GOOD/GODLY STEW

I like stew, good, thick, hearty stew; stew with lots of meat and vegetables. You can keep the soupy stuff. When it comes to choosing between the two, for me there is no contest no matter what the soup. When I eat some soups, I almost have to look at the label to see what's in it. Not so with stew. The carrots, the celery, the beef chunks, the potatoes and all the rest are there for the eyes to behold and the stomach to savor each in its own way with its own taste. And that is as it should be.

Good, hearty stew is a good metaphor of what this country we live in is like. When my grandparents arrived here from Italy at the turn of the century, the metaphor was that of a melting pot. That melting pot was to look like soup and not stew. Immigrants were to melt into that pot so that potatoes and beef and carrots could not be distinguished one from another.

When my grandparents first arrived, they gathered in little enclaves as did most of the newcomers. There were Little Italys and Little Polands and Little Irelands in most every community. That was for security, especially if you spoke a language other than English. But the goal was to melt into one. Traditions were handed down, language usually was not. It was all right to love pasta but you spoke American.

But we are who we are. Our heritage is important. Maybe it is important that we can all speak the same language in this country. Yet if we meld everything into a generic soup, we lose so much of who we are and what we are about.

If we think about it, God created us to be stew and not soup. We're all different. We are not to lose our identity even within our own families. No two people are exactly the same nor can we ever become the same nor should we want to be. We will always be stew no matter how much we think we should be soup.

It's easier to be soup. When we are stew, the temptation is to mash the potatoes and the carrots and the celery into mush and almost make it soup, to break up the beef to make it easier to eat. That same temptation arises in society when we want to break down the differences that are ours simply because we are who we are. We don't want anyone or any group, ethnic or otherwise, to stand out. When someone or some group does, we tend to become fearful that he or they will take over. So we mash them down and try to make soup or we say we don't want them in our stew.

Our church, our land, our world is really a great big stew, a good stew, a Godly stew. All the ingredients are necessary. No ingredient is more important or more valuable than another. The carrots are just as important as the potatoes as the beef as the onions as the celery. So often in these days it seems that we are forgetting that truth. We forget how important we are one to another, how our differences actually make us better as a person and as a people. Even more importantly, and truthfully, when we want to get rid of or mash down, maybe we need to remember who made the stew. God is the chef. God chose the ingredients. We just need to relish in the bowl of stew.

IT'S OUTDATED!

My Mother-in-law was never one to mince words. She told it like it is long before Howard Cosell took all the credit for being so upfront and personal. As she grew older, she was blunt with what she saw as the truth. If you didn’t like it, tough. It was a waste of time to get into an argument with her. She believed what she believed. Of course, if you didn't like it back then, that was too bad, too.

My Mother-in-law had an opinion on most things. If you didn't believe me, ask her. She had an opinion on the Bible: "It's outdated." Enough said. If you wanted her to explain that remark, you'd have to wait till the cows come home. If you didn't understand the remark, well, she wasn't going to ease your burden any.

Of course, being her son-in-law, and being that I wore this funny collar around my neck, I felt it my duty to try to explain what she meant by saying that the Bible is outdated. After all, it would certainly look like I had been a failure in my duty to teach the truth of the Bible. But I had also learned not to mess with my Mother-in-law.

Nevertheless, she was correct. The Bible is a dated book. Every book is outdated sooner or later with the passing of time. Thus, the Bible as a dated book, one written at certain times and places long, long ago, it is not up-to-date on many, many issues. If we look to the Bible to find the to any question we may ask, especially questions that were not asked 2000 or more years ago, we will find the book outdated as it should be, as it certainly has to be.

But saying that the Bible is outdated and saying that the Bible is wrong is not saying the same thing. There are those who simply dismiss the Bible as a source of truth, even some Bishops. Times do change. Customs change. Even mores change as we learn more and more about who we are as human beings, people created in the image and likeness of God. Even our understanding of God has changed. We grow in wisdom and knowledge as time passes, as years and generations pass. God help us if we did not! But, thankfully, we do, and to our benefit.

We cannot hope to understand everything, even most things. We cannot even begin to think we have all the answers let alone have one book have all the answers. Yet, as my Mother-in-law would have told you and me, the Bible has more truth than we need, more truth than we want to hear. It is easy to dismiss a source of truth as outdated simply because we don't want to hear the truth that is timeless.

It is even easier to dismiss a source of truth as outdated because we want to change the truth to suit our fancy. My mother-in-law knew what she meant when she said that the Bible is outdated because she still believed. She did not claim to understand either the Bible or life itself. She simply believed what she believed and that was enough for her, probably more than enough. I am not sure that those who insist that the Bible is the source of all truth or is simply outdated have her deep faith. They may just want an excuse to insist that they are right and others are wrong.

IT IS NOT ENOUGH

Growing up, I spent many a Saturday afternoon at church going to and coming from confession. It was standard operating procedure for a sinner like me. At least I had come to believe I was a great sinner. And maybe I was: good at sinning. I was surely bad at repentance, or at least bad at changing my way of life. My confession over those years hardly ever varied -- fought with my brothers and sisters, disobeyed my parents, told a few lies. And for that I was destined, if not for hell should I not go to confession before death, at least for purgatory, confession or no. It was all so simple back then.

It was also all so confusing. I mean, I never did believe that I was in the same category of sinner as the local Mafia Bosses who were also members of the church. But I did believe that communion without confession was a no-no. And since I served mass every Sunday,  I wanted to receive every Sunday. But since I also sinned every day in-between, the Saturday trek to church was a regular occurrence for me.

Back then confession lines were long with sinners just like me. The priest confessor must have been bored out of his skull. I know I was years later when I sat on the other side of the confession screen. Today those lines are short and almost non-existent even in those "high" Episcopal churches that have regularly scheduled confession times.

Today we sophisticates believe that we need not go to confession, that we especially do not need to confess our sins to any priest who is just as sinful we are. Why all we need is a direct link to the One True Forgiver of Sins and S/He is always listening anyway. Maybe so. But the fatal flaw today, and even back then, still remains. And that flaw has two sides to it. First, we need to take responsibility for our sins and not make excuses. Yes, I fought with my brothers and sisters, but they often started it. Yes, I didn't mean to disobey my parents, or so I said. Of course I did or else I would not have disobeyed them.

Second, we must be serious about resolving to do better in so far as it lies in us to do better. It is not enough to say a General Confession. It is not enough to simply say, I’m sorry, God, for all my sins." I need to name them, write them down, take a good look at them - and maybe even verbally state them to a priest, face up or behind a screen anonymously - without trying to justify why I did what I did. That is not easy.

And it does not get easier as we grow older and wiser and even more aware of our sinfulness. In fact, it becomes more difficult because it demands even more humility. It takes a truly humble person to admit sinfulness, specific, no-holds-barred, it-was-my-fault-and-only my-fault sinfulness.

It also takes a recognition that none of this can be done without the grace of God who always forgives. It is certainly much easier to confess our sinfulness when we know ahead of time that we are forgiven.

We are all sinners, you and I. Always will be. It is not enough, never enough, just to accept the reality of that and go on. We must do something about it. And that first something is to start naming those sins. Then we can start doing something about them.

CALL YOUR MOTHER!

Years ago I had a poster on my office door called Life's Little Instructions. It was a reminder to me, and all who passed by and stopped to read, that we often make life so very complicated, much more complicated and, thus, more difficult than it need be. Life as it is is already complicated enough without out having to make it even more so.

And so the poster reminded me/us (and still does) to "Sing in the shower"; "Leave the toilet seat in the down position" [which I learned very, very quickly with all those women around the house!]; "Never refuse homemade brownies" [the bulge around the middle indicates that I have taken this one to heart/stomach]; "Don't expect life to be fair" [which is a sermon in itself]; "Keep secrets" [which speaks for itself]; "Have a dog" [it says nothing about a cat, which proves that they are wise instructions as well]; and, finally, at the very end, "Call your mother" [which says it all].

Whenever I needed any advice, and instruction, I called my mother. And my mother always kept it simple. She got to the point, saw the issue or problem clearly, and didn't get bogged down in the non-essentials. Whenever I had a personal problem in my life, Mom always asked me what I would tell a parishioner who found him/herself in that same position. My response invariably was that I would tell them not to do what I was doing. And that resolved my problem.

This Sunday is Mother's Day, of course. The cynics say that it is simply an occasion for the greeting-card people and the flower people to cash in. I say that those who think that way need to call their mothers a little more often.

There is nothing we can do, of course, to properly honor our mothers. The most expensive greeting card with its wonderful words still falls short of what we want and need to say. The largest basket of flowers won't quite do the honor we would like to send. But we have to do something with things - cards and flowers, gifts - because our words will always, always, fail to convey our thanks and love.

Many of you who read this are still blessed to have your mothers alive, blessed to be able to call your mothers, to hear their voices and their words of wisdom. But whether we can pick up the phone and call, drive over and visit, or simply speak to her heavenly presence, as I do, we need to call and call upon our mothers, not just this day, but, perhaps, every day, and not just on those days when we are in deep trouble and need a little instruction on how to extricate ourselves from the mess we find ourselves in.

I suppose every one of those instructions could be boiled down to "Call your mother." When the going gets rough, when we need an encouraging word or even a scolding word, when we need sound advice even if we don't want to hear it, we need to call upon mom. Even from heaven she still, somehow in some way, seems to answer.

That does not mean that our mom is somehow akin to God but she’s close. What else can anyone say except "Call your mother.”

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GONNA GET

Forrest Gump's mama was right: "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." That is unless your box of chocolates is a Whitman's Sampler. Then all you have to do is read the lid. You know what you're gonna get.

Given a choice, I'm not sure which I'd choose: knowing or not knowing. Life would certainly be easier if we knew what we was going to happen to us. Boring, but easier. Maybe even more frightening. Yet even if life were a box of chocolate-covered caramels, my favorite, I'm not sure life would be any better. Even the best of the best all of the time will soon lose its appeal.

Given a choice, (which I do not have, thanks to my loving wife) my breakfast would be eggs and toast with a side order of bacon and waffles and a donut for dessert. Lunch would be a hoagie -- any kind. Dinner would be pasta -- again, any kind. And even if all that food were good for me -- low calories, low fat, etc. -- having the same meals everyday would become a punishment rather than a pleasure.

When I was in seminary (twelve years’ worth), we had basically the same menu every two weeks. To this day I can almost recite that menu from memory. Even if the food was fabulous, mouth-watering, which it was not, it would have lost its appeal before the end of the first semester of high school. And it did. Meals simply became another scheduled event -- like classes, study halls, chapel, play, and so forth. Life was more endurance than enjoyment so rigid was everything. We knew what we were gonna get.

As a result even those important parts of my training lost something in the process. Because everything was so rigid, so scheduled, so German (my seminary was founded by a Bavarian Monsignor who loved to wear his army medals), so Whitman-Samplerish, we all could not wait until we got out.

Sounds like a prison, doesn't it? Those of us who spent twelve years there -- high school, college, theology -- are called "lifers" by those who came only for theological studies. But life is a prison if it is filled with sameness. Fortunately, for those of us who are not prisoners, it is not.

And yet, even in sameness, even in prison, life can be, if not exciting, still very liveable and enjoyable. To paraphrase Forrest's mama again, "Life is as life does."  We make it exciting. We make the meal enjoyable, even if it is leftovers, even if we have it every other Tuesday. We make the class worthwhile even though the professor is simply reading, or having the class read, the text. We make the most of the Eucharist even though it's 6:30 in the morning and we'd rather be in bed.

What we do with our life, what we do with that box of chocolates, is what is important, not what life does to us. The tragedy is that so many of us allow life, what happens to us, what life does to us, to override everything. "It's fate," we say. No. It just happens to be a bittersweet chocolate. But the next piece may be a caramel. Go for it.