Sermon: "How do we solve the sandwich?"

I preached my five-minute sermon on Mark 5:21-43 today in homiletics class. I share it below in case (like at least one person I know) you enjoy reading sermons online at every possible moment. Note that it was written for and preached solely to an academic audience; I understand that the very premise of "solving the sandwich" wouldn't fly in a congregation ("who cares!"), at least not without a lot more legwork.

My one other word of introduction is that I think I belong (at least for the time being) to the school of homiletical thought that says a sermon should be inductive, allowing the hearer to "problem solve" along with you and arrive at his or her own conclusions as you go. This is apparently the position associated with Fred Craddock and excerpted nicely here in Tom Long's The Witness of Preaching:

Taken as a whole, then, the sermon form proposed by Craddock is an attempt to organize the flow of the sermon so that it "corresponds to the way people ordinarily experience reality and to the way life's problem-solving activity goes on naturally and casually." (125)*

* In this light, I couldn't help but think about my attraction to exegesis and preaching as looking a lot like my attraction to science and engineering. See Thomas Kuhn's "Normal Science as Puzzle Solving" in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

My way of thinking about this issue is that every sermon is a "teaching sermon" in that every sermon (okay, maybe most sermons) ought to be modeling how we as Christians (indeed, as particular kinds of critically thinking Christians) engage the Biblical text.

So, without further ado...

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“How do we solve the sandwich?” This is the question I always find myself asking in Mark. He includes these “intercalations,” where one story is inserted into another, no less than nine times. In a gospel with so much forward momentum, why all this interruption and doubling back? What do we make of this surely intentional storyteller's device? Let's search for some clues about the theological importance of this particular Markan sandwich.

We could start by examining the two main characters, who are a study in contrast. Jairus is named and well-known, male, a religious and community leader (5:22), a person empowered to action. The bleeding woman is anonymous, female, a patient and a victim, almost certainly shunned by the likes of Jairus for her uncleanness (25) and probably taken advantage of by doctors legitimate and otherwise (26). They couldn't be more different, these two, and yet notice where they end up: in turn, meek and mighty each fall at the feet of Jesus (22, 33). Perhaps the sandwich, then, serves to remind us that “God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:11). Both are worthy of Jesus's mercy.

Another approach might be to look carefully at the role of faith in each story. Despite his relative social empowerment, Jairus is the picture of passivity in the faith department. Before we know it, he's just part of the crowd, along for the ride as the throng “presses in on” on the healer headed for his home (24). In contrast to the woman, who reaches out to Jesus on her own initiative and receives his healing power as a result of her faith in action (34), Jairus requires a little encouragement: “Do not fear,” Jesus tells him, “only believe” (36). Perhaps the sandwich encourages us to aim for the faith of the woman at its center, but reassures us that, in the end, grace abounds, and those of us with a more marginal faith will nevertheless receive the saving help we need.

Let me propose a third option. Suppose that, at least stylistically, there is no sandwich. What if Mark is constantly interrupting the narrative because that's just the way things tended to go when Jesus was out among the people? What if the way these two stories comment on one another is to emphasize that Jesus, unlike the disciples, never suffers from tunnel vision? What would that mean for our lives of discipleship?

Well for starters, and this is the hard part, I think it suggests a motto for our lives as ministers. It's a motto you'll recognize if you join us for the fourth installment of our Harry Potter marathon on Saturday night. It's the motto of Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, a hot-shot hunter of evil wizards. The motto is this: “CONSTANT VIGILANCE.” The symbol of his vigilance is his magical left eye, which can rotate a full 360-degrees and see through both walls and the back of his own head. Now, I believe Jesus's instant awareness “that power had gone forth from him” (30) is suggestive of his own constant vigilance: a caring attention to the needs of those around him. As ministers, our own attempts at a Christ-like constancy should always be open to finding the needs of the world in places we wouldn't expect and at times that may not be convenient us. A magical eye sure would help.

Now, this sounds like exhausting news at best, and an unachievable standard to live up to. But suppose again that there really is no sandwich, that Mark's meandering storytelling is simply indicative of God's alertness and persistence and compassionate concern for the needs of all God's children. Then the good news for us and for the those we minister to is that the love of Christ cannot be contained. It is effusive, a cup overflowing, a story that cannot help but meander, an all-seeing eye that longingly but tirelessly seeks us out. And though there will be days when our finite attention narrows or our tired eyes droop closed, we can rest assured in the knowledge that God's never will.

Post-Columbus-Day Prayer

One of my colleagues from the VTS Native American Heritage Month committee distributed this prayer this morning. It was published by the Native American Ministries Office of the Episcopal Church. I thought it did a fairly nice job of addressing what is problematic about Columbus Day in a positive and understated manner:

CREATOR, we give you thanks for all you are and all you bring to us for our visit within your creation.

In Jesus, you place the Gospel in the Center of this Sacred Circle through which all of creation is related. You show us the way to live a generous and compassionate life,

Give us your strength to live together with respect and commitment as we grow in your spirit, for you are God, now and forever. AMEN.

I'm Not A Marathoner...

...but I'm getting close. Yesterday my training partner (the unflappable Josiah Rengers) and I hit the pavement at 5:15 a.m. and did our longest training run to date. We're about a month out from the Marine Corps Marathon and, after a shorter long run next weekend, will start to taper in earnest. It's been an almost uniformly positive experience.

What I was reminded of yesterday was how significant the mental challenge of these long runs can be. Before our last one, which was about eighteen miles, I didn't know what there was to be afraid of. Most of my long runs has gone really well, so I approached this one very upbeat. It didn't turn out so hot (stomach problems, caloric problems), and so yesterday I was kind of a wreck early on. It definitely helped to be with someone who's been through all this several times before.

As much as I love the solitude of running, I'd have to say my biggest piece of training advice is to find a training partner you like spending time with. Preferably one who's already an accomplished runner and with the pastoral skills of a soon-to-be priest. Perhaps that leaves a small pool of candidates. I guess I'll just count my blessings, and the last month's worth of miles.

I'm Not A Poet...

...but I play one in homiletics class. Here's my poetic/midrashic take on Mark 5. Was this poem largely an excuse to write something in iambic pentameter? Yes. But I do really wonder about what it must have felt like for the disciples to be constantly thinking narrow-mindedly only to be rebuked (in words or, as in this case, silently) by a Lord who is always several steps ahead of them. Maybe I wonder about it because it's such a familiar feeling.

A knot between my shoulder blades had inched
Its way from left to right from dawn 'til noon.
And I, for one, the last to disembark,
Had suspected we'd depart again so soon.

It seemed to be our master's way to wear
Our welcome thin with just a single cure.
At least this time he'd cast away a legion
'Ere we casted off again for the western shore.

But still, that afternoon of inching back
Did little to improve my state of mind.
Had I known The Way included so much rowing,
I'd suspect I'd not have left my nets behind.

So shoulder strain and pent up irritation
Came with me as I joined the evening's throng
And jostled just behind the troubled Jairus,
Whose synagogue, en mass, followed along.

En route there was an incident of sorts.
(In hindsight, though, it wasn't incidental.)
What's kept that run-in fresh for me years later
Is that I could be so cold, and him, so gentle.

At first he asked the crowd which one had touched him—
I asked him how and why he hoped to know—
And then, in fear and trembling, came a woman
Who for twelve years spent and suffered, with naught to show.

“It's not good for you to be here,” I'd have shouted,
Since the rules were clear despite her desperate cries.
But before I spoke I glanced in his direction
And glimpsed the sea of mercy in his eyes.

What I've Been Up To Instead Of Unpacking

One of my new leadership positions at VTS is forum coordinator. Part of this job involves inviting famous people (most of whom will turn us down, but a few of whom won't) to come to campus for cheap and give talks during the lunch hour. Part of this job involves recruiting VTS students, faculty, and staff to do the same thing for free. The rest of this job is logistics.

Now, I like logistics. It's (They're?) kinda what I studied in grad school. But this job is taking over my life. I'm cautiously optimistic that my early time investment in a new system will pay off as the year creeps on (thanks, Paul). Let's hope so. Otherwise all I'll have to show for it is this lousy Web site.

Tired grumbling aside, I do think that www.vtsforums.org is gonna make my job a lot easier, and it was actually quite a bit of fun to do. It had been over a year since I'd played around with Google Apps (see the suspiciously similar www.stfrancisuw.org, www.diomil.org, and www.stjameswb.org, as well as previous posts), and I discovered several nifty new features. I still think this tool is one of the best things going for Web sites that are functional, free, and maintainable by non-experts. In particular, I highly recommend it to churches on a budget.

CSC Ethos Scores Scholarship

I recently got some glad tidings about a scholarship I applied for back in the spring. The award is given in memory of Anne McNair Kumpuris, and in their note her parents told me they thought their deighter "would have appreciated [my] view on life." It's a view that's been largely teased out on this blog, so it seemed appropriate to post the principal essay here. Enjoy:

One important ah-ha moment that came in a very different setting from where I am today but continues to shape my life occurred during my junior year of college. As part of a history of science class, I was reading about Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Bohr was influential in developing what came to be known as quantum mechanics, a subject I studied in some depth as an undergrad and then graduate student in engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But the moment itself came as I worked through a piece on Bohr's philosophy. What I already knew about Bohr was that he'd changed physics through one simple but daring mental leap. Scientists were currently arguing about the nature of light, whether it was a wave or a particle. For decades, they'd been successfully studying it under the assumption that it was a wave. The wave hypothesis had great explanatory power, and there was no real doubt that it was true. However, a series of key experiments then came along and seemed just as unambiguously to show that light is, in fact, a particle. Bohr was the one who forced us to get our heads around the fact that it is both; light behaves as a particle or as a wave depending on the way you observe it, the way your experiment aims to study it. Previously, it hadn't occurred to anyone that this was even an option. The idea is part of what came to be known as the “Copenhagen Interpretation” of quantum mechanics, and Bohr abstracted it into the slogan that would eventually end up on his Coat of Arms: contraria sunt complementa (“opposites are complementary”).

As I read this article on how Bohr applied “a general lesson to be drawn from quantum mechanics” to other fields of study, I noticed a vague but palpable sense of excitement building up inside me. Sitting on a beat-up blue couch in a crummy college apartment, I began reinterpreting whole swathes of my life and studies. I had ideas for research papers, a new understanding of my church and it's dual Catholic-Protestant identity, and some much-needed affirmation that my trying to keep up with honors humanities coursework during engineering school could be fruitful and worthwhile. There were many new facts before me, but the resounding force was more like an emotional understanding: the fact that reality is inherently multifaceted felt right to me, like few things in my life had ever felt. It's an idea that I've in some sense staked my life to, and it's one of the forces that brought my spiritual life into balance with my intellectual life and eventually gave me the courage to leave my Ph.D. program in engineering and head to seminary.

I've learned a few things about the Bohrs of the theological world since coming to Virginia. I've seen contraria sunt complementa at work in the early church rejecting the Diatessaron (the gospel harmony that eliminated the distinct, multifaceted witness of four separate gospels), the Council of Nicea affirming the dual nature of Christ as both fully human and fully divine, and Thomas Aquinas's ingenious philosophical method of engaging the tension between two apparently contradictory truths. Time after time, God prods us into acknowledging that this world we live in is stubbornly resistant to oversimplified or monolithic thinking. It's there in the doctrine of the Trinity and in our Anglican via media and in the sub-microscopic phenomena that I think a little bit less about these days than that morning four years ago. As I reflect on that strange day in my life, I realize the Holy Spirit must really have been with me if today I can sit at my desk at Virginia Theological Seminary and write that—at least in some sense—everything I learned in seminary I learned first from Niels Bohr.

Back on the Hill

The good news about this year's dorm room: more living space. The bad news: less closet space. It's going to be a long day or two. But not just yet. I've got a Web project to finish that I hope to be able to announce soon!

King Jed

I'm in Media, PA, visiting my friends Adam Kradel (Rector of Christ Church, Media) and Melissa Wilcox (former chaplain at St. Francis House). And this is their youngest son, Josiah. I just had to share.



In case you're keeping score at home: After meeting the vestry of my new field ed parish outside of Baltimore (St. John's, Ellicott City), I will finally be arriving back in Alexandria late tonight. Looking forward to no longer living out of a suitcase. At least until Friday, when I leave for New Haven for the holiday.

Preacher Man, Part 2

Madison was, as always, a delight. (The Twitter feed is probably a good summary of my weekend there, in case you're interested.) I still remember visiting Madison during my senior year of high school and saying to my girlfriend, "Man, I can't believe we're going to get to live here for four years." It turned out to be seven in my case, and I still can't believe it. In particular, Madison is an amazing city to run in, and I got my money's worth on Friday. I also got to catch part of a former colleague's Ph.D. defense and another's oral examination practice; turns out I've forgotten a lot of nuclear engineering material already. Other than that, Wisconsin micro-brews were consumed, stories were told, and good times were had.

Also, this sermon was preached. Thanks for having me, St. Andrew's!

Preacher Man (Two-Week Stint)

Yesterday I preached at Trinity Church, my home parish of many years. It was a really positive experience: a warm welcome from familiar faces, good feedback from parishioners and clergy, and a wonderful liturgy besides. The highlight of the morning was definitely the vestry member "faith story of the week," which had us all in tears at the late service.

Interestingly, it turns out that half the retired Protestant clergy in Wauwatosa (Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians) attend Trinity, which made for some interesting conversations in the "receiving line," or whatever we call it. On the whole, though, the lay feedback was much more specific and useful than that from all these retired pastors. The moral of the story: Trinity is a healthy, thriving, and appealing place to be right now. I'm so glad.

If you're interested in having a look, here's a link to the PDF. Bill says the audio will also make it here at some point.

Next week: St. Andrew's in Madison. The service times are 8 and 9:30. The texts?: "a sort of a progressive Miss Manners." Should be interesting.

Home Again, Home Again

Well, the summer of CPE is behind me, and I'm back in Wisconsin for a couple of weeks off. I'm sure I'll have some more summative thoughts on New York, the hospital, and the summer in general, but for now I've got sermons to write and a school year to plan for (and geeky, biblical procrastination endeavors [think open-source BibleWorks] to engage in). I'm preaching at Trinity Episcopal Church in Wauwatosa on 8/22 and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Madison on 8/29. Feel free to come check it out if you're interested in what this life I'm signing up for is (partly) about!

In the meantime, it's good to be home. I've picked a good temporary office, no?

My On-Call Week Reflection Paper

What have I learned and seen during my week of being in the hospital for seven days in a row?

I've learned you don’t have to be a cantor to leaf through a hymnal and sing to a woman who’s used music to keep her going through twenty-some years of cancer treatment. I've learned you don’t have to be a fiery prayer giver to mean a lot to an elderly Baptist woman (a psalter and, more importantly, a warm hand will do). I've learned you don’t have to be a Rabbi (or even Jewish) to feel inescapably moved to sing the Shema to a scared and dying man alone in a too-quiet ICU room.

I’ve seen patients, families, and caregivers disagree vehemently about end-of-life care, sometimes selfishly and sometimes -lessly. I’ve seen paranoid and uncooperative patients who want to triangulate the hell out of you still needing and able to accept (in their own way) the care you offer. I’ve seen communities of faith and communities of a city block be the kind of lifeline that St. Paul and the Deuteronomist dreamed they could be. I’ve seen a patient who hadn’t spoken for a week (and who I assumed would never speak again) tell me how he likes to look out his window at the river. I’ve seen what a gift high-strength pain relievers are for people who live their lives in constant, excruciating pain.

A lot of these things I’d learned and seen before. Some I hope I’ll never encounter again. But I think the value of experiencing it all in so short a time was to see the enormity of what even a very inexperienced chaplain can do to help in just one week, albeit an unusually long one. For me, the great paradox of this job is that we can do so little and yet we accomplish so much. It seems algebraicly impossible. It’s the kind of heavenly math that—despite all the psychologizing and pastoral toolkits and mnemonic devices and hospital procedures and scholarly articles—reminds you that the Holy Spirit is very much at work here, somewhere.

I Write (/Think) Like...

I recently plugged a couple graphs of my review of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (excluding quotations, of course) into the Web site I Write Like. The humorous and perhaps unsurprising result was that I apparently write like David Foster Wallace: http://iwl.me/s/d7939cdb

Granted, I've always written in a childishly DFW-esque way; that's part of why an old writing teacher of mine recommended him to me. But I also find that an author's style will sorta bleed over into my own style--and, more disturbingly, into my internal monologue--when I finish reading a book.

Is this a common experience? I'm wondering if this shows up in book reviews often. The only time I've noticed it, actually, is in other reviews of books by David Foster Wallace. I also wonder what will happen when I finish my current book, Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, which changes point of view (and therefore voice) every chapter. I'm preparing for a narratively schizophrenic couple of days in my head.

Thanks, Matt, for passing this tool along!

Hundred-Word Highlights

Our official mid-unit evaluation day at CPE took place on Tuesday, which means my time in New York is more than halfway done. One of my late-emerging CPE learning goals is to be more concise when speaking and writing, so let me offer a few hundred-or-so-word highlights of my time here. Here's some of why I love CPE and New York in general.

The Radios

I do not lead with this item lightly. My off-hours life in the Upper West Side and West Harlem is blessed by the presence of countless people engaged in one of the few cheap recreational activities New York offers: sitting outside listening to boomboxes. Maybe I just miss my parents' backyard, where this activity comprises a fair chunk of my family's time together. Or maybe there's no better soundtrack to summer than Michael and Marvin (in Harlem) and endless salsa (on Columbus south of Morningside). Plus—in a New York moment I can't believe I've now experienced—one night I heard someone very appropriately rocking LL Cool J about a block from my house. I don't think I could live without it either, LL.

The Markets

Not that I missed grocery shopping all that much, but among my pining for Madison apartment life during a year in a suburban dorm room was the occasional desire to be back at Regent Market Co-op, picking up groceries on the walk home from St. Andrew's. Well let me tell you, RMC (unsurprisingly) can't hold a candle to the likes of New York markets like Fairway (“Like No Other Market,” indeed almost otherworldly) and the more modest Westside Market (still frickin' beautiful). New York markets have so much delicious food crammed into so little square-footage that I'm surprised none have collapsed into some sort of gastronomic black hole.

The Multi-faith Chaplaincy

My short list of complaints with Virginia Theological Seminary includes what one of my classmates calls “the orthodoxy wars.” Think of it as an omnipresent, just-below-the-surface tension that descends on practically any conversation of theological import. This is in many ways a good thing. It's the result of bringing together opinionated and highly intelligent Episcopalians and other Anglicans from across the theological and political spectra to teach and learn at a deliberately centrist institution. It can be fun and a tremendous learning experience. But it's also exhausting. I'm so grateful for this summer in the hospital, for the opportunity to recharge my spiritual batteries via an experience founded on the goodwill that results from people of different faiths coming together to do work that is, let's be honest, far more important than systematic theology.

The LGBT Pride

Check out Kristin's post and pictures for much better coverage. I would add that it was incredibly moving to hear the passion in the various parade-side emcees' voices as they gratefully announced the approach of the Diocese of New York's marchers (and float!). It's quite something to walk through the Village in the Pride parade and be thanked for being part of a church that (at least in some places) was welcoming LGBT folks back when practically no churches were. I also picked up a little New York gem: People say “Happy Pride” the same way they would greet each other on holidays (as in—to choose a not-at-all random example—“Happy Thanksgiving”). The whole thing was a tremendous experience that I felt really privileged to be a part of (including, unexpectedly, as a substitute acolyte at the St. Luke's Festive Choral Evensong that night).

The Prominent Judaism

As I've alluded to previously, only a couple of books have changed my life of faith more profoundly than Harvey Cox's Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey Through the Jewish Year. Well, I've now shared a fair bit of common prayer with both the many Jewish patients I serve in the hospital and with my fellow CPE chaplain interns, three of the four of whom are Jewish. In fact, at 8:11 this evening, Kristin and I will help light Shabbat candles with the latter up near Jewish Theological Seminary. I can't overstate what a joy it has been to be a part of so many lunches of comparative-theological exploration, so much shared ministry (a touchy word in this context, but my colleagues have encouraged me to go with it), and so much mutual affection. (I'm also totally excited to live and work within the truly massive Manhattan Eruv. I can't really explain my strange fascination with this theologically rich enclosure.)

The Soccer

My past three weekends have revolved around multiple viewings of a sport I spent a lot of my life hating, and I couldn't be happier. Yes, perhaps the greatest highlight of all has been watching soccer in a wide assortment of Manhattan drinking establishments with a rabid Germany fan I happen to be quite fond of. While die Mannschaft can sadly do no better than third place and the Americans squandered a golden opportunity in a lopsided bracket, I'll count this year's Cup as a success because I'm now hooked on an exciting, beautiful, even sexy sport I've spent too long ignoring.

Soccer in the Hospital

Kristin has a new post up about soccer in the port. The soccer-aiding-chaplaincy factor is definitely present in the hospital as well. I met one cancer patient yesterday who is almost always asleep when I swing by. They were saving her a seat for the U.S.-Algeria match, though. She told me she's more of a tennis fan (speaking of which, holy smokes) but that she'd really gotten into the World Cup. Nice to be able to high-five a serious leukemia patient, even if it is over a last-second goal rather than a more important piece of good news.

Come to think of it, the World Cup was probably on in 85-90% of the patient rooms I was in today during match hours. I guess there's not much else of value on TV during the day, but still...I think Kristin's right about the U.S. continuing to catch soccer fever.