Running without Stumbling

There is a difference between stumbling and falling.  I’m well known for stumbling up stairs or tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. I look stupid and scare people who are with me. Usually I regain my balance and amble on my way no worse for wear. 

However, nine years ago, I fell. And, it was awful.

I was in Pasadena, California, touring with the then sales manager of the convention and visitors bureau.  Ken is a lot like the genie in Disney’s Aladdin.  He’s full of energy (among other things) and always had something new to show me about the city he represented.  It was nearly dusk when he was hustling me toward the cactus garden at the Huntington Gardens estate.  I stepped on the curb instead of the sidewalk, my shoe flew out from under me and I landed face-first on the asphalt.  Yes, I am an official site-visit nightmare.

I was so embarrassed.  I was bleeding, of course.  My glasses were mangled. My pants were torn. My ankle was twisted and I would wake up the next morning to a huge black eye.  The good news was that we hadn’t gotten into the cactus garden yet.  Thank you Jesus. 

I apologized over and over for being such a klutz.  Ken took care of me, bought me bandages, took me to a place that unmangled my glasses so I could see to get home, and he even helped me buy a new pair of pants at the local Macy’s.  Ken was great and we are friends to this day and we send each other cards with cactus themes.  I don’t like falling or stumbling, but given the choice – I’d much rather stumble than fall.

There’s a difference also in whether or not you have stumbled over your own two feet or if someone has put something in your path.  If I’m honest with myself, both my stumble and my fall were due to the fact that I was tired and not watching where I was going.  I was in a hurry, too, in both cases.  There was too much to see and too little time to see it.

It’s the lack of attention and focus that gets us into trouble isn’t it?  We have to be careful about what is lying about and whether we’ve left it there or not. I don’t want to trip over something that someone has set in front of me, nor do I want to put anything into someone’s path that might cause them to stumble.  That’s true pragmatically and theologically because Jesus doesn’t have kind words to say about people who trip others up.

To be fair, Jesus didn’t disagree with the teachings of the Pharisees.  His ministry was all about loving God and loving neighbor. His problem was with the Pharisees’ behavior.  They didn’t walk the talk, to put it in the vernacular.  Actually, it was worse.  They forgot who they were and what their position required of them according to the law.

Wrapped in their stately garments and high positions, they saw themselves as more deserving than the rank and file.  They acted so as to be noticed by others and insisted on being greeted with special titles.  They refused to interpret the law in a way that invited a wider range of options for a larger population.  All of this was to show that they held the more honorable position because of their wealth, their education, or their experience.  In other words, they believed that they deserved special attention and made it obvious to one and all. These conspicuous displays of ego were meant to remind the “little people” that they were “little people” – people who had no honor.

Jesus would have none of that.  For him and his followers, all people were created in the image of God, whether or not they had long phylacteries.

The powerful people of the time were placing stumbling blocks in the paths of those who supported them with their offerings.  Jesus, in his accusations, was telling the Pharisees that they had forgotten that they were equal in the sight of God and had no more honor than the widows and orphans, the sick or those who labored.  At the same time, he was telling those who felt that they had no honor that in God’s dominion they shared honor with the powerful.  Everyone had a place of honor in the eyes of God.  It’s no wonder that the powerful people were ready to kill Jesus.

That we all have a place of honor in the eyes of God takes me back to the collect.  We are all honorable because we have all been gifted by God.

Our collect was translated from the Latin by our beloved Archbishop Cranmer and revised by several people throughout the centuries. The word “gift” here can take several meaning and gives us some new things to think about.  “Gift” was what was translated from the Latin “munus”.  This is not to be confused with something that we tie up with a ribbon and put under a tree or near a birthday cake.  This “gift” is “a service, office, post, employment, function, or duty.”¹  Think “municipality”.

These duties or obligations are those acts that one does on behalf of society as a whole.  In a Christian context, these would be duties or obligations on behalf of the community.  But when you really think about it, the lines between Christian community and society are very thin and quite permeable.

The gift God gives us is in the calling to be responsive to our neighbors’ needs. To take up the cross is to put your own ego to the side in order that you can concentrate on running without stumbling to the aide of someone in need.  The needs of others are diverse.  It may be food and shelter. It may be a complement on a bad day.  It may be a referral or sage advice.  Without a doubt, this gift is to call us over and over again to take seriously our baptismal vows and strive to bring God’s kingdom just a little closer to us at this point in eternity.

Our striving shall not be losing if we keep our focus on eternity and not allow our own or another’s ego to trip us up or cause us to fall into despair.  Oh, we will stumble on occasion. We may even bleed a bit. Don’t forget that Jesus fell three times under the weight of his cross.  But despite his anguish, Jesus had his mission and nothing would deter him from it.  Therefore, if we take time for Sabbath, keep ourselves healthy spiritually, physically, and mentally, we can respond to that call from God to love our neighbors as ourselves knowing that if we dash our foot against a stone (or try to fall into a cactus garden) someone will be there for us as well.

Amen.

¹The Rev. John Zuhldorf. “Fr. Z’s Blog: Slavishly accurate liturgical translations and frank commentary on Catholic issues.” http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/10/wdtprs-31st-ordinary-sunday-running...stumbling

(c) 2011 C. B. Park  All rights reserved

Italy Memories

“What was the most memorable highlight of your trip,” my husband Steve asked Marj and I while we were driving back from the airport.  We started talking about all the art and architecture we’d seen.  Everything seemed to be memorable.  Yet, there was one very special moment that will be in my heart forever.  Marj and I stopped in a vestment and church appointments shop across the piazza from the Cathedral in Florence.  A beautiful red chasuble and stole caught my eye.  The shop was tended by nuns from the order of St. Paul.  I motioned to one of the nuns that I wanted to try on the red chasuble.  “For me,” I said, pointing to myself.  Her eyes lit up.  “Epis-co-pal?” she asked. “Si,” I said.  “Anglicana?” “Si.” Before I could blink, she’d flung the vestments over my head.  I looked at myself in the mirror and knew they were coming home with me.

As I paid for them, the nun folded the fabric and wrapped everything in paper.  I thanked everyone and headed out the door.  The nun followed me out the door and tapped me on the arm.  “Preghiere,” she said, pointing to herself. “Preghiere.”  Then it hit me.  She was asking me to pray for her – asking me to bless her.  I did and then she hugged me.  As Marj and I left the store, the tears welled up in my eyes.  She may have asked me to bless her, but in doing so she blessed me ten times over.  Thanks, Holy Spirit, for my most memorable moment in Italy.

10 Statements

American culture provides dramatic presentations of Moses delivering the Decalogue.  Who can forget Charleton Heston in The Ten Commandments coming down the mountain after the fiery carving of the tablets by the voice of God?  Or, the scene with Mel Brooks in History of the World, Part I, where he’s juggling three tablets, drops one and declares “God gives you these 15, I mean, 10 commandments.” Only Mel Brooks could put into a movie what we’ve always thought about!  Of course we have had our share of legal struggles with regard to public displays of the Decalogue as well.  That’s why, when I saw that they were the selection from the Hebrew Scripture today, I decided to take a look at them.

First, I took a sneak peek in the story before Moses went to the mountain in the first place.  He’d just been exhorted by Jethro, his father-in-law, to delegate his authority to some of the others for judgment and decision making. Jethro was a good mentor and called out Moses on his potential burnout trajectory.  Moses follows Jethro’s instruction and, of course, now that he has time on his hands, God calls him to do something else.  This in itself is enough for another sermon – but, it’ll have to wait for another time.

So, Moses is summoned to Mount Sinai and God tells Moses to tell the people to get ready for a theophany. He ascends the mountain and has a dialogue with God.  Moses asks questions and God answers.  When Moses descends, he provides the people with a shorthand review of the conversation.  These “ten statements” (as they are literally translated from the Hebrew) become the basis of how the Israelites are to live in relationship with God and in community.  They are a great foundation, because it doesn’t take long before the Israelites are at odds with Moses, Aaron, and each other. 

Given the fact that in our own time we’ve been having impassioned debates about the appropriateness of these 10 Statements, I think it behooves us to look at how our Hebrew ancestors would have understood them in their time.  The Decalogue can be arranged in two different pairings. In Pairing #1, the first three delineate our duties to God and the last seven our duties toward our fellow human beings.  Another pairing would be to take the first five as those with an attached explanation and the second five as ethical requirements.

The Israelites were in a culture where there were many gods.  The God of Israel acknowledges this but requires that God’s people worship only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They are not to make statues or other images in order to worship them.  God needs to be the focus of worship and adoration.  The God of Israel is an impassioned God – the covenant between God and God’s people is like marriage.  To worship an idol is equal to committing adultery against God and God grieves over the betrayal.  And while God will visit the guilt of such a transgression to the third and fourth generation, the kindness of God outweighs this guilt to the thousandth generation.

To make wrongful use of the name of the Lord referred to the self-curses made by people in court or in public affairs that would take effect if the invoker spoke falsely or failed to keep a promise.  This sounds like “may the Lord do such and such to me if I . . .”.   My gut tells me that God probably doesn’t want to hear God’s name used as profanity, but that was not the original intent of the statement.  The first three directives are there to ensure the deepest respect for God and require us to make a decision to honor God.

And so, how do we honor God?  That’s where the rest of the Decalogue comes into play.  First and foremost, we keep Sabbath.  This is not just a day wherein we stop working, but a day that is dedicated to a special purpose for God’s glory.  This didn’t just extend to the master of the house, but to the slaves and spouses and children.  Sabbath time recognizes that God rested at the time of creation and to honor God, we too must rest. We honor God by honoring our parents, by seeing them as human beings, and by helping them when they become infirm.  We honor them in order to bridge our relationships with God and with others.

We honor each other by not taking the life of someone illicitly, by honoring the marriage vows of others as well as our own, by not stealing from others or creating false stories about them.  We honor each other by not scheming to acquire something that doesn’t belong to us.

These 10 statements are only the outline.  The next few chapters of Exodus go into detail about how we are to keep them.  And, if that’s not enough, you can go to Deuteronomy and Leviticus to get even more instruction.  It’s a contract that keeps lawyers busy even in modern times.

Okay. So that’s the scholarly interpretation.  It doesn’t really do much for me on its own.  So, what is there about the recitation of the Decalogue that seemed to call me into contemplation?  I envisioned myself as one of the people waiting for Moses at the bottom of the mountain. I’ve just experienced liberation from the enemy.  I watched the Pharoah’s soldiers swallowed by the water as they tried to follow us.  We celebrated with songs and dancing.  But, then it sank in that we were really on our own.  The food we were able to take with us was disappearing, the water was nearly gone, and the Promised Land didn’t seem to be anywhere on the horizon.  Now that we had no external enemy, we began the process of making enemies of each other.  We started doubting our leaders, demanding that they give us the comforts we’d left behind.  Without some standards for living with each other in this new land, it was obvious that chaos would over take us.  Moses – we pleaded – do something!

When I think about those at the mountain’s edge, I realize that we are again struggling to understand how to live with each other in a new world.  But in the 10^th year of the fall of the Towers, it’s not that we have no enemy but that we see enemies on every side.  People who have twisted the scriptures to match them to their own personal agendas declare that only they have the path to God and all others should be dismissed or dispatched.  The news is full of stories of people who have dishonored their parents or others who have mentored or coached them, stolen from others, been caught in sexual improprieties, lied under oath to protect their interest, or taken another’s life – usually in conjunction with one of the aforementioned offenses.  We constantly bow to gods other than the One who has created us in the Divine Image.  We are a people in the wilderness longing for order, looking to our leaders to provide it, and forgetting that the means of achieving order lies not in the hands of a few, but in the wills of the many.

To make matters worse, when we are brought up short, we usually retreat to the minutia of Exodus or Deuteronomy or Leviticus to find a loophole to defend our cause.  We forget the overarching command to be in relationship with our God and with each other.  It is no wonder that Jesus declared that there were only two commandments – love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.  And when he was questioned about who our neighbor was, he replied with the story of a loathed enemy who assisted the downtrodden when those who thought they had God wrapped up neatly in their front pocket did not stop to offer aid.

There are no policies, or laws, or rules, or regulations that can codify our obligation to our Creator and subsequently to all of the created order.  Anyone who has ever written a contract or customary knows that sections are written to prevent someone doing something that someone else has done before.  Before too much time goes by we are so bound by the law that we have forgotten why we have gathered in the first place. 

Of course, some rules are necessary to keep us safe and to set standards, but they should not be used to separate people into artificial strata in order to fulfill the whims of a few or to keep others at arms length. What is necessary is that we place our egos and self-interest aside in favor of the Divine desire for all.  That is what the 10 Commandments call us to do.

Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep these laws.  Amen.

(c) 2011 C. B. Park  - All rights reserved

"There's always next year."

Well, it’s over. Baseball that is - my ‘other’ religion.  It was disappointing season for my Cubbies. (I’m comforted only by the fact that Reds fans feel the same way.)  Spring always brings such hope.  It’s the excitement of resurrection!  New players, new line ups, the rekindling of faith.  The previous season is long forgotten and we start anew.

Then, it happens.  Bad pitching.  No runs manufactured.  Losses in extra innings.  All of a sudden it’s July and terribly obvious that there will be no opportunity to practice your faith in that extraordinary and magical month of October.   The autumnal equinox ushers in tomb-like quietness.  What does one do to survive this dark night of the soul? One might ask what does one do to shake off the ‘ho-hums’ when we find Church to be less than what we’d hoped or when we feel that the Divine has let us down.  

It may sound illogical, but the best thing to do is keep the faith in the midst of doubt.  Attend and be a weekly part of what is ultimately the Eternal Game.  Come to worship to be a part of community.  It is those folks who come only to see a “star” player, or a good preacher, who often are disillusioned by a bad outing.  Come to church willing to be involved personally.  People who come just for the ‘show’ – the vestments, the music, the chanting – miss the joy experienced in receiving the sacraments.  Think about it.  Could you go to a ballgame and not sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the 7^th inning stretch with your fellow believers? I didn’t think so.

Moments of perfection, moments of failure are just that – moments.  Keeping the faith requires that we acknowledge all of the moments of our lives as the “multiplicity of movements¹” with God and with our fellow human beings  that move us closer to unity with each other.  The dark days and nights, while difficult to experience, actually prepare us to be ready to spring up when the time is right.  So, don’t despair in the off-season.  In the Big-Inning, God created everything and God continues to create new life from chaos.  It’s so with nature, it’s so with you.  

I think that’s a theological way of saying “There’s always next year.” 

¹Thorn, John. “Thorn Pricks: Baseball as a National Religion.” http://thornpricks.blogspot.com/2008/04/baseball-as-national-religion.html