William Tyndale and the passionate vocation

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

A homily for the Thursday morning Eucharist at Bexley Hall Episcopal Seminary, October 4, 2012

William Tyndale was a man with a passion, a man with a mission, with a calling so strong it drove him crazy. How else to explain the risks he took for the sake of his work, for the sake of a few words, for the sake of his vocation?

We talk a lot these days about passion – on the Food Network, every chef and aspiring next food network star is passionate about his or her culinary point of view; on American Idol, or the X-Factor, passion is the mot du jour to express a longing to sing, a vocation that cannot be denied. It may even be genuine, but through overuse, it is losing some of its cachet; its currency is getting seriously devalued.

William Tyndale, who knew very well the value of words, their weight and heft, was so impassioned by his discerned vocation – to translate the Bible so that the humblest ploughboy could know its meaning – that he allowed himself to be exiled, gave up the comfort of a rich mans employ, headed overseas, and was, in the end, betrayed by a friend, given up to the gallows.

That last part might just ring a bell.

We talk a lot about passion these days, and mostly we are talking about lust, about libido, about drive and desire, ambition and envy. We talk about what we want, and what we want to do. But when we think of those men betrayed by their friends and led to the gallows, when we talk of their passion, we mean something a little different.

It isn’t all about suffering, except in the sense of “suffer the little children,” of allowing to come to pass that which will. On the other hand, it isn’t all about being passive. The drive to do something well is not a bad thing. There is much hard work to be done at seminary, lots to be completed and achieved and simply got through. William Tyndale worked hard, by God, but not for ambition, not even the good kind; according to C.S. Lewis, who has written about his theology, Tyndale considered that good works for profit, whether profit in this world or the next, came from an equally corrupt motivation. Passion is dispassionate about its reward; it simply lets come into being that which already is; something which cannot be willed or driven, but only let in.

It’s about grace, the grace of the cross, the grace of a vocation which fills us with passion, with a longing for God.

That longing, that passion for the wisdom of God, the knowledge of God’s grace is better than the silver and gold that the world lusts after, the Proverbs tell us, and a good thing too, we might reply. Only Wisdom, the knowledge of God, marks out the true leader of the free world, the truly just ruler, the real seat of power. That might be worth keeping in mind for the next month or so, if not longer.

What feeds such a passion? If it isn’t ambition, or the will to succeed or to be good enough for earthly or heavenly reward?

Perhaps, these moments, these moments of Eucharist, of thanksgiving, when we revisit the passion of those who have gone before us – the One, especially, whose Passion ignited all of ours. These moments are vital in keeping our own flames alive and lively, not only now, slogging through classes and early mornings and CPE and process interviews; but later, much later, too. They will sustain us when friends fall away, or employment falls through, or we are far from home. They are the promise of God to be with us in the dank darkness of the garden as well as in the soft and celebratory candlelight; to be sufficient when our own reserves of faithfulness and sheer perseverance are depleted; to renew our resolve, reignite our passion.

Even the words, plain words, simply spoken, in these moments can be the difference between life and death, light and darkness. Tyndale knew the value of plain – or plain-ish – English; the Wisdom behind the words of Jesus that he translated; the Word that spoke the words; the grace, the life. He saw it and rendered it and proclaimed it, because it sustained him, because it mattered.

And that, in the life of Tyndale, is what passion is all about. Passion, the passionate vocation, is to be overwhelmed by God, to be swept along with God, to be swept up in the wonder of it all, that God would use our work for God’s glorious purpose, even when the work itself looks plain or inglorious.

Actually, I think that some of Tyndale’s work was quite glorious: Lewis claims that he not only coined such phrases as “filthy lucre,” “peacemaker,” and “long-suffering,” but was also “among the first who used the word beautiful.”**

Beautiful. It’s not a bad legacy for an exiled translator, a betrayed friend, a condemned criminal and supposedly hardened heretic.

But then, it’s always quite astonishing what God can do with a little bit of passion.

_______________

*C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixeenth Century, Excluding Drama (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1954), 188
** Lewis, 207

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Ohio!

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Early voting opens today! Check your local listings for times and locations!
You also have one more week to register or to update your registration to vote.
However you intend voting,
Don’t miss this opportunity.
Don’t shirk this responsibility.
Stand up for what you believe in, and make your voice heard, for the good of us all.
Vote!

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On aging gracefully

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

It is a bit of a cliche right now to harp on about youth and young adults rejecting traditional modes of church in the contemporary culture, or conversely to bang on about how they all really want to be medieval monks. Still, cliches become such for a reason, so I’ll join in.

In conversation with my small and select family focus group this weekend, we arrived at some simple but elegant conclusions:

1) “Contemporary” culture is a moving target, and try as we like, the church will never hit it. By the time the bulletins are printed, or the amps rented, or the tent erected, or the tweets re-tweeted sufficient times, the populace will have moved on to the next thing with barely a sigh or a shrug, and only the friendliest of regretful smiles over their shoulders.

2 So, church might as well put its energy into what it does well: reflecting the timelessness of God, the permanence of grace, the fluidity or forgiveness.

3) That said, if there had never been movements, or ages, or epochs in the church we would not have solidified our liturgies into Latin, nor would we have broken them out again into a thousand tongues.

4) So, recognizing that contemporary is old hat, and modern is outmoded, here are some suggestions for presenting worship in a faithful and timeless way, which nevertheless appeals to the fashion-hungry teens of today (or, at least, yesterday):

5) Instead of trying to sell the music of the last century as the latest in pop culture, acknowledge its “RETRO” power;

6) If “traditional” sounds stuffy and old-fashioned to your ears, try “VINTAGE.” Tasty, tasteful, and never goes out of style;

7) As for the renewal of the most antique of liturgies, enjoy the archeology and call them “POSITIVELY PREHISTORIC.” After all, who doesn’t love a dinosaur? Especially in animal blessing season.

Peace out.

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Year B Proper 21: salted with fire

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

It was bedtime, so I gave the fire a stir to make sure it really was dying down, and of course, as fires are wont to do when stirred up, it sprang back into life.

So the cat and I sat on the mat in front of the fireplace and watched with fascination as it flamed up and ember-glowed and generally did its fiery thing. And I thought of the candles that we light for prayer, and how this was a really big one, and I sat a little longer on the mat with the cat, and we contemplated the holiness of it all.

And I thought of the phrase from the gospel, “salted with fire,” and what it might mean to be seasoned by this stuff that burns and soothes and gives comfort and causes pain and flares up and crumbles to ashes, all in the course of a single evening.

Salt, like fire, needs to be used sparingly. Salt, like fire, is helpful to add spice to life, to liven up flavours, to excite our palates. It cleanses, as fire purifies. It drowns not only flavours but life itself if overused; like fire, it is best kept in check, used in moderation.

A colleague suggested that the fire with which we are salted is the Holy Spirit, and that made some sense. I am worried by the concept of having “too much” of the Holy Spirit, mind you, but I also sense that she might become overwhelming, more than life can bear, if she is poured on rather than sprinkled.

Perhaps that’s why she seems to make herself occasionally elusive.

On a slightly different tack, at the beginning of this piece of the story, John boasts (or worries?) that the disciples have tried to stop unauthorized agents from acting in Jesus’ name, because they do not follow them, because they are not recognized by the named and legitimized disciples of Christ. And Jesus scolds him (or puzzles it out?); no one who acts in my name will be able soon afterward to speak ill of me. If they are for us, they are at least not against us. Why worry?

Too much of the wrong sort of zeal, the wrong sort of seasoning, the wrong sort of salt can harden our attitudes, just as too much sodium hardens the walls of our arteries (as another wise colleague advised).

Fire that burns itself out is no longer useful as fire; like the rest of us, it returns to the earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Salt that has lost its saltiness is no longer useful as seasoning.

Faith that has hardened and crumbled into rectitude and self-righteousness, or resignation and drudgery, has little flavour, little flame, little life left.

By the time I left it, the fire had soothed itself to sleep (as had the cat). Its heat was spent, its light faded, its fuel depleted.

But not gone. There were pieces of fresh wood still waiting for another day, another chance to light the world, or at least one small room of it, on fire. Not all was ash and dust. Not everything had decayed. Not everything was burnt out of fiery potential; not all of the salt had lost its saltiness.

I suppose this is more poetry than theology (although some, like John Keble, would look askance at one who tried to separate the two), and ant metaphor, pressed too hard, will crumble like rock salt, disintegrate like ash.

But there is something hiding in this enigmatic language, something which belies the violent imagery in between, something about second chances, second wind, and the spark of the Spirit which will find tomorrow’s fire and salt tomorrow’s food.

And even those who don’t quite know what they are doing (they do not follow us), or who do it a different way (like I said …), and even those who prefer their food bland (they shouldn’t do it differently, they should follow in our footsteps, fit the mould) will find ourselves salted with fire, surprised by the seasoning of the Spirit.

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Rites of passage

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

My mother’s funeral
did not take place in an
American high school auditorum,
neither was the local rag
reporter in attendance.
No one wore football pads or swimming gear;
I was not in clericals,
being unordained as yet,
and having no
burning desire to bury her.

 
My father was, in fact, messily, bodily,
solidly present. Excepting these things,
the dream was remarkably accurate,
and waking, wrung out, and exhausted.

 

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The summer stole project

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

I know, summer is technically over, and we’re into autumn around here, but I promised finished photos of the t-shirt stole, and it’s a sunny day on the north coast, so …

Recycling, knitting, and by no means least liturgy are some of my passions. Combining them into, er, unique liturgical wear has been a project which had me working with some great friends and some colourful plastic bags in the past (https://rosalindhughes.com/2011/06/17/a-plastic-story/) ; this time, it’s the humble t-shirt’s turn for a role in the artful worship of God.

There are many ways to reuse t-shirts, and if they’re clean enough, many places to donate them. But for the truly old, holey and stained beyond redemption, here’s a way to redeem them after all, and put them to really Good use.

Suitable for sweltering summer Sundays when even the Queen of England wears a t-shirt to church:

… for outdoor services on the lawn:

 

 

 

 

 

For those parish picnics at the park:

 

 

 

 

 

Even, had one sufficient “white” t-shirts to recycle, those beachside baptisms or destination weddings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know it looks frivolous. And okay, maybe I had a little bit too much fun at the beach :). But don’t take offence. I am serious about sustainable worship, in many senses of the phrase.

The technical details:

This stole used seven t-shirts, cut into single strips (t-shirts without side seams are best, and just cut round and round from the bottom to the bottom of the sleeves). I divided the t-shirt strips in half to provide two symmetrical sides to the stole. I cast on 16 stitches using 10.5 needles, then switched to 13 or 15 needles to continue in linen stitch for about 50 inches – don’t go too long, it’s t-shirt and it will stretch when finished (for a description of how to knit linen stitch, click here:
http://knitting.about.com/od/stitchglossary/g/linen-stitch.htm )

I repeated the same pattern for the second side.

Holding both sides together, I cast off using the three-needle technique (here you go:
http://knitting.about.com/od/bindoffs/qt/3-needle.htm )

A good wash is necessary to get rid of all the little t-shirt specks that have accumulated on the stole, your clothes, floor, couch and cats while the knitting was in process. The stole will stretch on washing; shape it appropriately to dry. Embroider a cross on the seam if you wish.

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Seven signs that you may be taking a Sunday off …

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

1) The alarm is set an hour later than on Monday morning.

2) Sitting down for the sermon.

3) Sitting in someone else’s seat for the sermon.

4) Dancing (discreetly) with one’s daughter during the Communion music 🙂

5) Packing knitting and a novel for the education hour.

6) Playing hookey during the education hour to knit and read novels in the cafe.

7) Red nail polish. Yeah, baby!

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Was Jesus married?

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

The Huffington Post is persisting in cluttering up my facebook newsfeed with tidbits designed to tantalize people into tearing out their hair over the marital status of Jesus.

I am finding it difficult to get as over-excited as they would seem to like: haven’t we been here before? Still, I am sufficiently engaged to give some sort of an inexpert opinion as to the significance of what has happened this past week with the introduction of a “new” piece of papyrus which appears to give credence to the idea that Jesus was a married man.

To recap: on Tuesday, a Harvard Divinity School professor, Karen King, introduced the world to a fragment of papyrus dating from the early few centuries following the life of Jesus which contained the words, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …'”

(http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/18/living/fragment-suggests-jesus-was-married/index.html?iref=allsearch)

It’s worth noting that she, in the same presentation, argued that this does not constitute evidence that Jesus was married, and that there is a lot of context missing from this fragment, because of its fragmentary nature.

A flurry of commentary followed. Dan Brown’s name came up numerous times. Predictions of mass wailing and gnashing of teeth among the communities of the religiously celibate were offered. And the Huffington Post insists and persists in trying to flog new life into this horse via facebook and, presumably, other outlets to which I am not privy.

(No offence to Huffpost Religion, whose feed I actually rather enjoy from time to time, and which provides a convenient snapshot of what’s “out there” on any given day.)

But the fact is that there are already a lot of fragments, large and small, from the early centuries of Christianity which reflect the conflicting and conflicted views of early Christians regarding sex, marriage, women, and the celibacy or otherwise of the saviour and other perfect beings.

In Marvin Meyer’s book, The Gospels of Mary, a number of Gnostic texts are set side by side with their stories about and attitudes towards Mary Magdalene exposed in all of their contrast and confusion. Among these readings, the Gospel of Thomas, for example, seems pretty negative with regard to womanliness, gender and sexuality, and Jesus answers Peter’s jealous questioning of Mary (Magdalene?)’s worthiness to join the disciples of Christ by promising to make a man of her. On the other hand, in the Gospel of Philip the mystical union of male and female will undo death, the marital bedchamber is the harbinger of light, Mary Magdalene is the one who sees the light, and Jesus kisses her often and loves her the most of all…

(Marvin Meyer, The Gospels of Mary: the secret tradition of Mary Magdalene, the companion of Jesus, with Esther A. De Boer (HarperOne, 2004))

In other words, the Christians of the earlier centuries may have been just as confused, screwed up and fascinated by sex and how it works within our spirituality, and how it applied to Jesus, our saviour, as the current century of Christians. There is nothing new under the sun.

Or, to quote a certain seminary dean with plenty of expert opinion to offer, “In the end, like most popular forays into the early church, the interest and reaction to this will be a cipher that tells us more about ourselves and our contemporary society, and what we project back into the past, than anything else.”

(http://crustyoldean.blogspot.com/)

In the end, even if we knew whether or not Jesus was married, I suspect that it would not determine whether or not we as individuals should, or will, or won’t marry; that seems to have carried on regardless, in different ways and with varying norms throughout many more than the Christian centuries and in many more than the Christian cultures of the world.

Whether or not Jesus was married will not change the relationship of creation to its Creator, the nature of the Incarnation itself, or the fact of our salvation.

So really, isn’t it just a very, very old piece of gossip?

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Year B Proper 20: mixed motives

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

We are complicated creatures, we humans.

We can hear a dogmatic statement that “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all,” and right away, we can begin competing to come last, to be the greatest server, the most abased and diminished of all servants, in order to, well, come first again.

Our motives for good deeds are rarely unmixed.

I don’t agree with Phoebe and Joey in the Friends episode where seeking for a selfless act involves finding one which brings the actor no pleasure at all. “Virtue is its own reward,” goes the old saw, and the reward may be a certain satisfaction of the soul.

Still, the idea of putting oneself last in order that one might be first seems a little back to front.

Jesus demonstrates his point by singling out a child. Whoever welcomes the child, welcomes Jesus. Whoever puts such a small, poor, uninfluential person who needs more help than they offer is heading in the right direction.

There’s something else about children, though, and that is their forgetfulness. A child can be transported out of themselves, their needs, wants and the moments of time that demand their attention by something as simple as a spider on its web, something as profound as a hole in the sand that refuses to give up the sea.

It is in our moments of forgetfulness that we come closest to putting ourselves last, for no better reason than love. It is in those grace-filled opportunities to do someone good, for no other reason than that we can, that we are blessed with the soul-satisfaction that we are serving God.

Sometimes all it takes is a moment: the instant between seeing the car and diving to pull the child out of the away, forgetful of safety, caution, self. Sometimes is takes a lifetime, practising giving up, giving away, letting others walk before you, murmuring a mantra of love, respect, release.

Sometimes, it comes to a head, and all that practice is put to the test, and a decision is made, “Not my will, but thine.” Three times, Jesus got up off his knees and tried to walk it off, to shake off the dread, to let off steam at his sleeping disciples. If Judas had not come soon enough, would he have been able to hold on to his resolve, to forget himself, to put himself last, to let them lead him away?

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God-parenting

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Many years ago, when my first daughter was a baby, I heard a sermon which took parents to task regarding their Christian responsibilities to their children. There were various points, and a story. The story involved the preacher’s own infant son, who many years before had been gravely ill. The preacher described how he had let go of his son, remembering that he belonged first to God, and was only “on loan” to his earthly parents, to take care of for a while.
No one can enter another parent’s pain in the face of their fear for their child. This priest responded as he needed to, no doubt; for myself, it was all I could do not to stand up and shout, “If God wants this one back, He’ll have to go through me first!”
And yet, I had struggled myself with the loss of my first baby, and I believed that God had taken her on, taken her in, and completed her in ways that couldn’t happen in my womb. And I was grateful for God’s loving care of her, when I could not keep up with her little life. And there were times, much later, as the parent of an adolescent child when my prayers were yelled at God, “She’s your daughter too, you know!”
So the giving up, giving in to God, the sharing of the love that we as earthly parents know as a shadow of the love that God has for our children – thank God – that made sense.
I suppose it was the loaner language which got me, and probably not in the way that the preacher intended.
I do not, I think, “borrow” my children from God. I live with them alongside God. I do not “own” or “rent” or “offer up” our children, because they are ours only in so far as they are ours to love.
I am not offered my children in place of God, to take care of them on God’s behalf for a time. We are invited into God’s relationship with them, invited by God to cherish and take pride in them, to care for them and love them, to wonder at them. God, the proud parent, tells us, “See this? This is my child, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Isn’t she beautiful?”
I am not a deputy to God as mother to my children, but a stargazer, looking in wonder at the ongoing work of creation standing next to me, awed by the heavenly creature that God has sent to live with me, with whom I fell in love as soon as I saw him; and not unoccasionally perplexed.
We are called by God, in my imagination, not to hold our children more lightly, but to love them more fiercely.
Yesterday, while my youngest one was sleepy and sedated and undergoing minor surgery, and I sat in the waiting room with my rosary beads, I knew that God was with her in her dreams and in her blood and in her sinews, because she is beloved of God, and all I can do is love her, too; still, it was all I could do to let her go. And today, when I dropped her back at school, because she is brave and strong, I was proud of her, and relieved, and thankful, and still a little shaky, because hearts that fall in love are fragile and prone to injury.
Then I got home, to find the news that another faithful, loving mother had lost her son, that he had lost his long and difficult fight to break through and live freely, breathe freely. I do not pretend to imagine her pain, or to understand her loss, or to know how much she loved him; and I do not know how she feels about God right now, or how she imagines that this all works in terms of the heavenly co-parenting deal.
All I can do is pray for her, because I know that she is beloved of God and God listens to every word that’s prayed about her; and pray for him, because he is beloved of God, and God knows how hard this has been for him, too; and pray that those of us who stand in the world loving alongside God will continue to learn how to love God’s children faithfully, and well, and painfully, and happily, and to lean on God’s mercy despite bewilderment and grief, borrowing heavily from God’s own surfeit of love.

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