I preached at St. Paul’s again this past Sunday. There was a search committee from a church that is considering me for their open vicar position at St. Paul’s evaluating me as I did my “stuff.”
Afterwards, two St. Paul’s members, two of our more mature members whom I love, came up to me individually and said that they really liked the sermon, but could certainly discern my politics from the sermon. One said they really don’t like politics in the pulpit, but the sermon was great anyway. So, I said, “I bet you really don’t know my politics from that sermon!” Both of them said something like, “Oh, yes, it came through loud and clear.”
I asked one of them, “So, what do you think my political persuasion really is?” He said, “On the far left of the Democratic party.” Oh my gosh! A far left-Democrat! Me! Well, I said, “Oh my no!”
Isn’t it funny the perceptions people form about us from our words? Of course that is how they form opinions, but it drives home the need to be very careful with our words. I try very hard to be neutral concerning politics when I preach. It is not so important to me whether someone is a stanch conservative or a socialist, but that they are informed and reasonable. Yet, I think when some people hear what sounds unconventional (which the way of Jesus will always be!), it sounds liberal.
The search committee really liked the sermon, too!
For those who do not believe
Those who wish to discount the Bible as being anything other than the writings of simple people trying to understand their world in an unscientific and irrational time, here is a report of a rediscovery that substantiates biblical history and geography.
It is perfectly legitimate, in my opinion, to suggest that John or any of the biblical writers use allegory and story telling to convey religious truths, but many demand that that is what the Bible is all about – and as proof they often discount historical and geographic accounts as untrue. This was the case with the Hebrew Testament cities of Sodom and Gomorra, which many scholars used to prove the unreliability of biblical accounts because they did not believe the cities ever actually existed. Until they were found, that is. There are many such examples. Now, the Pool of Siloam has been found. I love it when this happens.
A Gospel of John Passage Is Proven True
It turns out that a specific passage from the Gospel of John wasn’t a religious conceit, that is a kind of poetic license John took to prove a point. It’s true. Now there is proof. When the sewer line in the Old City of Jerusalem needed repairs in the fall of 2004, the workmen made a historic discovery: the biblical Pool of Siloam. The Gospel of John cites this as the place where Jesus cured the blind man. Theologians have long thought the setting of the pool was a “religious conceit” used by John to illustrate a point. Turns out, the place is real. And it’s exactly where John said it is, reports The Los Angeles Times of a new study published in the Biblical Archaeology Review.
Stories
From The Living Church
Personal Stories after the Hurricane
9/8/2005
As thousands of displaced persons left New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, others were moving into the ravaged area as caregivers. The stories are intriguing:
The Rev. Jerry Kramer, rector of Church of the Annunciation, New
Orleans, provided a valuable service by posting frequent updates on the internet. Fr. Kramer was writing from St. Luke’s Church, Baton Rouge, where he and his family fled for safety following the arrival of Katrina.
“As of this evening I have 28 parish families remaining on our missing list,” he wrote on Sept. 4. “Found two more earlier in the day and I wanted to cry with joy. One family with two children made it to Tennessee, another to this area. The search goes on; we are working the phones and internet sites feverishly.”
On Sept. 7 he told of returning to New Orleans and traveling by boat to visit his church: “I could never have been prepared to view the state of our beautiful old church. The waters peaked at five to six feet, now resting at about four. Pews turned over, Bibles, prayer books and hymnals all floating. The water had reached one foot up the high main altar where someone had put out a cigarette.
“Praise God the sacristy was still locked. We filled a garbage bag full of vestments and the remaining silver, locked everything up, loaded the boat, and began paddling for my house about seven blocks north. There we discovered the water still about seven feet high. You can’t even see the front door. Most of our things were on the first floor, completely submerged. Again we docked the boat, filled a few garbage bags with clothes for the kids from the intact third floor and then paddled back down Napoleon to where our journey began. Almost immediately I broke out in a rash and now have stomach issues. Taking antibiotics and threw away most of the clothes I was wearing.”
* * *
The Rev. Rob Dewey, founder of the Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy in Charleston, S.C., was deployed by FEMA as part of D MORT, the disaster mortuary response team, to the Mississippi coast. He found there “six blown-out churches, nothing but slabs.”
Fr. Dewey and Bishop Duncan Gray III of Mississippi visited a makeshift morgue before it began to operate. “He blessed it, sprinkled it and all the people working, and the trailers on site already containing remains,” Fr. Dewey said.
Fr. Dewey has been sleeping at the morgue in Gulfport. “It’s a way to
reach out to people doing a tremendous job,” he said. Asked how he was
able to do this, he answered, “It would be tough to do this and not be a Christian. There is grief, devastation, loss; nobody’s at the acceptance stage yet.”
He said a highlight was when he was on his way to meet Bishop Gray at St. Mark’s Church, Gulfport. He saw an Episcopal flag and stopped. “All the walls were blown out but the roof was held up by the columns,” he said. “There were about 20 people gathered outside. They asked me if I was their supply priest. When I said no, but that I was a priest, they asked me to do a service. So we had a service and the
laying-on-of-hands, around what used to be the altar. It was very moving. It was a God thing.”
Fr. Dewey expressed frustration at the lack of coordination by the Episcopal Church for responding to disasters.
“We do not have a plan in place,” he said. “The bishops and priests here are very frustrated that more is not being done to assist them. And they’ve had personal tragedies, too. They need help. I hope after this the national Church will have a plan ready for the next disaster.”
* * *
Daniel Muth, of Prince Frederick, Md., a member of TLC’s board of directors, participated in the rescue of his 92-year-old grandmother from her home in Metairie, La. Mr. Muth, his father and brother, drove to Louisiana, arriving on the Saturday following the hurricane. They found Dorothy Muth safe but without water or power for a week and in need of evacuation.
“We convinced her to leave, got her packed and out in just over an hour,” he said. “By this point she wasn’t much into putting up resistance.
“Lacking a TV or newspaper, she…did not know the extent of the devastation … She appears to be in good health and amazingly good spirits, all things considered.” Mrs. Muth is now residing with relatives in St. Leonard, Md.
Mr. Muth described the scene in Metairie as “surreal.” The buildings “were largely empty with the exception of the occasional stunned-looking resident cleaning up the odd bit of debris. My grandmother’s street, normally shaded by oaks, was open to the sun because of so many limbs were torn off the trees. Her yard was a mass of leaves, branches, and limbs. The house appeared undamaged. The air was filled with a constant buzz of military helicopters coming and going from the airport a few miles west. The sun was hot and the mosquitos were incessant.”
* * *
Kimberly King, a member of Christ Church, Bay St. Louis, Miss., told of her visit to her church’s site after the storm:
“… the church is gone except for part of the bell tower. The entire church, all buildings, the rectory, all gone. We did find a brass cross that was on the altar, and the processional cross, as well as several brass plaques, the Episcopal Church flag, and some stained glass parts. Two of the stained glass windows were intact, and laid on the ground. The rest was gone.”
* * *
Howard Castleberry, a member of St. John the Divine, Houston, assisted with relief efforts at the Astrodome, where many of the evacuees from New Orleans were taken by bus. He told of his experience on a private listserv:
As new survivors poured in, there were hundreds … of single moms with children under the age of 2,” he wrote. “Many had babies only weeks old. These babies hadn’t eaten formula or milk in days. Mothers had lost the bottles while wading through floodwaters, or had reeking ones that were now useless.
There was powdered formula donated everywhere, but only a few new bottles at the Dome. There were jugs of water. So I began to mix
formula like mad. I distributed what I could, but realized there was an immediate need for 50 baby bottles, or some of these infants were going to fall into shock. I called friends on my cell and begged for them to immediately get in their cars, run to the store, and then meet me at the edge of the complex parking lot. I stood there and caught bags of bottles tossed to me from their cars. I ran back to the Astroarena, where we filled bottles as quickly as possible. The looks on the mothers’ faces was a mix of tearful thanks and exhausted relief.
* * *
Among the casualties of Katrina was the venerable bell tower at Church of the Redeemer, Biloxi, Miss., erected in 1891. When Hurricane Camille struck in 1969, the church was destroyed but the bell tower remained. Katrina’s power took down the red wooden tower, which had become somewhat of a landmark for residents along the Gulf Coast. Even though the bell lay in the rubble of the tower, it was rung for the Eucharist on Sunday, Sept. 4.
* * *
On the website http://www.dioms.org/ of the Diocese of Mississippi, the Very Rev. Joe Robinson, dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Jackson, wrote of a trip to the Gulf Coast to deliver some relief supplies. He described the scene as “decimated for a 50-mile stretch. There is nothing but matchsticks up to 10 blocks deep from the beach in some places and banana containers tossed for miles like a deluxe-sized set of dominoes.”
* * *
The Rev. Jean Meade, rector of Mt. Olivet, New Orleans, told of her house catching fire from an ember of a fire two blocks away. Her husband, Louis, was home and asked firefighters from the other blaze to provide assistance. “They were from Alabama, Aspen, Colo., and New York City,” she wrote. “They came into New Orleans even though they were told they were not needed.” The fire was extinguished before there was major damage.
To find more news, feature articles, and commentary not available online, we invite you to subscribe to The Living Church magazine. To learn more, click here https://storefront.livingchurch.org/TLC.ASP.
Divorce
From a Netscape article on the effects of divorce:
Kids of Divorced Parents: Unsettling News
Children whose parents are divorced may have the best intentions not to repeat the same painful mistakes in their own marriages, but the reality is that they face unfavorable odds. According to researchers from the University of Utah, if one spouse comes from divorced parents, the couple may be up to twice as likely to divorce. Spouses who are both children of divorced parents are three times more likely to divorce as couples who both come from intact families.
“Growing up in a divorced family greatly increases the chances of ending one’s own marriage, a phenomenon called the divorce cycle or the intergenerational transmission of divorce,” says Nicholas H. Wolfinger, assistant professor in the University of Utah’s Department of Family and Consumer Studies and author of “Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in Their Own Marriages.” Wolfinger’s research is based on the National Survey of Families and Households, which included detailed information on family background for 13,000 people, and the General Social Survey, which surveyed 20,000 people over a 30-year period.
After a decade of study, Wolfinger has reached the following conclusions about the children of divorced parents. They are more likely to:
–marry as teenagers.
–cohabitate.
–marry someone who is also a child of divorced parents.
–They are one-third less likely to marry if they are over 20.
Help after Katrina
The following was provided in an e-mail from the Diocese of Ohio concerning opportunities to help with Katrina relief through the Episcopal Church.
Episcopal Squirrels
My friend John sent me a link to another weblog containing this joke. So true, but by the grace of God hopefully not for much longer!
Episcopal Squirrels
A joke I’ve seen several places on the internet . . .
Three churches in a small town found that their church buildings had become over-run with squirrels.
The Presbyterian church decided that it was pre-destined that the squirrels would be there and therefore left the squirrels to their own devices.
The Unitarian church decided the best measure was to humanely trap the squirrels and take them to a nice place in the woods. Naturally the squirrels returned three days later.
The Episcopal church decided to have the squirrels baptized and confirmed. Now the squirrels only come to church on Christmas and Easter.
—-
I suspect that a certain segment of Pentecostals/Charismatics would rebuke the demon of squrrel infestation and cast them out into utter darkness.
Katrina’s Aftermath
There is not much I can say. We have all seen the devastation. My cousin, Sonja, and I grew up together and she and her family live in New Orleans – actually Coventry on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. She breeds horses. The sustained winds were 130 mph during the hurricane. They all traveled 40 miles inland to my uncle’s place, her father’s.
After the hurricane passed, she was able to get to her house and found that all the horses had made it through, which seems remarkable to me. My uncle’s house sustained no primary damage, although a huge oak tree fell across the swimming pool. Actually, and the huge oaks in his yard fell. He was told not to expect electricity for another month, and while they have generators they have to travel 40 miles to get gasoline at this point.
If anyone is considering donations for victim relief, please consider giving to Episcopal Relief and Development. They are a very effective organization that works with local people and groups. Your money will be wisely spent.
New year?
This is the first time in 25 years that I have not been involved in the opening of a new academic year. This is so strange and a bit depressing.
Romans 2
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pas judgment do the same thing. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things,” list in chapter 1, “is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you towards repentance?
How easy it is for me, for any of us, to pass judgments on others. The fact is we all judge, and we must continue to make judgments on all manner of the things. I don’t think Paul was instructing us to stop making judgments, but to stop being hypocrites in our judgment of others. Who knows the heart of man, but God.
As years pass, I am much more willing to leave the judging to God. When I was young, zealous, and far more self-righteous, it was far easier to pass judgment on others and never realized that I was thinking, “thank God I am not like THAT person! See how much better I am than…” Over the years my own stupidity, my own hypocrisy, my own self-righteous pride have come home to me more than I want to admit. It is in our make-up to behave in such ways, but if we allow God to have His way with us then we are transformed and made new daily.
We, too, are more often than not blind to our own pride or need to pass judgments on others in order to boost our own sense of worth or worthiness. I think this is what Paul is getting at as he writes to the Roman Jewish Christians.
Order for the Benefit of College Students
A society or religious order focused on ministry to college students. Chaplains would be the monastics devoting their lives to the spiritual formation/direction and maturation of college students. There needs to be a vital presence of a Christian expression other than fundamentalism and cultic groups that sow and reap and minister to students during the most open and vulnerable period of their lives. There needs to be an Anglican presence in academe! Since the resources are not being committed to such ministry, maybe we need to approach this in a different way – perhaps to take things into our own hands for the time being. I wonder what this would look like?
I have been pulled for a long time in the direction of monasticism. I really don’t know where it comes from or what it may entail, but that desire for complete devotion and surrender to prayer, worship, service, and relationship between brothers/sisters of like commitment has always been present – and seems to be growing. It has taken different shapes during different periods of my life – as a college student, as a campus pastor and missionary, as a seminarian, and now as I begin my life as a priest the pull is only getting stronger.
In many ways, the intense experience of college student ministry mirrors a form of monastic living. Students involved in campus ministries are often the most “sold-out” they will ever be in their lives. The fellowship and the intense spiritual dynamic are profoundly experienced. Chi Alpha at the time of my involvement had a four-fold philosophy of ministry – Discipleship, Worship, Prayer, and Witness. A good foundation, I think.
Now as an Anglican, I understand far more of the history and contributions of monastics to the experience of the Church and for ministry to God and people. I want it all the more.
Ministry to college students, while rarified, is of vital importance for the Church and for the cause of Christ in the world. This focused period of students’ lives opens them to discovering their own faith for perhaps the first time. They are open and willing to newly investigate all manner of things, and these people will be the leaders in politics, science, religions, and business. How will they form their lives, their faith, their philosophies, and so on? Who will influence them?
Fundamentalist religious groups are all over college campuses, as are the cults. They are forming future leaders in their own narrow form and these people will be leading us – to where I don’t know. There are obviously many good ministries, too. So much of the current culture wars and ascendancy of Religious-Right fundamentalism can be directly attributed to the success of their campus ministries during the later part of the 20th century. I know, I was there and was one of them! The Episcopal Church abandoned campus in the 1970’s.
Now, where is the presence on campuses of a Christian expression that allows for open investigation and questioning, that has an ancient pedigree, which values the transformative powers of the liturgy and sacraments, that takes Scripture seriously, and allows for great mystery and experience? Where is Anglicanism on our campuses?
Since the Episcopal Church in general seems unwilling or unable to focus resources for ministry to college students, why not develop a religious order focused on ministry to college students? Men and women who have a passion for and a calling for ministry to college students can devote either part of or all their lives to this purpose. Chaplains will be the monastics (monks or nuns in some form) of such an order. They can live into this calling in a supportive and challenging fellowship that pools resources so that chaplains can be placed and supported in their ministries. Those who do not wish to live in such community full-time can financially and prayerfully (and a myriad of other ways) support the order/society. And so on…
Who knows? Anyone interested? College students of faith and those who are seeking need such a presence! They just do, and until the Church returns money and resources to our colleges and universities, perhaps we can take things into our own hands and begin the work in those places where chaplains and chaplaincies are missing. I’ll do it!