Vegetables and Mindfulness

Trisha's daughter, Lydia, in the Whole Foods. We agreed she
looks a lot like I do when I am on a juice kick.

It’s been a week since this “no food” resolution began. The plan was simple: nothing but vegetable juice for Lent. It was a cute idea. Really it was. It was also unhealthy and unrealistic. A friend mailed me a great book that arrived on Shrove Tuesday called Christ Walk: a 40-day Spiritual FitnessJourney. I started using it on Wednesday along with my ridiculous all juice no food plan. The walking has continued; the juicing has… changed.

I was thinking entirely of discipline and sacrifice when I came up with my planned Lenten practice. In the year since my dad died my healthful habits have all but disappeared. I think often about going for a run or eating a salad instead of the pasta, but then I make the easier choice. I’ve never spiraled out of control, but I have longed for the consistency that discipline brings to my life. I’ve longed for the easy connection with God that has felt more like work this past year. I started running again last fall and promptly tore my calf muscle. I have resolved over and over again to watch my dietary habits – but each time I’ve not paid enough attention.

This week of paying attention – of changing my plan each day in response to how my body feels or studies I've read – has shown me that my discipline was never juicing, my discipline was mindfulness in health. I feel healthier and stronger than I have in months – and that is after just a week of *almost entirely clean eating. (Sunday was tough – note to self, Sundays need more calories.) I’ve gone from a stringent attitude to one of listening. I listen to my body and my heart and in the listening I am starting to find God again.

God is in all of this. God is present in the hunger pangs and the reminder to get up and walk away from my desk. God is in the grocery store when I want ALL OF THE PRODUCE despite knowing my fridge is only so big. God is in the moments of overwhelm when I desire nothing more than to feel held.

So the new plan has been to juice during the day and then eat mindfully at night and on the weekends. Nothing is “officially” off limits, but I know what will nourish my body and what will work against me.  In a meeting with a lovely parishioner this morning I learned that she is actually doing the same thing! So we have a lunch date to swap juices coming up – and I couldn't be more excited.

Why Do We Fast?

For Lent this year I am taking on the one discipline of which I have been most afraid. Each year as I consider what to eliminate or take on there is one thing I have been unwilling consider seriously: food. I have always found some way to mark the season – whether it is giving up television or adding a daily devotional time. These disciplines have usually been positive spiritual experiences and have helped me refocus my eyes on God. But each year the first thing I think about doing is fasting from food, yet I always find a way around it. It seems too challenging – impossible, even. It will be the most difficult thing for me; and that is why it is my discipline this year.

As a penitential season of preparation on our church calendar, Lent is a time set aside for introspection. But that introspection is squandered if it does not result in a strengthened call toward discipleship and service. Lent is a season that mirrors the time of Jesus’ temptation in the desert and when he was called upon to search deep within himself and discern his path forward before he began his teaching journeys. Jesus prayed through his forty days of temptation before going out into the world. For us, Lent is a time when we are invited to fast from the things that distract us from following God with our whole heart. Lent, like Advent, is a season of preparation. We are preparing to go forward doing the work to which God has called us.

The spiritual discipline of fasting is woven throughout our canon of scripture. Moses was compelled to fast for forty days twice while on Mt. Sinai: first, after receiving the law from God (Exodus 34:28), and again when he discovers the Israelites worshipping their self-fashioned idol (Deuteronomy 9:18). The Ninevites fast for forty days to abate God’s anger with their infidelity and to save their city (Jonah 3:1-10). Saul fasts for 3 days after his encounter with Jesus on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:4-9). In the book of Isaiah, the prophet learns from God the nature of true fasting (Isaiah 58:1-12).

In his sermon about that passage from Isaiah, Rowan Williams preaches: “Real fasting, says God to the prophet, is breaking the bonds of injustice and sharing your resources. And it is fasting because it means denying yourself something – not denying yourself material things alone… but denying yourself the pleasures of thinking of yourself as an isolated being with no real relations with those around… denying yourself the luxury of not noticing the suffering of your neighbour. This is fasting that reconnects you with reality. And in the context of the gospel, this is the fasting that the Holy Spirit makes possible for us, breaking through our self-satisfaction.”

Fasting is a form of depravation aimed at focusing our senses and removing distraction. Fasting from something upon which we are dependent forces us to find another source of strength – for Christians, it points us towards greater dependence on our Triune God. In this season of Lent as you consider what discipline to adopt, consider even the things that might sound crazy. Consider the things that illustrate instances of injustice. Consider the things that scare you. As Jesus told us, “You must first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Luke 6:42)

Love Builds Up

Sermon for the 4th Sunday after the Epiphany - Year B

1 Corinthians 8:1-13 

(listen to it here)

I have never in my life heard a sermon preached about this passage from 1st Corinthians. In fact, earlier this week I got an email from Brett, who expertly read this passage for us this morning, making sure it was the right reading and we joked that he should do an interpretive reading complete with crumbly, gluttonous foods as props. I am slightly disappointed we didn’t have that pleasure this morning. But, kidding aside, there is a reason this passage is still important today. The challenge of exploring this type of seemingly outdated piece of scripture is vital in our lives as Christians and so, we must, if you’ll forgive the pun, dig in.

The Corinthian Christians to whom this letter is addressed are a well-off group who converted from a number of pagan faiths under the spiritual leadership of Paul. They are highly educated and socially adept. Thus, their question about whether or not they can enjoy feasts comprised of the meat of animals burned in sacrifice to gods and idols they know to be false is, for them, a question to confirm their assumptions – not one they actually believed needed to be answered.

For the Corinthians, they were – in a way – kissing up to their teacher. Paul, we know the idols those other folks worship don’t exist, so it’s still okay to go to their dinner parties, right?!

The surprise for them comes when Paul writes back to explain how their actions affect others around them. And what’s more, Paul uses this as an illustration to explain the concept of Christian freedom. Paul explains to the people how the seemingly innocuous act of participating in a celebration featuring food from sacrifice is actually creating a stumbling block for those who do not understand on as deep a level as the members of the church.

Paul is telling the people that it isn’t enough to understand for themselves – they need to let their actions communicate their convictions, even when that goes against the grain of what society expects.

For these aristocrats of Corinthian society, abstaining from eating the food from sacrifice is tantamount to social suicide. They must avoid the most popular parties being thrown in the community. They asked Paul thinking he would commend them for their knowledge, when really he explored more deeply the concept of Christian Freedom. To paraphrase John Philpot Curran, “The condition upon which God ha[s] given freedom to [hu]man[s] is eternal vigilance.”[1] To be truly free, is to be a slave to Christ – making us responsible for all people. Christ commissioned his disciples to go into the nations and share the Good News – we cannot do that if we are keeping our knowledge to ourselves and allowing our actions to disparage that which our Savior taught us.

So how, then, does this apply to us today? What is the food of idol sacrifice in which we partake?

A documentary series was released out of Norway this month and it has caused a stir all over Europe. The series, Sweatshop: Dead Cheap Fashion, takes 3 young, Norwegian fashion bloggers and sends them to live and work with Cambodian sweatshop workers. The bloggers, all interviewed before leaving for their trip, admit they have know about sweat shops and are aware they exist but figure that earning a wage, even if it is low, must be better than earning no wage at all. They know it isn’t fair, but that is how the industry works so they haven’t really paid that much attention.

Over the course of the series the audience watches as the doe-eyed young adults go from looking like they are on a world travel adventure to being horrified by the atrocities committed against the people they are getting to know on their journey. “‘The truth is, that we are rich because they're poor," [One of the featured bloggers] said. "We are rich because it costs us 10 euros to buy a T-shirt [at] H&M. But somebody else has to starve for you to be able to buy it. Those who make the garments should also be able to afford them,’ he said.”[2]

The idols in Corinthian society were false gods and prophets while the idols in our own society are just as damaging: vanity, wealth, popularity - just to name a few.

It feels overwhelming to consider how to change the world and so oftentimes we decide instead, like the Corinthians, to look the other way or ask how to change, hoping our own knowledge of the problem will be enough. Change is uncomfortable and confusing – but you know what? Jesus never said it was supposed to be comfortable.

Last Sunday night a wonderful group gathered to hear more about our upcoming medical mission to Haiti. Folks raised money for this worthy cause to share healthcare with friends who would not otherwise have access. Today, after the service when we all go to the annual meeting, a team of women have prepared a delicious lunch for us to share to raise money for El Hogar – a school aimed at bringing education to some of the most at risk children in Honduras. Each day volunteers from Epiphany head to the Blackstone Library to help ensure children of low-income families in the south end of Boston have access to all of the resources they need to succeed in school and beyond. Right now, on the Episcopal Relief and Development website there a “giving Super Bowl” happening between Pats fans and Seahawks fans in a pseudo contest to see who can donate the most money to help others before kick off tonight. (I guess there is some big football game on tonight? --- Team Patriots is still down by $2,000 – click here to donate now!)

The Corinthians felt like they couldn’t take on this problem and affect real change. They were afraid of what their neighbors would think if they did things differently and separated themselves from what was popular.

We should be afraid of exactly the opposite. What will our neighbors think if they see us enjoying the rich blessings of this life with no regard for those upon whose backs we’ve built our lives?

If true Christian freedom from the law means that we are, in fact, free to live the life we choose because of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us – then aren’t we then obligated, by the blessings we enjoy, to give all that we have to ensure others have that same freedom?

The fact that we are free is by the Grace of God who loved us enough to send Jesus to walk among us. We now, in the midst of that freedom, must ask what we will do with this gift of life we’ve been given. By some lottery we were born into these lives that we live where we have roofs over our heads and warm food to eat. We know to come to this safe place each week and to learn more about the God who creates, redeems, and sustains us. 

The idols are still here, as they were in Corinth 2,000 years ago. By virtue of our status and citizenship in a country, which protects our rights to free speech, we have a unique voice that much of the world does not have. So as we consider what we will eat or what we will drink, or about our bodies, what we will wear - we need to remind ourselves of the freedom we enjoy. As Jesus asked in his sermon on the mount, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” So we too must ask each morning when we wake up, “How will I use my freedom, today?”

***Update: as of 6:07PM Team Patriots is up $24,181 to $12,418 over the Seahawks - but the real winner is Episcopal Relief and Development who are going to do amazing things with this $39,774 (and counting!) that has been raised!

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[1] http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/eternal-vigilance-price-liberty-quotation#footnote4_4pha5x2

[2] http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/business_models/caitlin_kauffman/norwegian_reality_series_shows_fashionistas_dark_sid?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=schtweets&utm_campaign=social

Getting an 'F' in Sabbath

I was reading an article today and I started to cry. Not ugly sobbing, just gentle tears. As I stopped to ask myself where it was coming from I realized quickly how much the article resonates with where I currently am. I am just “so busy.”

A couple days ago my fiancé and I were sitting down trying to figure out when we could get away for a day. We quickly came to the conclusion that we could get away for a day sometime in late January – hopefully.  How sad, that we have to plan 2 months in advance to get a single day away from the chaos.

Why is it like that – why am I like that?

One of my favorite books on Sabbath is Abraham Joshua Heschel’s, The Sabbath. In it, he writes: “Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” Saying ‘no’ to things is at the root of Sabbath. We say ‘no’ to external and internal desires and distractions so that we can say ‘yes’ to God.

I have not been saying ‘no’ enough - To others, to myself, to distractions, to anything – really. This frenetic pace of the world has seeped into my bones and I find my head trying to keep up against all better judgement. My heart is crying out and seeking space while my unconscious self has pushed passed the boundary of what is healthy and good.

Enough.

For the next few weeks I shall be intentionally engaging in true Sabbath on Fridays. No email. No facebook. No cleaning. No Twitter. No TV. Yes reading. Yes writing. Yes painting. Yes hiking. Yes napping. Yes praying. 

My reading list for these next few weeks include some tattered old friends:

Freedom of Simplicity, Foster

Sabbath Journey, Nouwen

The Sabbath, Heschel

Sabbath as Resistance, Brueggemann 

I am getting a jump-start on Advent this year. How will my life change if every week, for the next 2 months, I intentionally engage in Sabbath for one 24 hour period every week? It's not going to be easy. I can already identify some things that are going to have to come off the calendar. I can already identify weeks when I will need a moveable Sabbath, like a moveable feast, in order to succeed. But here goes everything!

And if you get an email from me saying I am unavailable for a meeting because there is something on my calendar, please congratulate me as we try to reschedule.

Undercover Priest

I went through my first year of ordained ministry wearing my collar every day. I did so intentionally on the advice of a couple mentors who recommend wearing it daily for the first year so I would then better understand when to wear it and when to go without. At the beginning of the experiment I “knew” I didn’t want to be a daily collar wearer. Nope, I just “knew” I would be a priest who only collared up when I was serving in a liturgical or sacramental capacity. Sure, there would be those gray areas of pastoral interactions or evangelistic opportunities – but all in all, I’d “made up my mind.”

(Isn’t it cute how we know so much when we’re fresh out of seminary?)

And then I was ordained and launched into this grand adventure. There were arduous days of paperwork and emails when I pulled at my stiff, plastic collar thinking, “this is so unnecessary.” There were days when I walked downtown forgetting it was there only to be met with stares and sideways glances. There were days that it felt like it was God’s hand on the back of my neck reminding me I wasn’t alone. Then there were days when I would be reminded of who I am by virtue of my office and it would help me to alter my behavior or language because of that physical reminder.

Somewhere in the course of that year I discovered that I am actually an *almost daily collar wearing priest. The funny thing is, while the black shirt and white collar immediately identify me as a clergywoman to the outside world, I rarely wear it for them. I wear it for me. I wear it on days that I need to remember my role as priest. I wear it not because it makes me better than anyone else, but because it reminds me to be my best self – to be the woman God is calling me to be.

There are still days when I wonder if I should put on a collar. Painting with the Thursday afternoon formation class? Leave the collar home. Spending the day updating calendars and emailing with parents. Wear the collar. Meeting a parishioner for dinner? Depends on the context of the situation. Going to the state house to lobby for equal wages for youth workers? Wear the collar. I have begun to recognize the signs – both inside and out for when I need to bust out that lovely piece of plastic.

But then there are situations like today...

I am writing this from the jury assembly room at the Middlesex Superior Court. Hooray for civic duty! I’ve been anticipating this day for weeks and have debated back and forth whether or not this should be a collar day. I know the collar is polarizing in some cases – so wearing the collar could bias folks in one way or another based on their context and history. I’m not sure which way it would bias them and so part of me feared being immediately excluded for wearing it while the other part of me contemplated if I would be chosen over others by virtue of my calling.

Those who know me know I am terrible at making decisions – especially minor, seemingly trivial decisions. Every decision is earth shattering to this ISFJ. The pros and cons list ends up being tremendously long and usually quite even. This was no different. I can think of 100 reasons why I should or should not wear the collar to jury duty. But I cannot escape the fear I will be seen as “using” that symbol for something other than it was intended. My friend Scott voiced that concern perfectly on the facebook status I posted to solicit feedback to aid in the decision-making process: “Whatever you do, don’t compromise your office to exert privilege from a symbol of the church.” I do not want to be seen as trying to use my priesthood as leverage – ever.

My calling as a priest is to a unique, sacramental ministry. My calling means that I often wear a visible symbol of the church I represent. My calling took years to accept and will take a lifetime to live into. My calling puts me in a position of authority, which is a humbling and awesome responsibility.

I wear my collar most days; often to remind myself who I am and what has been entrusted to me. I wear my collar most days, but not today. There are days when I should wear my collar in the world to serve as a reminder to others that the church is active and relevant – even today. But wearing my collar today, in this room, would not be seen as such. Wearing my collar today would be wearing a neon sign that says "I'M A PRIEST!!!" It would be screaming for attention in a room where my job is to blend in as a randomly selected peer. There are doctors, lawyers, students, teachers, parents, cashiers, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Universalists, etc... sitting here and none of them are wearing neon signs. I couldn't categorize these people even if I tried and that is the point. I was worried that leaving the collar home would be a denial of what I am - but a piece of plastic doesn't dictate my identity. I know who I am and so does God. If justice is blind than she couldn't see my collar anyway. She can see what is in my heart and that is the place where my priesthood is seeded.