiming God’s acceptance and love, then the Church has failed—and failed miserably.
The Church’s job is to proclaim that love. Unabashedly. Loudly. Without limits. Even if it means breaking its own human-made rules.  Because that is God’s love. It is without limits. It is never withheld. Which of course leads me into the other thing I love to preach about.
Today, we get a double dose of love in our scriptures.  Jesus, in our Gospel reading, is telling us yet again to love.  He tells us:
“Abide in my love.”
A beautiful phrase!
And St. John, in his epistle, reminds us of that commandment to love God and to love each other.
Now, as you hear me preach about again and again, this love is what being a Christian is all about.  It is not about commandments and following the letter of the law.  It not about being “right” or “perfectly moral” or self-righteous or even orthodox.  It is not about being nice and sweet all the time.  It is about following Jesus—and following Jesus means loving fully and completely.
Loving God.  Loving each other. Fully and completely.
Yes, I know.  It sounds fluffy.  But the love Jesus is speaking of is not a sappy, fluffy love.  Love, for Jesus—and for us who follow Jesus—is a radical thing.  It is a messy thing. It is, often, an uncomfortable thing.  To love radically means to love everyone—even those people who are difficult to love.  To love those people we don’t want to love—to love the people who have hurt us or abused us or wronged us in any way—is the most difficult thing we can do.  If we can do it at all.  And sometimes we can’t.
But we can’t get around the fact that this is the commandment from Jesus. We must love.
“Abide in my love” does not mean living with anger and hatred and bitterness. Abide in my love leaves no room for homophobia or sexism or racism or any other kind of discrimination.  You can’t abide in love and still live with hatred and anger.  You can’t abide in love and still be a homophone or sexist or racist. It just can’t be done.
When Jesus says “Abide in my love” it really is a challenge to us as the Church. I know that people are scared by this.  What this baptism in Orlando shows us is that the Church is really changing.  And, for some people, for a lot of people, that is frightening.
But the Church of the future, whether we like it or not, has to shed these old ways of acting out in anger and fear and hatred.  The Church of the future needs to constantly strive to abide in the love Jesus proclaims.  If it does not, it will become an antique store filled with the antiques of a close-minded past.  It will become an outmoded, hate-filled cesspool.  
And if does, then that’s the way will be. I won’t be a priest in a Church like that. I doubt many of here this morning would be members of a Church like that.
But, I know it will not come to that. I know as well as I am standing here this morning with you, that that love will win out.  God’s love always wins out.  Besides, if the Church becomes a place in which baptisms are denied and others are continued to be denied, then I know it is not the place in which God’s radical, all-accepting love dwells.  If that’s what the Church becomes, it will, in fact, stop being the Church. If the Church becomes a place of hatred or anger, I doubt many of us would remain members of that church.
This is why the Church must change.  This is why the Church must be a place of love and compassion and radical acceptance.
This coming Thursday, we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus.  On that day, he was physically taken up from us.  But what he has left us with is this reality of us—his followers—being the physical Body of Jesus in this world.  We can only be that physical Body of Jesus when we also become his physical heart as well. We can only do that when we abide in his love.  When we love fully and radically.  There’s no getting around that.  There’s no rationalizing that away.  We can argue about it.  We can quote scriptures and biblical law and canon law and ecclesiastical precedence and the Book of Common Prayer all we want. But abiding in love is abiding in love.  And abiding in that love means loving—fully and completely and without judgment.
To be Jesus’ presence in this world means loving fully and completely and radically.   Call that heresy or a simplistic understanding of what Jesus is saying or part of the so-called “liberal agenda.”  I call it abiding it in Jesus’ love, which knows no bounds, which knows no limits.
So, today, and this week, abide in this love.  Let us celebrate God by living out Jesus’ command to love.  As we remember and rejoice in the Ascension, let our hearts, full of love, ascend with Jesus.  Let them soar upward in joy at the fact that Jesus is still with us.  And we when we love—when we love each other and God—the Spirit of God’s love will remain with us and be embodied in us.

5 Easter

May 3, 2015
John 15.1-8
+ I read an article this past week that really hit home for me. Actually James posted it on his Facebook page. It was entitled
“Want millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.”
It was very good article. The article said this:

Recent research from Barna Group and the Cornerstone Knowledge Network found that 67 percent of millennials prefer a “classic” church over a “trendy” one, and 77 percent would choose a “sanctuary” over an “auditorium.” While we have yet to warm to the word “traditional” (only 40 percent favor it over “modern”), millennials exhibit an increasing aversion to exclusive, closed-minded religious communities masquerading as the hip new places in town. For a generation bombarded with advertising and sales pitches, and for whom the charge of “inauthentic” is as cutting an insult as any, church rebranding efforts can actually backfire, especially when young people sense that there is more emphasis on marketing Jesus than actually following Him. Millennials “are not disillusioned with tradition; they are frustrated with slick or shallow expressions of religion,” argues David Kinnaman, who interviewed hundreds of them for Barna Group and compiled his research in “You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church . . . and Rethinking Faith.”
I found the article fascinating. And, dare I say, encouraging for us, here at St. Stephen’s.  Certainly the forms of church the article is mentioning are not my forms of church. I’ve been very vocal that I have always been wary of trends that tend to be flash in the pan. In my many years in the Church, I have trends come and I have seen trends go. As many of us have.  And every ten years or so there is something new and hip and “happening” that comes along, promising it will somehow “revive” the Church.
But, for me, the tried and true method always works best. Consistency sometimes is not a bad thing.
Still, we do need to be honest. These trends are happening because changes are happening.  And we still need to be open to change.  Let’s face it, the Church is changing.  And it should be changing.  Obviously it’s not changing into some hip, trendy church. Because that doesn’t last. Hipsters grow up and eventually stop being hip.  Consistency in that sense is good.  
But the Church is changing in other ways.  It is not the Church we knew thirty years ago or forty years ago.  Or even twenty-five years ago. We are changing. And we need to change as the Church. And, if you really pay attention, if you really pause and just put your ear to the pulse of all that’s happening, you can feel it too.  The old ways of “doing Church” are passing away—and by this I mean the governing of the Church. Those old ways of “doing Church” are not effective anymore. Those ways of close-mindedness and exclusivity are behind us.  
Now, before we rage about the fact, before we panic, just remember that our ways of “doing medicine” are not the same as they were twenty-five or fifty years ago.  Our ways of “doing” education are not what they were twenty-five or fifty years ago.  We have learned much in our recent past  And we are learning new ways about the way we govern our church.  The way we do ministry.  The way we see ourselves and the world around us are all changing.  And let me tell you, that’s a very good thing.
Yes, it’s hard to shift our way of thinking around these changes.  Yes, it’s hard to realize sometimes that the church we once thought we knew is sometimes a bit unrecognizable to us.  But, it’s the truth.  And we need to change. Because the old ways of governing the Church and leading the Church and of doing ministry just sometimes don’t work anymore—not in this society, not in this world in which we live.
Now, this might be frightening to us.  We might be sitting here on this Sunday morning feeling a bit of anxiety over these changes.  We might be saying to ourselves, “But, I like the way things we before.”
Before we despair over the changes, we need to remember one very important thing: As long as we follow Jesus—and that is what we do as Christians—we know that whatever changes might happen, it’s all for the ultimate good.
In today’s Gospel, we find Jesus giving us a glimpse of what it means to follow him.
“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus tells us.
The effective branch bears fruit.  Our job as Christians is do just that.  It is to bear fruit.  Bearing fruit does not mean being frozen in the old way of doing things.  Bearing does not bearing grudges. Bearing fruit does not mean being frozen in place, unwilling to move.  We can’t bear fruit when we are worried about maintaining the museum of the Church.  Bearing fruit means, growing and changing and flourishing.
But we do it here at St. Stephen’s by doing something that might not seem trendy. We do it with our ancient form of worship. We do it with the Eucharist. We do it with taking what we do here, breaking bread and sharing bread with each other, on Sundays, and then going out doing just that in the world. And in doing that, we make a difference in the world.  That is what it means to is to be effective as Christians.
Being a Christian doesn’t mean just feeling warm and fuzzy all the time.  Being a Christian isn’t only about following private devotions, and reading the Bible by ourselves.  Being a Christian isn’t about coming to church to be entertained. Or to feel the Church owes me something.
Being a Christian isn’t only about our own private faith.  And let me tell you, it certainly has nothing to do with feeling safe and complacent. Being a Christian means living out our faith—fully and completely, in every aspect of our life.  And living out our faith as followers of Jesus means that we must be pliable to some extent.  And we must be fertile.  We must go with change as it comes along.  We must remain relevant.
Now that doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater.  In fact it means embracing and holding tightly to what we have do well. We celebrate our Holy Eucharist. We celebrate and remember our baptisms. I will still be wearing these vestments at Mass.  We cling and hold to the Book of Common Prayer  We respect and honor and celebrate our tradition, his history, our past.
But it also means that we sometimes have to take a good, hard new look at why we do these things and how we do these things. And what these things mean to us and to the world around us. Being a Christian means following Jesus—not just believing in Jesus. And following Jesus means letting Jesus lead the way.
It means allowing the vine to sustain us, to nourish us, to encourage growth within us, so we in turn can bear fruit. As baptized followers of Jesus, as Christians and Episcopalians who are striving to live out the Baptismal Covenant in our lives, we know that to be relevant, to be vital, we must be fruitful.  Following Jesus means that we will follow him through radical times of change. And by being fruitful and growing and flourishing, we are making a difference in the world.
We are doing positive and effective things in the world.  We are transforming the world, bit by bit, increment by increment, baby step by baby step.  We are being the conduits through which God works in our lives and in the lives of those around us.  This is what it means to follow Jesus.  That is what it means to be reflectors of God’s Light on those around us.  This is what means to be a positive Christian example in the world.
And when we do this, we realize that we are really doing is evangelizing. We are sharing our faith, not only with what we say, but in what we do.  That is what it means to be a Christian—to be a true follower of Jesus in this constantly changing world. That is what it means to bear good fruit.
So, let us do just that.  Let us bear fruit.  Let us flourish and grow and be vital fruit to those who need this fruit.  Let us be nourished by that Vine—by the One we follow—so that we can nourish others.  And let not be afraid of these “new ways” of “doing” Church.
Rather, let us be rejuvenated and excited by these changes.  There is a bright and glorious future awaiting us. There is certainly a bright and glorious future awaiting us here at St. Stephen’s.  And there is a bright and glorious future awaiting all of us who are following Jesus as his Church.
We should rejoice in that. And we should continue to live out that faith with meaning and purpose.  Let us, in the words of our collect for today, always recognize Jesus “to be the way, the truth and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life…”

4 Easter

20 Years - The Loneliness of Blizzards

20 very long years ago today, my second book of poems, The Loneliness of Blizzards, was printed (the actual publication date was April 28, 1995). It seems like a lifetime ago.
 

3 Easter

April 19, 2015
Luke 24.36b-48
+ I’ve shared this part of the priestly vocation with you before. But, during Confirmation this past year, I also shared it with our students.  As our confirmation class starts to wind down, I’ve discovered, as the students and I have reviewed all we’ve learned throughout this year, one of the things that has entertained them most was the stories of me being called in to deal with people’s houses that may be haunted.
The story you probably have heard is this one: When I was a new priest and was asked for the first time to come in to a person’s house and deal with what seemed to be paranormal activities, I honestly didn’t know what to do.
I was a fairly fresh priest, to be clear. I thought I knew all the answers. I’d already been through the wringer a few times.  But, I was a bit unprepared for this.
I was serving at Gethsemane Cathedral here in Fargo at the time and Bishop John Thornton, retired Bishop of Idaho was serving as sabbatical pastor. I loved—and still love—Bishop Thornton. He’s one of my pastoral heroes.  I learned so much about being an effective priest from Bishop Thornton in the short time I knew him and served with him.
Well, on this particular situation, I went in and told him I was asked to deal with this ghost situation.
I said to him, “Bishop, what should I do? I don’t know if I really believe in ghosts.”
The Bishop leaned back in his chair and with a  twinkle in his eyes, said, very nicely, “Jamie, who cares what you believe?”
I was shocked by this.  That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear.
But he very quickly added. “It doesn’t matter what you believe, Jamie. If these people think they have a ghost, go in and bless their house. If they need you to be an exorcist, be an exorcist. If they need you to be a ghostbuster, be a ghostbuster. Whatever they need you to be, be that for them. For that period of time you’re with them, believe whatever they believe. If they believe they have a ghost, while you’re in their house, believe they have a ghost. Bless their house. Drive out whatever they think they have. And then once you get back in your car and drive home, if you still don’t believe, then don’t.  The key is this: be what they need you to be.”
It was the best answer I could’ve ever received.
So, I went.  I blessed their house.  And sure enough, whatever the issue was, it never made itself known again.
Bishop Thornton’s advice was by far the best advice I ever heard.  It simply blew me away.  It has also been advice that I have been able to apply to many other situations in my pastoral career.   And I can tell you, I have been asked, again and again to go in and deal with such issues.  
I still don’t know what I believe for certain about ghosts.  But, as Bishop Thornton made clear, it really doesn’t matter what I believe on this issue.
But there’s no getting around the issue of ghosts.  In today’s Gospel, we find Jesus’ followers experiencing something they believe to be a ghost. But the experience they have is also much more incredible than any experience with a ghost.  It much more life-altering. 
The Jesus who stand before them—the Jesus they know had been tortured and murdered, the Jesus who breathed his last and actually died—now stands before them.  But this Jesus is no ghost.  He is flesh and blood.  They can touch him.  They can feel the wounds of his death.  They can hold him.  And he can eat actual food with them.  The Jesus who appears to them, who actually lives with them, is someone they no doubt cannot even begin to understand.  If they thought what he said and did before the crucifixion was amazing and mind-boggling, now it is even more incredible. 
This Jesus we encounter in today’s Gospel is just as incredible to us.  And perhaps maybe even more so.  For the people of Jesus’ day, they could actually wrap accept the fact that things happened beyond their understanding.  For us, we tend to rationalize away anything we don’t understand.  And the idea of someone who has died suddenly appearing before us—in the flesh, with wounds—and eat with us—is more than incredible.  It seems impossible.  And as we hear it, we do find ourselves beginning to rationalize it away.
But rationalize as we might, the fact remains: Christ is still present to us in the flesh.   We, the Church, those who have collectively come together to follow Jesus, to live the Christian life, to live out what Jesus taught us—we are the physical body of Jesus in this world still.  We, with our wounds, with the signs of our past pains, with all that we bring with us, are the embodiment of Jesus in this world. We are the ones who, like Jesus, bring a living and loving God to people who need a living and loving God.  We are called to embody God’s love, to embody God’s compassion, to embody—to make part of our bodies—a God who truly accepts and loves all people.  That is what it means to be Jesus in this world.
We are not called to be ghosts. We are not called to be vague Christians, who sort of float around and make echoing ghostly statements about our faith to people hoping they will somehow “accept Jesus.” We are called to be living, loving human beings embodying a living, loving God, serving living humans beings who, like us, are broken and in pain.
Just as Jesus shared what was given to him, so are we to share what is given to us. We who have known the love and acceptance of our God are called to, in turn, share this love and acceptance to others.  And when we do, we are the body of him who we follow. We can’t do the ministry we do if we are just ghosts.  We are not going to help anyone is we are wraiths and specters of God in this world.  
The God we embody and carry with us is not some ephemeral thing.  The God we serve is real.  And when we go out and serve others as Jesus, we make God physical.  We make God real. We make God’s love real. And that makes all the difference. That changes things.
So, let us carry out this mission together.  Let us be the body of  Jesus in the world.  And as the Body of Jesus, let us be the conduits through which we bring God to those who need God.  Let us sit down and eat with those with whom we serve and those we serve. Let us never be ghosts.
“…a ghost,” Jesus says to us, “does not have flesh and bones…”
But we do. And we are called to use out flesh and bones to serve others.  Let us never be vague Christians who float about transparently. But let us be physical Christians, showing our wounds to those who are wounded.
And as the body of Jesus in this world, we can do what Bishop Thornton reminded me to do when I was a new priest:  we can be whatever we are called to be in a particular situation.  We, as the physical Body of Jesus, can adapt and mold ourselves to those situations in which we can make God present in those areas in which God needs to be present.
If we do, we are doing what Jesus calls us to do.  If we do so we will find that we are not frightened and that whatever doubts will arise in our hearts really, in the long run, won’t matter.  Rather, by our presence, by love, by our acceptance, we will do what Jesus did. We will drive away, once and for all,  every one of those ghosts of fright and doubt.

Dying, thanks to Bishop Pike and William Stringfellow

I’ve been obsessing a bit lately about the Bishop James Pike, who died in September 1969 in the Judean wilderness. In my obsessing, I came across this amazing quote by another hero of mine, William Stringfellow. What I love about this quote is that, as I meditated on it, I found myself replacing all of Bishop Pike’s issues with my own. Dying to these things we once held so dear is essential to dying "in Christ," I realize. Dying to our ego, to our aspirations, to our preconceived notions of ourselves and this world. Dying to ourselves now, our actual death will truly be a birth. Thank you, Bishop Pike. Thank you, Bill Stringfellow.

“The death to self in Christ was neither doctrinal abstraction nor theological jargon for James Pike. He died in such a way before his death in Judea. He died to authority, celebrity, the opinions of others, publicity, status, dependence upon Mama, indulgences in alcohol and tobacco, family and children, marriage and marriages, promiscuity, scholarly ambition, the lawyer’s profession, political opportunity, Olympian discourses, forensic agility, controversy, denigration, injustice, religion, the need to justify himself. By the time Bishop Pike reached the wilderness in Judea, he had died in Christ. What, then, happened there was not so much a death as a birth.”