A note from James

For the past six years, I have been undergoing a rather serious medical regiment that involves both toxic chemicals and aggressive surgery.

In addition to to some rather unpleasant developments in my life, last Monday I had a reaction to the treatment and was mentally and physically incapacitated the entire week. "Things" are still rather serious and I would appreciate it if you would spare a wee prayer for my situation both medical and situational.

While I was recuperating, a friend told me about a cool site. It has the largest listing of online bible translations I've ever seen. Some are "silly" translations, but it's worth a your examination. The URL is here.

Oculi - Lent III

Lent III
Oculi Mei

Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

Introit: My eyes are ever towards the Lord: for He shall pluck my feet out of the snare: look Thou upon me, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor. -- (Ps. 24. 1, 2). To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust; let me be not ashamed.

One driver sticks post-it notes all over the dashboard of her car to make sure she remembers each errand. Kitchen calendars fill up with family appointments. Many cell phones now include calendars so their owners can have instant access to appointments that are too numerous to remember.

Chronic stress accompanies an increasing number of Americans who feel busy beyond measure. It’s a common problem for the current generation, even among the retired. People are so overwhelmed that one of the greatest luxuries of the twenty-first century is free time.

Busy-ness intrudes on all of us because we have so many opportunities. And because we want everything – and more. We have become slaves to what we desire, not what we need. We have become possessed by our activities – our getting and spending and doing. Isn’t that part of the malady that infects us during this difficult economic period? Living beyond our means? Materialism and greed? No boundaries to keep us in check?

Obviously, we need to re-set priorities and follow them.

A classic story about a business management consultant is instructive. The CEO of a large company stared failure in the face as he floundered, trying to pull his workforce out of a production tailspin. Swallowing his pride, he called in a consultant and said he would take any and all advice. The consultant asked the CEO to list what he did in the course of a normal week. Once this was done, she told the CEO to rank the list in priority. This took a while, but when it was finished, she told the CEO what he needed to do. “When you come to work, complete item number one before attending to item number two, and complete number two before going to number three. The next day, take out the list and start with number one again and repeat the process. Do the same each and every day. Don’t worry if you fail to reach lower items on your priority list. That’s it.”

The CEO tried it and turned the company around. He lived into his own priorities and his workforce followed.

Emulating this would be a good way for Christians to amplify their Lenten disciplines – setting priorities and following them rigorously. This might free us from the busy-ness and overindulgence that we have fallen subject to – that enslave us. Heeding today’s reading from Exodus would make that task easier.

The Ten Commandments begins with a reminder that it is God who first leads us from that which enslaves us. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me.”

God’s commandments can free us from the confinement of excessive busy-ness, too much wanting everything and more, obsession with our cravings and desires. God’s commandments lay out boundaries and help us set priorities by God’s standards.

Look at the list in your Prayer Book on pages 317 and 318. This stripped down list of ten priorities provides us with a time-honored but too-often-neglected guide for daily living. The Ten Commandments provide simplicity in the midst of too much complexity and busy-ness that often confounds us.

Furthermore, the Catechism, on pages 847 through 849 in the PrayerBook, helps us even further by grouping the ten into two basic priorities. First is our duty to believe and trust in God. Second is our duty to care for and respect our neighbors.

For the initial priority, simply said, we put God first and putting nothing in God’s place. The Catechism helps us understand deeper meanings of not making idols, not misusing God’s name, and keeping holy the Sabbath day.

We show love for God and obedience to him in “thought, word, and deed.” We set aside special time for reflection on “God’s ways” through worshipping with our fellow believers, and praying and studying about the things of God that are our priority.

For the second priority, simply said, we put our neighbors first. Again, the Catechism expands our understanding of honoring parents and refraining from murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and coveting what is our neighbor’s.

We “love, honor, and help our parents” and others who exercise just authority. It is a partnership, for the sake of God, with those who teach us and lead us into the way of Christ. We respect the created order of humanity by accepting the righteous reality God has made. We honor human life, deplore war, work for peace, rid our hearts of hatred and malice, and seek to become one with what God has created.

We “use all bodily desires as God intended,” remaining faithful in human relationships. We deal with others honestly and fairly, and we work for justice in the world around us and far off. We seek freedom whether it does not exist. We share the precious resources of this planet and do not horde unnecessary surplus when others stand in need.

We do not simply refrain from lying, but we exercise the courage to tell the truth. We are careful “not to mislead others by our silence.” We resist the all-too-human temptation to have what is not ours. We guard against desires that lead us to “envy, greed, and jealousy.” Rather, we look with happiness and thanksgiving at the success of others and what they possess.

In the process of living into these commandments, we continue to expand this view and uncover for ourselves, in the particularities of our lives, the richness of what each means.

The list of Ten Commandments need not complicate our thinking, because each is a part of one whole: duty to and love for God and fellow human beings.

Our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us of this. We recall this teaching in the Penitential Order in our Prayer Book, so appropriate for Lent:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all they mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commands hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Here’s the place to grab onto the management consultant’s advice. At the beginning of each day, let’s lay aside or our calendars and day planners and lists of things to do. Rather, let us turn to this top item on our list of priorities, loving God and loving neighbor, and tend to it before we move on to the next thing.

Then maybe our problem of busy-ness, our rush to fulfill so many wants and desires, will cease to make us anxious, and the success of our personal lives will be secured.

-- The Rev. Ken Kesselus, author of John E. Hines: Granite on Fire (Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, 1995), is retired from full-time, active ministry and lives in his native home, Bastrop, Texas. Email: Kesselus@juno.com.

Friday, Second Week of Lent - The Way of Sorrow

This week the stations are here.

We adore thee, O Christ, and we bless thee because by thy holy cross thou hast redeemed the world

Almighty and eternal Father, accept our prayer of thanksgiving for your Beloved Son, our Saviour and Lord. As we recall his Sacred Passion send the Spirit of Christ into our hearts, we beg You, so that whether we pray or work we might do all in union with Christ our Redeemer. Amen.

Reminiscere - Lent II

Lent II
Reminiscere

Genesis 17.1-17, 15-16; Psalm 22.23-31; Romans 4.13-25; Mark 8.31-38

Introit: Remember, O Lord, Thy deep compassion, and Thy mercies that are from the beginning of the world, lest at any time our enemies rule over us: deliver us, O God of Israel, from all our tribulations. -- (Ps. 24. 1, 2). To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust; let me be not ashamed.

In Yann Martel’s wonderful novel Life of Pi, twelve-year-old Pi decides to explore a number of different religions in his native India. He has a rather remarkable reflection on a conversation he had with a Roman Catholic priest, Father Martin, about the crucifixion. Pi thinks to himself:

That a god should put up with adversity, I could understand. The gods of Hinduism face their fair share of thieves, bullies, kidnappers and usurpers …. . But humiliation? Death? I couldn’t imagine Lord Krishna consenting to be stripped naked, whipped, mocked, dragged through the streets and, to top it off, crucified -- and at the hands of mere humans, to boot. I’d never heard of a Hindu god dying. Brahman Revealed did not go for death. Devils and monsters did, as did mortals, by the thousands and millions – that’s what they were there for. Matter, too, fell away. But divinity should not be blighted by death. It’s wrong. The world soul cannot die, even in one contained part of it. It was wrong of this Christian God to let His avatar (His Son) die. That is tantamount to letting a part of Himself die. For if the Son is to die, it cannot be fake. If God on the Cross is God shamming a human tragedy, it turns the Passion of Christ into the Farce of Christ. The death of the Son must be real. Father Martin assured me that it was. But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste of death forever in His mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love. That was Father Martin’s answer.

Pi sounds a little bit like Peter here. We might wonder what Jesus would have said to Pi if Pi had been having this conversation with Jesus in today’s Gospel instead of with Father Martin. We might wonder if Jesus would have responded the same way to Pi as he did to Peter, because actually neither Pi nor Peter can quite believe that suffering, rejection, and death could possibly be a part of Jesus’ life story. Mark doesn’t tell us what Peter actually said -- only that Peter “took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.” But Jesus’ response is startling. “Get behind me, Satan. For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” That’s a little rough, don’t you think? We might actually feel for Peter. It can’t have been easy to hear your leader say he was going to suffer and die. “Surely not!” Peter might say. “What kind of god would suffer and die for humans?” we hear Pi say. Love was Father Martin’s answer.

What Peter’s response was after Jesus rebuked him, Mark doesn’t tell us. But we do know that Peter had already acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah in the beginning of this very same chapter. Jesus had asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and then he asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter gave the absolutely correct answer: “You are the Messiah.” Then Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Now, just a few verses later, Jesus tells his followers again, and more openly, that he will suffer and die, but for the first time he explains why.

Here Jesus uses the image of the cross. Of course, the people in Jesus’ time would understand the reference to the “cross” that was used by the Romans for executions. We often refer to the “cross” as something we personally carry in life -- sickness, for instance, or a difficulty of some kind, or a personal problem. While these understandings are valid enough, this isn’t what Jesus is talking about here.

What he’s talking about is discipleship. Jesus lays out the cost of discipleship here. This “cross” Jesus talks about is what sets apart those who want to be his followers from that part of the world that focuses only on vainglory, selfishness, oppression, and greed.

Jesus reminds us that “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” If we’re serious, really serious about being Jesus’ disciples, then we will lose our lives. Jesus doesn’t seem to be saying here that those who want to save their life might lose it, might have to give up something rather--crucial. He’s saying lose it! He’s saying that if we’re serious, life will be different. We won’t fit into the world in the same way.

But isn’t that odd? We look around and see people we consider to be very good people, very godly people, looking very normal. They work and play and pray and move about in society quite normally. They seem to fit. For the most part, we do the same. We work and play and pray and move about in society quite normally. We seem to fit. There certainly are still those who physically lose, or are in danger of losing, their lives for the sake of the gospel: people like Oscar Romero, missionaries in the Middle East, people who work with the poor in Latin America or Africa or even the United States. Many of us, however, can’t imagine that ever happening to us. Are we in danger of having the son of man be ashamed of us when he comes in the glory of his Father with the Holy Spirit? Does Jesus have nothing to say to us in this part of Mark’s Gospel?

Of course he does. This image of losing our lives isn’t only physical. When Scripture speaks about “the world” in this way, it means the world’s way of operating -- the system, not the planet. It’s not speaking of the created stuff of the world, that wonderful gift of earthly beauty, but the way we deal with it and with each other -- kosmos meaning “orderly arrangement” or “system.” Jesus challenges us to consider where that kosmos came from. God didn’t set up our political or economic or social systems; we did. God didn’t tell us to look at other people as markets or competitors or enemies; we did that ourselves. What Jesus challenges us to do is to lose that way of thinking -- die to it -- and take on God’s order, God’s way, God’s kingdom. This is what the kingdom of God means: the operating system of heaven, not of this world. Then the planet becomes our trust from God, other people become our brothers and sisters, and our goal becomes fostering God’s way of operating rather than this world’s, rather than business as usual.

Jesus was crucified because the religious and political and social establishments -- Jewish and Roman alike -- found him to be a threat. Jesus’ disciples can’t expect anything different, can they, if they are real disciples and not just disciples in name only? Few of us, I hope, will get hung on crosses to die. But many of us may find ourselves looked at strangely sometimes, or shut out of “the best” company, or made to feel disrespected and unwelcome, simply because our values are not the ones “everybody” -- the world -- accepts. Our business as disciples of Jesus is to follow him, not what “everybody” does, or even “the best” or “the leaders.”

Peter eventually understood discipleship and as we know, paid the ultimate cost of that discipleship. Most of us, I hope, will at least come to understand a disciple’s connection to Jesus as the young boy Pi did. He said, “I couldn’t get Jesus out of my head. Still can’t. I spent three solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him.”

If we are his disciples, our goal is not to get ahead but to get closer to God, not to be successful but to be faithful, not to gain this world’s approval but God’s. This eucharistic celebration of ours today claims that we are thankful for the opportunity to do just that.

The Rev. Dr. Susanna Metz is Executive Director of the Center for Ministry in Small Churches at the School of Theology, Sewanee, Tennessee, and Assistant Professor of Contextual Education. She is also publisher of Tuesday Morning, a quarterly journal of ministry and liturgical preaching.