A Wild Goose Chase Into The Woods

The Anamchara Fellowship, June 15, 2012

A sermon for the installation of Abbess Barbara Clare, AF

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Wayne, PA

June 15, 2012 – The Rev’d Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton, preacher

Please pray with me: (sung) Into the woods / It's time to go, / I hate to leave, / I have to, though. Into the woods / It's time, and so / I must begin my journey. In the Name of the Triune God, who is Beloved, who is Love, and who Loves unconditionally. Amen.

It is a somewhat daunting task to preach for the Installation of an Abbess, especially when said Abbess has been your partner in life for more than half your life. Oh, the stories I could tell – but, won’t. (Well, I promised I wouldn’t.)

What I do want you to know is that your Abbess is a huge Disney fan. So, be warned: If you ever have community movie night and she is in charge of the film selection, be prepared to watch one of the Disney classics like Old Yeller, Mary Poppins or The Parent Trap.  Failing that, she may also try to convince you to watch The Bells of St. Mary or The Song of Bernadette or even, God help us, It’s a Wonderful Life – even when it’s not Christmas. 

Consider yourselves warned.

I am not a great fan of Disney (I don’t like the way he treats the women characters), but I do love Broadway plays. Musicals are a favorite. Your new Abbess, of course, does not. Except for one. It’s the Steven Sondheim, James Lapine work known as Into the Woods.

In fact, she loves it so much that she asked me if I could work it in somehow into this sermon. In the more than 26 years I've been ordained, she’s never made any request of any sermon I’ve ever written. So, given the occasion, how could I refuse? The thing of it is, she’s right. 

She often is, but please don’t let her know that I said that.  (She’s so nervous, she’s only half listening to what I’m saying. Shhhh….)

Sr. BJ - co-founder of Anamchara Fellowship

BJ and Julian, have set this community on a firm foundation. It was their dream, their vision which led us here today and we are all joyful, grateful debtors of their servant leadership. 

And now, a new phase of the life of this community has begun, with new leadership, building on the vision of what has - intended or not - become part of the emergent monastic movement.

There are many, many of these groups of rag-tag Christians, who are deeply hungry to find a way to live a life of prayer and service in community in ways they cannot find in church. 

Some embrace the Benedictine idea of stability, building neighborhoods of people who live with others or, perhaps, in their own homes with their own spouses/partners and children, but who share resources and help each other while providing service to the community.

This community called Anachara Fellowship is unique in that you are not as concerned with stability of location as stability of life.  Your energies are not centered around a church building, or monastery or convent; rather, you constellate your energies around being, as you say, “bound to each other by common ideals and a commitment to prayer and service".

The Pathologist and the Abbess

How will you do this with new leadership? How will you do this with an ever-increasing membership base? Make no mistake: the one certain thing in life is change. 

I’m sure both BJ and Julian could not have asked for or imagined the changes that surround them today – imagined all these faces sitting around the ever-widening circle of membership – imagined ever not being in the driver’s seat of this incredible, mystical journey into a new, emerging form of monasticism.

And yet, here you are, grown and growing and with a new leader. It can all feel a bit like a fairy tale, complete with a Bishop and Priests and Deacons, an Abbess and some religious men and women in modern versions and various stages of medieval clothing. 

All we need is a little girl in a red riding hood, a big bad wolf, a witch and a giant and maybe some magic beans. Where will this new chapter in this journey take us? God knows.

(Sing) The way is clear / The light is good / I have no fear / Nor no one should / The woods are just trees / The trees are just wood / No need to be afraid there— (there’s something in the glade, there). / Into the woods / Without delay / But careful not / To lose the way / Into the woods / Who knows what may / Be lurking on the journey?

This is where I think your new Abbess may be right (Did I just admit that for a second time? Shhhh….). Into the Woods may give us some insights into this event and what is about to unfold and it may even shed some light on the gospel appointed for today (Mt. 20:-20-30).

Into the Woods covers multiple themes: growing up, parents and children, accepting responsibility, morality, and finally, wish fulfillment and its consequences. William A. Henry III wrote that the play's "basic insight ... is that at heart, most fairy tales are about the loving yet embattled relationship between parents and children. Almost everything that goes wrong — which is to say that almost everything that can — arises from a failure of parental or filial duty, despite the best intentions."

In today’s Gospel, the mother of the Sons of Zebedee comes up to Jesus, and, kneeling before him, asks that her sons sit, one at his right hand and one at his left, in his kingdom. Jesus looks at her and says, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” And they say to him, “We are able”.

Fools! They have no idea what they are saying, do they? Then again, it’s easy for us to say. We know how the story ends. Neither James and John nor their mother had any idea – in their wildest imaginings – what was to happen to Jesus and what would happen to them. If they knew, they never would have asked.

We have no idea how this new chapter of your life will end – much less where it will lead. All we can do is to step out together in faith.   

Bishop Brookhart laying hands on Barbara Clare

I want to be clear: There’s great mystery in that, but there is no magic. 

In a few moments, the Bishop will lay his hands on Barbara and she will emerge your new Abbess. Your bishop is wise enough to know that he doesn’t do that by himself. His action only confirms what you and she have heard as a vocational call from God.

I have come to understand that Bishops are called to their role because, while they are supposed to be visionaries, they are also called to have a firm grasp on the obvious. 

Indeed, I think all of us who are called to ministry - lay and ordained - need to have a wee bit of all three: vision and mystery and reality.

The truth is that there is no magic in the habit – much less the veil – any more than there’s magic in the collar I wear around my neck or the mitre the bishop wears on his head. These are just outward and visible signs of the deep mystery of vocation. 

And while titles like ‘the Rt. Rev’d’ and ‘the Rev’d Dr. ‘ and ‘Abbess’ sound important, they are no more important than the fact that our baptism makes us brothers and sisters in Christ.  There is no magic in that but there is a great mystery to our faith. 

Magic and mystery. It’s important not to confuse the two. Grace can look like magic but its real power lies deep in the mystery of faith.

It’s like the song Little Red Riding Hood sings after she emerges from the belly of the wolf:

(Sung) And I know things now, many valuable things / That I hadn't known before. / Do not put your faith in a cape and a hood / They will not protect you the way that they should. / And take extra care with strangers, /  even flowers have their dangers, / And though scary is exciting, /Nice is different than good. / Now I know, don't be scared. / Granny is right, just be prepared. / Isn't it nice to know a lot? / ..And a little bit.. not.

Sr. B.J handing her staff to Abbess Barbara Clare

If your new Abbess is wise – and I believe she is and you were wise to call her – she will understand this and live into it and out of it. And, if she doesn’t, I believe you will be wise enough to let her know.

The thing about leadership in community is that there are as many blessings as there are curses – and sometimes blessings can come disguised as curses and curses can be reversed and become blessings.   

Sometimes, leaders can seem like witches or giants to those who as we like to say in the church, have “issues with authority”.

Truth be told we ALL have issues with authority. We’re Episcopalians, for goodness sake! We broke off from the Church of England in the Anglican Communion to which we both now belong, and we’ve been squabbling with her – and she with us – ever since! 

That’s really what this so-called Anglican Covenant is about. ‘Mother Church” is angry with us for upsetting the so-called “orthodox” members of the family and so she has set out to tell us who we are and the ‘relational consequences” if we are ever naughty again – even though we are a federation of mutually interdependent churches. 

Talk about your ‘issues with authority’!

Bishop Brookhart and Sr. Sheila Brigid, Deacon

The thing about authority is that it comes, part and parcel, with leadership. The thing to keep in mind about servant leadership is that authority comes to the servant leader from Jesus which is always in tension with the authority inherent in the Body of Christ.   

It’s a balancing act – a thing worked out between the vision of the leader and the firm grasp she has on the reality of the community she is called to serve.

When Barbara called me to tell me that she had been elected, I, of course, was thrilled and congratulated her. 

She asked if I had any advice. I thought for a minute and responded, “Well, it’s like the old prostitute once said, ‘It’s not the work. It’s the stairs.’”.

Elevation to a position of authority can bring about resentment, not because the person is inherently bad or good but because sometimes, you have to make decisions that are not popular. Sometimes, a leader will take you places you hadn’t considered before and it makes you anxious or scared and you don’t want to go but the leader presses on and everyone else is joining so you figure you might as well but really don't want to. 

The resentment you harbor in the secret recesses of your heart can help you to turn her into “a witch” – someone you think is not very good and not very nice. She becomes the object of our passive-aggression and/or scapegoating  Except, somewhere inside your knowing, you know she’s right. It can be infuriating and oh, so easy to take it all out on the servant leader. 

I love what the Sondheim witch sings in the song ‘The Last Midnight’: “I’m the witch. I’m not good. I’m not nice. I’m just right. I’m the witch.”

Which is why Jesus teaches his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as ransom for many.”

Abbess receiving the obedience of Br. William Morgan

In order to accomplish this, you will have to rely heavily on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

I love the Celtic understanding of the third person of the Trinity. She is a Geadh-Glas - the Wild Goose. Celtic spirituality teaches that the Holy Spirit is the representative of God’s femininity. 

It provides a wonderful balance, I think, to the traditional male-dominated understanding of God.

In many ways, emergent monastic communities like Anamchara Fellowship are on a "wild goose chase" - in search of the Holy Spirit to renew and revitalize their souls and, in so doing, rediscover the radical roots of Christianity in community.

Oh, to be sure, the world sees you as sillies and fools. Those who chase after wild geese - or tilt at windmills or dream the dreams of God for a 'beloved community' – are of’t seen as such.

I can't imagine a better endeavor for those who follow Jesus - nor a new Abbess to lead them in their quest.

Off you go then, into the woods on a wild goose chase.  Here’s my four-fold wish for you: 

May the winds of the Holy Spirit be always at your back. 

May Ruach dance on the chaos of this newly emerging creation. 

May Shekinah take you through the pathos, into ethos, and lead you to Theos. 

And may your ears always be tuned to hear the honking of a Geadh-Glas - a Wild Goose - calling you ever closer to home.

Now, in order to get your wish, you must go (sung): 

 Into the woods/  Where nothing's clear / Where witches, ghosts / And wolves appear.

 Into the woods / And through the fear / You have to take the journey.

  Into the woods / And down the dell, / In vain perhaps / But who can tell?

  Into the woods to lift the spell . . . .

  Into the woods to lose the longing.. . . .

  Into the woods to have the child,

       To wed the Prince / To get the money / To save the house, / To kill the wolf,

       To find the father / To conquer the kingdom /  To have, to wed / To get, to save,

       To kill, to keep, / To go to the Festival!

  Into the woods,

  Into the woods,

  Into the woods,

  Then out of the woods--

And happy ever after! (I wish).                           

Amen.