Sunday, April 13, 2025
Thursday, April 10, 2025
trust
TRUST
What can you trust? Who can you trust?
In uncertain times, which we are certainly in now, questions come up, and trust is at stake. Who can you trust? What can you trust? The editor of one of my favorite regional magazines asked recently, what are you reading? And he said he had switched from national newsfeeds and blogs to more local, on-the-ground sources of information. I am not advocating this particular strategy: indeed, I find that international sources are equally important for getting a balanced view of the world. It does raise the question of trust. As do recent panicky accounts of stock markets and trade wars. Should I buy? Should we sell? Should I sit tight? What is going on?
What is going on - in a deeper sense - not simply what is happening now, in this moment, with its momentary passions and worries, is something we as Christian believers must consider.
As must be our response, to uncertain conditions, turbulent times, faithless politicians, and the anxiety bred by a lack of trust.
Robert Bellah, a sociologist, and, by the way, member of an Episcopal church in Berkeley, said that, “Our greatest contribution to the world is, by God’s grace, to try to be who, as Christians, we are.” And he asked Americans, in a survey research project conducted with colleagues, “How do you determine what is good, how do you determine what is right, in your daily life?”
The results of that qualitative research project are reported in the book “Habits of the Heart.”
The questions of the immediate moment, what should I do now, what should I do today, what will alleviate my anxiety - or that of my fellows, where will I go to find trust, and trustworthy companions? These questions do lead us into deeper inquiry: on what is trust to be founded? What is the basis, the foundation, on which trust, and faithfulness, can be solidly built: I would submit to you that the old hymns may be right: On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. [On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, Song by The Graham Family Band ‧ 2014]
Or, if you do not have the Lord to guide you…
Or, My hope is built on nothing less/Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness (Edward Mote (1797-1874)
In other words, we enjoy a certainty beyond the fluctuations of the stock market or the flutterings of our hearts, or the passions of the moment, in the sure and certain knowledge of salvation, salvation not just of ourselves but of all people, all creatures, all creation. Some of us, notably humans, need it more than others. I have less sense that rocks and stars need saving from themselves. We certainly do, at times.
I think of the solid and faithful work of Samaritans and others, including border police on both sides of the wall, who look after desperate people crawling under a wall or sheltering under a desert bush, seeking, after a while, nothing more than life. Nothing less. Than life.
For them the political and moral questions have faded away. First, food, shelter, safety. Then they may find themselves in custody, shipped to a place they have never known, or know all too well, but for now, life. Life is at stake. That is what it means to be in an existential moment.
You might say, and many argue, without panic, that this is an existential moment for our way of life, our way of being with one another. Democracy, yes, but more deeply, compassion. Justice, and the rule of law, we seek with our fellow human beings. We do not agree all together on how to find what we seek, but we know, certainly as worshipping human beings, on that goal at least.
How do you determine what is good, how do you determine what is right, in your daily life?
***
Our greatest contribution to the world is, by God's grace, to try to be who, as Christians, we are. -- Robert Bellah
Link to YouTube recording of Robert N. Bellah Lecture by Marian Budde
https://www.youtube.com/live/HsynDr_thrU
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Three Men
Have you ever felt like this? Far from home, far from your self, your true self, far from what you really know your life was meant to be? Maybe you took what you could get and went and blew it - riotous living, bad investment, stupid life choices - but here you are now, at the far end of your senses, and you come to yourself, that is, you come to realize, this is not me, this is not what is meant for me, I may be no better than this but this is not it. The people who know me, really know me, would not recognize me like this. But I need them. I’m going home!
And so you rehearse, all the bad things you have done, all the mistakes, the regrets, all the promises to change, to reform, to just give up and throw yourself on the mercy of the court of inner opinion. Maybe there is somebody you can go to. Maybe you say, “I want to get sober” or “I have made a big mistake” or “I blew it, didn’t I?” I know it, you know it, but now I am admitting it. And I want to come back to a true sense of myself, and of you.
Is this a cry for pity? In the younger son’s story, it doesn’t work. The father does not take him back on the terms he suggests, a disgraced former offspring now fit only to be a hired hand.
But the father does not take the deal. Instead, he welcomes, runs to welcome, the son who was lost and now is found. The child who had strayed, who knows how far, is now returned. Back. From wherever. And that’s it. He’s home. That is what matters.
What matters more, more than forgiveness, repentance, turning around, turning home, is the generosity, the unquestioning welcome, the forgiveness without solicitation or merit, the uncreated gift of the father’s love.
So, Lent. Chocolate? Coffee? Red meat? Movies? Relentless television? Newsfeeds 24/7? Is it about what you give up? Or is it about what you receive? Without merit, without limit. The father’s love precedes any repentance, it is indeed unmerited grace. And it is waiting for us, all the time.
Have you ever felt like that? Worked hard for no reward, no recognition. Just toil. Where did that younger brother get to anyway? At least I get two-thirds of the inheritance (check Deuteronomy 21:17) since I am the firstborn - not that playboy. That waster. To be kind, I saw this coming. From the day he said, give me my inheritance - now: I cannot wait until you are dead, Father. Let’s pretend you already are - dead to me, at least as far as the money goes. And the money went. I have just had it with him.
So now I pick up the pieces. We make do with what is left, Father and I. For I am the good son. The eldest. I hold it all together. I won’t let it get out of hand - again. But no, look, here he comes. Back. And what does he want now?
Have you ever been that boiled in resentment? Felt its heat from far away? No wonder the boy was hesitant, coming home. There is no indication that the younger had thought of the older, just of coming home to his father.
Have you ever felt that deserving, or that underserved, that unappreciated?
But then again the Father seems not to care, not even to care enough to keep count of the loss.
Love does not keep account of wrong. (J. B. Phillips) But rejoices when truth prevails. The truth of the Father’s love.
Being right won’t last forever. Remember the man who had “he was in the right” written on his tombstone. What will last is love. Forgiveness. Let this be a lesson to me. I am not ready to release all my anger, all my resentment, all my sorrow or grief at what is lost. Are you? Anyone?
But I know the day will come. He has already forgiven me. Can I do no less? Relax my hand, and let the pebble fall I meant to throw, like the people in the Temple ready to stone a woman. Put down my hand, with its accusing finger. Not that I am no better, or much worse. That is not the point. This is not comparative justice. “Well, what about —?”
This is about love that does not wait. That comes to us, unbidden, unready, whether we like it or not. Worthy or not.
And finally — have you ever, even in the slightest, felt like this? Someone comes to you to make amends, someone comes for mercy, someone comes to be forgiven, to make things right, as right as they can, without hope or expectation? Twelve-step people may know it, from either side. Making amends is one of the steps to release from addiction. One of the steps to release from the past. With all its errors. (And it is a release to both parties.)
Not to make room for making new errors. Though errors there may be. But simply in this moment to rejoice with the recovered, the resentful, the relieved, and the joyful, in the restoration, renewal, or even better, the new life that now comes to be.
Forgiveness, as the Father gives it, does not merely restore. It makes new.
Behold you are a new creation. All things have become new. In Christ. Amen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=humDgJ-SmHI
William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress I: The Heir
https://shop.soane.org/products/pod435408?_pos=31&_sid=c20f76fc1&_ss=r
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Third Sunday in Lent
O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; *
my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,
my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,
as in a barren and dry land where there is no water.
as in a barren and dry land
Moses turned aside, curious, at least, perhaps pulled by some deeper emotion, to see what was causing the bush to burn yet not be consumed. He was in a barren and dry land, perhaps; he and his father-in-law Reuel’s flock (Zipporah’s father) had strayed beyond the wilderness, far from home base, and found themselves on this mountain holy to the Midianites. (His father-in-law was a priest of Midian.)
More than thirst was going on. Thirst for justice. Thirst for freedom. Thirst to worship without fear. Hunger and thirst. drought and famine, from which the Israelites cried out to be released. From a more than physical bondage they fled. And Moses was the one to lead them. As always, the improbable one, the one called by God, is the one to lead the way.
Moses was no ordinary son of Abraham. He fled from Pharaoh after killing an Egyptian and hiding the body in the sand. He wandered far away into the desert between Egypt with its watered fields and Canaan the land where milk and honey flowed.
Because he had been there first, he could lead the people through the deserted unknown places. Because he knew his own unworthiness, indeed his sin, he could lead others through the passage between bondage and freedom.
Key to our understanding is this feeling of unworthiness, reasonable unworthiness, indeed of awe. Remember : when Jesus instructed the fishermen to let down their nets and they encountered a miraculous catch of fish, Peter said to Jesus, go away for me for I am an unworthy man. The presence of the holy overwhelmed him.
Here it is the presence of the divine, manifested first in the miraculous sight, the sign of the bush, the symbol of its burning, then in the message of the angel, take off your sandals, for where you stand is holy ground, that awes the modest human, causing him to be unclothed of all his weary sinfulness. This is the beginning of redemption.
Remember: Moses had fled Egypt, a sinner, a murderer indeed. He has found shelter, comfort, even a wife, in a new life far from Pharaoh’s power. And yet that is not enough, not for God, and not for Moses’ life. God now redeems him; redeems him like a debt unpaid. Moses begins to reconcile with the one more important than (but not in contravention of ) any human law. He must go back.
O God.
And free his people. First he must convince them. Whom shall I say sent me? The ground of being, in a nice phrase, for the one whom he met standing on holy ground is indeed the creative, organizing, and inspiring power of the universe. Beyond holy. Beyond any god of man and women he might think might merit devotion. This is the one who is. I am who I am, I will be who I will be, I am he who causes to be all that comes to be. And yet is not consumed, comprehended, encompassed by all that, but contains it within his will. His will and power and mercy. Justice and steadfast love. That is who Moses has fallen a-fair of.
How will I possibly convince them? I cannot even talk.
You have a brother, Aaron – and a sister, Miriam. He will speak for you, she shall lead the women in dance and exaltation, in praise at the deliverance of the people.
This shall all come to be. I am who I am. I am the one who causes to be what is, and what will be.
Take off your shoes. All right, put them back on. Go back and break the news to your father-in-law. And your wife, Zipporah.
O god. Indeed.
care o’ fig
In the Old Testament lesson for this Sunday a man confronts a plant that embodied the divine. In the gospel lesson a man who embodies the divine speaks about a plant. I think it’s about more than that, don’t you? It seems to me that in today’s gospel, the plant is a plant and this is good husbandry. I also think it could be a figure (pun alert, sorry!) for Israel or the Church. One more year, pleads the gardener; give me one more year to turn things around. I’ll dig around it and give it fertilizer. (Personally I’m tempted to try this on a couple of trees - again - this spring, but a hae ma doots about a couple of them: they look like goners to me.)
Jesus as the gardener, the Father as the landowner, and the people as the vineyard with the fig tree in it. In California I’ve seen, at the turn to Glen Ellen, roses growing at the end of rows of vines of wine grapes. I’ve been told they act like canaries in a coal mine, as they are likely to show symptoms of stress before they are visible on the vines. Here in the gospel imagery the fig tree is taken as a common accompaniment to vines in the garden. So each of us can shelter under the shade of the tree and eat from the vine; they are companions in the field.
"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
God has not given up on us yet. Art Hoppe had a wonderful image in his column in the San Francisco Chronicle. There on a cloud are the Lord and the angel Gabriel contemplating, once again, the follies of the human race. The Lord pats his beard, thinkingly. Gabriel is more cheerfully decisive: eagerly he inquires, “Shall I sound the eviction notice?” brandishing his trumpet. But the Lord says, no, no, give them another chance.
How long can this go on?
Perhaps we find out in other vineyard and landlord parables, like the one where the wicked tenants insult and assault the managers’ messengers who are sent to collect the rent, then finally the son of the owner. The message there is that that might not work out so well for the tenants. They can be replaced.
I suppose Gabriel, in the Chronicle story, had something similar in mind.
God gives us another chance. If that is what this parable is about, it is not so complicated. And parables need not be so complicated. They may have one simple message, that we can see because first it turns upside down our common view. Once we look at the world with new vision it changes.
The passage before that confronts us with the common linkage between sin and misery. They must have done something, been worse than other people, or this calamity would not have fallen upon them. But they are no worse than others. Indeed, they are no worse than we are! No more deserving of tragedy, loss, or catastrophe. That does not mean they are without sin. It means that they and we are no more sinful - and perhaps no less - than anybody else.
At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Negligence or police brutality, natural disaster or human turpitude, not victims’ sin.
No grounds for judgment; no grounds for schadenfreude (joy at the pain of others); no secret security for us as better people. And no safe place to hide from God’s inexorable… grace. For he did not come into the world to judge the world, but to redeem it. That is what this season is about; that is what it is preparing us for: the outrageous reality of God’s self-sacrifice, self-emptying gift, to free us from our own prisons of folly, guilt, error, and all the other failings of the human comedy.
Therefore I have gazed upon you in your holy place, *
that I might behold your power and your glory.
For your loving-kindness is better than life itself; *
my lips shall give you praise.
© 2025 John Leech
Friday, March 21, 2025
as in a barren and dry land
Moses turned aside, curious, at least, perhaps pulled by some deeper emotion, to see what was causing the bush to burn yet not be consumed. He was in a barren and dry land, perhaps; he and his father-in-law Reuel’s flock (Zipporah’s father) had strayed beyond the wilderness, far from home base, and found themselves on this mountain holy to the Midianites. (His father-in-law was a priest of Midian.)
More than thirst was going on. Thirst for justice. Thirst for freedom. Thirst to worship without fear. Hunger and thirst. drought and famine, from which the Israelites cried out to be released. From a more than physical bondage they fled. And Moses was the one to lead them. As always, the improbable one, the one called by God, is the one to lead the way.
Moses was no ordinary son of Abraham. He fled from Pharaoh after killing an Egyptian and hiding the body in the sand. He wandered far away into the desert between Egypt with its watered fields and Canaan the land where milk and honey flowed.
Because he had been there first, he could lead the people through the deserted unknown places. Because he knew his own unworthiness, indeed his sin, he could lead others through the passage between bondage and freedom.
Key to our understanding is this feeling of unworthiness, reasonable unworthiness, indeed of awe. Remember : when Jesus instructed the fishermen to let down their nets and they encountered a miraculous catch of fish, Peter said to Jesus, go away for me for I am an unworthy man. The presence of the holy overwhelmed him.
Here it is the presence of the divine, manifested first in the miraculous sight, the sign of the bush, the symbol of its burning, then in the message of the angel, take off your sandals, for where you stand is holy ground, that awes the modest human, causing him to be unclothed of all his weary sinfulness. This is the beginning of redemption.
Remember: Moses had fled Egypt, a sinner, a murderer indeed. He has found shelter, comfort, even a wife, in a new life far from Pharaoh’s power. And yet that is not enough, not for God, and not for Moses’ life. God now redeems him; redeems him like a debt unpaid. Moses begins to reconcile with the one more important than (but not in contravention of ) any human law. He must go back.
O God.
And free his people. First he must convince them. Whom shall I say sent me? The ground of being, in a nice phrase, for the one whom he met standing on holy ground is indeed the creative, organizing, and inspiring power of the universe. Beyond holy. Beyond any god of man and women he might think might merit devotion. This is the one who is. I am who I am, I will be who I will be, I am he who causes to be all that comes to be. And yet is not consumed, comprehended, encompassed by all that, but contains it within his will. His will and power and mercy. Justice and steadfast love. That is who Moses has fallen a-fair of.
How will I possibly convince them? I cannot even talk.
You have a brother, Aaron – and a sister, Miriam. He will speak for you, she shall lead the women in dance and exaltation, in praise at the deliverance of the people.
This shall all come to be. I am who I am. I am the one who causes to be what is, and what will be.
Take off your shoes. All right, put them back on. Go back and break the news to your father-in-law. And your wife, Zipporah.
O god. Indeed.
care o’ fig
In the OT lesson a man confronted a plant that embodied the divine. In the gospel lesson a man who embodies the divine speaks about a plant. I think it’s about more than that, don’t you? It seems to me that in today’s gospel, the plant is a plant and this is good husbandry. I also think it could be a figure (pun alert, sorry!) for Israel or the Church. One more year, pleads the gardener; give me one more year to turn things around. I’ll dig around it and give it fertilizer. (Personally I’m tempted to try this on a couple of trees - again - this spring, but a hae ma doots about a couple of them: they look like goners to me.) Jesus as the gardener, the Father as the landowner, and the people as the vineyard with the fig tree in it. In California I’ve seen, at the turn to Glen Ellen, roses growing at the end of rows of vines of wine grapes. I’ve been told they act like canaries in a coal mine, as they are likely to show symptoms of stress before they are visible on the vines. Here in the gospel imagery the fig tree is taken as a common accompaniment to vines in the garden. So each of us can shelter under the shade of the tree and eat from the vine; they are companions in the field.
"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
God has not given up on us yet. Art Hoppe had a wonderful image in his column in the San Francisco Chronicle. There on a cloud are the Lord and the angel Gabriel contemplating, once again, the follies of the human race. The Lord pats his beard, thinkingly. Gabriel is more cheerfully decisive: eagerly he inquires, “Shall I sound the eviction notice?” brandishing his trumpet. But the Lord says, no, no, give them another chance.
How long can this go on?
Perhaps we find out in other vineyard and landlord parables, like the one where the wicked tenants insult and assault the managers’ messengers who are sent to collect the rent, then finally the son of the owner. The message there is that that might not work out so well for the tenants. They can be replaced.
I suppose Gabriel, in the Chronicle story, had something similar in mind.
God gives us another chance. If that is what this parable is about, it is not so complicated. And parables need not be so complicated. They may have one simple message, that we can see because first it turns upside down our common view. Once we look at the world with new vision it changes.
The passage before that confronts us with the common linkage between sin and misery. They must have done something, been worse than other people, or this calamity would not have fallen upon them. But they are no worse than others. Indeed, they are no worse than we are! No more deserving of tragedy, loss, or catastrophe. That does not mean they are without sin. It means that they and we are no more sinful - and perhaps no less - than anybody else.
At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Negligence or police brutality, natural disaster or human turpitude, not victims’ sin.
No grounds for judgment; no grounds for schadenfreude (joy at the pain of others); no secret security for us as better people. And no safe place to hide from God’s inexorable… grace. For he did not come into the world to judge the world, but to redeem it. That is what this season is about; that is what it is preparing us for: the outrageous reality of God’s self-sacrifice, self-emptying gift, to free us from our own prisons of folly, guilt, error, and all the other failings of the human comedy.
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