Avdat

Keepin' it real

I'm a bit late to this brouhaha, but I did want to comment on Mother Theresa's spiritual dryness and the controversy that's ensued over this revelation.  A synopsis:  a new book of letters between Theresa and her confessors and confidants reveals that her experience of God's presence evaporated shortly after she arrived in India and never returned, save for one brief moment of time in the late 50s.  Some have seized on this revelation as evidence that the famous nun was perpetrating a fraud.  Her defenders take exception to the idea that spiritual giants are never supposed to experience trials of faith.

Right.  The opposite of faith is not doubt but fear, as one of Sunday's lectionary readings makes clear.  To quote Frederick Buechner, himself quoted at the outset of John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany,

Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a genuine, self-authenticating religious experience would be.  Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt?  If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.

That said, I do have to wonder about the hypersensitivity of some Roman Catholics to the hysterical attacks of militant atheists like Christopher Hitchens.  Martin Luther was another Roman Catholic monastic who struggled mightily with doubt, as well as with the demonic.  But I have pulled more than a few polemical works off the shelf in Catholic libraries that assert that Luther's spiritual trials aren't evidence of a genuine or battle-hardened faith but that he was a fraud, or even demon-possessed.

So a little tolerance, please, for the dark nights of the soul in Wittenburg as well as Calcutta.

There's Something About Mary

I wrapped up my trip to Atlanta with a three-day retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, a community of Trappist monks located in Conyers, Georgia.  I've been going there off and on since 1996.  While this past weekend's retreat was a solo affair, I am usually there in the company of other, mostly Presbyterian pastors as part of a continuing education event sponsored by Columbia Seminary.

A week with the Trappists means a week of Marian devotion, a form of Christian spirituality that is far removed from the kind I experienced growing up as a southern Presbyterian.  Each evening the monks conclude the day with the service of Compline.  They sing psalms and the Salve Regina while adoring the massive round stained glass portrait of the Virgin Mary that looks down on the Abbey Church from above the altar. 

For me, it is a beautiful, moving, haunting, and vaguely threatening worship experience, as many encounters with the foreign and the forbidden are.  There's something touching about celibate men in their 80s singing a liturgy that is something of a lullaby, a lullaby that is also a plea that the hearer would, in turn, lull the worshipers to a peaceful sleep.

The threatening part has less to do with any Protestant scruples I have about petitioning Mary in song and more to do with the minor keys and the petitions themselves. 

From fears and terrors of the night

Protect us Lord by thy great might

And the words of the 91st Psalm:

You shall not fear the terror of the night

Or the pestilence that strikes by day

Strictly speaking, the Trappists have no mission.  No hospitals, no schools.  Just prayer and contemplation.  A life of quiet introspection no doubt surfaces inner demons in a way that perhaps a more active life does not.  Like the dwarves who mined in Moria, there's no telling what you'll unearth if you go deep enough.  Nightmares are a real problem.  We need divine protection by night as well as by day.  Who better than the Mother of God to rock us "poor banished children of Eve" asleep?

The stained glass image of Mary in the Abbey Church is striking.  It's as if her womb is a volcano of divinity erupting in the world.  By now it's a familiar image to me, but it took on new significance this week as familiar verses clustered together in my mind while watching her.

O holy child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray;

Cast out our sin and enter in, Be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels The great glad tidings tell;

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.

And,

Behold, the handmaid of the Lord.  Let it be with me according to thy word.

And,

So it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

The gestation of the Son of God in Mary's womb is a metaphor for the power of the Living Christ to grow and bear fruit in each of us.  And I don't mean "mere metaphor."  Last week it seemed that the spiritual presence of Christ in mine and every believer's heart is just as real as Jesus's kicking presence in Mary's womb.  And this was a great comfort to me.  We spend a lifetime trying to undo the effects of our sins, but our Yes to God's plan for us unleashes a flood of God's love into a cold and hardened world that can never be stopped.

Lee has written somewhere that if we really believe in the communion of saints, then it makes sense to ask the saints to intercede for us, just as we ask friends, family and fellow Christians to pray for us.  I don't ask the saints for anything, even prayer, but at the same time I don't have any good reason not to.  Just a vague Protestant taboo about making too much of anyone other than the three persons of the one God.  But taboos are pretty much immune to rational argument.

The Old Testament acknowledges the existence of divine beings other than the Lord God of Israel:  angels, demons, and even the gods of other nations.  They are real, just not to be worshiped instead of or above the Lord God.  On the other hand, the Old Testament polemicizes against any occult means of contacting or manipulating the spirits of the dead or other beings beyond the veil.  Catholics tack hard toward the one pole; Protestants the other; just as Catholics embody a theology of Presence so characteristic of the P material, while Protestants live out a theology of the Word typical of Deuteronomy. 

People wiser than I have catalogued the disastrous effects of the Reformation, not the least of which is how a divided Church is hobbled on the mission field.  But I come away from the monastery mourning for the impoverished spirituality that both Catholics and Protestants experience simply because there's such a thing as "Catholics and Protestants."

I might not ask Mary for anything, but my admiration for her grows.  Though Moses, David, Peter and Paul get more ink in the scriptures, Mary's experience seems uniquely capable of bearing the image of what happens to all of us when we assent to God's will for our lives.  She seems to have become something of an older sister to me, the one I never had.

Prayer Request

The Presbyterian Church is a small world.  Alex Evans was one of the twenty or so folks with whom I went on pilgrimage to Israel last year.  Alex (pronounced "Aleck") is the pastor of the Blacksburg (VA) Presbyterian Church, which sits next to the Virginia Tech campus.  His wife Ginger is the Director of Christian Education there.  Ginger's sister, Margaret Almeida lives not a half mile from us here in Salisbury. 

So if you're like me, and a specific name helps to focus your prayers at times like these, you can pray for Alex and Ginger, for it must be very difficult to do ministry under such enormous stress, anxiety and grief.

An Adequate Theology of Failure

The Via Dolorosa, or Way of Sorrows is the path that tradition says Jesus took from Pontius Pilate's headquarters to Golgotha, where he was crucified.  We walked the Via Dolorosa when we went on pilgrimage to Israel last year. 

It was a fascinating experience.  The cobblestone streets of the Old City are, at points, as narrow as hallways in an office building.  The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where Jesus is said to have died and been buried, is an experience in sensory overload if there ever was one.  Gobs of tourists and pilgrims.  A babel of languages.  Monks in robes hurrying by, bumping into you.  And of course the outrageous (from my Protestant point of view) Orthodox aesthetic.

But it was not a particularly spiritual experience.  Again, being Protestant, walking the stations of the cross is foreign to my spiritual formation.

However, the experience took on a new meaning for me this past January.  I went to a church administration seminar at a Catholic retreat center in Jacksonville, Florida.  There's a walking trail through the woods of live oaks and pines that surround the center.  And the trail has stops along the way:  the stations of the cross.

This Via Dolorosa was about as far as you can get from the one in Jerusalem, but both walks took on new significance for me when I made this one in January. 

There's a lot of ways that the cross troubles us.  We are grateful, but guilty that Jesus took our place.  We are angry at the injustice of it all.  We are disturbed by the sheer pain and suffering he endured.

But perhaps the setting--a church administration conference--or perhaps my time in life--young adulthood over, middle age not quite beginning--led me to see the cross in a new and terrifying light as I walked the stations of the cross last January.  What hit me that day was that Jesus's ministry failed when he was nailed to the cross.

Think about all that had gone before him.  The calling of the twelve disciples--the twelve tribes of Israel reconstituted.  All the sermons, the patient and sometimes exasperated explanations of the kingdom given to the seeking, the cynical, the timid, the dimwitted.  All those who had been healed.  The dead raised.  Demons banished to the abyss.  So much promise.

To think that it ended the way it did is just horrifying.

Of course it didn't end.  The end cleared the floor for God to begin anew.  But the promise of Easter surely didn't make sweet the bitter wine in that sponge that he sucked on before he breathed his last.

Barbara Brown Taylor has written that Christians lack an adequate theology of failure.  Strange since Jesus himself failed.  But the realization that his ministry failed, while terrifying to someone who was in Florida to learn about competence and excellence in ministry is strangely comforting.

And I think it has to be comforting to all of us in ministry.  This may sound trite, but just as there is no sin and grief that Jesus didn't bear away when he shouldered the cross through Jerusalem's narrow streets, there's no youth group that's imploded, no contemporary worship service that's fizzled, no intervention with the congregation's drunk that's gone nowhere, and no young family, so full of promise for the life of the church that up and disappears one day, that Jesus has not carried in his bosom.

Not one of us wants to fail.  We all want to be super-apostles; theologians of glory.  But Jesus gives us permission to fail.

Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, By the cross are sanctified/Peace is there that knows no measure, Joys that through all time abide.

Seven Theses

Some theses on prayer, based on a word study of "pray" and its cognates in the gospel of Luke:

1. The prayers of the faithful, more than Word and Sacramental Presence, make sacred space Sacred.  Luke doesn't have a well-developed theology of glory or presence focused on the cult as Old Testament writers like P and Ezekiel do, but Luke clearly loves the Temple.  The Holy Family makes regular pilgrimages there.  Gabriel announces the coming of John the Baptist to Zechariah as he is ministering in the Temple while the faithful are praying outside.  Anna, known for her prayers, fasting and loitering around the Temple, breaks into doxology when she sees the baby Jesus there.  But when the Temple's mission as a house of prayer for all nations is subverted (Lk. 19:46), not even the presence of Jesus, or the preaching of the gospel there by his disciples (Acts 3, 5), or the generosity and aesthetic skill of its patrons (Lk. 21: 5-6) can save it.
2. The need for prayer is inversely proportional to the demands of ministry.  In 5:15-16, Luke reports that the larger the crowds got, the more Jesus would slip away by himself for prayer.  Somehow, I have a feeling that it's just the opposite in many churches--the bigger the congregation, and the larger the budget, the more time is spent in meetings and staring at PDAs, and the less time is spent on retreat, or in morning and evening devotions.
3. Prayer must precede all important decisions.  This seems like a no-brainer, but Luke alone says that Jesus's calling of the twelve was preceded by an all-night prayer meeting (6:12-16).
4. Prayer opens a door for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  The relationship between baptism with water and that of the Holy Spirit is hotly debated among Christian denominations, in no small part because scripture doesn't present a consistent picture.  Sometimes the Spirit comes after baptism, as is the case with Jesus himself.  Sometimes it gets a leg up on baptism, as was the case with Cornelius and his gentile colleagues.  At other times, baptism needs a "jump-start" such as the apostolic laying on of hands (Acts 8: 14-17).  What is clear is that prayer has a powerful role in summoning the Spirit.  Jesus was at prayer when the Spirit descended on him.  Later, Jesus exhorts the disciples to persevere in prayer, not to get just any old thing, but to receive the Spirit (11:13).
5. Prayer gives new vision.  People at prayer see crazy stuff.  They see angels (1:11).  They see long dead lawgivers and prophets clothed in heavenly glory, and they see Jesus in a new light (9:29-30).  Of course, the point is not the vision itself, lest we puff ourselves up with our spiritual experiences (Col. 2:18).  The point is the Word of Command that the vision seals on our hearts:  "Listen to him!" (9:35).
6. Prayer is the only adequate preparation for the Second Coming.  This week's gospel lesson urges the faithful to be alert in the last days, "praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things... and stand before the Son of Man."  The parable of the widow and the unjust judge is deliberately interpreted for us as an appeal to pray without ceasing, and not to lose heart.  But at the end of the parable Jesus wonders aloud, "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"  The kind of faith that saves us from the wrath to come is not merely an intellectual assent to Christian dogma, as if saying the Apostles' Creed without crossing our fingers was what it means to believe.  Faith is in proportion to prayer.  Therefore we are saved by prayer, no less than by faith.  Not prayers, as if the numbers of quiet times or Hail Marys counts.  But prayer without ceasing--our whole lives lived in conscious presence of the glory of God and the coming of the Son of Man.  This is what makes Advent waiting purposeful, like a woman waiting for the the birth of the child in her womb, as opposed to the infuriating waiting in the line at the DMV.
7. The most important prayer is "Lead us not into temptation."  In chapter 11, Jesus tells us exactly what we are to pray for.  It's called the Lord's Prayer.  And the next to last words Jesus utters to his disciples are pleas that they pray that they "not come into the time of trial (temptation)." That's the last petition in Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer.  Perhaps it's not the most important petition.  Perhaps it's just the one he had on his mind as he faced his own arrest and trial.  Nonetheless, people's last words ought to stick with us.  If this is the most important prayer, then that says something about the limits of our ability to follow Jesus and our vulnerability to apostasy if presented with the choice between our lives or our faith.  Bearing the cross is an ethical command.  But in light of Jesus's last words, it might be a spiritual bridge too far for most of us.

Pessimistic

I don't care what the polls say.  I've got a bad feeling.  Friday, while running down the Greenway, I saw an owl.  Yesterday a black cat crossed my path--just as I turned on the street to my polling place!

Writer's Block

A critique of PowerPoint's corrosive effect on Protestant worship by in a recent Christian Century reminded me of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, which I re-read this week.  I mentioned Postman in passing in this post about potential problems with Emergent Christianity.  What I've been trying to do all week is write a post, or series of posts comparing the aesthetics of Emergent worship with those of Eastern Orthodoxy--another form of Christianity that revels in the visual--in light of Postman's critique of electronic media. 

I've been failing.

So I'll put it up here when I finally say it right. 

In the meantime, more frivolity...

Bless His Heart, He Looks So Natural. They Say He'd Just Voted Before the Bus Hit Him!

On the way back from lunch with a PC(USA) missionary, I dropped by the Board of Elections.  Early voting commences today.  I put aside the voices in my head muttering about the Diebold fix being in again this year, touched the screen, and cast my ballot.

It was just me, myself and Don Carter, proprietor of Salisbury's most distinguished funeral home, voting early.  (Yes, Gentle Reader, that was a hyperlink.  They have a web site.  Featuring a "merchandise" tab! 

I have no idea what Mr. Carter's politics are, but he above all people must know that there are no guarantees.  Nope, you aren't gonna see somebody like him putting off 'til tomorrow what can be done today!

Who's Invited?

Everybody thinks that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is pretty much in the toilet, but I continue to be optimistic about our denomination.  For one, I view the denomination chiefly through the lens of my little church and its faithfully, able members.  From here, it's looks pretty good to be a Presbyterian!

For two, the Presbyterian Church continues to put out a number of theologically robust and pastorally sensitive reflection papers.  Invitation to Christ, a paper on the sacraments approved by this year's G.A., is one such paper. 

The origins of the paper:  The PCUSA's communion table is more open than most.  Anyone baptized with water in the name of the Trinity is welcome at a Presbyterian communion table.  This includes small children, provided they have their parents' permission, and have been instructed in the meaning of the sacrament in an age-appropriate way.

A couple of presbyteries proposed opening it even further, to allow unbaptized believers to commune.  The G.A. who received their overtures punted (which is not a dig; if you've got a good punter, and it's fourth and long, it makes sense to punt!), referring the idea to a study commission.  The commission met over three years, studied together, celebrated communion together, and Invitation to Christ is the fruit of their labor.

As to the question at hand, the paper states that it's best to retain the current language in the Directory for Worship requiring baptism before communion.  However, this requirement should not be enforced in a legalistic way.  The paper imagines scenarios in which pastors and sessions might use discretion in welcoming an unbaptized believer to the Lord's table.

More importantly, the paper finds that our understanding of the sacraments is inadequate, and our celebration of them slipshod.  To address our sacramental disarray, they've offered us a paper that analyzes the sacraments from the perspectives of scripture, church history, theology and contemporary culture. 

They also recommend certain liturgical practices that would highlight the sacraments in Presbyterian worship life.  For instance, they commend filling the font with water every Lord's Day whether a baptism will occur or not.  They recommend more frequent observance of the Lord's Supper.  They invite ministers to consider preaching a sermon on Communion from the table, rather than from the pulpit.

Our Worship Committee considered how to implement these liturgical innovations, and concluded that the congregation needs education on the sacraments before making significant changes to our liturgy.  So we began last night with a session on the sacraments as part of our Wednesday Evening program.

I put the question to them in a form of a forced choice exercise (lately, my favorite pedagogical technique!):  If you're for welcoming unbaptized believers to the Lord's table, stand here; if not, stand there.

Far more people were in favor of welcoming the unbaptized than were opposed.  Also, the welcoming the unbaptized group was overwhelmingly female.  The fencing the table to exclude the unbaptized group was decidedly male.  Don't know what that means.  It's just an observation.

I think that the welcoming the unbaptized group viewed the baptismal requirement as a technicality that ought not trip up anyone who believes in Jesus from communing.  "What if, for some reason, they've never had the chance to get baptized?"  They seemed to fear being inhospitable for legalistic reasons.

On the other side, they said that baptism is the rite by which someone becomes a member of the community of faith, and communion is where the community eats together with the Lord.  So it's appropriate to be baptized first.

An observant person pointed out that in our individualistic society, there's not much sense of group solidarity or maintaining group boundaries, and that's what this disagreement is really about:  individual faith versus bounded community.

An ex-Baptist shrewdly observed that if it's the individual's faith that ought to be the sole criterion for taking communion, then shouldn't we reinstate the requirement that the person be confirmed, or of the age of confirmation in order to commune?  She didn't (but could have) also argued that for those reasons, we probably ought to adopt believer's baptism!

Because the boundaries of the church are so loose these days, and because the logic of emphasizing personal faith over baptism does lead to a denial of infant baptism, I favor retaining the current language.  After all, individuals don't have a right to a sacrament.  The sacraments both constitute the church and are administered by the church.  They belong to the Body of Christ, and not to any individual. 

I was surprised at how lively the discussion was.  I had worried that this issue might seem a bit like debating angels dancing on the head of a pin, but the folks present last night were eager to delve into sacramental theology and practice.  So we'll continue to bring this up periodically, and see if what results is some kind of felt and expressed need for a richer sacramental life in our congregation.

37

I'll admit it.  I was feeling a bit old in the run-up to my birthday.  My conversation with Jonathan had something to do with it.  I can't speak for my lectionary partner, but I was feeling... wistful... thinking about the Emergent Church described in the Christian Century article, and the contrast with my own ministry.  Frankly, I'm jealous of those who have the opportunity to serve congregations full of young adults who are neither nihilistic hedonists nor the sanctimonious types one associates with certain para-church ministries.

Since my ordination 12 years ago I've served small congregations in small to tiny towns and rural communities.  That means being cut off, to some degree, from people my own age.  To be sure, gray hair is a crown of glory.  I'm grateful for the gift the aged have given me:  a vision of a life well-lived.  (And I'm also grateful, in a different way, for other gifts a few have inadvertently given me--a vision of what not to become).  But sometimes I feel like I missed out on young adulthood because I didn't move through it with other young adults.

So when I woke up last Wednesday to hear Steve Inskeep cheerfully announce that it was also Wilfred Brimley's birthday, I wanted to pull the covers back over my head.  Did you know that Wilfred Brimley is only 72?  How is that possible?  Wasn't he at least that old when he was in Cocoon 20 years ago?

I'm feeling better this week.  For one, there's more young adults around me than I tend to realize.  In fact, after nearly nine years at John Calvin there's almost a critical mass of single people in their 20s in and around the church.

Parker Palmer's book Let Your Life Speak has also cheered me.  The last chapter talks about the life cycle in terms of seasons.  Middle Age is Autumn.  Now Autumn is a beautiful season, but it's tinged with sadness.  The shortening days and the shedding of leaves reminds one, even in the midst of dazzling fall color, that death (Winter) is nearer. 

But Autumn is also the time when trees drop seeds and acorns.  Prodigious amounts.  They get scattered everywhere.  Migrating birds feast on red dogwood berries, and then deposit them far from the tree that produced them, to germinate and grow.

Middle Age is a time when you've actually accumulated enough knowledge to spread it abroad.  Who knows what might grow up in the next generation thanks to a class you teach, a friendly piece of advice, a hug or a kiss?

If Middle Age is Autumn, then I suppose it's Labor Day for me--me being 37.  In the South, summer hangs on too long.  Labor Day is not a nice day for a parade in North Carolina.  It can be hot and humid, and, if there were a drought in mid-summer, the oppressive air is matched by the sad, washed-out green of tree leaves panting for cooler temperatures.

I've been in a spiritual torpor.  Psychologically, it's been the dog days of August for me, Labor Day at the outside.  The last year has had more than it's share of stresses, vocational and familial.  But the change in weather has been matched by changes in circumstances for us which have left us feeling much less stressed, and left me with far more energy for work and family.

So this week I'm not mourning the passing away of my 30s any more than Southerners mourn the retreat of hazy, humid air before the season's first vigorous cold front.  I'm looking forward to Middle Age.

Besides, 37 is a prime number.  What an ingenious creation of God's--the prime number!  Surely there's something special about this year!