On Sainthood 

Wow. This is not what I thought would completely take over my mind today. But a train (of thought) left one city headed north at 25 miles per hour, and another train left another city headed east at 30 miles per hour, and they both arrived at the feast of William Porcher Dubose yesterday and now this is all I can think about this morning. So I’m going to write a few thoughts down.

This is a draft. People will point things out that they disagree with. Some of them I will not go along with, and they will strengthen my resolve. Others will point out things I’ve overlooked and I’ll change my thoughts accordingly. So I’ll probably take this down eventually and replace it with something that reflects my evolved thinking. But I need to set some thoughts down now to help sort out what I believe.

What are saints, and what is the role of the communion of saints in the life of the church?

In my understanding, we are now alive. We are an embodied soul, an ensouled body. This unified combination of body and soul is who we are whilst we inhabit the earth. But at some point, we die, and our bodies and souls are separated. Our bodies are laid to rest, whether in the earth, or at sea, or to the elements. Our souls go on without our bodies to the next stage, where there are three possibilities. If we are ready for the Kingdom of Heaven, if we have aligned our will to the will of God so that we delight in God’s will and walk in God’s ways, then our souls will be at rest in the presence of God awaiting the resurrection of the dead. If we have not aligned our will to the will of God but we desire to do so, then after we die, our souls will be in a time of growth and reconditioning under God’s guidance to transform us into people of the Kingdom of Heaven in preparation for the resurrection of the dead. If we have not aligned our will to the will of God and we resist doing so, then after we die our souls are apart from God and in torment until such a time that we might open ourselves to God’s efforts at reconciliation and rehabilitation. One might name these three possible states whist the body is separated from the soul: the first might be called heavenly rest, the second, purgatory (or heavenly growth), and the third, hell.

At the final judgment at the end of time, bodies are brought back to life and reunited with souls, and the reunified whole person, body and soul, having been prepared by rest, growth, or anguish (or perhaps some combination thereof), is then either welcomed to the reign of God, where those who live according to God’s vision for abundant life join in the perpetual feast in the new earth, ruled from the new heaven, while should any continue to reject living God’s abundant life, they would be cast into the outer darkness of either suffering or annihilation apart from the presence of God. I pray that no one come to that fate, and suspect that God’s desire for apocatastasis is stronger than any of our stubbornness in rejecting God, but obviously I cannot know that.

The saints, as I understand it, are those who are now in the nearer presence of God.

We thank God for the examples they have given us as to how we might live. We hope their example might inspire us to live our lives in a way that God might sanctify us also as we live. And because they are our companions in faith and are in the nearer presence of God, we ask for their prayers, just as we do with our companions in faith who are in this life with us.

Traditionally, one function of the communion of saints in the life of the church was that we, the church on earth, called upon the members of the church in the nearer presence of God to pray for us. This practice lamentably encountered resistance during the reformation. If people invoke the prayers of the saints instead of praying to God directly, then the practice of invoking the prayers of the saints is regrettable, because it discourages direct prayer. But if the practice of invoking the prayers of the saints is coupled with direct prayer, I would argue it is a good thing, and no different than asking people on earth to pray for us. The saints do not mediate between us and God; they intercede on our behalf, as we do on theirs if they are still growing, and as we do for one another on earth. St. Paul instructs us to pray without ceasing, and when one of our prayers is silent, we can hope that others of us are picking up the prayer where the first left off. The reformation’s encouragement of direct prayer is laudable, but deprecating the practice of invoking the prayers of the saints is a baby thrown out with the bathwater of an attitude of our unworthiness for direct prayer, something indeed well discarded. We should pray to God. We should pray for one another. And we should ask one another to pray for us. That one another should include the whole church, including those who have died.

The present absence of officially sanctioned communal invocation of the prayers of the communion of saints in the liturgies of the Episcopal Church is, in my mind, the single biggest defect in our mostly laudable liturgical practice.

When I say we should invoke the prayers of the whole church, including those who live and those have died, I really do mean the whole church. I specifically include those who are undergoing heavenly growth, the so-called “Church Penitent,” or the souls who might be said to be in purgatory. I would argue that both souls in heavenly rest and souls undergoing heavenly growth are in the presence of God, and thus could pray for us. Those who are still growing in God’s love until they see God as God is can benefit from our prayers for them also, while the souls at rest already have grown to the point where they see the fullness of God, and thus need no more prayers on their behalf. In fact, the process of praying for us could help the growth of the souls who are growing, just like we can grow in grace by praying for others. I would argue that only the souls who reject growth in God are in no position to pray for us, having cut themselves off from God.

So when it comes to invoking the prayers of the saints, I suspect that both those who have attained holiness and those who still aspire to holiness are in a position to pray for us.

Now a second function of the saints in the life of the church is as examples of Godly life. Like Wenceslas’s page, we find it easier to trudge through the snow of life when we have footprints to walk in. Certain individuals have lived in specific ways that might inspire us to copy portions of their life that might help bring us closer to God. These examples of conversion, faith, heroic virtue, and Godly life can be both a template and a motivation for how we live our own lives. The lives of the saints are worth studying so they can be a template and motivation for us.

What are feast days? What are ferial days and why do they matter?

Feast days are days that we rejoice and give thanks for a gift God gave us. We mark feast days by doing special things we do not do on ordinary days. Eating special food can be an example. The most distinguishing mark of a feast day in the Church is the celebration of Holy Eucharist, which is our great thanksgiving to God for the blessings we have received and a foretaste of the heavenly feast we hope to join in at the resurrection.

Ferial days, on the other hand, are “normal” days, days not marked by feasting. In this world, we are prone to viewing things through a lens of duality: the sacred is only sacred in contrast with the profane. The holy is only holy in contrast with the unholy. The good is only good in contrast with the bad. The people of God are only people of God in contrast with the people who are not of God. In the Kingdom to come, the feast is ongoing. In the Kingdom to come, all who are there are holy. The idea that feasts cannot exist without the ferial is one that will not hold eventually, but in this life, we certainly gain a deeper understanding of the feast through fasting, and in this broken world, days which are not feast days seem appropriate as we grow toward the eternal heavenly banquet.

As long as we are removed from the fullness of the heavenly feast, it seems meet and right that our calendar should be marked by days that are not feast days in addition to the feast days. So it seems to me that as we select from the wide array of saints whose feasts we could celebrate, it seems wise that there be some days to which we do not assign feasts.

What is the role of feast days of saints in the life of the church? What feast days should we celebrate?

It seems to me that there are three roles of the feast days of saints in the life of the church. First, we give thanks to God for the example and witness of a particular saint. Second, we examine how the life of the saint we celebrate might be template or motivation for our own, and pray that we too might grow in holiness. Third, and this is where the Episcopal Church drops the ball, we pray that the saint in question might pray for us.

Now we can, and perhaps should, do all three of these things any day, without it being the particular feast day of a particular saint. But the calendar gives us a way to make anamnestically present the template and motivation from the past that we might hope would shape our lives today.

If at the most basic level, saints are those who are more directly in God’s presence than we are here on earth, then it would seem that anyone who is both dead and not in a state of rejecting God is a saint. It does not follow from there, though, that all such people would be equally beneficial for the church to celebrate their feast days. It seems to me that the decision to celebrate a saint’s feast day should be related to first, the intensity of our desire to give thanks to God for providing the example and work of the saint in question; second, the likelihood that anamnestically contemplating the life and work of the saint in question would guide and inspire people to holiness; and third, the extent to which we long for the particular intercession of that saint’s prayers. Complicating this is the question of whether there are aspects of a person’s life that are *not* the footsteps in which we should be walking, or whether aspects of a person’s story might discourage rather than excite holiness in the lives of those who hear it. The decision about whether celebrating a particular saint’s feast would be spiritually beneficial for a particular congregation here on earth is, of course, in no way a judgment of the sanctity of the person in question; our decision to celebrate the feast of a saint surely cannot change the fact of whether that soul is in God’s presence.

Visions of the Economy

The Demonic Vision:

In the worship of wealth or Mammon, supreme dignity and rights belong to those who have. The owner of property is entitled to rights and control but also admiration. In the worship of Mammon, we seek salvation by amassing as much wealth as we can, knowing that what we can buy, be it food, health care, or whatever, is what will preserve our life and well-being. In the worship of Mammon, the greatest rule of ethics is the sanctity of property rights. The worship of Mammon says, "it's too bad people die because of police brutality, but looting and rioting has got to stop." Death is regrettable, but the destruction of property is the ultimate sin against the god Mammon. The worship of Mammon cherishes things and uses people, a perversion of our creator's intent.

This is the basis of our economy today.

The Beatific Vision (as I understand it):

God intends for all creatures to thrive.

Thus, each creature should expect from the community both the material and social conditions that promote their thriving and also the opportunity to do meaningful work, according to their gifts, to promote the wellbeing of the Kingdom of God. Each creature must also give an account for how they used all the gifts entrusted to them to build up the Kingdom of God.

In this worldview, personal property is real (both talents in the modern sense and talents in the ancient sense of wealth), but the idea of allodial private property that is one’s to dispose of as one sees fit is sinfully absurd. There is no wealth that does not belong to God. There is no human ownership, only stewardship. Any asset on a ledger sheet has a debit of accountability to God for how that gift was used to build up the Kingdom of God. The earth is the Lords, for he made it, as the antiphon goes; come let us adore him.

Any wealth or skill that is merely enjoyed and not used to build up others and promote the thriving of all creatures is wealth or skill misused.

The between-times

Scarcity is a function of people living according to the demonic vision and not the beatific vision. Both underproduction (hoarding the gifts of skill and labor) and overconsumption (hoarding the gifts of God and the fruits of human labor often alienated from the workers who made it) mean that many creatures live without what they need to thrive. This is sin.

The question is what the church’s role should be in these between-times. How should the church (and each of her members) use the gifts it has to help bring the world closer to the beatific vision and away from the demonic one.

Thoughts about personal and structural racism, and the impossibility of neutrality on a moving train

I am a racist. You are too. If you're uncomfortable with that, if I'm uncomfortable with that – good! The fact that we don't want to be racist is a good thing. But not wanting to be racist, and not trying to be racist doesn't change the fact that we are members of a society. There's no neutral. Anything we do that isn't an active effort to dismantle racism likely perpetuates it. And because our efforts often fail, many things we do that *are* an active effort to dismantle racism still likely perpetuate it.

I help perpetuate a system that treats people with white skin as somehow more human than those with dark skin. I help perpetuate that system because it's the same system that we get our food from, and we get a place to live, and we go to school, and we communicate with our friends, and we are entertained and we do our work. I'm a racist because I'm a contributing member of society, and our society is built on a deeply racist foundation. When I do my job, when I stop at a red light, when I feed my children dinner – in all these things, I help our society continue. And our society is racist, so in all these things, I perpetuate racism. I am complicit.

Racism isn't what makes me stop at red lights. Racism isn't why I feed my children. Racism isn't why I go to work. But every apparently-socially-responsible thing I do that allows our society to continue continues not only the good and admirable parts of our civilization, and there are many, but also the evil, destructive, exploitative parts.

White supremacism is woven deep into the structures of our society. Laws, customs, music, culture, and the economic arrangements that generate them all have deep roots in a system that was designed to privilege white people over black people. That is certainly not all there is to our society; if it were nothing but racism, it would be easy to throw it out and walk away. There is much that is good and noble and desirable about our social structures. And there is evil embedded in it, and one of those key evils embedded in the very structure of our economic base and social superstructure is racism.

This racism is inherent in the system itself. Whether or not we have racist intent, by participating in our economy and culture, we perpetuate a system that includes structures of white supremacism, which means that regardless of our intent, we are complicit in perpetuating white supremacism.

People can actively choose to promote racism, and some do. People can choose not to think about racism, but the default is to act within a racist system in ways that perpetuate the system. This is original sin: without choosing to engage in racism, we nonetheless act to perpetuate it. Without choosing to do evil, we are guilty of being complicit therein. Our very existence in a racist structure inevitably collaborates with racism.

The alternative is to acknowledge that we are formed by a racist culture and participate in a racist economy: to acknowledge that we are complicit in perpetuating racism. I am racist and you are racist and he is racist and she is racist and they are racist because we are all the product of a racist culture and participants in a racist economy. Then we look for how we can actively participate in dismantling it. We are all complicit; the question is how to become less complicit. We are all caught up in the mechanism of racism; the question is how to become less racist.

Gotta serve somebody

The great philosopher Bob Dylan observed that no matter what your station in life, you're going to have to serve somebody. But not every higher power that people worship is the Lord our God. Today, we celebrate Trinity Sunday, a feast that is so vitally important in identifying just who is the God we worship. And the God we worship is first and foremost a community of three distinct persons knit together in perfect love for one another.

But is the Holy Trinity really the God we worship? Do we worship the perfect community of love that we know through our Lord Jesus Christ, or do we really serve somebody else?

In polytheism, the gods are distinct persons, like the three persons of our Trinity. But those gods aren't knit together in perfect love. They want different things. They sometimes fight with each other. People can do things to please one god in a polytheistic system and make other gods upset. That's not the case with our God. The Holy Trinity has one divine will. One divine ethics. What the Father loves, the Son loves, and the Holy Spirit loves. Our God is not a single person, but the Holy Trinity shares a single sense of joy, and a single yearning for the good.

Our first lesson is one of my favorite in the Bible. It's not the creation story; it's a creation story, one of perhaps twenty times our holy scripture tells us about God creating the heavens and the earth. But this creation story is an act of resistance. This creation story was written down in Babylon, during the exile, to try to preserve the religious identity of God's people in the face of Babylonian assimilation. And so this creation story takes all the "facts" from the Babylonian creation story – the order in which things were created, the timing, and so on, and subverts the Babylonian creation story to assert the most important parts. The Babylonians taught that the gods were at war in a watery chaos that predated the heavens and the earth, and that over the course of seven key phases, as side effects of the gods fighting with each other, light was divided from darkness, sea from sky, land from water. Each of these realms were populated as a result of the war of the gods, and then finally one god triumphed over the others and there was rest. The god who won the war was, naturally, the god of the city of Babylon, Marduk, but the other gods, with their competing desires, could rise up at any time, and so there was a divine mandate to keep Babylon strong to triumph over anyone who might rise up against it.

The people of Judah in exile in Babylon came along and said, "if we're stuck here, and our children keep hearing this story, we have to teach them how to resist." They picked the most important parts and changed them, to subvert the story. They didn't fight with the supposition of a pre-creation watery chaos, although that doesn't appear in any of the other creation stories in the Bible. They didn't fight with the order in which creation happened, although that contradicts other scriptural accounts. What they said was important, the most important, the thing they had to resist, was the idea that creation happened because warring gods with clashing desires fought, and creation was the byproduct. No. There is one God, who willed that creation exist, and spoke, and it happened, and God saw that it was very good. Creation is not an accident. Creation is not a byproduct. Creation is not the result of conflict between divine forces, mandating perpetual war so that the right gods might win. The love of God overflowed, and the world came to be, and it was very, very good. This is our faith, the exiles of Judah told their children. This is what we believe. You are surrounded by people who worship different gods, but we worship the Lord. We do what we do because we are who we are because we serve the Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth. So said the exiles of Judah, and they taught their children to resist the narratives that surrounded them, to avoid assimilation into a toxic polytheism of conflict and oppression, and wrote their story down: in the beginning: Genesis.

We are like the exiles in Babylon. We, too, live in a culture that actively worships false gods of conflict, exploitation, and oppression. We, too, need to tell our stories of resistance to hold firm to our faith in the God who is a community of perfect love, in the face of a culture that would assimilate us to the worship of their false gods. The terrifying thing is that so many people identify as followers of the Holy Trinity, but in fact actually look for salvation to the false gods of our civic religion. Far too often I find myself in that trap too. Just like the exiles in Babylon, we have to ask ourselves again and again whom we serve: do we serve the Lord, or do we serve the false gods that surround us? You’re going to have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re going to have to serve somebody,

I believe we have three distinct false gods that we actively worship in the United States, and by false gods, I mean stories and sources of ultimate power to whom people honestly turn for salvation, and those three false gods are Tribalism, which includes white supremacy, Mammon or Wealth, and Empire.
Tribe, wealth, and empire are three gods that have seduced us into looking to them for our ultimate salvation. We say we worship God, but whenever you take the Gospel seriously, someone will take you aside and say, "but let's be practical," and appeal to one of these three idols.

It took me a while to realize that these three were all worshipped in our civic religion, because these three deities are fundamentally at odds with each other. Having been taught monotheism in my religion classes through my childhood and adulthood, I was unprepared to recognize that in the United States, the prevailing civic religion seems to be a polytheistic blend of the worship of all three. These three gods are at odds with each other because in the cult of each of these gods, and the ethics that flows from the worship of each of these gods, the source of dignity comes from a fundamentally different verb: to be, to have, to do.

In tribal ethics, dignity comes from being a member of the favored tribe; each one has dignity according to the relative worth of the tribe to which one belongs. White supremacism is deeply rooted here. The lives and deaths of favored ones matter over and above other lives and deaths. Some people have dignity and importance because of who they are; others do not, again because of who they are. For salvation, for protection from all ill, we work to advance the well-being of "our kind" and work to make sure "their kind" is kept down. The worship of the white tribal god leads people to call black demonstrators against police brutality "wild savages" and "barbarians" – less than human because they are not part the only "properly human" tribe. The worship of the false god of tribe insists that black lives don't matter. That only white people bear the proper image of the tribal god.

In the worship of wealth or Mammon, supreme dignity and rights belong to those who have. The owner of property is entitled to rights and control but also admiration. In the worship of Mammon, we seek salvation by amassing as much wealth as we can, knowing that what we can buy, be it food, health care, or whatever, is what will preserve our life and well-being. In the worship of Mammon, the greatest rule of ethics is the sanctity of property rights. The worship of Mammon says, "it's too bad people die because of police brutality, but looting and rioting has got to stop." Death is regrettable, but the destruction of property is the ultimate sin against the god Mammon. The worship of Mammon cherishes things and uses people, a perversion of our creator's intent.

In the worship of empire, stability and calm comes from what  the empire does: it dominates all who would rise up against it. Dignity and respect belong to those who wield power in the name of the empire and who dominate others. In the worship of empire, salvation comes from the powerful being able to keep the weak in line. We make sacrifices to the god of empire on the altars called "law" and "order." Our safety, in this system, depends on the rulers being able to keep people obedient and in line. The world will be at peace when the power of the empire extends both deep and wide: wide across the entire earth, so that no one is outside the rule of the empire, and deep, such that the empire can command obedience and proper behavior without question. In this system of worship, peace comes when people comply with the orders of the empire, and if that fails, when the empire can exert its strength, and totally dominate those who resist.

The three gods of tribe, wealth, empire each distribute their favor differently, as gods do in a polytheistic system, but the worship of all three constitutes the American civic religion. So closely bound to our culture is this polytheistic civic religion that when people protest its murderous implications, many wrongly think they are protesting against America itself.

This civic religion is fundamentally at odds with the worship of the holy and undivided Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When Jesus commands, in our gospel reading today, that we go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Jesus teaches us that, like the exiles of Judah in Babylon, we must resist the false gods of the culture that surrounds us. We ourselves must turn, and call others to turn away from the false gods that dehumanize and exploit and kill God's beloved, and embrace the Holy, Blessed, and undivided Trinity of perfect love.

How do we resist the demonic forces that say that some human lives don't matter and turn to the God who created and loves all people? The Gospel today tells us the answer: Step one is Baptism. Step two is to teach and practice the faith. And step three, when we get discouraged, is to remember that Jesus is with us always, even to the end of the age.

With God’s help, we renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God, the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and all sinful desires that draw us from the love of God.
With God’s help, we turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as our Savior, put our whole trust in his grace and love, and promise to follow and obey him as our Lord.
With God’s help, we believe in the Most Holy, Glorious, and Undivided Trinity, One God.
With God’s help, we continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.
With God’s help, we persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
With God’s help, we proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
With God’s help, we seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourself.
With God’s help, we strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.

This is what we promise in baptism. This is our faith. Every human being is created in God's image, and deserves justice and dignity. If the worshippers of false gods claim that only the rich, only the powerful, only the white are important, we who worship the Holy Trinity must object. This is why, as long as anyone’s actions leave any doubt, we must proclaim again and again and again that Black Lives Matter, and work to make it true. Amen.

The Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire.

The Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire.

These twelve young men – likely all in their teens and twenties – had followed their controversial teacher throughout the Roman provinces of Galilee and Judea.
They had been present for his sermons,
present for his miracles,
present for his clashes with the religious and secular authorities of the land.
They were with him when he walked into the temple,
the center of the worship of the Most High God
– but also the center of collaboration
between the ruling class of Judea
and the occupying Roman Empire,
and turned over the tables and drove out the money changers
– the ones who changed Roman money for local,
the ones who enabled the Roman extraction of wealth,
the ones who extended the oppression of empire into the house of God.

The apostles were present when Jesus was arrested,
and watched from afar when he was given a sham trial,
and then publicly tortured to death,
unable to breathe upon the cross.
They watched their leader die, and they were afraid, going into hiding,
that the evil against which Jesus bore witness,
the evil that had him arrested and killed
– that evil would likely come after them too if they spoke out publicly.
So they stayed quiet.

And in their quiet, they heard the Good News:
Jesus is risen from the dead.
The evil forces of human cruelty and greed and lust for power that brought about his death had no power over him;
the power of sin is death
and death has been swallowed up in victory.
And still they stayed quiet.

They touched his hands and side
and heard and knew the Good News,
and yet they dared not venture out
to proclaim in public the Good News of God's liberation
for it had led to their master's death.

And then Jesus ascended into heaven,
and these scared youngsters once again found themselves in the safety of the upper room.
They prayed, to be sure, but they dared not preach in public;
they dared not confront the forces that killed Jesus.
Surely it would lead to their own deaths if they did.
So they stayed quiet.

And the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire.

The fire of God is nothing to trifle with.
The fire of God is the light of God's glory.
When the Israelites were in the wilderness,
fleeing from slavery under Pharaoh in the Land of Egypt,
the Psalmist reminds us that God led them with a cloud by day,
and all the night through with a glow of fire.

The fire of God can also be a purifying fire:
the words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined from ore and purified seven times in the fire.

And finally the Psalmist reminds us that the fire of God can be utter destruction:
Upon the wicked he shall rain coals of fire and burning sulphur;
a scorching wind shall be their lot.

And the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire.

This fire of God is not three separate blazes:
a fire of glory,
and fire of purification,
and a fire of wrath.

This fire of God, with which God shall judge the world is all at once
the light of heaven by which we see,
the refiner's flame, consuming all our impurities,
and the fire of hell that destroys all wickedness.
This Holy Spirit is all of these fires at the same time,
for they are all the same holy fire.

This is no trivial thing to receive the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier of the Faithful.
This is no light matter to be set ablaze with the fire of God.
The fire of heaven can enlighten,
and can purify,
and can utterly destroy.

The light of heaven and the fire of hell are the same flame,
the same Spirit of God, renewing the world.
Brimstone and burning bush are one.

The apostles were afraid in the upper room.
And the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire.

They were not wrong in their fears.
Going out and proclaiming the Good News got every single one of the apostles arrested and convicted.
Going out and proclaiming the Good News led to the execution of all but one of them: John, the beloved disciple, died imprisoned on the isle Patmos.
All the others were killed for proclaiming the Good News.
They hid because they were afraid
that proclaiming the Good News would lead to their death,
as indeed it did.

And the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire.

And they were no longer quiet.
And they were no longer afraid.
Now they were aflame.
Now the fire of God burned within them.
Now they could not keep themselves from going forth into the public places
and proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

They were sent,
compelled to go forth and spread the fire that burned within each of them.

And no sooner did they go forth but they started to run into trouble with the authorities:
drunk and disorderly, they were called.
Peter, likely the oldest among them, tried to calm the authorities about his compatriots' enthusiasm:
surely they are not drunk, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.
But the pattern was set:
the fire that set them ablaze gave them the courage of their convictions,
and each was indeed convicted
of proclaiming the Kingdom of God
in defiance of the Kingdom of Caesar,
and each was punished for spreading the Good News.
The fire that was lit on Pentecost cost them their lives.

That's the story the world would tell.
That's the story the empire would tell.
If you catch the spark of this Gospel of Christ's liberation, your life is ruined.
You'll never amount to anything in this world.
You'll be condemned as an enemy of the state
and you will die, poor and in pain.
That's where the fire of the Gospel will lead you.

And all of that is true.

That is indeed where the Gospel leads us.
If we are set ablaze with the flame of the Holy Spirit this Pentecost, our respectability is ruined.
If we are set ablaze with the flame of the Holy Spirit this Pentecost, our prosperity is ruined.
If we are set ablaze with the flame of the Holy Spirit this Pentecost, our place in the Empire is ruined.

The followers of the Caesars of the world aren't wrong about any of this.
And yet they are *so* wrong, because there is so so much more to the story.

The apostles who were set ablaze with the fire of the Spirit indeed went forth to die for proclaiming the Good News.
 But they had eternal life; what could death do to them?

The Great Litany calls God the Holy Ghost, the "Sanctifier of the faithful."
Jesus, God the Son, is the Redeemer of the world.
Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
At that moment, we were indeed redeemed:
the guilt of our sin was washed away, once for all.

We no longer stand condemned for our manifold sins and wickedness,
neither individual nor social,
neither what we have done, nor what we have failed to do.

And yet we are still enslaved to sin.
The action of Jesus on the cross justified us.
We are welcome into the Kingdom of Heaven because the charges against us have been dropped:
we no longer stand convicted of our sins.

But that alone does not make us *fit* for the Kingdom of Heaven.
As long as we are captive to the power of sin, we may be welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven but we cannot yet enter in.
The disciples learned of Jesus' resurrection
and victory over sin and death,
but they were still afraid.
They still were afraid to live in the fullness of life that Jesus' victory won for them.
They were still held captive to fear and doubt and selfishness.
They still feared to defy the powers and principalities of the world and proclaim the Good News of the resurrection.
Without being set ablaze with the Holy Spirit, they were not yet sanctified,
not yet fit to live in God's Kingdom.

And then…

The Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire.

And that fire burned.
That fire consumed their fear.
That fire consumed their respectability.
That fire consumed their social standing.
That fire consumed their careers and their wealth and their freedom and their bodies.
They were ablaze with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit sanctified them.
And when they died,
confessing the Good News even with their dying breath,
bearing witness that none other than Jesus Christ is Lord,
they died as saints:
the Holy Spirit's blaze, the refiner's fire
had burned up in their lifetime all the sin that remained in them,
and all that was left was holy.
Like the burning bush, like the column of fire in the wilderness,
they shine to this day with God's holy light
and the fire does not consume them.
The saints have been completely sanctified by the Holy Spirit,
and shine in God's presence,
lighting the way on our path to God.

We too need to be lit ablaze with the Holy Spirit.
We cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven without being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
It can set us ablaze in this lifetime,
a terrifying fire that sweeps through our lives
and destroys so much that we think is treasure
– only for us to realize afterward
that it was no treasure at all.
We can let the Holy Spirit light us ablaze and burn up all that is sinful,
all that serves the mighty at the expense of the poor,
all that oppresses God's beloved downtrodden.

If the process of sanctification is not complete in our lifetime,
we have to wait until God sets us ablaze with the refiner's fire in the world to come.
God longs to welcome us to the heavenly banquet,
but first we must be transformed by this terrifying fire of the Holy Spirit.
First the Holy Spirit must descend upon us as tongues of fire.

Let us pray.

Come, Holy Spirit!
Fill the hearts of your faithful,
kindle within us the fire of love,
that by its cleansing flame we may be purged of all our sins.
Let your purifying fire blaze,
and renew the face of the earth.
Wipe away all oppression,
all exploitation,
all trace of sin.
Tear down every power and principality rooted in fear and death.
And bring forth your heavenly kingdom,
that new Jerusalem of peace rooted in justice and mercy,
where you eagerly long for your sanctified people to join in the heavenly banquet for all eternity.
Amen.

A vision for ministry: A small intentional residential community (the Companions of the Magnificat?) gathers in a place to live and pray together according to a simple rule of common life, and support one another in their lives, ministries, and creative endeavors, NOT taking formal monastic vows. 

The Architecture: Private rooms for each of the members of the community to live in (perhaps some condominiums on site also for family units who want more privacy and space but also want to participate in the life of the community). A kitchen and refectory. The necessary bathrooms.  Rooms for shorter or longer term guests and retreatants to stay. Some parlors for the activities of our common life.  Bonus points if there were a cloister at the center!  All this attached to a church, in which we sing morning and evening prayer together each day, and periodically also celebrate conventual Eucharists.  The church might be a parish in parallel development as the Sunday morning home of a congregation as well as the spiritual center of this community.  

During the day on weekdays, the members of the community work at various jobs.  In the hours outside work, prayer, and sleep, we engage individually or corporately, in various work for justice and acts of service to those in need,  creative projects for the glory of God, walks in our surrounding community, and educational undertakings as both teachers and ongoing learners,  both for the residential community and also for others who wish to participate.

If some members of the community were so called, various forms of gardening and food production on site could help feed both the community and our neighbors in need.

On Sunday mornings, the members of our community are active according to their gifts and orders of ministry at assorted local parishes  (including the one hosting the community, should this be a case of parallel development).  It would be a wonderful thing if we could someday as a community teach a well-developed curriculum for formation in discipleship  for those who might be able to study with us and perhaps even offer some sort of accredited degree program.

A manifesto of sorts, I guess

I am frustrated with both those who identify themselves as conservative and those who identify themselves as progressive who seem to insist on identifying the liturgical and theological events (and, for that matter, some of the geopolitical and cultural events also) of the 1960s and 70s (and their continuation toward this day) as a rupture with the previous tradition of the Church rather than its development. I struggle with those who think that commandments of the law, prophets, writings, and Gospel can be conserved without making progress toward the reign of God just I struggle with those who think progress toward a better world is possible without being firmly rooted in the traditions of the law, prophets, writings, and Gospel we have received.

I cherish the music of St. Gregory the Great and the St. Louis Jesuits; Marty Haugan and David Haas and SS. John and Charles Wesley; Rory Cooney and J.S. Bach; Gregory Norbet and Michael Joncas and St. Ambrose and St. Francis.

I reject any vision of progress that is not firmly rooted in the tradition we have received and I reject any vision of our tradition that does not demand progress toward a world of inclusion, justice, mercy, humility, peace, and love. Any effort to drive a wedge between "tradition" and "progress" as if either were possible without the other seems to me to be doomed to dystopian failure.</rant>