15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Image: Hands, all together
from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

Click here for scripture readings.

July 5, 2015

"If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." (Mark 6:11)

Palestine is a dusty land, and into that dusty country Jesus sent his disciples.

He told them that when a community rejected them, they should stop outside the village, and shake the dust of that experience off their feet.

It was a symbolic action against the village and a healing action for the disciples.

This gives us a clue to how we should handle life's experiences of failure: "Shake off the dust."

First let us look at how we get dust on ourselves.

We get some dust on us just by walking through life.

It never is smooth sailing all of the way.

Life is a mixture of hills and valleys, ups and downs, successes and failures.

Another way we get dust on ourselves is by falling down.

Sometimes we make an awful mess of life; we fall flat on our faces.

Failure can be a shattering experience.

Sometimes we get dust on ourselves by sitting down in the middle of the road.

We just quit and stop trying.

It is one thing to lose the game; it's another thing to forfeit.

It has no place in the life of a Christian.

What does dust do?

For one thing it accumulates.

We are all familiar with this aspect of dust.

This a a perfect analogy to failure.

Dust will accumulate in the corners of your life.

If you let it, it will pile higher and higher until it covers and colors everything that you do.

You will begin to think of yourself as a born loser.

You can hear people say, "I can't do anything right."

That person has allowed the dust of failure to contaminate their life.

When we collect, and remember, and brood over our failures, though many of them may be insignificant, the weight can become crushing and destructive.

How are we to deal with the dust of failure?

The first thing we should do is learn from it.

Some people learn from failure, while others never recover from it.

Once you have learned whatever there is to learn from a failure, leave it behind.

Shake off the dust; don't carry it with you.

In his poem, "Write it on Your Heart," Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

"Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

This day is too good and fair.

It is too dear with hopes and aspirations to waste a moment on yesterday."

The last and most important matter is, try again.

"Jesus said, 'As you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet.

So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.

They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them." (Mark 6:13)

We can translate that as:

forget your failures and keep on going.

Our failures do not have to be fatal or final.

13th Sunday Ordinary Time B

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June 28, 2015

Both scripture readings today remind us just how ambivalent we feel toward death.

Ancient Wisdom was careful to acquit God of the crime of creating death — the devil did it.

Then, 100 years later, in spite of convincing evidence to the contrary, Jesus insists that the child is not dead, only sleeping.

Even Jesus doesn't want to deal with the hard fact of death; so we shouldn't be ashamed of our reticence.

Just because death is such a horrible thing, the thought of it leaves a bad taste, and we try to get rid of it.

People don’t die these days — they pass on, or they’ve gone to their glory, or some other euphemism

We speak of death respectfully when forced to speak of it at all;

we surround ourselves with comforting symbols;

we create a pious, meaningless, bland funeral conversation;

we remove sick people out of sight and mind.

We cover up the dirt at the cemetery with fake, plastic grass.

And if they are inconsiderate enough to die, we make them up to look better in death than they did in life.

Why this elevation of death to the high status of mystery?

Anything that we can count on, calculate and predict like death can't be all that mysterious.

Death is the surest thing in life.

All of us begin to die the moment we are born.

And all through life there is a continuing battle in our bodies between live and dead cells.

At about age 18, our dead cells outnumber our live cells.

Which means that at this very instant, most of us are mathematically dead.

It may take more or less time to show it, but the conclusion is foregone.

The same is true for cats and caterpillars.

The difference is: Once we know the fact, we can take a human stance toward it.

We can accept or reject it, love it or hate it,

call it good or bad or make the best of it.

What we should not do is shroud it in a veil of mystery.

That only gives it more power than it should have;

and makes it more than we can bear.

That is when we retreat to magic and subterfuge and lies.

Then what can we do?

Well, when faced with a fact, the first response ought to be the question: Why?

If we know why something is we have a better chance of knowing what to do with it.

So-why do we die?

The Old Testament answer is elusive.

It sees that good and bad people are not justly rewarded in this life,

so it proposes a fair recompense after death.

But that would result only in a balanced world. God can make a better world than that.

But there is some truth in the idea;

and it suggests a link between death and sin.

And scripture makes that link causal: it says that sin is the cause of death.

Whether personal or original, sin harms our humanity,

and the situation must be rectified.

Some sins are correctable during a lifetime;

but some evil is so deeply ingrained that only death can purge it.

But even then, we end up merely as balanced individuals.

God can make better human beings than that.

So, sin is a necessary but insufficient cause of death.

It explains why even Jesus had to die.

He ended as a breathless, bloodless, cold cadaver.

That's a fact.

Except that he didn't stay dead.

And that tells us something about his death.

he died because he was a human being; and everything in him that was merely human died.

But there was also something in him that was more than human; and that something more rose to a new life.

Which tells us something about our own death.

There is also more to us than meets the naked eye.

We are more than blood and guts; we are more than sin; we are more than merely human.

We were not manufactured for obsolescence; we were created to last for ever.

But not to plod forever on this dying earth.

We are destined for a better life.

Like. the lowly caterpillar.

It is not made for the sake of a worm — it is the beginning of a butterfly.

Only it doesn't know it.

So, it glories in its fuzzy coat and many legs and thinks it is God's grandest creature.

Nevertheless, at its appointed time, it unwillingly, blindly, grudgingly spins its cocoon and waits to die in darkness.

But only that which is caterpillar dies  — the rest of it is transformed into a beautiful butterfly.

And so it is with us.

None of us is made to be merely human.

There is something in us that reaches out, cries for another kind of life.

We were not created to die but to love.

The death we so fear is just one of the many things we have to do- —

like eating and sleeping —

to fulfill our human potential.

But we forget that simple fact.

So we glory in our humanity, trying to find complete fulfillment now, in things we know and like.

We rage against death that seems to thwart our desires.

We fight death the way a child fights sleep.

Until we learn with the child:

That when we close our eyes, we just fall asleep for a while —

— we don't die forever.

The Thunk, the Gap, and the Six A's: A reflection on Sunday 18 scripture

For source click here

Back in the days of my seminary education, I had a professor named Jim Hopewell, who introduced us to the phenomenon he called the "Thunk, which is what he said happens whenever someone in everyday life discovers that you're a priest or a pastor.  Dr. Hopewell told the story of a time when he was traveling on a plane, without his clergy collar, carrying on a perfectly normal conversation with the guy seated next to him.  And, as is often the case in such conversations, the topic pretty soon turned to what each guy did for a living.   

"I'm a priest," Dr. Hopewell confessed.  And that's when it happened.  "The Thunk."  The palpable, unmistakable, inevitable change in the relational dynamic when someone discovers that you wear the cloth.  Your own pastor or priest can tell you about her or his own experiences with the Thunk.

Well, it's been a long time since I took that class in 1982.  And, since then, a lot has changed.  One of the things that's changed is that now, any Christian, not just ordained ones, can experience the Thunk.

Here's how you do it.  Go hang out where people don't go to church.  You won't have any problem finding such a place, since most people don't go to church.  And when you get there, start throwing around the words "Christian" or "church," and see what kind of response you get.  I've done this, by the way.  I've spent a good bit of time hanging out with people who don't go to church.  And, recently, I started striking up conversations with people like servers or bartenders or people with whom I'm standing in line somewhere.  I'll tell them that I have a keen psychological interest in religion and that I'm conducting a study of people's attitudes toward religion and that I'd  like to get them to share with me whatever thoughts occur to them when they hear those two words--"Christian" and "church."  For the most part, it's not a pretty picture.

Every time I get the Thunk, it takes me a while to explain to people everything that I'm not.  There is a lot to overcome when someone finds out that you're a Christian, not even to mention a Christian minister.  There's an immediate credibility problem that has to be dealt with, because we Christians are often thought of as narrow-minded, bigoted, judgmental, uneducated, backward people.  And "church" is often thought of as the place where we narrow-minded people gather to reinforce our stereotypes and to point condemning fingers at those outside our walls.  Now, I realize that is itself an unfair stereotype.  Not all Christians are that way.  But it behooves us to be aware that such a stereotype is alive and well in many places on Planet Earth.

If striking up conversations with strangers who don't go to church is too much for you, but if you want to learn something about the reputation that we Christians don't enjoy, then you could just watch the comedy routines of people like Kathy Griffin and Bill Maher and the late George Carlin, three of my favorite theologians, by the way.  You'll have to forgive them their unvarnished language, but you can certainly learn a lot about what many people in the world think about us by checking them out.  If that's too much, then stay home and order movies like "Jesus Camp" and "Religilous" and see why we have such a lousy reputation in many places and among many people. 

It is a sad thing, because we know that there is a brand of Christianity that is better than the widely-practiced, widely-publicized brand of Christianity that is ethnocentric, anti-scientific, homophobic, imperialistic, defensive, condemning, rejecting, and afraid.  We know that a different Christianity exists.  We know that there are followers of Jesus who are open-minded, well-educated, and accepting.  We know that there are followers of Jesus who are spiritually mature, intellectually honest and psychologically savvy.  We know that there are followers of Jesus who guard against unfair stereotypes and who attempt to check their ungenerous judgments and who work to eliminate prejudice in their own minds and wherever else they see it. 

But there are hosts of people outside of Christianity who do not know that, because people who practice Christian spirituality with spirits and brains and souls fully engaged have sadly become the Christian minority.  And when many people think of "Christian" or "church," they often do so with pejorative overtones because the Christianity that is most widely-practiced and mostly widely-publicized is the brand of Christianity that smacks of religious fundamentalism and adheres to the impossible agenda of Biblical inerrancy. 

And that's why I think that the "Thunk" that you and I experience whenever we chat it up with people outside the church's walls can be explained by the "Gap."  The Thunk is a function of the Gap. 

There is a gap between Christianity and the world.  It is a gap that has been growing over the course of the last century or so, and it is a gap that significantly impedes our ability to meaningfully engage people outside the Church's walls.  The reasons for the gap are multi-faceted, and we could spend a good semester tracing the origin of what started as a fissure and became a full-fledged chasm.  At the risk of oversimplifying, let me say that the Gap exists for two reasons. 

Number one, as I've already mentioned, the Christian enterprise has been largely hijacked by people who have helped create for Christians a reputation that we do not want and that is difficult for us to overcome.  Many people think that we Christians are backward and blind, and that's one reason for the gap between Christianity and the world.

Secondly, the Gap that gives rise to the Thunk exists because there are many people who have been hurt by Christian religion.  Some of these people are still in church.  Most of them are not.  And we can never expect our faith communities to attract the people we would love to reach until we have helped to repair the damage that we have done through attitudes and practices that have caused injury to people and have helped to earn for us the lousy reputation that we have.

This phenomenon is often referred to in some of the psychological literature as "religious wounding," and truth compels me to share with you that it is a chief interest of mine, as both a pastor and a pastoral counselor, and as someone who on countless occasions has had first-hand experience with both the Gap and the Thunk.  And you know something?  When I mention religious wounding to people outside the Church's walls, there is often a deep resonance and understanding, and there is also often the expression of gratitude for the fact that someone in the Church recognizes and attempts to take responsibility for the wounds that we have inflicted, often unintentionally.  Sadly, on the other hand, when I mention "religious wounding" inside the Church's walls, there is often something of a deer-in-the-headlights look that gazes back.  It is essential that we recognize the pervasive nature of religious wounding and that we begin to communicate our apology to the world outside the church.  Only that will finally assuage the Thunk and help to shrink the Gap.

Religious wounding takes place at an intersection.  It takes place at the intersection of faulty religious teaching and incipient human unfolding.  At every stage and juncture of life, we humans are in the process of unfolding.  And if we're truly alive, then there is always some new part of us longing for expression.  When that tender new growth collides with faulty religious teaching, and when that new growth is therefore destroyed or squelched or snuffed out or damaged or broken, a wound is often the result.  And that wound can be very deep and burdensome and even paralyzing.  All we really want as we unfold is for those around us to nurture our growth and to love us and hold us.  So when religious teaching thwarts growth instead of promoting it, when it steps on human blooming instead of tenderly nurturing it, it is traumatic and injurious to people.  Now, time today does not permit that I treat the topic of religious wounding with sufficient breadth and depth.  I'll be taking it up in some detail in future blogs.  But allow me to offer some brief examples.

When a person languishing in a loveless or even an abusive marriage sits in church and hears that divorce is always wrong, a wound can be inflicted.  When a woman or a girl sits in church and begins to hear a voice calling her to ordained ministry while she hears from the pulpit that women cannot be pastors, a wound can be inflicted.  When a faithful person struggles with poverty and hears in church that material wealth is a sign of divine blessing, a wound can be inflicted.  When a young person struggling with gender identity or sexual orientation sits in church and hears that straight is right and gay is wrong, a wound can be inflicted.    When a smart kid experiences painful cognitive dissonance and even a tearing in her soul because her clear and accurate logic about how the world works runs counter to what she's been taught in Sunday School, a wound can be inflicted.  By the way, I've interacted with people dealing with all of the wounds I've mentioned.  And the number of religious wounds can be as numerous as the number of people who have walked at the intersection of human unfolding and faulty religious teaching.  It's a very large number.

People outside the church get a little nervous when they're around us Christian folks.  People outside the church experience the Thunk when they interact with us.  That's because there's a Gap between us and them, because they often think that we're backward and blind, and some of them have been sorely hurt by religious people who have stepped on them instead of helping them. 

But I have some good news.  We can do something to close that Gap and to lessen the effects of that Thunk.  Now, you and I can do nothing about the Gap between Christian fundamentalism and those outside the Church.  But we can do something about the Gap between progressive Christianity and those outside the church. 

Here's what we can do.  You can do it in your church.  I am attempting to do it in mine.  It involves distinguishing ourselves from the stereotypical Christianity that is often lampooned and caricatured by people like Bill Maher and George Carlin and Kathy Griffin and Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.  Not every Christian is a Bible-thumping, backwards-looking, gay-fearing, others-condemning, science-rejecting, bigoted, close-minded person.  We can step outside that stereotype and get our progressive message out.

Here's how we do it.  We do it in six A's. 

Number 1.  We can acknowledge, and I think we should acknowledge outloud, that religious wounding exists.  We can do our homework on the phenomenon.  We can talk to those people, both inside and outside the church, who struggle with self-limiting thoughts or feelings or behaviors because they've been injured by oppressive and faulty religious teaching.  They're out there.  Find them and talk to them.

Number 2.  We can apologize.  I understand that not every Christian community has inflicted a religious wound.  But among many people in the world outside the church, you and I are associated with those Christianities that have been injurious, and it is time for us progressive Christians to stand up and apologize for the ways in which Christianity has been often hurtful and not helpful.

By the way, some of you will recognize this process of acknowledgement and apology as steps 4, 5, 8, and 9 in the famous and helpful Twelve Steps.  This is our Christian opportunity to make a searching and fearless moral inventory, to admit that we've been hurtful to many, to identify those whom we've hurt and are still hurting, and to seek where possible to make amends.

I would encourage you to put something like this on the sign in front of your church or in the ad that your church takes out in your local paper:  "If you've been hurt by the Church, we're sorry."

Let me say again that even if we didn't directly inflict the hurt we are associated with those who did, and the process of our taking responsibility for the harm that has been done in the name of Christianity will go a long way toward cushioning the Thunk and shrinking the Gap.

Not only must we acknowledge and apologize, we must be very diligent to ensure that we articulate a Christianity that is smart and kind, that is honest and in touch with the scientific and historical discoveries of modernity, that is sensitive to the shifts that have led us into post-modernity and that is defensible and logical and really good for people.  It is past time that we articulate a Christianity that is focused on just action and not on right belief, that acknowledges that Charles Darwin was correct, that moves away from original sin and blood atonement and back to the just and ethical teachings of Jesus, that regards Jesus' death as a sign of human blindness rather than divine love, that approaches the complex issues of gender and sex with understanding and sophistication, that employs the best of scholarship to read, understand, and apply the truths of Scripture, that gets its head out of the other-worldly sky and turns its hands to the issues that face this world, and that helps move Christianity out of the dark ages and into a place of meaningful participation among the peoples of the world in this post-modern time. 

And at this point in my message today, the fire that burns in my bones, much like the fire that burned in the prophet Jeremiah's, compels me to express gratitude to our sisters and brothers in The Episcopal Church, The United Church of Christ, and The Unitarian Universalist Church for their just stands on issues pertaining to human sexuality.

And as for the rest of us denominations in the Day1 family, I want to give a word of encouragement to the many Evangelical Lutherans, Cooperative Baptists, Presbyterians USA, and United Methodists who look forward to the day that we no longer adopt official policies that are sadly injurious to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.  This is not the only issue that faces us, but it is a profoundly significant one, and it will be increasingly difficult for us to gain the growth we seek and the credibility we need as long as we maintain and perpetuate indefensible and hurtful injustice of this kind. 

I was in a conversation recently with one of those unchurched persons I mentioned earlier.  He's a 26 year-old man, who grew up in the Church, and here's what he said to me.  Are you ready? 

"My generation has no use for the Church." 

When I asked him to flesh that out for me, he touched upon some of the issues I have already mentioned.  But foremost for him, and, by the way, he is straight, is the refusal on the part of many Christian communities to relax their Bible anxieties and their sexual anxieties and to simply accept the various ways in which healthy people express their sexuality.  Injustice toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and transsexual persons must stop.  In addition to being just wrong, it also seriously compromises our efforts to share the Good News about Jesus.       

And that leads me to the next thing we can do, and that is to act.  Not only can we acknowledge our role in the Gap and apologize for our participation in the hurt and articulate a smart and kind faith that really works in this world, we can act to bring to an end any teaching or any policy in our churches or denominations that damages, squelches, or thwarts genuine human blooming.  Speak up in your churches.  Elect people that will speak up within your denominational bodies.  Think creatively about how you can be an instrument of change.  Resist injustice and oppression with your voice and with your words and with your actions.  Such resistance, often unpopular, not only helps to bring healing to those we have hurt, but it also helps to bring us closer to the same kind of unpopular ministries of love and justice that led to the rejection of the prophets and to the death of Jesus.  And when we resist in such a way that leads to derision and scorn, then we will know that we are being faithful.

Next, we can advertise.  Get to know people who don't go to church.  Now, you'll have to get outside the walls of your own church to do that, but I think that will be good a good thing.  After all, that's what Jesus did.  And when you find those people who don't go to church, tell them about this sermon.  Tell them about my blog.  Order a CD of this message and put it in their hands.  Tell them that there are Christian people in the world who fully understand that we live in a post-Christian, post-theistic, post-modern world, characterized by globalization and secularization and who still believe, in light of all of that, that Jesus is worth following!  Advertise genuine progressive Christianity where you see it articulated and practiced. 

And--and this is a sermon for another day--the more we learn the more we realize that what I'm referring to as genuine, progressive Christianity may well be a more ancient brand of Christianity than the brand that we know best.

As you advertise, remember this.  Not everyone with whom you share this good news will enter your church.  That's not the point of your sharing anyway.  But, as a result of your advertising, some will come.  And I hope they will.  Not so we in the church can get them cleaned up and straightened out, but because they might be able to help us get the church cleaned up and straightened out.  It's what I call reverse evangelism.  And I think it's a good thing. 

And, then, prepare to be astonished.  When the people who really love Jesus get really smart about things and get radically and extravagantly kind and welcoming to all people, then we will have the opportunity to establish the kind of human community that can turn this world upside down.  We really can live out the kind of justice and mercy that Jesus said is what the whole thing is all about.  If, as we like to say, God's love really is unconditional, then we can do nothing else.  And it will be astonishing.  That kind of community that we can help make happen will be the reality to which Jesus pointed in the prayer that he taught us to pray:  God's will done on earth.  I hope it will happen.

By Mark Sargent

Let’s end clericalism in the church

Clergy caught up in clericalism are incapable of seeing that it freezes their humanity—their ability to simply connect on a human level with the various sorts of God’s holy people.

By Father Donald Cozzens, a writer in residence at John Carroll University, where he teaches in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. His most recent books are Notes from the Underground: The Spiritual Journal of a Secular Priest (Orbis) and Master of Ceremonies (ACTA), a novel.

[Sounding Boards are one person's take on a many-sided subject and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of U.S. Catholic, its editors, or the Claretians.]

Please take the survey that follows this essay.

Finally, there appears an issue that our divided church can agree on. Catholics of all stripes—conservatives and liberals and in-betweens—are declaring a pox on clericalism. From Pope Francis to the back pew widow, from seminary rectors to lay ecclesial ministers, it’s agreed that clericalism is crippling the pastoral mission of the church. At the same time it is strengthening the secularists’ claim that Catholic clergy are nothing more than papal agents bent on enforcing rigid moral controls which smother our human instinct for pleasure and freedom. So let’s end clericalism in the church.

Yes, of course, let’s end clericalism. It’s just plain right to heed the growing consensus that clericalism must go. But something tells me, “not so fast.” This cancer crippling the Catholic world—from local communities to Vatican offices—is so deeply embedded in our past and present church fabric that a careful pre-surgery examination is called for. So, pull on your surgical gloves and join me in the pre-op room.

We know clericalism when we encounter it, whether on the parish level or in the media’s caricaturist portrayal of priests and bishops. But although we know clericalism when we see it, it’s not so easy to define it.

Here’s how I see it: Clericalism is an attitude found in many (but not all) clergy who have put their status as priests and bishops above their status as baptized disciples of Jesus Christ. In doing so, a sense of privilege and entitlement emerges in their individual and collective psyches. This, in turn, breeds a corps of ecclesiastical elites who think they’re not like other men.

Clergy caught up in this kind of purple-hewed seduction are incapable of seeing that it freezes their humanity—their ability to simply connect on a human level with the various sorts of God’s holy people. Of all the sour fruits of clericalism, this inability to connect with others might be the most damaging. When the ordained come across as somehow superior to their parishioners and people they encounter, the playing field is tilted. This kind of disconnect can be fatal to a priest’s efforts to build a sense of community in his parish.

It’s often difficult for parishioners to feel comfortable with a clerical priest. They simple don’t find “Father” approachable. The same can be said of bishops who are all too comfortable thinking of themselves as princes by divine selection. They connect neither with their priests nor with the people they’re meant to shepherd. And you won’t find the smell of the sheep on them.

Often that’s exactly what clergy caught up in clericalism want: They believe a certain distance from the non-ordained is fitting and right. Of course, priests need not be chummy with their parishioners, and the pastor-parishioner relationship requires maturity and prudence on the part of the ordained. Most pastors are all too aware of the smothering demands of some of their flock. Without question, they need to safeguard their privacy and find time when they are, so to speak, “off the clock.” But clericalism by its nature exaggerates this need. Without fail, it breeds artificiality and superficiality between pastors and parishioners. Though often unnamed, something real is missing.

Clerical priests and bishops (and yes, clerical deacons) come to see their power to confer sacraments, to preach, and to teach and administer as the bedrock of their identity. When this happens, they lose sight of the truth that the church’s power is ultimately the power of the Holy Spirit. Without words, they seem to say “We are clergy… and you’re not.”

Years ago, when I served as my diocese’s vicar for priests, I spoke with a highly placed lay diocesan official who related his fear that he was being co-opted by the system—that he was becoming “clerical.” I told him not to worry. The very fact that he sensed the danger was his deliverance. We agreed that a number of his lay colleagues apparently didn’t see the danger. These lay chancery workers thought of themselves as insiders. And in a real sense they were. And like many of their ordained colleagues, their first loyalty was now to the church as institution rather than to the gospel and to the faithful they served. So the cancer of clericalism, in its broadest sense, is not restricted to deacons, priests, and bishops.

Clerical culture, it should be clear, is the breeding ground for the disease of clericalism. The two, however, are distinct. We must understand this before any attempts to surgically excise the cancer of clericalism. Most professionals, skilled workers, and artisans develop a culture, a pattern of behavior and language and image that shape the identity of those who belong. Such cultures can foster a healthy esprit de corp. So clerical culture itself isn’t the culprit here. Priests regularly speak of the “brotherhood of the ordained.” They share a similar seminary training. They understand the joys and sorrows of parish ministry, the freedom and loneliness of celibacy, and the frightening responsibility of preaching God’s word. But a healthy clerical culture fosters a spirit of humility and gratitude in the hearts of deacons, priests, and bishops. It leads a priest to say to himself, “By the grace of God I’m a priest. But I’m first a baptized disciple in need of ministry myself, in need of mercy and the fellowship of lay men and women.” However, a clerical culture that exaggerates the role and scope of the ordained minister in the life of the church becomes fertile soil for the cancer of clericalism.

So, what can we do to end clericalism? The following steps should excise the disease, or at least put clericalism into remission:

1. Bishops, priests, and deacons are called by the gospel—and by Pope Francis—to see discipleship and service as foundational to ordained ministry. Baptism confers all the dignity they need. Many clergy get this. Many still do not. So let our seminaries teach candidates for the priesthood that baptismal discipleship rooted in prayer is the foundation of priestly ministry.
2. Some clergy insist on being addressed with their title, Father or Monsignor. And some prelates insist on their courtly honorifics, Excellency or Eminence. Titles have their place, but we shouldn’t insist on them. We might smile at a lay person who insists on being called Mister, Doctor, Professor or Judge. Calling a physician Doctor is appropriate in the consulting room or  hospital, and addressing a pastor as Father is likewise appropriate in parish settings. But most people wince when an individual insists on always being addressed by his or her title.
3. Mandated celibacy needs to be revisited. It’s true that we find clericalism in the married clergy of Eastern rite Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the inherent burdens of celibacy lead some clergy to a sense of entitlement and privilege, hallmarks of clericalism.

But, some will argue, isn’t the critique of clericalism an attack on the priesthood? The logic behind this question goes something like this: It’s difficult to exaggerate the dignity and spiritual power of the priesthood. Think of how many, if not most, of the laity perceive the priest primarily in terms of offering Mass and forgiving sins. So great a vocation, it’s concluded, requires that a priest be someone “set apart.” And with being set apart comes responsibility and privilege. In other words, this line of thinking accepts as natural a certain clericalism in Catholic priests because they belong to a kind of noble spiritual class. And while nobility has its obligations, it also has its perks.

But Pope Francis has answered this way of thinking by saying the priest is not so much a man set apart as a servant-pastor placed in the center of the community. The pope believes a priest and bishop should have a missionary heart, the antithesis of a clerical heart. In “The Joy of the Gospel,” Francis writes that “a missionary heart never closes itself off, never retreats into its own security, never opts for rigidity and defensiveness. It realizes that it has to grow in its own understanding of the gospel and in discerning the paths of the Spirit, and so it always does what good it can, even if in the process, its shoes get soiled by the mud of the street.”

So, yes, let’s end clericalism and follow the example of our non-clerical pope. He keeps reminding his bishops, priests, and deacons that they are trail guides for a pilgrim people. They are ministers of mercy—with muddy shoes.

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11th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Image: What the Fire Gives
© Jan Richardson

May 24, 2015

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In today’s Gospel we have two parables, but the first one really grabs my attention at this point in my life. 

How fascinating and appealing and puzzling is the mystery of the farmer in this story. 

Farming today is a science – carefully chosen seeds planted in organized, calculated rows and cared for intensely so that they produce high yields. 

In our country we even go so far as to scientifically develop the perfect seed and fertilize and water it in perfectly measured ratios. 

Our intellect and discoveries have created the highest-producing fields in the world!

But wait – this story seems to turn that model on its head. 

Mark’s gospel presents a farmer who doesn’t even know how the seeds grow. 

Far from planting in evenly-spaced rows, he simply “scatters” the seeds across the land. 

But somehow, mysteriously, the full grains come and the farmer can harvest.

On both a personal level and a societal level, it is sometimes tempting to think of building God’s kingdom as a formula. 

If I complete x task, and do x thing, the result will be the kingdom. 

If I can control all the details just right, I’ll get the right outcome.

But what we find here is that the kingdom of God isn’t like that. 

The kingdom of God doesn’t depend on me figuring out just the right formula to find inner peace or to solve world hunger. 

It depends on one thing: love. 

God, the planter, has already scattered the seeds of love all over our world and inside of me, all I have to do is let it grow, and the fruits will baffle us all. 

Obviously, my intellect and abilities are gifts to help me share that love. 

But when I start thinking that it depends on me, and I act out of my own desires and my own interests, that seed is choked.

If I strive to unite my actions to the will and love of God, all I have to do is trust that the fruits will come, and they will. 

And as the second half of the Gospel reveals, even the smallest act of love can produce the largest, fullest tree where all the birds can find shade

No, climate change is not just for the scientists

Published: 

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum thinks that the pope should just leave climate change to the scientists.

Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that Pope Francis actually has a scientific background—he has a certificate in chemistry and worked as a chemist before he joined the priesthood. Even if the pope had no knowledge of science whatsoever, would he be wrong to be talking so much about caring for the planet?

No. Caring for the earth is more than just a scientific problem; it’s a moral and theological one as well. We’ve heard this argument over and over again from the Vatican, and we’ll see it again in the upcoming encyclical, which we’ve recently learned is going to be titled “Laudato Sii” (Praised be), after a line from St. Francis’ Canticle of Creatures.

But what does this mean? What does it mean that caring for the earth is the same as caring for the “least of these”? What does that have to do with us?

It means that the poor are often the most affected by climate change. They are the ones who can’t afford food when it gets more expensive. Who can’t afford to take off work when the temperatures are too hot or too cold, or to have air conditioning or central heating in their homes. And it’s not just the poor, it’s children. Children are more likely to be affected by environmental toxins, even before they’re born. And children are less able to cope with high levels of pollution in the air and water.

If you’re in doubt, just look at the stories in the news lately. Almost 2,500 people have died in India this summer because of one of the worst heat waves the world has ever seen. The people who are dying are not the people who can afford cars or who work in air conditioned offices. They are the poor farm laborers, who earn less than $3 a day and have to go to work, no matter what the weather. Their deaths could have been preventable. “All they need to do is follow basic precautions like avoiding working in the sun,” one doctor says. “What can we do? It's a problem of poverty.”

In the New York Times last Sunday, one reporter writes about his son’s struggle with severe asthma while they were living in New Delhi and his eventual decision to leave the country because of the high levels of air pollution. “Pollution can lower children’s I.Q., hurt their test scores and increase the risks of autism, epilepsy, diabetes and even adult-onset diseases like multiple sclerosis,” he says.

But the news isn’t all doom and gloom. Other organizations are showing how tackling these issues can make a huge difference in the lives of the poor, even within individual communities. Take, for example, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, who recently started an urban gardening program that hires local people who have no other source of income. Titled NanoFarms, this program has allowed many to stay in their homes and neighborhoods in an area where prices are rising rapidly due to gentrification. Brendon Ford, the regional manager for the area, describes the program’s importance by saying: “We have to take care of the poorest among us. And (one way) to do that is to tackle the issue: Why do people not have money? Why are they not having the jobs that they need? And I think what NanoFarms is doing, it’s finding a solution to people without jobs.”

There are similar environmental programs around the country that work to empower those who need it the most. The Urban Resources Initiative, in New Haven, CT, hires urban high-schoolers and ex-offenders to plant trees. St. Mary’s Nutrition Center, in Lewiston, ME, works within its community by offering community gardens for low-income families and programs that teach people nutrition, cooking, and leadership skills. Alternatives for Community and Environment, in Boston, works to educate people in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods about activism and environmental justice. Members have joined together to improve waste disposal regulations in the area, clean up dump sites, and stop the development of a diesel power plant next to a public elementary school. And these are only a few examples: Programs around the country are linking saving the environment to ending hunger and empowering those without a voice in their communities.

So, no, Mr. Santorum, climate change is not just for the scientists. It’s for the children affected by air pollution. The farmers dying of heat stroke. The ex-offenders and immigrants and young adults who are learning to have a voice (and an income!) through caring for the planet. They are who we work for—and with—when we seek to end climate change

- See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201506/no-climate-change-not-just-scientists-30162?utm_source=June+9%2C+2015&utm_campaign=ebulletin+June+9%2C+2015&utm_medium=email#sthash.DEP6XcSC.dpuf