One Hit Wonder?

“The Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.” Isaiah 60:2

In my hometown, the Fireman’s Carnival is undoubtedly the biggest event of the year.  It’s been held on the first week in August as long as anyone can remember.  Thousands flock to the muddy grounds outside town for the ferris wheel and the country ham sandwiches, some low stakes games of chance  and the goldfish booth that finances the junior-senior prom.

 Everyone knows that the biggest attractions are conversations with old friends and the hand-cut french fries.  But there’s always entertainment as well--a show on the stage at 7 and 10.  It’s usually country music, and in the old days, when you had to become a star the hard way, many of the greats trod our hometown boards: Patsy Cline, Conway Twitty, Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, even once, Grandpap said, the great Hank Williams himself.  

All that Belongs to Him

“The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.”  St. Mark 10:39

Jesus often spoke in phrases heavy with meaning.  He used images freighted with symbolic power, ambiguous turns of phrase that force the listener to slow down and consider.  Meditation--a word that comes from the Latin for what a cow does with her cud-- is not merely a pious practice.  We must often chew long on these phrases to draw out their full meaning. 

That can be difficult for us in a world where people try to conduct national policy debates in 280 characters or less.  By and large, we long for the single-page memo, the objective facts distilled out from the spin, the bullet points drained of their adjectives. Many of us seem to be drowning in a sea of words as it is. We don’t think we have time for beautiful rhetoric or the probing syllables of poetry. 

But we can miss a great deal if we rushly too quickly to the point, especially when the words spoken to us are about those things at the core of our existence. 

The Most Natural Burden

“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”  Exodus 20:12

I lost my two remaining grandparents last year.  There was nothing particularly dramatic or unexpected about their deaths.  They departed this life after extended struggles with disease and debility, looking ahead in hope.  They died holding the hands of their children.  

My mother and her siblings were alongside them through so much of the dramatic change, and it’s been moving for me to watch this from the sidelines.  For them it was a year of sitting in dozens of doctor’s offices, heating up dinner, writing out notes to guide confused minds, sorting the bills, arranging a last family picnic on a sunny July day.

Where the White Light Flickers

From The Sounds of St. Francis, March 2018.

The twentieth century English poet John Betjeman (1906-1984) is one my very favorite modern writers.  Calling him modern, though, may be a bit of a misnomer, for his verses never ranked very highly among the literary establishment.  He was far too traditional in his political and religious opinions and loathe to take himself too seriously.  He also managed to write verses that ordinary people can understand (and often they even rhyme).  He was very popular in his lifetime, and was even England’s poet laureate for the last twelve years of his life.

Most of Betjeman’s verses are about the English countryside, old buildings, social satire, and the Christian faith.  He was a faithful Anglican, a warden of his parish church.  His faith was awakened, like my own, as a young man in the pews of Pusey House, Oxford.  He had a deep devotion to the church’s liturgy and sacramental life, shaped by his time in that enchanting place.   The transforming power of the Eucharist is an oft-repeated theme in his work.  

Bearing with Us

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."

Genesis 9:16

My uncle told me recently that he’s in the market for an alternator—or maybe it was a fuel pump or a carburetor.  I’m not so good with that sort of thing.  He’s been scanning eBay and reading collectors’ magazines, because you can’t just call up NAPA to ask them to order you one. 

He’s restoring his grandfather’s 1947 Packard, and the old one has given way.  It’s at least the second time he’s had to overhaul with that old car, and he said he’s wondering if it’s really worth all the fuss.  It’s not quite old enough to be valuable, and it really isn’t all that stunning, the chariot of a second-rate insurance salesman.  It’s never been all that reliable, and I think you can guess what the gas mileage is like. 

Mirrors of His Glory

“He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other.”  II Kings 2:14

Henry Ford didn’t the invent the car, but once he got started, no one ever made them the same way again.  Fats Domino wasn’t the first to play the jazz piano, but once you had heard him, they said, it was like something entirely new.  People had dunked a basketball before Michael Jordan stepped onto the court, but now you can’t imagine that feat without him. 

Elijah wasn’t the first prophet, either.  People had been moved to speak God’s Word before, they had stood fast for the truth when it wasn’t popular.  But the mysterious man from Tishbe changed the meaning of prophecy forever.

Elijah had called the people to spiritual renewal and denounced corrupt kings face to face.  He worked great miracles of healing and destruction.  He had summoned fire from heaven and withheld the rains for three and a half years.  God fed Elijah in the wilderness with bread delivered by ravens and revealed to him His glory on the side of Mount Sinai. 

Elijah did it all clad in a mantle. 

Review: Museum of the Bible Offers Minority Report

From The Living Church, 21 Jan. 2018

The Bible is big, according to the new Museum of the Bible. It’s also influential, easy to understand, relevant to everyday life, and very American. The museum also suggests that the Bible is not all that complex or challenging.

The museum announces its presence with a text-emblazoned portal, three stories of the first chapter of Genesis, presented as a massively resized version of the plates used by the Gutenberg Bible’s printer. The entrance hall features enormous overhead screens, on which an ever-changing rotation of evocative photographs signals the technological thrust of the museum’s displays. The building’s glass-walled, futuristic cap offers stunning views of the U.S. Capitol, just two blocks away.

Though founder Steve Green deflected attention during a press conference to the institution’s 50,000 founding donors, the Museum of the Bible is his brainchild. Green, president of Hobby Lobby, began collecting biblical artifacts in 2009, aiming to present them to the public in a format that would garner wide attention. A committed evangelical who has taken his turn in the culture wars, Green knows how to make a political statement. His museum aims to educate and to inspire, but those brassy yards of bas-relief text are also a way of claiming a permanent corner of the public square for his people, the people of the Bible.

Adopted

“God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”  Galatians 4:4-5

We do not know the name of Saint Paul’s father.  This may strike you as trivial, a trick question for the daily double on Bible Jeopardy, but I think there’s deep theological significance in this important omission.

We know a great deal about Saint Paul, because he intertwines bits of his biography into his teaching.  Scholars can date his missionary journeys down to the month, and he names dozens of his friends and associates scattered around the Mediterranean world.  He tells us that he came from the city of Tarsus, that before he met Jesus he was a member of the Pharisee sect within Judaism.  We know that Saint Paul’s father came from the ancient tribe of Benjamin, and that he was a Roman citizen, a fairly unusual fact for Jew of this time, and a fact on which the drama of his son’s later life turned.

But Saint Paul never names him.  In that respect he is unlike almost every major figure in the Old Testament. 

The Christmas Cow

“The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”  Isaiah 1:3

My mother’s nativity set is porcelain.  It was a rather optimistic choice for a family of three curious boys, and the figures received their share of battering over the years.  None of them so much as the cow.  The cow in the Michael family nativity set is missing at least one horn.  The glaze is scuffed off in a few places, and the hindquarter has a long brown seam, carefully mended with adhesive after a precipitous fall.

That was my fault.  When I was four or five I went through a cow stage.  Some boys memorize the starting lineup for their favorite baseball team or the Air Force fighter plane fleet.  But growing up in the country, with two farmers for grandfathers, my obsession was cows.  I knew all the breeds, where they had originated, which local farmers raised which kinds.  I could tell you the strong points of Guernsey milk and Angus steaks, and I knew all about those “hairy coos” in the Scottish highlands.   

And Christmas is the perfect holiday for a little boy drawn to cattle.

Perishing Words

“And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ…He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”  St. John 1:20,23

We are living in an age of powerful words.  Over the last few months, women from every corner of public life have found the courage to come forward to say: “I was violated, demeaned, treated with cruelty.  Sexual abuse affected me too, and I will be silent no longer.”  And it seems that every morning there is another apology, another resignation of some powerful man. 

In the last few years, people all across the nation have spoken out about racial discrimination and brutal treatment of African Americans.  There have been bestselling books, protests and counter protests, verdicts rendered.  Old statues have fallen, flags have been hauled down, and a few football players sit on the sidelines.

Words are, of course, the oxygen of politics. 

Not Changing the World

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?”  St. Matthew 25:37

“Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Change the World.”  For some years this was the official tagline of the Episcopal Church, the slogan you would see on the denominational website, the mantra repeated by the Presiding Bishop at official gatherings.  Under the leadership of our current presiding bishop, Michael Curry, the new tagline is, “The Jesus Movement.” But the “change the world” language does get trotted out from time to time.  It has an enduring to stir people’s hearts and to get them thinking big about the implications of following Jesus Christ in the life of the Church.

Some of you will know that Fr. Mac and I do a fair amount of writing for The Living Church’s Covenant blog, and this week there was a compelling article by our friend Dan Martins, the Bishop of Springfield, about this slogan, “Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Change the World.[1]”  Bishops Martins acknowledged, “It’s catchy, it’s memorable, and you can’t really argue with it without sounding hopelessly curmudgeonly.” 

Managing Well

“He entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents,  to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.”  St. Matthew 25:14-15

Last weekend, I went an apple butter boil, an old family tradition, at a cousin’s farm in my hometown.  By the bubbling kettle, I struck up a conversation with another cousin, Robin.  She plays the organ at Mount Carmel Methodist Church, a mile or two up the road in Shanktown, Maryland, a place that doesn’t make it onto the road atlas.  Mount Carmel is a white clapboard chapel, built around the time of the Civil War.  My grandparents were members and four generations of Michaels sleep in its shady churchyard.  I’ve always thought of it as a timeless place.

But Robin said things have changed.  There are only twenty of them in the pews most Sundays.  There’s no choir or Vacation Bible School anymore.  My cousin Andrew’s baby girl is the only child.  Mount Carmel has never been a big church, and it has always shared a pastor with the other local Methodist churches.  But it was probably two or three times that size when I was a kid. 

The faith of an alto: remembering Grandma

“Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night within his temple.”  Revelation 7:15       

Grandma was an alto.  I learned this when I joined the choir as a ten year old, before my voice changed.  Mom placed me on the second row, between grandma and grandpap.  The joke was that this was for the sake of public order.  It took advantage of the fact that grandpap could only hear well in his right ear.  It kept me at a bit of a distance from those other tenors and basses who always had a joke to tell at the wrong moment.  But really, I think, it was so I would learn from grandma what it meant to be part of a choir.

Altos don’t get to sing the melody, like the sopranos, and they aren’t generally given dramatic leaps or catchy rhythms like basses.  They hold the middle voice and keep the beat.  Sometimes they will sing pretty much the same note for whole lines of music.  The other voices rise and fall, but altos are steadfast, anchoring the other members of the choir and drawing them together into a sound that is all the richer and more vibrant for their humble contribution. 

There isn’t any choral singing without altos—just lots of performers vying for attention, delighted in the sound of their own voices.  The blend is the truly beautiful thing about choral singing.  It relies on listening to each other, and requires that some must take the humbler place, offering their best as a form of service to the whole, giving what they have in love that does not seek for recognition or honor. 

The Youth Replies, I Can

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  Revelation 7:14

The tradition at my high school was that each graduation speaker had to discuss as his or her theme a famous saying of an American hero.  There was a rotating series of texts, and these were assigned by Mr. Snyder, the venerable senior class advisor, who had been at it since my mother was a student.  Even by 1996, this sort of thing was dreadfully old-fashioned, but no one really complained about it—it was just how it was at Clear Spring High School. 

I wasn’t told until two weeks before graduation which text I would have to discuss.  I wanted Daniel Webster’s words from the Dartmouth College case: “she is a small school, but there are those who love her.”  Whoever got that could write the tear-jerker.

But instead, I was assigned a bit of a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can.

Working Through Grief: A Sermon for All Souls Day

“I look for the LORD, my soul doth wait for him, in his word is my trust.”  Ps. 130:5

My father died of a sudden heart attack when he was 54.  I was 27, working my first real job, married for a month, and completely unprepared for navigating the rest of my life without my father’s guidance and support. 

It was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever experienced.  I know that doesn’t say very much compared to what many of you have endured.  But for me, it meant deep personal sadness at the loss of a man I deeply admired and who brought so much joy into my life.  It meant concern at the even more intense grief that my mother, my grandparents and my brother were experiencing.  And the experience left me feeling adrift, more hesitant and uncertain about the future, with a kind of fear in my heart I had never really known before.

I was deeply grateful that I knew I could pray for my father, with words that the church had placed in my mouth, when it was so difficult to know just what to say to God about it all.  My father died on a Sunday afternoon, and he was buried on a Wednesday.  The next Sunday morning I went to his grave, and I took with me a little volume, The Priest’s Book of Private Devotions, marked for the page for the Vespers for the Dead. 

In a Season of Elegy and Hope

The Episcopal Church lost one of its great lights when Richard Wilbur died on October 14, aged 96.  Wilbur was one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, our nation’s second poet laureate, twice awarded with the Pulitzer Prize. At a time when his rivals often seemed to need vulgarity and extremism to attract public attention, Wilbur wrote beautiful and lyrical lines, often full of deep gratitude and profound hope. 

He was faithful member of his local Episcopal parish in the Boston suburbs, where a friend of mine was his rector for a time.  He kept a prayer book on his bedside table, and his confident faith colors the generosity and patience that mark his work.  Episcopalians may know him best for his striking Christmas hymn, A Stable Lamp is Lighted (#219).  Set to one of David Hurd’s arresting tunes, it weaves together the Nativity, the chaos and glory of Holy Week, and the hope of final restoration. 

I had another of his poems on my mind this week, In the Elegy Season, one of his first to receive wide acclaim. 

Rendering to God

“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  St. Matthew 22:21

It was quietly noted a few weeks ago that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has declined to endorse an Obama administration plan to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.  His predecessor, Jacob Lew, saw honoring the great antislavery hero as the first step in redressing a historic imbalance in the way we have honored national heroes.  The $20 bill was a convenient place to start, as Andrew Jackson has come under fire in recent years for his slaveholding and for his decision to forcibly remove Indians to the West along the infamous Trail of Tears.   

But Andrew Jackson also happens to be one of President Trump’s personal heroes.  The President honors Jackson as a brave soldier, and a symbol of democracy, the first true man of the people to be elected to our nation’s highest office.  The president laid a wreath at Jackson’s tomb as part of the 250^th anniversary celebration of his birth and has hung a painting of him in the Oval Office.[1]  You can be sure that Old Hickory won’t be leaving the currency on his watch. 

The debate over the $20 bill has caused some impassioned repartee, at least among the sort of people who frequent the Facebook page of this former history major. 

Review: "Uncertain Times: Martin Luther's Remedies for the Soul"

From the October 20 Sounds of St. Francis

Designing an exhibition to commemorate the Reformation’s 500^th anniversary is a fairly heroic task for any gallery.  Far more art was destroyed than created in the sixteenth century in those European lands that embraced the teachings of Luther, Calvin and Cranmer.  But the Walters Art Gallery has made a humble but probing attempt in its single-room exhibition, “Uncertain Times: Martin Luther’s Remedies for the Soul,” on display until October 29 at the museum in downtown Baltimore.

Fittingly, many of the most significant pieces on display are not paintings, but books.  The personal prayer book of Luther’s close associate Philip Melanchthon is there, worn from heavy use, annotated in the margins.  There’s a handsome early edition of Luther’s Tabletalk, the collection of theological rejoinders and moral advice dispensed by the aged master in his later years over the daily bread and beer, carefully recorded by his students.

Words are also the medium of a mesmerizing eighteenth century German folk art piece featured centrally in the exhibition.  The anonymous artist has scripted the many lines of Luther’s Small Catechism as a globe around the rose and cross of Luther’s coat of arms, a loyal tribute to the way in which the theologian has most often been encountered across the centuries—in this careful summary of Reformation teaching, written to be memorized by children as they prepared for their confirmations.

He Remembers We Are But Dust

Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves;

they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.  Exodus 34:7-8

Last week, the University of Chicago’s Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.  Thaler will go down in history as the man who slew homo economicus. 

If it’s been awhile since Econ.101, you might not remember that homo economicus was that mysterious creature that sprung fully formed from the brain of classical economists: the person who made all his decisions based on careful calculation and enlightened self-interest.  Homo economicus would plan carefully for retirement by setting aside savings early to benefit from compound interest.  If the price of gasoline dropped, he would use the discount in other areas of life instead of buying more expensive gasoline. He will value his own possessions accurately and sell them if there is an opportunity for gains. 

Richard Thaler suspected that many people were not quite so logical.  So he started asking them, conducting studies.  What he found is that people are predictably irrational about their economic decisions.  They make different choices when they are afraid, or when they have developed attachments.  They maintain habits even when they are destructive. They spring for the quick pleasure and ignore the long term need.

Human beings are not as strong, wise or noble as economists had expected they were.  

Abundance and Want

From the Sounds of St. Francis, 12 October, 2017

We are now into the third week of Stewardship-Tide at Saint Francis, when we are asking you to consider your financial support for the ministry of our parish in 2018.  Our vestry will also need to decide on a pledge in the next few months, how much we plan to contribute to the ministry of our diocese in the coming year. With God’s help, both pledges will increase, so that together we may all be more faithful and effective in serving Christ and sharing His Gospel.  

The pledge we make to the diocese, like the gift you make to Saint Francis, testifies to the fact that our faith is communal, that a relationship with Jesus draws us into mutual dependence on other brothers and sisters.  Because we follow the apostolic model of church governance, we must have a bishop, our chief teacher and minister of those sacraments that connect us with the universal body of believers.  Our gift to the diocese first supports her ministry.