Home to the Heart of God

On Sunday November 16, I provided supply coverage at St. Peter's Church in Beverly. The Gospel for the Day was the Gospel of the Talents. Here are some thoughts on the parable. Beverly, MA was also a place I knew well. It was my dad's home. My grandparents and great grandparents also come from this Northshore town. 

Home to the Heart of God

It is a lot like coming home to be at St Peter's Church and preside at the altar here and preach from this pulpit. My dad grew up right around the corner here on Butman street. My grandfather Bill Bresnahan worked for years at the Shoe which we now know as The Cummings Center. My great grandparents lived on Bisson Street and I take my middle name from them: Mr & Mrs William Bisson. In our family tree, names like the Gallops and the Tarletons are all a part of our genetic history. And they all came from Beverly.

I am home again here if only for this particular Sunday. I’ve been serving as a “bridge priest” at St Paul’s Church in North Andover during the past 10 months or so and then Cindy and I took some time off to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. We went out west to see family and some marvelous sites; Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, The Black Hills, and Devil’s Tower. And then we drove for miles and miles to enjoy not only some of the beauty our nation, but of being together all these years. And next Sunday I begin service again as a part time interim priest at a church on Cape Cod. I love being semi retired.

Being at home means something special to me. God has sent me to places like Ohio, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania and we did our best to make these places our home, but it was not until we came back to Eastern Massachusetts that we really felt that we were back home again. We live in Lynn now just off Lynn Shore Drive and most evenings I will walk along the shore and watch, and listen and smell the sweet salt air of the sea. Now that’s home to me. 

It is interesting that St Augustine was fond of saying that “our hearts are restless until they come to rest in You, O God”. As I walk the shore of the sea I find myself coming to rest in God. I’ve watched the sea in all her moods and moody she is much like us.  All the way from her perfect pacific self on a sunny summer’s day to her raging, swirling tempestuous self in the midst of a nor’easter. I’ve seen her on moonlit sparkling nights and and also shrouded in the mystery of fog when she paints herself like an impressionist would in a melancholy mood.

I find myself walking down by the sea perfectly at home with myself and my God. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t stir up the pot from time to time, when I speak up for the poor and the meek, and the outcast, the brokenhearted and those persecuted for righteousness sake because that is exactly what Jesus did.

In fact my heart comes to rest in the Holy Scripture. The Collect of the Day tells us that God has caused all holy writings to be written for our learning, and further asks “that we may read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them”.

My dear friend Bernie Maguire is an Episcopal Priest in Pennsylvania and he has always kept dogs out of his love for animals. He once had a high strung Irish Setter who on the eve of this very Sunday ate Fr. Bernard’s copy of the Book of Common Prayer. Apparently the dog was a literalist in that he did indeed come to inwardly digest his owner’s copy of the Holy Writ. 

I have read the Holy Writings from our traditions and others. I have read the Holy Koran. I have read the Law of Moses. And while there is much to disquiet the soul in these writings there is much also that brings the spirit to rest.

Particularly as I read the Gospels. The very words of Jesus again and again resonate within my soul and speak authoritatively to me even if I do not always fully understand them. I know that they stand true and withstand the test of time.

And then comes today’s Gospel. How could I come to rest with such words as these? It appears here that God is building into our lives a good deal of accountability. The landowner entrusts his slaves a very large amount of money. One talent is worth 80 pounds of silver. If you weigh that up and give the equivalent to us, we’re talking about $300,000 US. That’s a whole lot of money. But note that in the Gospel these folks are called slaves not rich folks. Note that they “trade” with what is given them and much more is earned to give back when the landowner returns. 

We know that the business of the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few is an ethical matter for scripture and for ourselves. In next week’s Gospel we will read that when Jesus comes to judge the nations he will separate the sheep from the goats. He will welcome the sheep at his right hand into the kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of time because when he was hungry we fed him. When thirsty he was given something to drink. When he was sick or in prison we visited him. And he will say; “Insofar as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it to me. But as for the goats on his left hand, these are the ones who looked the other way when there was poverty, hunger, thirst, imprisonment and sickness. These will be sent to the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This parable gives us a clue as to the meaning of the parable that is before us today. Both speak of the end times not just in the sense of where we go when we are dead. There is another sense in which the word “end” refers to the “purpose” of our lives.

So then if we are given large sums of money to work with; or lets say when we are given more than 15 years worth of wages, we are given time to live in accordance with God’s will. You have the time and the wherewithal to trade in God’s economy. You can feed the hungry, give something to those who are thirsty, visit and sick and the imprisoned and so on.

In point of fact you can organize your life around the needs of human beings for the satisfaction of our hunger not just to satisfy our physical wants but also to satisfy our deeper yearnings for justice.

When the church is at its healthiest it organizes its life around human need and justice issues.

If we look at the history of the development of Celtic Christianity in Britain for instance we’ll notice that the religious communities of the day were built around human need.

Is somebody here sick or dying? Bring them to us and we’ll tend to them.

Are you hungry? Come here and we’ll feed you.

Are your children in need of a good education? Or do your farmers need help and instruction in the proper cultivation of crops. Come to us we are among the finest scholars in Europe. 

Are you depressed and is your soul downcast within you? Come to us and we’ll cheer you with good company and conviviality. 

And does your soul long for something more? Are you unsure of your purpose in life? Come here and we’ll give you a purpose in life. We’ll Baptize you in the Name of God the Creator, Jesus the Savior, and The Holy Spirit, the gift giver and the Holy Wisdom from on High.

God has given to each and every one of you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of life, not cash. God wants you and me to multiply God’s work on earth so that the Forgiveness with which he forgave you becomes the Forgiveness with which we forgive one another. God’s work is to be Reconciled to God and then to multiply that Reconciliation among all our life’s enemies until God’s reign on earth is established on earth as it is in heaven. God’s work is to be Loved as God loves us and then for us to love one another until the earth is filled with the Glory of God as the waters cover the sea. 

We have been given a fortune with which to trade in God’s stock and trade. And that is what brings me home again and to peace within the heart of God. That is the only place where I can come to rest, squarely in the heart of God. That is why this Gospel and all of the Gospels and the Person of Jesus is that peace which passes all understanding.

This is precisely what Paul had in mind when he wrote this sacred text for us in today’s Epistle. “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.”

It is good for us to be home together today in the heart of God. As we come to this Altar Rail today, let that peace settle within you…and let us be resolved to be forgiven as we forgive, to be reconciled as we reconcile, to be loved as we seek to love. There is no greater peace than that!

In the Name of the Father and of The Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr Paul.

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

The Raven

by Edgar Allen Poe

as read by

Fr Paul Bresnahan

A Prayer for EMT's, Fire and Police

A Prayer for EMT's, Fire and Police

The dog and I went for our morning walk not long ago and an ambulance went screaming by. I crossed myself as I glanced at the lone driver and said a prayer. Our EMT's, Fire and Police all need our prayers. Especially in the "heat" of the moment. When I hear the wail of the sirens, I will say a prayer.

Each in his or her own way. 

We all need all the prayers we can muster.

The victims.

All our first responders.

Yes, I know of police who will display cruelty and deadly violence.

And, yes, I know police face cruelty and deadly violence.

And yes, they too need our prayers as neighborhood teens across the land need them too.

Enter a burning building?

My uncle did so many times as did many others I know.

Imagine; enter a burning building!

A heart attack!

An accident on a highway

And one of my cousins or a perfect stranger will be there.

I live in Lynn, and hear sirens often day and night.

They are there for us.

And they need our prayers.

I took an old prayer I learned many years ago and reworked it a bit for our first responders.

Dear God

Whenever comes the summons

To those who stand or lie in terror

If, in haste, and for want of courage, for the moment, I forget Thee

Do not Thou forget me.

May God grant that we too say our prayers when we hear sirens.

The Final Prayer; "Good Bye"

The Final Prayer; “Good Bye”

We have now come to the end of my time with the good people of St Paul’s Church in North Andover. As you prepare to receive your new priest Sarah Kelb, so now you and I must prepare our hearts to say Goodbye.

To say “Goodbye” is not to say I’m leaving; it is to ask a prayer.

Look at the word. Study its etymology; its source and derivation. It comes to us from an older English word which we can trace back to around 1470AD; the word is “Godbwye” or to spell it out; it means:

 God

 Be

 With

 You

It does not mean I’m leaving. It means “God be with you”. It is my prayer now. Like the time I left David or Michael at their college dorms, knowing that never again would it be the same, just like that time driving those many, many miles home again with my eyes full of tears; as I said to my sons, whom I love with all my heart, so now I say to you; “May God be with you.”

This is my prayer as we now come to this last Eucharist. We have shared many a chuckle, and many a perplexity, and a few tears. All of which is called life. I have likewise come close to some of you, yes even in this short 9 months together. I came to serve here as your “Bridge” priest for a period of perhaps 3 months. As the time lengthened, it felt to me that I was becoming more of a “Causeway” kind of priest than a “Bridge” priest

So too, I must say to you one and all; “Goodbye” which is to say, I pray for you in exactly these terms; “God be with you”. 

But let me hasten to add what I mean by that as the gathered of God in this place today; I mean this:

 God is love

You must love one another with all your hearts, all your souls, all your mind and all your strength. That is who God is. God is Love. You cannot say you love God unless you love one another. And if you want to love God, then begin by loving one another. 

Note that the scripture recognizes the many difficulties in the business of love. In the first lesson we heard how the whole congregation of Israel complained in the hearing of God. There’s the smoking gun; complaining in congregations is nothing new. But God did a wonderful thing. He sent quail to give them meat to eat and in the evening and in the morning he sent “manna”; literally “what is it?”. As the children of Israel gathered the “fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground”, they said to one another “what is it?”. Since that was what they said as they gathered it up each day, that was then what they ended up calling it; “What is it!”

In our own time as we are fed and nourished by the Eucharist each Sunday we might ask ourselves the same question; “What is it?” Is this the body of Christ? Is it a symbol of Christ’s Real Presence with us? Is it focused on the Bread and Wine, or the Scripture, the Prayers of the People, the moment when we come to the altar rail or when we leave the church to make a better world? Is it in the entire mystery of gathering and being sent out again? God feeds us today as he did the children of Israel long years ago with Manna in the wilderness. 

In today’s Gospel we also heard of the Landowner who went out to hire laborers to work his vineyard for the day. They agreed on the wage for the day. But when he went out a little later on at 9 o’clock in the morning he found those idle in the marketplace and he sent them out to work the vineyard too. So too he went out at noon and three in the afternoon; and he said “What are you doing standing around here idle; go into the vineyard and get to work!”. Then again as the day was drawing to a close, he sent yet more workers into the vineyard at 5 pm. And when the time came to be paid, beginning with the last hired, he paid them all the same wage. This parable does not please economists and certainly flies in the face of sound business practice. It pleases me because if it were up to me I’d put every idle teenager in the inner cities and rural areas of this and all countries to work. Idle hands make for mischief and loss of hope. Loss of hope makes young people the targets of those who seek to do harm through crime, drugs, and extremism and terrorism…but I’ve already said that more than once.

But this landowner, in the imagery of scripture, who does he represent? Perhaps God? This vineyard often represents Israel throughout the imagery of scripture and certainly does here. The folks standing idly by, that be you and me unaware of how urgent a matter it is for us to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God. And the pay at the end of the day of course, is it none other than the Kingdom of God itself? 

It is the business of the love of God. “What is it?” we might ask might ask with the Children of Israel as they gather the “What is it?” that God provides. The business of God’s love gets turned upside down in unexpected ways as the first sometimes come in last and the last sometimes come in first. How do we make sense of it all?

“Its complicated”, as the movie might say. I know its complicated. Love is complicated. Forgiveness is almost incomprehensible and impossible were it not for the presence of God in our lives. But then loving God with all of our heart and soul, and mind and strength...that takes everything we’ve got. And loving one another takes a little more. So get on with it. That’s the work of the people of God; to love one another. This is our “liturgia”, literally, the public work of the church. There is plenty of work to do in God’s Vineyard. 

Blessed Paul the Apostle puts it well of our work in the vineyard in today’s Epistle; “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.” 

Therefore you must love God. You must therefore love one another. Oh and, one more thing, you must love your new priest too. Just to make sure I go on record; you must love your new priest with all your heart all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength. Got that?

And Goodbye. Remember what that means? It is a prayer; how does it go?

 God 

 Be 

 With 

 You

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Fr Paul

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: JESUS OF NAZARETH

JESUS OF NAZARETH

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE!

It is Holy Cross Day in the Church Calendar and that got me to thinking about Jesus: dead or alive. It got me to thinking about my dearest loved ones: dead or alive. Ultimately it gets me to thinking about all of us: dead or alive. 

This past week, I went to visit some dear friends in the Cleveland area where I served as a parish priest from 1983-1990. We were all younger then and I baptized a slew of babies there including Bob and Cathy’s triplets. There were weddings and burials by the score as well and it was during my time there that we designed and installed a columbarium. 

As it turns out one of the members of that congregation is very sick now and is much older, well into his 90’s. Not an easy time of it for him. And Cathy has suffered a massive stroke too. And I couldn’t let the time come and go without a visit to both of them and some other family and friends.

As I drove the more than 600 miles between home and Cleveland I became aware of the fact that it was a journey that united many memories, many places, and many people. My life is and has been an abundant one. I thought of my Toronto years, mom, HK as we called my step father, my brother Jim, school chums, Seminary days, and then of course my life at Epiphany, Euclid, where Cindy and I lived and our children were young. There were the hundreds and thousands of miles along I-90 and the New York State Thruway.

It was a journey that required many prayers, and a sense that God is with us in and through every mile. As God is with Don and his family and friends, and as God is with Cathy and her family and friends. It is a journey that requires many, many prayers.

In today’s Epistle, St. Paul reflects on the quarrels that are necessary in parish life and then in soaring language elevates the playing field to what is ultimately true for all of us. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

I remember very well being at Epiphany and the joys and sorrows of being there. It was there that I discovered how to manage a “New Member Ministry” paradigm that gave much life to that congregation. It was while I was there that I discovered that I was bi-polar, and none of us really knew how to handle mental illness at the time. 

Jesus got us though all that and has brought us to this new day. I wondered as many of us might, how many times are we to forgive one another? Shall we forgive shall we say 7 times? You know the answer to that one, “NO! You shall forgive seventy times seven. I know that today’s translation says seventy seven times…but the point is the same; the essence of spirituality is Forgiveness. It is in the nature of a full and abundant life that Jesus intends for us that we will live lives that are forgiven and forgiving at the same time. As today’s Gospel makes clear, in the same way that the King generously forgives his servant, so too that servant is under the same moral mandate to forgive the one who owed him a fraction of his former debt. 

When I served at the Church of the Epiphany, in Euclid, Ohio, I began every Sunday morning celebrating the Eucharist in the Chapel. Over the altar in that Chapel there was a Christus Rex, for me the most beautiful Christus Rex I have ever seen. 

The Christus Rex pictures Jesus in his Risen Glory, on a cross, crowned in victory and robed in glory. This is how the Early Church pictured Jesus. Not on a crucifix in agony and in death, as the church of the high middle ages imagined him, not an empty wooden cross as much of the Reformed Church sees him…but as the Risen One in Glory…the one who rose victorious over sin and death. 

This is how I picture Jesus. Cindy and I had a chance to visit Epiphany this week while we were in Euclid. We got a chance to meet the new priest. I took some photographs of the church, a very beautiful Colonial building. And then of course I went to the chapel. Four candles were lit on the altar there, and the Christus Rex stood out by the candle light on a typical cloudy Cleveland day. I snapped a few shots of the cross with Jesus crowned in Glory robed in a chasuble of the resurrection. 

How interesting that this is how the early church pictured Jesus. Mind you they were closer to the reality of the Risen One than we are. They were with him on the night he washed their feet and instituted the Eucharist as that meal designed to make him known to us for all time. He told us this one simple thing; love one another! They saw the trial and crucifixion and watched him die. The women went to the tomb on that first Easter morning and discovered it was empty.  Lo and behold the gardener Mary saw was not there to trim the trees but to pierce through what we thought was the power of sin and death. They saw him in the upper room. Even Thomas touched the wounds on his hands and side. My Lord, and my God, he said!

He is alive. No matter how many baptisms, weddings, hospital calls, or funerals I did at Epiphany, I came to the altar on Sunday morning and smiled with the joy of faith when I saw that Christus Rex, the Risen Christ in Glory.

I wanted then what I want now. Jesus: Dead or Alive. Or perhaps more precisely, I want Jesus Dead and Alive. As he lives a life like he lives so I too want to live like him. As he dies a death like he dies, so too I want to die with him. As he rises from all the power that sin and death has in life so too I want to rise with him. This is why I am a Christian. Don and Cathy are struggling with their challenges just now in this life, as we all are. They have decided to dedicate their lives to Jesus. You and I have decided to dedicate our lives to Jesus. 

I have a Facebook friend in California who refers to himself as a devout Episcopalian. Funny, I thought, you don’t see that turn of phrase on Facebook very often, but it pleased me when I saw it. Last week I invited you all to become pillars of the church as you prepare to greet your new priest. As of yesterday we have a new Bishop too! Lets be pillars of the church for our new priest and our new bishop and for one another.

Above all let’s be pillars of the Church for Jesus, the Risen One, the Christus Rex as we greet with joy this feast day of the Holy Cross. The world is still waiting for peace and justice. The world cannot have either until it too gets to know something about the Love of God that we meet in Jesus, the Law of God as we have received it from Moses, or the Mercy of God as we know about it from the Holy Koran. The world cannot have Peace with Justice until we all learn to love and respect one another. As a boy I had to pray for the Queen of England in the Anglican Church of Canada for 11 long years. This was a challenge for a kid born and brought up in Boston. But I grew to love and respect the folks in Canada. They gave me a very good education and universal singly payer health care beginning in 1967. 

The time came for Cindy and me to leave Cleveland early on Friday morning. We had a long day ahead of us. I thank God for our love. We have our best visits during those long, long rides. We dream our dreams, hope our hopes, and call to mind our memories. 

We also say our prayers for Don and Cathy. We visited Ward and Suzie and their daughter Abbey and her new baby boy Elliot while we were there. What a joy! There is much to think about as the ribbon of highway stretched out before us. And so I always come back to a prayer that sustained me lo these many years. 

Come Lord Jesus and be our Companion along the way. Kindle our hearts and awaken Joy, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and in the Breaking of the Bread. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Civil Unrest & Terrorism

Civil Unrest and Terrorism

In God We Trust

So says the coinage of the Republic. 

The collect of the day teaches us to trust in God with all our hearts. And there are two reasons for that; firstly, God resists those who put their confidence in their own strength, and secondly, God never forsakes those who make their boast in the mercy of God.

Certainly we see evidence of that in Sacred History. Today, for instance, in our First Lesson we read of God’s ordinance regarding the institution of the Passover meal. The ritual of Passover is a reenactment of the means by which we came from slavery to freedom.

Blacks were slaves in America, Irish were slaves in Ireland, and the British were slaves in their homeland as well if we go back far enough in history. I was surprised to learn that the stirring words of Rule Britannia, a grand national song the British sng a the conclusion of the Proms in London include the words; “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”

Rule Britannia!

Britannia rule the waves.

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Ah there’s nothing quite like the Proms. We have the Pops, but the British have the Proms. Either way what fun!

In the history of all people, if we go back far enough, we will discover that we were all slaves at one time or another. We were and are in turn, also oppressors. It is in the nature of Sacred History that God will choose a Moses who will go to every Pharaoh and say; “Let my people go!” 

Most economists note that in the current history of America, the only place where income in increasing significantly is in the top 1% of the population. You will remember that Pharaoh was worried about the number of Hebrew people in the land and decreed that the male children would be killed. One of those children got away as we already know from the cycle of readings around the life of Moses. 

Then there were too many Hebrew children, now we have millions of illegal aliens and children without parents invading our shores from Central America. Like we did when the Irish and the Italians who invaded before them, we posture ourselves politically against the inevitable. 

People go to Pharaoh again and again seeking a place in the sun. Whether it is citizenship or a raise in the minimum wage or just a job, the powerless will always be met with the same response from those with the power. NO!

I see slavery in our young people today here at home in America, and abroad as well. I ache for our young people, whether in the teeming inner cities of our nation, in rural areas or the middle east. If they do not have an opportunity to find their way toward economic freedom, they will be forced into a life of crime, waste away into a life of drugs abuse, or turn to a life of violent terrorism, which at least promises them all the rewards of heaven. 

I would argue that it is a dangerous posture for us to allow our young to languish in a kind of modern variation of slavery and oppression. I’ve spent a lifetime in the cities and in the rural areas of this country and I can tell you chapter and verse about the hopelessness of these young people.

Take away hope, and you take away everything. If you grow up in my family or in my church you will find out it what it is like to be loved and educated and equipped for life in this world. You will make a contribution to the creative, redemptive and sanctifying work of God. If you grow up in my home, God help you!

What does our Catechism teach us about the Five Mighty Acts of God? Yes, you all know them, of course. They are 

I. The Creation

II. The Exodus

III. Jesus Christ

IV. The Church

V. The Christian Hope

That’s the foundation of all faith. God created us. God brought us out of slavery and into freedom. God sent Jesus to be for us the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus gave us the Church as the Community of Faith where we might live out our faith. And The Resurrection of Jesus establishes the Hope in which we all live both in this life and in the life to come.

If you take away our hope, or if you take away the church or Jesus, if you take away a sense that God has made us, then, sure as Mike, we’ll fall back again into slavery. I suspect that many of our young people are losing all sense of meaning, purpose and perspective in life. If there are no jobs, if there is no future, no purpose, then there is crime and drugs. 

If there is no hope for the young in the Middle East, they become prime targets for those who wish to wage Jihad or “Holy War” against the Western World. After all, the Western World has turned toward secularism and away from God, and though I understand why many turn away from religious zealots.

What I do not understand though is the growing concentration of wealth in the few. I object to the redistribution of wealth from the the 99% to the 1%. It is a posture of greed. A posture of greed is very dangerous both domestically and internationally. In today's Gospel, Jesus teaches us to take the case directly to the one who sins against you. If that doesn’t work bring a few respected leaders with you and seek some kind of accommodation. If that doesn’t work set the matter before the church and if that still doesn’t work treat the offender as you wold a tax collector. 

The tax collector was usually the richest man in town and treated as a pariah. He was among the most despised in all in the Ancient Near Eastern world. I hope you appreciate the exquisite irony in that the writer of this Gospel story was himself a tax collector. He knew what it was like to be treated as a social pariah.

All except for Jesus, who looked at Matthew, the tax collector, with compassion. He treated him as a human being and as a child of God. Jesus had no money and lived on a subsistence level. All we know about the taxes that Jesus paid was that famous quip from the 22nd Chapter of the Tax Collector’s Gospel where Jesus was given a coin with Caesar’s image imprinted on it. Jesus said; “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what belongs to God.”

Apparently Matthew thought that much more than wealth belonged to God. The encounter he had with Jesus turned his whole life upside down. He found his reason for living. He discovered what Justice and fair play meant. He found forgiveness, reconciliation. Above all, he found the love of God.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we are told the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. Apparently there were those standing idle early in the morning, and the landowner put them to work for the agreed daily wage. Likewise at 9 o’clock he went out and there he found more standing idle. Again he agreed to send them out to work and pay them fairly. He went out at noon and at three in the afternoon and he put them to work with the same promise of a fair wage. Finally at 5pm he still found those standing idle and put them to work again agreeing to pay them what was fair. 

When the time came to pay the laborers they all got a full day’s wage. A storm of protest erupted, since those who had worked the whole day could not understand why they would not be paid more than those who had only worked an hour. 

There are way too many standing idle in our inner cities, our rural areas and in the hot bed of conflict in the Middle East. Such idleness will give rise to crime, drugs, and international terror.

To my way of thinking there is a connection between the unrest we have seen this summer in Ferguson, Missouri, and other urban and rural areas of America and international terrorism. 

If we let our young people stand idle in the marketplace, a vacuum will be created that is worse than slavery. It is the vacuum of hopelessness. Nature abhors a vacuum. It must be filled with something. Domestically it seems to be filled with crime and drugs. Internationally it seems to be filled with the hope of heaven given in the delusional teachings of ultra radical Islamic terrorism. 

Obviously Moses, Jesus and Mohammed abhor slavery, injustice, and violence. All three believed and taught that God is the creator, the Law Giver, the All Loving and the All Merciful.

The Great Souls all teach us of The Dream of God. A dream where there is Freedom with Law, Justice, Mercy and above all, a Love between and among brothers and sisters. I think this is what Paul was trying to say in today's Epistle. That's what it all boils down to; "Love one another"!

This is our Dream too. The Dream will not come true until we Proclaim the Gospel of God's Love with courage and determination.

This is the Dream of God.

Robin Williams and this Depressing Summer

Robin Williams and this Depressing Summer

The events of the summer we’re living through have been so depressing and dangerous. It is the kind of summer that brings tears to so many human eyes; eyes such as Joseph shed in Egypt as we read about in our first lesson. The conflict in the Ukraine, the sudden rise of the super extreme ISIS militant faction in Iraq, warfare yet again between Palestinians and Israelis, another unarmed teen is killed and subsequent civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and now this week we hear of the death of a gifted comic genius, and Episcopalian Robin Williams. 

That one hit me hard. Well, to tell you the truth this summer hits me hard. The relentless bad news, day after day, after day. Even listening to it without the hype that the networks give it, has helped little. I prefer listening to my news on NPR and even there, the facts and details of it are all more than we can seem to bear.

Monday night as I was out for my evening walk, I heard the news of Robin Williams’ death; an apparent suicide. Oh my God, it took my breath away. Here is one with whom I share so much; a wonderful sense of humor, a common faith and the same psychiatric diagnosis as bi-polar. 

As for that unparalleled sense of humor, who can forget Robin’s ten top reasons to be an Episcopalian; 

10. No snake handling.

9. You can believe in dinosaurs.

8. Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.

7. You don't have to check your brains at the door.

6. Pew aerobics.

5. The Church year is color-coded.

4. Free wine every Sunday.

3. All of the pageantry - none of the guilt.

2. You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized.

And the Number One reason to be an Episcopalian:

1. No matter what you believe, there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

But all the comedy ended, all the laughter was silenced Monday. Not only do we share a common faith, we also share that demon known as bi-polar affective disorder. I had my break in 1990 and no recurrence since but I do take my meds faithfully, I see my psychiatrist, and my spiritual director just so that I can keep myself on an even keel. I pray and read my scripture every day and I keep a journal where I share with God my deepest thoughts.

None of us can know what it is that drives someone to this last great desperate act. But we do know from such books as the “Noonday Demon” that depression can be so dreadful and dark that many are driven to the depths of despair. From that point there is little comfort for those who suffer so. 

Interestingly enough I think Robin Williams dealt with the  question of suicide in one of his most self revealing movies; “What Dreams May Come” filmed and produced as long ago as 1998. It was not a critical success. I think it was probably too theologically profound to receive critical acclaim. In the movie, Robin plays a gifted doctor whose sons both die in dreadful accidents and then whose wife takes her own life. Eventually Robin’s character ends up in heaven, but he tells his angel that he cannot live in heaven without the one he loves. He decides he’d rather go to hell and be with her than to live in heaven without her. He then goes to go to hell and back for the love of his wife. And it is only that love that can overcome her deep and self absorbed despair.

I know what suicide leaves in its wake. As one who has gone to the graveyard with families of those who have taken their own lives, the question is often there, spoken or unspoken; is there really a heaven for my beloved? How can God embrace someone who forgets the mercy and love of God? 

The answer to that question comes in part, from today’s Epistle. “Can God reject his own people? God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

In today’s Gospel it is said that the woman has a demon. We live in an age full of demons. Now we call them personality disorders, schizophrenia, psychosis and so on, but the one thing we cannot fill with psychiatry is the void left when we take God out of the equation of modern life. 

When Jesus walked the planet, those with demons recognized him instantly. I ask you now to do the same. What of those today with empty souls? Empty bodies? With what shall we fill them if they cannot recognize Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit that dwells within? They cannot recognize Jesus unless we have the courage to tell the story of how God has made all the difference in our lives.

And when our lives are filled with demons, I only wish we could call out loudly and insistently like the woman in today’s Gospel. Even at the initial resistance of Jesus, the woman pushes back with daring tenacity. "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” At such such a statement as this Jesus says; “Great is your faith”.

How I wish I could have reached out to Robin Williams with my illnesses and my faith. I think we might have found a place to meet and laugh and cry and find God again beating in the human heart. Alas, that will have to wait until another day when “ What Dreams May Come” will be the dreams we dream. In the meantime, I will have to be patient. 

Sunday by Sunday and day after day we sings the songs of God and cheer one another on. I did write these words on Facebook Monday night not just for the broken hearted but for all of us. “A thought. Just a thought. Sometimes in the evening when you are wondering how somebody is, pick up the phone and ask them, "Hey, how are you?" You many save a life.”

Sure, I know it is a depressing summer. I know as well as anyone what demons lurk within the human heart as well as within our history. How long will it take for humankind to realize that the only answer to all our heartaches is the joy of knowing God our Creator, Jesus our Savior, and The Holy Spirit, the Holy Wisdom from on High. 

Yesterday I came across these magnificent words form a Celtic Psalter. Given the beauty of the land is it any wonder the Celtic land is a land of such poetry? Let me share these words with you now. 

At the heart of life and in its heights glory shines. 

Within creation and beyond
glory has its source.
Guide me to the heart of life
that I may know its heights.
Lead me further within, O God,
that I may know you as beyond.
In the sufferings of my heart
and the brokenness of creation
open to me further
the doors of the eternal
that through the pain that is within me and the struggles that are around me
I may be guided to you as the heart of life, that through the pain that is within me and the struggles that are around me
I may be guided to you as in and beyond all
that has life.

-from Sounds of the Eternal: A Celtic Psalter. 

Keep singing the songs of God dear friends, cheer each other on. The Kingdom of heaven is among you and within us.

~Fr Paul

Reversing the Decline

Reversing the Decline

I love these holy places. 

That is why in my free time during the past year, I’ve been writing up my latest book; “Reversing the Decline”. It is based on a number of power point presentations I made while I was in the Diocese of Montana last year. The thesis of my book is that we Episcopalians and other mainstream churches have been in decline for a long time and we have forgotten so much about congregational development and evangelism, that we are now almost preoccupied, even planning, in some cases for the closing of way too many congregations. 

I have specialized in “turn-around” ministry throughout my career, and in recent years have “stumbled”, if you will, upon the idea of organizing our church’s life around the notion of Membership Drives.

With the community as the context of that development; with mobilizing the church around the issues of justice, and courageously organizing the church around issues of human suffering and need, a church will then become a place where its mission and ministry will become unmistakably valuable. After all, if we are the Body of Christ, we can do nothing less that what Jesus attempted to do while he was with us to become a healing presence in the midst of those he met. 

The community becomes the basis, then, of the congregation’s development. With a membership management committee at the helm, the congregation will direct its life around raising the visibility of the place by doing Every Door Direct Mailings, Mailings to folks newly arrived in town, perhaps purchasing billboard space, being sure to submit interesting articles to to the local press from time to time, perhaps monthly; by lifting up the life of the place; people will begin to visit the place. The natural times to do our “marketing efforts” will be in September, when the church gears up for its fall program, in the run up to Christmas, when we all have a natural “tug” toward church, and Holy Week and Easter when we proclaim the core of our faith namely that Jesus Christ is Risen today!

Then our greeting skills, our willingness to help orient and incorporate people to the life within a congregation, and finally our efforts at sending folks out to do the work God has given us all to do, we complete the cycle.

But the membership question is not answered until we ask each person during our annual membership drives to work and pray and give for the spread of the kingdom of God. You will remember this essential teaching of our catechism. Thus we don’t ask people for pledges alone. We ask of our selves and others to consider what it is that God’s work is; i.e. to respond to human suffering and need, and to seek God’s justice. We ask for the prayer of the church which is a coming together weekly for the Holy Eucharist, and daily to pray the prayer of the church in the Daily Office. And then, and only then do we ask people to give in proportion to what God has given them; perhaps 10%, perhaps 5%, but in any case, we tap into the gift of generosity which is at the heart of our spirituality.

One of the highlights of my career was an invitation by Frank Brookhart, Bishop of Montana, to fly out to the Camp and Conference Center on the shores of Flathead Lake, to be the primary presenter at the annual Clergy Conference. Frank was expecting me to do present some work on congregational development and evangelism which has always been something of a specially of mine.

As we drove up to Camp and Conference Center from Helena over the continental divide, we had plenty of time to talk. We had been good friends when we served in West Virginia in a previous life for both of us. I explained to Frank that my thinking on congregational development had evolved significantly. I felt that, like NPR and PBS we needed to do regular Membership Drives. 

At the time I was preparing the material for this clergy conference, I was also working on a model for a Membership Drive with the folks at St Gabriel’s Church, in Douglassville, PA. We were experiencing encouraging results. My presentations in Montana were very well received; so much so that I was invited back to be the Keynoter at their annual convention and then to tour the diocese by Deanery and continue my presentations. It was an exciting time for me. At the conclusion of the week Frank and I had to drive back to Helena, from Flathead Lake; almost a five hour drive.

So I asked the Bishop; “Tell me, Frank, have you ever heard this expression from any Bishop, Priest, Senior Warden or other Episcopalian in any capacity; have you ever heard any of them say; ‘Let’s have a membership drive?’” 

There was a long and telling silence. I asked the question one more time; “Tell me, what do you think? Have you ever heard that expression ‘Let’s have a membership drive from anyone in the church from the House of Bishops on down?’”.

Frank had to admit that he had never heard that particular turn of phrase from anyone in the Episcopal Church. Is it any wonder we are in decline and have been for so long a time. This last Thursday, I was at the Diocesan Headquarters to speak with Libby Berman, the Canon for Congregations and Jean Baptiste Ntagengwa, the Canon for Deployment. I asked the same question and received a blank reply.  

I shared with them my manuscript, based on the power point presentations I made in Montana and a lifetime’s worth of experience with congregations. “Reversing the Decline”. Thankfully I received a warm welcome for my work. I am so very hopeful that I can perhaps share this work in a wider setting, now that I have the time to do so as a retired simple parish priest. 

For as long as I can remember, we’ve been in decline. We have fought internal battles over race, gender, liturgical renewal, and then the granddaddy of them all; sexual orientation. Interestingly enough all these internal struggles have reflected what is going on in the wider culture around us.

Thankfully, we’ve been able to say in no uncertain terms that God’s embrace includes all humanity; just as Jesus said in today’s Gospel when he directed us to; “Go ye therefore into all nations, to all people and baptize them, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

So now then I ask you this question; shall we have a membership dive?

If we did, what would it look like? 

Can you prepare your hearts to receive an influx of new members here?

Can you pray for the courage, intelligence, and imagination to invite someone to come and see. Each of you; one person over the next year or so?

After all, let me make it clear that we are not seeking people who will merely come to church; we are seeking people who will have the courage to be the church.

Your vestry and membership committee are making preparations now. In fact an Every Door Direct Mailing is being prepared to send out in September to invite residence to attend services and our Sunday School and experience a church which has the courage to say; “We are a house of prayer for ALL people.”

I feel like Jacob at the Jabbock sometimes. I feel like I've been wrestling with God as I write long into the hours of the day or the night. And I refuse to let God go, not without a blessing. God has now blessed me with a manuscript. May God’s blessing now reach beyond that manuscript to the church we love. Perhaps what I have done here is to get a conversation going that needs to get going!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr Paul