This past Sunday, a parishioner told me a pearl of wisdom that her mother had passed along to her. It is this: “If it cannot be cured, it must be endured.” I have been pondering curing and enduring since there is a lot in life that is incurable and, as such, must be something to be endured.
At our monthly healing service, we pray in two general categories – healing and acceptance. It’s like this: if God doesn’t cure the person or situation, then we pray for peace, patience and acceptance of what is. I grew up during tube era of television evangelists. One popular show (for lack of a better term) highlighted a dynamic preacher who would, more or less, strike someone on the forehead with his palm to heal them. It seemed to work. The message I am sharing with you would not be popular with them. In other words, some people, even Christians, do not seem very big in the endurance department. I’ve never seen Christianity explained on TV that with God, you can endure. There is nothing wrong with messages that say with God you can do anything and anything can be done. And yet, I’ve seen the Spirit help people endure life situations a lot more than I’ve seen miraculous healing. A clergy friend of mine is on a sabbatical of sorts. He is walking the Camino de Santiago. This is a pilgrimage route that ends at the city of Santiago de Compostela (in Spain). The month-long, 500 mile walk takes pilgrims across ancient Roman roads, gravel paths and muddy trails. He recently wrote that he can’t make the Camino go his own way; it goes its own way and the pilgrims follow it. Since the Camino in this sense can’t be cured, it must be endured. Or must it? I wonder if curing and enduring are actually not polar opposites but rather are simply interconnected. Going back to our healing prayers, whether someone is cured physically or given grace to handle the life situation, I believe the end result is the same, acceptance and peace. Jesus encountered a man who was waiting to be cured. This man was lying by the pool of Bethzatha near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. The mystical Jewish belief was that when the water in the pool was stirred up, the first one in got healed. Unfortunately for this poor man, he’d been waiting for 38 years and never was the first in. Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” Although this seems like a strange question, it points to the curing/enduring aspect. He’s been enduring for a long, long time. Perhaps he had come to peace with it and no longer was seeking a cure. A sudden curing might disrupt his peace and maybe even dislodge his acceptance of his place in life. And it might even require him to explain who it was that healed him and he’d then have to work for a living instead of begging at the Sheep Gate. Although the man did receive healing, we never found out if he accepted his new lot in life. Jesus sensed something that I think I might miss when dealing with very ill people — there is a relationship between enduring and peace and ease. Life with Christ is not always an easy or a smooth path. Sometimes it’s ruddy and muddy. Nevertheless, we learn and endure. And, we are called to endure with Christ, or to be cured, but in most instances it is not our choice to make. The choice we can make, however, is to seek Christ in both curing and enduring situations and have faith that the Holy Spirit will give us ease and peace. -Fr. Marshall Last Wednesday night, twenty Episcopalians from our diocese gathered in the music room to learn about community organizing. Our guest speaker/community organizer asked us what societal problem keeps us up at night. One major theme was violence. The general feeling was America is becoming more and more violent. Some folks talked about what we see on the news, television programming and, of course, movies has resulted in violence becoming tolerable and maybe even acceptable.
This morning, on the treadmill at the YMCA, I went through the channels and was saddened and stunned to see how much violent programming there was. USA showed a surprisingly gruesome movie with Nicolas Cage, there were crime dramas that showed more guns and shooting than actual crime solving, and to top it off, one network was airing a “talk show” where the interviewees had to be physically separated. It’s like there is an evangelist of violence that has taken over mainstream broadcasting. Unfortunately, this evangelist seems to be taking over children’s programming. One of my favorite movies is Cars. Released in 2006, it’s a computer generated and touching cartoon about a race car, Lightning McQueen, who gets lost on his way to the big race. He finds himself in a small town and ends up befriending everyone and improving their morale. The main supporting character is a rusty tow truck named Mater. Voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, Mater wants a best friend and finds one in Lightning. Mater is kind, friendly and innocent – the epitome of a best buddy. In 2011, the much anticipated Cars 2 came out. Typical with many releases nowadays, the toys hit the stores before the movie. Imagine my delight when walking through Costco I saw a large box with the Cars 2 Mater inside. My boys grabbed the box and showed it to me. I was disgusted. Mater had a lowered rooftop that made his eyes look sinister, he had an aggressive sneer on his face and he was “upgraded” with two oversized machine guns on his door panels. Disney/Pixar had taken a loveable, friendly character, and turned him into an aggressive war machine. This is Sunday is Ascension Day. After Jesus ascended (literally taken up into a cloud) two angels told the disciples that he will come back in the “Same way that you have seen him go.” (Acts 1) But what if Jesus returned, not on a cloud saying, “Shalom,” but instead with a machine gun under each arm and a sneer on his face, as if to say, “Go ahead, make my day.” Would we recognize him? Would we prefer that image? I feel unable to do anything about more and more violent images and perhaps a more violent country. I feel powerless to stop the slide. At the end of June, at our three-year General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the House of Bishops is planning a march against gun violence. I’d like to think it will do something but my cynical side believes that up against a gigantic propaganda machine from Hollywood and other areas, this march won’t move the needle. So what will? Historically, the witness of the Christian Church has been against violence. We don’t combat violence with violence. The early Church could not physically stand up to the Roman Empire. Yet, through peace and unity, it subdued the empire. The Church developed relationships and through constant resistance and witness of love, the world changed. The House of Bishops cannot measure up to 24-hour cable programming and Mad Max-style movies and propaganda machines. But, their march is a witness to true peace and unity that comes down to relationships, witness and friendship. Can it work again? I believe it will, with God’s help. -Fr.Marshall Today is garbage day, always a chore day for me. I don’t enjoy taking out the garbage. But, because of what would happen if I didn’t take it out, I do it. At a recent Earth Day festival in Otay Ranch, my boys and I listened to an interesting presentation from our refuse management company about what happens to our garbage. It’s easy to think that a fairy comes by and whooshes it away where it’ll never be seen again. But that is not what happens. As a part of the presentation, we found out exactly how much waste can be recycled. It is more than I thought (and I thought it was a lot to begin with). The refuse manager I spoke with is surprisingly passionate about garbage. I didn’t know that with a simple phone call, the truck will pick up my old car oil, batteries, and a variety of other environmentally-toxic products. One phone call, no additional charges, no questions asked; they’ll just come by to pick it up.
One of the funniest insurance claims I ever reviewed, when I was in that profession, was from a young family that just before Christmas had moved from the small town of Kettle Falls, Washington, to the thriving metropolis of Spokane. Although most residents of Kettle Falls have indoor plumbing (don’t laugh, some still have outdoor toilets), they don’t have garbage service. So what do they do? They burn it. Seriously, it is a weekly tradition to burn one's garbage. This young family moved to an up and coming preplanned housing complex that featured, among many green-home amenities, fancy outdoor siding that looks just like wood, but keeps the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The complex was so new that it did not yet have landscaping. On Christmas day, our newly insured family took all their garbage, including moving boxes and a large amount of wrapping paper, dug a garbage fire pit between their home and the newly constructed home next to them and started the weekly Kettle Falls garbage-burning routine. The fire created so much heat it melted their siding, the siding on the home next to theirs and on the occupied house behind them. That was not exactly the best way to wish one’s new neighbors Merry Christmas. Love is a theme of our Sunday readings these past weeks. Love from God has little to do with fond feelings or even really liking someone. Agape love is the “richer or poorer, in sickness and health” type which makes you willing to handle someone else’s garbage. This is the love Jesus shows us. He wants us including our garbage. When we lift our concerns to God, it can be like garbage day. We package up all the stuff we can’t handle, the stuff we no longer want, the stuff that really smells if it stays in our house for just one more day, we put it out on the street in prayer and God drives it away, for good. Jesus does not go through our garbage later on and say, “Remember when…” Nope, it’s gone for good. It’s not even recycled into something else. No garbage fairy comes by our house weekly to make our garbage disappear, but we do have a weekly church celebration where we bring everything to God, even garbage. And Jesus takes it away for good. -Fr. Marshall On a warm Pacific Northwest summer in 1981, the dark blue camp van had its windows rolled down and fifteen campers stowed away as we rode to the trailhead of our four-day hike. Our driver and camp-mom, Debbie, had the radio at full blast and she and two other counselors were singing at the top of their lungs, “Bye bye Miss American Pie, drove the Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry, and them good ole boys were drinking whisky ‘n rye singing, ‘This’ll be the day that I die, this’ll be the day that I die.’” It was my introduction to “American Pie,” by Don McLean. There was something magical and lyrical about the story the singer laid out. After it was over, Debbie and the adults discussed what the song meant. In true Episcopal camp style, they did not agree but appreciated each other’s thoughts.
In February, 2015, I was driving Ethan home from school and the same song, American Pie, came on the radio. We listened for a while but when I reached to change the channel he stopped me because he wanted to hear the rest, which was: “Did you write the book of love And do you have faith in God above If the Bible tells you so? Now do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul? And can you teach me how to dance real slow?” Later I heard the same song from Ethan’s room. He found it on YouTube and was playing it and singing along to the lyrics on screen. Later that evening, I asked what he liked about that song. He said it’s a good tune and he likes the lyrics. When I asked what he thought it meant, he was not sure. Last week, Christi and I were watching David Letterman on YouTube. Celebrities are coming by to say goodbye during his last twenty shows. We called Ethan in to watch John Mayer say goodbye to Letterman by playing American Pie. The song brought about a big emotional reaction in the crowd – and not only because Mayer sang it so well. Don McLean has been very coy about the meaning but just a few weeks ago, after the rights were sold, he told the story. Early on February 4, 1959, the fourteen-year old McLean was folding papers for his route. The headline read that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson had died in a plane crash. Each paper repeated the same line and that was the day the music died. Throughout his life, he recorded in his mind more episodes like that fateful morning -- the deaths of JFK, Elvis Presley, Meredith Hunter, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Also in his mind were images of Vietnam. He wrote American Pie in 1971 with the idea that things in the U.S. were heading in the wrong direction. When I watch what has happened in Baltimore, I can’t help but think, “Bye bye Miss American Pie.” The last stanza of the song goes, “And the three men I admire most, the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.” Obviously I disagree with McLean on that, provided he was serious, which I kind of doubt. Although we’ve watched horrible things unfolding on the streets of Ferguson, Baltimore, and other American cities, God is still here, in the Vietnam veteran who risked his own safety by telling rioters to go home or the mom who pulled her son out of the riot and in many others who we have not seen on television but are trying to calm the situation. This is not the day that America dies. God has not caught the last train for the coast. Instead, God is right in the middle of the situation and inspiring people to bring peace. -Fr. Marshall |