The Rev. Ken's Blog

Sermon: Epiphany 4

2010-02-02T07:52:00.002-05:00

1 Corinthians 13 – An Interpretation
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Epiphany 4, Year C (RCL)
1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

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If I choose to speak with the sharp, sinful tongue of a human being or the soft, soulful tongue of an angel, but do not have love for the other in my heart, my words fall meaningless and are just a bunch of noise. And if I feel confident that I can predict the future, or what we need to be doing right here, right now, and feel that I know the right way to do things and what needs to be done, and have the faith to see it through, so much so that I can bring my vision to completion even on my own, but do not have love, my vision, my ambition, my faithfulness are nothing. If I give away all that I have to the poor, if I tithe, if my parish tithe’s to outreach, if I am a generous giver, and because of this, take pride in my giving, as I should, but do not have love, I gain nothing, and not only that, I truly have given nothing away as well.

Love is patient. It waits on us. It asks us to wait on each other. When we think we know the way and that others now need to be brought along, it asks us to wait on them. When we think we are lost and find little hope in the darkness of the now, it waits on us. Love has no timeline, no agenda to get through. Love is kind. It respects us no matter what. When we disagree, it calls on us not to be disagreeable. Even in our passion for an issue of fundamental importance, it calls us not to throw our sister or brother under the bus in order for us to get our way. In its kindness, love is gentle.

Love is not envious. It does not raise an issue or a personality to such a height that our own selves and self worth are decimated. It does not barter our own experience and gifts in exchange for those of another. It holds no resentment, nor is it spiteful. Love is not boastful. With love, there is no place for righteous indignation. With love, our soap boxes are put away and our ivory towers brought low. With love, when forgiveness is asked for, it is granted. Love doesn’t hold a grudge. Love is not arrogant. It is not a mirror into which we gaze, showing us how great we are, how faithful we are, how forgiving we are, how wonderful we are. Love isn’t all about us. Love is not something to be proud of at the expense of others. Love is not rude. Love is not discourteous. Even in times of turmoil, even in heated debates, love asks us to continue in our respect of the dignity of every human being. Love has us bite our tongue and to think and pray about our responses to others.

Love does not insist on its own way. It doesn’t make us choose between my way and the highway. It insists only on restored relationships, not on the products of such relationships. It is not irritable. It cools a flaring temper. It calms a racing heart. It has us walk away and count to ten, or twenty, or one hundred if we need that. It helps us to put things, to put life back into perspective. Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love does not rejoice in bad behavior, but rejoices when new choices, better choices are made. Love is able to put wrongdoing aside when the truth comes to set us free. Love is forgiving. It waits for us even when we walk away. It runs to greet us even as we are still far off and find ourselves returning home, our head hung low. Love never gives up on us, never gives up.

Love is so big, so wide, so deep that it can take all of this upon itself without bending, without breaking. Because it bears all things, it can take with it our own burdens. Nothing is too great for us to hand over to love. There is never a danger in erring on the side of loving ourselves and others. Love can do more for us than we can ever ask or imagine. There is nothing that love can’t do. Because it believes all things, there is no opinion, no thought, no concern in the world that is beyond its caring concern. Love believes all things in order that all those who believe might feel the power of its embrace. Because it hopes all things, love calls us into the future. Love hopes that we may become more whole, more patient, more kind, more charitable in our love and concern for each other. Love sees the potential in our days to come and trusts that, with love, we will get to where we are. And because it endures all things, love promises to be there for us and for others in the future. Even if we are smart or not so smart, love will be there. Even if we are caring or not so caring, love will be there. Even if we believe or decide to stop believing, love will be there. Love isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Love makes that promise to us.

Though love never ends, everything else around us one day will. Prophecies, they’ll come to an end. If we’re right, one day we’ll know it. Or we’ll know that we were wrong. But either way, one day we’ll know. It will be made clear. We will have erred or we will have made the right choice. We’ll have an outcome. Our prediction, our prophecy will be over, yet love will continue on, picking us up in our mistake, or embracing us in the joy of our choosing wisely. Tongues, they’ll cease. One day our words will fall flat. We will be left speechless. We won’t find the right words for someone who’s lost a loved one. We won’t find the right words when our character is attacked. We won’t be able to convince another of our position. But love, it won’t fall flat. It will pick up where our words have left off. Love will be our language. And knowledge, that too one day will come to an end. One day we will realize that the more we know, the more we know we don’t know, you know? One day we’ll realize that knowledge does not exist in the head but rather, in the heart. The knowledge of facts, numbers, history, philosophy will all come to an end, will all be blinded by the true knowledge that lies at the heart of love, a love which can not be held in books or institutions but must be carried in the heart.

For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, and we each come with only part of the solution. Heck, we each come with only part of the problem! What we know, what we share is only one part of the body. We may know the ear well, very well in fact, so well that we think we know the rest of the body. Indeed, we might be deluded enough to think that the whole of the body is just a giant ear, and in turn forget or discredit the nose, the mouth, the eyes, the head. Yet we know only in part, our part. Our one little, tiny, unique though significant part, that’s all we know. What we wait for is the complete. The complete picture, the complete love, the complete body. That thing which is so much larger than ourselves that its gravitational pull draws us to itself. And when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. In the completeness of love, our lives our no longer our own, they have been forever changed. It’s the sensation often found in a new father or mother; the sensation of knowing at the core of our being that we have been made for something greater than ourselves. We have been created by love, for love, to love; to love ourselves and to love each other. It’s the question asked by a new father or mother, “I thought I knew what life was all about before having this child. How could I have been so wrong, so self-centered?” When the completeness of love comes, we come to find ourselves growing beyond ourselves, with the partial coming to an end.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, I did childish things. Now as an adult, I sometimes still become that child. I speak like a child; I insist on getting my own way, on getting things right away, on being demanding and forthright. I reason like a child; I can’t see beyond my own fingers and toes to understand that the world is greater than my perception of it. I become trapped in black and white thinking. I do childish things. Living my own life, doing my own thing, disregarding the greater good and the larger whole, I make poor choices and stupid mistakes. Sometimes, I still become that child.

Yet even still, now as an adult, on my good days I have put an end to childish ways. I have come to better appreciate the complexity and the challenge of learning to love and of loving. I have learned that words often times fall short. I have learned the wisdom to be found in my choosing my words carefully. I have learned the value of listening and being present. I have seen the damage done when tasks become more important than people. I have learned that charity and outreach are not synonymous with caring and compassion, though the two can sometime be confused. I’ve learned a lot about love. I’ve experienced and learned about the pain which comes when love is conditional. I’ve also experienced the wideness of love’s embrace through friends, family and forgiveness.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but soon, very soon we will see face to face. As we continue to grow in love, the fog of our own lives, our own priorities, our own beliefs, our own pronouncements will be wiped away from that cloudy mirror and the dim, bleak picture will become brighter, clearer, more honest, more loving. As we continue to strive to be more loving with each other, the veil between the bride and the bridegroom, between Christ and his church, will be lifted as we grow deeper in love with God and with one another. Now we know only in part, but then, then we will know fully, even as we are fully know, even as we now, today, are fully loved and cared for by God in Christ. Now we love only in part, but then, once we come to know and to believe that we are truly, completely, unconditionally loved to the essence and core of our being, then we will come to know others as we are know; then we will come to love others as we are loved.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is faith, hope, and love that abide. It is faith, hope, and love that stand with us, that stay with us, that stand for us, that promise to journey with us throughout our lives. Let us today make that choice to abide also with them. Let us learn to walk in faith, carry with us reserves of hope, and march on towards the journey of love. For the greatest of these is the journey itself of love. The journey that time and time again continues to call us back into relationship with each other; into right relationship, into reconciliation, and into healing and wholeness. Amen.

Guest Sermon by Michael Hechmer: Pentecost 15

2009-09-15T08:51:00.001-04:00

In the name of the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Jacob and Rachel, of Moses and Jesus, of Peter and Paul, and of the Prophet Mohammed.

If I remember correctly, the last time I spoke with you from this position I was on crutches with a foot injury, but chose to speak standing up, as an inducement not to get carried away and talk for too long. This time I am nursing a very sore sacroiliac and the many muscles attached to it, which have decided to cry uncle, kick me in the gut and stab me in the back. Perhaps this is their idea of justice, but it feels like vengeance to me! Anyway I am sitting down because my brain doesn’t work well when I stand up, apparently it is located somewhere near my sacroiliac.

Part of the problem with being incapacitated for the past month is that I have had way to much time to sit in front of the TV & computer and watch our government and country try to fix our broken health insurance system. This has been a very depressing and debilitating experience, and not just because I think we should do this or that, which we probably wont do, but because of the process itself. Rather than focusing on the moral imperative to throw a lifeline to the millions of our drowning brothers and sisters, it is money that dominates the process and fighting about who will get to overcharge us for the rope, and by how much! Faith, hope and charity have been silenced while fear and resentment dominate the discussion.

In fact it was my depression that lead to a discussion with Ken, who encouraged me to talk about celebration on this occasion as we begin a new year. You know that this week brings us to the Jewish New Year, first with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah. In homes and synagogues around the world our Jewish brothers and sisters will gather to dip challah in honey and wish one another a sweet year. Then they will blow the shafir - a rams horn, to usher in the New Year. The celebration of the New Year will continue for eight more days, until observing Jews will abstain from food, drink and sexual activity for 25 hours before going to the synagogue to confess and atone for their sins. YomKippur is the Day of Atonement. It doesn’t sound like a great cause for a celebration, but the good news is that like us, they hear again, that an infinitely loving God forgives them their sins. We are also in the midst of Ramadan, the ninth and holy month in the Islamic liturgical year. Observant Muslims celebrate this month by abstaining from food, drink, and sexual activity during daylight for the entire month. And again, that doesn’t sound like much of a celebration, but there is good news for them too. The word Muslim means, “one who submits to God,” and the good news for Muslims is that our God is infinitely loving and forgiving, and can be trusted at all times. The good news is that by submitting to the will of Allah, and opening their lives to God, they get to share in that goodness, love, and forgiveness.

The Fall always seems to be the right time to celebrate the new year. Doesn’t it feel that way to you too? Children return to school; projects suspended for the summer are taken up again; we revisit our sense of purpose and rededicate ourselves to renewing our lives. Other than relieving the darkness of January I don’t see much sense in putting new year in January. It certainly doesn’t lend itself to spiritual renewal as we wear silly hats, get drunk and watch way too much football. But… I’m digressing, and your probably asking yourself what does any of this have to do with today’s gospel. Well, as it turns out, plenty.

As I have sat watching the health insurance debacle, I mean debate, I not only became increasingly depressed but increasingly anxious and resentful myself, and that is exactly what Mark is writing about in our reading this morning.

Every time I read or hear this story I find I can identify with Peter. Jesus announces he will go to Jerusalem and Peter immediately says ixnay on Jerusalem and crucifixion, not a good idea, Jesus. Peter is fearful and leads from his fear. We will see this fearfulness in Peter again when he thrice denies Jesus at the most crucial of moments. Far from thanking Peter for this eminently practical advice, Jesus calls him Satan. To be sure, this isn’t some smiling Jesus calling Peter a sweet taking devil, this is a major slap down. It is amazing that Peter hung in as well as he did when you think of how regularly Jesus was calling him one name or another, like block head. Until at the end of John’s Gospel we see Jesus working Peter over like Mohammed Ali beating up the bum of the month. But that is the point. Peter does hang in, and God accepts him and uses him. Think about it, the two men most responsible for the founding of the Christian church were Peter and Paul. The first was a fearful, impulsive, unreliable dunderhead and the other was a hired gun, who made his living tracking down the followers of Jesus and organizing stoning parties. But, God forgave them, and held them and lifted them up, and used them to spread the Good News that He is infinitely forgiving and loving.

Now I am familiar with fear. And I know that some fear is quite healthy, that people without some fear, don’t often make it to 33… and truth be known, they don’t usually die noble deaths. But I know too that when we give too much rope to our fear we will most assuredly end up trying to hang somebody else. Fear and resentment are brothers and live under the same roof. They are joined together by our pain. How we deal with our fear will be the groundwork for how we deal with our resentment. Whether we ourselves have the courage to own our sins, accept and forgive one another.

Twice in my life I have had the opportunity to attend retreats that dealt with the subject of fear. The first was at a gathering of Quakers in Pastoral Care and Counseling, about ten years ago. Throughout the first day I heard a number of women talk about their experience of fear, almost always about physical fear. By the end of the day I realized I hadn’t heard a single man acknowledge an experience of fear. Now I know that men are not one bit braver than women, but in that room the men were totally silent. They were in denial and hiding, and I called them out on it. Men and women tend, in general, to be afraid of different things. Women, I think, are more frightened by physical danger - of falling, or of being attacked by someone bigger and stronger than them. Men are afraid of their emotions. We are afraid of losing control, of appearing vulnerable, and afraid of looking too deeply into our own souls. And we are especially afraid of someone else looking too deeply into our souls. When it comes to taking a hard, honest look at our feelings men are, as often as not, as cowardly as Peter when he denies Jesus. And that is exactly what we are called to - look into our souls, own our own stuff, open ourselves to God’s love, accept that we are forgiven, and finally give that forgiveness to one another.

The second opportunity I had to deal with the subject of fear was at a retreat on “Men and War.” I attended this three day event with two dear friends - one was a WWII veteran from the Pacific Theater and the other was a combat veteran from Vietnam. I, as some of you know, was a Conscientious Objector during that war. The retreat included men from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, the First Gulf War, street gangs, and the IRA uprising in Northern Ireland. We were evenly divided among combat, non-combat veterans and religious objectors. It turned out to be the most conflict ridden retreat I have ever been on. But the conflict wasn’t along any lines you might have expected, rather it was about the presence of a BBC reporter in the room and whether or not he should be allowed to stay. I learned many things that weekend. Perhaps most importantly I learned how young we all were when we faced questions of life and death. Every man in that room needed to forgive the boy who made the choices he did, and grieve the wound he had received. I also learned that when you are are in the middle of a great struggle you don’t get to quit, you don’t get to say, I made a mistake, I’m going home. You don’t just get to run back to your comfort zone. You are forced to stay and deal with the mess you have gotten yourself into. That’s what we did, we fought about this man’s presence for the better part of two days, but before we were done we had addressed every important reason, fear, and hope for going to that place. That’s where I think we are right now. In a foxhole, struggling with and for our own souls.

In fear we want to run away, and in resentment we want to blame someone else. We want to tell ourselves that evil is out there - in the other guy. It’s their fault; it’s my co-workers fault; it’s my bosses fault; it’s my spouses fault; it’s the Iraqi’s, the Iranians; it’s the Jews; it’s the Muslims; and if all else fails; it’s the pastor’s fault. We are anxious and we want to make our anxiety go away by putting in on someone else.

Not true. Not true. Here’s the truth from Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

The gospel gives us another wonderful story about this desire to run away from life and blame it on someone else. Jesus tells his disciples not to send their demon out into the dessert, less, he tells them, it will come back and find it’s home swept clean, and it will bring nine more demons to occupy it, and then you will be ten times worse than before. Isn’t that we are tempted to do - rather than face and own our demons we want to send them off to the desert and pretend they we are done with them, we are clean and perfect. The more we do it the sicker we get. You can only toss out demons through prayer; you can only love yourself into healing.

Before we give in to the urge to cast someone out of the universe we need to stop and remember that Jesus was born an outcast and died an outcast, but in between his arms and his heart were stretched wide to all - to shepherds and gentiles, to prostitutes and tax collectors, and finally to a pair of political terrorist hung beside him.

In a few minutes in our liturgy we will have our own opportunity to own our own sins, to make atonement, to hear again the announcement of God’s forgiveness and to give that forgiveness to one another in the passing of the peace. We should not take this practice lightly. Caine did and he came to a bad end!

Yesterday morning, at our men’s breakfast, George Rudgers shared with us some of his spiritual struggles as a member of our Vestry and I want to thank George for looking into his soul and telling us what he was seeing. At the start of his sharing he acknowledged that he had no plan for his walk with God. He had many other plans - plans for paying off the mortgage and plans for going on vacation and stuff like that. But he had no plan for how to walk closer with God. George is not alone. That is true for most of us, and even those who claim they have a plan for deepening their journey with Christ, will admit that for most of their life they did not have a plan. As I said earlier Jews and Muslims have a plan and are working hard at it this month.

It sounds complicated, because, for one thing we don’t know where we are going and we usually don’t know what God wants us to do. So if you don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t know what to do, how can you make a plan? True enough, but here’s what we do know.

We know who we are called to be. We are called to be people of Faith, of Hope and of Charity, of open heartedness. We are called to take a clear-eyed look at the state of our own souls, to own our stuff and neither deny it nor project it on others; and - this is the hardest part of all - we are called to be a people who accept that our God is infinitely loving and forgiving and that we can open our hearts and live inside that love and forgiveness for as long as we give it to one another. We can trust God to be faithful. If a doctor tells us our heart is blocked and we need to open it up, we develop a plan to open up those arteries as fast as we can.

In the words of Leonard Cohen… “Ring the Bells that still can ring / forget your perfect offering / there is a crack in everything / that’s how the light gets in / that’s how the life gets in.”

My old Quaker roots lead me to close with what Friends call a “Query.” What is our plan for opening our hearts to God’s transforming power this year?

Thank you for your time and your attention. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 12

2009-08-31T11:56:00.000-04:00

God is our Belay
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Pentecost 12, Year B (RCL)
Ephesians 6:10-20

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

This last week, I put on the shoes of courage and wore the harness of faith. Last Thursday, I went rock climbing for the first time with my friend Ryan, the new associate at First Congregational Church here in Essex Junction. While Ryan’s an avid climber, I am not. And not only that, I also happen to be deathly afraid of heights. So when Ryan called me and invited me to go climbing with him, instead of saying ‘No thanks’ or telling him ‘You’re nuts!’, I decided to go. I decided that I’d go along with him and just watch; maybe I’d climb up the wall a foot or two, but nothing major, no height I couldn’t jump from. I decided to try something new and see where it went.

Once we arrive at the climbing gym, I start having serious doubts about what I’ve gotten myself into. First, I have to seemingly sign over my life; telling the good folks at Petra Cliffs that I won’t sue them should I fall and injure myself. Then, I’m given a harness and a pair of climbing shoes. And finally, a quick lesson on how to ‘belay’; how to support the other person climbing up the wall as they’re strapped to me, and then how to help them down the wall once they’ve reached the top. Thankfully, Ryan heads up the wall first. With each step, I pull the slack out of the rope that prevents him from falling. The mechanism on my waist takes the lose rope and clicks into place, holding it tight. Soon, he’s at the top, some 30 maybe 40 feet up this sheer, vertical wall. He calls ‘take’ which is my sign to draw out all of the remaining slack and to begin to lower him down.

Next, it’s my turn. At this point, I’m terrified. After all, I’m the type of person who gets nervous on a ladder changing a light bulb. But I focus on the climb, on the small and varied colored shapes dotting the wall that I’m supposed to take hold of and climb up on. After checking my gear, I begin to climb. I don’t look down but only ahead, above where I am to where I am going. I trust that Ryan will support my weigh should I fall, but I don’t know this. At this instant, I just want to get to the top and not think about how I’m going to get down. Taking a slightly longer time than Ryan, I finally reach the roof; to the ceiling of the gym. Once there, I don’t look down. I feel stuck. I’m sweating, nervous. I cautiously yell ‘take’ while still holding on, clinging to the wall.

Ryan calls ‘Okay, now lean back and sit down and push yourself back from the wall.’ ‘Yeah, right.’ I think. ‘Whatever.’ Yet I know he’s right; that that’s my only option. In order to get back down to the ground, I have to let go and to trust that the rope won’t snap and that he won’t drop me. My fingers slowly peal back from the resin knobs that now bear my nail marks. I lean back and let go and trust. Pushing off of the wall with my feet, I skip down the wall backwards until I reach the ground. I stand up, look up, look at Ryan, then think to myself, ‘I did it. I climbed that wall.’ Then it occurs to me, ‘Yes, but only because I was supported and held up all along the way by my belay; by my buddy Ryan who was seeing to it that I didn’t fall.’ Yes, I climbed that wall, but in a very real way, though not climbing himself, he climbed that wall with me.

This week, when I hear Paul’s letter to the Ephesians about our being ‘strong in the Lord’ and our putting on ‘the whole armor of God’, I think of the delicate balance between our taking the initiative with our faith and at the same time, our being protected, guided and cared for by our faith, by God. When Paul asked the Ephesians to be strong in the Lord, he was truly asking them to be strong, to have faith, to make a difference, to do something, to believe something, to act, to be, to live into God’s calling for them. Yet at the same time, Paul asked the Ephesians to put on the armor of God; to be strong while always remembering from whom their strength comes, to have faith not only in themselves but in the source of all faith, to stand firm while always being mindful of that rock upon which they stand. Paul was reminding the Ephesians then, and reminds us still today, that we are strong because God is strong for us and protects us. As Paul tells us throughout his letters, in God our weakness is made perfect strength.

Hearing these words to the Ephesians, I’m reminded of my rock climbing adventure this last week. I think of the courage and the strength needed from me in order to scale that wall, while at the very same time, the constant attention and care of my belay below, making sure that the line was always taut, using his weight to prevent me from slipping lest I fall. Last week, I came to learn and to know that climbing, like life, is relational. Yes, we can climb to great heights, we can do great things, we can build massive buildings and great bridges and super computers, but we can do these things only because we are being supported and held up and encouraged by others along the way. We may slip, but our rope, our relationship with our friends and family, our neighbors, our God is always there to hold us, to keep us from falling. We may be strong in the Lord and put on the whole armor of God, but it is not our own strength but the strength of the Lord, not our own toughness but the toughness of our God, that will protect us.

Right now, here this morning, I’d like you to take a minute to think back over the course of your life and to think about all those who’ve protected you along the way. Who would you consider that belt of truth you’ve fashioned around your waist? Who’s helped you most in opening your eyes to your own self-deceptions? Who would you consider that breastplate of righteousness? Or those shoes of peace? Who’s worn those shoes in your life? Maybe someone who’s marched for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, or to end an unjust war? What about that shield of faith? That sword of the Spirit? Could it be a parent? A close friend? A homeless man or woman? A complete stranger? Someone famous? Think about how God has provided you with all of these things already; with a conscience to you help discern what is true and right, with the quite calm of nature to help you nurture peace, with the faith and sense of the Spirit that woke you this morning and brought you here to St James today.

Now, think about how you’ve been and will continue to be these things for others. Knowing that others have helped you up the wall of life, think about how you’ve tied others to yourself and supported them along their journeys. Remember how you’ve helped to call others into truthfulness and righteousness. Remember how you’ve walked with others in a spirit of peace. Remember how you’ve bolstered other’s faith in times of hopelessness and despair. Know that you will, that we will, continue to do these things, as our baptismal covenant so famously says, ‘with God’s help.’

Today, may we be strong in the Lord by putting on the whole armor of God. Today, may we be strong in the Lord as we work to seek and serve Christ in all others, loving our neighbors as ourselves, while putting on the whole armor of God, knowing that our strength comes not from ourselves but through our relationships with loved ones, with family, friends and neighbors, and from our relationship with God, the ground of our being. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 9

2009-08-31T11:55:00.000-04:00

Worthy is God’s Name
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Pentecost 9, Year B (RCL)
Ephesians 4:1-16

“I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”

Good morning. Quick question for you all this morning: How many of you feel worthy to be here in church this morning? Strange question to ask, I know. But reading today’s letter from Paul to the Ephesians brought it to mind. How many of us feel worthy to be here this morning? How many of us feel worthy to be living this life we’re living? How many of us feel worthy of our calling, worth God’s effort, worth God’s love?

And how do we get there? How do we become worthy if we feel we aren’t? How do we stay worthy if we think we are? How can we insure that we’ll always be worthy, always worth something, always worthwhile, always valued and cherished and loved, always adequate and then some? Saint Paul gives us a clue at all this, at getting there when he writes to them and says, “lead a life worthy of [your calling] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Sounds rather straightforward. If we want to be worthy of our calling, worthy of God’s love and grace, then we’ll be humble, gentle, patient, love one another, do our best to stay united. In other words, if we want to be worthy, then we’ll be like God, both towards our neighbors, towards ourselves and yes, even towards God.

I like lists of tasks and goals to accomplish, so all of this sounds pretty practical to me. Step One: Insert peg A into slot B, turn counterclockwise one quarter turn, repeat with peg C and slot D. Sounds a lot like those instructions that come with that new bookshelf from IKEA. Sounds simple, right? Sounds almost too simple, doesn’t it? If only it were that simple. Have I been humble today? Check. Gentle? Check. Patient? Um, well, at least this morning, so check. Loving? Check. Did I do my best to stay connected with my neighbor? Check. Yet what happens when we fall short? Are we then unworthy of God’s calling to us? We’re all human, we all make mistakes, so what happens when we screw up royally, or even when we have a slight slip up? Does our worth stop there? Do we become worthless, damaged, no good, not worth the time or the energy or the effort? What happens when we fail to live a life worthy of our calling? What does God do then? What do we do then?

Asking myself these questions, I pulled out my old, dusty, trusty concordance and went looking for references to ‘worth’ or ‘being worthy’ in the New Testament. It turns out that other than this reference from Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, and another in his letter to the Philippians, the majority of the other references to being worthy in the New Testament all center around three glorious yet challenging stories in the Gospels.

The first story is found in all four Gospels and is that of John the Baptist foretelling of Jesus’ coming to baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. John preached to those who came out to be baptized, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” Here, John refers to himself as being unworthy in comparison to Jesus, the Christ. So unworthy that he feels he can’t even stoop down to untie his sandals; so unworthy that he feels he is even inadequate in his serving him. Yet in Matthew’s account of the story, we read that Jesus in turn does something quite spectacular when he comes to meet John for the first time. Jesus comes from Galilee not to baptize John, but to be baptized by him! In essence, Jesus comes to John saying, ‘Not only are you worthy enough to untie my sandals, you’re worthy enough to baptize me.’ In a strange play on life, Jesus in his baptism, even before his public ministry and healings, shows John that his worth does not come from himself but comes from God. Jesus shows John that just as nothing he can do will ever make him worthy of God’s love, so too nothing he can do will ever make him unworthy of God’s love.

The second story is found only in Matthew and Luke and is that of the centurion who approaches Jesus as he enters Capernaum, asking Jesus to heal his paralyzed servant. After Jesus agrees to the healing, the shocked centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” The centurion then adds, “For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it.” In this healing story, it’s interesting that both Matthew and Luke add that last part about how powerful and in control the centurion truly is, or at least believes himself to be. The centurion, a man used to telling others what to do and where to go, comes to Jesus and tells him the same, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof”, he says. But like with John the Baptist, Jesus corrects the centurion as well. Jesus shows the centurion that his own worth and even the health of those under his care ultimately does not depend on him, but instead, rests solely on God.

And finally, the third story is found only in the Gospel according to Luke, even though it is a very well know parable told by Jesus, the story of the Prodigal Son. Upon returning home to his father after having gone out and squandered all of his inheritance on loose living, the prodigal son says to his father, “'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” And we all know what happens next, the father brings out the best robe, puts a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, kills the fatted calf and has a party. This story, more than the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, more than the healing of the paralyzed servant, more than any other story throughout the New Testament, conveys to us the readers just exactly where it is that true worth resides. Here, the father comes to his son and basically says, “Your worth is not to be found in what you did or even what you didn’t do. No, your worth is to be found in who you are to me; your worth comes on account of my loving you, not your earning anything from me.”

After reading these three stories on worth in the Gospels, it seems to me that while Saint Paul may mean well in his calling us to live a life worthy of our calling by being humble, gentle, patient, loving, connected with our neighbor, to think that the worth of our calling, our worth to God, our worthiness of God’s love, to think that these things depend solely on what we can or can’t do, this flies in the face of everything else that Jesus ever taught or did. In the end, our worth is not something that we ourselves can ever posses, but rather, it comes through we ourselves being possessed, possessed by God. So whether we feel worthy or not to be here in church this morning, we are. We’re worthy because this is the Lord’s house; because God invites us here, day after day and time and again, to feed us, to love us, to care for us. So whether we feel worth God’s effort, God’s love or not, we are. We’re worthy because God makes it so; because God loves us eternally and unconditionally and makes it so. I don’t know about you, but it gives me that peace which passes all understanding to know that my worth ultimately rests in God’s hands and not my own. I’m human, I mess up, sometimes royally, yet even still, I’m worthy, I’m worthwhile, I’m worth knowing and loving, I’m worth my calling and the life I’ve been called into living.

While I’m way too young to remember the 1928 prayer book, I’ve heard about it; mostly around campfires (no, just kidding). One of the prayers found in that book which made it into the 1979 prayer book, though only as an option in the Rite I Eucharistic rite, is referred to as the Prayer of Humble Access and is read together right before Communion. In that prayer, we pray, “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy…” In that prayer, in the same breath, we balance our own sense of being unworthy with that same Lord whose essence is to always be merciful. Such a perfect summation of the three instances of worthiness in the Gospels! Yes, we are unworthy. Yes, we are worthy. But our worth or unworth don’t come from what we’ve done or who we are. No, they come through our Lord’s “manifold and great mercies”. We are worthy to come to this alter, to this table, to this feast because our God of grace and mercy is our host, not a judging, condemning God, but a God who runs out to meet us on the way and loves us all the way home.

In closing, I’m reminded of a camp song often sung in the chapel at Rock Point; a song that speaks to the true source of worth which is found in Jesus’ name, a song that reminds me of just what happens when our own sense of self-worth fails and Jesus is there to pick us up and once again give us meaning. It’s called, “You Are my All in All”:

You are my strength when I am weak / You are the treasure that I seek / You are my all in all
Seeking You as a precious jewel / Lord, to give up I'd be a fool / You are my all in all

Taking my sin, my cross, my shame / Rising again I bless Your name / You are my all in all
When I fall down You pick me up / When I am dry You fill my cup / You are my all in all

Jesus, Lamb of God / Worthy is Your name
Jesus, Lamb of God / Worthy is Your name

Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 5

2009-07-22T15:05:00.001-04:00

Dreams and Stones
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Pentecost 5, Year B (RCL)
Mark 6:1-13

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown….’ And he could do no deed of power there…. And he was amazed at their unbelief.”

Driftwood cracks beneath the weight of my feet. My shoes shift age old boulders which have become small rocks and washed ashore. Waves lap against the sand and the rocks, pushing more smooth, long-forgotten elements from water to land. It piles up seemingly on its own. Wood here, rocks there, sand closest too the water, along with a thin line of seaweed.

I’m at Eagle Bay at Rock Point. The rain has finally stopped and the sun is peaking through just for a minute, a moment in time. New York is foggy. More rain must be on its way. A week of rain, drizzling rain, pour rain, misty fog over the morning. Now’s my chance to notice nature.

I’m at Rock Point Summer Camp. I’ve taken this break in the weather to create something natural and meaningful for my secret pal. Something which looks and feels and smells like Rock Point. Yet also something that symbolizes the sacredness of that special place. A perfect combination of the sacred and the profane. A concoction from creation which draws us back to the earth yet allows us to look heavenward even still.

From a small piece of driftwood I find inspiration. A cross. A simple, smooth, weathered cross. I’ll take two pieces of like sized driftwood and make a cross. The lake’s waste now on shore will become a means of devotion. I notice a small, long rock. A leg. Then another. An arm. Wait. There’s a head. Oh, and then a chest and torso appear. Christ is found in the rocks. Found lying there for all to pick up and see. Out of pieces of ancient mountain comes an ancient symbol. A crucifix forms in my head.

Later, I find wire. After notching out the beams of the cross, I fit them together. Now for the body. I start with the torso. I hold it firmly in place against the cross and wrap it three times with wire. Three times for the Trinity. It stays in place. Now for the legs, then the arms. Finally, a crown for the head before it is attached as well. Wood. Rocks. A small bit of wire. An enormous amount of meaning.

I give the cross to my secret pal. He’s pleased. I’m moved to make another. Again, I return to Eagle Bay. More driftwood. More rocks. I notch out the beams. I secure the body. I’m transformed, as are the rocks and wood. A third time, I walk down to the bay. The wood has changed for me. So have the rocks. I no longer find the need to measure the lengths of driftwood. I sense the right size. Same with the rocks. As I scan the shoreline I see countless bodies, more arms, more legs. Faces on rocks, as if in clouds, begin to appear. Christ who is known in the breaking of the bread has now become known to me in the breaking of the waves on the shore of Eagle Bay.

Over the course of the week, I make a total of six of these crosses. My fingers are calloused from twisting wire. Even still, my spirit continues to be drawn back to the bay and the grace found there as it is revealed in this washed wood and these smooth stones. At week’s end, I’ve given all of the crosses away, save this one. This one which I now share with all of you here at St James.

I share this story with you this morning because of how it parallels Jesus’ story for us in today’s Gospel. Today, Jesus returns to his hometown. He returns to a place and a past where he is seen as wasted wood, as a simple stone. His friends and family know him well. So well in fact that they are only able to see their memories of him and not what he has now become. Walking the shoreline, they see piles of wood, large rocks, small rocks, sand, seaweed. They see it for what it is. Wood is wood. A rock is a rock. Nothing more, nothing less. The deeds of power which lead to creation, to art, to music, to healing, to the movement of the Spirit, none of these deeds can be realized. Because of their unbelief, Jesus is left powerless. Because of their blindness, the possibility of the creation of inspiration is left disjointed and hidden from view.

Sometimes I daydream about the deeds of power that I’ve overlooked or have been hidden from view because of my inability to look beyond the surface of things. How many times did I tread that shore of Eagle Bay before Christ on the cross called to me to be created? Ten times, maybe fifty, maybe a hundred? How many times in my life have I looked upon my brother or sister in Christ as wasted wood, as simple stones, as the cracks and creeks beneath my feet? How many times have I been paralyzed and blinded by assumption, indifference and unbelief?

I ask these questions of myself not to nurture the seed of guilt for what I have left undone, but rather to help to raise my consciousness of the world around me to a level where I can see in some wood the cross and where I can see in the face of a familiar friend the face of Christ. In our Gospel for today, Jesus calls us to be gentle with ourselves and the world around us, and to look ever more closely at the crags and crevices of life. He calls us to look again at our spouse. He calls us to look again at our children. He calls us to look again at our parents. To look again at friends. To look again at our enemies. Look again and see with new eyes. Look and see with eyes of possibility, hope, excitement, love. Look again and see, ask just what it is that God is calling you to not overlook, but to reconsider.

This week, my prayer for each of you is that you may find inspiration and may find God lurking in the most common of places. And that when you find God hidden there, that you take the time and the space that you deserve and that God invites you into, that you take that time and that space to nurture that gift, to nurture that relationship. Deeds of power wait for us on the other side. Miracles, in fact. It’s as small as seeing in wood and stone the symbol of our faith and sharing it with others, and as momentous and as large as seeing in our friends and family the face of Christ and deepening our relationships with them through this newfound insight.

So “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.” Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 3

2009-07-22T15:02:00.000-04:00

Red Flag Days
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Pentecost 3, Year B (RCL)
Mark 4:35-41

It was the summer of 2001. I was living in Cambridge and commuting into Boston everyday for my internship with Ecclesia ministries and my work with the homeless. This day, my best friend Elisha joined me for breakfast in Harvard Square, then we were off to Boston for a meeting. As we reemerged from the underground, crossed the Charles River and slowed for the Charles / MGH “T” stop, Elisha and I glanced over at the boathouse. “Damn”, he said. “A red flag day and we’re going to a meeting.” “What do you mean?”, I asked. Elisha went on to explain to me that he was taking sailing lessons at Community Boating, and in order for him to sail on his own, unaccompanied by an instructor, he needed to pass part of his sailing test on “a red flag day”. “What’s that mean?”, I asked. Turns out that those nice days that we all dream of, you know, sunny and 72 with a light breeze, those are green flag days. Those days that are a little worse, with choppy waters and less than ideal conditions, those days are yellow flag days. And those days like this day happened to be, with a cold driving rain, wicked winds and white caps, those most stormy of days are red flag days.

That morning I was fortunate enough to have watched the weather and to have remembered to bring my raincoat, boots and umbrella. I was thankful that we were going to be inside all day, meeting with area clergy, social works, politicians and the like to talk about affordable housing in Boston. Part of me was even a little resentful that I had to climb out of bed that morning. It was the perfect day to sleep late, wake up to a cup of tea and to stay home and read the day away. Because of all this, I could only offer Elisha a blank stare when he cursed the fact that he’d have to be inside all day and couldn’t be out sailing. Poor guy, I thought, with a smirk and a light laugh. But then once he explained himself, I got it. It was clear. Sometimes we have to suck it up and experience the rainy days of life in order to come to truly appreciate the sunny ones. Sometimes we have to risk a lot in order to gain a lot. Sometimes a red flag day is exactly what we need in order to get to the green flag days to come.

After Elisha shared all this with me, I got it. While I’ve never sailed and really have no desire to learn, I did play sports throughout my life. I know what it means to practice. I haven’t forgotten football two-a-days in July and August. Waking up at 6am to be on the field at seven. Running for miles, tackling, running some more, all in helmet and shoulder pads and cleats. Days reaching up to 95 degrees. Resting from Noon until 1pm, then back at it from one until four. Day after day, with no one watching, no real game to be played. Maybe a scrimmage or two, but that was it. Red flag day after red flag day, one after the next, seemingly never ending, until one week it happens, back to school and the first Friday night game under the lights. The green flag day. I haven’t forgotten training for the Columbus marathon. Running 3 miles here, 5 miles there, then up to 10, then on to 18. Running in small groups in the dark of the morning with reflective gear on to be caught by the lights of the one or two passing cars on the road. Running in the rain. Running in the snow. Legs cramping, waking me up in the middle of the night. But then, one day, joining hundreds of other runners for the marathon. Running down streets lined with anonymous cheering friends and family. Then, crossing the finish line. Red flag days for almost a year, then in the blink of an eye, a green flag day of a lifetime.

And then we have today’s Gospel. A red flag day in the purest sense of the word. A great windstorm, waves beating into the boat, the boat being swamped. And Jesus’ disciples; fearful, outraged, over exaggerating. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”, they ask. No one has died, but for them, this is certainly a fate on par with death. Their fear has paralyzed them, yes, perhaps even caused them to perish. They can’t see beyond the howling winds, the crashing waves and failing boat. They can’t see the distant shore whereon generations of gentiles wait for their arrival; wait to hear the good news. It is a red flag day for the disciples with no green flag in sight. And then it happens, Jesus stills the great storm. He calms their nerves. He removes their fear and challenges them to supplant it with faith. He reminds them of their goal; that those who want to gain their lives must lose them for his sake. He reminds them that stormy waters must be faithfully endured if calm, peaceful waters are ever to be sailed upon.

Years ago, I used to often times say to my therapist, “But it’s so hard, it’s so difficult, it’s so….” I’d say this because I had the expectation that life would always be green flag days for me. Sure, there’d be red flag days along the way, but they’d be of my own choosing. I’d be setting my own course, thank you very much, so didn’t feel I needed to worry about any storms on the horizon. Yet when the storms came, and they did, I’d be left flabbergasted, saying to him and to myself, “But it’s so hard, it’s so difficult, it’s so….” I’d be left dumbfounded, saying to God, “Don’t you care that I’m perishing!?!” Fortunately, I’ve come to learn that life is full of red flag days, just as it’s full of yellow and green flag days too. I consider myself blessed because now I can see even the red flag days that aren’t of my own choosing, even those days as opportunities for growth; as benchmarks along the way to getting back to those sunny and 72 green flag days. I’ve been reminded that the long distance race is not won on race day, but through weeks and months of hard work, dedication, fear and failure.

Recently, it seems that many of us have been experiencing those stormy, red flag kind of days. Just a few weeks ago I was talking with a friend who had recently lost his job. In his voice and in his story, I could hear the disciple’s question of Jesus; the disciples fear, outrage, exasperation. I could hear myself once saying, “But it’s so hard, it’s so difficult, it’s so….” I could see the storm clouds in his eyes that feared stepping outside when instead he could stay safely at home, warm and with a good book. In our conversation, I shared with him that instead of seeing the loss of his job as a setback, he could instead see it a growth opportunity, both personally and professionally. He, like my friend Elisha, could embrace the red sailing flag and charter those foreboding waters, confident that his ticket to freedom lay at the heart of that experience. He, like the disciples, could relinquish his fear and instead, like Jesus, rest comfortably knowing that all would be taken care of, catastrophic or calm waters alike.

This is the good news. Indeed, this is great news! How very wonderful it is to struggle through the stormy waters of life when we know that still waters run deep and are waiting for us just on the other side. How very exciting a dreadfully stormy Boston day can be for when we know that our sailing independence lay in wait. How life-giving a diligent daily mile can be when we know that a glorious finish line waits for us in the months ahead. And what a blessing it is when we are released from a life of labor to be given the gift of time and space to rediscover who we are and just exactly what it is God that is calling us to do. Life is hard, life is difficult, there’s no two ways about it. But that difficulty isn’t the end, it’s only the beginning; the beginning of a long journey, of a long voyage. A voyage of growth, of self-discovery, of renewal, and ultimately of life. A voyage with Jesus asleep in the stern, staying with us, traveling with us, helping us along the way. Thanks be to God that God loves us enough to stay with us as we continue to grow through the pain, the loss, the heartbreak and the difficultly of life! Amen.

Sermon: Day of Pentecost

2009-06-02T09:42:00.000-04:00

Qualities of the Spirit
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Day of Pentecost, Year B (RCL)
Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Today is the day of Pentecost; the day when we remember and memorialize the coming of the Holy Spirit. Throughout scripture, we find stunning, sensational metaphors of the Holy Spirit that burn brightly in our mind’s eye. In our reading this morning from Acts, the Holy Spirit comes with a “sound like the rush of a violent wind.” Growing up in the Midwest, images of tornados come to mind and the sounds that accompany them; sounds which resemble that of a speeding train echoing across eerie skies. Also in Acts, as the violent wind comes to settle among them, the Holy Spirit manifests itself in the form of “divided tongues, as of fire” and rests upon each of them. With summer soon to be here, images of campfires come to mind, the new fire of Easter which consumes the dried palms of our hosannas, the forger’s fire which not only destroys but also refines. Images of chemical reaction, of transformation, of new life. And later this morning, at the 9:30 service with its two baptisms, the Holy Spirit will come through the image and the medium of water. As the water is poured from the pitcher and into the font, the glimmer of light, the sound of flowing, the occasional cold splash on the skin, all of these sensations will hold the gaze of our mind’s eye and the promise of our heart’s desire.

Wind, fire, water, these metaphors, these symbols of the Holy Spirit are so essential, so elemental to our lives that many ancient philosophers called them “elements” and used them to describe the primary patterns of nature. In addition to these three; wind, fire, and water, there was a fourth, and that was earth, the dust of the earth, the dust formed into being through Adam and the same dust that we wear as a reminder of our humanity on Ash Wednesday. We are that fourth element. Wind, fire, water, earth, all physical manifestations of the Spirit in some way; all life-sized portraits of what God looks like, sounds like, feels like, smells like, tastes like as the Spirit is made manifest in creation.

And though it is tempting to stay there, to sit with those most powerful images and metaphors and to imagine how God the Holy Spirit is made present in the elements of wind and fire and water, if we do just that, if we stay there with the pictures of the Spirit and not with its practices, we miss the rest of the story. If we spend our time and energy focusing solely on how the Holy Spirit appears, we may very well end up losing sight of how the Holy Spirit acts. However, this is what is essential to the story of Pentecost; how the Holy Spirit acts, what the Holy Spirit does as a violent wind, a tongue of fire, the waters of baptism. Yes, the means of the coming of the Spirit are quite spectacular in and of themselves, but the end to those means, the end is even more fantastic, especially when it is applied to and realized in our own lives.

So today, instead of concentrating solely on the means by which we receive the Holy Spirit, let’s trek down a parallel path and focus on the end to those means; let’s focus not so much on who the Holy Spirit is, but rather on what the Holy Spirit does and how the Holy Spirit does it. As I was reading over today’s lessons this last week, three phrases concerning what the Holy Spirit does jumped off the page at me. All three seem to be related in that they center on relationship; they focus on how we are to be in relationship with each other. All three remind us that in order for the elements of the Holy Spirit to take hold in our lives, they must contain that fourth and essential element of which we are composed; the element of earth or dirt, the element of our being. All three provide us with ultimate examples of how to be in relationship with both God and our neighbors through the witness set forth by God’s Holy Spirit.

The first comes from today’s lesson from Acts. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, we hear that the gathered crowd was bewildered because “each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.” If we stop a minute to think about the complexity of this statement, it becomes clear that it wasn’t simply that each one spoke a different language, even a language that they supposedly didn’t know. Remarkably, instead of this, today’s lesson from Acts tells us that the differences in language were to be found not in the speaking, but rather, in the hearing. It would be as if I were to preach this sermon in Latin and each of you, supposing we were a much more diverse crowd, were able to hear my words not in Latin, but in your own native language, whether that be English or French or Spanish or Farsi or Dinka. Strangely, it seems as if the words of the Holy Spirit, as moving through the disciples, became all words for all people, so that the “devout Jews from every nation under heaven” would be able to comprehend and believe. Thus, as the Holy Spirit comes into our world, it comes to meet people where they are; it comes to speak the language of the people so that they might come to believe. God’s Holy Spirit provides us then with the ultimate example of how to communicate with each other; not by speaking our own language, but by speaking in such a way that others might hear, understand and grow.

The second phrase comes from today’s Gospel lesson from John. As Jesus prepares his disciples for the coming of the Advocate, the coming of the Holy Spirit, he tells them, “When the Spirit of truth comes…he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears.” As I read this phrase again for the first time, I was reminded of the gift of the Spirit, of the gift of patience, understanding and grace which comes through reflective listening. I was reminded of my undergraduate work in psychology and in particular my study of Carl Rogers’ “client-centered” therapy. For Rogers, reflective listening was a way of restating and clarifying what the other has said, instead of asking questions or telling the other how they feel, what they believe or what they need or want. It is very much a form of not speaking on our own, but instead, speaking whatever the other has shared and said to us. The advantages of doing this are that: the one listening can better understand the other, it can help the other clarify their thoughts, and it can reassure the other that someone cares. So, when the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak on its own but speak whatever it hears, through this reflective listening, we are better understood, our thoughts can find some clarity, and we are more reassured that the Spirit cares. Again, God’s Holy Spirit provides us with the ultimate example of how to communicate with each other, not by speaking on our own, by ourselves and for ourselves, but though our speaking in our listening and care and concern for others.

And finally, the last phrase comes from today’s letter from Paul to the Romans. In that letter, in our lesson, Paul reminds the Romans and us that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” and that “that very Spirit intercedes [for us] with sighs too deep for words.” Here, I’m reminded that sometimes, even Herculean efforts to communicate well through written and spoken language fall short. We may try to meet people where they are but be unable to. We may do our best to listen with open minds and hearts and to reflect to others our care and compassion for them but even still ultimately fail. Yet, as St Paul reminds us, there is always still available to us the sigh which is too deep for words. It can be a sigh, a stillness, a slowing of the breath, a sitting with, a presence. When we are cut off from God and each other and all words seem empty, or sometimes don’t even come at all, there is always still the Holy Spirit’s silent sigh. In death or discord, when the spoke word has ceased and anger or great sadness have taken its place, the Holy Spirit still comes to sit with us and others. When all other communication seemingly fails, God’s Holy Spirit provides us with the ultimate example of how to continue to communicate with each other, not through prose but through presence.

While scripture inspires us with three very powerful images and metaphors for the Holy Spirit in the substances of wind, fire and water, it also teaches us the true power to be found in God’s Spirit as it guides and holds us in relationship, both with God and with one another. To wind, fire and water we can add the Spirit’s ability to meet people where they are, to truly hear and care about what people are saying, and if nothing else, to sigh and sit with people in their greatest need. This is the Spirit’s ability and with the coming of Pentecost, it is our gift and our calling as well. This Pentecost, will we seek to meet others where they are and not where we want them to be? Will we seek to speak their language and not our own? This Pentecost, will we seek to actively and reflectively listen to others in their deepest cares and concerns? Will we speak what we hear or will our ears be plugged by our own agendas? This Pentecost, will we seek to, when all else fails, sigh and sit and be present even still in fellowship and in worship with those we feel alienated and apart from? Will we allow the Spirit in in times of weakness? Amen.

Sermon: Easter 7

2009-06-02T09:39:00.000-04:00

Wisdom as the Way
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Easter 7, Year B (RCL)
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

First, a joke to get us started on this glorious Sunday morning: Why did the Episcopalian cross the road? He didn’t, he stopped in the middle. Since the birth of the Church of England, Anglicanism, and the Episcopal Church, our church and our faith has been referred to as the “via media” or “the middle way” between Catholicism and Protestantism. Those who are more “high church” often times jokingly call themselves “Catholic Lite”, while those tending to be more “low church” many times jokingly refer to themselves as “Protestants with Prayer Books”. From its conception, Anglicanism has made its mark by holding dichotomies in tension through the bonds of common worship; through the glue of our Book of Common Prayer. Even today, though we are far removed in time and place from the Reformation, our church and our faith continues to hold differences in tension; seeking a middle way between our diversity and God’s unity.

This last week, as I read and reflected upon today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles and the calling of Matthias, I was reminded of the via media, of the middle way. Looking closely at the scene, we find a tension among the once twelve. Judas of course has left them. Now, the remaining eleven apostles find themselves with the difficult task of calling another one of their own. Jesus himself had called each and every one of them originally. Now they had to fill his shoes, so to speak, and make the same difficult decision on their own. How do they go about making this decision? Interestingly enough, by choosing the middle way. It is not enough that they democratically elect one of their own to take Judas’ place. Nor is it sufficient that they should leave this decision entirely up to God. It would be highly irresponsible for them to allow just anyone to take Judas’ place, not to mention uncaring. Instead, they take the best from both worlds; they decide to narrow it down to two names through their own discernment process, yet put the ultimate decision as to who becomes the thirteenth apostle into God’s hands by casting lots.

Through traversing this via media, this middle way, the apostles avoid the dangers lying in wait at both ends of the spectrum. They, even more so than we, knew the story of Job. They knew what God’s response would be should they make this decision on their own, live on their own, act as if they had the ultimate power and authority in naming the next apostle. Surely they remembered God’s question to Job, “Shall a fault-finder contend with the Almighty?” And Job’s reply, “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.” It must have been clear to them that calling on God’s spirit to guide them at some point in this process was the right thing to do, even though Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit was still days, perhaps weeks or months away.

Yet at the same time, they also didn’t go to the other extreme and completely dismiss their own God-given ability and gift of discernment. They didn’t just leave it all up to God and in so doing, sacrifice their own stengths and skills and responsibilities. Here, I’m reminded of a story I once heard about the dangers of waiting on God to act definitively, all the while ignoring God at work through the people and in the small stuff of our lives. There once was a horrific flood that overtook a small town. At first, the waters had spilled over the riverbanks and left only an inch or two of water in the street. A police office drove by a man standing outside of his house on his front porch. ‘Sir, you should be gathering your things and leaving your home. The water is supposed to get much higher.’ To this he replied, ‘Oh I’m not worried, God will take care of it.’ Hours later, the water had risen to the roofline of his house. Emergency workers in a boat passed by and saw the man sitting on the rooftop. They called out, ‘Sir, you need to leave your home immediately. Please, come aboard and go with us.’ Again, he replied, ‘I’m okay. I’m praying that God will save me.’ Finally, as it was getting on towards evening, the water had now all but engulfed the house. National disaster relief workers flew over the house in a helicopter, throwing the man a rope ladder. Screaming at him over the noise of the blades cutting the air they demanded, ‘Sir, if you don’t come with us right now you will surely die.’ Once again he replied, ‘God will be coming any second now, I just know it.’ As the helicopter flew off, the waves crashed around the man and he drowned. Up in heaven, he asked God, ‘I had faith and I prayed and I trusted you, why didn’t you save me?’ To this God said, ‘I sent you an officer in a car, emergency workers in a boat, and even disaster relief workers in a helicopter. What more did you want?’ The point of the story – that most times God works through us and our neighbors and not by divine intervention; we can’t just solely count on the casting of lots but must us our gifts and our skills as well to guide us along the way.

Through this process by which Matthias was added to the eleven, the apostles set a precedent and teach the early church and us to value the balance between our own abilities and insights and the Spirit of God that surrounds us and moves beyond us. It is not an either/or proposition where we must choose between our own will and God’s will for our lives. No, it is a both/and process where we use all of the tools at our disposal yet ultimately, after engaging our intellect, our intuition and each other, turn the final decision over to God. The apostles in today’s lesson teach us that we can do something, but not everything; that we can make a difference, but not the ultimate difference; that all things are possible only if we work towards them with God’s help. We hear this time and again in our own Baptismal Covenant. ‘Will you seek and serve Christ in all people, loving your neighbor as yourselves?’ ‘I will, with God’s help.’ We can do it, God can do, but we must rely on each other’s help; we must remain in constant relationship with each other in order to move ahead and in order to make difficult decisions.

One of the greatest prayers ever written, the Serenity Prayer, echoes this relationship between our will and God’s help. The prayer tells us that it is in using our intellect and abilities to do what we can do, changing the things we can, while at the very same time praying to God and casting the lots of life, accepting the things we cannot change; that it is in following this middle way that we find peace of mind and heart. The Serenity Prayer holds in tension those things we can control and those things we cannot; our need to do what we can do and then our need to turn the rest over to God. It is indeed a delicate balance, a balance which we find the apostles striving to achieve in today’s lesson from Acts as they work to control the selection process, stating that the person chosen must have “accompanied [them] during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among [them]”, but then ultimately turn the entire process over to God as they “cast lots for them.” The apostles had the courage to make decisions but also the serenity to accept God’s ultimate decision. They walked the middle way of the Serenity Prayer. It is no wonder then that Matthias, the thirteen apostle who was chosen through this process, is in the Roman Catholic tradition the patron saint of recovering alcoholics.

Today, may we pray for wisdom; wisdom to know the difference, wisdom to know where we stop and where God starts. For that word, ‘wisdom’, even in and of itself is filled with this very same tension between creator and created. For wisdom can be defined as having accumulated learning or knowledge; wisdom has to do with what we can do. Yet is can also be defined as discernment and gaining insight; wisdom has to do with what God can do through us. So to be wise then is to inherently walk this middle way. Today, may this via media be our path and may wisdom be our guide. Today, may we do all that we can and be all that we are, but then get out of the way so that God can work in and through us. Amen.

Sermon: Lent 4

2009-03-23T17:32:00.002-04:00

The Mystery Behind The Mystery
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Lent 4, Year B (RCL)
John 3:14-21

Jesus said, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

So there they are, wandering in the wilderness, wondering where on earth they are going, getting tired, tired of the same old food God has been providing to them all along. 'Oh, great, more manna from heaven. Yum!' they mock. They are sore, they are impatient, they turn to focus on their own pain, their own problems, their own misfortune. And then it happens. Snakes are everywhere. People are getting bitten, repeatedly. Sharp, painful, hungry bites. Some are terribly weakened and thrown off course by the bites. Others die. A generation dying in the wilderness, never to see the promised land they had envisioned. A wrath from God perhaps? How could it not be. God led them out here in the first place, God provided them with this stinking food to eat, and now it seems as if God has sent these snakes to torment and kill them.

Not knowing what to do, the people come to Moses to say they're sorry and to ask him to ask God to stop this madness. So Moses prays to God and God tells him, "Make a poisonous serpent [out of bronze], and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses, being the faithful servant that he is, does just this; he makes a serpent out of bronze, puts it on a pole, and whenever a snake bits someone, that person looks at the serpent of bronze and lives.

Its a strange story, though a powerful one. Its a story of transformation, of those things that are being cast down once again being raised up. Its a story which turns life on its head, with all of its pain and loss and misery. How ironic that it is a bronzed image of the very same thing that is hurting them, killing them, that leads to their salvation? How strange that an apparent idol to their pain can lead to health and healing? How bizarre that focusing on the snakes around you will kill you, while drawing your attention to the serpent on the staff will keep you alive? The bronzed serpent itself could easily become the focus of their attention, of our attention, for that is what they must gaze upon. The murderous ways of the serpent could be glorified. The bronzed serpent in and of itself could become an idol, a god, a cult right there in the wilderness; a cult of pain, of suffering, of death.

Yet that doesn't happen. The bronzed serpent isn't the true focus, though it is meant to hold their gaze. What matters is not so much the mystery of the serpent on the staff. Rather, what matters, and matters immensely, is the mystery behind the mystery. What is important is not the redeeming value of the bronzed serpent in and of itself, but instead, the transformation which occurs through a shift in focus; from looking towards the snakes on the ground to lifting up one's eyes to the hills, to the serpent on the staff, to the world outside of our box, to the greater good of God which surrounds us, encompasses us, and dwells within us. The bronzed serpent is a distraction, a point of focus, an opportunity for us to see beyond ourselves; to hold in tension the snake that bites us while at the same time focusing on the serpent that redeems us.

Jewish rabbis throughout the years have held this truth; that it is not the snake in the story that is important, but rather, that it is what our looking at the raised bronzed serpent on the staff causes us to do. The Hebrew Mishnah Rosh Hashanah explains: "Does the serpent either kill or sustain life? Rather whenever Israel looked upward and submitted their heart to their Father in heaven, they were healed." Likewise, the Wisdom of Solomon tells us that, "the one who turned toward [the snake] was saved, not by the thing that was beheld, but by you, the Savior of all."

The purpose of the bronzed serpent is not for worship, but to bring the snakes on the ground which dwell in the darkness, to bring those snakes into the light; to lift them up, to exalt them, not because of what they are, but because of our faith in what God can and will do with them. In our Gospel for today, Jesus says, "For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God." The bronzed serpent is a symbol of our sins being brought into the light; being transformed from shortcomings into opportunities for repentance, for growth and for renewal.

It is a strange story indeed, just as strange as the story of the Son of God being killed on a cross. Yet it is a powerful story too, just as powerful as Christ's forgiveness of us, of God's love for us when we raise our heads from the depths of despair to the embrace of Christ's crucified, outstretched arms. So we return to our Gospel and to Jesus' words, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." Jesus is that very same serpent, the cross is that very same staff. Should we focus solely on the death and crucifixion of Christ, on the fact that the bronzed serpent is the image of that very same snake that bit us, the torture and pain in and of itself could become an idol.

Yet this is not the point. As with the bronzed serpent, the cross is meant to hold our gaze; to help us to look beyond ourselves and what we have done or left undone and instead, to focus our attention and lives upon what God has done and continues to do for us. What truly matters is the mystery behind the mystery; the transformation which occurs when we lift up our heads to see beyond ourselves, our sins, our murderous ways, our own death and demise. Just as snakes surrounded the Israelites in the wilderness and a bronzed serpent on a staff led to their healing, today, we are surrounded by torture and murder and pain in our world and a glorified Christ on the cross leads to our healing.

Just as the purpose of the bronzed serpent on the staff was not for worship, so too is the purpose of Christ on the cross not for worship. Christ's calling to the cross was to bring the snakes on the ground which dwell in darkness into to the light, so to speak. On the cross, Jesus drew all people to himself; he held all of the snakes and sins of the world in his arms, in his hands and lifted them up into the light for all the world to see, that we might not so much gaze upon our sin but rather bask in the light of new life, of new promise, of new hope. That we might look towards the mystery behind the mystery.

Yet this is hardly an easy thing to do; to focus on the mystery behind the mystery, to focus on God's outstretched yet distant hands when snakes are coiling around your arms, your legs, your life. Like with the mighty boa constrictor that wraps and squeezes out life, feeling in parts of the body can be lost, attention diverted, our own survival made our sole focus. Should someone ask us to look over hear, to move on, to leave that for a while, who of us could easily walk away? Not I. My own pain is primary. I need to watch and be on guard again the strike of the rattlesnake. I have no time for diverted attention.

Yet, ironically, this is how we are healed. By stopping. By looking up. By trusting that if we lay our own pain aside for a while to look upon the healing to come, that we will be made well. When we can trust nothing else in our lives, the security of our jobs, the stability of our families, the future of our government, God calls us to raise our heads and to look beyond the snakes to the healing serpent, beyond the pain of our sins to the salvation of the cross.

So when you find yourself this Lent beaten down and bitten by the uncertainties and pain of life, remember to look up. For when we look up, usually we are saved by that very act of faith, for it is when we look down and struggle with what is tormenting us that we empower it by the very attention we give it. Remember to look up. Remember that God takes your serpents and your sins and transforms them; transforms them from places of pain to opportunities for growth. Amen.

40 - A Lenten Favorite

2009-02-28T20:56:00.001-05:00

Sermon: Ash Wednesday

2009-02-25T11:26:00.000-05:00

God’s Dust
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ash Wednesday, Year B (RCL)
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” It’s an age-old question. Does a tree falling in the forest need our ears to hear it fall, or can it stand on its own, fall on its own, making a sound as it falls whether or not we’re around? Does the sound of a tree falling in the forest depend on us, or does it depend on God? The question holds our attention because we can never know the answer, at least through empirical means. If we aren’t around to hear it, then necessarily it won’t make a sound. However, we can know the answer to this age-old question if we shift our focus off of ourselves and on to God. Another question to ask is: Does sound depend on us, or does it depend on the God of creation, who caused the tree to fall, who caused the first sound to sing out, who causes all vibrations that roll through the atmosphere. It seems to me that how we answer this question has less to do with the tree in the forest and more to do with where we place ourselves within the endless bounty of creation.

For our Gospel lesson this afternoon/evening, an equally valid question may be: ‘If a Christian practices his or her piety in private and no one is around to see it, does it much matter?’ While at first glance it may seem that Jesus is trying to make the point here that private piety is preferable to public piety, I believe that the Gospel goes much deeper than that. It seems to me that while Jesus is indeed taking about public piety done at the expense of private piety, beyond that, he’s also talking about what we value; about where we put our faith. Do we value being recognized by others more than being recognized by God? Do we have more faith in what others think of us than in what God thinks of us? It seems to me that Jesus is warning us, not so much of the dangers of public piety, but of the dangers of our caring too much about what others think of us and of our caring too much about what we think of ourselves. Jesus is warning us not to fool ourselves into believing that the tree falling in the forest depends on our hearing; he’s warning us not to trick ourselves into believing that God’s love for us depends on our own self-esteem or on the esteem coming from others.

In today’s Gospel, I believe that Jesus is trying to teach us that our piety, our almsgiving, our prayers, our fasting, even our faith, that none of this depends on us; none of it depends on how holy others perceive us to be, none of it depends on how pious we believe ourselves to be. No, our piety, our almsgiving, our prayers, our fasting, our faith, all of it depends on God. When we give alms, it is not because we are naturally generous people, though there may be some truth to this. Rather, when we give alms it is because of what we have already received. When we feel that we have been blessed with an abundance, it is only then that we learn to give abundantly. And when we pray, it is not because we are naturally people of prayer, though this may be the case. Instead, we pray because we were prayed into being. When the universe was a void, God created the earth, God created light and life, and finally, God created human beings, God created you and me. Why? Because it was God’s will, it was God’s prayer that we be made, to please God, to work with God, to learn to love as God loves us. And when we fast, it is not because we are naturally people of great fortitude and endurance, though some of us may be. But no, when we fast, we fast to remember what it is we truly hunger and thirst for. When we fast we once again find ourselves prayerfully asking God to give us today our daily bread; to send us manna down from heaven, not of our own creating, but manna created through the outpouring of God’s love.

Today is Ash Wednesday. It is the one day of the liturgical year when we come to church, have ashes rubbed across our foreheads, and are told that we have come from dust and will one day again return to dust. Through a surface reading of today’s Gospel, we might be perplexed, that on the one day of the church year when we are marked with highly visible signs of our piety and our faith, we hear a Gospel lesson rebuking us not to practice our piety in public. However, if we understand our Gospel lesson for today on a deeper level, understanding that it doesn’t have as much to do with publicity as it has to do with our priorities, it becomes clear. Ash Wednesday is the day when we remember that all that we have and all that we are has nothing to do with us and our piety. Instead, it has everything to do with God, with God’s grace, with God’s love of us. We are dust. It was God who gathered the dust at creation, formed it, and breathed it into being. Ash Wednesday isn’t the day when we remember that we are bad and relive all of our sins. It’s the day when we remember that we are loved, that we were loved into being out of dust, and that nothing, not even our faults, not even our false piety, not even our failures will be able to take that love away.

This year more than any other year that I can remember, I’m ready for Lent. I’m ready to be smeared with its ashes. Sounds strange, right? Why is that? Why am I ready for Lent? Because at a time in my life when I feel more anxious than ever that the future relies on me and what I may or may not do, what I may or may not say, I desperately long to be reminded that I am not in charge, that I am not in control, that my life is not the center of the universe, that life will indeed go on. I desperately need to remember that I am dust; that in my attempts to control the future, I am dust; that in and of myself, I am dust; that without God, I am dust. Yet even still, I am dust. I am the dust God breathed into at creation. I am the dust that lives and moves and has its being in order to help and serve others and therein glorify God. I am the dust, I am God’s dust. Not just some run-of-the-mill dust collecting under the couch, but God’s dust. Dust infused with life, dust infused with love, dust infused with grace. I am, we are, God’s dust.

Today, this Ash Wednesday, as you are smeared with ashes, as the constancy of your being is mixed with oil and rubbed across your forehead, I invite you to forget yourself, to forget how the world sees you, to forget how you see yourself, whether as the best there is or the worst to come, I invite you forget all of this and to remember instead. To remember the God of the universe who created that tree that falls in the forest, to remember the God of creation who formed us out of the dust of the earth, to remember the God, our God, your God who loves you even in your humanity, even in your frailty, even through your sins, even as his prophet, his son is nailed to a tree. This Ash Wednesday, I invite you to forget about personal piety and instead, to remember who you are by recalling whose you are. Amen.

Sermon: Epiphany 4

2009-02-01T15:23:00.001-05:00

Not What We Know, Not What We Do, But Who We Are.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Epiphany 4, Year B (RCL)
1 Corinthians 8:1-13

While I generally preach on the Gospel each Sunday, this week I simply couldn’t ignore St Paul’s words in his first letter to the Corinthians. He writes, “Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.” Powerful words by Paul; that it is not what we know that makes us knowledgeable, but rather, it is how we are known by God that gives us true knowledge, that makes us wise. Powerful words indeed. Paul then goes on to talk at length about the eating of food offered to idols. While he speaks volumes on the matter, his main point is basically this; that it is not where we eat or what we do or how we act that makes us close to God; that makes us holy. No, it is our simply eating and doing and acting with others, it is our being present with others even in our differences, it is this that makes us holy. In short, Paul tells us: It’s not what we know, it’s how we are known. It’s not what we do, it’s what we do with and for others.

Paul wrote these words to the parishioners at the church in Corinth because they needed to be heard. There were divisions in that church; divisions because of knowledge, divisions because of ritual. Paul wrote to them because they desperately needed to be reminded that knowledge does not make one superior to another, but rather, seeks to build the other up. He wrote to them because they needed to be reminded that ritual does not bring us closer to God by pushing others further away, but by pulling them closer to us, even if we ourselves must make sacrifices in order for this to happen.

These words could just as easily be applied to the church and times of today as they were some 2000 years ago. Before being called to St James, I had to write a resume. Having lived my whole life in school, this was new to me, so I called on some of my best friends and colleagues for help. Shifting through virtual piles of sample resumes, it was quickly made clear that two items of information were essential to any good resume; the litany of educational credentials and the listing of past work experience. It was clear that the best way to introduce oneself on paper was to start with how knowledgeable you are, followed by how much you’ve done in your life.

As it is for the church, so it is for society in general, even more so in fact. Where you went to school is essential. While at seminary in New York, I had a friend who was at the time a paralegal for a large law firm there in the city. He once shared with me that one of the first steps in the hiring process at that firm was to discard all of those applicants that hadn’t attended one of the Ivy League schools. And its not just schools; our past work history is important too. I’ve known colleagues of mine who haven’t gotten positions because they were under-qualified, and some who have even been over-qualified, whatever that means.

The world continues to tell us that it is what we know, that it is what we do or have done, that makes us who we are. Yet St Paul tells us otherwise. Just as the church in Corinth needed to hear Paul’s words, so too do we need to hear those same words for us today. We need to be constantly reminded that for God, what we know isn’t as important as if God knows us; isn’t as important as if we love God and our neighbor. We need to be constantly reminded that for God, what we do or have done isn’t as important as what God has done for us, and what we do for others in response to God’s grace. Rather than writing on our resumes what we know from school, Paul would have us to write what we know of God’s love. Rather than writing what we’ve accomplished in life, Paul would have us to write what God has accomplished through us. The Christian resume is not filled with the best schools and the greatest amount of experience; it is not filled with who we are in and of ourselves. It is filled with who we are in relationship to one another and to God. Our resume is not our own. It is communal, it is inclusive, it is holy.

A few weeks ago I was talking with a former parishioner who had just lost his job. He had walked his child to school that morning, as had I, and we found ourselves standing side by side chatting. I ask him about how his family is doing and we catch up a bit. He shares with me that he just lost his job a few days prior. It seems that he’s very eager to share this with me, as if he needs somebody else to know, someone to help him do some networking. The bell rings. Single-file lines of kids leave the gym in one direction, busy parents walk back to their cars the other way. I begin to leave to head back to the church and notice that he seems to be sticking around, slow to leave, slow to get motivated.

As I walk home, I think about what it must be like to be without work, to be without one’s identity in some way. In a world that constantly tells us that what we know, that what we do makes us who me are, I wonder where that leaves us once our knowledge and experience are no longer needed. I can only hazard a guess that it leaves us on the outside of the walls of community, looking back in; that it leaves us without purpose, without identity, without meaning. Then I wonder, ‘Where does this leave us within the church, within the Christian community?” The answer: right there in the middle of it all; right there at the center, where we can be cared for and loved and supported. For our purpose, our identity, our meaning in life comes not from what we do. No, it comes from who we are, it comes from whose we are, it comes from the fact that we are beloved children of God. Not even IBM, or anyone else for that matter, can take that away.

These words from St Paul in his letter to the Corinthians are powerful in that they call us to imagine; to imagine a different life, a different society, a different social structure, to imagine a new Jerusalem, a new world where people are valued not by what they produce but because of who they are, that they are beloved children of God. These words are so very powerful because they call us back together, back into community, back to one another. We have become too alienated from each other, too separated by the perceived value of our work, too separated by pieces of paper with credentials. We have spent far too much time and far too many resources puffing ourselves up and not enough of either to build ourselves up. Paul’s words present us with a new path; a path which allows for personal liberty but never at the expense of others. For him and for us, the greater good is not that we are knowledgeable, experienced, proper or pious, it is that we care for one another so completely, so faithfully, that we are willing to give of ourselves in order to prevent others from stumbling; in order to lift others up. Amen.

Sermon: Epiphany 3

2009-01-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

Top 10
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Epiphany 3, Year B (RCL)
Mark 1:14-20

Sometimes, we just have those kinds of week. Well, this last week was one of those weeks for me, so instead of writing your typical sermon, in the spirit of David Letterman, I’d like to share with you all my Top 10 list…

Top 10 things I learned this week which I’d like to share with you:

#10 Deficits are opportunities waiting to happen.

#9 From the wise words of Desmond Tutu:
“God didn’t say, ‘Like your enemy.’ It’s very difficult to like your enemy. But to love your enemies is different. Love is an act of will, where you act lovingly even if you do not always feel loving. We tend to think love is a feeling, but it is not.”

#8 Talking over coffee is better than a phone call which is better still than an email. (Thanks Jeff for the coffee and conversation this week.)

#7 Sr. Wardens are angels masquerading as parishioners.

#6 Having a good therapist is essential to living a good life.

#5 There’s no better way to get to know someone than to have a meal with them in their home. (Thank you Chuck and Joyce for your incredible hospitality).

#4 From the wise words of Bishop Robinson, as he prayed for our new President Barack Obama at the Opening Inaugural Event this past week:
“Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.” (I really needed to hear this one).

#3 True friends don’t tell you what you want to hear, they tell you what you need to hear. (Thanks Bob).

#2 Having the honor of being present with someone you love and care about in their final days on this earth is truly a gift from God and an experience beyond compare. (May Ron’s soul, by the grace of God, rest in peace).

And the number one thing I learned this week…

#1 Being present with parishioners always trumps a well-researched, well-written sermon.

+Gene Robinson's Prayer for President-elect Barack Obama

2009-01-19T21:36:00.001-05:00

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington , DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington ! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States .

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln ’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States .

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

St James 2009 Christmas Pageant

2009-01-04T21:38:00.001-05:00

Thanks Jenny for the awesome video!

Beyond Our Differences

2008-12-27T09:19:00.008-05:00

Go here (www.beyondourdifferences.com) to view the trailer for this wonderful new film!

Sermon: Christmas Eve

2008-12-27T09:09:00.002-05:00

An Incarnation of Imperfection
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas Eve, Year B (RCL)
Luke 2:1-20

When I was a kid growing up, Christmas was as much about perfection as it was about the coming of Christ. Whether she wanted to or not, my mom always felt that she needed to make sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, a green bean casserole, another casserole, a ham, a salad, a cake, cookies and pies. Inevitably it would happen. While trying to do ten things at once, she’d burn something. She’d burn something and the kitchen would be filled with smoke and my mom would end up disappointed, frustrated and crying. For the Christmas meal, everything had to be just right; everything had to be perfect. My mom would bring out the best dishes, her finest table cloth, polish all of the silver, make sure that everything was in its place and that everything was as good, if not better than, it was the year before. While I carry with me many joyful memories of Christmases gone by, those haunting memories of everything having to be ‘just so’ or else Christmas would be ruined, those memories have stayed with me as well.

I also remember the pressure, the anxiety, the stress that came with getting just the right gift for that special someone. Nothing ordinary would do. In our family gifts were like fingerprints; there was only one perfect match per person. Buy the wrong gift and you’re sure to disappoint was the message that I heard from my family then, and still hear even today, though now through advertisements on television and not from those closest to me. Buy just the right gift, the perfect gift, and you’re sure to make this the best Christmas ever. So very much is wrapped up into our expectations of giving and getting. One year when I was in high school I told my family that I didn’t want to exchange gifts for Christmas; that instead, I just wanted to be with all of them in church on Christmas Eve. Come Christmas morning, I still got a gift from everyone, along with the expectation that they’d be getting a gift from me in return, and the disappointment when that gift never came. Needless to say, that wasn’t the perfect Christmas either.

I’m also reminded of the expectation, the pressure, the perfectionism that goes into picking out just the right Christmas cards, writing just the right message in them, and mailing them on just the right date so that they don’t get there too early or too late. In so many ways it seemed like a game. I remember my mother being horrified when we received a Christmas card from someone who was not on her list. She would start a small pile in a corner on the kitchen counter where she’d collect return address labels so that she could add these names and addresses to her Christmas card list for next year. The following Christmas she’d inevitably mail out even more cards to even more people. Some of the names I didn’t even know. Heck, some of the names she didn’t even remember. She had just been sending them Christmas cards for years, and well, this was just another year.

Aside from the perfect Christmas dinner, the perfect Christmas gifts, and the perfect Christmas cards, there was and is always the perfect Christmas attitude as well. Much to my dismay, we vilify Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch, at least until they come to their senses and into the fullness of the Christmas spirit of joy, happiness and glee that we’re all supposed to feel. This is the time of year when our attitudes are most on display and up for evaluation. As we all know, Santa is making a list and checking it twice, trying to find out who’s been naughty or nice. And if you’ve been naughty… watch out, for you might just get a lump of coal in your stocking. It’s at Christmas more than any other time of the year that we try our best to be perfect in our attitude and in our actions; that we try to be on our best behavior when dealing with others. It’s at Christmas that God returns to his judgment seat and we plaster on plastic smiles and perfection in the hope that we’ll somehow be good enough to earn a front row seat to the birth of the Christ child.

Yet in reality, all of this yearning for perfection smacks in the face of God. For the first Christmas wasn’t about perfection at all. Rather than being perfect, the birth of Jesus on that first Christmas day was imperfect and ordinary, it was ill-timed and unfortunate, it was as far from normal, happy, and perfect as the mind can imagine. According to Jewish norms and customs, Mary wasn’t supposed to be pregnant, but she was. Joseph and Mary should have been married, but they weren’t. It would have been best if the birth had taken place in Nazareth instead of them having to trek for miles and miles to Bethlehem, but it didn’t. The inn would have been the perfect place to give birth, but it didn’t work out. In each and every part of the nativity story, we don’t find perfection but rather its antithesis. Given all of the actors in this play, we’d be hard pressed to say that anyone got it right; that anyone did things perfectly.

It was into this imperfection that God was born and came to live among us. In the world’s greatest twist of affairs, God stumps us and elects to be born not into our perfection, but rather, into our mistakes, into our failures, into all those things that we seemingly run from come this time of year. In all of our best attempts to separate our perfect-selves from our flawed-selves, in all of our attempts to build ivory towers and elevate ourselves from our own humanity, God laughs and comes to us through all of the guilt and the blame and the shame which cover our lives. God takes our worst case scenario and calls it his own. As we rush to make the perfect meal, buy the perfect gift, select the perfect card, put on the perfect attitude, God sits and waits for the time when we will surely fail and will need healing, comfort, and support. God sits and waits for the the time when we will crumble and fall, then comes to us to pick us back up.

This is the meaning of Christmas; this is the greatest gift of all. Christmas is not about our doing things perfectly. It’s not about our becoming more like God. Instead, Christmas is about what God does for us. It’s about God choosing to become more like us. Ultimately, Christmas doesn’t depend on us at all; none of us can ruin Christmas or delay its coming. Christmas was God’s decision, was God’s gift to us and not something we make manifest through our perfectionistic ways. If we think that our getting presents or lumps of coal depends on how good we’ve been, if we think that God’s love of us and approval of us and even our salvation depends on our own merit, then we’re horribly, horribly mistaken. God’s love is a gift which will never depend on us, but instead comes to us freely because we depend on God.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of the prodigal son. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a story about a father and his two sons. After the father has given them both their inheritance, the oldest son invests it wisely and chooses to stay with his father and to continue to help out on the family farm. The younger son, in contrast, moves to Vegas, blows all of his money in bars and casinos and becomes homeless. After a while, the younger son realizes that he’s made his fair share of mistakes in life and returns home since he needs some food and a place to stay. As he pulls into the drive, the father sees him from the window and runs out to meet him. Throwing his arms around him he tells him “welcome home” and then throws him a huge party. The older son takes his father aside and asks why the party isn’t for him, since he’s the responsible one. He’s always been faithful to his father; he’s always been perfect, so he’s the one who should get the party, not his screw-up of a younger brother. To this the father replies to his older son, “Son, you have always been with me. But your younger brother, he was lost and now is found.”

As I think about our posture as we enter into the Christmas season, it occurs to me that it isn’t that of the older, more responsible brother—although we may sometimes fool ourselves into believing that this is the case. To the contrary, it’s that of the prodigal son. As we enter into Bethlehem and approach the manger, God sees us when we are still far off and runs out to greet us through the incarnation. The birth of the Christ child, the incarnation isn’t primarily for the older, perfect brother, it’s for the prodigal son; it’s for you and me as we struggle through life and come to fully realize our weaknesses, our flaws, our need of God’s care and compassion, our need of God’s care. As Jesus, the great physician once said, “Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick.” We are sick, we aren’t well, we are frail and fragile and break from time to time, we aren’t perfect. Yet ironically, this is what makes us the perfect vessels for God’s grace and love. Because we are lost we have been found.

This Christmas, I invite you to be yourself in all of your humble humanity, and to enjoy this holiday season, knowing that your perfect or imperfect Christmas won’t change the world. For God already changed the world that first Christmas, that best Christmas, with the birth of the Christ child. This Christmas, don’t worry about others unrealistic expectations of you; don’t even worry about your unrealistic expectations of yourself. Instead, know that God’s love and grace comes with no expectations, with no conditions. This Christmas, don’t give but receive; receive that unconditional love which became a part of your DNA that first Christmas day when Christ was born. Amen.

Sermon: Advent 4

2008-12-21T07:35:00.000-05:00

Birth through Growth
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Advent 4, Year B (RCL)
Luke 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel came and said to her, “Nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary replied, saying, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Throughout history, the church has portrayed Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a woman of deep faith with an unwavering willingness to follow God’s path for her life. When the angel of the Lord comes upon her, she simply replies, ‘Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ A few lines later in the Gospel of Luke, Mary greets her pregnant cousin Elizabeth, and in so doing, John the Baptist jumps in Elizabeth’s womb. Elizabeth then praises Mary for her great faith, and Mary, in response, sings the ‘Magnificat’, or the Song of Mary, which among other things touts her own great faith and willingness to give birth to the Christ child. Mary sings aloud, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord… My spirit rejoices in God my savior… From henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed… For he that is mighty has magnified me.’ Through her joyous song, Mary’s faith in magnifying the Lord, in rejoicing in God, is clear. Through her charismatic canticle, Mary’s willingness to follow and magnify God through all generations is announced to the world for all to hear.

Yet in our Gospel for today, it is also worth noting that, while eventually strong in faith and firm in her following of the Spirit, Mary began her journey in a place of both panicked fear and insecure doubt. When greeted by the angel Gabriel, she is perplexed, confused, she ponders, she fears, she’s lost in the unknown of the moment. Is this really an angel of the Lord? Will this thing hurt me? What will happen next? Am I safe? Then, after approaching her fear, when told by the messenger of her calling in life, she doubts, she sees what she is not, she becomes what she lacks, she questions herself and what she can do, who she can become. ‘I am only a virgin’, she thinks. ‘I am only a young girl’ ‘I’m not rich.’ ‘I’m not powerful.’ ‘I can’t do it.’ ‘I don’t have the strength and the skills.’ ‘How could this angel of the Lord have picked me?’ ‘He must have the wrong young maiden.’ Before ever having the voice to sing out her Magnificat to the world, Mary was shrouded in fear and doubt. Before ever living into her calling as the Mother of God, Mary first had to live through the doubts and fears which come with being a child of creation.

So how do we get from Mary the young virgin, filled with fear and doubt, to Mary the Mother of God, filled with faith and confidence in God’s call to her? Take a second to notice in today’s Gospel reading what comes before Mary’s willingness to follow, before her willingness to let go and to let God. The angel Gabriel says to her, “Nothing will be impossible with God.” He doesn’t say that ‘nothing is impossible for God’; he isn’t saying the God can do everything. What he says to Mary is that ‘nothing is impossible with God’, meaning that God can do anything as long as God has us, and that we can do anything as long as we have God. God isn’t doing it ‘for’ us and we aren’t doing it ‘for’ God. No, God is doing it ‘with’ us and we, we are doing it ‘with’ God. It is only once Mary comes to realize that God truly needs her and that, in turn, she truly needs God, it is only then that Mary exclaims, “Here am I… let it be with me according to your word.” Or in other words, ‘Here I am, let me do your will, that our wills may be tied up together in a common purpose, in a common life.’ Later in the Gospels, as Jesus gives his Sermon on the Mount, he prays to his Father in heaven with words that echo Mary’s words in today’s Gospel. He prays, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

In the end, Mary became a woman both of deep faith and great confidence in God’s call to her not because she was perfect, but because she was willing and able, with God’s help, to face her fears and her own self-doubt. She was able to overcome her fear of the angel Gabriel by surrendering to him. She was able to overcome her self-doubt by handing it over to God. Once she was able to let go and let God, only then was she able to give birth to the Christ child; to God in our world. As John the Baptist put it in speaking of his role in relation to Jesus’ role, he said, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ It was only once Mary was able to fully decrease, to fully give her fear and her doubt over to God, it was only then that God was able to increase, to blossom and to flourish and to grow within her.

We too, like Mary, must face our fears and our self-doubts if we are to give birth to the God which lives at the heart of each and every one of us. Like with Mary, God sends messengers to each and every one of us, asking us not to fear, encouraging us to believe in ourselves, telling us again and again that ‘nothing will be impossible with God.’ Everyday, God fills us with these messages, hoping that we like Mary will respond, ‘Here am I… let it be with me according to your word.’ Everyday, God hopes that we will choose to give birth to the goodness and love which is within each and every one of us. Everyday, God dreams that yes, we will acknowledge our own humanity, but so too, that we won’t wallow there, but that we’ll come to recognize our own divinity as well. Every Christmas, Jesus Christ is born yet again into the world, not as the first century Jew we read about in the Gospels, but through those who dare to hope, who dare to believe in God’s call to them, even in the face of fear and even in the darkness of doubt.

This Christmas, God will be born into our world, not in some storied stable somewhere, but in and through our hearts and our actions. God will take our fear and transform it into faith. God will take our doubt and turn it into a doorway leading to our destiny. God will do all of these things because ‘nothing is impossible with God… with God.’ In order for us to see this happen, we must take the next step with God… with God. We must be willing to decrease so that God may increase. We, like Mary, must take all of our fears, all of our guilt, all of our shame, all of our garbage, all of our mistakes, all of our flaws, all of our sins, all of it, we must take all of it and hand it over to God. We must free ourselves from our past in order to move ahead into our future. And we don’t need to be perfect. For we aren’t perfect, and neither was Mary. And we never will be. We just need to be faithful. We need to keep trying, keep handing it over to God, keep striving to live our lives according to God’s word, keep asking that God’s will be done so that God’s kingdom will come. This Christmas, God will be born into our world, not in some storied stable somewhere, but in and through our hearts and our actions. Amen.

Sermon: Advent 3

2008-12-14T07:25:00.001-05:00

The Honesty of Advent
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Advent 3, Year B (RCL)
John 1:6-8,19-28

Then the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” To this John confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” And again they asked him, “Are you the prophet?” Once again he answered, “No.”

I love Advent. It’s one of my favorite seasons. It’s so countercultural. Advent calls us to slow down, to be quite, to confess our sins, to repent, to be mindful of ourselves and others, to wait, and just to simply be. Advent calls us into the stillness of a winter night, even as we are surrounded by the lights and the hustle and the bustle of a Christmas season which is still far off. I love Advent and the spirit of simplicity and humility that it brings. I love hearing the words of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. ‘Who are you?’ they ask of him. ‘Are you the messiah?’ ‘Are you Elijah?’ ‘Are you a prophet?’ ‘Who are you?’ they ask. Hearing these questions, I’m reminded of the question that many small children ask when loved ones come to visit for the holidays. ‘What did you bring us?’ they inquire with great anticipation, with great expectations.

I love John’s response. It’s so honest, so pure, so filled with humility, reverence and grace. John spends the bulk of his breath telling the priests and the Levites who he is not, instead of making any claims or boasts about who he is; that he is the messenger bringing the good news of the Christ child to come. John could have easily claimed that he was more than he was. He could have claimed that he himself was the Messiah. He could have claimed that he himself had come to baptize with the Holy Spirit and not just water. He could have been more prideful of his proclamation; he could have been loud, flashy, charismatic, convincing. But he wasn’t. Instead, he was meek and humble in heart. He didn’t push Christmas, but instead, made way and made room for Advent.

It’s hard to find that kind of honesty, humility and grace in today’s world, especially around this time of year. This last week I was walking through Burlington Town Center and passed by the J. Crew store there. On the glass store front, large red letters said, ‘Give love’ and framed a mannequin dressed in a warm, lambs wool, cable sweater. The next window over read, ‘Give hope’ and it too had a mannequin, this time dressed in a different stylish ensemble. Still other windows spelled out other ‘give’ motifs. I stopped and thought about how many people really think that they are giving love, or giving hope, or giving anything else for that matter, other than the clothing itself, when they give a gift from J. Crew. I thought about how truly deceptive marketing can be when it tells us that we can give something, be something, have something more than what it is we are buying. I thought about how distant the spirit of J. Crew’s marketing campaign is from the spirit of Advent; from the spirit of John the Baptist as he told the priests and the Levites time and again that he was not the Messiah, Elijah, or a prophet, but instead, he was simply one who had come to prepare the way for the Christ child.

I wish Advent was much larger in our world today than it is. But then again, like I’ve already said, Advent is so countercultural. When the world says hurry up, Advent says wait. When the world says you can give love and hope and whatever else in the presents you send off to your friends and family, Advent shifts the focus and instead, calls us as John called us to open ourselves up to receiving the true gifts of love and hope which come through Christ. The honesty of Advent would tell consumers that the sweater from J. Crew they’re getting ready to buy will never give love in and of itself, even though it may in some small way symbolize that. The honesty of Advent would tell holiday shoppers that Christmas isn’t about them and what they get or can give to others, but instead, is about God and what God can and will give to us. The honesty of Advent, like the honesty of John, doesn’t claim to be something it’s not, but rather, points us towards something which is much greater than ourselves, yet something which even in its greatness chooses to become one with us.

Living into the meaning of Advent and the true reason for this season which we find ourselves in today means that we need to be honest with each other; not telling each other what we know the other wants to hear, but speaking the truth in love to one another. Not telling each other what we are and what we can do, but instead, telling each other what we are not and what we need to lean on God for today. In Advent, this is the best place to start; from a place of honesty, humility and grace. Christmas brings with it enough tinsel, lights and wrapping paper to make even the ugliest souls pretty. Advent is free of those things, a face without makeup, a body without clothing, a soul exposed to the elements and beautiful in its simplicity.

In all of this, I’m reminded of a comment made by a parishioner here at St James in response to the parish profile after it had been written. After looking over what the profile stated St James was looking for in a priest, that parishioner commented, “Sounds like we’re looking for Jesus Christ.” This being Advent, and in the spirit of John the Baptist, it may be helpful for me to remind you of who I am not. I am not the Messiah. I cannot save you or this church. I am not Elijah. I am not a prophet. I am very far from perfect. I don’t do well on pedestals. I’m afraid of heights. What I am is human. I try to reach for a better world. I do my best to love people unconditionally and completely. Sometimes I do this really well, other times I don’t. Yet in the end, more than anything else, I strive to be honest, humble and conscious of God’s grace working in my life.

Why am I sharing all of this with you? Because Advent calls me to, Advent calls us to, Advent calls the world to speak the truth in love. And because in the days ahead much more will be expected of me, and much more will be expected of you. As we enter into 2009, many challenges have been set before us. While many things will be needed for us to face the days ahead, none will be needed more than our increased awareness of each other’s goodwill and humanity. I will surely stumble and will ask that you help me get back up. At the same time, you may trip and fall short and need a helping hand as well. If that’s the case, I and others will be there to pick you up. May we, this Advent, hold firm to the spirit of John the Baptist as we enter into a new year, that we may remember that we cannot do it all and that God is there to help us; that we remember that we are not the Messiah but only point to something greater than ourselves to come. Amen.

What I Want For Christmas

2008-12-06T14:28:00.001-05:00

2008-12-01T20:37:00.000-05:00

Sermon: Pentecost 27

2008-11-16T07:26:00.000-05:00

Rich in Faith, Poor in Fear
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Pentecost 27, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 25:14-30

For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

At first glance, it would seem as if today’s Gospel is good news to the rich, but bad news to the poor. In the parable that Jesus tells, the Master rewards those slaves who have become rich by giving them more, while at the same time, he punishes that slave who became poor by taking away even the little that he had. The moral of today’s story seems to be that if you are rich, then God has blessed you with that abundance, and if you are poor, then God has cursed you in your poverty. So then, we must do our best to attract wealth and success, we must work hard to achieve our goals so that we will have more, we must do our best to keep what we have, for in giving we don’t receive, we lose out.

Yet if this is the case, then what do we do with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount? Jesus preached, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” According to today’s Gospel parable, for those who have nothing, even the little that they do have will be taken away. Yet in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contradicts that logic by preaching that the poor—not just the poor in spirit, but the poor—they will be given the kingdom of heaven. In the age to come, those living in poverty will receive the riches of royalty. It would seem then that taking today’ Gospel parable at face value is dangerous; that their must be more to the meaning of what Jesus is trying to tell us.

To get to the heart of what Jesus is saying, I’d like to suggest that we shift our perspective on the parable; that we look at the story through the eyes of those whose faith has made them well, not their finances. I’d like to suggest that this parable isn’t about money at all; that it isn’t about talents, it isn’t about things, it isn’t about how proficient you and I are in our workings with the world. No, this parable is about faith. It’s about our talent in seeking the silver lining to each and every cloud, it’s about our being possessed by the Spirit and not our possessions, it’s about how skilled we are in counting our blessings. This parable isn’t about whether we are rich or poor, it’s about whether we are faithful or fearful, faithful or fear-filled.

Why do I think this? Look at the slave-with-one-talent’s response when the Master comes back to him to settle his account. The slave comes forward and says, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man… so I was afraid….” It isn’t the fact that this slave had so very little that caused him to do nothing. No, it was because this slave believed that his Master was cruel that froze him in fear. This slave could have had one talent, five talents, a million talents and he still would have buried them and hid them in the ground. Whether rich or poor, it was his fear of the Master, his lack of faith in his Master, which brought about his condemnation; which made him lose even the little that he had.

In my short life, I’ve met many a poor person with faith great enough to move mountains, and I’ve also met a handful of rich people with fear so great that it’s led to their own paralysis. I think of the homeless community in Worchester, Mass. that at one of their outdoor street church services last year decided they wanted to take up an offering even though it had never been done before. Deep at the heart of their being, they wanted to give back. Several months later, they had raised over $500 for the ministry there. And not only that, but they also decided to tithe 10% of that money to buy food and make a meal for the area battered women’s shelter; they decided not only to give in faith what little money they had, but also, to give in faith of their time as well. The poor, the homeless, the slave with one talent, giving what they have in faith, not living in fear.

I think too of some of my rich relatives and their fear, not of the Master found in today’s Gospel parable, but of the master of the markets; the master who rules over Wall Street, over their 501K, over their mortgage. I think of how their fear of finances controls their lives, of how they hide and hoard their talents because in their heart of hearts they know that the market can be a harsh master to follow. Because of this fear, they can never have enough; they must save ad infinitum and even then it is not enough. Because of this fear, monetary and spiritual debt is incurred because there is always sometime new to buy, something new to have faith in. Because of this fear, even what they possess they do not own. Instead, their possessions own them; the fear of ever lacking their possessions possesses them. The rich, the well-to-do, the slave with a million talents, hoarding what they have in fear, not living in faith.

Of course, it should go without saying that rich people can be people of great faith too, and yes, that those who are poor, even they can be people of great fear. Like I said, the lesson to be learned from the parable in today’s Gospel isn’t about money at all. Rather, it’s about how we choose to live our lives, either in our abundance or in our poverty; whether we step out in faith regardless of our pocketbooks, or instead choose to regress in fear because of our bank accounts. The Master in Jesus’ parable said, “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” I would paraphrase the Master’s words by saying, ‘For all those who see the world through faith, with the eyes of gratitude, they will appreciate what they already have and have it abundantly; but for those who focus on fear and on what they lack, even what they have will be meaningless.’

As most of you know, today is Stewardship Celebration Sunday here at St James; the day when we formally conclude the annual fall pledge campaign and come together to celebrate our faith in God and our faith in this church, our spiritual home. Like the parable in today’s Gospel, the lesson to be learned as we celebrate today isn’t about money at all. No, it’s about our standing up and standing out in faith as we face the fear of our current financial times. It isn’t about how many talents we have. No, it’s about our having the faith to take those talents and share them with the rest of the world and to the glory of God. Today is my day, our day to say “thank you”, thank you for having faith in St James, thank you for having faith in your fellow parishioners, in your Vestry and in me, your priest, thank you for having faith in our future. Through the eyes of faith, with the eyes of gratitude, let us come to appreciate and celebrate all that we have already been blessed with, that we may have it more abundantly. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 26

2008-11-09T07:19:00.000-05:00

Peak Oil
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Pentecost 26, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 25:1-13

The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’

Everyday, the poor of the world call to us. They say, ‘Give us some of your oil, some of your energy, some of your bread, some of your cars and clothes and lifestyle. Give us the means by which we can support ourselves and our families and survive. Give us light. Give us life.’ Everyday we hear the call, so often that it has become hushed for us, like white noise, like the hum of a fan blowing in the background. Everyday we, the rich of the world, reply, ‘No, no. There isn’t enough for both you and for us. We are the rich, we are the wise, we deserve it, we have earned it, we need it much more than you. Go, go away and fend for yourselves. Go and buy your own oil, your own bread, go and build your own homes, your own countries. Go away and leave us alone.’ And the poor of the world, they’re foolish in that they listen to us, they leave and go away to make lives for themselves; they believe us and try to work hard to get what we have, but they never get there. In striving to survive, the door is shut on them, the door of famine, of disease, of death, of ignorance, of injustice, of inequality. Out looking for oil, they become victims of their own toil; they become victims of our inability to recognize God’s abundance in the world which surrounds us, of our inability to share some of that abundance with them.

God does not close this door on them, we do. Why? Because we fear that there won’t be enough. There won’t be enough oil in the world to feed our addiction to gasoline, there won’t be enough cheap labor in the world to feed our addiction to cheap plastic toys from China, there won’t be enough perfectly ripe oranges from South Africa year round to feed our addiction to our gourmet tastes. There won’t be enough. The gate to the Garden of Eden has been closed and our supply of what we consider truly divine is limited, is finite, is something which we must build bigger barns to store and to stock up on. God’s creation is limited, the resources of our world are limited, everything is limited. We close the door on our neighbor because we are blind to the truth that while the world’s resources are indeed limited, God’s love for us and our love for our neighbor are not. We close the door because we demand that each of us have our own individual lamp instead of pooling our oil together, trimming our common wick, and allowing one single light to burn brightly for all in anticipation of the bridegroom, in anticipation of God’s reign.

As many of you know, the last couple of days I’ve been at Diocesan Convention down in Rutland. The theme of convention this year was the environment and how we can begin to heal our world now. On Friday afternoon, we were blessed to have author and world-renown environmentalist Bill McKibben with us. Bill spoke eloquently about the current state of our planet; about the crash course set before us if we don’t begin to live more simply now. Time and again, Bill shared stories and statistics which pointed to how we as a country have brought ourselves to this current crisis, and sadly, how it will not be us but rather the poor of the world who will pay the price for our excess, for our extravagance, for our energy consumption. He shared with us the plight of the 150 million people living in Bangladesh should things not change between now and the year 2050. We learned that 41 years from now, when my little Emma turns 46, that the whole county of Bangladesh as we now know it will be underwater. And not only there, but also most of Florida, California, coastal New England, lower Manhattan, all will be underwater because of the rising sea levels due to the warming of the earth. Because of our inability to live simply, others will simply no longer be able to live. Because we believe that there is not enough oil for their lamps and ours, their lamps will be extinguished by the rising tides of our selfishness.

As it turns out, the United States is responsible for over 30% of all of the CO2 in the world; all of the carbon dioxide which is killing our plant. Interestingly enough, Bill shared with us that Bangladesh is only responsible for a small fraction of one percent. In fact, the level of CO2 emitted from Bangladesh doesn’t even register on the scale. Who is closing the door to the wedding banquet, who is keeping the poor out and at bay? We are. All of us are by insisting on our current standard of living which continues to pump pollutants into the air and raise the sea level which will eventually drown a nation unless we actively engage in reversing this trend. When will we finally say enough? That we already have enough to live comfortably; that we don’t need more? That the poor of our world have already had enough; that they can’t take anymore of our selfish and hurtful ways? When will we come to see and truly believe that God has already given us all that is necessary for our common life and witness; that we are all we need? When will we come to learn that the light by which we will be recognized at Christ’s second coming is not some lamp of status and brilliance, but an internal, an eternal light which burns within each of us when we seek to sacrifice, when we seek to truly love our neighbor as we have come to so lavishly love ourselves?

If I learned anything this past weekend at convention I learned this, that our care and concern for the state of our planet is just as important for us today as the care and concern for Christ’s second coming was for the early Christians some 2000 years ago. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to form a committee to study all of this and then report back to us at some future date with a plan on how to proceed. No, we must act today, we must act now. We’ve got a good fifteen to twenty years to do something about all this before it’s too late. Globally speaking, that’s very little time to educate, to empower, to act. In our new president’s first term, it will be up to you and me to see to it that public policy changes in such a way as to support reversing this trend of the warming of our planet. And not only politically but socially we’ll need to change our habits as well. On a national level, we’ll need to consuming less, be in community more, remember once again what it truly means to depend on one another, support one another, love one another at the local level. We will be asked if we can give some of our oil, some of our resources to those without. And we will have to answer, ‘yes’, yes we will share, yes there will be enough, yes we will love our neighbors as ourselves, yes we will have the patience and the courage and the faith to give beyond ourselves. Yes we can, yes we will make the sacrifices necessary for ourselves, for our neighbors, for our planet. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 24

2008-10-26T07:25:00.001-04:00

The Priorities of Love
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Pentecost 24, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 22:34-46

Jesus said, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Love of God. Love of Self. Love of Neighbor. A ripple in a pool of water. One wave’s forward momentum bleeding into another’s birth. Spreading out into all of creation from one and the same source; touching every living thing and washing it with love. Love of God moving into love of Self and then into love of neighbor. A forward progression, with every step, every wave depending on the movement, the action, the work of the one that has gone before. Creation moving towards consciousness moving towards intentional community. The building up of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Just as the ripples from a pebble hitting a still pond can not move from the outside in, so too must our love of neighbor first come from our love of self, and our love of self first come from our love of God. If we were to start by loving our neighbor, how then would we learn to take care of our selves? If we were to start by loving our selves, how then would we guard our selves from the temptation to create God in our image? No, love must move from the inside out. It must bubble up from the depths of our being, percolate into our self-consciousness, then leave our bodies to move out into the greater world. Jesus prioritizes our loves and he is right to do so, for each builds on the other. Love of God is the foundation; that which makes a house sound. Love of Self is the framing, the siding, the roof; that which makes the house safe. Love of Neighbor is the windows and the doors; that which makes the house welcoming and inviting. All are necessary, yet some are more needed than others.

As it is the foundation, the first ripple in a pool of water, let us begin with love of God. Love of God allows us to know whose we are before we come to learn who we are; before love of Self. Love of Self can convince us that we are more than we truly are, leading us into the vice of narcissism, egotism and conceit. It can also lead us in the opposite direction; convincing us that we are less than we truly are, if we do not live up to our own standards for our selves. This is why love of God is foundational. Love of God is not solely about our loving God, it is in fact quite the opposite of that. It is about our learning, our knowing, our truly believing that God loves us. Love of God is about our first filling up on the knowledge and belief that God love us unconditionally, all the time, not matter who we are or what we’ve done. It is only once we fully understand at the depth of our being that God loves us unconditionally (which protects against self-loathing) and we in turn are then moved to love God with our whole being (which protects against our own self-aggrandizement), it is only then that we can truly learn and know what it means to love one’s self.

Moving out from the center in our love of God, building up from that foundation, we come to love of Self. Love of Self allows us to know who we are and how we are before that sense of self can become lost in another; before love of Neighbor. Love of Neighbor by itself can consume us, as the needs and demands of our neighbors are endless. If we are willing to give, our neighbors are willing to take. If we can not say no to our neighbors, no one else will. This is why love of Self is second only to love of God. When love of God comes first, love of Self is neither narcissistic nor self-deprecating. It is a non-judgmental love; a love which does not depend on our greatest achievement or on our greatest failure. It is an even love, a constant love, a fire which burns slowly and steadily so that we may not be consumed. It is only once we learn to love ourselves unconditionally in this way, by not harshly judging or blindly praising ourselves, that we can then truly learn and know what it means to love our neighbor.

Finally, we come to love of Neighbor. Since we have put love of God first, we now know how to love our selves. Since we have learned how to love our selves, we now are ready to learn how to love our neighbor. How do we love our neighbor? We love our neighbor as we love our selves. We love our neighbor by giving them the time and the space and the support needed to discover God’s unconditional love for themselves; to discover what love of God truly looks and feels like. We love our neighbor by seeing to it that they take care of themselves first, before launching off in mission to take care of others; that they first learn to love themselves without getting caught up in who they are or what they did. We love our neighbor when we realize that we, like them, are all a part of the same concentric circle, rippling out from the same source, moving in slightly different directions yet all working together not to break the bond between us. We love our neighbor when we realize that it starts at home, that it starts with us; that it starts with our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with God.

There is a story of a professor who once stood in front of his class with a large glass jar. He then filled the jar with large rocks. Once the jar was filled, he asked his class, “Is the jar full?” Most in the class agreed, yes, the jar was full. The professor shook his head no. He then poured a handful of small pebbles into the jar, filling it. The pebbles danced along the rocks and clinched within the glass. Once the jar was filled, again, he asked his class, “Is the jar full?” Again, many in the class agreed, yes, definitely this time the jar was full. Again, the professor shook his head no. Finally, he poured a small container of sand into the jar, filling it. The sand seeped into every nook and cranny that it could find. Once the jar was filled, again, he asked his class, “Is the jar full?” Hesitating, some in the class agreed, yes, there’s no more room, it must be full. The professor put the jar down.

The moral of the story? The large rocks symbolized those things which are the most important to us in our lives, the pebbles, things of some importance, the sand, things of little importance, the jar, the jar represents our life. If we start first by filling the jar with sand, there would be no room for the rocks. Our life is the same. If we start first by filling our lives with the small stuff, there won’t be any room for the big stuff. Or, to look at it another way, if we fill our lives with only taking care of others, there will be no room for us to take care of ourselves and our relationship with God. The rocks represent our love of God, the pebbles represent our love of Self, the sand represents our love of Neighbor. One must be placed before the other in order for all to fit.

This is why Jesus prioritizes the greatest commandments. This is why we must learn to prioritize our loves; in order for our love of God, our love of Self, our love of Neighbor all to fit within the finitude and the busyness of our day to day lives. Today, may we take Jesus’ commandment to heart, to soul, and to mind. May we know God’ unconditional love that we may learn to love our selves the same. May we love our selves the same, unconditionally, so that we may not be abandoned to the ebb and flow of our love of others and their love of us. May we be ever mindful of that single pebble which breaks the mirrored surface of the water, of our lives, moving us to love the source of the ripple, the ripple itself, and the waves to come. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 22

2008-10-12T07:07:00.001-04:00

A Banquet of Belonging
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Pentecost 22, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 22:1-14

“[The king] sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet…. But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business….”

It’s shortly before 9am on a Monday morning just up the sidewalk, just up the hill from the Park Street T stop in downtown Boston. I sit in the still damp grass between two homeless men who have spent the night in the park. They’ve gone off for coffee and have since returned. They and I, we sit and drink our coffee, sip by sip, slowly taking in the caffeine as we watch the worker bees assemble. Like clockwork, business suits and smartly dressed women ascend from the subway, processing single file from sidewalk to street back to sidewalk, stopping for nothing. Like an army of ants carrying ten times their weight, they carry brief cases full of responsibility and ambition, full of dreams for themselves and their children. Meanwhile, I look on, together with my new homeless friends, feeling lost, unnoticed and terribly unimportant. By the time we finish our coffee, the streets are once again almost empty; filled only with those running, not walking, to punch in for the day. All the while, we pick at the grass, watch the pigeons circle round us in the sky, share stories and wonder what the day will bring.

Weeks later I find myself in a similar situation, this time shortly after the close of the day; just after 5pm on a Friday afternoon. For the past hour I’ve been sitting on the sidewalk outside of the Boston Stock Exchange, with my bottom on the bricks and my back to the wall, sitting and talking with a new homeless friend named Bob. I’d decided to stop and sit and talk with Bob after reading his cardboard sign which he held up for me and for all to read. It said in black Sharpie, “You know you see me.” As we sit and talk, brokers and businessmen start to stream out of the buildings that surround us. Instantaneously we are in the way, people literally stepping over us. Some glance at us, then quickly look away, as if caught looking at something provocative or risqué. Most never even notice us at all. Now I see why Bob wrote what he wrote on his sign. Everybody saw us, they knew we were there; they had to walk over us for heaven’s sake. Yet nobody saw us, nobody knew who I was or what I was doing, nobody knew that I wasn’t homeless for that matter, nobody knew Bob’s story, nobody even really cared. As the suits begin to thin out, I feel forgotten, I feel as if someone was supposed to say something; that someone was supposed to come for me, care for me, but no one ever did. The world was too important; Bob and I were just in the way.

This last weekend I was back in Boston, once again working with the homeless, once again feeding my soul, once again remembering the power and the grace of the Gospel. Last Monday following lunch at the soup kitchen in the basement of the cathedral, I attended a healing service for the homeless and was invited to share on today’s Gospel. Instantly, I was reminded of these two stories I just shared with you. I was reminded of what we miss when we make light of others situations, others emergencies, others poverty, and instead, go away, go off to our farm, to our business, off to work, off to taking care of ourselves and only ourselves, and walking past and stepping over our brothers and sisters who are crying out to us for help and for hope. I thought of the feast of faith that the poorest of the poor have to share with us, and how we walk right past it, ignoring the invitation to relationship and community and instead, push out towards the isolating waters of independence and importance.

As I reflected on the Gospel, I felt the sadness of the king, the pure rage and frustration of the king, having had gone to all this effort to share with us a banquet of deepened relationship, of Christian community, a meal where the walls between us could crumble and the kingdom of heaven be at hand, only to have us abandon this hope and instead, chase the dream of a “better life”; a life of success at the expense of others, a life of wealth and prosperity through cheap labor and on the backs of others. How God must weep, how God must be enraged when we are invited and called to the wedding banquet, to Holy Communion with our brothers and sisters, and instead of accepting the invitation, make light of it and go away to busy ourselves in the world! How God must weep, how God must be enraged when we refuse to sit, to eat and break bread, to enter into relationship with others simply because we are distracted by our own desire for perfection and motivated by our own fear of becoming common place, of becoming all too ordinary, of falling in line with those who are all too easily forgotten!

Someone once said that, “We’re all we’ve got.” In today’s Gospel parable, this is what Jesus is trying to tell us. You and me, we’re all we’ve got. If I step over you, ignore you, don’t take time for you, neglect you, it’s as good as if I was doing the same thing to myself. Likewise, if you step over me, ignore me, don’t take time for me, neglect me, it’s to your detriment. We are all a part of the same world wide web. Pull on my part of the web, of the world and you’ll feel it. If I detach your corner of the web from the wall we’ll all find ourselves waving in the wind. This last week we’ve seen just how true this is as we’ve watched Wall Street collapse. Because of our instability, the world has waned. As we grow weak and uncertain, so too does the world. Should we climb out of this recession and once again find our footing, so too will our international neighbors. To think that we, like those invited to the banquet, can return to our farms, to our businesses, to our own little worlds independent of everyone else is not only pure foolishness, it is also antithetical to the Gospel and counter to God’s will for our common lives.

Now is not the time for us to continue to chart our own course. Now is the time for us to come to the banquet—each of us, all of us, to feast on God’s goodness through our care and concern for each other. Now is the time for us to stop walking past and stepping over our brothers and sisters on the streets, to stop and reflect and realize that we are only as safe, we are only as strong as they are, as we all are together. God has called all of us to a common banquet, to sit and to share and to grow with each other. For far too long have some of us been fine dining at political fundraisers while others of us have been standing in lines at soup kitchens. Isn’t it about time that we level the playing field, level the banquet table? Isn’t it about time that we stop making light of God’s invitation to us, that we stop making light of the Gospel, and start accepting this invitation to enter more deeply into community with each other? Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 20

2008-09-28T06:46:00.004-04:00

Our Passion for the Promise
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Pentecost 20, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 21:23-32

Initially, I didn’t mean to call them. I was simply making a random loud noise as I climbed up the bail of hay. But it worked. I called out and they came. At first, they simply lifted their heads and looked in my direction. Then they started to wander towards me. Soon they had made single-file lines and were processing to where I was sitting, high atop a hay bail. Cows for as far as the eye could see were coming to me. I had unknowingly called them for dinner and they were hungry. Cows are always hungry. As a bored kid on my grandma’s farm up in Michigan, I sat there that evening impressed with myself; that I had called hundreds of cows to my side. Of course, once they realized that I had nothing to feed them, they turned and sauntered back into the fields. Soon, I was calling my parents and aunts and uncles and cousins outside to witness my cow calling abilities. Time and again I called the cows, and they came. That is, until the time they didn’t. Come the fourth or fifth call, the gig was up; I clearly didn’t have any food for them and now they knew it. Because of my inability to follow through on my promise, the cows lost all faith in me; they lost all trust. Unwittingly, I had conditioned the cows to expect my own unreliability.

Many say that cows are dumb animals. Yet even cows know when they’ve been lied to; when they’ve been sold a bill of goods that just isn’t there. Even cows can learn to lose trust when promises have been made and are then broken. If this is the case for cows, how much more this must be the case for us human beings; who many say are the most intelligent animals on the planet. I’m reminded of the fable from Aesop of the boy who cried wolf. The first time the shepherd boy called, the villagers came running to his side to help, only to find no wolf. The second time he called, again they came running to his side to help, and once again, no wolf. The third time he called, for a wolf was truly approaching his sheep, yet the villagers did not come for they thought that the boy was once again tricking them. Like the cows, the villagers lost all faith in the shepherd boy because of his inability to follow through on his promise. The villagers lost all trust in him. By crying wolf, the boy had conditioned the villagers to expect his own unreliability; his own inability to tell the truth.

Jesus tells us a story in today’s Gospel of a father who had two sons. He went to his first son and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘I will not’, but later he had a change of heart and went. The father then went to his second son and said the same, and his second son said, ‘I go, sir’, but he did not go. While there is indeed a danger in saying ‘no’ to something yet then following through with it, in today’s Gospel, Jesus points to the graver danger of saying ‘yes’ to everything and then not being able to follow through with anything. Jesus is telling us not to cry ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’, not to cry wolf when the sheep are safe, not to call the cows when we have nothing to feed them. He is warning us of the danger found in making empty promises. Jesus tells the chief priests and tells us today that promises hold no water in and of themselves; that the bare bones of promises are only the placeholders for the true muscle which comes through action, behavior, and faith. The promise itself is nothing of value, just as the authority itself which the chief priests question is nothing of value. What is truly significant is the action that follows; the son going to work in the vineyard, Jesus healing the sick, John baptizing, yes, even the chief priests themselves acting out in faith rather than claiming an authority built on sand.

This being an election year, we find ourselves sailing on a sea of promises, riding the waves of hope. We find our hearts tempted by the words of the second son, ‘I go, sir’; I go to balance the budget, I go to bring our troops home, I go to reform Washington, I go to reclaim America’s rightful place on the world stage. Wanting to believe that everything will be alright, we inflate these promises, we inflate this hope, just as we have inflated our own economy and our own egos. Before taking even a single action, the candidates have set before us and themselves an agenda which would prove difficult for even Jesus Christ to complete. Yet this is what we ask for, so this is what they give us. Wanting to please us, just as the second son wanted to please his father, they promise us four years of toiling in the vineyard, then don’t show up; don’t live up to our expectations of them and the promises they have made to us.

It would be all too easy to pick on politicians; they seem to be an easy target. But truth be told, all of us, politicians and otherwise, are forever tempted to cry ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’, or even when we mean ‘maybe’ or ‘I don’t know’. For saying ‘yes’ is inspirational; it encourages us to move at the moment, but quickly loses its sustaining power. Just as with politicians and other people, I often times find myself saying ‘yes’ and then doing ‘no’. Not because I want votes, but because of the pressure I put on myself to try and be all things to all people. I make promises with the best intention of keeping them, then often times find that I can’t keep them because of all of the other competing demands on my time and energy. While not trying to trick cows or villagers or voters, I try to trick myself into thinking that I can do it all. From time to time, I make empty promises—just as we all do—hoping that the promise itself will be enough to satiate the need. As Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel, it never is.

Ultimately, the better road for politicians and priests and all people to take is the more difficult road; the road not paved with good intentions, but rather, the road paved with thoughtful action. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions because good intentions—promises left unfulfilled—most often lead to lack of trust, lack of faith, dejection and despair. This is a form of hell in and of itself. Yet the road paved with thoughtful action, because it follows the contours of commitments fulfilled, most often leads to deepened trust, increased faith, and stronger relationships. On this road, we journey closer to the kingdom of God and to God’s will for our lives. Earlier in the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus advises his disciples and the crowds in his sermon on the mount to let their ‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and to let their ‘no’ mean ‘no’. Today, may the Holy Spirit hold our tongue so that our ‘yes’ means ‘yes’ and our ‘no’ means ‘no’. Today, may we be empowered to speak the truth in love; not saying what others want to hear or what we want to hear but rather, what God wants to hear. Today, may we be empowered to make the more humble choice of living into our faith through our actions rather than giving into our passion for the promise. Amen.

Saving Us (by Serj Tankian)

2008-09-07T08:01:00.002-04:00

Begs the question... what cause / belief / etc. is preventing us from helping the homeless???

Sermon: Pentecost 17

2008-09-07T07:56:00.000-04:00

Right Relationship through the Cross
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Pentecost 17, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 18:15-20

…One of [the Pharisees], a lawyer, asked [Jesus] a question to test him. ³⁶‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ ³⁷He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

I once heard it said that the cross in and of itself represents this, the greatest commandment of love of God and love of neighbor. For the cross is made up of only two parts; one beam standing vertically, anchored into the ground, into our humanity, and pointing up towards the heavens, and the other beam outstretched horizontally, pushing out towards the horizons, reaching out to connect the ends of the world, to connect you and me, one with another. Meditating upon the cross, the vertical dimension is most pronounced; our relationship with God through Christ most vivid. Yet there is also that crossbar, that horizontal dimension that allowed Jesus in his death to reach out to the criminals by his side; the crossbar which pulls us all together in our joy and in our pain, in our living and in our dying. In our Gospel for today, Jesus speaks to the second part of the greatest commandment which is like the first; to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus reminds us of this and advises us on how best to carry this out.

While I don’t typically divide my sermons into talking points, today’s Gospel mentions three distinct types of relationships, all of which I believe are essential to understanding the ethos of Christian community. Jesus first speaks to our relationship with each other, soul to soul, mano-a-mano, one to one, when he says, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.” Jesus calls for us to be direct yet also sensitive; to be forthright but to do so privately. In AA there is a slogan; to “say what you mean but don’t say it mean.” Jesus calls us to be honest with others in what we think and how we feel, but not to do so in disrespect or at the expense of other’s feelings. He doesn’t advise us to triangulate, to speak behind other’s backs, to make a public spectacle when we feel that others have sinned against us. Rather, he calls us to private dialogue, to deepened relationships with each other, to quite conversation, active listening and the deepest discernment; all so that we may regain one another and reclaim each other.

Jesus also speaks to our relationship with each other, not on a one to one basis, but in the context of Christian community. Jesus says, “But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.” Sometimes the issues we face in society and in the church—for one reason or another—can not be settled by our simply coming together one with the other, to speak the truth in love. Sometimes the sin, the fault, the issue at hand affects not only ourselves and the other, but the larger community as well. When this is the case, Jesus calls for us to widen the circle, to involve the larger community, to bring more voices and perspectives to the table. He doesn’t advise us to walk away from our brother or sister in a huff. He doesn’t tell us to make a hasty, unilateral decision on our own. No, Jesus calls us to increase our understanding by inviting in more perspectives. On the brink of destruction, Jesus calls for deeper diplomacy. When our wires are crossed and our fuse becomes short, Jesus calls the church into action; to become the sanctuary, the safe place where we can disagree with each other, argue with each other, and yet love each other all the same.

It is with this hope and in this spirit that I have gathered and will continue to gather all of you, the saints of St James, to meet at forums to discuss any and all issues that face us today and in the months and years ahead. When some came to me with concerns about how the spiritual needs of 9:15 Sunday services attendees were not being met, we gathered together and told it to the church. When some came to me with concerns about permanent space for our growing youth group, we gathered together and told it to the church. Through the grace of God, in coming to St James I inherited a tradition of quarterly meetings; a time for us to gather together every few months to share our concerns about anything and everything and to tell it to the church. In a church where perspectives are as plentiful as people in the pews, it is essential that we continue to actively listen to each other and share our thoughts and feelings with the church.

Finally, Jesus speaks to our relationship with each other, not on a one to one basis, not in the context of the church, but larger than that; our relationship with each other through God’s relationship with us. And this my friends, this is the most essential part of our Gospel and Jesus’ message for us today. When one on one discussions don’t work, when larger community conversations create confusion and conflict, Jesus tells us, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” To the spiteful ear, these words may sound like a judgment or a condemnation. If someone sins against you, try talking to them, then try talking to the church, and then, if nothing else works, remove yourself from them, or remove them from the community. Yet I don’t believe that this is what Jesus is advising us to do at all, for Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, he healed both Jews and Gentiles, he reached out to both saints and sinners. I believe that when Jesus says this, when he tells us to treat those who have sinned against us as Gentiles and tax collectors, that he’s really advising us to treat others as he would treat them, as God would treat them; to seek to heal both them and us, to seek to share a common meal with them, not to admonish them as a lost cause, but to stay with them, even if our relationship is strained, even if our church and community threaten to expel them.

To understand today’s Gospel is to understand the parable which precedes, and the teaching that follows, today’s excerpt from Matthew. Our Gospel today directly follows Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep; of God the good shepherd leaving the flock to rescue the ridiculed, and directly leads into Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness; that we must not be shortsighted but rather generous in our forgiveness of others; forgiving them not seven times, but seventy times seven times. Just as Matthew’s Gospel leads from fallout to forgiveness, so too is that just what Jesus is calling us to do in today’s Gospel; to forgive, to forgive even when our one on one conversations fail, even when our church community conversations crumble, even when its tempting to push others out and away.

The cross which we bow before, which we recognize as the universal symbol of our faith, has two dimensions; the vertical dimension which represents our relationship with God through Christ, and the horizontal dimension which calls us into relationship, one with the other; which calls us into Christian community. Without the horizontal dimension, the cross would simply be a solitary “I”, proudly standing only for itself. Without the crossbar, Jesus’ arms would not have been outstretched to the criminals by his side, to you and me. Today, may we be reminded not only of God’s love of us, but also of the necessity of our love and care for each other. Today, may we be reminded of Jesus’ commandment for us to love our neighbors as ourselves, even when others sin against us, even when others don’t listen to the church, even when our temptation to shun and exile others distracts us from our cause, distracts us from our faith in the forgiveness and love of God. Amen.

A Momentary Lapse in Posting

2008-09-01T12:51:00.003-04:00

Dear Readers,

A frantic summer has lead to many things, most noticeably to you (I'm sure) is my momentary lapse in posting sermons, stories, etc. to this blog.

I hope as fall comes around that I'll be able to spend more time connecting with you all through this blog than I have in the past few months.

My apologies for being a slackert. Summer only comes briefly to Vermont, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

Blessings,
Fr. Ken

Sermon: Pentecost 12

2008-09-01T12:47:00.002-04:00

Wrestling from “Me” to “Us”
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Pentecost 12, Year A (RCL)
Genesis 32:22-31, Matthew 14:13-21

Jacob was a selfish man. Seeing his brother Esau coming in from the fields, starving and on the verge of death, he takes advantage of him and convinces him to sell him his birthright; to forfeit to his brother in a time of desperation his entire portion of the family inheritance. Later, as his father Isaac lay dying, Jacob, along with Rebecca, again connives, this time to swindle the family blessing from his blind and dying father. In today’s reading from Genesis, we find Jacob having just fled his equally crooked father-in-law Laban because of, you guessed it, his selfish and deceitful ways. Even at his birth Jacob was positioning to get ahead and take advantage of others; holding on to his first-born brother’s heel as he came into the world. Jacob lived a life for no one but himself. That is until we find him wrestling with an angel in today’s reading.

In today’s reading from Genesis, everything changes, even (and most importantly) Jacob’s name. He goes from being Jacob the Deceiver (for that is literally what Jacob means, to deceive) to being renamed Israel. After wrestling with an agent from God, Jacob is literally transformed from one who deceives, cheats and swindles, from one who is hyper-individualistic, to one who in and of himself— and for his name sake, Israel— will become the founder of a nation and the foretold promise of a people. His transformation is so profound that he himself does his own renaming; he renames the place Peniel, for that is where he saw God face to face, yet his life was preserved.

In an intimate and grappling encounter with God, Jacob now Israel finally gets it and sees the big picture; he sees a future which is much larger than himself, his finds responsibility for the first time and embraces it, he is finally willing and able to fulfill the promise given by God to his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham before him. In a momentary struggle with holiness, “me” becomes “us”, selfishness become selflessness, scarcity of birthright becomes abundance of blessings. While this captivating story from Genesis tells us many things, one of the most profound of its lessons is that of gratitude. When we face scarcity and death, the God of Israel teaches us to give thanks for our preservation; to give back in gratitude for all that we’ve been given and blessed with.

Like Jacob in Genesis, in our Gospel reading from Matthew today, we find the disciples in a very similar place; not wanting to share, being selfish with all that they have and all that they are. Jesus’ disciples come to him saying, ‘This is a deserted place and it’s getting late, send the crowds into the villages to buy food for themselves while we stay here and have supper with you.’ Understandably, Jesus’ disciples don’t want the crowd to take their food. Had those in the crowd had birthrights to barter with, the disciples may have even jumped at the chance of a trade. Like Jacob, the disciples want what they perceive as theirs; they want their inheritance of bread and fish, they want the blessing of Jesus’ company in an intimate setting, they want for themselves, never mind the crowds.

Yet Jesus says to his disciples, ‘You give them something to eat!’ Jesus tells them to no longer think about themselves alone, but instead, to think about others; to think about the crowds. Jesus calls them to consider their own portion, their own piece of what belongs to them, and to share it, to give it away, to make the transition from greed to generosity. An angel of the Lord comes upon Jacob and wrestles with him to turn cunning into kindness. Late in the day, on the shoreline with the crowds gathered around him, Jesus is wrestling with his disciples to do the same thing; to turn what is owed into what is offered. Just as God wrestles with Jacob to recreate him as the founder of a nation, so too Jesus wrestles with his disciples to form them into his apostles; into those whom he will send out as leaders of the way; as missionaries and founders of the church.

In the end we all know what happened, ‘those who ate were about five thousand men, not to mention the women and children’ and ‘they took up twelve baskets full of what was left over.’ Jacob became Israel and was able to see past himself in order to see the nation, the people that he would give birth to. The disciples became the apostles and were, for the most part, eventually able to see past what they needed from Jesus in order to see what the crowds, what the world needed from them. This transformation was a painful one, Jacob’s dislocated hip, Peter’s denial, Judas’ act of treason, but in the end, God blessed them, God blesses us. In the end, if we can stop fighting with God and each other long enough to learn to trust, our blessings come to abound by the basket full.

We have much to learn from Jacob turned Israel. The saying, ‘Let go and let God’ has never been so punny, and so true. Rather than hold on to things which we mistakenly believe to be our own, we must let them go and learn to trust that God will provide. We do not own our birthrights, inheritances, blessings, etc. We are not owed anything. Everything, every single thing, is a gift from God. Jacob didn’t have claim to the nation and the people he would found; it was a gift from God. We have much to learn from the disciples turned apostles. Rather than see our resources as limited and our need to hoard them as essential, we must turn to God and trust that we will be provided for; that the loaves and the fishes really will be multiplied.

We have a recent history here at St James of living in scarcity. There is a perceived scarcity of resources, a perceived scarcity of space, a perceived scarcity of participation. We, like Jacob, have sometimes taken to selfishness. We, like the disciples, have sometimes given ourselves over to fear. We have claimed our little committee, our little corner of the church, and have forgotten that we need to continue to wrestle with each other in order to discern the community that God is calling us to lead; we have forgotten about the feeding of the 5,000—that with God, all can be provided for. Over this past year we have been building trust and have been learning to wrestle with each other. Yet we have a long way to go, so we need to continue strong in our commitment to this community and to God’s call for this parish family.

More than anything else, mutual respect and the sharing of stories will help us to continue to grow closer to one other and help us to be more mindful of each other. The more we work and worship together, eat and pray together, trust and open up to each other, the clearer and greater our vision of this place will become. The more we remind ourselves that this space is not ours but is God’s, that the mission of this place is not ours but is God’s, that the future of St James is not ours but is God’s, the easier it will be for all of us to get out of the way and to allow the miracles to occur. May God wrestle with us and shake us to become more. May Jesus challenge us and call us to feed more. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 9

2008-07-13T07:05:00.003-04:00

The Extravagant Gardener
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Pentecost 9, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Hearing today’s Gospel, I often find myself trying to identify what kind of soil I am. Am I like the hardened path that doesn’t accept the seed, only to offer it up to the birds of the air? Am I like the overzealous rocky ground that quickly makes the seed spring to life, but then isn’t able to nourish the seed when the sun comes up and the heat of the day becomes too much? Am I like the dangerously preoccupied thorny ground that accepts the seed, but then because of the already developed roots of the thorns, is not able to nourish the seed? Or, am I like the good soil, bringing forth a hundredfold of grain; taking what I’ve been given, what I’ve been blessed with and bringing forth more grain, more seed, more life to the world?

I like to think I’m like the good soil. I think we all do. We all like to think that we hear the word of God and understand it (at least most of the time). We all like to think that if trouble or persecution were to arise on account of our faith in Jesus, our faith in God, that we wouldn’t fall away. We all like to think that we’re able, for the most part, to hold at bay the cares of the world and the lure of wealth. We all like to think that we hear God’s word and have the fortitude and the focus to carry it out. After all, we’re all here in church this morning, aren’t we? Many of us serve St James in some way, some of us on the Vestry, others through outreach, still others through the many and varied committees and groups we have here at the church. For no other reason, that should make us like the good soil, right?

Along with trying to identify what kind of soil I am, sometimes I decide to ski down the slippery slope of trying to figure out what kind of soil other people are. ‘That Mrs. Davis, she just sits there during the peace, not shaking hands with anyone, she must be like that hardened path that Jesus was talking about.’ ‘Oh look whose back in church, good old Mr. Brown. Now that we finally have a priest that he approves of he’s decided to join us once again. He must be like that rocky ground that Jesus spoke of.’ ‘I wonder what ever happened to little Johnny and why he stopped coming to church. Poor thing must have been carried away by the lure of wealth and the cares of the world.’ Thinking that I’m like the good soil and that others are not can be a dangerous side effect of this Gospel story. In fact, it seems that our being preoccupied with what kind of soil we and others are is just the kind of dangerous distinction that Jesus’ parable is speaking against.

Rather than today’s Gospel being about us and what kind of soil we are and where we fit into the picture, I’d like to suggest that it’s really not about us at all. Instead, it’s about the nature of God. That’s why this parable is almost always called the ‘parable of the sower’ and not the ‘parable of the seed’ or the ‘parable of the soils’. Focusing on where the seed lands and what you and I do with it, we miss one important and essential fact; we miss the fact that God the sower decided to sow on the path and on rocky ground and among the thorns in the first place. To get to the heart of the parable, we need to ask the question: Why on God’s green earth would God the sower do that? Seeing that there was a path, that there was rocky ground, that there were thorns, why would God scatter seed there? Knowing that the good soil was the best soil, why didn’t God stick to the gardens and leave the path, the rocks and the thorns for the weeds?

Before answering these questions, I’d like to share a story. About a month ago I decided to clear out a bunch of brush, grind out the remaining stumps (with Ron B’s help), and plant grass seed to increase the size of our yard. Having never planted grass seed before, I wanted to do it right. So, I went off to Lowe’s in search of seed and whatever else I might need to get the job done. While there, I discovered I needed a spreader; I needed a machine to take the mounds of tiny seeds and distribute them evenly over the yard. Browsing a Lowe’s ‘Grass Spreader Buying Guide’, I read that “tossing [seed] out by hand is neither safe nor efficient.” That was all I needed to hear. With the risk of personal injury and wasted seed, I was sold on the spreader.

Now I needed to decide, which one? It turns out that there are two different kinds. There are ‘broadcast’ or ‘rotary’ spreaders, and then there are ‘drop’ spreaders. First I looked at the broadcast spreaders. Lowe’s buying guide cautioned that while these spreaders “cover a lot of acreage quickly”, “what you gain in coverage you may sacrifice in control.” With an added word of warning it read, “[these spreaders] can also scatter the [seed] into a neighbor’s yard or into the street.” It seemed as if there was only one option if I wanted to insure that all of the seed made it into the good soil; that none of the seed ended up on the path, on the rocky ground, among the thorns, or heaven forbid, in my neighbor’s yard. I needed a drop spreader.

While Lowe’s recommends a drop spreader as the safest, most efficient, most economical way to plant grass seed, God the sower in today’s Gospel recommends throwing it out into the world by the handful. To return to our question: Why does God the sower scatter seed in this way? Knowing that the good soil is the best soil, why does God seed the path, the rocks and the thorny places? God sows in this way because God is everything the drop spreader is not. God is daring, God is extravagate, God is confident. God finds infinite potential in all things and in all people. God seeds the path not because of what or who the path is. No, God seeds the path because this is what a loving, generous God does. God seeds the thorny places not expecting that the thorns will grow up and choke the new seedlings. No, God seeds the thorny place in the hope that the grain will outgrow the thorns. As Matthew tells us earlier in his Gospel, “[God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Why does God do this? Because this is what a generous, hopeful and loving God does. God is a lavishly loving God, a forever forgiving God, a God that gives and scatters and spreads because this is who God is and what unbridled and unconditional love and acceptance does.

If we are to fully appreciate the gravity of today’s Gospel, then we need to take our focus off of ourselves, off of what kind of soil we are or aren’t, off of what kind of soil others are, and we need to put that focus squarely and faithfully on God; on what kind of gardener God is. The other day I saw a sign for Intervale Compost. It read, “Don’t treat your soil like dirt!” In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ parable teaches us that to God the sower, even the dirt is sacred; even those covered in scars, sin and shame can and will find glorious redemption with God. If God had a sign like that for Intervale Compost, it would read, “Treat your dirt, your rocks, your thorns like soil. God does.”

Today, may we go out into the world believing this good news and proclaiming it. May we learn for ourselves that God treats the dirt of the world just the same as the precious soil of the world; that for God, all things are sacred. When we catch ourselves looking down at the ground and focusing on the rocks and thorns and warts of this world, may God lift our eyes to the abundance of seed, the abundance of hope, the abundance of life being showered down upon us. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 8

2008-07-06T06:36:00.003-04:00

A Yoked People
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Pentecost 8, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Its one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon out at the fountain on Boston Common, the fountain that lies directly between the large concrete pillars of St Paul’s Cathedral and the gilded dome of the capital building. At the base of the fountain there’s an altar on wheels, and behind it, a large wooden cross. Amongst the tourists with cameras, the street vendors, the pigeons and those passing by, a large group of the city’s homeless gather, forming a circle around the altar. Into the noises of the city, a woman cries, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” With that, the service begins.

Whenever I read or hear these words from Jesus in today’s Gospel, I’m instantly transported back in time and space to the Common, to that experience of gathering hand in hand with the poor, the addicted and the mentally ill there who call the streets of Boston home. This last week, as I gathered with other clergy from around the diocese and we spent some time studying today’s Gospel, I shared some stories from the streets of Boston and listened to some stories as others reflected on this same scripture. One of the priests who’s on staff at the cathedral and works part time at JUMP shared with us some rather sobering reflections. She shared that of all of the social service agencies in Burlington, including the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and the United Way, that JUMP is the only agency that continues to have funds to help people with the growing costs of fuel oil and utilities. She shared that all of the other agencies have been turning people away and turning them towards JUMP for assistance. She shared that this has put a huge strain on JUMP’s resources and has led to long lines and endless phone calls. All of this within the last month, all of this in the summer, when the threat of cold nights still seems far off. Hearing her report from the front lines of the social service sector, it became crystal clear that the news was indeed true; that each and every day those with so very little are truly finding themselves with even less.

This past Tuesday at our clergy gathering, I heard again Jesus’ call ‘to come’ as a call to the poor, to the homeless, to the addicted and those on the fringe of life. This past Friday, on the Fourth of July, I was reminded of yet another call; a call not issued by Jesus but by Lady Liberty. As I sat enjoying food and fireworks and freedom, I was reminded of the words of Emma Lazarus which are inscribed on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Echoing Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, they read, “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Her words, though brief, are still as poignant today as they were in 1883 when she penned them. With her stoic stare, her royal diadem and her imposing frame, I never thought of Lady Liberty as a “Mother of Exiles”, as providing “world-wide welcome”. Yet some twenty years before Emma’s poem, as the French sculptor Frederic Bartholdi began his work on the statue, it was clear that he held the same sentiment for Lady Liberty. In fact, the Statue of Liberty as we know it today was based off of a similar statue which was to stand at the entrance to the Suez Canal and was to be based off of the Roman goddess Libertas, though modified to resemble a robed Egyptian peasant. Even from its earliest origins, the Statue of Liberty was to embody a peasant, an outcast, the exiled; she was to welcome the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse of other nations, the homeless and the tempest-tossed. Or, in Jesus’ words, she was to welcome the weary and those carrying heavy burdens.

With the present strain on social services both in Burlington and across our country, with funds for agencies and charities drying up, with more and more Americans having to choose between food and health care, I wonder what Emma Lazarus would write for us today, or what Lady Liberty would say if she could open her frozen copper lips and speak to New York City, to our country and to the world. Though Emma’s poem is an inspiration to all, especially to us during this Fourth of July weekend, it doesn’t say anything as to what will happen to these tired, poor, huddled masses once they get here. Thankfully, our Gospel for today does. Those who are tired, poor and weary, once they’re welcomed, will find rest; they will receive rest for their souls. How will they find rest? They’ll find it by taking Jesus’ yoke upon them; by learning from him.

Now it may seem strange to think that by taking a yoke upon us we’ll find rest. Most of us understand a yoke to be an instrument of work, of labor; something that ties two animals together while they plow the field. Most of us come to see labor and rest as mutually exclusive. Yet Jesus speaks of rest for our souls, not our bodies, a rest which can only come when we work for our neighbor. This last week I learned something quite fascinating. I learned that when animals are yoked together, the younger, smaller animal is always placed next to the experienced, stronger one. Often times the younger animal is so small that the yoke doesn’t even touch its neck, so the stronger one does most of the work. Yet as the younger animal grows older, it grows into the yoke and begins to share the load of the more experienced, stronger one. So when the older animal is no longer able to continue working, the younger one is ready to start the process all over again.

Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel that we are a yoked people. Our yoke is easy and our burden is light because we only carry part of the load. In fact, the yoke barely even touches our necks. Jesus carries the brunt of the burden. As young in our faith, we take on our yoke to learn from Jesus; to walk in his ways. As we mature in our faith and in our lives, we become strong enough to be yoked to others. The words inscribed at the feet of Lady Liberty remind us that we are a yoked people; yoked to the exiles of the world, to the tired, to the poor, to the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Just as Jesus lightens our burdens as we are yoked to him, so too are we to lighten the burdens of others whom we are yoked to. Jesus tells us, Lady Liberty reminds us, that we are yoked to those who turn to JUMP for help, we are yoked to those who live on the streets of Burlington, we are yoked to those who are forced to choose food over health care.

Let us, who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, come to Jesus this morning and find rest for our souls. Let us, empowered by the Spirit, leave from this place today to entertain the exiles of the world, to offer a world-wide welcome to all, to be tied to the tired, yoked to the poor, and to give homes to the homeless. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 7

2008-06-29T07:06:00.002-04:00

Welcome Without Judgment
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Pentecost 7, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 10:40-42

“Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous.”

It seems to me that today many Christian churches take these words from Jesus not only seriously, but literally. While we may say that “the Episcopal Church welcomes you”, more often than not I’ve attended Episcopal churches where it seems closer to the truth that the Episcopal Church welcomes newcomers yes, but as long as they’re like those already there; as long as they’re like us. I’ve attended more than a few Episcopal churches that welcome the wealthy in the name of the wealthy in order to receive the wealthy’s reward. Or that welcome the dignified in the name of being dignified so that they will receive the reward of being seen by others as a dignified church. Unfortunately for the church, many of us pay far more attention to those with whom we share common interests than to those who may look or dress of act different than us.

The former archdeacon of the Diocese of Southern Ohio once shared a story with me of a time when he was on vacation in Texas and attended an Episcopal Church there. Being on vacation, he didn’t wear his collar to church. In fact, he didn’t even get all that dressed up. He arrived twenty minutes before the service, figuring he’d give himself some time to find the church and to pray before the service began. Ten minutes before the service, as he was kneeling in prayer, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Leaning back and opening his eyes, he looked up to find an elderly woman looking less than pleased. “You’re in my pew”, she said. Not wanting to cause a scene, he stood up and crossed the aisle, bowed his head once again and returned to praying. A few minutes later came the sound of an intentional throat clearing, sounding as if it was right on top of him. Once again leaning back and opening his eyes, he found a man nudging him on. “Excuse me. This is where I normally sit”, he said. With that, the archdeacon stood up and decided to head to Waffle House for breakfast instead of staying for worship.

There’s a book I read some time ago written by the bishop of Rhode Island. It’s called Down and Out in Providence. It’s a story about her month-long mini sabbatical living as a homeless person on the streets of Providence, Boston and New York. For a month she left her job, her house, her car and went out on the streets with only her clothes on her back. Changing her appearance so that she wouldn’t be recognized by the people of her diocese, in the book she shares her experiences as she enters into the soup kitchens of a couple of the Episcopal churches there. In one church she was basically ignored. In another, worse than that, the ushers welcomed her to leave. As a bishop she was greeted with open arms. Disguised as a homeless person, she was ignored and even invited to leave. For the first time, she was able to experience firsthand the true nature and the genuine warmth, or lack thereof, of some of the people of her diocese.

Unfortunately, not only is this conditional welcome many time made clear in the pews and at coffee hour, but it’s also made clear at the altar rail. One of the greatest controversies in the church—though not as popular in the media as the church’s current issues with sexuality—is the issue of who can receive Holy Communion, or the Eucharist. It used to be that only those confirmed into the Episcopal Church could partake in the bread and the wine. Now the rubrics tell us that only those baptized into the church can receive. And beyond that, there are many churches—with St James being one of them—where ALL are invited to share in the sacred meal. In modern day church lingo, it’s called “open table” theology, and though there’s a trend in the church towards more open tables, the national church has yet to support this change in its policies.

In addition to some in the church being barred from the sacrament of Holy Communion, there’s also the problem of some in the church being barred from the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. As many of us may already know, remarriage is allowed within the Episcopal tradition. Indeed, many vastly oversimplify the reasons behind the birth of the Anglican Church when they share the common knowledge that Henry VIII remarried several times and had numerous wives. Yet what remains unknown for most Episcopalians is that, while almost all second marriages are approved by the church, almost no third marriages are. Only in extreme circumstances are third marriages permitted within the church. Almost always, those who have been divorced twice or more and who seek to have their union recognized by God, family and friends are forced to leave the church and instead opt for other denominations, or even still, a civil service.

With welcome often times comes judgment. We welcome prophets because we deem them to be respectable; desiring for ourselves a prophet’s reward. We welcome the righteous because we hold them in high esteem; wanting to be righteous ourselves. We welcome newcomers, as long as they telepathically know which pews are taken, as long as they’re like us, as long as they have something to contribute. We welcome all to Jesus’ table yet our prayer book still holds baptism before them as a condition to accepting God’s grace through this common meal. We welcome God’s blessing upon those entering into marriages or civil unions, yet somehow, someway draw an imaginary line in the sand as to how many divorces are too many. We welcome but are fearful of losing ourselves in the process; of losing our tradition, of losing our standards, of losing our identity. We become so concerned with doing the right thing that we neglect to do the kind thing, the loving thing, the thing Jesus would have us to do.

So busy wanting to welcome the prophets and the righteous, we forget that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners too. We forget that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it; to love it, not to judge it but to welcome it. We forget that Jesus told us that it’s not the healthy who are in need of a physician, but the sick. We are so preoccupied with who’s in and who’s out, who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s good and who’s bad, that we completely miss the point. We miss the point that Jesus came for ALL, to heal ALL, to love ALL, to save ALL. He didn’t come only to those with the right credentials, those who sat in the family pew, those who were baptized, those whose marriage or marriages had thrived. No, he came to ALL. Every single person in every single condition, Jesus came to them; he sat with them, ate with them, blessed them, loved them. Shouldn’t we being doing the same? And if we already are, couldn’t we be doing more?

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” In other words, it is when we welcome others that we welcome Jesus, and by welcoming Jesus, end up welcoming God. As Paul writes in his letter to the Hebrews, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” May our business here at St James be about entertaining angels; about meeting our brothers and sisters where they are, not where we think they should be. May our business here in this most holy place be about welcome and not judgment, about unconditional grace and not conditional acceptance. May we come here not looking for a prophet’s reward or the reward of the righteous, but instead, find the reward of a life lived in accordance with God’s grace. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 6

2008-06-22T07:30:00.001-04:00

Sacrifice and Sharing
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Pentecost 6, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 10:24-39

“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

On the surface of things, it seems preposterous to think that by finding life any of us could lose it. It seems strange to think that by living well we could set ourselves on a crash course towards death. And the reverse of this seems as equally bizarre; to think that by losing life we could end up finding it. How on earth could we find life by losing it? Isn’t death in and of itself the end of life? Doesn’t the good life consist of eating and drinking and being merry? We all know that in death we can’t take it with us, so how do we make sense of loss leading to gain, of death leading to life?

On the surface of things, what Jesus was telling his apostles then and is telling us today is clearly a contradiction in terms. In the physical world, we know that life leads to life and death leads to death. If we stay active in life, if we exercise and eat healthy and breathe deeply, we generally live longer. I’m reminded of those days that I go for a long run. At the start, I hesitate and think that running will wear me down for the day. But always in the end, I come away with more energy, with more clarity, in greater health. Life leads to life. Yet if we don’t move around and stay active, our muscles being to lose mass, being to lose their strength, our lungs and heart weaken and our life slips away. I’m reminded of those I’ve visited in the hospital who, after being bed ridden for some time, end up becoming weaker, in greater pain and having less energy. Death leads to death. Concerning our physical selves, it’s clear that life leads to life and death leads to death.

But Jesus isn’t talking about our physical health; he isn’t referring to our mental prowess. Jesus is talking about our spiritual health. Jesus was giving his apostles then and is giving us today a word of warning, a cautionary note as to what happens when desire for life goes unbridled. He isn’t talking about life in the general sense; he isn’t saying that life is bad and thus we must be sullen and suicidal. To think so would be silly. Instead, Jesus is talking about life lived on the backs of others. Often times, in our quest for self-realization, for the best of all create comforts, in our quest to find life, to find fulfillment, to find ourselves, we lose sight of those around us. When our unyielding desire to find life is let loose to run rampant through our relationships, it often times leaves a path of carnage and death in its place. It is in this sense, when we blindly seek to find our lives at all costs, that we end up losing our lives, losing our relationships, losing our way.

At the same time, Jesus gave his apostles then and gives us today an alternative to losing our lives through greed. Jesus tells us that we, that you and I can gain our lives through gift. It isn’t that Jesus is calling us to be self-indulgent martyrs; to lose our lives for the simple sake of doing so in some pious and pompous way. Rather, Jesus is calling us to lose our lives for his sake, for his purpose, in his honor. He’s calling us to give up our dreams for his dream. He’s calling us to check our ambitions and hopes and plans at the door, and instead, to lose ourselves in his Holy Spirit; to be carried away by the winds and wings of God’s call for our lives. When Jesus tells us to lose our lives, he’s telling us to lose our plans for when and how we’ll get there. When he tells us that we’ll then find our lives, he’s telling us that we’ll then discover a greater, more perfect plan; we’ll discover God’s plan. It is in this sense, when we blindly seek to follow God’s path for us that we end up finding our lives, finding our relationships, finding our way.

Translating this text for today, it’s clear that we still have a long, long way to go. Today—maybe more than ever?—we are finding our lives at the expense of our souls. We, and by we I mean us in the first-world, in the Western-world, we are preoccupied with bigger and better and greater. Over the past months I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about the rise in food costs, the cost of oil and energy, the cost of all of our natural resources, and at the very same time, the rise of India and China and their growing Westernized middle class. Today, it is clear that more and more citizens of the world are demanding more and more creature comforts and a greater standard of living. The tax and toll that this is taking on the world is growing exponentially with no end in sight. Our earth is being squeezed and sucked dry. And all the while, we continue to treat life as a zero-sum game and sink our nails and teeth further into our stronghold on these commodities. On a race for resources, we our finding wealth, we are finding success, we are finding our livelihoods, but at an enormous cost; at the cost of our relationships with our international neighbors, at the cost of our planet, at the cost of our souls.

Even still, the Gospel comes to us with good news; Jesus comes to us with words of hope. There is still time for us to lose our lives; there is still an opportunity for us to trust in God and to redefine what it means to be a superpower, what it means to truly be a nation under God. There is time, but there needs to be the will to make it happen. We need to start thinking and talking and praying about the sacrifice that is required of us in order to find our lives, in order for us to find our way once again. And it will take sacrifice; it will feel like we are losing our lives; losing our lives for Jesus’ sake, losing our lives for the God to be found in others. It may take a drastic cutting back of what we think we need and how we think we need to live. Yet through all this, Jesus assures us that if we have faith and trust in the path which God has set before us, then we will find the greatest gift in the process; we will find the gift of life; the gift of life that comes through our kindred relationships with our neighbors.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks a strange hypothetical question of his apostles and gives an equally bizarre answer. He says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Jesus is telling his apostles and us that even though we may buy birds, we will never truly own them; that even though we may buy and store up the earth’s resources, they will never really belong to us. If we are to lose our lives and save our souls, then we must learn to sacrifice and to share. We must give up our dreams for God’s dream. We must give up our affluence for God’s abundance. We must tear down our empire to make room for the building up of God’s kingdom. When we do this, we will find our way, our truth, our lives. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 5

2008-06-21T09:11:00.002-04:00

Go…Mutual Conversion…Peace
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Pentecost 5, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 9:35-10:8,(9-23)

Go, convert and be converted, and remember who you are. When Jesus sends his disciples turned apostles out into the world, these are three of the most important commands he give them. Go, convert and be converted, and remember who you are. Listening to today’s Gospel, wanting to follow Jesus, wanting to understand why we’re here and what we’re here for, we would do well to remember these three things.

Like the apostles, we must go. Jesus didn’t tell them to stay. When Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John on the mountaintop, the three disciples wanted to pitch tents and to bask in the glory of God, yet Jesus commanded them to go, to walk back down off the mountain and to rejoin the rest of humanity, to leave the mountaintop for the more mundane. And even before then, when Jesus first walked by the sea and saw James and John fishing with their father, he told them to drop what they were doing and to come, to go with him and to become fishers of men. Throughout the Gospels, the disciples journey, they are coming and going, they aren’t simply staying put where it is comfortable, where it is kind, where they are safe.

And so too, Jesus calls us to come, he commands us to go, he tells us that this journey, this way isn’t for those fearful of change, scared of new people and places, for those who want to sit still. No, he tells us to go, to carry on, to keep on keeping on, to venture out into the world and to share ourselves with others. It’s wonderful that St James has a long history of being an open and welcoming church, both literally and figuratively, but that’s not enough. If we think we’re heeding Jesus call to us to spread the good news because our doors are always open and we stick a “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” sign out on 2A, then we’re sorely mistaken. Jesus tells his apostles today, he tells you and me today to go out, to get out, to leave this place and to do our ministry elsewhere.

Like the apostles, we must go out to convert and to be converted. That’s right, I said it, to convert. Sounds pretty scary, huh? Sounds pretty threatening. Nobody wants to have to be the one to tell others what to think, or how to act, or what to believe, anymore than they want to be the one to have to tell others what to buy. I’m reminded of the tough job that telemarketers have in trying to strike up friendly conversations with complete strangers in a matter of seconds. I think of door to door evangelists who have heeded Jesus’ words to go out and to convert. Yet this isn’t what I’m talking about, or what I think Jesus was really talking about. I don’t think Jesus wants us to go and to tell people what to think, or how to act, or what to believe.

Instead, it seems to me that it’s supposed to be more mutual than that. That’s why I say we must go out both to convert AND to be converted. While it’s not in Matthew’s version of the “Sending out of the Twelve”, in Luke’s version of that same story we hear Jesus tell his apostles that whenever they enter a town and are received by the people there, that they should eat what is set before them. That might not seems like a big deal to you and me, but trust me, it was a huge deal to Jesus and his apostles then, just as it is to many 21^st century Jews today. I’ve been to many a Jewish deli in New York and Cincinnati and know how very important it is for food to be kosher. So, when a Jewish Jesus tells his Jewish apostles to eat whatever is set before them, he’s telling them much more than meets the ear; he’s telling them to be open to new thoughts, new acts, new beliefs; to be completely and utterly open to the other in their midst.

And so too, Jesus calls us to go out to convert and to be converted. Once we go out and leave our comfort zones and meet people truly where they are, then we must begin the very real and difficult work of sharing our stories and our faith with others, and in return, allowing them to share their stories and their faith with us. We must enter into reciprocal relationships with one other, giving so much of ourselves to others that they may be converted; that they may be convinced of our faith through our words, our deeds, our beliefs. And at the same time, we must be open to truly listening to others, to hearing them as they share about their struggles, as they show us who they are through their actions, as they point us to God through their beliefs. We must be willing to be converted just as much as we seek to convert.

And finally, like the apostles, as we go out to convert and to be converted, at the very same time, we must always remember who we are and whose we are. In a perfect world you and I would always be open to mutual conversion experiences; we’d be both willing and able to see God in each and every person we ran across, even those we considered our enemies. Yet it ain’t so; our world is not perfect. Not everyone we go out to meet, not every house we come to will be friendly and warm and welcoming. Sometimes we’ll be pushed out into the cold. Sometimes, like Mary and Joseph, we might find ourselves in a metaphorical manger, pushed out of the inns, pushed out of the hearts of strangers. And sometimes the roles will be reversed. Sometimes we’ll be the ones who don’t have the time, the concern or the care for others. There’ll be times when we ourselves will be blind to the God in the other and we will come across as cold and as callous.

But during those times, Jesus gives us some of the most important advice to be found in today’s Gospel. Jesus tells us to shake off the dust from our feet and to let our peace return to us. Those times when we’re the excluders, Jesus is telling those whom we exclude to do the same; to shake off our dust from their feet, take back their peace and to leave us in our own discontent. Often times when we’re rejected, when we’re shunned, when we’re hurt, the first thing we want to do is not to shake our own feet but to cut off the feet of our enemies. When the peace we offer is greeted with war, we strike back. Yet Jesus reminded his apostles and reminds you and me today that peace, like love, like forgiveness, like so many other things, that peace never depends on others, but always depends on us. If our peace is greeted with violence, we can allow it to return to us.

Go, convert and be converted, and remember who you are. Go and actively seek out relationships through God with one another, give of yourself freely to others and take from them what they have shared with you, and when this is not possible, remember that your peace, if you allow it, can and will always stay with you. To follow Jesus, this is what the disciples turned apostles were charged with. To follow Jesus, to understand why you and I are here and what we’re here for, this is what we must do. Go, convert and be converted, and remember who we are. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 2

2008-05-25T07:09:00.002-04:00

Possessed to Serve
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Pentecost 2, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 7:21-29

One of my favorite childhood memories is of catching fireflies on warm summer evenings. Rummaging around in the basement, I’d find an old Mason jar that my mother once used for canning. Carefully, I’d take a nail and hammer and put tiny holes through its lid, large enough for air to get in but small enough for the bugs not to get out. Then I’d run outside and, as my parents would say and scold me for doing, I’d traipse through the neighbors yards, running from light to light, trying to add to my collection. Once I was done for the night and it was time to go inside, brush my teeth and go to bed, I’d keep my newfound glowing friends in their glass prison, set them on my desk in my room, and fall asleep to their occasional neon yellow blinks.

In the morning when I woke up, I remember being devastated that my collection of fireflies hadn’t made it through the night. Shaking the glass jar, I tried to wake them up, assuming that like me, they had fallen asleep to their own blinking. Pouring them out on my desk, they fell from the jar like grains of rice, their tiny legs neatly crossed and stiff, their antennas weak and folded back towards their bodies. I remember thinking that I should have let them go the night before. But because I wanted the light for myself, I took these little guys from their source of light and life and they died.

I was reminded of my chasing fireflies a few weeks ago as I sat on a hill at Shelburne Farms and watched Emma run from dandelion to dandelion, picking them one by one and forming a most beautiful bouquet. After waiting close to an hour for our name to be called for a tour of the house, Emma had formed quite a collection of dandelions, and from sniffing them along the way, her nose was now bright yellow. Throughout the rest of that Sunday afternoon, her bouquet never left her side, and that evening, she left it on her dresser with the hope of sharing it with her friends the next day.

The next morning when she awoke, she found her bouquet limp and lifeless. The bright yellow blossoms had all but closed, while the stems that stood upright and strong the day before were now flaccid and rubbery. She was devastated and came running to us, wanting to know what we could do, how we could bring back her bouquet from the day before. We explained to her that we couldn’t bring new life to her dead flowers; that we’ll have to go back to Shelburne Farms or to the park and collect more dandelions for a new bouquet. We reminded her that when we pick flowers they eventually die, that’s why mommy and daddy ask her to bend down and smell the flowers which we plant in our yard at home, so that they will live and we can still enjoy them.

While it’s clear that if we catch fireflies and pick dandelions that they’ll eventually die, what’s less clear is the death that comes through that same instinct, our instinct as human beings to catch and pick and possess the world. Like grown up kids, we plunge pipes miles into the earth to pump out oil and gas, excited when our cars buzz here and there because of these natural resources, but crestfallen when we wake to find our ozone layer being depleted and our Mason jar running short on oxygen. We remodel buildings and flip houses, excited by new lights, new countertops and new appliances, while many times blind to the natural resources consumed to make these new things and the landfills dug to cover the corpses of what is old, what is passé, what is dead.

Like a child trying to capture God’s light in an old Mason jar, trying to hold on to God’s beauty in a fist full of picked flowers, we grasp for God, we reach for something more, we spend out lives trying to posses that which, once he have it, eludes our happiness, leaving us hungry and wanting more. We take literally God’s commandment in Genesis for us fill and subdue the earth, using it to justify our God-given right to use creation as we will; for us to possess creation even as it dies under our iron grip. Last week walking through the parking lot at Hannaford’s I noticed a bumper sticker which read: “The best things in life aren’t things”. Unfortunately, many times we forget this.

Our Gospel from Matthew reminds us today to look and to consider. Look at the birds of the air and how our heavenly Father feeds them. Consider the lilies of the field and how God clothes them in glory. Our Gospel for today invites us not to reach out and to possess the birds of the air or the lilies of the field, that we might capture their grace in flight and song, their beauty in blossom. Instead, Jesus encourages us to consider these things; not to possess them but to be possessed by them, to be enraptured by God’s love, grace and compassion as found in creation. Jesus gives us an option, we can either serve the God of our ego by feeding it with our wealth; with what we possess, or we can serve the God beyond ourselves, the God of all creation, by being fed, by being possessed by God’s nurturing grace.

This past Thursday evening at dusk, Natalie and I were sitting on the couch watching TV. Looking over her shoulder and out the front window, God gave me the same reminder he gave Noah; the reminder to look and to consider. There, airbrushed across the eastern storm clouds hung a rainbow in the sky. From our front porch you could see the entire arch, coming up from Essex High School and returning to earth around the five corners. Quickly I took a picture from the porch, then threw on my shoes to run up to the church to see if I could get a photo of the church with the rainbow in the background. As quickly as it came it left. By the time I got to the church, it was gone. In the flash of a moment, I had possessed nothing but gained everything. Rather than capturing the rainbow, the rainbow had captured me. In an instant, I was reminded of the great gift of the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, and the rainbows of the sky; I was reminded of these gifts and, at the very same time, I was propelled to give back, to serve the one and only master who had shared these gifts with me.

In life, when we are stuck by beauty, we are presented with a choice; we can either take it for ourselves and possess it, or we can share it with others and with God and be possessed by it, motivated by it, called to serve through it. In our affluent and abundant culture, we are presented with a choice; whether we will serve God or mammon. For each of us, there is no escaping this decision; all of us must confirm our loyalties, whoever we are. One of my favorite singers and songwriters Bob Dylan said it best when he sang, “You may be an ambassador to England or France / You may like to gamble, you might like to dance / You may be the heavyweight champion of the world / You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls / But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed / You’re gonna have to serve somebody / Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord / But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Today, let us consider who we will serve, if we will serve the God of creation or the God of wealth. Today, let us consider who will be possessed, whether we will continue to strive to possess the fireflies, the dandelions, the natural resources of creation, or whether we will stop to smell the lilies, to realize the rainbows, to be possessed by our God who created us, redeems us and sustains us. Amen.

Sermon: Trinity Sunday

2008-05-18T07:02:00.002-04:00

Trinity: Unity through Diversity
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Trinity Sunday, Year A
Matthew 28:16-20

Today is Trinity Sunday. When you think of the trinity, what image comes to mind? Maybe the image of a wise old man next to a youthful Jesus standing under a descending dove. Maybe you see an image of three persons who look the same, all sitting side by side, breaking bread or sharing wine. Maybe it’s not people at all, maybe it’s a symbol or symbols instead. Maybe you see a diagram of a triangle with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all clearly written at the points. Or maybe you see a triangle like that found on the front cover of our bulletin for today, with three separate fish all sharing the same head. There are as many ways to convey the trinity as there are snowflakes or fingerprints. All being unique and expressive and artistic, yet at the same time, all sharing the same truth; all being united in the same hope and underlying meaning.

When I was in seminary I had a church history professor who, in trying to explain the concept of the trinity, shared with the class an elaborate diagram which told us what the trinity was, and what it was not. The diagram was entitled “Shield of the Trinity” or “Scutum Fidei”, but actually looked less like a shield and more like the flux capacitor from Back to the Future. In essence, it was an inverted triangle, with each point clearly labeled the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. In the center of the triangle was yet another label, another name. In the center it clearly read “God”. Connecting the points of the Father to the Son to the Holy Spirit were lines which each read “Is Not”. Connecting the center “God” circle to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were spokes, radiating out, each reading “Is”. Since pictures truly are worth a thousand words, here’s that same diagram, enlarged so that you can see what I’m talking about.

The point the diagram makes, and the point my professor was trying to get across to us, is that while the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all a part of God, the Father and the Son are two different things, as are the Son and the Holy Spirit, as are the Holy Spirit and the Father. What the diagram conveyed to me was that while the parts of the trinity are all different, just as you and I are different, at the very same time, they are all the same, just as you and I are the same; they are all the same because they share with each other the same center, the same God. Far better than the flux capacitor that can transport us back to the future, this understanding of the trinity showed me, shows us that diversity and unity are not mutually exclusive; that three can indeed be one, that far from being obstacles, differences can draw us together rather than tear us apart.

Taking a minute to study the diagram, one thing is clear. It’s clear that were it not for God, nothing would hold us together in our differences. Were there no center to the triangle, there would be no “Is”; there would only be “Is Not”, there would be the utter and complete lack of relationship, companionship, and meaning. Without God, we would be solitary planets, orbiting the same center of nothingness, never touching, never interacting, never growing in love and compassion. Yet with God’s gravitational pull, pulling us back towards the center, we bump into each other, we rub elbows, we share our stories and our lives. Being oriented towards the center, focusing on God, we are able to see the God in the other even though we ourselves may have absolutely nothing in common with them. God, the center of the trinity, introduces us to strangers in the hope that we ourselves will share and learn and grow.

As I was thinking about all of this this last week, about the parts and the whole of the trinity, it occurred to me that today is Trinity Sunday for another reason as well. Today is Trinity Sunday not only because it’s the day when we think about and meditate on the three in one, but also because today is the last Sunday of the winter schedule; today is the last three-service Sunday until the fall. Instead of having three services at 8am, 9:15am and 11am next week, throughout the summer months we’ll be having two services at 8am and 9:30am. And as I was thinking about our last three-service Sunday for the school year, as I was thinking about the Holy Trinity, I wondered how the two are related; I began to apply the model of the trinity to our model of three services.

Over the past year that I’ve been here at St James, a few parishioners have shared with me a sense of mourning and of loss for the way things once were. They’ve shared with me their desire for us to return to two Sunday services instead of continuing on with three. They’ve shared with me their sense of being disconnected from others. They’ve shared with me their hope in once again having St James feel like one big happy family. They’ve shared with me their longing to be in community in that same way that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are in community, one with the other.

I’ve heard these concerns, and this last week, found counsel in that inverted triangle diagram of the trinity. And again, since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s that same diagram, revised to include all three services at the points and “St James” in the center. Just as the trinity is about unity in the midst of diversity, so too is this the case here at St James. The 8am service is not the 9:15am service, the 9:15 is not the 11, the 11 is not the 8. Nor should they be, for each of them serves a different part of St James, each of them serves a different part of the body of Christ. Yet at the very same time, through the body which is St James, each service is and must be connected. Just as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all in relationship through God, so too are those at the 8am, the 9:15am, and the 11am services all in relationship through all of them being a part of the parish of St James.

Like spokes on a wheel, God holds the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together in tension; keeping each part of the trinity focused on the community, on the communion, on the relationships that they share. So too is that the purpose of St James; to draw our differences together in tension; keeping each service, each part of St James focused on who we are as a community of faith, as a ministry and mission to the people of Essex Junction, Vermont, our country and the world. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit work with each other, not for each other, in order that God might be glorified. So too is that true for us, the 8 o’clockers, 9:15ers, 11am folk, we are to work with each other, not for each other, in order that the mission and ministry of St James, in order that God might be glorified in this little corner of Vermont.

For the wheel not to fly off of the bikes, the spokes must be strong. For the planets to continue along their courses, the gravitational pull of the sun must be strong. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to remain in relationship, working and ministering in concert, the Godhead that holds them together must be strong. For those who attend the 8am, the 9:15am, and the 11am services here at St James, the mission and ministry of our church must be strong. If we are feeling pulled apart, separated in time and space, then it is because the spokes, the gravity, to pull of this place has weakened over time. Rather than pulling ourselves together at the expense of the beautiful differences that make us who we are, we must once again center ourselves on that which we share in common; our worship of God, our proclaiming the Gospel, our serving those in need in our community, both at home and abroad.

Jesus said it best in today’s Gospel when he came to his disciples and instructed them to go out into the world and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In the giving of the Great Commission, Jesus told his disciples to go out into the world to create unity through diversity, not at the expense of diversity, but through it; through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Today, we too must do the same. We must go out into the world, acknowledging and embracing and cherishing our differences, while at the same time holding firm to what unites us; our common humanity, our being created in the likeness of God. Today, may we come to see our differing worship times, worship styles, ways of praying, so forth and so on, may we come to see them as strengths and not impediments to unity. Today, may we come to learn to love our differences, just as we have come to learn to love St James, this place, this church home which calls us each by name. Amen.

Sermon: Day of Pentecost

2008-05-11T06:52:00.001-04:00

Mother’s Day Sermon
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Pentecost, Year A
John 20:19-23

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side…. [Then] Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Today is Pentecost; the birthday of the church, the day when we receive the Holy Spirit, the day of when the risen Christ gives us the gift of peace. And this year, on this Day of Pentecost, we also celebrate Mother’s Day; the day when we give thanks for the spirit of mothers, the day when we are to be reminded of Christ’s gift of peace to us and our being sent out into the world as apostles to share that peace with others.

When most of us think of Mother’s Day, we think of white carnations, afternoon brunch, and Hallmark cards which tell our moms, our wives and our daughters just how great they are as mothers. For most of us, Mother’s Day is about Mom, it’s about those special women in our lives who have nurtured us and been with us through both the good times and the hard times. For most of us, Mother’s Day is much like any other holiday; a time for us to eat, a time for us to visit with family, a time for us to reflect upon all that’s good and right in this world. Mother’s Day is the day when moms get the day off, dads work a little bit harder, and the kids try to be on their best behavior.

Yet this wasn’t the original intent of Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day wasn’t originally a day of appreciation and celebration. Originally Mother’s Day was to be a day of protest, a day of solidarity, a day when all women would come together to stand up against war in all of its forms and stand up to their husbands and their sons going to war at all costs. Today, we have regrettably lost sight of this and instead focus on the meekness of mothers, rather than on their strength; their ability to bring about peace in a war-torn world. Today, sentimentality has all but washed away the original purpose and passion of this day. Instead of diplomacy, we focus on dining out and are easily satisfied with waffles made-to-order rather than with the struggle of peace and justice in our world.

Yet this wasn’t the case in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe, the author of that famous hymn “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, sought to convene women from around the world in order that they, as one body, could bring about peace and justice on earth. For Julia, there were only two causes truly worth fighting for—world peace and equality for all. During the Civil War, Julia not only saw some of the worst effects of war, not only the death and disease which killed and maimed soldiers, but in working with the widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides, she also realized that the effects of war go beyond the battlefield and consume even the home.

It was because of this life-changing experience during the Civil War and the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War that, in 1870, Julia called for all women around the world to rise up and oppose war in all its forms. She wanted women to come together across national lines, to recognize what we hold in common above what divides us, and to commit to finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts. It was with this hope that Julia issued her declaration, hoping to gather women in an assembly of action. It was with this hope that Julia gave birth to a Mother’s Day of Peace. So in the spirit of Mother’s Day, in the spirit of the original meaning and mission of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day of Peace, I’d like to share with you all this morning those stirring words which were to convene mothers from around the world on this day in history.

Julia writes:

Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe our dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient and the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

Some one hundred and thirty years later, not much has changed. It’s been five years now since our mission was declared “accomplished” in Iraq, yet we’re still there. And since the invasion of Iraq, over 4,000 US soldiers and over 1.2 million Iraqis have died. And the US of course isn’t the only country at war. There are wars going on today in Columbia, the Congo, India, Israel, the Ivory Coast, Nepal, Russia, Sudan, Uganda, and Afghanistan, all defined by the United Nations as “major wars”; military conflicts inflicting at least 1,000 battlefield deaths per year. And while only the deaths of soldiers make up these 1,000 casualties, most victims of war are civilians. While during World War 1 civilians made up only 5 percent of all casualties, today, 75 percent or more of those killed in war are civilians.

Today, it is more apparent than ever that we need Mother’s Day to find its roots and to once again become for us a Mother’s Day of Peace. As we remember this day the love and the warmth and the respect that our mothers have shown us over the years and taught us to carry with us throughout our lives, so too must we remember that these same principles must be applied to international diplomacy as well. Our mothers loved us even when we were unbearable, so shouldn’t we love our enemies when they are intolerable as well? Our mothers sought to nurture, to cloth, and to feed us when we were immature and helpless, so shouldn’t we seek to nurture, cloth, and feed the poor of the world? Our mothers forgave us when we misbehaved and gave us countless chances, so shouldn’t we do the same? This Mother’s Day, go to brunch, enjoy spending time with your family, tell your mother, your wife, your daughter that you love and appreciate them, but also remember, in the true spirit of Mother’s Day, to pray for peace. Amen.

Sermon: Easter 6

2008-04-27T07:32:00.000-04:00

The Spirit of Sitting by One’s Side
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Easter 6, Year A (RCL)
John 14:15-21

Jesus said to his disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you a Paraclete, to be with you forever.”

I know what you’re thinking. What on God’s green earth is he talking about? A parakeet? God’s gonna send his disciples; God’s gonna send us a small blue and yellow bird to stay with us forever? God’s gonna send us out to Petsmart to pick up a small little chirpin’ feathered friend to support us? Fr. Ken has done lost his mind. Or did he say pair of cleats; pair of soccer shoes that will carry us along and support us. How on earth will sports equipment help us? What on earth is Fr. Ken talking about? Maybe he got too much sun yesterday or not enough sleep last night.

No, I’m not talking about a pet bird. I’m not talking about soccer shoes. I’m talking about the Greek word parakletos; the word which gets translated in our version of today’s Gospel as “advocate”. In other versions of the Bible, that same word has been translated as “counselor”, sometimes even as “lawyer”, or in a more general sense as “helper.” Unfortunately, any time we translate from one language to another, we are forced to leave out essential parts of the each word’s meaning in order to avoid run-on sentences and to simplify things for the modern reader. What that usually does however is leave us with translations of texts which are far from being true to the original meaning and sentiment of the words themselves. The Greek word parakletos is a prime example, for the spirit, the being, the entity that Jesus asks the Father to give to us is much more than a “helper”, much more than a “counselor” or “lawyer”, much more than an “advocate.”

Generally when I think of a “helper”, I think of someone who is doing something for me; someone who is helping me to complete some task or action. Maybe it’s because I’m a man, but usually when I’m asked to help someone, I try to fix things. It’s hard for me to help by being an active listener because I often times find myself searching for solutions. “Oh, you’ve got this problem, maybe you could do this.” It’s always most tempting for me to suggest action steps, lifestyle changes, doing things in a new and different way; to suggest that belief follows behavior. Even at home this seems to be the case; that a “helper” is someone who is doing something for another. Natalie calls Emma her “big helper.” Why? Because Emma does something for Natalie; she helps her watch Amelia when Natalie is in the shower or making dinner or answering the phone. Yet the Paraclete really isn’t a helper in this sense; the Paraclete isn’t a spirit or being or entity whose primary job is to do something for else, to act for us in the world. That really isn’t why Jesus asked the Father to give what he calls the “true Spirit”.

At the same time, the translation of the Paraclete as being a “counselor” or “lawyer” or even “advocate” doesn’t really work either. Generally when I think of a “counselor” or a “lawyer” or an “advocate”, I think of someone who is saying something to me, or someone who is saying something to others on my behalf. In working with counselors in the past, in working with social workers and psychologists, I’ve often found that while they do a great deal of listening, they also do a great deal of talking, in offering guidance, comfort and consolation. In taking counsel in twelve step meetings in the past, I’ve often found that they offer hope and strength for a new day through the saying and sharing of personal stories of failure, redemption and faith. In having had to retain legal counsel in the past, I’ve learned that it is through their letter writing, their phone calls, their conversations with the judge and other attorneys, it is through their saying something to others on my behalf which proves most beneficial to my case, to my situation. Yet it is not in this sense either that the Paraclete comes to us; it is not through its words to us or to others that it graces us with its presence. Indeed, it is much more than this.

Back in the summer of 2000, I was fulfilling my seminary requirement of one unit of CPE, or Clinical Pastoral Education, and working as a chaplain intern at Beth Israel South hospital in New York City. That summer, through many disappointments and reflections, I learned what it meant for me to be a hospital chaplain. At the start of the summer, I was eager to help patients by doing something for them. Here, let me close the blinds for you, let me pour you more ice water, let me ask about your medical condition—as if I were their doctor. Quickly I realized that that wasn’t my job; that there were nurses and doctors and others already there to take care of their physical needs. So, I moved on to something else; I moved on to offering counsel. Half way through the summer, I became eager to help patients by saying something to them, or by advocating for them with nurses and doctors and the like. Again, I soon realized that that wasn’t my job either; that there were patient advocates and social workers and others already there to take care of their social and psychological needs. Finally, by close to the end of the summer, I had an epiphany. It occurred to me that I was not there to help by doing, that I was not there to counsel or to advocate by speaking to, or up for, the patients. No, I was there to simply be present; to sit with, to stand beside, to be in relationship with in the most basic and holy of ways, by sharing in the pain and loss and anger and joy of others.

Not through actions, not through words, the Paraclete comes to us simply to be with us. Parakletos literally means “the one who is called to one’s side.” The Paraclete does not come to do our laundry; to bear the hardships of life for us. Nor does it come to tell us what we need to hear or to petition God the Father on our behalf. No, the Paraclete comes to walk with us, journey with us, to sit with us in our pain and to share with us in our joy. The Paraclete comes to us to remind us that we are never, ever truly alone. Jesus, on our behalf, asked the Father to give us another who is called by God to come and stay by our side, to be with us forever. As Jesus left us on our journey to meet up with us later, the Paraclete comes to join us, to be our companion on the way of life.

Today, in a world separated by busy schedules and plane travel, where more and more people both young and old feel lost, unwanted and abandoned, God’s Paraclete, God’s “Spirit of truth”, God’s “true Spirit” still moves among us. On our best days, it beams with us. On our worse days, it sits in sorrow with us. No matter who we are, what we’ve done, where we’re going, God’s “true Spirit” abides with us. Nothing we can say or do will ever take it away; we will never be orphaned because God’s “true Spirit” is with us forever. Today, may we hear this Good News and believe it; may we hear this Good News and share it. Today, may we be mindful of the power of relationship, how it draws us not to do, nor to say, but to be; to be present with God and to be present with one another. Amen.

Sermon: Easter 4

2008-04-13T07:49:00.001-04:00

Oh We Like Shepherds
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Easter 4, Year A (RCL)
Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10

I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I’ve seen sheep being herded. It’s not really big back home in Ohio. And since living here in Vermont, while I’ve seen sheep being sheared and grazing in the fields at Shelburne Farm, I still have yet to witness in person the spectacle of sheep being round up and put into pens. In truth, the only time I’ve ever seen shepherds at work was on TV, and they weren’t really shepherds, they were more like dog trainers, for the quick and highly intelligent dogs they used did most of the work. With a series of whistles, the dogs would weave from side to side, in and out, grouping the sheep together and pushing them forward. Having never seen true shepherds at work, I just assumed that without their dogs, they’d have to do the same; they’d have to move from side to side and watch the sheep, pushing them forward.

Probably because of this, I’ve always envisioned Jesus the Good Shepherd doing much the same thing with his sheep. I’ve always envisioned Jesus pushing the flock forward, driving them on to the next pasture for grazing, looking over his sheep and making sure that they were well contained; bring up the rear so that all of the sheep were under his watchful, guiding eye. I think of the parable of the lost sheep, how Jesus must have been watching the sheep to know that the one was missing; how Jesus, noticing that the sheep was gone, left the others to search for and eventually find it. Whenever I’ve envisioned Jesus the Good Shepherd in the past, he’s stood with a lamb across his shoulders and a large flock before him, focusing on every sudden change, focusing on their every move.

Yet reading our lessons for today, I noticed that the opposite of this is actually true; that Jesus the Good Shepherd doesn’t follow the flock but instead, he leads them on. Jesus isn’t lagging behind but rather, he’s out in front; he’s treading where they will trod, he’s living the life that they will live, he’s providing for them an example of what to do and where to go. Our collect for today tells us that Jesus’ sheep “follow where he leads”, the 23rd Psalm tells us that our Lord “leads [us] beside still waters” and “guides [us] along right pathways”, the first letter from Peter tells us that Christ leaves for us “an example, so that [we] should follow in his steps”, and finally, our Gospel for today tells us that Jesus “leads [his sheep] out”; that “he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him.” Much to the contrary of my earlier assumption, it seems that Jesus the Good Shepherd doesn’t follow the flock but instead leads them; it seems that he doesn’t focus on the flock but instead, focuses on the way, on the path that is before him.

By leading the flock, Jesus isn’t counting on the flock for direction; he isn’t counting on his sheep to lead the way, to step out into the unknown, to do something he himself hasn’t done. Instead, he looks to something greater to give him direction, to set the path before him, to lead him so that he can lead others. Jesus the Good Shepherd looks to his relationship with God the Father to give him direction. His compass therefore is an internal one, not set by the whims and wanderings of his sheep. He knows his destination just as well if not better than he knows his sheep. While his flock may falter, the direction set forth by the Good Shepherd is certain. And as our New Testament reading this morning reminds us, Jesus the Good Shepherd who leads us leaves us an example; leaves us footsteps in which to follow, leaves us not with words telling us what to do, but with actions showing us how to live.

Many times, when we stop to think about where we fit in this story, we find ourselves identifying with the sheep. And this is true, Jesus is our Good Shepherd and we are his sheep, and the people of his pasture. Yet even still, just as we are sheep, so too are we shepherds. If you are a clergy person, you are a shepherd. And not only this, but if you are a manager, you are also a shepherd. A school principle, you are a shepherd. A teacher, you are a shepherd. A mother or father, you are a shepherd. If others look to you for guidance or advice or encouragement, you are a shepherd. All of us, just as we are sheep, are shepherds too. And being shepherds, all of us have the blessing and the great responsibility as shepherds of choosing how we will lead our flocks; how we will lead those parishioners, employees, students and children in our care.

Often times it’s tempting to shepherd from the rear; to push the flock along to where they should be going, to manager the stragglers and those deviating from their direction, to focus on which sheep are good and which ones are bad. Yet when we as shepherds do this, we many times push others into places they’re not ready to go. When we do this, we many times don’t allow others to get lost and to grow from that experience. When we lead from behind, we many times lose our focus on where we are going because we are so focused on if others are getting there. In church, I sometimes catch myself shepherding from the rear when my focus on God is lost through my focus on what others are doing. Why is that child crying? Why did that man walk out? What will they think of my sermon? All of these questions take my focus off of the path on which I am leading my flock and instead, put my focus on the flock which I am leading.

Instead of leading from the back, Jesus the Good Shepherd leads from the front; leads by living a life worthy of our following, leads by example, by doing what we must do, walking where we must walk, dying as we must die and living as we must live. Almost always it’s difficult to shepherd from the front; to trust in the flock enough to take your eyes off of them, to trust that the flock will hear when you call, to trust that the flock will follow. Yet when we as shepherds do this, we’re better able to discern where God is leading us and therefore to provide our parishioners, employees, students, children, and all our other sheep with right pathways through our experience and example. When we shepherd from the front, when we lead by example, no longer does the crying child in church matter, or the man who walks out, or what people think about us if we stand, sit or kneel to pray, for our focus isn’t on the other sheep. No, it’s on the path that is set before us; on the path that we must tread and leave for others who will follow.

Jesus the Good Shepherd leads us from the front through the thorny briar of life, walking gingerly and setting a path that we might follow. Jesus the Good Shepherd calls us to shepherd others in the same way, leading others into relationship with God not through our pushing, but through our pursuing our own calling from God. May we like sheep follow his example, that we like shepherds may lead others through out lives. Amen.

Sermon: Easter 3

2008-04-06T07:03:00.000-04:00

Breaking Bread: Being Served and Serving
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Easter 3, Year A (RCL)
Luke 24:13-35

Then they told what had happened on the road, and how [Jesus] had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Today, Jesus is still known to us in the breaking of the bread.

When I was a senior in high school, I served as the liaison between the wealthy suburban Episcopal church where I grew up, and the poor inner-city Episcopal church that hosted the largest feeding program for the poor in the Diocese of Southern Ohio. Each month, I was responsible for seeing that parishioners from my home parish signed up to cook and serve meals, I had to talk with the priest and staff at the inner-city church to coordinate schedules, and I had to swing by and pick up large containers of donated food from the local Olive Garden.

Each month, cars of white, suburban soccer moms and business professionals would drive downtown to an area of Columbus affectionately referred to as “the bottoms”, park in the vacant lot across the street from the church, and descend the steps into the dark and dingy basement of the church where the meals would be served. Soon after, a line of local Appalachian working-class poor would form at the top of the stairwell. When it was time, the doors would be opened and the men and women and children who had been waiting would funnel into the undercroft, forming a line at the window where the food was dished up and served.

After everyone had been served, we’d serve ourselves there in the kitchen. We’d wait until the entire line had gone through, then we’d take some of what was left and stand there, huddled around the kitchen counter, standing, eating our dinner and talking with one another. Meanwhile, all of the locals were seated out there, in the undercroft, in another room with a very different feel. From time to time, someone would approach the window, asking for seconds, asking for more milk, asking for something, and one of us would have to leave the kitchen and go to help. But that rarely happened. Usually we could stay in the safety and comfort of the kitchen the entire time we were there, with the food and the trays and the window between us and them.

All of us felt pretty good about what we were doing; all of us were proud of ourselves and our church for helping to feed the poor in our midst as Jesus would have done. None of us paid too much notice to that fact that we were well dressed in Polo and Tommy, that our clothes were covered with clean aprons to protect us, that we smelled of sweet perfume or at least didn’t smell like week-old body odor or stale urine. Truthfully, we didn’t have to pay attention to these things because we were in the kitchen, talking and sharing and breaking bread with each other and not out there in the undercroft with everyone else. We weren’t out there sitting next to the elderly man with lettuce and sauce and crumbs lodged in his unkept beard, or the woman with year-old dreadlocks held together with oil and dirt, or the child who belched and flung food and kept bumping into others unapologetically. Our food was our own, our tables were our own, our space was our own. We felt good about our service, yet we were safe.

That is, until the priest at that poor inner-city Episcopal church there in the “bottoms”, in the sewer of central Ohio, until she asked us to try something new. From now on, we were going to be serving dinner family style; we were going to be preparing large bowls of spaghetti, salad and breadsticks, and instead of handing them out through the window, we would be placing them directly on the tables for people to serve themselves. So, when everyone came in from outside, there would be no waiting in line, but everyone would be seated around the dinner table with the tables already set with food and plates and utensils. And our job, instead of hanging out and eating in the kitchen, our job would be to go from table to table to get refills on food and drinks.

And not only this, but she had another idea as well, an idea which would pull all of us out of our comfort zones and challenge how we thought about the Last Supper, about the Eucharist, about table fellowship and the breaking of the bread. She suggested that we not only wait on our guests in getting refills on food and drinks, but that we also eat with them; that we sit down with them and rub elbows and talk with them and share the same bowls with them. If we needed to get refills, we could do so, but for the majority of the meal, we would be sitting and eating with them. For you and I today, this may seem like an easy, even welcomed request, but for those from one of the wealthiest parishes in central Ohio, even the suggestion itself was greeted with objection, rationalization, and fear. “What was wrong with the way things have always been done?” someone asked. “We’ve come to serve not to eat” another stated. Quickly, part of the group decided that they would just eat before everyone arrived, then they’d be able to be up and moving around to help out.

Wanting to support this new style of serving dinner, I decided that I’d take a chance and join the people at the tables, but that I wouldn’t force others from my church to join me. If they wanted to eat beforehand and then hide out in the kitchen, that was their choice. Yet at the same time, I made it clear to everyone that I wouldn’t be helping them in this way, that I’d only be getting refills for my table, as was the original intent of serving dinner family style. At first, some of my parent’s peers objected to my “sitting down on the job”. Yet slowly but surely, more and more of them began to engage those they were serving in conversation; more and more of them were being served by those they were there to serve. Within a few months, everyone was sitting at the tables; no one was in the kitchen. Within a few months, a transformation had occurred; Jesus had become known to me, Jesus had become known to them, in the breaking of the bread.

Today, Jesus is still known to us in the breaking of the bread.

One of the things that I love most about St James is our passion for outreach and our acting out Jesus’ gospel of service to others. I’m thrilled that four times a year a sign-up sheet shows up and is filled with our names, volunteering to cook and deliver meals to the Burlington Emergency Shelter. I’m thrilled that on Palm Sunday, and again this past Sunday, our St James Youth Group gathered after church in the kitchen to prepare and deliver a meal for the shelter. I’m overjoyed by our support of this most important feeding ministry in the North End of Burlington and stand as a witness to this ministry’s fulfillment of an essential part of Jesus’ gospel message to us.

Yet I also dream. I dream about what it would look like if we stayed and broke bread once we delivered those meals. I dream about what it would look like to have our church family breaking bread with their shelter family. I dream about a table surrounded by homeless men and women from the cold streets of Burlington and housed boys and girls from the warm walls of St James Episcopal Church in Essex Junction. I dream about our seeing and recognizing the face of Jesus in them just as clearly as they see and recognize the face of Jesus in us. What if we somehow, someway developed an even more intimate relationship with the clients there? What would that look like?

Back in the basement of that poor inner-city Episcopal church there in the “bottoms” of Columbus, I learned what that would look like. I learned that making a meal or dishing up food for others wasn’t the same thing as eating with them, talking over dinner with them, truly breaking bread with them. I learned that I can give others food, but unless I stay and eat with them, I will never truly receive the gift of faith and hope that God is calling them to give to me. Sitting and eating with them, I was able to truly see Jesus in them for the first time; my eyes were opened and I recognized the God in them recognizing the God in me. It was when we served and were served that Jesus was revealed to all around the table in the breaking of the bread.

My hope and prayer for us today is that we all set our minds and hearts on the task of creating more opportunities for us to break bread with those we feel we differ the most from; that we take the time and give each other the courage to enter into fellowship and relationship with the strangers in our midst and on our roads; that we come to know and to learn that while we have much to give, we also have much we need to receive. Amen.

Sermon: Easter 2

2008-03-31T19:50:00.001-04:00

An Easter Forgiveness
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Easter 2, Year A (RCL)
John 20:19-31

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. On the evening of the day of his resurrection, the risen Christ greets his disciples with these words of forgiveness. Hearing Christ speak these words to them, I’m reminded of his words on the afternoon of the day of his death. I’m reminded of his words according to Luke, when he is lead to the place of The Skull and is crucified there, with one criminal on his right and one on his left. I’m reminded of his last words before he is put to death, when he prays to God, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” On the day of his death, forgiveness is on the lips of Jesus. On the day of his resurrection, forgiveness is on the lips of the risen Christ. Both in his death and in his life, forgiveness is foundational.

Yet if we look more closely at his words, there seems to be a paradigm shift between how Jesus understands forgiveness before his resurrection and how he understands it after his resurrection. On the cross, Jesus asks God the Father to forgive them; to forgive his disciples, his persecutors, his followers, the crowds. Jesus does not say that he forgives them—though he probably did. Instead, he asks God the Father to forgive them. For Jesus on the cross, it seems as if he believes that God is solely responsible for issuing forgiveness; it seems as if he believes that forgiveness and pardon is beyond his own possibility. God is the one who has given him this cup to drink; God is the one who is to do the forgiving when the time comes.

Also, on the cross Jesus asks God to forgive them for what they are doing; his prayer to God focuses not on the common humanity that he shares with his persecutors, but instead, it focuses solely on their actions; it focuses solely on their wrongdoings. For Jesus on the cross, it seems as if he not only believes that is God solely responsible for issuing forgiveness, but that he also believes that God’s forgiveness is a forgiveness which comes through judgment; a forgiveness which is based on the reconciliation of our actions instead of the reunion of our souls. For Jesus on the cross, it seems as if God’s forgiveness depends more on what the crowds have done rather than on who the individuals within the crowds are; it seems to come more from judging the crowds for their actions, rather than loving the crowds regardless of their actions.

In contrast to how Jesus on the cross seems to understand forgiveness, we find the risen Christ in today’s Gospel coming among his disciples who betrayed him and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In today’s Gospel, we find the risen Christ not instructing his disciples to ask God for their forgiveness, not instructing his disciples to ask God to forgive others who had sinned against them. Instead, he focuses on the disciple’s ability to forgive the sins of others, on their ability to retain the sins of others. Forgiveness has become for the risen Christ not something to be left to God or something only God can do. No, forgiveness has become for him something which each and every one of his disciples are called to do. In fact, it seems as if forgiveness for the risen Christ has very little if anything to do with God, almost as if God’s grace and love are so all-encompassing and complete that forgiveness becomes unnecessary for God.

Furthermore, while Jesus on the cross asks God to forgive them for what they are doing, the risen Christ comes and stands among his disciples in today’s Gospel hardly concerned at all with what they have done. In fact, he seems entirely concerned with sin; entirely concerned with the separation of relationship, and not with what they are doing or with what they have done. Forgiveness for the risen Christ doesn’t seem to be contingent upon good or bad, right or wrong; it doesn’t seem to seek to place blame or to shower shame down upon others. Instead, it seems to seek to bring healing and restoration and growth regardless of who is guilty of what behavior. Forgiveness for the risen Christ seems to come not so much as a favor for the one being pardoned, as much as a favor, a grace for the one who is doing the pardoning, the one letting go of the offense in order to see the face of God in their offender.

So what does all of this mean for us today? Why should we care that Jesus Christ’s understanding of forgiveness seemingly changed from his time on the cross to his time with his disciples in today’s Gospel? We should care because the risen Christ’s understanding of forgiveness has a drastic impact upon those whom we’ve forgiven and those whom we will forgive; that is, if we take it to heart. It means that forgiveness no longer belongs to God alone. As the risen Christ told his disciples in today’s Gospel, so does he tell us; that we, that you and I are the ones who have the power and also the need to forgive the sins of others. God is not alienated from you and God is not alienated from me, even though we may be estranged from each other. It is we who must learn to forgive each other, it is not God who must learn to forgive others for what they have done to us, or learn to forgive us for what we have done to others. God’s forgiveness of us comes as quickly and as naturally as God’s love for us. It is we who must learn not to retain the sins of our brothers and sisters, but instead, to forgive them, to let them go.

And just as the risen Christ taught us that we, not God, are the ones who must learn to forgive, so too has he taught us that we, that you and I must not forgive others for what they have done, for forgiveness really has nothing to do with action, but instead, it has everything to do with relationship; with shared humanity. Forgiveness must never depend upon whether or not we can accept what someone has done to us. For true forgiveness only comes when we become willing to let go of our judgments of others actions and instead, open ourselves up to seeing our brothers and sisters through the eyes of God. For when we forgive sins, we are not forgiving sinful actions. No, we are forgiving sin as separation. When we truly forgive, we learn to see our enemies as victims as well; we learn to reach out, not to retain their sinful actions against us, but instead, to retain their shared humanity with us, their shared pain and fear and trouble.

The risen Christ came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you…Peace be with you.” Today, our Easter Jesus comes among us and says the same, “Peace be with you…Peace be with you.” For us to receive his peace, we must first set ourselves upon the journey of living fully into his forgiveness. We must come to learn and to know that God’s forgiveness of us is so constant and complete that it hardly makes sense at all for us to say that God forgives. Instead, it makes more sense for us to say that God is forgiveness, just as God is love. It is when we know this in our heart of hearts that we will have no fear of not being forgiven, it is then that we will find peace for our souls. It is then that we will find the peace which comes through our looking past others problem behavior and instead fixing our gaze upon the brokenness and pain which lies at the heart of the human spirit; the brokenness and pain which we all share. This Easter season, may we come to find that peace through that forgiveness which comes when we ourselves make the effort to forgive; when we ourselves make the effort to heal. Amen.

Sermon: Easter Sunday

2008-03-24T08:37:00.003-04:00

Easter: Birth and Beginning
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter Sunday, Year A (RCL)
John 20:1-18

Since having kids, I’ve come to the conclusion that while Easter egg hunts on the surface seem to be happy, cute, innocent events, on a much deeper level, they are actually quite tragic. Think about it. As children wait with excitement and anticipation, we run to hide colored plastic eggs filled with candy. Once all of the eggs are neatly tucked away out of sight, then we let the kids loose to run and frolic and find as many eggs as will fit into their baskets. And then, with a basket full of eggs filled with candy, then we tell them to wait. Wait until we’ve had breakfast, wait until we’ve eaten lunch. Now that you’ve found what you’ve been hunting for, found what you’ve been searching for, now that your excitement and anticipation has come to a head, now we have to wait even longer still. While the anticipation before the hunt and the running to find eggs is a lot of fun, the waiting part just plain stinks. It’s Easter after all; shouldn’t the waiting of Lent be over and done with already? I mean, come on!

I imagine that this is how Mary Magdalene must have felt in today’s Gospel. Waking the morning after Jesus’ crucifixion, she must have been filled with that same sense of anticipation; of going to that large empty egg of a tomb and finding her Lord’s body in order that she could ritually purify it. She must have been filled with a sense of urgency as she set out on her hunt for the treasure to be found in that tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. Much like a child on an egg hunt seeking guidance from surrounding adults, Mary shares her discovery of the empty tomb with Simon Peter and the other disciple, hoping that they may help. Later, when Mary encounters the two angels in the empty tomb, again she seeks to share her information with them, that her Lord is missing, in order that they might help her. And finally, when confronted by Jesus himself, seeming to be a gardener, she pleads for some insight as to where her Lord has gone, this time assuming that the gardener himself has carried him away.

Finally, John’s Gospel tells us, she finds what she’s been looking for; what she’s been hunting for. She finds the magical egg that she’s been searching for and, much to her delight, it is even bigger and better than she had imagined. Not only did she find the body of her Lord which she sought to honor, but she found that body standing, living, breathing, talking with her as if he had never died in the first place. In her discovery that the gardener is actually her Lord and Teacher, she has truly found the best egg of all. And then comes the twist. I’m sorry Mary, but you’ll have to wait, wait until we’ve had breakfast, wait until we’ve eaten lunch. Now that she’s found what she was hunting for (and then some), now that her excitement and anticipation has come to a head, now she has to wait.

Wanting to devour her new found treasure which she has discovered in the risen Christ, she is told by Jesus to wait. Jesus says to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” In fact, his words are actually closer to saying, “Do not continue to hold on to me as you once knew me.” Jesus is telling Mary in a rather abrupt yet loving way that things have changed; that he is no longer bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, that while he is there with her in spirit, he is no longer there with her in the flesh as he once was. At the same time, Jesus is telling Mary that there is still more to come, that his resurrection isn’t the end, just as his death wasn’t the end. He’s telling her not to hold on to how things were but rather to continue to hope for how things will be. Again, Jesus is telling her to be patient and to wait.

Just as tragic as five year old faces once they’ve been told that they must wait until after lunch to eat their candy, I imagine Mary must have been equally troubled by Jesus’ response to her affectionate gesture. They waited and hunted and found the eggs, now simply must be the time to eat all the candy. She waited and searched and found her Lord, now simply must be the time for Mary to finally be rewarded with his presence. We’ve waited and searched throughout these forty days of Lent, now simply must be the time for us to finally break our fasts and sing Alleluia and go on with our day-to-day lives. Its Easter darn it, we want our candy, we want our Lord, we want to celebrate joyously with the church and then go back to the busyness of our lives.

But Jesus tells us to wait; Jesus tells us to stay tuned. Jesus sends us out, not to bask in the glory of Easter, but to get to work in the world around us. After Jesus tells Mary not to hold on to how things once were, he guides her into the way of how things will now be; he sends her out, he ordains her as his first apostle by sending her to his disciples, to tell them the good news of our shared resurrection and ascension. For Jesus, Easter is the beginning, the resurrection is the beginning, Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit is the beginning, the birth of the church which has brought us to today is the beginning.

As many of you know, Easter is one of the best times in the church calendar to welcome the newly baptized. This morning, four children here at St James will be (have been) baptized. A few years ago I received a phone call from someone loosely affiliated with the church I was serving at the time. They were calling to see if they could get their kid “done”. Not knowing what this meant, I asked. They said, “you know, baptized.” Up to that time, I had never heard of baptism as getting the child “done”. To me, it didn’t make sense. Would I need a meat thermometer for the job? It actually seemed more appropriate to refer to baptism as getting a child “started” instead of getting them “done”. For baptism is a sacrament in which we are changed, in which we begin again, just as Easter and the resurrection are a time in our church calendar in which we are changed, in which we begin again.

On this, one of the most climatic days of the Christian year, Jesus tells us to begin again. When we go to grab the pastel plastic eggs which hold our candy, which hold our delicious Easter ham, which hold our joy in the promise of the resurrection, Jesus tells us not to grab hold of these things, but rather, to go, to go out into the world and to share them with our neighbors. While we come to church on Easter to hear about the joy of the resurrection, we must never forget that we have a part to play in the resurrection as well. We are the not simply the consumers of this miraculous event, we are also the messengers; we, like Mary, are the ones who must not take hold of what once was, but instead, must take heart in what, because of the grace of God, can be. Amen.

Sermon: Maundy Thursday

2008-03-24T08:33:00.000-04:00

Back to Basics
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Maundy Thursday, Year A (RCL)
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

About six months ago I went to the chiropractor for the first time. I’d been having a dull, persistent pain in my lower back that didn’t seem to be going away. In fact, it had been getting worse. After sitting at the computer for a long while, or taking a long road trip in the car, I’d have to lean forward and move my spine from side to side until something moved, until something popped. Then the pressure would be relieved and the discomfort would stop, at least for the time being. Days later that pain and pressure would return and would be a little more intense than the last time. I finally decided to give the chiropractor a call when my lower back pain began to affect my desire to run; my exercise routine of running five miles every other day.

Much to my surprise, during my first consultation with the chiropractor, he didn’t start with my back; he started by taking a look at my feet. He had me take off my socks and shoes and stand up straight. Then he had me lift the arches of my feet and he jammed his fingers under them. Having me put all of my weight back on my feet once again, he leaned back to look at the alignment of my joints. Then we sat down and talked about what he saw. It turns out that for all my life I had been wearing shoes which lacked any substantial arch support. Because of this, my arches had all but disappeared. With the collapse of my arches came the misalignment of my ankles, of my knees, of my hips, of my back, of my body. And all of this was accentuated by the fact that I had run on these ill-supported feet for five miles every other day for most of my adult life.

It was amazing to me that a seemingly small problem with my shoes could lead to problems with my feet, which lead to problems with the alignment of my joints and body, which lead to a lack in my desire to workout and run, which lead to a less than healthy body and lifestyle, which lead to psychological changes in my mood and behavior, which lead to spiritual changes in my prayer life and my energy for ministry. Sure, it would be silly to say that poor arch support can lead to an existential crisis, but to say that the one has absolutely no effect on the other would be shortsighted. Through consulting with the chiropractor about my feet, I was reminded of how essential the seemingly small stuff in life really is. I thought about the importance of feet and food, of shelter and safety.

In 1943, an American psychologist by the name of Abraham Maslow proposed a theory which he called “the hierarchy of needs.” Maslow believed that all human needs were not equal, but that some needed to be fulfilled before others could even be perceived; thus giving us a hierarchy or pyramid of needs. At the bottom of the pyramid were basic needs, such as food and water and sleep. The next level up were needs of safety, like physical safety and job security. The next level up contained needs of belonging, such as belonging to a family or group of friends. The next level up were needs of esteem, both for self and for others. And finally, at the top of the pyramid we find needs of what Maslow termed self-actualization; of our having all of our needs met to such a degree that we become able to look upon the world as through the eyes of God.

According to Maslow’s theory, if we do not have access to food, to clean water, to shelter in order that we can sleep, if we do not have access to these basic human needs, then there is no way that we will be able to truly feel safe, to feel as we belong, to have self-esteem, to act unselfishly with others. If our physical needs are left unmet, then our psychological and spiritual needs will suffer. If the arches of our feet are causing us physical discomfort throughout our body and we do nothing to address that discomfort, then we will be distracted from our psychological and spiritual needs. Or to put all this in more positive terms, it is when we take care of the seemingly small stuff for ourselves and others that we then allow ourselves and others the opportunity to ascend the pyramid and to grow in community, in esteem, and in the ability to look upon others through the grace of God; through the eyes of God.

In tonight’s Gospel we hear once again that familiar story of Jesus sitting with his disciples for their last supper together; we hear of Jesus getting up from the table and kneeling down in front of the disciples to wash their feet. This year, as I read the Gospel story, I was struck by just how simple Jesus’ farewell was. One would think, that with this being the night before he died and all, that Jesus would have had something special planned; something miraculous and ultimate, something above and beyond his transfiguration. But instead, two simple and quite basic acts occur: a shared meal and the washing of feet. Instead of focusing on the fully divine part of himself, he focuses on the fully human part; he focuses on dirty feet and hungry bellies.

As his last act with his disciples, Jesus addresses their basic needs; he addresses the bottom level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; he addresses their feet and bellies which support their bodies which support their minds which support their souls. Jesus doesn’t provide his disciples with some lofty explanation of morality or self-actualization. No, he gives them the example of breaking bread, of feeding themselves and others, of sustaining the body in order to sustain the soul. He gives them the example of washing feet, of caring for the health and safety of others, again, of sustaining the body in order to sustain the soul. He does this not because he doesn’t value the self-actualizing pinnacle of the pyramid, but because he knows that before there can be peace there must first be justice; before we begin to expect self-esteem from others we first must hold them in esteem, we must first love them and serve them.

Jesus’ message for us today is the same. If we are to ascend Maslow’s pyramid, if we are to grow towards God, then we first need to see to it that our own basic needs and the needs of the world are met before any of us move on to any greater good. In the breaking of bread and in the washing of feet, Jesus asks us, ‘How can the world be safe when so many are hungry, when so many die from preventable diseases?’ In his setting an example for us, in his calling us to do what he has done for us, Jesus is asking us to see to it that the basic human needs of our brothers and sisters are met; that their bodies are fed and healed. Then, and only then, should any of us feel the need to move towards self-actualization. This Maundy Thursday, may God help us to step back from our own selves in order to serve the greater good. May our hearts find contentment with the simplicity of the sole of the foot rather than the loftiness of the mind of God. Amen.

Sermon: Lent 4

2008-03-02T07:24:00.001-05:00

Blinding Blame
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Lent 4, Year A (RCL)
John 9:1-41

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.”

When things go amiss in our lives, more often than not our first temptation is always to place blame. Coming upon a blind man, we quickly wonder who caused his blindness. If he caused it himself, so be it. We may feel sorry for him but somehow find ourselves okay with the fact that the wound was self inflicted. If someone else caused it, we may become filled with righteous indignation, seeking that the responsible party is brought to justice. If God caused it, we may find our faith shaken to its core, our understanding of how God works in our world challenged; we may find ourselves wondering if we can still believe in such a God. When something in life seems wrong, we seek to understand it, to find out who’s responsible, to place blame, to right the wrong.

While our intentions may be pure in holding the world accountable, what often times gets left out of this equation is the person for whom we advocate; is the person we seek to understand and help. In our concern for the blindness of the man, we may unknowingly see the man as nothing more than mere blindness itself. Wanting to understand, placing blame, desiring justice, it becomes easy to take personal suffering and transform it into a crusade for the greater good. Coming upon a blind man, it becomes easy to ask the question of fault rather than to ask the question of identity; the question of who this man is apart from his blindness and regardless of its cause.

Two examples come to mind. Coming upon a homeless man, I once asked myself how it was that he had become homeless; who caused his homelessness, who was to blame. Was he a drunk or a drug addict? Was he psychotic? Was he lazy? Or was it his upbringing? Did his parents abuse him? Did he grow up in poverty? Or was it God, did God cause it, or if not cause it, did God somehow allow this to happen? Asking myself so many questions about who was to blame, the homeless man became more of a social experiment in my mind and less of the human being that he was despite these things.

In a similar way, this happened on a national level following September 11th. Following the terrorist attacks, we asked ourselves how it was that the World Trade Center was destroyed; who had caused this horrendous act, who was to blame. Were the hijackers to blame? What about the terrorist leaders themselves? Were we to blame? Was God to blame? Asking ourselves these questions of cause, hijackers, terrorists, and victims alike all became what they had done or how they had died, while their humanity was forgotten. Through finding fault and placing blame, we sacrifice our ability to see the God in others and instead, create them in the image of what they have done or had done to them.

When we do this, when we sacrifice the person in order to place the blame, that blame becomes for us an idol. When we do this, a shift in power occurs; power is transferred from the individual to the cause or fault in and of itself. All of a sudden, how the man became blind is much more important than the blind man himself. How the man became homeless is much more important than the homeless man himself. How these horrendous terrorist attacks were carried out is much more important than the humanity of those involved in the attacks. And even for Jesus, as a man who is perceived by the Pharisees to be a sinner, how he can perform such signs and heal on the Sabbath becomes much more important than who he is as a person. When fault becomes our idol, the sacrament of creation is devoid of power and our humanity becomes meaningless.

Just as the scale of justice rises on one side while falling on the other, as a person is dehumanized through blame, that blame is emphasized and idolized. And in doing so, as this discrepancy increases, so too does the void between us increase; the void between actions and being, between fault and humanity, between us and our neighbors, between us and God. “Is this not the man who used to [be blind and] sit and beg?” Some were saying yes, that it was him because they were blind to his blindness. Others were saying no, that it was someone like him because his blindness was all they saw. He kept saying, “I am the man”; he kept saying, ‘I am more than my blindness, more than my fault or the fault of others who caused this, I am a man.’ And so too are the homeless men and women, so too are terrorists and victims of terrorism fellow human beings, so too is Jesus fully human and fully divine, despite his violating the Sabbath and performing miracles.

That’s what Jesus is teaching us today; that fault and blame do not and can never take away our humanity; our being created in the image of God and loved by God. It doesn’t matter how a homeless man or woman became homeless. What matters is that we never let these reasons, let any reason separate us from seeing the good in them; seeing the good that is to come out of their homelessness. It doesn’t matter who’s to blame for September 11th. What matters is that we never let our finding fault with them separate us from their humanity. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “I came into this world…so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” To say it other way, Jesus came into this world to show us that those who do not blame end up seeing others as God sees them, while those who find fault end up becoming blind to the God in others.

So the next time you seek to find fault with someone, first spend some time thinking about, praying about, meditating on how God’s glory is being revealed through their lives. The next time you jump to blame yourself for some shortcoming, go easy on yourself and remember that even through our apparent failures God is working in us to reveal God’s grace in the world. The next time you blame God for something you feel that God unjustly did to you, don’t react, but act; don’t react out of pain and fear, don’t react out of the injustice done to you. Instead, act out of the goodness which God has also blessed you with; act out of the opportunities that God has already presented you with. For when you do this, when we do this, our eyes are opened to see not what has been, but what can be; not how we are limited, but how God is limitless; not what divides us, no, but what unites us and holds us together. Amen.

Sermon: Lent 3

2008-02-24T07:23:00.001-05:00

A Thirst for Justice, A Hunger for Peace
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Lent 3, Year A (RCL)
John 4:5-42

Living within each of us, there’s a deep, dark hole from which we hunger, from which we thirst. At the center of our being, there’s an eternal reservoir of emptiness which calls out to be fed. From our birth to our death, we seek fulfillment, we seek to plug this hole will something, to fill our lives with satisfaction and the gleeful feeling of happiness. Often times our hunger and thirst can be so much that they consume us. Often times we over eat to find contentment, or over drink and get drunk in order to escape the painful reality of our barrenness. Other times we shop to fill this hole, mistakenly believing that clothes do indeed make the man, or that having that extra room in that new house will provide us with the necessary extra space for serenity. Still other times we fill that hole with work, keeping ourselves busy and believing that our productivity with eventually be able to supply the demands of our emptiness. For a time we feast, but then we become hungry again. For a time our thirst is assuaged, but then we are thirsty again.

In today’s Gospel, we hear of the thirst that draws the Samaritan woman to the well, we hear of the hunger that leads the disciples to go to a neighboring city to buy food. Yet we also hear of something that Jesus calls “living water”; a kind of water that quenches thirst forever, which becomes in us a source of water in and of itself; a spring of water gushing up within us, giving us eternal life. And we hear of some mystery food that Jesus eats that even his own disciples don’t know about; a food that sustains Jesus even when his disciples presume that he must be starving. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, and later his disciples, of a way to fill that eternal hunger which can never be satisfied by the water from the well or the loaves and fishes from the fields and sea. Jesus tells us of a way which you and I can seek to fill our lives with a satisfaction which will sustain us for a life time.

So, what’s the secret? What’s the food that Jesus eats that helps him to fill that hole, that sense of hunger and emptiness within his soul? Jesus tells us when he tells his disciples, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” What’s the will of God and how do we complete God’s work? We complete God’s work not by saying “four more months and then I’ll help that person, then I’ll give to the poor, then I’ll seek reconciliation with my estranged wife or husband, mother or father, then I’ll work for peace and justice both locally and abroad. Four more months and then I’ll enter into the harvest.” Rather, we complete God’s work by saying “now is the time and this is the place.” We do this by looking around us and seeing that the fields are already ripe for harvesting and to start that difficult yet eternally rewarding work of helping others, reconciling with others, serving others, advocating for justice for others and peace for all, loving and forgiving our neighbors as God loves and forgives us.

Jesus provides us with the perfect example of this work, of his entering into God’s harvest, when he calls to the Samaritan woman to give him a drink. Jesus is not thirsty for the water which this woman can fetch out of the well. Jesus is thirsty for the justice which comes from a prominent Jew speaking publicly with not only a woman, but a woman from Samaria. You see, Samaritans in that day and age were seen as inferior to Jews because, even though they themselves were once Jewish, they had had children with their non-Jewish oppressors while their land was occupied, thus tainting their bloodlines, culture, et cetera. So, when Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink, he is not only crossing gender lines; he is also crossing class lines, tribal lines and religious lines. In speaking openly and publicly with the Samaritan woman, Jesus is knocking down those walls between them; that dam which impedes the flow of God’s life-giving, living water.

In my own life, I’m reminded of a couple of times when I was parched and my stomach was growling yet the purpose for which I fasted fed me. Back when I was in high school I participated with my church youth group in something called the 30-hour famine. In the weeks leading up to the event, we raised money through sponsors and donors, money which would go to the millions of kids around the world who go hungry every day. On the day of the event, we fasted for 30 hours; we fasted for just over a day in order to be in solidarity with the over 29 thousand kids and parents who die from hunger each day. The event started at Noon on Friday. By 6pm many of us were hungry, by 6am the next morning, most of us were starving. That Saturday we spent the day playing games, doing outreach services projects, and doing our best to keep our minds off of the fact that we were hungry. In the end, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, not because I was strong enough to do it, but because the living food which came from the support of my friends and the purpose of our fasting feed me along the way.

About a decade later, I once again found myself fasting for a cause. This time it wasn’t for the millions of starving kids around the world, it was for the janitors who worked in many of the office buildings in downtown Cincinnati. Together with local union representatives, we organized several simultaneous peaceful protests outside of many of the corporate headquarters in the city. As a part of this peaceful protest, we fasted in order to be in solidarity with those janitors who often times had to spend their checks on healthcare instead of food. For an entire week we stood outside of the Cincinnati Enquirer’s building (the city’s largest newspaper), fasting in protest each day. At the end of the week, the promise of negotiations between the realty corporation who hired the janitors and the janitors themselves became a reality. In the end I was fed, not by sandwiches and snacks from the corner deli, but by an experience of solidarity with modern-day Samaritans; with Latinos and Latinas in our society who are just squeaking to get by and almost always go unnoticed by the rich and powerful of our own time.

Everyday we drink to quench our thirst, yet wake up the next morning thirsty again. Everyday we eat to fill our hunger, yet rise the next day to a growling stomach. We all know that to drink water from the well is to be thirsty again. Yet Jesus promises us something more, God gives us something more. God gives us a living water which Jesus pours upon us in our Baptism, in our Baptismal Covenant, that living water that fills us when we “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [our] neighbor as [ourselves]”, that feeds us when we “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” This is the water that quenches our eternal thirst, that gushes up within us, that can feed not only us but can also feed the crowds, can feed the millions who thirst for justice and hunger for peace. Today, may we leave this place hungry, hungry to do God’s will and work in the world, hungry to reap the harvest of reconciliation, justice and peace. Amen.

Sermon: Lent 2

2008-02-17T16:44:00.001-05:00

“John 3:17”
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Lent 2, Year A (RCL)
John 3:1-17

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

If you’ve ever attended a sporting event or watched one on TV, then you can probably quote what book, chapter and verse this line of scripture comes from. Let me give you a hint, it’s towards the end of today’s Gospel reading. That’s right, good old John 3:16. As a kid I remember always looking for the guy at sporting events holding up the chartreuse poster board with the handwritten “John 3:16” on it. It was almost like “Where’s Waldo?”. My friends and I would scan the crowd and take bets on who could find him first. I remember once deciding to jot it down on a piece of paper so I could look the scripture up when I got home and to find out for myself why it was so popular. On reading it for the first time, I found it strange that of all of the verses in the Bible that could be highlighted, this was the one. As a boy, it was clear to me from this verse that God loved me, but that if I wanted to love God (and wanted to live forever) then I’d need to return the favor by believing in Jesus. Lucky for me, I was already an Episcopalian and my parents made me go to church every week, so that seemed pretty easy.

As I got older I came to find out that, for some people (and for many of those who took “John 3:16” signs to sporting events), going to church was not enough. Turns out that the rest of the third chapter of John had something to say about what was needed instead. What was it? It was what Jesus told Nicodemus to do in today’s Gospel; that he needed to be “born again”. Now that I’m older and have had a chance to study the Bible some, I know that what the King James Version of the Bible translates as “born again” is actually closer to “born from above” in the original Greek. Anyway, what I came to learn was that if I wanted to love God and have eternal life, then what I needed do was not only go to church, but to be “born again”; to accept and to proclaim Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I came to learn that the flailing poster boards at sporting events weren’t some form of comic relief, they were a very serious matter; they were about converting people to the truth, they were about the salvation of souls.

Today, I can’t see these signs at sporting events without thinking about how much fear, bigotry, and misunderstanding has come into the world both through the signs themselves and through many of those who understand John 3:16 in this way. Today, when people think of what it means to be “born again”, most think of personalized salvation which depends on a one-time statement of faith by an individual Christian. Yet Jesus speaks of being “born from above”, of being born by a windful, wistful Spirit that blows where it chooses, coming and going, touching everyone in its path. The salvation which it brings is not limited to the individual person, but rather is open and available to all. And more than this, it depends not on any individual statement of faith which you or I could make. Instead, it comes to us regardless of what we believe or say or do. To be “born again” by our own abilities is to retreat again into our mother’s womb; is to view our birth as a human effort. To be “born from above” by the Spirit that moves where it may, is to let go of our control of our salvation and to trust in God’s care and concern for us.

While I could consider myself as being “born from above”, I could never see myself as “born again” in this way. For if salvation is for some and not for all, then it is not my idea of salvation. If it is only for Christians and not for all people of faith, and even people without faith, then it is not salvation. If it depends solely on me and not also on God, then I can not see how it is from God. If it is a one-time statement of faith and not a journey of belief, struggle, doubt, hardship, joy, then it is no more than a mere antidote to a much larger experience of life. Yes, God so loved the world that God gave us the gift of the life of Jesus Christ. Yet God did not send Jesus Christ to condemn us if we don’t believe in him, but instead to save us no matter what we believe.

Rather than “John 3:16”, I’d like to see poster boards waving in the wind at games with “John 3:17” on them. John 3:17 says, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus’ role, God’s role is not to judge us but to save us, to help us to be “born from above”; to help us to be open to the Spirit moving in and through our lives. God does not want us to live in fear, bigotry and shame. God does not want us to threaten our brothers and sisters with signs; giving them ultimatums if they don’t believe as we believe. God does not want us to lord Christianity over other traditions, beliefs, and faiths. God does not want the division that “John 3:16” has brought upon the world, but instead wants the unity that a loving, forgiving, compassionate Christ might bring.

We live in an increasingly diverse, dynamic, ever-changing, ever-growing world. God has given us the gift, not of new birth in the judgment of the flesh, but of a new birth in the saving grace of the Spirit. If we are to be evangelists today, which I wholeheartedly believe we are, then it must be in our inclusion of others in our care for them and not in our exclusion of others in our judgment of them. We, like Jesus, must meet the cautious curiosity of Nicodemus not with condemnation, but with patience and great care. And so too, we must constantly remind ourselves that we are not Jesus, we are not God, we are not charged with the salvation of souls, we are only blessed with the calling to share our stories, to share our common journey with others. We must always remember that just as Nicodemus sometimes comes to us through others, so too do we many times come to Jesus with the questions and concerns of a Nicodemus.

Let us pray. God of all salvation, as you sent your Son Jesus Christ to walk with us as we journey towards you, help us to walk with others, not in a spirit of judgment and condemnation, but in a spirit “born from above”; a spirit born from your loving act of creation which continues to give us life. Help us to let go of our need to control, of our own need to take the lead. When we seek to convert others, help us to be converted ourselves. We pray this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, our Rabbi, our Teacher, our Lord. Amen.

Sermon: Ash Wednesday

2008-02-10T07:15:00.001-05:00

Ashes: The Salve for Separation
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Ash Wednesday, Year A (RCL)

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Hearing these words, I’m reminded of the legendary words of Bill Cosby when he recounts his father saying to him, “Boy, I brought you into this world, I can take you out, and it don’t matter to me, cause I can make another one look just like you.” Every Ash Wednesday when I remember that I am dust and will one day return to dust, I can’t help but hear these words as a curse; I can’t help but hear these words as a threat, much like the threat from Bill Cosby’s father. When I kneel down and have a cross of ashes smeared across my forehead, I can’t help but hear these words and be reminded of the nineteenth verse in the third chapter of the book of Genesis; of God’s words to Adam as he is expelled from the Garden of Eden, that by the sweat of his face he shall eat bread until he return to the ground, for out of the ground he was taken; for he was dust, and to dust he shall return.

Through the lenses of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden, it’s easy for me to find the forbidden fruit in my own hand; it’s easy for me to begin to feel the sweat of hard labor gathering on my brow, hardening my face, my hands, my spirit. As they are thrown from paradise saddened and ashamed, I feel my own eyes wandering towards the ground, my own shoulders slumping, my own spirit being broken. As the cross of ashes is smeared across my forehead and I remember that I am dust and will return to dust, I feel the shame and the blame of Adam; the shame and the blame of a young boy who has disgraced his father. Every Ash Wednesday I feel just plain awful because of what I’ve done and because of what I’ve left undone; because of how I’ve separated myself from both God and my neighbor.

I feel this way until I turn to the Hebrew book of wisdom called Ecclesiastes. If you’ve ever heard the popular song “To everything there’s a season” then you’ve heard at least part of the book of Ecclesiastes. Another part of that book happens to be those same words which we find in the book of Genesis; those words that all are from dust and all will one day turn to dust again. Yet in the book of Ecclesiastes, these words from Genesis, these words with which we are marked with ashes today, these very same words take on a very different meaning. Instead of focusing on the sinful shame of a single man, they focus on the equal standing of all of creation. In the book of Ecclesiastes, our remembering that we are dust and will be dust once again isn’t a curse or a threat. Instead, it’s a reminder of our common mortality; a reminder of our common life, a reminder that the distinctions between us are artificial and that we are all we have.

During the period of time in which the book of Ecclesiastes was written there was tremendous economic growth. Money quickly became a commodity, desired for its own sake. Because of a standardized currency, it became possible for even the poorest of people in society to become wealthy. Not only did individuals during this period of time grow in wealth, they also grew substantially in wisdom and political power. The role of the individual increased while the honor traditionally given to the greater community fell by the wayside. As a result of this centralized wealth, wisdom and power, artificial distinctions within the community and between human beings and creation began to develop. When the author of the book of Ecclesiastes writes that we are from dust and will one day turn to dust again, he is telling his contemporaries that no matter how rich they are, wise they are, or powerful they are, they too will one day die and return to the dust from which they came. The author writes, “For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.”

Unlike the book of Genesis which portrays our remembrance of ourselves as dust as a form of punishment for our sinful behavior, the book of Ecclesiastes has us remember that we are dust as the impetus for our reconciliation. The former tells us to remember that we are dust because we have fallen and are sinful. The latter tells us to remember that we are dust just as those poorer than us, dumber than us, weaker than us are dust. Both the book of Genesis and the book of Ecclesiastes contain those same words which I will say to you this afternoon / evening as you come forward to have ashes imposed on your foreheads, yet each leads us to a very different understanding of what we are to remember about ourselves today; whether we are to remember our shortcomings and be shamed by our sinfulness, or remember that our mortality is precisely the basis for the ethic of our sharing all of creation with each other.

This Ash Wednesday, you and I, we have a choice. We can crawl inside of our own guilt and remember and dwell upon our own sinfulness, or we can reach out beyond ourselves and our sense of sinfulness and remember our common humanity, that all of us are loved and valued children of God and at the same time, imperfect, growing and changing beings. We can remember that sweet forbidden fruit which separated us from God’s garden, or we can remember that cross of ashes that is marked upon our heads and that cross of reconciliation that is burned into our hearts. We can begin this journey of Lent vainly seeking our own salvation, if not through individual power and wealth, than through individual penance. Or we can walk through Lent looking outside of ourselves, seeking to salvage our relationships with those we often distinguish ourselves from.

This Ash Wednesday, I invite you to wear the cross of ashes on your forehead proudly. Not so much as a sign to others that you’ve been to church today and are sorry for your sins, but as a sign to others that you and they are more alike than different; that no matter how rich you are and poor they may be, or how common you are and famous they may be, that in the end all of us will one day return to the dust from which we came. When people stop you and ask what’s on your head, you can tell them that it’s a sign that you’re sorry for your sins, but you can also tell them that it’s a sign that you and they have more in common than either of you realize, that you and they are brothers, are sisters, are siblings in this great journey of life that we all take together. You can tell them and teach them that Ash Wednesday is the day that our distinctions cease, the day when we remember our commonality as creatures, the day when we put on our foreheads the salve which will heal our separation. Amen.

Sermon: Epiphany 3

2008-01-30T07:57:00.000-05:00

Belonging to Each Other
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Epiphany 3, Year A (RCL)
1 Corinthians 1:10-18

A young rabbi found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the rabbi said or did moved toward solving the impasse. Finally, in desperation, the young rabbi sought out the synagogue's 99-year-old founder. He met the old rabbi in the nursing home and poured out his troubles. "So tell me," he pleaded, "was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?" "No," answered the old rabbi." Ah," responded the younger man, "then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?" "No," answered the old rabbi. "Well," the young rabbi responded, "what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, and the other half sit and scream." "Ah," said the old man, "that was the tradition."

Whether in a synagogue or at a church, two thousands years ago or today, difference has always been a part of religion. Some do it one way, others another, and ever the two shall argue about which way is the most pleasing, the best way, the right way. And if it’s not about sitting or standing for the prayers, then it’s about who was baptized by whom. This is where we find Paul today as he sits down to write his letter to the good people of Corinth. As he writes, there are quarrels among them, with some claiming to belong to Paul, others to Apollos, others to Cephas, and still others to Christ. In essence, the Corinthians are jockeying for position in the name of those who baptized them; they are claiming their allegiance to one part of the church at the expense of the other. It would be like some of you here today saying, I belong to Al Smith, or I belong to Molly, or I belong to Kipper, or I belong to Fr. Ken. Whether through our posture for prayer or through who baptized us at our beginning, sadly, the church has a history of difference leading to division, of preference for some leading to the expense of others.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email, a modern day epistle which seems quite similar to Paul’s dilemma, so I’ll share it with you. It was an email from former parishioners, who are also good friends, who now live in Michigan. As it turns out, they will be visiting Cincinnati in March at the exact time that Natalie and the girls and I will be in town. Since I baptized their oldest daughter who was born just after Emma, they wanted to know if while I was there I’d be willing to baptize their other daughter as well. They knew that having the baptism at my former parish wasn’t a possibility, so they suggested having a private baptism in their parent’s home or at a park. For them, what was most important was their personal relationship with their priest, not so much their potential relationship with their new parish family. For me, what I’ll need to convey to them when I respond to their email is that baptism isn’t about who baptized or baptizes you, it’s about the Spirit of God with which you are baptized and about the cloud of witnesses that stands with you that day and forevermore.

I believe what Paul was trying to tell the Corinthians is that the church isn’t about who baptized you or who you belong to, but about how we as a community of faith get along together. Despite how it seems, the church isn’t about personalities; it isn’t about how scholarly Paul was in his writings or about how charismatic Apollos was in his preaching. It isn’t about how dynamic Al Smith was, or creative Molly was, or organized Kipper was, or whatever I am. Yes, it’s about the personalities of priests, but it’s more than that. It’s about how you and I, how all of us work together, get along together. The church isn’t about my baptizing my friend’s daughter in private, it’s about my encouraging them to find a church in their own community in Michigan where she can be baptized and celebrated and cherished in only the way a close church family can.

The church also isn’t about who sits and who stands for the prayers. Just as personalities can distract us, so too can tradition cloud our vision. I’m not saying that tradition is wrong or bad, I don’t believe that. I’m just troubled by how it can sometimes become a god in and of itself, much like the personalities of priests and parishioners. “We’ve always done it that way” often times becomes a protective coating on our faith. Yet whether you stand and I sit to pray, or I sit and you kneel, it doesn’t really matter. Whether you like the homemade bread that the altar guild makes or the stale, Necco wafer hosts that other churches use, it doesn’t really matter. Whether you say the contemporary version of the Lord’s Prayer and I say the traditional, it’s still the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. Whether you like the silence of the early 8am service, the creative chaos of the 9:15am service, or the more traditional taste of the 11am service, it doesn’t really matter, God still hears you, forgives you, loves you.

Ultimately, I believe that this is what Paul was getting at; that just because there are differences in the church doesn’t mean that they need to lead to division. Our diversity isn’t something that should scare or stifle us. Instead, it is something which should make us stronger, something which reflects more closely the nature of creation and the nature of God. When we commit ourselves to coming together, not hiding our differences but celebrating them, we become better able to see the message of the cross; the message that when differences lead to division, they also lead to death, and not just the death of our relationships, but also the death of our Lord on the cross. This is why Paul writes that Christ did not send him to baptize, but to proclaim the Gospel. To say it differently, Christ did not send him to divide through baptism, but to unite through the proclamation of the Gospel; not to be a wise leader, but instead, a foolish prophet.

So how do we get there? Amidst our differences which seemingly separate us, how do learn to come closer in our diversity? While there are many things we might try, I believe the first and most important one is listening. I know, sounds simple, right? Wrong. Active listening is one of the most difficult, and exhausting, things you and I can ever do. It’s far easier to be a talking head, that’s why we find so many of them in the media and in the church. That’s what we find in today’s letter from Paul to the Corinthians. It’s far easier to say, “I belong to Apollos” than to ask, “Who do you belong to and why?”. None of us need someone telling us what to do, and at the same time, we don’t need to be going around telling others what to do either. Instead, if we are to come closer in our diversity, we need to actively listen, we need to actively listen so that we can hear about the crosses they bear, see the love of God working in their lives, learn that God loves them just as God loves us, completely, unconditionally, eternally. Maybe then we’ll be able to start a new tradition in the church, a tradition of reconciling relationships. Amen.

Sermon: Epiphany 2

2008-01-24T16:05:00.000-05:00

Reclaiming Christianity
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Epiphany 2, Year A (RCL)
John 1:29-41

In today’s Gospel reading, it’s clear that from day one Jesus was attracting followers. Just after his baptism and before his ministry truly began, Jesus was already adopting the disciples who had been followers of John and having such an impact on them that they themselves were running home to call their own family members to “come and see” Jesus for themselves. There was something about Jesus that from the very beginning caught people’s attention and drew them to him. Through his demeanor, his body language, his words, his actions, his habits, people quickly came to see and believe that Jesus was the Messiah; was the anointed one from God. And it was not only that Jesus was the anointed one of God that drew people to him, it was also that Jesus had an innate, incredible ability to convey to others that they were anointed by God as well. Jesus loved wastefully, he forgave without hesitation, he embraced the untouchable, he in the flesh showed us what God was like in the Spirit and because of that, people flocked to him.

Even after his death, the community of early Christians that carried on continued in Jesus’ reputation of being generous, loving and kind. Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles that the first believers “enjoyed the favor of all the people” and that “great grace was with them all”. A generation after the first believers, the theologian Justin Martyr summarized the appeal of the Christian community by writing, “We who once took most pleasure in accumulating wealth and property now share with everyone in need; we who hated and killed one another and would not associate with men of different tribes because of their different customs now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them and pray for our enemies.” Shortly thereafter in the late second century, the early church father Tertullian wrote in a similar vein, “Our care for the derelict and our active love have become our distinctive sign before the enemy. . . See, they say, how they love one another and how ready they are to die for each other.” So, it’s clear that both during Jesus’ time, and the century or two that followed, that Christianity was seen by most as a way, as a religion of love, forgiveness, grace and tolerance. This is what Jesus taught and lived and this is what those early Christians were able to hold on to for a time.

Unfortunately, times have changed. In our own day and age, no longer do most people associate Christianity with these characteristics. My former professor of ethics at General Seminary, and now the bishop of my former diocese in Southern Ohio, told a funny story about the changed face of the Christian church when he was interviewing for the position of bishop. He told a story of when he was a college student back at Portland State University in Oregon. One day, he was walking across campus there and walked past a preacher type who was handing out tracts on Jesus and salvation. When the preacher asked him if he was saved, he quickly replied without thinking, “No thanks, I’m an Episcopalian.” The purpose of his story to us, and my sharing his story with you, was to illustrate how far our modern-day perspective of the Christian church has departed from the teachings of Jesus and the practices of the early church. When confronted with Christianity today, many of us, including my former bishop, react to the judgment and the shame and the blame which usually follows.

I myself had a similar experience back when I was student at Ohio State. On one bright and sunny spring afternoon, I was lounging on a piece of grass towards the center of the university’s famous green called the Oval. Unbeknownst to me, that day happened to be national “Coming Out” day and a group of gay and lesbian students had gathered for a rally at the north end of the Oval close to the main library. At the other end of the Oval I saw in the distance Brother Jed, an infamous fire and brimstone preacher who was known for getting into arguments with religion and philosophy majors; arguments which would always draw a crowd. Well, it was only a matter of time before both the gay and lesbian student group and Brother Jed’s crowd of onlookers grew so large that both groups began a conversation with each other. It ended with Brother Jed and his life-sized cross screaming judgments and condemnation down upon the gay and lesbian group, and their screaming back. Like my former bishop, I at the time was saddened by the impression that Christianity was leaving on the onlookers. I was concerned about the reputation I was getting as a Christian because of the hate spewed in Jesus’ name.

Unfortunately, it turns out that quote-unquote Christians like Brother Jed have left quite an impression on those of my generation and younger, according to a new book called “unChristian” by David Kinnamin. According to a three-year objective study by Kinnamin, an overwhelming percentage of sixteen to twenty-nine year olds view Christians with hostility, resentment and disdain. And these negative views of Christians aren't just superficial stereotypes with no basis in reality, says Kinnamin. Rather, they’re based upon real experiences with today's Christians. According to his study, 91% of those outside of the church who are sixteen to twenty-nine year olds view Christianity as being “antihomosexual”, 87% see it as “judgmental”, 85% see it as “hypocritical”, 72% see it as “out of touch with reality”, 71% see it as “insensitive to others”, and 68% see it as just plain “boring”. Kinnamin concludes by saying that it would be hard to overestimate, “how firmly people reject — and feel rejected by — Christians”.

So, where do we go from here? In asking the question I’m reminded of Gandhi’s words when he was asked why he wouldn’t become a Christian even though he so often quoted Christ, he replied, “I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.” It would seem then that the path for us to take is the path back to the early church, back to Christ, back to the radical and inclusive nature of Jesus. If we are to once again be like our Christ, we need to work to reform the church within; to make it once again a place of love, of acceptance, of inclusion, of radical welcome for all. And we need to continue to tell others to “come and see”, to tell others to “taste and see” that the Lord is good as we did in last year’s Memorial Day parade, to tell our friends and family about a church where they are accepted wholeheartedly without judgment.

Fortunately, on Sunday, February 10th starting before the 8 o’clock service and going all morning, we’ll have a chance to do just that. That Sunday we’ll be gathering together in the parish hall throughout the morning to bake and decorate Valentine’s Day cookies. Not only will we have a chance to spend quality time together as a parish family during this event, but we’ll also be taking bags of these cookies home with us to give to our friends and family, neighbors and coworkers, as a sign that we here at St James care for them, welcome them, and wish them a Valentine’s Day filled with God’s unconditional love for them. On Sunday, February 10th, I hope you “come and see” for yourself, I hope you “taste and see” that the Lord is good; I hope you join us in our effort to spread God’s love in a fun and spirit-filled and tasty way. Amen.

Sermon: Epiphany

2008-01-06T16:20:00.000-05:00

Something There is That Doesn’t Love a Wall
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Epiphany, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 2:1-12

Today we celebrate the Epiphany of our Lord, the day when the wise men from the East arrived at Jerusalem, and after first being detained and speaking with King Herod, journeyed onwards towards Bethlehem, towards that City of David to see for themselves with their own eyes the King of the Jews, the Messiah, the Christ child lying in the manager. If you look closely at our crèche up here by the altar rail, you’ll notice the addition of three kings, of three wise men, three sages who come bearing gifts which represent power and wealth, the finitude of human life, and the glory to come in the resurrection. Look closely at the manger and you’ll see the three men from the orient that journeyed thousands of miles for their faith and helped to draw the world’s eye to that babe, to that infant king wrapped in swaddling clothes.

While this trek from the East would have been extremely difficult for them to make then, it would be close to impossible were they to attempt the short six-mile journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem today. Were the wise men to approach Bethlehem today, they would be greeted by a daunting concrete wall rising three-stories high and crowned with razor wire. Standing beneath the looming wall and towers, they would be greeted by Israeli soldiers armed with assault rifles that would examine their papers and search their camels. Learning that the three kings where “from orient are” and not Israelis, chances are they would be sent away. Had the three kings opted to mail their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh instead of bring them in person, it could take up to a month before the gifts would arrive—Easter being so early this year, in a month’s time those gifts would be getting there just around Ash Wednesday!

And though getting into the walled little town of Bethlehem today is a feat in and of itself, getting out proves to be even more difficult. With a fifty-percent unemployment rate in Bethlehem, if Joseph were looking for work today he would have to start lining up at the wall around two in the morning to wait and exit through that same large, sliding steel door were the magi would have been stopped and sent away. He would have to enter into a long, steel cage, like a cattle chute, where he would be searched, prodded, fingerprinted and metal-detected; sometimes even asked to strip and most times having to wait for up to two hours at a time before passing through the wall and out towards Jerusalem. After work, he would need to return home quickly, by the curfew time of seven in the evening. He would return to his little town of Bethlehem, now a city of thousands pinched into a seven-square-mile box.

Had Jesus been born today, our crèche wouldn’t include these three wise men from the East, or even perhaps the Holy Family, as Mary, Joseph and Jesus would have been stopped by the Israeli soldiers in their attempt to leave Bethlehem and flee to Egypt. Instead, our crèche would include a fence, and more than a fence, a wall; a tall, unsurpassable wall which would prevent the nativity story from ever being told.

A few weeks ago, I found such a crèche; a walled nativity which depicts the Holy Family in the stable with star overhead on one side, and the three wise men bearing gifts seemingly stuck on the other side. The walled nativity is marketed and sold by the Amos Trust, an organization that “promotes justice and hope for forgotten communities”, much like the forgotten Palestinian community that is trapped inside the walls which surround Bethlehem. It’s a poignant and ironic little nativity, especially given the fact that the craftsmanship comes from Bethlehem while the wood comes from Jerusalem. And while it’s a sad symbol of the present state of Jesus’ birthplace, the proceeds from this crèche go to help rebuild a Bethlehem which has been torn apart by fighting and war.

I also discovered that many in the Jewish community have found this walled nativity to be in poor taste, even to be anti-Semitic. Several have commented that if the nativity is to depict the Israeli wall which serves as an impediment to the wise men, then so too should it depict the Palestinian suicide bombers who, in the mind of the state of Israel, have necessitated the building of such an opposable wall. What they seem to miss, indeed what many Israelis and Palestinians seem to miss, is that neither groups’ hands are clean from the blood which led to the building of this wall; both the extreme, suicidal acts of Muslim militants and the oppressive, sanctioned acts of the Israeli government have cut-up and quarantined the Holy Land. This walled nativity isn’t in poor taste; it’s the 450-mile wall which makes a mockery of God’s unity that’s in poor taste, that’s a failure of humankind. Yes, it’s not okay for Jews and Christians to be subjected to acts of terror by radical Islamic extremists, but at the same time, this wall, this ghettoization of the Palestinian people is not the answer either.

Several years ago, the then prime minister of Israel, when speaking of the building of this wall in the Holy Land, referenced one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost when he stated that “good fences make good neighbors.” Unfortunately, he didn’t understand the great irony of Frost’s poem; that sometimes fences are erected and rebuilt not because they are needed, but because of a lack of human ingenuity and a resistance to change. In his poem Mending Wall, Frost questions why good fences make good neighbors and states, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / what I was walling in or walling out / and to whom I was like to give offence.” When Frost writes, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”, he’s referring to the forces of nature, the force of God, which seems to tear down walls, requiring us to rebuild them. It should also be noted that it is Frost and his neighbor that rebuild the wall together, a wall which allows them to live in peace and privacy, unlike with Israel who continues to build their wall not only without the help of the Palestinians, but also in opposition to ruling by the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Court of Justice.

Yet even with all of this division, even with a walled nativity, even with a ghettoized Holy Land, there is still hope, there is still good news. This good news, this Gospel is something that you may have read about in last September’s Mountain Echo. It’s a summer camping program which is spreading across the country and was most recently held in August here in Vermont. It’s called Kids4Peace and is aimed toward reconciliation, transformation, and communion among “People of the Book”. During camp, twelve children, aged 10-12, from Jerusalem joined twelve counterparts from Vermont. Each group included four from each of the Abrahamic faith traditions: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. The purpose of the camp is for the children to share their faith traditions with others and of course, to learn ways to effectively work for peace. While a small step, it’s an important one; one which is desperately needed if the faithful people of the Holy Land are ever going to be able to tear down their wall and start rebuilding relationships of reconciliation, transformation and trust.

This Epiphany, I encourage you to learn more about the ongoing struggles between the Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land. If you’re an avid supporter of Israel, I encourage you to look more into the plight of Palestine. If you commiserate with the Palestinians in Bethlehem, I encourage you to investigate the reasons behind Israel’s seeming need for a wall. It is an extremist idea to think that only one side is responsible; only one faith to blame. I encourage you to fight against this simply urge to point fingers and to place blame. And more than anything else, I encourage you to learn more about Kids4Peace and similar programs which seek to curtail the cycle of hatred and violence which our children fall prey to at an increasingly younger age. This Epiphany, let us pray for peace in the Holy Land, let us pray for a wall-less nativity, let us pray for the souls of this next generation who will fail to practice war anymore and who will help to bring God’s reconciling, healing love to the world. Amen.

The Archbishop on Sustainability

2008-01-06T16:10:00.001-05:00

Rowan Williams provides a theological slant to the importance of being "green"

Sermon: Advent 4

2007-12-24T12:44:00.000-05:00

The Righteousness of Joseph
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Advent 4, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, and before they were married, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.

What a way to begin a marriage! What a way to enter into a life-long relationship! What a way for Jesus the Messiah to be born into our world! Back then in first century Palestine just as today in 21st century America, making the claim that the Holy Spirit got you pregnant was laughable; telling everyone that the child was literally from God was seen as beyond reason and more than that, it was clearly seen as an act of infidelity and betrayal. In fact, bearing a son from a man other than your husband was an act punishable by death through stoning, both for the mother and for the biological father. Mary, in telling Joseph that he was not the father, opened herself up to possible death if Joseph were to share this information with others. Needless to say, her pregnancy by someone other than Joseph was a rather serious matter.

In getting the news, Joseph had an impossible decision to make. Either he save her, even though she was seemingly not faithful to him, and dismiss her quietly. Or, he be faithful to the law, to the customs of the time, to what his family and his culture taught him to do. You see, Jewish, Greek and even Roman law all demanded that a man publicly disown his wife if she were guilty of adultery. Middle Eastern society at the time viewed with contempt the weakness of a man who let his love for his wife outweigh his own appropriate honor in disowning her. According to his culture and faith, outing pregnant Mary was the right thing for him to do; it was the societal norm and the honorable choice.

Yet Joseph was a righteous man, as Matthew tells us. Joseph was unwilling to give into the outside norms which pressured him to restore his own honor in exchange for the murder of Mary, so he planned to keep this whole nonsense about being with child from the Holy Spirit under wraps. Joseph planned to dismiss Mary quietly not because he was a dead-beat-dad as our modern leanings would tell us. No, he planned to dismiss her quietly in order that he could somehow still save his own reputation and at the same time, prevent her from being killed by stoning. Joseph’s plan to dismiss Mary, believe it or not, was the best compromise a righteous first-century Jew such as himself could make.

But just when Joseph had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Given this appearance of an angel of the Lord in his dream, now Joseph’s decision became even more impossible to make. To keep quite about a partner’s infidelity to save her life and to move on with your own life was one thing, but to continue with the wedding plans and to vow to spend the rest of your life with someone who had cheated on you, hurt you, and violated your trust, this was absurd! Yet this is what the angel of the Lord told Joseph. Yes, saving Mary’s life at the expense of his honor was a righteous act, violating Jewish law in order to validate God’s love and forgiveness was the right thing to do, yet the angel of the Lord comes to Joseph in a dream to tell him that he can do more, that he can do better, that what he has decided to do in dismissing Mary quietly is not enough. It is not enough to abandon a pregnant woman in a society where unmarried women were devalued and seen as worthless. It is not enough to bastardize a child in a society where fatherless children were abandoned and abused.

When Joseph awoke from his dream he awoke to a world which called on him to not only do the right thing, but called him to go beyond that; a world which not only called on him to save Mary’s life but also called him to give up his own. Joseph does the righteous thing by choosing not to tell the elders about Mary’s infidelity, but then he goes beyond that by choosing to wed and validate Mary in a culture which would have disowned her otherwise. At the very same time, Joseph risks contempt from his peers for being weak by not outing Mary, and more than that, utter scorn from his culture for then agreeing to be the father to this child seemingly born of the Holy Spirit. When the angel of the Lord came to Mary, she sang that the Lord in his coming will put down the mighty from their seats and exalt the humble and meek. When the angel of the Lord came to Joseph, he, being mighty by virtue of his manhood, came down from his seat, and in saying yes to God, helped to exalt the humble and meek, both in pregnant Mary and in the Christ child.

Joseph’s transformation is made complete as he heeds the calling of the angel of the Lord and names Jesus. The fact that Joseph names Jesus and not Mary should not be overlooked. In first century Jewish culture it was always the mother who named the child, not the father. Yet here, Joseph does the naming. And unlike our modern times, first century Jews did not have DNA testing to confirm or deny paternity. Instead, they relied on the father’s word as being the final litmus test. If the father said it was his, then it was his, is he said it wasn’t his, then it wasn’t. Therefore, when Joseph names Jesus he confirms his paternity in the most intimate, the most meaningful of ways. Through his taking Mary to be his wife and Jesus to be the child he has named, Joseph clearly shows his contemporaries and us today the transformation made possible when we open ourselves up not to the best case scenario, but rather, to God’s case scenario.

This Christmas, will we be so bold and faithful to say yes when God calls us to sacrifice ourselves in order to exalt others? Will we have the courage and the strength to not only do the right thing which will still allow us to save face, but more than that, even the right thing which will require us to pay the highest of costs? Will we be brave enough to follow in the footsteps of Joseph and Jesus in working to reclaim what the world has judged as worthless and deserving of death? My hope and prayer for all of us today is that we listen to our hearts, listen to our dreams when God calls us to do something which our friends and family and society all tell us is backwards, wrong, and dishonorable; that we may have our eyes and ears to the sky as we wait for the coming of the Lord, as we anticipate the angel of Lord who will come to us in great glory bidding us not to be afraid but to take heart, for the path we are to take is all a part of God’s plan for us. Amen.

Learn About Where 99% Of Your Christmas Stuff Goes

2007-12-21T10:34:00.001-05:00

Click here: www.storyofstuff.com

Sermon: Advent 3

2007-12-18T07:10:00.000-05:00

Waiting for What Is
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Advent 3, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 11:2-11

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

John the Baptist asks this question of Jesus in today’s Gospel. John asks this question because while he was in prison, he caught word of what Jesus was doing and it didn’t sit well with him. John was expecting a warrior-king who would save some while drowning others; an all-powerful Messiah who would cut off some who were dead wood and burn them, while harvesting others who were fruitful and good. For John, yes, some must be left behind and yes, some like the Pharisees were vipers who shouldn’t be warned of the wrath to come. Yet Jesus didn’t fit this mold. Jesus ministered to those whom John sought to push away; he came not to bring division but reconciliation. Jesus came not to persecute but to be persecuted, not to be served but to serve. And because Jesus didn’t fit with John’s expectations of him, John asks this question, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

During this Christmas season, we like John may find ourselves asking this very same question, not of Jesus, but of our expectations for what the holiday season will bring. Is this the perfect gift, or should I look for another? Is this the perfect Christmas party invitation, or should I wait for another? Are these the perfect Christmas cards to mail out, or should I find another? Will this be the perfect visit with my extended family, or could it be even better? And while these questions often consume the Christmas season, they’re also with us year-round, in our day-to-day lives. Is this the car that I’ve always wanted, or should I wait for another? Is this dream house that we had to buy five years ago really what we want, or is there another? Is this person I fell in love with years ago still the person I want to spend my life with, or should I look for another? Is this the Christmas, is this the life that I’ve always dreamed about, our should I look for another?

We ask these questions, not because our expectations of Christmas and life are fulfilled. No, we ask these questions because, as with John, what Jesus is doing, what God is doing in the world doesn’t sit right with us. It isn’t that we’re opposed to Jesus or God that makes this so. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Because we’re faithful Christians, because we’re good people, many times it seems that when our expectations of how Christmas should be and how the world should run aren’t fulfilled, then we begin to question if Jesus is indeed the one to come, if God is indeed the one who is here and can help us, or if we should wait for another.

Just as John’s idea of the Messiah wasn’t God’s idea of the Messiah but rather one based on the powers and principalities of this world, so too our idea of a merry Christmas or of a fulfilled life often times aren’t based on God’s will for our lives but instead, on some happy-ever-after fairytale of what Christmas should look like, of what life should be like. Maybe the better question for John to have asked would have been, “This is indeed the one who is to come, am I ready?” Maybe the better question for us to ask at Christmas time and in life is, “Are we ready to accept this holiday season for what it is, this life for what it is, or must it be something it’s not?”

To John’s question, Jesus tells John’s disciples to, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” Jesus tells John’s disciples to use their senses if they want an answer to John’s question. Jesus tells John to look for the good and the healing and the reconciliation going on around him already, even in prison, if he wants to know if he is the Messiah or not. In essences, Jesus is telling John and his disciples to open their eyes, not to their fulfilled expectations made manifest in him, but to God’s providence already present in the lives in which they live. Jesus is telling John in so many words that yes, he is the one who is to come, but at the same time, no, he isn’t who they think he is, or should be. Jesus is asking him not to wait for another, but instead, to change his thinking so that his waiting is over; so that he is able to see that he has found what he was searching for.

Knowing all this, what if we approached Christmas this year with our ears and our eyes wide open? Instead of searching for the perfect gift which doesn’t exist, or the most enjoyable Christmas party, or the perfect Christmas card that proves that you care to send the very best, or the most awe-inspiring, honest and healthy family reunion you’ve ever had, what would happen if we just used our senses to experience the world as God revealed it to us? What would happen if we greeted our unfulfilled expectations with a warm mug of humility, appreciation and gratitude? What if we stopped for a second to let Christmas be what it is instead of what we want it to be? What if our concern became more clearly our experiencing Christmas rather than Christmas experiencing us?

And in life, what if we approached life this year with our ears and our eyes wide open? Instead of chasing after that new car every five or ten years, visioning and revisioning that new dream house that we need, or fantasizing about the perfect person out there in the world who isn’t our spouse, what would happen if we just opened our senses to God’s gifts already surrounding us? What would it be like to have lists of things we were grateful for replace our home improvement lists? What if we resolved for ourselves this upcoming year to bring our lives more in line with God’s will instead of trying to cram God into our life plan? Again, what if our concern became more clearly our experiencing life rather than life experiencing us?

After all, this sense of experiencing the unknown of Christmas, the mystery of life, this is indeed what God’s will is all about, isn’t it? Mary didn’t know that she was with child until the angel Gabriel suddenly appeared and told her so. The shepherds didn’t know about the birth of Jesus until the angels told them so. The wise men didn’t know in which direction to trek until a fleeting star led the way. John was a fool to think that he could know what the coming of the Messiah would be like. We too are foolish if we greet Christmas, if we greet life thinking we know what perfection is all about. We would be much wiser to stop, look and listen. We would be much wiser to replace our future hopes with our current blessings; to shift our perspective from what could be to what truly is. Advent is a season of waiting; a season of waiting for the unknown. May God grant us in this season of Advent, this season of Christmas a holy patience and an openness to receive whatever it is that God has in store for us. Amen.

Sermon: Advent 1

2007-12-03T15:59:00.000-05:00

Selfish Slumber, Selfish Salvation
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Advent 1, Year A (RCL)
Matthew 24:36-44

“Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”

Forget about knowing what day the Lord is coming, I don’t even know what day Amelia is coming. I don’t even know on what day and at what hour Natalie’s contractions will get so close together that we need to head to the hospital. Selfishly, I hope it’s not in the middle of the night when I’m asleep. I’m pretty good about keeping awake if I’m already up, but I’m a grouch if I have to get up in the middle of the night—just ask Natalie, she’ll tell you. In the middle of the night, it’s difficult for me to open my eyes and to see that the world is more than myself; that others are depending on me. It’s difficult, but it’s something that I know I’ll have to do, not only for myself, but more importantly, for Natalie and Emma and Amelia. Keeping awake or waking up isn’t so much about my being prepared for what’s to come. Rather, it’s about our being prepared for the coming of our new daughter into the world.

Today we enter into the season of Advent; a season which is all about keeping awake, being prepared, getting things in order for the coming of the Son of Man. Always in the past when I’ve considered Advent, I’ve spent my time and energy thinking about if I myself am prepared. Would I be ready for the coming of the Lord? Are my affairs in order? Is my desk clean? Is my bag packed? Is my attitude that of contrition and not pride? Always in the past I’ve thought of Advent as a season of solitude in prayer and study and action. Advent is the time for me to shut out the outside world and for me to prepare myself for the coming of the Lord at Christmas. Others will do their own thing but as for me, for me, I need to look to my own house and my own life in order to get ready and to be prepared.

Being in the place now with Natalie’s pregnancy that I know at some time soon I’ll have to drop what I’m doing and make myself fully available to her every need, I’ve come to look upon this season of Advent with new eyes. This year it dawned on me that, just as my keeping awake for the birth of my new daughter is not solely for myself but also for my family, so too is my keeping awake for the coming of the Lord not something I do only for myself, but rather, something I do for the entire human family. It’s important that if Amelia comes in the middle of the night that I acknowledge my selfish desire to stay in bed and instead of give into it, that I wake up in order to help Natalie and Emma. In the same way, it’s important that if the Son of Man comes when I am self-centered that I rebel against my own self-interest and instead seek to serve those that need my help.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus advises his disciples about his coming. He tells them to keep awake not only because they do not know what day the Lord is coming, but he also implies that they need to keep awake because if they don’t, they could be left behind. It would seem then that in our keeping awake, we become the chosen ones; we become the ones that are prepared and accepted and taken up to be with God. Yet what about those who are left behind? What happens to them? Will they be left to slumber when we are saved? I would argue that if this is the case, then the coming of the Lord is not an occasion to celebrate but rather an atrocity to be feared. If this is the case, then I don’t look forward to the coming of the Lord, but instead, I dread it. If this is the case, then I would rather be left behind with those who failed to keep awake.

Ironically, I believe that it is when we find ourselves keeping awake solely for ourselves that we become blinded to what we are truly waiting for. When we become so very interested in and certain of who is “in” and who is “out”, then we miss the point. When Jesus was born into our world he was born into poverty and hardship. Throughout his life and ministry he stayed there, meeting the people where they were, associating with tax collectors and prostitutes and known sinners. When Jesus left our world through his crucifixion he was hung between two murders, in a place of pain and public scorn. Knowing this, would he not also remain with the one left in the field, with the woman grinding meal? Would he himself not stay there until they woke up and could join him?

On the night before he died our Lord Jesus Christ went to a place called Gethsemane and went off by himself to pray. Before doing so, he told Peter, James and John to keep awake until he returned. Not once but twice Jesus came back to find them sleeping. Each time he woke them up; each time he did not leave them to their dreams but woke them up, calling them to be alert and to pray. Jesus called them to keep awake, yet even when they feel asleep repeatedly, he returned to be with them, to wake them up, to help them along. Later they would fall asleep again; they would fall asleep when confronted by their own possible crucifixion for being followers of Jesus. And though they would deny knowing Jesus and abandon him, even still, Jesus returned again to wake them up. Even when Jesus was pinned down to the cross, unable to move, unable to return to wake them up, he called them to himself, to open their eyes, to help them see.

This Advent I plan to try my best to stay awake, both in the spiritual sense and in the physical sense. Unlike years past, I’m going to try to be mindful of why I’m staying awake; that it isn’t solely for my own wellbeing and my own sake, but is also for the well being of my family and those others in the field and out grinding meal. I’ll still be a grouch if I have to get up in the middle of the night, I’ll still be concerned with my own preparation for the coming of Christmas, but I’m also going to try to make a conscientious effort to look beyond my own need for sleep; my own need for salvation.

My prayer for all of you this Advent is that you join with me in this struggle; in this struggle to stay with those who are left behind, to keep awake with those who are falling asleep. In Advent as in life, we need each other for support, for encouragement, for love, for salvation. We cannot afford for any of us to be left behind, we cannot afford a salvation which comes at the expense of others. We must sit with others in their struggles as God comes to sit with us in our struggles through the incarnation; through the birth of Jesus. We must not wait, for the hour is unexpected, and the cost unknown. Amen.

Sermon: Christ the King

2007-11-26T08:06:00.000-05:00

Christ the King’s Call to Us
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Christ the King, Year C (RCL)
Luke 23:33-43

The leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the chosen one.” The soldiers mocked him, saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” And the people stood by, watching.

One of the greatest fallacies of the Christian faith is the notion that it was necessary for Jesus to die on the cross; the notion that somehow God required his death as atonement for our sins. Related to this fallacy is the belief that once upon the cross, Jesus could have saved himself but chose not to; that he could have called upon the heavenly hosts to sweep down and remove him from that ancient instrument of death, that he could have somehow asserted his messianic power and, like some first-century Houdini, veiled himself for an instant, only to reappear below the cross dazzling white and refreshed. The leaders scoffed at him, the soldiers mocked him, one of the criminals derided him, and the people stood idly by, all watching and waiting for Jesus to make his move; for God to step in and to do sometime. They all stood idly by, as a crowd before a bad car wreck, pointing and whispering and jeering but not getting too close to the action.

In the end, nothing miraculous happened on the cross that day. Jesus died right there in front of leaders who could have helped him, soldiers who could have saved him, a criminal who could have spoken up on his behalf, and people, crowds of people, who could have stepped in and done something. That day, Jesus died not because it was God’s will; not as a sacrifice for our sins, but because it was our will to kill him; he died because of our sins; namely our sin of capital punishment. Jesus was nailed to the cross with nails that he needed us to remove. The leaders, the soldiers, the criminal all called on Jesus to save himself. Everyone else stood by watching, waiting for Jesus to save himself. What they all failed to realize was that Jesus was calling on each and everyone one of them to do the same thing; to save him. Jesus would have gladly welcomed a helping hand down from the cross, indeed, he was watching, waiting for one. Instead, he was abandoned to his own inability to save himself; he was given up as a guinea pig to test God’s saving grace.

Today, as we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, there is the great temptation to cover the dying body of Christ with the cloak of priestlyness, of royalty, of strength and great stature. With Christ as King, there is the great temptation to send Jesus to hair, to makeup, to wardrobe, to get him dressed in the finest couture and to have his teeth brightened. With Christ as King, it is most tempting to see to it that he is ready for his début on the cross; that he appear strong and powerful and gracefully as he lifts himself up off of the cross and welcomes in the Kingdom of God.

This may sound farfetched, yet all we must do is look up above our altar to know that it is true. On our own Christus Rex, our own symbol of Christ as King, Jesus stands triumphant on the cross. He wears priestly vestments to clearly signify his standing with God, a crown adorns his head announcing his place as king, his head is not slumped to the side but stands upright, looking boldly out into the congregation. This Christus Rex is a symbol of strength and stature. Had Jesus looked like that on the cross during his crucifixion, we would be remiss to say that he couldn’t have saved himself and brought himself down off of the cross.

While the Christus Rex is a wonderful sign of Christian faith in the power and glory of the resurrection, with Jesus the great high priest and king triumphing over the power of death found in the cross, at the same time, it can give us the wrong impression. The Christus Rex in all of its glory can give us that same false impression that the leaders, the soldiers, the criminal and the onlookers had as they told Jesus, expected Jesus to save himself. It can give us the false impression that Jesus can handle things on his own and that he therefore doesn’t need our help. It can dangerously and erroneously lead us to think and believe that Jesus had the power to save himself, and more than that, that God had a role in Jesus’ dying in order to make us clean. When we look upon Christ as King on the cross, we forget that we have a most important role to play in salvation history. We are not to scoff, to mock, to deride, to stand idly by in the face of torturous murder. No, since he is the chosen one, since he is the Messiah, since he is the King of the Jews, we must help him; together, we must work to save him.

Jesus of Nazareth is dead, having died at the hands of the Romans, the Jews, the crowds, the people of first century Palestine. Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the King lives on today in the lives of those who are oppressed and live on the outskirts of life. He lives on in the hearts of those whom we assume can save themselves from their own situation in life. He lives on in those born into poverty, into discrimination, into hatred; those who through the messiness of life find themselves nailed to the very same cross from which he was hung. He lives on in their cry to us for help. Will we demand that he help himself, save himself when we have the power and the means to save him? Will we stand idly by, watching to see what others do before we jump in to help?

Next Sunday we begin the season of Advent, we leave Christ the crucified King behind and begin our time of waiting for the birth of the Christ child. As we move from the image of the cross to the image of the cradle, may we also allow our assumptions about others to be born into a new image; into a new light. May we come to hear the cries of the oppressed in our society not with a callous heart, but rather with the heart of a mother for her newborn child. May we come to see those in our society who are looking for a handout not as lazy or undeserving, but as children of God, reaching for affection, for relationship, for reconciliation with a world where they live unwanted and unloved. We are not to stand idly by, for we have a part to play in the great pageant, and our part is both a speaking one and one which calls for action, once which calls for us to claim our own place, our own role in the great drama of salvation history. Amen.

The Bible and Homosexuality

2007-11-23T20:35:00.000-05:00

Click on the pic above to play the trailer for a great new film about the bible and homosexuality. I'm trying to get the filmmakers to bring it to the Roxy in Burlington. If not, then we'll show it and discuss it at St James.

Sermon: Pentecost 25

2007-11-19T15:55:00.000-05:00

A Baptism of Imprisonment
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Pentecost 25, Year C (RCL)
Luke 21:5-19

“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.”

I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be in church this morning, worshiping with all of you. Yesterday, I was in prison. I was behind walls several feet thick, under towers with armed guards, behind numerous gates, up several flights of stairs. I spent all morning and most of the afternoon trying to catch a glimpse of the blue sky through windows slightly larger than our songbooks, in a cave of a classroom filled with artificial lights and dying house plants. Yesterday, I participated in the first day of a two day Kairos retreat at Clinton prison in Dannemora, New York. Today is day two, and while I couldn’t be there again myself, several St James parishioners are there in Dannemora right now as I speak, finishing the retreat.

While I was there, I met a young man who happened to be around my age. At the young age of 18 he was arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Now at the age of 27, he spoke of his past 8 years in prison and how being inside was driving him crazy. He described his tiny cell to me, spoke of the lack of contact he had with the outside world, promised that when he got out he’d never come back because prison food was so bad. He also shared with me many of the ways in which he’d been dehumanized by the prison system. One of the other men in the group jumped in and mentioned that he was going to be released next Wednesday. He worried that he wouldn’t be able to make it on the streets back in the Bronx and was scared that he’d be returning to Dannemora. Sharing his concern with one of the guards, the guard replied that he’d been keeping his bed warm for him and that he’d always have a place back at Clinton.

Experiencing the setting of the prison myself and hearing a little about prison culture from some of the inmates there, I thought of the line in today’s Gospel which I began with—“they will hand you over to prisons, and you will be brought before governors because of my name.” If this is true, if it’s true that I’ll be handed over to prisons and brought before governors, then God forgive me, but maybe I just can’t cut it as a Christian. If being a Christian means going to prison, being stripped of my identify and self, being confined to quarters insufficient for a dog, being told what to do when to do it and having no say in the matter, then maybe the Christian life isn’t for me. I couldn’t imagine spending one year in prison, let alone 30. I couldn’t imagine becoming my past faults because that is all the system saw in me. I don’t think I could do it, I really don’t.

Yet this is the life that we’re called into. As Christians, we’re called into a life of sacrifice, of pain, of disadvantage, of imprisonment. We’re called into a life not only of spiritual, emotional highs, of mountain-top experiences, of times when we experience God’s joyous love, but we’re also called into a life of speaking out even if we’re scorned, of rejecting the status quo even if we’re rejected, of acting out for justice even if we’re brutalized, punished and imprisoned. Jesus tells us that because of his name we will be imprisoned; because of our faithfulness to God and our unfaithfulness to the powers of this world we will be victimized and made the laughing stock of all the people. I know, it sounds just plain awful, so bad that I doubt everyday if I will be able to live up to it. Yet this is the pure and simply truth of what we will face if we are to be Christians. It is not a question of if this will happen to us as Christians; it is only a question of when.

Today, several of the infants and toddlers here at St James will be baptized. Today, their parents and godparents will speak on their behalf and commit them to the Christian faith and life. Today, these young children will become a part of the Christian community of faith which requires the utmost in faithfulness from them, both in word and in deed; a faith which requires that they be willing to give their lives to a lifetime of sacrifice and even imprisonment if that is what God is calling them into.

The promise will be made on their behalf that they will seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving their neighbor as themselves. Often times this is an easy promise to keep. It calls for respect and love of neighbor and in our time and place, that’s easy enough. But what if respecting and loving their neighbor could lead to their imprisonment? What if they were faithful Germans during the time of the second World War. Would they respect and love their Jewish neighbors even if it meant their own imprisonment or maybe even death? This is what it means to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving them as ourselves. It’s a huge sacrifice which may not have all that great of an impact now, but may very well require nothing less than our own lives at some point in time.

Following this, the promise will also be made on their behalf that they will strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. Part of striving for justice and peace means standing up to and speaking out against unjust wars, unjust practices in the work place, unjust treatment of any and all classes and groups of people. Again, in our own time and place this promise may be easy enough to keep. But the day may very well come when their own livelihood and security may need to be sacrificed at the expense of demanding justice and peace and dignity for others. The day may come when they’re marching to end a war and are threatened with teargas and imprisonment. Would they then stand up for justice and peace or bend to the powerful political pressures of the time? Truly, it’s an extremely difficult question to answer, yet one which, if we take it seriously, our baptismal covenant equips us for.

My prayer today for Garrett, Michaela and Maluchy is that, with the love and support of their parents, godparents and this community of faith, they may grow into the full stature of Christ; that they may experience fully God’s love for them and find joy in the wonders of creation. I also pray that they learn to fully embrace the messiness of life, the great costs of life, the struggle and the hardship of life, not for the sake of suffering, but for the sake of the promises made in their baptismal covenant. I hope and pray that they, and that all of us as Christians, find the courage and the strength to stand up in love and respect for justice and peace for all, even if they be arrested and persecuted, sentenced and imprisoned for the principles and the faith on which they stand. Amen.

Sermon: All Saints Sunday

2007-11-08T09:28:00.000-05:00

Turning Cheeks, Turning Hearts
Sunday, November 4, 2007
All Saints Sunday, Year C (RCL)
Luke 6:20-31

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies…. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.”

Seems fairly simple right? Or if not simple, then at least pretty clear. If someone bullies you, hits you, abuses you, then you’re just supposed to take it. If some country or group of people declares war on us or threatens us, then we’re just supposed to take it as it comes and try our best to kindly not retaliate and to love them even in their violence and hatred. If someone strikes us on the cheek, then we are to offer the other also; we are to continue to allow them to use and abuse us with no end in sight. And for those that steal from us, those that take our coats and our livelihoods, we’re supposed to not only embrace their theft, we’re to encourage it by giving them even the shirts off our backs. From what Jesus is telling us in today’s Sermon on the Plain, it seems that being a passive doormat is what the Christian life is all about; that giving even at our own expense, our own need for justice and respect, that this is the Gospel message.

However I don’t think that this is the case; that this extreme understanding and form of passivism is what Jesus is calling us into at all. I don’t think that Jesus would have told the past victims of slavery in this country, and those who are still serving as slaves around the world, to get used to it and to bide their time. I don’t think Jesus would tell victims of domestic violence to turn the other cheek, to cover up their bruises and to deal with it gracefully. I don’t think Jesus would ask the poor of our country who continue to fall deeper and deeper into poverty and just give in to the system; to give the rich the shirts off their backs because they have already had their coats stolen from them. Truly, this runs counter to everything the Gospel, and for that matter the Hebrew Scriptures, are all about. It is God who releases the oppressed, frees the slaves, lifts up the lowly, demands justice and calls us not to sit passively by but to rise up; to rise up and to join in the revolution which is the coming of the Kingdom of God.

So then, if it’s not about being a passive doormat, if it’s about revolution, then the thinking often follows that it simply must then be about righting a wrong, about setting things straight through retaliation and recompense. If it’s not about turning the other cheek and giving everything away, then it must be the opposite extreme of that; it must be about defending ourselves by any means necessary and taking what we can when we can get it. If it’s not about passive flight, then it must be about active fight; it must be about the death of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, it must be about the Crusades for the Christian cause, it must be about our preemptively striking before we are struck. If God isn’t calling us to be passive and if God isn’t passive, then it seems that the only other option is to be active in an aggressive way, in a dominating way, in an ultimately abusive and unhealthy way. Many times it seems that if we can not beat them with our love, then the only other option is for us to join them in fighting with our arms.

Yet if this is the case, then what do we do with Jesus’ words for his disciples and for us today? If it’s clear that dormant passivism just encourages evil and active aggression is seemingly the only way to defend ourselves from it, then how do we then make sense of Jesus’ call for us to turn the other cheek and to give away all we have when something is taken from us? Let me suggest here that Jesus is offering to his disciples and to us today a third option; an option to actively respond to our enemies but in a non-aggressive way. Though it needs a little decoding for our modern ears and brains, Jesus is suggesting to his disciples and to us that loving our enemies isn’t about letting them take advantage of us, and neither is it about our taking advantage of them. Instead, it’s about helping our enemies to see that in their war and violence and greed that they too are victims.

To get to this place of clarity, we need to first fully understand what Jesus meant when he told his disciples to turn the other cheek. Back in Jesus’ time, striking or slapping someone on the cheek was a way of asserting authority and dominance over them. If the person who was slapped decided to turn the other cheek, then the oppressor was faced with a problem. Rather than strike or slap that person again, their only option was to punch them, and while slapping was a way of asserting authority, punching was seen as a statement of equality and only done among equals. So, when Jesus tells his disciples to turn the other cheek, he is not telling them to passively take abuse but instead, he is telling us to take a stand, both for themselves and for their abuser, by declaring their equality and their shared humanity with the one who has struck them. In telling his disciples and us to turn the other cheek, Jesus is telling us to look our oppressors in the eyes, not to stare them down and humiliate them, but that through our eyes they may see our common humanity and the pain inflicted on them through their abuse of us.

A similar understanding of the relationship between victim and oppressor can be found in Jesus’ commandment to his disciples to give their shirts off their backs to those who steal their coats from them. Just as the turning of one’s cheek presented the oppressor with a problem, so too did the stripping off of one’s shirt. In Jewish law it was directly forbidden for someone to strip another of all their garments and to leave them naked. If someone took your coat and you gave them your shirt, they would leave you naked and thus be in violation of that law. And not only that, but public nudity in Jesus’ time was seen as bringing shame upon the viewer and not the naked. So, by not withholding even your shirt when your coat was taken, the oppressor was both in violation of the law and subject to shame. In telling his disciples and us to not withhold even our shirts, Jesus is telling us to make our naked pain visible to our oppressors and the world, that through our vulnerable witness they may see their own vulnerability and our common humanity.

So why should we care about first-century fist fights and the legalities of Jewish law? When Jesus says turn the other cheek and give the shirt off your back, what’s he really asking you and I to do today? I believe he’s asking us to not to be passive at the expense of ourselves and not to be aggressive at the expense of others, but to find the middle ground; to grab hold of our oppressors and abusers not to hurt them, but to show them that we are real and for us to remind ourselves that they too are real and loved by God. If we allow ourselves to be abused, not standing up to the injustices around us, we not only do ourselves a disservice, but we also deny the ability of the grace of God to work within our oppressors by not calling them to a greater good. So too, if we aggressively react against our oppressors, we not only hurt them but we also hurt ourselves in the process. Jesus’ third way provides us with a win-win option, allowing us to balance the grace of God working within us with the grace of God working within our oppressors. It builds a bridge between those who are blessed and those who are woeful; between the poor, the hungry, the sad, the excluded and the rich, the full, the laughing, the honored. Jesus’ third way helps us to deal with our pain and our need by embracing the pain and need which lie at the heart of those who have hurt us.

So the next time someone strikes you on the cheek, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, offer the other also, offer the other by turning towards them and not away, looking them in the eye, calling them to a higher good, searching for God not in their action but at the heart of their being. Turn the other cheek so that through yours eyes they may see their own nakedness and vulnerability and may find God in the process. As impossible as it may seem, we are called to this third way; the way of the cross, the way that will lead us into life.

In the hope of being a people of the way, let us pray: Blessed God, you provide for us in our need and humble us in our excess; help us to love ourselves but not at the expense of our neighbor and to love others but not at the cost of our well-being; give us the grace neither to flee from harm, nor to fight it, but to embrace your love for those who seek to hurt us; that seeking the grace of your love we may come to discover the risen Christ. Amen.

Sermon: Pentecost 21

2007-10-21T07:15:00.000-04:00

Prayer as Discernment, not Petition
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Pentecost 21, Year C (RCL)
Luke 18:1-8

“…Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?”

It’s a good question, yet one which begs another: “Does God require our crying, our begging, our persistence, our being a constant bother in order for our prayers to be answered?” Given today’s Gospel, it would seem as if God does, it would seem that this is the point of Jesus’ parable to his disciples; that if they pray constantly and do not lose heart then God will have compassion on them and their prayers will be answered. Such a lesson from Jesus would suggest that if his disciples were only more diligent, more persistent, more faithful in prayer, then God would quickly grant justice to them. Such a lesson from Jesus would advise us to do the same; to pray without ceasing in order that our prayers may be heard and God may act, to prayerfully wear God down to the point where God answers our prayers out of self-preservation and not mercy.

Yet if this is the case, I would argue that our prayer life is no more than a barter system and the kingdom of God no more than a meritocracy. I for one do not believe that God grants justice based on quotas, any more than I believe that our sins can be “paid off” through our simply saying so many Hail Marys or Our Fathers. I cannot believe that God’s justice and mercy would ever depend on how diligent any of us are in prayer. God is not like the unjust judge who requires the begging, the persistence, the diligence of the widow. Who God is and what God does is unchangeable. Our prayers, no matter how diligent or well-meaning, will never change the nature and essence of God. God will not simply wake up one morning and say, “Oh, yeah, what was I thinking, I was wrong and Ken was right, so let me answer his prayer.” Yes, God grants justice to his chosen ones, but it is not because of what his chosen ones have done, it is because of who God is.

So then, if this Gospel is not about how the persistence of prayer convinces God to grant us justice, then what exactly is it that Jesus is trying to teach us and his disciples? Let me suggest here that while I do not believe that our diligence in prayer can change the nature of God, or even God’s mind, I do believe in the power of prayer in the way in which it changes us and our perspective on life. Through our persistence in prayer and in our prayerful relationship with God, we come to see and to learn more the nature of God and therefore of justice, love and peace. God is not changed when we cry to him day and night, we are changed in our crying, in our begging, in our faithfulness in discerning what God would have us to do and not so much what God can do for us. Whether we come to God in prayer with an agenda or with an openness to all outcomes, we usually leave with a better understanding of God and of life.

In many ways, prayer is like the ancient Buddhist parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant. In the parable, a “raja” or a Buddhist priest gathered together six blind men and invited them all to touch an elephant. When all of the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and asked them to describe the elephant. One, having felt the head of the elephant, said it was like a pot. The second, having felt the ear of the elephant, said it was like a winnowing basket. The third, having felt the tusk of the elephant, said it was like a ploughshare. The fourth, having felt the body of the elephant, said it was like a granary. The fifth, having felt the foot of the elephant, said it was like a pillar. The last, having felt the tip of the elephant’s tail, said it was like a brush. All of the men had truly touched the elephant, but none of them could agree as to if the elephant was like a pot, or a pillar, or a brush. In truth, the elephant was not like any one of these things, but instead like all of these things.

When we cry day and night and come to God, blindfolded in prayer, the most any of us can glean from God is a part of God’s presence. When we pray, we not so much win the will of God, but rather, we reach out our hand to feel part of God’s essence and to come to more fully discover God’s plan for us. Sometimes we may be looking for a trunk and instead find an ear, yet whatever we find, it is no less a part of God’s essence. This is why communal prayer is so very important. In order to best discern the nature of God, we need as many hands touching the elephant as possible. This is also what I believe to be the moral of today’s Gospel; that through persistence in prayer, we touch the elephant ourselves each time we pray, with each touch and with each prayer revealing more and more about the elephant, more and more about the nature and essence of God.

If we were not persistent in prayer, we would give up and give in and fail to more fully realize just what it is that God has planned for us. Like the blind man, we would feel the tip of the elephant’s tail and proclaim the elephant to be a brush, when this couldn’t be further from the truth. Without our persistence, we would never come to realize that the elephant has a wonderful long trunk, large flapping ears, and is much, much larger than an old brush. In the same way, without our persistence in prayer, we would never come to better understand just why it is that bad things happen to good people, or why God allows for evil in the world, or why, centuries after Jesus’ parable in Luke for today, there are still widows and poor and homeless who are begging for justice from our modern-day judges. Without persistence and faith and hope, we just might find ourselves focusing on the awful events of this world and stop reaching to touch God in prayer.

This is what Jesus is teaching to his disciples in today’s Gospel; to be diligent in prayer and to not lose hope, not because it will change God, but because it will change the world. He asks, “…When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” That same question is still as important for us today as it was for his disciples then. Today, would Jesus find faith on earth; would he find persistence in prayer, even when our prayers are seemingly unanswered, even when we sometimes feel that God is not listening? Would he find in us a faith which does not depend on a like-minded God but rather, a faith which depends on, well, our faithfulness? A faith which finds its foundation in Jesus’ words on the night before he died when he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done”?

May this be our cry to God both day and night, that we reach out our hands in prayer not to receive what we think is best for us, but that we reach out to touch the mystery of God, hoping to feel God’s will for us, that we may go and do the same. Amen.