Growing Up

by J.D. Neal

This article is about our youth group at St. Matthias, I promise. Stick with me for a minute.

Let's start with some numbers. For most of the last two decades, anywhere from 60-70% of young Christians have left the church after graduating from high school — that's roughly two-thirds. Why do they leave? When asked, most of these young folks described the church as 'childish,' 'arrogant,' 'narrow-minded,' as the place where they were treated like children.

During the latter half of the twentieth century, evangelical and mainline churches got really good at getting young folks to show up to church. Youth groups boomed, middle and high school ministries became their own industry, and churches started spending a lot of energy making themselves look and feel like whatever was 'cool' at the time. And it worked. Thousands and thousands of young folks started coming to church who wouldn't have otherwise. It still works, in fact.

So why don't they keep coming?

Starting around middle school, we stop being children and become... something else. A fourteen year-old isn't usually a mature adult, but they're not a kid anymore either. We enter into a strange state I'm going to call 'youth' — the transition between childhood and adulthood. During this time, we begin to explore our world, acquire and exercise new liberties, feel the first burdens of responsibility, and encounter the rich complexities of romance, grief, and mystery. In short, we start getting a taste of the wonders and depths of mature, human life, and we start forming the attachments that shape our adult identity. The things that we love and identify with during this time hold a special place in our hearts because they become a part of  who we are for the rest of our lives. I remember the songs on the radio in high school much more clearly than whatever has been popular on Spotify the past few months.

Our young people stop coming to church because church has become just a part of their childhood. The youth group that got them to show up by playing to whatever they thought was cool at 13 or 14 isn't relevant when they're encountering rich, mature beauty elsewhere in their newly forming adult lives. Simple answers and explanations they got in Sunday school and had reinforced in high school don't stand up to the test of their mature questions and fall apart in the face of real grief.

If we want our youth to stick with us, the way of Jesus has to become a part of their forming adult identities. If we want our youth to become wise, good, vivacious Christian adults, then we have to show them that Jesus can handle their deepest questions, that he can sit with them in the sharpest griefs, and that the fullness of life in Christ is abundant and eternal.

So, what's going on at St. Matthias with our youth on Sunday morning?

Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels

Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels

Each week, we pray and read the gospel together. Each week, Sam & I ask a question about the passage — a real question, that we're actually curious about — and we lead them in a discussion where they do their best to answer the question using our text. We do this because a good question is one of the best ways to take the Bible out of Sunday school and lead students into the strange, new world of the Scriptures. When they are the ones thinking hard, asking difficult questions, discovering truth in the Scriptures, then the truths that they find and the One they encounter there are far more likely to stick with them as a part of their adulthood.

This is a slow process, where victories are small and there's plenty of awkward silence. It feels counterproductive at times to not just give them an answer — answers are good, after all.  Sam and I know, however, that in this way our youth might catch a glimpse of a faith that is bigger and more beautiful than they knew and a God who they just might want to follow into adulthood.

Book Review: “Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife"

by Ben Corbitt

“Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife” by Bart D. Ehrman (2020)

http://www.bartdehrman.com/

http://www.bartdehrman.com/

What happens to us after we die is one of life’s oldest mysteries, and has spawned countless answers through the ages. In the Western world, we are most familiar with some version of the following: Good people (or believers in Christ) experience eternal bliss in heaven, while wicked people (or non-believers) are doomed to never-ending torment in hell. The ideas are so familiar that many people likely never give much thought to their origin.

In his newest book, New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman casts a scholarly eye toward heaven and hell. Where did these beliefs come from? Are they the undisputed teaching of the Bible? What did Jesus say about the afterlife? Ehrman’s thesis is perhaps less conclusive than we would like, but endlessly fascinating in the details that get us there: Heaven and hell were never handed down on stone tablets, but emerged slowly from an ancient world that held room for many views of the afterlife.

Ehrman begins his study in the pre-Christian world, where many believed in life after death, but didn’t especially look forward to it. There might be a continued existence beyond the grave, but it was a pitiful reflection of the living world, with its vibrant colors and warm sunlight. One version of the ancient Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic casts death as a “dark house,” a place “where those who stay are deprived of light.” The Greek Odyssey (8th c. BCE), traditionally credited to Homer, describes a visit to the underworld Hades. This was a place where souls were reduced to flitting wraiths, vapor-like and pitiful. It was a dreary, colorless realm, and while nearly all were destined to go there, it was far better to stay alive for as long as possible. The dead warrior Achilles, speaking to still-living Odysseus, sums up the situation by lamenting “I’d rather slave on earth … than rule down here over all the breathless dead.”

Centuries later, the Roman poet Virgil (1st c. BCE) takes readers back to Hades in the Aeneid, but the place has seen a massive remodeling. Instead of Homer’s bland kingdom of cold tea and elevator music, Virgil’s Hades has been spruced up with postmortem rewards and punishments. The dead might be allowed to frolic in the “fresh green fields” of Elysium, or be sentenced to Tartarus, with its fearsome “river of fire.” Even in the pagan world, a one-size-fits-all afterlife had fallen out of fashion. Fairness demanded some system of ultimate justice.

As Ehrman shifts to the Jewish scriptures (the Christian Old Testament), readers might expect our modern heaven and hell to leap off the pages. This is not the case. Ehrman points to a variety of afterlife views in the oldest parts of the Bible, including the stark contention that nothing waits for the dead at all.  The writer of Psalm 115 laments that “The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any that go down in silence.” Ehrman contends that for many ancient Jews, death was the final word. In the grave, one could not even hope to praise God.

A more hopeful view develops throughout the Hebrew scriptures, and one of Ehrman’s more intriguing claims is that the political concerns of ancient Israel deserve much of the credit. Ehrman notes that the Jewish prophets were fixated by the idea that Israel – not individual Jews, but the nation itself – would be destroyed (or “killed,” in a sense) by God’s punishing wrath. But intermingled with this idea was a hope that the nation could one day be restored (or “resurrected”) through divine mercy.

Ehrman contends that this view of national death and restoration gradually evolved into a view that individuals would be resurrected for a final Day of Judgment, in which God would reward righteous Jews and destroy the wicked. (Note that in this view, the wicked are not tormented forever. They are simply wiped out.) By the time the book of Daniel is written in the 2nd c. BCE, this idea has found its way into writings that would form part of our Bible.

One of Ehrman’s more surprising claims for many might be that this view, of imminent resurrection and judgment, is the only authentic afterlife teaching we can trace to the historical Jesus. Our Gospels contain clear references to interim states of reward and punishment for the dead, most vividly in the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. But Ehrman argues that this story is not literal to begin with, and likely not an actual saying of Jesus in any event. For Ehrman, our modern heaven and hell did not develop from the actual words of Christ.

The words of the Apostle Paul get us closer to a modern view. Paul’s letters predate the Gospels, and thus serve as our earliest intact writings from the Christian period. While Paul affirms Christ’s teachings about a future resurrection and Judgment Day, he also offers some innovations. These include an interim state of happiness for dead believers, poetically expressed in 2 Corinthians, where he says to be “away from the body” is to be “at home with the Lord.” As more and more of the earliest Christians died without the awaited return of Christ, a focus away from the future Day of Judgment – and toward what would await believers at the moment of death – was a natural shift.

By this point, we have made progress toward a modern view of the afterlife, but a clear scriptural teaching of heaven and hell remains frustratingly out of reach. Surely Revelation will settle the question, with its shimmering New Jerusalem and its horrifying lake of fire. Ehrman again urges caution, using clues within the text of Revelation itself to argue that the book was written as a political treatise for its own time, using symbolic imagery to illustrate the coming destruction of the Roman Empire, not the fate of all living souls.

Ehrman concludes that it is not in the pages of the Bible that heaven and hell achieve their modern form more or less intact. Instead, this occurs in the crystallization of Church doctrine during the first 400 years after the life of Christ. Here, he again makes an intriguing claim: The development of hell as a place of eternal bodily torment was not a theological necessity derived from scripture, but likely owed much to the horrific tortures served up by the ruling Romans and their client-kings against early Christians. Martyrdom was intended to do more than kill Christians; it was also meant to leave a deep psychological impact on those who witnessed it. That is exactly what it achieved, Ehrman argues, but not in the way intended. For some early Christians, contending for a minority faith meant undergoing horrible agonies in this life. It only made sense for them to expect God to exact equally terrible punishments from their oppressors in the next. (A writing by 3rd c. CE church father Tertullian imagining his future laughter at the fiery torments of God’s foes illustrates this posture perhaps a little too well.)

We know the end of this story, of course. Christianity grows from a fledgling underdog to the dominant religion of the Western world. Heaven and hell are firmly established in Church teaching. But even this does not end the development of the Christian afterlife. Teachings about the fate of dead souls continue to evolve in response to new challenges, most notably with official Church recognition of the middle state of Purgatory in the Middle Ages. Ehrman notes that this was likely a response to a problem that upstart Christianity, with its tight band of dedicated converts, didn’t face: How to deal with throngs of people who were less than saintly in their adherence to a dominant state-sponsored religion. The righteous and the wicked early Christianity could deal with, but the masses of the middling? New problems call for new solutions.

And so it continues for us, Ehrman suggests. Ideas that were once stamped out as heretical, such as universal salvation, have gotten a fresh look in our own times, when ex-evangelical authors can upend Christian orthodoxy with statements like “Love Wins.” The Christian afterlife has always been a work in progress, Ehrman demonstrates, while suggesting that it will continue to be.

Ehrman’s prose is witty, engaging and easy to follow throughout the book. Even while delving into some fairly weedy disputes (e.g., the precise physical nature of resurrected bodies), he is able to continually make relevant and interesting points that aid the overall development of his thesis. Bart Ehrman might not be able to tell us what happens in the next life, but with this insightful book, he has provided one more enjoyable way to use our time in this one.



The opinions expressed in this review are solely those of Ben Corbitt and do not necessarily reflect the views of Saint Matthias, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, or the Episcopal Church.


 

Where Jesus is Especially Present

by Samuel Hayashida


The following article was written in April for the May edition of the Saint Matthias Messenger.


A few weeks ago I was in my kitchen microwaving a plate of leftovers. Mindlessly watching the green numbers count down. And thinking philosophical thoughts, as I usually do when making lunch. 

My phone started buzzing. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. I pulled it out of my pocket, and was relieved to find that it was not another telemarketer wanting to sell me cruise tickets to bora bora - but it was Father Bill. I picked it up: “Hi Father Bill! What’s up?” 

He shared the unfortunate news: because of COVID-19, volunteers over the age of 40 could no longer run St. Matthias’ soup kitchen. Because they were considered “high-risk” people. And after he shared the news, Father Bill asked if my housemates and I (we’re all in our 20’s) would be willing to help serve meals. 

I talked with my housemates. Then called Father Bill again and told him we would help. And a few hours later, I found myself putting on plastic gloves, rolling a cart with bagged lunches out into the church courtyard, and facing a small sea of faces - of the people I was about to serve lunch to. 

Since that day a couple weeks ago, I’ve seen a few things I’d like to tell you about. The first of them being, it’s true: COVID-19 is hitting the vulnerable the hardest. While the local Starbucks shutting down has meant less matcha lattes for me… it has meant no bathrooms, charging ports, drinking water, or warm space to escape the rain from, for these our neighbors. Pray for them. 

Second, I’ve been reminded of how much I take for granted in life. Every day in which I do not thank God for the roof over my head, a place to shower, and the stove on which I can make hot food… is a day which I have walked through blindly. Blind to the countless, amazing gifts which God has given me. 

And perhaps most importantly, I’ve been reminded of just how wrong we are when we call a place “God-forsaken.” Because it is precisely in these places - the seemingly forgotten corners of the neighborhood, and of the world - where Jesus is especially present. In a way that is hard to explain. And so if I want to meet Jesus, I really ought to spend more time here

… listening to this elderly couple talk in anguish, about how they were unfairly evicted from their apartment, and how they have no idea what to do next. Laughing with this man who is my age about how “we just ran out of sushi and caviar, and so you are going to get PB&J again today.” Watching as this woman opens up her monthly social security check with trembling hands, and she nearly breaks down crying she is so happy to have a little money again. 

Every time I come here, I can breathe a little easier. Because Jesus is here. Yes, there is a lot of pain here. A lot of need. But Jesus is here. And when Jesus is here, my heart knows that it is all going to be okay. Yes. I want to come here more often. 

 
The St. Francis Patio, home to the Soup Hour

The St. Francis Patio, home to the Soup Hour




Guarding your Mental Health during COVID-19

By Ben & Sarah Corbitt

Many of you have probably found yourselves in the same boat as us lately. Life was fairly normal up through mid-March, and then suddenly we had much more free time on our hands due to COVID-19 and the stay-home orders and economic shutdowns the virus has brought into our lives.

As school psychologists, we spend a lot of time advising students about ways to guard their mental health during normal times. During extraordinary times, these concerns have become all the more important. While many of us are spending much more time in close quarters, here are some things to be aware of.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advise to be on the lookout for stress during this outbreak, which can be accompanied by the following signs:

  • Fear and worry about your own health, or health of your loved ones

  • Changes in sleeping or eating patterns

  • Difficulty sleeping or concentrating

  • Worsening of chronic health problems

  • Worsening of mental health conditions

  • Increased use of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs

The CDC offers the following healthy advice to combat stress:

  • Take a break from the news. There is little value in repeatedly hearing the same information.

  • Take care of your body. This can include breaks for deep breathing, stretching, or meditating; eating healthy, well-balanced meals; getting plenty of sleep; avoiding drugs and alcohol; and exercising regularly. (Get creative with free workout routines on YouTube which require minimal exercise equipment.)

  • Practice enjoyable activities. Needlework, crossword puzzles, musical instruments, and other hobbies can keep your mind engaged while you shelter in place.

  • Maintain personal connections. Being at home doesn’t have to mean being isolated. Use phone calls, email, texting, or face-to-face technologies (Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, etc.) to keep in touch with those you love. Also don’t forget the value of an old-fashioned handwritten letter.

If anxiety, depression, or other stress-related symptoms continue to worsen, reach out to someone who can help. This might mean:

  • Your personal healthcare provider

  • One of our St. Matthias Stephen Ministers (contact Fr. Bill for more information)

  • Disaster Distress Helpline (1-800-985-5990, or text TalkWithUs to 66746)

  • Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255)

  • In a mental health emergency, call 911

We are all in this together, even if it feels like we are dealing with this crisis alone. We hope to see you all again in person when this is over.

Photo by VisionPic .net from Pexels

Photo by VisionPic .net from Pexels

 

Our Children and the Child Within

by Fr. Bill Garrison


Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’ And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.
— Matthew 19:14-15 (NRSV)

This quote from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter nineteen, rings in my ears loudly and often. When I see the children gathering here at St. Matthias I am glad for their presence, and Jesus expects us to take good care of them. St. Matthias offers something for all children on the Lord’s Day. The youngest children have a nursery available to them run by our very capable nursery school teacher, Victoria. Sunday school is provided for kids from 4 to 18. Our classes are divided into K through second grade, third grade through fifth, and grades six through twelve. I design the curriculum each week, which follows the lectionary and is presented in PowerPoint format. Our parents are also intimately involved in every aspect of our ministry to the kids, including many valuable extra-curricular events. For further information, please see me or Dana Medina.

Photo by JoEllen Moths from Pexels

Photo by JoEllen Moths from Pexels

But this is only part of the story. In each of us exists a child, the child that has never changed; the child that has been with us since each of us was young. This little girl or boy knows God in a way that the adult can never know God. This little child can’t wait to talk with God, spend time with God, play with God, laugh with God, and this little person trusts in God in a complete and innocent way that an adult cannot.

I have mentioned before, and will again, how much God loves us and how God sees us. God sees the child within us all and God loves us as if we were still that little innocent.

I remember when I was small how excited I was when my father arrived home from work. I would run to him knowing I could share my day with him, all of my day, and I knew for sure how much he loved me. I would run and jump into his arms, never once concerned that he would drop me or reject me.

God will never drop us either when we run to him as a child would run to his father. So as we think about the care of our children, please remember the child that exists within us all. We are invited to reintroduce that little him or her to God, and then let’s all run and jump into the arms of God and feel the incredible love God has for each of us.

Senior Warden's Report on the 2019 Diocesan Convention

by Tim Adams, Senior Warden

I hope all of you had an enjoyable and memorable holiday season, rejoicing in the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ!

Photo by Stan Jamieson

Photo by Stan Jamieson

A couple of month’s ago, I promised that I would give you an update on participation in the Annual Diocesan Convention in November.   I was sidetracked by the holidays and now I will share a bit of our experience with you.  The convention was held at the Riverside Convention Center, last November 15 and 16.  Our official delegation included Kathy Adams, Doug Overstreet, and me.  Barbara Khan and Stan Jamieson attended as alternate lay delegates.  Ellen Mykkanen was also in attendance and shared responsibility for Convention Altar Guild duties in addition to participating in the Convention Choir.  Fr. Bill Garrison and Rev. Carole Horton-Howe were present as our clergy delegates. 

The theme of the convention was “The Lifelong Way of Love”.  The program focused on three components to this theme.  Presence - Quieting the Self to Hear the Other;  Kindness Being the Peace of Christ in Anxious Times;  WisdomForming Well Educated Christians.  Bishop Taylor opened the two-day program with a nod to St. Stephen’s parish in Santa Clarita which only the day before found itself in the midst of a community tragedy that claimed the lives of three Saugus High School students.  During his opening address he proclaimed his “reckless optimism” about our church and its future.

Bishop Taylor was followed by equally inspiring presentations from Bishop Suffragan Diane Jardine Bruce and Canon to the Ordinary Melissa McCarthy.  Bishop Bruce cited the Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s Way of Love practices – turn, learn, pray, worship, bless, go, rest – to factor into every aspect of our common life.  Canon McCarthy shared her goal to visit as many churches as she can, because knowing our congregations makes her a more effective administrator.

There were speakers from a number of ministries within the Diocese.  Dolores Huerta, our biannual Margaret Parker Memorial lecturer, gave a rousing presentation, and we closed Saturday afternoon with a beautiful Eucharist including over 800 participants.

I can’t find words to give the convention the credit it deserves.  It serves as an opportunity to learn so much about other Episcopal congregations, the workings of our Church at large, and it opens the doors to so many ways in which we can become personally involved with those efforts.  The convention is open to everyone.  I hope you will consider attending next year.  It will be held November 13-14, 2020, again, at the Riverside Convention Center.


If you are interested in attending the next diocesan convention, see Fr. Bill Garrison (bill@stmatthiaswhittier.org) or Mary Jean Christian.

Prayer

by Fr. Bill Garrison

We soon will be heading into Lent and it’s probably a good time to think about prayer. I recently had lunch with the Reverends Carole Horton-Howe and Carolyn Estrada and we were talking about possible subjects for our upcoming Lenten Series. Reverend Carolyn had previously sent me some of her notes about prayer and I had lost track of them, so she sent me those same notes again. They are the basis for this article and some of the words I use, and heartily endorse, that follow are hers and not my own.  Also please know we will be forming a prayer study group in the near future to study and experience prayer in its many forms.

What is prayer? It is the intentional bringing of oneself into the presence of God. Prayer can be spoken or silent. There are categories of prayer. Yet there are no rules concerning prayer and no judgment attached to how we pray.

Prayer space can be important. These are places where we can go and leave the world behind. Specific times to pray are helpful for some people too. The Episcopal Prayer Book is a great aid for individuals and families in ordering prayer life.

One form of prayer you may have heard of Contemplative Prayer. It’s prayer without words. The idea is that we bring ourselves into God’s presence to listen, to hear God in the silence of our lives. 

Another is praying with Icons. This comes from an Eastern Orthodox tradition and is very sacred. The Icons are viewed as windows into the divine. When a person prays with an Icon they generally kneel or are seated comfortably while focusing on the icon and feeling drawn into the scene.

Lectio Divina is related to contemplative prayer through the use of scripture. Whereas previously we talked about using an icon to focus in this form of prayer we use scripture in Lectio Divina.

Body Prayer is another way to come into contact with the Holy. One might use a Rosary, or a labyrinth, or take a trip to a holy site to facilitate the movement into the Holy.

There are many other ways we can pray. Some are formal and some are spontaneous. I often suggest people use everyday experience to prompt prayer. For example pray in the shower or when you touch the door of your car.

However we pray it’s important. It’s a little like exercise. The more we do it the healthier we become and the better able we are to weather the storms of life that inevitably come upon us. Besides that being with God can be just about as good as it gets.

Please keep your eyes and ears open for upcoming opportunities to learn more about this important subject.