Eves Dropping

Late yesterday evening, I received an e-mail from Christopher, a deep-thinking theologian and friend, asking for reflections from those of us in the church who have children. He was interested in our response to a curious post, "on what is and what is possible" over at Thomas's Journal, suggesting that children ought to be better disciplined to attend late Christmas Eve services in the name of teaching them that Christianity "costs" something. Christopher's response is here.

Christopher generously urged me to post my thoughts, so I posted them to the thread under the original post, and here they are, in a more edited and expanded form:

Who is to pay the "cost" of attending late-night masses: the children who get bored and difficult, or the parents who force them to sit still through the midnight service?

While I tend to agree with Brother Tom's general idea (Christianity costs something) I disagree about where he directs this concern, particularly at children.

My son this year gave up two Sunday early afternoons to practice being a shepherd for our 4 p.m. Christmas Eve pageant. He learned more about the Christmas story and the joy and preparation that comes with it, I am sure, with other children, re-telling the story, and then sharing in Eucharist, than in only sitting. . . fatigued. . through a much later and less frenetic (for a four-year-old) Christmas Eve service.

This past Sunday, the "Low Sunday" after Christmas no less, a neighbor who recently began coming with her two children was smiling with delight following our 10 a.m. worship. She had e-mailed me about halfway through Advent asking if she might bring her children to join in the pageant rehearsals, already under way. I said, "Of course!" "

They've been back every regular worship since.

This morning, her 8-year-old showed me a drawing of people in worship with, "yay church!" written all over it. He was beaming ear to ear. I was stunned, as this was particularly surprising in a town, county, and region of the country that is known for its militant secularism.

He said he insists on coming every week now. His mother nodded and admitted her children are the driving reason she makes provision each Sunday for church.

I don't think it's always true that adults need to teach children about sacrificing to attend church. Quite the reverse may well also be true - perhaps more so!

More broadly, I am not entirely sure "cost" is appropriate as a theological premise or a spiritual discipline, particularly when it comes to joining actively in the worship and mission of the Body of Christ. I think it might be more compelling to argue that God's desire is that we give up mammon for grace, "bread and circuses" for the true bread which came down from heaven -- not because the "sacrifice" builds "character" -- but because the latter truly nourishes us and our neighbors as people made in the image of the Divine. Mammon, constructed as it can be upon violence and greed more often will leave us empty and alone, especially if it is central in our lives.

While I eschew church consumerism, if our people are bored or feel truly unfed or malnourished by "church," that is partly our responsibility as leaders. Grace is not being served. Uninspired, irrelevant, insipid, or age-inappropriate liturgy can be deadly to the spirit of the People of God. We do well to take this seriously; we do worse to wag our fingers when people, most of all our children, express boredom at it. I've written more on this in a slightly different context.

At Church of Our Saviour, we mix it up with Godly Play, a new fourth- and fifth- grade program called "Cloud of Witnesses," designed in large part by our Associate Rector, Este Gardner Cantor, a dynamic Middle School program, a Youth Group, and Adult forums, as well as our regular Rite I, Rite II, and Rite Something liturgies.

If people (from infants to adults) attend regularly, they get exposure to just about everything. Regardless of where they most feel at home worshipping and encountering God in our community, they hear proclaimed the transformative Gospel of Christ with an authentic passion. I believe that is what is key here, far and away from forcing tired children to sit still on one of the most exciting nights of the year.

The Tapestry of a Holy Night

A Sermon for Christmas, 2007

Audio Available

Wherever I go
Far away and anywhere

Time after time you always shine
through dark of night calling after me

And wherever I climb
Far away and anywhere

You raise me high beyond the sky
through stormy night lifting me above

Venite Spiritu et emitte caelitus
Venite Spiritu et emitte caelitus
Venite Spiritu Venite Spiritus

Whenever I cry
Far away and anywhere

You hear me call when shadows fall
your light of hope showing me the way*

What is it that makes this night holy? Is it the beauty of our music and the way it resonates deeply with memory, pulling at those deep places in the soul? For me it is the way things shimmer, almost imperceptibly, but if we stop and look, pause and listen, we notice something sparkles. We turn on the Christmas lights at night, after all, and light the candles in the darkness as the solstice arrives.

The tapestry of life is laid open in the darkness. Time seems to suspend and then unroll like a taut spring releasing its tensions. We see our lives open and bare in profoundly sad and profoundly joyous ways. Some sort of lift happens inside, and we relate to strange – foreign even – stories about shepherds, angels, a peasant family, and a tiny child.

Luke’s Gospel tonight opens with an Emperor – Augustus. Like all great powers of this world, the Emperor speaks and the world responds. Joseph and Mary, no-names among a beleaguered and impoverished people, are swept up in this great response, Bethlehem is overflowing with visitors so there is no room at the inn, the great wave of military, economic, and legal power seems to overwhelm this tiny, insignificant family.

And yet, the Emperor is now forgotten, a temporal power who must have been resplendent in his day but who will pass into obscurity. We still toss his name around in our calendar, but how many of us recall the deeds of Augustus on a regular basis? How many of us can imagine his visage or encounter it on a daily basis? How many of us can name and date the crowning achievement of his reign, his most clever political machination? Even the empire he expanded and established is gone, lost to the winds of history and the inevitable passing of one human hubris to another. Even the peoples whose ancestors he subjugated have forgotten his power, his influence. “The yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. . .” God has broken them utterly with the grind of time and an indomitable alternative for the human spirit – one that can be denied, but never eliminated.

No, this night, we know and say more about Mary, Joseph, and this little baby born in a backward village in ancient Judea than Caesar Augustus. Yes, you could argue I get paid to say that, but – well there’s more to it than that, surely! For you are all here tonight to recall the old story, perhaps hear it more deeply, revel in the music it has inspired, share it with your children perhaps, sing something that feels more a part of us than just about anything in our transient and fickle culture.

For the early Christian community, a small, pilgrim flock of people from every walk of life, there was something remarkable they recognized about Jesus. They called him “Christ,” “Messiah,” “Son of God.” They mined their sacred words for descriptions of him: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Even beyond their familiar scriptures, they saw in him the entire cosmos, the meaning of the human family, the essence of what it meant to have a purpose of compassionate living, a true holiness rooted in honest relationship, a thread running from the human heart directly into the bedrock of Creation, from our flesh, feelings, and thoughts rooted all of nature and whatever was behind it. They saw in him a path beyond death, a renewal of the entire way of being human, a self-giving love that dared real courage and integrity that seemed to come from beyond the self. And so they assigned him an almost legendary story of God come among us – legendary not because it is history or a-historical, but legendary because it describes something about a God beyond time who takes the whole universe and more and brings it down into a tiny, fragile child. And in doing so articulates an intimate connection between the divine and every galaxy, every planet, every person, every tiniest particle.

Christmas Eve is not about sentimentality, no matter how cynical our age becomes, no matter how digital or commoditized. We reckon something holy to this night, because this night calls something holy forth in each of us, even with all the stresses of this time of year. Many of us pause, whether with exhaustion or breathless anticipation, or both, on the edge of a hope that we can barely put into words.

It is that notion that there is a Love that watches over our lives, no matter how stained, imperfect, and strange they become. God calls after us, wherever we go. A love that molds the stardust into forms like us, so that we might gather in praise to something. . . Someone even, who defies comprehension. Love that seems to transcend death, as we are reminded by, at very least, our memories this time of year of those who have come before: holiday seasons long past, and memories of loved ones no longer with us – memories sometimes so palpable we’d swear they’re still with us. And we try to recreate that warmth we have known for ourselves, our own children, families, and friends.

A Child, tender, and fragile, is the light shining in the darkness. A light that cannot be overcome. The powerful can only wonder at powerlessness raised up to divine status. The arrogance of emperors, kings and princes, governors and elites, is suddenly seen for what it is in this single, solitary light.

A light, a Child who is the apple of Mary’s eye, as she gazes in wonder at the miraculous like any mother does, like any parent who gazes into a newborn’s eyes for the first time, a profound connection of flesh to flesh, bone to bone, an emotional bond that can be stretched and warped, but never quite completely severed.

Like God’s relationship with us. For no matter where we run, we encounter this holiness in our lives. We might shrink from it or ignore it, but it haunts us, and if we let it, it remakes us. For we were all like this little child at one time, tender, and fragile.

And the message for us this night is unequivocal: we are precious in God’s eyes. For God to embrace us in all of our imperfect and jumbled up genetics, our awkward limbs and oversized heads, our existential conflicts, our potential for acts of greatness as well as cowardice and even wickedness. . . well, what more loving act could God have than to become one of us? To remind us in our existential darkness that we are not alone. That we belong to God and one another, just as Jesus belongs to God and to Mary beyond words, to Joseph, too, who stands by watching in awe.

To the shepherds, as well, who are sweaty and smelly, outcasts as we are all outcasts somewhere, sweaty and smelly as we sometimes are, too. We are remarked upon by angels, watched over by a strange sense that we cannot quite shake: that we matter. We matter to Someone, somewhere, somehow, even beyond death.

Now, isn’t that worth singing about, gathering for, hoping for this time of year. . .and perhaps anytime?

For we are a Christmas people, re-born this time of year for renewal. . .that we may not pass without remark, no matter how short or long life lasts.

Wherever I go
Far away and anywhere

Time after time you always shine
through dark of night calling after me

And wherever I climb
Far away and anywhere

You raise me high beyond the sky
through stormy night lifting me above

Venite Spiritu et emitte caelitus
Venite Spiritu et emitte caelitus
Venite Spiritu Venite Spiritus

Whenever I cry
Far away and anywhere

You hear me call when shadows fall
your light of hope showing me the way*

Amen.


_______________________
* Libera: Far Away

A New Generation of Hope

Jasper Goldberg, a senior at Tam High School and a faithful member of the parish where I serve, has penned a wonderful and bold essay, which was posted over at Bishop Marc's blog.

An excerpt:

We see in the stories of Jesus’ ministries to the prisoners, the lepers and the outcasts of society in his day a message that no one is below the love of God. We are all God’s children, and we know that what we do unto the least of the people of God, we do unto God. Every time that we allow an injustice to be perpetrated against a gay man or a lesbian woman, the marginalized of today’s world, we allow the attacker to harm our beloved God, and in our negligence we are guilty. It is not enough to stand on the sidelines, and hope that someday things will be better. We must make our stand for those that society considers “outcasts” if we are to be worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The future of the Church is in good hands.

Read the rest.

Under Orders

The fray over the late decision of the Diocese of San Joaquin and their (erstwhile?) bishop, John-David Schofield, speaks largely for itself. I commend Tobias Haller's pithy essay as a suitable summary.

Where I have been drawn to reflect involves a very simple question: To whom are John-David Schofield and his clergy now accountable?

It might be easy to say, especially amongst our self-proclaimed reasserter sisters and brothers, Jesus Christ, of course! To me that is a given for anyone who embraces the title "Christian."

But that's not what I mean by accountability. I mean rather accountability in community. To illustrate, if it comes down to a choice between my faith in Jesus Christ and my accountability as an ordained priest to the Church I serve, I renounce my orders in that Church. Pure and simple.

In this way, honor has been served to a greater degree by those who cannot abide the recent decisions of The Episcopal Church and have therefore renounced their orders. Honor has also been served by those who disagree with the decisions of the greater Church but remain in communion, that is, in community, submitting to a level of mutual accountability that is honorable in at least two ways: to the integrity of their own theological positions and beliefs, and to the integrity of the Body of Christ -- the Church.

Do you disagree? Welcome to community.

John-David Schofield is one, but by no means the only bishop who seems to want to have it both ways: to withdraw and impugn the integrity of the Church to whom he has given vows of discipline, while at the same time not be held accountable to it.

This is a fundamental lesson about being "under orders," or taking vows. In the language of covenanted relationship it is the potentially fruitful agreement that engages conflict honestly while keeping the convenience of withdrawal and the extremes of divorce, abuse, and violence all off the table.

When John-David and a number of other bishops at the center of the current conflict withdrew from the House of Bishops, they violated the spirit, if not the letter, of their vows. Every clergy person makes a commitment to show up and be counted in a collegial body of shared ministry and leadership: oversight most particularly for bishops, pastoral duties particularly for priests, servanthood particularly for deacons -- and all three to some extent shared between these orders and among the laity. Our canons, discipline, and tradition make these relationships mutually, and to some degree, hierarchically accountable. We are all under orders, acknowledging the authority of another in our decision-making, even when we don't like it.

If for no other reason, this structure -- this polity -- is provided so that we do not assume the arrogance of conflating our views with those of God.

Withdrawing and retaining the privileges and powers of office amounts therefore to hubris, plain and simple. This point about the case of San Joaquin was made to me this past Sunday by none other than a Roman Catholic priest.

Now that San Joaquin has done the impossible and seceded from The Episcopal Church, will it endeavor to bring its canonical structure in line with that of the Southern Cone, its protector apparent? And to whom is John-David Schofield accountable in the event his clergy, parishes, or missions wish to make appeals about his leadership or decisions? What is to stop him from suspending the canons of his own diocese as he sees fit? And if it is a divine gift of benevolence that prevents him from doing so, what will prevent his inevitable successor from wielding autocratic power over a "diocese" that has apparently decided to chart its own course -- a course divorced from any real accountability to a provincial body?

These questions are probably more theoretical than practical. Deposition and litigation are the next steps in this train wreck, and the process is likely already under way. They may well make this whole reflection moot. I pray that may be sooner rather than later.

Even so, many of us seek ways to pastorally support the people of the congregations who have decided to remain part of The Episcopal Church. It is an ugly time now, and potentially uglier ahead.

But, keeping to the context of this essay, I want to know to whom John-David Schofield and the clergy who have followed him are most beholden at present. If indeed, as he wrote in his latest missive to the Presiding Bishop, he and his diocese can choose to return to The Episcopal Church if we "repent" to his satisfaction, what sort of authority does Presiding Bishop Venables (their new "Father in God") or the governance of the Southern Cone Province really wield in John-David's mind?

In short, to whom amongst the imperfect temporal powers of the Anglican Communion, however divinely inspired, is John-David truly accountable?