Faith Is All Around Us

Love, Actually is one of my absolutely favorite films, in part, because of its optimistic outlook on the ubiquity and variety of human loving relationships.  Even though it’s a Christmas movie, I watch it year-round, especially on those days when I’m feeling a bit blue and in need of an emotional pick-me-up.  The movie’s opening and closing scenes take place at Heathrow Airport, featuring numerous vignettes of family members, lovers, and friends greeting each other at the gate, some clearly after a lengthy separation.   The narrator’s essential point is that, despite all of the media coverage of wars, violence, and apathy, love is actually everywhere; hence, the movie’s name.  And a tragically cheesy version of the song, “Love is All Around Us,” serves as the movie’s unofficial theme song.  Some folks consider the film saccharine drivel, but I love it.  It’s hopeful, and in a world full of terrorists, gun violence in schools, and human trafficking, we can use all the hope we can get.

I write this as I fly back to Chicago after spending the weekend in Florida celebrating my mother’s birthday and baptizing my eldest sister into the body of Christ.  Whether it was coincidence, my own heightened awareness, or the movement of the Holy Spirit, I noticed that, like Love Actually, faith is actually everywhere.   Much has been made of the decreased role of religion in public life and the gradual drop in church attendance.  Research studies have unequivocally documented the overall decline in membership among Christian denominations and organized religion, generally, and the emergence of a generation of people who consider themselves “spiritual, but not religious.”  I don’t deny any of this, but I do believe that we are making too much of these trends.  I don’t think God is dead; and I don’t think Christianity’s best days are behind us.  The problem with religion—especially Christianity—these days is that we expect it look like it did in the 1950s in order to regard it as vibrant.  We hold on stubbornly to metrics of success that fit a world that no longer exists.

We may no longer be able to take it for granted that our political leaders, intellectual elite, and captains of industry will be people of faith.  We may not be able to assume that our neighbors, in pursuit of suburban respectability, will go to church every Sunday and keep up with the Joneses.  Instead, we should assume that the United States (and other nations) is a pluralistic society where religion no longer holds sway the way it did half a century ago, but that faith is undergoing a variety of transitions and permutations in order to stay relevant and viable.  The very notion of “spiritual, but not religious” is a challenge to organized religions to adapt in order to respond effectively to the spiritual hunger postmodern people are experiencing, by recovering ancient traditions, exploring innovative models of worship, service, and community; and adopting more sophisticated forms of theological education and catechesis.  If many people find religion useless, maybe it's not because human spiritual yearning has stopped, but because we're offering stale answers to increasingly challenging questions.  Religion cannot rely simply on its established authority as a social institution to keep people in the pews.  Those days are gone.  For people to come to us for more than the odd wedding or funeral, we have to answer their toughest questions better than we are doing.  I think it's a shame that many seminaries have stopped teaching apologetics, because that's what we really need of both clergy and laity right now:  apologists.

During my trip home this weekend, faith has been everywhere.  Sitting at the gate in Tampa was a priest in a black suit and clerical collar working on his iPad.  Walking through the terminal were several Orthodox Jews in traditional dress.  Sitting next to me on the flight to Cleveland was a man reading a book on Catholic spirituality.  In the nearly barren Cleveland airport, there was a Muslim man kneeling for evening prayers near a water fountain.  If religion really didn't matter anymore, it is unlikely that any of us would see as many signs of faith as we do.  I think it far more likely that people have gotten used to just shutting off their awareness of religious and spiritual life, and many of us have cooperated in playing down our faith and making it less visible.  Are we not paying attention?  Faith is all around us. If religion has become discredited among many, then it is our job as people of faith to redeem it in the eyes of those who think it has nothing to offer.  So, I charge all of us, in this Resurrection season, to work to become better apologists and answer the tough questions.  In a postmodern, post-Christian society, the default position is no longer fides quaerens intellectum--faith in search of understanding--but understanding in search of faith.  Let us help those bereft of faith find it.

Easter Joy and Blessings,
Ethan +

Ashes to Go, Palms on the Way ... What Next?

An Atonement parishioner with "Radar"
Photo courtesy of Atonement.

"The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.  A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"  When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?"  The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee." Matthew 21:6-11

Yesterday, we did it again, as we do every year at the Church of the Atonement; we reenact Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem by processing around the block led by our friend, Radar, the donkey.  Arrayed in red vestments, holding palms, with bells pealing, we offered a witness of the Christian faith and story to the urban neighborhood in which we live.  I always look forward to it.  Once around the block, and then back inside for the Passion, the homily, the Eucharist, coffee hour, and the rest.   But that procession was just the first steps of the entire Holy Week journey to the cross, the tomb, and new life.  We walk with Jesus this week, marking out the places and events that define the essence of Christian identity.  And hopefully, we will be changed by the experience. 

Clergy in procession on Sheridan Avenue.
Photo courtesy of  Atonement.

Yet we often walk this journey, as so many congregations do, in an insular sort of way.  Not intentionally, to be sure, but I'm always left thinking about how brief our foray into the community is on those rare days when the church's life is on display--I mean REALLY on display. The procession can be seen as an invitation, encouraging people to be curious about who we are, what we do, what we believe, and what we stand for.  Unfortunately, it offers little opportunity in the moment to engage the neighborhood in conversation about religion, spirituality, and faith--about why we're marching down the street holding palms and wearing red, about who Jesus is for us, and why we identify as Christians.  I wish we could have those conversations a bit more often, and more organically.  Many parishes contribute to the community, as Atonement does, in some deeply meaningful ways by hosting cultural events, donating to the local shelters, food pantries, and soup kitchens, and volunteering in community-based programs.  These are all wonderful things. 


Through formal community engagement, we meet many spiritually hungry people, but there are many we don't meet.  The procession may be an invitation to these other folks, but it can also be a spiritual "hit-and-run" experience, that cleanly tosses the ball in the other person's court, and relies on his or her initiative to inquire further.  What an intimidating thought.  The Church meets me where I am, but before I can ask a question or have a conversation, it's passed by me.  You mean I have to venture inside that imposing building down the block to find out more, to learn what that spectacular parade was all about?  The procession is a great beginning, but it may not be enough.  The Palm Gospel above provides some insights on what might be required of us.  The faithful go out in procession, SHOUTING to invite the whole city to learn about Jesus.  The curious ask what all the turmoil is about, and Jesus' disciples in the crowd convey some pretty startling news.  The procession is a means to an end, a disruption to tell the whole city about Jesus.  That conversation changed everything, and here we are millennia later acting it all for the benefit of another generation.  So, how might we do a better job of inviting people to explore the Christian faith?

Mthr. Kate Guistolese passes out palm crosses.

The popularity (and effectiveness) of "Ashes to Go," in which churches go out into the streets to administer ashes to people in the community, has given rise to a reevaluation of how the Church lives, more generally.  Atonement conducted a similar outreach event for Palm Sunday, called "Palms on the Way," in which clergy and parishioners offered palm crosses to passersby with a card inviting them to join us for worship during Holy Week.  I hope that many new people will show up for the Triduum and Easter Sunday, but even if they don't, there is value in having even a brief conversation on a street corner, answering questions (and people did have questions!), and just being visible.  Perhaps it will plant a seed that germinates over time and leads to something spiritually fruitful and life-giving.  Perhaps it will dispel misconceptions about what the Church is or isn't.  Perhaps it will suggest that there really isn't much difference between sacred space and secular space, between the Church and the world outside its walls.  Perhaps it can push the procession a little farther down the block and invite more people into the community and mystery of the Christian life. 

But it will take more than good signage or an advertisement in the local paper.  It will take ashes, and palms, and other hands-on invitations that build relationships.  It will likely ask us to try different and uncomfortable things.  Imagine, for a moment, a Church that would offer to wash strangers' feet in public as a sign of servanthood--on a street corner, in a prison, in a park.  And then feed them.  What kind of message would that send to the world; what kind of invitation would that be to a stranger?  Reflect on that as you hear the Word of God, and have your feet washed, and eat and drink, and strip the altar bare.

Many blessings for a very Holy Week.

Ethan +