On reading the Bible wrong: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, and Sojourner Truth, July 20

The Gospel assigned for Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, and Sojourner Truth (on the Episcopal calendar of saints today, July 20)  is Luke 11:5-10, in which Jesus starts the story, not with “the kingdom of heaven is like” but rather “suppose one of you has a friend.”  And then the story goes on about going to that friend at midnight and begging them to get up and supply you with what you need to offer hospitality to someone else.  And although the initial response is basically “go away; what you request is really inconvenient for me right now” the person asking is persistent, and the one in bed finally gets up and gives him what is needed. 

I THINK I’VE READ THIS BACKWARDS ALL MY LIFE! I’ve usually read this (and probably had it interpreted to me) as an argument from the lesser to the greater: ‘be persistent in prayer because if even we ‘lesser’ humans can finally give up and answer a request, just think how much quicker (or more reliably?) God will answer.’  So just keep praying so that God will finally give you what you ask for.   Reading it this year, though, it hit me that maybe I had it all wrong.  What if  it is GOD who keeps asking US to provide, and WE keep answering “yes, I see/hear the need, but not now – it’s a bit inconvenient for me.  I have [all kinds of excuses] why I cannot possibly do that now.  Go away and come back and ask at a better time.” But God keeps asking, keeps calling to us to provide for the needs of this world.

Care for the orphan and the widow.  Feed the hungry.  Welcome the stranger.  Love your enemy. Do justice.  Heal the sick.  Give water to the thirsty.  These words, these calls, come to us again and again and again.  People get on our “Saints calendar” because they responded to God’s call.  But, in another way, they are also part of God’s repeated call to all of us. Elizabeth, Amelia, and Sojourner were all part of that persistent voice of God, persistently calling us to do justice. 

And too often, my response remains: “Not today Lord.  It’s just a bit too inconvenient at this moment to provide for your friends who are in need.”

 

Gilgal

I walk in through the front door of my little rental here in Happy Valley, and on the wall opposite the door hangs a picture.  Much of the art I have hanging throughout my house is original - whether paintings or pen and ink or needlework or photographs or stained glass.  But this one is a large framed print of something that hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  It came from my mother's home, and was the one thing I really wanted after she died last October.  None of my sisters were in the least way interested in it, so I got it.

Mom and I had a very difficult relationship.  It wasn't always as bad as it got in those final years, but facing her mortality as she aged made the questions of the afterlife even more acute for her.  To put it bluntly, she was convinced that I did not believe things about God and Jesus properly, and that as a result, I was headed to hell when I died. 

She was convinced that her mother and father were already there.  When working on some genealogy stuff at some point in the past, I had tried to get more information from her about her family.  She agreed to talk with me for a bit, but after a little while was quite clear that she did not want to talk about her parents any further.  It was simply too distressing for her to think about them now that she couldn't do anything for them, as they were "right this minute suffering in the fires of hell" (her exact words to me about them).  

That distress and anxiety played out between us in ways that were not conducive to a continued relationship.  She could not bear talking with me without trying to do something or say anything that might turn me around.  Something that might save me from the fire.  In the past, we had been able to find other things to talk about rather than our different approaches to our belief in God.  But as she aged, and she knew her time was short, she couldn't even talk about the weather with me.  

Mom was of the more conservative, fundamentalist, strain of Christianity.  Women were not to speak in church.  So, obviously, my being an Episcopal priest didn't fit in that world at all.  (Along with a whole host of other things I don't think God cares much about, and she thought were central.)  But being a priest is about me trying to be faithful to the God who created me with a particular set of skills and interests, faithful in seeking to follow where Jesus has led me, faithful to the stirrings of the Spirit within me.  She has always seen my journey as me turning my back on God.  

And yet, every time I'd go into her home, there hung this picture.  A young shepherd GIRL.  Mom's theology had no room for "the Lord is my shepherd" to be imaged by a female.  Mom's beliefs had no room for a woman to be 'shepherding the flock.'  And yet, there she hung in that picture above Mom's dining room table.

Mom was an artist.  She majored in art in college, and went on to become an art teacher.  Paintings were not just decoration for her.  They meant something.  There was one in her bedroom that had four young girls in it, out in a large field, with flowers and sunshine.  She once told me about how they always made her think of her four daughters - the girls in the painting did have some resemblances to us!  And the background of this painting even reminded her of our home area in Pennsylvania.  

This painting of the young female shepherd hung where she sat and ate.  Where she sat and studied.  You couldn't walk into her house and miss this one.  A female shepherd!  I always wondered about that picture, yet never asked her.  I preferred to stay in the unknown, the unspoken.  Fearing, I think, that asking her to try to put the tenderness of that female shepherd into words might break the spell of the mystery.  I hoped that somewhere in that unspoken mystery, she in some way understood me.  Or that at least, in some way there was still room for me, for who I was called to be, to have a place in her world.   I would walk into her home and smile, because I was there in the company of that female shepherd. 

The Old Testament reading for tomorrow (4th Sunday in Lent, Year C) comes from the 5th chapter of the book of Joshua.  I've been pondering it this week - - but not those exact 4 verses.  They reference the place, Gilgal, and then go on to talk about no longer eating manna.  But the place and the name have caught me this week - - Gilgal.  12 large stones carried out of the river bed.  12 large stones Joshua set up in a circle, that their children could look at and ask "What do these stones mean?"  They would see the stones, which would prompt the question, which would lead to remembrance and the telling of stories.  Remembrance of what God had done in leading them out of Egypt (crossing the Red Sea on dry land) and through the wilderness, and then crossing the River Jordan on dry land (where these stones had come from) and into the promised land. 

When we enter into church and pause at the baptismal font and anoint ourselves with the water, we are at Gilgal.  We see.  We touch.  We ask, "What does this water mean?" And, just like at Gilgal, we answer by remembering what God has done.  Telling ourselves the story once again of a love that has washed over us and claimed us.  We tell ourselves the story of a love that has set us free and made us a new people.  

When I enter my own home now, I see that picture: the female shepherd. And I am at Gilgal.  "What does it mean?"  And I tell myself the story of how I have always been in the shepherd's embrace, for that is where I am in that picture.  And I tell myself the story of being called to be a shepherd - to live into the image of the one I follow - for I am also the female shepherd in that picture.  

But I also tell myself the story of Mom, engulfed in so much fear, who was also never out of the shepherd's embrace.  In our final moments, as I sat with Mom while she died, there was a healing that I did not expect.  She even looked at me and named it: "This is healing."  And I watched as the shepherd carried her gently home.  Yes that, too, has become a part of the story I remember.    

We all need a Gilgal or two in our lives.

* The painting is by William Morris Hunt (American, 1824-1879) and is titled "The Belated Kid"

The story that goes with the painting says that the kid (yes, these are goats) had wandered, and the young shepherd girl has found it and is carrying it back home, looked upon by the worried mother goat.  

Getting to General Convention

Flying cross-country from Boston to California, I managed to get a window seat. I slept the first few hours, but we were pretty much above just clouds for that part. Then, somewhere mid-country, the cloud cover totally cleared and I simply ignored the fact that I had carried a book with me that I've been wanting to read for a long time. Instead, I pressed my face against the window and watched the amazing country 36,000 feet below. The airline had a GPS navigation map on the seat back for each of us, so I was able to follow the map along with the rivers and major road lines, keeping track as we passed into South Dakota and dropped south over Nebraska. What amazing patchwork of farmland our country is! I wasn't aware before of just how different the colors of the various crops could be. Some looked pink or even violet. The various greens were expected, but they were seemingly outnumbered by the golds and rusts. It was breathtaking.

Then across Colorado, with its flat eastern farmlands leading abruptly into amazing mountains. The snow up high caught my eye immediately. It was still fairly early morning in that time zone, and the slanted sunlight and stark shadows accentuated the wild youth of these western mountains. So different from the eastern ones that wrap me up with "home".

Then on over red rock and canyonland. Stark bare buttes and broad flat mountaintop plateaus. I was a bit overwhelmed with the amazing diversity of land that is part of the one whole we call the United States of America.

Then I spent a few days in San Francisco. We have our own versions of "diversity" in New Hampshire, but it is pretty White there! Not San Francisco. Chinatown. The Fillmore Jazz Festival. Everywhere I went there were varieties of colors and languages. What a treat to once again be reminded of the amazing diversity of peoples and experiences and backgrounds that are part of the one whole we call the people of the United States of America.

And then I arrived at General Convention - the once every three year gathering of those chosen by the Episcopal Church to lead by setting policy and envisioning program and making some very hard budget decisions. General Convention brings together people from many different nations, many different languages, many colors and backgrounds and life situations. Many different gospel passions. And I am struck by the wonder and beauty of the possibility held in the coming together of our differences. Of holding them side by side. Of the possibility of showing such a wonder of God's making to the world around us.

And now, to bed. It's been a long first day. Committee work began at 8 this morning. We had a half hour break for lunch, and because of our diocesan deputation gathering to share notes, only a short time for dinner, and ended at 9 tonight. This is not an easy job! But, I spend my first day full of hope. God is good. And I believe that Jesus will get what Jesus prays for. May we all be one, as Jesus and the Father are one.

Baptism

I sit in awe of the requests before me for 6 baptisms. We're a small church and sometimes have a couple of baptisms each year. But six! It looks like we'll start them the Sunday after Christmas and continue through the first Sunday after the Epiphany, with one still probably to come after that. The realities of modern life and our means of living so far from our home 'village' mean that baptismal dates are not only shaped by the church calendar, but also by our family travel possibilities. Christmas holiday time is good family travel time. But as I thought about it, what better time for baptisms? Christmas. The Feast of the Incarnation. Celebrating new birth. Celebrating God's love taking form in human flesh. Epiphany. Recognizing God's love among us. I'm really excited about it all, and deeply joyful about welcoming each one of them.

I'm also faced with a few, shall we call them . . . 'irregularities'? Things that are outside of the norms of how we have come to think about and experience baptism. But then, there was nothing "normal" about the first baptism I did 16 years ago. And I'm totally ok with that. After all, to paraphrase someone I know and love, "Baptism was made for humanity, not humanity for Baptism."

The first time I did a baptism I was a seminary student. It was the summer of my Clinical Pastoral Education unit (CPE) during which seminarians spend full time in a hospital or similar setting learning about pastoral ministry and learning about ourselves. I did my CPE at a trauma center in Maryland. It was the end of a long day, and I wasn't on-call for that night so was stopping by the chaplain's office to hand the pager off to the next on-call person so I could head home. Instead I found myself swept up into a crisis beyond my imagining. "All Chaplains to the Emergency Room!" came the call. And all 4 of us in training that summer headed over there.

One became security as he tried to physically hold back the drunk grandfather from attacking his daughter-in-law, screaming "You killed those babies!" We were told that the police were on the way. Several chaplains worked to calm and listen to the large extended family as they gathered. I ended up in a separate room with the daughter-in-law as she sobbed her story to me. She had walked down the road to the check cashing store to cash her support check. Then she had walked a littler further on to pick up some cigarettes and something to drink before she headed back home. She had left her two young children at home alone. And they had found one of her cigarette lighters. There was an awful home fire. Her five year old daughter was dead. Her two year old son was in the ER, fighting for his life. She was absolutely beside herself as she sobbed to me, "I never had them baptized! I never had them baptized!"

My own beliefs are deeply shaped by my more protestant background. I don't believe baptism to be something we do that forces God to do something that God isn't already wanting and willing and able to do! Baptism is our stepping into the love of God that is already operative for us. God had already loved that little girl so much, even though she wasn't baptized. That beloved little girl had already that day been welcomed into God's loving arms.

So I did the only thing I could do. I baptized that dead little girl. Brenda (the mom) and I went into the room where her daughter lay covered. I pulled back the sheet as her mother sobbed. And I said prayers thanking God for steadfast love that doesn't depend upon us getting everything 'right'. And I baptized that little girl, praying in my heart for Brenda as I knew she would have to deal with so many things anyway as she dealt with leaving her children home alone and the aftermath. She didn't need to wonder about God's love and welcome for her daughter.

Then I handed Brenda into the care of another chaplain and I headed to the ER room where the trauma team was prepping the two year old boy for a med-flight to a specialized children's burn unit in another city. The team found me some sterile water, a patch of skin that hadn't been burned, and I baptized Brenda's son. (He died two days later.)

It's not normal to baptize dead little girls. It's a little 'irregular', but it certainly was right. I helped Brenda carry her little girl into the light of God's love, and hopefully find herself there as well.

So, I've got a couple of other 'irregularities' coming up. Nothing of the crisis type that I've faced before, but I think that one has helped me truly connect with the love of God that runs under and through our act of baptizing. So I'll baptize an adult who has never come to worship with us, but who has found a place to belong and a welcome from God through being an active part of our main parish outreach - our thrift shop. He came to me, explaining how he has come to feel about belonging here. What it has meant to his life (not an easy journey he's been on). How he wants to 'officially' belong. God has reached out to him. We get to join in that welcome. How blessed we are to be able to be a part of that! (And how fitting to think of this as I begin to ponder the meaning of the parable we'll hear this coming Sunday - the one where some hear a welcome like this: "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you . . . for you gave me clothing.") And I'll baptize the children of a family that has connections with another church as well - - and will probably have those baptisms recorded there. But what a joy to be able to live beyond our own human definitions of "church membership" as we get this opportunity to celebrate the breadth of God's love, and the many ways and places that God uses in search of connecting with us. And I'll give such thanks with the families of the other two infants, as I rejoice in their ability to seek and find God's love in the everyday aspects of their journeys.

And I keep praying for Brenda, in her own journey. May God continue to be with her in her grief, and in her life.

Back to Work

It's been hard to find time to write - this being "back from sabbatical" life is busy!! My only other experience of parish life after a sabbatical was when I was the Associate, and the Rector had gone on sabbatical. I, the Associate, was around to make sure that things kept going and that we were ready for the Rector when he returned. Right now, I'm STILL trying to get the fall schedules done, and education running, and am sweating out getting an October newsletter put together.

But I do need to keep writing. I miss it! I don't do it quickly, or easily - but the discipline of reflecting on life and putting thoughts together into coherent sentences (as much as possible) actually helps me to sort life out. And I've still got so much to sort out from this summer.

So, tomorrow I'm going to try to move my 'sabbatical mode' (of being in the community and welcoming conversation) into my everyday life. I've got call forwarding added to our parish phone service. Our local coffee shop has free wi-fi internet access. So, I'm going to take my laptop, forward calls from the office to my cell phone, and sit at the coffee shop. I can start my sermon work, maybe write a blog entry or the cover article for the newsletter. But the point is to not do all that locked away from view in my office. At "The Met" I'll be generally visible and accessible to all. I think my real hope is to not actually get all that "work" done, but to make connections. To be available.

I guess if I'm going to sit at the coffee shop all morning . . . I'm going to have to switch to decaf?