A little lower than the angels

Mounted on the front of the pulpit of St. Paul's Church is a piece of rock – it looks like marble to me – which according to the inscription was brought from the Areopagus in Athens. The inscription calls our attention to the address the apostle – a Jewish Christian philosopher – delivered to the Athenians who gathered there in the marketplace to discuss ideas. When I was nineteen I sat on a rock on the Areopagus with a small New Testament and read Acts 17:22-34, which records the apostle's words. In that address Paul takes note of the altar inscribed “to an unknown god”, and proceeds to make the startling claim before his Gentile pagan audience that this “unknown god” is the God who is revealed to Jews and in the person of Jesus Christ, the “man appointed” who is now raised from the dead. St. Paul's boldness to proclaim the resurrection has the effect of causing some listeners to scoff and walk away. Their gods are immortal, after all, and the idea of a god subjected to...

Thanksgiving Day 2011 “Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” In today's Gospel story from Luke ten lepers are cleansed in the act of obeying Jesus' directive – rooted in the Mosaic Law - to go show themselves to the priest. Their cure means they suffer no longer physically from the complex of symptoms known as “leprosy”, and their appearance before the priest is their ticket to re-entry into society, from which their malady isolates them. It is a remarkable sign in many ways of the dominion of God active and on the move in Jesus of Nazareth. Ten lepers who approach Jesus in faith for healing receive that for which they ask. Nine go on their way into a new life. One returns to Jesus to give thanks. He returns with great joy and loud rejoicing, giving praise to God. And – as Jesus notes – this man is a foreigner. He is not of the household of Israel, but is a Samaritan. Here is a further sign of the reign of God on the move with Jesu...

Robert Winston Brownlee Sharon and I remember Robert Winston Brownlee as the person waiting here in this nave after the first liturgy I celebrated here on June 1 of 2008. Most of the congregation had moved by that time to the Great Hall for coffee hour. Bob lingered; he seemed to want to greet us, and so we went to him. We had conversation, and Bob made us both feel very welcomed. After that encounter I went away thinking: “I just met another reason I’m glad to be here”. One day more than two years ago Bob came in to share with me his plans for his Burial Eucharist. They were well-laid liturgical plans, and you are experiencing them today. Another day Bob arranged a visit to the parish office to show me the guide to flower arranging published by the Flower Guild of the Cathedral Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, otherwise known as the National Cathedral. What would I think of St. Paul’s Flower Guild taking inspiration from this book? He asked. Having a clear sense that a great gif...

Proper 24, Year A October 16 2011 St. Paul's Church Once again we meet Jesus today in the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem where he is parrying off challenges from the religious leaders who are in charge of the Temple They finally figure out how to get him in deep trouble Sending a delegation, they flatter him, then pop the question: Tell us, then what you think, is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? It's a trap, of course. If he says “no”, the Herodian party who are in close league with the Emperor will be able to charge him with sedition. If he says “yes”, the Pharisee party will be able to accuse him of betraying the Jewish people by collaborating with Rome. So Jesus' answer is deft. “Show me the coin used for the tax.” And here the hypocrisy of his interlocutors is put on full display. “Whose image is on this coin?” he asks, “and whose title?” There they are, bearing within the Temple precincts a graven image in contravention of the First Commandment ag...

For November 2011 “Messenger” Last month in this space I wrote of faith in God, drawing upon some insights of theologian Nicholas Lash in his criticism of the brand of atheism touted by Richard Dawkins. Now let's talk a bit about atheism and agnosticism. In so doing, let’s avoid the kind of brittle defensiveness that sometimes characterizes the speech of Christians in this regard. I see this currently manifested in reactions against the loss of the institutional power of Christianity in our time. In a moment of serendipity, a parishioner recommended to me this week a book entitled Patience with God by the Czech priest Tomáŝ Halík. It is a wonderfully wise appreciation of the struggle of many people to believe, and a mature Christian appreciation that this struggle comes out of the common experience of the hiddenness of God which – if we are honest – is the experience of many characters in Scripture. After all, it is Moses who is told in no uncertain terms that he can only see ...

For October 2011 “Messenger” Last month in this space I wrote of being a discerning community listening for God's direction. Now let's talk a bit about “God”. A new strain of militant atheism is out there, typified by Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion , a book in which the biologist argues vociferously against the idea that 'there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us.” Dawkins has his critics, including the atheist Michael Ruse, as well as philosophical theologians like Nicholas Lash, whose book Theology for Pilgrims I picked up at the Durham Cathedral bookstore last Wednesday. The latter theologian brings a lifetime of careful work in theology to bear on Dawkin's claims, zeroing in on what he considers the fatal flaw in Dawkin's argument. That flaw is in Dawkin's definition of the word God quoted above. Where the grammar of the word 'God' is concerned, D...

“...If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24 NRSV We gather today as ministers of the liturgy of the Church, a liturgy that presents us with the whole ministry of God in Christ Jesus; a ministry which makes the crucial difference in the world. Every time we approach the sacred mysteries, we pledge ourselves to make a difference in the world; a crucial difference. In that regard, I’m thinking of the events of the last week in Texas and Georgia, where two men were executed by the state. One was most certainly guilty of a heinous crime committed against James Byrd Jr. Lawrence Brewer went to his execution for that crime. The other man’s guilt as to the death of Mark McPhail was in serious doubt, but Troy Davis went to his execution anyway. One man went to his death unmourned and scorned. His crime is so brutal that it is hard to feel anything but loathing toward him. When Troy Davis went to his death, a crowd g...

In my reading this week in preparation for preaching I was reminded by one writer of the “Butterfly Effect” and its relationship to our first reading today. The term is from meteorologist Edward Lorenz, and describes an aspect of chaos theory which describes how a small change at one place a non-linear system results in large changes to a later state of that system. A butterfly flapping it's wings, for instance, can have an effect which may lead to the development of a hurricane. The Butterfly Effect in physics is an apt image upon which to call in considering the story of Shiphrah and Puah, two courageous woman who served as midwives to the Hebrew woman living in the land of Egypt. Their story deserves more attention than it gets. We've been reading the saga of Joseph and his exile in Egypt and the developments that follow. That saga of the Bible explains why the Hebrew people are living in the land of Egypt. Today's part of the story tells us that the a...

Proper 15, August 14, 2011 I read a story this week in the Seattle Times about a young 28-yr-old cab driver from SeaTac running for King County Council. The hitch in the story is that this young man came here from Somalia and is Muslim. He was recently naturalized as a citizen and is part of the change that is going on in South King County which is making white people the minority. The comments section of the story shows that there's tension around all of this in South King County. Some people there are clearly nervous and afraid. This young man experiences some people saying “go away”, and some people saying “welcome”. In one of the comments, a Renton resident opined that anyone not born in the United States, no matter if they are a US Citizen, should be allowed to run for office. The point is that there's tension in the air, and that reflects tension felt all over this country around the issue of immigration. We're caught up in concern about boundaries...

7 Easter 2011-6-5 “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Today we at St. Paul’s have a Sunday morning packed with significance. We will Celebrate the passage to manhood of Matthew Robinson, Liam Mora, and Johnny Dye in the Rite 13 ceremony later this morning, recommitting ourselves to support them and their parents in their journey. We recognize graduating seniors from high school and college. We are inviting you to participate with us under the direction of our Discernment Task Force in seeking the will of God for St. Paul’s with respect to our witness for the power and love of Jesus Christ in our community of Bellingham and beyond. All this is happening in today’s liturgy, in which we celebrate a holy and glorious mystery; the Ascension of Jesus to heaven. This mystery is displayed in our Ascension stained glass window in the south transept, a descr...

5 Easter 2011-05-22 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you know me, you know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” I want to talk about stewardship today; the stewardship of the Good News of Jesus that is the responsibility of the Christian Church. I think of our stewardship of the Good News in the light of “Judgment Day”, which was to have taken place yesterday, according to the calculations of a retired civil engineer from Oakland, California with a love of numerology and an apparent lack of whatever psychological characteristic that keeps people from opening themselves to ridicule. I’ve shared in some of the fun at Harold Camping’s expense, but now I’m drawn to think about his victims; those who left all to follow him. While they do have responsibility for their decisions, I feel sympathy for them as of this morning, when they awaken to the reality that things go on as before. My guess is that ...

4 Easter 2011-05-14 I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly. Friday night some of us joined 15,000 plus youth in the Tacoma Dome for a stewardship conference. Well, it wasn’t called that, but that’s what it was. It was called “Be the Spark” . We enjoyed two hours of performance and inspirational speech, highlighted by the appearance of a small man dressed in a dark suit, a purple shirt and a clerical collar. This man spoke with humor and great warmth, and that Dome grew silent as a church as Archbishop Desmond Tutu gave a stewardship talk. Well, it wasn't billed as a stewardship talk, but that's what it was. Bishop Tutu lovingly gave us a picture of our God, who without our help brought all things into being; but who now waits on us to join in partnership to bring about the kind of world God had in mind. Bishop Tutu described himself to the press in Tacoma as a “prisoner of hope”. And he is clear with all who hear him the source of his hope. His hope lies ...

2 Easter May 2 2011 St. Paul’s Bellingham I’m a fan of the Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, and in the past week since Easter Day one of his songs came to mind. I reached into my collection of CDs and found it. In the song he is heard in a conversation with someone with whom he’d been in love, and it becomes clear that things have gone south in the relationship. Yet the song is ultimately about a trust that things are alright; deeply alright. I did my best, it wasn't much I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you And even though it all went wrong I'll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah . Hallelujah . God be praised. Despite the brokenness around him, Cohen finds a prayer of trust to be the final word. The second Sunday of Easter always brings us Thomas, for whom things seem to have fallen apart. Jesus, for whom Thomas set aside a whole life, met a brutal end at the hands of ...

Easter Day 2011 John 20:1-18 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” I love this Easter Gospel, so comic. Mistaken identity, the confusion and cross-purposes that arise from mistaken identity; it's all there as it is in many of Shakespeare's plots or comic operas. There's Mary Magdalene early in the morning on the first day of the week coming to the tomb of Jesus. In my imagination she makes that walk in a slow, pensive way. There's Mary Magdalene arriving at the tomb to find nothing as she expected. The stone that once sealed the entrance is cast aside. There's Mary now at a full run, robes clutched about her to free her feet for her haste to reach Simon Peter and the other disciples. Then there's another footrace back, Simon lagging behind but catching up to be the first to e...

Pilate therefore said to Jesus, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above....” On Sunday, April 3 our Guatemala mission team made a tour of Santiago Atitlán in the company of Dolores, a native of this Mayan town on the shores of Lago de Atitlán. One stop in the tour led us up a narrow alleyway to a small space in front of a small building with an open doorway, which appeared dark in the bright light of a sunny morning. In this small space Mayan women sat greeting visitors, along with a couple of men. They are guardians of a shrine we came to visit. High in the mountains of Guatemala live the descendants of the ancient Mayan people, speaking their own language and with their own customs which distinguish them from those Guatemalans who descend from Spanish ancestry. In this village Mayan religious beliefs exist alongside th...