Month: July 2016

Rembrandt [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

From God, For All

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon, Uncategorized3 Comments

This week’s sermon from North Presbyterian Church.

Click here to read the biblical passage.

Let me tell you something about my brother: he’s a jerk. I mean, really. A world class jerk.

Everything in life has just been handed to him. He was always dad’s favorite: the eldest son, good looking, charming, and everything else you could want a son to be. Dad doted on him. He always bragged about him to his friends: “My son this… my son that…”

Well, what about me? Ain’t I his son, too? I’ve played second fiddle to my brother for my whole life. Both of us followed in Dad’s footsteps, taking over the family business. I work just as hard as he does, but he gets all the credit. He gets to be in charge and call all the shots.

But in these past few years, as Dad has gotten older and sicker, has my brother even lifted a finger to help take care of him? No. Not even once. That was my job.

I checked in on Dad every day. My wife went over to help Mom with the cooking and cleaning so she could be with Dad. And then, when the end came and Dad finally passed away, I was the one sitting by his bedside, holding his hand and saying prayers. My brother was off tending to the business. I had to send one of my kids to tell him that Dad had died.

At the funeral, he made a good show of grief and all the neighbors came by to comfort him. They talked about how proud my Dad was… of him. I got the obligatory handshakes and clichés like, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

But that’s not even the worst of it. After the funeral, when Dad’s estate was being settled, all of the inheritance went to him. Nothing was left for me or my family. Just him. Where was he when Dad got sick? Where was he when Dad died? Both of us run the family business, so why I didn’t I get at least a portion of the inheritance?

It was humiliating. I would be dependent on my jerk of an older brother for the rest of my life, without a nickel to my own name. I would live like a beggar, even though I work for a living.

I went to the village rabbi with this issue, but he wasn’t any help at all. He just quoted this rabbi and that rabbi, saying that oldest sons were entitled to the largest share of the family estate. It’s like they didn’t even care about what was right, only what was legal, according to the dictates of the Torah.

I had just about given up hope when I heard that this traveling rabbi named Jesus was coming to town. I thought to myself, “Aha! This guy can help me! This rabbi Jesus has a reputation for speaking his mind and telling it like it is. He stands up for the common people and fights for what is right.” Surely, I thought, he would be able to knock some sense into my brother and make him give me what’s coming to me.

So, Jesus came to town and it was amazing. He was healing people left and right. I saw things I had never seen before in my life. My brother was there. Jesus was preaching to the crowd about the justice and mercy of God. He said, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”

And I thought to myself, Yes! This is it! This is my golden opportunity! So I stood up and shouted, “Teacher, order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance.”

And then Jesus just stopped. He looked at me, looked over at my brother, and then back at me again. I just stood there, like I was frozen. All of a sudden, I felt kind of small. You know what I mean?

And then Jesus said to me, “Mister, what makes you think it’s any of my business to be a judge or mediator for you?” Turning to the crowd, he said, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”

And then he told us a story. It was about a rich man who owned a lot of property. For a minute, this made me really excited again because people like me knew all about these rich jerks. They made their money, not by hard work and sacrifice, but by exploiting the poverty of their fellow farmers who were down on their luck.

You see, if a farmer had a bad year, he would take out a loan from one of these big business moguls. As collateral, he would put up the only things he had to his name: his land and his body. If the next year was a good year, then everything was fine. But if it was another bad year for the harvest, the farmer would have to take out another loan. Eventually, the poor farmer would get so deep in debt, he could never hope to pay it off. The creditors would foreclose on the loan and the farmer would lose his land. If he was lucky, he could go back and work the land as a tenant, but all the profits would go to the creditor. If he was unlucky, the farmer and his family would become slaves. Either way, the end result was that the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer. The whole system was exploitative.

So, I was glad that Jesus started by talking about these rich jerks and how they took advantage of poor, working folk like me. I hoped my brother was listening.

And then Jesus continued:

The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: ‘What can I do? My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest.’ Then he said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll gather in all my grain and goods, and I’ll say to myself, Self, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!’

“Just then God showed up and said, ‘Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?’

“That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

After that, Jesus went on to say some other things, but to be honest, I kind of tuned him out. Something about that story stuck with me. Actually, it made me uncomfortable (somebody told me later that Jesus has that effect on people a lot). I had a sneaking suspicion that Jesus wasn’t talking about my brother; he was talking about me.

It wasn’t so much what he said that bothered me; it was what he didn’t say. Maybe I’m reading too much between the lines on this, but it occurred to me that the rich farmer in the story never gave thanks to God for the big harvest he had just hauled in. He seemed to assume that this abundance of crops came from his own hand, as if he himself, and not God, had made the rain to fall and the sun to shine that year.

It reminded me of a passage from the Torah that we used to hear in synagogue services every year:

Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.

The second thing that occurred to me from Jesus’ story is that the rich farmer seemed to want to hoard all of this wealth for himself and not share it with others. Didn’t he know that other people in his community, especially the families of those poor farmers he was exploiting, would probably go hungry that year? Didn’t he realize that God sends the rain and the sunshine on everyone so that so that all of us can enjoy the fruits of the earth together?

This reminded me of another passage of scripture we used to hear in synagogue: God spoke to our ancestor Abraham and said, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

God blesses us, not so that we can be rich and comfortable, but so that we can be a blessing to other people in need. This is what we should be thinking about, as God’s chosen people.

And then it hit me: I was like that rich farmer in the story. The rich farmer was me, not my brother. I came to see Jesus that day, not to bear witness to what God was doing in our community, but to get something for myself. I thought it was my responsibility to make my brother do what I wanted him to do.

Not only that, I didn’t really care about what happened to my brother or his family; I just wanted to have what was owed to me. I kind of forgot that he’s my brother. We’re part of the same family, so a blessing for one of us is really a blessing for both of us. And my rotten, selfish attitude was only making it less likely that I would benefit from this mutual blessing in the future.

I’ve got to say, I didn’t get what I came for when I met Jesus that day, but I did get something. His words reminded me of what is most important in life: that we are family. My brother and I are sons of the same Father, and that means something. And you know, if you think about it, all of us human beings are kind of like brothers and sisters. We are the children of God, our Father in heaven. And the blessings that God pours out upon the earth are meant to be shared by all, not just a few of us. I’m grateful to Jesus for showing me that.

Ever since that day, things have been a little bit different between my brother and me. Not dramatically different, but a little bit. I eventually let drop the whole thing about splitting the inheritance. To be fair to my brother, he’s been okay about the whole thing too. When we fell on some hard times with the family business, my brother dipped into his inheritance to help the whole family out, so that we wouldn’t have to go one of those loan sharks. We wouldn’t have made it through if it hadn’t been for him.

Don’t get me wrong: he can still be a jerk sometimes, but he’s my brother after all.

I went to Jesus that day because I wanted to be proven right. Instead, Jesus showed me how wrong I’d been. More than that, he showed me that there is more to life than what I can get out of it. He showed me that I am loved, that I am part of a family, God’s family that reaches around the entire earth. And God’s desire is that all the children of this family would share generously in the abundant blessings that have been poured out for all.

Singing the Hours: Musical Resources for Benedictine Daily Prayer

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized4 Comments

For many years since college, the staple of my private devotional life has been the Daily Office in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (BCP). I’ve sampled other prayer books and breviaries over the years, but nothing has come close to the BCP. Nothing, that is, until I discovered Benedictine Daily Prayer (BDP).

I fell in love with this particular breviary because of its close similarity to the Office as it recited at my home monastery, St. Gregory’s Abbey, Three Rivers. It offers seven offices daily, with a robust cycle of longer biblical readings at Vigils. Of all the prayer books currently on the market, this is the one that most closely resembles the Liturgy of the Hours as prescribed in the Rule of St. Benedict and the Thesaurus Liturgiae Horarum Monasticae. The editor of BDP, the Rev. Dr. Maxwell Johnson of the University of Notre Dame, has done an amazing job with this project. With the recent release of a revised edition, Dr. Johnson has even managed to improve on excellence. This volume is great for Benedictine oblates, monastic enthusiasts, or anyone else who is passionate about the Divine Office. Choosing between BDP and my long-beloved BCP has been a difficult challenge.

You can order a copy of BDP from the publisher by clicking here.

The biggest challenge with BDP is the lack of musical resources available for those, like me, who prefer to chant the Office. I have managed to piece together several helpful resources in this regard and would like to share them here. I would be remiss if I did not give credit to Dr. Johnson for recommending several of these resources to me.

The Mundelein Psalter <— Click here for link

This is a fantastic resource for chanting the Office. It was designed for chanting the Liturgy of the Hours for the Roman Catholic Church. There is a selection of lovely, simple psalm tones that are easily learned. There are hymn tunes from the Liber Usualis for most of the major office hymns. These could be easily adapted for the psalms and hymns in the BDP. Frankly, some of the hymn translations in the Mundelein Psalter are better than the ones in BDP. Additionally, there are tones for chanting the other parts of the office, like the opening versicle and doxology, the litany, and the Lord’s Prayer. I also really like that the editors printed the full text of the General Instruction for the Liturgy of the Hours in the front of the book. The website (linked above) has several useful resources for learning the chants. It should be noted that the music in the Mundelein Psalter is printed in Gregorian notation. This system is different from the modern, five-line staff, but can be easily learned and is actually more adaptable than modern notation. The learning curve for Gregorian notation is steep at first, but well worth the effort, especially for those who are serious about chanting the Divine Office in the monastic style.

There are two significant downsides to the Mundelein Psalter. First, it is quite expensive (about $50). Second, it is almost a full breviary in itself (for the Roman LOTH), so you get a lot of material you don’t need and will likely never use. That being said, if it fits your budget, the Mundelein Psalter is an excellent resource for music and instruction.

The Lumen Christi Hymnal

This smaller, less expensive volume is great for the hymns. Like the Mundelein Psalter, many of these hymn translations are superior to the ones printed in BDP. The tunes are straight out of the Liber Usualis and are printed in modern notation (unlike the Mundelein Psalter). Also, I particularly appreciate that the Lumen Christi Hymnal includes tones for the Marian Antiphons in Latin. These are a beautiful way to end Compline just before bed.

[On a personal note, my very Presbyterian wife has come to love the Marian Antiphons by osmosis. She is usually settling into bed as I sing Compline in our room. One of the highlights of her day is when I “sing her to sleep” in Latin.]

St. Meinrad Psalm Tones

Click here for the tones in Gregorian notation

Click here to see them in modern notation

The first, best thing about these tones is that they are available for free. You can’t beat that on a budget. For those who don’t want to shell out the money for the Mundelein Psalter, these can be printed and used easily with the hymn tunes from the Lumen Christi Hymnal. St. Meinrad’s Archabbey is one of the largest and best-known Benedictine communities in the United States. Their tones are simple and elegant. Unlike the traditional Gregorian psalm tones, the St. Meinrad tones have more than two lines. This may be off-putting to strict traditionalists, but I am finding they have an elegance of their own that blends well with Gregorian chant. In many ways, I prefer them to the traditional tones for use with BDP because the multi-syllabic intonations and cadences of the Gregorian tones often don’t fit into the shorter psalm lines of the adapted Grail Psalms used by BDP.

Theses are the musical resources I am most familiar with. All of them have worked well for me in chanting the Divine Office as laid out in Benedictine Daily Prayer. I sincerely hope this is useful for others on the path.

By Albertus teolog - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17310761

God Says Yes

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon, Uncategorized2 Comments

Today’s sermon from North Presbyterian Church.

My wife shared this poem with me several years ago and I would like to share it with you today:

Click here to read ‘God Says Yes To Me’ by Kaylin Haught.

What I love about this poem is its whimsical nature and almost cavalier approach to prayer.

Prayer is a major theme that appears in today’s readings.

We see it first in Abraham’s conversation with God about the fate of the city of Sodom. God declares that the city must be destroyed, on account of the wickedness of the people who live there. But Abraham, in an act of haggling worthy of a used car salesperson, manages to talk God down from total destruction to sparing the city if even ten righteous people could be found in it.

There are plenty of theological issues I could raise from this passage: What was so bad about Sodom that made God want to destroy it? What kind of God goes around destroying cities, anyway? These are great questions that deserve answers, but I’m not going to address them in this sermon today.

What I want to focus on is the conversation that takes place between God and Abraham. That’s all that prayer is, really: a conversation between God and people. And in this conversation, the main thing we observe is that God says Yes to Abraham, without fail, every time he asks. God says Yes.

I put it to you this morning that God says the same thing to you in prayer. God says Yes to you. Always.

I admit that this is a pretty bold claim to make, especially since there is no one among us who cannot remember an instance when we prayed fervently for something or someone, only to be disappointed as the situation did not turn out as we had hoped.

And we ask ourselves, “What happened? Did I not pray correctly? Why did God say No? Does God simply not exist?” All of these are perfectly legitimate questions to ask in the wake of disappointment, especially when it feels like God let us down at a time when we really, desperately needed help.

For me, that kind of deep disappointment with God came early in early 2010, when my wife and I co-officiated at a funeral for a three-week-old baby named Madalyn. Her parents were good friends and dedicated church members. She was born several months too early, weighing a little over two pounds. Despite an extended stay in the NICU, her prognosis was good. My wife and I were visiting the hospital and checking in with the parents regularly. The whole church was praying fervently and Madalyn showed steady improvement. Then, in the middle of night, the hospital called the parents, saying that Madalyn wasn’t doing very well and they should get there immediately. They rushed over as fast as they could, and ran in to discover that their baby had died mere moments before they arrived.

Madalyn’s death got me asking all kinds of uncomfortable questions about God, faith, and prayer. I had to go back and rethink much of the theology I had learned in seminary. Specifically, I had to ask myself, “What is the purpose of prayer?”

It occurs to me that many people these days have one of two misconceptions about prayer.

On the one hand, there are many devout people of faith who regard prayer as a form of magic. They think that if we pray long enough, hard enough, or in the right way, we will receive the results we want. In the Christian tradition, we see this idea most commonly among the adherents of the so-called “Prosperity Gospel.” I commend these believers for their conviction that faith can make a tangible difference in this world. However, there are not a few of them who resort to “blaming the victim” when situations don’t pan out as hoped. They say that the victims of tragedy must not have sufficient faith, or that they have some kind of hidden sin in their lives that calls for divine judgment in the form of ill-fortune. Adherents of the Prosperity Gospel are quick to cite numerous Bible verses in support of their ideology, but they often ignore the broader narrative of Scripture, in which God is working in Christ to reconcile the whole cosmos to Godself, even in the midst of adverse circumstances. Moreover, they fail to notice that there is not one instance in the four gospels when Jesus turns away from a sick person in need because they are a “sinner” or “don’t have enough faith.” To the contrary, Jesus regularly enters into relationship with sinners and even heals the epileptic son of a father who openly admits his struggle with faith.

On the other hand, there are many secular people who assume that prayer is simply a psychological trick that religious people use to help themselves feel better in moments of crisis. I find this reductionist view equally unsatisfying. First of all, prayer often doesn’t work as a psychological placebo. There are times when I pray about a situation and don’t feel any better for it. Inner peace, it seems, is just as fleeting as circumstantial happiness. A cursory reading of the book of Psalms reveals a prayer life that is intimately familiar with suffering. Sometimes, the psalmist praises God for deliverance from the problems of life, but sometimes, they cry out from the midst of the storm. Sometimes, the very act of crying out leads the psalmist to greater peace and faith, but sometimes, as in Psalm 88, the psalmist ends with the words, “Darkness is my only companion.” If prayer is nothing more than a psychological trick to conjure up inner tranquility, it is a lousy one. Why then have people the world over continued to offer prayer in good times and bad?

The purpose of prayer, as I have come to understand it, is this: Prayer brings us into a deeper relationship with God.

People, religious and secular alike, naturally share their joys and concerns with each other. This is how friendships are made. Intimacy requires trust, vulnerability, and non-judgmental love between friends.

In the Church, we do this sharing in the context of worship because we believe there is a third party present in the conversation, beyond the one who speaks and those who listen, and that is God. We share our lives with God, not to obtain any specific results or special favors, but so that our relationship with God might grow over time. Conversely, there is also a time in our service when God gets to share God’s joys and concerns with us: in the reading of the Scriptures and the proclamation of the Word. In this part of the liturgy, we stop talking and listen to what God has to say. In this way, our worship becomes a kind of back-and-forth conversation in which our relationship with God can grow.

The purpose of prayer is to deepen our relationship with God. And it is this kind of prayer that God always answers with a resounding YES.

In today’s gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. After teaching them the now-famous words of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus says to them, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

There is an interesting detail in what Jesus says here, but it is lost to those of us who read the passage in English. In Greek, the language in which this gospel was written, the grammatical form of the verbs Ask, Search, and Knock is not that of a one-time event, but of a continual process. It would be more accurate to translate these words as “keep asking,” “keep searching,” and “keep knocking.” And the end-result of this process is that God will “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

In other words, Jesus invites his followers, through prayer, to enter into an ongoing relationship with God, the end of which is the gift of the Holy Spirit: God’s own self, dwelling within us. This, my friends, is why we pray.

God is eager to be in a relationship with each of us. The act of prayer is nothing more or less than us reciprocating God’s desire. We bring to God the joys and concerns of our lives because they matter to us, and we matter to God. We bring to God the bigger problems of the world because the world matters to God, therefore it should matter to us as well. We pray because we want to grow closer in our relationship with God.

For those who would like to pray, but have trouble getting started, I can think of no better place to begin than with the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples in this passage. Sandy Lipsey and I noticed a couple of years ago that the Lord’s Prayer is one of the most universal elements of Christian worship. Not every church accepts the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, nor do they celebrate Baptism or the Eucharist in the same way. Not every church likes the same hymns or translations of the Bible, but every church looks at the Lord’s Prayer and says, “Yep. That’s a good one.”

If you want to start praying, start with that, at least once a day. You can also take a minute to name your personal joys and concerns of that day. For an expanded spiritual diet, try reading a psalm and a passage from the Bible. And, when all else is said and done, don’t be afraid to just sit in silence. One of the true marks of close friends is when they can just be together, enjoying each other’s company without a word being said. It is no different in the friendship between us and God.