Feast Day of Saint Catherine of Siena

We don’t tend to think of the medieval time in Europe as a high water mark of feminism, but female monastics accomplished amazing feats during that time period. Catherine of Siena is one of those female monastics who lived in the later part of the 14th century in a plague-ravaged part of Italy. Despite the patriarchal culture in which she lived, she left behind a collection of accomplishments that would have been amazing for a woman of our day.

Unlike many of the other female mystics of the medieval time period, like Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena didn’t live a cloistered life. She was part of a monastic tradition, but she returned to live with her family so that she could live amongst them and continue to reject them, a much tougher spiritual task. While doing that, she gave away food and clothing, to the detriment of the family wealth. She didn’t care.

Early on, she had mystical visions where she claimed to be wed to Christ and claimed to be fed by him. Often, mystics make me feel further away from God--their experiences are so different from anything I understand. Catherine of Siena is no different. I find myself thinking, well at least her visions don’t involve pain and piercings, like those of Teresa of Avila. Some part of me envies these mystics, who claimed visions sent to them by God and wonders why God doesn’t speak to me this way. Some part of me speculates about the mental health of these mystics with their extreme visions.

Throughout her life, she had trouble eating. Would a modern doctor have diagnosed her with GI trouble or would a psychiatrist have seen anorexia? Perhaps, but she turned her dislike of eating into a mark of spiritual virtue.

Even though she didn’t consume many calories, she burned through her life with amazing energy. She did the actions we would expect from a member of a religious order, like feeding the poor. But she also worked on political issues of her day, lobbying for peace between warring Italian principalities and advocating clergy reform. She wrote numerous letters demanding that the Pope return to Rome from Avignon.

Her writing is seen as an important part of literary history, and not only because we have so few medieval texts authored by women. She wrote The Dialogue of Divine Providence, a discussion between a soul and God. She wrote letters to a wide variety of people, from the Pope down to the common woman. Over 300 letters survive.

Many of her ideas still seem relevant to our own time period. She said, "Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee." During the hectic days, I try to remember retreat to inner peace, even as outer chaos reigns supreme. I may not have a monastic cell to call my own, but if I’m lucky, I can always find one in my brain. Catherine of Siena might have advised me not to rely on luck, but to train my thinking in this way.

We all face constraints of various kinds. The life of Catherine of Siena shows what can be accomplished, even during a time where women did not have full rights and agency. She said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” She didn’t say “Be who God meant you to be within the boundaries of your society.” No, she directed us to strive to find our full potential. She knew the stakes. But she also knew the power of a life directed towards God’s purposes, not human purposes.

We can discover that power too.

Abiding with Jesus, Our True Vine

I made this Facebook post this morning:  "In a few hours I will preach on John 15: 1-8, and instead of focusing on fruit and the fire that non-producing branches face, I will preach on the idea of abiding with Jesus, the true vine. Abide is a word that the writer of the Gospel of John uses frequently, and perhaps even more than we thought. The Greek word often gets translated as "believe," but "abide" might be the truer translation. How would our approach to faith change if we had heard "Abide in me" instead of "Believe in me" through the ages?"

I am thinking of all the scraggly plants I've known, plants I've been sure had died, but suddenly sprouted new leaves. I am taking one of those plants with me for a sermon visual.

Here are the closing paragraphs of my sermon on John 15: 1-8:

The Gospel of John uses the word “abide” more than any other book in the Bible, and there’s reason to think that often when translators have used the word “Believe,” that a better translation might be “Abide.” And this bit of translation goes even wider. Think about one of the more durable ideas of Heaven that we find in John, John 14: 2 where Jesus says, “ In my Father's house are many mansions”—a better translation might be dwelling places, not mansions. The Greek might be key here: Mone—dwelling places; meno—abide—same Greek root.

I am not a Greek scholar, so I’m relying on the work of others. But with that idea in mind, we could also translate the verse this way: “In my father’s house are many abiding places.” I love that language, abiding place. Even though I don’t think of vines and branches when I think of abiding places, they are images meant to convey a similar concept. One Gospel commentator puts it this way: “So the vine image is another way of talking about abiding places (places where one is deeply at home), and both the vine and the abiding places are ways of talking about love.”

These images remind us that there are many ways of being deeply at home with the Divine, in whatever incarnation we envision God. Maybe it’s centering prayer. Maybe it’s Sabbath time, where we turn off our electronics and settle in for a Sunday afternoon with the Creator and the birds. Maybe the Holy Spirit calls us to take the Good News to new places. Maybe it’s spending time returning to the parables of Jesus, thinking about what they mean for the twentieth century.

Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus calls us to abide with him, and that process of being deeply at home with Jesus is ongoing—and it will be incomplete. At some point, we will die, and there will still be work left to do. But when we die, it will be a homecoming, not a withering, not a burning. Jesus promises that if we abide in him, we will bear good fruit. We don’t have to spend time trying to decide what kind of good fruit to bear. We don’t have to evaluate the fruit. There’s no need to judge the fruit of others. God, the master gardener, knows the needs of creation, and does the pruning, the fertilizing, the watering, the nurturing to keep the vineyard fruitful. Our task, our mission—to abide with Jesus, to let Jesus nourish us.

Baptismo Sum

 When we were experimenting with glass etching cream on Thursday, my spouse wanted me to look up the Latin phrase "Baptismo Sum."  We've both been taught that Martin Luther used it as he washed each morning, saying "I am baptized" in Latin so that he remembered this essential truth each day.

So I Googled it and said, "Look, there's my poem."  It was published in Sojourners in 2005, and I am so delighted that it comes up first or second in a search for the Latin word.  True to Google form lately, I couldn't find out what I wanted to know.  But instead of my usual frustration at how bad search engines have become, I had the happiness of being bounced to a poem of mine--a poem that holds up.

I'll paste the poem below, since Sojourners does limit how many articles one can view.  But if you want to see it at the Sojourners site, go here.  Sadly, the artwork that originally appeared with it is not there, but the poem is preserved.

Baptismo Sum

In this month of dehydration,
we keep our eyes skyward, both to watch
for rain and to avoid the scorn
of the scorched succulents who reproach
us silently, saying, "You promised to care."

And so, although we thought we could stick
these seedlings in the ground and leave
them to their own devices, we haul
hoses and buckets of water to the outer edges
of the yard where the hose will not reach.

The idea of a desert seduces,
as it did the Desert Fathers, who fled
the corruption of the cities to contemplate
theology surrounded by sand
and stinging winds. My thoughts travel
to the Sanctuary Movement, contemporary Christians
who risked all to rescue illegal aliens.
I admire their faith, tested in that desert crucible.
I could create my own patch of desert in tribute.

Yet deserts do not always sanctify.
I think of the Atomic Fathers
who hauled equipment into the New Mexico
desert and littered the landscape with fallout
which litters our lives, a new religion,
generations transformed in the light of the Trinity test site.

I back away from my Darwinian, desert dreams.
The three most popular religions
in the world emerged from their dry desert
roots, preaching the literal and symbolic primacy
of water, leaving the arid ranges behind
as they flowed toward temperance.

I cannot reject the religion of my ancestors,
who spent every day of their lives
remembering their baptism before heading to the fields
to make the dirt dream in colors.

Leading My First Funeral

This week-end I will help lead a funeral for my mom's cousin, Bob Hughes.  I've been part of the planning of it, and soon I need to type some final edits into the document.

I could have led this funeral even if I didn't have the SAM position, but I did check in with my Synod supervisor, just to make sure I was on solid ground.  My cousin was a beloved part of the community of Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN; several of the members were children in the church with him, and his mom and dad, Martha and Haskell, were deeply involved members until their deaths.

It's been interesting to plan this funeral, which won't be a traditional Lutheran one, while also taking a Foundations of Worship class.  One of the assignments for that class was to plan my own funeral.  The verses that I chose for my funeral are the ones we'll be using for Bob's funeral.  The music will be different; my mom is supplying the music for Bob's funeral, which is another interesting element.

I have prayed a lot, and I have rehearsed it all in my mind.  I really want it to go well, and I think that it will.  It will have elements of a Quaker funeral, where everyone has ample chances to speak and remember Bob.  We will also have a Moravian Love Feast, which is like a Eucharist, but a little more inclusive than some Christian Eucharist celebrations would be.

It will be my first funeral that I'm leading.  I am honored to have been chosen.

The Feast Day of Saint Mark

Today is the feast day of Saint Mark. Looking back through my blog posts, I'm surprised to find out that I haven't written much about this feast day.  It does often fall in a part of the month where I'm more likely to be at the Create in Me retreat.  But it's also because it's hard to know who the real Saint Mark was.  So many Marks, so hard to know for sure who did what.

Was he the author of the Gospel of Mark? The one who brought water to the house where the last supper took place? That strange naked man in the Crucifixion narrative? It's hard to say.

We do give him credit for founding the church in Egypt, and that fact alone seems important enough for him to have a feast day. I think of all the church traditions that can be traced back to northern Africa, particularly the work of the desert fathers and mothers, which led to so many variations of monastic traditions.

I also think of Augustine, the important thinker, one of the earliest Christian philosophers, who lived in Hippo. Would we have had Augustine if Mark hadn't been an evangelist to Egypt? It's hard to know. If Mark hadn't gone to Egypt, would someone else? Probably--but the outcome might have been completely different.

Today is also a good day to turn our thoughts back to those early evangelists, those early disciples. I often say that if you were putting together a team, you would not have chosen those men. But God's ways are not our ways when visualizing success.

So for those of us who are feeling inadequate, take heart. God's plans are greater than our own.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, April 28, 2024:

First Reading: Acts 8:26-40

Psalm: Psalm 22:24-30 (Psalm 22:25-31 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 John 4:7-21

Gospel: John 15:1-8

The Gospel of John includes several "I am" stories, like the one we find in the Gospel for this week. Unlike the idea of Jesus as shepherd, which might be unfamiliar to those of us who live so far away from farms, the idea of Jesus as the vine, and believers as the branches isn't that hard for most of us to grasp. Most of us have watched plants grow, and we understand that one branch of the plant won't do well if we separate it from the main stalk.

We know what happens when we forget to water plants regularly or when the rains stop, and the yards grow crispy.

Jesus is the one who delivers water and nutrients. We won't do well when we're disconnected from the life source. In fact, Jesus makes clear what happens to those of us who separate from Christ: we wither.

What if we're feeling withered? We might assume that Christ has left us to parch, but maybe we need to meet Jesus in a new place. Maybe it's time to return to our gratitude journals. Maybe we need to plan a retreat. Maybe we need to try an artistic practice. Maybe we need a physical discipline to shape our spiritual discipline: yoga or fasting or walking a labyrinth.

And then it's time to bear fruit. It's in this area that I find this week's Gospel unsettling.

Notice how in just 8 verses, Jesus repeats several things. More than once, we're reminded that branches that don't bear fruit are cut away from the true vine. Look at the verbs that Jesus uses for these non-bearing branches: wither, gathered, thrown, burned.

My brain wants to know what kind of timeline we're working with here. How long do I have to prove I can bear fruit? Is it too late? Have I been cast into the fire already, and I just don't know it yet?

I suspect I'm missing the point. God, the true vine and vinedresser, seems to give humanity chance after chance after chance. In these verses, though, Jesus reminds us that much is expected from us. Where are we bearing good fruit?

Every action that we take helps to create a world that is either more good or more evil. We want to make sure we're creating the Kingdom that God has called us to help create. We're to be creating it here, now--not in some distant time and place when we're dead.

We're in a world where the Good News of the Gospel is that the Kingdom of God is both here now (thus a cause for joy) and not yet (as evidenced by evil in the world). How can we be the vine bearing good fruit?

We don't have time to waste withering on the vine. God has many joyous tasks for us, and the world urgently needs for us to do them.

Systematic Theology Rough Draft Process

 As is usual on a Tuesday or a Thursday, I have less time to write.  Soon I need to get ready to head down the mountain to Spartanburg Methodist College--but today is the last day of face to face classes for me this semester.

Yesterday, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I knew that the tile crew would return.  I knew that I had plenty of tasks to do at my desk, and my spouse has a wide variety of home repair tasks to choose from each day.  I sat at my desk and got to work.

I got grading done and e-mails done and a bit of writing revision, the tinkering just before a paper gets turned in kind of revision.  I went for a walk in the chilly Spring air--chilly, but in a crisp way, not in a kill the plants way.  The sky was so blue, and the landscape is filling in; soon we won't be able to see much beyond the roadside but green, green, green.

As I came to the end of the road by the lake, I had a vision for how to write my final paper for Systematic Theology.  I've had lots of ideas for what I want to say, but no idea for how to organize it.  I came home knowing what to do, and I sat down to do it.  I organized it by doctrines of the Church that have worked together in a less good way than they could have:  Soteriology (salvation), Ecclesiology (the Church), Eschatology (end times), and Creation.  To sum up:  our focus on salvation for individual sin coupled with our belief that we're just here as a holding place before heaven has left societal "sin" running rampant, putting all of creation at risk.  

I have a complete rough draft!  I just need to go back to add some quotes, and do some polishing.  I didn't think it would come together that easily.  I expected to have a skeleton at the end of the day, 4 pages that could be expanded later.  But I have nine full pages, so getting to the 15-20 page requirement will not be a problem.  

It's a relief.  In some ways, this should be an easy paper to write; we have a lot more latitude since it's our final paper for the two semester Systematic Theology paper.  But that latitude made me cautious.  I also have a paper to write for my Environmental History of Christianity (EHC) class, so I don't want to use similar ideas and get flagged for plagiarism--that, too, made me cautious.  

The paper I just wrote is not likely to overlap with the paper I will be writing for my EHC class, which is due May 11.  I'll be using different outside sources for each.

It feels good to have a rough draft.  I still have much work to do;  with all the classes that I'm teaching and taking, I have at least 5 deadlines to keep in mind, with smaller deadlines along the way.  But in some ways, that's easier than if they all came crashing to an end during the same week.  Steady, steady, and it will get done.