[Diocese of Chicago]

Ascension Day 2012
Dear Friends:

The city of Chicago is awash with preparation for the NATO Summit, which begins on Sunday. Many of us are approaching this event with trepidation. We are unsure about everything from traffic and public safety to how we should speak and preach about the complex and troubling moral issues of national security, economic inequality, and care for the poor that the summit and its protesters raise.

The Bible has a lot to say about these issues of money, fear and violence. While we may be unsettled by the NATO Summit and the conflict it engenders, as Christians, we cannot turn our back on it. But we can pray.

As the summit begins, let us cover it-marinate it, as I sometimes say-in prayer. Please include this collect in your services on Sunday and encourage the people of your congregations and your communities to include the NATO Summit and the protesters in their prayers:

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, and especially the hearts of the leaders who gather now in Chicago, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, 823)

Today we celebrate the risen Christ ascending into heaven and empowering us to continue his work on earth. As we answer his call together, know that you and your ministry are included, with gratitude, in my prayers.

Faithfully,

Jeffrey D. Lee

Bishop of Chicago

The Archbishop of Myanmar has warned that political change is happening so fast that his country could be swamped by consumerism and competition.

[More]

The Most Reverend Dr. Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales and The Most Revd Alan Harper, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland and 13 other Bishops and clergy condemn the trip to Iran by Martin Kobler

[More]

[Anglican Taonga] The Christchurch City Council has asked for an “immediate pause” in the demolition of ChristChurch Cathedral.

After a lengthy debate, councilors on May 17 voted 10-4 to call for a halt to demolition while “deeper and more open consideration” of restoration plans take place.

However, deconstruction has already been halted to around mid-June.

In a statement this afternoon, the diocese pointed out that there is still a section 38 notice on the building and plans still have to meet the safety requirements of this notice.

“There is still a 76% probability of an aftershock of between 5-5.4, in the next year, which is both a safety risk for any workers on site and could also lead to further damage of the building,” the diocese said.

“The main priorities with the cathedral, as already stated, are safety and the safe retrieval of heritage items and taonga [treasured artifacts].”

City council debate

City councilors argued passionately for each side of the issue, with occasional flashes of anger.

Councilor Helen Broughton, who asked councilors to call for the pause, said the diocese needed to try every possible option to determine whether the heritage building could be saved.

“It holds an important place in the hearts and psyches of Christchurch residents, and restoration appears possible,” she said.

Councilor Claudia Reid said the council could not tell Anglican leaders what to do but had a duty to speak out on behalf of the city’s residents.

“There is a passion for a deeper conversation about the cathedral,” she said.

”It is a very potent symbol of who we are and what we are.”

Deputy Mayor Ngaire Button, who was among those opposed to a halt in demolition, said the decision had been taken out of the diocese’s hands by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA).

“CERA said the cathedral was damaged and needed to be deconstructed or demolished. Whatever term you use, it needs to be taken down,” she said.

“The church didn’t make the decision to take it down; CERA decided to take it down.”

The council will write to Diocese of Christchurch Bishop Victoria Matthews, the Anglican diocese, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and CERA advising them of its decision.

The Restore Christ Church Cathedral group, which urged councilors to endorse a pause, has already lauded the decision in a media release saying: “We won!”

[Sewanee: School of Theology] On May 11, All Saint’s Chapel was the setting for the University of the South’s 155th Convocation for the Conferring of Degrees for The School of Theology. Friends, family, and faculty joined graduating students for the Eucharist service and celebratory luncheon.

Following a sermon by the School’s dean, the Very Rev. William S. Stafford, twenty-eight graduates received degrees and certificates conferred by the University’s vice-chancellor, Dr. John McCardell. Bishop Neil Alexander, chancellor of the University, conferred honorary degrees on three distinguished recipients — Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch, the Rev. Dr. Carl P. Daw Jr., and the Rt. Rev. Terry A. White.

Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch has been professor of the history of the Church, University of Oxford, England, since 1997, and fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford, since 1995. Before joining the theology faculty at Oxford, he was tutor at Wesley College, Bristol, England. MacCulloch is widely recognized for his publication, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, 2009, used in many classrooms as the textbook for Church history.

The Rev. Dr. Carl P. Daw Jr. is the past executive director of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and adjunct professor of hymnology, Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Mass. Daw also serve as the curator of hymnological collections. He has served successively as secretary and chair of the standing commission on Church music of the Episcopal Church and was a member of the committee that created the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal, to which he contributed several translations, metrical paraphrases, and original hymns. Daw received his M.Div. from The School of Theology in 1981.

The Rt. Rev. Terry Allen White was consecrated as the Diocese of Kentucky’s eighth bishop on Sept. 25, 2010. White came to the Commonwealth of Kentucky from Kansas, City, Mo., where he had served since 2004 as the dean of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in the Diocese of West Missouri. Before being called to Kansas City, he served in parishes in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Complete biographies of the honorary degree recipients made be seen on the School’s website, along with a complete list of all graduates.

Thus, the Church is founded on Christ. It is His Church, the response to His call, the obedience to His will. It is important to keep this in mind, because Christians themselves often forget and being to view the Church as “theirs,” as an organization essentially called to serve them, to satisfy their spiritual and non-spiritual needs and demands. Yet the very word Church shows above all that is the union of those who are called to serve Christ, and to continue His work. It is service not to self but to God. ~Alexander Schmemann, Celebration of Faith, vol. I (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991), p. 116.

This General Convention will no doubt see a flurry of activity about restructuring and much wrangling about the budget. All parties will play lip service to being mission-driven. There will be, as there already have been, a number of charges and counter-charges about who is giving into anxiety, resisting necessary change, and preserving a deadly status quo.

These words from Fr. Alexander Schmemann challenge us to a wider perspective. What would happen if we really did what we say we do at General Convention and prayed and listened for the voice of the Holy Spirit.

I submit that the Spirit would draw us deeper into the mission and ministry of Christ, calling us to forms of dying and rising that we have scarcely begun to imagine.
But this will only happen to the extent that we all remember that the Church belongs not to us but to God…and remain open to deeper conversion to each other and the world for which our Lord gave his life. It will necessarily involve renunciation of privilege and power and renewed dedication to the teaching and example of the Lord Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as rector of Emmanuel Parish, Shawnee in the Diocese of Oklahoma. His new parish blog is Emmanuel Shawnee Blog

[Episcopal News Service] La salud del presidente Hugo Chávez sigue siendo motivo de preocupación para Venezuela y especulación para los políticos que ven grandes cambios en el horizonte. La semana pasada circularon rumores de que los médicos cubanos le habían suspendido el tratamiento. Para reafirmar este rumor en más de una ocasión se vio a un Chávez triste, hablando con voz entrecortada pidiendo que “Cristo hiciera un milagro”. El gobierno venezolano desmintió la información.

Rafael Poleo, viejo periodista dueño de El Nuevo País y la revista Zeta dijo que el presidente Chávez “no está en condiciones de gobernar y que sufre grandes dolores físicos que lo obligan a una sedación extrema y permanente”. Añadió que esta situación demanda “piedad por el hombre adolorido y responsabilidad ante la crisis del poder”.

El canónico Hosam Naoum, 38, ha sido nombrado deán de la Catedral Anglicana de San Jorge en Jerusalén. Es el primer deán que no es de origen inglés desde que se construyó la catedral en 1898. Hizo sus estudios teológicos en Sudáfrica y Estados Unidos. Estará a cargo de la congregación palestina y la congregación internacional que ministra a peregrinos y residentes locales. La diócesis de Jerusalén tiene 32 instituciones de ayuda social. Naoum y su esposa Rafa tienen tres hijos, Wadi, Laurice y Krista.

El 3 de mayo un hombre armado entró en la Iglesia de San Pedro en Ellicott, Maryland, y asesinó a la presbítera Mary-Marguerite Kohn, de 62 años y a la auxiliar de administración Brenda Brewington de 59 años. El asaltante, identificado como Douglas Franklin Jones de 56 años, se dio a la fuga pero horas más tarde la policía encontró su cadáver en un paraje cercano. Se cree que las muertes fueron causadas por la forma en que se administraba un banco de alimentos que servía a los desamparados.

Burgess Carr, sacerdote episcopal natural de Liberia, ha fallecido a los 73 años. Fue un gran líder ecuménico como secretario del Consejo de Iglesias de Toda África. Idi Amin lo consideraba su enemigo.

Zenaida Manfugás, eximia pianista afro-cubana, ha fallecido en Elizabeth, N.J. a la edad de 80 años. Hija de un juez municipal, sufría de dolencias cardíacas. Se distinguió como intérprete de música clásica (“mi primer amor”) y música cubana antigua en sus giras a través del mundo. Recientemente en una visita a Miami dijo que cuando joven cantaba en el coro de la Iglesia Episcopal de Todos los Santos de Guantánamo, su ciudad natal. Por varios años fue profesora de historia de la música en Kean University en Nueva Jersey.

La Iglesia Metodista Unida concluyó su Conferencia General el 4 de mayo en Tampa, Florida, sin llegar a un acuerdo sobre sexualidad humana. La conferencia rechazó dos propuestas que hubieran modificado el Libro de Disciplina que afirma que “la práctica de la homosexualidad es incompatible con la enseñanza cristiana”. Las propuestas sobre clérigos gay y el matrimonio de personas del mismo sexo no llegaron a ser presentadas. En una conferencia de prensa se ratificó que “los ministros metodistas no podrán oficiar matrimonios del mismo sexo” y que está prohibido que ministros gay vivan en relación sentimental con personas del mismo sexo. Después de las decisiones muchas de las personas que favorecen estas propuestas, protestaron fuertemente, dijo una delegada.

El papa Benedicto XVI hizo un fuerte llamado recientemente a sus colegios y universidades de Estados Unidos para que reafirmen su “identidad católica”, especialmente en lo que se refiere a la facultad y demás empleados de estas instituciones. El llamado del papa llegó después que los obispos de Estados Unidos denunciaran hace unos meses a la monja Elizabeth Johnson, profesora de teología de la Universidad de Fordham en Nueva York, que publicó un libro titulado “La búsqueda del Dios vivo” que según los obispos no contiene una “enseñanza católica auténtica”.

Después de 22 años como periodista, Onell Robert Soto, 45, ha concluido cuatro años de estudios en la facultad de leyes de la Universidad de San Diego, California, que le otorgó el título de juris doctor el sábado 12 de mayo. Soto tendrá que cumplir ahora con los requerimientos del estado para poder ejercer la profesión de abogado. Mientras tanto, trabajará como pasante en la oficina del defensor del pueblo del condado de San Diego. La Universidad de San Diego, fundada en 1949, tiene 8,000 estudiantes y es regenteada por la diócesis católica romana de San Diego. El futuro abogado es hijo del obispo episcopal Onell A. Soto y su esposa Nina. Enhorabuena.

VERDAD. La paz es fruto de la justicia.

Psalms 24,29 (Morning)
Psalms 8, 84 (Evening)
Leviticus 8:1-13, 30-36
Hebrews 12:1-14
Luke 4:16-30

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. Luke 4:16-30 (NRSV)

Today's Gospel is the one familiarly misquoted in our secular jargon as "A prophet is without honor in his hometown." It's one any of us who came from small town America and left for the bright lights in the big city for any length of time probably has our own personal version to recount.

Show of hands, please...anyone heard a variation on one of these before?

"Don't be acting all high and mighty; I've known you since you were a little fool of a child."

"I know you--you're Joseph's boy. You ain't nothin' special."

"I heard what you did in Capernum, when are you going to get around to helping anyone here?"

Yep, I thought so.

As much as I loved my late grandmother, I can still hear the "stingers" she shot my way now and then, like the time I overheard one of her friends evidently asking some sort of medical question, soliciting some roundabout advice. "Oh, she doesn't know anything about it unless it's in a jar or cut up in little pieces to put under her microscope. Don't even bother asking her."

The flip side, of course, is almost out of the same breath, small town America loves to tout their famous faces and link them to their hometown places. Marceline, MO is the hometown of Walt Disney. Little ol' Clark, MO claims the birth of General Omar Bradley. For school children in northeast Missouri, the knowledge of Hannibal, MO as Mark Twain's hometown is etched in our DNA.

It's an interesting duality, isn't it?

One of the disadvantages we have in fully understanding the Jesus story is we get the luxury of seeing it in hindsight. We tend to think (now, put on your best imitation of Chris Rock's voice, here...) "I mean, this is JESUS! Who wouldn't like Jesus?" It clouds us from understanding the possibility that Jesus might have been seen a little differently in the Nazareth street chatter. They would have seen that Jesus more or less had ditched several of his family to follow this call as a prophet and healer. That in and of itself wasn't the most laudable occupation of those times. The street corners were full of "prophets" claiming all sorts of crazy things, and huckster "healers" of the tent revival variety were a dime a dozen. People who knew Jesus as a teenager probably remembered a very different form of Jesus we think we know now. I've yet to see any artistic renditions of a pimply-faced Jesus whose voice cracked when he opened his mouth, with smelly teenaged-boy feet. No one in Nazareth would have nominated him to be the illustration in the picture dictionary under the word "Messiah."

In that light, Jesus would have been a person who seemed, in some ways, to have rejected the way of life that the folks from Nazareth prized as a "good citizen." He might have even seemed to be crazy or downright dangerous. They would have been sure they knew "who he was," or at the very least, who they expected him to be, and what they were seeing was definitely not it.

Our story in Luke reminds us that there are going to be times that people who believe they know us, and a few people who actually love us very much, that even when we are truly and earnestly following Christ, are not always going to perceive us as overly "Christian." Also, the truth is, as fallible people, we get it wrong sometimes. That gets muddy, when we recognize there are also times we think we are truly following Christ and we were actually following our egos. The painful truth is that following Christ and living out some shocking truths won't always be well received, and sometimes it will be resisted with reminders of the times we got it smashingly wrong. It might even get us a hair's breadth from being hurled off the metaphorical cliff. How willing are we to engage the truth at that price?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Monday, May 7, 2012 -- Week of 5 Easter
Harriet Starr Cannon, Religious, 1896

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 963)
Psalms 56, 57, [58] (morning) // 64, 65 (evening)
Leviticus 16:1-19
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

[Go to http://www.missionstclare.com/english/index.html for an online version of the Daily Office including today's scripture readings.]

Today in Leviticus we read Moses instructions about the liturgy of the atonement, a complicated rite of purification involving diverse sacrifices, incense, blood, vestments, curtains, altar, drama and ritual. One of the most interesting parts of the liturgy is the role of the goat for Azazel. After Aaron has made atonement for himself and his house, Aaron takes two goats and casts lots over them. One goat is sacrificed to God as a sin offering for the people, but the other goat is left alive and sent into the wilderness to Azazel.

It may be that Azazel is the name of a goat-demon who was thought to inhabit desolate places. The second goat is driven into the remote wilderness, far from the community, into the wild and dangerous regions.

One goat for God. One goat for Azazel.

There is something powerful about making offering to the dark and wild places. We have emotional and psychological energies that are deep and dangerous. At one point Jesus speaks sharply and dismissively about these urges, "Get thee behind me, Satan." There is some danger in becoming fascinated with the dark side and it's deathly urges. It is not good to dabble with evil.

But many people find spiritual richness when they allow their dreams and subconscious material to rise into consciousness where it can be recognized and acknowledged in order to give our conscious self some power over it. There is a reality and freedom that comes when we outgrow mere repression and gain awareness of the destructive patterns of our thoughts and behavior.

We can recognize that each of us has the potential for terrible acts. We can confess our sins to God and be forgiven. We can also acknowledge our potential for the evil that we have not acted upon. Maybe it is helpful to give those energies to something like Azazel, to the demons in the wilderness where the wild and dangerous things are. We are not to act upon our most primitive urges, but it may be helpful to acknowledge their reality in us, and to give them their due. May thay always remain in the wilderness, away from community.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 -- Week of 5 Easter
Dame Julian of Norwich, c. 1517

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 963)
Psalms 61, 62 (morning) // 68:1-20(21-23)24-36 (evening)
Leviticus 16:20-34
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 6:7-15

[Go to http://www.missionstclare.com/english/index.html for an online version of the Daily Office including today's scripture readings.]

The late J. Neville Ward was an early influence on me. He was an English Methodist who wrote wonderfully insightful books on prayer and spirituality. He had an annual practice to read a different book about the Lord's Prayer every year, and in 1981 he published his own reflections -- The Personal Faith of Jesus: As Revealed in the Lord's Prayer.

I flipped through some of the book this morning, noting a few of my underlines:

There is a sense in which everyone has faith, and everyone behaves quiet loyally and consistently with what he believes, that is to say, what he believes about himself and life. That faith, hugely important as it is, is not the sort that can be or ever is set out in a creed and spoken aloud in some ceremonial rite for all to hear. It is part of the inner life of the mind, the drift of secret thoughts whose precise character we are not sharp enough always to note but whose atmosphere we are breathing all the time.

...If we secretly believe that there is nothing much about us, that we have nothing the world particularly needs, perhaps in some dark moment that we are empty things, the odds are that we shall be driven by the need to fill our emptiness somehow. We may go though a stretch of our lives in which in one way or another we are on the make, anxiously seeking some advantage or success or recognition.

If, however, deep within where it matters, we believe that we live within the love of God, that he has created us to fulfill some part of his purpose, that he is himself within us as the ability to do or enjoy or endure what comes, we are likely to have a much more relaxed time of it. If we find life worth while we shall not need to consider the question whether we ourselves are; we shall find it rather a pointless question. As a result there will probably be enough courage in our response to life for us to be reasonably outgoing and honest.

What we really believe is the all-important matter. This is why if we want to change the way we react to evens and people, it is not much use attempting to control this directly. ...The requirement for that kind of change is a change of inner faith, a new set of convictions about oneself and life, about the possibilities and the prospects.

In the Christian tradition the classical example of this process is in St. Paul's journey of faith. As I understand him he seems to say that having tried hard enough to control his behaviour, only to make himself miserable with failure, he came into an entirely new range of possibility when he changed his convictions about the sort of thing God wants from us.

When he accepted Jesus' view that God wants us to embark on a relationship of trust and love with him instead of a struggle to improve ourselves, a new response to life began to form in him. (p. 15-16)

[Jesus] was certainly drawn to the weak and sensual and broken who know it and long to see life changed into something that will make up for the wasted years, and to those who wait for someone in whose presence they can put down a tremendous burden they have been carrying all their lives. (p. 33)

Grant us now, this very day, the sense of that holy day when all will be satisfied with that which alone truly meets human desire and need. Grant us here and now the joy and affection of that time, and its sense of God, as much as it is possible for them to be enjoyed here and now and by people like us. (p. 51)

Not long ago I read of a boy who was murdered while doing his morning paper route. How can his parents think compassionately about the man who murdered their son? Never, without God. Yet there does not seem to be much hope for us unless they can manage it. Their fury must increase unless they, their son, his attacker, are called into some new kind of life in which people look mercifully at one another, refreshed by understanding. Glimpses of such a life come. The trouble is that they vanish too. It sometimes seems that a thousand eucharists, a thousand Our Fathers have left us much as we were.

...What matters is that as a result of the hundreds of eucharists, Lord's Prayers, and many other experiences mulled over as best you can, you come to understand what it means to live life in the light cast on it by Jesus, and to live it with the new shadow you are trailing now you are in his light. (p. 70, 71)

Readings for the feast day of Gregory of Nazianzus, May 9:
Psalm 37:3-6, 32-33
Wisdom 7:7-14
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 8:25-32

Almighty God, you have revealed to your Church your eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like your bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for you live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.
--collect from Holy Women, Holy Men, p. 365

Although we remember Gregory today mostly because of his golden-tongued oratorical skills and his ecclesiastical duties as Bishop of Constantinople, it's actually one of his big failures in life that catches my attention--his falling out with his friend Basil the Great. It was a breach that never was repaired, from the time Gregory was sent by Basil to be Bishop of Sasima in 372 until Basil's death in 379.

Basil and Gregory had a great deal of history together, first as fellow students, later as co-ascetics and co-authors of the Philokalia, an anthology of Origen's writings. Their combined theological minds were a great force in the understanding of Trinitarian theology at a time Christianity was threatened by the Arian heresies. But despite Gregory's intellectual prowess in all this, he carried some serious wounds and some heavy resentments. All Gregory ever wanted was to be a simple monk. Yet, despite his wishes, his father insisted that he be ordained as a presbyter. One can imagine that these resentments he held towards his father "primed the pump" when Basil, by that time, Bishop of Caesarea, had Gregory ordained as Bishop of Sasima. This appears to have been a strategic move on Basil's part to put a heavy theological hitter in a spot that would strengthen his position against Anthimus, Bishop of Tyana, but it was definitely in the boonies. Gregory once described Sasima as, "an utterly dreadful, pokey little hole; a paltry horse-stop on the main road... devoid of water, vegetation, or the company of gentlemen."

Gregory never got over this slight, as he perceived it. The move irreparably tore their friendship asunder, and it was probably the theological equivalent to the breakup of the Beatles.

The story of their breakup is a reminder how old resentments and ego can create a never ending feedback loop of blame, where two people continually pace in a circle, eyeing the other, but never getting around to taking a step forward to break the pattern. What great theological truths might have been uncovered or what knowledge could have been revealed, had they patched up their differences well enough to collaborate again?

All of us, when we think back and allow ourselves to touch our own woundedness, can recall times of irreconcilable differences with people who once were very close to us. Ex-intimate partners, of course, quickly come to mind, but we are not exploring this fully if we only confine our thoughts to "those whom with we've shared sexual intimacy." It's ironic that our jargon these days talks about BFF's--"Best friends forever," when at some point, the truth is very few BFF's seem to be around a decade, let alone "forever."

How many times has a resentment towards another person or situation come out sideways in our present relationships? What great works could be accomplished if we could reconcile with those people again? How many times does our inability to reconcile seem bound up in our own feelings more than the slight that actually caused the breach? But more importantly, how do we take that first step towards the green grass in the center, when we've perfected pacing in a circle?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

John 15:9-17

There’s something about human experiences that, well, amazes you. Quick impressions are a case in point: apparently, the effects of what we absorb in the blink of an eye, for example, are highly significant.

I read about an experiment that was testing this hypothesis. A group of high school students were given lists of unconnected words, and from those lists, were to pick four words and compose a sentence.

They did this but what the researchers were actually observing was what happened after the test. The students left the room together and moved as a group, walking slowly and lethargically down the hall.

Scattered throughout the rows of words were specific words that related to old-age, words like elderly, aged, senior, senility, and the like. Without knowing it, these adjectives had slipped into their thoughts and the young people waddled away like a mob of geriatric monkeys.

Being a bit of a wordsmith, wondering about the impact of words and thoughts is a matter of life-style for me. Even if those words seem to skim across our brains like flat stones across the water, they can have a significant impact.

In this context, then, the Gospel this week is quite remarkable. Throughout the Reading, John uses the word ‘love’ at least nine times. He’s making the obvious point that to follow Jesus is to enter into a deep and intimate relationship with him and, through him, to the Father.

Without this love, everything disintegrates and falls to the ground. Or, as last Sunday’s Gospel put it, we become like a fruitless vine.

People – and even Jesus himself – call this the “New Commandment” but I ask: what’s new about it?

Is it because it’s different from the love revealed in the Old Testament? That it contrasts with the love described there?

Hardly. The love of neighbours is strongly emphasized in The Law, as is the love of strangers and foreigners. Take a gander at the Book of Leviticus (not the most riveting piece of literature, I admit) and you’ll see this illustrated over and over.

John’s Gospel doesn’t have any contrasts with the Old Testament in mind. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. In Matthew’s Gospel, for example, we get “You heard it said … but I say to you …” but there’s nothing remotely like this in John.

Instead, the command of Jesus to love one another gets quite an airing: we can overlook its impact but it’ll be there, none-the-less. Maybe the reason why it’s new is because it is a command of Jesus, not simply a feeling or just a good idea.

There is a further twist: not only is this love shown as something to be obeyed, it is also an intimate and personal gift from God to us.

It’s as if He’s instructed us to love then, almost in the same breath, given us the wherewithal to actually fulfil that commandment. How good is our God?

It is in Christ that the whole banana is peeled and laid bare and we see love as it is: he loves the unlovable. He loves the insignificant and wayward. He loves those who hate him and those who don’t. What’s more, he meant what he said by giving his life ‘for his friends’ (verse 13) because that’s what is meant by ‘no greater love’.

Of course, this has an effect on everyone, not just the Christians and to that degree, love is universal: it is up for grabs from everyone and is for everyone.

There’s more yet. The love of which Jesus spoke is new because it has been extended to each of us personally by Jesus. He lived in this world; he breathed this air; he knows our joys and satisfactions; he knows our sorrows; he knows our disappointments and defeats.

He invites us into an intimate and deep relationship with him. It is extraordinarily personal because it is offered to each one of us as if we were the only person in the world.

The Rev. Ian McAlister is the Ministry Development Officer in the Diocese of Queensland and blogs at Reflections from the HIll

‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.

‘Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. -- Matthew 7:1-12 NRSV

There are days when the readings for the Daily Office sort of leave me scratching my head and wondering that all that means to me. Then there are days when there is so much that it feels almost impossible to take it all in. This is one of those passages. There are four paragraphs and enough there to keep a mind busy for years contemplating them.

There are so many familiar lessons here: as you are judged, so you will be judged; the log in your own eye vs. the speck in your neighbor's; don't throw pearls before swine; ask, seek and knock; do to others as you would have them do to you. These were all precepts I was taught in Sunday School as a child and still haven't been able to master despite hearing them again and again for years. They don't seem difficult, when I read them on the page, but why are they so difficult, even impossible, to live out so much of the time?

Take judging. I have an awareness that I am doing it but control it? That's something else. So why do I do it? Very possibly because it ties in with the next bit about the beam and the mote. In one situation, I feel judged because there are notes all over the databases I work in, pointing out errors that individually wouldn't amount to a hill of beans but collectively feel overwhelming. I judge in return, partly to remind myself that the person leaving the notes is far from perfect themselves. I know I'm wrong, but I seem to do it without really thinking. Why not just be more careful? I do try, but I still make mistakes. I judge the log in their eye because I feel that they don't seem able to see it; I also don't forget I've got a rather large one in my own.

The part about "do unto others" sounds so easy to do. If I want to be treated politely then I need to be polite myself. If I need a hand, I have to not only ask for it but also have to be alert to the potential needs of others that I can fill. If I don't want to be judged --- well, that's harder because it is putting a behavior on someone else that isn't mine to put on them. Perhaps if I look at it a little differently, maybe looking at it as judging others as I would expect God to judge me. Is it fair for me to expect God to use a six-inch ruler when I use a yardstick? If it weren't a challenge, it would be automatic and everybody would be doing it. As it is, it is a challenge I need to take up as I start my day and prepare to go to work to face it head on.

Jesus didn't give these lessons just to hear himself talk. He expected them to make a difference in the lives of those who heard him. Because more than two thousand years have happened between then and now doesn't dilute those lessons or excuse halfhearted hearing and little action. Sunday School lessons have a way of applying to the whole life, not just an hour on Sunday mornings.

I think I need to go back to school. I can recite the lessons but I hope God grades on the curve when I actually get to the test based on those lessons. I pray for the grace to grade others on that same curve I want for myself. I've got some lessons to relearn and homework to do to practice those lessons.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Say to the Israelite people thus: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts. You shall not work at your occupations; and you shall bring an offering by fire to the LORD.

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Mark, the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you: you shall practice self-denial, and you shall bring an offering by fire to the LORD; you shall do no work throughout that day. For it is a Day of Atonement, on which expiation is made on your behalf before the LORD your God. Indeed, any person who does not practice self-denial throughout that day shall be cut off from his kin; and whoever does any work throughout that day, I will cause that person to perish from among his people. Do no work whatever; it is a law for all time, throughout the ages, in all your settlements. It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your sabbath.

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Say to the Israelite people:

On the fifteenth day of this seventh month there shall be the Feast of Booths to the LORD, [to last] seven days. The first day shall be a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations; seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall observe a sacred occasion and bring an offering by fire to the LORD; it is a solemn gathering: you shall not work at your occupations.

These are the set times of the LORD that you shall celebrate as sacred occasions, bringing offerings by fire to the LORD--burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices, and libations, on each day what is proper to it--apart from the sabbaths of the LORD, and apart from your gifts and from all your votive offerings and from all your freewill offerings that you give to the LORD.

Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of the LORD [to last] seven days: a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day. On the first day you shall take the product of hadar trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. You shall observe it as a festival of the LORD for seven days in the year; you shall observe it in the seventh month as a law for all time, throughout the ages. You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I the LORD your God.

So Moses declared to the Israelites the set times of the LORD. -- Leviticus 23:23:44 (*Tanakh, Jewish Publication Society, 1985 ed.)

Leviticus is a book of law, ritual and practice, things with which the person we call the Priestly writer was intimately concerned. It is a book that is probably one of the harder ones in the Bible to read and to really get into, but it is important because it transmits not just God's wishes and commands but also establishes the way life is supposed to be lived, with God and the worship and reverence of God at the center of it all.

In this passage, God gives Moses instructions on religious observances that are to become annual events, feasts that will become hallmarks of Israelite and later Jewish religious life. The first and second days of Tishri, the seventh month, are called Rosh Hashanah, a celebration of the beginning of the new year. It arrives with the blowing of the shofar and was an opportunity to examine mistakes of the past year and resolve to do better in the new one. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, comes eight days later (the tenth day of Tishri) and is the most solemn day of the calendar, a day of fasting, prayer and repentance. The fifteenth day of Tishri marks the beginning of Sukkot, the festival of booths, a joyous time when the harvest is celebrated but also where the people build simple shelters reminiscent of the temporary ones the their ancestors made on the journey to the promised land. Sukkot is also called the Feast of Tabernacles, although the only Tabernacle was the temporary structure that went with the Israelites and served as their temple during the journey.

It seems from all the activity that Tishri was a really busy month. God planned out a lot of days where sacrifices were to be made, and a lot of time for repentance and rejoicing. What strikes me, though, is that it seems that there is a lot of down time, times when anything to do with any creative work was forbidden. There are actually 39 different classifications of "work" which include things as varied as gardening or growing crops, sewing, ripping out, slaughtering animals for meat, shearing, spinning and weaving, cooking anything that wasn't started before sundown on Shabbat, kindling a fire, using a hammer, carrying things in a public area, or even writing two letters (like A and B, not whole missives) as well as eliminating or erasing two letters. Sabbath is serious business, and the holy days and festivals of Tishri contain all the regular weekly sabbaths plus more.

What I think God had in mind for those extra days when work was forbidden wasn't just to give people time off, like vacation days or what is occasionally called in today's working world as "personal days." No, God had those extra days put in for people to stop and have time to really consider what was important -- where they were, what they had done, what needed improvement in their personal relationships with God and their fellow human beings, and what they could do about it. Yes, repentance came into it, but it wasn't the same kind of repentance that most Christians think about, the sackcloth-and-ashes kind of repentance that makes us call ourselves "miserable offenders" and feel like totally unworthy creatures. Repentance such as that practiced on Yom Kippur is more a reorientation toward God and living in harmony with the earth and its inhabitants. Sabbath time gives a person the opportunity to do that in a Godly-mandated way, a way that doesn't make it fight for time and attention with all the other things of life; it's built into the schedule.

Something the people of this world really seem to need but seldom take is time off from work to just rest and recuperate. Most of us have weekends off from work, but the weekend hours are often filled with stuff we didn't have time to do during the week and activities that we have been waiting to enjoy when we can sandwich it in between the kids' soccer games and karate classes, getting the lawn mowed and the laundry done. If we make it to church, it takes a while to settle into the quiet and a lot of effort not to think of what has to be picked up from the grocery store on the way home or has to be finished up before Monday morning comes around again. There's really very little time to really think about God much less actually spend terms cultivating the relationship.

For each of the Jewish festivals and holidays in Tishri, there are designated sabbath days that are like bookends, days before the festivals to contemplate, repent and return, days after to firm the resolve, rejoice and go out to live a more God-connected life. I wonder what life would be like if we all had those sort of mandated Sabbath days where work was forbidden and only rest, refreshment and worship were permitted? I wonder how much better we'd not only feel but actually be. For those who practice a rule of life, a discipline such as the Daily Office can be a bit of Sabbath time that one consciously chooses to do, despite whatever else is going on in life at the moment. What it does is add balance, a chance to slow down and breathe as well as connect with God. Instead of shoe-horning time for God into an hour on Sunday morning, there's a little time every day that is as important as watering the plants or tidying up the kitchen. It puts things in order and encourages growth. That, in God's wisdom, is what we are offered with Sabbath and sabbath time.

I wonder -- how might I more consciously and constructively use Sabbath time in my own life? What would it mean to me, my health and my faith? I have a feeling it would bring nothing but good, and the world would move along just fine without my having to spend every waking moment being busy, keeping the world, or at least my little part of it, humming along. I have a feeling there might be at least a few less heart attacks and stress-related illnesses as well.

But then, I have a feeling that's what God intended, just as surely as the opportunity for connection through prayer, fasting, worship and good works were. God had it all planned out; all we have to do is to do it.

Shabbat Shalom

*Reproduced from the Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Psalm 93, 96 (Morning)
Psalm 34 (Evening)
Leviticus 25:1-17
James 1:2-8, 16-18
Luke 12:13-31

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food.

You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces. In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not cheat one another. When you buy from your neighbor, you shall pay only for the number of years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop years. If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 25:1-17 (NRSV)

The concept of the jubilee year in Leviticus is an interesting one, and one that is quite foreign to our modern way of thinking--that every minute of every day must be "productive."

As I grew closer and closer to age 49, the concept of a jubilee year intrigued me. In many ways, my late grandfather had hit the nail on the head in his assessment of many aspects of human nature. I remember him once explaining to me as a teenager that so much of how we defined "who we are" was by those ways we felt "one up" in a situation. The rules in Leviticus for a jubilee year imply that no one is one up in a business deal. What you see is what you get. Your fields are rich enough that they can stand to lie fallow for a spell and live off the natural issue of them. Consider the possibility that one's life, just as it is, turns out to be a rich and abundant one.

So I lined out the parameters for my own version of a jubilee year that would start on my 49th birthday. I would pay off all my debts, save my house mortgage. I would no longer leave unpaid balances on the charge card. I would cease buying excessive things on a whim. I would only replace the clothes that truly wore out. I would let my penchant for "accumulating" lie fallow.

Now, I wish I could have told you that every day I woke up to sunshine and that every day of that year was an amazing, uplifting spiritual experience. In my mind, of course, my big ego had conjured up a fantasy that my mere obedience to such a decree would cause the stars and the planets to move about me like I was the center of the universe, and I'd be blessed in ways beyond measure. Unfortunately, several things which mostly had very little to do with me, or ones that turned out revealing I had less control than I thought, ended up stealing the show. My best friend in town finally sold her house and moved away. I had faced the reality that I had to give up being the sole owner of my practice and affiliate with a larger group. The abbey where I used to go on retreats imploded. Some perilous truths came to light in my home parish, in my workplace, in my family, and in my own soul. Frankly, I never felt more in mortal spiritual danger, more financially impotent, and more out of balance than that year. Had you asked me "How'd that jubilee year thing go?" on day 364 of that year, I'd have told you it was a miserable failure.

But a few years have passed now, and the wonderful thing about hindsight is that I can now tell you about the seeds that were divinely sown with essentially no input from me. I began my online EfM class that year, which has turned out to be one of the greatest spiritual gifts I've ever been given. Because I felt so rudderless, I began to seek stronger personal connections with people I knew a little from the Episco-blogging world and Facebook. I began to ask for and accept help for several things that my answer had always been, "Never mind, I'll do it myself, because I can't trust anyone other than me." I began to feel the very strong pull that God had distinct plans for me within the framework of our church. I don't think I would have seen those graces had I continued my habit of accumulating things to feel in control. I don't think I would have understood the beauty of the good things in my life had not several bad things created a conjunction of dysfunction. I came to understand that a jubilee year is not about "that year." It's about what happens after that year.

I doubt one has to wait until their 49th birthday to declare one nor claim it's too late if one's 49th birthday has passed. Has the possibility of a jubilee year ever crossed your mind?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Psalm 80 (Morning)
Psalms 77, 79 (Evening)
Leviticus 25:35-55
Colossians 1:9-14
Matthew 13:1-16

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!” Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Matthew 13:1-16 (NRSV)

Matthew's account of the parable of the sower and the seeds displays a very revealing observation (although I wonder if this was accidental) about the teachings of Jesus. In his account of this parable, he shows Jesus "breaking the 4th wall," as they say in the TV and movie trade. We see Jesus first speaking to the crowds, then turning and speaking to the disciples about what he just told the crowd, and in tomorrow's reading (a continuance of this chapter) we will see him turning back to the crowd and continuing on with the parable.

The term "breaking the 4th wall" refers to a device where the main character in a dramatic work speaks directly to the audience--not just in a short aside, but in some way, actually telling the tale (or what's about to happen in the tale) to the audience. It comes from the notion of a stage having four walls, with the fourth wall being an imaginary or iconic one separating the reality of the play from the reality of the audience. It creates a level of meta-fiction within a fiction, and acts as a sort of Venn diagram, with the intersection being the character making those two realities meet--fully a character in the play, and fully a real person speaking directly to you and the rest of the gathered faithful. (Sounds a little like "fully human, fully divine," doesn't it?)

In modern movies, we see this device being used in films such as Goodfellas and Fight Club, and perhaps even a little in Raising Arizona. But the three all-time masters at this were Groucho Marx (Animal Crackers is the perfect example,) George Burns in his old TV show with Gracie Allen, and Bugs Bunny. All three of them had a habit of looking directly into the camera and cutting you in on the secret. One could claim that Bugs even broke a 5th wall, since he was a cartoon character, and we are treating his breaking of the 4th wall like we would a human being!

Matthew lays this chapter out in a way that allows us to enter into the story, not just as a listener to the parable, but with a choice as to which level we want to hear about the parable. We can learn from it just as a person in the crowd that day did by simply hearing the parable's own story and not worrying about the dialogue in the middle--or, conversely, we can learn from it in the way a resident physician learns from a skilled teaching physician. ("Let me tell you how I handle this situation...You heard me when I talked to the patient and it was clear he didn't get what I was telling him...now watch when I go back in and ask the patient some questions and go back to what I said before...")

Let's start by looking at the first half of this passage. Jesus has told the crowd, "Okay, here's a story about four situations with the sowing of seed." It's clear from the get-go, if this were a multiple choice question, "D" is the correct answer. Choices "A," "B," and "C," will result in a bad outcome for the seed. Everyone wants to be choice "D." Seems like a no-brainer, right?

Now we move to the second half. The disciples are saying, "Why don't you just tell them outright?" and the short version of Jesus' answer is, "To teach you how I teach, so you can teach them." He points out that the disciples are the smart kids in the classroom, but it's not about them showing their theological prowess to him. It's about sharing the Gospel and the story of the Good News in Christ with "them"--the nebulous "other."

It's clear that 75% of the seeds in this parable will not bear fruit. Some will never grow. Some will begin to grow quickly, but never bear fruit. Some will be stymied by a bad situation. Only a quarter of the seeds will bear fruit, but the fruit they will bear, over time, will surpass our original amount of seed exponentially. Matthew's account of this, though, by allowing Jesus to break the 4th wall and letting us hear the story in much the same way he and the disciples did, illustrates that this exponential growth happens partly because the smart kids in the class learn how to share the Good News. They find a way to invite everyone to listen and learn on their own, to allow them to make their own insights. They find a way to make the Good News about the people who are hungry for it, rather than using the Good News to stroke the egos of the righteous. They become the good soil--the substrate for spontaneous growth--rather than engage in the futility of trying to control the elements.

Those of us who regularly read (or write) text studies can fall into a terrible trap. We enjoy the intricate details of the Bible to the degree we can make our Christianity all about ferreting out the little details of the Bible and feeling good that we are so clever at it. But too much of that puts us in peril that we will be like the seeds in choice "B"--we grow quickly, but unless we are in good soil that lets us put out roots both downward and laterally, we will bear no fruit. Matthew, however, shows us the antidote for that--it is in following Jesus' example and breaking the 4th wall. It's in simultaneously sharing the Good News both in the place where 75% (or more) won't "get it" at first, yet providing special care and feeding to the seeds that we notice are growing quickly. It's in the understanding that some people are just in a place where they can't grow at the moment because their soil is too thin, or in a place where circumstances are choking them, yet we must both keep sowing the seed and offering good soil.

Where are you called to break the 4th wall in proclaiming the Good News in Christ?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Psalm 78:1-39 (Morning)
Psalm 78:40-72 (Evening)
Leviticus 26:1-20
1 Timothy 2:1-6
Matthew 13:18-23

‘Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.’ Matthew 13:18-23 (NRSV)

Many commentaries (particularly those of a more evangelical-type theology) liken the seeds in this parable to people--ignorant ones who are whisked away in the clutches of the devil, "backsliders," ones who can't resist the call of worldly temptations, and, of course, the pious and righteous ones.

But what if this parable is simply about what it says it is--hearing the Word in all times and all places? Perhaps we fail to hear the power in this parable if we go straight to it being a dire warning about eternal salvation/damnation and fail to consider that it could be about our dull moments in our ability to perceive God's constant call to us.

As we discussed in yesterday's reflection, it's important to remember that only 25% of the seeds in this parable bear fruit. In the first scenario (the seeds on the path) they never got a chance, the birds gobbled them up. It makes me wonder how many times God tells us something but we were just too distracted or too anxious, or too raw, and whatever had our focus had its way with us. In the second scenario (the rocky soil) it's easy to recall all the times in our lives when things started to take off, it all seemed good and right and clearly laid out ahead of us, but without a mentor, or an experienced guide, well...we can only get so far on our own. The time wasn't right or the place wasn't right for it to take root. The seeds growing among the thorns remind me of all the times we can be in toxic environments at home or work or church that choke us out, burn us out, or parasitize us.

Several studies over the years have assessed the speed at which we assimilate and retain knowledge, and it's long been known that it takes a person at least seven times of using or studying a piece of information before it's retained. Yet the way we usually look at this parable is with the (false) assumption we can learn something the first time we hear it. Scripture teaches us that God's call to us never lets up; it's our ability to hear and retain that is the problem.

The people who organize and present review courses for medical board exams constantly remind their attendees of the "It takes seven times to remember something," mantra. However, for two decades I have watched second year medical students studying for Part One of their boards constantly assimilating "more" study materials rather than read and re-read and re-re-read the materials they have.

We probably have that tendency as spiritual beings, too...which is part of the beauty of the liturgy in our beloved Book of Common Prayer. Whether it's the Nicene Creed, the Collect for Purity, or our responses, most of us have several chunks of the liturgy that we know by heart.

Repetition guards us from being swept away like those seeds sown out in the open. It grounds us and helps us take root, so when we grow, we are supported. It spurs us to hang out with like-minded folks rather than be caught up in the thorny world, unable to even see out, as well as calls to us to share the Good News in our thoughts, words, and actions. It's a pretty safe bet that even under huge stress, most of us could remember something from the Book of Common Prayer.

What is heartening, though, is when something we hear in God's call to us really does take root and grow, we are so fecund and so prolific that the amount of fruit borne from the process is staggering. When it's good, it's good--but there needs to be sustenance for that other 75% of the time. In that sense, it is where the words in our Book of Common Prayer matter. We hear them again and again, we know some of them in our hearts, and not only do keep us rooted to God, they send out little runners to each other and weave us into a solid mass of roots. What we lack in depth sometimes, we gain in breadth. If you've ever tried to pull out a bed of plants whose roots are bound up with each other, you know exactly what this means.

What are the words in the Book of Common Prayer that not only root you to God, but to each other? How do these words assist you in hearing God's call to you a little more efficiently?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ‘What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David.’ He said to them, ‘How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet’ ”?

If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. -- Matthew 22:41-46 (NRSV)

What is worse than a question? Perhaps it is the question to which one doesn't have the right answer, or any answer at all. The Pharisees, guys who thought they had all the answers, found that this was one where the answer they had was wrong.

In my humble opinion, questions are what make the world go around and keep it turning. Every time we think we have answers, it is like the questions change and we're back at square one, looking for answers again. The image of the toddler who is just beginning to wander around comes to mind, along with the inevitable and unending questions they always ask, "What's that?" or worse, "Why?" There are a lot of times we don't have an answer to that "Why?" but we still get our feet held to the fire by a three-year-old for whom "Because" is not a sufficient answer.

I wonder if God gets tired of "Why?" prayers. Why is there suffering in the world? Why do ducks fly rightside up instead of upside down? Why did I survive an accident where someone else died? Why are there mosquitoes? Why was this person born with physical or developmental challenges? Why can't I ever remember where I put my keys or parked my car? Why do I have this illness when I didn't do anything wrong to cause it? I don't think even Solomon could stand up to an onslaught like that. Luckily, God's got patience and, incidentally, all the answers -- the right ones.

One thing about being an EfM mentor is that I get to ask questions, lots of questions, in our TR sessions. What's even better is that I don't have to have the answers because each person's answers are usually different and geared to their own personal journey. The best thing, though, is even though I go into a TR with an idea of how I think it should go, quite often it goes in a totally different and totally unthought-of direction but I still end up having my own insights as well as sharing in the insights of others.

Humankind has always questioned and I don't think that's ever going to change. The disciples had a lot of questions for Jesus, but what they got weren't cut-and-dried, easy answers. We still ask questions of all kinds, silly ones, ponderous ones, wishful ones, even agonized ones at times, but we ask all the same. The answers I get aren't always ones I want to hear, just as sometimes I don't really seem to get any answer at all, which personally drives me nuts. Still, I question, I look for answers and I try to be open to whatever comes from the search.

My question now is what am I supposed to be doing in my life -- oh, and where do those stray socks go when only a single sock of a pair comes out of the dryer?

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs] “We seek to address the need for healing in all parts of society, and we stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples globally to acknowledge and address the legacy of colonial occupation and policies of domination,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote in her Pastoral Letter on the Doctrine of Discovery and Indigenous Peoples, issued May 16.

“Our Christian heritage has taught us that a healed community of peace is only possible in the presence of justice for all peoples,” Jefferts Schori continued. “We seek to build such a beloved community that can be a sacred household for all creation, a society of right relationships.”

On May 7, Jefferts Schori joined other religious voices in repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery at the 11th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). The theme for the UNPFII meeting is “The Doctrine of Discovery: its enduring impact on indigenous peoples and the right to redress for past conquests (articles 28 and 37 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).”  In 2009, General Convention repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery.

The full text of the presiding bishop’s letter is below.

_______________________________________________

Pastoral Letter on the Doctrine of Discovery and Indigenous Peoples

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”[1]

The first biblical creation story tells of the creation of earth, sky, waters, creatures, and gives human beings dominion over the rest.  God pronounces what has been created good.  At the end of the original week of creation, with the advent of human beings, God blesses all of it, and pronounces the work very good[2].

The second creation story tells of what goes wrong – the first two earth creatures eat what they have been forbidden to eat, and are then expelled from the garden[3].  They have misunderstood what it means to exercise dominion toward life in the garden.  Through the millennia, many of their offspring have continued to misunderstand dominion, or to willfully twist the divine intent of dominion toward the conceit of domination.  Through the ages, human beings have too often insisted that what exists has been made for their individual use, and that force may be used against anyone who seems to compete for a particular created resource[4].  The result has been enormous destruction, death, despair, and downright evil – what is more commonly called “sin.”

The blessings of creation are meant to be stewarded, in the way of husbanding and housekeeping, for the true meaning of dominion is tied to the constellation of meanings around house and household.  There have been strands of the biblical tradition which have kept this sacred understanding alive, but the unholy quest for domination has sought to quench it, in favor of wanton accumulation and exclusive possession of the goods of creation for an individual or a small part of the blessed family of God.

After that eviction from the primordial garden, the biblical stories are mostly about how human communities strive to return to a homeland that will be a source of blessing for the community.  Through the long centuries, the prophetic understanding of that community broadens to include all the nations of the earth.  Even so, the seemingly eternal struggle between dominators and stewards has continued to the present day.

Most of the passages in the Bible that talk about land are yearning for a fertile place, where people are able to grow crops, tend flocks, and live in peace.  The offspring of those first human beings gave rise to peoples who hungered for land, and many of them did a great deal of violence through the ages in order to occupy and possess it.  They weren’t alone, for the empires of Alexander, Rome, and Genghis Khan were also the result of amassing conquered territory.  The Christian empires of Europe were consumed with battles over land for centuries, and eventually sent military expeditions across the Mediterranean in a quest to re-establish a Christian claim on what they called the Holy Land.

The explorers who set out from Christian Europe in the 15th century went with even broader motivations, in search of riches and abundantly fertile lands.  They also went with religious warrants, papal bulls which permitted and even encouraged the subjugation and permanent enslavement of any non-Christian peoples they encountered, as well as the expropriation of any territories not governed by Christians.[5]  Western Christian religious authorities settled competitions over these conquests by dividing up the geography that could be claimed among the various European nations.

These religious warrants led to the wholesale slaughter, rape, and enslavement of indigenous peoples in the Americas, as well as in Africa, Asia, and the islands of the Pacific, and the African slave trade was based on these same principles.  Death, dispossession, and enslavement were followed by rapid depopulation as a result of introduced and epidemic disease.  Yet death and dispossession of lands and resources were not a singular occurrence that can be laid up to the depredations of benighted medieval warriors.  They are not akin to Viking raids in the British Isles, or ancient struggles between neighboring tribes in Europe or Africa.  These acts of “Discovery” have had persistent effects on marginalized, transported, and disenfranchised peoples.

The ongoing dispossession of indigenous peoples is the result of legal systems throughout the “developed” world that continue to base land ownership on these religious warrants for colonial occupation from half a millennium ago.  These legal bases collectively known as the Doctrine of Discovery underlie U.S. decisions about who owns these lands[6].  The dispossession of First Peoples continues to wreak havoc on basic human dignity.  These principles give the lie to biblical understandings that all human beings reflect the image of God, for those who have been thrown out of their homeland, had their cultures largely erased, and sent into exile, are still grieving their loss of identity, lifeways, and territory.  All humanity should be grieving, for our sisters and brothers are suffering the injustice of generations.  The sins of our forebears are being visited on the children of indigenous peoples, even to the seventh generation.

There will be no peace or healing until we attend to that injustice.  The prophets of ancient Israel cried out for justice when their ability to live in the land they saw as home was threatened.  A day laborer named Amos challenged those around him with the word of God, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream”[7].  Where there is no justice, there can be no peace for anyone.

In the North American context, the poorest of the poor live on Native reservations.  The depth of poverty there is closely followed by the poverty among ghettoized descendants of the indigenous peoples of Africa who were transported to these shores as slaves.  That kind of poverty is also frequent in other parts of the world where indigenous people have been dispossessed and displaced.  Healing is not possible, it is not even imaginable, until the truth is told and current reality confronted.  The basic dignity and human rights of first peoples have been repeatedly transgressed, and the outcome is grievous – poverty, cultural destruction, and multi-generational consequences.  The legacy of grief that continues unresolved is visible in skyrocketing suicide rates, rampant hopelessness, and deep anger.  In many contexts it amounts to pathological or impacted grief – for when hope is absent, healing is impossible.

The legacy of domination includes frightful evil – the intentional destruction of food sources and cultural centers like the herds of North American bison, the intentional introduction of disease and poisoning of water sources, wanton disregard of starvation and illness, the abuse and enslavement of women and children, the murder of those with the courage to protest inhumane treatment, the repeated dispossession of natural resources, land, and water, as well as chronically inadequate Federal management and defense of Native rights and resources.

There have been some glimmers of justice in decisions that have returned Native fishing and hunting rights, and some improvements in tribal rights to self-determination.  There is a very small and slow return of bison to the prairie, and wolves have begun to return in places where they are not immediately hunted down.  Yet many of these recoveries continue to be strenuously resisted by powerful non-Native commercial interests.

There are signs of hope in returning cultural treasures to their communities of origin, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act[8] is returning remains for dignified burial.  The legacy of cultural genocide is slowly being addressed as indigenous traditions, languages, and cultural skills are taught to new generations.

The Episcopal Church has been present and ministering with Native peoples in North America for several centuries.  That history of accompaniment and solidarity has hardly been perfect, yet we continue to seek greater justice and deeper healing.

The Episcopal Church’s relationship with Native peoples in the Americas begins with the first English colonists.  We remember the story of Manteo, a Croatan of what is now North Carolina.  He traveled to England in 1584 and helped a colleague of Sir Walter Raleigh learn to speak Algonquin.  He returned here the next year, became something of an ambassador between the two peoples, was baptized, and is counted a saint of this church[9].

Episcopal missionaries have served in a variety of indigenous communities and contexts.  Henry Benjamin Whipple was Bishop of Minnesota in 1862, and his powerful petition to Abraham Lincoln saved the lives of some 265 of the Dakota men sentenced to hang the day after Christmas in Mankato[10].  The Dakota people called him “Straight Tongue.”  Today many Dakota and Lakota people are part of this Episcopal tradition.

This Church has stood in solidarity with native peoples in Alaska, Hawai’i, and the American southwest, especially the Diné (Navajo), as well as in urban Indian communities.  The Poarch Band of Creek Indians (in Alabama) achieved federal recognition in the 1980s with the aid of baptismal records maintained by this Church, which also assisted in returning a piece of land to the Poarch Band[11].  A large group of indigenous people in Ecuador is seeking recognition as worshiping communities in the Episcopal tradition, and we have other indigenous members and communities in Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, and Micronesia.  Our historical presence in the Philippines began with the indigenous Igorot peoples of the mountains and highlands.

Healing work continues across The Episcopal Church.  In 1997 Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning apologized for the enormities that began with the colony in Jamestown[12].  Today our understanding of mission has changed.  We believe that God’s mission is about healing brokenness in the world around us – broken relationships between human beings and the Creator, broken relationships between peoples, and damaged relationships between human beings and the rest of creation.  We seek to partner in God’s mission through proclaiming a vision of a healed world; forming Christians as partners in that mission; responding to human suffering around us; reversing structural and systemic injustice; and caring for this earthly garden[13].  We partner with any and all who share a common vision for healing, whether Episcopalian or Christian or not.

Work with indigenous peoples in recent years has been intensely focused on issues of poverty and the generational consequences of cultural destruction, the reality of food deserts and diabetes rates on reservations, unemployment and inadequate educational resources, as well as the ongoing reality of racism and exclusion in the larger society[14].  Mission and development work in Native communities is locally directed, honoring the gifts and assets already present[15], and moves toward a vision of healed community.  We partner with White Bison in community organizing that develops training programs for community healing[16].  This is a historic development, the first such partnership between a traditional Native American non-profit and The Episcopal Church.

This Church has worked to alleviate systemic and structural injustice in many ways, and our repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery in 2009 is a recent example[17].  Since at least 1976, our advocacy work has included support for First Nations land claims in Canada, advocacy with the U.S. government for improved health care, religious freedom, preservation of burial sites and repatriation of remains and cultural resources, increased Federal tribal recognition, and critical Federal Government self-examination around Native American rights.  We have affirmed and reaffirmed our desire to strengthen relationships with Native peoples by remembering the past, recognizing the deficits and gifts in our historic and current relationships, and continued work toward healing[18].  We are currently advocating for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, with provisions directly affecting Native women.

The Doctrine of Discovery work of this Church is focused on education, dismantling the structures and policies based on that ancient evil, support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples[19], and challenging governments around the world to support self-determination for indigenous peoples.

We seek to address the need for healing in all parts of society, and we stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples globally to acknowledge and address the legacy of colonial occupation and policies of domination.  Our Christian heritage has taught us that a healed community of peace is only possible in the presence of justice for all peoples.  We seek to build such a beloved community that can be a sacred household for all creation, a society of right relationships.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us… and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.  So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near…  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God[20]

 We pray that God will give us the strength and courage to do this work together for the good of all our relations, in the belief that Christ Jesus ends hostility and brings together those who were once divided.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

 

[1] Genesis 1:26

[2] Genesis 1:1-2:3

[3] Genesis 2:4-3:24

[4] Commodification or what Heidegger called Bestand, cf. The Question Concerning Technology or Being and Time

[5] Doctrine of Discovery resources:  http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/doctrine-discovery-resources

[6] cf. Johnson v M’Intosh:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_v._M’Intosh

[7] Amos 5:24

[8] http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/

[9] http://kingofpeace.blogspot.com/2009/05/manteo-virginia-dare.html

[10] http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/dakota.html

[11] http://www.poarchcreekindians.org/assets/pdf/newsletter_jun_2007.pdf

[12] http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19971101&id=LOwyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UwgGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6997,143732

[13] a shorthand summary of the Five Anglican Marks of Mission

[14] http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/native/109407_123131_ENG_HTM.htm

[15] through Asset-Based Community Development

[16] http://www.coloradospringsindiancenter.com/2010/04/partnership-white-bison-episcopal-church-alleviate-poverty/

[17] http://www.nativevillage.org/Archives/2009%20Archives/Oct%202009%20I%20201%20NV%20News/Episcopal%20Church%20Repudiates%20Doctirine%20of%20Discovery.htm

[18] cf.  Decade of Remembrance, Recognition, and Reconciliation:  http://www.okiv2010.com/images/03_c008_res_rrr.pdf

[19] http://social.un.org/index/IndigenousPeoples/DeclarationontheRightsofIndigenousPeoples.aspx

[20] Ephesians 2:13ff

 

 

 

 

[Huffington Post] On May 10 the Washington National Cathedral dedicated a new stone carving of Rosa Parks. It will be displayed in the cathedral’s Human Rights Porch.

The area already includes likenesses of Oscar Romero, the brave Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, who spoke out against the U.S. for giving military aid to his country’s military junta and was killed in 1980 for his activism with workers and peasants fighting the regime; Eleanor Roosevelt, who came from a privileged background but used her position as first lady to be an ally with unions, civil rights groups, feminists, and other progressive movements; and John T. Walker, the first African American bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and an activist who was an ally of South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu and was once arrested at a protest rally against apartheid at the South African Embassy.

In a piece about the event broadcast on Saturday, National Public Radio’s Scott Simon reported that the statue of Parks was commissioned along with a carving of Mother Teresa that will be dedicated later this year.

“They may have much to talk about,” Simon proclaimed at the end of the four-minute segment.

A conversation between Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa would indeed be interesting. But it would probably not go along the lines that Simon’s glib comment implied, as if the seamstress and the nun shared a common approach to addressing the world’s ills. In fact, the statement on the National Cathedral’s website, that Parks and Mother Teresa belong in an area honoring “those who struggle to bring equality and social justice to all people” is incredibly misleading. Parks certainly fits that description, but Mother Teresa most certainly does not.

Mother Teresa (1910-1997) dedicated her life to providing comfort to society’s victims, primarily neglected children, the sick, and the very poor. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Catholic order that now has 4,500 sisters and 610 missions in 123 countries that include orphanages, soup kitchens, hospices for the dying, homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, and schools. Members take vows of chastity, poverty, obedience, and “wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor.”

This is worthy work for which Mother Teresa deserves praise and received the Nobel Peace Prize. But it is a far cry from any “struggle to bring equality and social justice to all people.” Mother Teresa raised millions of dollars for her efforts, but she never challenged the system that caused such widespread suffering. To the contrary, Mother Teresa believed, according to people who worked with and wrote about her, that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus.

Colette Livermore, a former Missionary of Charity, admired Mother Teresa’s courage and dedication, but ultimately left the order. As she describes in her book Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning, Livermore did not agree with what she called Mother Teresa’s “theology of suffering.”

According to Mother Teresa’s philosophy, it is “the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ.”

In an article in Free Inquiry, writer Judith Hayes reported that Mother Teresa once approached a dying cancer patient not with pain killers but with a bit of theology. “You are suffering like Christ on the cross,” Mother Teresa allegedly told the patient. “So Jesus must be kissing you.” According to Hayes, the patient replied, “Then please tell him to stop kissing me.”

The British newspaper The Guardian noted the “charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse” in her orphanages. Two highly-respected medical journals — The Lancet and the British Medical Journal — reported that the quality of care in the Homes for the Dying was “haphazard.” Patients endured poor living conditions. Staff failed to use modern medical techniques and volunteers lacked basic medical knowledge. The staff didn’t distinguish between curable and incurable patients, putting some patients, who might otherwise survive, at risk of dying from infections. Sanal Edamaruku, President of Rationalist International, criticized her practice of failing to use painkillers. In her Homes for the Dying, one could “hear the screams of people having maggots tweezered from their open wounds without pain relief. On principle, strong painkillers are even in hard cases not given.”

Rather than reduce suffering, in other words, Mother Teresa’s approach may actually have increased it.

But even if Mother Teresa’s hospices, orphanages, and other institutions had been models of modern medicine and social work, the reality is that her approach to suffering was that of charity and pity.

Mother Teresa accepted the economic and social conditions are they were and sought to relieve the immediate suffering of a handful of society’s victims. There was not even a pretense of seeking more “equality and social justice” — that is, a redistribution of economic resources or change in institutional practices and public policies, like land reform or more resources targeted for improved public health, education, and job creation.

Rosa Parks (1913-2005) had an entirely different approach to suffering and injustice. Parks is often portrayed as an exhausted middle-aged seamstress from Montgomery who, wanting to rest her tired feet after a hard day at work, simply violated the city’s segregation law by refusing to move to the back of the bus. She is therefore revered as a selfless individual who, with one spontaneous act of courage, triggered the Montgomery bus boycott and became, as she is often called, the “mother of the civil rights movement.”

What’s missing from the popular legend is the reality that Parks was a veteran activist whose defiance of segregation laws was not an isolated incident but a lifelong crusade. Also downplayed is that Parks was part of an ongoing movement whose leaders had been waiting for the right moment to launch a campaign against bus segregation. In Parks’ worldview, society’s victims required neither pity nor charity, but dignity and empowerment.

Parks recalled, “I had almost a life history of being rebellious against being mistreated because of my color.” Discussing her grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, she wrote, “I remember that sometimes he would call white men by their first names, or their whole names, and not say, ‘Mister.’ How he survived doing all those kinds of things, and being so outspoken, talking that big talk, I don’t know, unless it was because he was so white and so close to being one of them.”

In the 1930s, she and her husband, Raymond Parks, a barber, raised money for the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young, black men falsely accused of raping two white women. Involvement in this controversial cause was extremely dangerous for southern blacks.

In 1943, Parks became one of the first women to join the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and served for many years as chapter secretary and director of its youth group. In the 1940s and 1950s, the NAACP was considered a radical organization by most southern whites, especially politicians and police officials. Joining the NAACP put its members at risk of losing jobs and being subject to vigilante violence.

Also in 1943, Parks made her first attempt to register to vote. Twice she was told she didn’t pass the literacy test, which was a Jim Crow invention to keep blacks from voting. In 1945, she passed the test and became one of the few blacks able to exercise the “right” to vote. As NAACP youth director, Parks helped black teenagers organize protests at the city’s segregated main public library because the library for blacks had fewer (and more outdated) books, but blacks were not allowed to study at the main branch or browse through its stacks.

During the summer of 1955, Parks attended a ten-day interracial workshop at the Highlander Folk School, a training center for union and civil rights activists in rural Tennessee. Founded by Myles Horton in 1932, Highlander was one of the few places where whites and blacks — rank-and-file activists and left-wing radicals — could participate as equals. At the workshop that Parks attended, civil rights activists talked about strategies for implementing integration.

For Parks, “One of my greatest pleasures there was enjoying the smell of bacon frying and coffee brewing and knowing that white folks were doing the preparing instead of me. I was 42 years old, and it was one of the few times in my life up to that point when I did not feel any hostility from white people.”

The Highlander experience strengthened Parks’ resolve, showing her that it was possible for blacks and whites to live in “an atmosphere of complete equality” and without what she called “any artificial barriers of racial segregation.”

Parks and other NAACP leaders had frequently talked about challenging Montgomery’s segregated bus system and the bus drivers’ abusive treatment of black riders. Bus segregation had long been a source of anger for southern blacks, including those in Montgomery, the state capital. “It was very humiliating having to suffer the indignity of riding segregated buses twice a day, five days a week, to go downtown and work for white people,” Parks recalled.

In 1954, soon after the Supreme Court’s Brown decision outlawing school segregation, Jo Ann Robinson, an African American professor at the all-black Alabama State College, and a leader of Montgomery’s Women’s Political Council (WPC), wrote a letter to Montgomery mayor W.A. Gayle, saying that “there has been talk from 25 or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of buses.” By the following year, the WPC made plans for a boycott and was waiting for the right person to be arrested — someone who would agree to test the segregation laws in court, and who was “above reproach.”

In 1955, two teenage girls — Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith — were arrested in separate incidents for refusing to give up their seats, but NAACP leader E. D. Nixon decided that neither of them was the right person around whom to mobilize the community. Parks, in contrast, was a pillar of the black community. She had graduated from high school, which was rare for a black woman in Montgomery then. At forty-two, she had a wide network of friends and admirers from her church and civil rights activities.

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Parks finished her work at the Montgomery Fair department store, boarded a city bus, and sat with three other blacks in the fifth row, the first row that blacks were allowed to occupy. A few stops later, the front four rows were filled with whites. One white man was left standing. According to law, blacks and whites could not occupy the same row, so the bus driver asked all four of the blacks seated in the fifth row to move. Three acquiesced, but Parks refused. The driver called the police and had Parks arrested.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true,” Parks later explained. “I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. . . . No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Because of her reputation and web of friendships, word of Parks’ arrest spread quickly. What followed is one of the most amazing examples of effective organizing in American history. The bus boycott lasted for 381 days, organized by the Montgomery Improvement Association, a coalition of churches and civil rights groups. Throughout the year, MIA leaders successfully used church meetings, sermons, rallies, songs, and other activities to help maintain the black community’s spirits, nonviolent tactics, and resolve against the almost monolithic opposition of the city’s white business and political leaders who harassed the boycotters using every economic, legal, and police tool at their disposal. The segregationists also resorted to violence. They bombed the homes of boycott leaders, including Rev. Martin Luther King. On December 20, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregated bus system was unconstitutional. That day, an integrated group of boycotters, including King, rode the city buses.

During the boycott, Parks and her husband lost their jobs. In 1957, they moved to Detroit, where Parks continued her quiet involvement in the civil rights movement. She worked for several years as a seamstress at a small factory in downtown Detroit. From 1965 until her retirement in 1988, Parks worked as an assistant in the Detroit office of U.S. Representative John Conyers, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

A deeply religious woman, Parks did not believe that human suffering — whether from racism, low wages, or police abuse — was either inevitable or holy. She was part of a movement — network of organizations and activists who, over many years, battled segregation and injustice in the streets, churches, and courts. She believed in justice, not charity.

As Martin Luther King once said, “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

Rosa Parks deserves to be in the same human rights pantheon as Bishop Romero and Eleanor Roosevelt. But not Mother Teresa.

— Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His new book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, will be published by Nation Books in June. This commentary first appeared on Huffington Post.