March 3 - 3rd Sunday of Lent

Lessons from Downton Abbey - Jesus as the Master-Servant

Anchor: Downton Abbey

Frame: The Crawley Daughters: Mary, Edith, and Sybil

Thread: Monotations

Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

When I first thought about this series, I focused on the obvious connection between Mary Crawley, the eldest daughter, and Mary of the gospel telling. But all three of the Crawley sisters are in their own ways yearning and stretching for a different kind of reality. 

Mary is very aware that she is being denied the family inheritance because she is female instead of male and she chafes at that injustice even if it the law of the land. She is stubborn and resists any suggestion that she should marry this man or that man just because she is told to, or that the marriage would position her well. 

Edith is the middle sister, often overshadowed by the family’s concern that Mary be married and fixed well. It is Edith who first learns to drive, a skill which she hires out during the war (which I would guess would never have been allowed otherwise). Later in the series she finds her voice and begins (much to her father’s chagrin) writing a column for a London newspaper.

Sybil most obviously challenges her status quo both as a female and as the member of a titled family. We see this when she models her new gown for the family, which turns out to be a daring outfit of bloomers (watch the eyebrows around the room!). But then beyond this rather symbolic dalliance, Sybil falls in love with the chauffeur: the Irish socialist, radical, Catholic, unlanded, untitled chauffeur. Her marriage shakes the family’s standards to the core as they struggle to accept her choice and then to accept this common man into their midst.

These three women embody the changes of the society around them. The privilege of the titled class is eroding away. They struggle to stretch and reach beyond the restrictions of their roles even as Sybil struggles against the practice of wearing a corset! The contrast between these three young women and the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith’s character) is often marked and obvious (but even she is faced with and undergoes change!).

We don’t have much back-story for this Mary from the bible. Like Mary Crawley, she seems to be dissatisfied with her assigned role. While her sister Martha is busy with domestic chores, Mary is seated at Jesus’ feet - taking the position of a disciple. Scholars have still not been able to come to a clear consensus to what is happening in this encounter, but it is clear that traditional gender lines are being crossed. Are there others in the house (it would be scandalous for Jesus to be alone in the house with 2 women to whom he is not related)? Mary is pretty clearly sitting in the part of the house reserved for men’s interaction. And as often been noted, Mary seems to be neglecting Martha and her own responsibilities as a hospitable woman with guests in her house. For all this, Jesus pronounces that Mary has “ chosen the better part.” He seems not only to accept her place in the teaching scheme of things, he upholds her unusual choices. Jesus appears to be embracing the changing of roles and it is this kind of encounter that later lets Paul proclaim “there is no male or female for we are all one in Christ Jesus.”

As we have spent a good deal of time discussing, our roles as religious people and as a church in today’s culture is changing dramatically. Which of these changes would Jesus embrace? What new positions are we ready to adopt? And if we take seriously the perception of many people in our society that they do not find Christ in church, in whose house will we find Jesus where we may find a place to sit and learn? The challenge of both the changing Crawley daughters and Mary and Martha is to eyes and hearts that can perceive where the Spirit is at work. These shifting roles are not the end of the story, but the wrenching beginning of a new chapter. If “religion” has become the corset of our day, then let us join Sybil and find some daring bloomers to wear out into the world!

I gave the invitation (and will post it on facebook) to create monotations that use the word “evolve” or “change.” I have seen a few already posted (yay!), and they may give us some idea of how we perceive this kind of ongoing Spirit-led  evolution. I hope that in the Studio this weekend that we may experience the bracing winds of change and evolution as a Spiritual, God-enlivened event just as the Crawley sisters seem to sense. Things for them, and for us, cannot be the same. Life will develop ot on the windy scarps where the Spirit gusts.

Downton Abbey, Week 2

February 24, Second Sunday of Lent

Anchor: Downton Abbey

Frame: Mr. Carson, the Butler

Thread: ?

Matthew 20:25-28

But Jesus called them over and said, “You know that those who rule the Gentiles show off their authority over them and their high-ranking officials order them around. But that’s not the way it will be with you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you will be your slave— just as the Human One didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life to liberate many people.”

As butler, Mr. Carson is the head of the household servants. Like the nobles they serve, all the servants stand in respect when Carson enters the room. He is the final arbiter of all matters of the maids, the footmen, and other servants in the house (though, to be sure Mrs. Hughes oversees the women but even she is second in authority to Carson). Carson has the most direct communication with the Earl of Grantham and his loyalty to their family is unwavering.

                Carson’s ultimate concern is that everything in the household runs in a dignified, appropriate, and unobtrusive manner. During the morning breakfast, Carson stands of to the side, always ready to respond to any need that the Earl may have. He almost becomes a part of the furniture, melding into the woodwork, never drawing attention to his presence but every ready to swing into action when called upon.

                Carson sees his role as the one who can uphold the highest standards of service for the masters of the house. He excoriates the staff for their flippant conversation when Matthew is named as Lord Granthams’ heir (Matthew is middle-class and unfamiliar with the way a high house functions). During the Great War, when many of the servants have been called into military service, Carson takes on many roles that would otherwise be beneath his dignity – but he does them himself so that nothing gets left undone. In the midst of the chaos of converting Downton Abbey in to a convalescent ward, Carson is seen using a ruler to measure the exact distance between the knife and fork on the dinner table. For him, it when all else is flying into bedlam that his job is most important: keeping life at Downton stable, dignified, predictable.

                In season one, it is revealed that Carson used to be a vaudevillian. His role at Downton might be seen as less enticing to many, but Carson sees his role of service as a high calling and desires nothing else than to make Downton run smoothly. He defines his worth and dignity upon his ability to provide for the Crawleys’ the best service he can provide, and he demands that of all who work for him.

We live in a culture that tries to define our power and dignity upon the ability to exert power over others. We live in a time when it is difficult for us to imaging that serving as a butler or maid is not in some way demeaning. We want to be masters, not servants. We want to sit at the breakfast table and have our coffee and crumpets served to us. I, and I think many others, would find it stifling and odd to stand to side just waiting to be called upon.

                In this context, I find it particularly challenging that Jesus defines his worth and ministry on just that kind of existence: “ the Human One didn’t come to be served but rather to serve.” Jesus acts this position out in John’s Gospel when he strips to the waste and washes his followers’ feet. I wonder if this is why we find someone like Mother Theresa so compelling: her habit was to serve the poor and dying of Calcutta. She desired service more than honors.

                Can we learn from those at Downton Abbey how to become true servants in the Urban Abbey?  In the cloistered communities, they covenanted with each other to serve Christ in each other and in the stranger. To be sure, they were human beings and as such that covenant got lived out imperfectly and unequally. But the calling of Christ remains just as undiminished. When Jesus instructs his followers to love one another as he has loved them, it could just as well be translated that we are to serve one another just as we have been served by Christ. As 21^st Century Christians, we are still called to be the butlers, maids, and chauffeurs of the world.

                The Servant Song  (“won’t you let me be your servant…”) comes to mind. As does the Covent Prayer attributed to Joh Wesley:

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

                I am challenged by this. I enjoy the privileges afforded to me as a middle-class (now used as a positive term!) white North American male. All of those descriptors speak of things that I take for granted: I earn a decent amount of money; I am rarely (if ever) challenged because of race; I am imputed some basic authority because of my gender (even in this day and age). I define my worth by my ability to act and accomplish as a self-actualized individual. I do not want to be distracted by a conversation on the merits or evils of slavery, but I believe Jesus chose that word carefully when he told us that the first must be last and slave of all. Slave says something about status that is even less than servant. How am I in Scottsdale serving the poorest of the world? How can we shift our worth and dignity from our paychecks and status symbols into aprons and towels and basins?

1st Sunday of Lent

Lent 2013 – Lessons from Downton Abbey

February 17, 1^st Sunday of Lent: Lord Grantham-Jesus as Lord        

Matthew 7:21-27

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of God in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built their house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish person who built their house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

Downton Abbey explores how the nobility and the serving classes deal with a rapidly changing world at the beginning of the 20^th Century. The nobility has just experienced their golden age in rise of the Victorian Era, but that time is quickly transforming. The series begins with the sinking of the Titanic and the death of the Earl of Grantham’s only known heir, which throws the future of the estate of Downtown in grave peril and uncertainty. The nobles enjoy and command great respect and privilege. They are waited upon hand and foot by a league of servants. It is a complex relationship, where the nobles understand part of their contribution to society is to provide employment for all these people. The servants find not only livelihood in their jobs but often also real worth and self-respect. It is an arrangement built on stability, but the world that they are all headed into will be anything but stable.

Lord Grantham is probably one of those least suited to deal with the coming changes. He carries the title of the estate and so embodies its heritage, its dignity, and on his shoulders rests its future. Yet for all that he is often one of the most powerless figures as well despite his title and position. This is seen most clearly when Britain enters World War I. Lord Grantham is given an officer’s commission, dresses constantly in his military uniform (as opposed to the usual formal dress of the day), and plays the role of a man doing his part for God and country. But his commission is an honorary one. He commands no men, he will see no fighting. His peers want him to look the part, but not to take any real part. He is frustrated greatly at his impotence as the men around him, noble and servant both, go off to fight in the war. In such a time of crisis, what does his title really mean? They still call him “Lord” Grantham, but he struggles to find any authority of his own. Throughout the series, changes happen all around Lord Grantham, often despite his opposition, sometimes even without his knowledge. He carries the title, but no effectual power.

I think this is often the kind of Lord that we have made Jesus into. A bluesman friend of mine says that the difference between blues and gospel is that in blues you sing “baby, baby,” and in gospel you sing, “Lordy, Lordy.” I think too often we (Christians in general) throw in a “Lordy, Lordy” just to make us feel religious, connected, or approved. But we sing the same old song we always have. We call Jesus “Lord” but keep on doing everything way we want. We give Jesus the title but none of the power. This isn’t surprising in America. While we are fascinated with nobility, we are trained to disdain it. Not that we don’t exist within classes here, but we have this frosting of equality that changes the way we see things. Our leaders are elected because we threw off the injustice of monarchy. “Lord” is a title without any compelling hold on us.

Yet even Jesus himself seemed to reject kingship. In John’s gospel he slips through the crowd and runs away when “He sensed that they wanted to take him by force and make him king.” (John 6:15) In the passage at the top of this article, Jesus has no time for false allegiances. Jesus is not interested in servants who will dress him, or bring him food and tea. Instead he wants those who are committed to learning to serve the world in the way that he himself does. Jesus wants neither titles nor sycophants. Jesus wants followers, disciples. The one who built a house with a solid foundation is the one who has committed to following Jesus, learning and emulating all that he teaches, does, and shows. Brian McLaren has this to say about Jesus’ lordship in “A Generous Orthodoxy” (Zondervan): “Jesus defined his own identity not as being served, but as giving his life in service, and in this way, acknowledging Jesus as master means one voluntarily ‘takes his yoke’ and learns from Jesus how to serve God, plus one’s neighbor, plus one’s enemy, and so the whole world. Confessing Jesus as Lord means joining his revolution of love and living in this revolutionary way.”(italics are McLaren’s, p. 93)

So as we begin the season of Lent, we have to acknowledge that the confession that “Jesus is Lord” is a complex and nuanced utterance. What are practical ways that we can give over to Christ at least parts of our lives, not as mindless automatons, but as those who seek to grow in our Christ-likeness? To say, “Yes, Lord,” not as an accession of hierarchy, but as student to teacher, apprentice to master, or the still-forming to the further-formed? How do we live in a world that teaches” might makes right”,” bigger is better”, and “the end justifies the means” without adding to the destruction of soul and firmament? For me, it comes from a sense that there must be a better way of living and I’m sensing that Jesus knew something about that way.

The Season of Lent

Lent 2013

Jesus the Master-Servant: Lessons from Downton Abbey

I don’t think we who are immersed in American culture have any intrinsic idea of what we mean when we say “Jesus is Lord.” I am unconvinced that “Lord” really means anything to us, we who are fiercely democratic and proudly opposed to any real sense of monarchy (as our grade school units taught us about the American Revolution). So instead of really taking Jesus, his life and his teaching very seriously at all we have called him “Lord” and assigned him to an ineffectual place on the religious mantel where we can look at him and feel good about the honor we have assigned him and occasionally even remember to dust him off.

Brian McLaren has this to say about Jesus’ lordship in “A Generous Orthodoxy” (Zondervan): “Jesus defined his own identity not as being served, but as giving his life in service, and in this way, acknowledging Jesus as master means one voluntarily ‘takes his yoke’ and learns from Jesus how to serve God, plus one’s neighbor, plus one’s enemy, and so the whole world. Confessing Jesus as Lord means joining his revolution of love and living in this revolutionary way.”(italics are McLaren’s, p. 93) Moreover, he likens Jesus as master to a sensei in martial arts or a master plumber or carpenter. One can read all about those crafts but no amount of self-help instruction manuals can ever replace the apprenticeship in which one gives their self over to the teacher to watch and learn and live into their mentor’s expertise. If Jesus is our master it is this kind and not the kind of feudal lord or hierarchy. Again, McLaren says: “This is the kind of inwardly formed learning that Jesus, as master, teaches his apprentices; a knowledge about how to live that can’t be reduced to information, words, rule, books, or instructions, but rather that must be seen in the words-plus-example of the Master.” (p.96)

So I propose Lent to be a period of apprenticeship to the Way of Jesus as we compare and contrast to roles of masters and servant in Downton Abbey and in the Jesus presented in the gospels. The people we see in Downton Abbey live in a highly constructed world of the entitled (literally) and the lower classes who serve them.  Whereas Robert Crawley holds the title of Earl of Grantham, and enjoys the privileges attached to that position, he is oddly trapped by it too. He is responsible for his family and the entire staff of the estate but is often powerless to engage the world around him. Jesus, on the other hand, actively engages the world around him: welcoming outcasts, overturning tables, and challenging the Sabbath laws. The servants on Downton Abbey also are proscribed within their roles – they are not allowed to engage in conversation with the nobles (unless the nobles initiate it), and their lives are defined by their masters’ needs. Yet they also find meaning and satisfaction in their work. Jesus understood the dignity and world-shaping power of servanthood: he washed his disciples’ feet, he fed hungry people, and tended their wounds and diseases. Downton Abbey has captured the imagination of millions of Americans, portraying a world few of us are familiar with even as we are drawn into their struggles to cope with a time of changing values, roles, and expectations. Perhaps it can give us a glimpse of our own times and roles as well.

February 17 – Lord Grantham-Jesus as Lord        

Matthew 7:21-27

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of God in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built their house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish person who built their house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

February 24 – Mr. Carson, the Butler- dignity and meaning in Jesus’ servanthood

Matthew 20:25-28

But Jesus called them over and said, “You know that those who rule the Gentiles show off their authority over them and their high-ranking officials order them around. But that’s not the way it will be with you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you will be your slave— just as the Human One didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life to liberate many people.”

March 3 – Lady Mary, eldest child of Lord Grantham but a woman and unable to inherit the title- Jesus invites the participation of women as equals

Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

March 10 – Mrs. Hughes, a firm mother-Jesus’ care for his flock

Mark 6:30-44

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

March 17 – Matthew, the reluctant heir- Jesus rejects power and kingship

John 6:10-15

Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they* sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’ When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

March 24 – (Palm Sunday) Mr. Bates, the valet – Jesus’ compassion in the midst of woundedness

John 13:1-15

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’ After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.