Through the Eyes of a Child (at St. George's Episcopal Church)

Little Amanda raised her hand during the Kids’ Sermon last Sunday and asked me, “Are you the ‘God of Church’?” The Cute o’ Meter needle went off the scale. Not only was it a precious and hilarious moment for us all, and not just a little bit like an Art Linkletter airing, requiring quickness of foot while under pressure on my part, but it was most importantly a perfect teaching moment for all of us on many levels, and thus, an example of one of the greatest benefits I was hoping for when we decided to combine our Children’s Family Service with our Contemporary Service for the summer.

We are all looking for that Presence are we not? Someone tangible we can touch and handle and adore. Someone to look up to. I told the congregation at the later service about the question posed to me. I told that them when she asked me if I am the ‘God of Church’, I replied, “Why, yes I am, you wise child!” They roared. Of course, that’s not what I told Amanda. I told her, “No, I am not the God of church. I am His servant, and so are we all.” I pray that our witness of God’s love can always be so sweet that when children and adults ask us if we are “gods”, we can point to the One and say, “Here is the Lamb of God. Follow Him.”

A second wonderful thing that happened was when Fr. Jeff and I invited all the children in the congregation--and more than a few came up—to join us around the altar as we celebrated Holy Communion. Their keen interest, their sense of wonderment, their obvious curiosity about what we were doing at that table was palpable. It didn’t hurt that we had some very attentive adult eucharistic ministers who showed to the children the bread and the wine and the water and the lavabo bowl and the chalice and the paten and all the stuff of table fellowship that brings us together in Jesus’ love. I remarked later how I wish that I had been given that invitation when I was a little child. I truly felt that we had been transported into the heavenly realm as we celebrated, which is what John Calvin, among others, would have us to understand about the Holy Eucharist.

“Allow the little children to come to me” was reverberating in my heart, and I knew we were doing something right because as Jesus said, “the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these”. So a deep sense of purpose has begun to emerge for us at St. George’s through this combined service. It has always been with us, but now has found a renewed expression as we worship together this summer as children, adults, grandparents, single people and couples: We are here to serve God, and in our serving, to serve one another. And it always begins with the children. We see the Kingdom so purely through their eyes.

What I didn’t tell you until now is that Little Amanda, until last year, has been a foster child. Chew on that for a minute. Without knowing it, when we gathered together to seek God in Sunday worship, we gave a great, great gift to a child whose greatest desire has been to belong to someone. And this eager child (who tried so hard to mouth the words of the liturgy along with Fr. Jeff) helped to show us how God sees us all--as His precious, adopted children. She showed us who we are in Jesus.

Come see us at the 9:30 service on Sunday. And bring your children and your grandchildren with you.

Fr. Chris

St. George’s Episcopal Church   St. George's Website   

9110 Dorchester Rd.

Summerville, SC 29485

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Candle of Hope

                     

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the Candle of Hope

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

                                                                            Luke 21:25-28

I’ve been in my 6^th decade of life for a couple of years now, and I’ve  realized something about myself. I’m a bit jumpy these days. I’ll give you a for-instance: I used to enjoy going to the shooting range or hunting birds in an open field. Nowadays, though, I physically and uncontrollably jump whenever I’m near gunshot. It’s not just gunshot, however. It has to do with loud noises--any loud noises. I believe it is tied to one particular instance about 20 years ago when an emergency situation arose (rather, “exploded”)  in my home when my son had a seizure in the next room and hit his head on the kitchen counter on the way to the floor. The next moments were full of trauma and emergent care. After a visit to the hospital, including a CT of the head, all was eventually well, and we tried to get back to “normal”. But here is where I learned the true nature of PTSD. Some days later, while my wife and I were sitting quietly and comfortably in our twin easy chairs enjoying a peaceful morning, a sound exactly like the one that had alarmed us before caused us to jump, and our hearts to skip with fear. Only this time, we looked at each other with tears in our eyes. Although it turned out that it was only a watermelon we had bought the day before that had rolled off the kitchen counter and onto the floor with a sudden and unwelcome crash, internally we were jolted to that recent bad memory of finding our son writhing on the floor. And I began to understand why some combat veterans, upon hearing a car backfiring on the street, will take cover beneath a parked car before their minds can tell them it was nothing to fear. It is an involuntary reaction, sewn into the fabric of the autonomic nervous system by a previous trauma associated with a sound, or in some cases a smell, or some other sensation. So you could say that in one sense my nerves are “shot”, because loud noises cause an unpleasant, visceral reaction. And I’ve never even been to war. To this day, whenever one or the other of us is about to do something in the house that will create a loud noise, we call out “loud noise” as a courtesy to warn the other not to be alarmed.

This is what Jesus is trying to do with His disciples in this Sunday’s Gospel reading. He is trying to say, “LOUD NOISE” to prepare them for wars and rumors of war, earthquakes and roaring seas; i.e., what to them looks like the end of the world. “These things must happen,” He says. But when you see these things happening, “Look up, for your redemption is drawing near.” Our natural reaction to real or threatened calamity is to react with dread, to cower, or to duck-and-cover. Who can “stand tall and look up” when every instinct has taught us to get low and to cover our heads? Every generation experiences this.

 Many things conspire to keep us from lifting our gaze, but when we do, it is often then that we can see the promised Son of Man coming. It is only when we stand up and raise our heads that we recognize the presence of Christ among us--even when all seems lost.

How do you hear Sunday’s words from Luke? Does the world that Jesus describes as marked by “fear and foreboding” sound like anything you have experienced? What might you see if, instead of cowering, you were to stand up and raise your head, or to encourage others to raise their heads in the midst of trauma and confusion? Where might you see the promise of the coming Christ?

We will light the “Hope” candle on this 1^st Sunday in Advent. It is not an empty hope, but one full of the promise of Jesus Himself. 

Chris Huff

Advent 1

Redemption: Early Reflections on Son and Grandson

No doubt about it. There is a lifetime of redemption in a child. God knew that when He gave us His. It has been a few hours now since the birth of our second grandchild. As I gaze longingly at the pictures coming in from Hawaii where mom, dad and little Donovan (their first) take up their post-natal journeys together, the word keeps coming  to me. Redemption. Redemption. Redemption. Like the heartbeat of God beating in my own heart. It was a long, difficult day of deliverance for this child and mother...and dad. A few complications and a caesarian section later, he has arrived safely and more completely into this world.

First, I am grateful for the safe delivery of mom, baby....and dad. Thanks be to God and the wonderful medical staff who gave care and protection. Redemption. But let me go back to this new dad, my son, and his mother, my wife, who more than any other single person, gave her son hope and encouragement, and a reason to go on time and again through the challenges of his life. She saw this day long ago in her dreams and visions, and dared to share them with her son, who claims that this vision, in his darkest times, drew him forward into...Redemption. She had seen this child, and held this promise in her heart....and believed...and as St. Paul wrote in II Co. 4, "we believe, and therefore we speak [the Good News of Redemption]". "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." These words mean more to me now than they ever did before.

Diagnosed at age 6 with Type I diabetes, my son played hard and worked hard to live a full and "normal" life. Whenever he became discouraged (because diabetes is relentless), his mom was always there to care and to guide and to comfort and to encourage. Once, soon after his diagnosis, he was going for the Presidential Fitness Award through his school. He excelled at every aspect of the program. But there was the final obstacle--the mile run--maybe it was 2 miles--it could have been 100 from where I was standing.  . For a 7 year old, and much more for one with diabetes, this was big.  Familiar with every nuance and cue, this mom had already learned to read our son's condition at any moment. About two-thirds the way through the  course, she could tell he was flagging.  Protocol says that when a diabetic feels fatigue, he should immediately discontinue physical activity and address blood sugar issues with carbs. She was ready at course-side with a snack and said, while briefly running beside him "You can do this, Son. You're almost there. I know you can do it. Don't stop. I believe in you!" And he made it. Many would have quit. But he made it. The Presidential Fitness Award Certificate, signed by President Reagan, is still in his old room today.  This scene, played out at Osborne  Elementary School in Sewickley, Pa., became the metaphor of their relationship. Encouragement to finish the race. Redemption.

Throughout his life, because he has always tried to stay healthy by keeping his blood sugars as low as possible, he has often danced too near the "too- low blood sugar zone" and suffered a number of seizures. Somehow, God always provided a person familiar with what to do to be in his presence each time. Redemption.

Never lacking a girlfriend, he did at times wonder if  "the one" was out there for him. His mother said, "Son, I have SEEN your son. The creed says 'we believe in all things seen and unseen.' I am believing  it for you." Some months later, at the urging of his mother, he came to Christmas Eve services at the church I serve and, right there on the spot, lightning struck. They met. Love at first sight. Marriage less than a year later. At their wedding I preached, "God brought Christopher's wife halfway around the world (from Hawaii where she was born and raised) to meet him here in Charleston (via Joint Base Charleston Air Force and St. George's Episcopal Church)", and now she is taking him back there (soon after they became engaged, she was assigned to Honolulu). She, like his mother, is a beautiful, winsome, selfless encourager.  Redemption.

Their first pregnancy did not last long. He took it hard. They were discouraged, but they decided to try again. And here we are today. Redemption.

And when, as planned, my precious, faithful, ever-patient encouraging wife gets to hold that boy, whom she has held in her heart for so many years, in her own flesh-and-blood arms, there will be glad tears of redemption shed. Likewise, when I baptize that boy in the Pacific Ocean off the beach near Honolulu, he will more fully be included in God's plan of redemption, having been buried with God's own Son in His baptism and having been raised to the new life of redemption and resurrection. Son, to son,  to son, to Son.

There is so much more to this story, as with all stories. But it has been an exciting and nearly sleepless 24 hours. And as I drink in the picture above, with my son holding his son--his long-hoped for and hard-won son-- I see Redemption. All who are discouraged or weary, take heart in this picture. As Jesus says in Luke 21:28 "And when these things begin to come to pass (armies arrayed against you), then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."

Welcome, Donovan Mercer Huff, b. June 7, 2015,  9:20 PM, Honolulu time.

CH+

Sense or Sensibility: Why Careful Interpretation is Indispensible

This has been a tough one to hone down to "Blog-Size", so I have decided to turn it into a series. There is so much to be dealt with in the church concerning BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. It is the hinge upon which all things, i.e., our (the church's) authority to say anything to the world, turn. And yet I have seen some BAD, if not well-meaning, biblical interpretation from most sectors of the church. Throughout history different means of interpreting the Bible have arisen out of successive cultural mileus and philosophical substrata (see my post entitled "Enculturated Gospel: Get Used To It". Also see my page on this blog: "Culture Wars"). Most have given birth to lasting traditions, some of which still speak to us today. We have the soul-feeding , yet highly subjective allegorical and typological interpretations of Scripture from the Early Fathers. The Great Reformers  put the Old Testament in line as a one-two punch of the continuing revelation of God from announcing and presuming and prophesying a coming Christ to a realized, crystallized Jesus the Christ of the New Testament. The early "liberal" theologians gave us text-criticism in an attempt to give us the tools to find the plain meaning of the texts. We have the monastic tradition of Lectio Divina and Ignatian Prayer of Imagination  with scripture where one engages in interaction with a biblical scene as though  he or she were a participatory character.

In several sermons, I have used the analogy of those wonderful acetate transparencies one finds in anatomy books. The first page, super-imposed upon the successive ones, shows the flesh. The next page reveals, in situ beneath the flesh, sinew and bone. Beneath that, organs, and so on. As we approach a passage, the first layer may be to take the words as if you found them lying open on a coffee table. What do the words say, out of context, in plain English? The next layer might be to investigate the audience, the type of literature we have (genre), the original languages, the culture out of which these words arose, etc. A next layer might be to ask God what these words now say to us in the world in which we are rooted. You get the idea.

I am reminded of what one of my former Old Testament professors said: "At the end of the day, after all the interpretative work that you can bring to bear upon the scriptures, I don't want to get anymore out of the Bible than my grandmother did." I know what he meant. And I appreciate that he was trying to relieve of us the angst brought on by the sterility of the critical  "lab". After all the genre analysis, cultural studies, text-criticism, philological application, etc., he wanted us not to lose the ability to sit faithfully before the scriptures and to allow God to speak to us afresh--in the moment, via the Holy Spirit. I get it. And thankfully He does speak to us through those pages.

Unfortunately, in this day and age, we need to know more than our grandmothers did. There are those of us who hold the scriptures near and dear  as authoritative and formative, as well as the source of healing and hope for our very lives. The globe has pressed in upon grandma. We know more than she did. We have many, many more voices speaking on our desktops and in our phones. As culture changes rapidly, we are tempted to haul out those very Words as weapons of defense, rather than as words of life, Good News, peace and unity. Indeed, the Word of God (and the author to the Hebrews was talking about the Old Testament here!) is sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing between soul and spirit, joint and marrow. I am reminded of Hecuba of Troy: "He who has great power must use it wisely." And so we must take great care not to slice unnecessarily someone's soul over a matter of biblical interpretation that we have not taken great, and I mean GREAT, care to understand in its true embedded meaning, as well as its freshness for today. A great sword in the hands of a child (and there are many theological "children" out there) can do indiscriminate and permanent damage.

Among our greatest needs in the church today, as in every generation, is to understand the relationship to us of well over half of what we call our Bible (the Old Testament), what it has to say, if anything, to the New Testament, and vice versa, and to our world.

John Bright (dec), Professor of Hebrew and Interpretation of the Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary, wrote in his book, The Authority of the Old Testament: "The Old Testament is different [from the New] in that it was not in the first instance a document of the church at all: it was not written by Christians for Christians. The more seriously we take it in its plain meaning, the more clearly we see that it is the document of a religion (genetically) related to our own, yet not precesely the same as our own. It is a document of the faith of old Israel, and only secondarily a document of the church. Its message is not of and by itself a Christian message. [!] ( Emphasis mine) Yet we must preach a Christian message from it...if we are to use it in the pulpit at all." (p.182 1975 Baker edition) This seems obvious to me, but p;ease understand something; this makes many Christians uncomfortable. "What do you mean, 'Its message is not of and by itself a Christian message?'" And yet, most Christians I know, even the most faithful among us, do not follow most of  Hebrew Law. Children often expose the truth: "Mommy, why did God kill that guy that tried to keep the ark from falling off the cart? He was just trying to help!" (2 Samuel 6:6-11) This story of retribution for disobedience of the rules concerning who could and who couldn't touch the ark is certainly not, at least on the surface, a message of grace and mercy. "The anger of God broke out upon Uzzah."

Bright goes on to explain that to confront our congregations with the demands and promises of Israel's faith is to impose upon them a perspective that is not, and cannot be, our own. We have to see it as a document that looks for a Christ, but doesn't announce Him. "How is this B.C. text to be preached as a word to the church without distorting its meaning?" he asks.

I'm afraid that this question is not explored with as much diligence as it should be these days. Our failure to grapple with this question with honest intellect, as well as mature spirituality, has crippled the church's ability to be confident as a transformative, as well as a pastoral and redemptive presence in the world. We are to be the world's interpreter of this Word for our time. But once again, our failure to consider history and the faithful attempts of others long gone who interpreted and wrestled honestly with all of scripture, Old and New, and who applied a new hermeneutic for a new generation has kept us from being faithfully relevant to the world in which we now live. They didn't always get it right, and some paid the price of being branded "heretical", but a good study of what went right, as well as what went wrong in those interpretive efforts can be of infinite value, especially when our culture is morphing at light speed.

Marcion, the 2nd century heretic, rejected the Old Testament out-of-hand as being a document about a different god (a vindictive demi-urge) than the New Testament God who is Christ, the "perfect revealer" of the "True God". The Marcionite tendency is alive and well today, although most people don't think of Marcion. Many do not even know who he was. But they do the same thing he did by ignoring the Old Testament, passing it off as irrelevent and lacking in the focus and clarity of love and grace that we find in Jesus of the "new commandment". A hard thing it was indeed to live under YHWH's Law. As written, it was onerus, detailed to the nth degree, and impossible to keep. And yet, He loved them, and called them precious and chosen. In setting before them life and death, He was like the mother lion teaching her cubs: "It is cruel out in the world. If you don't follow me explicitly, death will surely catch you." In the struggles of old Israel, we see our problem. It is a universal one: We can't do it. Period. Anyway, I am digressing.

The irony I see is that while progressive and conservative alike become Marcionite in our chosen dismissals of great swaths of Old Testament Scripture, we only differ in what we dismiss, because we all dismiss much of it in our way. Even fundamentalists and biblical literalists do. We all often cherry-pick the Scriptures to suit our bent. And that's not kosher. Nor is it responsible toward those to whom we preach or give witness. Perhaps it should be more like NFL replay rules. Without definitive and compelling video evidence to the contrary, the play should stand as called on the field by Jesus: "The first and greatest commandment is this, that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Everything else being a matter of interpretion, we should defer to Love and try to see it through that lens. And yet, in order to do this accurately, and in order to be faithful to the Old Testament (and also, therefore, more faithful to the New) we MUST understand the plain sense first...as it stood then. Or else we are too tempted to play the role of "part-time Marcionites."

Which is the more important? Understanding and exposing moral errors as they read nakedly in Scripture? Or applying imaginative, empathic responses to the moral ambiguity of each age in the hopes of winning with Grace those whom we would otherwise surely turn away? Sense? Or Sensibility? The Old Testament itself is one of the most morally ambiguous collections of writings in all of human history.

Chris Huff +