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Category Archives: Doing Soul Work
This Mask is Too Hot!
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Beyond Contradiction – May 25, 2020
As America began to reopen (too early for safety, I suspect) the complaining began. These masks are too hot. This mask is inconvenient, it is in my way! This is just a hoax, these masks anyway! All things in America these days always end with the politics of the thing, whatever it is. Half reject “said thing” because it must be a conspiracy of “the other”!
For many years I have been fascinated with the notion of the leadership of groups in times of high anxiety. Having been a parish priest for thirty-six years, how could I not. These days everyone complains. While that is wearying it is amateur in the extreme when compared to the master complainers of the universe, namely, the Children of Israel in the Wilderness.
The Manna Harvest / Giuseppe Angeli (18th century), but doesn’t it look more like the griping before the manna came?
The Scripture records fourteen times they murmured. I love the word. Why? Murmuring is speaking loud enough to be clearly understood and not so loud that the speaker is forced to take responsibility for the remark. Anyone who has ever reared children knows exactly what I mean. Keep in mind that every time they complained bitterly it was always against a policy designed to bring them safely through the Wilderness into the Land of Promise.
Fast forward. Masks and social distancing are designed to KEEP PEOPLE FROM CATCHING COVID19. It is the best way to slow this virus until a medical remedy can be found, prepared, and ministered to the entire human race. This is only a mild inconvenience compared to the Black Death of the Fourteenth Century, I’m just saying.
Let us take a long slow breath and consider two responses. One to take steps to calm ourselves down and the second to grow ourselves up. Once we do this, then do it again and again. It will help one’s blood pressure and generally improve the quality of life in this reopening society for everyone around us.
John W. Sewell
May 25, 2020
What You Learn by Living (sometimes)
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ACT3 Memphis
November 30, 2019
John W. Sewell
1. Like Christopher Columbus, what we find may be more important than what we were looking for.
2. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing poorly.
3. Dealing with matters of power and faith is like driving a car on ice. Doing what comes naturally, is almost always not the thing to do.
4. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly
5. Salvation is a gift requiring a response.
6. The Christian life is like driving a car on ice. The automatic non-thinking reaction is not the thing to do.
7. Dissecting a frog is instructive but afterward it will not hop!
8. In matters of faith and nutrition, you are what you eat.
9. Ministry is like being pecked to death by a flock of small ducks
10. Every expression of Christianity has an inner inarticulate essence and a cultural manifestation. – Rev Stephen Parsons
11. Don’t collect so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire. – Wendell Berry
12. If you want a huge funeral die young and tragically. If you live to extreme old age and it rains there will be nobody there.
In hope, in spite of the facts.
John Sewell+
When Reason Sleeps, Monsters Are Born.
“When Reason Sleeps, Monsters are Born” – Francisco Goya
What is Old is New or What the hell?
Prices for the three grades of gasoline light up the pump at a Shell station Friday, May 25, 2020, in Memphis, Tennessee and over the United States
Marilyn, my beloved, just arrived home from her intermittent hunting and gathering safari, what used to be called “grocery shopping”. She said, “What do you suppose gasoline cost just now?” I shrugged, no idea. “Sixty-eight cents a galleon!” I am 68 years old. When I was 16, gasoline cost 15 – 20 cents per gallon.
In the year of the plague, we stand at threshold of a new world. We can choose to embrace the ADVENTURE of life on this changing planet, making new economies such that the planet has no need to wipe out human beings in order to survive in her orbit.
I vote for adventure, a new epoch of history that has clear skies over New Delhi. Fish swimming in the clear lagoons of Venice and the nations turn swords into hemostats that we may safely get off Mother Earth while we still are able. May Mother Earth recover and may the Kingdom of God come and increase. To God be glory now and forever.
I live in hope in spite of the facts.
John Sewell
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This is the sermon I preached on Ash Wednesday, thirty of so days ago, in a gentler time. I commend it to you on this Palm Sunday.
Let us pray for each other.
In hope, in spite of the facts. John
Ash Wednesday 2020
February 26, 2020 6:30 AM, Noon, 6:00 PM
Today I preached three times at Hope Presbyterian Church here in Memphis, at the invitation of their pastor, Rufus Smith. He and I have become very good friends as we worked together on the Executive Committee of the Memphis Christian Pastor’s Network. I count it a high honor to preach there. This is what I said.
Today is Ash Wednesday, Forty days, not counting Sundays, until Easter Day! People often ask where the ashes come from? Well, often times we burn the palm branches from Last Year’s Palm Sunday.
Thirty-six years or so ago, early in my ministry, I put on my robes, walked into the parish house kitchen to get the ashes for that Ash Wednesday, only to discover that someone had thrown them away. Someone threw out the dust thinking it was what it was. I had maybe 10 minutes before the service began. The service went off on time and that year the faithful were “ashed” with a mixture of burned paper towel, contents of an ashtray, graphite from my pencil sharpener, bound together with a few drops of olive oil. It was rich black. How well it came off no one ever said.
“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”
is a memento mori, a token of mortality. We are formed from the basic elements of creation. Our spirit animates our bodies until we die. Our soul departs to God and our bodies to the dust.
Today, we mostly live in denial, comforting ourselves with illusions that we are more in control and more powerful than we really are.
Since Eve shared the Apple with Adam, we have tried to be gods and we are simply not constructed to bear the strain of divinity. The sin of our Ego-centeredness results in isolation, loneliness and separation. This sad, terminal state, in which we find ourselves, has only ONE antidote. That we be baptized into the death of our Lord Jesus, WHY? Because death is the only reality we can be certain that every person who has ever lived have in common. It is our common death that God in Christ saves us. IN Christ’s death all others find life, and that eternal.
Now, do not be deceived we can’t just put lipstick on our Ego-centeredness and call it a day. Only death is enough. We give up our so called life for new life in the redeemer.
JESUS TELLS WHY AND HOW TO DO THESE THINGS
MATTHEW 6:1 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. [45] Concerning Prayer 5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
These disciplines are ways to say No, to our EGO and Yes to God.
So we practice:
- Prayer for the good of our souls. – praying is facing who we are and who we are not. Rather than turning quickly away at the sight. Live with it. It will give us humility, which comes from the word, humus or ground. There’s that dust again.
- Fasting for the good of our bodies. Fasting is telling our bodies, No. No to our appetites. So, when the church quit fasting, the culture began to DIET, as a friend of mine once said. What is a diet but a fast without spiritual content? Remember the Fasts of the Rich are the Feasts of the poor. Give food to the hungry these forty days.
- Alms-giving for the good of our neighbor. Our Lord knew his principal enemy was not the devil but money. Tell the almighty dollar that as important as it is, it is not our ultimate concern. Give to those in need, remembering that all we have is a gift from God.
THESE ARE THE SACRIFICES OF LENT.
There’s that word. The word Sacrifice is impoverished in our thinking. To sacrifice, we think, is to lose something and like a diet we feel instantly deprived and we want it stop right this minute.
Robert A. Johnson taught me that sacrifice is to “TAKE THE ENERGY OUT OF ONE LEVEL OF LIFE, PUTTING IT AT A HIGHER LEVEL OF LIFE IN SERVICE OF A HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS!”
Take marriage for example, “You get engaged, publicly testifying that this person and this one alone is your primary relationship. We get righteously annoyed IF you continue to date other people. That’s wrong and not true, say we. It won’t be long before somebody sneaks around and informs your fiance’ the truth about the jerk they have committed themselves for life – is up too. Farce Over! “
But if you have genuinely sacrifices all others for the love of this one. It will have and give life. Not that there will not be challenge as anyone who has been married for thirty minutes can testify. Sacrifice in this case gives us a partner who for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish when till you are parted by death. Now, that is true and life-giving sacrifice.
So today:
- Embrace that Lent is about making room for God to BE God.
- Gertrude Muller Nelson says that Carnival or Fat Tuesday is like emptying the dresser drawers out in the middle of the floor.
- Lent is about sorting out the contents of our lives. That is why we are here.
Therefore I invite you to the observance of a holy Lent.
In the name of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Amen.
New Sign, Continuing Work
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Follow the Bee to ACT3
The Nobleman
Meister Eckhart (1260 -1328)
-From Eckhart’s teaching The Nobleman
The first stage of the inner man and the new man, St. Augustine says, is that a man lives by the example of good and saintly people, though he still holds on to chairs and supports himself by walls, and subsists on milk.
The second stage is when he not merely regards the outward examples and good people, but runs and hastens to the teaching and counsel of God and divine wisdom, turns his back on mankind and his face toward God, crawling forth from his mother’s lap to smile up at his heavenly Father.
The third stage is when a man withdraws more and more from his mother and, being further and further from her lap, escapes from care and casts off fear so that, even if he might with impunity do evil and in justice to all, he would have no wish to do so, for he is so bound to God with love in eagerness, until God establishes and leads him in joy, sweetness, and bliss, wherein he cares nothing for whatever is repugnant and alien to God.
The fourth stage is when he grows more and more, and becomes rooted in love and in God, so that he is ready to welcome any trial, temptation, adversity, and suffering willingly, gladly, eagerly, and joyfully.
The fifth stage is when he lives altogether at peace with himself, resting calmly in the richness and abundance of the supreme ineffable wisdom.
The sixth stage is when a man is de-formed and transformed by God’s eternity, and has attained total forgetfulness of transitory, temporal life and is drawn and translated into a divine image, having become the child of God. Beyond this there is no higher stage, and there is rest and bliss, for the final end of the inner man and the new man is eternal life.
Try this growth sequence on for size!
In hope, in spite of the facts.
John
Delicious Heresies or Junk Food for the Soul.
NOTE: In 2003 I gave a talk at Saint Johns Memphis, Tennessee about the DaVinci Code the page turner by Dan Brown. The piece below explains the adventure. I came across this on the internet recently and thought it might be worth sharing.
I wrote this in 2006
Dear Friends
Below is an article I wrote for ExploreFaith.org. It remains topical two and a half years later. Three years ago this November a quote from an interview I gave about the Da Vinci Code published in the Commercial Appeal was subsequently quoted by Dan Brown on his website, DanBrown.com. This citation opened a “minor career” on matters Da Vinci. Calls have come from La Monde Magazine, Paris, France, The Guardian, Sidney, Australia and even talk radio in Sacramento, California. Now the movie is about to be released and I have agreed to respond to questions from the Commercial Appeal readers. All this says a great deal less about my “authority” than about the ubiquitous nature of the Internet. Below you will find an article I wrote for the web page, Exploring Faith. It continues to reflect my sense of the Da Vinci Code phenomena.
In November (2003) I led three conversations about issues raised in The Da Vinci Code. Months earlier, while browsing in a bookstore, the cover of the novel caught my eye, and because I have a long fascination with Leonardo (he is never called Da Vinci), I bought the book to read as a diversion. I found nothing new there, but it was a good page-turner.
Then something interesting happened. People old and young, male and female, began to ask me could it be true, as the Code contends, that Jesus and Mary of Magdala were married and perhaps even had a child. This and other questions continued through the summer with such frequency that I realized that this book provided a teachable moment.
I prepared to have a conversation about the book with interested members of the congregation I serve. A press release was sent to the local newspaper and I was asked for an interview. The resulting lead article once again indicated a high level of interest, but the turnout the night of our first gathering was completely unexpected: Six hundred people packed the pews.
What is it about Dan Brown’s novel that enticed hundreds of people into church for a conversation? When questioned by a reporter about why I thought so many people were reading this book, I replied, “It is filled with delicious Christian heresies.” Did Jesus marry Mary from Magdala and have genetic descendants? However intriguing the notion there seems to be no compelling evidence that Jesus married at all.
The idea has prompted people to ask, “What am I to believe and why?” That is a very valid and enduring question. Toward the end of that first meeting a woman stood up and said, “We are here tonight because we are searching.” One of the challenges for the searcher is the interpretation of discovery. What does a new idea or experience I have encountered mean? Is it true? If it is true how is it true? If it is true how does it apply to my life?
In an age of anxiety it is tempting to reach for certainty. If we can be certain then we can be safe. If we are safe then we are in control. However, certainty is illusionary. There is no certainty. In fact certainty is contradictory to faith. As Allen Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, puts it, “The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.”
For me at least, notions that promise certainty are suspect. For Christians faith is the posture in the face of mystery. What God has revealed in Christ Jesus is a mystery. How could the birth of one man in one moment of history make a difference for all people at all times within history? Many have found this preposterous. And yet that is the core belief of classical Christianity.
What is there to find that is unique about the classical Christian understanding of Jesus? Over centuries Christians came to believe that Jesus is fully human and fully god. I believe that he is. That is an act of faith for me but increasingly I suspect that it is true because it is not the easy way out.
Humanity likes the quick fix, the black or white option—clear cut and simple. Heresy, from the word, “to choose,” is the tendency to choose a part of a notion and carry it to a logical conclusion, thereby ignoring the complexity and richness of the fuller reality.
Northrop Frye
As Northrop Frye writes in his book Anatomy of Criticism, “… the full metaphorical statement ‘Christ is God and Man’ is orthodox, and the Arian (the belief that Jesus was not god but the highest creation of God) and Docetic (Jesus only appeared to be god but was in fact only a virtual god) statements in terms of simile or likeness (are) condemned as heretical.” The heresy is to not be willing to live with the tension of the paradox, but rather to want reality easily understandable.
The Da Vinci Code introduces many people to the fact that there were many exotic flowers in the early garden of Christianity. There are many reasons that they didn’t become the dominant form of Christianity. In some cases they couldn’t compete in the marketplace of ideas and in others they were eradicated by the political power of the state allied with the church. The church has not always covered itself in glory by mercy and justice.
All that notwithstanding I think the principle reason that classical Christianity endures to the present is the fact that the easy way was not the way chosen. The fact that the church chose the way of paradox and ambiguity as the most authentic way to live in the mystery of God revealed in Christ is the most telling reason for the enduring power of its life and message. Even in the church there is a desire for certainty. That is the human condition. The courage to face paradox is the most authentic expression of the Christian life. I believe that this is the life for which people unconsciously search. That is why I suspect that six hundred people showed up on a Wednesday night to talk about a novel.
Now the movie opens and questions abound. I don’t think that this novel threatens anything. It’s existence provides a teachable moment and as Christians we should be in words of the Apostle Peter be prepared to give an accounting for the hope that is in us (I Peter 3:15). We must be about the business of our Lord and the culture is prepared to talk. That’s a good thing.
In hope, in spite of the facts.
John Sewell
Beyond Contradiction 