Sermon – Ruth 3.1-5; 4.13-17, Mk. 12.38-44, P27, YB, November 11, 2012

12 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

This week, once our power was finally restored, Simone and I caught an episode of our favorite show, Sesame Street.  Typically I am running around the house getting us ready for school and work during Sesame Street, but this week, I found myself glued to the television.  In this particular episode, Sesame Street experienced a hurricane, and Big Bird’s home was destroyed.  All the neighbors of Sesame Street came out to help Big Bird.  But Big Bird struggled with their help.  Although he appreciated all their hard work, he was so fraught with sadness and despair that he could hardly focus on their generosity.  Although they put him up for the night, their houses were not the same as his.  Although they fed him meals, the food was not quite as he would want.  You could tell that he appreciated their efforts, but what he truly missed was his independence.  He did not like depending on others, especially because their care took him out of his comfort zone.

To be honest, I almost could not watch the episode.  The story was a little too close to home.  We have all been struggling with the battle between independence and dependence these last two weeks.  We have been dependent on the generosity of our neighbors and friends who have given us breaks from the cold, a space to recharge our electronics, a warm meal, or a place to clean laundry.  We have been dependent of the workers of LIPA and electrical workers from around the country to help us get our electricity restored.  We have been dependent on the availability of gasoline for transportation and for the few of us with generators.  Almost all of us have experienced episodes of dependence over the last two weeks, and we do not like it!  Receiving help feels awkward, throwing off the balance of power that we have with others.  We do not like the lack of control that dependence creates.  In fact some of us have stayed in cold homes, avoiding shelters or the offers of friends and neighbors just because we want some modicum of control over our disrupted lives.

With this internal struggle with dependence, our lectionary lessons today then are almost salt in our wounds.  First we hear from the concluding chapters of Ruth.  Ruth is often seen as one of the most independent, strong-willed women in scripture.  But in the portion of text we hear today, we hear the other reality of Ruth’s life – Ruth’s life is marked by dependence.  Ruth is dependent upon Naomi, who conceives of a plan to save them both; she is dependent upon Boaz, who can support her and sustain her; and she is dependent upon the community, who understands the roles of women and community in very different ways than we do in modern America.  In some ways, Ruth goes from being the central woman of fierce independence, to the dependent wife, mother, and daughter-in-law who fades into the life of the community.

Then we get the widow in our gospel lesson today.  Here is a woman, who barely has anything, who, as a widow, is inherently dependent upon others for support, and who is found putting the two final coins in her possession in the treasury.  Jesus praises her because she gives not out of her abundance like the others, but because she recognizes her total dependence upon God, and freely gives away everything.  The lesson we hear from Jesus today about this woman is that we are to be “dependent on nothing but the grace of God.  We are to be people without any resources except the riches of God’s mercy.”[i]

And this is where we all get more than a little bit uncomfortable with Jesus’ words and Ruth’s actions.  We replay these past two weeks and worry that if we cannot get comfortable depending on our neighbors, how are we ever to get comfortable with depending fully on God?  Or our practical brains kick in and we immediately begin to argue with God.  How are we supposed to function on our own without a penny to our name?  Are we just supposed to walk away from everything, standing on the street, saying, “Okay God, I am dependent upon you.  Take care of me.”  In our independent American culture, the idea of dependence is uncomfortable and almost feels impossible to us.

For guidance, I go back to our lessons.  First, I listen again to Ruth.  Instead of imagining Ruth as the woman oppressed by a patriarchal system, I like to imagine the joy that comes from Ruth’s life – the joy that is found when an entire community comes together for the sake of survival.  When Obed is born, everyone rejoices, everyone wins.  Maybe Ruth is not a liberated, independent woman – but are any of us truly so liberated that we do not need others in our lives?  Ruth chooses dependence – she willingly chooses dependence because she trusts that God will make everything right.  In fact, her independent self chooses dependence throughout her blessed story.

Next, I look back at the widow.  She irrationally gives everything to God – her very last pennies.  But we should be honest.  When all you have are pennies left, those little coins are not going to dramatically change your life anyway.[ii]  Her utter poverty and dependence upon others who care for widows allow her to see what the wealthy cannot – that everything belongs to God anyway.  What she teaches us is not to feel guilty or irrational about wealth and giving, but to realize that we will have to choose dependence upon God – because dependence never comes naturally.

When I worked at Habitat, I remember having a conversation with the financial consultant to our homeowner families.  In looking at one homeowner’s budget, she saw that the homeowner was giving about ten percent of her income to her Church.  The consultant was frustrated, because she knew that all that giving to the Church was hurting the homeowner’s children.  But the homeowner would not budge on the issue.  The homeowner insisted they would just have to find another way to balance the budget, because God was getting that ten percent.

The truth is that our lessons are not condemning wealth or independence.  What the lessons are trying to teach us is that both wealth and our own egos can trick us into thinking that we can truly be independent.  They can trick us into thinking that we do not really need God.  That is why the Stewardship Committee and I have been talking about our relationship with money this past month.  We have not been talking about money because we need to bring in enough to pay the bills, or because we want us to feel guilty about our wealth.  We have been talking about money because we want us all to see how our relationship with money can impact our relationship with God.  When we cling to our money or our independence so tightly that we blind ourselves to the blessings that can bubble out of letting go of those things, we miss out on opportunities for the Holy Spirit to work on us, to help us see through the lens of Christ.  Although some may connect dependence with oppression and depression, Ruth and Jesus show us that our dependence on God leads to joy and thanksgiving.[iii]

As I think back on these past two weeks, I will also remember the blessings.  I will remember how a hot bowl of soup or a warm pot of spaghetti warmed not only my insides, but also warmed my spirits.  I will remember the camaraderie of people gathered at the public library, charging electronics and helping kids blow off steam.  I will remember the ways in which our mutual dependence led to conversations with people that normally would have been superficial but were now full of meaning and shared support.  I will remember the great comfort of sharing an impromptu coffee hour with those of us who could spare the gasoline to get here last week, and how overjoyed I was just to see your faces and hear your stories.  If anything, this horrible storm has shown how we are more dependent than we all might like, but also how that dependence has led to incredible blessings.  Our invitation today is to embrace our dependence on God in the same way that we are embracing our dependence on one another.  Amen.

[i] Mary W. Anderson, “Widow’s Walk,” Christian Century, vol. 20, no. 22, Nov. 1, 2003, 18.

[ii] Anderson, 18.

[iii] Anderson, 18.

Reflections on the Storm…

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

I have been pondering for the last ten days what to say about the experience of Hurricane Sandy.  I think I felt overwhelmed because I knew that my experience was not as bad as thousands of others in our area.  My experience felt superficial somehow, as if I did not earn enough credit to have something to say about all of this.  But what I realized these last couple of days is that although I cannot speak for places that were utterly devastated by this horrible storm, I can speak for what life has been life for the rest of us, tied to those who are suffering more while suffering ourselves.

As background, we lost power for seven days.  We have a fireplace (although it took us several days to secure wood) and we had hot water.  But we did not have heat, the ability to cook, or the other conveniences of electricity.  We had filled our cars with gas before the storm, but we knew we had to be careful about the number of trips out of the house.  We also have a three year old daughter.  We had several trees fall on the property, one damaging the church, but mostly we were spared significant damage.

Over the last ten days, several reflections have occurred to me.  First, I used to work with Habitat for Humanity, and in our work there, we told personal stories of homeowners to potential volunteers and funders.  I remember telling stories of families whose only heat source was their gas oven, who could not afford their electric bill and just went without power, or whose children suffered in school because of poor heat, comfort, and nutrition at home.  I told those stories and my heart broke as I imagined the faces of each of those homeowners.  But I had never experienced those realities, especially as a parent.  As we struggled this past week to warm our child by bringing her into our bed; as I slept by the dying fire (making sure to avoid accidents), realizing that although my body was warm, the frigid air around my head was keeping me awake; or as I found that despite my two layers of clothes, long robe, and a blanket, I still could not keep warm during the day, I began to see those Habitat stories in a whole new way.  There are neighbors who suffer this pain everyday, and yet we are blind because they are hidden in homes we do not notice, in sections of town we do not frequent, or in coworkers whom we do not know well.  Despite our suffering for seven days, or the continued suffering for people up to ten days so far, there are people who live this suffering everyday.

Second, there is a way in which the varied experiences of a disaster make you feel like that if you do not suffer in a particular way, your experience of suffering is not valid.  You feel shallow or weak or insensitive for complaining if your experience is less burdensome than others.  And in a way, I think that is appropriate.  We should always be grateful for our blessings and recognize that there are many ways in which things could have been worse for all of us.  But stifling our pain for the sake of honor others’ pain has begun to feel corrosive to me.  Despite the fact that my suffering or even the suffering of my parishioners was milder compared to other areas of Long Island, our suffering is still hard.  The experience of long periods of cold, of worrying about the health of yourself and your child who cannot stop coughing and wiping running noses, of worrying if the mental health benefits of getting out of the house are worth the anxiety of the uncertain gasoline situation, of feeling cut off from the rest of the world, of worrying about those whose suffering is worse, of being frustrated about not being able to reach those without power to see if they are okay – all of that takes a toll on the psyche.  And even when we got power a week later, about half of my parishioners were still without power.  So any sense that things just go back to normal is false.  The frustration of just wanting to get back to work without the ability to get back to work can be overwhelming.  It was not until the snow hit and the schools closed yet again that I realized how much of this emotion and anxiety I have been stuffing.

Finally, I have been struck by the overwhelming ways in which this storm has brought out the goodness in others.  My parishioners have been running extension cords across the street to share power with others.  I observed all of us talking to one another more – learning more of each others’ stories – caring more about the welfare of each other.  People without power themselves have bent over backwards to make sure my family was okay.  Friends and parishioners have taken us in for hot meals and for washing laundry or for simple camaraderie.  People long to help others even when they are suffering.  There is a sense of abundance in the face of devastation.  There is joy watching a toddler find creative ways to entertain herself.  And the outpouring of love from all over the region is even more overwhelming.  I have felt like that wall that keeps us from sharing Christ with one another has been decimated, and Christ is found all around us as we love and care for one another.

This last week and a half has been an emotional rollercoaster, and the end is not necessarily in sight.  I ask that you pray for one another.  I ask that you seek and serve Christ in all persons.  I ask that you love and give yourself grace the same way that you are loving and giving grace to others.  And I ask that you remember the ways in which you are opening yourself to others and not to forget that new way of being when we finally do get back to “normal.”

Blessings…

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Despite the fact that we have had a bit of hiatus with posts due to Hurricane Sandy, we are still wrapping up our Stewardship campaign.  Last week was our Stewardship In-Gathering.  I had imagined a full and joyful church, a procession with music, and warmth inside and out.  Instead, we worried about those who were missing, we sang without accompaniment, and we processed in the frigid, unheated church.  But somehow, that simplified offering of our pledges spoke volumes for me.  There was a sense that life goes on in the midst of chaos, and that the things that are good here at St. Margaret’s are still very, very good.

If you missed last week, or expect to miss this week too with gasoline lines, feel free to mail in your pledge to the church office.  We are hoping to wrap up pledging by the end of this month so that we can present a realistic budget to the church at our Annual Meeting in December.  If you have already pledged, thank you.  If you are still considering your pledge, or if you just want to enjoy hearing a testimony from a fellow parishioner, I encourage you to read Kim Irvine’s guest submission below.  Kim offers her thoughts on what being “Blessed to be a Blessing” has meant for her.

***************************

A few months ago, when I was asked to serve on the stewardship committee, I was totally surprised. It seemed far out of my comfort zone.   While I do contribute financially to our church, I never really thought of myself as a “steward”.    Honestly, I hadn’t put a lot of thought into how my financial giving impacted my relationship with God.   The correlation of the two, God and money, was not very apparent to me.

I’ve learned a lot from serving on this committee.   One of the strongest messages for me is that God has entrusted me with his resources.  I am responsible to use God’s resources in ways that are pleasing to Him.   For me, giving to St. Margaret’s is one way to share what God has entrusted to me.   This church has been part of my life since childhood.  The people as well as the church building and grounds are very near and dear to me.

I’ve also learned some of the values associated with stewardship, which include:

  • Giving intentionally;
  • Giving regularly;
  • Giving generously;
  • Giving first to God;
  • Give in proportion to the blessings you have received; and
  • Cheerful giving.

While I can relate to some of the values above, I recognize several that I need to work on.

I’ve always liked the adage “actions speak louder then words”.  In order for our church to continue to grow and develop, it is so important to make a commitment to being stewards by using our finances, time and talent in every way we can.

“For where your heart is, there your treasure will be also. “  Luke 12:34

~ Kim Irvine

Sermon – John 11.32-44, All Saints, YB, November 4, 2012

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

All Saints’ Day is the Day that the Church commemorates the saints of Church History, who died living a faithful Christian life.  We remember notable saints, like St. Margaret of Antioch.  But we also remember all the saints, who by virtue of their baptism die into the sacred communion of all saints.  On this day, we remember those whose lives inspire us; and we remember those saints to us – our friends and family – who have died an earthly death.  And the way the Church celebrates those deaths is no different than the way we celebrate any funeral – by focusing on resurrection.  In our gospel lesson today, we see resurrection most clearly in the raising of Lazarus, who was dead for four days, and who is raised by Jesus to new life.

Now, I do not know about you, but after the week we have had, the last thing I feel like celebrating is resurrection.  We have seen actual death, as Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath have killed many and destroyed homes and livelihoods.  We have had our own neighborhoods plunged into suffering and destruction.  And many of us have suffered in various ways – with no heat, no hot water, no electricity, and no gasoline.  Sure, things could be worse for us, but they are not great.  There is a certain point at which we know we should be saying, “It could be worse.”  But honestly, “it” feels pretty bad.  And the slow progress on recovery and the horror stories of places like the shores and Staten Island make us feel worse.

So now, the Church wants us to focus on resurrection?  Trust me, I have been resisting pondering resurrection all week.  I even considered switching the lessons to the normal propers instead of the All Saints’ Day propers.  But I figured, although the lectionary is not divinely ordered, when I stick to the lectionary, God always moves in us for good.  So I starting thinking about all those who have died this year – those saints we celebrate today.  I thought of those who have died in this storm.  I thought of Miriam and Dick Gow.  I thought of what we say at every Christian burial – that life is changed not ended; that Jesus is the resurrection and the life; that we celebrate eternal life, not mourn earthly death.

With those saints in mind, I returned to our gospel lesson.  Two things gave me hope.  First: Jesus weeps.  Our gospel lesson tells us that Jesus is angry about Lazarus’ death.  The text says that Jesus was “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”  But scholars agree that what the Greek is actually saying is that Jesus is angry[i] and that Jesus weeps.  If Jesus, the fully human and fully divine Son of God, can be angry and weep at death, so can we.

But Jesus does not linger in that emotion long.  Second, Jesus turns to resurrection.  Now we obviously cannot bring the dead back, as Jesus does with Lazarus.  But we can rest our hope in the resurrection.  This two-fold action of Jesus – anger and sorrow, followed by joyful hope in the resurrection – is our roadmap for this All Saints’ Day.

So despite the fact that we might want to linger in mourning, or despite the fact that the mourning comes in waves over time, we grasp tightly to the hope of resurrection.  And so, with the saints, we turn toward resurrection this day too.  We turn our hearts to the restored life that we find here on Long Island – as we see extension cords stretched across streets for neighbors to share power; as we welcome neighbors and strangers to come in our homes to share our power, heat, or to do a load of laundry; as we share our now unnecessary non-perishables, water, and blankets; or as we help an elderly neighbor remove branches and trees from their yard.

But we also turn to the resurrection life here at St. Margaret’s today.  We have been through almost a year together now, and in that time we have seen much resurrection life.  We have welcomed newcomers, revived outreach ministries, and begun new formation programs for children, teens, and adults.  We have seen life after what, at times, felt like a death, and we are walking into what feels like a time for great joy and hope.  So, instead of wallowing in grief, today, we choose marching forward with resurrection hope.  And even though pledge cards may seem hardly appropriate today, we take our pledge cards, those symbols of our commitment to resurrection living, and we march them forward today.  Because even in the midst of suffering and earthly death, today we claim life.  We proclaim that we put our energies into the life of faith here in this place, and the work of witness and mission we do right here in Plainview.  Because we are a resurrection people, joined by the saints, living a resurrection life.  Amen.

[i] A. K. M. Adam, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 241.

Sermon – Job 42.1-6, 10-17, P25, YB, October 28, 2012

28 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

After a month of reading through the book of Job on Sundays, you would think today would feel victorious.  Finally, Job is rewarded for all his suffering!  The text tells us that God restores the fortunes of Job and gives Job twice as much as he had before.  Family members return to greet him and shower him with gifts, and he is blessed with ten new children.  For any of us who have been through a time of suffering, this should feel like great news.

But this week, as I have been praying on this text, I cannot shake the hollow feeling of this good news today.  Sure, Job has ten new children, but they can never erase the memory of the ten children he lost.  Sure, all his wealth is returned, but after losing everything, having his friends and family abandon and blame him, and sitting covered in boils, surely wealth had lost its value and importance to Job.  The good news of this text has left me feeling hollow because I just cannot imagine how Job lives into this good news.  How can he conceive children with his wife who mocked him and God, risk loving again, and know that his children will never know the reality of the suffering he experienced.  And his family and friends who return with gifts – where were they when he needed them?

I struggle too because we do not really get answers today from Job or God.  We never really find out why God allows Job’s blessings to be taken away.  The only semblance of an answer happened last week when God railed against Job for assuming that Job could understand the ways of God.  But an answer does not come in the blessings either.  The last verses of the book of Job do not “say that God restored Job’s fortunes and relationships in response to Job’s words of repentance and humility.  Instead, God’s reasons for giving things to Job are as unexplained as the reasons they were taken away.  God does not explain suffering, but God does not explain beatitude either.”[i]  We are left at the end of a month of Job no clearer about suffering and blessing than we were when we started.

Maybe this ending to Job feels hollow to me now because I have seen and experienced too much of Job’s journey.  I have held in prayer friends, family, and parishioners who have sat in the ashes of suffering with neither of us finding satisfactory answers.  I have listened to St. Margaret’s stories of pain and suffering that happened in the years before my arrival.  And I have had more friends than I wish to count who have lost a child in pregnancy.  Many of us here have lost teen or adult children.  Having journeyed with friends, I know that you can never replace those children.

I think also the ending of Job feels hollow to me because the ending does not address Job’s relationship with God.  God and Job have been on incredible journey.  Job moves in the book from talking about God with his friends to talking more and more directly to God.  What was once a theological concept is now an intimate relationship.  Job manages throughout the journey to hold on to “God with one hand and shake his fist at God with the other.  He stays in relationship with God, addressing God directly even from the depths of despair.”[ii]  But the ending of Job does not really give us a clue about what that relationship looks like going forward.  Are they back to square one?  Does Job go back to being blessed and on good terms with God?  Now that his blessing is doubled, does God slip back into the background, unnecessary or at least not thought about too much?

As I have struggled with this text, I finally began to find footing in the small details of the text today.  The first details are in Job’s confession at the beginning of the lesson.  Job confesses that his relationship with God has changed.  Job says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”  In other words, Job declares that he had heard about God, but now he knows God.  This journey of suffering and pain changes Job’s experience of God – from being a relationship of dutiful obedience and distant reverence, to a deep intimacy and knowledge.  He no longer simply knows God cognitively; Job knows God in the depths of his being.  As Job experiences utter devastation, loss, abandonment, and pain; as Job rages at God in anger and fury; as Job moans through his misery – Job never pushes God away.  Through some forty chapters of pain, Job manages to grow into deeper love of God.

The other small detail in Job where I find footing today comes in how he orders his life in the midst of his restored fortunes.  Job does not tell his family and friends – the abandoners – to go away, holding a grudge against them that can never be healed.  Instead, he receives their gifts without protest.  Job does not live a guarded life.  Instead, he risks new life with his wife which results in the birth of ten children.  And Job does not return to the same old way of doing things.  Instead he gives his daughters an inheritance just like his sons.  That may not sound like a big deal by modern standards, but giving an inheritance to his daughters is a huge deal.  This act by Job is a radical and innovate way of extending his own transformation by transforming the social order for his daughters.[iii]  The way that Job orders his life during his restored fortunes says a lot about how this ordeal has transformed him.

In the midst of what can feel like a hollow ending, we two can find hope for our own spiritual journey.  We learn two things from Job.  First, our relationship with God is indeed a journey.  The experience of Job gives us permission to be angry with God, to question God, to be a fully and ignorantly limited human with God, and to humbly stand with God.  We can do all of this not as defeated individuals but as transformed individuals – so transformed, in fact, that we can be a people who endeavor to risk love.

The other thing that we learn from Job is to redefine our understanding of blessedness.  We never hear in the text about how Job feels about being doubly blessed.  I like to imagine that Job is sober about his second blessing, his experience of suffering coloring the blessing.  On Simone’s first day of school in Delaware, when I met her teacher, we both were shocked by the recognition.  Simone’s teacher was a Habitat homeowner who had gone through the program when I worked with Habitat for Humanity.  Here was a woman who had gotten into a situation of housing instability.  Her income was 25-50% of median income.  Her children were squeezed into one room at a friend’s house.  Their anxiety and stress had been overwhelming.  But she put in hundreds of hours of sweat equity, she built a home, and she stabilized her family.  Simone’s teacher could have gone back to school to find a higher-earning job.  But she stayed with this school, forming and shaping one- and two-year olds into loving, caring toddlers.  Simone’s teacher was one of the most amazing women I have ever met, and she transformed my daughter’s life at a formative time.  Simone’s teacher could have been distant, cut-off from extending love, or resentful for her time in poverty.  But instead, Simone’s teacher was full of life and love.

Job, like this teacher, learned that he could use his blessing to transform others.  Job invites us to also consider the ways that we can use our blessings to transform others – to become a blessing.  In our stewardship campaign this year, we have been talking about how we are blessed to be a blessing.  Job shows us the way of living into this life.  Yes, I want you to consider how you can be a financial blessing to St. Margaret’s.  But I also want you to see the great invitation of transforming your spirit into one of blessing.  We all have a laundry list of things that could make us bitter, guarded, or careful.  But Job and God invite us to instead live the blessed life that blesses others.  We are promised today that we can live into a blessing life through the example of Job – a man who had every reason to abandon hope, love, and God – but who instead is strengthened in God, renewed in hope, and overflowing with love.  We too can embrace Job’s embodiment of being a blessing in this life.  Amen.

[i] Martin B. Copenhaver, “Risking a Happy Ending,” Christian Century, vol. 111, no. 28, Oct. 12, 1994, 923.

[ii] Kathryn Schifferdecker, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?tab=2&alt=1, as found on October 26, 2012.

[iii] Dale P. Andrews, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 199.

Blessed…

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

As we journey into our stewardship season, we continue to reflect as a community about how we have been blessed.  This week, Fal Gibson offers a reflection on her own gratitude to God for the many blessings in her life.  I hope you will enjoy the blessing of Fal in her words as much as we enjoy the blessing of her presence every week!

*******************************************

Beginning each day with “Thank you, God,” I set the tone for the entire day.  Whether I am going to work, or looking forward to a time of celebration with family or friends, starting today with an attitude of gratitude reminds me that God is the source of all blessings. I am thankful for blessings large and small, for expected and unexpected ones, and for the special people in my life.

I am blessed to be a part of St. Margaret’s church family, so I asked myself the question, what shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?  I need to support my church financially. I offer with joy and thanksgiving what God has first given me – my family, time and possessions. “Giving is a privilege, something we appreciate being able to do as a result of God’s grace.” (2 Corinthians 8:4)

Our church cost money to operate and, thus depends on the contributions of our members to meet the expenses.  The expenses that come with our lovely St. Margaret’s church: utilities, maintenance, upkeep, our educational programs, materials and equipment, St. Margaret’s newsletters and mailings to members and/or others in the community. The Bible says that everyone is to give “according to means” (2 Corinthians 8: 3, 11).

I pray for all of God’s children and see each one being divinely blessed.  I pray for all members of St. Margaret’s Church and for the beauty, joy and wisdom we all share as being part of a beautiful church family. Everyone is a unique and purposeful creation. I pray that every member is blessed with love, food, shelter, and safety.  I pray that the Episcopal Church of St. Margaret, with its red, welcoming doors will continue to be an important part of your spiritual journey. “Giving is a witness to the gospel, demonstrating the genuineness of the church’s love,” (2 Corinthians 8: 8, 24).

During our Stewardship campaign, I ask you to take some time and pray about how you can use the blessings, you received from God to further HIS Kingdom.  I think as receptive Christians you will be moved by scripture and the spirit to go beyond providing such support to give up a further portion of your money as a sacrifice.  Support and sacrifice: the first is our duty; the second our delight. I knew a member of our parish, Miriam Emerson, who made it her duty to make sure that the children at the Lillian Valley School in Barefoot, Idaho received school supplies, and the seafarers through the Seamen Institute received knitted hats and scarves every year with great delight.  Miriam was indeed a blessings to the St. Margaret’s church family and many others, and I was truly blessed to have known her.

I like to say that stewardship puts into practice our faith in God as our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. Everything we are and everything we have belongs to God.  Can you feel the Holy Spirit at St. Margaret?  Can you count your Blessings and name them, one by one?  I can.  I pledged.  Wouldn’t you pledge and help Rev. Jennifer do the work within our parish and the outer community as God has called her so lovingly to do?

~ Fal. Gibson

Blessed to be a Blessing…

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Blessed to be a blessing.  This is the theme that the stewardship team has adopted this year as we begin to reflect on the abundant blessings in our lives and discern how we might use those blessings to be a blessing to others.  I have had the great pleasure of working with six other parishioners from St. Margaret’s since this summer, and we have all been discerning how our relationship with God and money are connected.  We have debated and discussed whether and how our faithful financial stewardship impacts our relationship with God.  We have helped one another draw the connections between our relationship with money and our relationship with God.  This work is on-going among us, as we continue to pray through this issue as we discern our own pledges this year.  Some of us have already witnessed how sacrificial giving can be life giving.  Others of us wonder how our attitude toward money can impact our relationship with God.  And so we continue to pray – for our own discernment, for each other’s discernment, and for St. Margaret’s.  We know that St. Margaret’s has been a blessing to us, and so we both want to be a blessing to St. Margaret’s, and we want St. Margaret’s to be a blessing to our community.  We invite you into this circle of blessing!

To help you get a better idea of the content of the Stewardship Committee’s discernment, I invite you to read articles in The Message, our parish newsletter, found on our website; and for the next three weeks, to see guest blog posts from Committee members.  This week, Debbie McGee offers her reflections.

*************************************

Although the calendar tells me it is October, the lingering warm weather triggered happy memories of warm and sunny days spent beachside this summer.  The soft, cool breezes, the gentle lapping of the waves and long quiet walks upon the sand gave me pause to the presence of God and the beautiful world he blessed us with.

God blesses us with many gifts – abundantly – and does so without any strings attached.  It is up to us to choose to be good and faithful stewards – to express our gratitude for all God’s blessings.  As we enter into Stewardship season, it is an opportunity for all of us to praise God through whom all blessings flow.

Join me in being a faithful steward – be generous with your treasure!  I feel so very blessed by the beautiful environment that God has created for us that I want to be a blessing to St. Margaret’s.  It is important to me that St. Margaret’s parish continues to thrive and makes a difference in the lives of our local community and beyond, while still providing the spiritual home so many of us treasure.

All good gifts around us

Are sent from Heaven above…

So thank the Lord, oh thank the

Lord for all his love…….

I really wanna thank you Lord!

 (Stephen Schwartz Lyrics & Music)

-Debbie McGee

Sermon – Mark 10.17-31, P23, YB, October 14, 2012

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

For those of you paying attention to the gospel lesson today and who realize we are kicking off Stewardship Season this week, I promise I did not pick the lessons today!  We are blessed by a lectionary that guides us through our sacred scripture every year, and the use of the lectionary is one of the many things that attracted me to the Episcopal Church.  That being said, since Jesus so conveniently brought up the subject of money, it only seems fitting that we talk about money today.

We know that the issue of money was important to Jesus.  All three of the synoptic gospels tell a version of the story we hear today.  We know the story well, and tend to avoid the story like the plague.  At some point or another, we have convinced ourselves that this text does not really apply to us.  We do not see ourselves as rich – we can all think of someone who has more than we do and we all struggle with our finances at times.  But in the depths of our hearts, we know that Jesus is talking to us.  As Americans, we constitute five percent of the world’s population, but consume twenty-four percent of the world’s energy.  Americans eat roughly 200 billion more calories a day than we need, which is enough to feed 80 million people every day.  We consume about 159 gallons of water a day, while more than half of the world’s population lives on 25 gallons.  We have more shopping malls than high schools.[i]  Whether we prefer to admit the truth or not, we are the rich person that today’s gospel lesson is addressing.  And if Jesus is talking to us, Jesus is also asking us to give up our wealth because otherwise, we, the camels, have no chance of getting through that needle’s eye.

But before we go too far down the road to guilt or panic, let’s look at what Jesus is really saying in our gospel lesson today.  This young man is a righteous man who approaches Jesus with a genuine desire to ensure he is on the right path to eternal life.  He approaches Jesus humbly, racing to Jesus and kneeling before him like so many other sick people have.[ii]  He must have been fairly certain that his life was not whole to pursue Jesus like this.  What he may not have expected is what Jesus tells him.  Jesus tells him that he is living a righteous life – with one small exception.  His wealth, his possessions, his “stuff” is getting in the way of salvation.  His possessions and wealth have become a source of separation from God.  This is what Jesus is really after today.  Having money is not in and of itself evil.  We need money to survive.  But our relationship with money has the potential to separate us from God.

Wealth can separate us from God in one of two ways.  When we have abundant resources, we eventually assume that whatever needs to be done, we can do.  But this kind of self-sufficiency and self-produced security cuts us off from grace.  Life becomes an achievement earned or a commodity purchased rather than a gift gratefully received and shared.  God becomes unnecessary or simply another commodity.  And if security and worth are rooted in achievements and resources, amassing more becomes our driving motivation.  We cannot let up.  We cannot relax.  We cannot give sacrificially.  Wealth becomes addictive.[iii]

The other way that wealth can separate us from God is that wealth can separate us from those who are impoverished.  Our wealth makes avoiding the poor possible, keeping them out of sight and mind.  As we have been working through our hunger curriculum on Wednesday nights, we have all said at one point or another that we simply do not run into the poor that often in our daily lives.  As one bishop explains, the reason why that socioeconomic divide separates us from God is because, “We cannot know the God of Jesus Christ apart from relationships with the poor and the powerless.  God has chosen the poor, the least, the most vulnerable, those whom the world considers ‘the weak’ as special friends.”[iv]  If we want to grow closer to God, we must grow closer to those whom Jesus cared for the most.  And in order to grow close to the poor, we must examine our relationship with our own wealth.

Now all of this is not to say that Jesus is mad at the wealthy man or sees him as lost.  Mark’s gospel tells us that, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”  Now if you remember, Mark is usually the most succinct of the gospel writers.  Neither Matthew nor Luke includes this small detail.  So if Mark is including this detail, the detail is important.[v]  We need to know that Jesus loves this young man because in his loving gaze we learn that Jesus believes the young man has a chance.  The young man has a chance not because he can achieve this new life style.  In fact, when the disciples ask Jesus about this very issue of who can overcome the hurdles of wealth, Jesus says, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”  The young man cannot change his relationship between wealth and God alone.  That relationship can only be changed with God – because with God, all things are possible.

Today we kick off our stewardship season at St. Margaret’s.  For the next several weeks, we will be examining our own relationship between wealth and God.  In order to help us with that discernment, the Stewardship Committee has chosen the theme, “Blessed to be a Blessing.”  We chose this theme because we do not want us to have a guilty or conflicted relationship with wealth.  We want to see our individual wealth as a blessing that enables each of us to be a blessing to others.  All of us at St. Margaret’s have been blessed.  We have our basic needs met – a place to live, food to eat, and clothes to wear.  Most of us have been blessed beyond our basic needs – with cars, entertainment, and technology.  And we have been blessed spiritually by this community.  We have a community of faith where we can come and seek a deeper knowledge and understanding of God.  We have a community that engages us in the faith journey, challenging us to grow into the love of God.  And we have a community that sends us out in the world, showing us the real meaning of God’s love through our service of others.

This stewardship season is not a season to wallow in guilt and beat up ourselves.  But this season is a season to act.  God blesses us so that we can be a blessing.  So where do we start this work of being a blessing?  We start that work by righting our relationship between God and our wealth – our blessings.  As you are pondering your own experience of that relationship, I want you to consider how your pledge this year might be a spiritual discipline that rights that relationship; how this community might help each other right our relationships with wealth and God together.  Now I know we do not like to talk about money with other people.  But if this is a place of spiritual discipline, prayer, teaching, formation for our children and adults, and reaching out and loving our neighbors, where else is a better place to talk honestly about our relationship with money.  This community is forming each of us to be faithful disciples; but we cannot be fully formed unless we are willing to work on our whole being, including our relationship with wealth.  Our discipline of giving more generously and sacrificially – more out of blessing than obligation – can help us to loosen our grip on a relationship with wealth that separates us from God.  Your financial giving to Church is as much of a discipline as your prayer, your study, your serving, your seeking, and your worshiping in this place.  If we can put energy in those areas, we can put some work into our financial stewardship.

In the coming weeks, you will hear from every member of the Stewardship Committee about their own struggles with wealth.  You will hear about how looking at their relationship with money and God is transforming that relationship into one of blessing.  You will see Message articles, blog posts, and updates on our new stewardship bulletin board.  This committee of seven people is intentionally looking at how they feel blessed to be a blessing, examining the quality of their own relationship between wealth and God.  Their invitation to us is to engage in this reflection with them, to discern how God is moving in our lives, and to act.  We can do this work together, because with God, all things are possible.  Amen.

[i] Frank Thomas, “Can Rich People Be Saved?” Ex Auditu, vol. 22, 2006, 219.

[ii] Barbara Rossing, “Healing Affluenza:  A Sermon on Mark 10:17-27,” Currents in Theology and Mission, vol. 22, no. 4, August 2006, 300.

[iii] Kenneth L. Carder, “The Perils of Riches,” Christian Century, vol. 114, no. 26, Sept. 24 – Oct. 1, 1997, 831.

[iv] Carder, 831.

[v] Stacey Elizabeth Simpson, “Who Can be Saved?” Christian Century, vol. 117, no. 26, Sept. 27 – Oct. 4, 2000, 951.

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you…

11 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

On of my new favorite places is the prayer candle station at St. Margaret’s.  I was first introduced to prayer candles at my field education parish in Alexandria, VA.  I always marveled at the beauty of the candles burning, but never understood the practice fully.  Then, a year and a half ago, I went on pilgrimage with my parish in Delaware.  A colleague shared with me her practice of lighting candles and praying for people throughout the pilgrimage, and I became an immediate convert.  I started carrying coins and small bills just so that I had something to put in the donation box at each church as I lit candles along the way.

So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered that St. Margaret’s had a prayer candle station.  I love those candles for so many reasons.  Sometimes my prayers or my silence in prayer just is not tangible enough.  Lighting a candle makes me feel like I am doing something.  But once the candle is lit, it does so much more.  Watching the flickering of the candle calms the “doer” in me.  The flame’s flicker makes my prayer feel active – as if the prayer is alive outside of my heart.  Sometimes just staring at the flame allows me to quite myself enough to listen to God.  The active flame allows my energy to be somewhere outside of me so that I can be thoroughly silent.  There is also great comfort in the way that the flame burns for hours after I leave.  Even though am not bodily present, my prayer lingers on without me.

But what I especially love about our prayer candles is that they are not just for me.  Parishioners use them all the time – remembering those who have died, worrying about the health of a loved one, or lifting up their own struggles to God.  Having just blessed several pets, I imagine there has been a candle or two for a beloved pet.  I see our young children lighting candles.  I do not know if they fully understand the practice, but I sense that they understand that something holy is happening when they light those candles.  We often have family members of those buried in our cemetery on Sundays, and they often light a candle.  My favorite, though, happens when I walk into the nave at night, when all the lights are out, as I am rushing to another meeting.  I catch in the corner of my eye that one or more candles are burning.  At those moments, in the darkness, I pray to God for whoever has lit the candle, knowing that I am witness to the sacred conversation between someone and God.

Last week we celebrated St. Francis, and as I prepared to preach about him, I discovered that he asked that Psalm 141 be read to him as he was dying.  Verse two of that psalm has been replaying in my head all week, “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.”  Sometimes, I think we assume our prayers are only a mental exercise – words we craft for God.  But our prayers involve all our senses – our hands that light candles, touching the flame to the wick; our eyes that watch the life of our prayers in the flame; our noses that smell the fragrance of incense lifted to God.  How is God inviting you into prayer this week?  What sensory practices feed your journey with Christ?

Sermon – Mt. 11.25-30, Feast of St. Francis, October 7, 2012

09 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  These words from Jesus are familiar, comforting words.  In Rite I, we often hear this passage quoted immediately after the confession.  They seem to offer a word of peace to us, who so often feel weary from life’s stresses, anxieties, and pains.  And, when we are suffering, these words can certainly be a tender word of encouragement and promise for us.

But these words today from Jesus offer so much more to us.  Jesus offers these words in the context of commissioning disciples.  Jesus has described the way of discipleship in the gospel of Matthew; discipleship means serving the poor, working for justice, and striving for peace.  This work will be long and hard; this work will be work that will make the disciples weary.  But to those willing to take on the work of discipleship, Jesus offers these words of comfort.  And then Jesus explains how this work of discipleship can be accomplished, “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.”

Now I do not know how much you know about yokes, but I have been learning a lot about them this week.  There are two kinds of yokes.  There are the kinds meant for one person:   imagine if you will the person hauling water from a well in the village, the yoke over her shoulders, while two buckets full of water hang below.  Although the yoke distributes the weight, the yoke is not necessarily easy.  The other type of yoke is a yoke for two animals.  Two oxen work together, making the workload easier.  If one ox is tired, the other pushes a little harder; later the roles reverse.  When constructed properly, a yoke for two is built to balance the work between two animals – the yoke does not chafe or rub.  A good yoke does make the work easier and light.

This is the metaphor that Jesus uses for the work of discipleship.[i]  When Jesus invites the disciples into the work of discipleship, he admits that the work will be difficult – but when yoked to Jesus, the work feels light.  When they fashion their steps in the steps of Jesus, they find that the suffering they face seems light.  Fighting for the poor, struggling for justice, striving for peace feels easier when yoked to Christ.  So often, when we are doing this work of discipleship, we forget this promise.  We think that we need to solve the world’s problems on our own, and we feel overwhelmed.[ii]  The “Study, Sup, and Serve” group has been talking about the issue of hunger the last couple of weeks.  As we learn more and more about how complicated hunger is – how hunger is not simply solved by giving someone food – we have all felt a bit overwhelmed.  Where do we begin?  How do we keep from being paralyzed by the weight of the work?  The problem of hunger seems impossible to solve.  But with Jesus yoked to us, we are promised that the yoke of alleviating hunger will be easy – the burden will be light.

On Friday, at our first edition of “Movies with Margaret,” we watched The Blind Side.  The movie is about an affluent white family in the south who encounter a poor, homeless, inner-city African-American boy named Michael.  They take him into their home, and all of their lives are transformed.  In the movie, the mother of the family, Leigh Ann, is challenged by some of her affluent friends who worry about the safety of her children with this boy around.  One friend concludes, “Well, you are changing that boy’s life.”  Leigh Ann insists, “No, you’re wrong.  He’s changing mine.”  Leigh Ann could have ignored Michael when she noticed that he was cold and homeless.  We have all made hundreds of excuses about why we cannot help this person or that person.  She could have only allowed him to stay in her home one night, having certainly fulfilled her Christian duty to shelter the homeless.  But she does not.  She keeps letting him stay.  She buys him clothes.  She helps him get academic help.  She builds his self-esteem.  And even though she takes on this very risky proposition – because Michael could have been violent, he could have stolen from her, he could have ruined her reputation in the community – even though she takes on this work, the work does not feel burdensome.  In fact, her helping Michael makes her happy.  The yoke is easy – the burden is light.

St. Francis, who we honor today, came to know Jesus’ burden as light as well.  Francis came from a very wealthy family.  He had a joyous youth, marked by revelry and social honor.  But once he encountered beggars and lepers, he suddenly gave up this way of life.  He renounced his privilege, and assumed a life of poverty, honoring the poor, the sick, and the disenfranchised.  By stripping himself of earthly wealth, which had become its own burden of sorts, Francis took on a new burden:  the burden of discipleship in Christ.  Francis began to see Christ in everyone – honoring the poor by living in poverty, caring for those less fortunate through the alms he collected, and by loving God’s creation by engaging that creation – whether by preaching to birds or negotiating peace between animals and humans.  Francis saw the bigger picture of God’s creation, and he was a faithful steward of that created order.  Through his work, he found great joy in the companions on the journey.  The yoke was easy – the burden was light.

The invitation of our gospel lesson is not simply a word of comfort – an invitation to curl up next to Jesus and hide from the world of pain and suffering.  The invitation from our gospel lesson today is to find comfort in the work of discipleship, of following Jesus.  Whatever the work might be – whether the work is alleviating hunger in our communities, caring for the poor and disenfranchised, or even sharing the Good News of Christ with a total stranger – the work will not be burdensome.

The first time I went on a mission trip was in college.  My mother was visiting during parents’ weekend, and the campus ministers had a meeting for parents to ease their concerns about us staying in a rural village in Honduras.  I remember my mom embarrassing me with questions about where we would go to the bathroom and whether we would be able to shower.  To her credit, I am not really a camper, and am pretty wigged out by bugs and filth.  But to both of our surprises, I found the trip was liberating.  When I travel on a mission trip, a different version of myself emerges.  I do not worry about my hair or makeup.  I seem to manage all manner of toilets – even if the toilet is a hole in the ground.  I seem to roll with whatever bugs I catch – and yes, I have caught everything from stomach bugs, sinus infections, and worms.  I morph into a person who does not need the comforts of this life.  The burden of being in a foreign and uncomfortable place rarely feels like a burden.  The joys that come from doing that work far outweigh the weight of the work.  That yoke of mission is fashioned so comfortably, and Jesus walks with me so steadily by my side in the yoke, that the yoke is easy – the burden is light.

This is the promise that Jesus offers today.  When we are wearied by trying to affect change for the poor and hungry, or even when we cannot get over the hump of inaction, Jesus promises us a yoke that is perfectly fashioned for us, and in which he will be our yoked partner.  Jesus yokes himself to us because we need him – for comfort, for encouragement, for strength.  But Jesus also needs us – to be his hands and feet in the world.  We do the work together.  In fact, the work will feel unlike work at all.  Because the yoke is easy – the burden is light.  Amen.

[i] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 129.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 21.