Remembrance & Community

Well, what an interesting combination, today is isn’t it…

Trinity Sunday landing squarely on

Memorial Day weekend.

Now that’s a lot to sort out…isn’t it?

But if you think about it…

both of these can be connected nicely, I think…

because today we see The Blessed Trinity in its fullest --

and at the same time here in America

honor the service of courageous people

in the name of Freedom.

Both of these are principally about

Remembrance and Community.

Specifically for American Christians

we can remember the ultimate sacrifice of Christ Jesus

for the redemption of the world,

and through His loving act/gift,

we can now here in our particular context

receive God’s Holy Spirit in faith.

And truly live as free people.

And as we learned last week,

the Holy Spirit becomes for us 21^st century Christians

a whole new means or platform onto which

we can now grow into and fully experience

God’s continuous revelation for all of creation.

In other words, God’s presence is revealed by the Spirit

fully and completely when we remember Jesus here at the table

as we gather as a community.

So, there is no heresy or theological issue,

saying that

Community is strengthen and renewed

by Remembrance of those who have come before us.

Jesus and those we have loved along the way.

Now, speaking of memory…

I have a very clear memory of My mother and I

sitting at the kitchen table.

I’m writing on paper…

and must be in the first grade.

I remember the daunting task

of forming each letter slowly and with care.

But somehow my hand did not do

what my brain wished it would,

and my letters bore little resemblance

to those at the top of my tablet…

due in large part to my dyslexia.

Frustrated with my slow progress,

I remember asking my mother

to write my name on my tablet.

With ease she took the pencil and with graceful,

fluid strokes formed the letters of my name…

Mark Fitzhugh.

I remember asking, “Is that my name?”

She said, “Yes.”

And pointed to Mark and then to Fitzhugh,

sounding them out as if I had never heard them before.

And what is interesting for you to know is –

I remember a sense of awe, thinking, “That’s my name.

That’s me, right there on that piece of paper. My name.”

There was a feeling that somehow I was more real,

more important, more permanent

because my name was written down before me.

Names are important.

Trinity Sunday is about remembering the names

of the three aspects of our one God.

Memorial Day Is About Names
Tomorrow our nation pauses to remember

those who have given their lives

in service to their country.

At last count, I believe the number is now

over 5,000 US deaths in the Iraqi and Afghanistan war…

I calculated that if we read one name per Second,

it would take us well over an hour & half

to read the complete list.

Who are some of the Names you Remember

on this Memorial Day Weekend?

Today I remember

three incredibly brave young men

who could very easily slip into history

and never be remembered.

These three 20 year old men

flew B25 bombers alongside Gen Jimmy Doolittle

as volunteers in a surprise air raid over Tokyo

on April 18, 1942, following Pearl Harbor.

As some may recall, my father Bill Fitzhugh

was on that very same mission along with 75 others,

but three of his closest friends –

First Lieutenants Bill Farrow, Dean Hallmark

and Sergeant Harold Spatz,

were all three captured

following their plane crash

and were executed six months later in Japan.

Memorial Day is about names…

these three will not be forgotten.

Some of you here may have served in World War II,

or Korea, in Viet Nam, Iraq or in other arenas.

I would like for you to take a minute and either

silently or aloud…name those people on your heart today.

God Remembers all our names…
But there was a time in ancient Israel

when the people feared that God had forgotten them.

So, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah

to remind them that He had not forgotten them,

and He said -- “I have inscribed you on my palms.”

Some people – even politicians –

sometimes write things on their palms.

We do it to remember.

God did it because He can not forget.

But, how does God write your name on his palm?

Remember Thomas saying —

“Unless I see the nail marks in Jesus’ hands

and put my finger where the nails were,

I will not believe it.”

And then a week later Jesus said,

“Thomas, your name is written on my palms.

Written in these nail prints,

written in my own blood.

I haven’t forgotten about you.”

In the palms of Jesus’ hands

are written all of our names.

Especially today we see the names of

Dean, Bill, Harold, and your loved ones…

But Jesus died with us in his heart,

with our names engraved on his palms.

Indelible reminders that our names

are cherished and never forgotten

by the one God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Meeting Desmond Tutu

Spent a wonderful Saturday, April 17th in Hartford at the Ordination & Consecration of the 15th Diocesan Bishop of Connecticut - Ian Douglas. Also, met a new "friend" along the way, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. :)

Easter 2 - Unlocking the Doors

When I was at The General Seminary in Chelsea,
Cheri and I moved into what the Seminary called
a second floor two bedroom apartment.
Today, I would call it more like a hallway with two closets…
it was small and loud.

But one of the things,
which still stands out to me about that building
was the front door entrance.

Now granted we were coming from a small town
in the deep south,
but I remember that door had several locks on it.
And I wondered why we would need so many.

I discovered that the benefit was mostly emotional.
Because I after unloading the moving van,
and picking up dinner at Frankie’s corner deli,
I was just about to our building
when I suddenly realized three men
were walking very fast
and coming up right behind me.

I stepped up my pace a bit and hurried up the steps
to put my key in the door…
finally opening the door I rushed inside
and just as it “clicked” shut behind me,
I suddenly felt safe again
and there was a calm hush of peace.

I think of that door and that feeling of protection
when I listen to people describe how they cope with their fears.

Because, in a way,
some of us can keep our hearts behind a huge door, full of locks…
when something or someone makes us afraid.

If someone tries to get in before they’re invited,
especially if that heart has been hurt before,
then we hear that "click" of the lock again.

Well, on the night of that first Easter,
the disciples were huddled together behind a locked door.
But, I often wonder what they were really afraid of?

Somehow, I don’t think
they were only worried about those who had killed Jesus.
Their fear must have been even deeper.

Maybe they didn’t want to deal with the scorn
of those who knew they had failed to protect Jesus.
In spite of all their earlier boldness,
they were now afraid of the cross.
Ashamed of his death.

Maybe like the disciples,
we too can try to hide
when we’re ashamed.

We keep our hearts locked up tightly
because we know the truth about ourselves…
and the truth is that we are really NOT what we want to be,
or even what we pretend to be.

In fact, Garrison Keillor –
who rarely has time for hypocrites, once said..
"We always have a backstage view of ourselves.
We let the audience see only the neatly arranged stage.
But behind the curtain all kinds of things are lying around…”

Very often here in Greenwich…
the beautiful manicured lawns and tall stone walls
are not big enough to protect us from pain and fear.

I am sure there are many failures,
guilt and shame to go around for all of us.

Trouble is American media like People magazine tells us,
that we are living in a shameless society…
where post-modern people are no longer bothered by shame.

Well, what the heck is going on with
Tkki Barber, Jesse James,
Tiger Woods and his disgusting Nike ad last week.

Well, I refuse to allow this culture
to define American moral and ethical standards…
I believe every human being at some deep level
is bothered by something.
In fact, if allowed…
it can plague our souls.
I know it does mine…

Psychologists say that shame sweeps over us
when we overstep our abilities,
or when our fantasy about who we would like to be
encounters the backstage reality
of who we REALY are.

Nothing is more crippling than working at hiding shame.
We lock up more and more doors,
sealing off more and more rooms of the heart
to prevent our true selves from being discovered.

This moves us right into the heart of today’s message…
Jesus Christ comes looking for us.
And, according to John’s text,
he walks right through the locked door to find us.

Jesus shows us his wounds from the cross,
which are the marks of our forgiveness.
Then he says, "Peace be with you."
We are forgiven,
loved and now set free…

The word Forgiveness actually means "to free up" or "to let go."

But not freedom to continue making bad choices,
but freedom to accept Christ as the ONLY means
to lasting change and healing of heart.

No question, everyone at some point makes bad choices…
count me in that group!

But, I like these words from Lewis Smedes,
"When you forgive…you set a prisoner free.
And then somehow you discover, that that prisoner was really you."

What this means is we disciples
are not called to produce forgiveness by ourselves.

We are simply called to open the locks,
throw open the doors,
and walk with Boldness and Peace
into the warm Light
of the Resurrected Christ.
Amen.

Easter Vigil 2010 - Thin Slicing

Have you ever heard of the term….
“Thin Slicing?”

And I am not talking about a beautiful birthday cake…
or a nice piece of Apple pie.
This is an idea or concept.

Well, if you are a fan of the Canadian journalist
Malcolm Gladwell,
like I am,
you might remember Gladwell introduced this term
a few years back in his book called,
Blink.

Gladwell,
makes the claim
that quick decisions
based on narrow slices of experience
are actually more effective…
than decisions based on
long term process thought and consideration.

Now, my apologies here go out to those of you
who do consulting for a living,

Because,
I actually believe Gladwell is on to something.
When he says,
snap decisions made “in the blink of an eye”--
can reveal…“everlasting Truth.”

At least, according to Gladwell,
for some individuals
first impressions, gut feelings and knee-jerk reactions
are often, quite reliable.

To prove his point, he packs this book with,
great examples such as when
Art Historians can spot a fake in a second;

Marriage counselors will know, within minutes
after a couple walks into their office,
whether or not
they will make it past five years.

A tennis coach who can tell when a player
is about to double-fault.

It’s all about “thin-slicing,” he says…
that is, developing the skill to notice,
in a split-second,
by a certain look,
or a tilt of the head,
what is going to happen.

To break it all down,
a “snap judgment”
is usually “right-on-the-money.”

We can trust our instincts…
it’s ok to “go with that gut feeling.”

So on this most Holy Night…
and in this Ancient Easter Vigil liturgy,
what does your gut tell you about
believing in the power of Resurrected Christ?
Certainly, there are many in popular culture today
who make a living trying their very best to debunk
the Resurrection of Jesus.

Well, if you are wondering about this, too…
you would be been in the same boat
with some of those early disciples, long ago
who failed to notice the ultimate thin slice,
on that early Easter Sunday morning.

BUT,
fortunately for us,
there was still one person left,
who trusted her gut that morning,
when she woke up.

Mary Magdalene.

She knew deep down in her heart,
that Jesus would never leave her.
She got up that morning
and walked out to the tomb one more time.

And there in just a split-second she encountered
the glory of the Risen Christ
and, in the blink of an eye,
she knew her life and the life of all the disciples --
that is you and me --
would never be the same again.

Mary Magdalene trusted her gut feeling,
that the God of Abraham who loved her into creation,
would never abandon her to the darkness of death.
None of us here tonight
have set our eyes on the Risen Christ just yet
as Mary Magdalene did or Peter, John, or Thomas.

But when it comes to what we truly believe,
about Christ and our life after death…
what does your “gut-reaction” tell you?

The poet Gerard Manly Hopkins said,
the risen and glorified Christ presence,
“plays in a thousand places,”
in Extraordinary experiences,
in Ordinary friends
and in all the “thin slices” in between.

There are many sure signs of the Resurrection
“slicing” their way into our life today…
in things we see, hear and touch…

They are found in the child we hold,
or the feel of a canoe paddle moving through clear water…
we can come to trust what we see and feel.

But Faith is a funny thing, isn’t it?
It is not always easy.
For me, faith is really about taking that leap…
going with my gut,
even when my head tells me something else.

The Holy Spirit can show us the way…
to those thin slices revealing the TRUTH

And the truth is –
Jesus Christ has been Risen from the Dead…
He is Alive…
and in the blink of an eye,
we are all set free forever!

Alleluia, Christ is Risen,
The Lord is Risen, indeed.
Amen.

June Einhorn Memorial Service Homily

Recently, I was out walking around the block

over in Cos Cob…

And, it was a relatively quiet evening, for a change…

the generators had almost all been silenced.

And the night sky was as big and wide as Texas.

For a few moments looking up,

I felt like I had been transported back to my childhood…

to a wrinkle in time when I was just about 19 years old,

and my father had died of a heart attack.

A time, which I now call…

an "instantaneous, pivot of life."

Meaning - one moment your life is in place,

and a split second later,

it has changed forever.

So, I looked up

into the vastness of this enormous universe

and simply said…Wow!

Look at this creation…

Look at all the glorious details of life.

But , you know God,

“I still have a lot questions for ya”…

How is it that we can now see Putnam Hill covered

with hundreds of beautiful purple and white Crocus’

after such a disastrous storm last week?

How can this be possible, dear God?

Because we live on a planet

where we clearly can see your hand.

And it has given life and cause…

But far too often now

we continue to experience,

at a moment’s notice,

the precious, sweet gift of life torn away, from us.

How can these contradictions be possible?

Questions!

Well, the popular 80s song writer, Karla Bonhoff --

tried to answer, when she wrote:

"We never know where life will take us,

and it's just a ride on the wheel.

And we never know when death will shake us

and we wonder how it will feel."

For me, when tragic death comes,

I feel scattered and just don't know how to feel,

except to be afraid and numb.

So, as I walked up our drive way,

I heard a voice coming from next door…

it was a child’s voice,

and it was as clear as a bell.

She said, only four words,

“Because, I love you.”

There it was…the answer!

In full bloom.

God loved June Einhorn into being on of all days -- June 1^st, 1948

And from all who knew her,

June was clearly Number 1.

In fact,

both Eric and Lucinda Harris told me recently

that they have never know anyone

with such deep character and firm convictions.

June made a difference where ever she was.

And we saw that first had here at Christ Church

and with you all as Choir Family for sure.

Eric, Ashley, Nick and Terrence…

Dawn, Ann, Jack, and Jill --

We all feel so badly for each of you right now.

But somehow now through all of this,

God speaks to you with a broken heart, too

God weeps today, but God will never abandon us.

And long after this service is over,

you will always have our love and support, too.

Someone once defined grief as “the pain of letting go.”

I like that.

I think it accurately describes what we do

every time a loved one dies;

we have to let go, ready or not.

It felt like that yesterday in the memorial garden,

didn’t it?

And so, today we gather here to continue our grieving,

not so much to find absolute answers.

But in this grief, let us never forget

that what matters most for people of faith…

whether we are Jewish, Catholic, Episcopalian,

each one of us in our own spiritual journey,

can NOW fully understand…

this answer.

That is - the God of Abraham is the source of all life

and when we die

each of us returns to this very same source

of goodness and love.

And, if that’s not a message of hope…Then I don’t know what is.

Because, the essence of God is pure unconditional Love…

And that cannot be purchased.

Hope and Love are Simple, Free gifts.

It doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to figure this out!

They come under the heading called -- Grace.

It was in the midst of a cold Maine winter in 1848,

when the Shaker hymn writer Joseph Brackett, once wrote –

“‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of Love and Delight.”

It seems to me this is exactly

where June is today, isn’t she?

With the Resurrected Christ,

surrounded by Love and Delight.

June Hume Einhorn

Today, as you enter the New Jerusalem…

We lift you to God.

We left you to God with all the love of our heart and say…

good bye and thank you in the very same breath.

Thank you for your loving presence in our lives…

You will always be loved.

Amen.

Emerging Church asks, "What is Jesus' vision of the kingdom?"

The following is a fascinating review by Scot McKnight which I find very helpful as we try to understand more and more the Emerging Church movement in America. Please let me know your thoughts...

Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois).


There are a number of approaches to talking about the emergent church or, as I have preferred to talk -- emerging movement and emergent village/church, and the two favorite approaches are to say: it's dead or it's undefinable. About four years ago I was asked the "Whither Emergent?" question: Where was emerging headed?

At the time I suggested three things: some emerging Christians will become mainline liberals (or progressives as many prefer to be called now), some will retreat a bit by assuming their old seats in evangelical churches, and others will continue to impact the evangelical movement in a missional or expansive, robust gospel direction. I don't have numbers, but that's probably about right, but I've since realized that there really weren't that many other options. Anyway, I'm not into futurism or prophesying.

One thing is very, very clear now: many in the emerging movement, and especially many in what I preferred to call the "emergent" crowd, have taken up solid stances in the American mainline churches. You will probably find folks like Brian McLaren and Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt and Phyllis Tickle more often among the mainline crowd than among evangelicals. It can be said that emergent's biggest influence is probably right now more with the mainline than anywhere else -- except to offer two caveats: (1) many evangelicals who have emerging sympathies were worn down by the progressive direction of others and just dropped the label and are still emerging while (2) many other emerging folks are creative and living in the cracks of the mainline-evangelical divide but really don't have a central organization right now for some kind of overt identification. I could be wrong, but this is what I'm seeing and sensing.

Which leads me to my point: Philip Clayton's new book, Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society , is nothing if it is not the fully skinny on progressive, mainline-shaped emergent theology. If Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy mapped the frustration and ambivalences of many emergent thinkers and wonderers, Clayton's book maps the terrain and the direction of the same.
Clayton argues that theology has been the prerogative an elite group of professors, but he believes it's got to be seen as what all of us do instead of just what the professors and professionals do. He outlines what can only be called a progressive emergent agenda for doing theology in a series of proposals -- too many to name here. It's a good book and I hope it gets a wide hearing. Thus, his emphases are:

Belonging, behaving, believing
Change is important and inevitable
Big Tent theology doesn't have to be divisive
Theology creates story and it leads to action
Activism is shaped by theology
Church ministries are sliding into missional churches

But what struck me about Clayton's book, and it struck me because I thought it was noticeably old-fashioned and at the same time not completely in sync with the central themes of the book itself, was the six questions of theology he thinks that folks are asking and need to ask:

1. Who is God?
2. Who is Jesus, called the Christ?
3. Who is the Spirit, or the Holy Spirit?
4. What is humanity?
5. What is the problem of sin, and what does salvation mean?
6. What is the nature and function of the church?
7. What is the future in which we hope and for which we long?

Well, as I read this, I thought -- straight out of the old categories of theological textbooks. Surprised me.

And what I found mission was a Jesus-shaped core to those questions, a Jesus whose kingdom vision was reshaping all theological questions: And Philip's book is shaped more by that set of categories than those six. So, I wonder if the first question isn't "What is Jesus' vision of the kingdom?" and how does that question re-shape the whole?

Contemporary Christianity - what might this look like for us? Here is a fresh approach which deserves some conversation.

This is a fascinating review by Gladys Ganiel -- a Lecturer and Coordinator of the Reconciliation Studies Programme at the Belfast campus of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. Please see her blog at http://tinyurl.com/yeb2fwm

Dave Tomlinson is one of the keynote speakers at the Belfast Re-Emergence Conference, ‘The Church is Dead, Long Live the Church,’ scheduled for March 16-18, 2010, at the Irish School of Ecumenics (Trinity College Dublin at Belfast). In his most recent book, Re-Enchanting Christianity: Faith in an Emerging Culture, (Canterbury Press, 2008) Tomlinson dissects all that is unattractive and downright revolting about contemporary Christianity in the West. From there, he offers some insights on how Christians can engage more wholesomely (I deliberately do not say ‘effectively’) with the challenges of post-modernity.

As I read the book I couldn’t help thinking of the American Methodist theologian Stanley Hauerwas, who once said something to the effect:


‘The church in the West isn’t dying, God is killing it.’

Hauerwas’ remark casts ‘secularization’ and Christianity in the West in quite a different spiritual light than they are usually seen. Christians usually feel a deep unease about declining church attendance, and all that secularization is supposed to entail. Among the faithful remnant, there has been some mourning for the ‘death’ of church institutions, and lament over the fact that the great and the good don’t seem to listen to the churches anymore.

But Hauerwas’ comment – and much of Tomlinson’s book – force Christians to ask whether the church institutions to which they cling are really worth saving in their present form. Could it be that the ‘religion’ of Christianity that has been constructed in the West is something that ‘God’ might quite like casting away?

For Tomlinson, aspects of contemporary Christianity that we would be better off without are what he sees as damaging and inhumane beliefs about how the bible should be read, the meaning of the atonement, whether or not the resurrection actually happened (and if it matters!), the uniqueness of Christ, the efficacy of prayer, and the existence of hell.

The debates and questions that Tomlinson raises around these and other issues will be especially familiar to people from evangelical and charismatic traditions. Most of his critiques are aimed at debunking the common answers to such questions offered within conservative evangelicalism.

This is not surprising, given that Tomlinson himself is the original ‘Post-Evangelical,’ the man who gave us that very term in his 1995 book of the same name. He is a former charismatic house church leader and is part of the wider ‘emerging church’ movement, which itself is a child of the discontented daughters and sons of modern North Atlantic evangelicalism.

Tomlinson offers alternative perspectives on these issues which reflect his genuine engagement with people in the culture around him (through his work now as a parish priest in North London) and a wide reading of major theologians and philosophers of the past generation, including Thomas Merton, Walter Wink, C.S. Lewis, Paul Ricoeur, Walter Brueggemann, Marcus Borg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rene Girard, and more.

Tomlinson handles these thinkers with a confident and light touch that is appropriate for a popular audience. But in a relatively slight book (148 pages) with 15 slim chapters, the reader is often left longing for more meat from the bones of their works. Here, an annotated bibliography would have been helpful for those who are new to some of these theologians and philosophers, or seeking further directions for reading.

In the 15th and final chapter of the book, ‘Mission Statement,’ Tomlinson identifies five areas that he thinks should ‘really matter’ to Christians in the 21st Century. When I began to read this chapter I was disgruntled about this exercise, as it seemed to me too formulaic considering the relatively free-flowing approach to faith that Tomlinson advocates throughout.

But once I got over that, I did recognise value in Tomlinson’s five observations:

Christian mission in the 21st century requires a kingdom orientation, rather than a church orientation
Christian mission in the 21st century needs to be focused on spirituality, rather than apologetics
Christian mission in the 21st century needs to be holistic rather than dualistic
Christian mission in the 21st century needs to be dialogical rather than monological
Christian mission in the 21st century needs to find expression through open, empowering church communities
These five points of course draw on themes Tomlinson develops in the earlier chapters, and include examples of and ideas about what holistic and welcoming groups of Christians might look like.

Tomlinson’s choice of the word ‘mission’, and the ways in which he thinks it should be exercised, also resonate with the international conference my school is hosting in Dublin, June 16-18, 2010, ‘From World Mission to Interreligious Witness: Visioning Ecumenism in the 21st Century.’

Like this conference, Tomlinson urges us to push beyond the easy association of mission with evangelism or proselytization, and to replace the negative association of mission with something empowering (page 130):

‘… for me, mission is not about trying to get people ‘saved’, or trying to get them to join the Church, or even about trying to get them to convert to Christianity. Mission is about making God’s liberating love and peace and justice a flesh-and-blood reality in ways that can potentially transform people’s lives, or potentially transform a neighbourhood, or potentially transform the world.’