God-check

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

A first glance at this week’s lectionary readings:

IN 2 Samuel, David, still high on his worship of the living God last week, wants to take things a step or three further, and build a temple in which to house the ark of the covenant, the symbol (in the true and living meaning of symbolic elements: the thing that points beyond itself and which also embodies the thing to which it points) of God’s presence with the people of promise, the people of God’s choosing.

David’s professed motive seems sound: humility. He does not think it fitting that the king should live in a prouder building than the Living Presence of the Living God.

Nathan, the prophet, concurs. “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”

But that night, the Lord puts Nathan straight.

Nathan is not afraid to contradict the king. In chapter 12, he sets David up to be hoist with his own petard, uncovering his guilt in the matter of Bathsheba and her poor, murdered husband by means of a parable. He is loyal, nevertheless; in 1 Kings, he is the one reported to have alerted David to the plot to subvert the succession of Solomon. Familiar from Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”, Nathan the prophet, along with Zadok the priest (and others) anointed Solomon king.

Nathan is a prophet of the court, a man trusted to tell the truth about the word and will of God. He is frank, loyal, and faithful: everything you might want in a prophet. Yet, on this occasion, he was wrong. He spoke too soon.

David is reminded through Nathan’s late night encounter with the Lord that it is not for him to choose the way forward. It is not for him to decide where God’s presence will stay, or stop moving. God is not leaving David: the promise of an abiding household and an abiding presence is repeated, as it was to Abraham, to Jacob. God is with David; but God will not be fenced in with cedar or gated or built up or set in stone. Not until God chooses.

But why doesn’t Nathan, the one trusted to tell the truth, understand this sooner? David comes to Nathan for a God-check, a gut-check with one he trusts to keep his gut aligned with God’s, and Nathan is momentarily dazzled by the image that the king presents. Perhaps he is still reeling from seeing David dance into town in front of the ark, the picture of religious ecstasy; and ecstasy which Nathan may yearn for himself. He has been swept up on a wave of emotion and experience, and he has forgotten to find his feet, to ground himself in prayer, before taking the next step forward.

Worship is wonderful. Ecstatic experience is a gift. It cannot be a distraction from discernment. God knows the way forward when we come back down to earth, and we could do worse than to check with God, with our prophets and trusted prayers, before letting our emotions run away with us. Worship, in the end, is supposed to find its end in the glory of God, not in our own emotional experience. It is for God to choose us, and to teach us the ways that God wants us to work in the world; it is not for us to choose to teach God what to do next.

David, speaking with all apparent humility, still needed one lesson more in that important virtue. So did Nathan, his impatient prophet. What do we, or our parishes, need to run by a God-check, and not just a gut-check, before discovering God’s will for our way forward?

 

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Collect for the anniversary of a death

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Almighty God, whose memory is longer than time;
we remember especially today your daughter N.
Grant us patience, peace, healing and hope as remember good times and bad;
so that even our grief may become an instrument of your grace.
May light perpetual shine upon N.,
and may we with all your saints come to see your glory; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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Herodias’ Revenge

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

“Revenge is a dish best served cold,”
someone said; but it burns in your veins,
beating you without remorse until
the heat sears out sweet reason,
with its cool, calm attempts at peace;
its urgent rationale adds fuel to the fire
which smelts the mind,
melts the soul in white anger.
Who looks at another with hatred
commits murder in their heart;
he has killed her over, she thinks,
it is time for him to depart.

But the plattered head, barely cool, chills her,
and revenge is frozen by his still-speaking eyes.

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Despicable dancing?

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

There is a theme of dance, loss, enmity, and faithfulness running from the Old Testament lesson to the gospel. I don’t know quite what to make of it, because it keeps twirling away every time I think I’ve caught the rhythm, changing direction every time I find my footing.

Michal despised David when she saw him dance.
Herod salivated over Salome.
Herodias rubbed her hands like an evil chancellor in an animated fairy tale.
John lost his head.

Dancing then is dangerous? Seducing us to murder, drawing forth feelings of contempt and lust and disgust?

Except that the dancers are innocent of all of this. They dance, lost in the moment, lost in the ecstasy of being in their bodies or being in the moment or being next to the Ark of the Covenant, in the presence of God. They transcend their observers, the objects around them, the objectionable reactions of despisement, desire, devious plots of revenge.

It is those who refuse to be drawn into the dance, who remain reserved, resisting the music, who cause the trouble. Eventually, the worst happens, and the music dies, killed by the lust of Herod married to the bloodlust of Herodias.

So where does that leave us?

David dances on, laughing and leaping and dancing and singing and distributing a feast of fancy fruit and cake to the people, oblivious of Michal’s despising, oblivious of everything except the moment, the now, the Presence. It is tempting to follow him, but it is not easy to let go, to pull back from the window and run into the street and join the dance.

At the very least, though, perhaps we can smile as we watch, leaning out next to Michal, remembering the ruddy and handsome boy that he was, delighting in his laughter and his lightness, letting it lift our spirits, whether we lift our feet in the dance, or weight them to the ground, still fearful of losing our heads.

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Thinking out loud

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Since yesterday, I’ve seen a number of emails, tweets and Facebook posts along the lines of “What are you going to say on Sunday?” It’s a little bit like the supreme court affirmation of affordable care all over again.
I think that the majority of these posts and messages relate to the consent of both houses of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to the authorizing of a liturgy to bless same-sex covenanted unions. It’s possible that they’re talking about the budget, but I doubt it.
A couple of things strike me.
First, the gospel reading for this Sunday is a graphic illustration of how dangerous, disputable and disagreeable we (people) can become when we begin to argue about who may (not) be married to whom (although it should be noted that this rite is not called marriage by this convention). Not that fear should shut us up; but that we should take care not to behead our own prophets, whether or not we like what they tell us.
Second, my heart rejoices in God, who loves more completely than we ever can imagine, more equally and equitably, more wisely and truly; and who invests the church with blessings abundant to be abundantly shared. Thanks be to God.

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Year B, Proper 9: Hometown preaching

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

July7/8th, 2012, St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Elyria, Ohio

One summer, my son wanted to buy me a gift. All through our vacation, whenever there was a gift shop or stall, he asked to buy me something, and I kept saying no. I kept insisting that the pocket money he had (which his grandparents had given him) was for him, and that he didn’t need to spend it on me. But he kept asking, and one day, at the Royal Welsh Show, where he had already picked out a little silver bracelet and insisted that he should buy it for me, I let him.

Off he went to make his purchase, and back he came, so proud and so pleased that he could offer me his own gift, bought with his own money, chosen by himself and freely given, and it was only then that I realized how blind I had been, and how selfish in trying to save him from his own loving generosity.

So many stories get stirred up when we read about Jesus and his family. We all have stories of feeling unappreciated in our own homes or hometowns; when those who have become inured to our talents seem to take them for granted and it takes a stranger to recognize our gifts and compliment us on them.

For some among you, it may be that home has been worse than unappreciative. The very places which should nurture and protect us too often are places of danger and anxiety. Family is a complex animal, and it can be friendly and it can be fierce. So it can be difficult to separate, when we read stories about Jesus and his family, our own stuff from his, our own stories from the story we read about a hometown long ago and far away.

Jesus went home. He had been travelling the region for a while, and we have heard how he healed so many people, and taught crowds which made it hard for him even to move about, they were so large and pressing. He was famous. He was celebrated. He was a star.

Then, he came home.

A friend of mine described the difference between envy and jealousy as the difference between desire and destruction. Envy wants what the other has, wishes it could get hold of it. Jealousy knows that it can’t have it, so it wills only to destroy it.

There might have been those who were envious of Jesus, because he had a following, because he had shown himself to be remarkably talented at teaching and opening up the scriptures, and at healing; there were also those who were jealous of him, who wished to destroy what he had, because they saw no hope in it for themselves. And he was astonished at their unbelief, and it must have hurt.

Because Jesus didn’t go there to show anyone up. Jesus went home to share with the people of his hometown exactly what he had been giving to everyone else. There are plenty of different explanations offered in different books for why he couldn’t do the same work there as in other places – the gospel says, “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them,” – but to me, that exception says it all. To those who came to him, those few sick people that he cured, he gave his power, he gave his gifts, all that he had to offer.

But so few people took him up on it that there was little he could do. It was a shame, because all they had to do was ask him, and he would have shown them the power of the love of God.

I heard a good word this week which was attributed to Elizabeth Eaton, bishop in the ELCA. She said, “The Jesus we know is not the Jesus who will save us,” or something to that effect. The Jesus that the people knew who had seen him grow up and run around the neighbourhood and chase the dogs and climb the trees and learn slowly to make things of wood with his hands, and whose brothers and sisters and mother had never left town – that Jesus was not the one who would save his people. The Jesus they didn’t know, the one who had been baptized with the Holy Spirit and walked the wilderness with only the devil and the angels for company, who had been filled with the power of God to do astonishing things and to preach amazing sermons – that was the Jesus who might save them, but they never thought to ask him, because they were too busy remembering the Jesus they thought that they knew.

Sometimes we are afraid to ask God for what we want, what we need, what we really wish we could pray for, because we think that we already know the answer. We think that we know how God works, and we are afraid that the answer will be no. Sometimes we are angry, because we think that the Bible and the church makes God out to be all that, and yet we are still suffering, still waiting to see that deed of power, still waiting to be saved from ourselves. Sometimes we are jealous, because for God, it must all be just so easy. And sometimes, we pack God so tightly into a box, into an idea or a theory or a corner of our lives – one hour on a Sunday morning, or ten minutes each night at bedtime – we pack God up so tightly that we imagine that God is too small to be able to offer us anything.

The Jesus we know is not the Jesus who will save us. The God we think we have all tied up and tied down is not the God who has the power to save us. But God doesn’t give up. God tracks down the last lost sheep, the last hair of hope on our heads, and holds on to it and doesn’t let go. And God asks us, over and over, “Can I give you something? Can I offer you something? Will you receive it from me? Will you?”

And if we only allow ourselves to wonder what might happen if we let God be God’s own generous, loving self, without restriction, without resentments or refusals, without reservation, what deeds of power might we see? We are prepared to be surprised and excited by the discovery of a God particle in a Large Hadron Collider deep under Switzerland – rightly so – but what if we were as prepared to be surprised and excited by God? If we allow ourselves to pray as our souls really would like to in their wildest dreams, what healing might we find? If we gave up knowing what was best, and stopped to ask God, and really listened with a fully open mind for an answer, what might we hear? What joy might we discover in the love of God set free? What does God long to offer us?

We all know that there are miracles that do not happen, and they make us afraid to ask for the ones that might. But the Jesus we know, whose miracles are locked in a book of the past, that Jesus is not the one who will save us. The Jesus we don’t know is just waiting for us to notice him in the mystery, in the stranger, in the surprises of the universe, in the everydays of our own home lives. He is only waiting for us to call upon him so that he can show us amazing deeds of power, of healing, wisdom and love.

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A prophet without honour

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Two brothers grew up a few years apart. They were close for a time, but grew somewhat apart. They moved in different circles. The elder brother worked hard and achieved some recognition, even notoriety. Every so often the younger brother would see his name in the local newspaper, his photograph in a supermarket magazine.

The younger brother also worked hard. He had a decent life. He managed a comfortable home and raised a pleasant family. His name, his photograph, were never in the local paper. As happy as his life was, and as much as he loved his elder brother, there was still a part of him which winced when he saw his brother’s face on the front page of the social interest section. He could tell a tale or two, from when they were young, which would burst his bubble. Of course, he never would.

The elder brother died. At his funeral, the younger brother was astonished at the number of people who made a point to come to him and with great gratitude tell him stories about his brother, about his generosity, his encouragement, his gifts. One had received free services when he couldn’t pay; another’s child had received a generous loan as a down-payment on her first married home. Another had been driven twice-weekly by the elder brother to a medical appointment; he had always refused money for gas or any other compensation, but would take a cup of tea with the patient after the appointment, and chat for a while.

The younger brother was a little ashamed that he had not known this side of his brother. He was also a little angry.

“When did he give me anything?” he asked his wife that night.

She looked at him, a little strangely, he thought. “When did you ever ask?” she responded, quietly.

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Fireworks, funfairs and ferris wheels

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

I have had occasion to mention before that I am quite privileged. I live, by my own free choice, in an unimpeachably respectable suburb to the west of Cleveland, with good schools, a sense of community, a beach, three coffee shops, an Irish pub and a gazillion churches, all contained in a few small square miles. It used to be a holiday resort for the wealthy of Cleveland, who would come along the coast on the electric train to take the air away from the city, and who built sweet and large little holiday homes along Lake Road, which are now regularly bulldozed to make way for something more deserving of a lake view.

There are people here who talk about the “Bay Bubble;” the peculiarity of the place that makes it seem somewhat set apart. Few people drive through it to get from A to B. There are faster roads than Lake going west and east, and if you go too far north you fall off the cliff, so there’s not too much traffic there. Many families have raised generations here, and grown children move back “home” when their own babies are born. People who went to school together share the view from their front porches.

There are those who dislike the phrase, “Bay Bubble,” because they know that it’s unreal. In the summer especially, the beach is full of people visiting, and the town’s old identity as a resort echoes across Lake Road to the overflow parking on the grass. In the winter, the nature centre parking lot is full of school buses from across the region, other people’s children. Year round, contractors drive in and out to fix our houses, mend our roofs, cut our grass and mulch our flowerbeds. The Irish pub and the churches do not require proof of residence at the door.

There are those who dislike the phrase because they think it shouldn’t be real; because they would like to think that all of that traffic makes us more cosmopolitan, more open-doored and open-armed, more streetwise and more friendly than we really are.

There are those who dislike those who dislike the phrase because they want it to be real; they want the safety of the bubble; they don’t want to think that drugs can find their way over the railroad tracks and into our middle- and high-school lockers; that they might need to start locking their front doors at night. One parent told me that he liked Bay particularly for raising children because there are so few strangers, and the few that there are tend to be easily spotted. There was the neighbour who totally failed to see the irony in complaining to us, with our out-of-town accents, about the newcomers to the bubble, the ones moving from the east of us, the strangers trying to make the bubble their home.

Then comes July Fourth. Mostly, it is a community event, watching the fireworks at the end of the fair, on blankets or lawn chairs on the Cahoon land which is so carefully used (no games on Sundays, no alcohol ever, no no). But the fair draws people from further afield, and Bay becomes a messy bath of bubbles for just a day or two. The carnies set up next to the Kiwanis; the Democrats and the Republicans of Bay Village nestle to the left and the right of the curly fries stand.

I always work the fireworks shift. I love seeing my children’s friends all grown up since second grade, girls and boys shifty and shy with one another, and shocked to recognize us old mothers sitting behind the cash box in the ticket booth. I love seeing the families who have made this their summer holiday, who  require astronomical amounts of change for rather large bills which they took out of the bank for the occasion, determined and hopeful that they will have a great time, and make their children smile. They ask, towards the end of the evening, where is the nearest ATM; they do not want to run out of fun, and there is pathos. Everyone is counting their quarters and working out their last rides, last chances, last deals of the season. I love seeing them surreptitiously trading in unused tickets and sharing the feel and the fun of the fair. The people of the bubble feel safe because they never left home. The visitors feel welcome in the chaos and anonymity of the fair, which is itself an interloper. The colours of the bubble swirl.

One thing has always been a puzzle, though. The ferris wheel, which could have a gorgeous view of the lake, of the city beyond, of the fireworks over the water, instead looks inland, across the little town, and turns its riders’ backs to the horizon.

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Independence and equality

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Yesterday, I walked into an ordinary hospital to make an ordinary pastoral visit. The very first woman to greet everyone at the door looked at me suspiciously, and critically.

“I didn’t think women were allowed to wear the collars,” she said, in the tone of a teacher unimpressed with the antics of a pre-teen try-it-on tearaway.

I began to explain who I was, and why I was there wearing such a get-up, but she stopped me.

“I know what you are. But the women were never allowed to wear the collars before. They aren’t supposed to look the same as the men.”

I continued to smile and shrug and wear my collar anyway (what else to do?), and as I finished signing in and turned to make my visit, she conceded,

“After all, we’re all doing the same work, I guess.”

I was a little irritated, I admit. I was also intrigued. This was a new one on me: I’m used to people who are surprised that I could be ordained, a few who are shocked and outraged that I am, some who are confused to find a woman in a collar. But to know what I was, and to object simply to the sartorial expression of my vocation – that was new, and different.

One the one hand, no, I am not altogether the same as a male priest. Some of the differences are pretty obvious :). Others are a little more nuanced. Either way, I have never considered that I might need to wear a different uniform, to differentiate myself deliberately or physically, in order not to confuse the public at large, or whatever the concern might have been at the beginning of this exchange. I am different; to be asked to differentiate myself further or more hints at another agenda, one of discrimination.

Am I being too sensitive? In England, the Church is currently tying itself in knots trying to work out how to make women bishops without making them quite the same animal as bishops who are men. Women bishops will not be male bishops, so the efforts to differentiate are clearly not about making sure that they’re not, but about something different, something which many of us strongly suspect is related to discrimination, prejudice, sexism.

It’s not just us religious types that are having this problem. Women in the US typically or on average earn 77.4% of a man’s wages – 67% for African-American women (2010 statistics reported in 2012 by http://www.pay-equity.org). Women are not treated the same as male employees; they are different, and not equal.

What does this have to do with independence? To be equally as “independent” as men (and no, none of us is truly independent – no man or woman is an island; but to be on the same scale of independence as men), women need to have the same opportunities, respect and remuneration as them. I have heard a woman unhappy in her marriage told by her husband, “You could never afford to live without me.” To be equally respected, women need to be equally acknowledged and compensated for their gifts (and their weaknesses), for their callings and vocations, for their work and their worth. They need to be guaranteed equal dignity, and equal pay.

The same applies in many other situations and to many other people. Women do not and have never cornered the market on discrimination. I am simply commenting on my own experience – a harmless, passing one at that; I am fortunate in this as in so many other respects, that I suffer little thanks to the struggles of women who came before me – I am commenting in order to raise the question:

What does equality mean to or for you? Are you “independently” equal? If not, what would it take to get you there? And how can I help?

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Signs of summer

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Beauty, decadent and dangerous;
a cheap hit of colour running riot
through the regimented rows with their
cloth of gold; a flamboyant tease,
streetwise with a delicate touch,
the joy and the ruin of many.

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