The Little Way

Community of the Franciscan Way SEASON AFTER PENTECOST 2013 1116 Iredell Street, Durham, NC 27705 http://cfw.dionc.org FREE
Christian Politics Do we sell the poor for a pair of sandals? Are we at war with the poor? Page 1 Idolatry, System, & the Means of Grace Rejecting idolatry and embracing the Trinity. Page 2 Page 4 Envy & Pride Our relations with our companions show us the envy and pride at work in our own hearts.

Christian Politics
by Blake Tipton Based on a homily given on July 14, 2013 (St. Josephs Episcopal Church, Durham, NC) ! We sell the poor for a pair of sandals. This is the charge God lays upon us through the mouth of his servant, Amos. Chances are if our clothes are cotton and were wearing shoes, then the things we tell ourselves we need are gathered by selling the poor in other nations. But what of the town we live in and the places we inhabit? Do we glide past the sick and suffering, the poor and needy, the wanderer and traveler without a second glance? Do we sell the poor for a pair of sandals? Are we at war with the poor? If so, who will begin to undo this? Who will be the rst to move? ! Because God sets a heavenly banquet for us, we set a table at the altar. Because we have set a table at the altar, we set a table in the world for the needy
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and poor. In the Mystery we consume Christ which consumes the war in us. When we kneel at the altar, hands raised up, we have been made beggars. ! There is a sign on a Durham street that reads, Thinking about giving change? It catechizes us to think giving to panhandlers is a sin; we should instead give to organizations who know how to help them. God responds, You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you? What if a priest or an acolyte were to deny you the Mystery at the altar rail? ! Should we deny beggars then, having been bold enough to beg before God? Should we ask who deserves alms, having freely received from God at the altar? The logic of Mother Churchs mysteries are available through participating in her politics. By doing so she hopes to shape us into good commoners. Politics continued on page 6
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Idolatry, System, & the Means of Grace

by Luke Wetzel Based on a homily given on June 16, 2013 (St. Josephs Episcopal Church, Durham, NC)

From an Easy Essay by Peter Maurin: At the beginning of Christianity the hungry were fed, the naked were clothed, the homeless were sheltered, the ignorant were instructed at a personal sacrice. And the pagans used to say about the Christians, See how they love one another. The pagans do no longer say about the Christians, See how they love one another, but say, See how they pass the buck to social agencies. ! The First Book of Kings chronicles the prophet Elijahs ministry against the idolatry that had taken hold in the northern kingdom of Israel. He rails against the idolatrous worship of the god Baal that was being encouraged by the Israelite Kings and their foreign allies. Elijah is a continual thorn in the side of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel, a priestess of Baal. The book contains the magnicent story of Elijah challenging the priests of Baal to a contest on the LORDs behalf. While hundreds of priests called all day
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upon Baal to consume with re the offering of a bull to no effect, the LORD received Elijahs offering, spectacularly consuming a waterdrenched bull and altar. At stake is the soul of Israel. God made a covenant with the people, brought them out of bondage, called them to serve him alone and live by the Law. In spite of this relationship the leaders of Israel were promoting the worship of idols, the reliance on false gods. ! The fruit of idolatry is clearly exposed when Ahab covets the vineyard of his neighbor Naboth. When Jezebel has Naboth killed so that her husband can take over his ancestral heritage, Ahab receives his reward. The Lord sends Elijah to tell Ahab, Because you sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, I will bring disaster on you. ! What we can take from the stories about Elijah and the idolatrous Baal-worshippers is the general principle that idolatry, the worship of false gods, leads to wickedness, that is, immoral, degrading, oppressive actions, which ultimately leads to death. Ahab has devoted himself to idols, Baal, security, his own desires. He has allowed his power and that of his household to be used to murder a man whose property he covets. For doing so, he is ultimately subject to death, thus says the LORD. Idolatry, wickedness, death. ! It is important to recognize, though, that this formulation only makes any sense in light of its positive corollary, that is the right worship of God, Yahweh, righteousness, just action, and life. We know Ahab is an idolator because we can recognize that Baal among other things is not Yahweh. We know his action is wicked because the Law of righteousness calls away from coveting and murder and toward fairness by kings, and we have heard of eternal life in God and know that it

differs from the shameful death God proclaims for Ahab. ! This cant be emphasized enough: we can only recognize idolatry if we know God, know the Trinity. We can only name wickedness if we have known righteousness. We can only denounce death if we have tasted life. This is the truth that Elijah continually speaks to the corrupt king. It is a truth that we must recognize if we want to say anything at all to the forces of death that shake our world. Idolatry, wickedness, death. Trinity, righteousness, life. ! Rooting out idolatry is not easy. Wickedness likes to call itself righteousness. Death continually masquerades as life. Doing so gets rather touchy because we in the church are plenty captive to the forces of idolatry. We regularly cannot agree on what brings death and what brings life. This should not, must not, stop us from trying to get to the bottom of who, what, and how we worship. ! The wicked, death-dealing ways of the god Baal bring to mind a particular idol that all of us have a tendency to share. I want to describe his ways and consider briey how basic Christian practices orient us away from this idol. ! A little more than a year ago our brother James was dying. James was a xture at the church: quiet, gentle, and thoughtful. He had been living in a tent in the woods near the church. Over the course of a few months his leg became swollen and he had increasing trouble walking. After a couple hospital visits the doctors diagnosed him with metastatic lung cancer with tumors on his lungs, nodes, and even in his legs. Living alone and in a tent became impossible for him and so a number of us who were friends with James as well as various medical and Idolatry continued on page 3
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Idolatry continued from page 2 social work-types tried to gure out what to do to help him. I remember distinctly a conversation I had with the woman who is the nurse practitioner at the homeless clinic in Durham. After weeks of trying to gure out where he could be cared for I stated forcefully, there should be somewhere for James, some place for him to stay, an institutional someone to take care of him. I was confused and angry why there were no housing options for one as sick and poor as he. At that moment I was crying out in lament, confronting the limits of the idol of System, System, System, why have you forsaken James? ! Most if not all of us believe deeply that there is a systemic solution to every problem. If we only apply the right incentives, institute the right programs, offer the right education, establish the right professions, apply the right processes, we can manage every eventuality. We entrust signicant aspects of our lives to systems as we erect a massive justice or health system. We have faith in the knowledge of experts to build and rene systems in order to make our lives and societies run smoothly and to our liking. By denition systems are impersonal. They are rule-bound to the extent that human interaction is ideally reduced to the communication of those rules. This is to ensure fairness and efciency. System sets itself up as a rival god in which we live, move, and have our being. ! From birth we are brought into the medical system and taught that we should regularly offer our money and bodies to its management. We should cooperate and submit to the education system because it is the way to a prosperous, just, harmonious society, not to mention personal success. Human labor is
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described and enforced as part of a system governed by elaborate policy manuals. We are told that we are part of a carefully orchestrated system and that we are morally obligated to behave in ways that enable the system to function efciently. Friendship and the virtue of prudence have no place under System because they are inefcient.

The idol of System keeps our care for the poor rational, accountable, and impersonal.
! Systems promise to manage every eventuality, which is invariably a promise that they cant keep. When System lies to us, we feel betrayed. We are shocked when the justice system cannot ensure justice, frustrated when the medical system cannot name and treat our maladies. ! The social service system is particularly sweeping in its promises and brutal in its rules. In their precarious uncertain existence, the poor make the most costly tributes to the idol of System. The promises of the system, whether governmental or non-prot, are awesome: housing, work, monetary support. These are, however, in short supply and blocked by numerous bureaucratic hurdles. If you have helped someone navigate these agencies, you have seen how capricious and perverse System can be. As the poor seek out the promises of these systems they are told directly and indirectly that they are unvirtuous and untrustworthy. ! When I consider how the idol of System leads through wickedness toward death, I think about Jesus in Matthew 5 holding those who call

another fool liable for murder. The poor to a great extent are called fools in their lives when they are out of step with System. The rich know this to some lesser extent. We all have experienced the shame brought on by the scolding of the justice, medical, or education systems. ! The church started many of these systems and we continue to fund them. The idol of System keeps our care for the poor rational, accountable, and impersonal. See how they pass the buck. ! Problems and relationships under the idol of System are technical, educational, strategic, but never personal. This is the most glaring deciency of the idol of system in the light of the Triune God. Our God is a personal God. Our God is love. The Gospels tell us that loving God is inextricably tied to loving our neighbors. The Apostle Paul tells us that we worship a God who lives in us, a God who gives us his body and blood as food and drink. The love of God that the Holy Spirit puts in our hearts is not systemic love but personal love that delivers friendship, salvation, and life. ! We invited James to stay in the church. He lived in the back room where the choir cassocks and surplices are now kept. It was not a systemic solution. We had no objective for him except some comfort. There was more dignity in that arrangement, I think, than life in a hospital or in an institution. Im a little ashamed that it never occurred to me to spend the night at the church to keep him company in his shivering, sweating, and confusion or, even better, to invite him to stay in my home. Until very near the end we kept seeking a system to help James; he was nally taken by the hospital system where he died. Idolatry continued on page 6
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Envy & Pride

by Leigh Edwards Based on a homily given on August 2, 2013 (Dedication Festival, Clare Chapel, Maurin House)
The devil frequently lls our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve the Lord, we may rest satised with wishing to perform impossibilities. St. Teresa of Avila In the Gospel today [Matt 13:54-58], the people in Jesus hometown reject him as a prophet. There are two aspects of this story that I think are acute for us today. The rst is that the sin of the people in this passage is that of envy, which is, as we would say here in the South, a kissing cousin to the sin of pride. Where one of these is, you can be assured that the other is not far behind. Envy is the disdain for something good that someone else has (just because they have it). It is to despise the good of another because they themselves have it and we feel that their possession of it lessens us. In this case, the people are envious of the honor given to Jesus as prophet. To have someone so close to them have the honor, power and recognition as a prophet is threatening to their own sense of power and position. The second thing to note is that pride is tested, and charity is made known or unknown, not in acquiescing to big ideas but in our relations to those whom we know most closely. Those who are closest to us reveal our desire to not be unknown, left behind, small, or servants in close comparison. It is
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Adopt a fruit tree!

one thing to say you believe in prophets, to say that they are powerful, and it is another thing to have to submit to the prophecies of your neighbors son. It is one thing to imagine ourselves humble with strangers; it is another to be humble with our brothers. We must be wary that the devil frequently lls our thoughts with great schemes so that we may rest satised with wishing to perform impossibilities. Around here we rightly speak against those who talk of service, need and charity in the abstract but will not give money to panhandlers or take a homeless man into their own house. But what about us? Are we, too, proud and envious of our neighbors just as Jesus neighbors are? Perhaps we too allow big ideas to shadow the hard work of humility at home. Maybe our interactions with each other, our work in our hometown, the work to which God has given us, shows just as starkly our own pride. What might it look like for us to have our envy and pride shown particularly in contrast to our confessions? It looks primarily like a refusal to serve our housemates while living in a community that says it seeks holiness, humility, and charity. We may refuse because they dont do any work around here, because were too busy, because itll get done anyways, Envy continued on page 5

Artwork by Ade Bethune

This November we are planting apple, pear, and g trees at the historic St. Marys Chapel in Hillsborough, NC. We hope that these trees will provide food for our breakfasts and houses in the future. If you would like to cover the cost for purchasing a tree, please send a $20 check (designated for Fruit Trees) to:
Community of the Franciscan Way

1116 Iredell St. Durham, NC 27705

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Envy continued from page 4 because they get on our nerves, or just because we dont want to. Here we may invite everybody that shows up at prayer to eat in our homes, but we may just as readily grumble about or abstain from cooking dinner and washing dishes. We give a listening ear to an acquaintance or a stranger while we go home and gossip and slander our housemates. We want to offer housing to every person who comes around but hate to share our shampoo, food, or goods with our friends. We enjoy carrying bags for the guy at church down the street but avoid taking out the trash when it is full. We are eager to be a part of the grand scheme of personalism we imagine, but we often refuse to accept the works of charity as they come to us in our own homes because it hits a little too close to home. More often than not these are thankless tasks and the time may be better used, we

think, reading a book or having fun with friends. The devil may indeed frequently ll our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve the Lord, we may rest satised with wishing to perform impossibilities. Yet these small works of love for those to whom we are closest are, as St. Terese of Liseaux writes, the little way of love (or if you will the Little Way) that is the real test of our charity. Our relations with our companions show us the envy and pride at work in our own hearts that we so often mask with grand ideas of helping the poor. It is pride to not serve our community members and housemates because we are bitter about demands on our time for an action we will not get applause for. Worse, we will have to serve and humble ourselves to those whom we know all too well, whom we know

really do not deserve the service. We would have to decrease and risk being unknown except to God. To refuse service to our community members reveals our pride: too often we ultimately want to be masters, not servants. We cannot love the poor that are acquaintances to us unless we can have charity for those with whom we live. Our lack of humility to our friends, as we try to save the world, will be the pride that condemns our hearts before the Judgment Seat. Jesus will continue to not be recognized in his hometown as long as we will not see each other as the opportunity to serve Jesus in our midst. The devil does indeed frequently ll our thoughts with great schemes. And all too often, instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve the Lord, we rest satised with wishing to perform impossibilities. T

Francis refuses to stay in a cell specially prepared for him

From The Assisi Compilation, Paragraph 57
One of the brothers, a spiritual man, to whom blessed Francis was very close, was staying in a hermitage. Considering that if blessed Francis came there at some time he would not have a suitable place to stay he had a little cell built in a remote place near the place of the brothers, where blessed Francis could pray when he came. After a few days, it happened that blessed Francis came. When the brother led him to see it, blessed Francis said to him, This little cell seems too beautiful to me. But, if you want me to stay in it for a few days, have it covered inside and out with ferns and tree-branches." That little cell was not made of stonework but of wood, but because the wood was planed, made with hatchet and axe, it seemed too beautiful to blessed Francis. The brother immediately had it changed as blessed Francis had requested." For the more the house and cells of the brothers were poor and religious, the more willingly he would see them and sometimes be received as a guest there. As he stayed and prayed in it for a few days, one day, outside the little cell near the place of the brothers, a brother who was at that place came to where blessed Francis was staying. Blessed Francis said to him, Where are you coming from, brother? He told him, I am coming for your little cell. Because you said it is mine, blessed Francis said, someone else will stay in it from now on; I will not." We who were with him often heard him repeat the saying of the holy gospel: Foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. T
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Politics continued from page 1 ! We believe Charity is a virtue, not an organization we push our poor to. God did not demand a corporation to serve, but the corpus, The Body that is His Church. The fact that non-Christian shelters and soup kitchens exist in our cities is an indictment against Christians.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

! So I ask you, imagine this. Imagine our parish was our share of the city. Imagine we are ambassadors who were at war with God but now are at peace and friendship with Him. Imagine our parish has its own political actions: praying, almsgiving, fasting, hearing the Word, confession of sins, serving, and so on. Imagine we have not a public square but a common parish hall. Imagine the politics of serving were for the purpose of friendship. Imagine God sent his only Son who was the only person not to sell the poor for a pair of sandals, and imagine that makes the Church the only Realists and makes the rest of the world Idealists. Imagine our Mystery is the most important political thing we could ever do on this earth and the one necessary thing. ! Can we imagine? Are we awake? Or is our imagination dead? If so, can it be reborn? Can the rstborn from the dead resurrect it? If he could, would we be commoners of his kingdom? Would we stand next to angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, forever singing a hymn to proclaim the glory of His name? ! Holy, Holy, HolyAmen. T

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

! Christ came not to be served, but to serve and also to say to his Apostles, I do not call you servants any longer, but I have called you friends. Therefore, we believe service is being reconciled to God and reconciling to God. We believe in confession as a normative political act. There is no longer hostility between us and God but friendship. ! As ambassadors we befriend those we serve. Serving then is not even the ultimate good, friendship is. And the essence of friendship is to love one another in common life in the city of God, subject to Christ our King. ! This is not an easy city to live in. It tells us what we ought to and ought not to do. I often nd myself sinning against the very ones I am supposed to serve, against my friends.

Idolatry continued from page 3 ! For generations, the idol of System has distorted our vision of the world. Systems seek to form our identities, to make us good servants of an order that brings death. When we do the traditional work of the Church, we resist the idol of System. The great gift of Christian practices is that while they are ordered, they are not a system. They promise salvation not because they affect it themselves but, rather, because God gives it. When we order our lives to the personal practices of piety and mercy we encounter and share Gods love and resist the idol of
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system. Ill mention two of many concrete ways we try to so order our lives in the Community of the Franciscan Way. ! The rst and primary practice for resisting System and all idolatry is prayer. When we pray The Daily Ofce from the Book of Common Prayer we are certain that for a few minutes every few hours during our waking day we are not worshiping idols or serving a System but are worshiping the Triune God. ! The second practice is offering, in the words of Peter Maurin, the works of mercy at a personal sacrice. Taking Peters urgings to heart, we serve a meal

each morning at St. Josephs Episcopal Church. The hungry rich and hungry poor share grits and eggs, jokes and stories. None of this has an objective beyond love and, perhaps, resistance to the idea that our labor and care should serve some greater end than sharing Gods love. We hope that people might again say of Christians, See how they love one another. ! Idolatry is something that happens when we order our life to some created thing rather than to the Creator of all things and his call to love. May we reject idolatry, wickedness, and death as we embrace the Trinity, righteousness, and life. T
Season After Pentecost 2013

Community News
by Leigh Edwards
Around universities even if you do not attend summer always ends up a time of transition. For us around the Franciscan Way, a few big changes have happened. Weve had a few friends living both in and out of the houses move away. Calls from bishops to churches, to Anglican years at other seminaries, and moves to other communities, amongst other things, have been reasons for the relocations. Still, we had such requests from friends to move into the houses that, in June, we added another house to the Franciscan Way, the St. Teresa House. The name of the house comes from our indebtedness to St. Therese of Liseaux (Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus), both in her own exhortation to the little way of love and in her massive inuence on Servant of God Dorothy Day and Blessed Mother Teresa. St. Teresa House is about a mile from each of the other two houses and is home to, currently, seven of us humans and two dogs. St. Teresa House is also primarily a womens house; the only male (besides the Artwork by Kelly Steele dogs) is the husband of a married couple. Along with a hospitality room, we have set aside a room for out-of-town guests to the community, as we usually do not have much room for friends and family who come to visit. All other space in our Christ Rooms, we have found, inevitably become occupied for indeterminate amounts of time rather quickly. Teresa House has a large fenced in back yard that is a great place for community members dogs to run free, and it is a relatively calm place except for the large dinners hosted weekly. We are beginning to settle in as students return from internships and as school and work begin. We beg you for your prayers. T

Panhandling
In the Easter 2012 edition of The Little Way Fr. Colin wrote: ! God will give us what we need for our new house when we need ! it; I have no anxieties about that. When I do have anxieties about ! that, it is good for me. Sharing the precarious situation of the poor, ! even in this small way, as Dorothy Day wrote, is a council of the ! Gospel, because it brings us a taste of the poverty of Christ. ! Nevertheless, we have to beg. Another miracle, please, St. ! Joseph. And this miracle may involve sacrice on your part. ! Please partner with us. We feel entitled to nothing, and yet hope ! for everything. God has indeed provided for us since that Easter, and we thank you for your sacrice. When Fr. Colin wrote those words none of us could imagine opening three hospitality houses within one year. And so we beg for your continued assistance as we pray, All things come of thee, O Lord, and of Thine own have we given thee.

Editors
Tim Callow Jamie Kennedy Jones Greg Little Colin Miller Mac Stewart Meredith Stewart Blake Tipton Allison Waters Luke Wetzel Natalie Wetzel

Contact Us
The best way to get involved in the community or to contact us is to come to the Daily Ofce at St. Josephs Episcopal Church (1902 W. Main Street, Durham, NC) Monday through Friday at 7:30 am and 5:30 pm.

Monetary donations are received by: The Community of the Franciscan Way 1116 Iredell St., Durham, NC 27705.
NOTE: Our bookkeeper has changed, please update our name and address with your bank if are using their automated check service.
Season After Pentecost 2013!

The Little Way is a pamphlet of the Community of the Franciscan Way, a Mission of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. We seek a life of prayer, study, simplicity, and fellowship with the poor. We stand in the tradition of the Catholic Worker Movement, founded in 1933 by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. Maurin, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and St. Teresa Houses offer shelter and food to the homeless. Rent, food and utilities for the hospitality houses are paid entirely on donations. Funds are always used directly for the performance of the Works of Mercy, and no one in the community draws any salary or other benets.

The Corporal Works of Mercy To feed the hungry To give drink to the thirsty To clothe the naked To harbor the harborless To visit the sick To ransom the captive To bury the dead

The Spiritual Works of Mercy To instruct the uninformed To counsel the doubtful To admonish sinners To bear wrongs patiently To forgive offenses willingly To comfort the aficted To pray for the living and the dead

Community of the Franciscan Way

1116 Iredell Street Durham, NC 27705