Yr. C, Wk. 34: What Would Jesus Drive?

Yr. C, Wk.34: What Would Jesus Drive? Scott began this latest Zoom meeting with An Order for Evening.

For a "coming on board" question, Scott took lines from Psalm 26 appointed for the day about the "house" where the glory of God resides. As we're stuck at home these days, Scott asked all to share on screen a place in the home where they find the holiness, or peace, or awareness of God. Answers varied: a walk out of the home, in nature; a gift from a formidable but kind boss; photos of family, and an elegant album that has become a visual archive; a treadmill where a guy can be lost in himself; and nooks in the home where we go inside ourselves. "Meditation has become like exercise for me," Erica said. "Now I feel bad if I don't do it."

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: none.

Our detailed comments about the readings are printed in the "comments" to this blogpost.

Theological Reflection

Susan told of wrangling with neighbors and Animal Control over the fate of a late neighbor's cat. We focused on the chaos of the scene. For Matt, this mix of personalities, motives, regulations, and potentially fatal consequence (for the cat) brought to mind the experience of trying to merge with heavy Atlanta traffic. We bought into the metaphor right away.

In the tradition, we saw Jesus finding "a lane" among opposing parties in his community: Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and the Romans.

How would Jesus drive? Each answer suggested a different angle on the nature of Jesus and his teaching for us.

• Would Jesus just take MARTA?
• Would Jesus drive an old car, something modest?
• Would Jesus drive a pickup, carrying lots of people in the back?
• With the Pharisees and Romans, he was master of going between the lines: would he weave between lanes on a motorcycle?
• Matt said, "If he plays the 'trinity' card, he could drive in the HOV lane."
• Mariel tied the metaphor to the original story, suggesting that Jesus would drive a Catillac.

At 8:30, we were running out of gas. Susan assured us that EfM always gets "punchy" near the end. We adjourned without a collect, letting our jokes about traffic be our meditation.

Scott closed with a collect from Compline.

Next Meeting: Christine will lead worship, and Gene will bring a source for theological reflection.

Yr. C, Wk.33: Apocalypse Then, Protestantism Now, Howard, and John

Erica shared a prayer by Howard Thurman, professor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and elegant theologian. She has been reading from his wonderfully concise and incisive Jesus and the Disinherited.

Erica's question for "coming on board" was "Where have you found peace" in the past week, and "how have you struggled?" Answers to the first part included homely activities, meditation, and immersion in art, physical activity, and work; the second part brought some emotional responses. Gene volunteered that he takes his theme for the day from whatever plays on the radio when he arrives at work. This day, the song was "I Can't Get No Satisfaction!" Scott volunteered that he finds peace in donning his mask and efficiently shopping at Publix.

Members of the class enlarged upon comments about their readings that they posted on the blog.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Matt.

Theological Reflection

Mariel read to us a chapter from a novel by Robert Harris. While we found interest in the descriptions of waking up in total darkness hearing the sounds of an unfamiliar place, and in the tradition of the "first sleep," we chose to focus on a moment when the protagonist decides to overlook what he has discovered in his survey of a deceased priest's library.

Our discussion brought us to an image of an individual averting their eyes from a situation of possible exploitation in the park.

Collect for Empathy
Lord, creator and sustainer: you asked questions that probed the hearts of the people you met, Will you sell your possessions and follow me? Can you surrender your authority to be newborn? Do you wish to be healed? Train our imaginations so to empathize with those we meet, that we, too, may ask the questions that lead to safety, growth, and health. Amen

Erica's final prayer came from a Buddhist sutra, praying for "no deception... no wish for another's harm.. to protect others as a mother would do...."

Next Meeting: Scott will lead worship; Susan will provide a source for the Theological refection.

Yr. C, Wk. 32: Faith and "Enchantment"

Gene screen-shared an evening prayer service for our worship.

Prior to the meeting, members shared their thoughts about the readings in the "comments" section of this blogpost. [See below.] Scott asked some follow-up questions.

Then we focused on an object brought to us by Pete: A plastic bottle labeled "Holy Water" with certification that Jesus blessed the water in Conyers, GA, around 20 years ago.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Christine.

Theological Reflection

Our first reactions to the plastic bottle labeled "Holy Water" ranged from amusement to indignation, that anyone would make a commodity of holy water, and that anyone would be so foolish as to buy it. We saw a connection to the "enchantment" MacCulloch decried in his history, a credulous kind of Christianity that was sentimental, bordering on a belief in magic. When Pete admitted that his own father had purchased the bottle, we tried to see this object as its designer and any customers might see it.

As we explored the culture and the tradition, we wondered how firm the barrier is between ordinary bread and consecrated bread, ordinary water and the water of baptism. We remembered early Anglican bishop Hooker's response to the doctrine of transubstantiation, that God's presence at the Eucharist is what matters, not how God is present.

Because Scott volunteered that this issue is one near and dear to his heart from literature by Flannery O'Connor and Graham Greene, he was commissioned to compose the collect.

Collect for Consecration
Almighty Father and Creator, by the power of your Holy Spirit, you exalted humble Mary to be vessel of your birth, you make yourself present in the ordinary bread at your altar, and you promise that a spring of living water wells up in each of us to eternal life: now consecrate our senses that we may perceive in our neighbors, our selves, and in all your creation, your power to make instruments of your grace. Amen

Gene blessed us with a final prayer.

Next Meeting: Erica will lead worship, and Mariel will provide a source for our Theological Reflection.

Yr. C, Wk. 31: Wisdom, Enlightenment, and That Lovin' Feelin'

For our worship, Scott screen-shared a selection from Daily Devotions, "In the Early Evening," the Book of Common Prayer p.139, including the collect for Tuesday in Holy Week, April 7, p. 220.

Scott asked that everyone from now on post responses to readings before we meet. Taking some time to do that, and time again to read everyone else's comments, will allow us  more of our hour of Zoom for worship and reflection. Henceforth, Scott will post a blank blog on Saturday for the next week's meeting for everyone to add their comments about their reading.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Christine.

In our discussion...

• Matt volunteered that God's character in the Book of Job is dynamic, as if God is influenced by Job's words. In Job, Matt and Pete agreed, it's as if Job puts God on trial.
• Pete was fascinated by the three so-called friends who cannot accept that Job is suffering for nothing, as they tell Job, "You must have done something wrong." In the end, when God wants to punish them for their wrong-headedness, Job asks forgiveness for them.
• Later, Pete saw the friends' simplistic view represented in Proverbs, where goodness is always rewarded and badness is always punished. Matt and Pete saw a range of views of God in the three "wisdom" books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.
• Mariel, reporting from MacCulloch, picked up on the motif of a trial in a section on the Enlightenment called "God in the Dock," i.e., on trial. She read from a popularly circulated manuscript "The Three Impostors" -- what we'd call today a viral meme -- that mocked religious faith.
• Gene, responding to the same chapter, ran through intellectual highlights of the Enlightenment: Spinoza and Deism (a Creator God neutral or disinterested in our lives), Rousseau (humanity born good but distorted by insitutions), the rise of Nationalism, and an attitude towards gender not so enlightened. Mariel and Susan added that a literalistic view of Scripture arose as a reaction to both the earlier allegorical interpretations and challenges of scientific materialism.
• Erica drew from the remarks that she had already posted on our blog. She wondered if the book Our Neighbor's Faith aims at a target audience from a generation older than hers, who, in her experience, harbor mistrust of Jews, and perhaps also of other faiths. Her favorite chapter so far gave her a wider introduction to Hinduism than she has had before.

Theological Reflection Matt shared a photo from Instagram that had received a lot of local "likes," a close-up of a hand-written sign seen in the Marietta Square. The anonymous sign-maker observed that the whole world is staying home to protect the weak and the needy, and concluded, "Nothing in the whole history of mankind ever felt more like love than this." Mariel suggested that we respond to this as a "position."

After negative initial responses, we did our best to enter into the sign-writer's way of looking at Creation. We intuited a view focused on finding what's good in the Here and Now (without awareness, apparently, of Elsewhere and Other Times).

When we contemplated Sin and Judgment, we intuited that the sign-maker would feel rage against the sin of not conforming to the sign-maker's idea of "sheltering in place." For this, we drew on our own recent experiences in grocery stores and on social media.

What emerged as we looked for "redemption" in this world view was an attitude shift to balance subjective feeling with objective fact, and to widen the frame of reference to include history and the Christian tradition.

Our opinion of the sign-maker seemed to soften as we found many times in our own lives when we had approached others from a doctrinaire position. For one example, a mother's doctrine about corporal punishment changed with the experience of rearing chidren and of seeing those grown children with children of their own. Judgmental thoughts were suspended at a recent visit to see parents crowding MUST Ministries to find food for their families. Another admitted, "Every time I've ever said I'll never, eventually I do."

As we looked through cultural analogs and those in our tradition, we found examples of both naive Pollyannas and courageous, self-sacrificing saints. We found that the Pharisees fit the bill for their hope that doctrinaire conformity would lead God's people out of enslavement to the Romans to restoration, as promised in scripture. (Here, they echoed the sentiments of Proverbs.)

What was so bad about the Pharisees? While the Pharisees loved the law, Jesus loved the people for whom the law was created; while the Pharisees insisted on the letter of the law, Jesus acted on the spirit of the law. The Pharisees, someone said, had "lost that lovin' feelin'." Our theological reflection brought us to a new appreciation for the ways diverse circumstances lead to diverse approaches to serving God and our community.

When Mariel read this prayer, Susan said that we'd already found the perfect collect:

In the Morning, BCP p. 461
This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give the Spirit of Jesus. Amen

Christine composed a collect based on wisdom literature and Job:

O God of wisdom, we are an imperfect people, through Your love you gave us Job as an example whose eyes you opened to your greatness. Help us to see as Job did through our own trials so that we too may see your greatness loving all those in our midst and serving You. Amen

Scott concluded with the final collect from Compline.

Next Meeting: Gene will lead worship via Zoom, and Pete will provide a source for our TR.

Yr. C, Wk. 30: Vocation and the Plague

For the second week in a row, we met via the Zoom app.

Mariel screen-shared a liturgy of readings and prayers with apposite images.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: none.

Our text this week was "A Mature Theology of Vocation" in EfM's Reading and Reflection Guide. Pete, Erica, and Mariel all posted thoughtful comments to the blog before the meeting (see previous blog post).

• Christine started us off, telling us that her idea of vocation has opened up to include caring for the elderly, something that had not occurred to her until eldercare necessarily became a part of her life. Now she thinks that may be a ministry for her.
• Scott admitted that the questions intended for discernment --

  Desires: What do you long or yearn for?
  Imperatives: What should, ought, or must you do? (RRG 154)

  -- no longer gnaw at him as during the first half of his life. Around fifty, he found peace with the idea that what he was already doing -- writing, music, art, all in the service of church and school -- was what he had always been preparing to do. At 61, he's not so concerned with "vocation" as formerly.
• Susan agreed, and quipped, "I'm okay now with being a slacker."
• Mariel can't remember ever having a feeling of "calling" in her life or professional career, but feels that she has learned to be open to possibilities. In her comments posted before the meeting, Mariel wrote that praying the Psalter and using the Book of Common Prayer daily are two ways that she plans to keep structure in her life when retirement moves her away from the structure of a daily job.
• Christine cited the essay's expression of peoples' doubts that the "bits and pieces" of life can all fit together (RRG 152). For Christine, an artist who has worked with collage, looking retrospectively for a pattern among bits and pieces seems an intriguing challenge.
• Erica had written before our meeting about those "bits and pieces" and anxiety about seeing "the big picture." She told how a Buddhist sage was bemused when she asked about "calling" in this sense, telling her, essentially, if you want to be monk, then, okay, you're a monk. Erica also brought up her fascination with the Roman Catholic idea that one is "called" to marriage as to priesthood, an idea that resurfaced again and again during our meeting.
• Matt, too, saw his vocation clearly in retrospect. So much of his life was spent in the Church, working with youth. He found confirmation in the Book of Common Prayer, in the catechism, where "the people" are listed first as the ministers of God.
• Gene remembered back to graduation from college, when he had on his desk two stacks: applications to seminaries, and applications to law schools. Though he chose law school, the feeling of vocation has never left, and now he wonders if his calling is being realized now, "just being here" for friends with acute needs at this time.
• Pete continues to wrestle with the question he asked a few weeks ago, "Is it enough to be a good person?" As he wrote prior to this meeting, his participation in EfM is opening him up to the idea of a communal aspect integral to Christian vocation.

Theological Reflection

Erica introduced us to a poem by Mary Karr, published in 1993, "Etchings from the Plague Years." The speaker in the poem lifts her eyes from "the valley" of an art history textbook open to a medieval image of plague victims, to see a "frail" young man on her subway car apparently suffering serious illness. He becomes for her an image of "everyone [she has] ever loved." When he gets off at her stop, she thinks the imperative: "Offer him your hand. Help him climb the stair."

In our reflection on the poem, we found a great deal of energy at the nexus of Medieval plague, the poet's personal memories, and the moment present in that subway car. We shared personal stories when past or future became present in an instant: seeing the toddler son in the grown-up groom at the wedding; the young daughter dancing happily to the altar on Ash Wednesday to receive the reminder "to dust you shall return."

We found cultural analogs in the interweaving of prequels with sequels in the Star Wars series; a phrase from Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep about the texture of men's flesh in the beautiful flower of the orchid; the mingling of past and present, life and death, in Our Town; and, in the death-haunted comedy Harold and Maude (1970), how the young man Harold learns from octogenarian Maude that love doesn't stay fixed to one object, but embraces all of life.

Perhaps cued by the poem's opening line about images of death printed "in the valley" of the open textbook, we thought of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37.1-14), text assigned in the lectionary for the Sunday worship two days before our meeting. In that story, the tragedy of the past and the promise of the future are both glimpsed in the present, tied to a call for action.

We reached some insights. Susan saw the sacredness of small things. Gene observed, "She goes beyond just helping one boy to others in her past ('everyone I’ve ever loved') to every person in God’s kingdom…. A communal thing." Mariel related the TR to the evening's discussion of vocation: "Is teaching her vocation? In the end, she’s roped into doing something."

[Mariel's phrase later reminded Scott that the Greek word for "church," ekklesia, means literally, a "calling out" (same as "vocation"); or, as Mariel and the theologian Ronald Rolheiser both reimagined it, this "calling" is like "being roped into" action, as illustrated by the parable of the Good Samaritan. See "Spirituality Needs Community," Scott's blogpost about Rolheiser's book The Holy Longing.]

Collect for a Call to Action
Eternal God, when Your hand set Ezekiel in a desolate valley to proclaim hope, dry bones rose to new life; may we, like Ezekiel, look up from our personal valleys to act as Your hand and voice to those who need comfort. Amen

Mariel concluded with a prayer.

Next Meeting: Scott will lead worship via Zoom, and Matt will provide a source for our TR.