Ordinary People

          The theme for the summer camping session at Cathedral Domain this year is Holy Superheroes. While Dean Carol and I are at the Domain this week with Junior Conference, we have been delving into the lives of superheroes. We have discussed Superman, Batman and the X-men, but to name a few. We have talked about some biblical heroes- Abraham, Miriam, Moses, Esther, Mary, Mary Magdalene, and of course, Jesus. We have looked at some of the saints such as St. Francis, St. Hildegard, St. Augustine, St. Thomas and St. Joan of Arc. On Friday, as we celebrate Independence Day, we will be looking at some of our national heroes including Thomas Jefferson, Jackie Robinson, Harriett Tubman, The Reverend Martin Luther King, Benjamin Franklin and Susan B. Anthony.

          All heroes share some things in common. They show all of us the good of which we are capable. As Greg Garrett, author of Holy Superheroes puts it, a hero is "someone who fights to save or preserve a particular culture, often through his return to that culture with some saving knowledge, power or wisdom. Power alone doesn't make a hero; service and sacrifice does." Doesn't that describe Jesus? He came down from heaven as Man Incarnate, filled with the Holy Spirit. Through his teachings, his actions and ultimately the loss of his earthly life, Jesus sought to bring justice, compassion and forgiveness of sins that man might be saved.

          Heroism doesn't require special powers. Heroism is ordinary people doing extraordinary things. For example, Chesley  "Sully" Sullenberger, the American Airlines Captain who in 2009 successfully made an emergency water landing with 155 passengers and a crew aboard, had no super powers. But he used his wisdom and skills to safely land that plane with no loss of life. Abraham, who simply trusted in God, faithfully followed where the Lord led him. Abraham had no super powers, yet he became the patriarch of a great nation that eventually led all of us to Christ. Mary Magdalene had no super powers but her faith led her to tell the good news of Jesus' resurrection that Easter morning 2,000 years ago.

          I think what God wants us to understand is that we all have the power through our faith in the Lord to be heroes. We need no super powers to love God, to love our neighbors even as we love ourselves. We need no super powers to show compassion, to care for others in our midst. We need no super powers to stand up for our faith in a culture that increasingly shows its faith in itself rather than God. We have all the super powers we need through the love and grace given to us by God.

God Speaking Through Grinding Teeth and Tasha Tudor

My morning begins by looking through an old daily meditation book.  I find out that today, June 23rd has been set aside in Europe as Midsummer's Eve.  I am also reminded that my childhood heroine Tasha Tudor had established this day as a high holy feast by an imagined sect called the "Stillwaters."  I walk into the living room and pull out a Tasha Tudor book of holidays and flip straight to the month of June.  Colorful, whimsical pictures of simpler times of joy fill the pages as children and adults prepare for festivities of Midsummer's Eve.  I begin to feel a deep longing being stirred up inside of me as I sit looking at these beautiful scenes.  I then pull out another Tudor book: Tasha Tudor's Garden.  This book is full of photos of her New England country lifestyle.  She pays attention to the smallest of details in her surroundings, using them as models for her artwork.

I take these images and stirrings of longing with me as I travel to an early morning dentist appointment.  You see, a filling needed to be replaced due to me grinding out the previous one during sleep.  It takes no mental giant to see that the image of me grinding out the filling and the longing that was stirred deep within from the Tudor images, are speaking to each other.  I am awakened to the fact that I have fallen out of rhythm and need to reconnect to my soul.

As a spiritual director, I talk with people often about the need to listen to all voices, intrusions, and stirrings of the body in order to discern the callings of God.  Today, my body through the grinding of my teeth and the  longings stirred by Tudor's images are calling me back to what is most real - to what is most true.  Tudor reminds us that life is something to be enjoyed, not something to be saddled with.  The first commandment of the Stillwater religion is to take joy from every day.  Jesus said, "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly,"  (John 10:10)

The seasons are a wonderful reminder to us of the rhythms in life.  Allow summer to teach you to slow down, unplug, and take joy from each day.  I am preparing for vacation - a time of rest and rejuvenation.  My body is already anticipating the slowing down and unplugging!  I intend to soak every ounce of joy from this time and bring it back as we continue to move through the rhythms of our life together.

Risky Business

I am always surprised (but shouldn’t be!) when I read a passage of scripture that I’ve read many times and find something new in it. This confirms to me that the Bible is a living document that continues to speak to us through the Holy Spirit. That was the case for me in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Matthew 28:16-20. This is commonly called “The Great Commission.” It is Jesus’ final instructions to his disciples in which he asks them to make disciples of all people, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching all that Jesus taught them.

            Because my focus has been on Jesus’ instructions, I never really thought about the few sentences that lead up to it. The disciples meet the resurrected Jesus at the mountain he directed them to. It says, “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” I hadn’t noticed this before!

            These are the very same disciples that followed Jesus for 3 years. They witnessed Jesus’ miracles, they heard his teaching, and now they stand before the risen Christ, “but some doubted.” Eugene Peterson’s rendition of this passage in The Message is, “Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.”

            A few doubted; some held back; they weren’t sure about worship; they didn’t want to risk themselves totally. I can completely relate to this. Giving ourselves wholly to another, especially to God, is risky business. It’s scary. Doubts creep in. What if it doesn’t work out? How can I get from where I am to where I think I’m called to be? What if I’m wrong? What if I imagined the whole thing? Am I good enough? I’m afraid. What if something bad happens? What if I try and fail? Or even, what if I try and succeed? These and many more were my questions throughout my call to the ordained priesthood and well beyond.

            I think that the plain and unadorned honesty of this statement “but some doubted” is so instructive to our spiritual journey. For me, faith and doubt are not opposites. Instead, I think that faith and doubt go hand in hand. Doubt, questions, searching, and looking are all part of our spiritual journey. Following Christ as his disciple is not easy. It’s not simple. It sometimes takes leaps of faith, and sometimes it takes serious doubt to make our relationship with God strong. We seldom start with the answers. Instead, we start with questions, which usually leads to more questions.

            Doubt is not un-Christian. Doubt is not a lack of faith. Instead, I suggest that where our doubt and faith meet is where our spiritual journey continues.

The Rev. Brent Owens+

Being the Face of Jesus

 During my first few weeks at General Seminary back in 2009, in the midst of serious transition and confusion, there was something I missed maybe more than anything:  breakfast.  I had not had a good breakfast since leaving home, and our refectory only provided lunch on weekdays, nothing more.  But there was a group, small but faithful, who helped put breakfast together for classmates.  It wasn't much—some cereals, juices, and fruits—but the gesture was lovely.  I was touched that fellow students would get up early to put together breakfast for those of us hurrying off to class after Morning Prayer.  The group was called the Saint Blandina Society.

I had never heard of Saint Blandina (whose feast day was June 2), and I imagine many of you have not, either.  Her story is not a particularly happy one. 

In the ancient region of Gaul, during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Christians were fiercely persecuted, especially in places with considerable Christian populations.  One such place was Lyons, where, in AD 177, Christians were prohibited from public life, from marketplaces and baths.  Slaves were taken into custody and forced to give up their Christian masters, telling officials that the Christians were involved in incest and cannibalism.  These actions roused the whole city to the point where a group was rounded up and taken to the public arena.  There they could either denounce their Christian faith or be put to death by wild beasts. 

Blandina, a slave, was among those rounded up, along with the Bishop of Lyons and his deacon.  As Blandina was being tortured, those gathered in the public arena saw in her visage the image of the crucified Jesus.  In this slave who was giving her life for her faith, those around her saw the image of their Lord.  And though Blandina was killed, along with her companions, her witness lives on.  It is the very witness of Jesus, of the One who said, “Father, forgive them.”  Like her Lord, Blandina never denounced her faith, never muttered a harsh word to the officials, and because of this the image of Jesus shown brightly out of her, even as she was being killed.

The Saint Blandina Society at General Seminary was aptly named.  They were the face of Jesus for their fellow classmates, offering hospitality and conversation, especially for those of us who were new in their midst.  This is our call.  Perhaps not to be publicly executed for our faith, but certainly to be the face of Jesus.  We sit now during the transitional space between the Ascension and Pentecost.  Jesus has gone back into heaven, and his words to the apostles before his going away are pretty clear:  you won’t see me, but others will see me in you through the power of the Holy Spirit.  She may have lived over a century after Jesus’ ascension, but Blandina heard these words and lived them.  And because she did, others saw Jesus in her. 

It is up to us, the inheritors of Blandina's witness and of Jesus' words to the apostles before the Ascension.  Jesus has returned to heaven, now what what will we do about it? If we don’t bear the face of Jesus to the world, who will??   All too often, because we live in a much different world from Blandina, we Christians become complacent, even lazy.  We go to church on Sunday and say hello to one another, but Jesus is the furthest thing from our minds when we exit our red doors.  The visitor in our midst longs to be welcomed, to be shown hospitality, to have conversation, to know that he or she is being cared for. But it is not just the visitor inside our walls that wants to see Jesus.  The world around us cries out for the kind of love that Jesus preached and lived—the kind of love that sets the captives free, that preaches truth to power, that sets the world on fire.  The world is poor, hungry, cold, and lonely.  The world is fractured and in pain.  The world is, perhaps, not all that different from Blandina’s time, after all.

Will you be the one to show the face of Jesus to the world?