The Trinity as a Model for Outreach

I bet you all will have seen the “Invisible Child” series in the New York Times. In it, Andrea Elliott compassionately tells the story of Dasani, a homeless child in our city. If you haven’t it’s worth sitting down for a long read. It can be found on the New York Times Website. The link to the article is here.

I have been thinking a lot about Dasani and her family, as I suspect many readers have. Part of what I think is so captivating about the story was the way that this child’s life is both so close, and so far from my own. Perhaps that is some of the nature of New York, we are both remarkably physically close to other people, but often live very separate lives (especially along class lines). As I have reflected on this article not just as a New Yorker, but as a priest, hoping that our outreach programming might someday grow to reach the 22,000 vulnerable NYC homeless children more closely I realized that the relationships in Dasani’s life had the potential to be most transformational. Her relationships at her school give her life structure, and a greater sense of meaning.  Dasani’s teacher, Faith Hester, seems to be what keeps her in school. Ms. Hester provides inspiration and support to Dasani. She manages to create an individual relationship with her student (not an easy thing for an overworked public school teacher!). She challenges Dasani, but she is also understanding. Principal Paula Jones works very hard to keep Dasani a student at her school, even when the family moves from a shelter in Fort Green to an apartment in West Harlem. She works hard to ensure that her school will be a stable presence for Dasani in her life which is so unpredictable. Once the family moves to West Harlem, she works out a way for Dasani and a couple of her siblings to be bused to school so that they can continue to attend. Ms. Jones doesn’t just bend over backwards, she also holds Dasani accountable when she makes a mistake.  And finally school security guard Jamion Andrews jokes with Dasani, and gives her some lightly used clothing to take home to her family.

The power of these human relationships to help, support and change the life of one homeless New York child is something we especially understand as Christians. Our faith is a relational faith. Part of it is our relationships to God, and to each other. Our sense of God as the Holy Trinity is in it’s nature a relational idea. The Trinity is the idea that God is three things: by title Father, Son and Holy Spirit or by role Creator, Redeemer and Guide. And these three things are in relationship with each other, and with us. It is through our relationships with God that we come together on Sundays willing to be in relationship with each other. By being together, being in relationship with one another we see God’s love reflected, and growing in us. The relational aspect of the trinity is a model for our outreach efforts. We need to be in relationships with those in need. I hope too that as our monthly outreach efforts continue to expand we will have the opportunity to enter into meaningful, supportive and deep relationships with vulnerable children around our city the way that Ms. Hester, Ms. Jones and Mr. Andrews have for Dasani.  

Physical Therapy

In today's New York Times there is a great piece in the Opinion Pages by Gabrielle Giffords called, "The Lessons of Physical Therapy." Here is a link so you can go check it out. I have spent some quality time in physical therapy (and still sometimes miss Neeti, my last PT), and I liked Giffords's reflections on the meaning of that time spent doing repetitive action. 

I appreciated what Giffords has to say on the third anniversary of the assassination attempt on her life. And a number of times as I read this I thought about how much this might make sense to us as a community of faith. First of all, Giffords is simply inspirational and the hard work she has done in the last three years to be where she is now is rather remarkable.

This description of what it is like to do rehab made me think about the life of faith. Giffords writes, "It’s gritty, painful, frustrating work, every day. Rehab is endlessly repetitive. And it’s never easy, because once you’ve mastered some movement or action or word, no matter how small, you move on to the next. You never rest." The repetitive nature of our life, and the constant action, hoping for small movements seems like what we are striving towards in our relationship with God, and in our relationships with each other. 

Giffords writes about her desire to fulfill a large purpose, and how the Sandy Hook school shooting helped show her a path. She and her husband decided it was their mission to change laws around issues of Gun control, even though they are both "proud gun owners." The language she uses here (larger purpose, fulfill and mission) strikes me as very religious. As religious folk this relates to our work of living into our reality as members of the Body of Christ, and what that activity might look like. We are called into being Christ's body in the world, and that means doing the service and mission work God calls us to do. 

Giffords reflects that her struggle to reform laws is a lot like her struggle to regain her physical abilities. She writes, "Our fight is a lot more like my rehab. Every day, we must wake up resolved and determined. We’ll pay attention to the details; look for opportunities for progress, even when the pace is slow. Some progress may seem small, and we might wonder if the impact is enough, when the need is so urgent." Some part of this seems very hard to me. I think it is in the pace of the progress. I am impatient (which sometimes can be good--I want to see change!). But I think the other part of it that can be hard is the marking of progress. It is hard to get a chance to step back. Here at St. Ann's (and I suspect at a lot of places) we go from event to event, Sunday to Sunday, Christmas to Epiphany Party (tonight: Hot Cider! King Cake!!!), but it is hard to hold onto a long view in order to see the progress and to see what we are building. 

So I will end this by saying Gabrielle Giffords is just amazing. She shows us that we should remember the slow, repetitive nature of our work as the Church and of the need to sometimes try to take a step back to see what we are doing here on the corner of Clinton and Montague!

Dreams

I have been thinking a lot about dreams recently. I wonder if part of it is our season of darkness--the long nights and the short days. But I wonder too if it isn't about the story of Christmas. Joseph has a dream in Matthew's gospel:


Matthew 2:13-15,19-23
Now after the wise men had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."

And the wise men are warned in a dream not to return to Herod:

Matthew 2:1-12
`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

And I have been thinking about the Angel Gabriel's appearance to Mary, and Elizabeth's reaction to seeing Mary in Luke's Gospel as well. All of this dream drama is interesting to me right now as a person having the most vivid and interesting dreams of my life. I read last night in my pregnancy book (because every pregnant person seems to have to read pregnancy books) that during the second trimester pregnant women have very active dreams. This has certainly been true for me. I have never been so excited to sleep each night and to see where I will be transported. So now as I read the scripture as a pregnant woman, I am captivated by the dreams that surrounded the birth of Jesus.

So I am wondering about dreams other women have had in pregnancy, and wondering about other dreams people may have had where God entered in.

What's in a name?

Last Sunday two different parishioners stopped me after church to talk about the name of this blog. No one had ever said anything to me about it before. But I thought I should think out loud with you for a few minutes here on the blog about the name of this thing.

The first parishioner suggested that the name of the blog was out of date. I no longer count as a new priest. Well...he may be right. Next Sunday, September 29th marks a year of me as a priest. And though I expect there to be many firsts in my second year as a priest, perhaps this is a moment to start understanding myself with all the experiences I have had in this last year.

The second parishioner had a more PR minded comment. He suggested that I change it from reflections of a new priest to confessions of a new priest. He thought it would draw more eyes to be blog if I were confessing things. Unfortunately I am not sure I am confessing much of anything. More than anything, I think what I do on this blog (when I get to it) is try to make some connections between the things I am seeing, and hearing, and thinking to the journey we are on with God.

When I started this blog Fr. John wanted me to come up with a witty, catchy name that had some resonance with pop-culture. I had a hard time doing that. I went with something that would sort of sum up what I wanted to do here, and who I think I am.

Thoughts on Re-Watching

Last night I watched my favorite ever TV show episode. The episode is one I have seen before. So many times that I can recite from memory large portions of it, and I am  not a person who memorizes TV dialogue. I know you're curious what it is, so I'll tell you: its a episode from the first season of the West Wing called "Mandatory Minimums." As I reflected on the pleasure and joy of re-watching this familiar episode, I thought about how this episode has a real home feeling for me. It feels warm, good, close and I know it inside and out. It is a place I like to revisit.

Two weeks ago I spent some time with a friend of mine, Phil Maciak. He is a professor at Louisiana State University. While walking among a cemetery in New Orleans, Phil told me about a project he is working on about re-watching episodes and movies. I was and am still intrigued by it.

As I sat down to work on my sermon last week, I read through the Gospel passage and realized that it's one of those familiar ones: the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. These are stories we know, and understand. Maybe even stories that function a little like re-watching a favorite TV show in that they make us feel at home. Sunday was also homecoming for us at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity.

So today I am thinking about how the nature of the lectionary is to re-read, re-encounter, re-confront passages on a three year cycle. Some of them are our favorites, they make us feel at home. And others might strike us in a whole new way when we are in a different time in our lives. I wonder if any of you, having re-read, or re-heard a scriptural passage have either felt like home, or felt that they understood it in a whole new way.

Foolish Galatians!

The overall theme of Paul's Letter to the Galatians is covered extensively in the Letter to the Romans – but I find it easier to follow here. Paul is so angry at those he perceives as offering “false” and “perverted” teachings to the congregations he himself founded, that that anger sharpens his thinking as well as his tongue.

At issue is whether followers of Jesus must be Jews – i.e., must non-Jewish converts, Gentiles who are being baptized, be circumcised as well? Circumcision is the mark of identity as a Jew, and some teachers appear to have come into the congregations of Galatians (who are somewhere in Asia Minor) arguing that Gentiles must first be circumcised as well as baptized. Two perspectives on this issue are important, ours and Paul's. From our perspective, we can see that circumcising Gentile converts would mean that “Christianity” was to remain a movement within Judaism; Paul and others are arguing that belief in Christ constitutes a new relationship with the same God, and therefore new beliefs and new practices. This amounts to a new religion, though Paul himself does not ever put it in those terms because the term Christianity does not exist yet. This dispute, then, is an extremely important historical insight into the birth of the Christian Church.  Paul's perspective on this issue is both profoundly theological and deeply pastoral. He argues that Abraham believed in God's promise; we are children of Abraham, then, through believing the promise of God to be fulfilled in Christ. The law – the Ten Commandments, and the other 603 found in the Old Testament – was given when the people of God needed behavioral guides, but now the law serves to point up our shortcomings, our inability to keep all of the commandments all of the time. Under the covenant of the law, then, we are subject to rejection by God, and thus (in Paul's view) death. The law cannot save us. Instead, we are freed from the law by the death of Christ, by God taking on the shortcomings – sinfulness – of human nature himself in Jesus, and thus we are promised in his resurrection the same eternal life he himself enjoys. Our freedom in Christ, Paul believes, is so great, and is what makes our life in the community of the faithful even possible, that we must not allow ourselves to fall back into an economic (you-do-this-and-I'll-do-that) relationship with God that we cannot possibly maintain. Instead, we respond to the freedom given in Christ by attempting to lead lives based on love, knowing that even when we fail we are welcomed back into the love of the community because of the love of God.

Here are 8 things to think about as you read Galatians:

1.    What does Paul say about himself? Look at 1:1, 1:11-16, 4:13-15, 4:19, 6:17

2.     Watch the relationship between Paul and the “acknowledged leaders.” Look at 1:17-2:4, 2:7-2:10

3.    What is the conflict at Anticoh really about (2:11-2:14)? Note the setting is a table yet again.

4.    Notice the presence of the collection in 2:10

5.     Notice that division between flesh and spirit, this is a rhetorical tool, a metaphor and is very literally what Paul is talking about with circumcision (a very flesh-y topic).

6.    The subject of this letter seems to be theological differences in teachers, and we have all of the stuff about Abraham which seems familiar after Romans, but for me this all seems to crystalize around chapter 5. Finally we get: “Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be on no benefit to you ” (5:2).

7.    This whole letter has a “we’ve moved beyond the law” sort of feel to it, so how do we then reconcile  the list of “works of the flesh” and “fruit of the Spirit” (5:19-23)?

8.    What is a new creation (6:15)?

Romans 1-8

Romans 1-8

The Letter to the Romans is different from Paul's other letters in that it was written to a community that he did not found and did not know. Thus rather than addressing issues within a congregation over which he has a large degree of authority, here Paul is introducing himself to an already-famous community. It is the longest of his letters, therefore, because it is the most comprehensive statement of his faith, and therefore it is placed first among his epistles in the Bible. Its overarching theme is the parallel relationships between Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews) and between the law and grace. Paul wishes to justify the inclusion of Gentiles in the Christian community without leaving behind the special relationship between God and the Jewish people; and he wants to base his understanding of faith on the gift of Jesus Christ as the means of God's grace to free us from bondage to the law and sin, yet without denigrating the importance of the law for establishing the need for salvation. Early in the first chapter (1:17), Paul takes the stand that underlies the rest of his arguments: “the one who is righteous will live by faith.” It is our faith in Jesus that frees us from sin, not our wayward and futile efforts to obey God's law.

One other note in this introduction to a complicated text: Romans 1:26-27 is one of the most difficult passages for those of us convinced of the full humanity of, and love of God for, homosexual persons. Many efforts have been made to explain that Paul's condemnation here is not of committed homosexual love as seen in our contemporary world but of prostitution in fertility god and goddess temples or other types of excessive sexual licentiousness of the time (especially in Corinth, where the letter was written, and in Rome itself). Personally I find such arguments persuasive and yet rather convoluted and torturous. Paul, in his letters, reveals himself to be a person of deep faith, powerfully and often movingly articulated; he also reveals himself to be fully human, capable of jealousy, some arrogance, occasional whining, and deep gratitude for friendships and communities of faith. He is not the best authority for current relationships between men and women, or for the roles of women in the Church; I therefore do not find it hard also to assert that he is not the best authority regarding the authenticity and naturalness of homosexual love.

Remember this week we welcome back Dr. Maia Kotrosits as both our lecturer and our preacher! I am really looking forward to her insights as I have found Romans to be a tricky (and sometimes repetitive) text.