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

A Statement of Hope

I have never been a big fan of the Book of Revelation.  Mostly, I think, it’s because of how badly it gets misused a lot of the time, as if it were a collection of predictions, sort of like a biblical version of Nostradamus.  Its imagery is strange to say the least, and the high level of symbolism has always been more off-putting than inviting to me.  I’ve never thought it was the most salutary of scriptures, and indeed, it seems to lend itself to more than a little interpretive mischief, especially by the most unscrupulous preachers. 

The passage for next Sunday (Rev. 7:9-17), to my surprise, speaks to me in an important way.  It exudes hope.  Maybe it’s that I’m finding myself in need of just that.  It is something I share with the church for which it was written.

Revelation is all about context, and its context is disturbing.  It was written at a time of great difficulty for the church, including the persecution of Nero.  It was not a time when things were looking up.  In fact, it is difficult to express how bleak things must have looked for the young church.  Pretty much hopeless, I would think. 

Into that mix, Revelation speaks a word of hope, more like singing it.  And it is more than hope.  It is confidence.

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no   one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.  They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”  (vv. 9-10)

In the midst of horrible circumstances, Revelation sings out a vision of tremendous hope.  I particularly like this part of the vision—from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.

I have just returned from Haiti.  I have never been to Haiti, not one single time, when I did not return inspired by the infectious hope of the Haitian people.  Theirs is not a situation of persecution, like the church to which Revelation was written, but it is extreme by any reckoning.  The people face challenges I find it difficult even to imagine. 

Three years after the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, the ministries of the Episcopal Church in Haiti are functioning but in makeshift facilities.  The Cathedral operates from a temporary shelter.  So do the primary and secondary schools, the trade school, and the music school.  The same is true for the university and the seminary as well as many of the hospitals and clinics. 

Still, this week the Haitian people gathered with their American partners for a conference known as the Haiti Connection.  A bell choir of blind children played.  A dance troupe of from St. Vincent’s School for Handicapped Children danced.  A choir of deaf children sang.

Partners, Haitian and American, talked about their ministries.  The architect for St. Vincent’s described the rebuilding plans.  One person talked about a ministry to revive the Haitian coffee industry in a way that goes far beyond anything imagined even by “fair trade.”  We heard from the dedicated and extraordinarily talented dean of the nursing school.  A spirit of collaboration prevailed.  Small steps were being taken everywhere.  Lots of small steps add up to giant steps.

It all left it easier for me hear the song of Revelation in a fresh way—from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.  A heavenly chorus of hope.  Having just come home from Haiti, I’m wondering if Revelation might not be a prediction after all.  Maybe it’s even better than a prediction, a statement of confident hope.  And certainly one I happen to need.

Peace,
+Stacy

Resurrection is Not More of the Same

Resurrection is a hard concept to get.  It is not the same thing as resuscitation.  

There is the son of the widow of Nain (Lk. 7:11-15).  There is the daughter of Jairus (Lk. 8:41-42, 49-56).  Most famous of all, probably, is Lazarus (Jn. 11).  Jesus refers to his own action regarding Lazarus as awakening him, not resurrecting him.  In not one instance is the word resurrection used.

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 (1 Kg. 17:17-24).  He himself prayed, “Let this child’s life come into him again” (v. 21), and the text says that the child was “revived” (v. 22).  Peter restored life to a disciple named Tabitha in Joppa (Acts 9:36-41).  Acts says that “he showed her to be alive” (v. 41).  There is no mention of resurrection.  

Indeed, whatever happened on that first Easter morning, it was not resuscitation or the revival of Jesus’ dead body.  Whatever it was, it was something different with Jesus. It was something different than what had been before with him.  Mary Magdalene, the first of his disciples to see him, did not recognize him (Jn. 20:15).  The life of Jesus was not the same as it had been before.  Two of his closest disciples walked all the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus with him and did not know who he was (Lk. 24:13 ff.).  The life of Jesus was not the same as it had been before.  As instructed, the eleven, Jesus’ most intimate friends, gathered to meet him on a mountain in Galilee to which they had been directed.  Even then, not all recognized him (Mt. 28:17).  The life of Jesus was not the same as it had been before.  

The life of the resurrection as made known in Jesus is not the same as a continuation of life as it has been.  Resurrection is not the same as resuscitation or even revival.  Those, miraculous as they may be, are just a continuation of what has been.  Resurrection is not.  It is something entirely new.  It has no biblical parallel.  And it has no parallel, at least exactly, in our experience of life this side of the kingdom of God.

The fact that it is so completely new, life so completely changed, is what it makes it so hard to accept.  Human beings, I think, are innately conservative.  Better stated, it is really more that we are innately cautious, indeed fearful.  That could be, I think, because we are the only creatures innately aware of our impending deaths.  But for whatever reason, the life of the resurrection is difficult for us to accept precisely because it is not the same old thing, not a continuation of what we have always known, not more of the same.  That is why it takes courage.  And courage, even for those of us who have it, is more than a little difficult to access.  

Still, our message is that we are being called not into continued being but into new being; not into the same old thing, but into newness of life; not something we already know, but something completely without precedent, except in Jesus; not into resuscitated life, but into resurrected life.

The adventure we set out on after Easter is to find out if we’re up to it.  Courage, friends!  And remember.  Jesus has gone on before.

Peace,
+Stacy

Overcoming Religion for Easter

Peter preached a sermon (Acts 10:34-43) in the months immediately after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  For close to 2,000 Easters, and I say this from some personal experience of having tried to preach on 1% of those Easters, preachers have struggled to find something new to explain it.  It is impossible really.  Perhaps Peter put it best in his sermon.  He just announced it—no elaborations, no reflections, no explanations—just announced it.  “God raised him on the third day.”  That was it.  

The truth is that the New Testament really doesn’t say much more than that about the resurrection.  None of the gospels describe the actual event—how, exactly the stone was rolled away, or what happened at the dramatic moment when the body of Jesus arose.  That is a little curious, I think, given how central the resurrection is to Christian faith.  Still, neither the gospels nor the apostle Paul say any more than Peter did—just an announcement.  God raised him on the third day.  He is risen.  That’s about it. 

And could the reason that the Bible says so little about the details of Easter be that the details are not remotely important?  The point of the story of the New Testament, it seems to me, is not nearly so much what you think about the resurrection.  It is what you do about it.  Indeed, repeatedly in the gospels, the disciples are not at all sure what to think.  In John, the disciples who got to the tomb first weren’t sure what to think.  In Luke, even in the presence of the risen Jesus, some of the disciples doubted.  In Matthew, those who were with him on the mountain after the resurrection doubted.  What matters is what they did.  They lived the resurrection.  They lived as if death no longer had power over them.  What matters is that they lived as if all that divides one human being from another no longer existed.

And that brings me back to that early sermon Peter preached about Easter, and to the part of Acts leading up to it.  Because the point is not what Peter said about the resurrection and more about what he did about it, about how Peter was changed by it, changed from old ways to new ways, changed from death to life, changed from being governed by what divides to being an instrument of reconciliation. 

The words of Peter’s sermon are addressed to a man named Cornelius, his family, his friends, and his household.  There were many people there according to Acts, which is not surprising as Cornelius was a man of some importance and means.  He was a Roman centurion, and not one of the mercenary soldiers from other parts of the Empire common in Judea, but an actual Roman.  He was a good man.  A generous man.  A supporter of the synagogue.  But he was not a Jew.  No matter how you cut it, Cornelius was a Gentile, a foreigner, unclean. 

In fact, Peter’s first words to Cornelius were, “You . . . know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile.”  And then Peter went on.  “But God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”  And then Peter begins his sermon with these words:  “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” 

For Peter, that is a matter of the resurrection. That is change inspired by the resurrection.  That is faith in the resurrection showing forth in living a life of witness to the resurrection, a life in the service of reconciliation. 

That gets to the heart of the resurrection for all of us.  To have faith in the resurrection is to give up partiality, things of our own creation that divide us, all things that prevent our reconciliation, that prevent the love of God for our neighbors from being made real, for God knows no partiality at all.  What the resurrection does is destroy all that divides in the name of God’s overpowering reconciliation that will be held back by nothing, not even death itself.

Now things that divide us are not that easy to give up.  After all, they are deeply cherished.  After all, they are all we have ever known.  After all, they are often matters of principle, of conviction.  After all, they are very often full of religious meaning for us, as they were for Peter. 

It is hard for us to associate what is religious with something God is working beyond all imagination to defeat.  But when anything, including religion itself, divides us, that is exactly what we can expect from Easter, that God will defeat it.  “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” 

Forty-five years ago this Thursday, which was a Thursday that year also, the Thursday before Palm Sunday, a man who had incredible faith in the resurrection entered into it fully.  That man’s name was Martin Luther King, Jr. Forty-five years ago this Thursday, he left Atlanta on an airplane to take part in the sanitation workers strike in Memphis for the reason that God knows no partiality.  And on that evening, 45 years ago last night, King preached these final words:

[God has] allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

The next day he was dead.  And that very costly stand against what divides, as religiously essential as many of us thought that division was at the time, was a product, I am sure, of the resurrection and an encounter with the risen Jesus.  “Mine eye have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”  The question is, of course, have ours? 

That is what the resurrection is all about.  It is about living in the light of the glory of the coming of the Lord, that in the coming of the Lord there is no partiality.  None.  It is living in the light of the resurrection.  It is in living in light of the fact that God knows no partiality.  None.

Not that that’s an easy thing to do.  Partiality is a hard thing to give up.  Fear is a hard thing to give up.  Somehow, partiality is a comfort, a defense, an illusion that we are somehow worthy, deserving, entitled to God’s special care.  We would rather that be the case.  It is not.  The reason that is good news to us is that we are the people that, before the resurrection, Peter would have characterized as foreign, unclean, Gentiles.  It is only by the power of what the resurrection meant, and what a group of followers of Jesus decided to do about it, that we are included beyond the very religious barrier that Peter had to overcome. 

Is the resurrection enough for us to overcome the things that divide us in our own day—national origin, language spoken, gender, opinion, political party, class, tax bracket, orientation?  Is it?  Religion notwithstanding?  Might the resurrection even have the power for us to overcome our religion?

So, here’s the basic proclamation.  God raised him on the third day.  He is risen.  That’s it.  What we think about it matters not a bit.  What we believe about it does, but only in the sense of what we do about it, what we overcome because of it, how we live because of it—without division, without partiality, all religion to the contrary notwithstanding.

Peace,
+Stacy

Yanking Us Bald Headed into Life

There is a Southern expression I grew up with.  It has to do with being in really big trouble.  I don’t really know where it comes from.  It is something every Southern boy and girl has been told by their mammas as a solemn warning.  It is to yank bald headed, as in, “If you do such and such, I’m gonna yank you bald headed.”  I never saw anyone actually yanked bald headed, but neither did I ever see anyone do anything that would result in them getting yanked bald headed.  It must work.

Eastern Orthodox icons of the resurrection do not show risen Jesus alone.  Instead, they show Jesus reaching down to grasp Adam and Eve and pull them also from their tombs.  Jesus is yanking them bald headed.  Adam and Eve look none too pleased.  As the icons depict the event, it is as if Jesus must remove them forcibly, yank them bald headed, to get them to come out of the tomb.  If that’s what it takes, so be it.  God is not satisfied with leaving them undisturbed in the slumber of death.  They will live without regard to their choice.  They will live because God wills it whether they want to or not.  So it is with us.

It appears on the surface that the choice to live would be so self-evident as not to merit discussion.  Beneath the surface, we tend over and over to choose otherwise. 

Today Episcopalians from across the country, including 22 bishops, are walking the Stations of the Cross at the beginning of Holy Week to pray for sensible gun control.  The National Rifle Association calls such efforts un-American and proposes putting armed guards in all our schools.  Life proves to be harder to choose than it at first appears.  Somebody needs to yank us bald headed.

The wells supplying water to an entire community in Navajoland are poisoned as a result of mining activity nearby.  Life proves to be harder to choose than it at first appears.  Somebody needs to yank us bald headed.

Iran and North Korea threaten nuclear attacks.  Missiles are launched from Gaza into Israel.  Bombers are launched from Israel into Gaza.  Children are kidnapped to fight wars in Africa.  Children are imprisoned in the United States at an alarming rate.  Life proves to be harder to choose than it first appears.  Somebody needs to yank us bald headed. 

In truth, we human beings have an alarming propensity to choose death when left to our own devices.  We observe it up close in this Holy Week we are entering.  By the time Friday comes, we are all shouting, “Crucify him.” 

And still God will not have it, at least ultimately.  God lets us have what we want in the short term.  We have made an idol of gun-owning in America, and God will let us have our way for now and first graders are gunned down with automatic weapons.  Our greed poisons the very water God gives to sustain our life, and God will let us have our way for now.  War.  Death.  Prisons.  Drugs.  God will let us have our way for now.  And we even cry out to send even God to the cross.  God will let us have our way for now. 

Ultimately, though, God will not.  As the icons reveal, God is going to yank us bald headed if God has to in order to get us out of the tomb.  When the free will we have been given has run its course, when we have reaped the fruit of what we have sown, when at last the ability to set anything right is beyond our grasp, when we are confined to the graves we have dug for ourselves, God is not finished.  God’s choice for us is always life.

And we can rest assured that God is going to yank us bald headed if necessary so that we will have it.

So, this Easter, may God yank you bald headed into life, whether you want it or not. Happy Easter.

Peace,
+Stacy