Plowing Love

A prospective disciple once made a reasonable request of Jesus.  “Let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 

Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  It seems a bit harsh, even cranky.

Now I have never plowed a day in my life, but I am blessed to have spent many a day as a small boy watching my grandfather plow.  Granddaddy was old school when it came to plowing.  He hitched up the mule, made sure the mule had blinders so it could not see any direction but straight ahead, he took his place behind the plow, threw a harness connected to the reins over his shoulder, grabbed the handles of the plow steadily, and then urged the mule forward with a clicking sound. 

Granddaddy, like the mule with the help of the blinders, never, ever diverted his eyes from straight ahead.  I once received a mild correction for distracting him by something I was doing along the side of the field he was plowing.  I never did it again.  It was imperative that the rows be perfectly straight.  I assume the reason for this had to do with maximizing yield or perhaps ease of caring for the crop.  Or maybe it was just a matter of pride in one’s work.  Whatever the reason, once he had set his hand to the plow there could be no looking back at all. 

I can’t help but think right now of what Jesus said about plowing and saying good-bye to one’s family in the context of my older son’s wedding this weekend.  Ginger and I are thrilled.  We love his bride for many reasons, not the least of which is what she brings out in our son and how obviously she adores him and he, her.  We are so proud of the path they have both chosen in life as teachers.  We could not be more pleased for Andrew and Jessica. 

What I wish is that Andrew had had a chance to watch his great-grandfather  plow.  I wish Andrew could have observed the mule’s blinders and the firm grasp of his great-grandfather’s hands on the plow, the way the mule was kept on track through the strength of his great-grandfather’s shoulders, the effort with which his great-grandfather grasped the handles of the plow, the wash cloth dipped in cold water after every few rows on his great-grandfather’s shoulders to combat the Georgia sun, and the fierce determination his great-grandfather put into making each and every row perfectly straight.  I wish Andrew had had a chance to see that because, in truth, I think it has a lot to do with being married to a life that matters.  It has a lot to do with beginning a life.  It has a lot to do with living a life that matters in a kingdom of God sense. 

Granddaddy and Grandmother were married to each other for just about 70 years.  I wonder if the reason didn’t have something to do with what Georgia farm people knew about plowing.  Nothing that matters is accomplished without effort.  Nothing that matters is accomplished without determination.  Nothing that matters is accomplished without keeping one’s eyes determinedly on the goal.  “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I have marriage on my mind this weekend, and of course, the love between parents and their adult children, and as I often do, between grandparents and grandchildren, not that I’m anticipating or anything.  In Christ, all human relationships are to be characterized by love.  It is to be true of strangers, which is challenging enough, but Jesus also reminded us that it is to be true of our enemies, which is more difficult still. 

Anyone will tell you who knows, at least anyone who is telling the truth, that love is hard work.  It is not nearly the sweet, romantic thing we like to imagine it to be or to pretend it is, particularly around weddings.  Love is difficult.  It requires dogged determination.   It requires putting hand to plow and never looking back, and that I know, at least from observation, is literally backbreaking work.

Peace,
+Stacy

What Are You Doing Here?

Elijah was in big trouble.  Again. This time, though, Queen Jezebel had threatened to kill him within the day, and she meant business.  Elijah was understandably afraid and fled out of her reach.

Finally he ended up at Mt. Horeb, otherwise known as Sinai, the mountain of God.  He hid out there, far from Jezebel’s reach, in a cave.  Relieved, I suspect. 

And there the voice of God speaks with an important question.  “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

Elijah proceeds to tell God what has happened.  “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed our prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

The voice instructs Elijah to stand at the front of the cave for God is about to pass by.  There was a great wind, a wind strong enough to split mountains and break rocks. God was not in the wind.  There was an earthquake.  God was not in the earthquake.  There was a fire. God was not in the fire. 

And then “a sound of sheer silence.”  From the silence, God spoke again.  “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Again, Elijah pleads his case.  And then came God’s final word.  “Go, return.”  There was work to be done, work to be completed, God’s work, in freeing Israel from the evil that had overtaken it. 

This week’s Old Testament lesson (1 Kg. 19:1-15a) is notable in my mind for the haunting question, “What are you doing here?”  Every time Elijah tells God what has happened, what catastrophe has befallen him, and why it is necessary that he be in hiding, God asks, “What are you doing here?”  It is a profound question, which even in the utter silence Elijah cannot escape—“What are you doing here?”

It might as well have been interspersed throughout Elijah’s plea to God of all that had driven him into hiding. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.”  So what are you doing here?

“The Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed our prophets with the sword.”  So what are you doing here?

“I alone am left.”  So what are you doing here?

“They are seeking my life, to take it away.”  So what are you doing here?

I guess in the end one can either hide or get back in the fray.  The first question is between those two, where is God?  The one that follows is where are we?

Peace,
+Stacy

A Woman’s Place

This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Lk. 7:36-8:3) is about women and their place. 

The first is “a woman in the city, who was a sinner.”  We often assume it was Mary Magdalene.  Luke doesn’t say that.  We also assume she might have been a prostitute.  Luke doesn’t say anything remotely like that. 

What Luke does say is that this unnamed woman lavished herself on Jesus, bathing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, after which she continued to kiss his feet and them anointed them with ointment.  It is not that the woman is coming on to Jesus.  It is that she welcomes him. 

This does not sit well with Simon, a Pharisee, who was actually Jesus’ host.  He focused on her status as a woman and a sinner.  But he missed the point.  Jesus pointed out to him that what this unnamed woman had done was really more Simon’s responsibility as host than hers as an anonymous and uninvited attendee, but had been neglected.  Thank heaven she stepped out of her place and did Simon’s job for him, indeed going well beyond what might have been expected of Simon as host.  The woman stepped out of her place to that of the host, a place the world would have thought was not properly hers.  

This woman of the city is not the only woman in the story.  Luke goes on to report that after the event at Simon’s house, Jesus “went on through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” (8:1).  The twelve were with him, and also some women, women who must have looked a lot like camp followers to those who observed.  Some of them had been cured of infirmities and evil spirits.  Mary Magdalene was there. 

And then Luke includes a very important detail.  Two of the women travelling with the group were Joanna and Susanna, both well-placed women of some means.  Luke is careful to note that it was these women who financed the whole group, providing for all from their resources.   

Now, that is certainly different than what our preconceptions might be about the proper place of women in the society of first century Palestine.  It is, though, very much the story of the church.  Indeed, we see that it has been the story of the church from its very beginning.  Women have always taken a leading role in the church and have backed it up with their resources.  And, as we all know, money is power.  One wonders if it isn’t this reality, women exercising power, just as much as women stepping into the role of host, with which goes certain power as well, that really upset Simon and not the fact that the woman, just like everyone else, was a sinner. 

Women stepping into positions of power, so central to Jesus’ living proclamation of the Gospel, is at the very core of what so upsets the way things are and those who cling to it.  So much of our life in the kingdom turns out to depend on women knowing their place and stepping into it.

Peace,
+Stacy

Restoration and Resurrection

It may be outside our everyday experience, but, the restoration of life to the dead is not all that uncommon a biblical event.  This week’s gospel reading about the son of the widow of Nain (Lk. 7:11-15) is one example.  There are others.  There is the daughter of Jairus (Lk. 8:41-42, 49-56).  Most famous of all, probably, is Lazarus (Jn. 11). 

There are other instances, including outside the New Testament and including actors other than Jesus.  Elijah restored the life of the son of the widow of Zarephath is this week’s Old Testament reading (1 Kg. 17:17-24). 

These events are described in various ways.  Jesus described raising Lazarus as an “awakening.”  Elijah prayed that “life would come again.”  Acts says that Peter “showed her to be alive.”  In not one of these, though, is the word for resurrection used.  They are resuscitations, maybe even revivals, certainly restorations, but they are not described as resurrections.  Resurrection is a far different thing than restoration.  

Here’s the big difference.  A common theme of the resurrection is that the resurrected life is completely different from life as it has been.  In fact, it is not recognizable in the old way at all.  Take the story from John about Mary Magdalene at the tomb (Jn. 20:11-18).  She had been one of Jesus’ closest followers.  Still, in the resurrection, she mistook him for the gardener. 

It is the same in Luke.  There two disciples were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday.  Jesus walked with them.  They walked the whole way together with him teaching them about Scripture, and still they did not recognize him until they had settled into an inn and were at supper that evening.  And no sooner did they recognize them than he disappeared from them.  (Lk. 24:13-35).

Matthew tells a story with a similar theme.  “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”  (Mt. 28:16-17)  There they were looking at him dead on, and they did not believe it was he. 

What I have come to wonder is if the disciples were all essentially looking for the wrong thing, that which was not really there, so that they were unable to see what really was.  Of course, the same wonderment applies to us.

They were looking for Jesus as they had known him.  The Jesus they had known, however, was not there.  It is no accident, I think, that the resurrection is proclaimed only by the announcement that “he is not here,” or in effect, “you are looking in the wrong place.  The women at the tomb, and later the male disciples who went to see for themselves, were looking with eyes that could not see this fundamental truth.  What had been was no longer, and a new reality, the reality of the resurrection, had replaced it.   

Far too often we think of the resurrection as a continuation of life as we have known it in the past.  We may catch glimpses of phantoms in that, but we will not catch sight of the risen Jesus.  In the risen Jesus, life is new, not merely continued; life is whole, not merely interminably long; life is completely different, not merely more of the same. 

It is probably not too surprising that that may be a little bit more than we are prepared to see.

Peace,
+Stacy

Camping Voices

As the summer camp season gets going in dioceses across our Church, I thought it would be worth sharing the reflection of a former summer camper, now an accomplished writer.  I thought it was very cool.  I hope you will, too.

https://exhaleprovoice.org/blog-post/one-time-church-camp-my-bishop-was-pro-voice

A lot of church work is about planting seeds and often not knowing how they turn out.  Often we don’t even know we’ve planted them.  Sometimes, though, whether or not we knew they were planted, we get to see them bloom gloriously. 

Happy camping.

Peace,

+Stacy

Unabashed

I have just returned to South Africa.  I went to attend a dialogue of Anglican bishops on the subject of reconciliation.  It was a great blessing.  While I was there I also had the chance to spend some time with Holly Milburn, Cameron Spoor, and Steve Smith, all of them Young Adult Service Corps volunteers from the Episcopal Church serving in South Africa.  As profound as Anglican bishops can be talking about reconciliation, and indeed they were, having the chance to be inspired by these three young people was, without a doubt, the highlight of the trip.  Indeed, they were the greater blessing.

On my last day, one of them, Cameron, asked to have our picture taken together.  I stopped by the school where he and Steve work, and one of the teachers was kind enough to take a picture of the three of us.  He sent me a copy, but with it he sent some other, much more important, pictures.

The other pictures were of the students at Holy Cross School. Some of them show the younger students excitedly looking through their new books about Clifford the Big Red Dog.  Ginger, who along with me has been involved with the educational ministry of the Holy Cross Monastery in Grahamstown for a number of years and has been a recipient of the blessing that is, carefully packed the books and sent them with me.  Clifford, you see, was one of the characters we read to our own children about, and we have long since come to think of the children at Holy Cross as ours, too.  I had delivered the books to the school the day before, one book for each of the children to take home.

The funny thing about that was that the teachers sent the books home with the children.  All of the children brought them back and returned them the next day.  They couldn’t believe something so precious could be theirs to keep.  The teachers explained and the books went home again the next night.  I hope they stayed this time. 

The real point I want to tell you about, though, is about Cameron’s email and the way he signed it, which was this:  “Servant in Christ (and unabashed about being a missionary!).”  Unabashed for good reason.

Missionary is a word that has taken on some very negative connotations, and not without justification.  There have been times when missionary and colonialist were very nearly synonyms.  There have been times, good intentions notwithstanding, when missionaries have fostered dependence and may have done more harm than good.  Cameron’s insight, though, is that it is not only possible to reclaim the word from its misuses, it is important to do so.

Being a missionary, of course, is not truly about colonialism or short-sightedness in our strategies.  Being a missionary, in truth, has very little to do with what we do for others at all.  It has to do mostly with being who we ourselves are.  Mission is a matter of identity for us.  Mission is just simply who we are.

And who we are is human beings, created like all other human beings, in the image of God, and born for the purpose of loving, of loving God and loving one another, which are really pretty much the same thing.  That purpose is what our mission is.  What Cameron and all the YASC volunteers know, I think, is that in loving the poor, they are loving Christ himself, and what makes that mission work, as opposed to doing good, is that it fulfills our very basic identity as human beings, children of God, which is to love.  Trevor Huddleston, a missionary who preceded Holly, Cameron, and Steve to South Africa by 70 years, put it this way:  “You cannot love an unseen God until you perceive Him in those you are sent to serve.”  Doing just that is what being a missionary is all about.

So, I am deeply grateful for Cameron’s reminder about that mission is about being who we are.  And in that sense, it is not only acceptable to be a missionary, it is imperative.  Cameron, Holly, and Steve are missionaries on our behalf in South Africa.  There are other YASC volunteers in other places doing exactly the same thing.  And that makes all of us who work to support them in our various ways missionaries, too.  I’m so grateful for the small opportunity I have had to do so.  It has left me unabashed about being a missionary.

Peace,
+Stacy

The Hogan

I spent this past weekend in Navajoland.  I was there as part of what the Bishop there calls the “economic development team” to meet with the council of the Episcopal Church in Navajoland.  Our goal is to secure the very important ministry of the Episcopal Church’s only all-indigenous mission.  We have a lot to do.  Things are in a precarious state and whether or not we are able to continue our ministry among the Navajo has a lot to do with what both the Navajo people and the rest of the Church are willing to do together to make new life possible.  It takes a lot of courage to choose life. 

It is for that reasons that our time in Navajoland began with a rare invitation to participate in a traditional Navajo blessing ceremony at the sheep camp of one of the key Navajo leaders in the family’s hogan, the traditional Navajo dwelling and location of medicine ceremonies.  Our host calls the hogan the universal home. 

The blessing was conducted by a medicine man.  Although the medicine man invoked the name of Jesus with great passion and sincerity, the ceremony itself was certainly not a church ritual. 

Part of the ceremony involved smoking together.  I watched this with great interest.  A pipe of herbs was passed to the primary participants, the medicine man, his assistant, our host, the bishop, and some of the key church leaders, all women considered elders.  I observed how they drew in the smoke and then puffed it out in each of the four directions and then symbolically covered themselves with it, directing it toward all the parts of their bodies and finally over their heads.  Eventually, the pipe was passed around the room.

Eventually it got to me.  Now, confession time.  I had never smoked anything in my life.  Nothing.  Not a cigarette, cigar, or pipe.  And certainly not anything else, inhale or not.  I was not at all sure I knew what to do.  I was afraid I would cough uncontrollably and disrupt the whole event.

Fortunately, I managed.  I took in the smoke and blew it out in imitation of what I had seen my hosts do.  I let the smoke roll over me.  I directed it with my cupped hand over my head. And then I passed the pipe on to the person next to me.

As I did, the Native man next to me who had handed me the pipe in the first place, reached out his hand to me.  He took my hand, and grasped it quietly but firmly.  It was a profoundly important moment to me.  I can’t tell you I know at all what it means.  It has something to do, though, with a very basic shared humanity. 

I read the lesson from Acts (11:1-18) for this Sunday in the context of the hogan, the universal home.  Peter, a devoutly observant Jew, had returned to Jerusalem from a trip to Joppa, where he had been invited into the home of some Gentiles.  There he had eaten with the uncircumcised and received a vision about clean and unclean foods.  He heard the voice of the Lord inviting him, indeed commanding him, to eat of foods previously forbidden.  He protested, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”

The voice of the Lord answered, “”What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

Animals used for food, described by Acts as “four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air,” find their purity in their common creator so that none is unclean.  Can it possibly be otherwise with human beings, all the children of the same God, known to them or not, that any could be unclean?  And if it is true of all human beings, could it possibly be otherwise with the human response to the innate drive in all of us that draws us to their creator?  Surely whatever that is, as basically human as it must be, is made by God not only clean but beloved.

The Navajo people have brought me to a new understanding of what it is to be human by teaching me something of what it means to be Diné, the name by which they know themselves.  The hogan is the universal home.  Another name for the universal home is the catholic church.  And catholic, in the truest sense, must be defined by what we share in common—our common humanity, our common origin in God, not only that we are made clean, but that we are made in the image of God.  What is catholic, I have learned, is defined by what is universally true and not by what is exclusively true.

Peace,
+Stacy