I left liturgy today completely worked up and quite angry. Is that consolation? desolation? What do I do with these feelings? Our priest was preaching on the Matthew text (21:2-32) in which a father asks his two sons to go and work in the vineyard. One of them agrees, and then doesn't do it. The other refuses, but thinks better of it and finally goes. Jesus is using this parable to say something about the Kingdom of God and to talk about those folk -- tax collectors, etc. -- who actually will get into the Kingdom of God before the religious authorities because they're actually, finally, trying to do what's right.
Our priest used this text, and last Sunday's as well (the first part of his sermon was a little "quiz" for our community on what that text was about) to implore us to ponder what our actions ought to be in the "vineyard" of this parish. He wants us to think not only about what we say we're about, but what we actually do. So far, so good.
I immediately started to think about things like why is it that I support the anti-war protests, but didn't actually go to DC this weekend? Or why is it that I believe the Gospel calls us to love one another, but since the Vatican has decided to "root out gays" from our seminaries, shouldn't I leave the church? Why am I still going to liturgy in that context?
It seems to me that these are important and powerful questions. And I think that the Ignatian exercises actually offer some powerful ways to think through the shame and guilt associated with being part of the "middle class tribe" and moving beyond that to creative action. (Tangentially, I particularly recommend Dean Brackley's book, The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times, on this topic).
But our priest didn't go there. He didn't, in fact, refer to anything that is currently going on in the world that might concern us (the war, the hurricanes, AIDS, poverty, racism, etc. etc.). Instead, he wanted to alert us to the need for each of us to prayerfully consider what we ought to be doing in the parish. He as much as said, although perhaps it was only implied, that as Christians we ought first to worry about our own institutions -- middle class and glorious though they might be -- before we worry about the poor. He urged us to consider our "time, talent, and treasure" and think about how we might engage them in the work of the church. He urged us to be aware that the pastoral council would be coming to us soon asking for our commitments.
I couldn't help but wonder whether he was actually taking the text in precisely the opposite direction of where Jesus was going with it. After all, Jesus is telling this story to the chief priests and elders. He's asking them to ponder who is doing the Father's will -- the religious authorities who say they are, but then do the opposite; or all those who are reviled by the authorities (tax collectors, prostitutes, etc.), but who are finally caring for each other.
I think our priest succeeded in one way with me today: I am very much thinking about whether my actions match my beliefs, and I'm very much wondering whether the thousands of dollars we contribute each year to this church might be better spent elsewhere. I'm wondering whether my words aren't sufficiently backed up by action. I'm wondering whether I ought to be leaving this parish -- maybe even this church? -- and finding a community of faith more committed to living out of the gospel.
Is that too individualistic of me? Am I displaying too much of the "cafeteria Catholic" sensibility? Or is there something real and true working inside of me calling me to redirect my life? I don't think the answers are immediately evident, at least not to me, but the questions are burning. And the energy -- and yes, anger -- with which I left liturgy today needs to be used constructively.
Five years of teaching at Luther has convinced me that deep inside, deep at heart, I am a Catholic. But perhaps those same five years have forced me also to face the hypocrisy of much of the Catholic community, particularly our current leadership. Am I simply supporting such hypocrisy by not speaking out more forcefully against it? And what would that look like in this small community? Is leaving the best way to voice such critique? Or is staying and witnessing to it? Today my prayer is passionate and searching...
Posted by hessma at September 25, 2005 11:29 AMThank you for this blog!
You wrote:
"I'm wondering whether I ought to be leaving this parish -- maybe even this church? -- and finding a community of faith more committed to living out of the gospel."
Good luck with this. It seems to me that our institutions are broken and redeemed, simultaneously (just like the people in them!). And while I don't deny that some institutions are better left for dead and that it may be time for you to get the heck out of Dodge, I wonder if you'll ever find the ideal faith community.
As a justice-oriented Lutheran, I wonder how often us liberal types create ladders of social justice works righteousness (ladders we subcounciously hope will lead us to heaven). I am among those who decry the lack of advocacy and action among mainline Christians, but then I also wonder if we just replace one idolotry (of the Bible, of tradition, of jello molds) with another (of social justice, liberal politics, or knee-jerk progressivism)?
I don't know how to resolve this problem. Yes, your community might be failing its mission. And yes, perhaps there is a healthier community out there for you through which you can live out the church's social justice mission. But I get cautious and nervous when it comes to evaluating churches and their mission, as if we can be arbitors of what is and what is not Christian.
Your own questioning resonates with questions I am currently struggling with, too. Thanks for this post!
Posted by: chris duckworth at September 25, 2005 12:37 PMFrom today's Philippian's 2 Lesson: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure."
I do not know what you should do, but perhaps some time away, time with another community, or time alone may give you perspective on where you are supposed to be. Stay in your community if you are called to stay in your community. Leave if you are called to another place. Traveling mercies in your and your families discernment.
Your blog today was a helful and inspiring meditation for me. Your questioning, while being anchored in that which gives you the power to question, has supported my faith. Thanks.
Posted by: Adán at September 26, 2005 08:08 AMMary, thanks so much for your comments on the wrenching sermon at your Catholic Community. As another Roman Catholic woman I have struggled for years with our church's various hypocrisies of which the dragnet search for gay seminarians is just the latest version. Stay or not? Leave or not? Speak out more publicly or not? Or just get more absent from the faith community? I once had a woman in a seminar of mine say "If I had a spouse who treated me as abusively as my church, I would leave that relationship. Why am I not leaving the Catholic Church?" Her statement has haunted me for a decade and a half. I love much of our church's spiritual resources - liturgy, Eucharist, spirituality. Yet I have come close to walking out of some sermons I have heard. I have told a preacher I was greatly offended by his outrageous sermon which contradicted ever social or economic encyclical I had ever seen issued by the Vatican. I keep wondering what my witness and credibility really is when I stay but do not speak out a great deal more forcefully and especially publicly. Your comments have broadened my horizon by the suggestion to frame this struggle more as a discernment issue. And a bit of syncronicity: I have employed Ignatian discernment methods for some years and I had recently picked up Dean Brackley's book from our seminary library because it looked so interesting. Another book I like along Ignatian lines is Pierre Wolff's book called Discernment: The Art of Choosing Well. I read a lot about discernment and include the topic in one of my doctor of ministry seminars but for some astonishing reason I have not thought of entering into a more formal discernment process about this longstanding painful issue in my life. Thank you!
Posted by: Jean Morris Trumbauer at September 28, 2005 04:45 PMHi Mary,
What a passionate cry. I went through the same discernment for years and came to a conclusion that I was NOT Catholic. I gave up a job I loved because I could no longer stand with the Catholic Church who claimed to be a witness for Jesus Christ but instead is, as an institution, a force n opposition to the gospel call of love, peace, and justice. But that's me.
But where else would you go? An intentional community of like-minded Catholics? It would be the only place where you wouldn't run into the same thing you experienced last week end.
Just this past week in Boston, a pastor at one of the metro west churches, a guy who had been critical of Law and the handling of the sex abuse scandal and the closing of parishes was removed from a thriving parish for trumped up financial reasons and replaced with Chris Coyne, Law and O'Malley's PR guy.
In our life time the Catholic Church is not going to change its governance or its practice. You can raise your voice, but will it be heard. I did speak out and often, but it fell on deaf ears time and again and I came to the realization that I was in the wrong place, everyone else was at home where they were. I was out of place. If they weren't at home they would want to take action, to do something the way other church communities do about these issues.
This past weekend in MA in response to letters from the states four bishops, CAtholic churches gathered signatures to put a binding referendum on the 2008 ballot that would ask voters to remove the equal marriage rights law and replace it with nothing, no civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, nothing, no gay marriage, no civil unions, nothing, and they signed by the thousands.
Me, I am working for MA equality part time while I do my ministry internship at a Christian UU church.
Is it healthy to keep banging one's head against the wall? If you remain Catholic, you must do so in a way that doesn't cause you to lose sight of the good you can do in the world. You can't force enlightenment on anyone, so why try. Any you can't march all the time, sometimes, but not all the time.
It seems to me you do much.
I hadn't read your blog in a week or so and I was taken by this entry. I feel for you, I really do, deeply.
Prayers for everyone on your end.
Blessings,
Tony