We Are All Missionaries

We Are All Missionaries from The Episcopal Church on Vimeo.

"We are all missionaries or we are nothing." ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Talking to Ourselves

I have been blessed along the way by the people who have influenced my understanding of mission and ministry.  One of them is Onell Soto, formerly a member of the world mission staff at the Church Center and then the Bishop of Venezuela.  I had the opportunity to learn from him when he was the Assistant Bishop of Atlanta. 

Onell is a gracious man with a pastor’s heart.  He is also fundamentally a missionary, a call to which he has devoted his life.  He was a missionary in Venezuela.  He supported missionaries as a member of our staff, and after coming back to the United States, he continued to preach and teach about the Church’s missionary imperative, becoming something of a missionary for mission. 

He also speaks with the thick and lovely accent of his native Cuba, and he frequently compared himself to Ricky Ricardo (for those of old enough to remember “I Love Lucy”).  His Cuban accent became for me an object lesson in mission.  I vividly remember him saying on numerous occasions, particularly when people strained to understand him, “The Gospel has always been proclaimed with an accent.”  Yes, it has.  Indeed, it must be.  Otherwise, it is nothing more than insider jargon for those of us in the club.  Otherwise it is nothing more than talking to ourselves.  There is no health in talking to ourselves.  The very core of our life is to engage outward, and that requires an accent. 

The lessons for this week make the point, too.  John tells the story of the interaction between Jesus and John the Baptist (Jn. 1:29-42).  Three times John pauses in the story to translate for those to whom the words he uses are not known—Rabbi is translated as Teacher, Messiah is translated as Anointed, and Cephas is translated as Peter.  The Gospel is always proclaimed with an accent.

The Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 49:1-7, has a similar emphasis.  “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (v. 6).  The whole energy is about outward motion, from the familiar to the foreign.  The Gospel is always proclaimed with an accent.

The New Testament lesson is from an epistle of Paul, Paul the apostle to the Gentiles speaking beyond his home country to the Greeks of Corinth.  The Gospel is always proclaimed with an accent.  

It must be so if we are to be who we are by baptism, proclaimers of the Gospel in word and example.  Archbishop William Temple said, “The Church is the only society on earth that exists for the benefit of non-members.”  If we’re not speaking with an accent, it means we’re not being ourselves.  It means we are just talking to ourselves.

Is what we’re up to nothing more than talking to ourselves?  The way to tell is if we notice the accents.  It is only then that we might be hearing the Gospel.  It is only then that we might be experiencing the Gospel.  It is only then that we can be who God intends us to be.

Peace,

Back in the Box

Everyone has now gone home; Ginger’s brother to South Carolina, and the boys and daughter-in-law to Kentucky.  Now the clean-up begins.

That was our task for the weekend.  The decorations are back in their containers; well, mostly.  The Christmas tree angel, after its 35th Christmas, is safely stored for another year.  The tree, delivered exactly one month ago today, is bagged and on the street.  The furniture is now arranged back in its original locations.  The cards are all gone and the address list updated.  The sheets and towels are getting washed.  The inflatable beds are rolled up and in the closet.  I spent most of my weekend sweeping up evergreen needles, which have a tendency to get everywhere. 

Christmas is back in the box.  Where it belongs.  After a month of the chaos and disruption, things are getting back to normal.  It’s about time.  I’m not sure I could have stood any more of it.

Every year, Christmas disrupts our lives and shatters our routines.  It breaks into our normal patterns and turns them upside down.  It is not too different, I suppose, than the first Christmas.

It certainly disrupted the lives of Joseph and Mary, who traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem and then on to Egypt; of the shepherds, who left their flocks and went to see the child; of the wise men from the East, who left all behind to follow a star.  And it most certainly disrupted the lives of the villagers of Bethlehem whose infant sons were slaughtered by Herod in a jealous and murderous rage.

Enough is enough.  There is a limit to how much chaos, how much danger, how much loss, how much disruption one can take.  There came a time for Joseph and Mary and the baby to go home.  There came a time for the shepherds to go back to work.  There came a time for the wise men to return from whence they came.  There even came a time for the days of mourning in Bethlehem to end.

There is just so much Christmas anyone can take.  I, for one, am happy to have it back in the box.

Except, of course, I’ll continue to find pine needles in unexpected places when I least expect them, when I’m not armed with a broom and dust pan.  I hope I find them when I need to remember about what happened at Christmas, that the truth is life has been changed forever and the world will never quite be the same.  I hope I find them when I need to remember that normalcy, routines, and patterns are illusory and idolatrous because God is actually in charge. 

I hope I find them when I need to remember that, try as I might, Christmas is never really back in box.  Neither is God.

Peace,

The Price of Good News

I met a man yesterday at church named Frank.  Last week he lost his job at a major New York grocery chain.  Why?  Because he sold a 70¢ roll to a homeless woman for 30¢, which is all she had, and paid the difference himself.

Now, I’m not sure why that is such a terrible offense.  Perhaps it’s because it encouraged the woman to keep coming back.  Maybe it’s because such things offend the full-price customers.  I suppose it could be what you can’t do for all, you shouldn’t do for any.  What baffles me is why he didn’t get a promotion.  I recognize, of course, that compassion is probably not a value of the grocery store chain and thus something it would not reward.  I would have hoped, though, that management might have recognized Frank’s creativity and quick thinking that avoided what surely would have been an ugly scene, and no doubt a wasted 70¢ roll, over 40¢, which the store didn’t pay anyway.

It was such a vivid demonstration of the expectant Song of Mary as we head into the home stretch to Christmas:  “He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”  (Lk. 1:53)  No one ever said filling the hungry with good things wasn’t going to come at a price to someone. 

The Gospel is not only a story of good news proclaimed to the poor.  It is a story of the cost of proclaiming the good news, the cost of living the good news, the cost of being the good news.  The good news may be grace, but grace is not even cheap, to say nothing of free.

This Christmas when I hear the good news announced again, the same announcement the angels made to the shepherds in their fields keeping watch over their flocks by night, I’m going to be thinking of Frank.  “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  (Lk. 2:10-11)  This is what I learned from Frank.  The good news has a cost.  Sometimes it’s 40¢.  Sometimes it’s a job.  Sometimes it’s a lot more.  That’s why the good news begins with a warning not to be afraid. 

Surely that’s why we celebrate this announcement with the giving of gifts.  We do it to remember that love has a cost.  We do it to remember that good news is not free.  We do it to remember that grace is not cheap.  Is that not what the story is all about—the story that begins with a baby born far from home in a stable, the story of an itinerant preacher and healer with no place to lay his head, the story of the cross, love’s ultimate cost.

That’s the reason, I believe, Frank let the homeless woman pay her 30¢ toward the roll.  Even dignity, although it may be a basic right, is not free for anyone.  Or maybe 40¢ is all Frank had.  Either way, both the woman and Frank certainly got their money’s worth of dignity, and much, much more. 

So, my dear friends, that’s my Christmas wish for us this year, that this season bring a reminder of the cost of good news, the cost of grace, the cost of dignity.  And, I hope for all of us the singing of angels all around to give us the courage to pay it.  Like Frank.

Peace,

‘Tis the Season . . .

. . .for repentance. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

It is not the message we typically expect at this time of year.  In fact, the cultural message is quite the opposite.  ‘Tis the season for excess everything.  ‘Tis the season for self-centeredness.  ‘Tis the season for indulgence.  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.

And yet the Advent message is something quite different.  “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” (Mt. 3:1-2) ‘Tis the season for repentance; now, while the kingdom of heaven is so near.

We prepare to celebrate some of the best news ever announced.  Things are on the verge of dramatic change.  Isaiah puts it this way. 

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.  His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.  The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den.  They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.  (Isa. 11:1-4,6—9)

God offers peace, justice, and reconciliation.  All we have to do to participate is give up the other things.  I guess it comes down at the end of the day to which we’d rather have.  The kingdom has drawn near.  Nothing stands between us and it but repentance.

Peace,

+Stacy

Thanksgiving is for Giving

I once brought a high school youth group to New York to work at the soup kitchen at Holy Apostles.  They saw a lot of things that opened their privileged, suburban eyes to life as much of the rest of the world knows it.  Before we left, I asked the group to reflect on what they had learned.  One girl, a high school senior who lived in a gated community with a house on the water and a large boat tied to the dock at the end of her back yard answered the question readily.  “I learned to be thankful for how much I have,” she said. 

On Thursday of last week, one week before Thanksgiving, I returned from a pilgrimage introducing bishops and other church leaders to the Episcopal Church’s ministry in Haiti.  They, too, saw a lot of things that were not part of their normal experience.  Now almost four years after the devastation of an earthquake, there are still tens of thousands living in tent cities, admittedly much fewer than before.  Many schools and churches, although there has been remarkable progress, are still in temporary open-air facilities.  Piles of rubble and garbage are largely, though not entirely, gone from the streets.  Cholera remains a problem.  So does hunger.  We witnessed some of the pent up frustration flow over in civil unrest.  I wondered about the question I had asked my youth group and if the church leaders I was with would answer the same way—“I learned to be thankful for how much I have.”

Is that what Thanksgiving has come to mean, being thankful for how much we have?  If that is so, thankfulness has gotten linked with keeping what we gave been given, which makes it antithetical, rather than receptive, to generosity.  If that is so, what have the people of Haiti to be thankful for?  Where are they left when it comes to our Thanksgiving holiday?

If Thanksgiving is about being thankful for how much we have, surely it must be being thankful for how much we have to give and not how much we have to keep.  When thankfulness gets mixed up with who has the right to keep what, that’s a problem.  Thankfulness is more properly linked to participating in the giving and not in being the recipient of the giving. 

Here’s what I learned in Haiti.  I’m thankful for how much I have to give.  I hope that’s what all of us on that trip may have learned, how much we have to give and the spirit to do so.  That’s what makes for Thanksgiving.

Of course, all that might at first glance leave one wondering again about the people of Haiti.  If Thanksgiving is properly linked to how much we have to give, what again have they to be thankful for?  The answer, I think, is what they taught me in the days leading up to Thanksgiving week.  They gave me a great gift indeed, which is to seeing being thankful differently than I may have been inclined to see it before. 

Some of us have material gifts to give.  Some of us have spiritual ones.  I am grateful for the material gifts I have been given to give away.  And I am even more grateful for the spiritual gifts the people of Haiti have been given and shared so generously with me now over many trips there.  Thanksgiving is for giving because giving begets more giving.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Peace,
+Stacy

Persistence

The prophet Isaiah paints a picture of the new world God is creating from the old as stunning today as it was so many years ago. 

No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.  They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.  They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.  They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well. (65:20-23)

He sums it up:  I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. (v.18)

As stunning as God’s vision of new heavens and a new earth may be, I cannot believe God doing so would be as easy as the snap of the divine fingers.  After all, the old way is the way it is because it was working for someone.

Isaiah concludes with a beautiful vision. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox (v. 25).  Surely he knew that the wolf was not going to greet the new order with quite the same enthusiasm as the lamb, nor the lion from quite the same perspective as the ox.  The wolves and lions, I suspect, might be expected to voice a dissenting opinion on the joy God promises.  Perhaps they might even be expected to resist, in the nature of wolves and lions, with teeth bared.

Jesus, for one, knew that the coming of the new did not mean the old would go away quietly.  Nation would rise against nation, the coming of the new would be betrayed by those closest at hand, family and friends, and God’s allies in the new vision would be hated and persecuted.  For us, Jesus said, “by your endurance, you will gain your souls.”  I prefer to think of it as persistence.

God’s new dream for the creation will, in the end, prevail, but we would be naive to think the old was going away without a fight.  For God said, according to Isaiah, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”  (65:17)

Peace,
+Stacy