Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 4)

This week’s article for the church newsletter is a call to action in solidarity with the people of Syria who are under assault by their government. Here’s the extended version:

As I write this the city of Homs in Syria is under fierce bombardment by forces loyal to that country’s president. Syria is a nation divided, on edge, at war. Diplomatic efforts by Arab nations and the international community have come to naught. Efforts at the United Nations to hold Syria’s leader to account and force a peaceful end to an increasingly violent conflict have been stifled by China and Russia, where powerful governments fear international support of popular uprisings of the kind they too face.

Rising on the tide of last year’s “Arab Spring,” which saw oppressive regimes overthrown in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, many in Syria took to the streets to oppose their government’s repressive policies and iron grip on power. The response from the government was violent, so violent that some of the people took up arms to fight back. Unlike the people of Libya, they’ve done so with little or no material support from the world’s powerful North American and European democracies.

This conflict seems a world apart from us in West Medford, Massachusetts, USA, where we have the privilege of tuning out what’s happening in the rest of the world. We’re far from Syria, which is a Middle Eastern country. And what distances us ever further from the Middle East is the way we’ve been taught to “other” our brothers and sisters in that part of the world. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’ve been taught to exoticize and vilainize Middle Easterners, especially Muslim Arabs. Our unquestioned racism runs deep, as does our desire to live comfortable lives at the expense of paying attention.

Yet there’s a lot at stake for us in the Syria situation and in other nations where people are rising to free themselves from oppression. If we truly value our God-given right to live freely into our full potential we need to stand in solidarity with those whose freedoms are crushed. It doesn’t matter on which continent their countries are. It doesn’t matter what religion they follow or what their racial or cultural heritage is.

We need to ask ourselves what is the cost of us doing nothing? What is the cost of us turning our gaze away because the truth is simply too inconvenient or the call on our hearts too burdensome? Many civilians are being killed in Syria as in other nations. Many children are being deprived of an existence that is peaceful and promising. Too many lives are being shattered by shells and bullets. We simply cannot be complacent.

Whether we offer our prayers, our influence, or material support, we have to do something. But first we have to be aware. Remember Jesus’ words: “watch and pray.” We have to follow the news, finding it on foreign websites if the coverage in our own country falls short. Then we need to pray and act consistently with our prayers by writing the Syrian representatives in Washington and at the UN, calling our Congressional representatives and urging them to take this situation seriously, participating in letter-writing campaigns organized by human rights organizations, or supporting the Red Cross/Crescent with donations so that the wounded can be cared for.

The time has come for us to act. The cost to democracy is too great for us to ignore the perils of our sisters and brothers in other nations. The cost to our souls is too great for us to live so comfortably that we ignore the plight of others.

Nanette is in Israel on a 10-day trip with Andover Newton Theological School and Boston University. Take a moment to read her blog, where you’ll find rich insights and incredible photographs.

This picture captured my attention like none other. It’s of a cart being wheeled through a souk in Hebron.

By Nanette Savides

Here’s a shout-out to my dear, now long-lost friend Jonathan who gifted me with a book of Rumi’s poetry. It’s taken me years to pick it up, but now that I have I am captivated by the Great Poet. I am also reminded of how precious friendship is.

Here is Rumi’s Spring is Christ

Everyone has eaten and fallen asleep. The house is empty.
We walk out to the garden to let the apple meet the peach,
to carry messages between rose and jasmine.

Spring is Christ,
raising martyred plants from their shrouds.
Their mouths open in gratitude, wanting to be kissed.
The glow of the rose and the tulip means a lamp
is inside. A leaf trembles. I tremble
in the wind-beauty like silk from Turkestan.
The censer fans to flame.

The wind is the Holy Spirit.
The trees are Mary.
Watch how husband and wife play subtle games with their hands.
Cloudy pearls from Aden are thrown across the lovers,
as is the marriage custom.

The scent of Joseph’s shirt comes to Jacob.
A red carnelian of Yemeni laughter is heard
by Muhummad in Mecca.

We talk about this and that. There’s no rest
except on these branching moments.

From The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.

One of my favorite exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is the 12th Century fresco that once served as apse for a Catalonian Chapel. Christ is the central figure holding a scroll reading “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me.” He is surrounded by symbols representing the four evangelists after whom the Gospels are named. One tier below are the 12 apostles and below them fading depictions of Bible stories.

While I’m admittedly saddened that it no longer adorns the area behind the altar of Santa Maria Del Mur in the Spanish Pyrenees, I am captivated by its intimacy. It awes me to a posture of prayer and worship. There’s something deeply personal about it. Perhaps it’s the love of artist or patron or both, or maybe it’s the wide-eyed Jesus. It could just be the contrast it offers to stark white-walled museum.

I sometimes wish I could recreate a space like this in my home. That’s quirky, I know. It doesn’t seem very Congregationalist or particularly practical given that I live in a parsonage. Yet having an intentional space in a home for worship, devotion, and prayer is not uncommon. It’s practiced throughout the traditions to enhance the spiritual journey.

The purpose of such a space would be a literal way to enter one’s closet and pray to God in secret as Jesus suggests in Matthew 6:6. Of course, this needn’t be an elaborate chapel with a semicircular fresco. All it would take is love and a few objects that move me to a greater awareness of God’s presence. Icons, photographs, a painting, mosaics, or symbols like the cross or chalice would do. Rocks, water, and flowers would do, too. Perhaps a window looking out on a bird feeder would suffice.

Rather than a monument or idol, it would be a space in which, through which, I could rest in God’s love and grace. I guess I’ve just stumbled upon a New Year’s resolution. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be able to post a picture of what this space looks like.

I today found this statement of St. Irenaeus and think it beautifully captures the spirit of an embodied theology:

The tender flesh itself
will be found one day
–quite surprisingly–
to be capable of receiving,
and yes, full
capable of embracing
the searing energies of God.
Go figure. Fear not.
For even at its beginning
the humble clay received
God’s art, whereby
one part became the eye,
another the ear, and yet
another the impetuous hand.
Therefore, the flesh
is not to be excluded
from the wisdom and the power
that now and ever animates
all things. His life-giving
agency is made perfect,
we are told, in weakness–
made perfect in the flesh.

– St. Irenaeus (c. 125-c. 210), adapted and translated by Scott Cairns in Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Paraclete Press, 2007. p5-6)

Congratulations to Christine Evans on her ordination at Hope Central Church last night. And congrats to the Hope community for their 15th ordination in six years. Five more candidates are in the process, seeking ordination either in the United Church of Christ or the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Christine, a fellow Disciples minister, asked me to offer the charge during the service and I thought I’d share my humble offering:

Reverend Christine Evans, by the grace of God you stand before us this night as an ordained minister in the Church of Jesus Christ. And what a night it is! There’s something about the way the bright light of this sanctuary is breaking into the darkness of the world outside as we approach the longest night. There’s something about voices raised in the harmony of song drifting on the cold night air.

One night a couple of years ago you and I were part of a group studying monasticism at Glastonbury Abbey, sitting in the living room as the professor read from the Epilogue to Thomas Merton’s Sign of Jonas: “The night, O My Lord, is a time of freedom. You have seen the morning and the night, and the night was better. In the night all things began, and in the night the end of all things has come before me. Baptized in the rivers of night, Gethsemani has recovered her innocence. Darkness brings a semblance of order before all things disappear. With the clock slung over my shoulder … it is my time to be the night watchman in the house that will one day perish.”

Christine, I charge you to be the night watchman in the house that will one day perish. The church as we know it needs to be born anew with the coming of the reign of peace and justice, the reign of Christ for which we watch and work these long nights of Advent.

And as a watchman I charge you to be vigilant, alert to the in-breaking of God’s light into the world and to sound the alarm that will awaken a sleeping humanity to the dawn of hope. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “It is the God who said: ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 4:6)

Christine, as a herald of the Good News of the coming of the light of Christ, I charge you to let your light shine by living a life worthy of being called a Disciple of Christ. And as a minister of Word and Sacrament you will need to become ever more intimate with the Scriptures, the traditions and history of the church, the spiritual practices that animate faith; grounding yourself in a life of watchfulness and diligence. The church does not need perfection in these tasks, it merely asks for faithfulness.

You have chosen to be ordained in a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. And you are charged as part of the one body of Christ to welcome all to the Lord’s Table, even as God has welcomed you and each of us. The welcome you extend will need to be extravagant, even seditious, in its inclusivity. You are charged to stand firm on the foundation of God’s steadfast love and in so doing withstand a world of warring madness, bigotry, and the powers of domination and oppression.

To serve faithfully in the office to which you have been ordained, Christine, never underestimate the time and effort you need to rejuvenate your spirit, soul, and body. Care well for the treasure God has entrusted to you. Consider yourself charged to find moments of rest and relaxation, moments to breathe, and to enjoy the simple beauties of life. I charge you to laugh heartily, eat healthily (and sometimes unhealthily), and stretch your body in all those yoga poses you so enjoy.

Christine, as you nurture your own spirit, soul, and body and the spirits, souls, and bodies of those you will serve, make this ministry your own. Let your imagination soar even as you bend low and stick your hands into the earth, letting the light of Christ shine in where it is needed to make new things grow. Don’t be afraid to go beneath the surface. It was Walt Whitman who wrote: “From this hour I ordain myself free of limits and imaginary lines” (Song of the Open Road) and I charge you to live your life prophetically in the fullness of the freedom that Christ Jesus offers.

Lastly, in the words of Paul, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. … May the God of peace sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 23)

May it be so. Amen.

In Song of the Open Road Walt Whitman wrote: “From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines.” From the first moment my eyes glanced over these words they became a personal motto. The poet spoke to a deep desire to live freely and achieve boldly. I had grown tired of limits and the imaginary lines that confined even my imagination.

I believe it is the failure of imagination in our world today that is the cause of our social and economic woes. It is a lack of imagination that has shackled our politics to partisan trenches. It is a lack of imagination that has confined the churches to legalistic doctrines and ill-fated allegiances rather than fostering healing and hope and wholeness and peace and love.

Yet we find ourselves in Advent, mere weeks from commemorating the miracle of the Christ-child’s birth. If anything can inspire imagination, this ancient story ever old, ever new can revive our imaginations as we remember the coming of the Prince of Peace. The promise of God’s very essence dwelling with us should awaken our imaginations to the potential of seeing the reign of Love in our homes, cities, and nations.

Looking to the Creator, who made us in the image and likeness of the Divine, we too can embrace our imaginative spirits and live beyond limits and imaginary lines. Who wants to be confined? Who wants to be imprisoned behind walls of our own building? It may seem safe, but it is not to safety that Advent calls us.

We are called to live watchful, patient lives that embrace the reality of miracles, the reality of God with us here and now. If God is for us, who can be against us? If God is the Creator, who can limit us? Let us strive this Advent to let our imaginations soar and live to establish the Kingdom of God here on earth.

Of all public holidays, Thanksgiving is one of the most moving for me. I love that it is first and foremost a national holiday not explicitly tied to any religious tradition. Rather than being a religious holiday co-opted by commerce for purposes of profit, it is a secular holiday with deep meaning for those of us who approach life from a faith perspective.

Giving thanks is a central part of the Christian journey. The story about Jesus healing the 10 lepers in Luke 17:11-19 comes to mind. Only one turned back to say thank you and Jesus blessed him. A quick count finds that Paul gives thanks at least 35 times in his letters to the churches. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 he writes: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ.”

However, there are times when it does not seem possible to give thanks. Life can be terribly unfair and burdensome. Just think about everyone going hungry, those who have lost jobs and income, the many children who are abused, the chronic pain some of us live with. Injustice is chronic and systemic sin is all-too prevalent. The Thanksgiving holiday can be painful and empty for those who have no one with whom to share it, or no food to put on the table, or who are overwhelmed with grief.

So as we prepare to celebrate this holiday, let us make a special effort to hold in our prayers those who in this moment cannot give thanks. Let us open our tables to those who have nowhere to go. And amid the hustle and bustle of preparations, let’s carve out a few moments to quietly reflect on our blessings, however insignificant they may seem, for which we can give thanks.

Two of my favorite recent reads are coinciding in the soup of my musings this week. They couldn’t be more different. The one is Walter Brueggemann’s Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile and the other The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Clark. Brueggemann is a theologian while Clark teaches writing as vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute.

The word that’s bringing them together is “conviction.” Discussing the prophet Jeremiah, Brueggemann writes, “Pastoral vitality is related to a concrete sense of what God is doing in the world.” (Brueggemann 16) The same can be said about congregational vitality. In the end it’s a question of conviction.

As I dissected the word, I thought about its most common usages related to belief systems and legal proceedings. One can be convicted by arguments about the nature of God or some philosophical point and one can be convicted in a court of law. I remembered Clark calling two or more words that sound alike and are spelled alike but have different meanings homonyms. (Clark 38) The question then became how different are these two meanings in the context of a life of faith?

Both seem based on evidence, observable facts. To be convicted in a court of law one’s guilt needs to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. There needs to be evidence. But one’s conviction also needs to be proved when the word is used in the religious or philosophical sense. Our deeds and words need to be consistent with our convictions, provided we are truly and deeply convicted.

It made me wonder what would happen if Christianity were suddenly banned. Would there be enough evidence to convict those who profess to follow Jesus? What would be the legal litmus test for a modern-day disciple? If it’s following in the way of Jesus by meeting the needs of the poor, the sick, the suffering, I’m not so sure many of us will end up with convictions.

This brings the meanings of the word very close to each other and has given me a lens through which to continue pondering my own discipleship.