Water and Wine

This week, we hear one of the miracle stories from the Gospel of John: the story of Jesus transforming water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. It is one of the many stories we tell during the season of Epiphany that manifest Jesus's divinity. Epiphany is the season when we contemplate the implications of the Incarnation, that God became human out of love for us.

The point of this miracle story, like many others, is that Jesus didn't just live among us so that God could share our humanity. God came among us as one of us, so that he could transform us into a new creation. The effect of Jesus on ordinary people was that he showed them what lay hidden inside of them. Sometimes, what he showed them was untapped potential. Just as water could become wine, people could become more than they appear to be on the surface. Sometimes, Jesus showed them the less pleasant things inside of them, like hypocrisy, fear, and selfishness. He got into a lot of trouble for that.

Overall, though, the message is a positive one; because Jesus always maintained that we could choose the kind of person we became. We don't have to accept superficial appearances. We could aspire to be something different, something new, something surprising.  We don't have to be just water; we can be wine--the very best wine. That is a message for each of us, as well as for our parish as we embark on a new year, full of untapped potential and endless possibilities.

We Wish to See Jesus

This past week, at the invitation of Bishop Lee, I have been in Cleveland, Ohio attending the Evangelism Matters conference hosted by the Episcopal Church. Bishop Lee nominated my friend, Mthr. Mo O'Connor, Zach Dyrda, and me as the three "evangelism catalysts" from the Diocese of Chicago to bring back ideas and learnings from the conference to inspire and share with others. We have spent the last three days with about 400 clergy and lay leaders from across the church to learn how to invite people to join us as followers of Jesus, to network and to form new friendships, but most of all to share our stories about how God has transformed our lives. That is the essence of evangelism: to share our Good News with others, ask them to share their own stories, and then invite them to experience MORE, more belonging, more acceptance, more love, more redemption.

In this Sunday's Gospel reading, the Greeks come up to Philip and say, "sir, we wish to see Jesus." Philip runs to Andrew and tells him about the request, and then the two of them tell Jesus. Our Lord's response is sobering. In order to see Jesus, we have to let go of much that makes us feel safe. We have to let go of our egos. We have to let go of our mistrust. We have to let go of our sense of entitlement. We have to learn to be vulnerable, to share and entrust our stories of pain and redemption with each other, and then go out into the world to invite others to be vulnerable with us, for there is no true community without vulnerability and trust. Let me be clear, the goal of evangelism is not to grow the church, to fill our pews. The goal of evangelism is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and bring Jesus's unconditional love to the lost, the despondent, and the discarded people of the world. With such good news to share, we hope that other people will want to join us. But the work before us is to learn to be faithful followers of Jesus by loving others as he has loved us. If we want to see Jesus, then we must speak, and walk, and live as he did.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

On Winners and Losers

Yesterday, my husband and I lined up early to get a good spot to watch the parade to celebrate the Cubs World Series' victory after Chicago's 108-year "curse". I should own up right away that I am not a baseball fan, not even a fair-weather fan. Even though I live less than a mile away, I have only been to one Cubs game at Wrigley Field. I can't quote statistics or tell you the names of the players or what position they play. And yet, I shared the fans' anxiety when our 6-3 lead was nullified in the eighth inning, followed by an infuriating 17-minute rain delay. And then, when it was all over in the tenth inning, and the city erupted in a wave of euphoria that I could hear from 52 floors above through my bedroom window, I was overjoyed, too. That may seem hypocritical, but as a Chicagoan, I was deeply moved by a warm glow of civic pride that took me quite by surprise. At the parade yesterday, the crowds parted generously to let a 98-year-old great-grandmother in a wheelchair get a front-row seat at the parade. After all, she had waited longer to see this day than probably anyone else there. Despite our reputation for a corrupt political machine and gun violence, on this day, we displayed and reveled in our best nature. I felt proud to call Chicago my city.

This moment has served as a stark contrast to the other great winner-take-all contest: the US presidential election. You will not see me post political comments on social media, even though I do hold very strong personal opinions about candidates and issues. As a priest, I have decided that to do so would be to foster polarization within the congregation I am called to serve. But I will admit as we enter the final days of the campaign season that I have found the polemics and rhetoric wearying and distressing. Instead of bringing out our best behavior, the various political campaigns (and media outlets) have veered alarmingly from traditional standards for civil and respectful discourse. Abusive, ad hominem attacks have taken the place of thoughtful debates of ideas and policy proposals. I am eager for it all to be over. Whichever candidate breaks through the 270 threshold, I think we need to acknowledge that this polarizing, divisive campaign season has revealed fractures in our electorate, in our civil society, that we need to address. What we all need now is a remedial course in civics (remember that class from high school) to remind us about our values and the obligations of being a good citizen.

Last Sunday, we heard the Gospel story of Zacchaeus, the tree-climbing tax collector from whom Jesus seeks hospitality. Zacchaeus too was the subject of nasty public discourse: "All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’" Jesus defies public opinion and engages the tax collector as a friend, knowing that what matters is not the person's status and role in this world, but the cleanness of his heart and actions. Jesus responds to Zacchaeus' promise to return four-fold any unjust financial gains by proclaiming, "‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’" The story's focus on undermining the conventional paradigms of the lost and the saved, of winners and losers, is a sobering call to re-examine our own consciences in a world that seeks to turn human beings against each other. What would it look like if we could learn to be not only better Christians, but better citizens, galvanizing around shared values and achievements, grasping at hope in the face of overwhelming odds, even a 108-year curse? In a tight race for victory, let us never forget that winning is as much a matter of character, as it is about numbers, power, or metrics. It is in the way we play the game that we state the kind of people we really are.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

A Voice is Heard in Orlando

Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. - Jeremiah 31:15

When the news hit me of the mass shooting in Orlando, I was stricken by a sense of powerlessness in the face of so much violence and grief. It is hard to know how to respond to trauma on this scale without feeling that what we do is an empty gesture. One acquaintance of mine rawly declared that "thoughts and prayers" are a trite and perfunctory response to tragedy. "My prayers are with you in this terrible moment," is the sort of thing people feel socially obligated to say. After hearing it so many times, the words, however sincere they may be, lose their impact for the grieving. After all, people are devastated and terrified; they need something more concrete and actionable than a formulaic expression of solidarity.

I struggled with this. There was a very big part of me that resonated with my friend's sobering challenge. Are my thoughts and prayers just an easy, phone-it-in response that doesn't ask much of me? It doesn't inconvenience me, or make me go out of my way. It doesn't force me to change the pattern of my daily routine. It costs me nothing. I realized, though, that prayer--as unsatisfying as it may be for some people--is the foundational Christian response to everything in life, including tragedy. Our main job as Christians IS to pray. The whole pattern of our faith is grounded in prayer: the Daily Office, the Eucharist on Sunday, anointing, marrying, burying. It is all prayer. We pray for God's presence and activity among us in all of the moments of our existence; we call upon God's power to transform us when our own resources fail us.

As I walked into the cathedral to say Mass yesterday, I thought carefully about how the Church could be useful to the grieving. "OK," I thought, "let's own the grief and anger and pain and fear. That's where people are. The Burial Rite from the Prayer Book. Black vestments. The readings appointed for the Feast of the Holy Innocents." So, we did what the Church does in these moments: we prayed--hard. Praying isn't a passive act. Praying activates us to bear the Gospel into the world, to respond to the rhetoric of violence and death, of hate and despair with Jesus' message of love and healing and new life. Praying, both publicly and privately, is the act of drowning out the messages that destroy with the Good News that builds up. That's one reason we pray without ceasing. We keep preaching the Gospel over and over again, because the world desperately needs to hear it. The Evil One is a liar, don't you dare believe him.

Rachel's lament over her children.

Perhaps some of us pray the familiar words so often that we forget what we're calling upon. In morning prayer, for example, the collects reach out to God for peace and protection: "O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we surely trusting in your defense, many not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." In the aftermath of a tragedy like Orlando, these words take on renewed meaning and power. They are relevant; they matter. Engaging the biblical stories of Rachel weeping for her children--the tribes of Israel that were gathered for deportation to exile in Babylon--and the slaughter of the Holy Innocents by King Herod enfold our current tragedies within the larger story of God's action and salvation. There is kinship between then and now, between Ramah and Orlando, between the babies martyred by Herod, and those martyred by Omar Mateen. But these stories are also linked to the assurance in the Revelation to John that "death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." God urges us to respond to tragedy by working to bring this New Jerusalem into being with our hands, and our feet, and our lips in prayer.

Jesus gathering the Holy Innocents to himself.

We were a small congregation in the cathedral chapel, but the sincerity of the prayer was palpable. There was no doubt in my mind or my heart that we were doing something meaningful and healing. After the requiem was over and the chapel emptied, two men entered to sit quietly and pray. One shared that he was having a lot of trouble with his grief over the Orlando shooting, and the other that he was angry and discouraged over a recent disappointment in his life. I laid hands on both and prayed with them, and I suggested to one that he read psalm 35--a source of great comfort to me when I felt I was being badly treated. The look of profound gratitude and comfort on both of their faces was very moving, and I was reminded that praying is the action the Church does best. Prayer is the center from which we become agents of God's healing, whether in activism, interfaith collaboration, liturgy, or the pastoral care of each other. May the Church never lose sight of its power to offer the suffering the gift of new life.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

If Jesus Rode the El Train

"Christ Among the Wild Beasts" by Moretto da Brescia

Today's Daily Office readings include the story from the Gospel of Mark about Jesus's preaching tour in Galilee.  In classic Jesus fashion, Our Lord goes out very early into the wilderness to pray--to find a few minutes of peace and quiet before tending to the needs of his demanding band of followers.  Simon (aka Peter) and the other disciples notice he is missing and go in search of him.  The Gospel records that, "When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons."

The urgency conveyed by the disciples' report, "everyone is searching for you," is matched by the urgency of Jesus's command to go into the neighboring towns to preach the Good News there also. Call and response. The people call to Jesus, and he goes out to meet them where they are with the message of new life.  This story is a powerful illustration of the missionary zeal that characterized both Jesus's ministry and the fledgling Church in its early years.  I sometimes wonder if we in the twenty-first century can really understand the immediacy and intensity of Jesus's hands-on contact with the average person, particularly the suffering and marginalized.   And then I find Jesus in some unexpected place, continuing to preach the Gospel message and cast out demons.

Like I did today.  This afternoon I took the Red Line downtown to meet a parishioner for coffee.  A
young homeless woman walked up and down the subway car asking commuters for spare change.  I took out my wallet, which was empty, and apologized for not being able to help her.  While many travelers pretended not to hear or see her, the man seated next to me greeted her and told her where she could find work.  He told her that a security company on the south side was hiring, and that if she applied, she would likely be hired.  She thanked him for the information, and then scoured the inside of her backpack for a pen.  I offered her the pink highlighter I was using to underline passages in the book I was reading, and she asked him for a phone number.  The man replied that he couldn't remember, but proceeded to give her detailed directions about how to get to the company, while I tried to look up the phone number on my iPhone.  The young lady hurriedly wrote down his directions, returned my highlighter, and then got off the train at the next stop.

As the train pulled away from the station, I thanked the man for his kindness, who had clearly represented Jesus in this encounter as well as (or perhaps better than) a person in a clerical collar.  He looked down at the floor and said, he knew how rough it could be, and how people sometimes just needed a little help.  I was moved by his sincere compassion and solidarity.  He engaged the woman as a peer, with dignity and respect.  No pity, no condescension, just Good News.  It was a simple, and yet exemplary, model of Christian witness.  As Jesus's hands and feet in the world, average people have the the power to heal the sick and cast out demons, to represent Jesus in places where he may be sought, even the unexpected and unconventional ones.

Blessings,
Fr. Ethan+