Both are
images of the holy showing up in everyday life. Jacob’s ladder is nice and
vertical— with angels bringing our concerns and experience to God and God sending
grace, love, and guidance back to earth. The Gospel image is more horizontal
and suggests an ethical component. How do we live faithfully and how do we separate
holy and ethical living from the distractions, temptations, and sin in the
everyday?
This past
year, many of us in this parish—adults and young people—took the time to watch
a TV miniseries about Jesus and his followers called “The Chosen.” We
are waiting for the fourth season to be completed and broadcast soon. As much
of a following this series has developed (the production is ‘crowd-sourced’ not
bankrolled by investors), it’s strange how many preachers and faithful people
have criticized it for one reason or another… too much this, not enough that,
and so on. Then there was the minor flap that erupted when some members of the
production crew were photographed wearing t-shirts with rainbow flag emblazoned
on their shirts. (Gasp!)
Ever since
Jesus roamed the countryside preaching to crowds and healing ordinary people
where they lived or worked, there has always been a peanut-gallery of
people—often dressed like me! – who clicked their tongues and told Jesus how it
ought to be done.
But if you
are going to live the Gospel… let alone communicate it… you’d better be ready
to go to some pretty strange, unexpected places.
A long time
ago, in a Big City far, far away, I got a chance to watch the taping of a
daytime talk show. You know those clapping, cheering people in the studio
audience? I was one of those people. But this was different. What was being
taped was a pilot for a show hosted by an Episcopal priest named Father Albert Cutié.
You might remember
him because was for a time in the news—particularly the tabloids—about fifteen
years ago. At the time, Fr. Albert was a Roman Catholic priest who hosted a
very popular Spanish-language talk-show on Telemundo called “Padre Alberto.” The
show was so popular that some people called him “Father Oprah.”
Apparently,
the tabloids caught him on the beach near Miami… and hold on to your hat…
kissing the woman who would soon become his wife. Shocking!
The tabloids,
of course, loved this… but the Catholic Church not so much. The Church punished
him for having a girlfriend. Telemundo cancelled his show. So, he got married.
And he and his wife were received into the Episcopal Church; and eventually,
Bishop Leo Frade of Southeast Florida received Father Albert’s orders. We know
in the Episcopal Church that he never stopped being a priest and today he
serves as St. Benedicts in Plantation, Florida, in our neighboring Diocese of
Southeast Florida.
At the time,
he wrote a book about the dilemmas he faced on his journey—that began way before he met his wife—from
Rome to Canterbury and how the paparazzi simply crystallized the path he was
already on. What I witnessed was an attempt to start up another talk show, this
time in English, called “Father Albert.” Alas, it never made it out of
“try-outs” and into syndication.
Well, one
day, a buddy of mine, another priest, snagged some tickets to go watch a live
taping, and I decided to go. I was curious: what to make of this show? Would it
be Dr. Phil meets Ellen meets Fulton J. Sheen? I wanted to find out.
Even though
the media made much of the tabloid story of a Roman Catholic priest who got
married and becomes an Episcopal priest, that was not really news to me. Over
the course of my ministry, I have known many friends and colleagues —layfolk
and ordained people—who’ve followed that same path.
But an Episcopal
priest—a colleague! — on TV? On a daytime talk show? What was God doing?
The lesson I
learned that day was pretty much the same lesson I learned as a hospital
chaplain, a parish priest, or as the resident priest of a city soup kitchen: people have problems, they have choices to
make, and sometimes they don’t know how to sort them out. In addition to parish ministry, he is still doing ministry on TV, the radio,
and on YouTube, but the format is pretty simple: Father Albert just lets people
who’ve made some fairly interesting (or just plain weird) life choices tell
their stories and asks questions of them, and as they tell their stories it allows
them to sort out how they might point their lives. And not just the guests, but
I think also the viewers and listeners of his shows, benefit from the simple questions like:
“Why?” “What do you think?” “What does that feel like…?” “What if…?” “What
about…?”
On the day I
went to this taping, I had my own dilemma: to collar or not to collar? My buddy
followed instructions and wore a bright red polo shirt instead of his dog
collar. Not me. As a chaplain, I was used to wearing “the symbol” in strange
places and letting what happens happen, so I wore a clerical collar. The
producers noticed and, through them, Father Albert—who wore his own black suit
and clerical collar on the set—asked me a few questions before the first
taping. Afterwards, Father Wayne and I were invited to go backstage to chat (and
meet his wife, Ruhama, and their daughter, then a beautiful baby girl but now
all grown up!) after the tapings.
Later the bus
took us to Times Square for a few hours of being tourists. I went over to
the Church of St. Mary the Virgin for Evening Prayer, and there, I noticed
something: People. Lots and lots of people. People who would come in from the
hustle and noise of the City to kneel, pray, light a candle, or just sit in the
silence in a pew or before an icon or a cross. Who knows what was on their minds or in their
hearts? What were they pouring out before God?
And I learned
once again that this is how God shows up. It might be a talk show. Or a quiet church. Maybe a city street. In everyday
life. Where we are, God is. It is like what when Jacob, on the run for having cheated his brother out of his birthright, was lying on the ground trying to
get some sleep. God showed up for him in a vision of angels ascending and descending on
a ladder to heaven planted right where was. There are lots of places in our
lives where that ladder between earth and heaven… between us and God… is
planted, interrupting (or stirring up!) our troubled sleep.
As I spoke
with Father Albert, I thought of Jesus’ parable of weeds growing among thecrops. Do we rip out the weeds while the crop is still growing, or do we
separate the good fruit from the rest at harvest time? Do we do the ripping
out, or do we do as Jesus teaches, and leave it to God?
Too often, we
Christians are quick to worry about everybody else’s garden, to go after each
other with spiritual weed-whackers. But you know what? My pesky weed might just
be your herbal tea. I don’t know. But God does.
Jesus’ story today is
not about final judgment, but about discernment. Instead of trying to manage
our anxiety when things don’t go our way, or to try to fix someone else, Jesus invites
to stop, attend to what’s going on inside us and to rest in God’s cultivation
in God’s time. In the parable, Jesus asks us: why do we choose to spend our
energy trying to make everyone else’s garden weed-free? Trust God to do
the cultivation, the sorting, and the harvesting!
About two hundred-fifty
years ago, when the industrial revolution was rapidly changing the face of
England, an Anglican priest named John Wesley began to ride around on his horse
and preach to people in those new factories, coal mines and mills. There were
lots of people—particularly clergy— who criticized him for both his methods
(open air preaching and small groups that met in homes and taverns instead of
in parish churches). They called his theology of every holiness “shallow.” Today,
we forget that way before there was a Methodist Church, there was a “method”
and Wesley’s “method” was about inviting ordinary people to find Christ, and to
discover faith and holiness by addressing the everyday problems of family,
crowded urban (or lonely farm) living, of work and life. Wesley’s “practical holiness”
taught us that in the midst of life there is grace.
Wherever we
go, there God is. Wherever we rest our head, God erects a ladder to heaven.
Wherever we are, God plants grace and cultivates hope. And God gives us the
tools—of prayer, the sacraments, Scripture, Christian community and above all companionship,
and sometimes even a talk show! —to let God do cultivating and so we can harvest in
God’s time the fruits of life in Christ in our lives today.
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