koraps

joy of being broken

2005-11-24T22:21:00.000-03:30

“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares” Micah 4:8, Isaiah 2:4

“Men are terrified at suffering, at even the thought of suffering. Yet, through suffering only can one attain wisdom. Through suffering only can one attain the greatness of understanding. And without suffering it is hard to attain the kingdom of heaven”
Mr. Blue

As I walk the halls of the hospital and poke my head into patient’s rooms, into patients lives, for a moment or a collection of them it is like little lights shine into myself pointing out how I am broken. I see overwhelming courage from an elderly catholic woman who knows she is dieing but smiles and says “there are others much worse off and I have the Lord”. I wonder if my faith would be sufficient enough to say that if I were in the hospital bed. A young blind girl’s face begins to shine as I read Proverbs to her and I ponder when the last time I smiled so at the beauty of hearing God’s word. A voodoo priest exhorts the nature of his faith to me and I wonder when was the last time I vocally evangelized. A man dieing of AIDs wonders if being close to his family again is worth the pain his immanent death will cause them. As he extols his fear of love he is voicing fears I have spoken within my own soul. As another man tells me promptly to leave I wonder how many times have I rebuked someone attempting to over me a caring hand. Each visit seems a blazing light into myself pinpointing parts of my own broken nature, some of them are small lights some of them are large. No visit is without some bit of life.

Part of me wants to ignore the brokenness. It is like allowing the soda commercials and the plot of this weeks CSI Miami to distract one from the war and strife rampant in the world. I can try deluding myself into a false sense of wholeness. It involves a careful structuring of my life. I must create blinders for myself as if I were a carriage horse. It is a task of focusing solely on the road I want to look at and blinding myself to the unexpected horrors on either side. Forever I will worry about the thing that will blindside me at four pm on some idle Tuesday. When such an event happens, and each visit into a hospital room, any interaction with another individual, is a mini blindsiding, each has the potential to be a major one. This option is really not an option.

I can attempt to be like Dr. Frankenstein and patch all of these pieces back together into some form of man. I have often looked at myself as a collection of potsherds in need of an archaeologist, wondering in what ancient tomb lays the diagram of all my pieces perfectly arranged, seeking out the chemical formula for the glue that shall cause the pieces to adhere to each other without seem as if never broken. In the end this process is a vain attempt to worm myself past the angel with the sword of fire at the gates of Eden.

Where then am I to go? My thoughts turn to a statue before the BU Chapel that depicts an heavenly flock of birds soaring upwards from the granite base; it is both an ascension of doves and also swords being transformed into plowshares. The prophet’s call to turn swards into plowshares causes my soul to tremble with double images of the same field, soaked in the blood of the dying at wartime or filled with bountiful harvest in the midst of peace. It seems such straightforward pageantry from the Old Testament prophets: “make peace not war”. A few slashes of paint upon poster board and I too can join the picket line. A meaning so obvious makes this passage one easily passed over, its not one naturally cuddled deep in the heart.

For who would want to cuddle either a sword or a plowshare? These are items chill to the touch and a tax to carry; they are implements to rend and tear smooth surfaces apart. Our culture holds such a huge dichotomy between the two I think the gulf between them seems smaller then we would like it to be. I remember how ancient Roman marriage contracts speak of the consummation of the marriage as being a “plowing”, this is particularly the breaking of the virgin wife’s hymen. This is an idea of plowshares we want to leave behind, but knowing this makes me question the nature of these two tools.

A man takes up his tool, pierces the surface before him, and marks a long tear upon it. He rips apart the outer covering revealing the life giving essence within. Moisture moves forth from the tear and deep smells blaze across the man’s nostrils. Sweat beads across the man’s brow as he continues to rip again and again tearing the surface before him apart. The man is a breaker; a breaker of soil or of other men is a matter of context.

Something has broken me. The question is: was it a sword or a plowshare. In what context do I take my brokenness? Do I allow myself to be pierced by a sword or do I turn that sword into a plowshare? Do I allow my lifeblood to bleed out of the scars and into the nothingness of hell or do I allow the Holy Spirit to enter into the broken spaces and plant seeds for the harvest?

If I make what is piercing me a plowshare, if I see my brokenness as space for the Holy Spirit to enter inside of me then suddenly my brokenness is the place of my greatest joy. The inner turmoil within me, the fractures unveiled by placing my hands into the mud of the world, this is where the Holy Ghost has freedom to move. This lack of contentment the recognizing of turmoil and brokenness is the revelation of the Holy Spirit’s fire in the process of purification. It is where my spirituality my relationship with god is actually occurring.

It is in this odd way that my brokenness is what makes me useful as a minister, as a Christian, as a human being. It is what allows me to relate to the patient on the hospital bed or the elderly woman walking down the street smiling with a lilac shawl tied around her head. It is what allows me to be.

Throwing Stones

2005-11-23T12:43:00.000-03:30

All my reporting life, I have thrown small pebbles into a very large pond, and have no way of knowing whether any pebble caused the slightest ripple. I don't need to worry about that. My responsibility was the effort. I belong to a global fellowship, men and women, concerned with the welfare of the planet and its least protected inhabitants. - Martha Gellhorn

Butterfly Effect: The idea that if a butterfly chances to flap his wings in Beijing in March, then, by August, hurricane patterns in the Atlantic will be completely different.

Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. -Rev. 12:12

God’s time is not short. This is a very good thing for humanity but also much of a headache for the people who work for God. Ministers, by their very human nature, are incapable of seeing how their role actually fits into the great network of God’s Work on earth. The implications of our actions cannot be charted. What hurricane currently hitting the church started five hundred years ago by a turn of phrase in a sermon? In ten years what will be the results of our sitting down and talking with a friend for half an hour, even if that conversation is long forgotten? These are questions we are incapable of answering, The fact that we have no ability to know the results of our actions is a reason, amidst many, why we should attempt lives of unceasing prayer, so that our actions may be guided by God.
Overcoming the impracticality, from our eyes, of working on God’s time is one of the challenges that face ministers. It is fair to say that this aspect of ministry is highlighted in Pastoral Care work at Hospitals where the vast majority of the care is transient in nature. This comes to bear on the chaplain constantly.
The chaplain is entering into a hurricane completely unknown. The few details, such as prognosis, age, and sex, give no real clue as to what atmosphere one is entering. For instance two male patients in their late twenties and early thirties both have been knifed. One may be emotionally distraught and having to readdress his entire relationship with the world the other quite stoic, a mishap by all means but not one that is unexpected. The latter will be glad he still has his life the former wondering how can his life continue. The reactions are based on the patient’s prior history, on the many butterfly wings that have shaped their personality.
The reaction to the chaplain is also tempered by this hurricane. In actuality the patient is not reacting to the individual chaplain who is walking in the door but to the impression that prior “chaplains” have left on the patient’s psyche. When the patient trusts the chaplain it is because former chaplains have upheld integrity on which the patient can rely. When the chaplain is cursed out of the room it is obvious that the integrity of “chaplains” has been compromised for that person. Thus it is important for the chaplain to not take such reactions personally and also to remember that the chaplain is a steward of the integrity of all chaplains and how fragile a thing that is.
The greater struggle lies in letting go. The hospital chaplain’s contact with charges is brief. When the rare close pastor-pastoree relationship is formed it is a fleeting thing. If a chaplain does have the joy of being God’s instrument of nourishment in a closer atmosphere the chaplain shall not see the fruit that comes from this labour. Thus the chaplain’s attachment to the charges must be true and genuine, but one that is forever capable of letting go. This means that the chaplain cannot trespass on the work and give it terms of self-ownership but must always realize that the work is God’s. By this means the chaplain can be at one time fully present, in a theotokasal way, but also fully detached, in the sense of needing results and ownership.
What is it then that a chaplain may “own”? The chaplain “owns”, or better holds, the duty of throwing “small pebbles”. As Martha Gellhorn points out the responsibility is in the effort of this action, not in seeing the result of this action. A chaplain’s duty is to throw little pebbles of “love” at the patient and do so knowing that charting what ripples this pebble will cause is impossible. Learning to have pebbles that are truly of “love” and the accuracy to throw them correctly is part of the chaplain’s ongoing duty.
This aspect of ministry, the fact that ministry works on God’s time, is inherent in all forms of ministry. Even those ministry relationships that are long term are in the end of God not of our own making. The overall results of being an active instrument of God’s creation in this way are unfathomable. Minister’s are butterflies slowly moving their wings and by allowing that movement to be open to God they allow God’s Hurricanes to be the result of their flutters. Within the hospital all a chaplain can do is flutter, not seeing how the flutters affect the winds of the lives of the patients. It is our task to keep fluttering and allow God to place other ministers in the right place and the right time to flutter once again.

2005-11-19T22:09:00.000-03:30

A Persian Apolugue

Love came to crave sweet love, if love might be;
To the Belovëd’s door he came, and knocked:—
‘And who art thou?’ she asked,—‘we know not thee!’
Then shyly listened, nor the door unlocked.
Love answered, ‘It is I!’ ‘Nay, thee and me
This house will never hold.’—’Twas thus she mocked
His piteous quest; and, weeping, home went he,
While thro’ the night the moaning plane-tree rocked.

Three seasons sped, and lo, again Love came;
Again he knocked; again in simple wise,
‘Pray, who is there?’ she asked,—‘What is thy name?’
But Love had learnt the magic of replies,—
‘It is Thyself!’ he whispered, and behold,
The door was opened, and love’s mystery told.
-Samuel Waddington, 1844

“A Persian Apolugue” covers the lover’s fight to enter into the house of the beloved. Entrance is achieved when the lover identifies not as “It is I” but as “It is Thyself”. This is hauntingly similar to the relationship God has with humanity. The relationship began with YHWH, I am who I am, and through the amazing tale of the Jewish people transcended into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Suddenly God can identify not only as “I am who I am” but also as “I am Thyself”. This is the movement that takes us beyond the Law and into an intricately deep relationship with the Godhead. It is this relationship dynamic that the minister must keep in mind at all times when attempting pastoral care.
In a hospital setting the one needing pastoral care, the patient, is already overwhelmed. Firstly there is the problem for which the patient has been hospitalized and the immediate needs that causes. Secondly there is the cause of that problem, be it random illness, tragic accident, or an act of violence, which adds another level. Third, there is the fact that reality has come crashing down on the patient bringing all of the issues we try to ignore to the forefront. In the hospital there is a lot of time to dwell on these issues.
Into the above enters the minister, the hospital chaplain, in hopes of being an aide. The chaplain’s purpose at this point is not to add more to the patient’s plate but to aid the patient with what is already there. This means the chaplain’s own spiritual identity, dogma, and the like must take a back seat to that of the patient. The goal is to make the patient aware of inner strengths that are currently unrecognized.
A Christian Chaplain might say that the purpose of the pastoral visit is to make the patient recognize the Christ Light within. Such a phrase, however, might be easily lost on the patient. An exceptionally Christian yet also universally understandable approach would be to help the patient recognize where various fruits of the spirit come into his or her life. The fruits all have recognizable secular meanings and the patient’s ability to acknowledge that any one of them is part of his or her life will be an aide to recovery.
When this happens the chaplain is knocking on the door and saying not “it is I” but “it is thyself”. This, as Waddington tells us, allows the door between the chaplain and the patient to open. This is not an easy task and requires basic skills on the part of the chaplain. First is the need to be relaxed within the hospital setting and with the diversity of patient views. Agitation and distraction cause the Chaplain to not be able to be present to the patient and being judgmental will simply cause the patient to retreat. Secondly is the ability to draw out and reflect back the Christ light of the patient. This is not an easy task yet certain skills, such as reflective listening techniques, can increase chances of success. Third the chaplain’s own spiritual stability and intention of being a God-bearing and God-pointing individual is the basis from which all the above finds nourishment. Thus the chaplain’s need to be an “I” is not diminished by the process of being presented as “thyself” but must in fact be stronger, and is made more the stronger, by the process.
Waddington reminds us that to for two people to form a relationship they must recognize the commonality between them. Chaplains must recognize this commonality as given and then become vessels for the best part of the person before them so that they can give that part back to the patient. This sharing of self and recognizing of commonality is one of the great mysteries of relationships. The terrible good is that as Christians we must recognize that humanity shares such commonality with the Godhead.

All Saints... fear to faith

2005-11-07T22:51:00.000-03:30

To be Hallowed is to be made holy, to become saintly. Our modern holidays are far removed from the battles between Pagan Religions and Christianity to rule the calander. It is really not surprising, however, that Halloween is well known while the fact that it is “all hallows eve” or the “eve of the feast of all saints” is rather forgotten. We are stuck on our fears and therefore we cannot move beyond the witching hour into All Saints Day.

Halloween is the day when we live out, even put on costumes and embody, our fears. All the television stations play Horror Movie Marathons all day long. It’s the night when it is perfectly acceptable to curl up with a bit of Poe or Lovecraft and be frightened by tentacled horrors and pithy ravens. It calls to mind the devilish rendition of Bach in Disney’s fantasia with the ghost and demons frolicking throughout the town wreaking havoc but then dawn comes and they melt away into the night. What if the dawn did not come, what if we were stuck in some point right before dawn?

How many of us are stuck at that point of being afraid, of allowing the ghost and demons to frolic as they will and thus we do not seek out the dawn. How often are we children content to play in the mud of the gutter and refusing a trip to the seashore, just because we are afraid of what that might mean? How often do we stay with our fears, stay with All Hallows Eve and do not enter into All Saints Day?

The past months have beset us with many pitfalls. Terrorist attacks continue around the world, natural disasters follow one after another, even the calmest of news broadcasters cannot help but bring up the idea of Apocalypse. People have been left numb, too afraid to act. As a nation, as a people, we are beginning to let fear rule our lives from our governmental policies to our day-to-day existence… this is a wretched trend that seems to be growing not weakening.

In the midst of this I am reminded of one of Virginia Woolf’s diary entries about the air raids on London during the Blitz “We count now on an air raid about 8.30. Anyhow, whether or not, we hear the sinister sawing noise about then, which loudens and fades; then a pause; then another comes. ‘They’re at it again,’ we say as we sit, I doing my work, L. making cigarettes. Now and then there’s a thud. The windows shake. So we know London is raided again.” I wonder at what point we lost that ability to go on in the face of fear. To not let fear override who and what we are.

Since the Berlin Wall came down Americans did not have much to fear. In the nineties we seemed to coast, but now in this new millennium we find ourselves with war, terrorism, and natural disaster in our face. The ever-present fears caused by our human condition are now in our face. The world has not changed, we have simply become more aware of its harshness. We no longer have a warm blanket covering our eyes, fear surrounds us, newspapers evoke it, politicians use it, and we are stalled by it.

This is odd, however. I remember long talks in Labrador about the failing economy, based on declining fisher stocks. . A series of bad winds in winter can mean a month without mail, without supplies. Electricity is dependant upon diesel generators, what we use for back up. The gravel roads, the somewhat reliable form of transport, went from ice slicks, to potted with holes, to covered in small rocks that might as well be marbles… all of which cause accidents even with the safest of driving. Gales can come upon the sea wrecking boats and maiming and killing their crews. There were days in winter where the snow came down so hard that there was nothing but white to be seen and with winds blowing the cold air and snow so swiftly that it could immediately scar your face and quickly kill you. As spring approached Polar Bears would wander into towns and children and pets were quickly brought in side as everything stopped until the bears could be chased from town. There are no hospitals, only nurse’s stations with minimal healthcare and no quick access to other facilities. Day to day existence there involves a level of risk we in the suburbs of Boston find hard to even contemplate.

If fear were to rule there decision making they would probably leave. Yet they stay to enjoy a night under the Aurora Borealis. To traipse over hills to rarely seen valleys covered in luscious wild berries. To live in a place where a four year old can walk down the block to pick up cold medicine for her grandmother on credit in complete safety, where every Sunday involves a proper dinner after church, and where there is always time for a cup of tea. Where a long night of fiddles, accordions, guitars, and harmonicas playing old tunes we all know but never hear is only a few days past or a few away.

There are risks to living in Labrador, risk that people need to be wary of, but the people who live there take those risks in order to enjoy life in a way beautiful and unique. Here outside of Boston we have our own set of risk, risk we need to be aware and wary of, but we cannot let fear of those risks stop us from enjoying life. Stop us from doing our work and “making cigarettes”, though I hope your hobbies do not involve such risk to your lungs…

How does this not being ruled by our fears enter into being hallowed, being made holy? So far I have spoken in general, I have spoken of cultures and communal fears. The first step in being hallowed is realizing what we fear. Let me suggest some things people fear. People fear being impoverished, financially, emotionally, in any way we fear poverty. We fear loss, we fear loosing those people and things that are dear to us. We fear being gentle and soft and having the world crush us with its brutality. We fear acknowledging that the world around us on every level is fallen and in need of aide. We fear the amount of energy it takes to be truly ourselves. We fear the commitment it takes to reconcile ourselves with those around us. We fear becoming outcasts in our communities.

Maybe you do not fear all of these things, but I am sure that somewhere in that list there is something you fear. What is odd is that these things, things we fear, are the very characteristics of those Christ calls blessed.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”… Luke’s rendition says simply “the poor”… regardless Christ is talking about recognizing our impoverishment… you might have a steady income a good house but each of us have ways in which we are poor… inside each of us there are places where we are impoverished. Recognizing our impoverishment means overcoming our fear of it… If we do this Christ names us blessed and promises the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn”… we fear loss, we fear recognizing our loss, of dealing with those places inside of us wear we are hurt and aching, Christ blesses those willing to enter into the dark and lonely places of existence… He promises them comfort.

“Blessed are the meek”… we fear being gentle, meek, and mild… who wants to be the victim of bullies, in our dog eat dog world its everyone for themselves and the top dog wins, meet any force with and greater force to vanquish it… yet Christ tells us it is the meek, the gentle soul who will inherit the earth… I for one like the idea of a world owned by grandmothers with warm cookies and artists like Merwin, Woolfe, and Da Vinchi over ours ruled by Oil Syndicates and Armies with Guns.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”… We want to block out how the world is fallen, not only in the since of war, natural disaster, and the like, but also in the sense of our day-to-day life. We fear realizing how distant we are from righteousness, we want to think we are already there, but Christ blesses those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, those who realize it is something they must seek, to those he promises fulfillment.

“Blessed are the Merciful”… we want to judge; we want to think we understand how the world works and who is right and who is wrong. We want to think there is a black and a white and the divide between them is large and easily discernable and that we can lay down the law. Christ blesses those who plunge into the scary gray and continually show mercy… he promises to give mercy to the merciful… let us hope he does the same to those who are afraid to be merciful…

“Blessed are the Pure in Heart”… I find it scary to think what I would be if I were pure in heart, if I were truly acting fully within God’s will, the thought of being blessed by seeing the face of god is frightening for me as well. The idea of being an instrument of God is for me a scary responsibility… it is at this point that I continue to fear yet continue to move forward.

“Blessed are the Peacemakers”… The amount of commitment it takes to become a bringer of peace is frightening. It is daunting and scary and something that I really would rather not deal with. It is only, however, when we grapple with this commitment to bring peace to those around us and to be at peace with those around us that we are blessed with the name “children of god”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, who are reviled and persecuted falsely on the account of Christ”… none of us want to be outcasts… we do not want to be thrown out of our community… yet if we look at those things we were just talking about, the virtues Christ calls blessed we will be acting against the culture in which we live. To be a Christian culture is a counter culture. If we take up the gospel fully we should be prepared to be ostracized. We are blessed then with the community of heaven, which stretches through all time.

To be hallowed, to be holy, to become saintly is a matter of moving from fear into faith. It is a matter of allowing dawn to turn into day. It is to place aside the earthly things to which we cling and exchange them for things heavenly. On this day when we celebrate All Saints I ask you move your life out of Halloween, out of the land of demons and ghost, that you move past the dark witching hour of your fears and into faith, that you stop living in the eve of hallowed and enter into being hallowed. The actions to begin this are simple; they are the great mystery the liturgy brings us to every Sunday. Confess your faith, bring your worries and fears to God in prayer, lament your sins, and come to the altar to be hallowed by the heavenly feast.

felix culpa

2005-06-04T20:40:00.000-02:30

I am so glad I am a sinner… well actually I am glad that I can admit I am a sinner, that I am here and God is there and that I know there is a good bit of space between the two of us that needs to be covered. It is exciting to know how much of me there is for God to work with and to change by means of Love and Grace.

I do not have to be afraid of the fact that I am a sinner. Christ tells us today that “he came to call not the righteous but sinners.” Christ came to call sinners, to call those separated from God, back to God. Every time you come into this church you acknowledge the fact that you are a sinner by saying the Confession. Today’s service started with the confession, when we have Holy Communion the Confession comes right before the Eucharistic prayers begin. Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer we ask that God “forgive us our trespasses”. Our liturgy and the prayer Christ himself taught us to pray have us say, “I am a sinner”.

We do not need to be afraid of our sinful nature… we need to acknowledge it. Once we say “I am a sinner” then Christ can begin to work within us. Its only after we recognize that there is a separation between us and God that Christ can come in and help us bridge that gap.

Today we see Christ reaching out to us, to the sinner. He reaches out to Matthew, the tax collector, and says “come follow me”. Unlike the other disciples Matthew does not have a reputable job, as a tax collector he makes his money extorting his fellow Jews. If a man owes the government $350 Matthew charges him $400 and pockets $50. What does Christ say but “follow me”. Yes Mathew is a sinner, no he has not been a good person, yet what does Christ want of him but that Matthew should be a disciple, an apostle, a leader of the church.

Does Christ avoid sinners? No, he sits and eats with them. He befriends them. Talks with them. And when someone wonders why is Christ eating with sinners does Christ act ashamed? No, Christ says that the whole reason he is here is to meet with, talk with, and be a friend to sinners. Christ chooses to be in the company of sinners.

This is a man whose mere presence makes a woman believe that if only she can touch his cloak she will be healed of a twelve-year hemorrhage. Not “if only Christ will bless me”, not “if only Christ will make eye contact with me” but “if only I can touch the outer most edge of his garment for the briefest of moments then I will be healed”. And what is it that Christ does but turns to her, a complete stranger, and calls her “daughter”. This woman was like all of us a sinner, she was a woman Christ had never met, and yet immediately Christ treats this sinner as his own flesh and blood.

A young girl is thought dead… the funeral party has already begun to gather. Christ walks into the room takes her by the hand and the girl gets up. We are sinners, we are dead in our sin. Christ has come into the world, to call us, to sit down and eat with us as a friend, to love us as a parent loves a children, to reach out his hand to us and bring us into life.

I am a sinner… I am glad that I can acknowledge that I am a sinner… I am glad I know that there is a separation between me and God. It gives me a chance to hear God’s Call, to be Christ’s friend, to be loved by God as God’s child, to be able to clasp God’s hand and be brought into life.

wise man built his house upon a rock

2005-05-28T22:36:00.000-02:30

It is low tide. A big truck pulls into the harbour with a van right behind it. Out of the van comes a construction crew. Out of the back of the truck comes the most expensive grandest building material you have ever seen. Within a matter of hours this crew, the most amazing group of carpenters, builders, electricians, and plumbers erect the most beautiful house you have ever seen. They do all of this in the bay beyond the high tide mark while the tide is still out.

The tide does what it normally does and comes in. And suddenly this beautiful house is in the middle of the bay… rather useless. Over the next month the tide creeps in and out and soon the house is a pile of expensive rubble in the bay.

You would call whoever paid to have this house built a fool. We all know that a shack on dry land is better then a mansion under water.

The lessons today ask us to apply the same thought to our actions. We all try to do good things. We know that coming here to worship on Sunday is a good thing to do. We have to be careful, however. We can come here together on Sunday and have the most beautiful service in the world. We can build the most palatial church. We can have an award-winning choir with a record album. We can have all of that and be no better then the man who tried to build his house out in the bay.

We do not need any of that. We do not even need the building we are in, the hangings around the altar, this pulpit I am standing at… by themselves they are useless. They are as worthless a gesture as building a house out in the bay.

Any value in anything around us comes from our first having faith. You can come to church pick up this prayer book and say the words in it until you are blue in the face… and if you are not doing so in hopes of getting a closer relationship to God… well, you might as well not be here.

If you are here in church for any reason except the stirring of the spirit within you to have a relationship to Christ… then you are building a very palatial house out in the bay.

Even the smallest of houses built on dry land is better then a mansion in the bay. Christ is the dry land. Even the smallest of prayers done in Christ’s Love is grander then the most heroic deed done away from the Love of Christ. Faith in Christ gives meaning to this pulpit I am standing at, the hangings on the altar, this building itself.
As Christians our purpose is faith in Christ. Our deeds must be built on that faith, on the Love of Christ. When we act not out of Christ Love our deeds are like a mansion built out in the bay. They might be beautiful and magnificent… but in the end they are rather worthless.

ascension and mothers day

2005-05-04T19:40:00.000-02:30

“That they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”

Those words from today’s gospel state Jesus’ purpose for all that he did. The miracles of healing, the wonder of Jesus feeding the five thousand from a few loaves of bread, the many parables and sermons he spoke, being crucified upon the cross, rising from the dead, and as we celebrate today his ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of God. All of this was in hope that we might know the only true God and Jesus Christ.
Today we also celebrate two things with similar goals: Sunday school and Mothers. Sunday School attempts to teach youth about God and Jesus’ life. Mothers attempt to teach children those lessons needed to survive the “real world”, without a mother no child would have the chance to Know God and Jesus Christ.
This is the day of the Ascension, where Christ, his teaching done, leaves the men and women who will come to lead the church. We read about them today in the first lesson huddled in an upper room in prayer. So to today do we mark five of our Sunday School students finished with their first instruction into Christianity. Our five confirmands have finished their time in Sunday school. We have taught them as best we can, to want to know God and Jesus Christ, to pass on what we know of Christianity to them. A few years from now these same five will leave home and finish their time learning directly under their mothers.
At that point for a while they shall be uncertain, like the disciples, Mary, and others, praying in that upper room, unsure, afraid.
Overtime something glorious will happen. For the founders of the church it was the coming of the Holy Spirit. Next week in church you will hear how at Pentecost the same men and women today huddled praying in a small upper room are suddenly preaching to thousands of people. These men and women go on to found the same church of which we are members. They begin to do the work that our Sunday School continues today, to teach to teach in order that we might know God and Jesus Christ.
It is the same with children, who are charged with a new spirit when the mantle of adulthood falls upon them. So that the mother finds the lessons she instills in her children added to the child’s own, then shown in a new light, brought to bear on the world in ways she never expected and might not understand. The mother realizes that the adult the child becomes depended on two things: the knowledge she gave her child and that she stepped back and allowed the child to bear that knowledge as an adult.
When mothers do this, instill the knowledge they can and, when the time comes, step back, they imitate our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’s actions on the day of Ascension. It is only by a mother stepping back that the child has a chance to become an adult, it was only by Jesus’ ascension into heaven, leaving the men and women who were his closest friends behind alone praying in an upper room, that the Holy Ghost could enter into these men and women’s lives giving them the strength to found the church.
The foundation of an adult’s life are the lessons learned as a child, the foundation of the church are the lessons taught by Christ. Today we celebrate those who taught us what it is to be ourselves, to know God and Jesus Christ.

fifth sunday of easter

2005-04-24T17:34:00.000-02:30

There is a story in the Buddhist religion of a mother who went to see the Buddha. First her husband had died, then the only remaining elder family member she had died, she was then left only with her young son. She then was left to watch as her boy took ill and died. She carried her dead child to the wise men looking for someone who may be able to bring him back to life. Finally this brought her to the door of the Buddha. There she begged him for a way to bring her son back to life. The Buddha told her to find a handful of mustard seed, the commonest of local spices, in the village. He told her that the mustard must come a house where no one has died, not a parent, a spouse, a child, or even a friend. The woman went off in search of the spice but at the first house she entered the grandmother had just died a few days before, at the next house she met a man who had lost both his wife in childbirth three years ago, and at each house she visited there was another story, another house touched by death. She reached the end of the village and in every house she had heard another tale of death. It was at this point that she realized that everyone and everything that is born dies. She went back to the Buddha and asked for wisdom and refuge to guide her in this world of birth and death…

There was a custom in the Buddhist country of Tibet of bidding a traveler farewell at the beginning of a journey. A group of friends would prepare tea and cakes and banners a few miles out along the road and wait for the traveler. When the traveler reached the group a little final party was had and good byes said, wishing a prosperous journey.

It is such a last gathering we see in today’s gospel. It is also in today’s we see one of Christ’s meaningful teachings to us when we are faced, as the mother who went to the Buddha was faced, with death. The words “I go to prepare a room in my father’s house” are words we say at the beginning of every funeral. They are a comfort to hear, to know that for each of us, for those we loved who are no longer with us, there is a place, at the end, to go.

We have the knowledge that to know Christ, to read of his deeds and his words, is to know the father, to know the creator of the universe.
Christ is the way the truth and the life. Christ is the wisdom and refuge we seek in this world of birth and death. He will be with us at death as he was with the martyr Stephen as he was stoned. Christ will be with us now if we are like newborn infants and long for the pure spiritual milk, by it we can grow into salvation. If we go to him we will be the living stones with which God will build the Kingdom of Heaven… allow yourself to become a spiritual house and God will be with you in this world of birth and death.

good shepherd (does any one know what sunday this really was?)

2005-04-16T18:43:00.000-02:30

We have the sheep, we have the thieves, and we have the shepherd. In all this where do we fit in?

All of us, of course, are sheep. We are Christians; we are the flock of Christ. Arriving at church this morning is an attempt to hear Christ’s call. As sheep of Christ we attempt to lead life’s that would allow us to hear the Shepherd when he calls us. This means we read the Bible, we have conversations with God in Prayer, we have conversations with each other about God, it means we come together as a flock here in the sheep pen that is the church and listen to hear God’s Call.

All of this, the prayer, the reading of the scripture, the forming of a Christian community, the coming together for church services, is meaningless if all we do is listen. If we do not listen and then follow then we fall victim to the thieves and the bandits, when this happens we become thieves and bandits ourselves.

What do I mean by this? What would happen if a child learned the addition and subtraction tables at school but never applied them to life? The child could pass any exam on addition or subtraction the teacher handed out. But when the child went to the store to buy candy after school, the child would not know how many pieces one could have for a dollar. Of if the child could not calculate at three how many hours it was until the favourite show was on television, then the child would miss the newest episode of the must see cartoon. All of us would wonder what was wrong with this child.

The same is true for us if all we do is listen to the Shepherd but do not follow his example. If you read your bible but then do not apply what you have read to how you lead your life. If you find peace in prayer but do not then share that peace with a troubled friend. If you enjoy your time at an ACW soup dinner but then do not bring your neighbor to the next one. If you come to church on Sunday and then forget about the church the rest of the week. Well you are doing a whole lot of listening but I do not think it is doing much good.

If you do not follow the Shepherd, if you lag behind, you are likely to be caught by “thieves and bandits”… that is those things that take us away from God. What is often called sin. Some time ago a church father categorized them into seven groups, the seven deadly sins: pride, anger, envy, covetousness, gluttony, lust, and sloth. The thieves and bandits that snatch you away from following the shepherd can be found in some combination of those six. And as you fall in with the thieves and the bandits you soon become a thief and bandit for others. Bringer more of their ilk, as it were, into the world. And this ilk, as Christ tells us today comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

None of us really want anything to do with that. Yet all of us continually have issues and problems with sin. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we are listening very well, we see what following the Shepherd is about… we see where being the Good Shepherd got Christ… it got him on a cross.

Its interesting the phrase “I am the gate for the sheep”… one of the odder bits of ancient shepherding lore you can come across is the nature of some sheep pins. You would build a wall of rock high enough so that sheep cannot get out and wolves, thieves and bandits would have a bothersome time getting inside. Now as night falls a shepherd comes across one of these and leads his sheep in through the opening. There is no gate to these structures, to seal the sheep inside the shepherd lays down across the opening. For a sheep to get out it would have to step on the shepherd, for a thief, wolf, or the like to get in they would have to do the same. The shepherd is the gate, the shepherd is the one who lays down his life for the sheep and protects the sheep so that they might live. The shepherd comes that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

The question today… the real question, is are we doing that, are we following Christ, do we lay down and become the gate, the door, protecting the sheep from the wolves, thieves and bandits of the night? Are we prepared, as Christ was, to put our own life on the line so that others may have life in abundance? Do we have faith to know that even following the shepherd might mean death on a cross it will also mean rising from the dead? Do we actually start to follow Christ or do we continue to sit and listen? Do we do nothing and thus become an aide to that which comes only to steal and kill and destroy? Or do we follow Christ and aide he who came so that we may have life, and have it abundantly?

third easter

2005-04-09T19:50:00.000-02:30

The two disciples who could not recognize Jesus risen from the dead… do we dare call them foolish? One would think that they would recognize Christ when he came up to them. They were after all looking for Jesus, they had heard from others that he was risen from the dead… suddenly when he was right there in front of them they could not recognize him for who he was. But do we dare call them foolish?

If they are foolish they are no more foolish then each of us. It is Easter, starting at sunset on the Saturday before Easter Sunday and for the fifty days after we are in the season of Easter. This is Eastertide the time when we attempt to make overwhelmingly clear that the Lord is Risen Indeed.

But how often are we, even now in the midst of Easter, foolish… How often even now in the great fifty days when we Celebrate that the Lord is risen… do we not recognize that fact… how often is Christ walking right next to us on the road and we do not even know it.

There is no argument I can give you to prove it. Christ in today’s gospel gave what must have been the best argument ever proving that the Old Testament prophesied all the events of his life, even that he would rise from the dead. This argument, these lessons, made the hearts of the disciples burn they were so glorious… but these arguments, arguments from the very lips of Christ, could not reveal to them that it was Christ walking the road with them.

What revealed Christ to them was when before the meal Christ broke bread. Suddenly with that action he was revealed. It was a simple action of fellowship, a daily action common to every person no matter how rich or poor, an action that takes place in every culture under roof and stars. It was the action of starting a meal.

And it is when we sit to eat, it is whenever we gather together in fellowship that Christ is in our midst. You will see him if you allow yourself to see him. Invoke his name and he will be in the midst of you.

As Easter continues and beyond Easter as the year goes on in its cycle allow yourself to see Christ in your midst. Do not be foolish; do not walk with Christ for hours with your hearts afire and not see him there. Whenever two or three are gathered together in his name he is in the midst of them. Come together in his name and see the risen Lord.

Annunciation Sermon

2005-04-02T17:26:00.000-03:30

Since the Bishop is preaching on the Sunday Lessons during his visit this week I am doing the Annunciation lessons this Sunday. So here is this weeks sermon. The Gospel is Luke 1:26-38

The God Bearer, this is one of the oldest names used to refer to Mary. For in the realist most biological sense of the word Mary bore God. She became pregnant and nurtured the life of God within her. Today we look at the moment of the Annunciation, the announcement to Mary, of what God wishes her to do. The angel comes before Mary and tells her that it is God’s will she be the mother of the Messiah, that she be The God Bearer.

Each of us is called to do the same, to be a God Bearer. Not in the literal way Mary was called, but a true and real way nonetheless. We are to take the love of the resurrected Christ into our hearts and bear it everywhere we go. It is ours to carry when we are in church, when we are working, when we are out on ski-do, when we are down at the club playing darts and having a laugh with friends; at all those times we are supposed to be bearing God, bringing him into our lives and into the world around us.

Like Mary the idea of doing this causes us pause. We are afraid; we do not see how this is possible. Mary trembled with fear and wondered how she, a virgin, was to be pregnant. The angel pointed out that Mary’s elderly cousin Elizabeth was having a child despite her great years; the angel pointed out that with God all things are possible.

Each of us has our individual fears about bearing God. Each of us is a flawed individual. How can we in our sinful nature bear God? The angel tells Mary “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”. And you might say that no angel has ever told you that, but the same has occurred to you, it occurred at the moment of your baptism. The Holy Spirit at that point entered into you, and the Power of the Most High, the power that bridged the gap between your imperfection and the perfection of God, between your sin and the sinlessness of heaven, the power that rose Christ from the dead on Easter morn, that power took you into his death and brought you back with Christ in the resurrection. As the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, so it has and will come over you and over shadow you, if only you let it.

It takes faith, it takes gumption, you know as you go about your daily life where you are doing as Christ would have you do and where you are doing what Christ would not have you do. You know when you are acting out of Love for God and loving your neighbor as your self and when you are acting out of spite, meanness, and hatred. You know when you are bearing God and when you are throwing God out with the bath water.

What each of us needs to do is say to God, as often as we can and as truthfully as we can “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word”

easter vigil sermon

2005-03-26T17:12:00.000-03:30

You had longed for fulfillment. For a few inescapable moments you thought you had found it. You had followed a man, the greatest man you had ever met. You gave up everything you had for him, your family, your livelihood. He was supposed to be the answer to all the questions, the one to solve all the problems the world face. Every issue, every law, every bit of the religion you have brought up in was supposed to be found true and whole in one man.

A few days ago you watched that man, every ounce o hope you had die. Horribly, painfully, muttering what seem now as crazed ramblings to the very end. Now partly out of honour and respect partly out of desperation and lack of anything else to do you are trudging towards his tomb, to finally place the balms and ointments of the dead upon him and begin to mourn in truth.

So you get to the tomb and the soldiers are knocked out, the stone before the tomb is rolled away, and perched on it, probably lounging feet kicking back and forth in the air, is an angel, one of gods messengers. He tells them that Jesus is raised, to look where he once lay…. They probably do just that and see where the body should be an empty tomb, and at the angels behest they run to tell the others and as they do as they run he is before them.

As the bow before him and touch his feet, they feel the same flesh that one of them, so long ago, had bathed with her hair. As they touch the feet and feel the holes torn into them by the nails they know that in a way they never thought possible that the longed for fulfillment had occurred.

There is no way to bring to bear upon you what a feeling this must have been for them. We have read long lessons from the Old Testament this evening; we know something of what these women had been looking for in Jesus. If tonight we can bring a small spark of what it must have been like to touch the feet of the risen Christ then Easter will be with you.

Christ was the fulfillment of the laws; he was the end of an older order. He is also the beginning of the new. He is each of our beginnings. All of us have died. Each of us died on that cross, we were brought into death by baptism as the water cascaded over you the priest took you into the land of death, you followed Christ into hell, and when the water had finished washing over you rose again into life. You were nailed to the cross and your feet rose again to sit on the earth outside the tomb and be felt by women who had come to prepare your body. We have died with Christ and we are now alive with Christ.
Now we shall remember how we have died and how we live as we renew the vows of death the vows of rebirth.

sympathy for the devil

2005-03-25T11:21:00.000-03:30

so good friday begins with pressing play on the old winamp and what song should come forth randomly but "sympathy for the devil"...

Good Friday morning is rather calm. I have put together a three hour meditation service for this afternoon. It is the stations of the cross from St. Augustine's Prayer Book coupled with parts of Nouwen's "Inner Voice of Love". I think its very good but i do not know how the people are goign to react. I do not think they have ever been to a meditation service. I am also taking my singing bowl to use as a gong... which is nice for me.

Going to start the Easter sermon tonight. For spiritual reasons I wanted to pray the Good Friday service first. It will be posted some time tomorow so check for it.

Palm and Passion Sunday Sermon

2005-03-19T18:27:00.000-03:30

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest Heaven”….
“Let him be Crucified”…

The same city… the same month… probably for the most part the same crowd… words of opposite intent addressed to the same person… Jesu Christ.

What a quandary… here we have God made manifest in the flesh and we get this short tale about everyone coming out to celebrate him… for a few hours mankind treats Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, our friend before all others, something like we should.

Then we have the long story… First one of Jesu’s closest friends betrays him… then some of his other friends cannot even stay awake to protect Christ while he prays… Peter, after swearing he would never do it, denies Christ three times… Then Christ goes before the leaders of the church, the priest and bishops of his day, the people who pray daily to God… the God Christ is…and the leaders of the church condemn him to death… the government attempts to stop it but the people cry out for Christ to be Crucified!

So Jesu is beaten, taken to Golgotha and dies of exhaustion nailed to a cross.

This is GOD we are talking about here. At any moment Christ could have stopped the whole thing. Christ, God, endures being tortured and nailed to the cross, to save his torturers and the very hands holding the hammer.

Look at all the troubles in your life… do you ever dream you could wave a magick wand and have them all disappear? Christ, God, had the ability to do just that, in a blink of an eye he could have called the whole thing off… but as Paul says “he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross”

Christ, God, went all the way… God, Christ, DIED. He did this out of love; he knew there was no other way. He knew that part of saving you, saving me, saving the soldier nailing him to the cross, was suffering one of the worst forms of killing someone humanity has ever invented.

He, Jesus, God, did this for us after we had cried “Let him be Crucified”…

That’s why we now say “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest Heaven”

avowed... a mathmatical approach

2005-03-16T22:19:00.000-03:30

for a small view into how my mind sometimes works:

The following is an attempt to model the basic nature of a Christian life versus that of an Avowed Christian life in respect to the sinfulness and christianess of said lives.

The following model uses two points of christian dogma in its workings. The first is the second law fo christian life, to love your neighbor as yourself. The second is the concept of all sin being equal, either by the phrase "all sin is equal in the eyes of god", or the overwhelming redemptive power of Jesus's blood.

Begin Model

Love of neighbor (x) should at all times be equal to love of self (y) [x = y]. Since quantification in the above is relative let us simplify the matter by saying that at all times x + y = 1. Thus at any time the perfect situation would be one in which x = y = .5. All other situations are deemed imperfect, or sinful. Situations in which either x or y closely approach zero are not more sinful but less reflecting a proper Christian life.

All Christians should at all times be attempting to reach a state of x=y. Such a state, being one of perfection, is noted to be impossible under current conditions. A vow could be taken by a Christian to the ends of attempting that at any time neither x nor y reached a numerical value less than or equal to .4, thus also neither x nor y could be greater than or equal to .6. The amount of sin in ones life is not decreased by such a vow. Neither is one any more or less a Christian. The main difference is that the avowed individual’s life would stay within certain parameters of reflecting a proper Christian life by maintenance of said vow. By surrounding oneself with similarly avowed people that are also avowed to aid each other in maintenance of the aforementioned vow, thus increasing the probability of its maintenance, one has an avowed [religious] community.

End Model

While being the easiest to model the second law of Christian Life can is by no easy means detailed. Love of self is dependent upon the nature of oneself, as is the love of neighbor dependent upon the nature of the neighbor. Furthermore means by which to show forth said love are highly dependent upon cultural models specific to a region, race, etc.

Added to this fact is that there is not one set of vows which are applicable to all peoples. The easiest differentiation to point out is the avowed life of marriage versus the avowed life of celibacy. Both are forms of avowed Christian living deemed to reflect proper Christian life. The lifestyles lived by people under the different vows is, however, quite in contrast on many levels. Attempt to hold both vows at one time, exemplified by certain forms of the Gnostic legend of Simon and Helen, was deemed to be unsavory by the early church and attempts to hold such vows at the same time, as some early priest and bishops are noted to have tried, was disbanded and deemed “unchristian”.
Thus the nature of the avowment is left completely open at this point. As stated the model is simply an attempt to differentiate between an avowed and unavowed Christian life.

The Second Day of The Storm

2005-03-16T22:05:00.000-03:30

So after two days of constant snow and winds causing the entire house to shake a new Blog spot has been made. Are you not all not the lucky ones. The most exciting thing to report is that i have nearly gotten the bag of jelly beans down to just licorice... then it will be time to feast.

Found out today that the Bishop is arriving the first full week of march. Apparently he is bringing a helicopter for us to use while he is here. This will be interesting.

In order to put something of possible worth out to be read here is last weeks sermon:

Back in the fall, a few days before the first blanket of snow wrapped about the land, I went for a walk in the area behind the rectory. In the midst of the bogs and rocks, the small bushes and trees, I cam upon an animal skeleton, something a little larger than a rabbit; it was bleached white and parts where scattered about. It was hard to look at the bleached thin white bones held together by dried sinew and think that once this had been a living thing. I took a few steps away and saw the skull, white with cavernous dark holes where the eyes should be, and two little triangles on the end of the nose, where once air came in and out as the animal breathed.

What would I have done if instead of coming across one singe animal skeleton I had crested a hill and come across a valley filled with the bleached white bones of humans. This is the site Ezekiel comes across in his dream. When he sees these bones he hears the voice of God. God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones that they will come alive... Ezekiel does this he prophesies to the bones, he tells the bones what is going to happen, he tells them that they are going to come alive by the Power of God. And bone attaches to bone, muscles, lungs, other organs grow, soon before Ezekiel is not a valley of bones but a valley of bodies, standing.

The bodies before Ezekiel are not alive, however. These bodies lack breathe. We have to realize that for Ezekiel, as for Jesus and the people of his time, breath and spirit, breathing and having a soul, were the same things. In the language that Christ spoke there was a word "penuma" and Christ would have used the word "penuma" to mean breathe when he would say "i am taking a breath" and he would have used the same word "penuma" to mean soul if he would say "I am saving your soul". It is God that gives the soul, that gives breathe, and he tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bodies that they will have breathe. Ezekiel does this and by the power of God this valley of bodies becomes a valley of human beings with souls.

This dream of Ezekiel is in part meant to show the overwhelming way God can change our lives. He can take the dried up bones of our lives and not only make them whole but bring new life into them. What if you were those bones... it is a silly thought, to imagine yourself dried up bones suddenly being told to come alive by the voice of God. Lazurus found himself in this position, however. Lazurus is dead, little better then any of the dried up bleached bones in the valley, and suddenly he hears Christ calling to him "Lazurus, Come out!"... And Lazurus does just that, instead of staying in the tomb all wrapped up in funeral linens and attempting to remain dead Lazurus gets up and stumbles his way outside finding his friends waiting to help him untie the clothes binding him.

What was a dream for Ezekiel is a reality for Christ.

Christ breathes life back into Lazurus' dead body. These are stories of reawakening, of coming to life, of great and overwhelming change. The power to change is the power to bring in the unknown. When we look at our lives there are big changes we like, getting married, having a baby.... and changes that bring us sorrow, the death of a loved one. Change brings with it a touch of fear... the groom has cold feet, the expectant mother wonders if she can truly take care of the new baby, the grieving family wonders how it can continue with such a drastic absence in their lives.

If we let it this fear of change can be overwhelming. People will never date fearful of what a committed relationship might mean... a couple will never have children fearful of how a baby would alter their lifestyle... and families sometimes do not accept the death of a loved one and fail to find ways to live and love each other.

So we can allow change into our life, change that can be happy or sad, or we can fear change and attempt to stop it. When Christ calls us like he called Lazurus, we can do like Lazurus did and stumble out of our tombs wrapped in funeral linens, or we can stay snugly wrapped in linens laying in the tomb and ignore Christ's call.

When Christ rose Lazurus from the dead he forced the world to make a decision, for three years a lot of the world had ignored Christ as he went about and ministered and taught the people. When Lazurus was raised from the dead Christ had done something that was overwhelming and people where forced to make a choice. The choice took two forms. The first group hailed Christ as the Messiah, on Palm Sunday they came out and threw their clothes in the road in front of him. They lined the streets with palms. The heard the lords cry and came wanting him to work change in their hearts. The left the tomb and walked out allowing the funeral linens to be unwrapped.

The other way of looking at the change of Christ is seen just a few days later. As a crowd gathers around the center of Jerusalem and screamed at Pontious Pilate to Crucify the bringer of change, to nail Jesus Christ up to a cross to slowly die a horrible death of suffocation. It was the group that feared change, the group that wanted to stay bundled up in funeral linens inside the tomb.

As humans we have a choice, to allow Christ and the change he brings into our lives into our hearts or to do our best to be like Christ. The changes Christ wants to bring into our lives are not always happy ones neither are they always sad ones, they are changes. We are sinful creatures that need redeeming. This is a long process that is not easy. To begin the process we have to come out of the tomb like Lazurus did and let the funeral cloths be unbound. WE have to allow the dry bones of our lives to be prophesized to and be brought to life, and then to allow the breath of god to come in us. We have to wake up each morning and say "Today I wish Gods will to be done, I wish Christ to come into my heart and cause the change that will lead me to God".

No matter how many sundays you have come to church. No matter how well you have the prayer book memorized... If you think for a moment you have it all figured out, that you are all in the right with God, that you do not need to be changed, that you do not need to answer Christ call to come out of where you are... then not only are you stupidly sitting in a dark tomb wrapped in funeral cloths, you are also taking a hammer in your hands and nailing Christ to the cross.