George Herbert, Ubuntu, and Swine Flu

Last week, I bought a book at Church House Publishing in Westminster that I’m enjoying a good bit. The title is, appropriately enough, If You Meet George Herbert on the Road, Kill Him: Radically Re-thinking Priestly Ministry. It’s a well-written examination of the haunting influence of the “Country Parson” model of priesthood that has priests on both sides of the pond running themselves completely ragged and never quite knowing if their work is done. The author, Justin Lewis-Anthony, first reviews the effects of laboring under unrealistic expectations on clergy in the Church of England and some of the roots of these expectations in the high-flying myth of George Herbert’s priestly ministry (though he was only in a parish for three years–and assisted by curates for two of those years!). After a thorough critique of the “Country Parson,” he goes on to use some of the writings of Michael Ramsey and especially Rowan Williams on priesthood to lay out a more sustainable and authentic practice of priestly ministry under three defining roles: Witness, Watchman (sic), and Weaver. I haven’t finished the book yet, but will likely post on my understanding and application of his insights to my understanding of my vocation in a future post.

The part of Lewis-Anthony’s analysis that I’ve appreciated the most is his skewering of what he calls the “Cult of Nice,” or the expectation that what clergy are striving for is to become paragons of a certain people-pleasing, milquetoast, yet ultimately duplicitous agreeableness. As I’ve been reminded by one of my mentors this summer in the inimitable words of Stephen Sondheim, “Nice is different than good.” If there’s only one thing I’ll take home from my experience in England this summer, it’s the importance of finding a parish and rector that will offer me a place to be myself, to grow and make mistakes and take risks without undue anxiety.

General Convention 2009 leaves me sighing with relief, though I suspect our truthful stand in D025 and C056 will have consequences. Still, my heart is filled with gratitude at the gift of being profoundly seen and loved by my community of faith. I have been asked on several occasions about what the reaction has been in England. The only thing I can say for sure is that there are likely to be at least a half-dozen different reactions from the various points of view represented in the Church of England. Some folks are pleased as punch and wish the CofE would get on with it. Some think we’ve definitively broken communion. Many others are somewhere in between. The shoe that we’re all waiting to drop is whether Canterbury will in fact recognize and come into formal communion with ACNA. Will that mean a ‘disfellowshipping’ of TEC (to borrow Baptist language for an event unheard of in Anglican history–I think new Anglican bodies have come into being that have not been recognized by Canterbury but never a historic Anglican church that has been declared to be out of communion)? Or, in another unprecedented move, will +Cantuar somehow mantain communion with two separate communions that are geographically overlapping? Either way, we live in interesting times, for better or worse.

The swine flu is sweeping its way through the UK as we speak with about 55,000 cases (compared to the USA’s 40,000 or so). The Diocese of Southwark has issued guidelines for the administration of the chalice during communion, including using anti-bacterial gel at the lavabo and assuring those who are concerned about contagion that it is perfectly acceptable to receive only under one species. Also, intinction is out for the duration. We are all connected, for better or worse, aren’t we? I beg your prayers for healing for those who suffer from the flu or the fear of infection, that God’s healing presence may be very near.

 

Back to Basics

This week, I had the pleasure of improvising a sermon with the inimitable Dr. Giles Fraser, Vicar of Putney. We showed parts of a video about the men and women who undertake the grievously dangerous journey from various countries in Central America to the US border riding freight trains. In the sermon, we reflected on the archetypal human experience of migration and the Christ who is ahead of us, behind us, and walking with us on all our wanderings, guiding us home. Giles was inspired by Daniel Groody, an American Catholic priest whom he met at a conference at Oxford on theologies of migration. It is a deep and worthy topic, one that I have a natural affinity for and about which I feel passionate. So preaching and theologizing on aspects of migration was a fun opportunity.

My favorite time of the entire week, though, was St. Mary’s Emmaus service. Emmaus is a contemporary Holy Communion service that is deliberately aimed at kids who have recently begun receiving communion in an effort to conduct a complete but age-appropriate liturgy that encourages reflection, engagement, and simplicity of action and expression. Every portion of the usual structure of the Eucharist is there just said in simple words, often accompanied by simple actions. I was personally so nourished by this service that I wondered whether it might not be something I’d be willing to do in a future parish on a monthly basis, not just for kids but also for adults who want a contemplative Eucharist that gets back to basics. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for a richly layered, complex liturgy in which there are many ways to enter the action, that accommodates ambiguity and creativity. But this Emmaus service was an absolute gem.

General Convention 2009 has begun! I wish I were more interested in the blow-by-blow, but I have trouble figuring out what I’m seeing. For the moment, I’m just keeping up with the reflections of a few bloggers and checking out some of the streaming webcasts. Please pray for the GC to be open to the work of the Holy Spirit and fearless in their pursuit of truth, wisdom, and the love that the Cross invites each and all to risk in this part of the Body of Christ.

Here’s a picture I took as I was walking across the Putney Bridge earlier this week of St. Mary’s. Enjoy.

St. Mary's from the Putney Bridge

 

Many Mansions

I’m really enjoying tooling around London. The Greater London area is, I believe, the most intricately layered human space I have ever had the pleasure to live in, even if just for a little while. Keep in mind that I say that as a resident in New York City! But London is a rabbit warren of streets, alleys, green spaces, common areas, and even graveyards and churchyards. There are several layers of habitation and activity: underground, above ground, tunnels, bridges, pedestrian walkways and stairwells. There’s always a surprise waiting around a corner, and you can bet that the best way to wherever you’re headed isn’t a straight line.

In the past week, I have had the pleasure of visiting several surprising places that I want to share with you. The first I might never have found had I not been directed. The friend with whom I’m staying took me in his car to his appointment with the chiropractor, very close to the shopping area at the Angel in Islington. To pass the time while he got adjusted, he directed me down a side street, telling me to follow the signs for ‘Towpath.’ At first, I couldn’t imagine what he could be talking about, but soon I found myself (like Alice having gone through the rabbit hole) on the towpath of a lazy canal with flat colorful boats moored along its banks.

Regent's Canal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/philip_talmage/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Regent’s Canal in London was built in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to transport goods from the Thames north into other areas. I had walked or ridden over this canal dozens of times without ever knowing it existed! Yet, there it was, a brand new beautifully textured public space to inhabit and explore. And there are countless spaces like this tucked away, around corners and down the road. Bishops Park is another placid green space I discovered this week. It spreads west along the north bank of the Thames in one of the parishes where I’m working this summer, All Saints Fulham. As I walked through, I discovered a group of workers from British Heritage digging up the old moat that used to surround the Bishop of London’s palace in Fulham.

And that’s just the beginning! This week, I’ve also visited All Hallows by the Tower and seen the baptismal record of William Penn, walked across the Waterloo, Vauxhall, and Putney bridges, gazing down at the dark brown Thames at low and high tide. I’ve learned to walk home from the Tube station along a series of parks, promenades, alleys, and backstreets. What a lark! I can’t seem to exhaust the layers and layers of human habitation, spaces to visit and travel through. I wish I had a more precise language for what I’m referring to. I’m sure it’s something that’s discussed in architecture or urban planning. But I’m getting a real kick out of exploring this magnificent world city.

 

Praying for England

There are many differences in liturgical practice between the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, but the one that most consistently leaves me spell-bound and leaning forward is the almost ubiquitous practice of robust, extemporaneous intercessory prayer at the Daily Offices and at the Eucharist. At first, I thought it was just an unusual quirk of the parish where I’m working, but I’ve come to realize that fresh, customized, on-the-spot prayers are an expected part of the liturgy here. And I find myself deeply moved by this intimacy with intercession, with keeping up with people and events and praying for the life of the community, the nation, and the world. I’ve been asked to think about and lead the intercessory prayers at several liturgies, and I find the discipline of praying deliberately, earnestly, specifically, and daily for the world to be an essential part of the church’s ministry.

I have two theories about the origin of this practice and its prevalence in England. First, I think the C of E might have been influenced by proximity to the “pastoral prayer” of the more evangelical and protestant flavors of Christianity, in which the pastor extemporizes an intercessory prayer on behalf of the congregation. The C of E manages to include within it a theological and liturgical diversity that is both richer and more frought than what we have in the Episcopal Church, and has done so for almost 500 years. My second theory is that this kind of intercessory prayer is a direct expression of the kind of grounded, localized ministry that is particular to a church that was (and to a certain cultural and political extent, still is) the established church of nation. There’s a deep sense that this is part of the church’s role: to pray for the nation, the land and its people, its heritage and future, its relationships with church and world. Though we certainly have this idea in the US, it isn’t as deeply ingrained or expressed as I’ve experienced it.

Today, I got to interview a young father coming in to request baptism for his daughter. In the process of filling out the form with the required canonical information, I was able to get to know this gentleman and learn some of the story of his family, even though we’d only known each other for a few minutes. What a privilege to be able to spend my days living with people and their stories, offering welcome and care, interest and challenge, a word of hope or joy or blessing, praying for Christ’s presence to be made manifest among us and between us. Man, this is the best gig in the world!

 

First Week in London

It’s Friday on my first week in London. I had a wonderful meeting with my colleagues and supervisors in Putney and at All Saints in Fulham on Wednesday that has left my giddy and excited about the coming weeks. Though I showed up at St. Mary’s on Wednesday morning (very jet-lagged and groggy) expecting a brief meeting and perfunctory lunch, I was immediately swept in to the hospitality of the parish and spent the entire day (and almost three meals!) with various folks with whom I’ll be working closely. What a relief!

The big picture we’ve agreed upon looks like this: I’ll be on site at my assigned parish Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays all day, assisting with various worship services, tagging along on pastoral visitations, and observing and participating in various meetings. I will likely get to preach at least once or twice at St. Mary’s in my time here. Tuesdays will be light, flexible days where I’ll come in for part of the day. I’ll be off Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. So my first full day at the parish will be this coming Sunday.

Even before beginning in earnest, I’ve already (re)learned several noteworthy things, to wit:

1. Autolocomotion can be beautiful. The Tube strike has made it quite difficult to get around London this week. It took me two hours of standing on a jam-packed double-decker bus to get to Putney on Wednesday morning. On the way home, all of the major streets were completely gridlocked with cars, buses, cyclists, pedestrians. It was foolishness and mayhem. The three and a half miles from Putney Bridge to the Victoria and Albert Museum took an hour-and-a-half to travel, all the while watching pedestrians pass us and never be seen again. By the time we got to Hyde Park Corner, I was done with the bus. I pulled out my A-to-Zed and set off on foot towards home. What an adventure! About five miles and an 1.5 hours later, I had re-acquainted myself with Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Soho, the West End, Bloomsbury, Sadler’s Wells, the Angel, Islington Town Hall, and Highbury Corner. I’d gotten some delicious exercise and listened to my iPod. And what’s more, I’d ignored the Baedeker. To celebrate my new-found sense of accomplishment, I’m considering tooling around London on a bicycle. Stay tuned!

2. Branding guides my choices to an unnerving extent. This week included a visit to the supermarket (Sainsbury’s) and drug store (Boots) to pick up various and sundry groceries and toiletries. But as soon as I start looking at the product selection, I’m at sea. Where’s my Ban roll-on? And Kraft cheese? And what are pork faggots, exactly? I am stunned by how much branding guides my consumer choices. As a shopper, I’m rarely looking for just, say, detergent or soap or razor blades. I’m looking for Gain and Dove and Gillette. There are dozens of products on the shelf at Sainsbury’s that I can’t even identify, or that are not what I think they should be (pickles are green and crunchy!). Still, this is an important lesson, both in what guides my choices (one of the key practices of ethics) and in the power of persuasive visual advertising. I suspect there’s a way to use branding for good, to communicate identity, mission, passion, and inspiration. (I’m not the only one who thinks so: check out Church Marketing Sucks.)

3. A porous boundary between church and world can be envigorating. In an examen of the week, the one thing that pops out as if it’s illuminated and underlined is the architecture of St. Mary’s, Putney. In their most recent renovation, they built a full cafe not just adjacent to their worship space (separated by a wall, say) but actually contiguous. In order to get to the church office or the sanctuary, you must pass through the cafe. St. Mary’s isn’t unusual in this respect; many CofE churches have similar arrangements with food and coffee shops to bring in a bit more revenue. But more importantly, the architecture says something that I think is important: church and world are not entirely separate arenas. A church that imagines itself to be hermetically and ritually closed off from the world is both fooling itself and ignoring the tidal in-and-out pull of the Gospel. Yet neither is the worship space the same as the secular space. St. Mary’s does not have Holy Communion in the cafe. Nor do they serve coffee and full English breakfast in the nave. They preserve a defined space for worship and for education, yet the gate between the nave and the cafe is wide open. While I attended an intimate mid-day Eucharist in one of the chapels, I could hear the steamer going in the cafe, foaming milk for a latte. I’m sure the many mothers, babies, and small children gathered for fellowship, snacks, and coffee in the cafe could also hear the murmur of the church’s prayer for the whole world humming in the background. If we had sung, they would definitely have heard. Though it will take time to fully articulate the implications, I was completely enraptured by the unifying vision of this architecture. I look forward to spending time teasing out the details. Barbara Brown Taylor has a wonderful meditation on some of what I think I’m getting at in her new book, Altar in the World. There’s a free pdf download of the first chapter on Amazon, if anyone’s interested.

4. Priesthood can have a geographic rootedness, a sense of place, that is part of its charism. In my initial conversations with the priests in the CofE, I have found an interesting and attractive understanding of the parish priesthood as having a rootedness in place, a responsibility for providing pastoral presence not just to the community that gathers but to all who live nearby. In the US, it’s easy at times to think of the ordained ministry as something that only “counts” within ecclesial contexts and in the ordained person’s private life, leaving the wide swath of “secular” space unfilled. Yet the UK, with its solid tradition of geographic parish ministry, retains a notion of the vicar’s cure of souls that includes his/her visibility and availability to, and advocacy for, the whole community, not just the church.

 

The Purest Form of Praise

Luke 6:39-45
Jesus also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above the teacher; but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the beam in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother/sister, ‘Brother/Sister, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the beam in your own eye? Hypocrite, take the beam out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

No good tree bears rotten fruit, nor again does a rotten tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasury of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasury of his heart brings forth evil: for from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

In the carefree days before I was a homeowner
I used to daydream about the garden I might someday have.
It would be a huge English garden
a verdant carpet of wildflowers and flowering plants
with hardly any room for grass
(no mowing for me, thanks!)
foxglove and purple cosmos
a spray of pink and gold climbing roses ascending a trellis
artsy paving stones and a birdbath
and in the back, in a corner
behind a white picket fence
a compost bin and a lush vegetable garden
with tomatoes and zucchini
and little red and yellow hot peppers.
In my mind, of course,
I would only wander through all that sun-dappled green beauty
and enjoy the peace and delight it offered.
(beat) Old daydreams die hard, don’t they?

 

Summer Plans

I am happy to report that I will be spending two months this summer in England, serving two churches in Southwest London: St. Mary’s Putney Bridge and All Saints Fulham. As part of my learning experience, I intend to post at least weekly reflections on my experience right here at Ultimate Concern. So stay tuned!

A quick update for everyone: I was admitted to the next phase of the ordination process (Candidacy) in March. Now, my bishop has asked me to consider what kind of formation I need—in addition to seminary, that is—to prepare for ordination next year. I am actively working on a list of practices, both serious and playful, that I would like to incorporate in the next year. If anyone has any wisdom to share, I am open to suggestions!

One piece of work I hope to begin soon is sewing my own deacon’s stole. I was inspired by the way Zen Buddhists, before receiving the precepts, sew their own rakusu as part of their preparation. As I approach taking new vows that will refine and modulate my baptismal vows, expressing my particular call in the Body of Christ, I think sewing my own vestment will be an interesting analogous practice that will help me reflect and pray, sowing thought, intention and creativity. As with my formation, I will need help from others to do this as I can only sew a button onto a shirt at this point. But I have crafty friends who I am confident will be able to guide me.

 

A Brief Ecclesiological Reflection

With my middler year finally complete, I’m posting a few pieces I wrote to share with you all. I wrote this one for a scholarship renewal application.

At first blush, it would seem that I have learned more about the Church and the role of clergy outside the classroom than I have in it. As part of my seminary education, I have had the opportunity to participate in the many kinds of work done at General. I have been the coordinator of a clothing ministry: marshaling volunteers, soliciting donations, welcoming our homeless guests, handling problems as they arise. I have served as a sacristan in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd: greeting, problem-solving, setting the stage for all the personnel of the liturgy to take their places and, with as little anxiety as possible, enact our courtly and purposeful setting forth of God’s praise. I have served on our Community Council: attending meetings, listening, speaking, planning, asking questions, making lists, listening some more. Each of these ministries has taught me a few terribly important lessons about the nature of this mystical body called the Church.

 

The Sweepstakes

Sorry about the long silence, folks. Seminary is quite consuming. I offer this sermon from my preaching class for your edification.

All Saints, Year A

Revelation 7:9-17
Matthew 5:1-12

***

The Gospel doesn’t make any sense.

I came to this gospel text
thinking I knew what it meant.

After all,
this opening text
of the Sermon on the Mount
from Matthew’s Gospel
brings to mind nothing
so much
as a coin that
has passed through so many hands
been carried faithfully in so many pockets
that its inscription is worn smooth.

We need to weigh its heft
in our own hands
look closely
perhaps with a magnifying glass
at the shadow of its engraving,
test the hardness or softness of the metal
to discover its true value.

But the more I looked
the more shocked I became.
The more I turned it over and over
in my hands
the less sure I became
of just what I held.

My brothers and sisters,
I proclaim to you
in all humility
but with all the sincerity I can
from this venerable pulpit
that:

The Gospel doesn’t make any sense.

 

Brief Reflection on the Parable of Wheat and Weeds

I wrote this short sermon for an interfaith service at the hospital where I’m doing CPE.

Matthew 13:24-30

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

The parable you’ve just heard actually comes with an explanation (one of only two of Jesus’ parables that do), but I must say that I find the explanation quite unhelpful. In the standard interpretation, the wheat stands for the righteous ones and the weeds stand for the wicked and we all know the end of that story. In my experience, that interpretation of this parable invariably gets used to justify the speaker and his cronies as the righteous ones while threatening the nefarious ‘Them’–unbelievers, backsliding church members, whoever–with the wrath of the little-G god who upholds and protects their way of life by casting those who do not conform into an outer darkness.

I’m not interested in that. In fact, it’s my conviction that that interpretation goes directly against the attitude that is taught by this parable. I’d invite you to look at this parable a little differently.

The key to this parable is understanding that the zizania (the specific weeds being referred to) and the wheat look exactly the same until the wheat bears fruit before the harvest. They are indistinguishable for the majority of the growing season. It’s impossible to pull up the weeds without pulling up good wheat as well.

The image of the world this parable paints is messy. There are no neat boxes or even rows. No scarlet letters or secret passwords. While we’re growing in the field, we can’t know for sure where the wheat will spring up. So what this parable teaches is patience and forbearance with one another, especially when we’re certain of our own righteousness, that others cannot help us, that they don’t ‘get it’ (whatever ‘it’ is), that they are on the outside and we, thankfully, are on the inside. The truth is that none of us knows fully the worth and significance of another person. In the meantime, the benefit of the doubt is what’s called for, especially in our most difficult relationships. You can’t tell the ultimate significance of a person just by looking. Appearances can be deceiving. Especially in the realm of judging good or evil, our human tendency is to attribute to ourselves and all who belong to us goodness and rightness, and woe to those who are different! But to God, who sees our secret heart, the only thing that matters in the end is being fruitful.

That is one interpretation. But here is another, riskier one. Perhaps there is also something in this parable about our inner work, about the wheat and the weeds inside each of us. If I look carefully at history and people, what I find is that, rather than good and evil people, we are each some mixture of good and evil, helpful and harmful, mature and immature. Perhaps it’s important, in our inner hygiene, to hesitate before being too gung-ho about ripping up those thoughts and habits that look like weeds to us at first glance. Let them grow together for a while and see which yields fruit. What looks like arrogance may yet mature into wisdom, the intractable sadness into empathy, the distractedness into a wide-open curiosity, the painful story into a redemptive myth to live by. Ultimately, God will reveal some of them to be fruitful, while others can be bound up to be used as fuel. Isn’t that an interesting metaphor? Fire is a powerful image for transformation, transmutation. What if our inner fruitlessness and futility, every ruse and obstacle within us, can be gathered up and burned to warm those around us, to bake the wheat into bread, to power the kiln and fire the pots, to make the metals malleable? At the harvest time, everything will fall into its place, granary or furnace. Nothing shall be wasted.

So, just for today, maybe we can practice having patience and compassion for ourselves and those around us. In that “beginner’s mind,” we may be given a new vision of where we are and how to do our work and grow into fruitful people.