What kind of fool am I?

Time to talk about foolishness, prompted by the first verse of the psalm heard in church yesterday (See above).

Centuries before Jesus showed up on the scene, the psalmist noted the foolishness of saying there is no God. We may think that atheism is some modern invention, the contribution of Nietszche or more recently Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens. But a long time ago, the psalmist noted people who saw a world devoid of divine engagement. According to the psalmist, that’s a kind of foolishness.

It’s a point of view that intelligent people have taken, a point of view reasonably prompted by the cruelty we see around us. As a specific way to look at the world, it is a choice each one of us can make. Theists might say God has given us that as free will. As Einstein (no fool he) said: You can look at the world as if nothing is miracle or as if everything is miracle.

Lest I wax all judgmental about atheists, I confess that while I swim in the stream of believers, committed to a life of faith, I am often a functional atheist. I often run my life as if God does not exist, as if God is not engaged in my life, as if I’m not accountable to God, as if my life does not unfold in the presence of the Holy One. A friend gave me a postcard which says: “Hey God, let me pencil you in on Sunday morning,” as if to say that the rest of the week is my own. Mindful of the psalmist, we might say that is a foolish way to live.

There’s another side to biblical foolishness. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul gets into an interesting discussion about the foolishness of God. He writes: “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe.” (I Corinthians 1:18-21) Paul goes on to say that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. (1:25)

Elsewhere in this letter to the rambunctious Corinthian church, Paul talks about being a fool for Christ. (I Corinthians 4:10) Let’s be clear: St. Paul often seems fairly impressed with his own intellectual gifts. No shortage of ego strength with this apostle. But he notes repeatedly that he gives that all up to fulfill his call. I suspect people around him (professors, clergy colleagues, family, his therapist) thought he’d gone off the deep end. In many ways, the path Paul chose (or perhaps was chosen for him by grace) made little sense.

Jesus’ relatives thought the same kind of thing about Jesus.

Maybe in your own life, your decision to follow a life of faith may seem foolish. A friend who decided to go to seminary had dinner with rich relatives who tried to talk him out of it. The uncle, a successful businessman, began his pitch by saying: “Seminary? There’s no money in that.” It was clear he thought that such a career path was foolish. I grew up hearing about an evangelical missionary named Jim Elliott who lost his life taking the gospel to remote parts of South America. His wife wrote a book about him. The book included this prescient quote from her husband: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Maybe you have days when you think pursuing a life of faith makes no sense. Maybe you feel that way this morning. Mark Twain said that faith is believing in what everyone knows is not so. But depending on what kind of fool you choose to be this week, perhaps you can join St. Paul in affirming that while the message of the cross may seem foolish to some, for us it represents “the power of God.” It represents the love of God. Maybe in the end we’re just fools for love.

–Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

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Setting the Table

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of officiating at worship services at nursing homes. Especially when Holy Eucharist was part of the service, those gatherings gave me greater clarity about my own call to ministry and about the power of the sacraments.

Often the worshippers in those congregations battled dementia. Let’s just say that I wasn’t sure my brilliant homiletic points were having much effect. But I found that when I wove Psalm 23 into the liturgy, as maybe the most well known psalm of all, even worshippers in some other world could recite the words, a witness to the power of holy writ.

You may have heard this psalm in church yesterday. It’s printed above. I invite you to reflect on it this week and to try to do so as if you’d not heard it before.

I tried that this past week, and focused on the phrase “You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me.” It reminded me of another verse from the psalms, one often read on Ash Wednesday. As the children of Israel wander in the desert, seemingly quite lost, they ask: “Can God set a table in the wilderness?” I love the bit in the story of the exodus when the children of Israel tell Moses they would prefer to go back and be slaves because the table was set for them in Egypt with cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlic. (It does sound kind of delicious.)

Whether we find ourselves in some version of the wilderness, or whether our lives unfold in the presence of those who trouble us, here’s a question we might want to ask: Is God able to meet us there? Is God able to provide for us there? To set a table for us?

These days, we certainly may feel that our lives unfold in the presence of those who trouble us. General anxiety in this political season is one place that can happen. I suspect we all have situations in life, in family, at work that place us in proximity to people who make our lives difficult. Maybe we would wish for miraculous deliverance, the nearest exit. A favorite cartoon shows a business man with attache case standing in some desolate, mountainous place. The headline of the cartoon: A voice cries in the wilderness. The man is screaming: Get me out of the wilderness!

The witness of scripture is that it is precisely in the place of challenge that the table is set for us, where we can find nourishment. Can we claim that promise? Have you ever had that experience? Our faith is put to the test as we are called to believe that can happen. I can only attest to the number of stories (biblical and more contemporary) of faithful people who have sensed peace and provision in the most challenging places.

And if we can join the psalmist in affirming the gift of a table set for us, that’s just the beginning. Let me repeat what I cited last week from Bishop Henry Parsley: What is given is given to be given again. If Teresa of Avila was right (and she was pretty smart), Christ has no hands or feet on earth but ours. We are invited, indeed challenged to extend that holy hospitality to those we meet. To set the table for them, in Jesus’ name.

Sometimes the secular world teaches us how to do that. On my “religious” bookshelf, I keep a copy of Danny Meyer’s book, Setting the Table. Mr. Meyer is a remarkably successful restaurateur. I have no idea if he has any religious affiliation, but he has taught me as much about hospitality as any church program. Funny how learning comes from unexpected sources. As a quite successful businessman, he has made hospitality his guiding light. In the introduction to his book, he writes: “What really challenges me to get up and go to work every day…is my deep conviction about the intense human drive to provide and receive hospitality- well beyond the world of restaurants. Within moments of being born, most babies find themselves receiving the first four gifts of life: eye contact, a smile, a hug, and some food…That first time may be the purest hospitality transaction we’ll ever have, and it’s not much of a surprise that we’ll crave those gifts for the rest of our lives.”

I could quote more but it’s Monday morning and you’ve got a day ahead. The point is that God is all about hospitality, setting a table for us, even in the most challenging experience, then calling us to do that for others, in a world of wilderness. How has the table been set for you? How will you set the table for those you meet this week?

–Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

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The earth is the Lord’s

The heat of summer can be harder on the unhoused than the cold of winter. During one August heat wave, a rector opened his air-cooled church to those who lived on the streets, allowing them rest in the sacred space. Not everyone thought this was a good idea. One established parishioner approached the rector and said: “I don’t like all these people in my church!” to which the somewhat courageous rector responded: “Ma’am, this is not your church. This is not my church. This is God’s church.”

The earth is the Lord’s all that is in it.

Speaking of summer heat, the warming of the earth, felt by all regardless of national boundary, represents an inconvenience for some but tragic hardship for many. Climate change is due in part from a sense that we as human occupants of this planet can do whatever we want with the planet. It’s ours to mess with. Or is it?

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.

I grew up in a religious tradition that derived great energy from figuring out who was in and who was out. My own spiritual journey unfolds in recovery from that kind of toxic spirituality. The dynamic is not unique to my tradition. Religious folks of all sort try to define boundaries of their communities on the basis of good doctrine, good works or good taste. They abandon the notion of human family, feeling better about themselves because some other group is excluded. Current political discourse echoes that, e.g., the ascendancy of Christian nationalism. We might do well to reflect on Psalm 24:

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.

As individuals, a big part of the journey of faith is thinking about what we do with what we’ve been given. What does ownership look like? Many of us have been born into privilege (a goodly number of us in this country). While many of us have been born on third base, we may give in to the tempting imagination that we have hit a home run. That is not to diminish accomplishment or perseverance. But our faith tells us that all is gift. Even our skill, our accomplishments, our perseverance as well as our prosperity is to be seen as gift. In other words, they belong not to us but to God.

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.

If all is gift, what is our response? If we see all that we are and all that we have as gracious gift from God, it could make us feel diminished. So much of our culture depends on the model that we deserve what we have because we earned it. We worked hard for it. That can provide glimmers of satisfaction. It can also make us really tired. And it can make us lose our way, as we confuse ourselves as creation with the creator.

There is freedom in embracing the notion that all is gift, that the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it. As we embrace that notion, we may find the freedom to reflect that grace to a grace-starved world. Mentor and friend, Bishop Henry Parsley has stated it this way: What is given is given to be given again. That grace-filled approach can open our eyes to God’s activity in all of life. From Howard Thurman: If God is the creator of all things, then all things are in candidacy for his high and holy end.

Give thanks today for the beauty of God’s creation. Give thanks for the gift of God’s church, the body of Christ. Give thanks that even though we human beings are a diverse bunch, we are all children of God, made in the image of God. Give thanks for all good gifts around us as we reflect on what it means that the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

Have you had enough?

Sometimes I get the impression that the psalmist was watching cable news. Again and again, there’s timeliness and timelessness in that ancient poetry. Case in point: the psalm that appeared in the lectionary for yesterday, a psalm printed above. It includes this line:

We have had more than enough of contempt.

I’m inclined to respond: You can say that again. It is not simply the language of candidates who seem to find political success in unbridled expressions of contempt. It’s a broader trend in our culture.

David Brooks wrote an article for the Atlantic magazine (September 2023) in which he addressed two questions. First: Why have Americans become so sad? The rising rates of depression have been well publicized, as have rising deaths of despair from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. More than half of all Americans say no one knows them well. The percentage of high-school students who report “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” shot up from 26 percent in 2009 to 44 percent in 2021.

The kind of sadness Brooks describes leads to his second related question: Why have Americans become so mean? He’s not just talking about politicians. He cites a restaurant owner who said he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told Brooks that staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. Hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 12 years. Social trust is plummeting. In 2000, two-thirds of American households gave to charity; in 2018, fewer than half did. Brooks says: “We’re enmeshed in some sort of emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis, and it undergirds our political dysfunction and the general crisis of our democracy. What is going on?”

The advent of social media is no help, as people express contemptuous thoughts in ways they would never share in person.

One of the challenges is that contempt breeds contempt. I realize I can’t control what other people say or do. I can only work on myself. But here’s the rub: I want to answer contempt with contempt. My response to expressions of contempt, especially from politicians and cult-like followers, is to think and convey contemptible thoughts. I need help here folks.

Let me go deeper in my quandary. Contempt is no stranger to church life. I have often thought about writing a book on why it is that Christians can be so mean. Folks that speak a lot about grace often seem to have a hard time showing it. As Gandhi noted: I like your Christ but not your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

I’m holding out hope that the antidote to contempt can be found in a closer look at Jesus. A closer walk with Jesus.

Look at what Jesus taught. In the Sermon on the Mount, he made the point that an angry (contemptible) thought, for instance calling someone a fool, comes from the same place as murder. It’s a matter of the heart. He asked disciples to think about where their hearts are. He called for people to forgive each other, breaking the contempt cycle. It’s a call for a new heart, a clean heart.

Look at what Jesus did. When met with the most virulent contempt that resulted in his arrest, torture and death, he extended grace and forgiveness. I’ve never faced contempt like that. As a Jesus follower, could I follow him in this regard?

Look at what it means to be part of his community, part of the Jesus movement. We find a way to break the cycle of contempt as we make promises in baptism. In that liturgy, we commit to respect the dignity of every human being as we strive for justice and peace. I wonder this: Can respect overcome contempt? It’s not easy. It may be one of the ways Jesus spoke about a narrow path. But it may just break the cycle. And then it frees us to work for justice and peace, to address contemptible acts (e.g., recent judgments to criminalize homelessness) with the way of love.

If you agree with David Brooks that life has just gotten meaner, think this week about how you can show another way. What would Jesus, our teacher, have us learn? How can we break the cycle?

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

Okay

If a quote were to be attributed to John Lennon, Oscar Wilde, Paul Coelho, and Patel, the hotel manager in the movie “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” you might think it’s worth considering. Here’s the quote:

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

What do you think? Worth considering?

No need to quarrel over authorship because the fact of the matter is that these wise sources may all have been reading Psalm 30, included above. Perhaps you heard it in church yesterday. That psalm makes the point in a variety of ways that life is a mix of things that are okay and things that are not okay.

It speaks of God restoring life on the way to the grave. It speaks of weeping in the night followed by joy in the morning. It speaks of short-lived wrath and eternal favor. Wailing is turned into dancing. Sackcloth becomes a garment of joy. You get the idea. It reflects the truth of our lives which are a mix, only navigable because of the ancient promise of Julian of Norwich: All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

We face all kinds of reasons why Julian’s hope is not yet realized. Biblical scholars have indicated that our lives unfold in the midst of the not yet and the already. It’s why hope is such an important virtue in the Christian faith. There’s no denying that life can be hard. But as people of faith we are encouraged to believe that the challenges are not the last word.

The challenges are not only external circumstances we face. They can be observed in ourselves. We are not yet all that we should be. A friend of mine, really smart guy, spent most of his life as an atheist/agnostic. A serious student of philosophy, religious faith made no sense. We talked a fair amount about his questions, doubts, concerns. But in his thirties, he came to make a commitment to the Christian faith. One day in our conversations, he shared his creed. He said that he had figured out what the gospel is. He said it sounds like this: I’m not okay. You’re not okay. And that’s okay. His affirmation that it’s all okay was an expression of confidence in the mercy of God, the confidence that grace bats last.

It’s a variation on what Psalm 30 had to tell us, perhaps captured in the bumper sticker that hung on my office wall: PBPGINFWMY (Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet.)

As we’ve noted previously, the psalmist asks us to recognize that a lot of life is about waiting. What are practices you have developed that help you do that? Maybe this week you’re dealing with circumstances that are not okay, that are not well. Maybe it’s difficult to see how it could all work out. (Don’t even get me started on the news!) Our prayer as I write this is that we can move through these circumstances in confidence that they are not the final word. They do not have final say, thanks be to God

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!