BURNING BUSHES

On the Saturday before the Third Sunday in Lent, I stood around helping my brother burn off some of the woods. My father was there, too. My brother-in-law, my mother, my wife were there. A family afternoon. Burning the woods is a regular affair on the farm where I grew up. I was glad to turn aside that day.

My brother had a nifty device filled with two-thirds diesel and one-third regular gasoline. When lit, its twisted nozzle functioned like a flame thrower, but it really just dripped fire out into the pine straw and bushes and sweet gum saplings. We always have to get rid of the sweet gums. My brother had already driven around the designated patch of woods with his tractor and plow, carving out a shallow fire line.

Burning the woods is critical to clearing out the underbrush that might start another, more serious, fire in those woods. But its main accomplishment is to clear out the underbrush for more birdlife and wildlife, and to provide for sturdier pines and primary trees.

We watched the wind, and we set the fire on the leeward side. That way, the fire would stay controlled and burn backwards into the wind. Fire likes to feed into the wind, probably like all of us do. And fire really does start quickly. I watched with my folks, mesmerized by the sheer chemical reaction spreading before us. We talked randomly about whatever was on our minds. Younger folks might call it "hanging out." Hanging out is much more enthralling when a fire is burning before you.

Occasional sparks drifted out over the fire line, and we put them out. A few of the larger pines caught fire at their bases. The water from the back of my fathers's four-wheeler put it out easily. That four-wheeler is really a mule, but it's a different sort of mule from the one that trudged through these same fields so long ago.

We heard a pileated woodpecker and then saw it sail through the glade in front of us. We listened to still another flock of sandhill cranes, but we never saw them, above the thick pines towering over us. We wondered why several deer sat nonchalantly in a nearby thicket, watching us, but never running away. Too many tame deer these days.

The next day I was at church, hearing about Moses, who turned aside from tending his family's flocks one day. He watched a bush being burned and yet not being consumed, He heard an angel remind him of his father's God. "I am who I am," Yahweh said. Holy ground.

Holy ground is where fathers and sons can stand around together. Mothers and daughters, too. With nothing important to do except burn something. With nothing important to say, except maybe "It is what it is." The standing around is more fascinating than the words. Something powerful is burning all around us. It burns, but it does not consume. Instead, it enthralls and inspires. Fire destroys the straw, but it germinates the seed. Fire creates fertility. Burning bushes makes for holy ground.

(this piece was orginally posted at Episcopal Cafe. Check it out!)

THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL AND THE LOST

Many people have admired Rembrandt's portrayal of the Return of the Prodigal Son. Fewer people have noticed another Rembrandt perspective, of The Prodigal in the Tavern. Centuries ago, the masterpiece "Parable of the Prodigal Son" --with its various scenes of sin and grace-- afforded proper artists a chance to paint rather risque scenes. Rembrandt is said to have inserted his own image as the prodigal in the tavern.

THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL AND THE LOST

a sermon of 14 March 2010
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia

There was a man who had two sons. --Luke 15:11-32

Children’s Sunday schools across the world have learned this story as the parable of the prodigal son. The impatient and impudent younger son asks his father for a premature distribution of his inheritance. The younger son becomes “prodigal,” a new word for most Sunday Schoolers; we were taught it meant lavishly extravagant, profligate, irresponsibly wasteful, maybe irrationally exuberant. A prodigal person is not careful; he doesn’t care if he loses everything.

Thus, the younger son travels to a far off country, where, apparently, he spends everything he has. He does lose everything. He has been so irrationally exuberant that he finds himself desperately hungry, feeding the unclean swine of the region. He begins to envy what the pigs are eating. But he finds himself, scripture says; he “came to himself.” That is one of the several lovely phrases of this familiar parable; the younger son “came to himself.” Maybe he grows up. He decides to return to his father, with words of sturdy repentance on his lips.

The parable might have ended here, with an ending that would have suited moralists and Sunday School teachers for centuries. Don’t be irrationally exuberant, impatient and impudent. Don’t ask for something that isn’t yours yet. Don’t squander your life in dissolute living. That’s a fine lesson!

But the parable does not end there. Suddenly, the word “prodigal” begins to describe, not the younger son, but the father. While the younger son was returning, but still far off, it is the father who becomes irrationally exuberant. He is “filled with compassion,” another lovely phrase in this parable. “Filled with compassion,” means he was loving from his guts. He was moved, deeply moved.

It is the father who is prodigal now, lavishly extravagant, running to his younger son and throwing his arms around him. The father calls for the best robe, the finest formal dinner jacket. He calls for a ring. He wants sandals to adorn the very feet which had wandered into perdition.

And wait, there’s more! Like a late-night television commercial, “Wait! Wait! There’s more!” He summons for the fatted calf, the best one, one that every family was nurturing for the finest celebration. No “time-out chair” for this returning, repentant child. The father doesn’t care if he loses all his property again, for this guest of honor.

So it is that older Christians, past childhood Sunday School age, begin to call this story “the parable of the prodigal father.” That father represents the unsearchable grace of God, a grace that rejoices prodigally, pours itself out lavishly, when a lost child returns.

Once again, the parable could end there, and it would be a tremendous example of the grace of God. But the parable does not end there.

There is another brother, the older brother. Ah, what sadness for the older brother. His is a disconsolation that resounds through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. All through the Bible, older brothers lose the blessing of God.

I must confess personally that this pattern of scripture loses me, for I am an older brother myself. So I notice sharply that almost every older brother of scripture loses the blessing of God. The pattern starts with the very first older brother of scripture, Cain. Remember Cain? Cain is a tiller of the ground, and Abel, his younger brother is a keeper of sheep. Genesis says quite openly that the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but not for the older brother Cain’s offering. Cain becomes so angry that he kills his younger brother Abel.

Esau is the older twin brother of Jacob, but he loses his blessing to younger brother; Jacob retains the blessing even though he achieved it by deception! Later, the older sons of Jacob are not nearly so blessed as Joseph, a younger son, or even as blessed as Benjamin, the very youngest son, whom his father apparently loved the most. When Israel is searching for a king, the prophet Samuel studies all the older sons of Jesse, but he finally gets word from God that it will be the youngest son of Jesse, young David, who will be king.

Finally, the pattern reaches a climax with Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son and prodigal father. There is an elder son in the parable, who becomes angry and refuses to go into the house where music and dancing and all sorts of commotion are occurring. They are calling it celebration. But the older son is devastated. And his accusation against his father is devastating.

“Listen,” he says to his father, “for all these years I worked like a slave for you! Like a slave. I followed all the rules and customs and traditions. I was not the impatient one who weaseled an early inheritance out of you. I never disobeyed. I never disobeyed one of your commands. But you, you never even gave me a common goat, much less the fatted calf. You never even offered me one of the common goats that I might celebrate with my friends.”

“But when this son of yours comes back. This son of yours – for I am not even sure he is my brother anymore—when he comes back after having over-consumed everything. That money he spent was yours! He spent it on prostitutes! When he comes back, you kill the fatted calf for him. What is this?”

The prodigal father replies that the older son is always with him, and he says “All that is mine is yours.” But we do not hear again from the older son. The parable leaves him with wasteful and irresponsible bitterness. Perhaps he, too, the older son, is a prodigal character: irresponsibly lavish with anger and resentment. He was willing to lose everything in his anger. Maybe it is he who is lost, now.

This parable of the prodigal men, two sons and a father, becomes complete only as Christians grow older, from childhood morality, to adult grace, and then to the complexities of family life and group dynamics. When we are young, we relate to the prodigal younger son. When we are older, catching our first glimpses of unmerited grace, we relate to the prodigal, graceful, father. When we begin to develop families and households, when we begin to lead organizations and deal with group dynamics, we discover the older son who is so prodigal with his anger and resentment. How will we act when grace is given to others, but not to us?

Of course, we don’t enjoy identifying with the older brother. We don’t enjoy the older brother at our dinner parties either. But we know he is there. He is here. The older brother is part of every household. In fact, the older brother is probably somewhere inside each one of us.

We have choices in life, and this beautiful parable – a masterpiece parable—presents us a model for several of them. We can choose to presume more than we should. We can choose to squander our life with a premature inheritance. We can choose to come to ourselves. We can choose to return to love. We can choose to welcome home the scoundrel. We can choose to drink that special bottle of wine, the one we have been saving forever. We can choose to drink that special bottle of wine tonight. We can choose to remain outside the house. We can choose to waste and squander our life with bitterness and resentment. We can choose to celebrate.

This parable of the prodigal three men, the parable of the prodigals, is really about us. It is about us at each and every part of our lives. As we learn about money and living. As we learn about repentance and grace. As we learn about anger and resentment. As we risk losing things. And then as we do lose things in life and then find them again.

And the older we get in life, the more things we lose. The father in this parable lost a younger son, lost his property, and then it looks like he may have lost an older son. But he gets them back. And he gets them back with a grace that defies explanation.

Does God ever lose things? Apparently, God does. This parable of Jesus, the parable of the prodigal, occurs as the first of three stories that Jesus tells in Luke, chapter fifteen, about lost things. One sheep out of a hundred is lost, but heaven searches for that lost one. A woman loses just one of ten silver coins, and turns the house upside down looking for that one coin. When she finds it, she calls all the neighbors over for a party; “rejoice with me!’ she says.

Those are the two stories Jesus tells before he tells this one, not about a lost sheep or a lost coin, but about a lost son, maybe two lost sons. Maybe losing things is a part of life, and a part of the Christian life.

If so, then finding things is also a part of life, and a part of the Christian life. God really does want us to be a rejoicing community. We are meant to be celebrating people. We are meant to be lavishly extravagant in our celebrating.

“Child, you are always with me, even if you seem to be lost right now. All that is mine is yours, even if you resent how I use it, and even if someone else claims something too soon and even if that someone squanders it all. All that is mine is yours, what I lose and what I find. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

Jesus talked a lot about losing things. And, then, even he was lost. But in Christ, lost things are found. In Christ, the dead come to life.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

THE SEARCH FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS

 

Who is the real Jesus? I am having great fun reviewing The Historical Jesus search on Sunday mornings at the Cathedral of St. Philip !! 

(The podcast is at http://www.stphilipscathedral.org/sermons_Candler.html)

ARTISTS NEED ENCOURAGEMENT -- AND WE ALL DO!

I play piano on occasion, and I love it. People who hear me play, or watch me play, realize soon enough that I love it. What people may not understand, however, is the anxiety I carry with me whenever I play piano in public.

At one time, I intended to play jazz piano in life, or to compose, or to do both. That anxiety, still present today, is probably the reason I decided, long ago, that I would not make the piano my vocation. Another reason I withdrew from a musical vocation, however, is that I considered myself simply not good enough. I love to play piano, but I have much more fun playing as an amateur, with the piano as an avocation -- not a vocation.

Even today, when my dear wife hears me play piano at home and says to me, "You really are very good," I think she says that only because she is supposed to; she is an encourager from begining to end. I know all the mistakes I am playing, and I know how far short my performance falls -- and I am not even a professional critic!

On the other hand, I tell my wife, I actually need those words of encouragement. Even if I have heard them before, even if I know the words might become routine from people who love me, still something inside me craves the attention and even applause.

Thus, I was encouraged to read a column from Terry Teachout, in the Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2010 ("The Unsure Artist"), who speaks about the longing for positive reinforcement, encouragement, that most artists seem to carry with them. Again, fortunately, I do not count myself a professional artist; but I do know there is something artistic about me, in both my music and my priesthood.

Teachout speaks about the great jazz clarinetist, Bennie Goodman, and his daring decision to play jazz at Carnegie Hall in 1938. Why take that daring leap? For Teachout, "the answer, I suspect, is because Goodman, for all his popularity, was deeply unsure of his musical worth and longed for the cultural legitimacy that a sucessful appearance at Carnegie Hall would confer." Teachout continues that "few artists, no matter how celebrated they may be, are strangers to fear and uncertainty."  He mentions John Keats (who died claiming that he had left no immortal work behind him) and Benjamin Britten (who, supposedly, threw up every time he played the piano in public).

Finally, we hear what Orson Welles told Peter Bogdanovich, "A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day; we need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves."

Each of us is an artist, in some way. Each of us shows up, at some place in life, to add our work and creativity to the situation at hand. Whether we actually call ourselves "artists," or not, all of us carry anxiety and uncertainty with us through life. The words of Orson Welles are words for us us no matter what our vocation is. We need encouragement! It takes, perhaps, ten words of positive encouragement to overwhelm one word of negative anxiety.

I Salute "Beach Attitudes" by Robert Dana

(Robert Dana died a few weeks ago. Blessed be he, and blessed be his poetry.)

BEACH ATTITUDES

by Robert Dana


Blessed is the beach, survivor of tides.

And blessed the litter of crown conchs and pen shells, the dead
blue crab in all its electric raiment.

Blessed the nunneries of skimmers,
scuttering and rising, wheeling and falling and settling, ruffling
their red and black-and-white habits.

And blessed be the pacemakers and the peacemakers,

the slow striders, the arthritic joggers, scarred and bent under
their histories, for they're here at last by the sunlit sea.

Blessed Peoria and Manhattan, Ottawa and Green Bay, Pittsburgh,
Dresden.

And blessed their children.

And blessed the lovers for they shall have one perfect day.

Blessed be the dolphin out beyond the furthest buoy,
slaughtering the bright leapers,
for they shall have full bellies.

Blessed, too, the cormorant and the osprey and the pelican
for they are the cherubim and seraphim and archangel.

And blessed be the gull, open throated, screeching, scolding
me to my face,

for he shall have his own place returned to him.
And the glossy lip of the long wave shall have the last kiss.


"Beach Attitudes" by Robert Dana, from The Other. © Anhinga Press, 2008.

Sam Candler Plays Austin, Texas

Sam Plays Austin, Texas:

My thanks to Bill Sachs (and my new friend Taylor Mundy) who talked me into playing, and bribed the regular pianists into letting me, at "Pete's Dueling Piano Bar" in Austin, Texas. My daughter, who just played at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, Georgia was impressed. I feel cool again!

Ash Wednesday Haiku

To church for ashes
Today, signs of earth, dust, signs
We are down to earth.



(May God bless us today
In a down to earth way)
Sam Candler

LUX ET VERITAS

Lisa Miller continues to write truly informed pieces about religion in Newsweek magazine. I salute her essay this week (Newsweek, Feb. 11, 2010 ), wherein she investigates the internal professorial disputes at Harvard University and whether their revision of curriculum might include a course called "Reason and Faith." She notes that Harvard University includes no "Department of Religion."

At one point, she notes that "Harvard's distaste for engaging with religion as an academic subject is particularly ironic, given that it was founded in 1636 as a training ground for Christian ministers. According to the office of the president, Veritas was only officially adopted as its motto in 1843..."

Thus, I am proud to be a graduate of the divinity school at Yale University, whose motto is not simply "Veritas," but "Lux et Veritas." Light and Truth! There is a truth deeper even than rational truth. At its best, that deeper truth does not contradict rational truth; in fact, that deeper truth --Light!-- leads and inspires all good critique and all good rationality.

Honest Communication can Strengthen Bonds of Affection

The speed of modern communication has contributed both to the strengthening of bonds of affection, and to the frazzling of such bonds, among Anglican Christians. So it is that others in the Anglican Communion of Churches have taken increased notice of recent General Conventions of The Episcopal Church. In turn, we in The Episcopal Church can also follow the proceedings of the General Synod of the Church of England. Unfortunately, we often monitor each other only by reading broadsides and blogs; the crude generalities there have often been damaging.

As The General Synod of the Church of England proceeds this week, one particular motion for consideration urges the Church of England to develop a relationship with the "Anglican Church of North America." That group, of course, consists mostly of dis-affected former members of The Episcopal Church. The paper seems to make inaccurate claims about The Episcopal Church.

However, I salute the work of Simon Sarmiento in the Church of England, who has written a careful refutation of those claims. His paper can be found here, at his blog, Thinking Anglicans.  I also salute Tobias Haller, who seems to have assisted Sarmiento, and who has written his own note to General Synod of the Church of England on his blog, here.

It takes effort to maintain bonds of affection, and part of that effort involves speaking truthfully, communicating honestly. It means being present with our brothers and sisters, no matter what the issue is. I understand and appreciate disagreement. But I appreciate even more those who take the time to set the record straight. Let us pray that our bonds of affection will enable us to speak the truth in love, more and more.

ON FRANNY AND ZOOEY: HERE'S TO J.D. SALINGER

J. D. Salinger has died, and I must mark the moment by praising one of the finest books I have ever read. It is not The Catcher in the Rye, easily the most notorious of Salinger's slight body of work. It is the small volume, Franny and Zooey (see here for a helpful summary).

Speaking of "small volume," note the very opening words, in the overly modest front inscription:

As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, "genius domus" of "The New Yorker," lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born artist-editors, to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.

Who can resist reading the book which begins like that? Franny and Zooey is a book about prayer and breakdown, about family intimacy and public audience, about morons and geniuses, about identity and integrity, all set in the long weekend of an earnest college student around 1955.

Franny is learning to pray the Jesus Prayer and carrying around another slim volume, The Way of a Pilgrim. Zooey is her lovable and faithful brother, who tries to comfort her when she appears to be cracking up. There are other members of this highly educated and intelligent family.

It is the passage at the very end of the book that has stayed in my conscience for most of my life. Zooey is speaking on the telephone to Franny, but he has pretended to be another brother, named Buddy. Franny sees through the deception, but the conversation continues. Zooey quotes another older brother, named Seymour. Thus, using telephone and ruse and quotation of other people, Salinger confuses the very stability of identity. Who is actually doing the talking? (Add to this that the narrator of the book is actually the brother named "Buddy").

It does not matter who is doing the talking, Salinger seems to be implying, in a spectacularly Buddhist "non-identity" way. It is the advice of the older brother, Seymour, that becomes important -- important to writers and actors and anyone who is an artist. I daresay that the notion of "artist" here means any person of integrity in the world. Seymour had told Zooey always to shine his shoes before he appeared on the television game show "Wise Child" (on which show all the children had appeared at one time or another), this despite the fact that no one could ever see his shoes.

Anyway, I started bitching one night before the broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door.... I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to them for the Fat Lady (Franny and Zooey, Boston: Bantam edition. Little, Brown, and Company, 1961. p. 200).

As Zooey tells this story, and how he obliged in shining his shoes for the Fat Lady, Franny remembers Seymour saying the same kind of thing to her. "He told me, too," she said into the phone, "he told me to be funny for the Fat Lady."

So Zooey continues:

Yes. Yes. Yes. all right. Let me tell you something now, buddy....are you listening? [note that "buddy" is also the name of their other brother, "Buddy" who is narrating the larger story]. I don't care where an actor acts...But I'll tell you a terrible secret--Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know--listen to me now-- don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? ...Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ himself. Christ himself, buddy. (Franny and Zooey, pp. 201-202).

I give nothing away if I say that this passage is at the very end of the book. For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands. After this, Zooey cannot talk anymore; it is as if words have ended.

As the world knows, J. D. Salinger did not publish much. Apparently, however, he wrote very much. I think of another of Zooey's remarks to Franny: An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's (Franny and Zooey, page 199). Here's to you, J. D. Salinger. May your soul rest in peace.

LANNY DAVIS ON BLAMING THE FAR LEFT FOR MASSACHUSETTS RESULTS

Lanny Davis, a loyal Democrat, has written some clear reflections on why Massachusetts voters supported an independent-minded Republican over the Democrat (who, a month ago, was the presumed winner). (see The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, 20 January, 2010.)

"Somehow, in the last 12 months, we allowed the party of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to morph into the party of George McGovern (or more accurately, his most ardent supporters) and Howard Dean, who called for the defeat of the Democratic health-care bill if it had neither a public option or Medicare buy-in. (He couldn't possibly have been speaking for the 31 million uninsured people in taking that all-or-nothing position.)"

..."Bottom line: We liberals need to reclaim the Democratic Party with the New Democrat positions of Bill Clinton and the New Politics/bipartisan aspirations of Barack Obama—a party that is willing to meet half-way with conservatives and Republicans even if that means only step-by-step reforms on health care and other issues that do not necessarily involve big-government solutions."

I agree with him that good politics always progresses incrementally. When politicians stretch for too much, too soon, too ambitiously, they will lose.

MEDIA CHARACTERIZATIONS OF ANGLICANISM ARE MISLEADING

An Associated Press story of 16 January 2010, used by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, unfortunately repeats a misleading and simplistic historical claim, that “Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused marriage annulment.” I appreciate any true news story, but it is an error to supply a simplistic historical background to an issue that is religiously complex.


The Anglican Communion of Churches, including the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, has long been different and separate from the Roman Catholic Church. The popular and juicy story of Henry VIII and his obsession for a male heir (not just an annulment from Catherine of Aragon), while fun to repeat, can not be used as the point of separation between Roman and Anglican Christianity.

For instance, kings of England long before Henry VIII called themselves the Head of the Church in England, including William the Conqueror after 1066. Remember, too, that conflict between local versus Roman authority in the Church of England was the reason Thomas a Beckett was murdered in 1170. Finally, readers might recall that the Church of England returned to obedience to the Roman Catholic Church after Henry VIII and his son Edward died, when Queen Mary I ascended the throne in 1533. It was actually Elizabeth I, not Henry VIII, whose rule finally separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church (Elizabeth was not excommunicated by the Pope until 1570).

Today, what is referred to as “The Anglican Church” is more accurately referred to as “The Anglican Communion of Churches,” and not as a centralized and universally hierarchical structure like the Roman Catholic Church. The Anglican Communion of Churches traces its historical roots to England, for sure, but, more importantly, to an ethos of local authority and respect for indigenous spirituality. This is why The Episcopal Church established itself separately from the Church of England in 1789. The Episcopal Church, for better or worse, is not under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury; neither are the Churches of Nigeria or Uganda, for better or worse, under the authority of the Church of England or the Archbishop of Canterbury.

One can argue whether this “communion of churches” structure succeeds in proclaiming and serving the Christian gospel, just as one can argue whether a more centralized and universally hierarchical structure like the Roman system succeeds. In fact, I have no problem with the Roman Catholic Church providing a spiritual home for Anglican Christians who want a more centralized ecclesiology (which was the point of the AP story on 16 January 2010).

My own opinion is that God uses both church structures; different gifts of different Christians can be inspired by either structure, or by both systems. However, please do not confuse the two ecclesiologies, either historically in their development, or presently in their contemporary attempts to proclaim the Christian gospel.

ARE WE PAT ROBERTSON OR DANNY GLOVER? OR ARE WE A SIGN OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD?

THE FIRST OF THE SIGNS OF JESUS
(a sermon for 17 January 2010)


According to the Gospel of John (John 2:1-11), Jesus performed the first of his miracles at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It was called the first of his “signs,” where he revealed his glory.

But listen closely this morning, because I want to start this sermon by referring to a different gospel than the one we have just heard. In the middle of the Gospel of John, some of the disciples of Jesus ask Jesus a hard question. These disciples see a man blind from birth. They ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned? Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:1-2)

I reckon it was the sort of question Jesus received often. Every religious figure is asked such a question when tragedy, or suffering, or death occurs. Who is to blame? Who sinned? Where we can we register our complaint? But Jesus, as he often did, refused to be constrained to a false choice. “Neither this man, nor his parents, sinned,” Jesus said; “rather, he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” (John 9:3)

In another gospel (Luke), Jesus makes a similar point. Apparently, in Jesus’ time, a tragic accident had occurred. The Tower of Siloam had fallen and killed eighteen people. Jesus asked his disciples, “Do you really think these eighteen people were any worse sinners than anyone else?” (Luke 13:4). Of course not.

Still, his disciples, when they encountered tragedy and suffering, would ask the question, “Who sinned? Who is to blame?” These were recurring questions for Jesus, and they are recurring questions for us. Some people have asked similar questions this past week. A powerful and tragic earthquake has struck Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

While many people have been about responding with prayer and money and aid, others have begun to ask the same old human questions, “Who was at fault? Was it the Haitians, or their fathers? Was it this generation of citizens or a former generation of leaders?”

What would the media do without poor old Pat Robertson, who seems to be always available during a tragedy to testify to the clumsy and weaker minds of humanity. One of his responses, as you might have heard, was to blame. He actually said that this week’s earthquake was one of several consequences of a pact that Haitians made with the devil during their revolution from slavery. The absurdity of this claim defies any logical response. But, suffice it to say, Pat Robertson not only got his theology wrong, he got history wrong, too (the successful Haitian revolution and resistance occurred against Napoleon Bonaparte, not Napolean III).

Pat Robertson, unfortunately, has become a caricature. His comments have become so buffoonish that it is easy to see through his weak intellect.

But what about Danny Glover? I actually like Danny Glover and his acting. But he, too, said some rather silly things following the Haiti earthquake. His comments were more trendy, so they did not get reported as widely as did Robertson’s.

It seems that Danny Glover blamed the Haiti earthquake on climate change. Now, I actually believe that the earth’s climate is changing, and I actually believe that some of that change has occurred because of the irresponsibility and ill stewardship of humanity. But I do not believe the Haiti earthquake resulted from what we failed to do at Copenhagen a month ago, a connection that Danny Glover did try to make.

Again, his response is like that of so many of us, whether we are conservative or liberal. We try to place blame. We ask, “Who sinned?” Be careful ridiculing Pat Robertson so much that you do not realize what Danny Glover said. Be careful ridiculing anyone else so much that we do not realize what we ourselves are doing!

In fact, the Haiti earthquake occurred because earthquakes always occur. The great earthquake of Lisbon, Portugal, in 1755, also produced theological response and blame (do you know Voltaire’s Candide?). The earthquake of San Francisco in 1906 did the same.

We human beings are destined to construct buildings on earthquake faults, and earthquakes will always occur. I agree with the columnist David Brooks, who noted this week that in 1989 a 7.0 earthquake occurred in San Francisco and 63 people died. Last week, a 7.0 earthquake occurred in Haiti, and it is estimated right now that perhaps 100,000 people have died.

Brooks pointed out that the tragedy in Haiti is not an earthquake issue. It is a systemic poverty issue. Will we continue to provide the same shallow relief that simply makes us feel useful? The same shallow relief that simply assuages our guilt for a season? Or can we actually inspire people and countries to build infrastructure and plan for the long term? San Francisco and Lisbon learned from earthquakes.

We are beginning to hear some miraculous stories from the Haiti earthquake. Friends and family members have used their hands to dig out survivors from the rubble. Missionaries have vowed to return to the poor. Airplanes and doctors and supplies and food are flying in.

But, remember this about miracles. The true miracles of the world happen over time. They do not happen instantly, or without preparation and hard work. The world remembered Captain Sully Sullenberger this past week, he who landed his crippled airplane right on the Hudson River, without losing a single one of the 155 people aboard. That happened a year ago this past week. That emergency landing did not happen randomly, as if by luck. That captain had spent hours, years, a lifetime, flying airplanes. He was prepared.

The miracles of life take preparation, and they occur over time. The signs of God’s presence in the world take preparation.

Where was I? Didn’t I start this sermon by talking about signs?

Yes, the gospel for today is one of my favorites, the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding, when all the regular wine had run out. What a great party guest Jesus turns out to be!

Many scholars argue that the first part of the Gospel of John is structured around signs, or miracles – maybe seven of them. Jesus miraculously turns water into wine (the first of his miracles), he heals an official’s son and then a lame man. The feeding of the multitude is his fourth sign, and then there’s the healing of the man born blind, the man about whom the disciples asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” According to the structure of the gospel, this would be the sixth of Jesus’s miracles.

But the Gospel of John does not call them miracles. The Gospel calls them “signs.” In the bible, a miracle is really anything that points to God. A miracle is anything that is a sign of the grace and love and power of God.

Jesus came into the world to be a sign of God, to point to God, to give evidence of the power and love of God. The Gospel of John organizes itself around these signs, and the first one – the very first one—occurs at a wedding.

I believe that Jesus shows up in tragedy and crisis. In the cries of pain and loss in Haiti this week, Jesus has been there. Jesus has been present with the caregivers and diggers and helpers in such tragedy. Jesus has been present with those who mourn. Jesus will be present at miraculous recoveries and with the healing power of doctors and nurses. The signs of the presence of God are those wonderful men and women who have showed up to help. The signs of the presence of God will not be among those who are blaming; the signs of the presence of God will be among those who are responding –responding with love and care and wisdom.

Yes, Jesus is present in tragedy, and Jesus will always be present in tragedy. But Jesus likes to be present at weddings, at times of rejoicing and merriment. Jesus shows signs of glory everywhere, healing the sick, assisting the poor. But, according to Saint John, Jesus performed his first sign, his first miracle, at a wedding.

So, friends, never be afraid to celebrate. Never be afraid to offer joy. Never be afraid to give thanks, just as you have heard this past week the voices of those Haitian citizens who were actually singing hymns to God in the middle of the night, following the earthquake. Singing hymns.

Never be afraid to celebrate. Never be afraid to offer joy. Never be embarrassed or sheepish to turn water into wine. According to Saint John, it was at a wedding, at a time of celebration, when the wine had run out, that was the first place in which Jesus revealed his glory.

AMEN.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

On Mary Daly and Catholic Progressive Theology

Charlotte Allen has written a useful summary of the heroes of "Catholic dissent," and I applaud the Wall Street Journal for publishing it (15 January 2010). It is titled, "As the Flame of Catholic Dissent Dies Out."

Essentially, Allen laments that there has been no "second generation of brilliant progressive Catholic theologians." She cites Hans Kung, Charles Curran, Edward Schillebeeckx, along with Mary Daly, and Sister Sandra M. Schneiders, as some of the first generation. Curiously, however, she seems to conclude that conservative Catholicism is also in weak, or "niche," shape. Allen claims that the weak theological foundations of contemporary conservative Catholicism has resulted in there being nothing substantial to "rebel" against; thus, there are few second generation progressive Catholic thinkers.

It's a good thought. It prompts me to wonder whether there is even any "market" for strong theology, in the Roman Catholic Church or in any Church. Our religious debates and arguments, so quickly assembled and properly aligned with either the right or the left, suffer from the lack of a common and mutually accepted tradition.

That "mutually accepted  tradition" should be "orthodoxy." Such is certainly my claim. I enjoy vigorous debate among people who, ultimately accept each other's faith and even each other's orthodoxy. However, our quick religious skirmishes, increasingly magnified into battles by the shallow media and even shallower blog vents, have often resulted in antagonists denying any orthodoxy whatesoever in their opponents.

We live in an age of "competing absolutes," as I have called it (see my sermon of April 20, 2008). Perhaps it is part of our politics these days. "Competing Absolutes" means that we accept only those friends and allies who are 100% for us, and we accuse any nuanced or slightly disagreeing person as being 100% against us.

God is larger than our differences. God is larger, even, than our sense of absolutes. I look forward to a kingdom of God where people of good will and good faith enjoy diversity of opinion because we trust ultimately in something larger than ourselves (and larger than our own opinions and theologies). I trust in a God who is ultimately beyond our understanding, and whose peace I seek daily.

WHAT ARE THE FIFTY MOST IMPORTANT RELIGION FILMS?

A group called Film Snobbery has released its list of the fifty most important religion films of all time. (Thanks to Christianity Today for referring me.)

For me, almost any film can become a religious experience, just as music --almost any type-- can become a religious experience for people. I wrote last Spring, for example, about the religious power of Clint Eastwood's character in the movie, Gran Torino. That is a provocative, tremendous, certainly religious movie -- so much so that I used it for the essence of my sermon on Good Friday of 2009.

While not identifying itself as religious, as such, Gran Torino's final scene (with Clint Eastwood's deceased character shaping the clear form of a cross) is beautifully religious. "Film Snobbery's" list identifies some all-time greats, for sure. I am glad that Dogma was included. The Last Temptation of Christ should also have been included.

However, my own nomination and addition to the list would be another movie that was implicitly religious, and even symbolically religious, but which rarely has been explicitly identified as such. It is Places In The Heart, with Sally Field in one of her best (though earnest) roles, joined by the inimitable Danny Glover and John Malkovich . The assembly of outcasts which brings in the first cotton crop is a striking allusion to certain Hebrew scholarship, which scholarship identifies the Hebrews who escaped Egypt in the Exodus as actually an assembly of outcasts.

Then, the final scene of Places in the Heart is one of the most overt representations of "Eucharist as heavenly banquet in the kingdom of God" that I have ever seen. Perhaps the religious sense of that scene requires that one know a bit about sacramental theology. Then again, one does not need to know theology to sense that Holy Communion is an experience of both the divine and the human -- all of humanity.

Again, any movie can point to the Holy. Any movie can be religious.

I do applaud this list for the movie it deemed number two on this all-time list: The Gospel According to St. Matthew, one of the rarely seen movies of the life of Jesus. One of this movie's many striking features, besides its portrayal of Jesus as so hard and fierce, is that the entire dialogue comes straight from the actual Gospel of Matthew; there is no other script used than that of the actual New Testament Book of Matthew.

Thus, it was difficult for people to complain that the movie made Jesus out to be a class-conscious Marxist (which it did), for it ascribed no other words to Jesus other than those in the New Testament. Even when we use the same words, each of us sees Jesus as someone different. See that movie!