Brandon K. Baker

"Democracy of the Dead"

2012-01-25T12:10:00.000-08:00

Tradition vs. Traditionalism

I have been slowly working my way through Mike King’s Presence-Centered Youth Ministry for the past few months. Most recently, I cam across his chapter on Christian tradition and its importance in the continuing Christian story. I was inspired to read a quote by G.K. Chesterton aloud to our secretary and finance officer:

Chesterton

Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.[i]

We spoke briefly about the ideas presented therein and eventually someone asked, “What’s the difference between tradition and traditionalism?” We discussed it some more and came to the conclusion that traditionalism is a blind reaction of “This is the way we’ve always done it. It’s safe and comfortable.” Tradition is “This is the way we have done it before, and we have tested it and weighed it for ourselves and we feel that God has called us to continue in this manner. Perhaps we can evolve it or grow with it, but at the core, this practice or belief is part of our collective identity.” One is about blind allegiance, the other is about contemplative conviction of continuation (say that ten times fast!).

As Chesterton hints at, tradition is an inclusion of the “cloud of witnesses”[ii] of those who have gone before us. It’s a respect for previous generations that their contemplation and conviction can be as important to us as it was to them. Living and ministering in our present culture demands that we be continually in the process of contemplating how our tradition interacts with our present and future. How are the insights of the past informing our future? What truths does our tradition speak into the present? What is still relevant? What can we release from our practice given our current reality? What has God called us to continue or discontinue?

[i] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: John Lane, 1908), p. 85

[ii] Hebrews 12

"I believe! Help my unbelief!"

2012-01-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Opening Queries:

1. What is a miracle? How would you describe a miracle to someone who had never heard the word?

2. If miracles are indeed possible, what is required for one to "happen" or come into being?

Text :: MARK 9:14-29

When [Jesus, James, John and Peter] came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. When the whole crowd saw him, they were immediately overcome with awe, and they ran forward to greet him.
He asked them, ‘What are you arguing about with them?’ Someone from the crowd answered him, ‘Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.’ He answered them, ‘You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.’ And they brought the boy to him.
When the spirit saw him, immediately it threw the boy into convulsions, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, ‘How long has this been happening to him?’ And he said, ‘From childhood. It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’
When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘You spirit that keep this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!’ After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, ‘He is dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand.
When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘This kind can come out only through prayer [and fasting].’

Surely, an inaccurate representation of Jesus casting out the unclean spirit.
What a fun looking little demon though.

Discussion Queries:

1. In this story, what was required for the healing/exorcism miracle to come to pass?

Jesus tells the father that "all things can be done for the one who believes," yet later tells the disciples that his healing was made possible by prayer and fasting. Is it a matter of believing? Is it a matter of prayer and fasting? How are those things similar? How are they different?

Also, can we take both statements at face value, or could it be more complex than a simple reading? What might Jesus have meant to communicate in all of this?

2. Can we determine or get an idea of what the argument was about as Jesus was arriving? He asked what the argument was about, but was never really told what the argument was over. Instead he is presented with a situation that has apparently caused a disagreement between his disciples and the scribes.

What might the argument have been about and how does that affect the way we read this story?

3. It seems as though the father's declarative admission ("I believe! Help my unbelief") convinces Jesus to intervene in the situation. Why might that be? Were there any other factors influencing his choice?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

"Adoration by The Shepherds" by Bronzino
Public Domain

Patience and Imperfection

2011-12-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

“Loving God, give me patience—and please, let it be a soon as possible.”

It’s a prayer I’ve uttered so often, it has moved beyond comical. Of course, I know the ironic paradox in the prayer. I don’t recall the first specific instance that I prayed it, but I do remember the smile that slid across my mouth when I actually thought about what I had just prayed.

"Slow" by flickr.com user elycefeliz

I am not a particularly patient person. If you’re looking for a person to use as an example of one who is slow to speech and action, you’d do better to look elsewhere. I am often impulse driven and it takes a lot of self-awareness and effort for me to respond to situations that provoke anxiety or excitement with any sort of rational calm. At my best, I spend a few minutes reacting internally and then, taking a long, deep breath, I ask myself, “what’s the best way to respond to this situation?” At my worst, I spend a few minutes reacting externally and then spend many more minutes cleaning up the mess.

In things that take time and repeated effort to master, say learning a musical instrument or new language, I have always been impatient. It’s as if I operate under the idea that if I can’t learn it in a single sitting it isn’t worth my time. I know that this isn’t true, but my hands and feet haven’t caught up to this knowledge.

Some of the people whom I admire most are patient people. They’re seemingly cool under pressure and can spend eons of time correcting and perfecting. I watch them in amazement as they choose their words slowly and carefully in a tense situation; as they coolly pass the painfully long seconds with a child who is still grasping the most basic elements of a task; or as they catch one of their own mistakes and chuckle as if to say that it takes a lifetime to get certain things right and there’s no reason to be in a rush. I loathe them and I adore them. I am envious and astonished.

The disease of impatience is a failure to respect and love the imperfections of being alive. Only a fool believes that we can move through our days with a deft competency in all or most things. Some of us are more capable at certain things than others, but at the mean we are all humans trying to make sense of our flawed existence. As a Christian, I look at the many narratives in the holy Hebrew and Greek texts and see mirrors for myself. I read of David and see a man who was alternately obedient and licentious. I read of Moses and see one who struggles between faith and fear. In Eve (and Adam) I identify with the tension of contentment and temptation.

As I seek patience, I travel the hard path of knowing that there will be more failures than successes, more impatience than patience. Yet I know I am in good company for none have walked this road perfectly. I will continue to pray my simple, silly prayer, if for no other reason than how it speaks of my condition to Christ.

Come in Adoration

2011-12-04T09:30:00.000-08:00

The following was presented as a reflection/sermon at Reedwood Friends on November 27, 2011. It's runs a bit longer than my usual posts, but I decided to keep the entirety of the text rather than truncate the thoughts.

Well, it’s finally here. The ‘Christmas Season.’ For months, we have seen the decorations for sale in stores, for weeks we’ve heard the music on the radio, this past Friday many of us participated in the shopping blitzkrieg of ‘Black Friday’ and many of us purposefully did not. Whether we are ready for it or not, the yuletide has arrived. In fact, for high liturgical churches (like Catholics and Episcopalians) this Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. The word advent derives from the Latin word which means “to come” or “coming.” It is a designated season that anticipates the advent or coming of Christ which we celebrate as Christmas.

For Christians, Christmas is a season for contemplation and reflection. Personally, I am a very nostalgic and sentimental person, so I often spend a good amount of time looking back into my past when contemplating Christmas. As I was thinking about what reflections God might be asking me to pass on to you all this Christmas season, I started with bright, resonant memories from Christmases past. I remember the Christmas special my mother always played for her three year old choir, “Small One,” a story about a young boy and his elderly donkey that was too small and weak to be of any use. His father explains to the boy that small one is too old to be a work donkey and must be sold. After a series of embarrassing and disastrous attempts to sell small one, the boy finally finds a kind man named Joseph, whose pregnant wife Mary needs a gentle donkey to take her to Bethlehem. I also thought of one of my favorite Christmas specials, “Rudolf the Rednose Reindeer,” a story about how outsiders and misfits are just as valuable and important as everyone else and that they often have something of value that those on the "inside" never realized they needed.

I also remember our church’s yearly Hanging of the Green service in which we held a ceremony to hang evergreen garland down the walls of the worship center. I recall the deep, sonorous voice of the narrator who reminded us all of the symbolism of the specific Christmas decorations. I remember the year that I finally realized that this wasn’t the disembodied voice of the Spirit of Christmas, but that it was an actual man in our church sitting in the front row with a microphone. I was shocked.

I also recall driving through the neighborhoods around our house searching for houses decorated in Christmas lights. My siblings and I made a great game out of it; the person who called out the most Christmas lit houses won some imagined but never realized prize.

All of these memories are sharp in my mind, but the one that rests in my focus. It is a vision of this, my mother’s Precious Moments nativity scene. My mother has a large collection of Precious Moments figures and every year, she would assemble the nativity atop our entertainment center, resting the figures on a wispy, cloudlike material called angel’s hair. I used to get in trouble for rearranging the scene to my liking. I never liked that people would set up their nativity scenes with the shepherds and wisemen facing out toward the viewer, like a stage show. I would huddle them closely around the sleeping baby Jesus, after all, wasn’t that who they were there to see? They were supposed to be there to adore the baby Jesus, not to look out at me on the couch with their teardrop eyes and European blond hair. It is this memory that sticks out in my mind most this year, the Adoration of Jesus.

A few weeks back during a Wednesday evening youth gathering, we had taken a moment to stop and wait silently together. I asked the youth to use this time to ask God what prayers were being placed in their hearts and if they felt lead, to share them with the group. A few minutes into the silence, we heard the soft tinking of the piano in the lounge. You see, the Children’s choir meets upstairs in the lounge on Wednesday nights and they were rehearsing for their next Sunday presentation which happens to be next week. Softly breaking into our silence was the Christmas hymn, O Come All Ye Faithful. Michelle, the director, had them practicing the refrain from the hymn: “O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.” As we sat in silent contemplation, the tune softly played on. I don’t want to speak for the youth, but for me I had this sense that we couldn’t interrupt the music falling from above us. It was the most quiet we’ve had in that room in the past year that I’ve been here. As the song ended, I offered a brief prayer and we transitioned out of room. I was left with this sense of peace and a query had slipped into my soul, “How am I creating space to adore Christ? Not to do anything for Christ, or to be anyone for Christ, or to know anything about Christ, but simply to come in adoration of the Light of the World?

My tendency is to want to do something with my faith. I want my faith to have real implications in my day-to-day life. As a result I am constantly trying to “get something” out of my time with God. The silence becomes an impatient waiting game for what I’m going to get out of this time spent in the light of Christ. Rarely am I content just to sit in the presence of Christ and be. I want something tangible to come out of it. In essence, I become one of the shepherds and wisemen of the nativity scenes I rearranged as a child; Standing, with Christ to the side, facing the world in a cosmic play. The Shakespearean line comes to mind, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”

This Christmas season, and beyond, I feel called to see the youthful wisdom I carried as a child and reorient myself to face Christ; to come in adoration of the miracle of Jesus. Not to get anything out of it. Not to do anything with it, or to be a better person because of it. Simply to turn to Jesus and live in the Light. When we come to Jesus in adoration, I think we discover that while we have been busy with the outward life of Christianity, Christ has been adoring us, patiently waiting for us to come into his gaze.

Incarnation and Solidarity

2011-11-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

Christmas is my favorite holiday. The reason for this is twofold: 1) I love the sentimental, warm-fuzzies Christmas that reminds me of my childhood and traditions, and 2) I love thinking and conversing about the Incarnation. Granted, we don't need to wait until December to discuss the mystery and glory of God Incarnate, but it does provide a "built-in" season to really discuss it at length.

I love discussing the Incarnation because it is so absolutely mind-boggling; the infinite God becomes finite and human in the person of Jesus. It's an amazing paradox of the duel nature of Christ (fully God, fully human) that has fueled religious debate for centuries. Every year, it seems that I discover something new (to me) about the Incarnation that blows my mind all over again.

I once heard solidarity defined as the act of "throwing one's lot in with another," that is, banking your future and wellbeing on a partnership with others. It's not a dependent act; solidarity is an active partnership in which everyone involved is unified in spirit. An excellent example of solidarity is found in the Hebrew text Ruth. Early on in the story, we are told that both Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi have been widowed. Naomi, being a foreigner decides to head to her homeland and informs Ruth that she should stay behind in her own country. Ruth absolutely refuses to let Naomi go alone and delivers this poetic speech:

Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you! (Ruth 1:16-17, NRSV)

What moves me about this speech is that Ruth has chosen to fuse her destiny with Naomi. She goes beyond the simple offer of companionship and makes a bold pledge to bind herself to Naomi through thick-and-thin, a commitment even to death.

When I read Ruth's words, I am reminded of the kind of solidarity we find with Christ. In becoming human, God was bound to us in the person of Jesus and our destiny was fused with that of Christ. In entering into the human condition, God was making a bold statement about humanity and our destiny as created beings. God could have entered into the world in any form. God could ripped through the fabric of creation and wowed the world with a show of power. Yet, instead of a show of power, God chose an act of solidarity, becoming human and vulnerable.

"Hand of Hope" by flickr.com user kabils

I sometimes forget that Jesus was vulnerable flesh and blood. Sure, I can't forget that he was assaulted and murdered, but I often keep that as a separate exception to the rule that Jesus was indestructible. Yet Jesus never was indestructible, he was always flesh and blood from his birth. Moreover, he came not as a fully grown human, but grew and formed in his mother's womb and arrived in the same way that billions of human beings have arrived over the millennia. Jesus of Nazareth was a tiny, vulnerable infant that relied on a loving mother for care and milk. In this bold act of trust God was counting on humanity to live up to what we've been called to be. Mary could have denied Jesus the nourishment he needed, and the Incarnate God would have died a mere infant. God trusted in humanity. As I think about and meditate on this, the name Emmanuel (God with us) takes on new, fresh meaning. Not God over us, not beyond us, rather God with us.

When I take this all into account I begin to see the Incarnation differently. I read and hear the words of Christ differently. In Luke's record, Jesus told the Pharisees "The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For in fact, the kingdom of God is among (within) you" (Luke 17:20,21). Many very intelligent Jewish leaders were expecting Messiah to be a militaristic liberator who would swoop down on the powers-that-be with an ax of Divine Justice. With these words I think Jesus was trying to key us in to what it meant that God chose Incarnation over conquest. It was a reorienting of the way we see God and the way we see humanity. In becoming human, God was saying, "Stop looking for me in powerful dynasties and empires, stop looking for me in military might and war, stop looking for me in massive temples and tabernacles, stop looking for me in sacrifice and tribute! Start looking for me among you and within you!" The Image of God rests in the soul of every human being and that's where God moves!

The Gospel of Jesus was that the King had come and was revealing the True Kingdom. The True Kingdom is not what humanity identified(ies) as a kingdom. It's not about power or control. It's about solidarity and love. That's the miracle of the Incarnation.

Thanksgiving and Eucharist

2011-11-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

"If I can give you any advice, I beg you to get closer to the Eucharist and to Jesus. We must pray to Jesus to give us that tenderness of the Eucharist."

- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

A few years back I learned a something about the word Eucharist that forever changed the way I view the holiday of Thanksgiving. This one small fact is that the Greek word εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), from which we derive the word Eucharist, literally means "thanksgiving." How I managed twenty years as a Christian and never knew this is beyond me. It would seem that it may have come up a time or two.

As we move into the month of November and turn our attention to the holiday of Thanksgiving, I do try to meditate on and explore what it means to give thanks and be grateful. That is the wonderful thing about holidays and the liturgical calendar, it allots a time for our communities to really focus on a theme or idea. While the Quaker in me wants to say we don't need holidays, the realist in me sees the good they bring to an increasingly distracted people.

Years back, I was conversing with a good friend about the Eucharist. He had been attending a very liturgical mainline church and enjoyed the symbolic act of taking the bread and wine. He had made a very astute observation while filing out of the pews to take Communion: he didn't get to choose who he would take the Sacrament next to. The nature of multiple pews emptying into a single line ensured that he would not be kneeling next to the people he had come with. He saw something of Christ in this. While he may not know the person kneeling next to him, he knew that they were engaging in the same symbolic act of giving thanks to Christ for his sacrifice on the cross. Their unity as brothers and sisters in Christ is their common thanksgiving.

I see this symbol and enlarge it for the body of Christ. Much to our dismay, we don't get to choose who may call themselves Christian. Certainly every follower of Jesus has looked at another follower, or a group of people, and thought, "Gee, I really wish they would just stop calling themselves Christian." The reality is, we don't have that kind of control over the body of Christ. We don't get the convenience or power of excommunication (despite what some may believe). Access to Christ is not granted by any human, but rather by God alone.

"Thanksgiving 2010" by flickr.com user Пероша

I imagine a very large Thanksgiving banquet table at which the diversity of Christian people are present. In many ways it is not unlike the family Thanksgiving: relatives arguing politics, the peacemakers trying to get everyone to play nice, the prophets calling others to account, the children making a mess of their plates and nice clothes... It's a Holy Mess. Yet, we all turn to Christ and offer a prayer of thanksgiving and we all go home full.

Ordinary Sacrament

2011-11-16T14:42:00.000-08:00

"God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment.

Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament."

Evelyn Underhill

"Coffee Cup" by flickr.com user doug88888

Making a transition from one faith tradition to another is never easy. As any convinced Friend can tell you, people unfamiliar with Quakerdom can be quite unapologetic in their questioning of your new convictions. Transitioning from my Southern Baptist culture to embracing the thought and practice of Friends brought with it a scrutiny from my friends and family. I don’t mean to paint them as militantly against it; let’s just say they were aggressively curious about these people who “don’t do Baptism or the Lord’s Supper.” I know these questions well, as I was once the one asking them in a not-so-polite way. Being on the other side of the table provides one with the humbling experience of eating crow.

Most Friends have, at one time or another, faced the gauntlet of questions about Quakers and sacraments. “Why,” as my Grandfather (whom I love deeply) queried, “don’t they baptize and take the Lord’s supper? Those are the two things Jesus told us to do.” Looking back, I find it slightly humorous that despite the fact that I had been a practicing Quaker for over a year he wasn’t yet resigned to saying “you” instead of “they.” I think he was still holding on to some hope for my Baptist identity. I was dumbfounded by the question. I couldn’t decide whether to address what it means to “do” sacraments or this idea that baptism and communion were the two things Jesus told us to do. Another time, when explaining Quaker views on sacraments to my Mother, she finished with the ultimate question, “But you believe Jesus is the Son of God, right?” I assured her that was the case and she was satisfied. Mothers have a knack for concentrating on key issues. After years of fielding questions like this I have come to formulate a more succinct answer to the charges against me. What is this business with Quakers and sacraments?

Sacraments, at the core, are life lived in attunement with the presence of Christ. It is a recognition of the Holy nature of Christ’s divine work in our lives. Most Christians envision sacraments as synonymous with rites. Rites are ceremonial acts that symbolize or embody the sacramental moments in life. In high church settings, there are rites of baptism, dedication, marriage, communion, etc. Yet, no ceremony can capture the sacramental nature of being alive. We can attempt to bottle up the Divine Movings of Christ, but our rites will always fall short. Quakers reject outward rites, not because the recognition of the sacrament is inherently wrong but because we (humans) have a tendency to become overly reliant on structure and ceremony to give us value and status. We use ceremonies, which can only serve as a vague shadow to the sacramental nature of life, to signify who is in or out, to show who is important and who is not. When people ask me “what is this business with Quakers and sacraments?” I now respond in this manner:

I believe that every moment of this life is sacrament, is sacred. Rather than turning to a ceremony or rite to show my relation to Christ, I choose to live in the light of Christ always. Right now, this moment, is sacrament. We don’t need a ceremony. We don’t need a Priest to officiate between Christ and us. It is already happening; moment-to-moment, breath-to-breath.