A CHASING AFTER WIND

(a sermon for St. George’s Anglican Church,
Magnetawan, Ontario, Canada, 1 August 2010)

“The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities!
All is vanity.

I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; 

it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
--Ecclesiastes 1:1, 12-14

How amazing it is that the Book of Ecclesiastes is even in the Bible. It is a dark and skeptical book, known primarily for its despair that anything worthwhile can come of our earthly strivings. “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” it begins, and it does not let up. Everything is futile. There was a time when the Jewish rabbis were against including it in Holy Scripture.

Today, it is known as one the “wisdom” books of the Bible, including the Book of Psalms, Proverbs, The Song of Solomon, and maybe even Job. The wisdom books of the Bible don’t tell supernatural stories and miracles; they contain natural philosophy and an ordinary, earthly wisdom. If you know the Bible at all, you know that these books are not always cheery and hopeful. Instead, they represent humanity’s search for God in a deeply intellectual way, a hard, realistic way.

I love the book of Ecclesiastes, maybe ever since Pete Seeger wrote that great song of the sixties, “Turn, Turn, Turn.” “To Everything There Is a Season…” The lyrics of that song are almost entirely taken from Ecclesiastes:

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

In fact, Pete Seeger donates 45% of the royalties of that song to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, because he admits that, except for the music itself, he contributed only six words of the lyrics. Those are the lyrics that appear at the end of the song, “I swear it’s not too late.”

When the Byrds recorded that song in 1965, and it hit number one on the charts, it was proclaimed the number one pop hit with the oldest lyrics ever, because they dated way back to Ecclesiastes. The great line was that King Solomon had written a number one hit, since it was supposed that King Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes.

But Solomon probably did not write Ecclesiastes. It was someone called, simply, Qoheleth,” which means “the preacher.” He is called the preacher not like we might call Billy Graham the preacher. Qoheleth is a wise and crusty old man preacher, who does not seem to have a church at all; instead, he gazes sardonically at the world and speaks a wisdom that is self-authenticating. He does not need ordination, because everyone realizes immediately that his words ring true. He is the fool on the hill.

Even if they are dark and sometimes faithless, the words of the preacher, Qoheleth, ring true.

“Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” he says. “I, the Preacher, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.”

“A chasing after wind.” These words are worth reading every year, or even every month. The Book of Ecclesiastes has an edge, a dark side. It reflects the dark side of our souls. Remember, the dark side is not necessarily the bad side. It’s just the dark side, which, when we know it well, enables us to see the light all the better. When we know our own dark side, we are better able to know the light.

Ecclesiastes is like the poetry of great Canadian singer, Leonard Cohen. It is dark and sharp, revealing secrets that we would rather not admit. So, Ecclesiastes is the Leonard Cohen of the Bible.

“Everybody knows,” Leonard Cohen wrote, “Everybody knows that the boat is leaking, everybody knows the captain lied./Everybody got this broken feeling, like their father or their dog just died.”

“Everybody knows. That’s how it goes.”
“Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything.”
“Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.”

It is a chasing after wind, a chasing after wind. We all know that empty and frustrating experience. It is disheartening to be always searching, and to have that inner, gnawing feeling that our search is futile. All is vanity; all is empty. The Hebrew word for “vanity” is “vapor,” like an airy mist, a slight breath, that disappears.

Our search often presents the frightening possibility that perhaps we will not find anything. What if we have searched for ourselves all our lives and realized that we have not found anything yet? This is the truly desperate realization, a calamitous one. A chasing after wind.

But, this morning, I have another angle. I have another angle on what it means to chase after the wind. I have another direction from which that wind might blow.

The word for wind in the Bible is actually the same word as Spirit.” Ruah” in Hebrew and “Pneuma” in Greek. From Genesis to Jesus, the word for Spirit is the same word as wind. The Holy Spirit is often compared to the wind.

Across the world, throughout time, the wind rolls in. Sometimes from the ocean, sometimes from across the plains. Always the wind develops from the perpetual spinning of our earth on its axis. Movement is being generated. Clouds are gathering, but clouds are also dissipating. The wind blows in fair weather and inclement weather alike.

And there are times, beautiful times, when it is good to chase after the wind. Sailors on this lovely lake surely chase after the wind in our dinghies and sunfishes. We were chasing after the wind just this past week, just as Ecclesiastes says. Some of us look for the wind the moment we step out of our cabins or cottages.

The wind can be decidedly dark and negative. Like all of you, I can remember some scary storms on Ahmic Lake. I’ve seen a grove of trees leveled by a microburst. I have tried to paddle a slippery canoe against whitecapped waves being driven by a west wind.

The wind can flow right through you and reveal secrets you would rather not admit.

But the wind can also refresh. It can be the delightful refreshment on a hot summer afternoon. It can blow clouds in, but it can also blow clouds out. All this, I believe, is part of the identity of the Holy Spirit, the identity of God. God is in the wind.

When I spoke with my assistant this past week, I told her that I had sailed with my cousin in the Kelly Cup race, but that I had not done too well. The lovely Judy Johnson replied, “Does that mean you didn’t go very fast? Maybe that’s just because you were enjoying it longer.”

That’s now my line of the summer. I was just enjoying the wind longer (what there was of it). The next time you step outside, stop and sense the wind. Enjoy it. At that moment, you might realize something else: the ultimate reality is not us chasing after the wind. The ultimate reality is that the wind is chasing after us. It is the wind, the breath of God, the Holy Spirit of God, who is chasing after us.

I read the Book of Ecclesiastes earlier this summer, when I was on my annual sabbatical. That sabbatical is always a time for me to leave civilization in order to search for the wind again.

And this summer has revealed something about wind to me. I have been chasing after wind my entire life. In school, in relationships, in jobs, on hiking and canoe trips, in churches, in sports, in my writing and my own preaching.

I have been looking for something, searching, chasing after something that –most of the time-- I cannot quite define. I have been chasing after the wind, just as Ecclesiastes says. All is vanity and a chasing after wind. The same fate befalls the wise and the foolish, The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says, the rich and the poor, the smart and the stupid, the slow and the fast. All is vanity.

I have been chasing after wind. But I sure do enjoy it. Something in me knows that this chasing after wind is really a search for spirit. The wind is Spirit, a Spirit which can enliven and envigorate us with passion, even if we sense just a slight breath of it.

I think Jesus actually knew the Book of Ecclesiastes quite well. He knew about its wisdom, and he also knew about its references to wind. One night, in the dark, he told the old man Nicodemus, “Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3.7-8)

In today’s gospel, when Jesus speaks of a rich man who says to his soul, “Soul! Eat, drink, and be merry,” it is perhaps an allusion to Ecclesiastes. Jesus is building on that reference when he says that a person’s life does not consist of an abundance of possessions. Jesus is speaking to the soul. Remember, the soul is that part of us that seeks and senses Spirit. (Luke 12.13-21).

One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 104, which is really a praise anthem to all of creation. Verses 3 and 4 say of God,

“You set the beams of your chambers on the waters,
you make the clouds your chariot,
you ride on the wings of the wind,
You make the winds your messengers.”

Oh, Pete Seeger, in his time, wrote plenty more songs, including one called “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” The answer, as you may have heard, is blowing in the wind.

All this is testimony that if we study the wisdom books long enough, if seek the ordinary wind long enough, we will touch the Holy Wind, the Holy Spirit. If we study ordinary Nature long enough, we will be studying Supernature, the supernatural.

The answer is out there, blowing in the wind, carried on the wings of the wind. I say let’s keep chasing after wind. It’s not always vanity to chase the wind. It is a spiritual and deeply satisfying pursuit. It is the pursuit that leads to spirit and to energy, to the breath of God, to the Holy Spirit, of eternal life.

AMEN.

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

RIGHT RELATIONSHIP and THREE DAY ROAD

“‘Bearing Witness’ is the Quaker term for living life in a way that reflects fundamental truths. Bearing witness is about getting relationships right.”

So begins a powerful book on sustainable economy, written by Peter Brown and others, called Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy. They note that modern science has moved away from reductionism, and they claim that “physical substances work and exist in terms of highly complex, interdependent, and changeable contexts and relationships.” Thus, the authors take the traditional Quaker term “Right Relationship” and apply it more widely—to the earth itself, to what it means for humankind to live in right relationship with the earth.

The grand premise of the title is worth the argument of this book. It is as good a primer as any about current “economic sustainability” conversations and issues. Somehow or another, the human race is consuming more of the earth’s stored energy than the earth can sustain.

Consider two other fine quotations from the book: “The economy exists for respecting and preserving life, not getting rich. Its frame of reference must be the laws that govern the cosmos as well as the earth—not just, for example, the laws of supply and demand. The economy can grow too big for the earth’s ecological limits, which means that endless growth is an irrational goal.” And “Economics based on consumerism and obsession with growth has become, in effect, the modern world’s state-sponsored religion.”

The last chapter of Right Relationship contains some ambitious political projects, proposing new governance principles, federations, and courts, ideas about which I must reserve judgment. However, I recommend the first four chapters of the book for their analysis and, in fact, for their theology.

Many of you know that I enjoy spending the summer season in the woods and on the water of northern Ontario, Canada. In fact, it is a place where I continue to learn about the wonder of God’s creation, and where I continue to learn about living in right relationship—with others and with the earth. I realize humbly that Ojibway and Cree Indians, some of the people whom Canadians consider “First Nations” people, have known about right relationship with the earth for a long time.

Three Day Road, the 2005 book by Joseph Boyden hearkens back to Ojibway and Cree First Nations culture, customs, and history, even though it is set during World War I, “the Great War,” when Canadians are fighting in Europe. One of the great sharpshooters of that war was a Canadian First Nations soldier, Francis Pegahmagabow, whom the book honors. I highly recommend this book, though it’s a war book, with some gruesome and gory images.

Three Day Road is also a tender book about the transition—sometimes quite tragic—from ancient First Nation customs to modern Canada. Its author, Joseph Boyden, represents a bit of that transition. Of Metis descent himself (and Scottish and Irish), he lives in Ontario half the year, and in the other half he teaches at the University of New Orleans. Finally, of course, the book is theological; a “three day road” is quite a journey.

(from the weekly Cathedral Times newsletter, here)

THE BIRTHDAY OF WOODY GUTHRIE

On the Fourth of July, I always sing our official national anthem, written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, as he watched the bombing of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. I am a fan of Baltimore, and a fan of Francis Scott Key (a graduate of St. John's College, Annapolis, where my son also graduated).

However, on the Fourth of July every year, I also sing what I consider to be our nation's "unofficial national anthem," the great folk tune, "This Land is Your Land." The song represents the broad democratic identity of our country, and it speaks to our eternally hopeful and generous spirit. "This land was made for you and me."

It was the great folk hero, Woody Guthrie, who wrote that happy tune; and today, July 14, is the anniversary of his birth (today is also Bastille Day, when the storming of the Bastille prison added another spark to the fire of the French Revolution). Today, I salute Woody Guthrie's earthy wisdom and care for the common man (the common person). Those values are truly American.

BLESS THE PEACHTREE ROAD RACERS and GIVE THANKS FOR OUR COUNTRY

If you are running in the Peachtree Road Race this Fourth of July, swerve by the Cathedral of St. Philip for your holy water blessing! (Last year's video is on YouTube here. My remarks, "Why I Bless the Peachtree Road Race" are here.)

If you are not running, come to the Cathedral of St. Philip for praise and thanksgiving, using prayers for Independence Day, at 9:30 am (on the Front Lawn) and at 11:15 am (in the Cathedral).

God bless all of America on this Fourth of July! Join us in that blessing!

AN ARGUMENT FOR MODEST TRANSITION IN THE GAY MARRIAGE DEBATE

Jonathan Rauch is certainly on the progressive side of advocating for gay marriage (see his book, “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America.”); but his comments in The New York Times on 3 July 2010 ("A 'Kagan Doctrine' on Gay Marriage,") contain a modest argument for a transitional arrangement on the matter. Essentially, he recognizes that majority preference may be a valid justification for the definition of marriage. Recently in California, that majority vote (in Proposition 8) overturned the allowance of same-sex marriage; and, of course, many states presently define marriage as the lifelong union between a man and a woman, not between two persons of the same sex.

But Rauch seems satisfied to let the debate continue and for one side to gather majority strength, not to have a decision or definition explicitly handed down from the courts. He has same-sex marriage in mind, when he so interprets Kagan's careful comments, which were: “The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.”

Rauch may, or may not, be accurately interpreting Elena Kagan's remarks before the Senate confirmation hearings (that is another matter). However, he does use his interpretation of her remarks to construct a modest proposal. The proposal, he acknowledges, will "sting" both sides of the absolutist debate. (says Rauch: "She [Kagan] seems to be saying that protecting minority rights is the Supreme Court’s job description, but also that a civil rights claim doesn’t automatically trump majority preferences. This is something absolutists on both sides of the gay marriage debate don’t like to hear, but it has the virtue of being right.")

Of course, it will sting advocates for same-sex marriage, because the present voting California majority voted against same-sex marriage. However, Rauch's argument has the feature of allowing some future majority to determine otherwise. Thus, another vote, at another time (as different states presently differ in their various definitions of marriage) could overturn that definition.

The Episcopal Church has taken some historic steps in recognizing lifelong commitments between persons of the same sex, but we are also part of a larger, cultural discussion. Any permanent sort of progress will take even more time than many of us have already consumed. Jonathan Rauch's remarks remind us that political progress takes time.

Says Rauch: "the gay-marriage debate, while assuredly a civil rights argument, is much more than that. It is also a debate about the meaning of marriage, about the pace of change in a conflicted society and about who gets to decide. Whatever the activists on both sides say, nothing in the Constitution requires the Supreme Court to short-circuit the country’s search for a new consensus, either by imposing gay marriage nationwide or by slamming the door on it with an aggressively dismissive ruling. Sometimes the right answer for the courts is to step aside and let politics do its job."

I would translate Rauch's perspective into Episcopal ecclesiology in this way: Some parishes have determined that same-sex relationships should be blessed in a way equal to the blessing of a heterosexual marrage. Some dioceses have made similar determinations. The General Convention of The Episcopal Church may soon also affirm an offical public liturgy for same-sex blessings. But it would not be prudent for a parish to force that determination upon all its members, nor for a diocese to force all its parishes into such an agreement, nor for General Convention to force all dioceses to conform to one definition.

The work of the Holy Spirit takes time if it is to be truly long lasting. Legislative victories and judicial judgements are gratifying and worth celebrating, but they do not completely determine a matter. Often those victories last only as long as a quick seed sprouts and then withers because it has no depth of soil. It is the Spirit that provides the good soil, the depth of soil, that can bear fruit a hundredfold.

In fact, the process is a bit like marriage itself. No wedding ever determines a real marriage. A pronouncement may make the arrangement legal, and a priest may even bless the relationship. But the real marriage occurs over time, as two parties learn to live and to love together. They disappoint and they thrill one another. They betray and they honor one another. Ultimately, if they are truly married, they bless one another. It is that blessing, ultimately, which comes from God. It is of the Spirit, and it takes holy time.

ON STIEG LARSSON

I read Stieg Larsson's first two books last year. I ordered his third last Winter from the United Kingdom, because it was not due to be released here in the United States until this past Spring.

Suffice it to say, then, I am a fan. I am struck by an underlying moral code that drives both the main characters, when they, and much of their surrounding culture, live so easily in a liberal, rootless, world. Now, his early death and disputed, complicated, estate have become another installment in the mystery series (chronicled quite well in "The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson," by Charles McGrath, The New York Times Sunday magazine, 17 May 2010).

As a fan, I was delighted to read Nora Ephron's quick, one-page summary of the three novel drama, here in The New Yorker magazine (titled, "The Girl Who Fixed The Umlaut")! What fun!
.

MARTIN GARDNER HAS DIED

Martin Gardner was my guide as I wrote my Easter sermon of 2010, "Easter in 3-D! (Or, Believing Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast)" What a delightful man and delightful vocation! He has now died, and I remember him gratefully. Through the mercy of God, may his soul rest in peace.

Douglas Martin's obituary, in the New York Times, begins this way:

Martin Gardner, who teased brains with math puzzles in Scientific American for a quarter-century and who indulged his own restless curiosity by writing more than 70 books on topics as diverse as magic, philosophy and the nuances of Alice in Wonderland, died Saturday in Norman, Okla. He was 95.

...Mr. Gardner also wrote fiction, poetry, literary and film criticism, as well as puzzle books. He was a leading voice in refuting pseudoscientific theories, from ESP to flying saucers. He was so prolific and wide-ranging in his interests that critics speculated that there just had to be more than one of him.

His mathematical writings intrigued a generation of mathematicians, but he never took a college math course. If it seemed the only thing this polymath could not do was play music on a saw, rest assured that he could, and quite well.

“Martin Gardner is one of the great intellects produced in this country in the 20th century,” said Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist.

TO FEED, TO DANCE, TO SING!

TO FEED, TO DANCE, TO SING!

A Sermon Preached at the National Cathedral, Washington, DC (video here)
18 April 2010
The Third Sunday of Easter – Year C

“Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

Grace to you, and peace, in Jesus Christ our Lord! I bring you grace, especially, from the people of my home parish, the Cathedral of St. Philip, in Atlanta, Georgia. And I especially welcome the grace represented by my fellow deans from cathedrals across North America, gathered here at the National Cathedral for the annual North American Conference of Cathedral Deans. We are grateful for the hospitality of the Dean of this cathedral, my old friend Sam Lloyd, and his wife, Marguerite; and I thank the Bishop of Washington, John Chane, another old friend.

When Sam Lloyd invited me to preach today, he mentioned that he was asking me because I “have been doing this dean thing for quite a while.” And he’s right. I have been dean for quite a while, for sixteen years, for two different cathedrals, two different cities, and – at last count—for six or seven different bishops.

Six or seven different bishops! If you count people who were elected bishop but not consecrated, I have worked with seven different bishop types. (If you count standing committees, who were canonically in charge when the bishop’s office was vacant….well.)

This morning, I want to talk first about being a dean in the Episcopal Church. It is simple. Being dean of a cathedral is about dancing. And the first dance that captures our curiosity is the dance between bishop and dean. We have all heard that the relationship between dean and bishop can be awkward, notoriously so. Every cathedral has some variation in its governance, and every dean and bishop is different. What is the same is that successful deans and bishops know how to dance with each other.

But deans dance with a lot of people. We dance with congregations. We dance with cities. We dance with bishops. We dance with churches outside the country. We dance with persons outside the Church. We move from step to step. Sometimes we lead. Sometimes we follow. We look beautifully elegant one moment. The next moment we stumble in the mud. Sometimes we go where we wish; sometimes we go where we do not wish.

I mention dancing today because I think Jesus and Peter knew how to dance with each other. I do not mean walking on the water and then sinking in the water. I mean all their delightful and passionate negotiations between initiative and obedience. Perhaps the most curious example of their “dancing” is this famous “feed my sheep” passage in today’s gospel, when Peter and Jesus do a little linguistic dance with each other.

Many of you here this morning are churchgoers, and you have probably heard the story before. After breakfast one day, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me more than these?” Peter responds, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus says, “Feed my lambs.” Then the interchange is repeated. A second time, Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter says, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus says, “Tend my sheep.”

Finally, a third time Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” He is starting to sound like a teenaged lover at the dance. This time, Peter feels hurt because Jesus has asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” Peter says, “Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.” Jesus says a third time, “Feed my sheep.”

Those of you who have heard comment on this passage over the years, probably know that this conversation is actually a bit more complicated than the translation indicates. Since the beginning of Christendom, we have noted that Jesus and Peter are actually using different Greek words for “love.” When Jesus asks Peter the first two times about loving him, Jesus is using the lofty, divine word for “love,” the word agape. But Peter is responding, “Yes I love you,” with another word for love, the Greek word phileo.

“Do you love me with divine, self-giving love?” Jesus is asking Peter. Peter is responding, “Yes, I love you with brotherly love.” At the third question, Jesus actually changes to phileo, –brotherly love, instead of divine love—and, according to some, this is what hurts Peter.

Might there be some hidden meaning in the contrast between the two words? Some Dan Brown secret? Yes, there could be. C. S. Lewis wrote a masterpiece describing four different Greek words for love; it was the book, The Four Loves. For Lewis, each word for love has a holy component.

But what makes this linguistic dance such a delight is that the word “love” is not the only word used in two different ways in the passage. In this marvelous passage, there are not only two different words used for “love,” but also two different words used for “sheep” or “lambs,” and two different words used for the verb “to know,” and even two different words used for “tend” or “feed.” If we are not careful, we will trip over all sorts of translations here. Or we can be so confused, we will sit in our chairs like wallflowers.

No. I am among those who believe that there is no hidden meaning in the various translations of the word “love” here, or in the other words either. It is a dance with many steps; sometimes the feet go one way, and sometimes the feet go another way.

When Peter heard Jesus ask the question, “Do you love me?” he probably heard every note and overtone and variation of meaning that the word contained. And he saw every hue in the color of love. Every minister of the gospel, every follower of God, whether you are lay person, deacon, priest, or bishop, hears that same question: “Do you love me?” And it is fair, it is part of the dance, to interpret that question in all sorts of ways.

Every one of us, even when we have studied the classical definitions – eros, agape, philio, storge—has a different definition of what it means to love. No matter how we interpret the question, the directive of Jesus is the same: Feed my sheep. Take care of my people. Love my people. No matter how we might trip and tangle ourselves in the question, the directive of Jesus is the same. Feed my sheep. No matter how many web sites and news sources we visit, the directive of Jesus is the same. Feed my sheep.

Remember, everyone in this room is a minister. Everyone in this room is called to feed somebody. But we will all feed differently. Some of you feed with exquisite recipes and fine spices. Some of you feed with the latest in nutritious organics. Some of you feed with the same delightful dishes your mother, your grandmother, taught you long ago

Good cooking is like good dancing. It doesn’t happen by magic. It takes work. It takes exercise. It takes practice. Cooking does not come without knowing ingredients and chemistry – how this taste reacts with that spice, how long it takes for bread to rise. “Feed my sheep” means taking the time to learn how to do it well.

Feeding others, like dancing, then, is really an art. From the basic moves and skills, one composes a masterpiece.

I actually don’t cook very well, though I sure love to do it. My wife says I don’t dance very well, either; but I sure love to do it. Personally, my art is music; and every musician knows that, first, we learn our scales. Jazz is wonderful that way. Jazz requires me to learn my scales and then play from my heart. (That’s also a lot like being a priest.) It is an art.

In this city, politics, at its best, is the art. I am aware that, earlier this week, some forty-seven heads of state were negotiating here, dancing maybe, in the interest of nuclear security and peace.

We live for those moments when that mysterious mix of practice and love reaches a certain point that we call Spirit. You know that moment when the meal becomes exquisite, when the dancers are suddenly exalted, when the music transports our souls, when politics actually becomes beloved community. We call those moments holy. We call that point life-giving.

T. S. Eliott called it “the dance along the artery…at the still point, there the dance is…”

It takes a lot of love to learn the scales, to learn the steps, to learn the recipes. That’s why Christian do so much better when we actually love something. Christians do better when we love to dance, when we love to cook, when we love to feed – when we love our people, when we love Jesus.

“Feed my sheep” is the directive of Jesus for anyone, anyone, who wants to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and Peter. “Do you love me?” Jesus asked. “Do you love God?”

Then feed somebody. And feed them well. Learn about recipes and tastes. And learn about nutrition! Feed people with something worthwhile!

Do you love God? Then sing with somebody. Practice your scales. Use your head. And then let your heart go free!

Do you love God? Then dance with somebody. Learn some steps together. Learn to give and to take, to lead and to follow.

Dance with congregations and cities, local dioceses and overseas missions. Feed families and lovers. It doesn’t matter which word for love that you use. Love God and love your neighbor.

AMEN.
The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, Georgia
For the National Cathedral in Washington, DC

EASTER IN 3-D !! (or BELIEVING SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST)

EASTER IN 3-D !!

(or BELIEVING SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST



Why do you look for the living among the dead? –Luke 24:5

(a sermon for Easter, 2010. This sermon works better when the preacher wears 3-D movie glasses during the first paragraph!)

Welcome to Easter in 3-D! Yes, this has been a year in which three dimensional movies are making a comeback. Today some of us come back to church, and what we see is Easter in 3-D!

Like many of you, I had to see Johnny Depp in the new 3-D production of Alice in Wonderland. What movement! What realism! The movie combined all sorts of Lewis Carroll images and quotations, delights and imaginations. At one point, Alice turns to the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) and says, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Hah! But those lines are not actually in the original book, Alice in Wonderland. Historically, those lines are actually in Lewis Carroll’s second book about Alice, called Through the Looking Glass. Alice is actually complaining to the White Queen. “There’s no use trying,” Alice says to the White Queen. “There’s no use trying,” she says, “one can’t believe impossible things.” “One cannot believe impossible things.”

But the White Queen responds, “I daresay you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

It’s really the White Queen who says these delightful lines, but no matter. The movie takes liberties with the book, and that is fine with me. In fact, it’s better that way. Six impossible things before breakfast. The lines are supposed to be non-sensical and illogical. That’s their alluring delight.

Six impossible things before breakfast.

On this Easter Sunday, we have something in common with Alice. For one, we, too, will probably see a white rabbit today! But, more importantly, on this Easter Sunday, we are gathering to proclaim something impossible, belief in an impossible thing, belief in an impossible truth.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

A few days ago, we heard Pontius Pilate ask the question, “What is truth?” Or was it two thousand years ago he asked that? “What is truth?”

Some of us ask that question every day. Or every night when we are churning through the television channels looking for something of interest. Many of us have graduated from channel surfing to web surfing. It is the internet, now, that has an answer to every question we can possibly ask. And what a wonderland of truth seems to be out there!

Everybody seems to have some new truth they are peddling. No matter how ridiculous the claim is, someone will justify it by saying, “Well, I read it on the internet,” implying that there must be some support for the newest theory on who killed JFK. On the internet, there is a flat earth society on one site. At another site, there are purported photographs of archaeologists examining huge human bones, said to be the actual bones of prehistoric giants, thus proving the Genesis account that giant human beings once inhabited the earth.

The internet reminds me of the old court square surrounding the county courthouse where I grew up. There were all sorts of people, always hanging around there; but not everything said there had the same value. “I heard it at the court square,” had about the same value as saying today, “I saw it on the Internet.” Or “I heard it at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.”

“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate asked at his court square.

In this world of so many competing claims for truth, what is it that we proclaim today? “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” Is this just another impossible thing we are being asked to believe before breakfast?

Scholars and sceptics have searched for Jesus’s historical absolutes for generations. They look for simplistic absolutes. Was there even a historical Jesus? Can we describe exactly the details of the historical Jesus? Did the resurrection happen? Did it happen in the exact way that the gospels say it did?

Well, the best accounts of Jesus and Resurrection -- the four gospels-- all have different perspectives on how it happened. Then, St. Paul has even more accounts of how Jesus showed up after he was dead. The texts themselves differ. Can we prove the truth of the Resurrection by studying these texts over and over again?

I believe not. I do not believe the Resurrection can be proven historically, because historical proof is two dimensional. The so-called searches for the historical Jesus are similarly limited, like two dimensional realities. Two dimensional reality is true, but it is incomplete in compared with 3-D!

The Resurrection is three dimensional. In fact, the Resurrection is probably four dimensional and five dimensional. The Resurrection is bigger than any dimension we might use to measure it.

When the women friends of Jesus showed up at the tomb on that first Easter morning, they did not see a historical body at all. They saw two men –angels, I believe – in dazzling clothes; and the angels asked them a critical question, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

That’s the question I ask today. Why do we persist in seeking out life from places that are dead? We wake up lonely in the night and stroll through two hundred television channels. We surf page to page on the internet. We cruise from bar to nightclub to restaurant, searching for the next trendy spot. We buy this car, move to that house, dress in these clothes, go to that school, even give to that charity, thinking that maybe this endeavor will finally offer me truth, offer me satisfaction. Why do you seek the living among the dead?

The Resurrection of Jesus will never be proven by poring back over old literature and ancient texts. Oh, I love those texts as much as the next person; in fact, I probably love them more than most people. I actually love the bible.

But the bible does not prove Resurrection. The bible is only two dimensional. It is not wrong; it is just limited to two dimensions. The power of scripture is that it points to something else. The power of the bible is that offers something to our imagination. It inspires us to see another dimension.

Are we supposed to believe impossible things? Yes, because what is impossible in one dimension is very much possible in another dimension.

Mathematicians and physicists know this is true. Martin Gardner used to write regular columns about logic and mathematical puzzles in the magazine Scientific American. They were delightful because they pointed to another reality. People may not realize that Martin Gardner is actually a Lewis Carroll scholar, too. In fact, Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, was himself a mathematics professor, at Oxford.

Martin Gardner, the present-day mathematician, wrote a masterpiece called The Annotated Alice, full of notes and comments about Alice in Wonderland. It was that book and its notes that first pointed me to the old quotation of a second century Christian theologian named Tertullian. Gardner didn’t get it quite right: “I believe, because it is absurd,” he quoted.

What Tertullian actually said, in the second century, was “The Son of God was buried, and rose again. It is certain, because impossible.” It is certain, because impossible. The resurrection of Jesus is impossible in one dimension. But in another dimension, it is certain.

Today, Easter Sunday, we believe an impossible truth: Life comes from death. We are not here merely to say something historical about Jesus, that somehow his body was resuscitated from the dead. The Resurrection of Jesus does not mean the Resuscitation of Jesus. We are not here merely to say something about what has happened in the past. We are here proclaiming something about the present, right now, right in front of us.

So, today, we do not say “Alleluia, Christ WAS risen!” We say “Alleluia, Christ IS risen.” Right now. Christ is risen!

We are not proclaiming the Resurrection of Christ in the past, based on two-dimensional texts (though we do belive that). We are proclaiming the Resurrection of Christ in the present, in full array before us, in living 3-D!

You ask, Where is this three dimensional resurrection? It is all around you. The living community of faith is the real 3-D. People are the real 3-D. Simply reading about something is two dimensional; living it out is three dimensional. Even seeing a movie – even seeing a movie in 3-D! – is two dimensional. Even the virtual reality of internet is two dimensional. Living it out is three dimensional.

Why do you seek the living among the dead? Why do we seek the truth in things that do not give us life?

We find truth in communities of resurrection; and that is the claim I make this morning for the Christian church. At our best, we are a community of resurrection. The best proof of the Resurrection of Christ is not the bible. The best proof of the Resurrection of Christ is the Christian Church, the Body of Christ! We believe in death; and we also believe in life.

Sure, the Christian Church has problems. Sure, we have differences of opinion. We have various perspectives and angles! The very scriptures that we use to inspire our souls are full of various perspectives and differences.

But we live in Resurrection. We believe that Jesus died, and we believe that Jesus is risen. We believe in death and we believe in life. That’s why we observe both Good Friday and Easter. That’s why we sing hymns at funerals. That’s why we search through earthquake debris for signs of life. That’s why the Church builds great schools for intellectual achievement and hospitals for the sick. It is the Church who takes dinner to those who mourn.

Today, we do look for the living among the dead. Because we live in another dimension.We have met Jesus our Lord. We have met the risen Christ before, and we will meet the risen Christ again. We have not just read about Easter. We have seen in Easter in 3-D, in living flesh and blood!

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

AMEN.

Deep Thanks on Holy Saturday

Deep Thanks to beautiful church workers across the world today! Many have spent Holy Saturday setting up altars, arranging flowers, polishing, cleaning, washing, cutting grass, rehearsing music, yes-and even writing sermons, preparing for so many others to enjoy Easter tomorrow. Blessings to all of you! Practically speaking, Holy Saturday is actually a marvelously holy day of preparation in the Christian Church.

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.