Our Hoosier Problem

On Sunday, March 9, a man from North Manchester, Indiana was shot by Secret Service agents after a “confrontation” near the White House. North Manchester is very near where I grew up and I have family who live there now. That got me wondering. I did a little searching on the internet and came across these real headlines:

Indiana man sentenced to almost four years in prison for fentanyl, meth distribution (Pennsylvania)

Indiana man arrested for 2008 rape of 61-year-old San Jose woman, DA's office says (California)

Indiana Man Arrested for Stalking Taylor Swift, Intimidating Her Eras Tour Dancers (Tennessee)

Indiana Man Arrested on Felony Charges for Actions During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach (District of Columbia)

Indiana man arrested in connection with murder of pregnant woman in Spring Hill (Tennessee)

Southern Indiana man arrested in Florida on over 60 counts of child porn, sexual misconduct (Florida)

Indiana man arrested on felony child pornography charges after social media tip (Kentucky)

Rape, murder, drugs, pornography, insurrection – what is up with people from Indiana? 

What if your favorite cable channel regularly highlighted these horrifying stories of Hoosiers run amok throughout our great nation? Or your go-to podcast? Or what if social media algorithms made sure that your feed was full of stories and memes about how problematic and dangerous people from Indiana are? What if politicians railed against the barbaric vermin from Indiana who are invading and terrorizing – and even poisoning the blood – of the wonderful citizens of our other beautiful states? What if rumors were spread about people from this Midwestern state doing outrageous and disgusting things? “Who knows if they’re true? Does it matter given what we already know?” 

Never mind that there is no evidence that people from Indiana are actually any more given to crime or outrageous behavior than people from other states. You would be programmed to think they were and to be suspicious of them. You might even think that something must be done about our “Hoosier problem.”

It turns out “Hoosier” was once a slur, “a term of contempt and opprobrium…used to denote a rustic, a bumpkin, a countryman, a roughneck, a hick or an awkward, uncouth or unskilled fellow” It still is used this way in parts of St. Louis (See What’s a Hoosier?). Indeed, “Hoosier at times can also be used as a verb describing the act of tricking or swindling someone” (See St. Louis' own language: "Hoosier"). If “Hoosier” was commonly used this way across the country, it would reinforce the rhetoric imagined in the last paragraph.

But people from Indiana might rightly feel misrepresented. As a Hoosier, born and bred, I can assure you that, despite the above headlines, people from Indiana are generally no more uneducated or unsophisticated than the average person from any other state in the Union. Or anywhere else. You really do not have anything to fear from the average person from Indiana. We are generally very decent, hardworking, generous, law-abiding people who just want the kinds of opportunities everyone else wants.

Hoosiers are no more or less human – with all the good and bad, joy and pain that go with being human – than any other group of human beings. It would be silly to single us out for suspicion or negativity. And it is silly to do so for any other group of human beings.

Yearning for the vast and endless sea of God

Chrism Mass Sermon, 2024 (Luke 5:1-11)

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”*

This is a paraphrase of something written by 20th century French author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Best known for ‘The Little Prince’, Saint-Exupery was an aviation pioneer with a taste for adventure. I think this quote gets at what we are to be about.

In the Gospel passage which we just heard, Jesus tells Peter and the others to put out into the deep.  An early motto of the Diocese of Fond du Lac was “In Altum” – Into the Deep. We are called to “Put out into the deep water.” We who are leaders are charged with inspiring others to put out into the deep.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

It might serve as a description of good preaching and teaching. The Church needs preachers and teachers, lay as well as ordained, (and, yes, bishops) who are soaked and smell of salt water and look like they have faced into the Wind and squinted at the Sun on the horizon, who sound like they have put out into the deep of the vast and endless sea and returned to share the wonder of it.

I say that. And, then, I wonder how much of my preaching and teaching over the years has been more about drumming up people to gather wood, dividing the work, and giving orders rather than inspiring them to yearn for the vast and endless sea of God.

But, that is what I need to be about. I want to smell like the Sea – the aroma of God. It is what we need to be about for the sake of the Church. It is what the Church needs to be about for the sake of the world. I can only do that if I – we can only do it if we – put out into the deep of God.

One of my favorite Irish saints literally put out into the deep. Brendan of Clonfert, aka, Brendan the Navigator had already founded several monasteries when he was visited by another old monk who told of journey to the Island of Delight where there was a community of monks. They sent him on to another island – the Promised land of the Saints. On that island there were trees that bore tasty fruit all year long. There was no night and it was always comfortably warm because Christ was its Light.

The old monk asked Brendan, “Do you not smell the fragrance of heaven that we carry on us?”

So, yearning for the sea and for the vast expanse of God and the Promised Land, Brendan, along with some of his monks , built a ship and sailed west. They had many adventures, so the story goes, including taking their rest on an island that turned out to be the back of a resting whale. They stopped at the Island of Delight on their way to the Promised Land which they found just as they had heard. They returned in wonder, rejoicing in the Lord.

Brendan was part of larger movement of wild Irish monks who put out into the deep in search God. Some sailed to islands where they founded monasteries like Iona and Lindisfarne. Or more remote and wilder islands like Skellig Michael which has featured in Star Wars movies.

But others did something even wilder – even more mad, perhaps. There is an account of three monks who washed up on the southern coast of England in a small boat made of wood and leather, a coracle. They had no oars or sail. They had just set out into the deep, vast and endless sea, trusting that the wild Spirit of God would guide and protect them on the wild sea as they dedicated themselves to prayer.

Crazy. But I have to wonder, what wild vision of God had so captured their imagination as to provoke those monks, Brendan, and the others? And what might it look like if our imaginations were similarly inspired?

We are not likely to literally set out into the deep like they did. In fact, I want to discourage any of you who live near Lake Michigan or Lake Superior from trying anything like those would monks. But, we don’t have to do that. We can recommit ourselves to setting out in the coracle of our hearts in prayer, yearning for that vast and endless sea of God.

Perhaps you already have some experience with that.

 Maybe you have been staggered by the Infinity and the Mystery.

Maybe you have gone deep into the awesome beauty and goodness of God.

Maybe you have felt the grace of God splash over you, soaking you to the bone with his forgiving, healing, transforming love?

Maybe you have tasted the saltiness of God’s mercy and delight?

Maybe you have been bedazzled by the awesome splendor of God?

Maybe you have seen a vision of your own self and others in the glory of that splendor?

Maybe you have seen what glorious and beautiful beings we are meant and destined to be?

Maybe you have also dared to face into the stormy, surging waves of your spirit and to acknowledge the dead weight of sin that holds you back threatening to swamp the boat of your heart?

Maybe you have gotten a glimpse of the approaching kingdom of God just beyond the horizon? The kingdom of love and joy and peace where swords and spears – and guns – are beaten into plowshares and pruning hooks, where all divisions cease and there is no stranger or enemy, where there is no more violence or war, where death is swallowed up and all that is left is abundant and eternal life?

Set out in the coracle of your heart into the deep waters of God. That is where our nets will catch the goodness God desires for us. Do it frequently and long. Go further and further. Otherwise however grace-soaked we have been we will dry out. And our bedazzled eyes will adjust again to the mundane selfish fear and violent ways of this world.

I urge you, as we renew our vows today, to make that your first priority. I commit myself to doing the same. We just might begin smell like salt water. We might take on the fragrance of heaven. And we will be able to inspire others to yearn for the vast and endless sea of God.

After all, as Evelyn Underhill, famously wrote, it is God that is the interesting thing about religion. And William Temple said we need clergy to be teachers of prayer. But we can only do that if we are committed to going deep into God in prayer ourselves and come to look and feel like we have been there.

I suspect that when Patrick or Brendan or Brigid showed up in a village part of what got peoples attention was they seemed soaked with the wildness of God and had something of the fragrance of heaven about them. And when people went to Norwich to see Julian’s they encountered someone who looked a little windblown and had a squint in her eye as though she had been staring into the horizon of God. These saints made people yearn to set out themselves into the vast expanse of God.

The Church has long been likened to the ark, a boat, or a ship. That is why the area where the congregation worships is called a “nave” which comes from the same word as navy. Look up. It looks like you are sitting under a large upturned boat. Like Brendan and his companion monks, each congregation is a band of pilgrims called to set out into the deep.

Let’s set out together on the adventure of seeking the vast expanse of God’s mercy and delight. Let’s open ourselves to being transformed by the by God’s grace such that we bear the fragrance of heaven. And let’s dare to set out into the deep of the communities around us bearing witness to the gospel of life and peace, justice and truth. And serving with them to do what we can to make the world rhyme a bit more with the kingdom of God in anticipation of the Day when God’s will be done on earth as in Heaven.

Let us teach the world to yearn for the vast expanse of God and invite them to join us as we set out into the deep.

* The actual passage that gave rise to the quote above is probably,

"One will weave the canvas; another will fell a tree by the light of his ax. Yet another will forge nails, and there will be others who observe the stars to learn how to navigate. And yet all will be as one. Building a boat isn’t about weaving canvas, forging nails, or reading the sky. It’s about giving a shared taste for the sea, by the light of which you will see nothing contradictory but rather a community of love."

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, ‘Wisdom of the Sands’

Good Friday Poem

When the longed-for Lion of Judah

insisted on being the Lamb of God,
when the Messiah we got
was not the Messiah we wanted,
when he would not play along
with our deceptions and self-justifications –
personal and communal,
when he would not affirm
our fear-filled desire for power,
when he would not bless
our lust for violence,
when he would not wreak vengeance
on our enemies;
what could we do
but avenge ourselves,
and kill him?
 
Will we ever forgive him
for even then
looking—seeing—looking
at us,
at them,
and saying,
"Father forgive"?

(Crucifix from St. James Episcopal Church

Manitowoc, Wisconsin)

Holy Week Confession

 Holy Week

Confession: I have often found faith in God difficult. I nearly gave it up when I was younger. A lot of god-talk leaves me cold. Even less compelling is vague talk of "the Sacred" or "the Holy" – whether glossed with a hint of Christianity or not. So much sounds like a mere projection of the believer’s own ideal self onto the cosmos. Or a sort of cosmic lucky rabbit’s foot.

Ultimately, it is the events of this week, with all their wild meaning and resistance to easy meaning-making that enable me to believe. If this week points to something true about the source, purpose, and destiny of all things, I can have faith and hope. If God is revealed in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, I can respond with adoration, praise, and thanksgiving. I can dare to give myself over to the way of love and peace, mercy and justice. And there is freedom and joy.

Sometimes at the Eucharist, as I am distributing the Sacrament, I imagine I am wielding an invisible needle and thread. With every placing of the Bread in the hands or tongue of a communicant and then the next as I go along the line, the body of Christ is being threaded together anew.

Every Eucharist is a remembering of the body of Christ as we remember and recall the Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament. And every Eucharist is a re-membering of the body of Christ, the Church, in which the threads that bind us together are reinforced. We recall that we are not our own. We are created for communion – communion with God and communion with one another. The Holy Spirit – the Holy Weaver – weaves, knits, and sews us together.

All of humanity is created for communion with God, communion with itself, and communion with all of creation. Part of the Church’s vocation is to be the sign and foretaste of that communion. The Church’s vocation is to be a sign and foretaste of the promise that all that is torn and tattered will be mended, rewoven, and knit back together. All that is torn and tattered in each of us can be mended. The torn and tattered fabric of human relationship and society can be mended. Creation, torn and tattered, can be repaired. It is not just about the Church. But, it is the mission of the Church to point to and live in anticipation of God’s restoration of all things (Acts 3:21).

That is the work of God. Only God can finally accomplish it. But Christians are called to participate in that mission and be menders in the world. It is the Church’s vocation, knit together by the Holy Spirit through Baptism and Eucharist, to be the loom of the Lord.

There is precedence for this image:

“But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

"Christ is likened to a needle the eye in which, pierced most painfully at his passion, now draws all after him, so repairing the tunic rent by Adam, stitching together the two peoples of Jews and Gentiles [and, by extension, every division that rends the human fabric], making them one for always." – Henri de Lubac (1896-1991), 'Catholicism, Christ and the Common Destiny of Man', referencing Paschasius Radbertus (785-865)

"One day a little girl sat watching her mother working in the kitchen. She asked her mommy, 'What does God do all day long?' For a while, her mother mother was stumped, but then she said, 'Darling, I'll tell you what God does all day long. He spends his whole day mending broken things.'" – Festo Kivengere (1921-1988), quoted in 'Glorious Companions'

"From Jesus began a weaving together of the divine and human nature in order that human nature, through fellowship with what is more divine, might become divine, not only in Jesus but also in all those who, besides believing in Jesus, take up the life which he taught; the life which leads everyone who lives according to the precepts of Jesus to friendship with God and fellowship with him." – Origen (184-253), 'Contra Celsus'

“For the sake of love all the saints resisted sin, not showing any regard for this present life. And they endured many forms of death, in order to be separated from the world and united with themselves and with God, joining together in themselves the broken fragments of human nature. For this is the true and undefiled theosophy of the faithful. Its consummation is goodness and truth – if indeed goodness as compassion and truth as devotion to God in faith are the marks of love. It unites men to God and to one another, and on this account contains the unchanging permanence of all blessings.” – Maximus the Confessor, ‘Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice’, 1st Century

The Way of Spartacus, the Way of bar Kokhba, or the Way of Jesus

100 years before Jesus, Spartacus (c. 103–71 BC) who was a slave and gladiator, led a slave revolt against the

Kirk Douglas in the 1960 movie, 'Spartacus'

Roman Republic. After several stunning military successes, Spartacus and his army were defeated. 6,000 of the defeated rebel slaves were crucified. Spartacus' body was never identified, so it is unclear if he was among those crucified (though he was in the classic Kirk Douglas movie). If only he had borne our sins on the cross taking up the cross might mean something different and walking in his footsteps would be the way of holiness.

100 years after Jesus, Simeon bar Kokhba (died, 135) led a Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire. He also won several battles against the Roman legions and won independence for his people – for a few years. He was identified by some as the Messiah. Like Spartacus, bar Kokhba was eventually defeated and died fighting the Romans. If only he had risen from the grave and breathed his spirit upon us so we could be sure that living by his spirit was the way into the heart of God.

If either Spartacus or Simon bar Kokhba had been "the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (see Matthew 16:13-20), we could embrace our every fantasy of "good" violence.

Instead we have Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the Slaughtered Lamb. "When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly" (1 Peter 2:23), "leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:21).

Over against human wisdom and the pattern of this world (see Romans 12), the pattern of the cross, which is the wisdom of God, will always seem foolish (1Corinthians 1:22-25). And even many Christians will prefer the way of Spartacus or bar Kokhba to the way of Jesus.

If Jesus is Lord, we who follow him will walk in his way will:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:14-21)

If Jesus is our Lord and Teacher, we will follow his example:

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. (John 13:12-17)

Ethiopian Icon of Jesus Washing the Feet of the Disciples

See also:

Guns, Myths, Redemption & Conversion

Gun Violence. Again . . .

Gun Violence, Sin, and Regulation: A Teaching for the Church

Celebrating Our Mutual Dependence

One route I sometimes take on my morning walk takes me by the city water works. Another route takes me by the city sewage treatment plant. I do not know any of the people who work at either of these facilities. But I am immensely grateful for them. They are not generally celebrated but should be. There are no television dramas or movies about the exploits of people who work in such places as there are for police, fire fighters, and doctors,. They are not as celebrated as the military. But they are arguably every bit as essential to our well-being. Maybe more so. I remember hearing in a history class that no single technological development has done more for human flourishing and saved more lives than modern plumbing that assures that our drinking water is clean and our waste is managed. In this light, plumbers are heroes. Think of that the next time you turn on a water tap. Or flush a toilet. And give thanks for those involved in tending these most basic needs. Our wellbeing depends upon them. 

That got me thinking. My wellbeing and that of my neighbors is in the hands of people who work at the water works and the sewage treatment plant. People I do not know. Where else is that true? Once you start thinking about it, the answer is as clear as clean drinking water – everywhere. We are always and everywhere living at the hands of – mostly – unknown others. As suggested above, we do celebrate some, e.g., first responders and health professionals. And rightly so. But it is true of others less celebrated. Just about any civil servant/employees. It is true of utility workers. It is true of farmers and those who harvest, process, and deliver our food, along with those who work at grocery stores, and all involved in the agricultural and food delivery system. The clothes we wear depends others. We could add the merchants on Main Street and those who work in shops and restaurants. One graphic way to understand this is to imagine all the people involved in making sure the passenger of a commercial airplane makes it safely from one place to another. The same is true of trains and buses. Or when we “just” drive a motor vehicle anywhere. The list goes on and on. The fact that we pay some of these people for their service does not make us any less beholden to their labor.

If we were truly aware of how much our lives depend on all these others, we would move around the world in wonder. And we would be continuously moved to gratitude. Thank you. Thank you. And you and you and you . . .

We are, as Charles Williams would say, all knit to one another, ultimately, to every other, and to all creation in a great web of exchange. There is no autonomous individual. None of us is independent. We are all interdependent. I live in the hands of others. Others, God help me, live at my hands. Williams liked to use the classical theological term, coinherence, to name this reality. It is on the one hand inescapable. But we can live it it well or badly. When we embrace our coinherence with gratitude, harmony, and justice we experience our life and our life together as coherent, anticipating the New Jerusalem we read about at the end of the Revelation to John. When we try to reject our coinherence through selfishness and presumed independence, there is disharmony and injustice. Then our lives and our life together become incoherent and echo the desolation of Hell.

I am trying to live with the awareness of my interdependence. I am cultivating the practice of gratitude. I say thank you a lot to those I encounter. I especially make a point of saying thank you to public employees who make sure things keep working. If I ever see someone at the city water works or the sewage treatment plant, I intend to say, "Thank you for your service."