Grace

What I've always admired about John Donne is his ability, his extreme daring (and accompanying closeness) to just yell at God. Critics have pointed to these moments in his poetry (witness Batter my Heart, the sonnet) as proof that he tries to use wit as his last defence against an unknowable God, or to prove that his heart wasn't really in it, that he was an oscillator between Catholic and Protestant churches, but to me it was a sign of real faith. King David did it a lot in the psalms - rant, rave, yell at God, because life sometimes does make you angry.

This is my own attempt at describing the phenomenon.

Grace

My anger is a ball.

I clench it in my fist like a treasure.

It grows sides, imprints my palm lines.

I roll it, it becomes a perfect ball again.

It is very small. I press it smaller.

Some days it is so tiny I lose it

But it’s really in the center of my palm.

I let it drop, it bounces up again,

Magnetic, or rubbery, with veins.

When I sleep, it throbs and I relax.

In the morning it is swollen slightly.

Sometimes I get out three cups,

One for me, one for you, one for us,

And I play the magic cup game.

Guess where my anger is now?

I do not know or understand the silver cliffs

Of your authority

But I am certain that if I hurled

My anger would rise past its highest peak

So I hurl,

The air rushes with the sound

And nothing;

I’m still waiting for rebound.

Chaplaincy Review: Christina Rosetti, "In the bleak midwinter"

Christina Rosetti (1830-1894) was an English poet and a member of the Church of England. This poem originally appeared in Scribner's Magazine prior to 1872, but it was also published in a posthumous volume, Poetic Works, in 1904. By 1906, it had appeared in the English Hymnal, and it appears in our Hymnal 1982 as well.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, Whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, Whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Monday Special: See Ben's Video Interview!

If you were fortunate enough to join us at Christ Church last night, you'll know that there's no sermon to post because there was a special service, a Festival of Lessons and Carols.

Instead, I'm inviting you to check out Ben's interview on video at the United Ministry at Harvard. If you can't get enough of the accent, this is just the fix for you -- plus, he talks theology! Just follow the link and look for Ben about halfway down the page!

Friday Special: More Caroling Photos!

Here we go a-caroling, around Harvard Yard and the dorms:


Dizzy? How about this one then:


*No Churchy Q&A today, but we're looking forward to seeing you Sunday at Church!

Sunday Preview: Lessons and Carols

This Sunday, there will be a special service know as a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Lessons and Carols is a traditional Christmas service with readings and music and tells the story of Christ's advent in the world through Scripture and song.

The origins of Lessons and Carols reside in the late 19th century in Britain, but the version that most Anglican and Episcopal churches use today was developed by Eric Milner-White at King's College, Cambridge, in 1918. Since then, King's College has continuously offered the traditional service on Christmas Eve.

So when you come to worship with us this Sunday, expect something special! The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols begins at 5PM, and includes music offered by the adult, youth, and handbell choirs of Christ Church, Cambridge.

Bonus: The service at King's College was first broadcast by radio in 1928. It is often carried in the United States by NPR stations. When you're home for the holidays, look for it on your local NPR station either live at 10AM on Christmas Eve or as an encore later in the day.

Peter

Alright, so this is my first post. I'm supposed to be the poet here, so here goes. I just came up with this one a couple of nights before, so it's not exactly polished but if someone wants to comment on it aesthetically, you're very welcome.

Peter

Three years is a long time.

I think about them, these three years.

Three years with the nets, heavy

with sea, grey and secular

the nets I’d thrown

aside, rough against the palms

I recall my art –

the knotting rub of fingers

the haul of fish and gale

the empty net plopped against the side.

I try not to dwell on

those two strong days,

the vertigo of words and wind and boat

the multitude of shores that ring

and ring around my ears.

The heady doublebrew of despair

but the high, rich kind

when the poured storm

rose to a pitch beyond the human eye,

until at last, one of us thought

to call his sleepy head.

The calm,

as though sky had been whisked clean away

and replaced by another sheet.

Beloved,

will I ever know

that gently humorous raising of your brow?

The ship turns on its prow

I have been left to fish

the gaping maw

the strong muscular raving of the storm

will lap my feet,

will swallow me whole

--

Personally, am dissatisfied with the voice in this one. Somehow burly Peter doesn't seem as introspective as I am :p I always imagine him bouncing around trying to be the life of the party and treading on people's toes all the time but then laughing it off with a pint. But then, this is post-Calvary, pre-resurrection Peter, so he wouldn't be so rowdy would he? Triggered by the hair trigger of speculation over how long exactly it was until the disciples believed that Jesus had arose.
Also, I dislike depictions of Jesus as an absolutely humourless fellow. God certainly has a sense of humour: he created giraffes. Have you ever seen a giraffe fight another giraffe?

Chaplaincy Review: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Christmas Bells"

Longfellow (1807-1882) was a professor at Harvard, a linguistics and language scholar, and a prominent poet. You can visit his home, located at 105 Brattle Street and now a national historic site. There is a fee to tour the house, but the gardens are free and open to the public.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Caroling and Hot Chocolate!

After caroling our way through Harvard Yard, we topped off the night with hot chocolate from Burdick's. We were glad to meet new friends, and missed those familiar faces that couldn't join us.

Many thanks, especially, to our hot chocolate crew, who labored over the sweet stuff that everyone enjoyed so much!

Morning After Preaching, Advent 2C

There are two types of people in this world, so they say: there are dog-lovers and there are cat-lovers. There are two types of people in this world: there are people who like baseball and those who like football. There are those who like dark chocolate and those who like milk chocolate. There are radicals and there are conservatives. Let’s stick with this last one shall we? There are radicals and there are conservatives; and in our two readings today we see both.

In the gospel of Luke we see John the Baptist, a loner; someone who denounces the authorities of this world as radicals denounce the politicians of our own day. He shouts at King Herod for his marriage to his brother’s wife, just as the moral vices of our own politicians are paraded in the media. But unlike the media, for John to confront worldly power means risking death.

In the Letter to the Philippians we see Paul, the founder of church communities across the Roman world; someone who thinks Christians should respect the authority of the Roman Emperor, even though the Emperor was clearly corrupt. Paul believes there are no distinctions of man and woman, Jew and Greek, slave and free in the new Christian community. But although these are the ideals Paul wants Christians, he is enough of a realist to know that the world outside the church will continue to use such distinctions. He is an idealist who has been mugged by reality.

So Paul was a neo-con, if you like, and John was a sort of long-haired hippy. A loner lives on the margins of society and, in John’s case, it was in the desert where all he could eat was locusts and wild honey. I imagine him thinking, “Life in the city brings so many temptations, so many opportunities to be led astray, so much money to distract you from the really important things of life.” He “wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt around his waste” (Mt 3:4). A minimal wardrobe, then, to go with his minimal diet. You don’t get the impression that John cared very much what other people thought of him. And so he speaks his mind telling people they commit too many sins and need to repent.

You don’t get the impression John is very happy with society either. He wants to shake it up and remind people what’s really important in life: not money, not your house, not even your family, but the state of your soul. “Are you doing what God wants you to do?” That is John’s question.

We know John had a small group of followers, but I don’t think he’d miss them much if they weren’t there. In another of the gospels, some followers of John come to him and say “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” But for all John cares, everyone can go to Jesus, for, he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:26, 30).

Paul, on the other hand, is all about building-up society. A lot of people find Paul a tricky customer: he seems uncompromising on how he wants the new churches to live. But in the Letter to the Philippians, we learn that his motive for setting up these churches is love. “For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:8). Paul yearns for his friends in Philippi, he loves them.

Paul certainly loved being with people, which is part of why his time in prison was so difficult. He writes to his Philippian friends, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.” Think of the friends you’ve been parted from, friends from back home or perhaps friends who graduated last year, whom you love but whom you don’t see everyday like you used to, and you get a sense of how much Paul misses the Philippians.

“Thank you for looking out for me.” That is what Paul is saying in his letter. You Philippians sent me food here in prison and for that I thank you. He says, “I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace” (Phil 1:7). Partakers, participants, sharers of God and of one another; sharers of the gifts of God among one other.

Are you a John? A radical. A loner. Perhaps a bit of an introvert, but with big ideas about how the world has to change. Are you a Paul? A conservative. A strengthener of community. An extrovert, but perhaps with a desire for people to conform to your expectations of them. Perhaps you have bits of each of them in you, or perhaps you are neither. What is important in God’s eyes is that whatever your personality type you have a role to play in Christ’s Body.

And this gets us to what Paul and John have in common: both of them want the people baptized. Both of them want people baptized because both of them realise that God wants all types of people to be part of Christ’s Body. Baptism is about turning around the direction of your life – repentance – and about becoming part of the Body of Christ – remembering, or putting the members of Christ back together. Paul and John were both baptizers, because they knew that God yearns for God’s people to live a new life in Christ.

Baptism is about new life, then, but also about membership of the Body of Christ. Membership of a Body in which there are other members to whom we give and from whom we receive. Baptism, then, is about our membership of one another – whether like Paul we love other people, or like John we aren’t so sure about them. Baptism is a decision that we live best when we live as members of a body – the Body of Christ.

Baptism is a strange ritual, all that water and all those promises to renounce Satan. But perhaps even stranger to the outside world is the membership of the Body of Christ that comes with it. To be the member of this Body requires our commitment. It requires our commitment to look out for one another, whether the other members are friendly or cold, introverts or extraverts, conservatives or radicals. It requires us to look out for those in tough times, especially the poor, the sick, the prisoner. To be part of a Body isn’t always easy, because the Body is made up of many members and chances are you won’t get on with all of them… or many of them… or any of them. But to have all sorts of differences within it is the very nature of a body.

So however we divide people up, we need to invite them all into baptism in the Body. For only if the church has different members can we be built, through the Spirit, into a healthy Body. Only then can we literally re-member, put back together, the Body of Christ. Amen.

Churchy Q&A: How do you know what Scriptures to read at church?

In the Episcopal Church, we follow a Eucharistic lectionary, which tells us which texts to read on Sundays and on other holy days. There are three years in our lectionary, and over the course of those three years we'll have heard most of the New Testament and large portions of the Old Testament.

The texts are chosen to support the liturgical year and season and to harmonize with one another. For example, because we are in Advent, we're reading texts that speak to the birth of Jesus at Christmas and to the coming of Christ in the future. The texts anticipate these events, and allow the preacher to construct a sermon around them.

The Episcopal lectionary suggests readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament writings, and the Gospels for each Sunday. At the chaplaincy, we always read the Gospel and the Psalm, with the lesson drawn from either the Old Testament or the New Testament. The preacher chooses which lesson text to use, based on the themes of the sermon.

Bonus: Curious about if/when a particular passage will be read? Click here!

Sunday Preview

The Collect
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Philippians 1:1-11

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God's grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Psalm 126
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
‘The Lord has done great things for them.’
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.

Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

'Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth;

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

Chaplaincy Review: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Who am I?"

This poem was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer during his time in Tegel Prison. Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a pastor and a participant in the German resistance to the National Socialist regime. He was implicated in the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler, and was hanged for treason on April 9, 1945 at Flossenbürg concentration camp.

Who am I? They often tell me
I would step from my prison cell
poised, cheerful and sturdy,
like a nobleman from his country estate.

Who am I? They often tell me
I would speak with my guards
freely, pleasantly, and firmly,
as if I had it to command.

Who am I? I have also been told
that I suffer the days of misfortune
with serenity, smiles and pride,
as someone accustomed to victory.

Am I really what others say about me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning and sick, like a bird in its cage,
struggling for the breath of life,
as though someone were choking my throat;
hungering for colors, for flowers, for the songs of birds,
thirsting for kind words and human closeness,
shaking with anger at capricious tyranny and the pettiest slurs,
bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great events that might never occur,
fearfully powerless and worried for friends far away,
weary and empty in prayer, in thinking and doing,
weak, and ready to take leave of it all.

Who am I? This man or that other?
Am I then this man today and tomorrow another?
Am I both all at once? An impostor to others,
but to me little more than a whining, despicable weakling?
Does what is in me compare to a vanquished army,
that flees in disorder before a battle already won?

Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, you know me, O God. You know I am yours.

Morning After Preaching, Advent 1C

Texts: 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Psalm 50:1-6, Luke 21:25-31

I don’t have many memories of Advent from my childhood. I can remember preparing for Christmas, but it didn’t have much to do with God. We would spend hours during the weeks before on decorating the house, putting up a tree and loading it down with ornaments. Advent was just how we got to Christmas, where the good stuff happened.

In actuality, Advent is a season of preparation, in which we anticipate not only the birth of Jesus, but also – and more importantly – the expected coming of Christ and the kingdom of God. Advent is how we get to the ‘good news.’ We already know the story of Jesus of Nazareth and the course of his life, ministry, and death. But we are also watching and waiting for the story that is yet unfolding. The story of Jesus’ journey from humble beginnings to Easter morning is only the opening salvo. God isn’t through with us, and that is what Jesus tells us in the reading from the gospel of Luke.

Jesus tells of the signs in the cosmos and of the distress of the earth that would portend the coming of the Son of Man. He is speaking of an event so momentous that both the physical and social worlds react. But catastrophic events were not a distant possibility for the early Christian community. At the time when the gospels were being written, catastrophe was a present reality. The Roman armies held siege to Jerusalem, surrounding the city with three legions on the west and another to the east. After six months, they had seized Jerusalem, destroyed the city, burned the Temple, and decimated the Jewish population.

The apocalyptic passages in Luke were good news to the followers of Jesus, then and now. They speak to the teleos – the end – that the world is moving inexorably toward, and this end is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not a physical territory in the way we think of kingdoms. It does not have a geographic location with boundaries, a flag, coat of arms and currency. It is, instead, a radical experience of the world in which God lies at the center. Because of this radical reorientation, we are brought into right relationship with one another, with the world, and with God.

The kingdom of God is already inaugurated, brought into being at the incarnation of Christ in Jesus. It is already among us, but it is also not yet fully realized. The signs in the stars and moon and in the very earth itself were a way of knowing that the end was in sight. At the same time, Jesus warns us of the limitations of our knowledge, for ‘about that day and hour no one knows’ (Matthew 24:36). No one knows what the future holds. We can look for signs and watch carefully to discern what might lie ahead, but we should always be prepared.

There is a danger, though, in imagining that one day – perhaps far off, or perhaps tomorrow – God will swoop in and bring the world to an end. The temptation is to let go of attachments to this world and just wait for the beginning of the end. The temptation is to wait, passively, for God to show up and make everything new. That is not what Jesus asks of us.

Instead, we are called to watch, attentive to the signs and promises of hope, without neglecting the troubles of the world. We are called to live as citizens of God’s kingdom, not in a distant, imagined future, but here and now. We are called to be disciples.

For Luke, one is not a disciple alone. Discipleship means living in community in a manner consistent with God’s intentions for human kind. Discipleship is a way of life that isn’t limited an hour on Sunday or a personal, private relationship with God. It is deeply transformative and affects every aspect of life.

Discipleship is fundamentally relational: love for one another is the hallmark of Jesus’s disciples (John 13:35). It is this vision for the community of Christ that lies at the heart of Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians: ‘may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all’ (1 Thessalonians 3:12).

We respond to the call of Jesus Christ, in the same way that the cosmos and the physical world respond to the coming of Christ: it affects our very being, it is not easy, it is both a burden and a great joy.

These apocalyptic texts envision what Creation's true end is, what God intends for this world: the redemption for which the world groans is found in Jesus Christ, not simply in the events of his birth, but also in his anticipated return.

But in preparing for the full realization of the kingdom of God, we cannot forget our obligations to one another. We are the people of God, whose intentions for the world were shown forth in life of Jesus Christ. We are participants in God’s kingdom, not tomorrow, not in the day and hour that are yet to come, but today. How might we answer the call to discipleship today? What does the Lord require of us, ‘but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God?’ (Micah 6:8)

When we are consumed by the desperate circumstances of the world – the enormous disasters and the commonplace travesties – Jesus prompts us to think of the fig tree. The fig tree is among the last to bloom in Palestine. Its blooming serves to remind us that the end is near, that there is an abiding hope for a future in which God brings all things into harmony with one another and with their creator, that the hour of redemption is at hand.

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
  Do justice, now.
    Love mercy, now.
      Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work,
  but neither are you free to abandon it.” (The Talmud)

We are an integral and essential part of what God is up to in the world. In Advent we remember that God enters the world in unexpected and wonderful ways in order to bring creation to its fulfillment. We are not free to abandon the work of the kingdom, but we know that its completion lies in the hands of God.

Amen.

Churchy Q&A: How are hymns for church decided on?

At the Chaplaincy, the person preaching at that service selects three hymns: opening, offertory, and closing. It's a little more complicated than just rotating through your 20 favorites, though, because the hymns (hopefully) support and strengthen the service as a unified whole. There are several factors to think about:

The readings, especially the Gospel, are the crucial, anchoring element. I begin by reflecting on the readings and sketching the sermon. After this preliminary peek, I look for hymns that fit with the readings and the sermon, in order to connect what is read, sung, and heard.

Although the readings are based on the lectionary and therefore follow the liturgical season, it's important to keep the season in mind. The Hymnal 1982 categorizes hymns, but some categories are more fixed than others. For instance, you wouldn't sing "Unto us a boy is born" before Christmas Day, but many hymns from the sections 'Jesus Christ' and 'Praise to God' are suitable throughout the year.

It's also helpful to consider the hymn's tune. Aside from whether it is familiar or easy to sing, the tempo and pace can help to shape the experience of the service in subtle ways. I look for slower, more reflective tunes for the offertory (especially) and also for the opening. The closing hymn tends to have a quicker tempo, because it is how the congregation is musically 'sent forth' into the world.

And then there are the instinctive decisions. For instance, I have to confess that I would feel a bit odd singing When morning gilds the skies at 5pm.