Namaste!

J. Barry Vaughn. St. Alban's Episcopal Church. Aug. 1, 2010.

Thank you for the incredible opportunity to visit India. I know that Ryland and Mary took good care of you while I was away, but I could not have been away so long with your patience and understanding, and I am grateful.

Late in his life, Mark Twain undertook a round the world lecture tour that included several weeks in India. He described India in these words: “…the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence… of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history…”

I think, though, he underestimated the number of gods and goddesses. According to our guides, India has anywhere from 30 million to 300 million deities.

I read that the letters in the word “India” stand for “I’ll never do it again.” I suspect that a great many Western tourists feel that way when they arrive. But I also suspect that a lot of people change their minds after they have spent some time there.

To one degree or another, I imagine many of you are asking the question, Why did I go to India and Bangladesh? And what did I learn there?

First, let me tell you why I did NOT know go to India and Bangladesh and what I did NOT do there.

I did not go to India and Bangladesh because I believe that all religions are the same and all spiritual paths lead to the same place. Both statements are manifestly untrue.

On the contrary, religions are unique expressions of the universal quest for meaning, to make sense of life, to find God or whatever name you give to ultimate reality.

And there are as many spiritual paths as there are people on earth. Most spiritual paths are good and wholesome; some are not.

I also did not go to India and Bangladesh because I believe that we should try to convert people of other faiths to our faith. Make no mistake: I believe that Christianity is unique. I believe that God is fully and perfectly revealed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

But Jesus no where tells us to convert people. Instead, he tells us to teach and make disciples and to baptize. Those are things that do not happen in a moment. They happen over a long period of time. You have to win someone’s confidence as they come to know you as a person of faith and integrity. And it is only when you have done that that you can begin to share the Christian faith with them and they can begin to find out if they want to be a Christian.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey once said that there is a difference between proselytization and proclamation. Christians are called to proclaim the good news of God in Christ, not to proselytize. Proselytizing reduces the other person to an object, a statistic and is often manipulative. But proclaiming the good news respects the other person, and proclaiming is less about words and more about deeds.

We have an obligation to proclaim the good news, not to proselytize people of other faiths.

So why did I go to Bangladesh and India and what did I learn there?

First, I went because we are living in a small world that is becoming smaller.

One of the pastors on our trip told us that his ten year old granddaughter who attends a school in Huntsville has three friends who are Hindu and will no longer eat “cow.” If not now, then soon, most of us will know someone – a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, and perhaps even an in-law – who is Muslim. And it is entirely likely that we may also know someone who is Hindu or Buddhist. That is demographically inevitable.

What is not demographically inevitable is that we will reach out to people of other faiths in love and understanding unless we have prepared ourselves in advance with some knowledge of their faith.

We did not have to go to India and Bangladesh to get to know about the Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Sikh faiths. We could have learned all about them by reading books, by taking classes, and by meeting and talking with Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Sikhs in this country. But we all know that there is a huge difference between knowing about something or someone and really knowing that thing or that person.

When someone new moves into the neighborhood, what do you do? Do you wait for them to come and knock on your door and invite you over for dinner? Sometimes that happens. But more often than not (especially in the South) we walk across the street or next door with a loaf of bread or an apple pie and say, “Hi, I’m Barry, I’m Ann, I’m Ryland, I’m Mary… welcome to the neighborhood. Where are you from?”

My fellow clergy and I crossed the global street. We knocked on the doors of Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists and told them that we wanted to get to know them, to hear their story, to find out how they prayed, learn how they experienced God, and we also told them a little of our own story.

And we took them a gift. We took with us ten copies of Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. It was my idea. It seemed appropriate not only because Lee is an Alabama novelist and this year is the 50^th anniversary of the novel’s publication but also because of the book’s message of tolerance and understanding and respect and the obligation to confront prejudice and ignorance and bigotry.

On our first Sunday in Bangladesh we spent more than an hour with the director of the state-supported Islamic Foundation and members of his staff. My impression of them is that they are not terribly well-educated apart from their knowledge of the Quran and Islamic traditions. But they were willing to give us their time, to share their views with us, and to listen to us. They also repeatedly insisted that any Muslim leader in Bangladesh who advocates violence will be removed from his position. And we were talking with the people who had the power to make this happen because the Islamic Foundation in Dhaka trains all the clergy for all the mosques in that country.

We all signed a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and gave it to the director, and he seemed genuinely touched. So I hope that in years to come the director of the Islamic Foundation in Bangladesh will remember that a group of American religious leaders came to listen and talk with him and gave him a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.

All across Bangladesh and northern India we met and talked with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs, and we asked most of them, “How do you experience God?” And they gave us different answers. Some answers we could understand and made sense to us; some did not make sense to us. Some times the differences of language and culture made it hard to understand. Sometimes the gap between their religion and ours was just too wide to cross.

Although I believe that no two religions are alike and not all spiritual paths go to the same place, we asked them about their experience of God because we also believe that there is wisdom in all the great spiritual systems and that God can be sought and found by any person.

Here’s an illustration: In Calcutta we went to the Mother House of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. While there we met and talked with Sister Gertrude, the second nun that Mother Teresa recruited. Two Hindu men were serving as our guides in Calcutta and I watched them closely and noticed that their faces were truly glowing as they listened to Sister Gertrude talk about Mother Teresa.

Something similar happened in Delhi. Our guide there was a Muslim named Ali. Ali took us to the house where Gandhi was living at the time of his assassination in 1948. Ali told the story of Gandhi’s struggle to lead India to independence and then his efforts to end the terrible violence that followed the partition of India into separate Hindu and Muslim states. Then he told us of Gandhi’s death. As he did so, it became clear to me that even though Ali was a Muslim, he regarded Gandhi as not just a political leader but also as a holy man.

What I learned from those experiences is that there can be a kind of holiness in any person, regardless of religion, who devotes his or her life to prayer and service. And that people of all religions are capable of recognizing and responding to that holiness.

But the most important thing I learned in Bangladesh and India has to do with the Christian faith.

On our second day in Bangladesh Archbishoph Joseph Marino, a Birmingham native who serves as the Vatican nuncio or ambassador to that country took us out into the Diocese of Mymensingh in the jungle north of Dhaka. We saw two schools run by the Catholic church . The first one was quite large. At least a couple of hundred students gathered in a field to greet us, applauding us as we walked into an open sided hall. They gave us flowers, and danced, and sang.

Afterward, we went even farther into the jungle to a small school. But there they also gave us flowers and danced and sang.

The majority of students in these schools are Muslims, not Christians, but the Muslims respect the Christians and their faith. They have reason to respect the Christians because the Christians have built schools that educate Muslim and Christian alike. The Christians help provide health care and build houses. And above all the Muslims respect the Christians because the Christians respect the Muslims and do not try to convert them.

I learned that a lot can be accomplished with a very small investment. It costs these students no more than $7 a month to attend these schools. Teachers receive only about $200 a month.

These schools educate the people who are going to lead Bangladesh. The prime minister herself is a Muslim but attended a Christian school, and she has a deep respect for the Catholic church. When Archbishop Marino was going to Rome, she said to him, “Ask the pope to give me his blessing.” And when she went to Rome, she requested and received a private audience with the pope, and there is a photograph of the prime minister’s meeting with the pope in Abp Marino’s living room.

What I learned in Bangladesh is that we can change the world with the application of a little energy and a little money and we are doing it in Bangladesh but we are not doing it in enough places. The United States is a great country, full of generous people, and we are more than willing to lend our military aid to countries that are at risk. These are all good things. But as a percentage of our GDP, the U.S. gives less foreign aid to the developing world than any other country. We can do more and we can do better.

I want people of other faiths to know Christians because of their commitment to education and health care and support of human rights. I want them to respect us because we respect them. And I believe that by doing these things we can transform the world.

I want to conclude with the traditional Indian greeting that can mean either hello or good bye. Shailesh, our guide in Banares was a Brahmin priest, and he taught it to us.

First, you join your hands palm to palm; then raise them to your forehead; and then lower them to your heart. One hand represents me and the other represents you. It is a way of saying, “I have you in my head and my heart.” While doing this, one says, “Namaste”, which means, “I honor the divine light within you.”

We went to Bangladesh and India to say namaste, to tell the people we met that we have them in our heads and our hearts and that we honor the light that is in them, whether they are Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists or Sikhs or Jews or Christian. We made no judgements about who has more or less of this divine light, because that is not a judgment for mere mortals to make; that is a judgment for God to make.

Namaste!

India-Bangladesh #9

One final India story (and in a way the most annoying). At passport control in Delhi the official gave my passport an odd look, said something to me, and tapped a line on the stamp I received in Dhaka. Eventually I understood that I was supposed to have registered at the Indian Foreign Office within 14 days of arriving in Calcutta. I pointed out that I was leaving within the 14 day grace period, so I assumed that I did not need to register. The passport guy said, "But you did not register, so you may not leave." I started getting worried. He asked another official to come over who confirmed what he'd said and who reassured me that I just had to drop by the Indian Foreign Ministry and poke my head in the door. Apparently, they just wanted to make sure that I was having a good time and have me fill out a customer satisfaction survey about my time in India.

I never did fully understand why I needed to register. I've always thought that you only need to register if you're going to stay for a long period of time in a country. I had to register with the British Foreign Office when I was a grad student in the UK and occasionally I would write the Foreign Minister letters that said, "Hi! Remember me? I'm still working on that damn PhD."

My registration in India seems to have had something to do with getting permission to re-enter India. In other words, they were not going to let me leave because I had not properly requested permission to re-enter India. So if I missed my flight, went to the Foreign Office the next day and properly registered, then I could leave India and return as often as I liked. The only problem would be that, of course, I would have missed my flight home and would be stuck in India and would lose my job and would become a ward of the state and a drain on the national budget and would eventually bring down the Indian economy. Alternatively, I could get a job as a "chai walla" (tea boy) with the Indian railway or a post card vendor in Benares and become responsible and economically productive, at least until I got hit by a van full of tourists being driven by a maniacal and incompetent driver and was condemned in my next incarnation to be a passport control officer at the Delhi airport as a way of making atonement for all my bad karma.

Eventually, I explained all this to the passport guy at the airport. Well, maybe I didn't explain it exactly the way I've told it here but I did manage to convince him that although it defied the imagination I had no desire to return to India. Two weeks or dust and dirt and marginal accommodations and dodgy food and undrinkable water and bathrooms that were unbearably filthy and flies... everywhere flies and traffice that was designed to deal with India's over-population problem and so on. So giving me a deeply suspicious look, ht epassport guy reluectantly stamped my passport, closed it, gave it back to me, and said, "Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. I hope you had a good time in India."

The strange thing is that I realy did have a good time in India. The place exerts a mysterious fascination. At first, India gives you a violent punch in hte gut with its heat, humidity and monsoon rains, dirt, flies, poverty, and so on. But once you get past that, once you accept India on its own terms, instead of imposing your own expectations, then India comes alive and spaces open up. It will always be frustrating and challenging because that's its nature. In several years, I think, I would like to return (if the Foreign Office will let me). Although I would like to do stuff a little differently: No over nights on trains (unless absolutely necessary). I want to see more of British India and South India. But I have become a reluctant and conflicted fan of this enormous, beautiful, appalling and incredible place we know as India.

India-Bangladesh pilgrimage #8

Today is my last day in India. I skipped the sightseeing this morning to pack and get ready to leave. A.B. Sutton of Sixth Avenue Baptist Church and I took a taxi around 1.30 to join the rest of the group for lunch.

After lunch we toured New Delhi, the city that the British built when they moved their capital from Calcutta to Delhi early in the 20th c. This appears to be the most western city in India. The British built a beautiful capital city of grand buildings and wide avenues.

Our first stop, however, was at the house in which Gandhi lived for the last 4 months of his life. Gandhi envisioned a united India in which Hindus, Muslims, and those of other faiths would live together peacefully, but as in all political movements there were disagreements. The other three leaders of the Indian National Congress - Nehru, Jinnah, and Patel - all aspired to be India's first prime minister. Jinnah, a secular Muslim, and Nehru, a Hindu, made a deal with the British for the partition of India into separate Muslim and Hindu states immediately before independence in 1947. Thus Pakistan and India were created out of what had been a single country.

Partition of the country into separate Muslim and Hindu states sparked terrible violence. In an attempt to stop the violence Gandhi came to Delhi to appeal for calm. He was given a house by Birla, a prominent Indian industrialist. Independence and partition occurred in August 1947. On January 30, 1948, at 5 pm, Gandhi, supported by two grandnieces, walked into the garden of the Birla residence to lead a prayer meeting. As Gandhi raised his joined hands for the traditional India greeting of "Namaste", a young Hindu man rushed forward, knocked one of Gandhi's grandnieces to the ground, and fired 3 bullets into Gandhi's body. About 15 minutes later, the Mahatma was dead. His last words were "Lord Rama."

The house and garden where Gandhi was killed are kept as a museum and shrine. There is no doubt in my mind that Gandhi was a remarkable man who consistently preached and practiced nonviolence. My favorite part of the museum was a cartoon showing Gandhi speaking to Martin Luther King, Jr., saying, "The funny thing about these assassins is that they think they actually killed us."

After seeing the Gandhi museum we drove to the site of the Indian parliament and presidential residence. The president's residence was built by the British viceroy Lord Curzon in the early 20th c. and is enormous and imposing. It may be as much as ten times as big as the White House. In front and on either side of the presidential residence are two administrative buildings that are equally imposing. The current president of India is a woman, Pratibha Devisingh Patil, who is a Hindu. However, her vice president is a Muslim man; India's prime minister is a Sikh man; and the president of the congress is a Christian woman. Amazing India...

The final site was the India Gate. Like Paris' Arche de Triomphe, the India Gate is a war memorial. In 1914 Gandhi made a personal appeal to Indians to fight on behalf of Great Britain in WW1 and almost 1 million Indians volunteered. There were almost as many Indians fighting for Britain as from Britain's 4 "white dominions" (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa) combined. The India Gate commemorates 90,000 Indians who died fighting for Britain.

I leave for Amsterdam tonight and then for Atlanta tomorrow. It's been an amazing journey and in a few days I will share some general thoughts about my experience of India.

India-Bangladesh pilgrimage #7

Our hotel in McLeodganj had a restaurant on the roof. The second morning I was there I sat outside in the sunshine, drinking tea, and looking down into the valley. McLeodganj is about 6000 ft above sea level, and everywhere there are spectacular views.

Our second day started with a bang... literally. As we were driving into Dharamsala, our driver tried to pass a bus on a curve. As we rounded the bus we slammed head on into another bus coming our way. Fortunately, our vehicle and the one we hit were going very slowly. We suffered only a few cuts and bruises.

Palden, our guide, got us 2 taxis and we continued. Our first stop was a Tibetan cultural center. It was one of the loveliest places we've visited in India. The grounds are beautifully manicured, flowers were everywhere. We crossed a bridge over a koi pond going up to the temple. While there we watched Tibetan artists painting traditional Tibetan Buddhist icons, doing needlework, and making furniture. The temple featured a status of the Buddha as the "warrior monk" and it felt like a really prayerful place. Before we left we had a really good lunch in the cafeteria.

After lunch we visited the temple or monastery of the 17th Karmapa lama. He is the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. Along with about 100 people we sat cross legged on the floor until the Karmapa lama and other monks entered. Then one by one we went forward to receive his blessing.

The next day our two taxis took us from McLeodganj to Amritsar. I think we were all a bit nervous as the taxis descended the mountain on narrow and windy roads. Also, it rained heavily at intervals. But about 6 hours later we arrived in Amritsar.

Amritsar is the holiest city in the Sikh faith because it is the home of the Golden Temple. Our hotel was located just around the corner from the temple. It sits in the middle of a large compound with other buildings on the four sides. In the cener is the "pool of immortality" and in the center of the pool is the temple itself. Its walls are stone but they are covered with gold and it's a brilliant sight in the day and even more brilliant at night when the light reflects in the water.

Sikhism is a synthesis of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam and began in the 16th c. Today there are about 20 million Sikhs, mostly in India, and it may be the 6th or 7th largest religion in the world. The goal of Sikhism is to eliminate the 4 evils: ego, greed, anger, lust, and attachment. The central ritual of the Sikh faith is reading from the scriptures written by their gurus. The Sikh holy book is kept in the center of the temple. From 4 am to 10.15 pm every day it is open and there is constant singing of its texts. We were able to look down upon the book and the musicians from a gallery in the temple. There were 2 singers, each playing a "lap accordion" and a drummer who was drumming extremely complex patterns. Just before the book was closed and put away for the night, the music changed. It became louder and everybody began singing along. Then a portable throne was brought in, the book was packed up, and with great ceremony it was put away until 4 am the next day.

Also in Amritsar we saw the site of the 1919 massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh. Gandhi had called for a national day of purification but the British interpreted this to be a national strike. A British general fired on peaceful protestors in Amritsar, killing hundreds and injuring over a thousand. It was one of the most significant events leading up to independence in 1947.

Later that day we drove 30 km to the Pakistani border and watched as Indian and Pakistan troops changed the guard and lowered their flags. Then we were off to the train for our last overnight train journey. The train left Amritsar right on time and arrived in Delhi only a little later than scheduled. After transferring to our hotel and resting a bit we went out to see the Jama Masjid mosque (the largest in India) and to have lunch at Karim's, a famous Muslim-oriented restaurant near the south gate of the mosque. Our guide in Delhi, Ali, ordered for us and the food was delicious (even though I afterward learned that I was eating goat).

The highlight of our first day in Delhi for me was a visit to the site of Gandhi's cremation. It is a national shrine and like all holy places in India one is required to remove one's shoes. I removed my shoes but not my socks and afterward regretted it. There is something different in these holy places when one feels the cold marble or sun-warmed stone or earth beneath one's feet. One feels a deep connection with the place and also feels strangely vulnerable and exposed.

India/Bangladesh #6

A little more about Sarnath and Buddhism: Another piece of sculpture in the museum at Sarnath is the earliest known depiction of Buddha. Dating from the 3rd century AD, it depicts Buddha seated with his eyes half closed and the index fingers of his hands intertwined. Our guide Shailesh said that one interpretation of the hands is that the Buddha was untying a knot that represents the dilemma of suffering.

Later that day Shailesh took us out on the Ganges in a small boat. He told us that there are 100,000 shrines or temples to Shiva in Varanasi. That was believable as we were rowed past at least a dozen just on the banks of the river. Less easy to comprehend is the Hindu practice of cremating bodies atop wooden funeral pyres along the banks of the Ganges. We saw at least a dozen such pyres. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that.

As the sun set we were given small cups made of a single leaf of a tree with a candle in the center. As Shailesh said a prayer in the ancient language of Sanskrit, we lit the candles and set candle and flowers adrift on the river. The glow of the candles reflected in the water as the sun set was enchanting. Shailesh told us that all Hindu prayers include the following petitions: "May all beings be happy; may all beings be free from fear; may all beings look upon one another with eyes of love. And if pain still remains in the world, may it come to me."

After our sunset cruise, we walked to a restaurant overlooking the river and watched as young Brahmin priests made offerings to "Mother Ganga." I have to say that it was a beautiful ceremony. Their movements were like ballet. First, they rang bells as they turned in circles to summon the gods from all corners of the world. Next they waved lighted sticks of incense to cleanse themselves. Then they offered flowers and finally they offered fire.

Reflecting on our time in Varanasi and Calcutta, I realized that Western Christians believe that worship must be quiet, solemn, sober, and interior. But that is not the way most humans at most times have worshiped. For most people in most times, worship is about saying the right words and performing the correct rituals. It seems noisy, chaotic, and far from worshipful to us, but not to them. More about this later...

The next day we took another overnight train. Our first overnight on a train had been 1rst class; this one was 2nd class (but it was the best we could get). I have to admit that I did not enjoy it, but we did get to Agra only about 2 hours late.

Agra was the seat of the Mughals (Mongols) who ruled India from the early 16th century until defeated by the British in the 19th century. It is better known as the site of the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jehan as a tomb for his favorite wife, Mumtaj. Taj Mahal means "palace of Taj". It was completed in 1639.

The Taj Mahal is rightly regarded as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. It is made of brick but every surface is covered with white marble. From a distance it looks weightless and seems to float above the ground.

However, more interesting and appealing to me is the Red Fort across the river from the Taj Mahal from which Shah Jehan ruled. It was also the seat of Akbar who ruled the Mughul empire from 1556 to 1605, approximately the same dates that Elizabeth I ruled England (1658-1603). In fact, Elizabeth wrote Akbar a letter in which she said, "We have heard of your humanity..." Akbar (a Muslim) was noted for his toleration of other faiths.

We had one other 2nd class overnight train trip: from Agra to a station near Dharamsala. However, it was exactly on time leaving and arriving. From the train station we had a 3 hour van ride up into the mountains to the village of McLeodganj, near Dharamsala. The main road was closed for repairs, so we took a secondary road that was never wider than 1 1/2 lanes and often narrower. McLeodganj dates from the British period and its name means "McLeod's place". I wonder who McLeod was!?

Dharamsala is the headquarters of the Dalai Lama, who is both the spiritual head of the Tibetan branch of Buddhism and the head of the Tibetan government in exile. The Chinese communists initially promised him and his people autonomy but installed their own government in 1960, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee to India.

McLeodganj is filled with Western tourists and the commerce they attract: restaurants, hotels, coffee bars, and internet cafes (in one of which I'm typing this). Every coffee shop seems to have WiFi. The streets are no more than 15 ft wide and cars go by at regular intervals, offering careless pedestrians the chance to learn about the cycle of death and rebirth first hand. As in other Indian towns, cattle wander freely, depositing their offerings wherever they please. The pedestrians who avoid the cycle of death and rebirth are likely to participate in the blessings bestowed by the sacred animal of the Hindu faith.

India/Bangladesh pilgrimage #5

We were booked on the over night train from Calcutta to Varanasi (Benares) but the train was several hours later departing and arrived 22 hours later than scheduled. Our guide, Nagendra, assured us that this rarely happens.

The villages between Calcutta and Varanasi are primitive. Except for electric lines and people talking on cell phones, there's not much evidence that this is the 21st century. In the more developed towns the railway stations are covered and a few more enterprising Indians put out boxes covered with cloth on which they offer water, sweets, and other things. The women walk by in saris and the men with heavy sacks of flour and rice on their heads.

Warren Hastings, the British Governor General of India from 1773, greatly admired Indian civilization and commissioned a translation of the Bhagavidgita, a Hindu holy book. In the preface he wrote, "Every instance which brings the Indians' real character home to observation will impress us with a more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teachus to estimate themby the measure of our own. But such instances can only be obtained by their writings, and these will survive, when the British dominion of India shall have long ceased to exist, and when the sources which it once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance."

Our first stop after checking into our hotel in Varanasi was to drive out of the city to Sarnath, the birthplace of Buddha and site of his first sermon. The story of Buddha's life is fairly well known. Born around 550 BC to a noble family, he was known as Prince Siddhartha. After a sheltered childhood, he began to inquire about the suffering he saw and decided to become a monk. After years of meditation, Siddhartha received "enlightenment" and became known as the Buddha (the enlightened one). He taught that the central problem of human life is suffering and that suffering is caused by attachment to things that are temporal and finite. The path to enlightenment, Buddha taught, is to release our grasp upon the things that cause suffering.

Sarnath contains a small but impressive museum of antiquities. It houses the top of a pillar that dates from the 3rd century BC erected by Prince Ashoka, a convert to Buddhism, to mark Buddha's birthplace. The top of the pillar or capital consists of 4 lions, facing the 4 directions. The lions symbolize Buddha who was (according to Hindu thought) a member of the "warrior" or lion caste ("shakya") and is sometimes known as Shakyamuni (the lion or warrior monk). Although it no longer exists, the pillar also supported a 32 spoke wheel. The 32 spokes symbolized the 32 characteristics of an incarnation of the god Vishnu, because Buddha was believed to be such an incarnation. The spokes also symbolized the Buddha's Four Noble Truths times the Eight Fold Path to enlightenment. Although India is a predominantly Hindu nation, the state of India adopted the 4 lions of Ashoka's pillar as its official symbol.

Across the street from the musum is an archeological site containing the ruins of "stupas" or shrines, commemorating the birthplace of Buddha and site of his first sermon.

India/Bangladesh pilgrimage #4

Tuesday the group went to Dhaka Univ and to a mosque, but I spent the day with the ass't nuncio, Msgr Mark Kadima, a Kenyan priest. There was a problem with my visa that I had to straighten out with the Indian embassy in order to return to India. It was an enjoyable day because I got to see more of Dhaka at the street level. Mark took me with him to do some shopping and he also found a little shop where they repaired my watch for about 25 cents. (Unfortunately, I promptly broke it again.)



In the afternoon we met with a group of Sufi Muslims. Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam that is very accepting of other faiths. The Sufis believe that God is in all of us. It is also said to be the predominant form of Islam in India.



Abp Marino had us all to dinner again that evening. Other guests included Father Francesco, a missionary in Bangladesh who is very involved with the Sufis. Francesco is from Milan and trained as a pulmonary surgeon before entering the priesthood. Another guest was Brother Guillaume, a member of the Protestant Taize community. A Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin d'Hingan, who is in charge of a mission to lepers, sat across from me. I was seated between Abp Marino and Chairmaine Mendes, the wife of Neo Mendes, a business man in Dhaka.

After dinner Abp Marino thanked us for coming. Then I toasted him for his hospitality. I quoted Methodist theologian Albert Outler, an official observer at the Second Vatican Council. Outler said that if Pope John XXIII had lived a couple of years longer, he and the other observers would have been singing the "Te Deum." I said that if we could spend a few more days with Abp Marino, many in our party would have been singing the "Angelus." But Rabbi Jonathan Miller made the most moving comment. He said that one of the prayers in the Sabbath liturgy thanks God for "giving life to those who lie in the dust," and he said that that was what he had seen the archbishop and the Catholic Church do for the people of Bangladesh -- give life to those who lie in the dust.



Afterward, the archbishop gave us lovely gifts: a medallian commemorating the election of Benedict XVI, a rosary blessed by the pontiff, and a book about Bangladesh.



We got back to the hotel between 10 and 11 but had to be on our way the next morning by 4.45 am to make our flight to Calcutta. As it was, the flight was delayed by several hours, but we were met in Calcutta by representatives of our tour company who took us to the hotel. After lunch we toured the Victoria Museum, an enormous Victorian building that chronicle British rule in India and is a monument to the Queen Empress of India. Anup was our guide our entire time in Calcutta and seemed very pro-British. He said that families still aspire for their children to go to Britain for their education. The British succeeded, he said, because they made an effort to understand Indian culture and accepted it.



After the Victoria Monument we went to the "mother house" of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. I can't convey how moving that experience was. Mother Teresa's very simple tomb is in a chapel on the ground floor. One floor above it is her room. It contains a small bed, chair, and table. We talked at length with Sister Gertrude, the second nun that Mother Teresa recruited. She was delightful. She had been one of Mother Teresa's students at the Sisters of Loreto school before she founded the Missionaries of Charity. After becoming a nun, Sister Gertrude also trained as a physician and took care of Mother Teresa during her illnesses and was with her when she died. However, the most moving part of that visit was watching the faces of Anup and our other guide, Nagendra. Although both are Hindus, they hung on every word Sr Gertrude said and their faces glowed as they listened. It is abundantly clear that Mother Teresa is just as much a saint to the Hindus as to Catholics and other Christians.



Mother Teresa said, "There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic." She also said, "The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service; the fruit of service is peace."


In the evening I went with Steve Jones, the pastor of Southside Baptist Church, to a mall for dinner with Subir, an Indian pastor who operates an outreach to street children. He and his staff take them from the street and the garbage dumps each morning, give them a bath, teach them, and offer them the chance to learn about the Christian faith.



The next morning we left the hotel around 8 am. Our first stop was Calcutta's enormous flower market. There must be at least 100 stalls selling thousands of flowers. The reason for the market is that flowers are among the principal things offered to the Hindu gods/goddesses and certain flowers are sacred to certain gods. Every home and work place has a shrine to a god that always has fresh flowers in front of it.



Our next stop was the old synagogue. For hundreds of years there was a substantial Jewish population in Calcutta and there were 4 synagogues. Now almost all the Jews have left and the synagogue no longer has services. It is a beautiful building, however, that looks very much like a church on the outside. Inside it has box pews as you would see in an 18th century Anglican church. The thing I liked best, though, was a plaque outside the door commemorating a member of the synagogue who flew with the RAF in WW2, was killed over France, and is buried in France.



Afterward we went to the Sri Ramakrishnan monastery. To get there we took a boat across the Ganges. Along the way we were able to get a good view of Calcutta. The monastery is a deeply prayerful place. The main part of it is a meditation hall that is about the size of St. Alban's. The floor has no seating; people just sit and meditate wherever they wish. Ramakrishnan was a Hindu holy man who taught the unity of all religions. His disciple, Swami Vivekenanda, visited the US and spoke at the Chicago Congress of World Religions in 1893. They founded the Vedanta Society, an outreach to the US.



Near the monastery is a huge temple to Kali, the mother goddess. It is as chaotic, noisy, and unprayerful as the monastery is quiet and meditative. Nevertheless, the Indians seem to prefer the temple. It was thronged with people seeking to offer Kali gifts. It seemed to me that this must have been the kind of thing that St. Paul saw when he visited Athens and saw the temple to the "unknown god."



After lunch we visited a Jain temple and we finished the day with a visit to artisans who make larger than life statues of the gods that are used in festivals.



I am writing this in Varanasi (also known as Benares), the holiest of Hindu holy cities. But more about that latter. You might want to know, however, that I'm writing from an open air internet cafe with no air conditioning just around the corner from our very nice hotel and located on a street that is not much better than a dirt road. The contrasts in this country are jaw dropping...

India/Bangladesh pilgrimage #3

Archbishop Marino, the Vatican nuncio or ambassador, entertained us at dinner our first and second nights in Dhaka. The other guests with us the first night included a Kenyan priest, Mark, who is the assistant nuncio and who was previously in Ghana. There were also 2 Bangladeshi priests, James, who teaches at Holy Cross College (we would call it a high school) and Emmanuel, academic dean at the Catholic seminary.

In Bangladesh, a Muslim country, Friday (the Muslim holy day) and Sat are holidays, and Sun is a work day. Sun morning began with mass at 7.30 am. The US ambassador, Jim Moriarty, and his wife, Lauren, regularly attend mass, and we got to meet them briefly.

Our first stop was Holy Cross College. Apparently, it's one of the best schools in Dhaka, and there were many families waiting there to try to get their sons admitted. We met the principal who told us that the school is mostly Muslim. He also said that fees for a student are only about $7 US and that a teacher's salary is about $2000 per year.

We then made stops at the cathedral, a parish church, and the hospice run by mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. The hospice was quite moving. It's as primitive as possible. There's no air conditioning, just 3 to 4 wards with multiple beds. One ward contains children with severe birth defects.

In the late afternoon we went to the Islamic Foundation, a government-supported institution that trains all the imams (clergy) for the mosques in the country. The director and staff emphatically told us that Islam is a peaceful religion and those who engage in terrorism are not Muslims. When it was founded Bangladesh was officially secular. A subsequent government made Islam the official religion, although the constitution explicitly states that all persons are to be allowed to practice their faith freely. From what I've seen, religious freedom is a reality in Bangladesh. There is considerable interaction among religious leaders and there appears to be no hostility.

In the evening we were again at the nunciature for dinner. The guest of honor was Mohammed Zamir, a member of the Bangladeshi cabinet and former ambassador. Zamir was fascinating. He speaks several languages and has published 13 books, including a book on the teachings of Islam. He is also a published poet. Zamir represents the progressive wing of Islam and a fatwa (religious decree) of death was issued against him for his writings. Nevertheless, he often travels without his bodyguard. He told us that he makes his bodyguards nervous. "What will happen if there's an attempt on your life?" one asked him. He replied, "Well, I may be dead; you will lose your job; but the world will go on."

Monday morning we left at 7.30 am to visit the Diocese of Myminsingh in the countryside. Bishop Puna of Mymeesingh traveled with us. One of our first stops was at a school where the entire student body of at least 100 students was lined up in rows to welcome us. They also sang and danced and presented us with flowers. We went even further into the jungle to visit another school. When we arrived, the priest told us that they had already had 163 snake bites there this year. Such encouragement!

We also met 3 students from the Univ of Notre Dame who are volunteering at the schools for a couple of months. They are part of an organization at UND that supports the schools by staging boxing matches. This year alone they raised $100,000.

India/Bangladesh Pilgrimage #2

My hotel in Mumbai had a beautiful restaurant on the 18th floor. The restaurant faced southwest and you could just see the harbor in the distance. It's monsoon season and from sundown to sunrise the rain lashed at the glass at a ferocious rate. The food was at least as good as the view; they had buffets at both breakfast and dinner with a variety of Asian and Western foods.

The second day I was in Mumbai I walked across the street to a mall where there was a large food court that included a McDonald's. Someone told me that in India the McDonaldses offered a good vegetarian burger (in a country where the cow is sacred, you can't have a regular hamburger), so I had to try it. They were right. By the way, the McDonalds was located between Subway and KFC. Do you think we can teach our minimum wage employees to speak Hindi as well as those in India speak English?

Across from the food court was a a bookstore. It had several shelves of fiction and a small history section but the largest section appeared to be business and management. India's economic future seems promising.

The India rupee is worth only a little more than the Italian lira, so you end up with a pile of change. The exhange rate is about 45Rs per dollar. I'm carrying my wallet and passport around with me in a "fanny pack." All things considered, this seems to be a good idea but it also feels as though there's a flashing neon sign over my fanny pack, saying "Look! Here's Barry's money and passport!"

Security is amazingly tight at the airport and hotel. Both have barricades in front of them to prevent attacks involving vehicles. To entern the hotel one has to pass through a metal detector and send one's belongings through an x-ray machine.

I am now in Dhaka, having flown here at 8 am this morning. I left the hotel at 6.15 am and rode thru relatively empty streets to the airport. However, I got a better sense of the poverty and overcrowding than on my way in. From the hotel to the airport the streets are lined with the most primitive dwellings. Frankly, such poverty is terrifying to me.

At the airport I met up with 3 more members of my group who flew in from the US last night: Ed Hurley, pastor of South Highlands Presbyterian, Ray Dunmyer, pastor of St. Thomas' Catholic Church in Montevallo, and Bob Hurst, pastor of United Church in Huntsville. Archbishop Joseph Marino, a Birmingham native who is papal nuncio in Dhaka, met us at the airport, facilitated our passage thru customs, and had his driver take us to our hotel. We will see the rest of our party tonight at dinner at the archbishop's residence.

First report from India/Bangladesh pilgrimage

Heathrow Airport. Wed., July 7, 2010.

Time is starting to slip away. I left Atlanta Hartsfield last night at 11 pm, flew about 8 hours to London Heathrow and arrived around noon GMT. I had an 8 hour layover in London and now it is almost 8 pm. I'm waiting for a 9.25 pm departure on Jet Airways. Then I fly about 8 hours to Mumbai where it is 10 hours later. Imagine the "word problem" in math class: "If Barry wants to go to India and flies thru London, what time will it be when he has dinner 2 days later?"

After arriving at Heathrow I slept for 3-4 hours at a little hotel in the airport. My room was about the size of one of my walk-in closets but was clean and comfortable. I also had a shower. It cost 37 pounds and was worth every pence.

It feels great being back in the UK. I really miss it. I always think about moving here permanently when I visit. I think one thing that holds me back is the fact that Britons no longer dream and dare really big things (eg, the Indian railway system which they built in the 19th century). I think WW1 knocked the wind out of them and they've never quite recovered (although they rallied admirably in WW2). Americans are still capable of big things (eg, the moon missions) and the world today needs bold and determined dreamers.

Last night I felt rather melancholy as I waited for my flight in Atlanta. I realized that I am reluctant to do things that frighten me. I would like to re-capture some of the "derring do" I had 20-30 years ago.

I enjoyed watching the other people in the Heathrow departure lounge. They are the Empire in microcosm. When I sat down there were a young man and young woman sitting behind me speaking a language I did not recognize. However he was clearly "chatting up" the young lady. You don't need to know the language to know what he was saying! To my left was a group of young English "lads." They were dressed somewhat roughly but their accents gave them away. They were not from East London (Cockney) or Liverpool/Leeds (think "The Full Monty"). Instead, their accents were Home Counties (around London) or Cotswolds. They were just slumming.

My flight to Mumbai was aboard Jet Airways, an Indian airline. The plane was beautiful and the service was impeccable. It's the way flying used to be. I greeted the flight attendant at the door of the plane with the traditional Sanskrit greeting "Namaste" (roughly, "I honor the light within you"). She flashed me a bright smile and responded with the traditional gesture - bowing with hands joined in front of her heart. I slept for 3-4 hours during the 8 hour flight and was awakened by a child's piercing shriek. There were several children in my area of the plane and most were well-behaved but there was one child who wailed constantly. He or she would have made Linda Blair's character in "The Exorcist" look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

I arrived in Mumbai (Chatrapati Shivaji International, to be exact). It appears to be a work in progress. In fact, it seems to have been in progress for about 25 years, judging from the age of some of its incomplete sections. As I rode in a taxi to the Mumbai Westin I thought that India appears to be everything I've always heard it to be -- poor, crowded, beautiful, and complex. Two very poor people - one very young and one very old - asked for money as the taxi stopped at lights. I did as I had been told and ignored them but it was painful.

More soon...

We hold these truths...

J. Barry Vaughn. St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Birmingham, Alabama. July 4, 2010.

“We hold these truths to be self evident…” They are not the first words of the Declaration of Independence, but they are perhaps the best known. The truths that Jefferson thought to be self evident, of course, were that “all men are created equal” and are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” namely, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Between the 18^th century and the present there has been a great reversal. In 1776 it was “self evident” to virtually everyone that there was a Creator, but the idea that political and civil rights were innate to human nature was a novel idea, far from universal, and even considered dangerous by many. Today most countries at least pay lip service to the idea of human rights, but the idea that there is a Creator is far less “self evident” than it was in Jefferson’s day.

Although “we hold these truths” may be the best known words of the Declaration, it is the words of the final sentence that always move me close to the point of tears: “… for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

“…our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” They were solemn words then, and they are solemn words now. But in 1776 they were more than just words. Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Adams, and the rest of the signers committed high treason when they voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence on this day in 1776 and signed it in the days following. Their votes and their signatures made them rebels against the greatest military power of the 18^th century, and there was every reason to expect that they would fail and that Britain would prevail in the war that was certain to come.

But they succeeded and in succeeding they transformed themselves. On July 4, 1776, they were rebels against their rightful sovereign, George III, but when Adams and Franklin signed the Treaty of Paris in 1784 they became patriots, no longer subjects of a crown but citizens of a new republic – the United States of America.

The words “patriot” and “patriotism” are troublesome. They are troublesome for Christians because we have divided loyalties. On the one hand, in his letter to the Romans Paul tells us to be subject to the “governing authorities” because they have been “instituted by God.” On the other hand, the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that we are citizens of a “better country”, a “heavenly” one, a city “whose architect and builder is God.”

One of the reasons that “patriot” and “patriotism” are troublesome is that some confuse the United States and this “heavenly city” of which the Letter to the Hebrews speaks. From the beginning of our history some have believed that America has a divine mission. John Winthrop implied as much in his sermon to the Massachusetts Bay pilgrims in 1630 when he said, “Wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when hee shall make us a prayse and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "the Lord make it like that of New England." For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us.” In the 19^th century the idea that the U.S. had a special, divine mission became the idea of “manifest destiny” and was used to justify some terrible injustices, such as the mass resettlement of Native Americans or sometimes even their massacre. But that is not what Winthrop intended. For him, God’s blessing upon America was conditional. We shall be that “city upon a hill,” he said, if we “delight in each other; make each other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labour and suffer together…” But if we do not do those things, Winthrop said, then we will be “a story and a by word” throughout the world.

I think no one understood this better than President Abraham Lincoln. On the eve of his inauguration in 1861 Lincoln referred to the United States as God’s “almost chosen people.” I think the “almost” refers back to Winthrop’s idea that God’s blessing upon America is conditional, and in 1861 no one knew better than Lincoln that one of the conditions was the elimination of slavery.

“Patriot” and “patriotism” may be troublesome, but I believe they are good words, and I consider myself to be a patriot. Patriotism is out of favor with many on the left and with many within the Episcopal Church, in particular, because it can be easily abused. To many, patriotism implies an uncritical support of their country. It implies a kind of idolatry that puts country in place of God. But it need not be so.

I believe that the New Testament advocates a sober and clear-eyed patriotism. In other words, we have an obligation to support our country and its elected officials, even though we know that it is provisional and finite, and that our ultimate loyalty is to the Kingdom of God.

The American experiment is unique, not perfect. One of the things that makes the American experiment unique is our capacity for change, development, and self-criticism. When Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” he not only meant men, not women, he also meant white men who owned a certain amount of property. But Jefferson’s words took on a life of their own. “Men” became “men and women;” “white” became “black and white;” and “property” became “rich and poor.” And our understanding of those words is still evolving.

At its best, the United States aspires to be a “city upon a hill”, but we are an earthly realm, beautiful but flawed and imperfect. Or in the words that Wellesley College professor Katherine Lee Bates wrote:

America! America!

God mend thine ev'ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

But my patriotism is even better expressed by Abraham Lincoln’s friend, Carl Schurz, a Union general during the Civil War and later a U.S. Senator. Schurz said, “I trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”

Babel or Jerusalem?

I have to admit that I think I would have liked Babel. In my mind’s eye I see a combination of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Babel is a city of architectural marvels. It has the tallest sky scrapers, the greatest museums. Its orchestras and musicians play in the finest concert halls. It even has spacious and reverent cathedrals that soar upward, filled with prayer, chant and incense..

The problem with Babel is that it is a destination. Once you have come to Babel, there is no point in going anywhere else. Its people are proud and complacent. They have the finest of everything and not only do they know it, they let everyone else know it, too. To live in Babel is to have arrived.

Jerusalem, on the other hand, is different. Jerusalem is a little shabby. Its buildings are a collection of different styles, different materials. One building may be part gothic, part Romanesque, and then when they ran out of money, they just completed it with plain, unadorned concrete blocks. Jerusalem’s streets are narrow and the streets are not well maintained and you can’t get anywhere without making a dozen turns and asking directions at least five times.

But Jerusalem has a sense of excitement and adventure that Babel lacks, because Jerusalem is not a destination; it is an embarkation point, a launching pad. Jerusalem is where one goes to be equipped for mission.

The most arresting phrase in the story about Babel is “Let us make a name for ourselves.” In the Old Testament in general and in Genesis in particular, to name is to control, to master. God names each part of creation as God creates it: “God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night… God called the dome Sky and the dry land he called Earth…” And above all God named the first human being – Adam.

But the people of Babel wanted to make a name for themselves. In other words, they wanted to control themselves, their lives, their own destinies. But this is not an option, and the older we get, the more we understand that we are not the masters of our fate and the captains of our destinies.

Our only choice is to cooperate with God and become a part of God’s story, a part of the city that God is building, or to resist God. Babel was a city that defied God. They not only wanted to make a name for themselves, to be in charge of their lives, they wanted to build a tower that touched heaven. In other words, they wanted to be God’s equals. But that is not an option. God is God and we are not. Babel’s ambition is the essence of sin – to move God out of the center and take God’s place.

What does all this have to do with St. Alban’s? First, note that St. Alban’s is located at the end of a dead end street. That’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because people do not drive by and see us and say, “That looks like a nice church. I think I’ll visit it some Sunday.” It is also unfortunate because of the symbolism. It suggests that St. Alban’s is a little like Babel, that we too, are a destination rather than a launching pad, that we are less like Jerusalem and more Babel.

But sometimes the Spirit breaks through. The Spirit broke through to the disciples on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit came as fire and wind to a bunch of dispirited and disillusioned disciples. Jesus had left them. He had gone away to his Father in heaven. What were they to do? Their Lord and master had gone and the authorities were seeking to do to them what they had done to Jesus. And then in the midst of their pity party, the fire of the Spirit descended upon them.

And that is what is happening to us, I believe. Last Christmas it is EXACTLY what happened, when, in the midst of the Christmas Eve service, George swung the thurible and it hit the altar rail and hot coals flew out all over the carpet. George, you thought that was an accident, but I believe it was the Holy Spirit!

In the great scheme of things, burning a few holes in the carpet was no big deal. But the coals that escaped from the thurible did more than burn holes in the carpet. They began to ignite our imaginations. What if we replaced the carpet? What if we painted the church? What if we made those renovations that we’ve been talking about for years? What if we put in new windows?

And so we have. The carpet is gone. The paint on the walls makes the building look bigger, brighter, and more welcoming. And it is no accident that we now have windows that open outward. They open to let the Spirit in and to let the good news of the gospel out.

The Spirit is also at work among us as we reach out to our sisters and brothers in Haiti and at home. We are becoming known in the diocese as a small church with a big heart for outreach.

It is a lot easier to live in Babel. As I said at the beginning, I think I would have liked Babel. It is a beautiful city and has everything in it to delight the mind and the senses. But there is something missing – a sense of adventure, a purpose.

We are not meant to live in Babel. We are meant to come to Jerusalem so that we may be sent out proclaiming the gospel in every language.”Every language” means not only French and Yoruba and Mandarin. It means the language of the school teacher, the dialect of the accountant, the accents of the insurance agent and the banker. Each of us speaks a different language. Try to find a way to proclaim the gospel in the language that you speak, whether you are a doctor, a lawyer, or an Indian chief. And if you have trouble proclaiming the gospel in your language, ask the Spirit for help. Because when the Spirit gets hold of you and sets your heart on fire, there’s no telling what you will say or where you will end up.

Righteousness and justice are the foundations of God's throne

“The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice; let the multitudes of the isles be glad.”

When we say Psalm 97, the words pass through our brains ever so briefly and then are launched into the air from our tongues, and we do not even pause to think about them. But if we did pause, we might be astonished by them. We might even be somewhat reluctant to say them. For Psalm 97 makes several staggering claims.

The first claim is that the LORD is king. The Psalmist is not making the unexceptional and not especially interesting claim that a Supreme Being rules the universe. This was a claim that Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Locke, and other Deists would have been comfortable making. The Deists believed it was self-evident that the world was created by a wise and rational Almighty Lawgiver. But this is not a claim that is as easy for us to make as it was for them.

At the beginning of the 21^st century we have learned that the universe is far more mysterious and far less rational than Jefferson, Franklin, and Locke believed. Darwin taught us that creation took place over millions of years, not seven days, and in some sense is still taking place. According to Darwin the creation of a single species required the extinction of millions of earlier versions of that species that could not compete successfully in the struggle for food and reproduction. Astronomers have taught us that the universe is not a cozy little group of planets and satellites with our sun burning brightly in the center but rather it is a dizzying array of galaxies that exploded from the Big Bang and are speeding off into the void and will one day either slow and cool down to absolute zero or will fall backwards into a mass so dense that light itself will not be able to escape from it. Marx and Freud taught us that we are not even the masters of our own motives and minds but rather are swayed unconsciously by our economic needs and by irrational impulses.

So I am glad that when the Psalmist said “the LORD is king”, he was not saying what the Deists said. Rather, the Psalmist said, “Yahweh is king”, Israel’s very own covenant God was king. And this was an astonishing claim. It was astonishing because Israel was one of the smallest kingdoms in the ancient near east. Israel’s neighbors all had their own gods and goddesses and they generally believed that their own gods exercised their powers within their countries’ borders. The people of the ancient world believed in tribal gods, not cosmic gods. Even the mighty Persians and Egyptians believed that their gods’ powers were confined to the lands that their people ruled.

But this is not the only remarkable thing that the Psalmist said. The Psalmist went on to say that “righteousness and justice are the foundations of Yahweh’s throne”. To get a sense of why this is an amazing claim, think of what the Psalmist might have written. He could have said, Strength and power are the foundation of Yahweh’s throne. He could said that Yahweh’s kingdom is based on domination and force. But instead he said “righteousness and justice are the foundations of Yahweh’s throne.”

It was not an easy claim to make in the ancient world and it is not an easy claim to make today. To the ancient Jews righteousness and justice meant far more than simply adhering to an arbitrary collection of rules. To be righteous and just was to live in harmony with one’s neighbors. A just community was one in which the elderly and orphans were cared for; it was one in which even the stranger from another land was treated with kindness and respect. The righteous person was one who cared not only for her family but also for the neighbor she did not know and who had no claim on her kindness. And the Psalmist makes the startling claim that we are to order our lives in this way because these are the very foundations of the world: “Yahweh is king… righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throne.”

Israel’s God was not a God to approach lightly. Yahweh is a God shrouded in mystery (“clouds and darkness are round about him”); the earth fears the lightning bolts that he hurls from the heavens; and even the mountains “melt like wax” at his presence. Righteousness and justice may be the foundations of his throne but Yahweh “burns up” his enemies.

But Israel is called to rejoice in this fearsome Deity. “Zion hears and his glad and the cities of Judah rejoice” but they are invited to rejoice precisely because Yahweh is a God of righteousness and justice. It is those who are just for whom light springs up and those who are “truehearted” who are joyful and glad.

We need to hear the good news of Psalm 97 because we live in a world which seems to be anything but righteous and just.

Not only have we learned that the physical world is not the orderly Deist universe that Franklin and Jefferson believed in, we have also learned that the moral universe is also chaotic.

The international banking crisis showed us that some bankers were gambling with the money entrusted with them as though they were members of an Elks’ lodge on a junket to Las Vegas.

The oil spewing into the Gulf shows us that the company entrusted with bringing the oil safely to shore and preserving the integrity of the environment lobbied heavily against putting safeguards into place that might have prevented the spill.

The debt crisis in Greece makes it seem as though the government of that country was paying its bills with high interest credit cards and giving no thought to how they would pay back the credit card companies. Now their irresponsibility threatens to shake the already shaky international banking system.

All three of these crises show us a failure to exercise oversight by those charged with the responsibility of regulating and warning.

They also show us our own failings: Our belief that property prices would always go up and never go down; that the stock market would go up for ever; that we could overconsume oil and other limited resources and never have to face the consequences.

We failed to remember that the foundations of Yahweh’s world are righteousness and justice. We forgot that God expects us to exercise wise stewardship of his world, that we are called to be prudent and frugal in using the resources, including financial resources that God has given us. And in many cases we forgot that success and wealth also impose great responsibility, the responsibility to be as righteous and just as Yahweh is – to care for those who have less, who have been pass by and passed over, who are weak and vulnerable.

We have worshiped the false gods of riches and power and (as the Psalmist says) we have been confounded.

It is time for us to turn back to the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel and Leah; to turn back to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is time for us to listen and watch for the coming of Israel’s God and to sign and rejoice, to hear and be glad for the coming of this God who judges rightly.

And it is time for us to pray that God will once again establish the world upon righteousness and justice.

The Great Experiment - Easter 2010 (April 4, 2010)

The Great Experiment

J. Barry Vaughn. Easter 2010 (April 3, 2010). St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Birmingham, AL.

The great physicist Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity by conducting what he called a “thought experiment.” Instead of going to a laboratory and firing up the Bunsen burner or measuring the velocity of electrons, he simply imagined what would happen to two clocks. One would be on a train that could travel at the speed of light and the other would remain stationary. OK, then, that’s about all I know about Einstein and the theory of relativity. But I like the idea of thought experiments, so let’s conduct a theological thought experiment.

Imagine a world without Easter. In the first book of the Narnia chronicles – The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis tells us that Narnia is under the spell of an evil and powerful witch who has decreed that it will always be winter and never Christmas. But instead let’s imagine that it is always Lent and never Easter or simply that there is no Easter because, after all, Lent implies an Easter at the end of forty days.

What would such a world look like?

First, the New Testament would be entirely different. If we removed Christmas from the NT, we would lose only 2 or 3 chapters at the beginning of Matthew and Luke. There are no other references to the birth of Jesus. But if we remove Easter, then we lose the ending of all four gospels; we lose most of Paul’s letters because it seems as though almost every other sentence in Paul refers to the resurrection or at least presupposes it; and we lose much of the rest of the NT because on almost every page is an idea, a fact, a concept that makes no sense without the resurrection. The gospels make absolutely no sense without the resurrection. Take the resurrection out of the gospels and what do we have? We have some lovely parables; some pretty exciting miracles (hard to beat that one with the loaves and fishes); some truly impressive moral teaching; and several other very nice things. But Buddhism also has some great parables; Islam tells us of miracles performed by the prophet Muhammad; and every other moral and religious system in the world has a set of moral teachings that is probably 80% identical to the things that Jesus said.

In other words, without the resurrection, without Easter, the question we have to ask about the New Testament, in general, and the Gospels, in particular, is . . . so what? Why pay any special attention to Jesus of Nazareth? He was an inspiring speaker; he showed remarkable compassion; he may even have worked miracles; but he was not significantly different from half a dozen other spiritual, moral, or religious figures.

Second, let’s take Easter or resurrection out of history. If we take the resurrection out of history, then we suddenly lose our bearings. In the west, the resurrection is the great starting point. Our calendars begin with the life of Jesus (as I’ve already implied) not because of his parables or miracles but because he died and rose again. The resurrection of Jesus completely re-oriented life. In the Roman world, Sunday was not a day of rest; it was the first day of the work week, but the resurrection of Jesus transformed a working day into a joyous festival.

Third, take the resurrection out of the equation and there is no satisfactory explanation for the rise of the Christian church. By the end of the first century the Christian faith had spread as far west as the British isles; as far south as Ethiopia; and as far east as India. Why and how did this happen? What energized the followers of Jesus to risk their lives to take their message to the ends of the earth? What was it about the message they proclaimed caught the imaginations of people as diverse as the peoples of Britain, Ethiopia, and India? Well, let’s go back to our thought experiment. Let’s imagine that Paul and the other Christian missionaries of the first century had told their listeners the story of a Jesus who had taught people the story of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son and had healed the sick and even multiplied the loaves and fishes and then had been betrayed and arrested and tried and condemned and executed and then… well, that was pretty much it. What a … well… sad and dull and somewhat tedious little story.

But that is not the story they shared in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and took to the ends of the earth. Instead, they told about the parables and miracles and the suffering and crucifixion but what made the story different and caught the imagination of their hearers was the absolutely staggering ending: Jesus did not stay in the tomb; he rose again on the third day.

Let’s take the thought experiment one step further. What difference would it make if we acted as though the resurrection was real? I ask this question because I’m convinced that most of us think and act as though there was no Easter.

We’re great about giving up martinis and Marlboros for Lent but when Easter has come and gone, it’s pretty much business as usual.

What if instead of thinking of Easter as the end of Lent, we thought of it as the beginning of the most exciting part of the year? What if instead of giving up something for Lent, we took up things for Easter? What if we lived as if Jesus really did rise again on the third day?

Easter makes a difference, the resurrection makes a difference, because it reveals God’s plan for creation. It’s like turning to the back of the book and finding the answers or seeing how the story ends. It tells us that death does not have the last word. It tells us that God longs to gather human life in all its flesh and blood and messiness into the divine life and that there is future for flesh and blood beyond death and decay.

How might the world be different, how might we be different, if we took the resurrection seriously? The resurrection of Jesus is the story of a man unjustly condemned to death who is vindicated by God by being raised to new life. What does that imply for us? It implies that we belong on the side of those who have been unjustly and unfairly treated by political and economic systems – the unemployed, the uninsured, the unjustly imprisoned. The story of the resurrection is the ultimate miracle of healing. All healing is a way of pushing back death. The story of Easter tells us that part of our job as Christians is to bring wholeness to a world of fragmentation and death; to bring hope to the depressed and despondent; to seek out the lonely and unloved.

N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham, and former professor of New Testament at Oxford, has wonderful parable about the resurrection of Jesus. Imagine that a wealthy patron of the arts has given a magnificent painting to a church. The congregation is grateful but their church is small and there really isn’t a good place in it for the painting. They try hanging it behind the altar but it’s too tall. They try putting it in the narthex but there isn’t enough light there. They put it in the parish hall but the heat and humidity might damage the painting. Finally, they come to the conclusion that to accommodate the painting they will have to tear down their church and build a new one.

That is what the resurrection implies. We have tried to modify the story of the resurrection to make ourselves comfortable, to accommodate the injustices of our economic and political systems. We have tried to tame the story of Easter to fit our belief in a world in which there are no surprises, no miracles, and in which dead men certainly do not rise again. But the resurrection will not be trimmed or modified.

In the Easter story we have been given a thing both surpassingly beautiful and uncommonly strange, so beautiful and strange that it does not fit into our world. We live in a world of death and decay but Easter speaks to us of a world in which death is destroyed, the world is renewed, and we can be born again to lives full of joy and wonder. But this news sounds too good to be true. We have been disappointed too many times, and as the poet says, we are “half in love with easeful death.”

Our natural reaction is to find ways to take away the beauty and strangeness of Jesus’ resurrection but instead we should ask, “How does this strange and beautiful thing change us and change our world?” That’s when the real work begins. That’s when we start to rebuild ourselves and our world in the image of the resurrection.

The Lord's Prayer 2: Hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven...

Hallowed has an old fashioned ring to it. We call Oct. 31 Halloween because it is the eve of All Hallows’ or All Saints’ Day. The saints are the hallowed ones, that is, the holy ones. So, hallowed means holy. Hallowed be thy name means may your name be holy. But that just begs the question, what is holiness?

If hallowed has an old fashioned ring to it, then holy has a somewhat negative connotation. We generally associate holiness with morality. A holy person is surely a person of unimpeachable morals, and generally, we define holiness in negative terms – a holy person is one who doesn’t lie, cheat, steal, carouse, and so on.

However, I think an old gospel song has something to teach us about what it means to be holy. Do you know the old gospel song, “Take time to be holy”?

Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;

Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.
Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul,
Each thought and each motive beneath His control.
Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.

What I gather from this old hymn is that holiness is a more positive than negative. It’s about what we do rather than what we do not do. Furthermore, it is not as much about morality as it is about having a close relationship with God.

So back to the Lord’s Prayer. What does it mean, then, to hallow God’s Name or to pray that God’s Name may be hallowed? First, we have to realize that in Judaism to speak of God’s Name is just a more reverent way of speaking of God. The rabbis frequently spoke of Ha Shem, that is, the Name, because to speak of God directly was regarded as irreverent or impertinent. So the prayer is really saying, May God be hallowed or holy.

But surely God is already holy. To pray “hallowed be your Name” seems as redundant as saying May earth be round or May fire be hot. So we have to ask, where and when is God’s Name not hallowed? Then the answer becomes obvious: God’s Name is not hallowed on earth.

On earth we hold many things as holy--success, fame, riches, sexual pleasure—but God is seldom on the list. We take time to watch too much TV, have an extra piece of cheese cake, sleep an extra hour in the morning, but we seldom take time to “speak oft with thy Lord; / Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word./ Make friends of God’s children, / help those who are weak…” and so on.

So to pray Hallowed be thy Name is to pray not that God would change but that we would change, that we would become people who will hallow God’s Name by our words and deeds and that our world would become the kind of place where God’s holiness would be acknowledged.

And that leads directly to the next two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The first phrase of the Lord’s Prayer already teaches us that there is a distance between where we are and where God is. God is in heaven; we are on earth. But the third phrase of the Lord’s Prayer—“your kingdom come”-- teaches us that God longs to collapse that distance, to bring heaven and earth together. But this petition is also one of the most subversive prayers we can pray.

In this petition we are acknowledging that our world is not as it should be. One of Jesus’ most outrageous statements was “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.” Righteousness is that state of affairs when the hungry are fed, captives are freed, the widow and the orphan have an honored place, and we would welcome the homeless poor into our own homes.

This prayer is subversive because it exposes that fact that none of earth’s kingdoms is the kingdom of God. It is subversive because it teaches us to look for and long for the day when God will rule. Earthly kingdoms will come to an end and God will rule alone.

This is a subversive prayer because it reminds us that God does not single out any nation for a special blessing. In 1914 German soldiers marched to war with the phrase Gott mit uns (“God with us”) inscribed on their belt buckles.

When I hear “God bless America” or see it on a bumper sticker, I always mentally add “and God bless everyone else, too,” because righteousness is no more at home in America than anywhere else on earth. The poor, the hungry, and the homeless in our midst show us how far we are from God’s kingdom.

While there is much that we can and should do to make this world resemble God’s kingdom, the Lord’s Prayer teaches us that in the end transforming this sad, old world into a place that welcomes its rightful Ruler is not so much our accomplishment as it is God’s gift. We pray, “THY kingdom come”. It is God who comes to us, God who bridges the gap, collapses the great distance between heaven and earth. In the parable of the prodigal son, the dissolute young man wakes up one day and realizes that he is in a “far country” and begins his journey back home. But when he comes within sight of his father, his father rushes out to meet him. And so it is with us. We are in a “far country” but even now the Father is rushing toward us with arms open wide in love.

Finally, we pray “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. In a sense, all three of the petitions we have considered today are saying the same thing. When God’s Name is truly hallowed, and God’s kingdom comes, then God’s will is done on earth as in heaven. But the final petition also touches us in the very center of our being.

We live in a world which exalts individual achievement. The athlete who wins the gold medal in the Olympics gets her picture on a box of Wheaties; the winning team in the World Series is invited to the Oval Office to meet the President; the candidate who fights his way through the primaries, wins his party’s nomination, and has the best sound bites gets to be the President. But the Lord’s Prayer teaches us that there is something more important than the single-minded pursuit of success and self-aggrandizement. “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that this petition echoes Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. In contemplating the terrible trial that awaited him, Jesus prayer, “:Not my will but thine be done.”

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” may be the most difficult phrase of the Lord’s Prayer for us to say, because we have no idea what God’s will might be. We can only pray this petition because of the second word of the Lord’s Prayer – Father. Jesus has already assured us that we are praying to a loving Parent, a Parent who wants the best for us. The problem is that although we think we know what’s best for us, the truth is that we do not really know. But God does. To pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is to put our trust in the One to whom we pray.

C.S. Lewis said that in the end we can either say to God “Thy will be done” or God can say to us, “Very well, then, THY will be done.” Imagine the consequences of the latter: To prefer our own will to God’s will is to drive down a dark road without headlights, it is to set out into the wilderness without a map. But to say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is to trust that God loves us, that God knows the route that will take us safely through the wilderness, and that God has already made a way and prepared a place for us at the end.

“Hallowed be your Name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven…” These three phrases take us from heaven to earth; from the heavenly realm in which God’s will is done, to our world in which anything but God’s will is done, to the assurance that the day is coming when earth will resemble heaven and God will be at home among women and men. So we believe, so we pray, so we act. May it be so. Amen.