THE FEAST OF JOHN DONNE IN THE YEAR 2020

THE FEAST OF JOHN DONNE
IN THE YEAR 2020

It is good, so good, that today, March 31, 2020, we keep the feast of John Donne! John Donne is one my personal heroes, because he was what I aspire to be: a strong poet and a devoted dean (though he was a brilliantpoet!).  He died as dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in London, in 1631.

Here is a quick review: Brought up a Roman Catholic just after the English Reformation, John Donne (born 1573) did not intend to become a priest or a theologian. He studied law and apparently had a way with women. His early poetry surely reflected that tendency, and his is still held as an example of superb love poetry! (Read the bawdy “To His Mistress On Going to Bed”!). When he fell in love with (the young) Anne More, her family did not give consent to a marriage, and so he eloped with her. Her father, therefore, threw Donne into prison. (He wrote, from prison, the short epigram: “John Donne, Anne Donne, undone.”).

It was only later that their marriage was declared valid. Still later, a friend urged ordination, and so he was ordained in 1615. Sadly, in 1617, his beloved wife died, five days after the birth of their twelfth child together. Donne would go on, however, to become dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, and write some of the most sublime poetry of England.

Well, on this March 31, 2020, we are living in a time of both disease and imprisonment. The COVID-19 illness has infected all of us, either with the virus itself or with the fear of it and the precautions against it. We, all of us, are affected by the disease. We are also affected by a kind of prison: our homes!  Most of us are confined to our homes voluntarily, but still our homes can seem like prisons to us. We are stuck.

In this situation, read John Donne! John Donne knew of love and prison and illness. And he wrote deeply and powerfully about the presence of God in all those conditions. When he lay ill in his older years, he wrote (in Hymn to God, My God, In My Sickness):

I joy that in these straits I see my west;
     For though their currents yield return to none,
   What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
     In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
     So death doth touch the resurrection.

But Donne may be most well known by words which ring true, so true, today, from his Meditation 17, NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS [Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.]

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he know not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me. 

…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

….  No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Today, March 31, 2020, we know again the same thing that John Donne knew: no person is an island. We are connected. Sorrow and joy affect us all. Love affects us all. In all those conditions, God, our holy and passionate God, ravishes us wherever we are, in prison or in illness or in joy or in love. Batter my heart, three-person’d God!

AMEN.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
31 March 2020

THERE IS A CRACK IN EVERYTHING

(The sermon from Sam G. Candler on 13 November 2016)

In scripture, we hear the hopeful words of Isaiah repeated forever: “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth” and “Behold, I am about to do a new thing. From Psalm 98, we hear, “Sing to the Lord a new song.” And from Saint Paul, we hear, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians  5:17). Even in the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, we hear the words, “See! I am making all things new!” (Revelation 21:5).

I have been inspired by these words, even though I know they are also the most difficult words in the Bible. The most neglected commandment in the Bible – the least followed commandment in the Bible! – is that seemingly innocuous repeated commandment in the Psalms “Sing to the Lord a new song!”

“Sing to the Lord a new song!”  we smile to each other. But we rarely, very rarely, actually enjoy any new song (especially in church!). The old ones are just fine by us! In fact, we get angry at the new songs. Why can’t we just sing the same old stuff? We get angry at those bringing us new songs, and we fire them.

The reason is this. For almost everything new coming into our lives, something old has to depart. Something old has to pass away. Leonard Cohen sang about it like this: “It looks like freedom, but it feels like death. It’s something in between, I guess. It’s closing time.” Those departures, those deaths, are not pleasant. They are painful. They make us sad; and sometimes the deaths make us angry.

What a week this has been. On this particular Sunday of the year, a lot of people have been wondering what I would say in today’ sermon  -- including me.

If this week is what new life is like, I admit it has not been pleasant. Our country has lived through a tumultuous national election, when, once again, more popular votes were cast for the loser than were cast for the winner. Yes, the loser of the popular vote won.

On the day after the election, I wrote that this past year’s campaign has been about feeling: the lack of it, on one hand, and especially the anger of it on the other hand. That anger, so incessantly inflamed and exploited, will not go away soon. It is arising anew within allies now, and even friends and colleagues are turning against each other. Anger, and downright meanness have somehow been endorsed in this election. Racist comment and misogynist comment, and fear-of-the-foreigner comment, have been loosely and wickedly strewn all over the country.

People have said that they take the comments and character of our president-elect “seriously but not literally.” Well, that’s a phrase I usually like. I say that about the Bible a lot: “take it seriously but not always literally.” But words matter. One cannot throw words into the public arena and then pretend they don’t exist, or pretend they were a joke. It takes a long time to repair mean words.

I do not think that such behavior is the new heaven and the new earth that God is talking about in the Bible. Biblical virtues take a long time to develop. Character takes a long time to build.

Yes, what a week. I understand that new life always seems to involve something old passing away. But I would rather be preaching about the death of my hero, Leonard Cohen, the poet and musician who died this past week. He was able somehow to communicate the deep light of life that appears even in deep darkness. God resides in the darkness, in the cracks, in the beautiful losers. He sang, “Everybody knows the war is over; everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight is fixed; the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.”

Cohen’s words were the most humble, the most lowly of words. People considered him despondent, but he knew how to dance, he knew how to dance to the end of love. So long, Marianne. So long, Leonard, a sportsman and a shepherd. “Hineni, hineni,” he sang, in Hebrew. “Here I am; I am ready, Lord,” he sang, just days before his death.

Yes, I would rather be preaching about other deaths.  Like the death of our dear, dear parishioner, Ruth Vaught, another one of God’s humble and serving saints. She was about service, she was about grace and hospitality. She insisted that she be called “Old Woman,” and I admit I could never call her that. But today, in the kingdom of heaven, she is a New Woman. She is a new creation in Christ.

I would rather be preaching about the honor of military veterans, on this Sunday after Veterans Day, remembering faithful men and women who served our country, often without accolades or applause at all. I salute the service of my own father, who served in the United States Air Force, and who is the reason I myself was born on an Air Force Base.

Yes, I do realize that old things have to die as new things are born. This is actually the reason I could never support the slogan, “Make America Great Again.” I can’t go back to the 1950’s, the decade in which I was born, or even to the 60’s, the 70’s, the 80’s, when I was growing up. Hey! I love those old songs, too! But the phrase of Thomas Wolfe rings much truer to me: “You Can’t Go Home Again.” The world changes, the world evolves; and with the grace and love of God, the world usually, over time, changes for the better.

This week demands that we be on record, that we witness for what we believe, as individuals and as the Christian Church. My witness is that most of the changes in this country have been for the better, not for the worse. The United States of America is a strong country because we are against racism, and we are against using racism to advance popularity. We are against the abuse and ill treatment of women. We are against the mis-trust of foreigners. And this is the claim of the Christian Church, too. We are against accusations without evidence; we call that false witness.

As a Christian, I am for, I am for, so much more. I am for the equal treatment of God’s great diversity of people in this country, for the dignity of blacks and whites, Christians, Jews and Muslims. We call it dignity and respect for God’s creation. Christians are for other great new things in our country, too. I am for same-sex marriage. I am for women’s reproductive rights. I am for the welcome of immigrants.

This country has accomplished much in moving towards that new heaven and new earth that God has for us.

Another thing must be said today. I must speak to white men, in particular. Here is what I say to white men: Be a man. Be a man. A good man does not act crudely toward women, and a good man honors the power of women. I know many white men have lost jobs in the past twenty years. But so has everyone. Nothing makes you any more distinctive than other demographic groups. You will lose to women sometimes, and to black men sometimes. So goes life. I am a white man, and I myself have had those experiences. Usually that defeat has come fairly and evenly. So goes life.

I have learned – from Leonard Cohen maybe! – that it is loss, it is loss, that enables my new life to flourish. “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in,” he sang. Hey, wait! Those are the words of Jesus: “the person who loses their life, finds it.” And they are also the words of Saint Paul, who said that “God’s grace is made perfect in weakness.”

Here is the full quotation from Thomas Wolfe’s book: "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time." You can’t go home again.

The Christian claim is that God always calls us to the future: to new life, new heavens and a new earth.

Two weeks ago, I preached at a most sad service, the funeral of someone who had committed suicide. Most of us know that death is often incomprehensible. We can never answer the “Why” questions surrounding death. And deaths by suicide are even more incomprehensible. The more data we discover, the more we realize what we don’t know. We will never be able to analyze completely. We will never know.

The gist of what I said at that suicide funeral was this: God never puts things back together the way they were exactly. God never restores the old. Instead, God creates the new. We always want the old back. But we can’t go back. We can only go forward. Behold, says our God, I create the new.

Our call, our vocation, is to be part of what God is creating. That new creation is always bigger than any one person, no matter who that person is.

I am glad to be in church today. This particular parish, this Cathedral community, wants to be part of God’s new creation, but we know that God’s new creation is always about service. We are named for St. Philip, a deacon, one who serves. If there is any one Bible verse that should define us, that verse is Luke 22:27,  “I am among you as one who serves.” If we ever write any words on the front point of the Cathedral, the overlook,  I want the words to be those of Jesus: “I am among you as one who serves.”

Good government is about serving, too. At our best, the United States of America realizes this. Good government is not about winning. Good government is about serving. Good government is not about winning! Good government is about serving! That principle is God’s new thing in the world. Jesus said, “I am among you as one who serves.”

One might say that institutions are under severe critique and suspicion this week. Political institutions, government, the establishment, the church! In this day, however, I am glad, and proud, to be in a Christian Church, and in this particular church, the Cathedral Parish of St. Philip. We belong to a communion that is larger, and older, and more expansive even than our own country. We gather together because we know that God is faithful when we make the right choices, and God is faithful when we make the wrong choices.

We serve for the long term, because we know that virtue takes a lifetime to create. Good character is built over a lifetime. We are trying to be part of God’s new creation, long term. We do not shame people in this community. We do not intentionally embarrass people. We respect all of God’s creation here. We dignify all people. Like Cohen, “we tell the truth, we didn’t come to fool ya.” We know we have cracks. We know we are weak. But we know God is strong.

We allow many voices here, but we do not let people rest simply upon their own opinions.  We speak another opinion, too, the one that is for the common good, the long-term good, the virtuous good, the new creation good of God. We are the Body of Christ, the one who said, “I am among you as one who serves.” We want to be that light –the light of the world! – that is getting in through the cracks. That is why we sing our song. That is why, even at the grave, we make our song: “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.”

AMEN.

ON THE OBSERVANCE OF GEORGE HERBERT

This week (February 27), the Episcopal Church will observe the feast of George Herbert, surely one of the finer poets in our tradition. Here is but one example of his work:

THE AGONIE

 

        Philosophers have measur’d mountains,

Fathom’d the depths of seas, of states, and kings,

Walk’d with a staffe to heav’n, and traced fountains:

        But there are two vast, spacious things,

The which to measure it doth more behove:

Yet few there are that sound them; Sinne and Love.

        Who would know Sinne, let him repair

Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see

A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,

        His skinne, his garments bloudie be.

Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth pain

To hunt his cruell food through ev’ry vein.

        Who knows not Love, let him assay

And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pike

Did set again abroach; then let him say

        If ever he did taste the like.

Love is that liquour sweet and most divine,

Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.

However, the figure of George Herbert, country parson, has also assumed a legendary and misleading image. In a little treatise called “The Country Parson,” Herbert laid out a set of admirable criteria for what makes a successful parish priest. Those attributes of soft and genteel politeness have often been lambasted and critiqued, recently by Justin Lewis-Anthony in his delightful book, “If you Meet George Herbert on the Road, Kill Him.” Lewis-Anthony noted that Herbert, in reality, was not really such a removed country parson. His little parish church was actually within walking distance of the high culture of Salisbury, and –even then—Herbert served there less than three years. He didn’t really pay his dues!

Here is what Justin Lewis-Anthony wrote in The Guardian, June 2, 2009: “Close your eyes and picture a vicar of the Church of England. Whether you are a regular churchgoer or someone who once watched an episode of The Vicar of Dibley, your mental image will more than likely be this: a smiling, benign, inoffensive and unworldly cleric. This image has its origins in the life and ministry of one man, George Herbert (1594-1633).  … …. Too often Herbertism gets in the way of Christianity. The solution must begin with ridding the false memory of Herbert, who he wasn't and what he didn't do. Much of our reverence for "George Herbert" is the worshipping of a fantasy pastor, an impossible and inaccurate role model, a cause of guilt and anxiety. Like the Zen Master, if we meet George Herbert on the road, we must kill him.” (The Guardian, June 2, 2009).

George Herbert was actually born in Wales, and there is another Welsh-born poet and priest, a more contemporary one, whom I highly recommend for a fine model of country clergy. He is R. S. Thomas, a great giant of a poet. I can print here only a portion of his poem, “The Country Clergy,” but look it up. It is an excellent and rugged juxtaposition to Herbert’s fantasy country parson. From Thomas’s “The Country Clergy:”  “

I see them working in old rectories  

…They left no books, 

Memorial to their lonely thought 

In grey parishes; rather they wrote 

On men’s hearts and in the minds 

Of young children sublime words 

Too soon forgotten. God in his time 

Or out of time will correct this.

THE SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN AS WISDOM LITERATURE

Several books of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, defy easy moral category. They are not really law, not really history, and not really prophecy. While they offer some practical wisdom, some of their passages cannot really be understood as moral example for us, either. They are the Books of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and The Song of Solomon. Most of us are familiar with some of the Psalms, many of whose verses really are morally exemplary. However, the Psalms cover the full gamut of human experience and emotion, and not just the comforting aspects of human emotion. Much of the material in the Psalms is sheer human fear, not necessarily exemplary at all. For instance, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is the agonizing question of Psalm 22; we hesitate to think that God would even forsake us, and yet these are the words that our Lord Jesus quoted on the cross in his death. The Book of Job recounts the terror and confusion and suffering of one who is truly innocent; saints and sinners alike, through the centuries, have asked the same question as does the Book of Job: "why do the innocent suffer?" The Book of Proverbs contains clever and practical aphorisms, but one wonders about any divine revelation there. The Song of Solomon is, pure and simple, an erotic love poem; one can interpret it as a love song to God, but it reads much more easily as a love song between two human beings! Finally, we have probably all been fascinated with the Book of Ecclesiastes: "Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity. ...I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind." It was Ecclesiastes 3 that was turned into a popular folk by Pete Seeger in the 1960's, "To Everything There is a Season; Turn, Turn, Turn" (Pete Seeger just died this past January 27; thank you, Pete for having fulfilled your purpose under heaven; may you Sing Out in a new life!). There is not much miracle and supernatural revelation in these books of the Bible, and yet we acknowledge that they contain much wisdom, wisdom that can rightly be called spiritual. They have come to be named the "Wisdom Literature" of the Bible. I have come to see the same sort of wisdom in a poet and singer of our own generation, Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen, now almost eighty years old, grew up Jewish in a Christian school in Montreal (he has said, "I love Jesus. Always did, even as a kid. I kept it to myself; I didn't stand up in shul and say 'I love Jesus.'" (from Sylvie Simmons' biography of Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man, Kindle location 325). However, the life, songs, and poetry of Leonard Cohen also defy religious category. In my estimation, his work represents a spiritual "wisdom tradition" in our own time. He writes and sings about love, struggle, solitude, despair, and relationships - in both the human and divine aspects of all these topics. And he does so with a whimsical poetic spirit that takes us to a dimension that is as deep as his voice! On Sunday, February 2 at the Dean's Forum I presented an introduction and overview of the wisdom literature of Leonard Cohen. Perhaps some of his songs will be familiar to you: he wrote "Suzanne" back in the 1960's ("Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river"), but he also wrote "Hallelujah," which has been covered by so many artists in recent years. Show me the place, help me roll away the stone, Show me the place, I can't move this thing alone. Show me the place where the Word became a man. Show me the place where the suffering began. (Leonard Cohen, "Show Me the Place," from the album, Old Ideas)

ADVENT: A HOLY AND A BROKEN HALLELUJAH TO YOU

Alan Light has written a book about my hero, Leonard Cohen, titled The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah.” Actually, the book is really about how the song “Hallelujah” (written by Leonard Cohen) became so powerful.

I have yet to read the book, but I will. In one way, I don’t need to read it, because I already know the song. The song is said to have been undiscovered until Jeff Buckley resurrected it; but I, and many other Leonard Cohen fans, sure knew it. We have heard Cohen himself sing it in different ways. He is said to have written some 80 verses of the song before deciding on the four that occur in his album, Various Positions (1985); he has sung others since. And whatever the number of verses, one of those verses will always be:

There's a blaze of light

In every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken Hallelujah!

Advent, and even Christmas, can be times for brokenness. Broken toys, for instance. There will be some broken toys this Christmastide, startling introductions for children to the way the rest of their lives will be.

Broken promises. Maybe it was a gift that you were promised last year. Maybe it was something you promised several months ago that you just cannot fulfill now. Broken plans. One family member wanted to visit one in-law, but the other family member had another in-law in mind. Maybe some illness prevented the perfect plan. “My water has broken,” she said. That means a birth is coming, doesn’t it? Advent is, indeed, about a birth coming, but something has to break first.

The season itself is broken, isn’t it? We don’t know whether we are supposed to be still lingering over Thanksgiving, or being joyful, or refraining from singing Christmas carols because it’s not really Christmas yet. Are we supposed to be happy now, or preparing for something else? We don’t know.

Well, in the midst of whatever has broken this December, let me assure you that something holy is here. In fact, the most holy pieces of our lives are often the most broken pieces. I mean our hearts, our lives, even our hopes and dreams. We’ve all lost things in our life’s journey. I believe that what makes a place holy is that we have lost something there; we have given up something. What makes a life holy is that it knows how to lose things. One reason graveyards are holy is because they represent lost lives. Churches are holy because we give up things there; I hope we give up our lives there.

The Hallelujah that emerges from brokenness is a holy Hallelujah; it is a genuine Hallelujah. That’s why the Book of Psalms is so full of Hallelujahs; those psalms are as much about sadness and loss as they are about hope and victory. They are holy.

So, don’t be afraid if something breaks this Advent, of even if you break something. That brokenness can be an occasion for holiness. It can be an occasion to sing Hallelujah. When Jesus came into the world so long ago, the world itself was overturned. Mary said “God has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” In fact, the power of sin was broken. The power of death was broken, simply in that miraculous birth. In the end, brokenness is the real reason we sing Hallelujah: the brokenness between God and humanity is healed! The division is made one. God is made flesh in Jesus Christ our Lord. Hallelujah!


(This article originally appeared at Episcopal Cafe on 12 December 2012. Check it out!)

AT THE EASTER VIGIL

The sky is still deep dark    When pinpoints of people, like stars,    One by one, in quiet procession,    Precede the dawn.       White hot Vega gazes down from overhead,    And Arcturus shepherds us into a circle    Around the slight spark,    And now a fire, rising from Good Friday.    When the bonfire roars, a bright blindness    Transfixes our eyes, and flames,     Rise still higher    Until they cast a golden crown around    Every face there.    In that moment, I see no bodies    Or fine clothes, or Easter bonnets,    For they are still hidden in the darkness,    Buried with the rest of our worries    And evening pains, and Saturday graves.    I see only faces, beautiful icons    Glistening in resurrection glory,    In moist anticipation of baptism,    Just before sunrise.    It is the only time we can ever look     Directly at the sun,    When it is on the horizon,    At the edge,    Of something new.