Crystal cathedral in bankruptcy

Ever since Robert Schuller (Jr) was forced out of the family business by his brothers in law, the so-called Crystal Cathedral has been in a downward spiral. Too many members and supporters saw the ouster as not a Christian Act. well, the chickens have come home to roost for Schuller Sr and his daughter who was appointed by her husband and brothers in law to be the pastor.

The "ministry" filed for bankruptcy Monday in Southern California after struggling to emerge from debt that exceeds $43 million.

In addition to a $36 million mortgage, the Orange County-based church owes $7.5 million to several hundred vendors for services ranging from advertising to the use of live animals in Easter and Christmas services.

The church had been negotiating a repayment plan with vendors, but several filed lawsuits seeking quicker payment, which prompted a coalition formed by creditors to fall apart.

"Tough times never last, every storm comes to an end. Right now, people need to hear that message more than ever," Sheila Schuller Coleman (daughter), the Cathedral's senior pastor and daughter of the founder, told reporters outside the worship hall decked with a soaring glass spire.

"Everybody is hurting today. We are no exception," she said.

The church, founded in the mid-1950s by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller Sr., has already ordered major layoffs, cut the number of stations airing the "Hour of Power" and sold property to stay afloat.

In addition, the 10,000-member church canceled this year's "Glory of Easter" pageant, which attracts thousands of visitors and is a regional holiday staple.

The church was founded at a drive-in theater and attracted congregants with its sermons on the power of positive thinking. Its worship hall opened in 1970.

The "Hour of Power" telecast, filmed in the cathedral's main sanctuary, at one point attracted 1.3 million viewers in 156 countries.

According to reports, the Crystal Cathedral's Sunday services and weekly-telecast "Hour of Power" will continue while in bankruptcy.

Other megachurches have also suffered from the downturn and reduced charitable giving.

Crystal Cathedral saw revenue drop roughly 30 percent in 2009 and simply couldn't slash expenses quickly enough to avoid accruing the debt, said Jim Penner executive producer of the "Hour of Power."

Vendors owed money by the church formed a committee in April and agreed to a moratorium to negotiate a repayment plan with the Crystal Cathedral. But after several filed lawsuits and obtained writs of attachment to try to collect their cash, it was difficult to keep the group together, Penner said.

Now, the church is avoiding credit entirely and spends only the roughly $2 million it receives each month in donations and revenue, Penner said. The church still hopes to pay all of the vendors back in full, he said.

I bet Schuller Sr's "Be Happy Attitudes" are drooping today. I'm feeling some schadenfreude right now. Sorry about that. I go to confession this week.

Pentecost XX!

The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24 Year C

The Lectionary

Homily:
Psalm 119 calls for the kind of continued learning Paul commends in his letter to Timothy. As a subject of our recitation and meditation, it offers an entrance into a life of continued, endless prayer. So Jesus tells a story to underscore our need to pray always and not lose heart. It is what Paul elsewhere commends: "pray without ceasing."

And note the forceful summary by Jesus: for those chosen ones who pray day and night, justice shall come and come quickly.

Are we even aware of this linkage? That our prayers are to be linked to justice?

Don't we often tend to be rather selfish in our prayers? We would always like immediate results – but would like those results to be centered on what we want rather than what we need. 

And what Jesus says we need is to pray always and not to lose heart.

There is no better place to begin to pray always than with Psalm 119. One hundred and seventy-six verses reminding us to have Torah, God's law, in our minds all day long. The word "Torah" or one of its synonyms appears in almost every one of the 176 verses: Torah, law decrees, precepts, statutes, commandments, ordinances.

A rabbi was once asked, "What does a rabbi do?" He replied, "A rabbi is to lead God's people to study Torah so that one day everyone will know Torah. On that day when everyone knows Torah, everyone will be a rabbi so that there will no longer be any need for rabbis."

This is the dream of God as revealed to the prophet Jeremiah, "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." God wants us to become experts in loving the law and living the law.

We in the church tend to suffer grave misunderstandings about this word law. These misunderstandings come from misreading of Paul, compounded by particular Christian theologians throughout the ages. The word "law" sounds static with the sole purpose of convicting us of sin and misdoings.

Whereas a regular reading of all 176 verses of Psalm 119 would reveal a much richer range of meaning. The "law" is a treasure, a gift, really, that makes one wise and happy. The psalm is written in the first-person narrative voice, making the words of the psalm personal, words that belong to us, words that are given by God to be ours. Torah is not a static set of rules, but a map that provides a personal way of life, a guiding force, a pathway from which it is all too easy to stray but is sweeter than all alternative paths available.

At its core, Psalm 119 as a source of our daily prayer and meditation directs us to endlessly reflect on the Decalogue – the fancy theological name for the Ten Commandments. The first "table" or "tablet" of the Ten Commandments focuses on our love of God; the second "table" or "tablet" focuses on our love of neighbor. 

Jesus spent much of his time discussing the law, Torah, with any and all persons he could. Jesus demonstrates that continual focus, discussion, and meditation on God's law is what leads one in the way of life that is really life, and offers justice for all people. Torah, as understood at the time of Jesus, was a continual unfolding of God's will, new each day, new in each age. Torah, or law, was not confining, but empowering, and necessary to being God's people in the world.

And meditating on the law day and night, as Jesus lives and instructs us to do ourselves, reminds us of our God-given responsibilities to love and care for our neighbors, especially those in greatest need.

It turns out God does have a plan to care for those in greatest need: we are that plan.

How wonderful it would be if all of us, every day, would read all of Psalm 119. How might the world be different if our love of God's law was something we treasured in our hearts all day long? For Jesus this is faith: Torah in action every day.

The Rev. Kirk Alan Kubicek is rector of St. Peter's Church in Ellicott City, MD, a parish in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. 

Blessed Samuel Schereschewsky

“How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me?” - Psalm 116.12

Some homilies practically write themselves. Others are like are like having a baby. The idea is rather appealing, but in the end, the baby arrives only after pain, screaming and vows of “never again.” This is one of those homilies.

The epistle is filled with doom and gloom and in the gospel Jesus reminds his followers that he had suffer in order to bring the Kingdom. It is only after knowing the story of the Rt. Rev’d Samuel Schereschewsky, that one sees the logic in the lectionary.

Samuel was born in Lithuania, orphaned at a very young age, raised as an orthodox Jew, and headed for rabbinical fame. Everyone said so. In rabbinical school he was given a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew, and, as he read it, he became convinced that Jesus was the promised messiah.

In 1854, he immigrated to the United States to lead a synagogue. However, he made contact with a group of Jewish believers in Christ. That was the end of Samuel. Everyone said so. But it wasn’t – it was merely the first step to a remarkable service for God in Asia. He was baptized in 1855 in the Baptist Church and he enrolled in Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian). Two years later he transferred to General Theological Seminary (Episcopal).

While still in seminary he was appointed a missionary to China so he was ordained to the deaconate while he was still a seminarian. During the voyage to China, he taught himself Cantonese – an extremely difficult language for Westerners to learn. He was priested on 28 October 1860 and began his life’s work.

As a man to whom learning languages came almost effortlessly, he quickly learned the local Shanghai dialect and translated the Book of the Psalms from the original Hebrew. When that translation was completed, he translated the Book of Common Prayer into the Mandarin dialect. In 1877 he was elected Bishop of Shanghai, founded St John's University, and began a translation of the Bible into the Wenli dialect.

Tragically, he was diagnosed with the early onset of Parkinson's disease. He lived with the disease for twenty-nine years, the last twenty of which he was almost completely paralyzed. That was the end of Samuel. Everyone said so. But, in spite of almost unimaginable suffering, Bishop Schereschewsky had a work to finish for God – completing his translation of the bible. He typed the final 2000 pages with the one finger that he could still move.

But, he continually assured all those around him of the goodness of God in that God left him able to move that one finger – he saw it as a gift. Like the solitary man with Leprosy in the gospel last Sunday, Samuel was thankful. He was thankful the Parkinson’s disease. You know, I will never be a saint!

In the epistle today we read, “While we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.” That’s a nice, tidy statement containing heavy theology. But the question is, “what does it mean and how do we do it.”

During my long illness, I have repeatedly reflected upon the baptismal office in the Book of Common Prayer. I’ve discovered that everything we need is found there. It is a road map for us with the path clearly marked.

One small part of that office dovetails with the life of Bishop Schereschewsky and with us. “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” That’s what Paul means.

But that doesn’t mean wearing Jesus on our sleeves. Paul doesn’t mean ending every sentence with “praise the Lord” or quoting scripture in every conversation. Those things actually turn people “off” Christianity.

What Paul and the Prayer Book mean is that we must live our lives in such a manner that people will notice something different about us. They will see God.

St. Francis of Assisi allegedly put it this way, “Preach the gospel at all times – use words if absolutely necessary.” He was correct: If we need to use words, our lives are not reflecting God’s love to the world.

Those who met Blessed Samuel Schereschewsky stated it was evident that God was working though him.

But, “They lived not only in ages past…” We at St. James’ knew a woman who was also the embodiment of Paul’s charge. Her name was Jane Yeats. Like Blessed Samuel Schereschewsky, when one was in Jane’s presence, there was no doubt that she was abiding in Him for one could feel the love of God emanating from her.

Can people say that about us?

Pentecost XIX

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 22

The Lectionary

Collect of the Day: Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Homily:

Even listening attentively to Paul’s second letter to Timothy, we are probably not going to want to go the distance with Paul when he invites Timothy to “join with me in suffering for the gospel ... relying on the power of God.” 

It’s really easy to hear “Join with me in suffering” and then just zone out. “Suffering” is an unappealing sound bite, even for those of us who listen without Bible Attention Deficit Disorder. We do not want to suffer any more than we already do; indeed, have we not come to church precisely because we need to get away from suffering, or at least hand it over to Jesus, who can do something about it?

Perhaps this is why we do not ordinarily find the Book of Lamentations in Hebrew scripture very useful, either in church or at home. The book is a series of five lengthy poems of inexpressible sadness, raw pain, and deep sorrow. The poets put into words our ancestors’ experience of living through enormous public and personal suffering as their home city of Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 B.C. For our ancestors, that city was the focus of dreams and hopes, the sign of God’s presence, the promise of God’s fidelity to them; its hills, its Temple, its walls and gates all spoke to travelers and residents alike of what they treasured. And now the place was gone, and they wept. They wept for being invaded, for their national identity and security damaged; they wept for abandonment by their kings; they wept for old ones killed and unburied; they wept for children dead in the streets. They wept for all the questions shouted, sighed, and whispered to God that the heavens did not answer. 

We can, each of us, relate to that; but we would much rather not.

Yet it is there, in the five long poems of lament, there for us in the Bible, the living word of God. And the lamentations are there because the loss, the weeping, the suffering, and the pain goes on.

As it says in the opening verses of Lamentations:

“How lonely sits the city that was once so full of people!
How like a widow she has become
she weeps bitterly in the night,
her cheeks wet with tears
and she has no one to comfort her.”

The ancient poet imagined the city as a lonely, abused woman, grieving. At best, we apply the scenes of Lamentations to Good Friday, Jesus on the Cross. We transpose the lament from Hebrew scriptures to the women who stayed with Jesus to the end, and grieved at the foot of the cross as they watched their friend and Lord dying. 

But when Paul invited Timothy – and by extension, us – to join him “in suffering for the gospel,” Paul was not asking Timothy or us to be observers. Paul knows what we also know: that Jesus repeatedly told his followers to take up their cross and follow him, not to sit somewhere watching his cross and weeping for him. For the sake of the gospel, for witness to the good news, we have somehow to engage the suffering, enter the lament.

“Join me in suffering for the gospel ... relying upon the power of God.”

Like our ancestors who watched their beloved Jerusalem invaded, ravaged, desecrated, and devastated, we have been watching so much of our world and our planet suffer before our eyes. The power of God seems a bit ambiguous and even flimsy when we see the arctic ice mass retreating or that in Africa there is almost no snow left atop Kilimanjaro. The landscapes and languages of all our cities have been invaded by “others.” Un-finish-able wars are being waged with new weapons and even newer peacekeeping goals, yet men and women still suffer and die for a cause, a name, or a flag. These are losses as surely as Babylon invading Jerusalem was a loss, and pogroms and holocausts are loss. Yet the suffering has brought forth into the public arena not the poetic cadences of lamentation, but uncharted depths of anxiety and resentment, rage and fear.

“Join me in suffering for the gospel ... relying upon the power of God.”

We are the ones who share bread and wine at a common table of thanks-giving. We are the ones covenanted to honor God in worship, study and prayer. We are the ones who promise to repent of indifference, brutality and greed, and return to the God of engagement, compassion, and generosity. We hold in our hearts and in our minds’ eyes the raw and bleak edges of violence, and at the same time the glorious vision of God at work in the world about us. Where certain talk shows, tabloids, tweets, and blogs daily degrade the realities of poverty, injustice, and oppression by manipulating the media bites, we are the ones who notice and resist such manipulations. We resist because we are called to live, notice, pray, act, and share in a context where, in Christ, our lives are made one with those who suffer such realities and the consequences of such manipulation. In our time and place, this is what it means to be the ones called to “rely upon the power of God.”

The poets of Lamentations look fearlessly at the consequences of the loss of Jerusalem. They speak terrible things, such as “The Lord has broken my teeth on gravel and ground me into the dust. My life was bereft of peace, and I forgot what happiness was.” The voice of lamentation is fierce and strong – and it is followed almost in the same breath by “But this do I call to mind, and therefore have hope: the kindness of the Lord has not ended, his mercy is not spent.”

It is only by remembering the acts of God in the past and by engaging the living word of God in the present that we can also engage wholeheartedly in both fierce lamentation and in boundless hope.

-- The Rev. Angela V. Askew lives in Brooklyn, New York.