The heart yearns, Wishes for warmth, finds opening to the Lord 'With tears and the attention of heart...' This divine love sustains life.
by Peter Menkin
This sample from my book of poetry, "Seasons of Faith: Religious & Spiritual Poetry," can be purchaed in entiretry. Paperback copy available through Amazon.com. Search using, "Peter Menkin" in books for the paperback or Kindle versions.
This
interview with Shari Karney, Esq. , attorney and commentator makes
remarks of opinion of a kind like a public letter on the subject of
child molesting, and in specific reference the recent Sandusky trial.
There is American national attention to the often secret subject of
child molesting and the child molester. Attorney Shari Karney of Santa
Monica, California has been working on this kind of case with others in
the United States and especially California, almost in the manner of a
Crusade
Interview by Peter Menkin
Crusader for molested children, Shari Karney, Esq. of Los Angeles
This
interview with Shari Karney, Esq. , attorney and commentator makes
remarks of opinion of a kind like a public letter on the subject of
child molesting, and in specific reference the recent Sandusky trial.
There is American national attention to the often secret subject of
child molesting and the child molester. Attorney Shari Karney of Santa
Monica, California has been working on this kind of case with others in
the United States and especially California, almost in the manner of a
Crusade. Perhaps as a Crusade, for the interview has tones of the
Crusade against this evil of the sexual predator. She writes in her biography written for this introduction to the interview:
Shari
Karney, Esq. is an attorney and member of the State Bar of California
for 22 years, a survivor of incest, and an advocate for children’s
rights. She keynotes at events around the world, speaks on college and
university campuses and law schools. Shari is the author of the soon to
be released book, Prey No Longer–A Step-by-Step Action Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse.
The
interview was held recently with discussion of doing same starting the
week of June 11, 2012 by this writer and lasted approximately more than
an hour by phone from Mill Valley, California to her office in Santa
Monica, California. It consisted of two conversation blocks.
June 25, 2012
1. Peter
Menkin: Let us look at some of the aspects of child molesting issue as
you see the matter of the Sandusky trial. Now that the trial has a
verdict, let us imagine it is still at deliberation, and imagine that
you have an opportunity as a public person to comment from the jury box
as one who is a professional commentator on child molesting issues. Also
from this imaginary jury box, comment as an attorney who represents
people and their families that have been victims of child molesting.
Specifics and even a case in subject are invited.
Attorney Shari Karney:
I am so excited and it gives me real hope for victims and survivors
that there is justice and they will be believed. This is a great victory
for victims. Sandusky had 9 counts against him on deviant sexual
intercourse, indecent assault. He is going to jail, and he is never
going to get out. I was worried that they wouldn’t convict him. I have
represented victims of child abuse for 20 years, and I was a commentator
on the Michael Jackson child molesting case in 2005. It was a criminal
case for sexually abusing, assaulting, molesting a boy. Michael
Jackson’s defense was though I slept in the same bed with the children, I
did not touch them sexually.
In the Sandusky case, coaches shower
with kids all the time. And nothing untoward happened in that shower
either. Normal, everyday people, the guy down the block…the person who
works at Wal Mart etc. The average person down the block can’t get away
with that, but beloved idols can. Such [august] are celebrities:
Football coaches of winning teams, athletes, and churches.
If the jury was really listening, I
would say to those juries if I was a jury member–these children have
[had] their soul raped and…their spirit …raped. This coach started the
Second Mile foundation for at risk kids. He was the only father figure
they had. Not only was he the only father figure they had, he was the
only man they could look up to. Its one thing when a stranger sexually
assaults a child—it’s terrible—but its devastation when someone who is
supposed to love and protect you, [a child] sexually abuses you. I know
that because it happened to me.
As a victim of incest, I understand the
long term effect sexual abuse causes to the victim. Even if you take
another form of devastation as the holocaust or genocide, the enemy is
known and there is a declared war. This is war against an individual,
helpless, isolated child.
I would tell those jurors what it is
like to experience it, to understand it isn’t about kids in a conspiracy
to go after a beloved football coach. The defense they are using is
Sandusky worked 17 hours a day, and therefore had no time to sexually
abuse these children…the kids have gotten together to make money.
One of the facts the jury was drawn to
is Mike McQueary walked into the football locker room and heard the
sound of skin slapping against skin in 2002. It made him curious. He
didn’t know what he was hearing and walked into the shower locker and
saw victim number 4 with his hands up against the shower wall and
Sandusky behind him anally raping him. That is what McQueary saw. That
is what was said to the grand jury. They have to practically eyewitness
[an event], otherwise the jury perceives it as she-says she-says, or in
this case he-said he-said—for all the victims were children and they
were boys [in their childhood, some 13 and also under].
…Even when there are multiple victims,
often we as human beings and jurors don’t want to believe the horror of
it all. We [and that means pretty well all of us] say we love and
cherish and … give our lives to children, but in reality children have
no rights. Children are perceived as second class citizens. Children in
the law are considered unreliable, they are untrustworthy, not
believable, are going to make stories up, and can be coached to tell a
certain story.
But the truth is, I find children
believable, trustworthy, unlikely to make a lie up that is so
embarrassing. The lie that children tell is that everything is okay. The
truth is [children especially who are sexually assaulted and molested]
don’t like that about being sexually assaulted. They don’t have the information to
provide the details of this kind of sexual assault. A child in the
Sandusky case told the same facts over and over again in the same way.
[Yes, there is no credibility for that child, even at the time of the
event’s afterward.]
Anybody who has been in this field
knows when they’ve heard the real deal. In my entire practice, first I
represented abused children, then adult victims… Only one case
[appeared] where I believed the father, and didn’t believe the child. I
[start out to always] believe the child, and listen to the children.
They don’t have a reason to make this up. Do you think an 8 year old is
thinking about money, or a conspiracy, or hurting someone they love or
have a relationship with. Why are we throwing our commonsense out the
window? The reason we are throwing commonsense out the window, is
children who have no rights, they are second class children. We pick the
families the coaches, the churches over our children.
One thing I want to say to the jury
[while in the jury box]: Spend five minutes walking in the shoes of the
victim. Put yourself in the place of that child whose football coach who
is your idol who has been grooming you for months for sexual abuse, and
[I ask] who has more to get out of telling the truth. Who gets more out
of lying?
Five adults knew about the sexual abuse
since 1998, and they didn’t listen. Or if they did listen and did get
the idea they didn’t want to tarnish the reputation of [that highly]
valued institution which is Penn State. You’ve got kids going up against
universities, coaches, and priest. It is David and Goliath.
[Assistant Coach at Penn State, an
inspirational man in the history of the school, founded a non-profit for
disadvantaged children and worked with them personally, as well…] These
children in Second Mile were at risk children who didn’t have a
community, this town, this coach took them in and – the Sandusky family
and his wife took these children n and made family of them.
It was if Naomi took Ruth in and
assaulted her. It was an illusion of Ruth and Naomi. It felt like
someone cared. It was if the community through Sandusky turned on Ruth,
and less of the community supported Ruth. That is Biblical evil. That’s
what happened here. They stayed in his home…the community allowed him to
bring these community less children in—as if Sandusky turns and
cannibalizes Ruth, [unlike Naomi did, who cherished and aided her in her
vulnerability and aloneness]. [In this case, Penn State] community
stands by and lets it happen.
2. Peter
Menkin: It occurs to this Religion Writer that the American press runs a
child molesting story, stories, on their pages every day. Popular
reading is child molesting in the various Churches, especially the Roman
Catholic Church in America where that Church is a kind of boogie-man.
Why do you think the various churches, that is those of different
denominations and persuasions have this problem, so prevalently noted in
our decade?
Attorney Shari Karney:
Because they have unauthorized and unsupervised access to young people.
And I believe that people who are child molesters or pedophiles are
drawn to places where there are lots of children. The other aspect of
this is religious leaders and brethren are authority figures and people
trusted by parents. Churches were considered safe places and where
children are going to be given good values, be loved and protected. They
are places where you are safe with God. If you are not safe with God,
you are not safe anywhere.
Religious organizations think it should
be dealt with within the Church or Synagogue. It should be dealt with
either with forgiveness, or that the community should resolve the
problem themselves. It is not an outsiders business. This is certainly
the case with the Roman Catholic Church, with the insular Hassidic
Community, and with ultra-conservative Jews.
I believe this is a failure of the
internal mechanism of the community of religion. And I think they fail
to have a responsibility to even report child molesting as crimes—[The
idea is obtained and held] that this is a private affair to be taken
care of in their own community or their own family. They don’t want to
deal with the issue. It is easier to be in denial. They don’t want to
deal with the pain. They don’t want to deal with the failure on their
part to keep children in the family or the church safe.
One of the failures we have is a case
in Williamsburg, [a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City.] [The
incident is called that of] Jungreis. He was 38 years old and he wanted
to talk about his child being abused. It was a Hasidic community. He
wanted to be cooperative with the police. He reported his son had been
abused in the Hasidic community. He received stony looks in the street,
people walked past him (Brooklyn); they said he was turning in a fellow
Jew. He got kicked out of his apartment, and his mother in law was
confronted saying her son was abused and she didn’t report the crime. Why did your son have to report it, [was asked of her by the Jewish community of Hasidism.] That community is ultra-orthodox.
Everybody focuses on the Roman Catholic
Church, but they aren’t the only organization that has a problem with
child sexual abuse: 99 percent of Williamsburg is orthodox Jewish…Where
the United Talmudic Academy in Williamsburg is located.
I have not received any cases of Rabbi
abuse, or an ordinary Synagogue abuse. I don’t know anybody who has.
This follows the ultra-orthodox, repressed, and similar to Priests in
the Catholic Church, in the Mormon Church. It is that participation [in
the closed community] and action that where their community can’t
interact with the outside community. It leads to a kind of
us-against-them mentality. What attorneys who represent the
victims are dealing with now are first amendment and penitent priest
issues. Priests who are confessing to other priests cannot talk to the
police because that communication is privileged. The person who heard
that priest cannot go to the police or testify because the accused
priest can protest use of a privileged communication. They confess in
such a way that it’s a forgive-me-father-for-I-have sinned: I have
sexual feelings for a child, sexual desires, urges and even if they
admit to sexual crimes. The Priests are still exerting their privileges.
They say they are not a judge and jury,
[as Priests, they are] not the police. They are there to help your soul
and your spirit. I think he is really confessing to God and the Priest
is really confessing to God.
Sandusky asked his defense attorney, in his closing argument, to please read this quote from Mother Teresa to the jury: “What
you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create
anyways … In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never
between you and them anyway.”
3. Peter
Menkin: Is there something about the Roman Catholic Church, or the
Anglican Church (Episcopal), that invites child molesting and
molesters? More importantly is the question, What is being done to meet
this problem in Churches and by clergy and lay people today? And if you
will, speak with us about the current practice of the Roman Catholic
Church, who it appears has begun an even more vigorous defense of the
accusation from alleged victims charges.
Attorney Shari Karney:
One of the things that …is happening is in the churches–it’s almost as
if Bishops, clergy, and ministers [have a right to] access children.
The Church of England had a very good
response to Priest abuse and minister abuse. I think they are the right
track. The acting bishop of Chichester, Mark Sowerby, said that they are
committed to making sure that the churches are safe communities for
children and vulnerable adults. They are giving the highest priority to
the Church of England policies of same guarding vulnerable adults and
children.
We owe this to those who have suffered
abuse. And most especially to those who have suffered abuse at the hands
of people exercising a ministry in the name of the Church. We are
resolved to do whatever is necessary to prevent the abuse of vulnerable
adults and children, [Bishop Sowerby says]. The problem with that is, What is necessary to safeguard children and vulnerable adults?
And What specifically, are they doing? It is easy to say, We are going
to safeguard children and vulnerable adults: What is the enactment of
that? Taking the cases in the media in the United States, one of the
mothers of the Penn State University coach Sandusky trial said that her
son told her [about the acts] and she didn’t want to know. That’s the
problem in the Churches. In order to do whatever is necessary to prevent
child sexual abuse the leadership of the Churches, and the membership,
must be willing to tackle this head on and face it. I am saying this as
someone who comments and has experience with this.
It’s that the children are telling us:
But we don’t want to know. All of that denial completely puts the whole
system on the side of the perpetrator.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED FOR SECOND HOUR ON THE DAY OF THE SANDUSKY JURY VERDICT, AT THE TIME OF THAT ANNOUNCEMENT.]
Attorney Shari Karney:
Today within the Sandusky trial where the jury found him guilty of 45
counts out of 48. It is a victory today for child survivors and a
victory for all survivors of child sexual abuse. These were childhoods
that were ravished. This is a case where the jurors said we are not
going to allow [Sandusky and even the community] to turn on Ruth. We are
going to support Ruth [individually, and the community of children].
It’s also a message to churches,
colleges, athletic departments that child sexual abuse is a crime. Had
one of these parents [paid] attention to what occurred, some of the
people Sandusky [would not have been molested]. These ravished
children’s lives would have been saved. We have the power in the
Churches to become a place of healing … and love.
We must listen to … children and take
appropriate action immediately. Some of the churches involved in sexual
abuse cases, Roman Catholic Church, Church of England in the schools (I
don’t want people to think these incidences are only in America. It is
worldwide.)
One of the problems with the Catholic
Church is they transfer the priest to South America, or Mexico. Then you
start seeing victims in every place they’ve been transferred. This is a
fact. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Episcopal Priests, Quakers, Mormons, Church
of Latter Day Saints, Seventh Day Adventist, Southern Baptist, and
Baptist Churches are not [always] the first reporters [in cases of the
acts of child molesting in their ranks of care].
SNAP is the leading organization in the
United States that deals with victims of clergy abuse (Survivors
Network of Those Abused by Priests www.snapnetwork.org ). Recently they got together for a charge against humanity at the Haig against the Catholic Church.
4. Peter
Menkin: Probably the sad part of this story of the churches and this
practice of child molesting is the extent and kind of damages done when
clergy are involved. I know you have something to say on this subject,
since there is a special need people who attend church hold for their
clergy. There is a significant responsibility for the caring of the
spirit and the work with souls—calls this the spiritual dimension of the
damages done by this evil practice of child molesting in the churches.
Is this spiritual rape, as some have called it?
Attorney Shari Karney:
When a clergyperson, man or woman of the cloth, a representative of God
sexually abuses you, you feel spiritually raped. Both your body is
ravished and so is your soul. The damage is even more profound because
not only is the child victimized [physically by assault and sexually by
assault] by a person, but now the child is victimized by God. There
isn’t any legal remedy or damages for spiritual abuse. The law doesn’t
have a special category for that as remedy. [The remedy] is included in
general damages. But a jury is likely to include it in punitive damages.
It’s what the law calls a fiduciary relationship. Which means you’re in
a relationship with a person where there is trust. If in a relationship
like a student/teacher, a congregation member, and a minister, a member
of the Roman Catholic Church and a Priest…they’re in a relationship
where they are in a higher responsibility to protect. That is called a
fiduciary relationship.
In the Jehovah witness case, the jury
gave the victim $21 million in punitive damages, and $7 million in
compensatory damages. The Catholic Church in New York is behind the
movement to not aid the statute of limitations of children’s rights. The
church is fighting against victims to shorten the time that a victim
can sue as a way to protect the perpetrating Priest and to protect the
financial institution of the Roman Catholic Church. In California the
Catholic Church just won in legislation in the California Supreme Court
to deny victims of Church sexual abuse justice by shortening the statute
of limitations where the victims can sue.
5. Peter
Menkin: As we come to the end of our interview, with this last question,
speak to anything you will that may have been left out or missed in the
questions by this Religion Writer.
Attorney Shari Karney:
Instead of the Roman Church and other religions really getting together
to see what can be done to stop child sexual abuse, some are taking the
lead from the Catholic Church and stop victims from being able to sue
them and seek justice. My question is, Why not turn resources to
prevention, to what to do when you know it’s a crime (how to stop it).
Why use not these billions and millions of dollars to stop the victim
from getting justice.
Why not each separate religion ask,
What would Christ do…What would Moses do…What would God want us to do…
The answer is to do God’s work on earth. I do not believe that Christ
would watch a child being sexually assaulted by someone and turn his
back. What are the Churches doing [if not] doing Christ’s work as men
and women of God. [Attorney Shari Karney’s website is here.]
Uploaded by rabbitimes on Sep 11, 2009 Shari Karney (Melissa Gilbert) is an attorney who becomes
involved in some incest cases, which cause her to suddenly bring up
memories of having experienced incest herself when she was a child. Her
family (Shirley Douglas, Dick Latessa, Patricia Kalember) refuses to
believe her, and this starts to ruin her relationship with her sister,
Linda (Patricia Kalember). Shari decides to work toward trying to get a
law passed which would allow incest victims to sue for damages when
their memories of the incest return, even as adults.
ADDENDUM From book proposal, The Girl Behind the Curtain, by Shari Karney, Esq.
Incest and child sexual abuse by their very nature are hard to quantify. The
National Center for Victims of Crime reports that “father-daughter
and stepfather/daughter incest is the most commonly reported, with most
of the remaining reports consisting of mother/stepmother-daughter/son
incest.” It estimates that up to 20 million Americans have been
victimized by their parents, and further estimates that one out of three
girls and one out of five boys are sexually abused by the time they
reach the age of eighteen. In Canada, which has stricter reporting laws
and more accurate government studies, child sexual abuse is believed to
happen to one in two girls and one in four boys. There are legions and
legions of child sexual abuse survivors worldwide. (UN Study conducted
shows there are 150 million girls and 73 million boy survivors worldwide
with 90% unreported.)
Over the last decade, and even in recent months, the number of high-profile child
sexual abuse narratives portrayed in the mainstream news media has been overwhelming.
There was the case of Elizabeth Smart in Salt Lake City, the
14-year-old girl abducted in June of 2002 and found alive 18 miles from
her home nine months later. Over those
months in captivity she was sexually molested hundreds of times. A
few months after the Smart abduction, Shawn Hornbeck, an 11-year-old boy
from Union, Missouri, was
kidnapped while riding his bike near his home. He and another boy
were discovered alive in January 2007, having been brutally molested in
the home of Michael J. Devlin.
And finally, in June of 1991, Jaycee Dugard, an 11-year-old girl from
South Lake Tahoe, was abducted from a street while she was walking from
her home to a school bus stop. She remained missing for more than 18
years. When she was discovered, she had borne two girls, ages 11 and 15,
for her captives, in Antioch. The stories go on and on and occur across
racial and economic backgrounds. From fringe Mormon groups to Catholic
priests to football coaches, child sexual abuse is an evergreen issue.
All of these stories have been told in book-length narratives and
continue to find readers, because childhood sexual abuse is a festering
sore.
The movie directed by David Petersen is a moving and extraordinary
documentary in sometimes verite style both in color and black and white.
Message gets through to the audience in this film, as does action,
attitude, and scenery of places in Washington, D.C. that are known for
store front churches–like Pastor Perkin’s in the neighborhood where his
is on a corner.
Film review by Peter Menkin
Brother C by the Church
They
dance. They sing. They speak in tongues and shout—so the Reverend Bobby
Perkins elicits. Dauntless, a stand-up Christian, Reverend Bobby
Perkins preaches in the subways of Washington, D.C. where he has a heart
for the drug addicts. His church members preach on the streets and
speak to the lowly; real conversation goes on in this documentary. These
are real people, and you may not have met them before.
Can
one call what is done in his church, “Performance Preaching,” as in
“Performance Poetry?” In any event, his work is a performance of being
filled with the Holy Spirit, as are those in the pews moved and moving
to the Holy Spirit. This is certainly a life of following the dictum, minister where you are, where they are.
The movie directed by David Petersen is a moving and extraordinary
documentary in sometimes verite style both in color and black and white.
Message gets through to the audience in this film, as does action,
attitude, and scenery of places in Washington, D.C. that are known for
store front churches–like Pastor Perkin’s in the neighborhood where his
is on a corner. There are other churches like his in their neighborhood.
Not
solely a religion film about a Church, the movie, “Let the Church say
Amen,” is David Petersen and friends vision of a life in the poor,
Black, neighborhood of forgotten people and streets with crime, drugs,
and just ugly nastiness. There is more than the message of church,
religion, and community alone here. There is cinematic depiction of what
is in the genre of dramatic and artful reality show. .
Pastor Perkin’s message in the movie goes this way: Thank God for the Holy Ghost!
His is a church of promise—that is what one sees in the film, “Let the
Church say Amen.” No doubt this reviewer and religion writer was drawn
in to look a little deeper at this Black church in the documentary.
Produced for release in 2004, I viewed the show on the computer in
streaming media from the website Netflix. Just ran across the film while
browsing Netflix’s inventory, and decided to watch the film at home one
night. It was worth it, and the price was right.
There
is a lot of shouting! in this movie. Adults shout a lot in the film.
Darlene Duncan raised eight children. This was her job. And she had a
job at a nursing home, too.
Darlene Sleeps
Hers
was a tale of grit, struggle, overcoming enormous odds to get that job.
As one of the downtrodden in life, this Black woman is in the character
sketch shown as someone with a sixth grade education. She is a woman of
strength—strength garnered from her Church community. She says so. The
film plays the documentary to tell her story as she states it, and her
story is both real, and true about her life. Can one ask for more than
that in a documentary film?
Character
is part of what the film is about, and by that I mean taking a look at
someone in a more detailed sketch than not. This is a fulfilling
achievement by the film makers of the work. David
is another whose character sketch of a poor, Black Christian in a
downtrodden neighborhood shows aspirations and dreams. His is a human
life of a humanity that holds hope—a particular version of hope coming
from the neighborhood of downtrodden and poor Blacks that holds violence
as everyday activity. Though David has nothing, for as he says, “I’m
homeless,” he has a home in that neighborhood, store front church. If
you as a potential viewer don’t know this world, and not so many make
films of it, and not ones that are as poignant and genuine as you’ll
find this one, rent the movie. It is not only on Netflix, but also
available in Video rental stores. As a small budget film costing
$250,000, the very strength of its work and credibility introduces it to
distribution and thereby availability. It even remains for sale as a
DVD. And that’s eight years after release for a small budget documentary
shot in real life, on the scene, in the neighborhood and in the Church
itself. See the real worship action itself in this film and learn
something of the Christian experience while being introduced to the
scene in entertaining if not fascinating ways.
This
church on the corner in the neighborhood of poor and some misbegotten
Blacks and others has a mission for the outcast, the marginalized, the
sick, and the addict. All are called “Brother” or “Sister” during their
compelling and hard-to-believe if you didn’t see it on film depiction.
Christ-is-there and the-Spirit-is-at-work: Remarkable! Maybe, but you
judge their ministry and mission. For this Religion Writer, the primary
theme is the Church is a bulwark against evil, a home of worship, and a
place giving hope. This documentary, “Let the Church Say Amen,” shows
reality in experience that is a kind of come-as-you-are of Black people,
White people, and people of Color. No this isn’t a kaleidoscope but a
streaming media depiction of skilled documentary work, and that kind of
strong camera work that allows the lens to tell a story. Faces alone
tell much in this documentary. This
Church is one of many in the various neighborhoods of the dark places
that can be Urban America in big city living. In this case for a jumping
off point about people, life, and hardship met with compassion and
resilience, the place is Washington, D.C. and the people are the Church.
Does Christ shrink back, does Christ exist here? Is there Christian
hope among the evil, the grief, and death? Yes!
Let the Church Say Amen!
INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR DAVID PETERSEN This
interview by phone and Skype from this Religion Writer’s home office in
Mill Valley, California (north of San Francisco) to David Petersen’s
home in Brooklyn, New York.
Film Maker David Petersen
The
interview took two hours in two one hour segments. David Petersen had
an opportunity to add to his remarks and clarify some statements from
the manuscript transcript.
1.Peter Menkin:
At the age of 45, your career as director and filmmaker has been
engaged with films that make a social statement. So it is with the 2004
release of “Let the Church Say Amen,” which was short listed for an
Academy Award. What brought you to make these kinds of films, a film
like the one in case of discussion in particular? How did such a film
about faith, God, and Church capture your imagination initially, was it
because you are a religious man?
”Let the Church Say Amen” was honored
by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as “one of the best
films of 2004,” and I was invited to screen the film at the Academy with
the other films nominated for that year. The films was not an official
nominee for the Academy Awards, but was short listed. I was officially
nominated for an Academy Award for my documentary “Fine Food, Fine
Pastries, Open 6 to 9” which was about a coffee shop in Washington, D.C …
not very far from the church featured in “Let the Church Say Amen.”. I
have said many times, I make films about small, outsider communities,
communities that are self containing that I find beautiful and
compelling as a result. The communities in my documentaries include: a
diner, a small town, an opera company, a small church congregation. In
the church film, I looked at community through faith, through the bones
of faith that came to bear in a community that faced many challenges.
These challenges required a lot of
faith…It was a fascinating world like so many of the worlds that have
fascinated me in my work. The small diner was called Sherrill’s
Restaurant and Bakery and hadn’t changed since the 20s (1924), but sadly
closed in 2001 when the owners retired. I make movies about people who search
for home, which is very moving to me. Maybe because I grew up in a
fairly volatile home, and my brother — who is mentally handicapped —
lived in an institution part of his life, I’m drawn to this idea.
So for the people in my films, they
find home in a place where they establish a community, and this
community usually exists outside of traditional society. They find a
community in a church, a diner, they find community in an opera company.
Most importantly, I’m interested in
people. I’ve always said, “people are more interesting than ideas.” As
an artist, I feel my most important responsibility to the people I film
is to pay attention, and this responsibility seems inseparable from a
spiritual or religious discipline. The spiritual philosopher Simon Weil
wrote, Paying attention is prayer, and that idea governs all my films, especially “Let the Church Say Amen.” My friend Julia just made a film about Simon Weil: “An Encounter with Simone Weil” by Julia Haslett . It’s a very powerful film, that
ruminates extensively on Simone Wiel’s statement that “attention is the
rarest and purest form of generosity.” While Julia Haslett’s documentary
differs in style from mine about the storefront church, it shares many
of the principles that governed my film. Here is the link to “An Encounter with Simone Weil” by Julia Haslett: http://www.linestreet.net/index.php?utm_source=%22An+Encounter+with+Simone+Weil%22+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d027e94b91-Newsletter+-+July+2011&utm_medium=email
An Encounter with Simone Weil: trailer (documentary feature) David
Petersen told this Religion Writer this film is important to him because
it depicts Simon Weil telling readers something of the Film Maker
Petersen’s worldview Another work by a Film Maker from David Petersen’s same school of friends
.
My grandfather was an Episcopalian
Minister, so I grew up with a certain level of religious education and
thought. But my mid-western background, and the staid formality of my
grandfather’s church in Stillwater, MN, was a very different kind of
experience than the evangelical, Pentecostal faith you see in ”Let the
Church Say Amen.” No one fell down in rapture, danced in the aisles, or
spoke in tongues at Ascension Episcopal Church where my grandfather
preached. My mother was a Buddhist, but now has
turned back to Christianity. My mother encouraged much of my reading in
theology and spiritual philosophy, so at the age of 16 I was reading I and Thou,
by Martin Buber, and reading a lot theological essays and poetry by
people like Thomas Merton and Jiddu Krishnamurti. In undergraduate
school at the University of Maryland, I got very interested in
philosophy and theology, fascinated by how much of the last 2500 years
of philosophical thought dwelled on metaphysics.
2.Peter Menkin:
I remember your saying to me over the phone that the Church in the film
is still in business. That is the business of God, the business of
Christian work, and the business of helping others. Have you been back
to the Church? Tell us a little of how you found this Church in
Washington, D.C. and how long it took you to make the film in actual
filming time. Who is the star, or what is the star?
I’ve been back to the church (World
Missions for Christ) a number of times, and I’ve also stayed in touch
with members of the church…As with many of these store front
churches…some members are not with the church any more or have moved on
to do their own missionary work. I think Pastor Perkins and his sister
(Dr. Joann Perkins), are connected with the church, but I’m not sure the
pastor is a regular preacher at the church, because his sister runs
most of the activities and outreach of the church, and has returned to
preaching there. She got her PhD in Education, grew up in a deeply
religious home, and her mother raised her family purely on faith with
very little money. I know she had around 11 children to raise as a
single mother, and they lived in a farm in North Carolina before moving
up to Washington, D.C in the 1970’s.
Pastor Bobby Perkins continually calls
upon his past, growing up with these kinds of challenges, and this is
what compelled me about this church. It seemed to me that when filming
them street preaching – handing out tracts, delivering people salvation —
they tried to reach the most indigent, what they call “the lost sheep.”
They would search the streets for those who were forgotten: the
crippled, the addicted, those who had given up hope…
As we filmed with our cameras, I
realized this was a fundamental precept of Christianity, to reach those
society has thrown away. As members were handing out tracts, shouting to
people on the street, they called on their own backgrounds, they talked
about being saved, literally saved from death (by drug abuse or crime) ,
so the notion on being saved was a question of survival for each
member, and in this way they could relate to those same people on the
street. That was for me as fundamental as Christ going to Galilee to
heal the sick, to help his own group of lost sheep..
The core of “Let the Church say Amen” is the bones of that kind of faith.
In our research for the documentary, my
producer (Mridu Chandra) and I looked at over 200 churches both in
Washington, DC where I used to live, and in Brooklyn where I moved years
later, I probably went to more churches and heard more preaching in one
year than most people experience in a lifetime. I went to services
nearly every day of the week. Some services lasted 2, 4 hours. On
Sundays, some lasted over 8 hours. I’d try to go to 2 every Sunday. Then
I would go to day and evening services during the week.
In New York I went to the poorest
neighborhoods where few whites ever would go., and not once in these
black or latino churches was I ever discriminated against. In fact,
these churches almost universally welcomed me, as well as my producer
Mridu Chandra
As with all my films, it takes a long
time to form a trusting relationship, which is absolutely necessary
before I bring a camera into a community, and this was especially true
with World Missions for Christ Church, whose members were very wary of
how an outsider filmmaker would portray their faith.
Generally PBS or other filmmakers who
make films about deeply religious people end up being critical of the
faith and it’s followers. I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to show
their world through their own eyes, without judgment, so that. The
community could be better understood. During the filming, we used hand
held cameras, and set up small lights in the church, doing our best to
stay unobtrusive, but that was difficult, since it’s a very small
church.
You can’t really hide. There are about
30 members and it’s the size of a shoe store, because it’s a store front
church. These kinds of churches usually get formed when a business
district becomes impoverished, almost abandoned. …Small churches can
then rent a store front very cheap. That store front church in the film
was actually once a shoe store…
We wanted to film almost constantly
throughout the service since they were so riviting, about three or four
hours. sometimes we’d film two services back to back, for 8 hours
non-stop. There would be other public programs sponsored by the church
that we also filmed, including a health drive, food giveaway, all day
programs for the community. There was a lot we’d film, and a lot never
ended up in the final documentary. …We filmed events in other
churches…we filmed in members’ homes, public housing communities, in the
police station…We put a tremendous amount of work into making this
film, and I can easily say that it was the hardest, most demanding
documentary I’ve ever made. The film budget was about $250,000,
which included money for a mentorship program. This program, sponsored
by ITVS, allowed us to mentor two young people from the community to
teach them filmmaking. One was a young graduate, Mario Lathan, was a
graduate student at Howard University, who grew up in a religious
household, strongly tied to the kind of church we featured in the film.
He was actually the one who first found World Missions for Christ, the
church we featured in the film. He keeps in touch with me all the time.
Another mentee, Kandis Jamison came from the Anacostia church community
in Southeast Washington, a very violent neighborhood. Her brother was
killed by street violence so working on “Let the Church Say Amen” had
special significance for her. She was involved in research, production,
and helped quite a bit with the editing. Living in that part of D.C. was
a huge challenge for everyday and we did out best to help her through
many struggles she faced, ranging from housing to family, and she
developed as a filmmaker as a result, even making a documentary about
her brother which I helped her shoot.
I think storefront churches like World
Missions serve as a bulwark against the violence in these urban
communities, but more importantly these churches serve as an anchor of
strength and hope for families who want the same things for their
families that any American dreams about. They want their children to go
to school, get a good education, have a home, be able to provide for
their families. They join a church to strengthen that sense of
community, and faith is central to empowerment. In these communities, faith is central
to people lives..Empowerment doesn’t come as easily to communities that
face the extraordinary challenges of unemployment, low income, crime,
substance abuse, and so on. Faith is a very strong force against these
challenges, especially against the allure of drugs. Drugs help make
people feel better in a very bad situation. But faith can offer
stronger, more potent relief from hardship. So empowerment is one reason
why many people join an evangelical church, but they also join for
love. Simple, human love. Speaking in a religious context, love has
transformative power.
3.Peter Menkin:
This writer has heard this film, “Let the Church Say Amen,” was done in
cinema verite style. Talk to us a little bit about the style of film
making you offer in your work. A criticism of the film has been that as a
result of its style, the film drags in parts. What do you say to that,
and in retrospect after all these more than five, now 8 years, do you
think so and if not what do you think of the film in retrospect?
Every time I see “Let the Church Say
Amen” with a different audience, I see the film in a new light. I’ve
seen it scores of times in dozens of settings with audiences that vary
from a few filmmakers to thousands of people from other countries. I
can’t speak to the length at his point, since I believe once you’re done
with a piece of work, as much as you’d like to change it, it isn’t
advisable to do that. The moment the film was created and finally
completed, that’s the length it should be. I did shorten it for PBS by
three and half minutes, but Netflix shows it at the original length that
premiered at Sundance and received accolades in festivals all over the
world. Let the critics decide. What do artists really know about their
own work anyway?
In terms of the verite style of the
film it doesn’t strictly adhere to the traditional notion of verite, as
made famous by filmmakers like Ricky Lecock or D.A. Pennebaker, since
there are some black and white sequences, that are a bit more stylized
than what comes out of that tradition. This was my first film using a DV, so I
used a series of small video cameras in a verite style, but I also shot
in 16 mm film, often in slow motion. I still clung to the thought that I
would do at least part of the movie in film. Do you remember the black
and white parts of the film? [Peter Menkin replies:Yes, I do. In fact, I
did so when first noticing the opening, I thought the movie was a black
and white documentary.]
Those black and white sequences were
shot in Super 16, which is a wider format than the standard definition
video I was using. I thought those Super 16 sections allowed me, as a
filmmaker, to include my own voice in the film. It wasn’t verite. It was
done in a style that was very impressionistic: Elegiac. In other words,
the sequences were created so the viewer could step back from the
verite narrative, reflect on it, maybe, and watch the city through its
beauty, subtlety, even irony.. I wasn’t trying to distance myself from
the scene, but get closer to the lyric beauty of a place and its people. I’m glad people have strong feelings
about the film. I would never part from those black and white sequences.
They were central to my vision for the film. Many people countered the
criticism that the black and white sequences slowed the film down, by
saying they remembered those sequences most. The scene with the child on the
carousal with his father riding behind him…that image of a father
playing with his son appears very rarely in the media’s portrayal of
urban life, but we saw it, filmed it, and it became very meaningful for
many people from that community.
The black and white sequence of Brother
C, the character who pursues a musical ministry, is also very
important. It shows him walking out his house and staring with a fixed
gaze down street, which he did countless times. This time, though he
looks at an ambulance as it races up Georgia Avenue, symbolic of the
same ambulance that carried his son who was stabbed and killed by street
violence. The woman looking out of the bus
looking at the dignified figure of a man on a steam grate, the kid
running to church in slow motion, the man carrying party balloons across
a vacant lot: all are images that you don’t often see in films about
the inner city.
I just hate to say ghetto. I don’t like
the term because it feels derogatory, because it isolates the community
with a term. … That’s not respectful of the people or their community,
and it doesn’t reflect its strength or similarity to every American’s
daily life. It was important to me to show children
going to school, the quality of people living their daily lives. In
Washington, D.C., this daily life is full of contrast, contradiction,
and humor: on the one hand you will see a guy walking his pit bull and
on the same block as a woman jogging with her white leopard hounds. Or a
government bureaucrat crossing paths with an inner city hip hop artist
exiting the subway. These black and white sequences show the daily lives
of Washington, D.C. that people don’t see. And I’m happy that they step
away from the verite narrative.
4.Peter Menkin:
To a degree it is unmistakably so you are an artist, maybe more than
“to a degree” the artist. Tell readers a little of your own life and
faith, how you live your life and what projects if any you have going
that are similar in their statement of faith and works as this film—even
if not about a Church? When you were 24 or 25 you made a conscious
decision about your work. Do you think your own style and form as a
director remains similar today to the work made then in the film at
question?
My decision to become an artist was a
very conscious one. At the age of 25, I knew that if I were to become an
artist of integrity, I would have to organize my job, my income, my
expenses all in service to my artwork. I could have become a journeyman
filmmaker, one who works for hire, directs for television and so on,
but that’s very different from governing my entire life toward artistic
work and that sort of vision requires a level of discipline, intensity,
and commitment not unlike that of the priesthood. In fact, I’ve often
compared the calling of an artist to the religious calling of a priest.
To me, both require a devotion to something greater than one’s self,
and, in turn, a relinquishing of the ego. In my work, I try to remain in
service to a deeper, spiritual realm, rather than any glorification of
talent or craft. I suppose you could call it a secular or humanistic
mode of inquiry, the kind of faith that comes from paying attention, of
becoming a mindful observer.
I’ve had numerous artist fellowships at
the MacDowell Colony, a place where artists can work in solitude and
quiet, not unlike a monastery. The staff quietly drops off a lunch
basket to your cabin in the woods. All day you work without any
disturbance from the outside world. You hear crows, the wind through the
pines. The discipline of working like that for five or six weeks feels
like as though you are in service to a creative power beyond the self.
In the best of times, an artist can feel like a vessel receiving message
from a creative force. The muse becomes the savior, I guess. And you’d
better have faith in her, otherwise she’ll fly out of your cabin and
leave you stuck with a black canvas and white sheet of paper.
Since my work focuses on communities that are separated from larger society, I’m now working on a documentary set in a favela community in Brazil. called Vila Aliança.
ABrazilian favela is often referred to in American terms as a slum, but
it is so much more than that. It’s a self-sustaining community filled
with music, dance, neighborhoods, and a character unique to Brazilian
life. the documentary is about an art school in Vila Aliança
and in the same manner as the church film, I follow on four characters
in pursuit of their goals; in this case four children. As a filmmaker, I
can show the beauty of their community through each child’s art. I’m
also working on another film about a group of homeless and low income
children in New York who learn classical dance at a ballet company in
Manhattan.
So all these films share a story in
which I follow people on a kind of quest for fulfillment, similar to the
quest by members of the church in “Let the Church Say Amen.”
Money for my documentaries is always a
problem. Money for any non-commercial filmmaker is a problem. I don’t
have a trust fund or any private source of income. I go to the same
trough as any filmmaker and one competitive source of funding that has
been very generous to me is ITVS (The Independent Television Service).
ITVS serves as a vital source of funding for many filmmakers and
receives its support from the congressionally funded Corporation for
Public Broadcasting or CPB, which also funds PBS.
ITVS has a mandate to reach underserved
audiences with the documentaries they support and program on PBS. ”Let
the Church Say Amen” fulfilled this mission, because normally public
television doesn’t reach a deeply religious, evangelical audience like
the members of a storefront church. When I approached World Missions
for Christ about participating in the documentary, I made it clear that
wouldn’t promote a specific faith, but would honor, with dignity and
honesty, how their expression of faith serves as an anchor for their
community. That faith expression, it seems to me, is fundamental to the
human condition, whether it be through Christianity, the Islamic faith,
Hinduism, or honoring the spirit world of nature in the tradition of
Native American Indians. For this reason, PBS broadcast the film which
reached more varied and diverse set of viewers than I could have
imagined, including, no doubt, some arch conservative evangelical
viewers which the network would love to reach.
My first documentary, ”Fine Food, Fine
Pastries, Open 6 to 9” I finished in 1989 and made for about $45,000
mostly through a grant from the DC Humanities Council and numerous
piecemeal contributions from the community who ate at Sherrill’s where
the film was set. Other documentaries of mine include: “If You Lived
Here You Would Be Home Now” (1994) about an artist and his community in
small Delaware town; I scraped together about $60,000 for that one
largely through a Delaware Humanities Council grant and the generosity
of Russ and Nancy Suniwick who own a film lab in Washington, D.C. That
documentary took five years to make. I wasn’t paid and everyone
volunteered their services. My most recent documentary, Journey of the
Bonesetter’s Daughter, premiered on PBS last year on Mother Day and cost
about the same as the church film [$250,000].
5.Peter Menkin:
My pleasure has been to get to see your film, “Let All the Church Say
Amen.” As you know, I found it on Netflix. Tell us where else this film
can be found, and also as we come to the end of our interview, is there
something I’ve missed or something you want to add?
“Let the Church Say Amen” is
distributed primarily by Film Movement for DVD purchase, and you can
find it in many video stores, such s Blockbuster. It’s actually my most
accessible film. You can also find it on Netflix through both streaming
and DVD rental. Before it went to video, the film also had a brief
theatrical release, which qualified it for Academy Award consideration.
No doubt that may have helped get the attention of the Academy when they
honored the film by screening it in Los Angeles in 2005.
Many people have asked me what was the
one thing I learned from making this film. I always explain it this way.
In the documentary, Brother C, the singer in the film, loses his son to
street violence when his son is stabbed two blocks from where the
family lives. Tragically, after we finished filming, Brother C lost a
second child to street violence, his older daughter who was shot in her
apartment. It’s hard to imagine how a father could endure such loss and
still retain his faith, but every time I talk to Brother C and ask him
how he’s doing, he answers the same way: I’m blessed. With his measure of gratitude, every day for me is paradise, and I thank him for teaching me such joy.
Guest sermon: Archbishop says....Most
of us are frustrated with the structures of the Church, and are feeling
that the way in which we do our business is, at the moment, preventing
us from doing what we actually want to do as a Church
posted by Peter Menkin, Obl Cam OSB
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
From
this morning’s gospel ‘And he could do no deed of power there’.
Frustration is one of the commonest of human experiences. Get two human
beings together in almost any circumstances and sooner or later they
will begin to talk to one another about what has frustrated them. And I
dare say that if you got any two members of General Synod together the
conversational material wouldn’t be that different.
So let us name
it this morning: many of us in the Church are feeling profoundly
frustrated. We’re feeling frustrated with each other of course, and
that’s more or less routine. That’s part of the shadow side of life in
the Body of Christ and the mysterious incapacity of other Christians to
see that we are right. Many of us are profoundly frustrated at the
bishops – and I shouldn’t wonder if some of the bishops weren’t as
profoundly frustrated with each other and with others in the Church.
Most
of us are frustrated with the structures of the Church, and are feeling
that the way in which we do our business is, at the moment, preventing
us from doing what we actually want to do as a Church. A lot of people
will be frustrated with the media and the way in which the Church’s
story is told in the media – and I know for a fact that the media are
very frustrated with the Church.
But when we’ve said all that
about the General Synod and the Church, we can look more widely and
remember that, to paraphrase the words of the prophet Isaiah, we are a
Church of frustrated hearts, dwelling in the midst of a people of
frustrated hearts, living in a society where frustration becomes more
and more acute and painful day by day. The frustration of people unsure
about the value of their pensions, the frustrations of graduates not
knowing if they will ever find steady employment, the frustration of
those not listened to, not attended to, the frustration of well meaning,
well intentioned people in public life trying desperately to solve
sixteen problems at once.
And this morning the Holy Spirit has
provided us with three readings about frustration. We begin with the
call of the prophet Ezekiel, a call not just to be a prophet, but to be
an extremely unsuccessful prophet. We forget that the prophetic call in
the Old Testament is not simply to be a blazing figure of admired public
integrity, it is to be a despised eccentric (no wonder Jonah ran away).
We hear about the frustrations of the apostle Paul, a frustration of
whatever it was that he called ‘the thorn in the flesh’, which prevented
him not only from making the impression that he wanted to make, but
still more frustratingly - and isn’t this the greatest frustration that
we can ever have – prevented him of thinking as well of himself as well
as he wanted to. We have the frustrations of the twelve foreseen by
Jesus in the gospel, those occasions when they seem to have no option
but to dust off their sandals and move on. And then most terrifyingly
and soberingly, we have the frustration of the incarnate word of God ‘He
could do no deed of power there’.
And those words bring to a head
all that we have been reflecting on, seriously and not so seriously,
because at the heart of it all lies one terrifying fact: there is no
power that can force the human heart. That is both the glory and the
bitter problem of our human condition. The glory of our human
condition: the dignity of freedom and conscience that God has bestowed
upon us. And the bitter problem of our human condition: because we
cannot force our neighbours to be with us any more than God can force
his creation to be with him. As we gather for worship we may very well
repent this fact of our human condition, and yet, at the same time,
remember to give thanks for it. This is the glory of our condition.
Our freedom, our dignity is God’s greatest gift and is what makes us
human. The possibility of frustration, in other words, is part of the
price we pay for being in the image of a God whose power is made perfect
in weakness.
How are we to respond? No power can force the human
heart. So how does the human heart change? It changes when it is broken
by love. It changes with the revelation that nothing is too costly to be
expended upon us. That is the nature of the love of Christ – that, and
that alone, is what breaks and remakes the human heart. That moment
when we recognise ourselves afresh and know our worth, our dignity, at a
completely new level. And somehow, if that is what changes the human
heart, that is what we seek and struggle to enact with each other. What
changes my neighbour’s heart? The recognition that nothing matters to me
more than my neighbour’s joy. That is how God changes the neighbourhood
of creation - and that is where we fail again and again. It is not
surprising that we fail, because what exactly that means in the
particular dilemmas and challenges of our life together, is not crystal
clear. How are we to love unconditionally without betraying what is most
real for us and in us? Issues of conscience that divide us are not idle
or arbitrary, they are about that question. And yet, nagging
away again and again at all of us, is that basic truth – nothing will
change unless my neighbour knows that her or his joy is what, most
deeply, I care about. I have said it is where we fail - we make anxious
calculations, we mass defensively against each other, we try desperately
to find ways around love, and very often in the history of the
Christian Church we have cut that Gordian knot through schism. And we
live, it is worth remembering again, in a society where it doesn’t very
much look as though anyone’s joy is much in view, and where so many
people are profoundly convinced that the last thing in their neighbour’s
heart is the longing for their joy.
But to speak of joy
underlines the great risk that we run in all this. Frustration leads to
anger and indignation. And, of course, for well brought up Christians,
anger and indignation are normally internalised as depression. And the
last thing our society or our world needs is a depressed Church. That is
something which I trust we shall bear in mind and heart in the days
ahead.
So, where do we turn? We turn to St Paul who appealed to
the Lord about this: ‘But he said to me “My grace is sufficient for you
for power is made perfect in weakness”’. ‘My grace is sufficient’
– one thing to hold onto, because frustration at least reacquaints us
with our humanity in its glory and its difficulty. And reacquaints us,
most importantly of all, with why exactly it is that we need the love of
Christ, and how it is true that we cannot ever love ourselves into
healing and into life. Instead of simply allowing our frustration to
turn inwards into anger and unhappiness, let us at least remember that
we are brought up against the reality of a humanity – rich, mysterious,
exciting, enduring and worth the very life of the Son of God himself. ‘My grace is enough’.
Jan
Robitscher St.
Mark’s Church Berkeley,
CA June
3, 2012
Isaiah
61-6 Psalm
29 Romans
8:12-17 John
3:1-
In
the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen
Today
is Trinity Sunday. It has come to be seen as the logical conclusion to the
celebrations of the half of the Church Year, beginning in Advent, when we hear
again the story of our salvation, through Christmas and Lent, Easter, Ascension
and Pentecost last week.
In
some parishes, there is a curious tradition on Trinity Sunday. You see, nobody
wants to preach on this day because the doctrine of the Trinity is so complex,
indeed, such a great mystery that it is impossible to preach on it without
falling into one or other heresy!
So
this impossible task is usually given to the youngest or most recently ordained
person on the parish staff. Well, I am none of those, but I’ll be brave,
trusting that God: Father, Son and Spirit, will keep me on the right
path.
This
day has been called an “idea feast” because it celebrates a doctrine rather than
a person or historical event. I remember seeing a stained glass window once
which was the ancient symbol of the Trinity. In the middle was a circle “God”.
Then there was a triangle: at the top, “Father”; at the bottom left, “Son”; at
the bottom right “Holy Spirit”.
On
the connecting bars of the triangle were the words (all in Latin) “IS NOT” On
the bars connecting Each part of the Trinity to God, the word “IS”. So, while
the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit, they are
all God. Confused?
The
window is essentially correct in it’s theology. But I would say that this is NOT
an “idea feast”. The reasons why we are confused are at least two. First, that
wherever we are on the religious spectrum, we are all products of good old
rugged American individualism. We can’t help but think of the Trinity as three
individual beings.
This
is where, if we kept going, we would fall into one or other heresy, and, if we
struggled at it long enough, it would surely end in an argument. But let’s not
go there. The second reason we are confused is that we think that “mystery” is
something we don’t understand, or a riddle to be solved. In Christian theology,
“mystery” means “a divinely revealed reality that words can never fully
express.”1 Perhaps a little history might
help.
Though
the Bible [teaches] the truth of the Trinity of God
implicitly in
both Old and New Testaments, the development and delineation of this doctrine
was brought about by the rise of heretical groups or teachers
who either denied the deity of Christ or that of the Holy Spirit. [They actually had “hymn wars”--the Christians
won!]
This
caused the early church to formally crystallize the
doctrine of
the [Trinity]. Actually, Tertullian in 215 A.D. was the first one to state this doctrine using the term,
Trinity.2
By
the early sixth century, the Rule of St. Benedict speaks of ending the Psalmody
of the daily Offices with the Gloria Patri--Glory be to the Father and to the
Son and to the Holy Spirit... and the prayers of Celtic Christianity were
strongly Trinitarian. By the 11th century this feast was sometimes celebrated on
the Sunday before Advent--at the end of the Liturgical Year.3
But
we owe it to no less than St.Thomas Becket for obtaining permission to celebrate
a Feast for the Trinity, his first act after his consecration as Archbishop of
Canterbury on the Sunday after Pentecost, and this practice spread quickly
through England and beyond so that by Pope John XXII in 1334 Trinity Sunday
became a universal feast. OK.
So
if the history, though interesting, does not provide us a way into this Feast,
what about today’s lessons?
Isaiah
and Nicodemus each had encounters with God. Isaiah’s call was in the course of
a vision of the heavenly court: angels calling out so that their sound shook the
air, incense, and the very hem of God’s robe. Rightly, Isaiah feels himself
unworthy to be there.
Yet
in love God does not condemn him, but rather sends an angel to touch his lips
with a live coal. It must have been terrifying, but Isaiah seems to have
survived unhurt. With this “absolution”, God asks for a volunteer to deliver a
very strong, prophetic message, and Isaiah answers, “Here am I; Send
me.”
Nicodemus
comes to Jesus by night. He is a Pharisee, of some learning, and he came to
“sound out” Jesus as far as his questioning faith would take him. With more
questions, Jesus begins to teach him of “being born of water and Spirit”. This
makes little sense to Nicodemus. Although Jesus seems a bit exasperated, he does
not send Nicodemus away, but, in love, the passage culminates in perhaps the
best known verse in all the Scripture:
“For
God so loved the world that he sent his only Son,
so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish,
but
may have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16)
I
like to think that Nicodemus eventually got, by faith, what Jesus was trying so
hard to tell him...
Each
of these encounters with God shows a part of God’s love for, “God is love” (1
Jn. 4:16). Love is that force that differentiates and unifies.4 That’s how God
can be three persons while being one.
The
persons of the Trinity give themselves to each other in love, and God shows us
that love in different ways. We are invited to enter into that love through the
Incarnation. It is Jesus who showed us the full extent of love, giving himself
in death and resurrection.
This
is not the mushy, fickle love we know, but it is a reflection of the self-giving
love that dwells between the persons of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy
Spirit;
So
where does that leave us, right here in the community of St. Mark’s? Whether we
know it or not, we are surrounded by the Trinity and we see many reflections of
this expression of God’s love. And this love affects us in both an “inward” and
an “outward” way.
Although
we do not have a Trinity window here, we have only to look around and count
three’s to remind ourselves that God the Trinity is here. Or we can listen to
the choir or as we sing the hymns to hear the Trinity expressed in poetry
(perhaps the only way possible), and the notes of chords blend to form beautiful
music that is a reflection of God’s love for us. Perhaps the poet George Herbert
said it best:
My
music shall find Thee,
and
ev'ry string Shall have his attribute
to sing; That
all together may accord in Thee, And
prove one God, one harmony.
Although
we need the Scripture, history, charts, music and poetry, ultimately all of
these fall short of naming the mystery that is God the Holy Trinity. However we
try, from the traditional Father, Son and Holy spirit to Dame Julian of Norwich,
who (as we will hear in today’s anthem) attributes feminine qualities to the
Trinity5, in the end we are left in that silence which is our “wonder, love and
praise”.
But
this silence is the beginning of our deepest relationship with God. For the way
into this mystery is in the Christian life, itself. From birth--and rebirth in
the waters of baptism--to death--we are signed with the cross--that very ancient
representation of Jesus’ sacrifice for us and reminder of the Trinity.
And
this liturgy, from beginning to end bears the Sign of the Cross. We speak the
Trinity in the Nicene Creed and we will hear it when the choir sings the Te
Deum:“We praise thee, O God...” Bread and wine are blessed to
become for us the Body and Blood of Christ, using a prayer that is addressed to
God, includes Jesus’ own words and invokes the Holy Spirit.
And
we sign ourselves at various times as a way of saying “Yes, I receive this
blessing and gift and remind myself of the Trinity”. All these are the “inward “
reflections of the Trinity. But every act of love we do here, whether in worship
or with and for each other or at Hot Meals or the Prayer Shawl group or any
other ministry we do--all of these are outward reflections of the love of the
God the Holy Trinity. As a fellow preacher put it,
The
loving mutuality of the Church has its source in the
loving mutuality
of the eternal Trinity.6
So
I invite you: Look around and see God’s creative acts! Hear the music! Receive
God’s redemptive acts: the Life of Jesus in bread and wine-become the Body and
Blood of Christ! Feel the power of the Holy spirit’s sanctifying acts to console
us, guide us, gifts us and lead us into all truth as we are sent out to “love
and serve the Lord”! Feel the baptismal water as you go by the font! Know that,
while we can never exhaust the reality of the Trinity, this Love of God, that we
live.
This
one-day season of Trinity Sunday is far more than an “idea feast”, or the
celebration of a theological doctrine. It is a “Faith Feast”--a recognition that
the Trinity--God the Three-in-one--the love of God--surrounds us on every side.
It is the air we breathe and in all creation; the water in which we “swim” in
baptismal rebirth; the Eucharist, in which we receive the very life of Jesus;
the gifts of prayer and service poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit,who will
lead us into all truth as we take the next steps in our life together.
All
of these are the reflection of God’s love in and with and for us, here in the
community of St. Mark’s. And in this creating, redeeming and sanctifying love of
the Holy, Triune God we are sent out to the wider Church and to the world, and
this is Good News, Indeed!
To
God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit be glory for ever and
ever.
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