[Forgiving Victim]

4.5 The banquet

In this session we are invited to imagine something of the freedom and joy that accompanies life within the new reality that is breaking in through the portal called Church.

Receiving a new story

Share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.

Washing your hands

Share your step by step guide for the process of hand washing. Then pick another person’s instructions from the Discussion Forum, move to a sink and follow the instructions slowly, step by step. You will do exactly what the instructions say, exactly as they say it and nothing more!

Come back and answer the following questions:

• How well or how poorly did the instructions work?
• Who do you think would find these rules helpful?

When you followed someone else’s rules, did you find the rules helpful or did they impede your hand washing efficiency?

Food for thought

• What has your relationship been to rules coming from religious authority?
  • Do you see a value in the rules or have they been stumbling blocks to your sense of belonging in the Church?
• James says that prohibitions have no real place in the life within the Church. What are the dangers of holding on to prohibitions?
  • Are there prohibitions you would find difficult to let go of?
• Have you been disappointed, frustrated, or angered by church authorities?
  • How can clinging to disappointment, frustration, or anger be a sign of idolatry?
    • What is the role of humor and laughter in the life within the Church?

Wrap-up question

What rule of your church do you take seriously? Why is that rule important to you? Why is it equally important to approach that rule with humor and not take it seriously at all?

[Rich Paxson]

In the Discussion Forum of this unit, share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous session showing up in your lives.

One of our church’s interim supply priests, Barb, asked me if I wanted to preach one Sunday next February. For some economic and some demographic reasons our small Episcopalian parish is enduring a years-long interim between Rectors. While this is challenging and uncomfortable in many ways, it presents opportunities for ministry models like lay preaching to emerge at our parish.

I accepted Barb’s offer. I’ve never thought much about delivering a sermon, other than to listen carefully to each Sunday’s message. That changed once I accepted Barb’s invitation to give rather than receive the message next February 12th. Even as I feel responsible for preparing thoroughly, I also feel a joyful, if inchoate, sense of anticipation. I could be uneasy anticipating the ‘big event,’ but I’m looking forward to it.

I recognize the need for thorough preparation before preaching. Our parish requires lay preachers to complete certain licensing requirements with the Diocese. I’m reviewing what it means to read scripture through the eyes of the Forgiving Victim, our living interpretive principle. Barb gave me a book titled, appositely: Preaching, by Fred B. Craddock. http://bit.ly/2g3Cb6y I like what Craddock writes in the introduction:

“… the preaching moment occurs at the intersection of tradition, Scripture, the experience of the preacher, the needs of a particular group of listeners, and the condition of the world as it bears upon that time and place.”

and this:

“The sermon is not one person’s self-disclosure any more than theology is taking one’s pulse to see how one feels about a matter. Rather, the preacher voices the message of the community of faith articulates it to that community and from that community to the world.”

[Sheelah]

Congratulations on the opportunity to preach Rich, this is certainly justly deserved! I am not quite sure, however, how you are addressing the question concerning the insights and content from the previous session, which discusses the theme of freeing us from idolatry, in particular of rules and clerical leadership. Do you mean that the very serious preparation that you speak of is a truly humble way of approaching the task? In referring to the ‘officers’ in the prison as all being “ex cons” James implies that we are all wounded people and that the role of the preacher is to be a servant of the people? OR that a “trust but verify” attitude towards religious leaders and religious teachings is a healthy attitude?
Can you enlarge a little on your thoughts in this post? I am very interested to understand your meaning here.

[Rich Paxson]

Sheelah, thank you for your comments, and questions, which I very much appreciate. I could not attach this response to your questions, so I copied them below my answer.
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RICH’S ANSWER: Parts of some long ago sermons stick in my mind as if the preacher had just delivered them. Father Bob gave one of those messages in the 1990s where he shared his favorite Bible verse, Romans 5:8 “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

Any preparations of mine for preaching begin with Romans 5:8 in mind. I see it as congruent with James’s teaching regarding “ex-cons” and “wounded people.” The opportunity to follow Father Bob in our pulpit, in any church’s pulpit, is truly humbling in a sense of humility that I’ve never before encountered. Rather than a meek response to a high challenge, now I find humility a simultaneously joyful, awe-inspiring and energizing response that creates a sense of eager anticipation to participate in an ongoing, communal event that transcends ego and yet requires a person to bring forward its verbal message.

I hope I’m answering your question. Your phrase “trust but verify” resonates with my former career as a revenue agent. That approach can be productive, but I don’t think it applies to religious leaders and religious teachings. Not that I don’t discriminate among religious leaders and teachings. While some appeal more than others, I listen to all and respond to those who intersect with my life keeping an open mind because what is peripheral now may become integral at a later day.
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SHEELAH’S COMMENTS & QUESTIONS: Congratulations on the opportunity to preach Rich, this is certainly justly deserved! I am not quite sure, however, how you are addressing the question concerning the insights and content from the previous session, which discusses the theme of freeing us from idolatry, in particular of rules and clerical leadership. Do you mean that the very serious preparation that you speak of is a truly humble way of approaching the task? In referring to the ‘officers’ in the prison as all being “ex cons” James implies that we are all wounded people and that the role of the preacher is to be a servant of the people? OR that a “trust but verify” attitude towards religious leaders and religious teachings is a healthy attitude? Can you enlarge a little on your thoughts in this post? I am very interested to understand your meaning here.

[Rich Paxson]

In the Discussion Forum of this unit, share your step-by-step guide for the process of hand washing. Then pick another person’s instructions, move to a sink and follow the instructions slowly, step by step. You will do exactly what the instructions say, exactly as they say it and nothing more!

A useful definition of handwashing needs an illustrative metaphor held in common with the listener who does not know about hand washing but feels a need to learn about it. In other words, to describe hand washing effectively, the presenter must know some audience-specific facts.

I used communications exercises like this back in the 1970s when I taught geography at Kodiak, Alaska’s public high school. Freshly graduated from college in Chicago, I had just driven 6,000 miles up the gravel Alaska Highway to my first teaching position.

My students came from local Kodiak homes, and from villages located all around Alaska. One class I taught had all first-year, Inuit kids who knew English as their second language. Kodiak, with a population of five thousand, was a metropolis to these younger village children.

In the 1970s we were limited most of the time to communications media like paper and pencil, speaking and listening, and white chalk on a blackboard. The communications exercise I have in mind used all three of these media. One student went to the blackboard to wait for directions from the class. The rest of the students had paper copies of a diagram, which they were to describe to the student at the board, whose job was to reproduce the image as accurately as possible. Speaking one at a time, students tried explaining what they saw on the paper. The blackboard quickly revealed success or failure!

A fairly standard communications exercise, what intrigued me about my class was the languages the students used. Beginning with English, after a minute or less, students switched to Inuit, which reformed what had been arbitrary lines on the blackboard into accurate renditions of the diagram on the paper. Everyone enjoyed the Inuit language successes with great merriment, which I saw as pretty universal for thirteen to fifteen-year-old kids, even as I had no idea what they were saying in particular!

Whether it’s hand washing, hand wringing, drawing on a blackboard, or learning technical operations predicated on specific, complex ideas and concepts, learning is contingent upon a starting point of mutual understanding between teacher and student. My ‘geography of knowledge’ says that we need a recognizable beginning point before we can start to move into a new cognitive territory.

[Sheelah]

Yes Rich, learning is certainly contingent upon a starting point of mutual understanding between teacher and student. The hand washing process is also a symbolic way of leaving something behind, don’t you think? The classic example of course is Pontius Pilate, and I think James meaning here is the newly found “freedom for” that we evolve into where “Prohibitions have no real place in the life within the Church. They are merely moot remnants of what things looked like before you found yourself sucked into a new way of life”. We wash our hands of these. Do this make sense to you?

[Sheelah]

Yes Rich, learning is certainly contingent upon a starting point of mutual understanding between teacher and student. The hand washing process is also a symbolic way of leaving something behind, don’t you think? The classic example of course is Pontius Pilate, and I think James meaning here is the newly found “freedom for” that we evolve into where “Prohibitions have no real place in the life within the Church. They are merely moot remnants of what things looked like before you found yourself sucked into a new way of life”. We wash our hands of these. Do this make sense to you?

[Rich Paxson]

What is the role of humor and laughter in the life of the Church?
What has your relationship been to rules coming from religious authority?

Hilarity and pathos, James used these words to describe the kind of humor that recognizes personal shortcomings while carrying no mean-spirited intent. Healthy fun and laughter empower for service those in the church who share in this joy. Mutual laughter in the warmth of amicable joshing brings new facets of relationship to light. Humor can reveal opportunities to transcend separate selves within and because of God’s heartening love.

I’ve volunteered as our parish’s Vestry treasurer for just over nine years, which makes me feel like one of the waiters at the banquet James describes in this part of our course. The Vestry is the Episcopal Church’s name for a parish governing board. I’ve worked with several Rectors over the years on Vestries. Each Rector has his or her own ideas about the Vestry’s roles and responsibilities, what they are and whether they conflict with a priest’s religious authority. I always find that a little well-timed humor ‘greases the wheels’ when Rector and Vestry begin moving toward opposing viewpoints.

[Sheelah]

Absolutely Rich, humour without any ill intent or desire to humiliate is such a powerful force for good.
‘By laughing at ourselves with others, we begin to discover how like them we are, what fun it is to be with them, and how much fun it is going to be to enjoy them more in the future’.
Every best wishes for 2017 Rich to you and your family.

[Rich Paxson]

What rule of your Church do you take seriously? Why is that rule important to you? Why is it equally important to approach that ordinance with humor and not take it seriously at all?

They probably aren’t written anywhere, but our church has standards that worship will be orderly and will offer the Eucharistic bread and wine to all who come to the communion rail. I take these rules seriously because I think they reflect both the need for physical security and the need in worship for individual communicant openness to the real presence of the Other other.

There are rules, and then there are interpretations of the meaning and practice of those standards. Does God smile at our sometimes misguided efforts to be true to our standards? I think so! And so we also need to cultivate the ability to see the humor in all that we do.

Worship services are iterative processes. We fool only ourselves if we think that any one way of doing something is the best or final way. And yet, we need to take each bona fide iteration seriously because not only is each iteration valuable in itself but also because each one can open us to new insights that will lead us toward more potent practices.

P.S. Thank you, Sheelah, for your good wishes for the New Year! Maura extended my term for six months, which I expect will be more than adequate to finish the course. I very much appreciate your comments, corrections, and good humored feedback! I too wish you and your family all the best in 2017!

[Sheelah]

Yes James tells us that because all your freedom is for, to such an extent that you don’t really understand any more what freedom from is from: you are so entirely dedicated to what is constructively appropriate that all prohibitions are moot.
For some people, it is hard to imagine the world of freedom beyond the rules, that the restrictions are only the entry?point into a process of re?habituation.
In the halfway house that is the Church there is not a single officer who is not just as much an ex?con as all the other residents. Church officers may appear to be more like prison guards than officers whose joy it is to help us get adjusted to a new reality.
And the officers themselves, with only the tiniest hint of an intuition of what a healthy society looks like, may react to a changing situation by calling for a lock?down rather than helping the residents imagine creative new possibilities for freedom.
And he finishes by telling us that prohibitions have no real place in the life within the Church. They are merely moot remnants of what things looked like before you found yourself sucked into a new way of life.
Do you agree Rich?

[Author]

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