Simplifying with More

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, we begin our conversation about stewardship. Even though, of course, it's a year-round endeavor, most often we dedicate several weeks each fall to really focus our attention. I'm excited to have Sasha Killewald and Christine Dutt co-chairing our efforts this year, with a bit of a different focus.

This year, we're thinking about "more."
This may seem kind of ironic, given that I've spent a fair amount of writing in this space for the last few weeks on simplicity. What would St Francis say about us trying to organize ourselves into "more?"  Or Thoreau, from his cabin in the woods? Well, it's not more out of nothing. It's more a reallocation. One of the things I've enjoyed about our adult formation conversation on Free is the practice of looking at the big picture of time and money.   Our schedules and finances might seem pretty locked in, but there are still a lot of choices to be made. This year with stewardship season we're trying to think about what, if we reallocated our personal energies (both financial resources and time and talent) a little differently, what would be possible. What if we had something going on for adult formation all the time, and everyone participated in at least one Bible study, or book group, or conversation series every year? What if when it came time for yard clean up day, or Fieldstone Fair planning time, each of those endeavors had so many people come we could expand our work even further? What if each of us had a clear sense of purpose in our participation in this community, in how we are crucially part of the mission of God in this place?  What if our own callings as baptized Christians were so essential to how we operate in the world that our spiritual practices were first, not a pleasant add on?  What if we discovered that "more" in the place of our faith and spirituality could somehow lead to "more" in all other parts of our lives?  

These are big questions, and I'm not going to solve them head on and right here. But I look forward to the conversation, and remain grateful for our calling here together on Main Street.  

Blessings,
Sara+

Simple Creatures

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, I'm bracing for a little madness. For the first time, we're doing Blessing of Animals in the service-plus children's choir, plus children's sermon. Like having church outside, this is a day for liturgical experimentation.  There is a lot of space in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition to communicate local culture; our music, our prayers, our language all express the identity of the community in some way.  This is one of the things I love most about being an Episcopalian; there is so much space for particularity even in the structured form of our service.  We always open with a declaration of the Trinity. We always close with a charge to go out in the name of the Spirit or the name of Christ to love and serve.  In between, we hear Scripture; we interpret it in some way, whether with a traditional sermon or other response.  We bless bread and wine, we eat and drink to remember and participate in the Body of Christ. 

Even working within those parameters, a lot is possible. In November we'll have our Jazz Mass, and, yes, this Sunday, blessing of animals. At the moment, my family has no pets-both Noah and I grew up with cats, and had one brief experiment with dog ownership (those who were members back in 2009 will remember the ill-fated  Cyrus, my St Bernard puppy who got cancer at age 1).  So I'm hopeful that each of you will bring your companions, either in the flesh or a photo. Our beloved "Lemon Bear" will probably make an appearance as well, since stuffed animals can come, too. 

We bless animals around October 4, St Francis Day, in memory of a saint who was said to be so connected to nature that he preached to the birds and tamed a wild and fearsome wolf.  Francis also offers a tradition of simple living, even more important for us now in such a time of ecological crisis. We are constantly burdened by more and more stuff, stuff that seems to multiply on its own when we aren't looking. As a parent I struggle with this a lot; whenever a birthday rolls around, there's the impulse to mark it with more, more more-but after just a few good garage sales this September, my kids have already stacked their closets full of more toys.  It's not even just about spending money; stuff is cheap. 

But stuff won't warm a cold lap, stuff won't offer a vision of sheer joy in play and creaturely delight.  So, as un-simple an endeavor it may seem to be, my hope is that this crazy idea of having pets in church will help connect us to that Franciscan simplicity.  A pet isn't "for" anything.  They fulfill no function other than to be in community with us. We care for them out of sheer grace and generosity. In offering thanks and praying blessings for these creatures in particular, hopefully our hearts will be moved to act on behalf of creatures everywhere, to make our lives a bit greener and our world a bit healthier.  We aren't separate from nature, but rather vital members of a profoundly complex ecosystem. We are creatures with needs before wants, given life by a Creator who longs for us to know the difference.

Blessings,
Sara+

Martin Luther King Day, Inauguration

This week my thoughts and prayers are with our president.

Watching the inauguration Tuesday was incredible-even more so was looking at the faces of the other people who were also watching. I watched it on CNN.com, and the shots of the faces of the crowd were more moving than the words that anyone spoke.  

On Sunday, we heard stories about vocation in our Scriptures. I was reflecting with you about how it seems like our nation is living into the vocation it set for itself at its founding, as a place of freedom and equality. 

And in Martin Luther King week no less-about 45 people gathered for the Waltham Interfaith Service on Sunday (for a link to the article in the Tribune and a photo of our own Otho Kerr, see below) and we heard prayers and thanksgivings for King's work.  At our education forum on Sunday, Norm Faramelli shared part of King's "I have a dream" speech (the part we don't hear as often): 

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

There is still so far to go in the cause for equality for everyone-racism is a sin that we are still susceptible to-but our new president is a sign of a promise that many of us never thought we'd see in our lifetime. So much work has been done, by Dr King and the civil rights movement, by those before him and those who went after, to make this moment possible.  The poet Elizabeth Alexander's Praise Song articulated how each small movement of "repairing the things in need of repair" is part of the praise of the day, but also worthy of praise in itself.  She read,

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.. . . What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance. . .  In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

Our country has a hard task ahead of itself-inequality continues in so many ways, and war and economic anxiety threaten us all. Jobs have been lost, retirements postponed, illnesses gone untreated. But today, as Alexander said, "Anything can be made, any sentence begun." 

What is the sentence we are beginning to speak? With our tongues, with our lives?  President Obama spoke of the call to service, giving to our community.  For the Christian, that is nothing new; the recognition that we don't live for ourselves is part of the fabric of our faith.  What is interesting about now is how that dialogue is happening in a national way. I saw an ad for Starbucks today promising me a free cup of coffee to pledge 5 hours of volunteering time. (What would be really interesting is if Starbucks pledged to pay every single one of their coffee growers and sellers a living wage!) 

Good for Starbucks-but even better for those who, like many of you, have served and will continue to do so.  But it's as good a time as any to ask the question-how will we be changed by this new day (if in fact it is one, and I do think it is)?  How will we serve? How will we celebrate? How will we live?  How will we help to redeem that bad check that Dr King talked about, to examine and repent for the sins of prejudice that wound?  How will the "sharp sparkle of today" give birth to a wider generosity tomorrow?  

St Francis

On Tuesday at our education series, “Commit,” we talked about how we become Christians—about baptism. We talked quite a bit about how—or, indeed if—our identity as Christians puts us in opposition to our dominant culture. There are, we decided, definitely values of “the world” that we would reject—“more is better,” for example—but we acknowledged that as widespread as the Christian faith is in our cultural context, that alone does not put us out of synch with what’s around us. Your interpretation of the faith answers that question—not just your claim of the label “Christian.”

One Christian who has had a very clear view of the relationship between Christian faith and the world is Saint Francis of Assisi. We remember him these days more with celebrations of creation than abstinence from worldly pleasures, but his life teaches us about both of those. This week, we’ll observe the Feast of St Francis with a celebration of blessing of animals on Saturday afternoon—bring your pets at 4:00 pm, and we’ll thank God for all the gifts we receive in their companionship with us. Of course, stuffed animals and pictures of pets are welcome, too. On a personal note, one of my cats died this week, so I will be especially mindful of her.

Francis was born in Assisi, in 1182. His father was a very wealthy cloth merchant, and as a child, Francis would have planned to join his father’s successful business when he grew up. But Francis was converted to Christ, and resolved to give everything up for poverty. Francis found his home in nature, freed from possessions. He gave up all conventional pleasure—money, sex, food—for a brown wool robe and a begging bowl. He wanted to be poor, to be free. St. Francis, in fact, didn’t really do a great deal of anything; Francis’ example was in the way that he was. In poverty and community, Francis embodied simple joy. He embodied joy in difficulty, in hunger, and in cold. He embodied joy in enticing others to come and be “fools for Christ;” (1 Corinthians 4:10)—to forget about productivity, forget about consumption, forget about accomplishment, and just focus on the love of God.

The people of Assisi were deeply alarmed by Francis’ behavior. Most people thought he was crazy, giving up everything his father had worked for, all the accomplishment and wealth and respect. In one story, Francis’ father finds him preaching in the town square. He is horrified that this bizarre son is embarrassing him. He lashes out at Francis the only way he knows how—to threaten to take everything from him. But Francis isn’t threatened at the prospect of losing material possession. He strips off all his clothes and gives them back to his father.

One description of Francis’ life talks about him as “the most popular and admired, but probably the least imitated; few have attained to his total identification with the poverty and suffering of Christ.” I’m not convinced, though, that Francis would have appreciated this, though intended to be praise. For Francis it wasn’t about accomplishment or praise; it was about freedom.

I don’t know what Francis would think about the fact that we bless animals in celebration of him—probably, he’d be glad that we are willing to be, even just for an afternoon, “Fools for Christ,” remembering God’s blessing even in the more playful corners of our lives. Probably he would also hope that we would feed a few hungry people on our way to church. Whether you have a pet to bring or not, please come this week—we’ll meet on Saturday on the lawn (by the St Francis statue, of course!) at 4:00.

Reading Dorothy Day

Lately as part of my prayer, I’ve been reading the diaries of Dorothy Day, published in a volume entitled “The Duty of Delight.” I ordered it at the Catholic Worker conference I attended in July. As a founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Day lived in voluntary poverty with those in need and traveled among the “houses of hospitality” founded by the movement. The newspaper, “The Catholic Worker” that she started advocated for equitable working conditions, pacifism, and the Catholic faith through the thirties and forties, to much social opposition. Day spent her time with communists and longshoremen; priests and alcoholics. Her radical interpretation of the Gospel was hard, her politics were uncompromising—and there’s a lot about what she advocated that I strongly disagree with. But reading her is still a little like spending a few minutes with a saint every morning.

A saint, but not, well, a “saint.” She was not perfect. The gift of reading someone’s diaries is that you really get to see what they were like—their frustrations and irritations, impatience with themselves and with others. The holiness of her life was that she was constantly on a path toward God, but never lived her life in such a way as to insulate herself from those who were not. She never separated herself morally, or even bodily. She lived with the people she served, sharing grimy kitchens and cold winters because she believed that Jesus would have done so.

I am very aware of how comfortable my life is—vacations with family, pleasant bike rides to my well-furnished office, delicious food on my dinner table. The beauty of Day’s writing, though, is that she helps you to move beyond the paralysis of “I’m a bad person for not living like that” and into a wider, more grace-filled space of love and forgiveness for others. There is nothing particularly holy about being obsessed with one’s sins. The holiness comes in when your awareness of your own faults opens you to forgive the faults of those around you. Day summarizes it this way; “It makes one unhappy to judge people and happy to love them.” (June 25, 1938) Indeed.

We are all on the journey toward God—sometimes halting and stumbling, and sometimes running with abandon and joy. Day quotes St Catherine of Siena: “All the way to heaven is heaven, because He said I am the way.” Jesus Christ has already reconciled us to God, and we are loved more than we now. The light of God’s hope reflects back on us already, even in the darkest moments of the present.

Thanks be to God!

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.

Feb. 14: Cyril or Valentine?

Happy Saints Cyril and Methodius Day!

OK, it’s also Valentine’s Day, but not on our saints’ calendar. Cyril and Methodius were a pair of Greek brothers in the ninth century. They were missionary priests sent to the Khazars, near the Black sea in what was later Russia. They learned the local language and translated much of the Bible into Slavonic, which had no written form, so local people would be able to read Scripture for themselves. Their work to give it a printed language gave rise to the Cyrillic alphabet (Cyrilà Cyrillic), still used (in a modified form) in Russian and its linguistic cousins. They are regarded as the founders of Slavic literature, and celebrated today because Cyril died on this date in 869. You can read more about them at (http://satucket.com/lectionary/Cyril&Methodius.htm).

A lot less is known for certain about “St Valentine.” There was a historical St Valentine (or several—of the early church martyrs there are three by that name—it was actually pretty common), and there are many legends surrounding the name and the reason Feb. 14 has come to be associated with it and romantic love. One story holds that Valentine was a priest in Rome, and the Emperor (Claudius II) ordered young men not to marry. He thought he’d have more soldiers if there were no wives to convince their husbands to stay home. Valentine, a priest, secretly married young lovers. He was supposedly martyred on Feb. 14. We also may have Gregory Chaucer, author of the medieval Canterbury Tales, to thank for Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14. He mentions it in the context of the mating of birds halfway through February to encourage all of creation to, well, mate.

So which is it? Cyril or Valentine? Obviously, the Christian tradition has a lot to say about love: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4.12). The church has not historically been very excited about the romantic love that Valentine’s Day sentimentalizes. Sex is bad, sex is dirty, and nice people don’t talk about it. Or, on the other extreme, sex is so elevated and so otherworldly, regular people don’t talk about it. The problem with this attitude is that it’s allowed our cultural conversation about relationships to be totally dominated by gender stereotypes and one-dimensional, frequently antagonistic views of human relating. None of us are from Mars or Venus—we’re from earth! All of us! We can speak to each other, and share what’s on our hearts in trust and in faith. We can show our love for each other in mutual and life-giving ways. But you wouldn’t guess that watching “Wife Swap” or “Desperate Housewives.”

So, here in my newsletter, I’m encouraging all of you to take this February 14 for both Cyril AND Valentine. Cyril and his brother worked to make the word of God intelligible to people, so they could understand each other and God. Love in all its forms is surely the word of God and a sign of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So sit down with the person you love and ask them: where is the word of God in this relationship for you? How can we speak God’s love to each other, in all of the ways, physical as well as emotional, we relate to each other? If you aren’t part of a relationship like that, pray for a moment about how God is glorified in the way that you show love for yourself; how you take care of your health, how you eat well, how you exercise and how you make time for friendships and community. Thanks be to God for all of our saints.