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Rector's Blog
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Jesus said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind."
Do you ever wonder if a host invited Jesus back for supper a second time? The gospel writers, of course, don't say. It is, I suppose, a rather irrelevant question. But from this episode it would be a surprise to me if a host ever had the nerve to do it.
Look at what Jesus does here: he is an invited guest, reclining this evening at the Sabbath meal, and he has the audacity to tell his host in front of everyone else what he thinks would be a much better dinner party: "when you give a luncheon or dinner [next time]" Jesus says, "don't invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors"—and perhaps you can imagine how Jesus, as he says these words, sweeps his hand in the air, pointing at his fellow guests who recline around him. Better yet, perhaps you can even imagine the host's face, how it pales and slides into a frown as Jesus speaks. The host has shown hospitality to Jesus, but Jesus is not returning the favor. Jesus is not being a good guest: he does not repay his host.
We love quid pro quo—literally, "something for something." It just feels right. But isn't this precisely what Jesus challenges us to consider, whether true service to others is really quid pro quo? It's a hard question to ask and consider, but I think the passage calls us to question: how much of our serving others is done with an underlying expectation, or at least a hope, that somehow we will get back what we've paid in? Here's a personal question for you to reflect on: are your "guests" in your life whom you serve able to repay you? If so, are they really guests?
Jesus today demonstrates the basis for service, and it will not make the next edition of Emily Post. (Criticizing hosts who invite us to their homes is not going to become fashionable.) He challenges his host and us to serve people who don't repay ("the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind") by becoming his challenge. Jesus as the host of our life is the guest in our life whom we cannot repay. Think about that for a moment: Jesus as the host of our life is the guest in our life whom we cannot repay.
Take into your service today this encouragement: that beyond quid pro quo, God has shown you through his Son real service: something for nothing. And on this basis you have a new orientation to serve others without thought of repayment, and in ways they cannot repay. Like Jesus, you may serve others as a true host, and even challenge them as their true guest.
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Saturday, August 18, 2007
Day 4: Friday
The jambalaya is in the pot cooking, we are in the parking lot playing (football), and the cicadas are singing their evening song.
Yesterday we finished working at the park in the morning and Mr. Jones house in the afternoon. Today we met "Buddy," a retired, older man and his wife, Jean, whose house needed outside work along the base of it. We built knee walls—a day long project and got to spend some time with him. He told us about the destruction of his house, in which he'd lived for many years: how the waters came in at 7 and a half feet (he's about 4 or 5 miles from the coast). His neighbors, who came back before he did, found fish swimming in their house. He came back home after two weeks to find everything ruined.
Slowly, church groups have come through over the past two years and helped him rebuild everything. They demolished everything inside and left just the studs. Starting from that, he has done what he can and church groups have worked hard to make him a new home. And this week for him and wife was big: they moved out of their FEMA trailer (behind their house) and into their home once again. He showed me around his house, the closet space, the new tub, the details—he's very proud of his new home and is very glad to be in it.
It was great to end our work here on this high note: icing on the cake for Buddy and Jean—in a new home with us doing some finishing work on the outside—and icing on the cake for us in the form of a one day, accomplishable project.
We worked hard and cut out by 5. The jambalaya smells great—we've got to eat!
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Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Day 2
Now at the end of a long day, as I sit near the quonset hut, a little yellow sliver of the moon gets brighter as the sun slips below the trees at the edge of camp.
Today we had a productive morning and a relatively frustrating, unproductive afternoon.
Morning: We tore it up this morning. We started at 7:00 a.m. on Mr. Jones' house. We finished placing hurricane straps around the edge of the house.
 So we went on to another project.
In the town in which we're working, in the "black" part of town as some say here, there is a playground that is really pitiful. An old swing set, basketball court, and a trenched out but unfinished baseball diamond are surrounded by a large chain link fence. (It is a telling contrast to some other, more beautified city-owned parks that we've seen in other parts of town.)
We spent the latter half of the morning making the park better for kids in this neighborhood to play in it.
SHUNK was the sound our shovels made as they dug deeply into large piles of sand at the end of the park. Soon our wheelbarrows were full, and we steadily wheeled them back and forth, dumping them on the diamond and the pitcher's mound. We stomped sand down and got it done—and, then in celebration, played baseball until noon.
 Afternoon: After such a productive morning, our last two and a half hours were relatively unproductive (remember, we got up early to avoid working more in the hottest parts of the day, so we were going to be off at 3). With the baseball diamond finished, we came back to Mr. Jones' house but found that there was really nothing to do that we could do as a group. What needed to be done involved skilled carpentry in some very few areas. And these areas left most of the group sitting on their haunches, staying well-hydrated but really without business.
I expected, but did not articulate, that we would come here and—wham!—walk right into work well laid out for us—work that would clear, fully engaging, and at the groups skill level. But guess what? We're finding that that's not where people are here. Even well after the relief and recovery effort, and well into the rebuilding effort, there is more chaos than I can appreciate. When the work is clear as to what we're to do, we can do it. But sometimes the work simply isn't clear: the contractor needs to come by to tell us what to do here or there (and so we lose time waiting) or we don't have the right tools, etc. It reminds me that we're here to help as we can: to be productive and yet contribute as we can.
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Day 2 in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
The man (Mr. Jones) whose house we're building is looking forward to it being finished. After the hurricane, it was flooded beyond repair. When his house is finished, he can bring his wife home. She's in a nursing home and he has no way to care for her at home because the FEMA trailer they have isn't that large. So he's anxious for this to be finished soon.
We're putting up hurricane straps on the outside walls, interior walls today, and helping to put up the tresses when they arrive.
Yesterday we got oriented on the site and hit it hard from the late morning through four. The heat here is intense. With the heat index, it was near 110 and very humid. We are drinking lots of water. The kids are really putting themselves into this work.
Last night after getting back we went for a dive in the gulf, showered, ate, and then headed over to the church (also a quonset hut: the church blew away) to reflect on the day. We talked about how this effort we're making is joining God in his mission down here. We looked at how Jesus takes bread, and in this choosing we can see a great theme throughout Scripture and our lives—how we're invited to join God to serve others in our world. We were quite tired, but we pulled through with some worship and then headed to bed.
This morning we got to the site at 7 a.m. to work and we'll end at 3—it's going to be hotter today than yesterday, so we're adjusting to make the most of cooler hours.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007
This week I'm down in Mississippi with 7 other guys from St. Tim's ages 14-19, and a chaperone, helping people rebuild their lives and homes destroyed by Hurrican Katrina several years ago. Even though I was here last year, I am amazed by just how much has changed and how little has changed. Still so much work to do, and so much done already.
We flew into Gulfport last night and experienced right away the heat—it was over 100 with the heat index yesterday with humidity. We had a great time last night: after dinner and orientation, we went bowling, to Sonic for some treats, and then went down to the beach and talked til late. Here's us in our quonset huts. Since we're the only ones here, we rearranged this place to make it home for the week...
 We just learned that we're going to frame a house today for someone who is in a nursing home, waiting to move into his home again. It's going to be near 110 degrees with the heat index, so we're gearing up now with water and supplies. We're ready to get to work and have fun! More later... I'll try to post once a day...
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Saturday, August 11, 2007
The 20th century Jewish theologian Martin Buber wrote that "all actual life is encounter." Beyond the relationships that we have with ourselves and others where we exercise projection and objectification (seeing ourselves for who we want to be and making others into who we want them to be) there are those relationships--few and far between--of the highest order: where beings meet one another in their authentic existence. This is actual life, and it is possible for us to reach, to truly encounter (and yet not encapsulate) someone or something on its ground of being.
It is a fact that with regard to this highest order or relationships plenty of people never venture here. With God and others they are content to live with what makes all of us comfortable: structure, information, the past, the present, and the immediate. And it is a fact also that plenty of churches never venture here. Actual life with God, risking encounter, signals that we are vulnerable. It is more comfortable to live with what we've known, on the terrain that lies under our feet already that we know how to walk, and in language that is now familiar.
But we at St. Timothy's are a people who risk encounter with the living God. We are on an adventure. Beyond who we want God to be, God who is authentic existence reveals Himself to us, a God known in Scripture as "I am," who as Trinity is utter mutuality and encounter even in God's self. It is this authentic existence that God invites us to join him and be sent in mission in our world. And the capacity for us to live into this encounter with God, actual life with all its risks, is opened to us through following Jesus by practices of faith, or "marks." These are measures of our responsiveness, and by practicing these marks (see the "7 marks of a Disciple" on the inside cover) we create the space and place in our lives for God's mission in our world.
To practice is to risk. And to risk ourselves before God is to honor God. And that is who we are: St. Timothy's in fact means "to honor God."
Your practice of Sabbath-taking worship is one mark of that: at its best it is a signal that you are ready for encounter, you are ready to risk, you are willing as you are able to be moved by the One who not only was, and is, but the One who is to come. Be ready, says Jesus: for in worship together we can move more than our lips, we can life up our hearts.re willing as you are able to be moved by the One who not only was, and is, but the One who is to come. Be ready, says Jesus: for in worship together we can move more than our lips, we can life up our hearts.
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Friday, August 03, 2007
Open Hands or Closed Hands?
Our hands speak in ways our mouths do not. Notice the next time that you're nervous how your hands may speak (sweaty, clammy, shaky, or fidgety). Notice that during worship at the Eucharist we may come forward to the altar for prayer and "the laying on of hands." Our hands in prayer says what words alone cannot convey. If you've ever been to Italy or Greece, and have watched people talking or arguing with each other, you know that hands can speak!
But what do your hands say? Not the ones on your arms, but the hands of your heart. In the face of your week ahead, are your hands open to God or closed? What do you see? What does God see?
We have open hands in the words of Paul from Colossians when we "seek what is above." To seek what is above, says Paul, means to put to death idolatry in its various forms—immorality, impurity, passion [living by or on emotion], evil desires, and greed. Idolatry is image worship (Greek eidolon, "image"; latreia, "worship"): it is a projection of who we want God to be and the making of him with our spiritual hands into the image of our choice. It is a way of closing our hands around God falsely: circumscribing God and calling God our own when God isn't. Idolatry is closing our hands: closing our hands around God and saying, "gotcha." But opening our hands before God means saying to God with our lives, "Though I know you, I have ever to know you better." It is saying with our hands (physical and spiritual) and even our mouths that our images of God are not complete. Before God we have open hands is when we recognize that God is greater than we can imagine, and that what we face coming in our week are blessings from God in surprising ways.
Together we may seek what is above and have open hands before God, receiving what has been entrusted to us in ways that enlarge our gratitude and the richness of our lives. To have open hands is true wealth. And through Jesus Christ, and through the active practice as our faith, we are empowered by God to have open hands.
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