REL331 essay 2

 please see attachments for instruction on how to complete this assignment. This paper will be at least 1,000 words (MLA style). I have included a link for the book and insight from the teacher point of view on what  is expected of assignment.

REL331

Exam 2

Respond to the quotation below. Be sure to cite the book and to mention events and ideas in the book that would explain Sara’s views of these issues. Keep in mind that Jesus and his companions were not Christians, much less Catholic or Baptist.

Please save the exam and label it with your last name, middle initial, first name, and exam2. For example, Doe.M.Johnexam2 would be the exam file label for John M. Doe.

“Sara may be well-intentioned, but she and St. Gregory’s are going about things the wrong way. You’re not supposed to let just anyone who wants to, take communion, much less pray the words of consecration over toast when your friend and former lover is dying, you don’t baptize people after they take communion, you don’t baptize children just because they ask, you don’t ‘marry’ a person of the same sex and you don’t ‘lay hands’ on people and pray for them without having received the authority to do so. And the pantry is not ‘church’; you need a valid liturgy and authorized clerics for that. Sara has simply allowed her leftist politics, concern for outcasts, and the ‘liberation theology’ of Jesuits like Martin-Baro to overcome her good sense. People need rules; that’s why we have them in the first place. If we don’t have rules, people will do whatever they want, and then where will we be?”

Exam Criteria

Characteristics of a very good exam:

Integrates personal observation and knowledge in an insightful way.

Provides concrete examples from the readings to support observations and interpretations.

Integrates prior readings.

Uses parenthetical documentation (MLA style) to show how the text is being read and to
document sources.

Shows tolerance and humility.

Has correct spelling and grammar.

1,000 or more word count.

Characteristics of a good exam:

Integrates personal knowledge and observation in a relevant way.

Refers to examples from the readings to support observations and interpretations.

Refers to prior readings in a relevant way.

Uses parenthetical documentation (MLA style) to show how the text is being read and to
document sources.

Has largely correct spelling and grammar.

Shows tolerance and humility to authors, classmates, and instructor.

1,000 or more word count.

Characteristics of an acceptable exam:

Has a personal response to the readings.

Alludes to readings to support position.

Uses parenthetical documentation (MLA style) to show how the text is being read and to
document sources.

Has spelling and grammar than need improvement.

Shows tolerance and humility.

1,000 minimum word count.

Characteristics of an unacceptable exam:

Does not have a personal response but instead uses material (even correct and insightful
material) from other sources.

Does not document sufficiently or at all.

Does not have minimum word count.

Is late without prior arrangements being made.

Perspective

How does a person move from being an atheistic child of atheistic parents (who themselves were children of missionaries) to becoming a Christian and inaugurating a food pantry for an Episcopal Church where people dance in their liturgy? This module describes how this happened to one energetic and creative person, Sara Miles.

· Sara Miles, Take This Bread, pp. ix-140.

Becoming a Christian is one thing but it’s quite another to be doing this during the time of 9/11 and then the invasion of Iraq. Sara has plenty of opportunities here to practice her progressive Christianity with its “love your enemies.”

· Sara Miles, Take This Bread, pp. 141-294.

Link for book (take this bread) by Sara Miles

https://books.google.com/books?id=-WupVbtjd_wC&pg=PP8&dq=978-0-345-49579-2&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-9Of_vqTuAhVJmK0KHYTTCZoQuwUwAHoECAIQBw#v=onepage&q=978-0-345-49579-2&f=false
https://thetyee.ca/Books/2008/02/14/LoveAndHunger/

Instructor Reading Guide

Donald finds a spiritual director, Jeff, for Sara. Note that Jeff is a Presbyterian (162). These

Episcopalians at St. Gregory’s are very open-minded folk.

And what is she to do about the attacks of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq? For 9/11 she opens St.

Gregory’s. For the invasion of Iraq she plans a liturgy, and finds herself bereft of certainties.

“Becoming a believer seemed to be giving me less interest in maintaining a set of rigid beliefs –

about God and about politics” (160). She tries to center of Paul’s “faith working through love”

[Galatians 5:6] (161).

She’s asked to give sermons. At St. Gregory’s the sermons emphasized “critical scholarship and

personal experience.” Donald said that the idea was “to meet God in the wildness and immediacy

of life,” not in “correct” doctrinal formula and “telling one another how to look at life” (176).

This is not a very common affair. Critical scholarship undermines the common literal

interpretation of the Bible, and personal experience and reliance on the guidance of the Spirit can

seem flaky to churches with a strong liturgical practice like they have at St. Gregory’s. What do

you think of this? Do your church’s sermons combine both critical scholarship and personal

testimony – without “telling one another how to look at life”?

Sara observes that if the New Testament stories were correct, Jesus was “singularly uninterested

in church” (178). Not your usual Christian notion. Does she mean to say that worship is

unimportant?

She is asked by an acquaintance to perform a marriage ceremony (183).

She meets Paul Fromberg who shares Rick and Donald’s belief in “radical hospitality.” Bishop

Swing had mentioned to her “the crazy hospitality, the open extravagance of the Last Supper”

(189).

The Nicene Creed was not a part of St. Gregory’s service. Paul says: “It’s basically a toxic

document set up to standardize belief and overturn heresies and draw a sharp line between us and

them” (191).

While delivering food at the Potrero Hill projects, she reflects: “This was God’s holy hill: the

Hill…. God lived in Ruth’s hands” (196). Is this part of what she means by Jesus’ being

“singularly uninterested in church” (178).

The food pantry volunteers wanted church. “Not the kind where you sit obediently and listen to

someone tell you how to behave but the kind where you discover responsibility, purpose,

meaning” (214). Sara’s impressed with the resilience of people, and “in breaking bread with my

people, and hearing their stories, I was learning … something about God: You can’t hope to see

God without opening yourself to all God’s creation” (217).

St. Gregory’s holds regular “feasts of friends,” potlucks modeled on early eucharists (218). What

do you think of this? Doesn’t it seem indecorous, and not the proper sort of ambience for being

close to God?

Jesus’ own practice, by the way, was to eat meals with people, and the practice of the first

Christians was to actually have a meal in which Jesus was remembered and communion was

celebrated.

Paul volunteers to cook on Fridays for the pantry volunteers, and they discuss religion while

cooking. The usual denominations depend on the idea that their own sect has the “secret code….

That was idolatry …; magical thinking, pagan religion…. God was not manageable.” Paul says,

“The message of Jesus is the only sure cure for religion” (221).

Sara finds her faith in “the wild conceit that a helpless, low-caste baby could be God. That ugly,

contaminated, and unimportant people embodied holiness.” She reflects that the kingdom was

primarily about an afterlife, “but I believed it was this world, just as my parents had, in their

secular way, insisted so long ago” (222).

Are you comfortable with this view? You might keep in mind that the Hebrew Scriptures are

very much focused on how to live life – this is what the Covenant and Torah are all about. For a

Jew like Jesus, God’s “kingdom” or “Ruling” meant primarily that lives could be lived

differently – as in feeding the hungry, forgiving, and loving one’s enemies. In the early

Christians’ faith in the Resurrection, this new living extended also into eternity. They believed

that Jesus’ Resurrection vindicated his – and their — vision of living in the Kingdom.

Sara finds a new dimension of faith in healing. She holds Michael who faces an operation for

stomach cancer (230-231).

She had begun to believe more in resurrection as something mysterious and about “the eternity

available in a fully lived instant” (231).

(Surely Sara is right to be skeptical of too-easy descriptions of eternal life? “Resurrection” even

in traditional teaching is a mystery and one needs to guard against “dumbing it down.” It’s not a

matter of scientific knowledge or technological manipulation. It is “immeasurable” in that sense.

But so are God, creation, and the human spirit. Christian faith is mysterious from the very

beginning.)

Sara and Martha decide to get married. Notice that it is Katie (ca. 15 years old) who insists on

this (232). And later at St. Gregory’s Donald and the other priests and others bless the marriage

in an irregular rite (234). Then the marriages are annulled, but “what had happened at St.

Gregory’s was outside both the law and the Law.” Their marriage became a metaphor for the

“the difficult and vital imperative to love others”(235).

Interesting issues here, to be sure. Can gay people marry? Is the government the proper entity to

decide this, and not the couple themselves? That is, the government can’t decide a religion for

you, but it can decide a certain kind of partner or number of partners? You can see other

questions here also: Mormons and Muslims. Clearly, such things as rules about child marriage

are not controversial, but these other rules – about adults — seem to require a little more

justification than they are usually given, especially in the light of American belief in freedom of

religion and conscience.

In addition to believing that the pantry being itself is eucharistic, Sara finds herself being asked

by a little girl, Sasha, to apply to her baptismal water, the water “God puts on you to make you

safe.” For Sara, it hadn’t made her safe. It was a sign “the unavoidable reality of the cross at the

heart of the Christian faith” (236). Lynn gives a blessing to Sasha, and Sara “saw something

flowing between them: the child, crucified, anointing Lynn with the power of her crucifixion,

and Lynn, receiving it, anointing Sasha” (237). Lawrence is overwhelmed when he hears the

story.

Sara reflects that people “often wanted more … sacraments, more rites, more prayer and healing

and blessing” than the church was willing to give” (240) She thinks thinks further that “real

Christians” could be “total outsiders and still perform rites that evoked the Gospel messages of

healing, new life, shared food, shared grief, shared peace” (241).

What do you think? Can you perform such rites? You should recall again that Jesus and his

companions weren’t priests; they were lay people. The “authorized” people were those at the

Temple in Jerusalem, and you know how that story went. Peter, Paul, and Jesus’ brother James

were all executed. Isn’t there something radical, disturbing, and “unauthorized” about the Jesus

movement? Maybe “being a human being” is something that in itself is “unauthorized”?

$200,000? The heart of it all is “the experience of being bread” (246). Derek, the very formal

and controlled lawyer, asks her to write a prayer for him (247).

Extending the pantry? A difficult question. Notice their resorting to the Quaker practice of a

“clearness committee” (248-249).

“You can’t be a Christian by yourself… I was going to be changed, too, and lose my private

church” (256).

“The Cost of Faith” is the title of chap. 24. Before her, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a top Lutheran

theologian, executed by the Nazis, had written of The Cost of Discipleship (1937) which attacked

the notion of “cheap grace,” the idea that faith doesn’t cost anything. Here she has serious

conflicts with here wife Martha and daughter Katie. And important realization is that that she

was not purer than anyone else (262). Are you purer than other people?

“The unavoidably political Gospel of incarnation and murder” (265).

“Learning from experience instead of memorizing a formula forced me to pay attention. Doing

the Gospel rather than just quoting it was the best way I could find out what God was up to”

(265). This is almost a throwaway line, but it links learning from experience, paying attention,

and action – and contrasts this with following formulae. What do you think? Could your life use

a little more “paying attention”? And what would you do once you saw something important –

black Americans being denied education with whites, for instance? And what would happen to

you and your family if you decided to do something about it? Rocks through your window?

Threats? Attacks?

Paul had admonished the Galatians that in Christ “there is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no

longer slave nor free, there is no longer male and female” (Gal. 3:39). You can see the political

implications, I’m sure: there couldn’t be Nazi laws about Jews, American laws about blacks or

Indians, or the usual laws restricting women. All this visionary dreaming is very much “outside

the box” of the culture of Paul’s day. Admittedly, Sara is a dreamer (and very much an actor, of

course, as Jesus and Paul), but does that necessarily mean she’s wrong?

The point of church is not getting people to go to church but “to feed them, so they can go out

and, you know, be Jesus” (265).

Sara used to live with Millie, her lover then, and Millie’s son Jay, and now Millie was dying.

Sara followed Episcopal rules about only priests presiding at the eucharist (267), but as Millie

got sicker, Sara needed extra strength. Then something happened as Sara prayed over the toast

for Millie’s pills and broke it. “Oh, my God, it’s real” (272).

“Christianity wasn’t an argument …, a thesis. It was a mystery that I was finally willing to

swallow” (274).

Her spiritual director, Jeff, says, “We don’t understand the eucharist, or that bread and wine live

within us, so we ritualize the things that hold the mystery” (276).

Sara finally comes out to her atheist mother as they share a meal of lamb, bread, and wine. It

wasn’t an official eucharist, but “it was real communion” (278).

She imagines “life, everlasting.” All her family and friends are there. “We’re eating together.

The door opens. It is never over” (280).

Instructor Reading Guide

In the Prologue, Sara comes right at you. Her last words here (xvi) are from Psalm 34:8:

“
Taste

and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.” She is affirmative

and appreciative of the Biblical witness. She is also appreciative of ritual and the Lord’s Supper.

Indeed, it was at an inclusive liturgy that she took communion and had a personal religious

experience. “It changed everything” (xi). She became a Christian after communion, joining St.

Gregory’s, and started a food pantry.

She’s not a conventional Christian, and she was not attending a conventional church (Episcopal

churches have traditionally been staid by comparison to other groups). What do you think so

far? Is this possibly a good religious life? A Christian life?

At eighteen she’s enrolled in Friends World College in Cuernavaca. “Liberation theology”

(inspired by Karl Marx’s criticism of capitalism; my.saintleo can access the Library and

Encyclopedia Britannica for an article on liberation theology) is becoming popular among Latin

American theologians. (Later, Pope John Paul II will take actions against this movement.) The

“Corpus Christi Massacre” took place on June 10, 1971. The US may have been involved in

training some of the halcones (“Falcons”) that did the killing. The U.S. did participate in a cover-

up of the massacre. But young Sara was there and saw it in su propria carne – “in our own meat”

(13), a fitting expression for the celebration of the feast celebrating the eucharist – Corpus

Christi, “the Body of Christ.” You can see the “take this bread” theme already developing and

being related to social justice, right?

She says her education “was rooted in physical experience,” which made her “distrustful of

dogma of all kinds,” whether of the left or right (14).

The experiential emphasis in American history has its origins in British empiricism (like the

philosophy of John Locke, a major influence on Thomas Jefferson), in our first and foremost

theologian, Jonathan Edwards, a Lockean. It was articulated famously by “pragmatists” such as

John Dewey.

(“Pragmatists” [pragma = “action” in Greek] often consider the actions and consequences

involved in issues. If someone asked why lying is wrong, pragmatists would point to the negative

consequences of lying for a society.)

For Sara, this meant looking not at the center of things – the official stances – but “at the edges

of things, at the unlikeliest and weakest people, not the most apparently powerful” (14).

By the way, did Jesus have an education “rooted in physical experience”? (Unlike Paul who was

trained as a Pharisee, Jesus apparently had virtually no formal education.) Was Jesus interested

in the poor? Was he a “pragmatist”? Consider: “As you did it to one of the least of these my

brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40; NSRV) and “You will know them by their fruits”

(Mt. 7:16). Clearly, Jesus was interested in the less advantaged members of society and he

emphasized taking into account the consequences of our actions.

Was Jesus a dogmatist? What “dogma” did he have? The “Kingdom of God?” That was his

principal teaching, but he never says what the “Kingdom” is. Instead, as we all know, he offered

parables and metaphors – a sower, a lost sheep, a grain of mustard seed, etc.. The parable of the

“Good Samaritan” (Luke 10) summarizes Jesus’ view: a Samaritan, looked down upon by Jews,

assists a Jew after Jewish priests pass him by; this illustrates the “Kingdom of God” in action

(pragma).

Of being a cook: “I learned solidarity, the kind that only comes through shared bodily

experience. I learned … that rituals … could carry unconscious messages of love and comfort.”

A wise bishop would tell her later, “There’s a hunger beyond food that’s expressed in food, and

that’s why feeding is always a kind of miracle” (23).

Note again her experiential emphasis: “solidarity.” This is a very “American” perspective. She

links the basic human need for food with the basic human fact of ritual (all societies have

patterns of interaction, and some of these can carry highly symbolic importance).

A slew of questions and issues emerges: who are you in solidarity with? Blacks, whites, females,

males, infants, the old and sick, the rich, the poor? And how should society relate to all this?

“Solidarity” is very similar to the Hebrew Scriptures’ idea of “covenant,” which was originally a

kind of military pact of the ancient Hebrews and evolved into their basic metaphor for their

social bond: a covenant with one another and with God. The covenant loyalty itself was called

hesed, sometimes translated by the NSRV as “steadfast love.” In the Sermon on the Mount, this

notion is extended in the Kingdom of God to enemies: “Love your enemies” (Mt. 5:44). The

effect of this is to extend solidarity to everyone – a radical teaching, to be sure.

Sara is on dangerous ground here, isn’t she? How will we act when we are in solidarity with

everyone? She believes, naturally, that the Lord’s Supper is an indication of how we should act.

Sara goes to Nicaragua where a social and political revolution, in part inspired by liberation

theology, was underway. She was guided by her memory of the Corpus Christi Massacre (37)

and began to study what the US military calls “low-intensity conflict.” Under president Reagan

the US had been pursuing an “undeclared proxy war with Nicaragua” (36), and Sara begins

working with Nicaraguan farm cooperatives and American volunteer brigades.

She also goes to El Salvador where the US had been supporting the Salvadoran government in its

efforts to suppress democratic insurgents. In December 1980 three nuns and a lay woman had

been raped and murdered, and government death squad (Escuadron del Muerte) had assassinated

Archbishop Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980. Sara gets to know Ignacio Martin-Baro, a Jesuit

theologian at the elite University of Central America. Martin-Baro (43-45; 54). She gets pregnant

and returns to the US.

Martin-Baro and other Jesuits were advocating a theory of justice based on an “option for the

poor.” Miles links this phrase with Vatican II (36), but it was Pedro Arrupe, the brilliant Father

General of the Jesuit order, who had first used the phrase “option for the poor” in a May 1968

letter to Jesuits in Latin America

(http://books.google.com/books?id=OBRQmL8z064C&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=option+for

+the+poor+arrupe&source=bl&ots=PkwpNr4D8A&sig=mtyD8i24kcXyHXmOobeYqhEIVTs&

hl=en&ei=isFDSszpFIWGtgfppM2gAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2 ). In

1977 the White Warriors death squad threatened the Jesuits in El Salvador with death if they

didn’t abandon their ministry to the poor and leave the country. Arrupe replied that his men

would not leave “because they are with the people.” Six months after the birth of Miles’ daughter

Katie, on November 16, 1989, Martin-Baro and five other Jesuits, their housekeeper and her

daughter were shot in the head by a death squad.

(http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/10th-anniv.html ).

As might be expected, Sara was very much influenced about all this and by the Christian witness

she observed (50). What about you? Do you think all this is worth the kind of time and reflection

Miles gave to it? She’s linking food/life and the poor/sacrifice, but of course she hadn’t yet even

begun to work through a theology of justice.

Her relationship with Bo ended, she stayed in San Francisco (54), her best friend Douglas died of

AIDS in her arms (55), and in time she met and fell in love with Martha, a Jew (56, 62).

A table, a Byzantine mural of saints dancing, a stately dance up to the table, a woman offers Sara

bread and wine. “Jesus invites everyone to his table.” Sara was unbalanced by all this. “God …

was real and in my mouth [and this] utterly short-circuited my ability to do anything but cry”

(59).

(St. Gregory’s website: http://www.saintgregorys.org )

Whoa … ! This is not your usual Episcopal church service. “Everyone” is invited. This is called

“open communion.” Many churches – like the Catholic Church, for instance, which doesn’t

recognize the validity of the Episcopal priesthood — have strict rules about this.

By the way, did Jesus have strict rules about whom he’d eat with? Jesus practiced what one

theologian, John Dominic Crossan, has called “open commensality,” that is, not drawing the

“insider/outsider” distinction. While John the Baptizer and the Pharisees fasted, Jesus did not

(Mark 2:18-19; Luke 7:33-34). He openly had the company of “tax collectors and sinners” (Mt.

11:19), and, of course, women (like Martha and Mary, and Mary Magdalene), who were

reckoned in his day as very risky persons in regard to ritual cleanliness: contact with an unclean

person (even where they sat – like a couch, in the case of a menstruating woman) can make a

clean person unclean.

http://books.google.com/books?id=OBRQmL8z064C&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=option+for+the+poor+arrupe&source=bl&ots=PkwpNr4D8A&sig=mtyD8i24kcXyHXmOobeYqhEIVTs&hl=en&ei=isFDSszpFIWGtgfppM2gAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2

http://books.google.com/books?id=OBRQmL8z064C&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=option+for+the+poor+arrupe&source=bl&ots=PkwpNr4D8A&sig=mtyD8i24kcXyHXmOobeYqhEIVTs&hl=en&ei=isFDSszpFIWGtgfppM2gAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2

http://books.google.com/books?id=OBRQmL8z064C&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=option+for+the+poor+arrupe&source=bl&ots=PkwpNr4D8A&sig=mtyD8i24kcXyHXmOobeYqhEIVTs&hl=en&ei=isFDSszpFIWGtgfppM2gAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2

http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/10th-anniv.html

http://www.saintgregorys.org/

Are you OK with this? Clearly some important and knowledgeable people objected to Jesus’

behavior. He was making plenty of clerical types unhappy. Or maybe that was OK for Jesus but

not for us today – we need to draw the “insider/outsider” distinction? (Remember, at times the

early Christians were persecuted by the government, and it was important to know if someone

was a traitor or not, so be cautious about being too judgmental here about some church

practices.)

The rotunda icon at St. Gregory’s includes images of nonChristians like Anne Frank and Rumi

(the Muslim mystic and founder of the “Whirling Dervishes,” who, naturally, dance). One of the

founding priests, Donald Schell was married with children, the other, Rick Fabian was gay (80).

She begins reading up on Christianity and discovers along the way that while she was being an

activist in Nicaragua, her grandmother Margaret had been arrested as a “disorderly person” for

protesting about racism, greed, and imperial murder (83-84). Her family had a greater Social

Gospel connection than she had realized (83). An Episcopalian theologian wrote that the Bible

was not a set of instructions with simple answers, and that “the discovery of truth is a continuing

journey guided by the Holy Spirit” (84). (In passing, we might observe that the view of

Revelation put forward by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 is not very different from this;

the major difference would be the place given to the Roman magisterium for interpreting

Revelation. See Dei Verbum, n.10).

She becomes a deacon in St. Gregory’s (93-94).

Sara’s vision starts to emerge: “Feed my sheep” [John 21:17] (104). She is told that “the food

world, it’s all evil” (105). She has a “vision of a Table where everyone was welcome” (106).

Sara says it was no accident that she opened the food pantry and was baptized in the same week

(119, 121). Baptism for St. Gregory’s is a conscious choice that comes after communion at St.

Gregory’s (121). Sara is worried since baptism seemed to her like a betrayal of her parents who

had tried so hard to “protect” her from Christianity (122). Lynn Baird, a female priest, tells Sara

“All you have to do is want it” (124). Donald baptizes her, and later says, “Wow, I never

baptized anyone who’d been catechized by a martyr [Martin-Baro] before” (125).

Notice again Sara’s sensitivity to the power of ritual to help people transform their lives.

“The pantry would be church and not a social service program” (130).

She’s asked by some who came to the pantry to pray for them. A seminarian told her that laying

hands on people was not “authorized” by the Book of Common Prayer (133). Sara believes that

“looking to official rule books and clerics to tell you how to act – this was what is wrong with

religion” (134).

REL331Module 4 AVP Transcript

SLIDE 1 – IMAGE OF JESUS DANCING MURAL AT SAINT GREGORY’S

Image: Jesus Dancing mural at St. Gregory’s

Do you associate Jesus and dancing? In Jesus’ culture, dancing was routinely a part of
rejoicing. David danced before the ark of the covenant. People danced at weddings and
on occasions like the return of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:25). And Jesus himself is said
to have compared following him to being at a wedding banquet, a time for rejoicing, not
fasting (Matthew 9:15). There’s even an old English Christmas carol, “Tomorrow Shall
Be My Dancing Day,” in which Jesus speaks of his being born of Mary as his “dancing
day.” Here are some of the lyrics:

Then was I born of a virgin pure

Of her I took fleshly substance

Thus was I knit to man’s nature

To call my true love to my dance.

There’s a video of the “Dancing Day” carol being sung in a cathedral here:
http://tinyurl.com/ny9btd

Sara Miles and others regularly dance at St. Gregory’s. Inspired by traditional
theologians like Gregory of Nyssa, Donald Schell and Rick Fabian developed a theology
of liturgy as “Dancing with God,” as one of the church’s DVD’s is entitled.

And they dance around a Table in which everyone (Christian or not) is invited to share in
Holy Communion.

http://tinyurl.com/ny9btd

2

At their food pantry – initiated by Sara — they give away food, standing around the Table,
beneath the murals of the dancing saints.

SLIDE 2 – IMAGE OF FOOD PANTRY AT SAINT GREGORY’S

Image: food pantry at St. Gregory’s

Murals of Dancing Jesus, dancing saints, the Table in the center, sharing food….

Within the usual American context, all of this is “outside the box,” as we say. Some of
our denominations don’t want anyone dancing at any time, and even in more liberal
denominations, if people are dancing they’d better not be doing it in church.

Dancing, of course, is very expressive and physical – sacramental, one might say, since
sacraments typically unite meaning and physical object.

And what of the sacramental quality of the general setting at St. Gregory’s? The whole
thing – building, people, murals, gestures, food — is one large sacrament, uniting Jesus
and human beings in one blessed act of sharing the most fundamental of necessities,
food.

When you consider the usual level of violence, prejudice, and hunger in the world, you
wonder if there is not some sort of alternative, a vision that has the potential to
absolutely overcome the kinds of divisions that make things like the murder of Etty
Hillesum and Archbishop Oscar Romero impossible. It’s this sort of vision – a vision of
life “outside-the-box” of prejudice, violence and hunger — that is animating the people at
St. Gregory’s. It’s what Sara Miles means by “take this bread.”

3

SLIDE 3 – IMAGE OF BENEDICTINE HOSPITALITY

Image: Benedictine hospitality

A whole flurry of issues arises with our second module on Sara. The sharing of bread,
for instance, is an act of “hospitality,” and this is one of the Benedictine virtues. This is by
way of contrast to hermits or cloistered contemplative orders which do not encourage
guests.

SLIDE 4 – IMAGE OF ABBEY OF MONTE CASSINO

Image: Abbey of Monte Cassino

A Benedictine motto is “pray and work.” They sought to maintain themselves by their
own labor, and this included manual labor. In Pasco County, where Saint Leo is located,
the monks were the first to have a cattle dip! You might note the Roman earthiness of
this. Benedict was of a practical bent, as Romans were. But his Christian difference here
was that all orthodox Christians were “brothers” (and “sisters”) and social rank was
largely ignored, and all were expected to work in some manner.

As for guests, “all guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.” (Rule
53:1). Christians did not invent hospitality as a virtue, of course. It is one of the most
ancient virtues. It is especially evident in Homer’s Odyssey, where Zeus is recognized as
Zeus Xenios, “Zeus the Hospitable,” protector of guests. The Odyssey has several
scenes where a guest is treated badly and suffers for it. The Greeks, however, were
thinking primarily of other Greeks. Benedict is thinking of other Christians, but that is not
an ethnic group.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://emmanuelosb.org/images/DSCF0055_001.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.emmanuelosb.org/news.html&usg=__J2Z7Lm8VjnvhdLALoN4w819EiT8=&h=271&w=257&sz=13&hl=en&start=72&sig2=rgikxNyLVFrAug2-2Nxc8w&um=1&tbnid=bpGGmhOrV4WtJM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=107&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbenedictine%2Bhospitality%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_enUS225US225%26sa%3DN%26start%3D60%26um%3D1&ei=jUh4SoTYJoTCmQeAuYHYBg

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SLIDE 5 – IMAGE OF JESUS FEEDS 5,000

Image: Jesus feeds 5,000

Did Jesus welcome all orthodox Christians? No, he didn’t. One important reason for this
is, as we said previously, Yeshua bar Miriam wasn’t a Christian. He had not even heard
the term. He was a Jew, almost entirely working with Jews, but in a way that would later
open this movement to Gentiles. Jesus’ way included eating practices where women, tax
collectors, and sinners were welcome. These were all kinds of people who could be
reckoned ritually unclean for one reason or another. Jesus believed that the Kingdom of
God transcended this purity/impurity distinction. But this kind of distinction was essential
for the operation of the Temple and the jobs of priests. A lot of the Temple sacrifices had
to do with getting favor with God and with rites of cleansing. It is unpleasant to say this in
today’s culture, but priests were much like holy butchers. You know that there is none of
this as a focus in Jesus’ teachings. For one thing, he wasn’t a priest. The Jesus
movement was a lay movement; no priests. His focus was on the heart itself and our
actions – love God, your neighbor and your enemy. The human heart, as we all know, is
a very mixed bag, and he was especially hard on socially high-ranking people who
pretended to a holiness that they didn’t have – “hypocrites,” from a Greek word for
“actor.” You will recall that in the parable of the Good Samaritan priests pass by the
robbed Jew, while a Samaritan gives him compassionate aid. A despised (Samaritans
had racially mixed with Gentiles) and unorthodox person is Jesus’ example of living “in
the Kingdom of God.”

SLIDE 6 – IMAGE OF BENEDICT XVI NEW ENCYCLICAL

Image: Benedict xvi new encyclical

If we then look back on Jesus’ actions, there is a trajectory of openness to all. He is
overcoming barriers between people – race, gender, religious orthodoxy. Paul explicitly
extends this to slaves.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thebiblerevival.com/clipart/jesus%2520feeds%25205000 &imgrefurl=http://thebiblerevival.com/clipart46.htm&usg=__0v_BxCNPU-kGJpQ5YprBuobB6xg=&h=921&w=783&sz=274&hl=en&start=10&sig2=k9v0uo1o8Vmu64fMf4Y-gQ&um=1&tbnid=v4UO4kohWnigPM:&tbnh=147&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djesus%2Bfeeding%2Bthe%2Bfive%2Bthousand%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_enUS225US225%26um%3D1&ei=EEl4SsHXJciFmAe-1IjgBg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cc.ductapeguy.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Caritasinveritate-ch1 &imgrefurl=http://www.cc.ductapeguy.net/category/church-and-scripture/&usg=__fwa3FdLBqPN88WB7kFw-9h7ceSI=&h=623&w=535&sz=36&hl=en&start=18&sig2=uJwNG24FCL_-NjxgnayASw&um=1&tbnid=oMKmvqkn7MBCmM:&tbnh=136&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbenedict%2Bxvi%2Bcaritas%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_enUS225US225%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1&ei=eEl4So6qL8LcmQeMq-jlBg

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SLIDE 7 – IMAGE OF ONE EARTH, ONE FAMILY

Image: One earth, one family

There is here the potential for a radical vision of social justice which includes the whole
human family. And in fact, this is precisely the emphasis and message of Caritas in
Veritate “(Charity in Truth”; 2009), the most recent papal encyclical form Benedict XVI
Ratzinger. The Pope argues that the “truth” of the matter is that “love” includes the whole
human race as one family, and that God’s plan – and vocation – for all human beings to
live in solidarity and fraternity as one global family (nn.1, 7, 13, 55, 57). Charity includes
justice and a striving for the “common good” of all humankind (n.7). Sometimes people
speak of the common good as if it were restricted to a particular country, but Benedict —
like John XXIII before him — takes it in a universal sense, just like universal rights.

SLIDE 8 – IMAGE OF FEEDING HUNGRY IN AFRICA

Image: feeding hungry in Africa

He insists that there is a universal responsibility of human beings for each other, and
especially of rich nations for poor nations. There is in fact a global economy and what
people do in the US affects everyone else. Benedict is particularly hard on financial
institutions that dreamed up arcane financial instruments and speculated in them,
actions “which wreaked such havoc on the real economy” (n.65), and he calls for
“regulation … to safeguard weaker parties and discourage speculation” (n.66).

Benedict calls for a “large scale” (n.42) “redistribution” of wealth (n.32) and energy
(n.49). There is need here, he says, for political action which doesn’t simply follow
“commercial logic” (n.36), “the logic of contract” (n.38), or the “logic of exchange” (n.39).

SLIDE 9 – IMAGE OF HELPING DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Image: helping developing countries

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What goes beyond such materialistic logic? In Benedict’s vision, love which includes
giving to what others what is their due and also giving to others what is mine – sharing
(nn.5, 6, and 9). Notice that this is what Sara is doing. Notice also the place of sharing in
the Lord’s Supper. Sharing is at the most fundamental level of meaning for Christian life.

Benedict’s view is, in other words, what the opponents of national health care (not all
Republicans either) call “socialism.” On this vision, there are young people, sick people,
old people, and poor people, and the people who take care of these are those who are
able, namely, largely healthy people who can work and rich people.

But there’s more to it than that. Benedict has a global vision, and a similar point of view
applies to the whole world: rich and healthy countries have responsibilities toward poor
and sick ones.

And how does Sarah Miles fit into this vision? “Take this bread” is her answer, and you
should be able to see the Christian roots of this response. Her own personal experience
in Mexico, Nicaragua and El Salvador helped imbue her with a strong sense of social
justice.

SLIDE 10 – IMAGE OF CHRISTIAN AGAPE FEAST

Image: Christian agape feast

But what about her own ministry?

She becomes a deacon in the Episcopal Church. She is also gay. Dante had envisioned
human beings in a condition where they themselves had “crown” and “miter”; that is,
they were their own king and pope. What about Sara?

In the summer of 2009, the Episcopal Church voted for the ordination of openly gay
bishops, and for the blessing of gay unions. In 2006 a woman, Katharine Jefferts Schori
(who had been baptized a Catholic), was elected the first female presiding bishop of the
Episcopal Church. Sara is now operating within the general structures of her Church.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.csj-to.ca/Images/developing_countries &imgrefurl=http://www.csj-to.ca/What_we_do/developing_countries.php&usg=__ZEMpDEWNWaBU5CIYMiGV-MBYjiI=&h=458&w=325&sz=15&hl=en&start=18&sig2=nteFDO-AlP8qg6w6MWKr6A&um=1&tbnid=p59coy0CwPwXwM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=91&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddeveloping%2Bcountries%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_enUS225US225%26um%3D1&ei=_J94SrPnGoTutgO3sYjuBA

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She will take this further, however, for you will read that when she is asked for baptismal
water by someone who is not asking to become a Christian she doesn’t refuse it, and
when she is tending her dying former lover she prays a eucharistic blessing over toast.

(This is all, by the way, illegal in the Catholic Church. But then Pope Benedict doesn’t
recognize the validity of non-Catholic [including Orthodox Churches as Catholic]
ordination anyway. The Episcopal Church and Baptist Church, etc. are not “churches.”
They are to be called “ecclesial communities.” See the June 29, 2007 statement by the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Responses to Some Questions Regarding
Certain Aspects of the Church”:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_2
0070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html )

SLIDE 11 – IMAGE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Image: Henry David Thoreau

What’s a person to do? Following Dante’s imagination of individual responsibility can be
a very, very tough road to take. Nevertheless, it seems that quite a lot of Americans
today are taking this route.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html

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