Category Archives: Theology

Evangelism

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Daily Readings: Psalm 72:1-7; Isaiah 40:1-11; John 1:19-28

“Comfort, oh comfort my people, says you God. Speak softly and tenderly to Jerusalem, but also make it very clear that she has served her sentence, that her sin is taken care of – forgiven! She’s been punished enough and more than enough, and now it’s over and done with.”

Thunder in the desert! “Prepare for God’s arrival! Make the road straight and smooth, a highway fit for our God. Fill in the valleys, level off the hills, smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks. Then God’s bright glory will shine and everyone will see it. Yes. Just as God has said.

“These people are nothing but grass, their love fragile as wildflowers. The grass withers, the wildflowers fade, if God so much as puffs on them. Aren’t these people just so much grass? True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade, but our God’s Word stands firm and forever.”

Climb a high mountain, Zion. You’re the preacher of good news. Raise your voice. Make it good and loud, Jerusalem. You’re the preacher of good news. Speak loud and clear. Don’t be timid! Tell the cities of Judah, “Look! Your God!” Look at him! God, the Master, comes in power, ready to go into action.

He is going to pay back his enemies and reward those who have loved him. Like a shepherd, he will care for his flock, gathering the lambs in his arms, hugging them as he carries them, leading the nursing ewes to good pasture. The Message, Isaiah 40:1-11

At our weekly mid-week Eucharist, we recently explored evangelism during the homily. This does not seem to be a favorite word among our church members (even though our patron is St. John, the Evangelist). For me, being reared in the south where “Bible thumpers” were plentiful and most of the radio options were either country music or preaching, I was particularly wary of these “types”. I even looked down at them as unsophisticated and shallow. If they only knew the intricacies of our faith, the deep underpinnings of theological study and thought…

Well, Jesus keeps it really simple, does he not? Maybe we don’t have to go shouting  up on a high mountain to bring the good news to others but share I must. Go into all the nations proclaiming the good news was the last directive Jesus gave us in the Gospels—what about this do we not get? If you cringe at the thought of shouting from the mountain tops, as most of us would, I imagine, there are good options. 

Attending a prayer service at our cathedral church in Boston years ago, I read in the service bulletin that evangelism is being with someone in such a way that they know you’ve been with Jesus. That could work for most, I think. At any rate, I’m going to do more of that this Advent.

Offered by Bill Albritton, in whom God delights.

Priorities

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UHaul is coming to pick up the three boxes that carried our stuff from our Vermont home to our Massachusetts one. A dumpster arrives on Monday so we can clear the house of things that are in such poor condition that they are good for no one. There’s still a mess in every single room that needs attention, and I’m heading north to a sibling get-together tomorrow. All of that seemed really important until a little before seven this morning. A friend’s diagnosis arrived in my email and changed everything.

Prayers, a phone call, an offer to help: that’s what really matters. The rest – it’ll happen. I just won’t consider getting it all done as my top priority.

Mantra for Moving

Ebbtide

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The Goodbyes have started; a dinner with colleagues, a final staff meeting, food and conversation with friends before the drive away. Soon to come: a final open house, turning in keys after a final walk-through. Packed boxes tucked away in corners and a spare bedroom are changing the landscape of the house. One month out, this move isn’t a once-for-all event. It’s a gradual receding of the activities, things, and people that have marked our daily life these past three years. We are still here, but something of us is receding bit by bit, drawing us out from this particular place.

Ebbtide

It feels like an ebbtide, this pull of gravity. Unlike a true one, we won’t be brought back to this place on the next incoming tide. We will emerge in another place – just as it brought us to this new place not so long ago.

On the water

Like a Hair in the Throat

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Do not eat the bread of the stingy; do not desire their delicacies; for like a hair in the throat, so are they. “Eat and drink!” they say to you; but they do not mean it. You will vomit up the little you have eaten, and you will waste your pleasant words. Proverbs 23:6-8, NRSV

A host’s generosity is a gift of time and effort as much as it is the cost of the groceries. Soup and bread on a cold November evening; Mac and cheese with a simple salad brought over by a neighbor during convalescence; coffee and warm muffins put out for an early morning meeting. It’s not the price at the register, but the thoughtfulness that makes such things nourishing for body and soul. It’s a pleasure to eat these meals.

A host’s lack of generosity makes even favorite foods hard to choke down. The feeling that the cost of every mouthful has been calculated and weighed against the value of the guest (and that the guest just isn’t worth the meal) does the opposite of nourish.

We know hospitality when we receive it, whatever is on the plate. It is life-giving. We also know stinginess when it’s offered – it turns whatever is on the plate rancid.

Watch Your Language

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Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Proverbs 4:24

There are six things that the Lord hates…haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. Proverbs 6:16-19

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. Proverbs 10:11

It’s not the occasional swear word I worry about these days: it’s using words as weapons to harm those with different ideas, faiths, skin tones, and lovers. It’s the exaggeration and the lies designed to provoke. It’s the verbal violence aimed toward others that encourages and condones the move from reckless rhetoric to harmful physical action.

It’s tempting to answer angry and violent rhetoric with more of the same, to meet fire with fire, to win the day by yelling cruel words at those who yell at me. But ratcheting up the bitterness and anger won’t solve whatever the original issue was. It just divides neighbor from neighbor.

The damage hateful and violent speech creates is plain to see. It’s hard to take a moment, to stop the harmful words before they make it into print or speech. But it isn’t impossible. I don’t have to keep the cycle going. I can choose to hold my tongue until my thoughts and words show respect rather than disregard.

I’ve said the same prayer every morning when I awake for over a decade, written by Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow in the nineteenth century. It has been especially helpful for me – I hope it will be for you as well:

Prayer at the Beginning of the Day

O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace. Help me in all things to rely upon thy holy will. In every hour of the day, reveal thy will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me. Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul, and with firm conviction that thy will governs all. In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings. In unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by thee. Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others. Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day and all that it shall bring. Direct my will, teach me to pray, pray thou thyself in me. Amen.

[A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991, p.20]

This is one in a series on Proverbs. For more information, click Proverbs above…

All About the Clothes…

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As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.

I Cor. 12:20-24a, NRSV

Paul continues his faith community/body metaphor in interesting specifics. We clothe the parts of bodies we find less respectable – a truth and the reason we wear pants. But I wonder if Paul had a double meaning in here.

Are the members of the community who are well clothed, who are considered important and widely respected – are they the weaker members? Are the well known and well heeled (literally) in need of this attention more than others who don’t get it? Are the unnoticed and under-appreciated who see to the wellbeing of the community the stronger ones?

It’s a cheeky take on Paul’s words, but is it accurate? What do you think?

Led Astray

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You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. ICorinthians 12:2, NRSV

In the ’90’s, looking through the paper, I saw the comic strip Nancy; in it, she was playing with her virtual pets – feeding the cat, tossing a ball to the dog, making sure they were happy. In the last panel, the perspective widens out from Nancy at her computer to show the living, breathing pets she was ignoring.

Idols come in different shapes and sizes, and they are rarely villainous. What makes them idols is the power I give them.

Now Concerning…

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What are the spiritual gifts, and how do you identify who has which one? Are they a measure of our worth, a means of comparing spirituality and godliness? Paul had quite a bit to say about such questions.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at his words. Who knows where they might lead us…such as:

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 1Corinthians 12:1, NRSV

Words have power – something Paul knew well. What is said or written can sway opinions, leading listeners and readers into greater understanding or leading them astray. Deceit can have tragic consequences, just as honesty can be life-giving. Whenever we offer words about the spiritual life, we would do well to take seriously the effect they could have on others.

To the best of his ability, Paul used his words to inform and uplift – to offer a nudge toward a deeper connection with God and neighbor, and a better sense of self. He writes, I do not want you to be uninformed because he wanted good things for others. That is a worthy goal, and a good indication that what follows this opening sentence in chapter twelve will be well worth reading…

Carded

I have a couple of boxes filled with ones my husband sent, ones my sons created at school or home, and even one with my grandmother’s handwriting preserved inside. I use my favorites as bookmarks long after the day they arrived in my mailbox. They are little pieces of words and images that remind me of the ones who sent them and the occasion for the sending. Cards.

The one above is Saint Matthew, sent as a Christmas card from my mentor and college advisor, John Rouman. He was the one who introduced me to Greek Orthodoxy – something that ended up being the beginning of what would years later become my dissertation. Every time I see this card holding my place in my latest read, I think of him and how he changed my life.

Not all cards are touchstones to such things, but many are signs of care and concern offered in a particular place and a particular time. As I begin this new year, I’m going to take a look at some of them. If you are inclined to do the same, get your stack of cards ready…

Dogmatic

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A Prayer for World Peace

Dogma: A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

What can we say about our faith, our God, our world that is incontrovertibly true? Depending on when and where we were born, the dogmatic laundry list would be different. Even if the lists were identical, our own age and stage of life color our take on what we consider incontrovertibly true. Gender, age, experience, geography, current events, health – all these and more influence our lists and our understanding of what those lists mean.

So how do we make sense of it all when so much of what we think of as incontrovertibly true, given by an authority we honor, isn’t truly written in stone? What is the foundation that remains solid and reliable, a bedrock that can bear the weight of our lives and all the changes that come with them? Our perspectives are so limited, our life spans so short – how do we live holy lives?

From my own limited and biased point of view, with all its shortcomings and blind spots, I’m going with the perennial favorite that winds through every faith in every time: when in doubt, go with what honors God and offers love to self and neighbor. Dogma is just a list; God, self, and neighbor are life.

[From Jane Goodall’s A Prayer For World Peace (Feeroozeh Golmohammadi, illustrator); Hong Kong: Minedition, 2015