Month: March 2018

Look Lightly at Saints

Steven WoolleyLeave a comment
Do saints have any assigned duties?  The Roman Catholic Church seems to think they do.  Not quite with the status of demigods, they nevertheless are said to be patrons, protectors and intercessors for various causes,  places and people.  Even Protestants have been known to ask St. Anthony to help them find a lost article.  I have my wife to do that for me, although there is a severe price to pay for my not seeing it in an obvious place.
Orthodox and Anglican traditions have saints, all the well known traditional ones, but also persons whose lives exhibited something especially worthwhile as evidence of Christ’s presence in their own time and place.  They’re not required to perform miracles to be recognized, and they’re recognized not canonized in the Roman sense.  They are not the same in every country, and their place on the list is not permanent.  Moreover, their sainthood is not a rank in the hierarchy of the heavenly host.  They’re simply the known among the host of unknowns.
So is it worth the trouble to ask a saint for help?  Is that idolatry?  As a pastor, I get many requests for prayer from people in need.  But that was also true when I was a lay person.  The prayers we offer for one another are powerful conduits of God’s blessing that, I think, don’t flow so much from us to God, but from God through us into the lives of others.  How is that different from asking a saint to do the same?  As Christians, is there anything wrong or odd about asking a deceased friend or loved one to pray for us, just as we might have asked them when they were alive on earth?  
If it’s OK, does the Roman Catholic Church have the only phone numbers, and only for the saints it designates?  Probably not, although I’ve met some old time Catholics who truly believe it’s the one and only legitimate representative of God’s presence on earth.  On the other hand, I’ve met a few Baptists, Adventists, and the occasional dry Methodist who has thought the same about their denominations.  We Episcopalians are more inclined to sit back in smug self confidence, enigmatically smiling in condescending tolerance.  
But what about the practice of delegating patronal authority to saints?  St. Elmo, for instance, might he be a little ticklish about having responsibility for sailors thrust upon him?  He didn’t ask for it.  As far as we know, God didn’t assign it to him.  It was all our idea.  Did he have to take the job?  I was wondering about that while reading a Brother Cadfael mystery set in 12th century Shrewsbury where the local abbey is protected by the loving oversight of St. Winifred.  Her revered reliquary sits on its own altar, and the monks trust her to look after them and the local townspeople.  They worship God, but trust Winifred to do the work.  Winifred, however, preferred her native Welsh soil, and was not actually in the reliquary.  She had never agreed to be the patron of Shrewsbury.  She was saddled with it.  Everybody in Shrewsbury believed it, and apparently that was enough to encourage her to do what she could for them.
My patron saint is Matthias, about whom absolutely nothing is known except that a role of the dice made him a disciple in place of Judas.  His brief appearance left no trace.  What am I to do, he’s the Sean Spicer of saints?  He has no reputation for doing anything for anyone, although he is said to be the patron of carpenters and alcoholics.  Where did that come from?  My wife, finder of lost things, has St. Andrew for hers.  Now that’s a saint.  One of the original twelve, Peter’s brother, someone known for bringing others to Jesus.  Is she better protected, has a more direct line to God, is that why she can find things?  One wonders.
God certainly doesn’t need a staff of saints to oversee various aspects of life, but I can understand how it came to be that we created one for him/her.  In the Middle Ages, when so much of this came into being, the feudal system and nascent nation states were understood to be structured according to divine will.  If temporal authority was divinely portioned out to kings, dukes and earls, why not spiritual authority to saints?  And since temporal authorities couldn’t be relied on to faithfully execute their duties, why not give the saints the added job of intervening when needed to keep people safe?  As long as we were at it, since so much of nature was unknown and uncontrollable, why not ask the saints to lend a hand there as well?  And so it goes.

Those centuries lie far behind, but some of what they bequeathed to us has stuck, and saintly patronage is one of them.  Most Protestants, of course, deny all of it.  Jesus is the only mediator they need between them and God.  Look only to Jesus for help, and forget this patronage stuff.  But as we know, Protestant, Catholic, and even agnostics ask each other for prayer on their behalf. They ask each other for blessings.  They ask each other for help with questions of faith.  In other words, they ask the saints for help and intercession.  They just don’t call them saints. 


If There is a Center, Can it Hold?

Steven WoolleyLeave a comment
In 1919, at the close of WWI with the unbelievable horror of European civilization torn to shreds, the Irish poet W.B. Yeats wrote a poem, “The Second Coming.”  Here’s the first stanza of the most widely read version :
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity
The text of the second stanza is in some dispute, but it’s clear that Yeats feared whatever was coming next, the second coming, would be worse than what they had just been through.  He was right, and maybe it’s not over yet.  Political events and human anxieties have generated unfavorable signs in the U.S. and elsewhere. 
In response, well meaning FB posts have declared that what the nation needs is (a return to?) Jesus, with the not so subtle demand that the coercive power of the state be used to restore a form of Christian prayer to public schools and other public gatherings.  I want to suggest another way.  Let all who claim the name Christian recommit themselves to following where Jesus has led, demonstrating their faith not only in words, but in their lives as agents of peace, healing and reconciliation, serving the needs of those most in need, condemning no one, welcoming all, and strengthening the bonds of our common humanity.  Don’t worry so much about what others do or don’t believe.  It can’t be forced, and it’s not that important.  Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and give thanks to God because of it. 
What surprises me is that many, perhaps most, of those who want the state to bring Jesus back into the public life of the nation are deeply suspicious of government, and want it to stay out of their business.  Favoring a forceful libertarian agenda for themselves, vigorously defending their right to freedom from government oversight, they show little concern for using state coercion to strip rights from others.  It sounds contradictory, but consider the contradictions between anti-abortion and stand your ground laws they tend to favor.  One would strip women of the right to make decisions about their own bodies on the grounds that embryonic human life is more sacred than theirs.  The other preserves the right to kill anyone who vaguely poses a perceived danger to one’s self.  Consider another contradiction: the demand, in the name of freedom, for enforced adherence to imaginary fifty year old social standards of morality is dependent on and defensive of authoritarian political leaders whose immorality and criminality appear to have no limits.  How can this be?
A part of it may be that the remembered social and economic stability of times decades past, anchored as they were in established institutions that could be relied on to function in predictable ways, is a loss too great to bear.  That those remembered times did not really exist is irrelevant: they are remembered as if they had.  Living, as they believe they do, in a time when nothing seems established, and no institution can be relied upon to function with predictability, they long for the security of a time that never was.  In the name of preserving liberty, they’re willing to lose their freedom to get it.  It may be what Yeats anticipated, and what, indeed, came to pass.
The fearful anxiety generated by a comforting remembrance of the past, a present one doesn’t understand and can’t control, and a future that lacks all predictability, can be overwhelming to body, mind and soul.  Years ago, I saw a variation of the intense desire for social stability when doing a demographic study of the neighborhood served by the church I worked for on the Upper East Side of New York City.  Looking at what were then young adults in their 20s and 30s, we found an overwhelming hunger to be able to stand on something that would not keep moving under their feet.   Technology, even then, was changing too fast to keep up with; job demands kept changing, and job security was non existent; social relationships for young singles were competitive, with temporary winners and permanent losers; young marrieds discovered the cost of starting a family drained resources from whatever dream of material success they harbored.  Even the church couldn’t be relied on.  Either it was the fortified redoubt of stodgy elders, or it was changing as fast as every other institution, with nothing of permanent value to impart.  
The point is, the desire for stability and predictability is deeply rooted in us all.  It may be one reason why some people are attracted to churches, or religions, that promise unassailable, incontrovertible truth housed in institutions that appear to change very slowly, or not at all.  In my own community there appears to be an ebb and flow between the local (conservative) Roman Catholic and evangelical churches.  People unhappy with one, go to the other.  Each asserts they are the fount of unchangeable truth, and that, rather than theology, is the essential attraction.  The occasional syphoning from more progressive congregations are of people I presume to be skittish about all the changes they see about them, and want a place that adheres to old time social values, however unrelated they may be to the gospel. 
On the other hand, for many it means giving up on religion altogether.  Whatever the Church is, whatever Christianity is, whatever religion is, it has no verifiable truth to offer, no solid place to stand, and by it conditions of life are unaffected one way or the other.  So why bother?
It is in the midst of this that the siren voice of a secular leader who cries out “I alone can fix it,” may be worth a try.  At least it’s different.  Maybe the firm hand of authority will calm things down, make things more predictable again.  Paraphrasing one of my strongly libertarian friends, he says he’s tired of two handed leaders who keep saying “on the one hand this, but on the other hand that.”  He wants a one handed leader who will say one thing and do it with authority.  Most of all, he wants his right to live free of government interference guaranteed by the coercive power of government to make it be so.  It can’t happen as he would like.  What will become of our country is not yet clear.  There is well publicized movement away from right wing libertarian populism that has been sliding dangerously toward authoritarian rule.  But it remains to be seen whether there is enough cohesion in interests favoring classical liberal values to restore a reasonably stable government of center right, center left competition.  

Can the center hold?  I’ll end where I began.  The U.S. and its politics is not at the center.  Neither are anxieties about unpredictability, changing social values, nostalgia for a time that never was.  Forget about whether the nation needs Jesus, it’s Christians who need Jesus.  Don’t worry about what others do or don’t believe.  For us, it’s God, as we know God in Christ Jesus, who is the center, not of our time or place, but of all times and places.  In the vortex of authoritarian rule, civil war, domestic injustices, and an unpredictable future, it is Christus Rex/Christus Victor who proclaims the center that holds.  It’s what Holy Week and Easter are all about.  By all means believe, but believing has value only if one follows where he has led, and that means becoming agents of God’s healing grace, even in the midst of political chaos.  It means boldly opposing forces of injustice and oppression, while vigorously strengthening the bonds of our common humanity, advocating civil law that recognizes and protects them.  It means being political.   

Boom, Bust, Bubble, Burst & the Ten Commandments

Steven WoolleyLeave a comment
Several years ago I wrote a couple of articles about why the economy’s long, slow, steady growth during the Obama era was good for the nation.  It established a strong foundation for economic prosperity less prone to the volatility of boom and bust, bubble and burst.  It turns out I was naive.   
People, it seems, like booms and bubbles.  Maybe it’s the same psychology that makes casinos popular and profitable.  The fantasy of making it big, the thrilling headlines about those who have, the heady optimism that one might ride it up and never come down, because busts and bursts are far off and may never happen.  What a high!  Unlike street drugs, it’s not only legal, it’s enthusiastically endorsed by politicians, stock brokers, and the guy next door.
When the boom busts, the bubble bursts, as they must, it seems that almost everyone is surprised, shocked.  Why didn’t anyone tell us this was going to happen?  Why didn’t we get advance warning, something like a severe weather alert, but for the market?  Most important, whose fault is it?  It must be somebody’s fault; the fed, the president, Wall Street, my financial advisor, the guy next door.  The previous administration is always a safe bet.   People who pride themselves on the self responsibility of rugged individualism leap every which way to discover where, other than in their own ignorance and greed, the fault lies.  
It remains to be seen if we are in such a boom and bubble cycle now, though my Magic 8 Ball says the signs are favorable.  The current president seems fixated on the stock market rather than the economy.  News media headlines celebrate the acceleration of economic growth as an improvement over the previous eight years of slow, steady growth.  Giant corporations and billionaires get celebrity coverage over the deals they make.  Advertisements entice us to not lose out, but get our piece of it.  News of extraordinary prosperity, never quite ours, but always nearby, dangle like bait before schools of hungry fish.  There are warning signs.  Financially savvy news organizations report on them every day, but nobody knows how to time the market, so nobody knows exactly when or what will happen.
It’s a curious thing that the greater part of the population, with little in savings, and not much stake in the market, get right into it along with investors.  Anticipating better paying jobs with more opportunity, they take on more debt, increase spending, and ride the good times express.  Why shouldn’t they?  Haven’t they been told the good times are here?  As one person has been known to say: It’s America first, and we’re making America great again.  If that’s not enough, several popular religious leaders have generated huge followings by promising that the right kind of faith coupled with the right kind of prayer results in God’s personal favor bringing prosperity into each believer’s life. 
Well, there you go, I’ve brought God into it.  As long as he’s here, those who attend a liturgical church this Sunday, March 4, are going to hear the Ten Commandments (Exodus version) as the first lesson.  Many of us know the first four, given the most intensive coverage by the writers, are all about there being only one God, and that one is to worship no other god.  It’s good in theory but, you know, when the god of booms and bubbles promises good times, it might be a good idea to hedge your bets.  OK, that might be a little touchy, so let’s go on to the other six that are laid out in short pithy sentences that I will mangle for your benefit.
Honor the generations that have bequeathed to us the best of all they had, including the hard lessons of what they did not do well.  Learn from them that you may bequeath a better world to those that follow.
Don’t murder others, in whole or in part.  The body and soul can be killed a bit at a time by cruelty, oppression, and injustice.  Don’t do it.
Don’t undermine the integrity of things or relationships.  Not just spouses, but all relationships, and all things you offer on which others depend.
Don’t acquire, by whatever means, what you have no moral right to acquire.  It means more than the usual understanding of what it means not to steal.
Knock off lying, false testimony, hurtful gossip, and those little shadings of truth used to manipulate others.
Greed and envy lead only to trouble.  Learn to be content, which means learn to not let what others have get under your skin.

Pay attention to these.  Do your best to live into them, always striving to improve.  When you fail, get up and start again.  Do that, and the gods of booms and bubbles will begin to fade away, not without a fight, but the real power lies in these Ten Commandments.