The Pickens Progress is a lively weekly newspaper for Pickens County, Georgia, a rural county of about 30,000 people in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. Each month, a different member of the clergy contributes a 500 word piece for a religion column. It was my turn in October, 2009, and I submitted the following four columns. It was a chance for me to do something quite different from what my colleagues usually did. Frequently, they would subdivide a sermon into four parts, and often the sermon would focus on what would happen to people who disregarded God's behavioral expectations. I wanted to show, by way of contrast, how Episcopalians read the Bible and how our faith informs our lives.
Week 1:
James, the Apostle who doesn’t talk much
The disciples—apart from Peter-- don’t talk much in the Gospels. But we do hear James and John—together—in one important conversation with Jesus. You can read about it in Matthew 20.
Neither of them comes out looking very good. They are hoping to get some respect and honor out of their involvement with the One that they imagine will soon be the earthly ruler of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Unless you consider it in its larger context as it appears in Matthew, you won’t catch the really deep irony of the request. Jesus has just made the statement that is in some ways the key to understanding the “rules” of the Kingdom of Heaven:
“The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.”
To illustrate what he was talking about in more concrete terms, he told the parable of the Generous Employer who pays a bonus to the unfortunate employees who were hired only very late in the day. The Kingdom of Heaven works by different rules, much more grace-filled rules, than the world we know now. Jesus then went on, as he and his disciples headed up to Jerusalem, to explain that, once he got there, he would be betrayed, arrested, beaten, and crucified—and raised on the third day.
THEN James and John show up, with their Mom. Mrs. Zebedee makes the Big Request: “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left.”
Jesus politely says to Mrs. Zebedee: “ You do not know what you are asking.” Then he turns to the two boys and addresses them directly: “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”
They simply toss off the reply: “Sure; we can do that.”
“Well,” says Jesus, “you WILL drink the cup. (You’ll get the suffering that is the true legacy of all who seek the Kingdom of Heaven.) But the privilege of sitting on my right hand in the Kingdom is not mine to give.”
In the entire New Testament, there is no record of a single word that James ever says by himself. He is the quiet member of the Inner Circle. He was there on the Mountain of Transfiguration, and when Jairus’ daughter was raised from the dead. He was there, dragged by his mother, perhaps, into a conversation about what really matters.
And he was there, a faithful witness, not only to the death, but also to the resurrection of Jesus as the Young Church grew. He was there still, a faithful witness to the power of God to transform lives when persecution came to the Christians. James was the first, but not the last, of the Twelve to be killed as a martyr.
Thanks be to God for disciples like James! They remind us that we can make big mistakes, we can have fundamental misunderstandings of what God up to, and God will work with us until we understand better what his plans for us are. They remind us that we need not be famous or leave a legacy of words to be faithful. They remind us that it is a privilege and an honor to suffer in Christ’s name.
Week 2:
Mary, the Mother of Jesus
I grew up in an evangelical denomination. When Wayne and I became Episcopalians, the church we joined was “Anglo-Catholic” and had life-size images of Jesus and his Mother. The priest there would speak of Mary as Our Lady. I didn’t know what to make of it.
Soon afterward, I went off to a very protestant seminary, Princeton. Surely God has a sense of humor. For there I met Mary in my church history courses as Theotokos, a Greek word that means, “One who gives birth to God.” Giving Mary that title was saying that Jesus, who grew in Mary’s womb, is God. I came to understand the traditions of the Church about the perpetual virginity of Mary as an extra-Biblical expression of the immensity of Mary’s responsibility and responsiveness to God. Language about Mary’s virginity was more about Jesus than it was about Mary herself.
Then Wayne and I were ready to start our family. While pregnant myself, I re-considered the role of Mary, pondering the miracle of nurturing a life inside me. At a medical appointment just at the end of my first trimester, however, the doctor could no longer find a heartbeat. I was devastated. Mary became my companion in grief, and the words I took into my heart were those of the elderly Simeon, that he spoke to Mary when she took Baby Jesus to the temple. Simeon blessed Jesus and then he added, quite mysteriously, “…and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35). For several months I walked in companionship with Mary, the Mother of Sorrows. I thought about Michaelangelo, who in his Pieta, captured something of the depth of a mother’s grief at the death of her own child.
Somehow, miraculously, God brought healing and hope. In the next seven years, we had five children. As the years passed, my understanding of the Communion of Saints changed. C.S. Lewis, writing on prayer, helped me to see that God, who calls us into eternity from the moment we, like Mary, say “Yes,” gives us companions on the way to pray for us. Lewis thought that, since Christians share now in eternal life, if I can ask you to pray for me, and offer to pray for you, then we may ask those who have died to pray for us. Lewis’s comment opened the door for me to join with my Catholic sisters and brothers in asking Mary to pray for me. Praying the Rosary then became a part of my spiritual practice.
Recently I have begun to think about Mary as the classic, even archetypal example of what a human being, fully open to cooperating with God’s Spirit, can be and do. Mary was a mighty woman because she knew the mighty power of God.
Mary said “YES” to God’s call. She rejoiced to yield fully to the power of God’s Spirit at work in her. From her body came Jesus. The early Christians saw in Mary the Archetype of a fully human being, fully open to God’s grace. The Grace is God’s! The Glory is God’s! As God raised Jesus, and his resurrection defeated death, so God took Mary home, exalted to glories that she, and we, could never imagine. That is why the traditional words of the Hail Mary so appropriately conclude: “Mother of God, pray for us sinners now AND at the hour of our death.”
Week 3:
The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
Remember a high school English class where your teacher tried to get you to appreciate stories for more than just their plots? One of my teachers, Mrs. Leak, had us identifying literary techniques. Our favorite was the Christ Figure. Simon was a Christ figure in The Lord of the Flies, and we were sure they lurked in most novels. With gratitude to Mrs. Leak, I invite you to look closely at Luke’s narrative of the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.
Luke begins with Zechariah and Elizabeth. Though they ought to deserve the blessing of children, they have none. The term “barren” applied to them—as it did to Rachel; to Samuel’s mother, Hannah; even, in the prophetic writings, metaphorically to the nation of Israel at a time they felt forsaken by God. Angels announced the birth of children to Abraham and Sarah, and to Samson’s parents. Now, in Luke, the angel Gabriel came to Zechariah in the Jerusalem Temple, with word that Elizabeth would soon be a mother. The first hearers of Luke’s Gospel, who knew these stories from their Hebrew scriptures, would smile and recognize that God was about to do something wonderful for Elizabeth and Zechariah.
Elizabeth remained secluded while her precious and miraculous child developed, secluded, inside her womb. Meanwhile, the angel Gabriel is sent to a small town in rural Galilee, to a young woman going about her everyday tasks. (Can you hear Mrs. Leak saying “foreshadowing!” –which you can only know has taken place in retrospect—and that, she said, is why good literature bears reading again and again.)
(And can you hear Mrs. Leak saying “Watch for contrasts, people!”) Elizabeth, long married, was almost past hoping for a child. Mary, recently engaged, was just beginning to imagine life with her future husband, Joseph. For Elizabeth, pregnancy was something to share joyously with the world. Yet she goes into seclusion for most of her pregnancy. Mary, pregnant out of wedlock, goes out into public and makes a journey to see her relative, Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, a priest, and therefore one who represents the people before God in word and deed, has lost his voice. Mary and Elizabeth have found theirs. In the double seclusion of the womb and of his mother’s withdrawal from the world, an unborn child leaps for the joy of recognition of the Savior of the world. Nothing in the text tells us that Elizabeth knew Mary’s situation when she walked into that house, dusty from her journey. The first ones to welcome the Savior of the world were women. In a family where the man has been silenced, the voice of the wife rings out with joy. What a reversal of all that is expected!
Literary analysis helps us to plumb the depths of this story. The narrative is richer and more wonderful when we pay close attention to its contours. But still we must listen to that cynical 14 year old boy in the back row who asks: “So what???”
Here are two things I think God says to us, 20 centuries later.
First: Elizabeth recognized the presence of God in Mary. In the Visitation of Mary, Elizabeth recognized God’s Great Visitation to humankind. Similarly, God visits us through our neighbors.
Second: Mary wasn’t alone when she sang her song. Elizabeth and Mary were together, and their joy increased. In community, there is joy, a recognition of God at work, and strength and power and insight.
This may be the day that somebody looks at you, with all your imperfections, with all the things about yourself that you wish were better—and you may be the very person in whom Christ shines forth for your neighbor. You may in a sense be—oh, Mrs. Leak, rejoice!—a Christ figure for your neighbor.
Week 4:
Halloween and All Saints
Many churches recognize Sunday, November 1, as All Saints Day. In the English-speaking world, this day was also called All Hallows. Lots of little people, and many older folks who enjoy costumes and parties, are likely to be pretty tired Sunday morning, because the night before is Halloween.
Halloween has a far higher profile in the secular world than does the Christian feast of All Hallows or All Saints. Most people who put spooky and even downright macabre and scary decorations in houses and yards have totally lost touch with the religious roots of their practices.
When Christian missionary monks came to pagan Britain and Ireland more than a thousand years ago, they encountered people who had a yearly festival after harvest to honor the beloved dead and to appease the spirits of those whom they had reason to fear even after death. People would disguise themselves on the night that they believed the dead could return to the world of the living. They would put lights inside hollowed out root vegetables. It was a frightening, strange night. Christians, after the resurrection of Jesus, no longer fear death in the same way they once did. While the act of dying may sometimes be painful and very literally de-humanizing, we believe that death brings us into a different kind of closeness with God. So the monks took that scary night and “hallowed” it by making it a day to give thanks for and take inspiration from the saints who, according to the New Testament teachings of the books of Hebrews and Revelation, are present with God where there is no more sorrow because God has dried all tears, where there is no sin because God’s forgiveness has been freely received, and where there is no longer any separation or alienation from God, the source of all love and goodness.
The English word “hallow,” familiar to us from the Lord’s Prayer, is related to the modern German word for “holy,” heilig. On All Hallows, we give thanks to God for the holy (hallowed) men and women who lived lives exemplary for their faithfulness to their Lord Jesus. We call them Saints. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have official ways of recognizing certain of these people. But you and I all have our own list of people whose lives have inspired us to follow more closely in the Way of Jesus. They now surround us as a “great cloud of witnesses” and encourage us by their example and even by their prayers for us.
Should Christian parents let their children participate in Halloween? Yes—but with a lot of teaching. It is good for small children to engage in imaginary play, and dress up. One way to defeat the very real forces of evil that are out there is to mock them, and, from a place of knowing that God is stronger, to laugh at them. Halloween costumes can give children a chance to do this. You can read Hebrews 11 and 12 with elementary age children, and Revelation 7 with small children and teens alike. You can recognize that their fears (however trivial they may seem to adults) are real, and that God walks with them through their scariest times. We can downplay the candy and the greedy acquisitiveness. We can encourage children to make their own costumes from things we have around the house. Finally, we can remind older teens to save the really scary stuff for after the little ones are home and safe in bed.
