Remembering Rachel

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

A few months ago, my teenaged daughter asked if she coud go urban exploring. Of course, I said no. Acknowledging that it sounded intriguing and exciting and that I could certainly see the artistic possibilities, I pointed out that it is still my duty as a parent to protect my baby girl. I proffered such perils as:
Disintegrating floorboards and structurally suspect staircases;
Rabid bats and feral rats (she has a tame one who is cute; doesn’t need to meet the cousins);
Trespassing code violations and their consequences;
Dangerously discarded hypodermic needles, broken glass and tetanus-laden rusty nails.
What I didn’t tell her is that while her dad and I were both still living in our separate student-style houses in our college town, a young man killed his girlfriend and hid her body under the floorboards of her own quiet home, right around the corner from my baby’s father’s digs. It left us with a certain suspicion of empty buildings, not to mention over-possessive partners.
In the months that have followed, she has learnt the horrors that can be found not only in abandoned buildings but in abandoned lives. She hasn’t asked again to go urban exploring. She has expressed her outrage at a culture that winks at the abuse of women under the cover of “domestic disputes.” She has wondered at the evil that can hide in the long grass. She has learned to feel more vulnerable than she did when she made that first request, and that breaks my heart.
I wish that I could tell her that the rats are the worst she has to fear. I hope she will live her life as though they are; there is much more joy in believing the best of people.
Unfortunately, as I have never forgotten Rachel found under the floorboards, I know that the stories she has lived through will not fade without any trace.
That is why, although I do not know the women who were found, those dead and those living, in those infamous events of the past few months, I have some work to do to forgive those deeds. They affect many more than those at arm’s length. They pique the conscience and convictions and they have consequences for us all.
I was impressed, as were many, by the courage of the survivor who spoke at the sentencing of her abuser last week in Cleveland. I wish it was not needed.
I was shocked, with many, at her abuser’s self-pity and self-justification. I hope that he will come to repentance.
I was relieved that he will be kept from perpetrating further harm, without the need for more death and destruction of life. There has been enough of that.
To call it justice, though, misses the point. While we treat one another unjustly, the best we can do is damage control.
I will continue to hope for better, for the sake of my daughter’s future.

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Year C Proper 13: the divine economy

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

There are some doors that money doesn’t open; there are some palms that cannot be greased. When Jesus is asked to interfere in a family financial dispute, he declines. Sort it out between yourselves, he tells them. Deal rightly with one another, that’s what counts. Riches will not buy you heaven. There is nothing on earth that God does not already own, and God’s free gift to us is our lives, and all that is in them. God’s free gift to us is eternity.

There is nothing wrong, we might argue, with planning for the future. There is nothing wrong, we might insist, in enjoying the fruits of our labours. There is nothing wrong, we might be right in saying, with being a rich man.

So why the harsh judgement of the man in the parable Jesus tells, who also builds bigger barns and stores up as much of his wealth as he can in them? And how does that relate to Jesus’ refusal to arbitrate the inheritance case between two brothers?

To start with, Jesus’ summation at the end of the parable states clearly that this rich man is rich only towards himself, and much less generous in his attitude towards God.

This is borne out by the man’s apparent desire to store up riches only so that he could then take his ease and live off of the fat that he had gathered, believing that this would take care of any future concerns that might arise.

Hidden deep in this mindset is the fallacy that this is a self-made man, that this rich man created all of the wealth that he enjoys, and that he owns and deserves it in full. Hidden from his recognition are the many labourers who have built his barns and worked his fields; he forgets the very valets who are dressing him in his fine silks even while they touch up his pleats and refill his wine goblet. His tunnel vision has blinded him to his dependence upon the poor people upon whose labour he stands, and he is light years away from a simple word of thanks, let alone an attitude of gratitude.

The man’s possessions have come eventually to consume him. There is an ambiguity in the Greek towards the end of the parable; our translation opts out of defining just who is demanding the life of the rich man, but it is quite possible and even probable that it is, in fact, his goods, his riches, his hoards which are whispering in his ear and demanding to take possession of his soul this very night.

Actually, you might say that the biblical story of wealth and its right use is the basic story of faithfulness versus idolatry. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul defines greed as idolatry: wanting and worshiping that which is not God (Col. 3:5). When we set our faith in that which we have stored up instead of in God’s providence, that is idolatry. When we work only to achieve more money, instead of to make a better life here on earth for all that we can, that is idolatry. When we ignore the working conditions of those making cheap clothes – child labour, the overcrowded, under-protected working conditions in that garment factory in Bangladesh – when we overlook or turn a blind eye to these matters of life and death just so that we can save a buck, that is idolatry. When we make the “invisible hand” of market forces out to be some sort of hand of God, that is idolatry. One of the most egregious mistakes that we have made in modern times is, I think, to equate riches with health: we have made it in this country and on a global scale too that we buy healthcare in proportion to our wealth, as though our very wellness, soundness, wholeness ought to be bound up in how much we earn and how much insurance we can acquire; the rich deserve ease, the poor suffer proportionately greater pain. That is immoral; that is idolatry.

To put it another way, to place our hope, our faith, our investment in our salvation in our own resources and finances is idolatry. We are not able to buy our way into heaven, either in this life or the next. We’ve all read the crash and burn stories of huge lottery winners – so why do we still want to win? We are not able to win or to work our way into heaven, to barter or to beg. God’s gift in Jesus is to welcome us already, and any payment we make is an offering of gratitude and love. It doesn’t affect God’s bottom line.

There is a line in the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer that directs the Minister of the Congregation “to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.” (BCP, 445)

It is not unbiblical nor irreligious to provide prudently for the future of one’s family and to arrange for the right and judicious use of resources acquired during a life of work and leisure. (If you want a positive biblical story about building barns and storing up crops, read the story of Joseph in Egypt in Genesis 41 and following chapters.) It isn’t wrong to possess nice things or to enjoy them. It isn’t that God doesn’t want us to eat, drink, be merry – to enjoy the blessings with which we are bestowed – but God also wants us to look around and see who needs to be invited to our table, who would welcome a morsel of food, a cup of cold water, a song and an invitation to sit awhile.

William Stringfellow, in an essay about money, argues that the only way to avoid idolatry of money is to use it sacramentally. He says that

“That includes not simply freedom from an undue affection for money but, … It means the freedom to have money, to use money, to spend money without worshiping money, and thus it means the freedom to do without money, if need be, or having some, to give it away to anyone who seems to need money to maintain life a while longer.
The charity of Christians, in other words, in the use of money sacramentally – in both the liturgy and in the world – has no serious similarity to conventional charity but is always a specific dramatization of the member of the Body of Christ losing their life in order that the world be given life. For members of the church, therefore, it always implies a particular confession that their money is not their own because their lives are not their own but, by the example of God’s own love, belong to the world.”[1]

By the example of God’s own love, our lives and all that is in them belong not to ourselves but to God’s love and to the world. That is what the rich man, what the disputing brothers, what most of us outside of the most hallowed saints tend to forget. When we hoard things to ourselves, we tend to destroy their value for ourselves as well as for others. But when we allow them to open us up to our brothers and sisters in God, then we are acting in unison with God, who gave even the life of Jesus to be spilled out and shared out among us.

There is a prayer in the back of the BCP entitled, “For the Right Use of God’s Gifts.” The rich man could have used it. I offer it now for all of us:

 “Almighty God, whose loving hand hath given us all that we possess: Grant us grace that we may honour thee with our substance, and, remembering the account which we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of thy bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (BCP, 827)

 

[1] “Money,” by William Stringfellow, in Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: a Christian perspective, edited and compiled by Michael Schut (Morehouse Publishing, 1999), 70-71

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Strange gifts

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

For the feast of Joseph of Arimathea:

The gift of a place to rest in peace. A quiet tomb. A hillside full of life and new growth. A garden; paradise on earth.

The tenderness of a cradling arm, swaddling clothes.
Joseph borrowed sufficient grace to welcome you belatedly into his family’s final home.

I cannot help but think of those garbage bags hidden in the long grass and the abandoned basement rooms, those blessed daughters of God deprived of tenderness and loving care in their final moments.

Then I think of those whose work it is to caress the dead, brush their hair, soap their skin, dress them like a child, with compassion and whispered godspeed.

Joseph understood that it was not too late to show you a little love, to touch you with his heart; we pray for those whose earthly resting place is unquiet, confident that they will find the comfort that they need in God’s loving arms.

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Perfect storm

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

God, singing in the
shower, echoing slate grey
tesselating clouds.

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Year C Proper 12: What is the world coming to?

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

What is the world coming to? How many times have we had to ask ourselves that question over the past few months, the past few years? When I told people abroad on vacation where I came from, they had heard of Cleveland, Ohio, for all the wrong reasons. They knew about our worst stories, our most malevolent demons. They shook their heads and asked, “What is the world coming to?”

Despite Hosea’s rather blunt and uncomfortable language, I am glad that we read him this morning. He also is wondering what his world is coming to, his world being the northern kingdom of Israel, its capital Samaria, under threat from Assyria and falling into decadence and decay from the inside out. Like the other prophets, like Jesus, he calls his people to repent and return to God, to call upon God’s mercy in the face of the worldly judgement that is about to befall them. He does it in an unlikely manner, living his life as a parable, a prophetic action. His wife, his children all are material for his prophecy.

I am not sure that Hosea’s story is, in fact, strictly autobiographical. Did he really seek out a woman of ill-repute to marry, did he really name his children Unloved (Lo-Ruhamah) and Not Mine (Lo-Ammi); did he really call his wife a whore? Or are they a story he tells; did he live the parable piece by piece or make poetry, prophecy out of hints and intimations in his life to make it speak more clearly to his people of their plight? We will likely never know. Either way, Hosea’s story tells how faithlessness, how turning away from the love of God and godly love for one another leads to family and community break-up, disillusionment, disgrace and disenchantment; how it leads ultimately to despair. How low do you have to go before you name your children Unloved and Not Mine? What is that world coming to?

And yet, following the pattern of the prophets and of the psalms, Hosea ends this section of his story by remembering God’s mercy, in which we hope. The ones who were named Not My People are now called the Children of God. In the next couple of verses, which you can look up at home, the one who is called Not Mine is now called Mine (Ammi), the one who was called Unloved is now called Loved (Ruhamah).

Whatever Hosea’s world is coming to, it never runs out of hope in the living God who loves it and will not let it fall completely into despair.

When his disciples ask Jesus how to pray, he teaches them to pray first not for their own needs or will but for the will of God to be done on earth; for God’s kingdom, which Jesus has preached since the start of his ministry, to come near, to be established.

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he talks to them not about individual prayers for salvation and success, but using the language of us and we, he tells them to pray first to God as a father, as one with whom they have a living relationship. He tells them to pray to God as one who is holy, set apart and sacred above all others. He tells them to pray that God’s reign will be established in all the earth, because therein lies our hope. From that hope comes the assurance of bread sufficient to the day, of mercy given and shared, of assistance in times of trial, strength and hope in the days when we wonder what the world is coming to.

About eighteen months ago, in the wake of the Anthony Sowell trial, Bishop Hollingsworth went on a local radio program to talk about the tagline you have most likely seen and heard about the place, “God loves you, no exceptions.” In the course of the conversation about the difficulty of relating this theology to a notorious serial killer, the Bishop said this,

“I don’t need to know what God intends for you or me or anybody else after this life. What I do need to know is what I can do to either create heaven or create hell in this life.”[1]

When we pray, “Your kingdom come,” God replies by inviting us to become agents of heaven in this life, to bring that kingdom closer, to open the doors of heaven to those who are facing hell on earth.

I think that the detail of this week’s news which most disturbed me was the suggestion that the man charged with multiple murders in East Cleveland had set out to emulate the actions of a murderer, to follow in the footsteps of death. The idea that a man could wander so far from the path, could be so lost, be led so far astray as to place his expectation, his desire, his hope in the last place that hope is to be found was both breathtakingly wrong and profoundly sad. When serial killers become role models, what is the world coming to?

And yet, if God can resurrect Jesus from the dead, God can restore our lives in the living of them. We are never beyond hope. We proclaim God’s love as a shout of light in the darkness, as a beacon of hope even while the wildfires burn. We know that we are falling, but we know that God never fails.

So what are we to do about it? How do we open the doors of heaven to those facing hell on earth? Hosea relented on the names of his children; wisely, he realized that he wanted them to grow into a relationship with God, not out of it, that naming them with hope – Child of Mine, Loved – was more likely to win their hearts for good than naming them out of anger. What chance the child whose name is Unloved?

How are we naming hope in our communities, how are we opening the doors to heaven for those around us? Where are we having conversations about God, about mercy, love and justice, about hope and heaven? Where are we acting on our own petitions, “Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come”? Bumper stickers are not enough. When we call God our father, we acknowledge that all of God’s children are our brothers and sisters; we are in relationship with them, and we need to engage with them honestly, and intimately, and hopefully. We need to be involved in our communities, not to abandon them to despair but to do the hard work of persisting in hope, whether it’s through community activism, or through visiting or volunteering, mentoring or remembering to tell a neighbour, I am praying for you. And by the way, God loves you.

I am planning to talk to some of our neighbours in the Lakeshore Ministry group and beyond about starting a series of prayer walks in our own neighbourhoods, reclaiming a place for prayer in our communities, opening the doors of heaven right outside our own front doors. I’ll let you know once the plans are in place and I hope that you’ll join us as you are able – let’s proclaim the kingdom of God even as we pray for its completion among us, even here, even in Euclid and in East Cleveland and wherever its hope is needed.

After he taught his disciples the prayer, Jesus went on to tell them a couple of stories about persistence, because he knew that the times of trial would come, and that courage would be needed to carry on in the faith that God’s kingdom is drawn near. Far be it from me to suggest that a few meetings and prayer walks will make everything right in our cities overnight. Our recent trials – here in the north and elsewhere, in Florida and the south – continue to remind how far we still have to walk in the way of the cross before we come to a place of peace.

Still, as Hosea realized, naming our hope will carry us further than living out our anger and our fear. Renaming our future as Belonging to Us and Beloved will open more doors to heaven than the alternative.

So I invite you to pray with me now, for the coming of God’s kingdom, that God’s will might prevail here on earth and open our lives to the peace and joy which is in heaven, in the words that Jesus gave to his disciples:

Our Father …

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Origami relationship

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

If I fold the map
just right, you are close enough
to hold at arm’s length.

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Martha, Mary and the midwife’s advice

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

Here’s how I’d like the story to go:
Martha: lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”
Jesus: “lads, Simon, Andrew, James, Whatsyername, you lot in the kitchen and make yourselves useful! Martha, why don’t you join us?”

Of course, Martha would have been far too worried about the sons of thunder breaking her best teapot to relax, so maybe that’s why, instead, Jesus shook his head gently and affectionately:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need only of one thing.”

We might guess from his words on other occasions that he is referring to love. Martha’s method of loving is a little stressed and scattered and distracted; but she does love Jesus enough to tear her hair out making hospitality for him. Mary loves him too, in her own way, and that will not be taken from her, any more than Martha’s frenetic love will be changed and channeled until she is too tired to take any more and sinks down next to her sister at Jesus’ feet.

That said, I am reminded of one of the best pieces of parenting advice that I received from the midwife teaching our first-time mothers’ prenatal class; she could have preached this as a sermon this morning; she could have whispered it to Martha:

On a sunny day, when the park is pretty and the baby is awake, it is always ok to leave the washing up for later and go. Do not waste an opportunity to enjoy the day, to enjoy one another, to grow in mutual delight.

The dishes will always wait.

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Ordnance

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

Digging trenches, sunken defences
against flood and farm-fouled run-off,
a discovery gives pause.
Once the soldiers ran these cliffs,
looking for invaders, boats by night,
enemies creeping up with the tide.
They left behind a hand grenade,
souvenir of suspicious times
stumbling the head-scratch builders.
Bomb disposal drives away pleased,
three young men in army fatigues –
descendants of the defenders?
Who will find the seeds we now sow,
overgrown among the weeds,
reminders that the pursuits of war
yield grudgingly to peace?

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Seven years

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

Seven times seven
years married, seven years past;
a rose remembers.

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Love your neighbour/Stand your ground

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

A reflection on three little words: Love your neighbour
and three more: Stand your ground.

Stand your ground: refuse to yield to the insidious isms of the age.
Stand your ground: let love outweigh fear, pity dominate over prejudice, mercy over mischief.
Stand your ground: let the words of the Master drown out the words in your head that just sound wrong.
Stand your ground: stop. stand still long enough for second thoughts, a second glance; maybe the sight of a child of God will blur away first impressions.
Stand your ground: when the weight of the cross bears you to the ground, stand up, carry on, grim in your determination to love them to death.
Stand your ground: Simon, Samaritan, each risked helping a stranger in need, fallen under the heels of others.
Stand your ground: lift your voices, women of Jerusalem, women of Florida, women of Newtown and Chicago, refuse to be silenced by those embarrassed by your grief.
Stand your ground: let revenge, retaliation pale in the face of your fierce and final mercy.
Stand your ground: when you fall beneath the weight of the cross, stand up, carry on, relentless in your love.

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