Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 92

19 Pentecost

October 7, 2012

Mark 10.2-16


+ Most of us, of course, who gather here on Sunday mornings, don’t realize that we actually have a somewhat separate congregation on Wednesday nights, at our “Smells and Bells” Mass. There are some of our new members—as well as some of our so-called “proxy” members—who only going to that service And one of the things some of those people like are the fact that, on Wednesday, we always commemorate a saint. I always preach on Wednesday nights, about a different saint and I, in fact, use a couple of resources from the lives of the saints.

Now I don’t mean to toot my own horn here, but usually those stories are very interesting. At least to most of the people on Wednesday nights. Poor Thom Marubbio might not share that opinion. The poor man! On more than one occasion, I’ve seen him quietly rolling his eyes at some of these strange saints we encounter on Wednesday nights. But I give him credit, he does keep coming to the service each week.

The saint we commemorated this past week was not, as you might think, St. Francis, who we will be honoring later today when we do the blessing of the Animals. The saint we commemorated this past week was a French saint—and a fairly contemporary one too—contemporary in this case being someone who lived just over a hundred years ago. She was a Carmelite nun who died on September 30, 1897 by the name of St. Therese of Liseux.

St. Therese led a very sheltered life by most our modern standards no doubt. She joined this very cloistered convent in Normandy in France when she was 14 years old and died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 years. She did not lead what we would consider an exciting, adventure-filled life by any sense of the word.

But, in her short life, she did do one thing that was pretty extraordinary. She developed a theology that is still very useful to all of us today. Her theology was a simple one. It was called “The Little Way.” And she used this “Little Way” to show that anyone, even in very ordinary, normal circumstances, could truly know God in a very intimate way.

The key to her “Little Way” was to truly become child-like in our relationship with God. For Therese, we needed to truly become like little children in our trust and appreciation of God. And this way of following Jesus is still reaping rewards in our own day.

Certainly, the basis for St. Therese’s “Little Way” was our Gospel reading for today. As people were bringing children to Jesus, he says,

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

So, what does Jesus mean when he talks about the Kingdom of heaven and children? Well, he is talking quite bluntly, I believe. He is making it clear that we need to simplify. We need to simplify our faith. We need to clear away all the muck, all the distractions, all those negative things we have accumulated over the years regarding our relationship with God.

Now, to be fair, the Church and Religion in general have piled many of this negative things on us. And that is unfortunate. Too often, as believers, we tend to complicate our faith life and our theology. We get caught up in things like Dogma and Canon laws and rules and Rubrics and following the letter of the law. We get so caught up in doing what we are told is the “right thing,” that we lose sight of this pure and holy relationship with God. We forget why we are doing the right thing.

For Jesus, he saw what happened when people got too caught up in doing the right thing. The scribes and Pharisees were very caught up in doing the right thing, in following the letter of the Law. But in doing so, they lost sight of God. They lost sight of the meaning behind the Law.

Jesus is telling them—and us—that we need to simplify. We need to refocus. We need to become like children in our faith-life. Now that isn’t demeaning. It isn’t sweet and sentimental. Becoming children means taking a good, honest look at what we believe.

As followers of Jesus, it does not have to be complicated. We just need to remind ourselves that, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, he will show us God. Following Jesus means knowing that God is a loving, accepting and always-present Parent. Our job as followers is to connect with this loving Parent, to worship and pray to God. Our job is to be an imitator, like Jesus, of this loving, all-accepting God in our relationship with others.

When we do that—when we become imitators of our loving God, when we love as God loves us—the Kingdom of God becomes present. But the fact is, the Kingdom of God is not for people who complicate it. The Kingdom is one of those things that is very elusive. If we quantify it and examine it too closely, it just sort of wiggles away from us. If we try to define what the Kingdom is, or try to explain it in any kind of detail, it loses meaning. It disappears and become mirage-like.

But if we simply do what we are called to do as followers of Jesus—if we simply follow Jesus, imitate our God and love one another—the Kingdom becomes real. It becomes a reality in our very midst. And whatever separations we imagine between ourselves and God and one another, simply disappear.

This is what I love about being a follower of Jesus. I love the fact that despite all the dogmas and structures and rules the Church might bring us, following Jesus is simply that—following Jesus. It is very simple.

But it can also be very difficult, especially when we still get caught up in all the rules and complications of organized religion. And we do get caught up in those things.

Because following Jesus can be so simple, we find ourselves often frustrated. We want order. We want rules. We want systematic ways of understanding God and religion.

Simplicity sometimes scares us. Becoming childlike means depending on God instead of ourselves. Becoming childlike means shedding our independence sometimes, and we don’t like doing that.

Sometimes complication means busywork. And sometimes it simply is easier to get caught up in busywork, then to actually go out there and follow Jesus and be imitators of God and love others. . Sometimes it is easier to sit and debate the fine points of religion, then it is to go out and actually live out our faith in our lives and to worship God.

But, as Jesus shows us, when we do such things, when we become cantankerous grown-ups, that’s when the system starts breaking down. That’s when we get distracted. That’s when we get led astray from following Jesus. That is when we “grow up” and become cranky, bitter grown-ups rather than loving, wonder-filled children.

It is good to be wonder-filled children. It is good to look around us at the world and see a place in which God still breaks through to us. It is good to see that God lives and works through others.

So, let us be wonder-filled children. Let us truly be awed and amazed at what it means to follow Jesus. Let God be a source of joy in our lives. And let us love each other simply, as children love. Let us love in that wonderfully child-like way, in which our hearts simply fill up to the brim with love. Let us burn with that love in a young and vibrant way.

Being a Christian—following Jesus—means staying young and child-like always. Following Jesus is our fountain of youth, so to speak.

So let us become children for the sake of the Kingdom. And when we do, that Kingdom will flower in us like eternal youth.

18 Pentecost

September 30, 2012

Mark 9:38-50


+ Unless you’re living under a rock, you know that we are living in a very politically charged season at this moment. The elections are upon us and people are being very vocal about their political stances. And it has actually gotten quite ugly on both sides of the political spectrum, if Facebook is any kind of microcosm of the larger arguments. But, for me, my issue, more than anything else—I’m a priest after all—has been how the Church has been involved in some of these political issues.

One of our new members at St. Stephen’s, Sandy Krenz (who is not here this morning), shared this little tidbit on her Facebook page a few days ago:

“The [Roman Catholic] Archbishop of Newark just sent a pastoral letter, addressed to over 1 million Catholics in his archdiocese, demanding that Catholics who support marriage equality refrain from receiving Holy Communion."

Sigh.

I don’t even know here to begin to express my frustration and anger over this kind of thinking. People who support marriage equality should refrain from Holy Communion…l. Essentially what is being said in a comment like this is that, if you support something like marriage equality, you should refrain from receiving Christ’s loving Presence in the Eucharist.

To even begin to unpack and disassemble this thinking is more than I am capable of at this time. I just can’t do it.

But I can say this: there are moments, in my life as a Christian and a priest, when behavior such as this hits me like a ton of bricks.

In this morning’s Gospel, we find the followers of Jesus coming to him and complaining about someone—an outsider, not one of the inner circle of Jesus’ followers—who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. We don’t know who this person was—we never hear anything more about him. Possibly it was one of those many multitudes of people who were simply following Jesus around, observing all that he had done. It was probably a genuine follower of Jesus who simply had not—for whatever reasons—made it into the inner circle of Jesus’ followers.

However, the disciples do not like it. They are threatened by this person—this outsider. And because he is an outsider, they want it stopped. So, thinking he will put an end to it, they go to Jesus. You can almost hear them as they whine and complain to him about this supposedly pretentious person.

But Jesus—once again—does not do what they—or we, in that same situation—think he will do. Jesus tells them:

“Whoever is not against us is for us.”

You would think that we—the Church—would have learned from this story. You think we would have been able to hear this story and realize that, if we are all working together for the same goal—for the welcoming of all people into the Church, into that holy meal in which Jesus feeds us with his very self—then, we are all working together in Jesus’ name. But the fact is, we have not quite “got it.” When the Church acts like the Archbishop of Newark, we have seen it acting like the disciples in today’s Gospel. And we do not see it acting as Jesus wishes it to be acting.

Now, again, I need to stress that I’m talking about the Church—capital C—and I am talking the capital-C Church, I am talking about the human-run organization of the Church. As such, let’s face it, it is an imperfect structure. It has the same faults and failings of all human-run organizations—no matter how blessed it claims to be by God.

As I’ve shared with you on many occasions, I have always had this weird love-hate relationship with the organized Church. On one hand, I truly love the Church. I love serving God’s people within the structure of the Episcopal Church, in the Anglican Communion, and I love serving here at St. Stephen’s (I’ve been priest in charge here four years tomorrow). I love the Church’s traditions. I love its liturgy. My greatest love in the Church, as you all know, is the Holy Eucharist As I’ve mentioned many times here before you, I love being a priest.

And, on really good days, I am so keenly aware that the Church truly is a family. We are a family that might not always get along with each other, but when it comes right down to it, we do love each other in the end.

But I will be just as honest that, when I hear things like this news report of the Catholic Archdiocese of New Jersey, I find being a member of the Church a burden. The Church—as most of us know—can be a fickle place to be at times. It can be a place where people are more interested in rules and dogmas—in ostracizing and alienating—than a place of acceptance and love that furthers that radical Kingdom of God in our very midst. It can be a place where people are so caught up in doing what they feel is right, that they run rough-shod over people who truly need the Church and who truly long for God—for a people who crave Jesus in the food of the altar.

When I was ordained, I remember a colleague of mine—someone who knew about my love-hate relationship with the Church—saying to me that they found it amazing that I—of all people—was putting on the “uniform” of the organized Church. I remember being shocked by that statement.

For some reason I hadn’t even considered the fact that I would now be a representative of something that I wasn’t certain I wanted to represent. In the years since my ordinations, I have found that, yes, I am a representative of the Church in ways others might not be. The collar I wear instantly identifies me, and there have been many people who have come up to me, because of the collar I wear, and have made assumptions about where I must stand on certain issues in the Church. Sometimes, they are shocked to find that I don’t hold the opinions they think I should. And sometimes, people are downright offended that I don’t. Sometimes people are especially shocked to hear that I—an ordained priest—would even dare profess the hate side of my love-hate relationship with the Church.

But not being honest about it only helps perpetuate the hypocrisy the Church so often is accused of. So many people share with me how they have been hurt by the Church. No wonder, when Bishops and Archbishops and priests and lay people of many denominations say that Holy Communion should be denied to certain people for their convictions, their political beliefs, or simply for being who they are.

But, as that uniform-representative representative of the Church, I am proud to say I serve a congregation that does not do that. Here at St. Stephen’s, Holy Communion is what Holy Communion should be—a radical meal in which Jesus gives himself to us fully and completely to EVERYONE.

Now, I DO love the Church. I see the Church, at times, as making a real solid effort to be what Jesus wanted it to be. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here in the Church.

One aspect of the Church that I have always loved is the belief—and the fact— that there is room here for everyone in the Church—no matter who they are. I feel there is room for people who have differing views in the Church. Not everyone has to agree. But we all do have to make room for each other here. We cannot ignore Jesus’ words, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

All of us—no matter who we are and what we are—as long as we are struggling together for the same goal—as long as we are casting out the demons of this world from our midst in Jesus’ name, have the right to be called disciples of Jesus and have the right to feed on Jesus in Holy Communion. .

This Church that I love is a wonderful place. And I think it is a place from which everyone can benefit. Like those disciples, none of us are perfect. All of us are fractured, stupid people at times. I am a fractured, stupid person sometimes! Because we are fractured stupid people, isn’t it wonderful that we have a place to come to even when we’re fractured and stupid, a place where we are not judged, a place where we are welcomed for who and what we are.

Isn’t it incredible that, in our fractured, imperfect state, we are able to come to this altar, to feed on the Body of Jesus and to drink his Blood and to be renewed. Isn’t it great that Jesus is able to embody himself in us—us, these imperfect vessels we are?

This is the ideal of the Church. This is the place Jesus intended it be. The Jesus we encounter in Holy Communion puts all of us on common ground. The Jesus we encounter in Holy Communion makes us all equal. The Jesus we encounter in Holy Communion eliminates those fringes of society, those marginalized places and makes us all part of the inner circle.

We—all of us—are the inner circle of Jesus’ followers, no matter who we are. So let us remember, the Church is not exclusive club. The Eucharist is not an $5,000-a-plate political dinner that is meant only for those with certain views.

Following Jesus means making room for the person we might not agree with. Following Jesus means walking alongside someone whom no one else loves or cares for. Following Jesus means, as he tells us this morning, being at peace with each other. Following Jesus means loving each other—no matter who or what we are. Following Jesus means embodying his love and acceptance in all we do.

When we do that, we are the Church. When we do that, we are doing more good, than all the harm bishops and archbishops and priests and lay people can ever do. When we do that, we are embodying Jesus to those around us. And we are bearing the very Name of Christ by our very presence.

So, let us bear that holy Name. Let us embody Jesus. Let us welcome all—no matter who they are or what they are. Let us reach out in love and acceptance to all those who need, and even to those who defy us. And when we do, the Kingdom of God will come crashing into our lives and into the lives of those around us like an overwhelming flood.

Amen.

17 Pentecost

September 23, 2012 

Psalm 54

+ A few weeks ago I preached about my being an Oblate of St. Benedict. An oblate, just to refresh ourselves, is a person who promises to follow the Rule of St. Benedict in their daily lives and to pray the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer every day. For twenty years last August, I was an Oblate of Blue Cloud Abbey in Marvin, South Dakota—a Roman Catholic Benedictine Monastery. But, of course, they closed in August and I lamented the fact a couple of weeks ago in my sermon that I felt a bit aimless—I was an Oblate without a monastery.

Well, not so anymore. This past week I officially transferred my Oblation to St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, just outside St. Cloud. I feel very good about transferring my oblation there. It has been an important place to me for over twenty-five years of my life. So, life is feeling a little more like normal for me today.

As I have mentioned many times, my life as on Oblate is very important to me—both as a Christian and as a priest. And so a move like this is a momentous one in my personal life—it wasn’t an easy decision to make. Probably the hallmark of my life as an Oblate and a priest, as I mentioned last week, is my praying every day of the Daily Office—the services of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer.

Which led me last week to preach about the psalms. Now, I was a little apprehensive about preaching about the psalms. Poetry—which of course the psalms are, they’re poems—is such a fickle thing. I can say that: I’m a poet. And poetry is one of those things that people either get or don’t get. I know: I’ve heard some of your comments about my own poems, when you’ve read my books. But, I actually heard some really nice comments about last week’s sermon, and about poetry in general.

See what happens when you do things like that? You get another sermon on the psalms.

Now, today, I am going to preach on our psalm. But this isn’t one of those nice psalms we had like last week. The psalm we encounter today is one of those psalms that makes us stop and take notice. There’s a line in it that makes us stop short.

Occasionally, in the Psalms, we do come across language that we might find a bit—how shall we say—uncomfortable. Often in the Lectionary of the Church—the assigned readings from the Bible that we share each Sunday morning—some of those phrases that some people might find offensive are found bracketed. In those cases, we have the option to not use such language. The language, after all, is violent often. It is not the language good Christian people should use.

We get a peek at this language in today’s Psalm This verse is not bracketed—it’s actually fairly minor in tone compared to some of the bracketed verses in other Psalms. But for many us, as we sing it, it might give us pause.

The verse I’m speaking of is this one,

render evil to those who spy on me;
in your faithfulness destroy them.

This is not the kind of prayer we have been taught to pray as followers of Jesus. After all, as followers of Jesus, we’re taught to love and love fully and completely. We certainly weren’t taught to pray for God to destroy our enemies. We have been taught to pray for our enemies, not pray against them. None of us would ever even think of praying to God to destroy anyone.

But the fact is, although we find it hard to admit at times, we do actually think and feel this way. Even if we might not actually say it, we sometimes secretly wish the worse for those people who have wronged us in whatever way.

I like to think that, rather than this being negative or wrong, that we should, in fact, be honest about it. We sometimes get angry at people. We sometimes don’t like people. And sometimes we might just hate people. It’s a fact of life—not one we want to readily admit to, but it is there. Sometimes it is very, very hard to love our enemies. Sometimes it is probably the hardest thing in the world to pray for people who have hurt us or wronged us.

So, what do we do in those moments when we can’t pray for our enemies—when we can’t forgive? Well, most of us just simply close up. We put up a wall and we swallow that anger and we let it fester inside us. Especially those of us who come from good Scandinavian stock.

We simply aren’t the kind of people who wail and complain about our anger or our losses. I think we may tend to deny it.

But what about that anger in our relationship to God? What about that anger when it comes to following Jesus? Well, again, we probably don’t recognize our anger before God nor do we bring it before God. We, I think, look at our anger as something outside our following of Jesus.

And that is where Psalms of this sort come in. It is in those moments when we don’t bring our anger and our frustration before God, that we need those verses like the one we encounter in today’s Psalm. When we look at those poets who wrote this Psalm—when we recognize her or him as a Jew in a time of war or famine—we realize that for the poet—for the Psalmist—it was natural to bring everything before God. Everything. Not just the good stuff. Not just the nice stuff. But that bad stuff too.

And I think this is the best lesson we can learn from the Psalmist than anything else. We all have a “shadow side,” shall we say. We all have a dark side. And we need to remember that we can not hide that “shadow side” of ourselves from God. This is the self maybe no one else has ever seen—not even our spouse or partner. Maybe it is a side of ourselves we might have not even acknowledged to ourselves. It is this part of ourselves that fosters anger and pride and lust. It is this side of ourselves that may be secretly violent or mean or gossipy. Sometimes it will never make an appearance. It stays in the shadows and lingers there. Sometimes it actually does make itself known. Sometimes it comes plowing into our lives when we neither expect it nor want it. But as much we try to deny it or ignore it or hide it, the fact is; we can’t hide this dark side from God.

It’s incredible really when you think about it: that God, who knows even that shadow side of us—that side of us we might not even fully know ourselves—God who knows us even that completely still loves us and is with us. Few of us lay that shadow self before God. But the Psalmist does, in fact bring it out before God. The Psalmist wails and complains to God and lays bare that shadow side of him or herself. The Psalmist is blatantly honest before God.

The fact is: sometimes we do secretly wish bad things on our enemies. Sometimes we do wish God would render evil on those who are evil to us. Sometimes we do hope that God will completely wipe away those people who hurt us from our lives.

It is in those moments, that it is all right to pray to God in such a way. Because the fact is—as I hope we’ve all learned by now—just because we pray for it doesn’t mean God is going to grant it. God knows what to grant in prayer. And why. The important thing here is not what we are praying for. It is not important that in this Psalm we are praying for God to destroy our enemies.

It is important that, even in our anger, even in our frustration and our pain, we have come to God. We have come before God as this imperfect person. We have come to God with a long dark shadow trailing us.

I have heard people say that we shouldn’t pray these difficult passages of the Psalms because they are “bad theology” or “bad psychology.” They are neither. They are actually good theology and good psychology. Take what it is hurting you and bothering you and release it. Let it out before God. Be honest with God about these bad things. Even if your anger is directed at God for whatever reason, be honest with God. Rail and rant and rave at God in your anger. Trust me, God can take it.

But, the Psalms teach us as well that once we have done that—once we have opened ourselves completely to God—once we have revealed our shadows to God—then we must turn to God and turn away from that shadow self. See what we find in today’s Psalm after that little verse that may have caught us?

I will offer you a freewill sacrifice
and praise your name, O LORD, for it is good.

See, it is good theology and it’s good psychology. It’s good theology because we are being open and honest in our relationship with God. And it is good psychology because we not carrying around that psychological baggage that can hurt us and eventually destroy us.

Hatred and anger and pain are things that, in the long run, hurt us and destroy us. At some point, as we all know, we must grow beyond whatever anger we might have. We must not get caught in that self-destructive cycle anger can cause. We must not allow those negative feelings to make us bitter.

So, when we pray these psalms together and we come across those verses that might take by alarm, let us recognize in them what they truly are—honest prayers before God

The Anglican theologian Simon Jones, who also happens to be an Oblate of the Anglican Benedictine monastery of Elmore Abbey, writes,

“[The psalms]…give the community which prays them permission to be itself before God, a voice to express itself before God and, not least, an ear to hear the voice of God.”

Let these psalms—these lamenting, angry psalms, as well as the joyful, exultant psalms—be our voice expressing itself before God. And in the echo of those words, let us hear God speaking to us in turn. When we do, we will find ourselves in conversation with God. And, in that conversation, we will find that, even despite that shadow side of ourselves, God accepts us fully and completely for who we are.