The rough-hewn cross at Cristo Rey, a mission church with posts, roof beams, and five copies of the Book of Common Prayer. Next year, they hope to build the walls. A pig grazes in the distance.

At Yale, we had been studying the via Anglicana (the Anglican way); in El Salvador, a country still trying to recover from a bloody revolution and multiple natural disasters, we encountered the Villa Anglicana.

In response to natural disasters and the war, Episcopal Relief and Development has worked with the Episcopal Church of El Salvador, an organization called Cristo Sal, local governments, and sometimes other international organizations to build small villages for people who had no place to live and no way to survive. Four of these “villas” (communities or villages) have been built in the past decade, and they start with a similar template. Each one starts with a church, a school, a small medical clinic, and approximately 30 small homes.

During our visits, community members emphasized that the villa had given them dignity: a place to live, a place to worship, occasional medical attention, and a school for children in kindergarten through sixth grades. Some people have access to work nearby or a field in which to grow food, but other communities struggle with finding regular employment.

For all of their similarity in concept, they were very different communities with their own personalities. One community, El Maizal, has been struck repeatedly recently by robbers, and this crime spree has caused a great deal of stress. And yet, the community has a thriving farm and forest, and a professor of agriculture teaches women and young people to raise a variety of crops and to care for a wide variety of trees and medicinal herbs. Someone else comes to give workshops on preserving fruit and vegetables. Teenaged girls raise very healthy Rhode Island Red chickens.

“Se vende las frutas?” I asked the agriculture expert, Antonio. Is the fruit sold? I asked this because I wondered how the community could survive long term without generating income. Twenty minutes later, after Antonio and I had traipsed up and down a hill, chatting about my family’s roots in farming, he finally answered that question: the community needed to learn more about marketing the products.

At other Villa Anglicana sites, we found a very strong sense of community. Sometimes, that community was centered around church, and giving their children a chance at education. One community celebrated its success at working with the government to get water and electricity up to their remote location. But now they need more housing because their children are growing up and having families of their own. For now, those new families are staying under the same roof as their parents’ family, making for crowded conditions and family stress. They wonder: where will the money come from for new houses?

And I wondered: How can these communities be sustained? What responsibility do the initial partners have to continue helping those for whom these Villas Anglicana were built in 2002-2006 or so? As the world economic crisis continues, how do we determine who gets help and who doesn’t? It can be so difficult to weigh human need and suffering and favor one project over another, or a new need over an ongoing need.

I pondered these questions and more as we bumped and bounced in an Isuzu truck over rutted roads to visit our brothers and sisters in El Salvador (film to follow). I pondered this as we listened to people talk about their successes, their difficulties, their appreciation for the church in their midst or a piece of land to work, however stony. I pondered this as I looked at the frames of mission churches, some with corrugated metal walls and roofs, some waiting for walls. Those church beams wait patiently.

I tried to match those beams’ patience, with some success.

But I also felt excited. I was excited that mission churches are being built in a land so riven by violence, even after the war. I was excited that I was there to see it, and to see corn, children, and congregations growing.

And I want to go back. But first, I have my own work to do.

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Article source: http://janineschenone.net/2012/05/17/from-the-via-anglicana-to-the-villa-anglicana/

There are multiple worship services with “goodbye” as the central theme of the readings and hymns. Seminarians preaching near the end of the year deliver tearjerking sermons and readings on “goodbye.” Dramatic types perform skits about it.

Pastorally gifted students ask in the hallways as we try to sidle away, “How are you doing? I bet you’re feeling excitement/grief/relief/sadness right now.” Yes. And don’t forget terror. And gratitude.

And the administrators send emails reminding us to clean out our lockers, get stuff into the registrar, pay library fines, etc.

I seriously considered holing up for a few weeks and just letting the whole goodbye thing pass me by. Don’t go to chapel anymore; that way, I won’t miss it when I’m gone. (This is a double whammy goodbye for Berkeley students, who have two chapel community lives at Yale: St. Luke’s Chapel for Episcopal morning prayer, and Marquand Chapel for the ecumenical community of Yale Divinity School.) Plug my ears when they play my favorite songs.

Just turn in the final papers and don’t say anything to the faculty, many of whom I have known for three years. Just walk past the many pastoral presences in my life who have helped me through some difficult life moments here. (They say goodbye to a whole class every year. They won’t remember me in a year.)

I know, dear reader, that you know that I know that this is not the way to live, and not the way to leave. When I drove my daughter to the Hartford International Airport back in 2009 for her departure to the first term of college in Seattle, she was extremely abrupt as we approached the airport and told me not to accompany her into the airport. I insisted, but she would not turn and say goodbye to me, would not let me kiss her, before she left.

I understood why she didn’t want that final hug, but it was incredibly difficult for me to look at her back as she walked through the security gates without a real goodbye.

I have ministered to many dying patients and their families as they have struggled through their goodbyes, and there is  a stark difference between those who make themselves vulnerable to a conscious, loving goodbye and those who resist and hide. There’s always a breakthrough moment of transcendence for those who bare themselves to the pain of goodbye. And there’s a blankness and sense of lost opportunity for those who hide.

So. Okay. Obviously, I have not avoided goodbye, because if I were avoiding it, I would not be blogging about it. I have attended chapel(s) and sung the songs I will miss the most. I have been present at as many final community gatherings as I could be. I have been expressing my appreciation to people and receiving expressions of appreciation. I have talked and talked and talked (and prayed) about goodbye and next steps.

I have not, however, cleaned out my locker. Let that, then, be my final line of resistance to this whole goodbye thing.

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Article source: http://janineschenone.net/2012/04/28/baring-oneself-to-goodbye/

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Article source: http://janineschenone.net/2012/04/23/sermon-transition-time/

In 2006, I ran my first marathon, the California International Marathon in Sacramento. I took a marathon training class at the community college where I taught, and so I got coaching on building up my miles, keeping enough sugar in me during the race, and pacing myself. My coach said she’d be jogging around the racers at the last few miles to see how we were doing. Well, by the time I saw her, it was mile 23. That meant I had only 3.2 miles to go, but I was tired. Really tired. And everything hurt. I had already tried slowing down to a walk, but that hurt just as much. Who wanted to hurt longer?

When I saw Linda, I waved her over, and she started running beside me. She asked, “How ya doin’?”

“I said, ‘Not good. Running–out—of—energy.”

“Did you take in enough sugar?”

I was so addled at the point, I couldn’t remember. So I said, “I don’t know.”

She looked me up and down, and she said, “You’re looking good!”

“What? I’m dying here.”

And she said, “No you’re not.”  And then she said, “Run faster.”

“Run faster?” That seemed counterintuitive. Shouldn’t I rest? Slow down? Walk?

But I tried what she said: I sped up a little bit, and to my amazement, I was able to sustain the faster pace without any more discomfort than I would have experienced if I had slowed down. And I finished the race faster!

That advice to run faster when I was running out of energy seemed counterintuitive. But then, so does the text that Paul writes in First Corinthians, when he tells the Corinthians that those who are married should act like they’re not married. Those who mourn should act as if they are not mourning. Those who rejoice should act like they are not rejoicing.

Why would he say such things? Paul writes that the appointed time has grown short, and we have to change the way we are living. Paul is anticipating the end of the world and is telling people to reset their expectations of what their priorities should be. The sky is about to fall! Get your act together!

But now, in the twenty-first century, the world as we know it hasn’t really ended yet. It looks like God wants this world to stick around for a while. So why live counter to expectations? Why run faster?

I think we need to run faster because there’s a sense of urgency to the work of the kingdom, and some sense of urgency to God’s call to us.

If you have been at church the last three Sundays, you know that this Epiphany has been the season of being called: three weeks ago, John was baptizing people and telling them to repent and turn to the kingdom of God. Last week, we heard the stories of the call of the prophet Samuel and the call of the disciple Nathanael. This week, we have the Gospel story of Jesus calling four disciples: Simon, Andrew, James and John. And of course, we have the story of God’s second call of Jonah, the second time that God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh. The first time, Jonah refuses, and he ends up in the belly of a whale. The second time, he obeys at once, and has to walk a very long distance across Nineveh—longer than a marathon—to deliver his warning to the Ninevites. He has to move quickly.

In all of these stories, the response of the ones who are called is immediate. There doesn’t seem to be any time to waste. The Gospel says that immediately Jesus calls four apostles, and immediately they leave their boats and their nets. Jonah immediately sets off to Nineveh. They don’t wait to do a feasibility study or to consider the political ramifications of what they’re going to do. They simply follow with the speed of people who live with the kind of end-of-the-world urgency that Paul conveys in his letter to the Corinthians.

And the people they are called to minister to apparently respond quickly too. The kingdom of Nineveh repents immediately when they hear that God will destroy them in forty days. They don’t discuss it for thirty days and then turn their lives around. They don’t discuss it for twenty days or ten days, or even one day. They do it immediately.

What is the rush? What is the urgency about responding to God’s call? Aren’t we supposed to be patient and prudent? Maybe slow down and take it easy?

I think you people of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church know the answer to this question better than I do. I think you at St. Luke’s could write a whole new book of the Bible—the Book of Acts II: the Sequel. That book would tell the story of this church’s long history of serving the needs of this community and of the greater world.

This church doesn’t need anyone to preach to you about how you need to turn to God and Jesus and to respond to the call immediately. You people of St. Luke’s have answering the call of God since 1844, before the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves. As I studied the history of this church, I was impressed by the usual sorts of facts captured in history books:

• That the grandfather of W.E.B. DuBois attended this church here.
• That this church provided assistance to escaped and freed slaves in the 19^th century.
• That your second rector, James Holly, was the first African-American bishop in the Episcopal Church, the first bishop of Haiti and a major factor in the tremendous growth of the Episcopal Church there.
• That Constance Baker Motley, the civil rights advocate and the first African-American woman on the Federal bench, worshipped here.

These are the sorts of details that history textbooks cover. And in fact, in a history course I took last semester at Yale Divinity School, we did read about Bishop Holly and St. Luke’s Church. But the Book of Acts in the Bible describes very different types of action—small, immediate works of healing and ministry and justice: the feeding of the widows and orphans in Jerusalem; Peter preaching to the household of Cornelius; Paul baptizing new believers. The work of the Church is the accretion of small act by small act without a work stoppage. It occurs one step at a time, one deep breath at a time, in immediate response to a pressing need.

What inspired me about your history is all the works of ministry and social justice you have been doing since 1844. You were a safe haven in New Haven for escaped and freed slaves. You provided services and a church home to Caribbean immigrants. In the 50’s and 60’s, you provided a center for teenaged unwed mothers. You established the Community Healing Ministry in 2006 to address the ongoing dehumanization and subjugation of African Americans in a racist society and to foster the healing of old, old wounds. You have provided housing for seniors. You have provided musical instruction and delight with your renowned Steel Band. You have been mentors to young students and encouraged them to go on to college.

You didn’t wait 30 days. You didn’t wait 20 days. You didn’t wait 10 days. You responded to whatever needs presented themselves in the community because you know that the work of the kingdom can’t wait. Here on the ground level, the hungry need food now; the lonely need companionship now; teen mothers need diapers for their babies now; our young people need protection and education now.

You probably don’t need me to tell you your history. But I wonder: When you hear this long litany of accomplishments, can you embrace how amazing, how Biblical in proportion your contributions have been? And not because someone famous worshipped here, but because you as a church have reached out in act after act, one step at a time.

Imagine how frightened a teen mother can be, and what a healing oasis this place was to her: a place where people would love her and her child without judgment and help her become independent.

Imagine what a place of comfort and assistance this church has been to immigrants who are trying to figure out their new life in New Haven and the United States. Imagine how bewildered they must have been and what a safe place this has been for them.

You have been a shelter to the poor, the stranger, the single parent, the young, and the oppressed. In other churches that I have belonged to, just one of these ministries would be considered ample evidence of that church’s commitment to outreach. The fact that you have done all these things, in an unending stream from 1844 to 2012, is a strong testament to the powerful presence of the Spirit in this congregation.

Like the disciples in the Book of Acts, you have built a church that has become a rock in this community–not just for yourselves, but for the community members around you. You are an example to the rest of the Church as well, the one who shows the rest of us how it should be done.

I understand that you are in a transition period, that your beloved rector, Father Rogers, retired in 2010. Perhaps you are discerning your next steps as a church. Sometimes, during a transition period like this, especially when a group has covered so much ground already, there might be a temptation to slow down. I don’t know about your church, but I have seen other churches that start to slow down. It’s because the hard-working members get tired! It’s been a long road since 1844, and it might look like mile 23 of the marathon to some of you at this point. The thing is, I can’t find a place in the Bible where the disciples slow down. Sometimes, Jesus tells them to come away and rest for a while, but then he sends them back out there.

The sad fact is, there is more work to do in New Haven and in the wider world. Our job is not done yet. I think, if you could see Jesus running beside you in this marathon of ministry, he would look back at all the ground you have covered.  And then he would say, “Well done. You’re looking good. Run faster.”

Run faster. Because God’s call to us is ongoing and immediate. The people of this community need you to be their rock and their salvation from a culture that tells them lies about their abilities and their prospects.

Run faster. Because you are a haven of safety and love and nurturing for youth in a city struggling with violence—the violence that so often strikes our young people.

Run faster. Because you are this city’s Jonah–except that you’re not prophesying to the Ninevites. You are prophesying to the New Havenites, showing them and the other churches around you a powerful example of how church is supposed to be.

Run faster. Because there is a Gatorade table just around the next turn where God is going to bless you and feed you and empower you with the energy you need to keep going.

My brothers and sisters, never forget this wonderful legacy you have been given. And never doubt that you are an inspiration to the other runners in this race. Never doubt that you are an inspiration to those onlookers on the sidelines, too—the onlookers who wonder if maybe they, too, are called to get off the sidelines and run this race with Jesus.

May God bless you richly as you take your next steps.

2 Comments on “Sermon on 3 Epiphany, 2012”

1. Perfect, Janine.

   • Thanks, Dave. That means a lot to me. I hope you and Charlotte may be able to make the ordination on June 16 (in Sacramento). I’m pretty sure Diane is going. Take care!

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Article source: http://janineschenone.net/2012/04/23/sermon-on-3-epiphany-2012-4/

31 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by Janine Schenone
in Uncategorized

Oh, my friends, the third year of seminary can sometimes be a vast sea of conflicting currents covered over by a thick fog of assurance about salvation–I mean “vocation.” Yes, it’s job-hunting time, also known as seeking one’s vocation.

At this time of year, as seniors wander the halls, we are stopped frequently by fellow students and professors and deans who ask us very kindly, “So, have you heard? Do you know what you are going to do?” I sense in their questions genuine concern, caritas, a desire for us to be well positioned after graduation. I think that some students in their middler year also want to know what it’s going to be like out there next year, when they too will be looking for their next step.

Those who, at this point, are sure of their next steps are deeply relieved. Some have a job lined up at a church or a nonprofit institution, or they have been accepted into a Ph.D. program that excites them and is workable financially.

I would say that the majority of us graduating students at Yale Divinity School do not yet know our next step, and so the question, “Do you know what you’re doing next year?” can start to weigh heavily. In my case, I truly appreciate the concern. Nevertheless, by retelling my story (which changes day by day as various possibilities arise and disappear), I am forced to look again and again at the fact that I do not yet know where I am going.

I am at times awash in a warm current of vocation that is affirmed right and left by peers. And I read job and program descriptions that seem to describe me to a T, and I think “Ah ha! Here we go!”

And then suddenly I am chilled by a cold undercurrent of various realities and fears: I need a job. I have a college-aged daughter to support. I need benefits. They want someone younger.

Some of my peers have different cold undercurrents, fearing that they will be rejected for their youth, for being female, for being gay, for being black, for having too much or too little experience.

As we tell each other our stories, we often end with the assuring comment, “But I’m sure God has a place for each of us somewhere, and we’ll get there soon.”

I do share that hope, and hope is one of the main messages of the Christian walk. Which is what I have studied and prepared to speak to others about. So, you know, I should live it. Nevertheless, when one is tossing about in the seas of uncertainty, holding onto that lifeline of hope and vocation, one still needs to swim. Even treading water can be exhausting if sustained for a long time.

And so, in the midst of paper deadlines, last chances to spend some time with people we may never seen again, and exams, we send out job applications, interview for places, contact Ph.D. programs about obtaining housing in expensive cities, and try to ignore the fact that we are about to get hit with student loan paperwork from various lenders.

So here is my current answer for “What are you doing?”

1. I have ordered the cap and gown.
2. My relatives have booked the hotel room to attend my graduation.
3. In April, I go to California for the final ordination interview and to celebrate my birthday with family and friends.
4. On May 7-May 14, I will visit the Episcopal Church in El Salvador with three other members of my seminary.
5. On May 19, I will obtain a Diploma in Anglican Studies from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.
6. On May 21, I will be awarded a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University.
7. Sometime after this, I am going to Disneyland with my daughter. It’s a tradition.
8. On June 16 (God willing and the people consenting), I will be ordained as a transitional deacon at Trinity Cathedral in Sacramento, California.
9. Then I am taking a brief vacation consisting of beautiful hikes in Northern California, my homeland.
10. And then, and then, and then….

Article source: http://janineatyale.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/do-you-know-where-youre-going/

25 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by Janine Schenone
in Uncategorized

“St. Michael’s Victory over the Devil” by Jacob Epstein. Sculpture at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry, England.

(Preached at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in New Haven, Connecticut, on March 25, 2012, and posted at the request of a parishioner.)

My friends, I am very grateful for your invitation to preach at St. Luke’s again. May God speak through all of us this morning about the transformative power of the Cross and our roles in facing and defeating the powers of evil in this world.

In the Gospel of John reading this morning, Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of the world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” According to John’s gospel, Jesus is speaking these words in Bethany six days before the Passover—the Passover during which Jesus will be arrested, executed, and buried. We are approaching the Cross in this Lenten season. There can be a tendency at this time to slow our steps, to hang back, to move to the edge of the crowd. Let’s not look at the pain. Let’s skip to Easter.

But I am afraid that in light of recent events, we have no choice but to look at the Cross again and the evils in our world. The Cross was not a one-time event, and Jesus of Nazareth was not the only one to experience crucifixion. Today, the crucifixion we need to acknowledge is the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. And the evil that we need to address is the evil of racism in the United States. I wear this hoodie today in solidarity with other churches in New Haven that are wearing them to express their holy indignation at the handling of this case.

On February 26, Trayvon Martin, an African-American boy, was walking home to his father’s house from a convenience store where he had bought iced tea and Skittles candy. His father lived in a gated community in Florida that had recently instituted a neighborhood watch group due to a series of break-ins. The leader of that watch group is a 28-year-old man who has a license to carry a concealed weapon. Community watch leaders are not supposed to carry weapons, nor are they supposed to pursue or apprehend anyone. They are supposed to call the police. And so when this man saw Trayvon walking in his neighborhood in the rain, he called the police to report suspicious activity. In his 911 call, he simply described a boy walking in the rain and wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Although the 911 dispatcher told the caller not to follow the boy and not to exit his car, the man did follow Trayvon on foot. He claims that when he confronted Trayvon, the boy assaulted him, and so this man shot and killed this unarmed 17-year-old boy in supposed self-defense.

The facts of the case seem to contradict the shooter’s account. However, it is difficult to report details accurately at this point since there has been no public, sworn testimony in law courts yet. What is clear is that the shooter exited his vehicle with a loaded gun to confront a boy with a bag of Skittles as that boy walked home.

We do know that the shooter was taken into custody briefly and questioned, but when he claimed self-defense, he was let go without being charged. He still possesses his license to carry a concealed weapon, and he still carries this weapon.

When this case first received national media attention a little over a week ago, the appalling injustice and racism struck at this nation’s heart. A beautiful young boy was killed for no reason except the color of his skin and the racial profiling that so often targets only some of us. The New York Times reports that police officers tried to change or squelch the eyewitness accounts, and the police are now criticized for mishandling the investigation.

This story makes those of us who want to protect our children cry out for justice, to ask God for help in stamping out this evil. How can we be black or Latino or Latina or Hmong or Vietnamese in this nation and live without fear and anger? How can we be white and live without this same anger, but also frustration and shame and denial? In a poem titled “A Far Cry from Africa,” the poet Derek Walcott, who identifies himself as half-black, half-white, writes:

“How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?”

My sisters and brothers, I don’t know. Sometimes cases like this make us want to run and hide, to turn our faces away from the ugliness of evil. When I first heard about this case, I felt grief-stricken, angry and powerless, as I imagine some of you have felt. How should we respond? I had one thought: that justice would be served if the people of Florida demanded that the case be reexamined. In all the great fights of the oppressed against the powers of the world, change has occurred only when large numbers gather to protest injustice. But to be honest, I had little hope that this would occur in Florida.

And then God proved my hopeless little heart wrong. Two days later, the newspapers reported that, in fact, people have been protesting in Florida. They have been flooding the city council offices and the police department with complaints. And as a consequence, the police chief has stepped aside, a grand jury has been called, and the U.S. Department of Justice is going to inquire into the case. So perhaps the justice of this world will be served.

But what about the justice that Jesus said his crucifixion and resurrection would bring about? At Bethany, Jesus says to his guests, “Now is the judgment of the world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” And yet evil still appears to reign in the United States. How has the sacrifice of Jesus Christ driven out the evil in this world? Or are we simply supposed to wait for the glorious reign of God in the afterlife?

I think that liberation theologians are right to criticize a Christian theology that promises us an end to suffering and injustice only in the next world. They point out that those promises are made by theologians in positions of privilege and power, in institutions that, wittingly or unwittingly, oppress non-white people and the poor. These liberation theologians encourage us to see the crucified Christ in the oppressed, those who suffer at the hands of this world’s rulers.

As I have read about Trayvon’s death, one of the details of the case caught my eye. I don’t know if it’s factual, but it is prophetic. It was reported that his body lay in the morgue, unexamined by forensic scientists, for three days. Three days. The number of days that Jesus lay in the tomb before he rose from the dead.

Our contemporary theologians encourage us to draw this close connection between the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the slaying of lambs such as Trayvon Martin. In order to do that, we must see some transformative good coming out of the senseless killing of Trayvon. We Christians believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ somehow liberated us from the power of sin and death. But how has Trayvon’s death liberated us? To repeat the poet Derek Walcott,

“How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?”

That final line of Walcott’s poem holds the key to our salvation at this tragic moment. His question, “How can I turn from Africa and live?” does not mean, “How can I get away from this pain and tragedy?” It means, “How can I possibly find life if I turn away from the whiteness and blackness of my Africa?”

Our salvation–and the defeat of the rulers of the world–can only come from our drawing on the power of Jesus Christ to face, challenge, and defeat this evil. And I’m afraid that in order to defeat it, we have to walk one step further on the road to Calvary. We must acknowledge our own complicity in it—all of us, whatever our color or gender, whatever our status or privilege or lack thereof. Otherwise, it will be too easy for us to demonize the other. It will be too easy to say it was that man. It was that race. It was that state. It was that region. “Crucify HIM!”

It can be tempting to demonize others and to see ourselves only on the side of good. I had a very powerful reminder of this recently on the pilgrimage that the Berkeley Episcopal seminarians made to Canterbury three weeks ago. On that trip, we saw the ruins of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry. It was bombed to pieces by the Germans in World War II and rebuilt as a modern cathedral. The ruins were left standing, and a cross was formed from two charred beams. They were going to carve the words “Father, forgive them” under this cross, but the dean of the cathedral said, “No. We’re going to carve only the words ‘Father Forgive,’ for we are all at fault in this war.”

Since then, the Cathedral has worked on the ministry of reconciliation both locally and worldwide, working with community groups, terrorists, gangs, and other groups. One of their guiding symbols is this sculpture of Saint Michael and Satan, which is on an exterior wall of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry. As you can see in the photocopy I have provided, a very muscular archangel Michael is trampling a very powerful Satan. As Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of the world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.”

I think it’s significant that the Gospel says, “The ruler of this world WILL be driven out.” It’s an ongoing project. As I look at this sculpture, it is tempting to identify with St. Michael and to feel bloodlust at the trampling of Satan. We are the good guys, the ones who don’t shoot children or engage in racial profiling. They are the bad guys who do these things. “Crucify them!” As Coventry’s Ministry of Reconciliation shows us, the only way to get beyond the evil of the world is first to acknowledge our part in it and then to stamp it out with the help of God and the angels. We have a responsibility to fight evil.

We in New Haven know this evil all too well. We know that the murder rate in New Haven is rising, that New Haven is now the fourth deadliest city in the United States. And we also know that the victims in this city are nearly always young and black and male. Most of the murders occur in neighborhoods not far from Saint Luke’s Church, and some go unsolved. Uninvestigated.

And, to my eyes at least, the victims go unmourned by the community at large. When a Yale student, a beautiful young Asian woman, was murdered in her workplace by a coworker in 2009, the Yale community gathered in candlelight vigils and memorials to mourn her death. And when a young white man was senselessly murdered in a neighboring community last year, there were citywide marches to mourn his death.

But where are the citywide marches to commemorate the deaths of these young, black, male victims of violence? It seems that, if the victim is black, there is little public reaction. There is no march in the community, no publicized demand for justice in unsolved cases. Just silence.

My sisters and brothers, a few days ago, the citizens of New York City organized the “Million Hoodies March” for Trayvon Martin in Union Square. Over a thousand people came. But when will we march for the Trayvon Martins of our community? When will unsolved murders of black victims from this very neighborhood spark indignation and grief in such numbers that we cannot be ignored? If we turn our faces away from these deaths and say there is nothing we can do, that we had no part in it, I fear that we become complicit in the very evil that we seek to avoid. Granted, it is very natural and human to want to turn away. And God knows that this community has seen enough suffering to feel overwhelmed and powerless—or even tired and jaded.

But Jesus says no to defeatism and hopelessness. There is an ongoing transformation as the result of his Cross and resurrection. There is transformative power in the death of Trayvon Martin if it causes other communities to rise up in indignation and remorse to work for justice.

And there is transformative power in the death of Trayvon Martin if it causes the citizens of New Haven, black and white, female and male, Dixwell and Yale, to rise up in great numbers to address this violence. We can’t fix every economic and legal injustice in this city easily. But a first step would be to mourn in great numbers, in a public march from Dixwell to the Divinity School, the slain victims of New Haven. We can seek justice for them. We can acknowledge the Christ in them.

Otherwise, how can we face such slaughter and be cool? How can we turn from Africa and live? The answer is, we can’t. We can live, however, if we turn to Jesus Christ on the cross. We can ask him to forgive us for our parts in these ongoing travesties and to empower us to look head-on at the evil in our midst and to defeat it. May God grant us all the courage and strength to do so.

Article source: http://janineatyale.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/how-can-i-face-such-slaughter-and-be-cool/

17 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment

by Janine Schenone
in Uncategorized

I am incredibly privileged to preach now and then at St. Luke’s, one of the oldest historically black Episcopal churches in the United States, and a church with an incredible legacy of service to the community and the world. I preached there recently on the first Sunday in Lent, a day on which we read one of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. On that Sunday, the choir sang the spiritual, “Wade in the Water.”

As we entered Lent, the images and songs from that Sunday kept following me. I kept thinking about Jesus immersing himself in the muddy waters of the Jordan for our sake–not needing cleansing or baptism himself, but choosing to immerse himself into this world of sin for our sakes. And I kept hearing that hymn, “Wade in the Water.” It commemorates the Israelites’ deliverance at the parting of the Red Sea, and it also commemorates the deliverance of African Americans from slavery. (In fact, one visiting lecturer to a liturgical music class taught us that spirituals like this actually gave escaping slaves hidden instructions via hymn: to escape, one should “wade in the water”–walk along the river’s muddy, watery edge.)

These images came back to me powerfully when my senior class at the Berkeley Divinity School went on pilgrimage March 2-9 at Canterbury, Kent, England. We have studied Anglican historical and theological traditions for two years now, but I can’t say they really felt like my cultural traditions. I grew up in an Italian Catholic culture in a very religious family; ritual and prayer and Catholicism suffused our lives. I was often suspicious of quasi-royal church hierarchy, pageantry, and closed systems in which certain questions simply were not even allowed (by the Church).

As a convert to the Episcopal Church, and thus the Anglican Communion, I found so much that I liked: more democratic discernment and dialogue, openness to change, variety in worship, international communities struggling to remain in communion and to serve together in mission. The churches of the Anglican Communion are working things out constantly, and while it isn’t always pretty, at least it is engagement. But how could I ever get comfortable with the bloody origins of Anglicanism in the vicious reign of Henry VIII? And what was I, a feminist and postcolonial liberation theology buff, supposed to think about the Anglican Church’s sometimes violent colonial actions, participation in slavery, etc.?

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, showed up unexpectedly at the Sunday Eucharist on March 4, and then graciously chatted briefly with me and other seminarians from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. (I told him I admired his dual vocation as theologian and priest and considered him a role model.)

And on top of all of this, how was my Franciscan soul supposed to handle the amazing privilege I had been given: an all-expenses paid trip to Canterbury, talks with the dean and archdeacon and canons of the Cathedral, private tours, a brief chat with the Archbishop of Canterbury? I was very, very far away from the homeless community on the New Haven Green.

I was having thoughts like this as I listened to an enchanting cathedral choir of men and boys. I was gazing at Gothic arches and stained glass windows, grateful for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, almost crying at the beauty of it, but also embarrassed at the richness around me. And I felt conflicted because Canterbury Cathedral is an amazingly intimate, friendly community despite the history and stature of the place. It is not simply a museum to past glory, but rather a community intentionally working its vocation as host to pilgrims. I sensed that hospitality, and I enjoyed it, but I also felt uncomfortable with the privilege associated with it.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only student wondering about these questions, but in this blog, I keep to my story. The realization I came to is that we all, Christian or non-Christian, are wading in the water of humanity, our feet muddied by the sin we cannot avoid, our calves bathed by the grace of God. There is simply no way to be a Christian, no way to be a human being, without touching the sinful ground upon which we walk. I also believe that there is no way to be human without having at least access to the life-giving, warm waters of God’s grace.

And so, it would be impossible for me to find any stream of Christianity without some shameful history. (Heck, the Franciscans, led by the beatified Junipero Serra, enslaved Indians at the missions in California.) I think it would be impossible for me to find any stream of any religion without some mud in it. And even if I did find such a pure stream, I would immediately muddy it, because I also contribute to the muck of this world. Thank God there is a church that wants me anyway.

Coming to this realization (again) gave me peace about my chosen vocation and my chosen Church: the one that recognizes my vocation and strives to respect and lift up all voices–however imperfectly.

This realization has not brought a deep, quiet peace, such as I experience after long meditation periods. It is more of a troubled peace that senses the murky, swirling mess at my feet. God’s gonna trouble the waters, but we will come out on the other side. More on Canterbury, Coventry, and the English countryside later….

Article source: http://janineatyale.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/wade-in-the-water/

08 Feb 2012 1 Comment

by Janine Schenone
in Uncategorized

I’ll be honest here: I have never seen a YDS or BDS administrator look quite this happy about their jobs. Our Deans of Student Affairs come close….

Some of the least celebrated heroes of the Church are undoubtedly the administrators. By this I do not mean simply anybody in an administrative role, but those people who exercise the spiritual gift of administration for the good of the Church (and by extension, humankind).

It has to be the least glamorous of all the spiritual gifts. People are impressed by prophecy (even if they hate  prophets). They are inspired by evangelism, even if they think evangelists are somewhat narcissistic. They admire the good teaching skills and knowledge of catechists, and of course everyone loves the cheerful giver–especially administrators!

But really, how often do you hear someone say, “You know, that person really keeps this institution ticking!” Maybe, occasionally, at annual meeting time, or at a birthday party, someone says, “Now, I know we don’t thank ___ often enough, but she/he did a tremendous job with the, um, long project thingie she/he was doing. What exactly were you doing?”

As a seminarian, I end up hanging around rectors’ offices a lot, so I’ve seen the various administrative duties they handle: bills, budgets, employment issues, committee issues, altar guild crises, roof repairs, etc. Some delegate this work to others, and some handle it themselves, but few of them see it as their spiritual gift. They see it as a necessary evil.

But in my behind-the-scenes role at two different institutions, I see administrators working nonstop at administering all day long. They are directors of church institutions, deans of seminaries, deans of students, directors of development, and so on. They sit at desks all day, fighting fires, calming others’ nerves, designing curriculum, checking budgets, revising letters, signing pile after pile of letters, fostering relationships, fielding students’ complaints.

This does not look glamorous. That’s because it is not glamorous. I can’t even think of a way to make it sound glamorous for this blog. In fact, it is so lacking in glamour that there isn’t even a collect for administrators in the Book of Common Prayer. We have collects for martyrs, missionaries, pastors, theologians and teachers, monastics (yay, celibacy!), but not for administrators. I have yet to see a church have a day of commissioning for the administrators of the church.

Without administrators, I could not attend the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale or Yale Divinity School. Few of my fellow classmates could, either. Without them, my senior class could not go on an all-expenses-paid pilgrimage to Canterbury, England this March. (Insert Happy Dance emoticon here.)

As I watch administrators, it is clear to me that they are exercising a spiritual gift. It’s apparent in the way they are enlivened by the work (usually) and by the way their work unleashes the gifts of others.

And as I sit here, preparing yet another grant application for a hoped-for trip this summer, I am suddenly very aware of the stewardship of funds that has made money available for seminarians’ trips; I am very conscious of the time the administrators will take to read all the applications and make judicious decisions; and I am especially grateful for the relationships these administrators have maintained worldwide so that we are able to make our way. I was astounded when one administrator suggested that I email a contact, and that email turned into an introduction to about eight other people worldwide–in one day.

There is simply no way I could have found all those people on my own so quickly. Little whooshes like that are the work of the Holy Spirit, in my opinion, but never has it been so apparent to me how the Holy Spirit runs along the train tracks of a lot of careful, painstaking administration.

So thank you to Tom, Ruth, Cindy, Joe, Greta, Jeanne, Pam, Gail, Harry, Emilie, Anna, Doreen, Jan, Lisa, Mary Ann, Dale, Julie, Bill, Grace, Sean, Paul, Maggi, Christa, Susan, Lucinda, Marcia and the many others I have forgotten to name. Thanks for greasing the wheels so the rest of us can preach, evangelize, prophesy, teach, etc.

And now, for the General Convention’s consideration, a draft Collect for Administrators:

Almighty God, you have shown us that wherever a throng is gathered in Your Name, an administrator is necessary to manage the mayhem. Equip our churches and institutions with able administrators, and grant them the wisdom, patience, endurance and grace needed to shepherd Your people so that we all may serve Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, now and forever, Amen.

Article source: http://janineatyale.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/unsung-heroes-of-the-church/

13 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment

by Janine Schenone
in Uncategorized

Sometimes, seminary studies can seem a bit arcane. I remember one of my favorite Biblical Studies professors, Carolyn Sharp, jokingly saying in a sermon, “We Bible professors like to tell ourselves that what we do is relevant.” [It is. We just forget to thank them for it as we are poring over their commentaries while working up a sermon.] And I frequently hear fellow seminarians disparaging the study of theology for being too intellectual, too detached from the world, its problems, and ministry in our communities.

But I love theology, and study it somewhat addictively, and I also love ministry and practice that too (I hope). I like to think that the two are related, and that theology is relevant to life, ministry, our relationships with one another and with God, peacemaking, etc.

I had proof of that (a theologian would throw in words here about epistemology, etc., but I will refrain) in these past few weeks, when I was doing theology for a very practical purpose. In one case, I was asked to help with the research for a sermon at a wedding. The groom had chosen very particular Bible passages for the wedding, and the preacher knew what concepts he wanted to convey, but he asked me to do some theological research to add depth and some interesting, classic sources to it. Afterwards, he said that the couple was delighted with the sources in the sermon.

And that gave me delight. Really? A little theological research brought delight to a couple, and perhaps others, on their wedding day?

In another case, I was asked to provide theological research to bolster a lecture being presented to people interested in youth ministry. I love theology, and I have worked as a youth group leader for several years, and it seemed like a perfect fit for me. I was amazed, as I scrolled through journal article after journal article about theology in the Psalms, what I gleaned when I looked at the Psalms, God, and us through the lens of the lecturer’s framework and my own past experiences working with teenagers. Amazed.

And I was also thrilled that a highly experienced pastor wanted to employ me to do this: to explore deeply and theologically in the immediate service of a deep human need.

This research was different from purely scholarly research, which starts with questions and considers many paths before the scholar decides what to present. This research was more targeted in terms of purpose and content. But still, the experience gives me confidence that all research serves some deep human need beyond the addictive hunger of the researcher.

And now, back to some theological research for my next sermon for 2nd Epiphany Sunday!

Article source: http://janineatyale.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/theology-for-hire/

02 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by Janine Schenone
in Uncategorized

This is me, literally wandering in the Saudi Arabian desert in 2010, and experiencing a brief moment of liberation from a hot head scarf on a very hot day.

Much is made of the fact that the ancient Israelites, once freed from their enslavement in Egypt, wandered in the desert for forty years before reaching Canaan. Forty years? Big deal. I have been waiting even longer for what I believe God intended for me.

It is big news among people interested in religion that the Pope has just named a former Episcopal bishop, a married man, to be the U.S. leader of Episcopalians in the U.S. who wish to join the Catholic Church while retaining some of their married clergy and some of their cherished liturgies (the language used at church services). The (very few) people leaving the church object to, among other things, the ordination of women and openly gay clergy in committed relationships.

When the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., Katharine Jefferts Schori, was asked about a similar pronouncement in England in 2009, she said, “The road between Rome and England is well travelled,” by which she means that Roman Catholics have been becoming Anglicans/Episcopalians, and vice versa, since the English Reformation.

Indeed, I have travelled that road myself, leaving the Roman Catholic Church and joyfully embracing the Episcopal Church and with it, my vocation to the priesthood. I felt reborn in 2003 when that happened.

It has been over forty years since I first experienced this priestly vocation. Like many other people called to the priesthood, I played priest when I was a child, saying the Eucharistic prayer with outstretched hands in front of my sisters’ full-length mirrors and making communion wafers out of white bread to give to my siblings and neighbors. My father found this disconcerting. That was when I was 8.

When I was 10, I wanted very badly to be an altar server but was told only boys could do it. For weeks after I was denied this opportunity, I kept looking at the priest behind the altar at church and thinking, “I want to be up there.” I asked why I couldn’t, and the answer was that only men could be priests because Jesus chose male disciples.

When I was 15, a Jesuit priest saying a Mass for my catechism class asked who wanted to be altar servers, and my friend and I, both girls, raised our hands. He said, “Come on up!” and he showed us what to do. I was ecstatic, but incredibly frustrated that that night would be my only opportunity.

When I was 17, I took a vocational assessment during my senior year of high school, and the results said that I was vocationally suited to be a priest, editorial cartoonist, or writer.

When I was 23, I kept reading the vocational brochures for the priesthood in the narthex of the Roman Catholic church I attended while I was in graduate school the first time. I looked at those smiling faces of young men in collars, and I could not figure out why I kept looking at the brochures. The brochures asked, “Do you feel called?” and I kept thinking, “Yes.” But called to what?

When I was 24, I researched religious orders, not knowing why I was doing this. I was a married Catholic woman, so no religious orders were possible. Instead, I served churches as a choir member, cantor, and choir director.

At 28, pregnant with my child, I took a vocation and values seminar through my Catholic church and found that my overarching vocation was The Word. I asked the (Episcopal!) priest leading the seminar what that meant, and he said, “Teaching, writing, speaking, studying–learning and conveying the Gospel.”

By 29, I was divorced, the single mother of an infant girl, and life became a matter of survival and doing what the world would pay me enough to do so that my daughter could have a safe home and a good education. But I always felt that I had missed some boat, and I felt spiritually lost and unfulfilled in the Catholic Church. I drifted in and out of church, wanting to give my daughter a spiritual upbringing but feeling somehow erased–invisible.

By my late 30s, I started exploring nondenominational Christian churches and just didn’t find a fit. Fortunately for me, after I had resumed attending a Catholic Church in El Dorado Hills, I kept driving by a sign advertising an Episcopal church being built nearby, and finally, in the summer of 2003, I went to it for the first time.

And during that one service, when I realized that I was in a church that did ordain women, that cherished the Eucharist and a liturgy full of Scripture, that deeply honored tradition but sought to interpret the Gospel within its contemporary contexts, I was set free. I no longer felt weird for playing priest, or reading vocational brochures supposedly meant for men, or feeling inexplicably but powerfully drawn to the altar and the consecration that happens there.

I acknowledged this vocation. And now, it is the eve of the 4-day General Ordination Examination, and I find myself waiting again. I have been thinking a lot about this long wait–waiting for me to figure it out, waiting for my daughter to grow up, waiting for the church approval processes to move along. It has been over forty years of waiting, and that’s longer than the Israelites waited. It has created a paradoxical combination of both patience and urgency in me. There is an element of NOW in vocation, as my last spiritual director in California once told me. And he is definitely right about that. There is also an element of waiting in any religious work because the fact is, we are working toward a future not our own, as Archbishop Oscar Romero said.

But this waiting is very hard at times, and sometimes just plain wrong, as liberation theologian James Cone has pointed out. To tell people who have been denied justice to wait for it, perhaps when Jesus comes again, is to endorse the injustice that is oppressing them.

So I have waited and waited and waited for over 40 years, trying to be useful at whatever I am given to do at any given moment. But I am waiting like the prophet in the cave, fierce and poised, ready to spring into action when I get the word. There is work to do.

Turn, O LORD! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,
and as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be manifest to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

Psalm 90:13-17.

This Taize version of “Wait for the Lord” says it all… at a very, very, very slow tempo:

Article source: http://janineatyale.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/over-40-years-of-waiting/