Rectors (Pastors): How to Reduce the Diocesan Assessment

If there were fewer bishops and their administrative costs, a diocesan convention could choose to reduce the assessment, which would give local congregations more resources to support their clergy and conduct local mission opportunities.  It is therefore useful to discuss a merging diocesan church that would take the heat off of congregations which are facing reduced membership and financial support.  Let's face it, as resources decline it is harder to pay the diocesan asking.  While it may be true that assessments have leveled off for some, simply leveling off doesn't cut it.  What needs to be cut is the assessment itself.

How might we do this?  Perhaps we can learn from the merging of the dioceses of Quincy and Chicago.  Sure, it is true that Quincy needed to merge by default because after the split in the diocese they didn't have enough congregations to remain autonomous.  This is the code word for having enough money to support themselves.  In addition, add the diocese of Springfield to Chicago.  They have 36 congregations, 5229 baptized members and an average Sunday attendance of 1045.  In this scenario one bishop would serve the state of Illinois instead of the three they have now.  Think about the financial savings in bishop's salaries and administrative expenses.  One bishop could make 50% more money than he does now and money is still saved.  Then there could be a reduction in parish assessments.

The ELCA bishop of the Central States Synod covers the entire states of Kansas and Missouri.  Having served as an interim in one ELCA congregation, I know for a fact that congregational giving to the synod is far less than Episcopal congregations in that same geographical area.  The reason for this is that we support four bishops and their staffs in four dioceses in the two states.

Therefore, consider the merging of Western Kansas, Kansas, West Missouri and Missouri.  Western Kansas has 30 congregations, 1680 baptized members and an ASA of 731.  Kansas has 46 congregations, 11,469 baptized members and an ASA of 4057.  West Missouri has 50 congregations, 11,105 baptized members and an ASA of 3811.  Missouri has 44 congregations, 12053 baptized members and an ASA of 4160.  Think of the overhead saved if these four dioceses merged.  Think of the thousands of dollars that would be saved that could be applied to priest's salaries and local mission. This "merged" diocese would then be about the same size as Chicago. This could happen throughout the church.

Bishops might complain that they can't get around to every congregation each year for confirmation.  The answer to this dilemma is simple.  General Convention could vote to give priests the authority to confirm.

On occasion this blog has called for a reduction in the House of Bishops.  If we take a look at the rest of the 2011 Episcopal Church Statistics, we can find good reason to support the notion of diocesan mergers throughout the church.  We are simply too small to support as many bishops and their staffs that we have now.  Rectors and Pastors, just think about what you could do for local mission in your community if we didn't have to support as many purple shirts and their staffs.  And you might have enough left over so that the vestry could give you a healthy raise.

The Bishop Speaks of The New Day

The Bishop Speaks of The New Day

The notion of being more spiritual and less religious has a great appeal for some people. On occasion I am one of those people. This is that occasion.

If you want to move gently into the world of words, and engage the word “religion,' you will find a mess. The word, religio, will lead you more deeply into mess and opinion.

This is great! The only way out it to select your favorite and move on. It is somewhat like engaging the “The Trinity” on Trinity Sunday. Sometimes it is just better to select the version you like best and move on.

That having been said. The word, religion, comes from the Latin root, religio, from which we take words such as “ruler.” It signifies the notion of measurement and the holding of a standard by which one is measured.

One of the things which can happen when we are organized around religio is that it becomes easy to be righteous. Some people seem to believe there is a righteousness scale from which we accumulate points which lead us to good feelings about ourselves and perhaps bad feelings about others.

I believe the church is not called to be more righteous. I believe the church is called to be more holy. Righteous and self-righteousness are rather like roommates. Holiness, on the other hand, is our call into relationship with God. It is knowingly being in that relationship which sends us forth into the world.

It is time for the church to stop being so weary and to perhaps lighten up about some of the things which seem to concern or preoccupy us at times; the things which make us so certain of who we are in our being.

It is a new day and we must declare it from this moment on. It is a new day. Our call is to be the church reborn. We are called to be the church which has recaptured the Spirit which set it on fire in the beginning.

Let those, who can hear these words, be different from the rest of the church. Let us be different from the world of politics and intrigue . . . . I have a sense if we are willing to take the first steps on the journey in this manner, the right action will open up for us. We will discover our true nature in the reflecting pool.

How would such a church look? How would it worship? Would it cherish silence, respect, would it tell the same story over and over, would it have a building, would it meet every week, would it encourage people to do more than behave and be present? And on and on.

Our commission is to make disciples for the living God, and there is only one way to do it. (Incidentally, it does not have much to do with changing the way people think.) We are called to be something which, others can see, which is good and holy and sometimes even a little righteous.

I have great hope for the church because I have faith in you. I know that out of all of the broken hearts and stumbles along the trail, there still exists within you that spark which waits quietly to be rekindled.

We are the church. Live that way. We are in this together even if we do not know one another. We Are One!

Why I Am a Liberal       A. William McVey

            I begin by explaining that I am not really a liberal in the usual sense of the word in present day Episcopal culture. As a matter of fact, the purpose of this blog is to reconstruct the meaning of liberalism. I find it important to achieve this purpose because I wish to make it clear that I am not a conservative. In point of fact, I was inspired to write this blog after reading an article by my favorite economist Friedrich A. Hayek, “Why I Am Not a Conservative.”

            After some Hayekian reflection upon theological and ecclesiastical discourse, I have come to the conclusion that present day church liberals and conservatives share a similar authoritative dogmatic and morally coercive attitude. Therefore, if there is a possible journey of hope in a postmodern missionary culture, I recommend a rediscovery of a 17 century Anglican latitudinarian culture.

            The Anglican latitudinarians of the 17^th century, especially the members of the Cambridge circle, were scholarly Anglicans, but they held that matters of doctrine, liturgical practice and ecclesiastical organization were of very little importance. Richard Hooker was really a liberal personalist who had a pastoral concern for the care of the individual soul and was indifferent about things like church leadership.  Is it not interesting that church leadership and polity are such big topics today? The Cambridge Latitudinarians would feel at home in the postmodern culture, and I suggest would be extremely confused by the conservative/liberal ideological division of Anglicanism.

            Eventually, the liberalism of the 17 c. that moved into the 18^th and 19^th centuries was changed by neo-liberal Anglo-Catholic theologians like Frederick Denison Maurice who wrote, “I seriously believe that Christianity is the only foundation of Socialism and a true Socialism is the necessary result of a sound Christianity.” Contemporary theologians, bishops and clergy to avoid being called socialist then began to call themselves liberals or progressive liberals. Consequently, we have redefined liberalism.

            These new progressive church liberals and the church conservatives, however, are rather similar in their demand for authority. Both schools hold that dogmatic and moral views are proper objects of coercion. It is primarily this aspect that distinguishes a classical liberal, or neo-latitudinarian, from a conservative or a liberal. The progressive liberal and conservative church persons hold for a body of persons who have a set of beliefs and morals that must be enforced on others through institutional policy. The classical liberal believes that there are higher beliefs and values that are shared in dialogue and spiritual transformation, but they are never enforced by coercive polity.

           

Let me offer a more via media Anglican diagram. It is a triangle with the conservatives occupying one corner, the progressive liberals pulling toward the second and the classic liberals (neo latitudinarians) toward the third. It is the conservative and the liberals who keep fighting the authoritative battles, and the classic liberals just keep seeing it as more and more irrelevant. I have a strong hunch that the best of our laity are neo latitudinarian liberals.

              

Rectors (Pastors): The Odds are Against You!

by Gary Gilbertson

The Church expects her parish clergy to be successful in leading congregations that grow spiritually, numerically and financially: congregations whose servant ministry reaches near and far.  Clergy that are successful are rewarded with additional opportunities as rector or pastor:  unsuccessful clergy are fired, forced to resign or encouraged to seek a vocational change.  Its the American way, its the Episcopal Church way to track growth or decline in:  (1) active membership, (2) average Sunday attendance, and (3) income.

So each year we turn out tons of new clergy - of all ages - some with seminary degrees or increasingly the home-schooled who are seeking a "call" so they can be successful (employed.)  But!  Mainline Christian congregations are in decline; that's a fact.  There are fewer and fewer full-time clergy positions each year.  In the American Episcopal Church over 40% of our 6,736 congregations are not able to have full-time clergy.  Less than 2,500 of our congregations provide for a single full-time rector; but wait - more than half those congregations are in decline.

The chances of a declining congregations being turned around is dismal.  Most church researchers, like the Barna Group, state that trying to revitalize a declining church is probably a wasted effort; the death of that church is usually unavoidable.  Clergy who don't value being recognized as successful leaders and who are unconcerned about their next position are well suited to these 3500+ congregations in the Episcopal Church or in a similar pastorate in their own communion.

Parish clergy, do you want to improve the odds?  Then discern carefully where God is calling you.  Try to avoid congregations on prolonged plateaus.  It may be helpful to understand some of the many factors that destroy a congregation's momentum:  (1) inadequate prior leadership and management, (2) demographic changes, (3) capital campaigns and building costs, and (4) judicatory interference and incompetence.  These problems are often compounded by a membership that is too self-absorbed and resistant to change.

Again the question, "Parish clergy, do you want to improve the odds?"  First, you must be a strong leader.  Barna's studies found that churches that "call" caretakers, healers, managers, administrators, teachers or consensus builders fail to gain ground.  Good intentions coupled with the title of Pastor or Rector is not enough.  Barna states, "toughness is requisite for leadership in making decisions that disturb the status quo but benefit the body."  The point is that leadership is not about being loved by everybody.  It is doing what is best for the parish even though it may stir up some complaints or disturb tranquil settings.

Another way to improve your leadership odds is to be filled with energy and enthusiasm plus a commitment to work hard.  Being a person of prayer who can share a quality sermon also raises the odds. Enlist a core group that will assist, support, and be honest with you.  Expect to be a workaholic rather than getting comfortable on cruise-control.

Unfortunately, many of us have friends that failed to beat the odds.



The NRA and Episcopal Church

As a boy in Stafford, KS, learning how to shoot a rifle was a part of growing up. I got proficient with a 22 caliber single shot rifle and could down a rabbit at a good distance. In Scout Camp, we got excellent instruction using NRA materials and learned the golden rule of shooting: Never raise your gun unless you intend to shoot. So with more practice, I could raise my rifle and put five bullets into a nickel size bull’s eye at fifty feet. It was the only sport I was ever much good at. However having become a sharpshooter, I got immediately bored with the activity and never pursued shooting again nor did I want to kill rabbits anymore after also wounding a few, hearing them scream and clubbing them to death. Yes, I figured out that putting bullets into live objects was in fact about killing.

About the same time at twelve years old, I fell in love with the Episcopal Church on one visit to a little chapel in Larned, KS where the Shahan’s took me to worship while my brother was in the hospital there to have his tonsils out. The priest actually asked me to help serve, an exotic activity for a Methodist kid but one who had already kind of liked taking Wesley’s communion twice a year.  The priest was a very nice man serving in a pretty chapel with a small congregation of eccentric Episcopalians on the prairie. I fell in love with it. When we moved to Oklahoma City three years later, first my Dad and I attended St. James in Capitol Hill; then Mom and Bruce followed. By that time guns were hardly even a memory as I had found a great new life and the meaning of life. I felt like I was really growing up.

Well fifty years have passed. The NRA has more members by about a third than there are Episcopalians. It has grown like crazy and has lots of money to do public relations and publicity. The NRA can aim and shoot so well as to slay the popular will for background checks and get our whole federal legislative process bent their way. That is impressive, this organization so full of mission energy that they can aim at and kill any opposition. Don’t point at anything you do not intend to shoot: a evangelical mission statement that they make work.

Well five decades have come and gone. In 1963, the Episcopal Church was about the size the NRA is now in membership. We were full of mission zeal and record breaking confirmation classes, fifty one year at St. James in Oklahoma City with our zany Detroit Irish priest, Fr. Wellwood, who had run with Jesse Owens for the Olympics.  At that time there were a lot of wild priests who had chosen the Church over all sorts of other fascinating potential first careers. . . . That was the time of global mission called Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence, liberating colonial Anglicans into new national churches from which Anglicanism has exploded in the southern hemisphere. That lead to the last spurt of growth with Venture in Mission, directly an outgrowth of MRI, the largest single mission funding in North American Church history.

About thirty years ago, the tide went out in the Episcopal Church. The spiritual climate change brought in a new wind on the land, one where guns get more mission power than our take on New Life. . .  Wonder what happened. . . .

Rector (Pastor): You're Fired!!

I get really angry when I hear once again about a priest that has been forced out of his parish involuntarily. I heard recently that 30% of Episcopal congregations have done this.  True, a few clergy are justifiably terminated because of immorality, but the vast majority of them are the result of a small or large group of lay antagonists who strike out at the priest in a very mean and terribly nasty manner.  Conflict Resolution experts call this a level five or six conflict where the only goal is to "kill" the priest.  Often these mean folks are found on the vestry and key leadership positions.  When they go after the priest, they go for the jugular and there is nothing the priest can do about it.

When this kind of conflict is brewing, it is tempting for some clergy to strive for appeasement.  I know one priest who met with his enemies, listened to them and then implemented some of their demands.  Of course this did not work.  When the mean people go for the jugular vein, there is nothing you can do to satisfy them.  This priest resigned into retirement, but he held on to his destructive feelings and they affected his next ministry as a priest-in-charge.  So if you are ever in this position, it is best to deal with your left over emotions either before or during the early months of a new assignment.

Most capable priests carry into their ministry a solid set of leadership skills.  Sometimes a particular set of leadership skills is exactly what a parish needs.  However, some unjustly terminated clergy report that they were fired because they demonstrated exactly the right leadership skills.  It is bitterly ironic when congregations ask for or need a particular set of skills, but when they are used within the context of ordained ministry, the antagonists not only reject them, but wail loudly that Father or Mother so and so was "never a good fit."

The upshot is that the priest and his family are devastated.  They become depressed and angry. They have left over feelings of resentment and they feel like failures.  They may develop serious physical and mental health issues.  Families suffer.  Sometimes serious marital problems surface.  Most suffer severe financial losses and many do not get a decent severance package.  Where do they go?  What do they do?  In my view every priest should identify their transferable skills early on and be ready to bail out into a non-church job if necessary.

You'd think that bishops would help.  But this is usually not the case.  Many will sit on the fence while the priest is under attack.  I've known some that sided with the lay antagonists.  In this case the Bishop thinks that if he or she sides with the nasty folks, he or she is taking the winner's side.  The bishop is thus afraid of conflict and afraid of losing money. Another thing is that bishops cannot be true pastors to their clergy.  They have an administrative and canonical itch to manage the diocese, and that means getting all the money they can through the apportionment.  If this means putting a priest on the chopping block, so be it.

Toxic congregations don't change much over the years.  They have systemic issues that affect generations of clergy and thus rightly deserve the name "priest killers."  If you google "toxic congregations," you will find various denominational and academic studies about them, but not much about how they should be handled.  I believe that most congregational intervention programs, including parish consultants and interim ministries don't often work and thereby fail to dent the inherent toxic systems.  Therefore the best work of the church is to foster an intervention program that assists the clergy person and their families who have been terminated.

In Congregational Seasons, William Doubleday suggests that the Church Pension Fund and CREDO "should be encouraged to begin a serious initiative to assist the growing number of clergy in this category."  I would add to this partnership the Executive Council, The Episcopal Church Foundation and all dioceses.  Together they could produce a ministry to unjustly terminated clergy and their families that will assist them spiritually, mentally, physically and financially.  We need a well planned and executed aftercare program that provides a safety net for our brothers and sisters who are devastated by a forced termination.

Last, please take the poll we set up on clergy firings and let us know what you think.

The Bishop Speaks of The Church Reborn

Decade after decade we go on trying to perfect the church or perhaps trying to protect the church. Decade after decade, we find various people caught up in all kinds of movements which will ensure the church you find in the Yellow Pages is the Real Church, the True Church.

If right thinking were all it took to get the Gospel proclaimed to the world, that would have been discovered years ago. It is about right action, not right thinking.

The task of the church and its clergy in not to tell you what to think. It is rather to teach you how to think theologically – how to think with the heart of Christ.

The responsibility of the church is to help you develop an informed conscience so you may go about the task of right action in your life. This informed conscience is not a single thing. It is a product of the Anglican sources of authority – Scripture, Tradition and Reason. It is frighteningly personal and individual, and it has great consequences.

The church is not about being mad, all of the empirical evidence to the contrary not withstanding. It is not about getting your needs met or making you happy – or mad for that matter. It is about one thing. It is about what we call The Great Commission.

Matthew 28:19-20. (From The Message for clear understanding) "God authorized and commanded me to commission you:  Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you.  I will be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."

Jesus said: Teach them to do as I have commanded you. This carries with it the implication that you are already obedient and that you can teach what you already do.

This is not that hard to understand. His command to the disciples, to you and to me is direct, clear and immediate. His command is that we love one another.

The Scripture contains many ways of applying the principle of love to life. The Gospels are filled with them. We need to be filled with that command so that it is indisputable in the way we live our lives.

Hear This! It is God's church. It is not your church or my church. It is God's church and it is in disrepair. It is always in disrepair. It has always been in disrepair. You and I are are the church. We are in disrepair. We have always been in disrepair.

This is about asking us to be reborn. It will be untidy. We will not all agree on the process or the outcomes, but we are all called to a life of progressive conversion. It is not something to accomplish and put away. It is a call to your whole life for all of your life.

There is Hope. You know what to do. Let us begin – again. Amen.

A Journey of Hope and Christian Spiritual Agnosticism

Donald J. Moore SJ in his work Martin Buber, Prophet of Religious Secularism draws attention to a topic most applicable to these postmodern days, i.e. the history of Christian agnosticism.

Christian agnosticism is rooted ultimately in the incomprehensibility of God. The fourth century heretic Eunomius, similar to present day New Thought pantheism, did not accept this state of incomprehensibility, rather he held, “God does not know his own being any better than we do.” He held that the divine essence is no more manifest to God “than it is to us.” It is a denial of transcendent holiness and the total otherness of God.

Theologians of the Church responded quickly. Basil wrote that an understanding of God is beyond the comprehension of human beings. Faith leads us to an understanding that God is, not what God is. Gregory of Nyssa wrote in his Contra Eunomium that God is beyond name and is ineffable and unspeakable. John Chrysostom most clearly defines Christian agnosticism, “We know God is, but we are ignorant about what God is.” God remains always, “ineffable, unintelligible, invisible, and incomprehensible, beyond the power of human language.”

Later Thomas Aquinas restates the theological tradition of incomprehensibility, “One thing about God remains completely unknown in this life, namely what God is.” The patristic period confronted the paradox of speaking about God established a foundation for Aquinas’ teaching of the analogy of being. It is the underpinning for the well known triplex via, the movement from affirmation through negation to eminence.

The triplex means that I affirm God is good. I deny that God is good like creatures. Then with a sense of divine transcendence, I am conscious, as I affirm and deny that God is good in a mode of being that is infinite and ultimately incomprehensible.

As I read Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, it was evident that I was encountering the spirituality of an agnostic saint. We feel her painful spiritual agnosticism as she writes to her spiritual director, “Now Father-since 49 or 50- this terrible sense of loss-this untold darkness-this loneliness-this continual longing for God-which gives me that pain deep down in my heart-Darkness is such that I really do not see-neither with my mind nor with my reason-The place of God in my soul is blank-There is no God in me.”

In her spiritual journey her spiritual directors counsel her on the spirituality of the dark night of the soul and the via negative. In a sense, this advice is based on spiritual perspectives that are really expressions of a Christian agnostic spirituality where we enter into the darkness of an incomprehensible mystery.

It is in the mystery of the darkness, the nothingness and the hidden God where Mother Teresa finds Jesus, “I have nothing to say, but that I wonder at His great humility and my smallness-nothingness-I believe this is where Jesus and I meet-he is everything to me-and I-His own little one-so helpless so empty so small.”

When I am in spiritual conversations with fellow priest and leading small group conversations on spirituality, everyone seems to identify quickly with the topic of being in and out of periods of spiritual agnosticism. It just seems to make sense that these days more than ever we have this triplex where we pursue God, we touch God, and we lose God. Then we start again, but each time we touch we discover a reality that is deeper and more transcendent. As days pass and the pursuit continues, we realize the mystery has been the existential pursuit of the God who appears and then hides.

A William McVey

Terrorists are Bullies and Bullies are Terrorists.

As if you didn’t know, the definition of terrorism is, “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an on organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or government, often for ideological or political reasons.”  The definition of bullying is, “the physical or verbal abuse, repeated over time, and involving a power imbalance.”  Not much difference!  Terrorists are bullies and bullies are terrorists.  The bomb-makers in Boston, a basketball coach at Rutgers, or a rogue nation rattling a nuclear sword, all fit the definitions.  Countless news stories, editorials, speeches, and sermons have been and will be devoted to these tragic and devastating behaviors.

In light of all of the above it might seem trivial to highlight similar behaviors in the Church.  Nevertheless, this blog holds up hope for the future of the Episcopal Church by facilitating consideration and discussion of issues that must be addressed if we are to go forward.  It is sad, but we need to be honest – the Church is also afflicted by bullies.

Congregants (parishioners) go beyond the realm of reasonableness when they threaten the rector (pastor) with stopping their pledge, which is common, to lying about the professional and personal life of the clergy.  It is reported in several denominations, including our own, that more than one-third of all clergy moves are the result of being fired or forced out by “lay-popes;” which is just another name for a bully.  More then a few senior wardens have placed a severance check and a resignation letter in front of a rector.  “Sign this or we’ll fire you and see to it you will never be employed in a parish again.”  One clergyperson report a huge symbol burned into his front lawn as a way to break his spirit.  Clergy have been sued as a way to force a resignation.  And even when clergy move it has been documented that “clergy-killers” have traveled across the country to poison-the-well in the new place.

On the other hand, clergy can also be abusive, especially toward staff, paid and unpaid.  Many an Altar Guild has experienced ugly behavior by an ordained person in the Sacristy.  Assistant clergy have been publicly ridiculed in order to “keep them in their place.”  Some bishops are unscrupulous in their taking advantage of the ‘imbalance of power’ that permits ending continued employment for rectors that think independently. 

In strategic terms “Anti-Terrorism” is the holistic, defensive, approach to terrorism which seeks to understand the causes and drivers of terrorism. Every major university has such a class by one name or another.

“Counter-Terrorism” is the offensive pursuit, prosecution and negation of terrorist activity.  Not so many schools teach this. 

Perhaps it is time as individuals, congregations, schools, communities, and nations to actively counter those who unlawfully use or threatened use of force or violence in our homes, our schools, our churches, and in the world at-large.  How?  Let the discussion begin.

Rector@garygilbertson.org

Episcopal Burlesque

Recently I was sent a smartphone camera image from a Maundy Thursday Liturgy. In a provocative scarlet hue, created, I suppose, by a felicitous complex of light, vestment fabrics and tented space, . . . there in this near tangible haze was a casual grouping of our clergy. Given the gauzy hue of the iPhone image, the ambiance appeared to be that of a final glowing moment of release from ceremonial intensity, the Episcopal witness to a satisfactory finish or in liturgy language, Dismissal. In fact, our prelates had just finished washing the feet of some clients from a local medical clinic for indigent folk. The obvious stand out clergy was a bishop arrayed in a deluxe exquisitely fitted cassock with purple cord trim and topped off with a fine draping cape. He had finished himself off with a fine  tiptop, the biretta cap, a playful gesture of traditional  masculine cleric form. From my alien perspective, this most elegant bishop compared superlatively and in fact in superior array to Pope Francis, himself earlier in proximity to and washing some young Italian ladies’ feet at a Rome prison. (Perhaps someday as a gesture of humility, he will invite them to his papal apartment for good wine to view his art collection.)

I could not help but wonder what it must have been like and tried to put myself in the shoeless feet of a clinic client on Maundy Thursday as our  senior prelates explained and conducted this most eccentric ancient Christian rite of feet washing. As I became immersed in my fantasy, I wondered, “Well, okay, do I get a little something for this. . . whatever it is?” Or, “Well, I guess, okay, if it makes ‘em happy and I still get to get my teeth cleaned. .”   And then, “I know what they told me, but what the hell is this and guess I oughta be nice!” “Washing my feet, . .  really!? Have at it.” “What the hell is he doing in that outfit?”

In another foot play narrative, a friend of mine went to a Eucharist where the priest preached about the girl who lathed Jesus’ feet with some nard, the biblical stuff, the ointment, the expensive oil. (Check out references in Wikipedia; my cats go crazy for it. . . ) Anyway, this girl gets all devotional, so the story goes, and lathers up Jesus’s feet in front of God and everybody at the dinner party. (Personally I just have no reference for this whole thing but have seen stuff on television in dance bar scenes that give me some idea. . . ) The preacher stated that the big deal was the young woman had to finance her nard purchase by dipping into her dowry. Well, could I see some kid trying to get money out of a trust fund for nard?  Then, I thought, well, the dowry is supposed to go to the guy she is to marry not herl! Now how was she going to go to the trustee, daddy, I would think, get permission to nard up Jesus and still have a little something to finance the wedding contract?

Now I gotta tell you, the preacher has a PhD, really. . . . The old fashioned name for this sort of biblical analysis of putting interpretation into the biblical text for what you want to get out is eisegesis. So here we get a MDiv/PhD, telling a story which is really his weird thing and calling it,  “Preaching The Gospel.”  Well, it is sort of sexy and fun but, well, it ain’t Bible exposition. . .

Back to feet washing. . . You know, it is just plain weird in today’s world. When the Church does it,  whether with Pope, pomp or party time in ritual and homily, washing folks’ feet, well, unless you are too sick to bathe yourself, it’s just weird. . . unless you get it done, drunk in a sailor’s bar. . .