[Dialogue] 12/07/17, Vosper/Spong: A Shift in the Season: One Congregation’s Story; Spong revisited

Thu Dec 7 07:35:13 PST 2017

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A Shift in the Season:
One Congregation’s Story
Rev. Gretta Vosper

Several months ago, I wrote about the Season of Relief, those long weeks following Easter when clergy don’t have to deal with lectionary passages that fuse themselves to church doctrine. Strangely, it seems like just a few short weeks ago; but then, the cycles of doctrinal seasons in the church are just that: cycles.

Another liturgical season
So here we are, well into Advent, and well into the annual grating of teeth that takes place whenever we are exposed to saccharine Christmas music purring or prancing from over-decorated storefronts and selling everything from the tiniest stocking stuffer to cars. And here we are, back to those lectionary passages that bond themselves to church doctrine that gives many a church leader hives. Or indigestion. The stress of the “high holy days” seeps in. Cue the reverential organ while we light the candles on the Advent wreath – Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. Blocking the commercial clatter from our Sunday morning services, we reverently steer our congregations toward the well-worn path that leads past the overbooked inn to a lowly stable and the nativity of our Lord.
Wait a holy minute, Casavant!
Screeeeeeech! Wait a holy minute, Casavant! What do you mean by “the nativity of our Lord”? Are progressive Christians still able to embrace the implications of those words? Or must we examine it, like everything else, and risk losing something we have loved for so long?
I’m for the latter, obviously. We help our children hang up their stockings with a twinkle in our eye, knowing that sooner or later, we’ll fill them in on the fairy tale nature of the story and their responsibilities within it. But we often neglect to fill them in on the mythical nature of the nativity as the same growth in wisdom and rational thinking emerges within them. There, we’re more likely to remain quiet, their consequent assumption being that we really believe in virgin births, stars, shepherds. and magi.
Not just gathering dust
There isn’t much that can or should elude the glaring light of nineteenth century scientific method and the impact it has had on everything, including biblical scholarship. Over the intervening century or so, we’ve pried loose so many previous interpretations of scripture that we likely couldn’t count them all if we wanted to. Still, we let them lie about, not only collecting dust and the disdain of critical scholars but attracting the interests of those for whom they might still offer solace or its evil twin, power. Wielded as the latter, our discarded beliefs have toppled regimes, led murderous campaigns, and denied many the dignity they deserve. Maintaining traditions for the warm, cozy feelings they bring pales in the light of the damage those traditions have promulgated in the world.
And so, for us at West Hill, where the scholarly pursuit of understanding was coupled with the need for integrity in our gatherings, the challenge became clear. We had to explore our Christmas traditions more deeply in order to find what it was that truly inspired us in this liturgical season. What did we derive from the story and season of Christmas that was too important to lose and what was so problematic that losing it was a necessity? These questions were explored over several Christmas seasons, each providing an opportunity for change and the final emergence of a new tradition.
Christmas traditions shift
When I arrived at West Hill, the congregation had two evening Christmas services: one an early service for families with young children; the other a communion service timed to conclude at midnight. It was a pretty traditional package and offered something for everyone. Shortly after I arrived, we initiated a Blue Christmas service in the middle of December. Never very well attended, it was yet a serious attempt to acknowledge that the season wasn’t all Christmas jingle and high spirits for everyone.
We went through a few riotous years when everyone in the early service was filed through the lounge on their way into the sanctuary. As they went through, they were dressed up as angels, stars, magi, shepherds, animals and, yes, members of the holy family. The whole congregation participated in a hilarious re-enactment of the Christmas story all crazily held together by a central premise – like a late night talk show or a famous comedian’s rendition of the Christmas story. It was total chaos, exhausting, and wonderful.
The midnight service, for a couple of those cold years, included a labyrinth walk out of doors under the starry, starry night. Candle-lit with torches waiting in the centre, it was a beautiful embrace of an ancient tradition of a different sort. As the years went by and the work of the church evolved to create a space welcoming to believers and non-believers alike, the reading of each Christmas text was introduced with the words, “Once upon a time….” That little addition signalled that things had changed and shared the subtle but unmistakable message that these stories were just that, stories.
Then, in 2010, we shifted a little bit further. Because people attending West Hill were less and less invested in the retelling of the nativity narrative – they simply did not believe it to be true – we decided to create a liturgy that built on the special nature of the season rather than the biblical stories that had inspired it. After years of honouring that tradition, we simply shifted our focus from the story of the birth of Jesus to the impact its long telling has had upon our culture; from the fictional details of a crude, stable birth, to the very real show of love and generosity and the willingness to see past our differences that is so prevalent at this time of the year. It was a shift that gave the congregation a meaningful reason to gather together in what, for us in the north, is also the coldest and darkest time of the year. We created a Longest Night event to augment our traditional services.
Darkness and light
The roots of the longest night reach deep into the murky past out of which our traditional Christmas stories emerged. Placed on December 25th in 336 CE by Pope Julius I, the date Jesus’ birth came to be celebrated may have been chosen to overtake the celebrations of the sun which took place on that same date. Scholars are divided as to whether these celebrations were tied to the birth of Mithras, god of the Mithraic Mystery religion prominent at the time, or existed independently. Regardless, the date has held a special place in the hearts and practices of humans long before Christianity made it a central element of its own traditions. The Christian celebration eventually won our over whatever had gone before.
The Longest Night service at West Hill, celebrated on the Winter Solstice each year, was born that winter. It is a gathering that acknowledges the waning of the light and the darkness that too often prevails in our world through stories and readings that place our privilege in perspective. And it is a gathering that is also filled with beauty and wonder, as a pool of light is created, one tealight at a time, by those who recommit to making a difference.
At the same time as we weave together images of light and darkness, we hold to some of the deeply formative elements of the traditional story, the significance of birth and the fragility of the dreams, and the possibilities inherent in them. Birth emerges out of darkness. Primitive communities knew this and early Christians wove stories around such truths. And so, sprinkled with all the joy and “magic” we have long associated with the season, the Longest Night became a service that reminds us of the wonder we each are, born as we are, into limitless possibility. A candlewick bracelet is slipped onto each wrist, and every participant is reminded, “You are the light of the world.” As participants disperse into the night, they take that responsibility with them and are reminded to see each person they meet as exactly the same thing: a light in the darkness, a possibility unfolding.
I stand in awe
In 2012, my partner, Scott Kearns, dove into the spirit of the season and wrote a new song to be sung to the tune of “O Holy Night”. “A Winter’s Night Carol” has been sung at West Hill each Longest Night since, with the congregation soaring as they sing the final lines of each verse. It has been a powerful addition to this new and beautiful tradition.

A Winter’s Night Carol
Tune: Cantique de Noel
Traditional Song: O Holy Night
Out in the night, with myri’d stars above me,
I walk alone on a pathway of snow.
Trees bending low, their sparkling branches laden,
and all is bright ‘neath the moon’s tender glow.
And hidden deep the promise of the springtime
with summer’s warmth to follow in its time.
Myst’ry it is – this rolling of the seasons.
I stand here in awe – at the wonder of this world.
I stand in awe – at life, this life sublime.
Out in the night, with myri’d stars above me,
I seem alone, yet there’s life all around.
Creatures asleep and others now awak’ning
to search for food and to care for their young.
And far away in ocean depths and jungle
the whole wide earth is teaming with its life.
Myst’ry it is – this pageant of the living.
I stand here in awe – at the wonder of this world.
I stand in awe – at life, this life sublime.
Out in the world, with myri’d lives around me,
I’m on my own path but not all alone.
Though far apart, we share this life together;
the needs of one are the needs of us all.
And ‘round the world are those that offer comfort,
and millions lend their hands to conquer pain.
Justice their cause – compassion is what moves them.
I stand here in awe – at the wonder of this love.
I stand in awe – at love, this love sublime.
Ever may this be – the reason for our living;
the wonder of life and the wonder of this love.
I stand in awe – at life and love sublime.
Scott Kearns
© 2012 R. S. Kearns(1),(2)

Light shines within us in the darkest night
When we held our first Longest Night gathering in 2010, there was no intention to replace our Christmas service. But the following year, the committee responsible for our inspirational gatherings decided to discontinue the traditional celebration on Christmas Eve altogether. The Longest Night had been exceptionally well received, drawing participants from across our city and beyond. It has since become our signature seasonal celebration and Longest Night services have been popping up all over as others, within and beyond traditional congregations, find purpose in gathering on this darkest of nights. Perhaps, seventeen centuries or so after Christmas was scheduled for the darkest night in the northern hemisphere, we have once again found something else to refocus our attentions, to rekindle hope for this evolutionary experiment we call humanity. Perhaps, deep in our winters, north in December, south in June, we can find reason to remind ourselves of the light that shines within us, our own love, the full value of which is only realized when it is utterly spent.
Perhaps, long, long ago, we knew that already.
~ Rev. Gretta Vosper

Read the essay online here.
About the Author
The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best-selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers.
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(1) A Winter’s Night Carol is included in the collection Sing It Forward: Traditional Hymns Recast and Rewritten for Religious and Humanist Communities, by Scott Kearns and Gretta Vosper. Copyright permissions extend to all use excluding printing for publication without permission of the copyright holder
(2) Scott and I had spoken, once, about writing words that would allow the song to be sung in the Southern Hemisphere at Christmas but I’m not so sure that is the point. Maybe it is in the cold and the dark that we are most powerfully drawn together, gathering strength from one another. Maybe it is time to unmoor the importance of the return of the light from the Christian festival that has overshadowed it for so long.

Question & Answer

Charles T. from the Internet asks:

Question:
Sir, with all due respect, you shared well concerning how Jesus did not die because of sins. Please share your views on the reason or why Jesus died.

Answer: Fred C. Plumer

Dear Charles,
I do not know the actual reason that Jesus was killed. The Bible gives us some hints when you remove some of the theology that was added over the next two hundred years in its development. It is difficult for people living in modern society to imagine the conditions the Jewish people were living under Roman rule. Most of the Jews had suffered terrible treatment by the Roman soldiers and the Romans in general. And if you lived in Galilee, a distance in those days, it could be even more difficult.  The Galileans lived in a hilly area, full of big boulders and caves. The men were known to be excellent “street fighters” who would create a fracas near the city and get the soldiers to follow then into the hills and then attempt to slaughter as many of them as they could, hiding behind the boulders and in the caves. But they paid a price for these activities. Galileans were particularly hated or feared by the Roman soldiers, and as a result were treated accordingly.  
Also it is important to understand that when Jesus went into Jerusalem, it was during the Passover Holy day. This is was and is a very important celebration of the Jews escaping Egyptians slavery. Every year, for decades, this was one of the most turbulent times in the region. Most of the Jews were trying to eke out a living farming what land they still had and paying taxes to the Romans. Many of them had to give up owning their land and essentially becoming tenant farmers to the Empire because, in part at least, they could not pay their taxes. And here they were supposedly celebrating being freed, no longer slaves to the Egyptians but they knew they were slaves again. During these holidays, Rome would send an additional 10,000 soldiers to surround the city and they were instructed to kill anyone who did not seem like they were following orders.  Do not kid yourself. There were no courts, no judges, and no leniency for the Jews, if they tangled with a Roman soldier.  
And finally, it is clear that the act of crucifixion was used as an intimidating tool by the Romans, as it was by the Syrians rulers before them. There were five entrances into the city that could be quickly closed off. However, the Romans would pick a spot near any of the gates for the crucifixion. They would normally let the bodies hang there for days, waiting for the men or women to die and then for the birds to eat the flesh. It is estimated that in most cases, it took days for the “criminals” to die. Death by crucifixion was, by Roman law, supposed to be reserved for those who had done a serious crime but one of the most serious crimes was insurrection, defying Roman rule. These crucifixions were done in such a way that anyone going into Jerusalem would have to pass one of those crosses. There were literally thousands of men, women and even children killed in this manner. Sadly, crucifixion was not unusual and it had been that way for hundreds of years.  
Jesus chose to walk into the city on this high intensity day. Did the Romans assume his being there was reason enough? Did the Romans kill him because he supposedly claimed to be the King of the Jews? Did they arrest and kill him because he would not bend his knee to the Roman rule? Was it the fracas in the Temple with coin changers? Was he part of a plot or suspected of being part of a plot to defy the Emperor? Was he just caught up in a raid of trouble makers from Galilee?  
I cannot tell you but I assure you if there is any truth in our Gospels, Jesus gave them plenty of reasons to be put to death. But I prefer to believe that he was not an intentional martyr but one who believed his own words, “Do not be afraid.” He risked his life on behalf of others and lost his own life. He spoke truth and loved people he tried to save. We should all live that way.
I hope this helps you understand better. If you would like more details I would recommend Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs, by Richard A. Horsley with John Hanson. Trinity Press, International. 1999
~ Fred C. Plumer

Read and share online here
About the Author
In 1986 Rev. Plumer was called to the Irvine United Congregational Church in Irvine, CA to lead a UCC new start church, where he remained until he retired in 2004. The church became known throughout the denomination as one of the more exciting and progressive mid-size congregations in the nation. He served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ (UCC) for five years, and chaired the Commission for Church Development and Evangelism for three of those years.
In 2006 Fred was elected President of ProgressiveChristianity.org (originally called The Center for Progressive Christianity - TCPC) when it’s founder Jim Adams retired. As a member of the Executive Council for TCPC he wrote The Study Guide for The 8 Points by which we define: Progressive Christianity. He has had several articles published on church development, building faith communities and redefining the purpose of the enlightened Christian Church. His book Drink from the Well is an anthology from speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications that define the progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
Making Much of What Cannot Matter Much to God

I ask my readers’ indulgence this week as I roam over some of the terrain of my own ministry. My reminiscence revolves around a simple phrase: “when we would make much of that which cannot matter much to God.” These words have echoed in my mind for at least 50 years. I associated them primarily with one of my genuine heroes, a man named John Eldridge Hines, who served as the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church from 1964 to 1973. In my opinion John Hines was the greatest Christian leader my church produced during the entire 20th century. He used these words to open almost all of his sermons. I had heard it from him so many times that I simply assumed that he had coined the phrase. A thousand times during my career as a bishop as I watched the Christian Church in operation, ‘making much of that which cannot matter much to God,” has been the phrase that immediately pops into my mind.
Recently I gave a series of lectures at Christ Church in Dayton, Ohio, and met there the Rev. Gordon Price, the rector emeritus of this very impressive congregation. Gordon Price is 88 years old. He has been retired for 22 years but he is still vital, alive and his mind is as clear as a bell. He is one of those quintessential Episcopalians whose memory spans not just his own life, but through him the past seems to flow into the present. He knew personally those heroes of church life on whose shoulders the 20th century stood. This familiar phrase happened to come up at dinner and in that conversation, I attributed the words to John Hines. “I don’t think that is correct,” Gordon said immediately. “I believe Will Scarlett is the one who wrote those words.” Now non-Episcopalians might think themselves back in the world of Robin Hood, but Will Scarlett was also the name of the Episcopal bishop of Missouri in the early part of the 20th century. He was a mighty force in America as a confidant of Franklin D. Roosevelt, from the time of his bout with polio in the 1920’s until he presided over the president’s funeral in 1944. He was also a powerful exponent of what came to be called ‘the social gospel,’ and as such developed a close friendship with the influential liberal theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who shaped mainline theology in America, as did no other figure during the decades of the depression and World War II. Will Scarlett had even offered the position of Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in St. Louis to the non-Episcopalian, Protestant Niebuhr, a dramatically controversial if exciting step at that time. Niebuhr declined but later, with his brother H. Richard Niebuhr, German born theologian Paul Tillich and Old Testament scholar James Muilenberg all working under the deanship of Henry Pitt Van Dusen, he helped to turn Union Seminary in New York into the Mecca of theological institutions in the western world. Attributing this oft-quoted line to Bishop Scarlett made sense to me for he was John Hines’ mentor, role model and close friend. John indeed served under Bishop Scarlett’s direction early in his career when he was rector of Trinity Church in Hannibal, Missouri, the town Mark Twain made famous by using it as the setting for his popular novels about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. If John Hines had gotten this prayer from Will Scarlett, it was an authentic line.
However, Gordon Price was too careful a historian of oral church lore to lean only on memory and supposition so when he went home that evening he researched this line. The source turned out to be neither Hines nor Scarlett but Willard L. Sperry, the dean of the Harvard Divinity School, who was a contemporary and friend of Will Scarlett.
When he presented me the next day with a complete text of the Sperry prayer, fully documented, I was delighted. It was like finding an old friend to discover the true source of a quotation that had meant so much to me for so long. I share with my readers the context in which this single, provocative line was born:
“Give to us, O Lord, A right discernment between that which comes first in our faith and that which follows after. And when we would make much of that which cannot matter much to thee, recall us to the heart of our Christian profession, Jesus our Lord. Amen.
I began to think anew about what those words might mean if contemporary Church life could be viewed through their lens. Sometimes the message of the Church is so inanely petty. I think of the recent dispute between a particular Catholic family whose child has an allergic reaction to wheat. This family asked their priest if their daughter might receive a communion wafer made with rice flour instead of wheat so that she could continue to receive the Sacrament. Instead of simply granting this request in a pastorally sensitive way, the pastor sent the decision up the hierarchical chain of command to the Vatican itself. From on high the ruling came down that “wheat was required for the Sacrament to be valid.” It seems that Jesus used bread made of wheat. Rice flour, presumably, cannot be the bearer of the ‘body of Christ!’ The Vatican was making much of that which cannot matter much to God.
How much, do you suppose, does God get excited by proper liturgy and how God’s people worship? Yet in the history of Christianity no battles have been more emotional and drained more energy than liturgical battles. Look at the way worshipers have responded when prayer books or worship manuals have been altered or revised. Some people were quite sure that God could not be worshiped apart from the Latin language when the reformation embraced the vernacular in the 16th century and when the Roman Catholics finally gave up the Latin Mass in the 20th century. Tiny groups of Episcopalians still gather in protest worship services around the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Many Anglicans in England stand ready to defend to their deaths the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer. Inside both Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism people abandoned their congregations and even their faith, in some cases, in protest over these changes. The Latin Mass is still quietly celebrated in known places in America, England, France and Italy with faithful, if aging, constituencies gathered. They claim that God must always be addressed “in the original language” of our faith. That is like the elderly lady, who is supposed to have said to the young pastor when he read the lessons in church from a modern version of the Bible, “Son, if King James’ English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for you.” Is this not making much of that which cannot matter much to God?
Look next at the battles that Christians have fought over denominational loyalties and those strange claims made by various groups to be “the only true church.” What divides Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics in the immigrant population of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand today is not some great theological principle or truth but rather which country in Europe shaped our various ancestors. Episcopalians or Anglicans came originally out of an English heritage. Lutherans tend to be descended from those who migrated from Germany or Northern Europe and Scandinavia, Presbyterians generally are descendents of people from Scotland and Roman Catholics normally reflect the heritage of Ireland, Italy and Southern Europe. Jesus did not know there was an England, a Scandinavia, a Scotland, an Ireland or an Italy. But disciples of Jesus have far too often acted as if these tribal distinctions are the essence of the gospel. As Dean Sperry suggested, we have “made much of that which cannot matter much to God.” On and on we could go. Dean Sperry’s words call us to judge institutional Christian life by a very different standard from the one churches so often use. Why do we not ask, “Does this contentious issue have any ultimate significance? Does this debate serve the cause of Christ?” Do most of the things that churn our life in the Church today, from the ecumenical movement to the uninformed hostility toward gay and lesbian people not fall into the category of minor importance?
Why can we not admit that no person and no church has the competence to define God? No one can tell another person who God is or what God is. That is simply not within the human capacity. All any of us can ever do is to tell another how we believe we have experienced the holy, the divine. Even then we need to face the fact that we might be delusional, for too many people seem to think they experience a God of division and violence.
This also means that no church can claim that its leader is infallible or that its Bible is inerrant. No religious tradition can claim that it has cornered the market on salvation so that its adherents can say, “No one comes to the Father” but through our religious system. No one can brand those whose opinions are contrary to the traditional content of one’s faith as heretical, since nobody possesses the true faith. There is no such thing as that which the Epistle of Jude sought to establish, namely, “a faith once delivered to the saints.” Every religious war is an aberration within the human consciousness. Every heretic burned at the stake was nothing other than an act of murder. Every fundamentalism is based on idolatrous claims as its adherents identify their tiny understanding of truth with the truth of God. Every religious fanatic and every religious terrorist is finally someone who covers evil with piety.
The marching orders for Christian disciples seem to be recorded in the words of Jesus when he was said to have defined his purpose. Jesus did not come to make us religious, moral or orthodox, he came to give us abundant life. That is the entire purpose of religion everywhere unless we are those who insist on “making much of that which cannot matter much to God.”
Thanks, Gordon Price, for helping me identify Willard L. Sperry as the source of the words that I have quoted for years and that I believe must be the standard by which Christianity will live in the future.
~ John Shelby Spong
Originally Published October 20, 2004

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