Monthly Archives: July 2014

On dignity…

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Today I drove by a pharmacy whose property is regularly peppered with “day laborers.”  I have yet to see someone actually out hiring people, but I imagine it must happen since every time I pass by, there are always 5 – 20 men standing around waiting.  Of course there are more men in the mornings and less in the afternoons.  But I consistently see men there, even in the late afternoons.  I have often wondered whether these men actually get hired at such a late hour, but their presence there leads me to believe that they must some days.

As I drove by the men gathered today, I was reminded of Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20.1-16).  The landowner goes out at nine, noon, three, and five, each time hiring men from the marketplace.  At the end of the day, the landowner gives a full day’s wages to all the men, regardless of how long each person worked.  The ones who work the longest grumble at how unfair the landowner’s actions seem, but the landowner scolds them for their disdain for landowner’s generosity.

What I have always liked about the parable is the way that the landowner sees the humanity in people – recognizes that even though someone did not get the opportunity to work, they may have wanted the dignity that work provides and the security that income can create.  I think we often forget the ways that our society strips people of dignity – either by creating barriers to earning a livable wage, by creating systems meant to help individuals without realizing how hard receiving help can be, or by simply reducing people into issues – “immigrants,” “refuges,” or the “homeless,” as opposed to persons known by name.  One of my new favorite blogs/Facebook pages is called “Humans of New York.”  A photographer collects photos of assorted people from New York and usually includes a quote or a short story about them.  I just love the glimpses into people’s lives – people you might never give a thought or glance to, but who have a story.

We promise in our baptismal covenant to “respect the dignity of every human being.”  I wonder what that looks like in your life.  Just this morning I ran across a video of a man who approaches a homeless man on the street – a person who is virtually ignored by every other person passing by.  The man asks if he can borrow the homeless man’s bucket, and at first the homeless man seems wary and concerned.  But to his surprise, the man uses the bucket and a couple of friends to create an impromptu moment of music, which leads to some extra cash that the man then gives to the homeless man.  Something about the video give me a glimpse into what we mean when we talk about dignity – all three “helpers” sit with the man, they make him a part of something beautiful, and then they let him live in peace.  But especially they seem to be saying, “I see you.  You are not alone.  You are a person and I honor your dignity.”  How might you respect the dignity of every human being today?

Sermon – Romans 8.26-39, P12, YA, July 27, 2014

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

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These last few weeks of following the news have been rough.  As the situation in Palestine and Israel has deteriorated once again, I have listened as story after story of deaths by bombs has been reported.  Even hospitals, which would normally be left as safe havens, have been decimated – with doctors, nurses, and injured peoples killed.  Words keep getting thrown around like “justified,” and “terrorism,” and “power.”  But at the end of the day, people are being killed for the sake of safety and security.  As we imagine each Palestinian mother, father, and child dying, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

Then there is the Church in Mosul in Iraq.  As ISIS has moved in, they have demanded that all Christians either convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or be executed.  As hundreds of Christians have chosen to flee, many have been robbed and abused.  Homes and places of worship are marked with the letter “N” for “Nazarene.”  Those labeled buildings are being destroyed or taken over by ISIS.  The Christian community that had been present for over 1600 years is almost completely gone now.  As we imagine Christians fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

Finally, much closer to home, children are crossing our own borders in waves.  Thousands and thousands of unaccompanied minors are fleeing violence, abuse, and poverty in the hopes of asylum in our country.  Just to have crossed the border means these children have already been through significant ordeals.  Without parents and sometimes without a word of English, they come in the hopes of safety and security.  While our governmental leaders and even some of us worry about long-term solutions and costs to our country, many religious communities are offering emergency food, shelter, clothing, and medicines.  As we imagine rooms filled with confused, scared, vulnerable children, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

There are many things about today’s portion of Paul’s letter to the Romans that I find confusing.  Paul says wonderful things like “…all things work together for good for those who love God,” and “If God is for us, who is against us?” and “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”  And yet, could any of us utter any of these phrases to a Palestinian, a Christian in Mosul, or a Latino refugee child in Texas?  How can Paul admit that we have deep weaknesses, so strong that the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words, and yet still believe that nothing can separate us from God?  Instead Paul’s words come off as pithy to those of us who also groan with the agony of this world, overwhelmed and feeling helpless in a world that bombards us with awful, terrible news of suffering and pain.  If God is for us, we are unsure that God’s team really can win.  We have seen too many things working together for evil to believe that all things work together for good.  And we in fact feel very separated from the love of Christ, especially at times like these.

Many years ago, while I was serving as a chaplain, I met a woman who had been ill for quite some time, and who was wondering whether death might be approaching.  We talked for a long time, and she finally admitted to me that she had stopped praying.  She had stopped praying because she no long knew what to say to God.  She had run out of words, and she was afraid to show any of the anger that was bubbling up inside of her to God for fear that God would abandon her.  She felt alone – isolated both from the world and from God – and that feeling left her bereft.  She could not even pick up the Bible anymore because of Psalms like the one we heard today that begins, “Give thanks to the LORD and call upon his Name…Sing to him, sing praises to him, and speak of all his marvelous works.”  Those words made her angry.  She did not want to give thanks to the LORD, and she resented the Psalms for telling her to do so.

Being a person of faith is not easy.  We often find ourselves in these conundrums.  How are we to trust in the LORD, stake our claim on God’s love, when much of our experiences run counter to the idea of God’s love conquering all or nothing being able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?  When our lives have not turned out how we expected, when our loved ones suffer, or when the world seems to be doling out more hatred than our souls can bear, we find leaning on God’s love to be almost impossible.

And yet, that is Paul’s invitation today.  Paul takes our broken selves and heaps piles of love on top of us.  When we are weak, and we do not even know how to pray, Paul says that the Spirit helps us.  The Spirit knows our pain and suffering, and in fact, the Spirit too groans in pain and suffering – with sighs too deep for words.  The “Spirit’s groans are unspeakable words of intercession for those of us who groan in weakness.”[i]  Why does the Spirit think that God might hear?  Because God has made those same groans.  Every time God’s people broke their covenant with God, God groaned with sighs too deep for words.  As God’s son hung on a cross, God groaned in agony over his death.  God knows our groans because God groans too.  God groans when Christians are forced from their homes in Iraq.  God groans when God’s people kill one another in the most holy of lands.  God groans when we turn innocent children into political issues.

And yet, even in those darkest moments of groaning, God loves us.  Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword cannot separate us from God’s love, Paul tells us.  “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says Paul.  Paul, who had persecuted and murdered Christians earlier in his life, turns his life around and embraces love.  Paul who has seen and participated in the worst of life manages to see that the loving embrace of our God never left him; and then he shares that love with others.  He is thoroughly convinced.  Nothing.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Not even death, not even evil rulers, or awful abuses of power, or sinful ways, or wayward people of faith can separate us from the love of God.  Nothing.[ii]

As I have been following the news this week, I have begun to see God’s love percolating.  I listened to an interview with a Jewish teen who is studying in Israel right now.  The interviewer asked the teen how he felt about Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and though the teen initially stated that he supported Israel’s actions, as he talked his way through the complicated issue, he finally confessed that he simply did not want anyone else to have to die – on either side.  As violence continued in Mosul, I watched on Facebook as people changed their profile pictures to the symbol for “N.”  The explanations for the changes are simple.  “I too am a Nazarene.”  As politicians struggle to find the most economical, politically savvy way to handle the children seeking refuge in the United States, I have watched Christians of all stripes advocate for these children – from Catholics and Episcopalians to Evangelical Protestants and Southern Baptists, from Quakers and United Methodists to Unitarian Universalists and Jews.  Russell Moore, of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention was quoted as saying, “These children are made in the image of God, and we ought to respond to them with compassion, not with fear.”[iii]

As I visited with that woman in her hospital bed, we talked about the other Psalms: the ones that invoke God’s wrath and vengeance.  All of the anger and abandonment that she felt was also present in those songs to God.  She was not the first to rail against God.  And she would not be the last to rediscover God’s love for her.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Not hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.  Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.  Not bombs or evictions or refugees.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

[i] J.R. Daniel Kirk, “Commentary on Romans 8.26-39” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx? commentary_id= 2152 on July 25, 2014.

[ii] David M. Greenhaw, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 282.

[iii] Michael Paulson, “U.S. Religious Leaders Embrace Cause of Immigrant Children,” as found at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/us/us-religious-leaders-embrace-cause-of-immigrant-children.html on July 23, 2014.

The community of faith…

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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My oldest daughter attends a Lutheran preschool.  During the summer the school runs a camp that is more play-based.  What our family loves is that they keep the religious content present in both programs.  What I especially enjoy is discovering my daughter singing a religious song that I remember from childhood, but have not yet taught her myself.  Last week it was “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart…”  When I shouted out in response, “Where?!?” she started laughing.  Then I told her how her father knew the same song in Spanish, since he had learned it on a mission trip in high school.  All of a sudden the room was filled with bilingual singing about the love of Jesus being in our hearts.

What my daughter’s singing reminded me of is how dependent we are upon the community of faith to raise up our children.  Many of you may be thinking, “She’s a priest.  Does her daughter really need anyone else to teach her stuff about God?”  The answer is an emphatic, “Yes!”  Though my vocation involves teaching and preaching, it is the community of faith combined with our efforts at home that will expose our children to and reinforce for them the love that God has for them.  I cannot do it alone.

This past Sunday, our youngest daughter was baptized.  The bishop asked us and her godparents if we would be “responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life.”  We responded by saying “I will, with God’s help.”  But the bishop also asked the congregation gathered, “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”  Their response was the same.  I came away from the baptism feeling deeply appreciative of the fact that we have a community of people who have committed to helping us raise our child to know the love that God has for her and to help her live into Jesus’ life and example.  It was a deeply affirming and encouraging experience for us all.

That is the joy of belonging to a Christian community.  Though we all have individual responsibilities, we also regularly acknowledge how none of us can do this alone.  The community of faith comes together to raise us up, encourage us in doubt, comfort us in suffering, and then partner with us in raising our children.  I am grateful today for the blessing of Christian community both in my life and now in the lives of my children.  Thanks be to God!

Homily – Jeremiah 1.4-10, William White, July 17, 2014

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Today we honor William White, first bishop of Pennsylvania.  Born in 1747 in Philadelphia, White went to England to be ordained as a deacon and then priest.  He served at churches in Pennsylvania and was also the chaplain of the Continental Congress and U.S. Senate.  When elected bishop, he had to travel back to England; he and Samuel Provost were consecrated in 1787.  Bishop White was the chief architect of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church and served as Presiding Bishop at the first General Convention.  In addition to mentoring many church greats, Bishop White steered the American Church through its first decades of independent life – a hearty task given the Episcopal Church’s ties to England after the Revolution.

I have often wondered how those early church formers experienced their call.  The transition from the Church of England to the Episcopal Church must have been scary.  We often talk about the church reinventing itself today, but the church in the U.S. in the late 1700s really had to reinvent its whole identity.  I imagine many thought the church would die or at least flee from the United States.  To have been so bold as to totally reinvent the structure of the church took vision, courage and faith.

Bishop White could have easily told God what Jeremiah did in our Old Testament lesson today.  Jeremiah says, “Ah, Lord God!  Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”  Bishop White was only forty years old when he became Bishop – one could argue he was only a boy, too.  But when God calls people to ministries, God does so with gusto.  God tells Jeremiah, “… you shall go tell to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.”  God’s instructions are firm and a bit scary.  But God also affirms Jeremiah: “I am with you to deliver you,” says the LORD.

Bishop White must have heard God’s affirmation in order to do all that he did.  But God’s challenge and comfort is not just for prophets and leaders.  God’s challenge and comfort is for each of us, too.  Though we may not have such grandiose calls, God still has a call on each person here.  Our reminder today is that God does challenge us to go where God sends, but God also comforts us with the assurance that God is with us and delivers us.  Amen.

Homily – Psalm 1, Benedict of Nursia, July 10, 2014

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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“Happy are they who delight in the law of the LORD, they meditate on his law day and night.”  The psalmist tells us that those who meditate on the law day and night are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit, with leaves that do not wither – and that everything they do shall prosper.  The image is a rich image – a tree planted near abundant water, with perfect produce and growth.  All we must do is meditate on the law constantly and this water and fruit will be ours – and everything we touch will turn to gold.

It sounds like a wonderful set of promises, and yet the promise hangs on one major task: to meditate on the law night and day.  Now I don’t know about you, but the only time I had to meditate on the law night and day was when I had an Old Testament final in seminary.  Most of us have full, full lives, and meditating on scripture is something we squeeze in  – if we are lucky.  We would love to be like those trees planted by water, and we would certainly love for everything we do to prosper.  But how can we access that kind of blessed abundance in the midst of our everyday lives?

Well, Benedict of Nursia, who we celebrate today, knew a little something about lives of meditation.  Benedict is generally known as the father of Western monasticism.  Born in 480, Benedict was disgusted by the life in Rome, which was overrun by barbarians.  His disapproval of the manners and morals in Rome led him to a vocation of monastic seclusion.  Others joined Benedict and he eventually developed a rule that has been used by religious around the world.  His rule structured the day with four hours of liturgical prayers, five hours of spiritual reading, six hours of work, one hour of eating, and eight hours of sleep.  His rule is intense and probably foreign to most of us, but his rule was also trying to create a life much like that tree in our psalm today.

The good news to me about Benedict’s Rule is that even Benedict does not meditate night and day – at least he gave his followers eight hours to sleep!  But both the psalmist and Benedict know that scripture gives us life.  Our invitation today is to consider how often we create space for God’s word in our lives.  The promise for us is an abundant, prosperous life of fulfillment with our LORD.  We are unlikely to take on Benedict’s Rule, but we can create a rule that fits our lives and invites that stream of water closer.  Amen.

Where everybody knows your name…

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Anyone who has spent much time around our family knows that we are regulars at a particular wholesale warehouse chain.  Though you might not think a family of four needs to buy goods in bulk, there are actually quite a few things we regularly purchase to stock our home.  Almost every Monday I make my way to said store for our weekly needs.  That kind of regularity means that you get to know the staff – those who greet you, those who serve samples, and those who check your receipt on the way out.  My oldest daughter has her favorites, and we always greet them by name.  My regularity in shopping also meant that the employees were able to track my pregnancy and are now enjoying greeting our newest addition.

Of course, most of this I do not regularly notice unless I have a guest with me.  This past weekend a friend was visiting and she, the baby, and I went to our favorite store.  My friend was witness to our odd familiarity.  A staff person who gives out samples warmly greeted me, “Oh, you had the baby!  How exciting!  And you look great!”  One employee was on break and not in her usual spot, so we talked about her station and her shift for the day.  Another employee asked as we were checking out, “Where’s your oldest today?”  My friend and I later joked about how I was like a celebrity at the store – or how maybe I should be the store chaplain.

The funny thing is that I am not sure anyone at the store knows that I am a priest.  I usually shop on my days off, so I rarely, if ever, have shopped in my collar.  Part of me is happy to have a place where I am not Jennifer the priest.  I am able to be just the regular with the engaging kids.  But part of me wishes I were known as Jennifer the priest.  Though I joked about being the store chaplain, there is a part of me that really would love to be known as a pastoral resource for the everyday people we have come to know at our favorite store.

I have been thinking about that realization this week, and I have come to a few conclusions.  One, I realized this store is sort of like that bar in the TV Show Cheers – a place where everybody knows your name.  There is something to being known and feeling welcome that is quite comforting.  In fact, when we first relocated to Long Island, this store was one of the first ones I sought out because the store is the same no matter where you go.  I enjoyed that familiarity.  Two, though familiarity is nice, it is not the same as having people who really know you – not just the outside stuff, but all of your story:  the trials you have faced, the joys you have celebrated, and challenges you have conquered.  And three, there is only so much one can expect from an hour each week – especially when there is so much going on:  product to reshelf, samples to push, receipts to check.

What struck me is that what I am looking for at this store is what many of us are looking for when we come to church.  Yes, we want to seek and serve Christ in all persons and we want an experience with God, but we also want a community that makes us feel welcome and where we can be known and loved.  We want a place where people are glad we came, and who are willing to pull up a chair (or bar stool) and talk about real life.  And just like with church, there will only be so much we can do with one hour on a Sunday.  If we are in and out, enjoying the busyness of worship without engaging in anything else, we will find true fulfillment difficult.  What I am still unsure about is whether “church” has to take place in a building with a steeple, or whether we can make “church” happen elsewhere – even in the line for samples.

Sermon – Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23, P10, YA, July 13, 2014

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Growing up as the child of a rural Methodist Minister, there was never a lack of fresh produce in our home.  Now that was not because my family went to the grocery store a lot or because we grew our own vegetables, but because multiple times per week, we would find a brown bag sitting on our porch, full of produce from parishioner’s gardens or farms.  Sometimes we knew who they came from, but sometimes they were entirely unmarked bags just waiting for us.  And sometimes people caught us at home so we were able to thank them properly.  But my favorite bags of food came from a local farmer and church member named Frank.  Frank was a funny guy – always wearing his overalls, with a bandana hanging out of his back pocket.  Frank had lived on farms his whole life, and he had a funny way of talking about the farm.  Anytime we tried to thank him for the tomatoes, squash, or cucumbers, he would just scoff and tell us that they were some of Old Bessie’s volunteers.

Bessie was his tractor.  Frank used Bessie to seed his fields, but Bessie was temperamental.  The device that shot the seeds into the field did not really operate properly – it would turn off and on at will, and so Frank always tried to get Bessie into position as quickly as possible before she start spewing seeds.  But invariably, Bessie would spray seeds in the barn, in the ditch on the way to the fields, along the roadside, and even by their house.  Though he would curse and yell at Old Bessie, Frank never seemed to get the glitch fixed, and I guess he loved Bessie too much to trade up for a new one.  Consequently, he would get “volunteer” plants all over his property.  Instead of pulling them up, as they grew and produced all over his property, his youngest sons had to go around and pick them.  These “volunteers” from Bessie were the producers of much of the food we ate throughout the summer and fall.

In a lot of ways, I think the sower in Jesus’ parable today is a lot like Bessie the tractor.  Jesus says that the sower throws seed all over the place – on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and in good soil.  By farming standards, the sower is pretty awful at his job.  Most farmers and gardeners are quite careful about how and where they plant.  For those of you not involved in our own community garden here at St. Margaret’s you may not know that they spent quite a long time planning and researching for our garden.  They thought through where the best sunlight would be, how deep the bed should be, what kind of soil to put into the raised bed, and what kind of weed cover to put down.  They even managed to secure some fox urine pellets to spread around the box to deter rabbits from eating all our hard work.  Nowhere in the planning did our Garden Committee suggest we just take some seeds and throw them around the property and see what happens.  And yet this is what the sower seems to be doing in Jesus’ parable today.

The question is why the sower sows seed in such a seemingly wasteful way.  The sower must know that seeds do not get a chance to grow when they are so exposed that birds will eat them before they can germinate.  The sower must know that the soil is not deep enough in the rocky areas to take good healthy root.  The sower must know that thorns usually choke out plants, not letting them grow to full maturity.  So why does the sower not simply save the seed for the healthiest soil?

The scarier part of that question is the next natural question.  Why would Jesus also recommend that the disciples spread the Good News in such a haphazard way too?  When Jesus explains the meaning of his parable, he explains that when they share the Good News, there are going to be times when their sharing feels like fruitless sowing.  The devil is going to come in, people’s enthusiasm is going to wane over time, and others will simply be distracted by the cares of the world.  Very few will actually receive the Good News and flourish and thrive.  And yet Jesus seems to be saying, “Sew the seeds of the Good News with abandon anyway.”

Jesus’ advice to the disciples goes against any sound business practices.  I have been a part of many dioceses who do church planting, and in every case they spend years examining the numbers and making plans.  They look for areas of new population growth, where young families are moving in or are already present, where Episcopal Churches have not yet been built, and where there are many who are unchurched.  They develop carefully constructed publicity campaigns and gimmicks to spread the news about the newly forming church.  Billboards, paper ads, new websites, and promotional events are planned.  Nothing about church planting today is like what Jesus is talking about in this parable.  In fact, many of you have had similar feelings about church growth here in Plainview.  Many of you have expressed the sentiment that church growth in Plainview is pretty much a waste since our community has such a large Jewish population.  And of those neighbors who aren’t Jewish, the rest are Catholic.  So instead of throwing our precious evangelism budget away in our neighborhood, many have encouraged me to either figure out different neighborhoods or to target other towns altogether.

So what is Jesus really suggesting and why do we not seem to want to listen?  On Memorial Day weekend, about twenty parishioners walked in the Plainview Memorial Day Parade, promoting St. Margaret’s.  Two faithful parishioners dressed up as garden vegetables to help us advertise the work of our Garden of Eatin’.  As we walked along, we handed out seed packets and small brochures about St. Margaret’s.  Before the parade began, I remember wondering whether anyone would want our handouts.  I know people love to catch candy and other trinkets, but I could not imagine anyone actually being interested in what we had to offer.  I made a point to watch to see if my theory was right.  As I expected, a few people said “No, thank you,” when offered our handout.  However, I was almost shocked when I noticed that several people gladly took our handouts – in fact one woman specifically asked if she could have one.

What I, and probably many of us, would judge as rocky or thorny soil, actually turned out to be good soil.  That is what Jesus is hoping to get the disciples and us to see.  We can never know what different soils will do.  When we share the Good News, we have no way of knowing what kind of soil we are sowing seeds into.  In fact, I would be willing to guess that many times we often judge soil incorrectly.  And since we are probably not the best soil experts, Jesus instead tells us to sow with abandon – to throw our good news all over the place because you never know when a hand might extend toward us, wanting some of the good news we have to share.  That is a part of the fun!

For years I have suspected that Farmer Frank never repaired Bessie on purpose.  I think he enjoyed the mystery of where the tractor’s seeds would germinate and grow.  He liked sharing the abundance of that crazy tractor.  He liked teaching his children about volunteer plants and the importance of sharing God’s blessings.  And he especially enjoyed spying his neighbors who would stop along the road and pick some extra squash or tomatoes, because they knew Frank and Bessie would not mind.  Bessie made all of that possible, and to repair her would have been to take some of the joy and blessing out of life.

This is the invitation of Jesus to us today:  to be like an erratic, haphazard, wasteful sower of good news.  Yes, you might be known as that crazy lady or guy who talks about God too much.  And, yes, your words might fall on deaf ears or be forgotten tomorrow.  But occasionally, your words will be just the words that someone needed to hear that day.  Your reckless sharing of your blessed experiences with God might just be the food someone was longing for.  In time, you may just find that being a crazy sower of good news is kind of fun, and brings you as much fruit as it brings others.  Amen.

A season…

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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I was talking to another parent recently about the different phases of childhood.  We both have children who are about five years old, but I also have an infant.  She confessed that having been through the development of her five year old, she could not imagine starting over with all that a baby entails – the diapers, bottles, interrupted sleep, and crying.  I sympathized with her, but I had to admit that my experience was quite different.  With my first child, every phase of development felt big and overwhelming.  I worried and fretted about how to meet each new challenge and how to adjust my life for each stage.  Only once a new phase started could I look back and appreciate what had actually been quite nice about the previous stage.

But with the second child, I am finding not a sense of overwhelmedness, but of familiar joy.  Though these first months have rough moments, I also now know that these first months have parts that are especially easy.  An infant does not need as much entertainment now as a child much older needs.  An infant can be left to her own devices for a short time without having to worry that she will crawl or walk around and get into something.  An infant does not feel irritated by long cuddles – in fact, she quite enjoys them.  Of course, there are many things that are easier at age five than they are at three months.  But what I am finding as a second-time parent is that by knowing how each phase changes your life, for good and for ill, I feel a lot more calm about the transitions and appreciative of the little gifts along the way.

What this second child has gifted me with is the invitation to be present.  She is reminding me that life evolves and changes, and I can either fret about and rigorously prepare for that – or I can simply be present in the moment, enjoying what today has to offer.  She has given life to that passage from Ecclesiastes which says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” (3.1) 

Of course my daughter has opened up this verse to me about parenting, but I know that this verse has truth for each stage of our adult life too.  As I have been praying on this verse, I have been in conversation with God about what season I am in, and what purposes God has for me right now.  That is not an easy conversation.  Many of us are so busy planning and doing, that we rarely take a moment to breathe in this “season,” and thank God for it.  We only have the gifts and challenges of this season of life once.  What purpose has God put you to this season?  How might you find and celebrate the joys of this season today?

Sermon – Romans 7.15-25a, P9, YA, July 6, 2014

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Today we are going to do something a little different.  I want you to grab a partner – maybe someone sitting beside you or someone sitting in the row in front of or behind you, and I want you to look at the tags in your shirts or dresses to see where they are made.  And when you are done, I want you to shout out the locations.

One of my favorite musical groups, Sweet Honey in the Rock, is an a cappella women’s group that sings spiritual and political songs.  One of their songs is called “Are My Hands Clean?”[i]  Here are the words:

 

I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world; 35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America; In the cotton fields of El Salvador; In a province soaked in blood, Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun; Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.

Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill; A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal; Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time; In South Carolina; At the Burlington mills; Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of; Dupont.

Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela; Where oil riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day; Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world; Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago; Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas; To the factories of Dupont; On the way to the Burlington mills; In South Carolina; To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador.

In South Carolina; Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric; for Sears; Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea; Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—; Far from the Port-au-Prince palace; Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications; For three dollars a day my sisters make my blouse.

It leaves the third world for the last time; Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me; This third world sister; And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse; On sale for 20% discount.

Are my hands clean?[ii]

 

The point of the song and the point of us thinking about where our clothes come from is that there is a lot more to our everyday living than we can ever imagine.  My shirt being made in Guatemala or the Dominican Republic is just a small piece of the story.  Many hands touch that shirt before I ever purchase the shirt – in fact, even the hands that sell me the shirt have a story.  Somewhere, and some times multiple somewheres, along the way our garments are a part of a bigger story – one that regularly involves injustice, oppression, and poverty.  And through our participation in the process, we become a part of that system of sin.

I remember when I worked for a non-profit that advocated for the people of Guatemala, a story had come out about the Gap and how they were using manufacturers that were what we would call “sweat shops.”  I remember telling my boss that I was thinking of no longer shopping at the Gap, and he asked me why?  I thought my reason would be obvious, but before I could elaborate, he explained that almost every clothing manufacturer was touched by the sinful industry of oppression and injustice.  And if not our clothes, then our food or personal care products could also be perpetrators.  The idea of boycotting one company was pointless to him because a boycott could only make the smallest of dents in an unjust world.

The despair that he created for me that day was like the despair that Paul has in our lesson from Romans today.  “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  I know his words are a bit convoluted, but basically, Paul is articulating how hard doing the right thing is – even when we know the right thing to do, we cannot seem to do the right thing.  And that is assuming we know the right thing to do in the first place!

So what are we supposed to do in this messy world of sin, with our sinful participation in that world?  Well, the church invites us to confess.  Every week after we pray, before we partake of the holy, cleansing meal, we confess our sins – known and even those unknown to us (like those injustices caused by simply putting on a shirt today).  And we confess aloud together – so that we know that Mrs. Edith sins, just like Hunter sins, and just like I sin.  And we even admit together that not just our words and deeds are sinful – sometimes our thoughts are sinful too.  We admit that even though we bit our tongues this week, the sinful thought was still there, letting evil creep into our lives.

But after the confession, an incredible thing happens.  We are forgiven.  We are forgiven again, for the millionth time, and invited to the table as a reconciled community.  We are fed together, having fully acknowledged our sinfulness, and recognizing how we all have work to do.  Finally, we are sent out into the world:  to try a little better this week, to care a little more, to long for justice a little more, and to keep trying to seek and serve Christ in all persons.  Our worship and scripture tell us, “no,” our hands are not clean.  But we are blessed by the God who saves us, and we go forth into the world to keep trying.  Amen.

[i] Found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9sBRnVeUuI on July 3, 2014.

[ii] As found at http://collegeofsanmateo.edu/integrativelearning/learningcommunities/commons/James/AreMyHands Clean.pdf on July 3, 2014.

Homily – Deuteronomy 10.17–21, Matthew 5.43–48, Independence Day, July 3, 2014

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Anticipating the Fourth of July, today we celebrate our Independence Day.  What you may not know is that July 4th is actually a feast day in the Episcopal Church.  The psalms, lessons, and prayer were first appointed for this national observance in the Proposed Prayer Book of 1786.  But at the General Convention of 1789, they were deleted.  Bishop William White pushed for the deletion because he thought it was inappropriate, since the majority of the clergy had been loyal to the Crown.  Bishop White wanted the church to be honest about who the church was, had been, and could be.  Not until the 1928 Prayer Book did the liturgical observance return.

Now I am going to do something today I almost never do – talk politics.  I get very wary when motions of church and state blend.  The idea of honoring our Independence Day in the context of church makes me nervous.  I get nervous because I often find that instead of honoring the Fourth for the freedoms we have, our nationalism becomes about pushing agendas – liberal or conservative ones, and we seem to honor superior power over the blessing of freedom from opposition.

All we have to do is look at our texts today and see how we forget.  Our texts do not talk about superiority or dominance.  The texts talk about loving enemies (like the British over 240 years ago, or any modern “enemy” today).  The texts talk about caring for the orphan and widow, loving strangers, and providing food and clothing to the needy.  If we want to honor our founding fathers, we must strive to, as our collect says, “maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace.”

One of my favorite comedians, Stephen Colbert, once said this: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”  I know his words have some satirical sting, depending on your politics, but as we celebrate our independence and our faith fathers and national founders, perhaps the Fourth can become not about what we won, but what we owe – to the poor, the needy, the stranger … and to ourselves and our God.  Amen.