God's good creation

I hope you are having a blessed week. Earth Day was on Tuesday, and with weather like this it is not hard to appreciate God’s good creation! We had vestry that evening, and I invited the group to share for them how they saw God in creation. One person said, “It’s just so clear—God is everywhere!” One talked about how intricate and carefully-arranged the world is—no human could possibly explain the beauty of what is. For another, it was about action—how we can take care of the planet. For me, I see it in the sense of wonder in my son Isaiah’s face when he sees animals (and also balloons, and also flowers)—it’s a chance to see the wonder of what is, again for the first time. “God in creation” also reminds me to see creation as all of what is—not just nature, but also each of us. We are part of creation, not distinct from it. As the frequently quoted phrase from Chief Seattle goes, “We do not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”

I think as a society, we are beginning to understand this more and more. With the visible impact of global warming, we can see in our lifetimes how our behavior is negatively impacting the earth. We can do little things to change this—use ceramic coffee cups, not Styrofoam (and recycle it when you do use it); bring your own bags with you shopping, eat locally. Drive less, obviously, and buy less, too—the most environmentally sustainable product you can find is the one you already own. Our culture has undergone a pretty big shift in our understanding of how we impact the earth, but with consumer spending still understood as THE solution to economic trouble, it’s clear that we have a long way to go. Just 25 years ago though, there were many who thought that the environment didn’t actually matter because God would save us in the end. Fortunately, I don’t think too many people would say that today (at least I hope not…).

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind^* in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^* and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ ²⁷So God created humankind^* in his image, in the image of God he created them;^* male and female he created them. ²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ Genesis 1:26-28

In Psalm 72, a hymn to King Solomon, that same word for dominion is used as in this passage from Genesis. A ruler has dominion—it implies the responsibility to care for, not the license to control and subjugate. Rulers are still part of whatever realm they rule—there’s no separation there. Creation was made good—and so were we!—this original blessing is stronger than anything we could do to separate ourselves from God.

How do you see God in Creation? In nature, or in our care for it? In science, all those tiny atoms working together to make a medicine to cure disease? In human ingenuity to understand the world around us? In sunsets and oceans and flowers? Take a moment now to thank God for all the good gifts we are given in this good creation.

To be a miracle

This week, I was away at clergy conference Tues-Thurs,--the annual gathering for all the clergy of the diocese. We have time to hear from our bishops and each other, to hear presentations on ministry and life in the church, and also a little time to relax. Every year I grumble about driving for 2 hours (it’s held on the Cape), but every year by the time I get there it turns out to be worthwhile (however grudgingly I may admit it!) This year, we heard a presentation by Richard Parker. An economist by training and an Episcopal “PK” (preacher’s kid), he talked about how the Episcopal Church has played a unique role in politics in the United States. One of the founders of Mother Jones Magazine, he is now a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he teaches a class titled "Religion, Politics and Public Policy."

Parker spoke movingly of his own spiritual journey, and about how the church is called to engage in public life. He said that after having done “enough church in my first 17 years to last an average person for 40,” he spent a long time away. One day, going past St Mark’s in the Bowery in New York City, he came inside. It was in the early 80’s, when AIDS was just beginning to be recognized as a deadly illness, but a time when people were still afraid that it was communicable by touch. The priest announced that a member was in the last stages of AIDS. As his life was ending, he wanted prayers for healing. So the priest invited the congregation to come up and lay hands on the man. Everyone in the congregation came to the front, but not everyone managed to lay hands on him—some reached out the arms and didn’t quite touch him. They were afraid. But they reached out their hands all the same. Parker said that the experience showed him the way that there is no good substitute for the church—we are not the Sierra Club at prayer, or Democrats or Republicans, or any other group of people at prayer. We are the church; a group of people stumbling forward together, seeking God and God’s grace and justice for us and for the world.

The image of those people reaching their hands toward that AIDS victim stuck with me. In our times of division, in times of anxiety and fear, not everyone will have the courage to lay hands on the person they fear. Not everyone will have that revelation of God’s love—sometimes we are just too afraid. But the church is a place where we try—we are practicing our faith here. And God is always delighted when we reach out to each other, even imperfectly. We practice our faith in the world, too. Being Episcopalians, our faith is not expressed by invoking inward feelings of personal salvation, but outer-directed impulses of Christian love—the love that has the courage to touch someone who is sick or stand on a street corner with a sign advocating an unpopular position. The love that is there for the dying and the destitute, and those who think they are unlovable. The entire world is there for you to lead a Christian life—it’s not just for Sundays. Parker quoted from Phillips Brooks, who was Bishop of Massachusetts in the 1890’s. (Parts of it may be familiar—I think JFK pinched a line)

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger people. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.

It will not be a miracle, he said, for us to end global extreme poverty and childhood death from preventable diseases, to stop genocide and global warming, to create a world of peace. It will not be a miracle to have a church where everyone is beloved as a child of God, whatever their sexuality, or race, or nationality or gender. But we will be a miracle for having done it.

Remembering Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear People of Christ Church,

Today is the feast day for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 and was executed by the Nazis in 1945. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer became a leading spokesman and, for a time, led the underground seminary for the Confessing Church, the center of Protestant resistance to the Nazis.

Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together describes the life of the Christian community in that seminary. He is known for the expression “cheap grace,” which he explained in his book The Cost Of Discipleship. Grace is cheap, he writes, when it is used as an excuse for failing to be ethically faithful to the Gospel—forgiveness with no conversion. The “costly grace” of the Gospel requires us to follow Jesus recklessly, wherever our faith takes us: all the way to death if necessary, as Bonhoeffer did. He wrote, “It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. . . Costly grace is the Incarnation of God."

Bonhoeffer spent time in the United States in New York at Union Theological Seminary, and was deeply impacted by the African American culture he met in Harlem, near the seminary. He taught Sunday school at Abyssinian Baptist Church and was moved by the “black Christ” he met in the writings of the Harlem Renaissance. His witnesses of racism in America would deeply shape his understanding of anti-Semitism at home. His friends encouraged him to stay in New York, but instead he returned home. In 1939, after the persecution of the Jews became more serious, Bonhoeffer was threatened due to his having spoken out against the regime. He returned to New York that spring, but by July was back in Berlin speaking out again. He wrote to a friend,

There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learnt to see the great events of history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled -- in short from the perspective of those who suffer. (Letters and Papers from Prison, 17)

Committed to peace, he nevertheless became involved with a group plotting Hitler’s assassination, and was send to the Buchenwald concentration camp when his allegiances were discovered. On SundayApril 8, 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came in, saying, "Prisoner Bonhoeffer, make ready and come with us," the standard summons to a condemned prisoner. As he left, he said to another prisoner, "This is the end -- but for me, the beginning -- of life." He was hanged the next day.

We’ll celebrate Bonhoeffer at our regular Tuesday service on April 15. Because I’ll be away at clergy conference, Paula Tatarunis will be leading evening prayer. Martin Niemoller, a colleague of Bonhoeffer’s in the Confessing Church wrote a poem you may be familiar with—this version is inscribed in the Holocaust Memorial in Boston.

They came first for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.

On this grey April morning, I invite you to take a moment to pray for all those, like Bonhoeffer, who speak up. Pray that we all have the grace to do the same.

Rummaging for God (from April 3)

This week, I’ve been thinking about ways to pray. Even though we talk abstractly about prayer in the church a lot, we aren’t always very specific about HOW we pray. In the April issue of our parish newsletter, the Fieldstone Crier, Jonathan Duce has written an excellent article about the Jesus Prayer, a method for focusing attention in prayer at all times. You’ll receive that this week. Another practice I’ve encountered recently is the prayer of “Examen.” It comes to us from the Jesuits, the religious order called the “Society of Jesus” founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the 16^th Century.

Ignatian spirituality is focused on the way that God is present to us in our daily lives. The prayer of examen or, more colloquially, “Rummaging for God,” is a way of reviewing the past 24 hours of your day and looking for the everyday, frequently overlooked, ways that God comes to us. As described by Dennis Hamm, SJ, (who also coined the phrase above), there are 5 steps (handily recalled as LTFFF—light, thanks, feelings, focus, future). It can take 10 minutes or a whole hour—however long you have.

1. Pray for light.

Ask God to be able to remember the last day. More specifically, pray for the grace to understand as well as to remember.

2. Review the day in thanksgiving.

The past 24 hours contain many gifts. What are they? It could be as small as a kind word from a stranger standing in line for coffee.

3. Review the feelings that surfaced in your recollection.

Where was there the most energy? Where was there anger or fear? Where was there joy and happiness? Where was there tension and pain? Peace and rest?

4. Choose one of the strongest moments and pray from it.

A particularly strong feeling is a sign that something important was going on at that time. Feelings aren’t good or bad; feelings are just information. If you felt a strong sense of nervousness or fear, ask God for guidance and for the grace to trust. If you felt intense joy, give thanks. If you felt intense worry over someone, hold them in your heart in prayer.

5. Look toward tomorrow.

How do you feel about the coming day? Are you excited? Are you dreading it? Are you feeling a sense of resolve and organization, or are you overwhelmed and out of control? Whatever comes, use it for prayer—for help, or guidance, or simply ask God to be with you for the day.

This way of prayer helps us not just to know abstractly that God is with us, but to cultivate the awareness of God with us and to bring God deliberately into our focus. Take a moment now and pray your day.

[5 steps from Dennis Hamm, SJ, “Rummaging For God: Praying Backward Through Your Day” published 5/14/94 in the journal America]