Feeling Good About Gas at $3.45 Per Gallon

I had a shock, yesterday. I went to check out at the grocery store, and I was unprepared for the high cost of the few items in my two small, plastic bags, even though prices have been rising steadily for weeks. Earlier in the day, I was feeling triumphant about finding gas for $3.45 per gallon. Both are signs of a changed world. When you calculate the cost of your few groceries based on your hourly wage, you are left wondering whether or not you can afford to eat (an annoying habit). When gas prices seem not only reasonable but a bargain at nearly three and a half dollars per gallon, you have to conclude that something dramatic has changed in your outlook on the world. By the way, has it occurred to anyone that the oil companies have conditioned us to accept $3.4599 as $3.45 instead of $3.46?

Both political parties have vowed to save us. Neither, it seems, is really in touch with what most working-class people experience day after day: high prices, stagnant wages, job uncertainty, and increasing uneasiness about their financial futures. As we baby-boomers turn sixty, our thoughts naturally turn to concerns of economic security. What happens to me when I retire or can no longer work? These are serious questions, and they need thoughtful planning and careful decision-making. They also need prayerful consideration.

We like to believe that we live in a world under our control. If we choose the right people, the right political party, they will return us to prosperity. The corollary to this belief is that someone or some government policy is to blame for our current difficulties. The truth is more disturbing. Economies, local ones as well as global ones, are not really under anyone’s direct control. Yes, speculators can sometimes wreak havoc, but even in speculative markets, multiple, powerful forces are at work. We say that these situations are “over determined,” i.e., they do not have a simple, easily identifiable cause and effect. It is natural for us to feel anxiety under conditions such as these.

The God of the Bible does not promise us untroubled, economic security. Prosperity gospels are comforting, but sooner or later we are faced with the facts of life. God has not made me rich. What God has done is to see me through the hard times, to provide for me in times of need, to care for me and my family. This is the promise of the very first Psalm. I don’t believe it is an accident that the compilers chose for the first entry one that begins with the words, “Blessed is the man.” One that proclaims that those who love God will be like a tree planted by streams of water, a tree whose leaves do not wither. God has promised to be with us, even in the “valley of deep darkness.” And Jesus asks us why we are so anxious when God knows our every need before we ask it.

Anxiety is part and parcel of the human condition, but we are called to exercise faith in the midst of life’s difficulties. Faith does not grant us immediate relief, nor does it guarantee fulfillment of our every wish. It does, however, provide us with needed security, with hope that things will get better, that we will get through this. We will overcome because God is with us. Yes, we will still have to look for the best prices, defer spending, even on things we may need, but ultimately, in all things that matter, we trust in God to fulfill his promises to us, to look after us.

This does not relieve us of our responsibility as citizens of his kingdom nor does it relieve us of our responsibility to exercise our rights and duties as citizens of whatever country to which claim allegiance. It is one thing to acknowledge that many of the things we face daily are beyond our control; it is quite another to absolve ourselves of responsibility for our neighbors. I may not be able to change the economy, but I can reach out to those in need. I can act with kindness and compassion. I can share in the suffering of my neighbor and do whatever lies within my means to alleviate that suffering. I have been priveleged to travel the world and see at close hand the effects of poverty, war, and ill-conceived revolutions. It has taught me this: I am my brothers and sisters keeper. Cynicism may be a plague of our time, but it provides no answers. It solves no problems. The world changes by degrees. Want has a human face. It is the face of the one who stands before me. I may marvel at the rising cost of groceries, but I can still buy groceries, and I can still help others, and in that small, seemingly inconsequential act of kindness, I can make a statement for the common humanity of us all. This is message of the biblical book of James. Clothe the poor, feed the hungry, comfort the weary. This is the heart of Gospel as it is to be lived in our daily lives, and this is the hope of the Gospel. For that, thanks be to God.

 

 

 

Can One Be a Saint if God Does Not Exist?

In 1927 Justice Brandeis wrote that our founders believed that the final end of the state was to make all of us free to develop our faculties. “They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.” We found few in our society who would challenge this assumption as we celebrated the Fourth of July. Indeed, as we watched the celebration on the grounds of the Capitol — A Capitol Fourth –  waving our American flags (distributed by volunteers to those of us who forgot to bring our own ), we could not help being caught up in feelings of pride. This is what the founders wanted to bequeath to us. This is what so many Americans fought and died for.

One of my favorite authors, Albert Camus, provides a much needed commentary on post- modern life when he writes: “Can one be a saint if God does not exist? That is the only concrete problem I know of today.” In a time of war, it seems to me that this question looms large. What is the point? That, indeed, is a concrete problem for today. We may also ask, along with Camus, what does it mean to be a saint? That seems to me to be an equally important and related question.

Standing at the heart of all such questions is the idea of freedom. When we speak of freedom we all too often restrict its meaning to being able to do whatever we wish. What we do not consider are the consequences to others and to ourselves. True freedom never enslaves us. Paul writes in Romans of powerful forces at work within all of us. Who has not experienced with Paul the failure of the will? “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Rom. 7:18b-19) The Apostle Paul writes in Romans that we are slaves to whom we obey. He also writes that we know to whom we are enslaved. Paul identifies this dominating force as sin. Although our post-modern world vehemently rejects the very idea of sin, our conscience does not lie to us. Rather, it excuses or accuses us according to our actions. This is the common experience, whether we acknowledge it publicly or wrestle privately with our regrets and self-accusations “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Paul answers his own question with the rousing affirmation: “I thank God –through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

For Paul, the only truly free person is one who, recognizing the person and authority of Jesus Christ, has given himself to something greater than himself. In so doing, he chooses life. Paul’s letter to the Romans is nothing less than an affirmation of life. Amidst all of the conflicting demands of life and the conflicting calls for loyalty, one stands out. Paul unflinchingly chooses God. In so doing, he affirms for us that God has freed us to live, freed us to make mistakes, freed us to begin again and again, if necessary. There are, indeed, second chances, and third, and fourth, and fifth. That is the meaning of grace.

It does take courage to live. Justice Brandeis was correct, without courage there is no liberty. But without faith there is neither liberty nor the courage to sustain it. Cynicism is the influenza of our age. Who can resist the  temptation to turn a jaded eye on all that we see? Only the person of faith. Albert Camus wrote in Actuelles, “In the midst of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” For me, the invincible summer emerges through the eyes of faith. Courage is indeed the guarantor of liberty. But acts of courage are only possible in those whose eyes have beheld something greater than themselves. To be a person of courage is to live life to its fullest, to be willing to step out in faith, to be willing to make mistakes. A life thus lived is one of courage and liberty, and a life thus conceived is lived amidst an invincible summer. That is what is meant by a life of faith. That is what it means to be a saint. That is the gift of God, and for this, thanks be to God.

 

The Fourth Day

It has been said that we cannot remember the three most important days of our lives: the day of our conception, the day of our birth, and the day of our death. The days that lie between our birth and death make us who we are and contain myriad special days and events to be remembered. All of them marked on our personal calendars. The church, as well as society at large, has its days, no date more important than Easter Sunday. On this day we remember the fourth important day in the life of Jesus, his resurrection.The need to accurately fix the date of Easter and the other major Christian festivals fueled the development of our modern calendar. It was promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, after the Jesuit astronomer, Christopher Clavius, solved the age-old problem of keeping the calendar synchronized with the seasons. Easter always falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. As such, the earliest possible date for Easter is March 22, and the latest possible date is April 25. This year is the earliest Easter has fallen in 85 years!Regardless of how early or late Easter falls, it is a time for us to remember not only those events in the life of Jesus — his arrest, his trial, his crucifixion, and his resurrection — but also to think about the very great promise of Easter for you and me. The ancient Baptismal creed of the church ends with the phrase “I believe in … the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” This is the historic confession and faith of the church. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so also shall we be. The fourth important day in the life of Jesus will also be our fourth day, and Easter is God’s seal and promise that the life Jesus now lives will be ours for eternity.Easter is more than just another holiday on the Gregorian Calendar. It is the birthday of a new order into which we have been translated through God’s grace. It is true that we may never remember our conception or our birth, but it is also true that as Christians we are promised that someday we will remember not only our death but also our resurrection to life.

Standing at the Crossroads

 We cannot afford to forget any experience, even the most painful. (Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, 1951).

 

I was re-reading Markings, and I was stuck by the above quote. I have had several conversations in the past few weeks with people who have either refused to deal with the events/ mistakes of the past, or alternately, who seem completely victimized by the past.  St. Paul tells us to forget what lies behind and to strive for the prize that lies ahead (Phil. 3:13). These two admonitions, one the voice of the Apostle, the other the wise counsel of a world leader, seem to contradict one another. I would argue that both are profoundly true. To dwell on the past, whether on its pain or its triumphs, cripples the present and robs it of its immediacy and promise. We stand always at a crossroads. Choices lie before us that determine our future. St. Paul reminds us that we are to keep our eyes fixed on the ultimate prize, the one that always lies before us, the fulfillment of our calling in Christ Jesus.

For Christians, each moment is redeemed by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is why Paul can write that all things work to the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). Even tragedy has the potential to be transformed. Life shows us that such occasions also have the power to destroy. It is faith that makes the difference.

Mature faith never underestimates the power of the past. Experience is the wise counselor that warns us of danger. It is also the voice of encouragement, sometimes softly heard, sometimes a shout in our ear. St. Paul warns us of the dangers of being ruled by the past. Dag Hammarskjöld warns us that to ignore the past is to rob ourselves of one of life’s most important counselors, even as he also cautions us not to ignore the distortions in the “mirror of yesterday.”

One path leads to slavery, the other to freedom. The difference between the two is grace. It is grace that redeems the past and robs it of its power over us. It is grace that illumines what might yet still be. It is grace that empowers us to act for that future. It is for this freedom to act, Paul writes, that Christ has set us free. And this freedom is life in the Spirit. It is living in the past that St. Paul rejects. He urges us to live into our future secure in the knowledge that those who follow the Spirit do indeed have the power to remember the past, even while transcending it. 

Stopping by the Woods on a Quiet Eve

I am preparing to spend a few days in the West Virginia panhandle, mending a broken leg. Our house along the Cacapon River is always a quiet sanctuary, settled deep in a valley without television or radio reception. This weekend should be particularly quiet. Not many weekenders brave January and February in the mountains. The early morning temperatures will dip into the twenties, and the forest floor will be covered with a fine coat of frost. The last of the perennials will have blackened in the deep cold. Winter has come.

The Appalachian Mountains have gone to sleep. The bear that troubles our trash cans won’t return until spring. I’ll miss the pileated woodpeckers that bore holes in my deck railing. Even the deer and geese are less active. This world is at peace.

The news in Washington is much the same. The dollar is falling, forcing oil prices higher. Investors are jittery. The war is going badly or victory is in sight — depending upon whom you listen to. I marvel at the number of people who tell me that one presidential candidate or another is the savior of the world. One woman in her 80s tells me that if a Republican wins she will be forced to flee back to Chile.

I have become too cynical, too old, or both to believe that any one party or individual holds the key to some future utopia. Looking to a Huckabee, a Romney, a Clinton, or an Obama for the answers to the world’s problems seems to me to be childish. Certainly, we baby-boomers ought to have seen enough by now to be skeptical, to be more discerning when we hear the promises made by candidates. History has taught us that the world is just too complex for the populist platitudes and simple solutions we are fed in campaign speeches.

What is also clearer as I age is the degree to which we each contribute to our national problems. Chinese quality is certainly troublesome, but as long as you and I demand $9.99 coffee makers from Walmart, we won’t see quality American goods in a box store. The sub-prime fiasco has undermined our faith in the economy, but thousands upon thousands of people have lost their homes to foreclosure because the financial institutions that could have helped these people abandoned them rather than helped them to refinance. They did so to protect their standing with investors — that is, by the way, you and me and our pension funds. We helped put these people on the streets. We don’t want immigrants in our country, but we we want cheap labor to build our houses, clean our office buildings, and blow the leaves out of our yards. We have forgotten that our ancestors, people like my grandparents, didn’t speak English in their homes and on their neighborhood streets, either.

I am reminded by this season of Epiphany that Jesus came to us as one of the poor, that he fled his home, in the arms of his parents, as a migrant fleeing political oppression (the government did want to kill him, after all), and that he grew up not in a privileged middle-class suburb but in a working class neighborhood. He was what we call blue-collar.

We don’t need a savior of the world. That job is already taken.  Jesus has taught us that the really important changes are within us. Until we understand that, until we take loving our neighbor as ourselves seriously(not to mention loving God), it doesn’t really matter what structural changes we make to our government or our economy. The world will just go on the same, only the names in the newspaper change.

As we approach Lent, why not consider a really big Lenten discipline. How about trying to live the Sermon on the Mount for just 40 days? Since Sundays technically aren’t Lent, y ou get one day a week off.

We need to pay careful attention the coming election. Certainly we need to participate in our democratic government. While we are at it, though, why not make the changes we can in our own backyards? Then we might have a better idea of what to do on a national level.

I think I’ll just leave it all for a while. Its time to build a fire.

Some Thoughts on the Eve of the High Holy Days

Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live unreflectively and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to raise it to its true value. Albert Schweitzer, On Receiving the Nobel Prize.

Rav Yitzak Blazer told a parable of a king who disguised himself to mix with the common people. A man sat on a public bench with the king for a long time, but only after the king had left did the man realize who had been sitting next to him. Realizing that he had missed a great opportunity, the man went away saddened. Rav Blazer reminded his hearers that the Days of Awe, the ten days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper, are the days of reflection in which all of our deeds, thoughts, and motives are examined in the presence of God, who draws near to us. How foolish to miss so great an opportunity.

To live reflectively is to begin a life of meaning. The German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, reminds us in Being and Time that life has meaning not only because of what is but also because of what might have been or what might still be. Heidegger goes on to describe for us both authentic and inauthentic modes of being, the difference being a measure of how one’s life reflects the dynamic relationship between the actual and the possible. The authentic life is one in which we live in constant awareness of the tension between who we are and who we can become. It is here in the specifically human dimension of self-awareness that meaning is born.

Few of us have a single, defining moment in our lives. For most of us, life is full of meanings. We are lovers and friends, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, workers and volunteers. Each dimension, each role and relationship adds another layer of meaning. The task of self-reflection is to find the meaning in the moment.

Kairos is the classical Greek term for a time of decision. It carries within itself the idea of irreversible change. Whatever decision is made, whatever direction is chosen, the life of the person or nation will be changed forever. Kairos is the moment of destiny. To live each day as a succession of kairos moments is to reverence life; it is to live fully into the potential that lies in each moment, each decision; it is to live a life of wisdom. The liturgy of Rosh Hashanah reminds us that wisdom is both a response to God and a gift from God: “help us to make it … a year of faith and wisdom to meet the perplexities and perils which may beset us.”

God meets us in the kairos moments and transforms the ordinary into the sacred and raises life to its true value. The seasons and festivals of the year give us pause for self-examination and renewal, but the authentic life reminds us daily of the presence of God and the transforming power of a life lived in response to God. We may begin by repeating the Rosh Hashanah prayer, “We have chosen You. And You have chosen us.” But may we, both Jews and Christians, in this season of the year and all of the days to follow recognize the presence of the king beside us and learn to say, “We have chosen You because You have chosen us.”  

Two Roads Diverged

I shall be telling this with a sigh,Somewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.   Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” 

A few years ago, I stood with an elderly woman in what until recently been her dining room. Her husband lay dying in front of us in a newly delivered hospital bed. As we talked, she softly recounted stories of all those she had nursed over the past half century, some to health, others not. Relatives, friends, and neighbors had always looked to her for support, and it seemed that it had never occurred to her not to give it. I asked her why. What made her so willing to respond, to give of herself to so many people – people who often never bothered to offer a simple thank you in return? She answered matter-of-factly, “I never look down on anyone unless I am picking him up.”

That simple saying is printed on the side of a building on North Capital Street, in Washington, D.C. I was to hear it often through the ensuing years, most often from the poorest and most marginalized among the African Americans and Hispanics, most often in the most blighted neighborhoods. It is an honest appraisal of the state of many in America today, and at the same time, a refusal to accept that state. It was the defiant challenge to poverty, addiction, and violence that overwhelms whole segments of our society. It was the bold statement of people who chose to reach out in love for no other reason than they were compelled to by their unshakable belief in the dignity and worth of every person.

What a contrast between her simple statement and Nietzsche’s aphorism, “He who does not wish to see the height of a man looks all the more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground – and thereby betrays himself.” (Beyond Good and Evil, 275) Nietzsche draws us with quick, deft strokes, but this is no caricature. It is a bold, even if uncomfortable, truth. Far too many of us have learned to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to those around us. Often it is because we too look more sharply at what is low in the person before us.

Two roads diverged. The first road is less traveled, but I suspect very much more satisfying. To walk through life seeing the good in others and doing the good in ourselves is to live life at its deepest and fullest level. The choice is ours, and our choice will make all the difference.

Is the World Better for My Having Taken of its Time and Space?

 Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth … In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they shall be alike good. (Ecclesiastes 11:1-6) 

Jose Ortega Y Gassett wrote, “The masses feel that it is easy to flee from reality, when it is the most difficult thing in the world.” The Preacher of Ecclesiastes calls us back to reality. He refuses to let us flee, calling us back to the moment, admonishing us to live boldly in the face of life’s uncertainty. The rain does fall on the just and the unjust. Life’s storms will come to us in our turn. The Preacher cautions us to be ready for both the good and the bad, to condition ourselves to be resilient in adversity, and above all to live grounded in the reality that all life involves risks. To be thus grounded is to be free to live both creatively and authentically. To be thus grounded is to be free to risk.

To cast our bread upon the waters is to step out in faith. We can bury our talent like the man in the parable (Matt. 25:14-31). Like him we will receive no return. To live each day fully, making the most of our time and talents in all circumstances  is to be like the man with five talents. The return we receive is the enriching of our lives, as well as the lives of those around us.

The Preacher goes on to describe the changes that come to us all in old age. He cautions us to consider these things while we are still young enough to act upon them, “before the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to the God who gave it.”  When I have grown old, what will I say of my life? Did I live the dreams of my youth, or did I bury them like talents in the sand? Is the world better for my having taken of its time and space?

Being grounded in reality never means being paralyzed. It means both seeing the world as it is and seeing it as it could be. Casting our bread upon the waters is casting our lot with those in need. It means risking for the sake of those who have nothing of themselves to risk. In the end, it means nothing less than living a dream of a better world to make it reality. T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) wrote in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, “All men dream… but not equally. They who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake to find that it is vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” The world has enough dreamers of the night. How much richer a life belongs to the dreamers of the day.

Welcome

In his collection of essays, Unfinished Rabbi, Arnold Jacob Wolf writes of the many different people and groups he has taught. What unites them, he says, is: “In each case they are allergic to superficial one-shot lectures and to halfhearted generalities.” Sadly, too many Protestant pastors have fallen into the trap of refusing to take the laity seriously. All too often congregations are subjected to Sunday school lessons and sermons that are shallow to the point of being trite and which bear little relevance to their lives. We wonder at declining attendance, we reconstruct worship to model the latest fad in popular entertainment, and we offer cafeteria services to meet the needs of our ‘target demographic,’ all the while ignoring the simple fact that our parishioners are tired of “superficial one-shot lectures and halfhearted generalities.”

I am both unapologetically Baptist and unapologetically ecumenical. I believe that the historical Baptist witness has been and remains an important voice in American Christianity. It is not the only voice. Few of us stand in the pulpit on Sunday morning and face a homogenous gathering of people raised in Baptist churches. Often, nearly half will have come from other Christian traditions — some many years ago, some within the past few months, and some whose spiritual journey continues to lead them from denomination to denomination. Many who are with us this Sunday may in the future transfer membership to a non-Baptist church. What they ultimately seek is a deepening spiritual life, a growing faith, and a relationship with God. A laity defined by denominational identity has given way to a pan-Protestant laity, defined by a heartfelt desire for love and fellowship within the bounds of the historic Christian faith. Such people will not suffer the superficial or the halfhearted lightly.

Some weeks ago, a young visitor approached me after the service. She told me that she goes to church to be fed for the week ahead. Instead of a full meal, the pastor puts a pea on her plate. She thanked me for manna for the week’s journey. I should be flattered, but the truth is, I’m not that good. It saddens me to think that there are millions more like this young woman, whose pastor does not take her seriously enough to give her more than a pea.

I hope visitors to this website will find food for thought. I learned many years ago as an inner city hospice chaplain that I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes I don’t have any answers, but together we can at least explore the questions. Like Rabbi Wolf, I am an unfinished pastor; more importantly, I am an unfinished Christian. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I have much to learn before my eyes are fully opened.