Monday (to Saturday) Blues

 

My husband gets the Sunday Blues. Around 4 on Sunday afternoons he gets cranky and restless at the thought that the weekend is "beginning to end" and Monday will soon be back with its weekly share of work related stress. Sometimes he fights it by going to the gym for an hour, sometimes he and his favorite ten-year-old assistant bake a cake, and sometimes we all go out for a walk or some ice-cream.

Now and again, in our spiritual life, Christians get the Monday-to-Saturday Blues.

On Sunday we gather in God's presence, surrounded by a loving community of like-minded brothers and sisters and as we worship together the Creator, Reedemer, and Sanctifier of all life, we find ourselves lifted up, above the cares of the world and at peace with God and one another. Yet, when the weekdays come, we grow more and more distant from God, and loving our neighbor as ourselves becomes a chore.

How do we kick the Monday-to-Saturday Blues?

We get into a routine of soul-exercising a.k.a. prayer. Through prayer we keep our connection with God, we continue the conversation started on Sunday morning, we find the strength of pursuing God as God never tires of pursuing us.

We do something constructive a.k.a. service. Through service to others we model our life on Jesus life, we give of ourselves as He did and does for us in the Eucharistic bread and wine.

We meet our brothers and sisters in Christ a.k.a. fellowship and study. Through spending time with Scripture and other works of our Tradition we look at how others in the past (and in the present) have experienced and conquered the equivalent of "the Blues": those times in which God seemed distant and our neighbor unlovable.

And of course we look for our community, the other children of God who are our help and comfort at all times. The ones who may or may not be experiencing the same feelings, but who are open to listen and to share.

 

If all this doesn't work, of course, you can just give me a call. It doesn't happen EVERY Sunday, but if you are lucky, there may be cake...

Pentecost 17 - audio

http://wp.allsaints-phoenix.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/The-Rev-Licia-Affer-Pentecost-17-09-23-12.wma

Unlovable children

Pentecost XVII     Mark 9:30-37

Since the day she was born – no, since the moment her Dad and I knew she had been conceived – my child has been the center of my life.

Everything I do, everything I plan for, all of my hopes and dreams have her at their core: her health, her well being, her happiness.

Not simply because she is my heir and I hope she will take care of me as I grow old…

although I certainly DO hope so…but because I value her as a person 

and even though sometimes I may find it hard to like her…

I always love her with all my heart!

In contemporary Western society, we ascribe great value to our children

and we look at childhood as an extended time of sheltered nurturing,

in which we – the parents -  go to great lengths to provide for our children the protection, the benefits, the opportunities they need to grow into happy, healthy, and possibly wealthy individuals.

Yet, this view of childhood was practically invented by the Victorians and reserved to wealthy families. In first century Palestine, the mortality rate for young children was very high so it wouldn’t do to get too attached to them.

Added to this is the simple observation that children were viewed as “not adults.”

i.e. non-contributing members of society.

They had no rights, no voice. No one would ever ask for their preferences with regard to food, clothes, studies or play.

They might be valued for their future contribution to the family business, especially in an agricultural context, and as future caretakers of their aging parents, but otherwise they possessed little if any intrinsic value as human beings, being mainly just another mouth to feed.

We need to be aware of this as we look at Jesus placing a child in front of the disciples as an example. He could have just as easily placed a leper there, because his message is about welcoming the last, the least, and the lost.

Not the cute, the innocent, the hope for a better future.

The disciples are focused inward. They are interested in their reputations,

in how the amazing events that are happening around them will make them look.

They are wondering what the crowds and Jesus think of them.

Even when Jesus is sharing with them a preview of the radical role reversal that is to come. How the Messiah they are expecting will not in fact jump on his white horse and wage war against the Roman oppressor, but will instead be betrayed and killed (and by so doing bring about a new world).

Even then, the disciples are too busy comparing the number of tweets they are receiving, debating who among them deserves more honor and fame, who has the greatest authority.

These are the same guys that a handful of verses before the ones we read today, in Jesus’ absence had tried to cast a demon out of a boy but failed because they forgot to pray, they forgot to ask God to perform the deed, thinking,

I guess that they were great enough, to go about it on their own.

Arrogant idiots!

It turns out that to be great has nothing to do with impressing the crowds with displays of healing, and even less with trying to become teacher’s pet of a Teacher who refuses to play favorites. Jesus wants the 12 to start focusing outward: toward what is really important; hence the choice of the child.

Not intrinsically important in their eyes. Not a king, not a rabbi, not a Pharisee.

It turns out that greatness lies in welcoming one who is not viewed as great by the culture. One who is not deemed worthy of great love. One who is beyond the circle: cast out. The greatest is the one who shows greatest compassion, greatest understanding, greatest love for the unloved and the unlovable.

Thank God!

Because

we, the children of God, are often unlovable.

We are whiny, we throw plenty of temper tantrums. We are demanding, we don’t keep our promises, we make blunders, we talk back, we lie, and we cheat.

We argue with our brothers and sisters and we tend to think too much of ourselves,

boasting about our own greatness.

And nonetheless, God, father and mother of us all, constantly puts us at the center of creation. Forgiving us and taking us back. Kissing our booboos away. Ever present to us in a myriad of ways.

God loves all of us

Including the ones we place last in our human hierarchies.

Including the ones we leave behind.

Including the ones who get lost in the world.

 Can we do the same?

Can we model our lives on the one of our Lord?

Can we love everyone as we love our children?

I don’t know.

But

are we at least willing to try?

Observing the traditions of the elders..

Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23         
Observing the traditions of the elders...

Once a year, the Diversity Committee at All Saints’ Episcopal School
organizes a series of events called Cross-Worlds.
Students and their families share their cultural background with one another
bringing delicious ethnic food,
telling stories about their ancestral countries of origin,
and showcasing their extraordinary art projects.
My first year here, I was asked to share the legend
on which a popular Italian tradition is based.
Two years ago and last year, I made Tiramisú.
It is always a very successful program, with a good number of participants.
And not only because my Tiramisú is really delicious!
Human beings are always curious about each others' traditions.
We like to explore the way other communities approach life,
the way they make sense of the world and relate to it.
Traditions, especially the oldest, most deeply rooted ones, tell our story.
The simplest, most fun way to access different communities
is to savor ethnically diverse cuisine
– which is nothing else but the traditional way of preparing food –
and then of course there is the music, the popular songs,
there are the classical stories, the myths and legends,
the communal narrative of the people of a specific place,
from the bedtime stories we tell our children,
to the Gettysburg address,
to Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermons.

Our traditions define us.
Individually and as a community.
They differentiate us from those who don't share them
and therefore don't belong to our tribe, our clan, our family...our people.
Traditions are very often rooted in practical matters,
such as circumcision, ritual cleansing before meals or prayer,
the placing of a cover over the chalice (so that the flies won't get in)
or the keeping of both hands on the table at meals
(which is what we still do in Italy according to a medieval tradition...
so that your host may be assured that you are not hiding a weapon under your napkin).

To be sure, a lot of “human traditions” are rooted in a great deal of good,
and have a good and solid purpose.
The practices observed by the Pharisees
that we read about in today’s Gospel were very good practices.
Ask any mom:
nothing wrong with washing up before approaching the dinner table
(especially at a time when silverware had yet to be invented
and people ate with their hands).
And nothing wrong wrong with washing your fruit and veggies,
and your pots and pans before using them.
The point is that - as opposed to our moms -
the Pharisees are not worried about dirt or pesticides,
they are worried that the grower might have planted the crop on the “wrong day”, the Sabbath,
or in a field with other plants that are not supposed to be mixed in the same plot;
or that in the process they might have been handled in some unclean way,
by some unworthy person.
That would have made THEM unclean.
You can never be too careful,
you don’t want to expose your self to something that might defile you,
since in the Pharisaic worldview, God doesn’t consort with those who are not pure.

And here lays the problem.
The purity laws lent themselves to a spiritual stratification
between the ritually "clean" who were close to God,
and the "unclean" who were shunned as unworthy sinners who were far from God.
Instead of expressing the holiness of our relationship with God,
and the care with which we want to “handle it”,
as was the original purpose of the law,
ritual purity becomes a means of excluding people considered
polluted, contaminated, and contagious.

Jesus is not reacting to the traditional practice per se,
but to the use the Pharisees are making of such practices.
They are using them as barriers.
They are using them to define who is in and who is out,
who is close to God and who is excluded from having a relationship with God.

Throughout the gospels the Pharisees criticize Jesus
because of his flagrant disregard for ritual purity.
Jesus, who was a Jew and “should have known better”,
touched a leper,
he touched a woman with a flow of blood, and handled a corpse.
Throughout the gospels, Jesus consorts with all sorts of unclean people,
sharing meals with prostitutes, tax collectors and other Roman collaborationists.
And he ignored sabbath laws!
But let’s be clear.
Just as he doesn’t condemn the observance of the Sabbath,
Jesus doesn’t condemn the practice of ritual cleansing.
Both are good and salutary traditions.
In fact, both practices are part of a healthy life as well as ways to honor God.
Jesus is pointing the finger at what happens when religious practices and doctrines
that are intended to bring life and health to the community
become stumbling blocks to reaching out to others with the love, justice, and mercy of God
in other words, when "human traditions" are substituted for "the commandment of God."

Jesus is making it clear that it is not what we are exposed to
that defile us. It is what is in our heart.
And no tradition is to be used to exclude another person,
and no law is to override compassion, forgiveness,
and a welcoming inclusion into the community.

Jesus is asking the Pharisees
what is at the root of the tradition they are so busy following.
He is concerned about their lack of compassion and charity,
more than their lack of cleanliness.
It is what’s in our hearts
that is a measure of our spiritual status.
Do you keep things pure for you and the elite members of your sect,
or do you work to keep things safe for those with no options?
Do you use all the available water for personal ritual cleansing,
or do you make sure the widow next door has enough to make soup for her children?

What makes this Gospel interaction relevant for us today
is that we have the same questions to ponder.
"Why do we do what we do?"
What informs and guides our daily choices?”
"What matters and what doesn't?"

We love our traditions because they make us feel comfortable,
because they help us define ourselves,
because they remind us of those who came before us.
Others may find our traditions a bit odd and slightly uncomfortable.
All our traditions have special meaning
and it is important for us to know and understand what that meaning is.
Not to do something because “we’ve always done it this way”,
but because it is relevant to us now.
Moreover, it is important that our traditions do not make us feel too good about ourselves.
That we don’t fall into the trap of believing, for even one second,
that our way is the only sanctified way to approach God.
And that we are special in the eyes of our creator because of
our ancestry, our background, our worship style
instead of because we are God’s children.
Created, redeemed, and sanctified through God’s love.
Called to respond to that in charity, mercy, and love for our fellow human beings.