Month: January 2010

Bathed in God’s Blessings

Steven Woolley4 Comments
A portion of the prayers for Sunday ask God that we might receive such a blessing through our worship that the week ahead might be spent in God’s favor.  That raises some interesting questions.  If such a wonderful blessing is to be received through worship, what is the nature of that worship?  For that matter, what exactly is worship?  Common wisdom in Protestant thinking heavily influenced by Calvin holds that nothing we have done, are doing, or ever will do can be ‘good’ in God’s sight, so is it even possible to spend a week in God’s favor?  What would such a week be like?  How would it be different from other weeks you and I have experienced?  
For me, worship means to participate with God in the love of God that can surround and fill us.  The Sunday rituals of the Episcopal Church are holy vessels that can carry me, in the company of others, into communion with God in Christ Jesus leading to the intimacy of sharing with Christ in the Holy Communion of the bread and wine in which he is truly present.  I said can, not will, because I’m not always fully and intentionally present to all that God offers through worship.  I let little inconveniences and minor distractions get in the way.  Fortunately, God is fully present even when I am not, and that makes a difference.  But there remains one more obstacle to worship.  The moment our rituals cease to be holy vessels carrying us into communion with God, the moment that they become the object of worship, we have fallen into idolatry, and that can sometimes be an easy thing to do.  
But moving on; when Peter and the other disciples wondered about the obvious impossibility of living up to God’s standards, Jesus reminded them that through God all things were possible.  Bathed in God’s blessings, and contrary to popular Calvinism, I believe it is entirely possible to act in such a way as to spend time in God’s favor, and that it is engagement in worship through which such bathing may come.  I believe that I have been blessed to spend parts of some weeks in God’s favor: sometimes only a few moments, occasionally an hour or two.  I have yet to discover what it would be like to spend an entire week in God’s favor.  If I ever do I imagine that I will be so transformed that not a soul will recognize me.  Indeed, I may not recognize myself, and that’s a bit scary.  Our various flaws, insecurities, delusions and eccentricities give us more than a little of our character and identity.  Living an entire week in the fulness of God’s love by loving every single other creature as Christ has loved them would do some serious damage to my customary and recognizable behavior.  Think about it.  May you be bathed in God’s blessings this week and experience what it is to spend time in God’s favor.

Today is the Sabbath. Are You Resting?

Steven Woolley4 Comments
Sabbath rest.  We are commanded to remember the Sabbath and keep in holy.  What day is the Sabbath?  Around here that is a serious question.  With a local Seventh Day Adventist college we are heavily populated by SDA churches of all sizes and types.  Saturday is the only acceptable day for worship for them, it is the Sabbath.  A few old time Adventists are so convinced of the rightness of their day that they are equally convinced that we Sunday people are doomed to hell.  On the other hand, most Christian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries had no problem conflating the words Sunday, Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.  All one and the same as far as they were concerned.  Logically minded people like to stir the pot by reminding us that Saturday or Sunday are mere conventions for certain days assigned to the calendar of the Common Era, and given the many changes in the western calendar over the years, who knows when the real Sabbath might have been?  Wading in are certain biblical scholars contending that the original Sabbath was a bimonthly not weekly event, which is not what it says in Genesis but who cares.
God must wonder how we can get so screwed up over one simple question.  Oddly enough, our Anglican tradition agrees, in part, with the Adventists.  Saturday, convention or not, is the Sabbath and is to be a day of rest in preparation for the celebration on Sunday, the Lord’s Day.  Of course that is not to say that we actually rest on Saturday to prepare for celebratory worship on Sunday, but that’s another story.  The point is that Sabbath rest is important for our spiritual, emotional and physical well being as human beings.  I’m not convinced that God cares very much which day out of seven is devoted to Sabbath rest, but one should be.  I don’t remember ever taking a real Sabbath rest during my secular working days.  I don’t recall ever giving it any thought at all.  During my ordained working days I tried to make Friday my Sabbath but with marginal success.  Now I’m retired and Sabbath should come easy, but it doesn’t.  
I’m on a committee that is grappling with how to improve the spiritual dimensions of healing in our local Adventist hospital.  A good question was brought to the table at our last meeting.  How can we make Sabbath rest a part of each patient’s experience while they are here?  I’ve been a patient (too many times for my taste).  Lots of things happen to patients.  Probing, sticking, moving, testing, feeding, visiting, IVs and drugs, half stoned semi-awareness, noisy halls, loud talking, unanswered calls for nursing help, boredom, restless sleep.  It’s quite a buffet, and Sabbath rest would be a delightful and healing addition.
I wonder how Sabbath rest could be introduced into other venues of ordinary life?  I wonder how Sabbath rest could become a treasured part of our weekly lives?  God commanded the Sabbath not because God needed it, but because we need it.  I wonder if we shouldn’t take God more seriously on this one.   Today is the Sabbath.  I’ve got coffee with a friend, dry cleaning to drop off and pick up, a stop at the pharmacy and a funeral to attend, then I’ll rest.  How about you? 

Walking in the Way of the Cross

Steven Woolley2 Comments
My morning prayers are said while sitting in the chair in my study.  On the wall opposite is a treasured crucifix.  The image of Christ’s body hangs as if near death.  It is the cross of Good Friday.  Above to the left is a beautiful flowered Easter cross symbolic of the resurrection.  Underneath it are two icons.  One is St. Antony of the Desert who spent a good part of his life fighting his own demons until he came to the place of life and peace.  In the maturity of his old age and deep wisdom he helped guide the early church.  The other is St. Stephen whose lack of wisdom and youthful indiscretion led to his early martyrdom, and yet he has inspired generations of those who would follow Jesus.  Nearby is a black and white photograph of a sheet appearing to lift itself high into the air so that it can come down on a bed for a homeless person.  Behind it on the wall is the image of a backlit cross.  Hidden in the shadows is the hand of the man making that bed, a New York executive who will sleep along side the homeless that night, as he did each week.  A portion of the customary Friday meditation asks us to consider that we might find walking in the way of the cross to be none other than the way of life and peace.  So the question is, what is the way of the cross?
You and I have both heard that put upon sigh followed by a soulful “I guess it’s the cross I have to bear.”  In my experience that “cross” has most often meant some unpleasant burden or personal thorn to be endured, often with the hope of earning a sympathetic hearing and appropriate recognition of one’s patient holiness.  Sometimes it has been a more serious confession of living in conditions of abuse but under the illusion that it must somehow be God’s will.   I do not believe that these are the ways of the cross upon which we are to meditate.
Jesus’ own cross was not just the tree upon which he was crucified, but the whole of his redeeming work that led to it and through it to the grave and resurrection.  In other words, it was the whole of the work he was given to do.  To pick up our own crosses and follow him is not to find our way toward crucifixion, nor is it to label some petty irritant as a holy cross, nor is it to endure abuse and oppression as if that could be pleasing to God.  Walking in the way of the cross is to live intentionally as a disciple of Jesus through the way you and I treat each other and ourselves, and in doing whatever work is at hand as followers of Christ.  That intentionality is not a particularly easy way to live.  It requires vigilance, perseverance and a commitment to the basic principles that Jesus taught by his own word and example. 
In my tradition we try to illuminate what that means through our baptismal covenant that asks us to, with God’s help: continue in the apostles teaching, participate in communal worship, partake of the Sacrament, resist evil, repent and return to the Lord when we foul up, proclaim by the word and example of our own lives the Good News of God in Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.  Those are high standards and not easy to live up to, but for me they define the way of the cross and it is none other than the way of life and peace. 
It is a worthy meditation for Fridays. 

Always Walking in God’s Sight

Steven Woolley2 Comments
A collect normally used for the Morning Office on Thursdays asks God to help us remember that we are always walking in God’s sight.  I wonder what that would be like, to remember, never forget, be continually mindful that we are always walking in God’s sight?  Now and then I hear someone say that Jesus is their constant companion and, frankly, I don’t believe it.  My guess is that most of us, even those of us who are diligent about daily meditation and prayer, seldom give God a second thought as we go about our daily business.  
I imagine that constant remembrance that we are always walking in God’s sight could have dramatically different effects on different people depending, in part, on what they have been taught and come to believe about God.  More than a few Christians have been raised with a constant reminder that they are living on the dangerous edge of hell, ready to be toppled in by a wrathful God whose (abounding and steadfast) love for them can be accessed only through a confession of faith in Jesus Christ and subsequent amendment of life.  In counseling with some of them I’ve become aware of how scared they are of God and how frightening it is for them to think that they are always in God’s sight.  It conjures up images of certain doom no matter how often they hear the good news of Christ’s redeeming love. 
For others, the idea of always walking in God’s sight is an oxymoron since their understanding of God has him somewhere up there sitting on his throne in another world and not paying all that much attention to us.  Of course, all that changes in moments of desperate need.  Then it’s not so much a case of wanting to be in God’s sight so much as it is wanting God to be in their sights.  None of that belies  prayers offered up on a regular basis to lesser deities for boons such as a convenient parking spot, well sunk putt, or a touchdown for one’s favorite team.  
But let’s set all that aside and assume a reasonably healthy relationship with God.  What then would it mean to remember that we are always walking in God’s sigh?  How might that affect my behavior and yours?  Perhaps I would be more patient, less rude, more willing to take a risk on behalf of another’s need, more observant of and thankful for the many blessings that flow with abundance into my world.  Maybe I would not be so anxious about the vagaries of life, inconsequential deadlines or the discomfort of unimportant things out of place.  Perhaps I would become more confident of God’s patience with my many flaws and shortcomings, and his capacity to love me in spite of them.  Maybe I would become less egocentric and more willing to take an appropriate place in the company of all human beings, especially those who can so easily bug me and are always somewhere in my consciousness.  What would it be like for you?
Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in or sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Gunnin’ for Security

Steven Woolley5 Comments
There’s a fellow at the Y who often uses a treadmill in front of the one I use.  His favorite  tee shirt announces that the Second Amendment was the nation’s first homeland security plan.  I’m not sure what an amendment adopted in 1791 has to do with homeland security then, now or in between.  I do know that a significant number of persons believe that the more guns the better in order for the good people to defend themselves against the bad people.  It just seems to me that more than a few of the good people turn out to be a bit hot tempered, trigger happy and actively looking for bad people such as ex bosses, cheating wives, nasty coworkers, rude drivers and government officials they don’t like.  I fail to understand their paranoia about such common sense regulations as registering guns and licensing those who carry weapons on a regular basis.  We register and license all manner of goods and services to enhance the public welfare, and most people, except extreme libertarians, rationally agree that society is safer and more pleasant as a result.  However, my greater concern is one I’ve written on before, and that is the obsession with one small part of the Constitution that appears to have become an idol of worship whose followers are not only disinterested in the rest of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court decisions that define it, but are enthusiastic about denigrating it.  For me, the best thing for homeland security is a well educated citizenry actively engaged in the public debate.  What seems to be taking center stage these days is a ranting gang of Luddites providing very scary political entertainment, with the usual cast of violent extremists trying to take advantage of it.  The strength of our democratic system is that it guarantees freedom of speech for the Klan, pro-Nazi America Firsters, Joe McCarthy, George Lincoln Rockwell, Earl Browder, Stokely Carmichael and the like.  So far it has also had the resilience to endure and prosper without incurring too much damage from them.  Let’s hope that we continue to have that kind of strength and resilience. 

Atheists on Parade

Steven Woolley2 Comments
I’ve been in an interesting e-mail conversation with Brad, who commented on one of my posts quite a few weeks ago.  Brad is an atheist for whom the Church and Christianity stand for most of the things gone wrong in society.  That’s in part because the Church is phony, a bunch of self serving or deluded hypocrites, and God is either a handy gimmick or a figment of their imagination.  Those are not the words he used but the meaning he imparted to them.  It has brought to mind my experience with atheists.  Not the one’s writing popular books these days but real people I’ve known.
I’ve always been a bit suspicious that there are no genuine atheists because they all seem to fall into one camp or another that make quite a bit of religious sense.  The most common are those who don’t believe in a god that I don’t believe in either.  That god is branded by characteristics that range from bumbling incompetency to sadistic cruelty.  I agree: that god does not exist.  
Next on my list are those who disbelieve because it’s not a question they ever considered with any seriousness.  If they ever did think much about God or religion, they do so no longer.  God and religion are mere abstractions that may briefly intrude in their lives now and then through the news but are less important to them than the color of their next car.  That’s not real atheism.  It’s just spiritual laziness. 
Of greater concern are those who acknowledge God but trivialize him by their words and deeds.  Absent minded cursing, baptism as little more than a ritualized baby bath, using congregations as social clubs, and daily behavior that belies the way of Christ give Christianity a well deserved bad name.  More than a little of that is another form of spiritual laziness, but the lazy have an evil twin.  My friend Bruno uses the term Christianists, by which I think he means those who take on the name of Christian but use it for their own selfish ways and purposes.  They are the ones who have truly created a god in their own image. 
They have a less evil cousin who is spiritual but not religious.  I have no idea what that means, but it seems to be associated with following whatever religiousy feeling breezes through, or the illusion that eighteen holes of golf is a form of worship. 
Finally there are those who think of God all the time.  They deny the existence of God, but that non-existence is one of greatest realities in their lives.  They are fierce in their arguing with God that he does not exist or, if he does, he’s really botched the job.  God consumes their thoughts.  They will wade into the fight for any reason with anyone.  I think God must have considerable respect for those who refuse to disregard God, trivialize God or excuse Godless human behavior.  They would never want to admit it, but in many ways they are contemporaries of Job.  I don’t think they will be surprised on that day when they come face-to-face with the one in whom they don’t believe.   He’s been too close to them, too much an intimate part of their lives for them to be surprised.  
If I am there on that day, I expect one of them, maybe Brad, to turn on me with a triumphant smirk exclaiming “I told you God is not a he.”  To which I will respond, “Yep, but I needed a pronoun and that’s one I’m comfortable with.”