Henry Martyn

Henry Martyn, Priest and Missionary to India, 1812

Isaiah 49:1-6

Psalm 56:8-12

Romans 1:8-15

John 4:22-26

Did you know that there were Christians in India before the British came in the 1700’s? When the British arrived, they discovered a Christian community in Malabar who are said to have been founded by the apostle Thomas. 

Henry Martyn is known as a founder of of the modern church in India. I would probably quibble with this, but Henry did establish parishes and schools in India, as well as translate the Book of Common Prayer into Hindi. He even learned Persian so he could translate the New Testament into that language and was studying Arabic when he died. 

What came to mind in studying about Henry, and in looking at the Gospel reading, is that the Spirit is the foundation. Last week at Peace Mass we had a great conversation about evangelism, in particular about how the Spirit acts before we arrive on the scene, and about evangelism as accompanying people on their journey towards God. 

In that sense, the work we do is second string, it’s the organizing and connective tissue of the work the Spirit has already begun. It’s the companionship along the way. The gospel today is the final exchange between the Samaritan woman at the well and Jesus. She tells Jesus about the Messiah that she is waiting for, and Jesus says, “I am he, the one you is speaking to you.” 

I wonder how our idea of evangelism changes when we consider even Jesus had the Spirit out in front? Does it become more possible or probable? How many people and places in our lives are already infused with Spirit, just waiting for us to provide the connective community. 

St Philip, Deacon and Evangelist

St. Philip, Deacon and Evangelist

Isaiah 53:7-11

Psalm 6

Matthew 28:18-20

Did you know that Steve Jobs used to speak of his sales associates as evangelists? I know when I have taken my MacBook in for service, or purchased a new iPod, I have encountered people with great enthusiasm and passion. I, too, am quite clear about the ways that my quality of life, and the life span of my electronics, has improved since I switched to Apple. 

Why is it so easy to talk to my friends and people in the check out line about Apple Computers but so hard to talk about Jesus and the church?  For me, it has to do with things unseen. While it is perfectly acceptable to talk about productivity with anyone in this culture, Jesus generally makes me less commercially viable. Because the fruits of the Spirit, which have a lot to do with being present to the here and now, stand in opposition to doing more, being more, making more, selling more. So, while there is certainly going to be enthusiasm and passion for the Gospel, what it means to evangelize the Good News is going to happen in a different way.  

Philip, named as a deacon and evangelist, is perhaps best known for being the evangelist to the Ethiopian eunuch. Holy Women, Holy Men says that on the way to Gaza, “he encountered an Ethiopian eunuch, a servant of the Ethiopian queen, reading the Isaiah text on the Suffering Servant. They traveled together, and in the course of their journey the Ethiopian was converted and baptized by Philip.”

The first thing I notice is that the Ethiopian was already struggling with the scriptures. From this, I take evangelism to be something that the Spirit is already doing in the lives of people. It’s less about us selling the Gospel, and more about noticing where it is already working. The second thing I notice is that they traveled together, which takes time. Having someone who will walk with you as you struggle, that is good news. That is the Good News. Matthew 28:20 says to “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” That’s hard to promise in a check out line. 

What ways and in what places are you walking with someone who is struggling? How do you notice God in those places? What fruits of the Spirit seem to accompany you? 

St Francis

(there are two reflections on St Francis here, one is for me and one is for Peace Mass, but I thought I would stash them together.)

St. Francis of Assisi

Jeremiah 22:13-16

Psalm 148:7-14

Matthew 11:25-30

St. Francis day was actually yesterday. So I am a day late, a dollar short as they say. Yet, I still have too many dollars to be a companion of St. Francis. In truth I have spent the last month with St. Francis, using one of those ‘spend a month with a saint’ guided meditations. I have started a new budget during this new time in the life of my family, and am helping with the stewardship campaign at church. And since I was feeling a bit poor to begin with, I thought Francis might be just the guy to help me with my perspective.  

It turns out, I was wrong about that. You see, Francis had something that I can admire, especially from afar. He walked the walk. Every day. And by choice, not by necessity. He was embracing a path to God, making a free choice of this, every day. Francis wasn’t just trying to feel better about his poverty; he wasn’t poor. 

Francis knew that joy was the key to poverty. The key to the kingdom as it were. And Francis spread joy so far and so wide and so infectiously, that he founded a whole monastic order, spun off a women’s auxiliary group and inspired Pope Gregory IX, a former patron, to build a great basilica to his honor. And all of these things caused Francis no end of grief. I expect that for whole swaths of time, his joy had a ‘fake it till you make it’ quality. 

 Holy Women, Holy Men has assigned Matthew 11:29-30 to Francis. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I can never read this passage without thinking, this is some piece of used car salesman truth. And I wonder if Francis struggled with it as well; when people wanted to walk the path with him in over engineered high tops and carrying an extra coat for when the wind picked up. I wonder if our fascination with Francis is that he keep choosing poverty, long after we would have said, that’s a good show, but what about health care? Vision and dental? 

I don’t think that I will ever approach Francis’ commitment to follow Christ, and I expect that I will miss out on some of the joy that he knew in companionship with God. But I will miss out on those extreme highs and lows that he experienced as well. I think I can be ok with that. Because there are joys that I have been given, and they require me to make choices every day, opportunities to turn towards, rather than away, from God every day. Like Francis, I am being asked to bring myself before God, exactly who I am, and so are you. 

(second)

St. Francis of Assisi

Jeremiah 22:13-16

Psalm 148:7-14

Matthew 11:25-30

My daughter is named Francis, with the ‘i’ not the ‘e.’ I didn’t name her for a saint, I didn’t go to church then and I wasn’t raised in a church that acknowledges saints. But now that we do, she often received tokens from loved ones about St. Francis. We have several books about him and his life. Invariably, these books start with his boisterousness and generosity, then tell of his conversion in the road, coming face to face with a leper. They tell of his parents shame and embarrassment at the life of poverty that Francis chose after that fateful meeting. 

We probably know quite a lot about Francis in our family, thanks to all these wonderful gifts. But I wonder what everyone else knows about Francis. Why does he wear that brown robe? Why is he surrounded by all those birds? What’s the story with that wolf?What was it really like to choose poverty? 

The key, I think, to understanding Francis was his infectious joy. He did absurd things because he was blown away by the wonder of all creation. And for Francis, the way he chose to come close to God, and let God come close to him, was to embrace poverty. Many people were drawn to that joy and voluntarily joined Francis in his poverty, his generosity, his joy. 

The gospel for today comes from Matthew and ends with these words, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (11:29-30). I wonder what it means to voluntarily embrace poverty? I wonder how these words might be an enticement or a comfort in that choice?

September 30, 2011

I am so sorry to take so long to get back to you. I hope that you will infer that I am both busy and thoughtful. Probably, the equation errs towards busy, but I have been using your inquiry to ponder what I have been up to, and how God is working in my life.

We are back in Portland and back at ---. I have a discernment committee that begins meeting the Sunday after next and we will meet for several months until the next COM. I have spoken with everyone on my committee and they seem to be both honored and excited to journey with me as I discern what God is calling me to next. My understanding of my call to work sacramentally with congregations remains clear to me, but exactly how that call sets itself out is more open to pondering than it was before school, if only because I know a lot more about the ways we come together in communities. That’s fancy for, I’m thinking about interim work as the work I am called to do, rather than the available work between longer calls. 

The transition back to Portland has been somewhat challenging. My children have first claim on my attention these days because they have had to wait so often while I was in school. They believed me when I said, after I get done with school I will pay you more attention than you want. I haven’t been able to do that yet, but they are both in middle school right now, and middle school is hard, hard work, both academically and socially. They go wherever I go these days, which might not have been true at this age if our family had a different experience up to this point, but there are certainly worse relationships I can imagine with my children than their desire to have me around all the time as they go through the difficult transitions of new school, new home, old friends who have changed as much as they have. We have the added challenge that Shannon is still working in California 3 weeks of the month and is home with us 1 1/2 weeks. 

I am slowly falling back into the swing of life within the context of a parish rather than a school. I feel quite blessed that I have no doubts that my call to ministry is not within academia. My friends in school who loved the parish but were really drawn to the rhythm and flow of school as well had a more interesting time of discernment in school as they wondered if they should look into school chaplaincy or, for some, the academic context. I continue to breathe the rhythms of parish life, where most of the work of the church is work out in the complexity of the world. In particular, I have taken over the Liturgy of the Word for a Wednesday evening Eucharist. If you like, I can send you the weekly reflections I do in preparation, we have a discussion so it isn’t actually a sermon, from Holy Women, Holy Men. They are quite short but they often better reflect how I am thinking about God these days than update letters. I am also serving on the altar on Sundays and on the stewardship committee. I am thinking about starting a small group for theological reflection, but that will be Portland wide, not just at ---. But that is still in deep thinking about phase. 

I continue to pray and my interest in reading is coming back to me. Some days I am antsy like the squirrels my dog loves to chase, trying to settle in for the winter. Other days, I rejoice in lounging on the couch for 3 hours reading a novel that has no pretense to redeeming values at all. I am blessed. 

Margery Kempe

(my wednesday morning was too busy and I forgot to post this before I headed out for the day. Peace Mass was wonderful this evening, and we had some good discussion about Margery.)

September 28, 2011

Feast of Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, and Margery Kempe

Job 26: 1-14

Psalm 63:1-8

Matthew 5:43-48

I’ve never been quite sure what to do with mystics or monastics. I have such a ‘let’s go build something together’ (thanks Lowe’s) attitude about my faith that I am unsure what to do with people who want to go off by themselves. It seems anathema to what Christianity is about. Mystics fare no better with me. Either I am sure that they are getting some special communication from God that I am not or I blow them off with the sure and steady knowledge that they are to be pitied as sufferers of something out of the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. 

This attitude has been shifting in the last year. I have spent some time exploring my unmediated relationship with God. Not God and me and a soup kitchen, or God and me and an academic assignment, not God and me and my children, but God and me and me. The first thing I got was a dark night of the soul. I interpreted this as an absence of God, then I decided it was an absence in me. Eventually, I heard the noises that I make to fill the spaces of my silence. Some of them were quite unpleasant. Until finally I found the place that gets called “still small voice.” And I discovered that there is almost no point in trying to write this down. It is truly a place beyond words and the words don’t make any sense at all until after the experience. Of course, having been to that borderland, as William Countryman calls it, I am searching out and spending time with all the mystics I can find in order to find some words that resonate with my time there.

So, I am pleased to have discovered Margery Kempe today. This is a woman I can relate to. A woman who didn’t lock herself into a monastic community or a room off of a church. This is a woman who had to negotiate a husband and children and social strictures with that still small voice. This, and if you know me you will laugh, is a woman who was “gifted with tears.” This is a woman who just kept doing what she was called to do no matter how awkward that looked to the rest of the world. I would call her a first class fool for Jesus. 

And the question Margery helps me answer is this. How can mysticism or monasticism counter the tendency to “do something” FOR the kingdom of God rather than “be someone” IN the kingdom of God? I think that perhaps, whenever we belong to God while we are doing nothing at all, we are well on our way to living in the mystery. 

St. Matthew the Evangelist

(for Peace Mass, Wednesday September 21, 2011)

Psalm 119:33-40

Proverb 3:1-6

2 Timothy 3:14-17

Matthew 9:9-13

In that particular way that tradition builds up around things until we don’t know the truth from the facts anymore, we really can’t be sure that the St. Matthew associated with the Gospel of Matthew is the same Matthew that is the tax collector in the gospel reading. Whether or not this is the same person, we do know that the tax collector did answer the call to “follow me” by getting up and going.

And we know that it wasn’t the done thing to hang out with tax collectors. Or fishermen, really, if one were intent on being an up and coming in the religious institutions of the day. But these are some of the people we know Jesus was hanging out with. And we know what they were talking about, too. Money. Jesus spent most of his ministry talking about economics and I imagine that with tax men and fishermen and women, there were some really interesting conversations.

I suspect that for some, those conversations weren’t the done thing, either. In some circles, they still aren’t. We often have a hard time talking about our deepest values and money. We really don’t want to look at our debit card statements and see, in black and white, what our deepest values really are. Because where we spend our time and where we spend our money are the showing forth of our respect and care for our incarnation and all of creation.

There are a lot of opportunities in the next few months to think about how we spend our time and money as a reflection of our deepest values. The stewardship campaign is coming up soon here at St. David’s (stay tuned for Celebration Sunday) and the holiday season, with it’s overeating and over shopping are coming along as well. For myself, I have the debt servicing of my student loans coming up to take a big dent out of what I now consider “my money.”

What are some of the ways you spend money that reflect your deepest values? What are some of the ways you don’t? Who do you have those conversations with? Do you have them at all?

Elie Naud

(Peace Mass reflection for September 7, 2011)

Daniel 6:10b–16,19–23

Psalm 30

James 1:2–4,12a

Matthew 15:21–28

The gospel reading for today is most notable for its insults. This woman comes bursting onto the scene demanding healing for her daughter. Jesus does what I consider his most amazing miracle, he thinks before he speaks, but the disciples immediately decide that shouting lacks the proper respect due to a Messiah. Then Jesus and the woman exchange this bit of dialogue.

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he says.

“Lord, help me,” she pleads, on her knees.

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says.

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

“Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

It isn’t the dialogue itself that interests me in this exchange; it is the clever wordplay that they engage in, the quick comeback worthy of a 1940’s comedy. This is a way of communicating that we hardly ever engage in at church. To be a good Christian is often to engage in a very particular set of manners that most of us would sum up under the word, ‘polite.’ It is often about letting people meet us where we are rather than going out and meeting them where they are. It’s almost never about clever comebacks and witty repartee. It certainly doesn’t dish insult for insult.

Jesus and this woman aren’t being very polite to each other; they aren’t engaging in the proper exchanges expected by the disciples or us. But they are definitely in relationship, they are definitely communicating.

Elie Naud, our saint of the day, was definitely in the business of relationships that meet people where they are. Elie, a French Huguenot, fled persecution and ended up at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York. He never let what was considered right or proper get in the way of the Gospel. He became an Anglican catechist to black slaves and Native Americans, eventually founding a school for the children of slaves and Native Americans.

I wonder, when we engage with people outside our social groupings, when we encounter people who are perhaps defensive from the start about our Christian identity, do we stay in relationship, do we communicate, even if it doesn’t sound like “good Christian behavior.” I wonder, when someone needs our help, and doesn’t expect us to give it, do we back away from the forcefulness of their defenses or do we give it right back, with love.