September 12, 2021

Twenty years it’s been, unbelievable.  As we Americans and the entire world remember, and for some Americans re-live the horror of September 11, 2001, we cannot help but reflect on and grieve our present horror in the millions who have suffered and died from Covid-19 infections since February of 2020.  In both of these we are led inexorably to ponder the fragility of our human existence and the resilience and courage of those committed to the preservation of our life, our health, and our well-being the world over.

 On my way south on US Rt. 209 just north of Kerhonkson this past week, I was privileged to be required to stop and turn off my vehicle for a half an hour or more as family members were accompanied by EMT, firefighting and police personnel leaving the graveside of one of their own following his burial. After a blessedly brief moment of frustration, I was drawn by the Holy Spirit to pray: to pray for this small community of men and women willing to serve their neighbors, their friends, even strangers in need—all of them willing to offer their very lives if necessary.  And as those solemnly walking were joined by the fire trucks, ambulances, and police vehicles slowly passing by my car, I wept for their obvious pain and loss, for the gift of their presence from towns and villages all up and down the valley, and for their families who love and support them through it all.

 Like our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Women, Marines, Coast Guard Sailors, Army Reserve Members, and so many others, these first responders—along with countless numbers who serve in hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, shelters, food pantries; on farms, in schools, in markets, food processing, transportation, to name but a few—are the ones who have held and continue to hold the fabric of our common life together.  None of us can ever be “islands unto ourselves”, for we all have a role in keeping each other, our society, our country, our world community as whole and as healthy as possible.  We are, as the ancient Collect in the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, completely dependent upon each other’s toil. We can only begin to perceive and embrace that Holy Love which lies at the center of the universe when we experience holy love in community. God, I’m fairly certain, would have it no other way.

August 29, 2021

Interestingly, the following true quotation has been circulated widely on social media as together we struggle to address our current pandemic-driven health crisis. Martin Luther, one of the giants of the faith, offers a faithful and practical approach for the Christian to adopt.

Martin Luther, writing during the Bubonic Plague of the 1500s:

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I will fumigate, purify the air, administer medicine, and take medicine. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order to not become contaminated, and thus perchance inflict and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence.  If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me.  But, I have done what he expected of me, and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others.  If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person, but will go freely. This is a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy, and does not tempt God.”

However, even more pointedly, earlier in the same letter from which this excerpt is taken, the sainted Martin Luther wrote:

“They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They distain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. This is not trusting God but tempting him. God has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health. 

If one makes no use of intelligence or medicine when he could do so without detriment to his neighbor, such a person injures his body and must beware lest he become a suicide in God’s eyes. By the same reasoning a person might forego eating and drinking, clothing and shelter, and boldly proclaim his faith that if God wanted to preserve him from starvation and cold, he could do so without food and clothing. Actually that would be suicide. 

It is even more shameful for a person to pay no heed to his own body and to fail to protect it against the plague the best he is able, and then to infect and poison others who might have remained alive if he had taken care of his body as he should have. He is thus responsible before God for his neighbor’s death and is a murderer many times over.”

Special thanks to Snopes.com for verifying the first portion cited above and providing context with the second portion.

August 15, 2021

It has been said—accurately and insightfully, I might add—that rather than the Church having a mission for God, God’s Mission has a Church. With this more faithful perspective in mind, we place God where God belongs—as the central source and inspiration for the Church’s life and witness in the world. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord, God called the Church into being in order to continue the essential ministry begun by Jesus to proclaim in word and deed the love of God to the world.

Yet for far too long, and far too often, the Church has elevated its own preservation as a human institution above and beyond that fundamental reason for our existence. Her members, both clergy and lay (dare I say especially the clergy), have spent and continue to spend inordinate amounts of time, energy, and money on maintaining the systems of the organization and the physical structures which house their operations instead of attending to the mission and ministry established by a penniless son of a carpenter 2000 years ago.

So, we wonder, how do those of us who stand today as heirs of this time-honored understanding of “Church” with our old and treasured buildings and grounds to maintain, salaries and wages to pay, and dwindling numbers of faithful members in the pews even begin to refocus our hearts and minds on God’s Mission for us? How can we possibly consider lifting our eyes off the never-ending list of budgetary expenses, planned and unforeseen, long enough to start to think about shifting our priorities away from maintaining the status quo we’ve inherited, and focus on the life and ministry in the world God calls us to embrace?

 As much as this sounds like a formidable and daunting task, especially for a parish as small as ours, I suggest that we begin by being clear about our common life—those aspects of parish life which we do for ourselves, and those aspects of our life which we do for God. Hopefully we will discover at least some overlap, but these realities are often far from synonymous.  Then, and only then, can we open our eyes, ears, and hearts to the exciting task of discovering where in our world God is at work and begin to move in that direction, to be a part of God’s ongoing creative efforts to woo the world God made into full relationship with Godself.  Supporting the Mission of God rather than seeking God’s support for ours is where our future is to be found.

August 1, 2021

One of the most profound divisions in the Church (universal) these days, especially exacerbated in the last two decades by sharpening divisions in the political, societal, cultural, and global spheres, revolves around deeply differing understandings of the way we Christians approach the challenge of living faithfully in a world that changes constantly and rapidly for everyone, the faithful and non-religious alike.  Of course, much of the divide results from the lens through which our many traditions and individuals in them 1) under-stand and interpret Holy Scripture, particularly in terms of Jesus’ teachings and the writings of the Apostle Paul, 2) their degree of embrace or rejection of the Church’s experience of God over the last two millennia, and finally 3) their perspective on the relative importance of the individual’s life of faith vis-à-vis a faithful life shared in community as the context for living as disciples of Christ.

As a priest in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition, it breaks my heart—as it must break God’s heart—to see the enormous chasm between the branches of the one vine, the Church of Jesus Christ, widen more deeply with every passing year, often boiling over into angry, bitter, judgmental,  hate-filled words and actions. How long will it be before sectarian violence—in the Name of the Prince of Peace—becomes reality in this beloved country just as it characterized the history of Europe for the last 500 years, or the Middle East today?  There has never been found an iota of salvation in the ancient doctrine of “an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth”.  But with the escalation of violence in our land, almost exclusively involving guns, coupled with the co-opting of Christ and His Church by fanatical cult leaders on both extremes of the spectrum, the specter of deadly conflict rears its hideous head with alarming regularity across the world.

 My prayer is that the leaders of the Church, in all her richness and diversity, will somehow (the Grace of God, perhaps?) take a step back from the deadly seductions found in any division whatsoever, whether political, social, educational, economic, ethnic, racial, even religious in nature, and invite their faithful flock to join in realizing how effective the enemies of God have become in deceiving the faithful enough to lend a “Christian patina” of righteousness and respectability to even their most devious and selfish schemes. For it is only when we open our eyes, our ears, our hearts and our minds to the unifying God of Truth that said Truth will set us all free.

July 18, 2021 Pentecost

Recently, my inbox included a copy of a short letter written by a young LGBTQ+ person in a small town in Arkansas in response to one caring resident’s display of the rainbow Pride Flag.

“Hello this is probably kind of weird,” the letter reads. “But I walk past your house everyday and I’ve noticed your flag and I’m glad to know there is at least one ally in this little town — from a young LGBTQ+ person”

While I am extremely grateful to our Vestry Leaders for their support of displaying this same symbol of hospitality, love and acceptance during Pride Week at the end of this last month, there is a part of me that was saddened to see it disappear from our front portico.  As the short letter quoted above reveals so clearly, we never know what seeing such a beautiful symbol will mean in another person’s life, especially one who is young, frightened, and probably lonely.  For some, simply knowing that someone nearby is an ally and friend can mean the difference between choosing to live and grow or to die by suicide.

What an incredible testimony this humble letter is to the importance of symbols in the human psyche, symbols which shape and inform our attitudes, thoughts and feelings around almost every aspect of life.  For better or worse, in our embrace of symbols important to us are reflected the beliefs, perspectives and practices of individuals and communities alike.  While the swastika of the neo-nazis speaks of hate-filled and racist characteristics, the peace sign, the rainbow, even the cross (whether a crucifix or an empty cross) reflect quite the opposite.

Makes me wonder about all those so-called "Christian" mega-churches which refuse to display a cross anywhere.  Not much room there for the sacrificial love of God, not to mention the second commandment. Seems to me to be the ages-old sin of exalting the self above and beyond God where the worship of the feeling of the moment, the charismatic leader’s hypnotic influence, or the emotional manipulation resulting from both replace the actual teachings of the penniless carpenter we continue to brazenly call Lord Christ.

July 4, 2021

A Prayer for Independence Day

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Beginning with the courageous stand our nation’s founders took in the signing of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, our American dream of the equality of all people began.  What followed was the prolonged War for Independence, commonly known as the Revolutionary War.

Sadly, though, the war proved to be anything but revolutionary.  By God’s grace and the sacrifice of many a patriot’s life, independence was won. Yet the radical change in the structuring of society and power which lies at heart of any “revolution” simply did not happen. The wealthy class of white men remained the only ones in charge of government and social standards.  They and their fellow property owners were the only ones permitted to vote when our brilliant and visionary founding document, the Constitution of the United States of America, was ratified. Non-property-owning white men were eventually allowed to vote, notwithstanding efforts to enfranchise former male slaves following the Civil War. 

As a people, citizens of the United States, we have struggled and struggle still with the full meaning of Thomas Jefferson’s divinely-inspired assertion that all human beings are created equal and stand equally deserving of dignity and respect in our common life and the communal and individual pursuit of happiness.  With Christ Jesus as our guardian and guide, we have come a very long way, but true and lasting equality for all humanity in our country and across the globe is far from won in our faithful effort to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves”.

March 7, 2021

 Have you heard it? Have you seen it? Have you smelled it? Have you felt it? Almost as a surprise in the night, the birds are singing a new song; the ever-courageous tiny snowdrops are springing forth in our yards; the very soil under our feet perfumes the air we breathe with the unmistakable scent of promise, and the sunlight caresses our cheeks with a warm and gentle kiss.  The time of rebirth and renewal has come. Hope is rekindled as the blanket of white slowly slips away.

 Yet for far too many of our brothers and sisters across this globe who, a short twelve months ago, we’re enjoying life and living it as fully as possible, there is no spring, only the stillness of death.  The pandemic has waged a relentless and merciless invasion into every corner of our world community, leaving in its wake an avalanche of broken hearts, broken dreams, and a collective sense of staggering loss and grief.

 “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavily laden, and I will refresh you,” whispers the quiet voice of God in Christ. To a people who have only begun to glimpse the utter devastation wrought by the overwhelming presence of fear, disease, and death in the fleeting moment of a single year, the voice of the faithful proclaiming God’s presence, God’s assurance of rebirth and renewal is needed now, perhaps more than any time since the Middle Ages.  May we, as a global community of faiths, open our hearts to share love amidst the sorrow, share hope in the wreckage of human lives and livelihoods, and share peace arising from the gift of companionship where no child of God walks this journey alone.