Baptismal Promises, Confirmation Promises

I am part of the leadership team (a very small part) for the Confirmation Camp retreat/week-end at Luther Springs this week-end.  Last night, in our first session, we talked about the promises that are made at a person's baptism, promises made by family members, promises made by the church community.

Here is what ELCA Lutherans promise when we baptize; we will help/guide/direct the baptized one to do the following:

·       Live among God’s faithful people 

·       Hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper 

·       Proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed 

·       Serve all people, following the example of Jesus 

·       Strive for justice and peace in all the earth 

Last night, we had each small group take one of those promises and talk about how we could fulfill this promise outside of the church building.  It was interesting to see what these middle school age confirmands came up with.  For example, in the justice and peace area, the confirmands talked about ending bullying, which wasn't a topic that was widely discussed, back in the late 1970's when I went through the confirmation process.

Some of the confirmands had some trouble paying attention when we presented information as a large group, but when we broke into small groups, every confirmand became intensely involved.  I haven't always seen that dynamic in adult settings.

We ended with our group leader reminding the confirmands that at the end of this process, the confirmands will take on these promises as a commitment for themselves.  She reminded us that we've taken a great first step in thinking of ways we could do that.  It was a great overview of what is coming as part of the process and a good way of working through that transition.

It seems that this process could be a great retreat exercise for an adult group too, a great reminder of how we begin our life as Christians, a great way to think about what we're doing well in our faith journeys and where we might want to think about a course correction.

Michaelmas or The Feast Day of St. Michael and All Angels

If we lived in an earlier culture, a time more marked by the agricultural shifts of each season, we would celebrate Michaelmas today. It's one of the harvest holidays, one of the quarterly celebrations that kept people rooted to traditions of the seasonal cycles.

I am more interested in the idea of a hinge holiday, the way we shift from one direction to another. In Holidays and Holy Nights, Christopher Hill explains, "In summer we celebrate our at-homeness in the world. Michaelmas balances that feeling (for) in autumn we feel our not-at-homeness, the sense of wanting something else, something we can't name. We feel like wayfaring strangers... Summer is static - in Latin, solstice means 'the stationary sun'" Summer is the sacrament of natural harmony with God... while autumn we fall away from the dreaming paradise of summer back into the conflict of light and dark" (pp. 36-37).

Today, the Church celebrates the role of angels in the divine plan, my prayer book tells me (The Divine Hours, written by Phyllis Tickle). Our Orthodox brothers and sisters handle the question of angels better than most Protestants. Most of the Lutheran churches that I've been a member of don't talk about angels much, and based on the ideas of some of my students, many Protestant churches do talk about angels, but with a very shaky theology.

I'll never forget one time teaching Paradise Lost to South Carolina students in my Brit Lit survey class at a community college. One woman seemed particularly confused about all the angels in the story. "How could there be angels," she asked, "when nobody has died?"

It took me a few attempts to understand her question. She knew about angels from church, but only in the sense that we become angels when we die--which is a very recent idea about angels. I explained the more ancient idea about angels, which is that they are a species completely separate from humans. We got into a bit of a theology lesson, but I could see that she wasn't happy with these ideas about angels. She was much more comfortable with the idea of the angels being Grandma and Grandpa who died when she was a child. The idea of angels as a separate kind of entity with no free will? No thanks.

In a way, I understand. Angels are scary. Death is scary. It's rather brilliant to come up with the idea that we become angels when we die--and yet, this shaky theology defangs several concepts which should, in fact, be scary. We will die--and before that, everything we love will die. How do we cope with that idea?

Some of us cope by clinging to the idea that there is a Divine God with a plan and a vision that's vaster than anything we could develop on our own. This God has more power than we can conceive of--including legions of angels, angels that are there for us too.

Some of us cope with the scariness of death by marking the seasons--we're entering the autumnal season marked by many holidays that remind us that death is unavoidable and perhaps nearer than we'd like:  Halloween, All Saints, All Souls, and Día de los Muertos.  In some ways, today's constellation of holiday and feast day is a start to that season, that shift towards a much darker time of the year in terms of less daylight, at least in the northern hemisphere.  

Let us take a moment and notice as the light lingers.  Let us mark the shift.

Systematic Theology and Church History

A few thoughts about my seminary Systematic Theology class and how it weaves throughout the week.  

--Much of the class circles back to the Nicene Creed, and each Sunday when we say the Apostles Creed, I think about the other creeds that have shaped Church policy and history.

--Our class has spent more time than you can imagine thinking about the word "begotten" and what that means.

--I continue to be annoyed by the idea that Mary was simply a vessel for Jesus.  If her DNA didn't matter, why bring the Divine into the world this way?

--And why do I focus on Mary's DNA?  Why is that aspect so much more important to me than other aspects of the incarnation?

--We are reading a lot of Jurgen Moltmann, and I do have to wonder if he's the best systematic theologian to focus on.  Is he representative?  If so, no wonder so many people find theology incomprehensible.

--But then, when I'm reading him, I occasionally find a chunk that stays with me.  This week it was the part in The Way of Jesus Christ where he talks about martyrdom, both the historic kind (Bishops Polycarp and Ignatius) and three that were more recent (Schneider, Bonhoeffer, and Romero).  Moltmann claims that our current time, we're seeing "a wave of martyrdom such as has been seen in hardly any other century" (p. 197).  I've continued to think about that claim.  Do we have more Christian martyrs in the 20th century, and now the 21st, than in most other centuries?

--Moltmann talks about the killings happening in Latin America and notes that in these situations, it's Christians killing other Christians, unlike past martyrdoms.

--And then my brain goes to what I was writing a year ago, about Perpetua and Felicity and their martyrdom for Church History.  I claimed that the earliest Christians championed martyrdom as a way of making the inevitable martyrdoms more palatable:  "Why does the Church glorify martyrdom? Perhaps the Church glorifies martyrdom because it is powerless to stop it."

--My Church History professor HATED that paper.  So far, it's the lowest grade I've gotten on a piece of grad school writing (both currently and for my MA and PhD in English).  Happily, I was able to pull my grade up.

--I just reread parts of that paper, and I still don't agree with my professor's assessment.  But he did make valid points, so it wasn't worth arguing with him.  The paper didn't do all that he wanted it to do.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, October 1, 2023:

First Reading: Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 25:1-8 (Psalm 25:1-9 NRSV)

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

Second Reading: Philippians 2:1-13

Gospel: Matthew 21:23-32

Before we dig into today’s Gospel, let’s situate it in the timeline of the life of Jesus, according to Matthew. Earlier in the 21st chapter, Jesus has entered the city of Jerusalem in an event we’ll celebrate as Palm Sunday. It’s a triumphant entry, followed by Jesus throwing money changers out of the Temple.

In short, it’s becoming clear to those in charge of all sorts of societal institutions that Jesus will cause trouble. So the beginning of our Gospel shows the leaders of the Temple trying to determine what they should do. If he’s truly sent from God, we imagine they might take one path; if he’s just a scruffy vagabond preacher type, they might take another. But how to know?

They ask a question about Jesus’ authority, and in classic form, Jesus responds with a question. He asks them about the baptism of John, and in doing so, some Bible scholars see him as aligning himself with John and prophets like him. He certainly doesn’t look to the Temple elders for authority.

Here, as in other places, the questions of Jesus are seldom about coming up with the right answers. Jesus asks questions to make the ones who hear the questions think about transformation. And here, as in other places, Jesus offers a parable to help us think further about the questions.

In today’s Gospel, we have another parable set in a vineyard, which those Temple authorities would hear as a story about Israel, the people and the land, since several ancient prophets used that language. For us, listeners in the 21st century, it may be the language of two sons that feels familiar.

Think about how often we have stories of two sons in the Bible: Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, the Prodigal son and his disgruntled brother. It’s tempting to approach these parables with the air of a detective. Which brother is the one who is doing the right thing, the good thing? Which one should we cheer for?

Here, as with many a story of siblings, the answer is neither one. Both sons are wrong. Both have acted in a less than upright way. More important, we have been both of these sons. We will be both of these sons.

This parable reminds us, though, that ultimately our actions are important. It’s not enough to say the right things. Action is required.

This idea may fly in the face of what we believe to be good Lutheran theology. What about the idea of grace? Many of us were taught that we're such dreadful humans that there's nothing we could do to justify the gift of salvation. God swoops in and redeems us, even though we're fairly hopeless people. That was the message I got from many a church event, Lutheran and otherwise.

But as a grown up, going back to revisit these passages, I'm amazed at how often God requires more of us than just saying we believe in Christ, more than just accepting Christ as our savior, more than just having faith. In the words of Luther, faith should move our feet. In the words of James, faith without action is dead. We don't confess belief in Christ so that we can say, "Our job here is done." We don't confess belief so that we can collapse and snooze on the sofa. We confess our faith and go to work in the vineyard.

The good news is that the invitation to do the work is ongoing. We may disappoint God—by saying yes and not showing up, or by saying no thanks. God remains steadfast, offering us opportunity after opportunity to be part of the kingdom team.

The end of this parable makes clear that the stakes are high: we may think we’ve already done the work. We may think we’re part of God’s team. We might be rather self-righteous about that. At the end of this parable, Jesus reminds us that the last shall be first. And when we look at that list, it’s clear that those who would be last in the hierarchical society of Jesus would also be last in our time. Jesus tells us that these people on the margins might be the ones who recognize the Good News before the rest of us do.

We have time to recognize the truth, the truth told to us by people like John the Baptist and Jesus. We have time to change our minds. We have time to think about our own claims to righteousness and to change course.

When we look at the totality of Jesus’ teaching, we hear a more complete good news. Even when we fall short, God will still love us. If we've said we'd do the work, and we fail to do it, we have other days when we can show up. God will still welcome us.

There's plenty of work to be done: weeding out the thorny vines of injustice, tending the seedlings that can grow to produce good fruit. We can each do the tasks that are ours to do. God invites us to be part of a much grander vision. Let us say yes to that invitation today and every day. Let us say that we will do the work, and then, let us do it.

Knotting Our Way through a Children's Sermon

 I had made a variety of plans for God's Work, Our Hands Sunday on September 10, and they all revolved around quilts.  I decided that the easiest approach would be to bring some quilts from the local church near my Lutheridge house, Lutheran Church of the Nativity, and set them up so that people could work on them.  I decided that it might be easiest for me to do the initial part of the knotting, drawing the thread through, and leaving the strands for people to knot.

I was sick with COVID, a mild case but one which needed me to stay away from church on September 10.  For a different God's Work, Our Hands project, the children made cards, and I was touched when one arrived in my mailbox (after first going across the mountains to Knoxville, and then back across the mountains to my house in Arden).

I had the quilts that needed to be knotted in my car, and when I thought of Sunday's Gospel about workers in the vineyard, I had an idea for how to use them in my children's sermon this past Sunday.  I got to church early, and set the quilts up in the front pew where the children sit for the children's sermon.

When they came up, I told them about knotting quilts and about how Lutheran World Relief collects these quilts and sends them around the world.  I invited them to start knotting, and they did.  I rolled out my version of the parable:  if I offer to pay you $20 to sit here and tie knots through the whole service, and I offered you fair wages to make knots starting at the sermon, and I offer you fair wages to make knots after communion, and you show up right at the end of the service and tie a knot--if I give each one of you $20 for your work, is that fair?

They all agreed it wouldn't be fair, and then we talked about how God is generous, not fair.  I invited them to stay and keep tying knots through the service, although I wouldn't be paying them.   And to my surprise, several of them did, and they got both quilts knotted.

What was even more wonderful was that one of our visitors had been to a hospital in Israel where he saw Lutheran World Relief quilts on the beds, quilts like the ones we had been knotting.  He stood up to tell us this during the announcement time that comes at the end of the service before the last hymn, after I had thanked the children for finishing the quilts.

In some ways, stretching God's Work, Our Hands across the month worked well.  Faith Lutheran does a great job of having various service projects, so it wasn't something alien to them.  I was glad to see that the children really got into a rhythm doing the knots.  And sitting in the front, knotting and listening, may have been better than what usually happens, with the children returning to their seats in the back, fussing and fidgeting.

A Deeper Look at a Family Reunion

If you follow this blog, you know that I have a 9 month appointment as a Synod Appointed Minister (a part-time appointment) at Faith Lutheran Church in Bristol, Tennessee.  Long ago, my grandfather served 5 parishes in Bristol, Tennessee, and they have merged through the years; one of the merged churches is Faith Lutheran.  Here's a picture of one of the older churches that my grandfather served:

The members of my grandfather's generation have died.  Here's a picture of my grandfather (on the left) and my grandmother's youngest brother, Jim Crumley; both men served the Lutheran church in a variety of ways.

Here's a picture of my grandmother Mary 

And here's one of her only sister, Martha (there were 2 other brothers, but I don't have pictures):

Yesterday, the children of that generation came to the front of the church for communion.  As I handed each one the bread, I felt this spookiness.  Their faces looked like the faces of the people in the pictures above, the faces as I knew them when they were older, not in the pictures.  And of course, I am not the young woman that I was when I first met many of them, at a long ago family reunion in 1977 I'm in the lower right corner, to the left of my mom who is wearing a striped shirt, with my little sister sitting between my mom and dad):

Here's a picture of Saturday's family reunion, held just down the road, at the Faith Lutheran's picnic pavilion:

And here's a picture that I snapped of the church at sunset, a sunset made more spectacular by tropical storm Ophelia to our east.

I thought it captured a sense of liminal space, that sense of something passing away even as other things remain.  The family remains, as does the church, as do the mountains that surround the church and the farms, some of which have remained in family hands, some of which have not.  The news delivers a steady drumbeat of reports of challenges ahead--so many challenges.  But that would have been true for the people in those old pictures above, the pictures in this old album of pictures of people who are gone now.  

My grandfather went off to seminary in the early 1930's, even after the seminary sent him a letter encouraging him to stay on the farm where at least he would have food to eat, but if he was determined to come to seminary, he was welcome, even though the church wasn't sure of job prospects at the end.  My mother was born in 1939, a year filled with bad news and worse news to come.  

And yet, the sun rose and set, the lights stayed on, forces of good prevailed, and so did forces of evil.  I try to take a longer view of history, although it doesn't come naturally to me.  Every generation has had struggles, and we are no different.  I hope we continue to gather as humans, in groups large and small, to tell the stories, to be nourished in so many ways.

Family Reunion

 A quick note to say that this is what we did yesterday afternoon and evening:

Hurrah for family reunions held at the old family church, Faith Lutheran!  Yes that's the church where I am currently the Synod Appointed Minister.  The weather was gorgeous despite tropical storm Ophelia to our east.  We were able to gather in the picnic pavilion on the church grounds and walk up to the building to use the kitchen and rest room facilities.

We ate barbecue on buns (the sliced meat kind with a great sauce), amazing watermelon (so sweet and in late September!), other fruits, cut up veggies, and wonderful homemade cookies.  I haven't had a snickerdoodle in years, and these were mighty fine.

Some of us will return to church today for worship.  I'm trying not to feel nervous.  But some of these people (and not just my parents) have known me since I was a little girl.  

Yesterday I created this Facebook post:  

"Happy autumnal equinox! We are headed to Bristol, Tennessee for a family reunion, and then tomorrow, a lot of family will be at Faith Lutheran to worship. I will preach a sermon to people who have known me since I was young and reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and trying to learn those pioneer life skills from my elders--hope they like my sermon! It won't have much to do with little houses on prairies, but it will have to do with life in God's abundant vineyard."

Autumnal Equinox in the Mountains and in the Wellness Center

Autumn has arrived!  The autumnal equinox came early this year, at 2:50 a.m.  And yes, I was awake, even though I was trying to fall back asleep.  We had the window open, and for weeks now, the trees have been dropping something that makes a loud pop when it hits the tin roofs that are all around us (we have traditional shingles).  You would think I would be used to that noise by now, but I am not.

I lay awake this morning reflecting on how the night noise has changed through the summer.  A month ago, the noise of crickets and cicadas lasted until 3 a.m. or so.  Now that noise is much subdued, but the loud pops have increased.

We are celebrating the equinox in an unusual way.  Later this morning, we'll get in our car and head to Bristol, Tennessee.  My grandmother's side of the family is having a reunion at Faith Lutheran today.  We'll gather at the church, enjoy a picnic in the outdoor pavilion, and be done by 8 p.m.  Tomorrow, some of us will worship at the church where I will be leading worship.  If we all go to church, we'll increase the worship attendance by about 50%.

I think about the older generation, my grandmother's generation, who are no longer with us.  What would they make of this reunion?  I imagine they would be thrilled, at least with the evening meal.  They would be happy that so many of us would be going to church.  By the time that they died, I think that most of them would be O.K. with a woman leading worship. 

The weather looks perfect.  We are far enough away from the coast that tropical storm Ophelia won't affect us.  I am glad that my parents left Williamsburg yesterday.  That area floods even when there isn't a tropical system, so I'm glad they're not dealing with that.

Today I am thinking about past autumnal equinoxes.  One year I was at the Wellness Center in downtown Fort Lauderdale--it was on the 8th floor and had great windows.  I was there for a 6:30 p.m. fitness (not spin) class.  Out to the east we saw the full moon rising and out to the west we could see the sun setting.  It felt magical, like an unusual alignment even though it happens every year (although the moon isn't full every year and doesn't rise at the same time each equinox).

I am so happy to be in a place where autumn means a change in my surroundings:  cooler temperatures, leaves changing, apple orchards operating at full speed.

Can You Be a Christian If?

So far, Systematic Theology class has been studying the incarnational aspect of God--in short, Jesus Christ, or the even fancier term, Christology.  We will study doctrines of Christology, the Holy Spirit (Pneumatology), the Trinity, and Salvation.  My professor says that Systematic Theologians see all these doctrines as so intertwined/entwined/interrelated that they can't be separated.  His metaphor is the Jazz quartet where each instrument listens to the others; they are distinct, yet they need to be heard together to get the full effect.

We cover a lot of ideas in class, many of them coming from the field of Systematic Theology, some of them heretical on some level.  Of course, depending on one's view of theology, of church history, of Biblical interpretation, one century's heresy is another century's doctrine.

Last night, my professor said, "You don't have to believe in the Trinity to be a Christian," and this morning I work up thinking about that idea.  I also thought, what if Jesus wasn't Divine?  And then I wondered, can I be a Christian if I don't believe Jesus was Divine?  The earliest church was divided over the idea of who Jesus was, and the question Jesus asked is still very relevant:  "Who do you say that I am?"

Some theologians settle on the 2nd person of the Trinity and leave it there.  Other theologians focus on the fact that Jesus came to the marginalized.  We've spent at least a week trying to discern if Jesus came as a full partner in the Trinity (what does it mean to be begotten?).  Maybe the Spirit was the one shaping Jesus--but is that after God took on human flesh or was it the Spirit, choosing a human and shaping that human to become Divine?

Theologians have spent centuries thinking about this issue of equality, and I suspect very few of them would adopt the idea of Spirit choosing a human to create into a sacrificial aspect of the Divine.  It is interesting how many theologians focus on a 2 natures Christology to solve the problem--but it creates other problems.  How much of Jesus is human and how much Divine and what is the role of the Holy Spirit in all of this?

I don't have easy answers, but I am interested in the aspects that snag the interest of my fellow students.  For example, early in the class, we spent a lot of time on the crucifixion and whether or not Jesus was allowed to have broken bones (the spear in the side instead of the breaking of legs, which would be traditional).  

You might ask why anyone would care about broken bones, and you would be surprised at the ways in which that issue might be important, might be framed in terms of the prophecies of Isaiah and the Psalms.  I wrote more about this class session in this blog post. 

The Feast Day of Saint Matthew

Today we celebrate the life of St. Matthew, one of the 12 disciples. Matthew was a tax collector, and that fact should give us all hope.

Throughout the Bible, we see God at work in the world. We see God using all sorts of humans, the ones who have great leadership skills AND the kind of humans that a wise CEO wouldn't promote. But God sees their potential, and God calls them.

Sometimes, people protest and remind God of their unworthiness; think of Moses. Sometimes God has to do a lot to get their attention; think of Jonah.

But sometimes, the call comes, and the person responds, dropping everything to follow God's call. In Matthew, we see this example.

Maybe you're in a time of your life where you're feeling particularly unworthy. Take advantage of this day to remember God's grace and God's call.

Here are the Bible readings for today:

First Reading: Ezekiel 2:8--3:11

Psalm: Psalm 119:33-40

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:4-10

Gospel: Matthew 9:9-13

And here's a prayer I composed for today:

God full of grace and compassion, on this day that we celebrate the life of Matthew, help us remember that you have a plan for the redemption of creation and that we have a place in it. Thank you for the witness of Matthew and the disciples. Help us to follow in their example, that we may be a light, your light, in this shadowy world that so desperately needs brightness.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, September 24, 2023:

First Reading: Jonah 3:10--4:11

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 16:2-15

Psalm: Psalm 145:1-8

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45

Second Reading: Philippians 1:21-30

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16


I've often thought that these parables that use work metaphors are less useful to those of us toiling in the 21st century--and I've wondered how the contemporaries of Jesus would hear this parable.  Would they hear it as a typical tale of how rich landowners abuse those forced off the land?  

Outrage is the classic response to the idea that the workers who toiled all day getting the same wages as those who show up one hour before quitting time. We howl, "But that's not fair."  But is this parable designed to teach us a lesson about capitalism?

The poet in me immediately searches for a new way to frame this parable. What if, instead of toiling in the vineyard, we're invited to a party? Those of us who come early get to drink more wine, eat more goodies, and engage in more hours of intense conversation. We get to spend more quality time with our host. Those who come later will still get to drink wine, eat goodies, converse, and have quality time. The wine won't have soured, the goodies won't have molded, the conversation won't have dwindled, the host won't be tired and wishing that everyone would just go home. The party will still be intensely wonderful. But those who come late won't have as much time to enjoy it.

Maybe Jesus tries to tell us about a different kind of work.  Maybe God's work is like that enriching job, the one where you were challenged, but not overwhelmed. God's work engages you on every level and you look up at the end of the work day, amazed at how time has passed and how involved you have become. At the end of God's work day, you're amazed at all you've been able to accomplish.

God calls us to partnership in an amazing creative endeavour. We're called to transform the world, to help reclaim the world for God's vision. In Surprised by Hope, Bishop N. T. Wright reminds us, "But what we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15;58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff" (208).

The ways that we can do this Kingdom work are varied, from helping the poor, to enjoying a good meal, to writing a poem, to consoling a friend, to playing with your dog, to painting . . . the list is as long as there are humans in the world. Wright assures us that "God gloriously honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news" (226).

Do the kind of creating that involves you on many levels, that makes you lose your sense of time, that leaves you unmoored in your wonder at the beauty of creation. That's the work that God calls us to do.

Virgin Mary, Harriet Tubman, and Haunted Landscapes

 It has been awhile since I posted anything about my sketching practice.  I've continued sketching, at least 5 minutes a day; it's part of my morning spiritual discipline, the Morning Watch devotion time that I lead for my Florida church on Facebook.  I've been doing that since late March of 2020.

I've also continued to sketch at other times, but it's often closer to doodling than anything that seems worthy of a blog post.  However, last week I changed my approach and ended up with this sketch:

It began when I read this passage for my seminary Systematic Theology course, a passage from Jurgen Moltmann's The Way of Jesus Christ:  Christology in Messianic Dimensions:

"The Holy Spirit, not Mary, is the source of life, the mother of believers, the divine Wisdom, and the indwelling of the divine essence in creation, from which the face of the earth will be renewed.  . . . It is the Holy Spirit, not Mary herself, who is co-worker with the messianic son of God, and who together with him will redeem the world" (p. 86).

I felt a bit annoyed at the dismissal of Mary as a mere vessel, a womb for hire.  Moltmann's language aligns the Holy Spirit with some feminine aspects, but it still irked me.  I had a vision of the kind of Mary image that I had sketched somewhat obsessively back in December of 2020:

I had a vision of that figure but with trees and a big moon in the sky, a more autumnal Mary.  As I sketched, I also added the star in the left corner, the star that is the Christmas Eve star in my iconography.

As I sketched, I was also thinking of Harriet Tubman and swampy landscapes.  I wasn't surprised when the river emerged, but I didn't anticipate the basket when I was first thinking of the sketch.  Unlike many sketches, I started work on it and completed it in the same sitting.

It's not quite done with me, this sketch.  Earlier this week I started another sketch as part of my morning spiritual discipline.

Masked Sermons

Yesterday I went back to church to preach and lead the service, but I decided to follow CDC guidelines and keep my mask on.  I wore the N95 mask, not one of my more comfortable masks.  I tried to keep a good distance from people, even though I wore a mask.  It felt strange, necessary but strange.

I have never given a sermon in a mask before.  Even in the South Florida church where I last led regularly in person, we would take our masks off as we read from the podium.  It's not the safest practice in terms of exposing those who came up to the podium later, but it was the practice we adopted, and it worked for less contagious forms of COVID.

I know that the N95 mask muffles speech more than other masks, so I tried to speak up when I gave the sermon.  I did have a microphone, but I still tried to project my voice.  After the sermon, I slipped out the side door to do a bit of coughing and drink from my Yeti mug of water.

I do understand why the issue of masking is so divisive.  Masks aren't comfortable if they're effective, and yet, they are effective at controlling spread of a variety of diseases.  

I am looking forward to returning next week when I can be unmasked.  

Twelfth Century High Water Marks of Female Power

September 17 is the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, mystic, herbalist, musical composer, naturalist, and Abbess. Her life was full of accomplishments, an amazing feat considering she lived in the twelfth century.

Until recently, I had never thought of the twelfth century as a high water mark of feminism, but female monastics did amazing things during that time period. By studying them, I come away with a new appreciation for the medieval Church, where talented women found a cloistered kind of freedom. In many ways, the cloistered life was the only way for medieval women to have any kind of freedom. Cloistered life offered the only protection available to women who lived at the edges or outside the margins of society: widowed, artistic, not wanting to be married, weird in any way.

But Hildegard's life shows that freedom was constrained, since women monastics answered to men. For years, Hildegard wanted to move her group of nuns to Rupertsburg, but the Abbot who controlled them refused her request.

We all face constraints of various kinds, and the life of Hildegard shows what could be accomplished, even during a time where women did not have full rights and agency. She was an Abbess, and because being in charge of one cloistered community isn't enough, she founded another. She wrote music, and more of her music survives than almost any other medieval composer. She was an early naturalist, writing down her observations about the natural world and her theories about how the natural world heals us. She wrote to kings, emperors and popes to encourage them to pursue peace and justice. She wrote poems and a morality play and along the way, a multitude of theological meditations.

She did all of these things, in addition to keeping her community running smoothly. Yes, I'm thinking about Hildegard as an administrator, a woman who could be efficient and artistic at the same time. It’s no wonder that I find her inspiring.

It's interesting to think about the different types of groups who have claimed her as their own. Feminists claim her importance, even though she didn't openly advocate equality. Musicians note that more of her compositions survive than almost any other medieval composer. Her musical works go in different directions than many of the choral pieces of the day, with their soaring notes. New Age types love her views of the body and the healing properties of plants, animals, and even minerals. Though her theology seems distinctly medieval, and thus not as important to modern Christians, it's hard to dismiss her importance as a figure from church history.

I often say that it's odd I'm drawn to monasticism, as I'm a married, Lutheran female who has all sorts of worldly commitments, and thus cannot fully vow obedience. But as I think about church history, I'm struck time and time again by how often monasticism has offered a safe space to women that no other part of society did. I shouldn't be surprised that it's a tradition that speaks to me still.

It’s a tradition that speaks to many others too: have you listened to the Hildegard of Bingen channel on Pandora?

Maybe today is a good day to tune in that medieval music. We could listen while writing letters to those in charge, letters which demand more work towards social justice. Or we could focus on other writing projects, as Hildegard of Bingen did. We could plant a healing herb garden.

Today, on her feast day, let us say a prayer of thanks for Hildegard of Bingen and other medieval matriarchs of Christianity.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, Sept.17, 2023:

First Reading: Genesis 50:15-21

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 14:19-31

Psalm: Psalm 103:[1-7] 8-13

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 114

Psalm (Alt.): Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21 (Semi-continuous)

Second Reading: Romans 14:1-12

Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35

The Gospel for today, at least the first part, is probably familiar to most of us. Peter is looking for the magic number of times that he must forgive--and you can tell he's annoyed, ready to cut off the person who has offended him, but he'll forgive seven times--and you know that he's probably already forgiven that person eight times. Jesus tells him he must forgive seventy times seven.

I remember in fifth grade Sunday school class where we studied this passage. We immediately got to work on the math. And if you were an obsessive child, like I had a tendency to be, you started keeping a list of how many times you had forgiven your sister.

I had unwittingly proven Jesus' point. Peter asks a stupid, juvenile question, and Jesus gives him an answer to let him know how petty he has been. By now, we should all know that Jesus didn't come to give us a new set of legalisms to follow.

Jesus then gives us a parable about the nature of forgiveness. Most of us will need more forgiveness throughout our lives than we really deserve. We are like indentured servants who can never hope to pay off our debt, but we're miraculously forgiven.

Most of us, happily, will never experience indentured servitude in the traditional sense. But many of us have experienced a different kind of indebtedness. We might have a mortgage or a student loan that seems like a sum larger than we'll ever repay. Many of us look at our credit card bills and can't remember what we bought and how long ago and how the balance ballooned.  Think of how wonderful it would be if someone came in and relieved us of those debts. Think of forgiveness the same way.

Our task--and it sometimes seems more monumental than paying off a huge financial debt--is to extend that quality of forgiveness and mercy to others--and to ourselves.

If our capacity to forgive isn’t at 70 times 7 yet, let’s pray for an expanded ability to forgive. Let us also remember to pray for our enemies, both the personal ones and the political ones, the inner voices that berate us, the outer voices that shrilly defeat all peace initiatives, all the enemies who would undo us.

COVID Comes to Our House

 Most Sundays, I would be in the car headed across the mountains to preach at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  This week-end, I expected to head across the mountains after a fun time at the Crafts for Christmas retreat.  My week-end plans were thrown into disarray when my spouse tested positive for COVID on Friday afternoon.

Unfortunately, it was after he had helped me bring the evening meal down to the Crafts for Christmas retreat.  I am hoping that it was such a brief exposure that those participants will be safe.  When we were driving back to the house, my spouse said that his throat felt rough, like he had eaten a whole bag of Doritos without chewing them.  I noticed his congestion, and I suggested that he take a COVID test.  Earlier, I thought he was congested because he's been smoking more heavily later, but with the addition of a sore throat, and knowing that we had been traveling, a COVID test made sense to me.

I was stunned when it came back positive, so stunned that we did another test.  And then, I did one too.  I was negative.

I walked back to the retreat and had two of the retreat leaders join me outside.  I told them what had happened and expressed remorse for not doing the COVID test before we came down.  The nurse among them had hope that the exposure would be so brief that no one would be infected.  I continue to be worried about the mutual friend that he hugged.

Because I'd been exposed, even though I was negative, we decided that it was best for me not to attend the retreat.  I went back to get the car, and they left the food that we'd just brought on the porch.  I had spent the morning buying and preparing food for 17 people to have a make your own Mexican main dish kind of buffet (think tortillas, chips, salsa, shredded chicken, and a pot of beans).  Happily it's the kind of meal that my spouse and I never get tired of, so we've been eating well all afternoon.

Yesterday, although I tested negative again, I strategized about Sunday worship service.  I sent the church leadership an e-mail that listed options, and they decided that I should stay home and send them the sermon for someone else to read.  I don't blame them.  Many of the church members are older.  Perhaps they are in more danger from the 5-8 children who attend every week, but I was clearly a disease vector too.

This morning, I tested positive for COVID, which really isn't a surprise.  I, too, had been travelling, and I've been around my sick spouse.  At this point, I have a bit of stuffiness and a headache, but it doesn't seem worse than non-COVID days.  If my spouse hadn't had symptoms, I wouldn't have taken a COVID test for my symptoms--they are extremely mild, at least this morning.  I might not even have seen them as symptoms.  Hopefully this experience with COVID won't be much worse.

I feel lucky that I'm taking seminary classes from a distance, so I won't need to miss class, the way I would if I was taking classes in person.  I feel lucky that the sick leave policies at Spartanburg Methodist College are reasonable.  My students have essays due in the next week, so it's easy to plan for my absence.  I'll be available to them by way of e-mail.

I know that I am lucky, that this experience could be much worse, and hopefully it won't be.  I am lucky that I am vaccinated, so the disease will be less severe.

Can You Break the Bones of Jesus?

My Systematic Theology class has been very different so far from what I was expecting.  We are doing a deep dive into the three parts of the Trinity and the Church History behind it.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but last night's class went in ways I wasn't expecting.

We spent far more time talking about the unbroken bones of Jesus on the cross than I would have ever thought possible.  It was clearly important to some of my fellow students.  They wanted to prove that his bones weren't broken by reaching back to ancient Hebrew prophets.

I've said before that I don't think that Isaiah had a vision of Jesus and then proceeded to write about him hundreds of years before he would appear.  The book of Isaiah isn't talking to us or to first century Rome--it's talking to contemporaries of the prophet, telling them what needs to happen now, not what will happen far in the future.  It's not sorcery, after all.

One of my professors last year talked about those first Christians who had seen so much in the life of Jesus that challenged them in every way and so to understand, they reached back into their sacred texts to help them make sense of it all.  But that's not necessarily what we should be doing.

In fact, I think it's insulting to those texts to treat them as a prelude to Jesus.  They have much to teach us, but it's not about predicting the arrival of Jesus.  

It's clear that some of my fellow students are coming from a very different tradition than mine--but some of my future parishioners may be too.  I'm trying to keep an open mind as we talk about whether or not Jesus had bones that could be broken.

It all leads back to a much larger question:  what does it mean to be both human and divine?  And that's an issue that clearly we're all still struggling to comprehend.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, September 10, 2023:

First Reading: Ezekiel 33:7-11

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm: Psalm 119:33-40

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 149

Second Reading: Romans 13:8-14

Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20

The Gospel readings from the last several weeks have shown us Jesus trying to prepare his disciples to take over his mission, once he's no longer physically there to lead them. The last verse of this Gospel is one of the more famous Gospel verses, the one that tells us that we only need two or three to gather in the name of Christ, and he'll be there. But what does this verse mean for the larger church?

This morning, I'm thinking of the modern church, which seems focused on numbers and growing large. This morning, I'm thinking of this passage and wondering if Christ calls us to be small. This year, I'm thinking of the text in a new way, in light of the past several years, when so many churches have experimented with online options for gathering. This week, start an internship with the Southeast Synod, which I chose in part because they have explored interesting directions as a Synod to bring far flung people closer together.

I think of all the articles I've read that talk about the declining numbers of people who affiliate with a church of any kind. I think of all the people who remember the glory days of the U.S. church, back in the middle of the 20th century, back when stores were closed on Sundays, and it seemed that everyone went to church. When church leaders talked, communities listened.

Of course, the sociologist and historian in me also knows that many vulnerable members of the community were not heard in those days. I would not go back to 1959, even if more people went to church on Sundays. Too many people led restricted lives--no thanks.

Still, those of us who have inherited the churches that were built during those glory days might be spending a lot of time wondering how to support those buildings with our smaller memberships. We look for ways that the building can be a blessing to many groups, not just ours.  It's good to remember that church doesn't mean the building. 

And offering a digital experience that can be accessed when there is time and space and electricity might mean that more people worship. The old way of offering one worship service, or several services, on a Sunday morning excluded many people: those who are too sick to leave the bed, the disabled, those people who must work at a variety of jobs on Sundays.

Jesus promises that the presence of God will be with us when only two or three gather. And we've seen from the lives of the earliest Christians, the transforming power of what happens when groups of two or three go out into the world together in the company of the Holy Spirit.  These days, we're going out into the world in new ways, across airwaves that many of us had never tried to access before. The Holy Spirit is loose and moving in new ways, and we know what to expect--the world will be transformed!

Maine Wedding Week-end in Words

This morning, I'm back from a whirlwind week-end trip to Maine.  I planned to write while I was away, but I had some computer issues or perhaps Blogger issues or perhaps Google issues or perhaps wi fi issues.  Or maybe I just felt lazy.  I did get some grading done and other work for my online classes.  

I was in Camden Maine for the wedding of the oldest son of grad school friends.  Long ago, they left for England, where she was from; they decided to settle there, not here, because she had an extensive family there and because of what England provides citizens (like health care) that the U.S. doesn't.  She was pregnant when she left, and we've seen the whole family through the years.  In 2016, we went to Arizona for the wedding of their younger son, and we met some folks that we saw again this past week-end.

I had never been to Maine before, and I was surprised to find how much it reminded me of the parts of Maryland that are near the Chesapeake Bay.  The buildings look similar, as does the landscape, and the vistas of water that seem to be at every turn of the road.  The weather was perfect, which was fortunate, because the week-end plans were mostly outdoors:  a gathering at a picnic shelter on Saturday and the wedding itself on Sunday afternoon.

We got to Maine on Friday afternoon and made our way to Camden after flying in to Portland.  One of the best meals we had was on our way, at a roadside pizza place.  It may be the most perfect pizza I've ever had.  The crust was perfectly crisp with abundant toppings:  cheeses, onions, bacon, and mushrooms.  We ate at the Sea Dog brewery Friday night after we literally bumped into the friends we had met in Arizona as we passed each other on the street.  That was one of the more perfect settings as we settled into a picnic table on a back covered terrace that overlooked the bay.

It was a week-end of various festivals around town.  In addition to Labor Day, there was a Windjammer celebration, and some other smaller events that had streets blocked off and lots of traffic.  Because we were there for a wedding and to see friends that we don't have a chance to see as often, we didn't do much sightseeing.  I didn't buy anything except for food and drink.  I didn't even really go into the small shops that looked like they had interesting stuff.

The only good cup of coffee I got was from a bookstore, The Owl and the Turtle.  It was a mocha, and the woman in line behind me recommended that I opt for the whipped cream on the top.  It was homemade and worth every calorie.  The food was good, but the company was better.

The wedding was held at a beautiful venue.  It was one of the first times I'd been to a Jewish wedding; the bride is Jewish.  I sat there as we waited for the wedding to start and went back to previous weddings I've attended--could it be possible that I've never been to a Jewish wedding?  Yes, it is possible, but then I remembered that we went to the wedding of the mother of a college friend.  In terms of the ceremony, it seemed similar to every other wedding I've attended:  a celebration of love and a reminder that marriage doesn't keep us safe from hard times.

The wedding event included an open bar and a delicious meal and cake and dancing.  We didn't stay until the very end--we had to be on the road early on Monday to get back to the airport.  We had an easy trip back.  It may have been one of the easiest zips through TSA security that I've ever had.  Returning the rental car was also quick and effortless.  The plane took off five minutes early; I guess one of the advantages of a small airport is that we don't have to wait for the one lone passenger making their way to the concourse.

And now it's back to Fall.  Today I teach, and tonight I don't have class.  Tomorrow, my schedule heats up.  But it's OK, because I'm looking forward to all the events that are coming my way.  It's very different than other times I've returned from vacation where I've dreaded all the work stuff about to fall on my head.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from the trip.  Today I need to make sure I'm ready for teaching.

Thinking about Labor on Labor Day

 Yesterday afternoon, on our way to a wedding that I'll write more about tomorrow, I asked my friend if she thought I could wear my white skirt with blue embroidered designs into late fall or even winter.  She asked about the fabric, which is cotton.  The skirt looks summery, but with the right top, I could see it looking wintry, like something with a snowflake design.

Then I laughed at myself.  How many decades has it been since we worried about wearing white after Labor Day?  And I'm teaching in a place that will not fire me for a fashion faux pas.  Most of my fellow faculty members seem to be at midlife or older, with a preference towards comfortable clothes with a zing of stylish touch.  My skirt will not be out of place.

Many of us think about Labor Day as the end of summer, and I'm old enough to remember when college classes started the Tuesday after Labor Day.  My mom does too; she said in her generation it was because college students had jobs at country clubs that would close after Labor Day.  In terms of weather, I've always lived in places where summer will stretch on through September and perhaps beyond.

Even though many of us will see today as simply a day off, it's a good day to think about work, both the kind we do for pay and the kind we do out of love. And what about the work we feel compelled to do? I'm thinking of that kind of documenting of family history, of cultural history, of all that might be lost without our efforts.  I'm thinking of our creative work.  There's so many more different kinds of work than just work for pay.

I'm thinking about our attitude towards work too.  I am glad to see that this article, published in 2016, about the theology of work is still online.  Here's my favorite quote from it, with ideas informed by Christian monasticism:  "Taking Benedict’s approach would force us to reconsider how we think about our work. Instead of, 'What work am I called to?' we might ask, 'How does the task before me contribute to or hinder my progress toward holiness?; Not 'How does this work cooperate with material creation?' but 'How does this work contribute to the life of the community and to others’ material and spiritual well-being?' Not 'Am I doing what I love?' but 'What activity is so important that I should, without exception, drop my work in order to do it?'”

And here's a Buddhist thought about work for your Labor Day, found in an interview with Bill Moyers and Jane Hirshfield who explains, "Teahouse practice means that you don't explicitly talk about Zen. It refers to leading your life as if you were an old woman who has a teahouse by the side of the road. Nobody knows why they like to go there, they just feel good drinking her tea. She's not known as a Buddhist teacher, she doesn't say, "This is the Zen teahouse." All she does is simply serve tea--but still, her decades of attentiveness are part of the way she does it. No one knows about her faithful attention to the practice, it's just there, in the serving of the tea, and the way she cleans the counters and washes the cups" (Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, page 112).