Sermon – Matthew 11.2-11, A3, YA, December 15, 2013

19 Thursday Dec 2013

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This sermon was only preached at the 8:00 am service, as our Bishop delivered the sermon at our 10:00 am service on Sunday.

Today marks fifty years of ministry by St. Margaret’s in Plainview.  On this day we remember our very rough beginnings at the Plainview American Legion Hall – a place where we often had to clean up empty beer bottles and ash trays before worship.  We remember the many people who have come in and out of lives and the ways in which they have made our ministry and life together richer.  We remember the pastoral leadership of the parish, and the ways in which each priest challenged and comforted us.  And we remember our own journey here – what brought us to this place, the ways that we connected, the ministries that we joined, and the reasons why we stay.  We take all these memories and we together say, “Thanks be to God for all that has been.”

Earlier this week, the bishop visited with our Vestry to talk about the work we are currently doing in Plainview.  We shared with him our new initiatives in outreach – the ways that we have adopted local families in need, the food we grew this summer in our Garden of Eatin’ to feed our neighbors, and the sandwiches we make with our interfaith brothers and sisters to feed those who do not know from where the next meal will come.  We shared with the bishop our evangelism efforts – our new website, blog, and Facebook page.  We talked about our efforts to spread the word about St. Margaret’s in our community – our mailings, signage, community presence at events, and even our challenge to get off campus more.  And we also shared with the bishop our ministry to spiritually feed everyone who comes through our doors – through education programs for adults and children, for spiritual offerings here and off campus, and through prayer and pastoral ministries.  The bishop was pleased with our efforts to reach beyond our walls and to find community partners in the process.  Together, we all said, “Thanks be to God for all that is.”

But the bishop did not let us off so easily.  He reminded us that we still had work to do.  He reminded us that this community is a largely un-churched community – full of people who have fallen away from the church or who have never known church.  He also reminded us that our mission field is not just in Plainview.  Our mission field is also in every place that each parishioner lives.  We are all agents of sharing the good news of Christ Jesus, and that our work more about welcoming people into a relationship with Christ than to grow the church.  The bishop also reminded us that there are still potential partnerships available to us.  There are ways that we can feed our current ministries through partnering with others, and we should not shy away from that work.  In many ways, I understood the bishop to be saying, “You have already made some great changes and are thinking outside of the box.  Now, keep making changes and keep thinking outside of the box.  Your work is not yet done.”  And so, with the bishop, together we prayed, “Thanks be to God for all that is yet to come.”

In many ways, I see parallels between what we are doing today and what is happening in our Gospel lesson today.  We are looking back, looking at today, and dreaming about tomorrow.  John the Baptist is in a similar situation.  As he sits in his cold jail cell, he thinks back to the prophets of old – of Isaiah who proclaimed that there would be one crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”  He recalls all that was said about the coming of a Messiah, and what the people of God could expect from the Messiah.  As he thinks about this rich past, he also looks at the current time.  He remembers how Jesus comes to be baptized by him, and how John feels unworthy to tie the thong of his sandal, let alone baptize him.  He begins to feel that his prayers have been answered, and God is finally acting in human history.  But he also feels those cold floors, those shackles on his limbs, and the permanence of those prison bars.  Is he mistaken?  Is Jesus not the Messiah?  If Jesus is the Messiah, surely his messenger, John, would not be sitting in this cell.  Perhaps there is more waiting in John’s future – perhaps the time is yet to come.

I have been thinking a lot this week about John’s jail experience and the many other prophets we know who have spent time imprisoned.  Of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who just a few months before the Nazis hanged him wrote, “Who am I?”  Though he eventually wrote, “Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine,”[i] I imagine Bonhoeffer could relate to John the Baptist’s prison questioning.  I also think about Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, or Martin Luther King, Junior in the United States who all sat in confinement fighting for a world ruled by equity and justice.  Though we admire them, surely they had dark nights of the soul during that time.  That is the funny thing about expectations though.  When things do not work out as we planned, we sometimes wonder whether God is acting at all.  John surely wondered whether God was present in Jesus.  Dietrich, Nelson, Aung San, and Martin must have wondered whether they were on the right track too.

I am sure that sitting in a jail cell leads one to wonder and dream about the future.  But when John inquires of Jesus what the future holds, all Jesus says is to look around.  He does not give John definite answers.  He simply points him toward the movement of the Holy Spirit all around him.  In some ways, as we look at the next fifty years we could also wonder about where we are going.  We too could wonder if the changes we are making are the right ones.  We could wonder if God will come in and light a blazing fire that will spark a renewal of ministry and blessing in this place.

And so today, in the midst of celebration and anticipation, we are given the wonderful collect of third Advent.  “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…”  We do not pray for reassurance, for confirmation, or for hope.  Instead, we pray that God will come among us and stir things up.  Now I do not know about you, but stirring things up is not exactly the reassurance I was hoping for today.  It is not the “well done, good and faithful servant,” I might have wanted to hear on our 50th anniversary.  But in some ways, I think this prayer is better.  This prayer, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us,” is a prayer focused more on the future than the past.  The prayer is our way of saying, “Okay, Lord.  We have been good and faithful servants.  Now, come among us and keep stirring our pot – because, as our bishop reminds us, our work is not yet done.”  We ask God to stir us up – to give us a new fire, a new spark for the work Christ has given us to do.  We know that in the stirring, we may come out looking differently than we expected.  We know that in the stirring, we may find ourselves disoriented or even trying life together new ways.  But we also know that in the stirring, the Holy Spirit moves in us to make us a better people for God.  Today we are grateful for all that has been and all that is.  And now we ask God to stir us up so that we can celebrate all that is to come.  Amen.

[i] John P. Burgess, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 72.

Homily – Colossians 4.2–6, John of the Cross, December 12, 2013

19 Thursday Dec 2013

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Today we honor Juan de la Cruz, or John of the Cross.  Though he died in 1591, John was widely unknown until more recently.  Born in 1542 in Spain, his father died when he was three.  His mother and siblings were thrown into poverty.  He received early education in an orphanage, but by 17 he had learned carpentry, tailoring, sculpting, and painting through apprenticeships.  He was able to do his university studies with the Jesuits; after school he joined the Carmelite order.  In 1567, he was ordained to the priesthood and recruited by Teresa of Avila to reform the Carmelite order.  He studied extensively, was a spiritual director, and devoted himself to the search for God.  Because of his attempts to dramatically reform the Carmelites, he was eventually imprisoned.  There he wrote poetry as a comfort.  His “Dark Night of the Soul” became his most famous piece.  As John of the Cross has been rediscovered, he has become known as “the church’s safest mystical theologian” and “the poet’s poet.”

I was thinking John must have known a lot about the dark night of the soul.  He had a rough childhood, fought to get an education, and then found incredible resistance when he tried to make the devotion of the Carmelites better; his prison cell must have felt like a dark night.  I am reading an Advent devotional right now, and it has felt pretty dark at times.  I can tell the author has experienced some rough times, though she never specifies what they are in her poetry.  But the darkness of her soul pervades her writing.  I have wondered as I read why she is putting such darkness in our Advent devotional – a season of light.  But then I thought about the realities of this season – the pain the season can bring of lost loved ones, of unfulfilled dreams, of unmet expectations, of pressure and anxiety.  Perhaps the author, like John of the Cross, is willing to expose the dark night that can live in the soul.

So where is the light for us to grasp in Advent?  I appreciate those words of instruction in Colossians: “Devote yourselves to prayer.”  Prayer is one of the places that we can dump darkness and discover light.  Prayer is the conversation in which we can struggle vulnerably and honestly with God, and eventually end up on the other side renewed and refreshed.  This is one of our Advent invitations:  devote yourselves to prayer.  Whether you already feel bathed in light or you are longing for the light, prayer is the place where we meet God and we find strength for the journey.  Amen.

Anniversary advice…

13 Friday Dec 2013

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Whenever I meet a couple celebrating their 50th anniversary, my question is usually the same, “So, any advice?”  The answers have varied widely: advice about whether or not it is okay to go to bed angry; varying ways of decision-making; and my personal favorite, to only argue in the nude.  As a child of divorce, in a generation of divorce, those couples who make it to fifty years garner a deep level of respect from me.  I find myself drawn to them, watching how they care for one another, wondering what rough patches they faced along the way that could have led to the dissolving of the marriage, but that they managed to survive.  As someone who has been blessed with twelve years of marriage, I am already amazed at the vast changes that have impacted my marriage.  I can only imagine what lies ahead in the next 38 years.

My parish celebrates fifty years of ministry this Sunday.  Over the course of the year, I have heard stories of times past and the joys of a long life together.  But this week, I find myself wondering what advice we might offer to anyone considering the next fifty years of ministry here.  Having listened to and watched my parish for the last two years, I see a few nuggets of wisdom emerging.  First, change is inevitable.  We often joke around here that we sometimes do things because that is the way we have always done them.  But the truth is many, many things have changed in our history.  Whether it was a particular clergyperson’s way of doing the liturgy, a particular party that “always” happens, or a group that has functioned for a long time, change is the one constant in our history.  Over the last two years of my tenure with St. Margaret’s, many have commented on the sheer volume of changes in our life together.  But from all the stories I hear, change has been a constant for the last fifty years of our life together.  So if we know change is constant, perhaps our task is not to prevent that change, but to find the best ways to be flexible in the midst of change, knowing some change with stick, and some will not.

Second, what feeds us today will not necessarily feed us tomorrow.  This bit of advice comes out of the wide variety of programs I have seen come and go over our fifty year history.  I have heard many people speak longingly about programs that have fed us over the years – a bowling team, a youth program, or a prayer ministry.  But just like we age and change over time, our spiritual needs and the needs of each generation changes over time.  This realization gives us two pieces of freedom:  first, we can let go of the idea that any one program is sacred because programs will come and go; second, we can keep dreaming and expecting that there are programs that are going to come along that dramatically impact our lives – even though we have yet to experience them.

Finally, though people, ministries, and systems come and go, one thing remains constant:  our love and longing for Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the one constant for every person who walks through our doors.  We may all experience Christ differently or may be at different points in our walk with Christ – whether at the beginning, in the midst of a deep relationship, or even questioning how we feel about him altogether – but Jesus and a longing for an experience with the sacred is what keeps us coming back to this place and keeps us inviting others into the joys we have experienced in this place.  Clergy will come and go, long-time parishioners will move or pass away, and life changes will bring people in and out of our parish.  But Christ is always with us – challenging us, feeding us, and forming us into better versions of ourselves.  Remembering that constant grounds us more than any of that stuff that inevitably changes over time.

As we gather this weekend, to worship, to feed on the Eucharistic feast, and to dance the afternoon away, I look forward to observing our parish – watching, wondering, and reveling in all that has been, all that is, and all that is to come.  I cannot wait to see what the next fifty years teaches us!

Sermon – Matthew 3.1-12, A2, YA December 8, 2013

13 Friday Dec 2013

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Today we are going to do something a little different.  We are going to try an exercise I found recently.[i]  I want you to pull out your bulletin or a scrap of paper, and grab the pencil in your pew or a pen you brought with you.  Next, I want you to make a quick “to do” list for Advent.  I want you to put all the things you need and want to get done:  maybe shopping for gifts, decorating the Christmas tree, sending those Christmas cards, or attending the kids’ school Christmas concert.  Maybe you want to make some end-of-year charitable contributions, or need to get those Christmas Eve services on your calendar.  I want you to put all the things on the list and feel free to be fairly exhaustive about what you want to get done in these next two and half weeks.  I am going give you a second, as I imagine your list is probably as long as mine.  And this is probably the only time I will ever encourage you to make a to-do list during the sermon, so enjoy!

Now, I want you to take a deep breath, clear your mind a bit, and I want you to daydream about what you hope Christmas will be like this year.  Think about the kind of day you want to have or maybe the kind of relationships you want to be a part of your life.  Think about what kind of world you want to live in this Christmas, and maybe even beyond Christmas Day.  Your hopes can certainly be about your immediate wants and needs, but they can also include your larger families, communities, and the world.  If you want, go ahead and take just another moment to write a brief sentence below your other list that captures your hope for your life and the world this Christmas.  As you are thinking about the kind of world you want to live in, think about the passage we heard from Isaiah today:  a world where the wolf shall live with the lamb, the cow and the bear graze together, and a nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp.  Perhaps this kind of harmony and peace is a part of your Christmas hope and can certainly be a part of your dreaming today.

Okay, now that you have your to-do list and your Christmas hope in mind, I want you to work backwards.  Look at the to-do list you made and circle those tasks that might contribute directly to your own deep hopes and longings about your life and this world.  Certainly, there are going to be some items on your list that are important in the short-term, but maybe do not contribute to your larger vision and hope.  Here is where our invitation lies today.  Perhaps this Advent can be a time of putting things in perspective and channeling our energy and resources to those things that matter most to us, to our families, to our communities, and to God.

Of course, that invitation may not have been what you initially imagined when you heard John the Baptist’s words today in our gospel lesson.  His words of repentance and judgment are honestly more scary than comforting this time of year.  I have many times wondered why we have to hear John’s words now, as we approach that blessed holy night, as opposed to some other text about happy anticipation or blessed expectation.  But John does not mince words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

I have been reading a lot these last couple of weeks about the season of Advent and people’s varying opinions about whether Advent is a penitential season or not.  I have been part of parishes that have insisted that Advent is not a mini-Lent, and refuse to take on anything that resembles the penitential nature of Lent.  But I have also been a part of parishes who see the themes in our collects this season and hear words like John the Baptist’s words today and cannot help but to claim the penitential nature of Advent.

Part of the challenge is that we all get a bit hung up on the fact that we think of repentance as being about guilt, inadequacy, and unworthiness.  We imagine that repentance is about our standard of moral worthiness or about our feelings of remorse.  Barbara Brown Taylor explains, “The kind of repentance most of us shrink from is all about us, in case you hadn’t noticed.  It is all about me, me, me, the miserable sinner.  No wonder it is so revolting.”  But, Taylor suggests that there might be another way to look at repentance.  “The other kind of repentance, the healing kind is far more interested in God.  It spends more time looking at the kingdom than the mirror.  It has more faith in God’s power to make new than in our own power to mess up.”[ii]  In fact, some have argued that repentance is about God’s desire to realign us with Christ’s life, God’s hope to transform us into Christ’s image.[iii]  Real repentance is not about our failings, but about God’s desires for us.

I think many of us want to avoid texts like our gospel lesson today, because the last thing we want to hear as we try to struggle through those Advent to-do lists is that we need to repent, and think about the kingdom of heaven coming near.  But John is not trying to push us to feel bad about ourselves this Advent season, or even to wallow in apologies.  Instead, repentance is about “re-orientation, a change of perspective and direction, a commitment to turn and live differently.”[iv]  Our gospel lesson today is not trying to get us to limit our hopes or define ourselves by our ancestry or piety, but to dream bigger dreams, and to work toward those bigger hopes on that Christmas hope list you just made this morning.  This is what John means when he says to bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Now if you imagine that I am saying that you have more work to do this Advent season, you are partially right.  I am inviting you to take up the work of living into your bigger hopes and dreams this season.  But I am also giving you permission to let go of those things on that to-do list that are not allowing you to focus on the real joy of this season: the joy of a life of repentance – of re-orientation.  Now you may not be able to get out of that party or those Christmas cards, but maybe your presence at that party will be marked by your new Advent re-orientation.  Maybe those cards will have a different message than you originally planned, or your approach to completing them may be full of love and compassion instead of obligation and annoyance.  John’s words for us today are a wake-up call, but not the wake up call that fills us with dread and self-criticism.  John’s wake-up call is a reminder of the hope of this season – the hope that is ours to claim when we are ready.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Hoping for More,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2901 on December 2, 2013.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “A Cure for Despair: Matthew 3:1-12,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 21, no. 1, Advent 1997, 18.

[iii] John P. Burgess, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 46.

[iv] Lose.

Homily – John 6.57-63, Clement of Alexandria, December 5, 2013

13 Friday Dec 2013

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Today we honor Clement of Alexandria, priest and philosopher in the mid-to-late second century.  Clement was originally a Greek philosopher who sought truth in many schools until he met Pantaenus, head of a Christian school in Egypt.  Clement later became head of that school and was for many years an apologist for the Christian faith to both pagans and Christians.  His background and abilities helped him to commend Christianity to the intellectual circles of Alexandria.  He had a liberal approach to secular knowledge and his work prepared the way for Origen, one of the most eminent theologians of Greek Christianity.

We honor Clement today because he did what so many of us simultaneously hope to do and fear to do.  We long to share our faith experiences with both the Christians and non-Christians in our lives.  We have had some incredible encounters with God and we want to share that experience with others.  And yet we fear sharing because we worry that people may ask us questions we cannot answer.  We worry we do not have the intellectual acumen of Clement to tie together our experiences in a logical way.

Perhaps we feel a bit like the disciples in John’s gospel today.  As Jesus explains that he is the bread of life meant to be consumed, the disciples complain, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”  Their complaint is not hard to understand – I am sure any of us hearing Jesus’ metaphor for the first time would be especially baffled.  All we need is one hearty experience trying to explain to a child that a wafer is Jesus’ body and we all get a little nervous about this crazy faith of ours.

In the midst of our hesitancy, we find encouragement through Clement.  Clement gives us permission to interweave our sacred and secular worlds.  Clement used his gift – the gift of a brilliant secular mind – to interpret his faith and make it accessible to the faithful and those without faith.  God gives each of us similar gifts too.  God empowers us with “spirit and life,” as Jesus Christ says.  God gives us a unique spiritual journey that can speak truth because ultimately we, too, are a mixture of sacred and secular: who better to interpret this crazy world and our crazy faith than us?  Clement invites us to share our own truths with others – knowing that our truth is a part of the bigger truth of Jesus Christ.  Though we may not have everything figured out, we have experienced enough of God in us, and we have been given gifts to enable us to share that truth with others.  Amen.

Advent attention…

05 Thursday Dec 2013

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This week, several parishioners and I embarked on a “mini-pilgrimage” to the Cloisters in the City.  Though I loved many parts of the Cloisters, I found that I was most drawn to a sound installation by Janet Cardiff of The Forty Part Motet.  Cardiff positioned forty high-fidelity speakers on stands in a large oval in the middle of the Fuentidueña Chapel.  The motet is a reworking of the forty-part motet Spem in alium (which translates as “In No Other Is My Hope,”) by Thomas Tallis.  One part is played in each speaker in the room, and if you stand in the center and close your eyes, you can almost imagine yourself sitting in the chancel of a Cathedral listening to those beautiful voices.  And because the speakers are setup in the Chapel, which features the late twelfth-century apse from the church of San Martín at Fuentidueña, near Segovia, Spain, you really can transport yourself into sacred beauty of the music.

Part of what I loved about the installation was the way in which it froze me in my path.  No longer was I ready to hustle through the exhibits – instead I was transfixed in one place, just listening.  And even more strange was that I was not the only one – the whole room was filled with people just standing and listening to the incredible sound.  I was fascinated by the way such beautiful music held us captive, arresting our attention.

As I venture into Advent, I wonder how we might hold on to that sense of arrested attention on God.  Advent is a season often co-opted by the world around us.  I can count countless secular things that send us into a flurry – buying gifts, decorating houses, hosting and attending parties, and generally running around chaotically.  But our sacred worlds can keep us just as busy.  I know that in our parish during the month of December we have an Annual Meeting, a Bishop’s Visit, our 50th Anniversary Gala, the decorating our church with greens, and the flurry of Christmas worship services.

Our invitation this week might be to find small ways to commit arrested attention to God.  Maybe our way will be simply stopping for a prayer.  Maybe our way will be dropping everything we had planned and stopping to visit with an elderly person, with someone who is sick, or with a child.  Or maybe it is a more intentional commitment to being fully present wherever you are – putting aside the other forty things that also need to be done immediately, and just giving yourself over to the task or experience at hand fully.  If we can isolate our attention, and arrest our harried selves, maybe we can find our way back to the God who loves us and simply wants a bit of our arrested attention too.

Homily – Advent Lessons and Carols, December 1, 2013

05 Thursday Dec 2013

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My first experience of Advent in the Episcopal Church was a bit of a let-down.  In the United Methodist Churches where I grew up in, Advent was a time to sing all our favorite Christmas songs, preparing us for the great feast of Christmas.  It was sort of like turning on the local Christmas radio station throughout Advent, but only with the religious songs.  I loved the experience, and looked forward to December all year long.  So when I encountered Advent in the Episcopal Church for the first time, you can imagine my surprise and disappointment.  Not only were we not singing Christmas songs, the songs we were singing felt drab and disappointing.  Everything about the season felt quiet and reserved – nothing like the boisterous build-up I was used to for Christmas.  I found myself thoroughly confused – wondering if the Episcopal Church had not received the Christmas memo.

But slowly, as the Church usually does, the Episcopal Church won me over.  As my adult life became more frenetic, the quiet of Advent became like a precious gift.  Instead of putting me in the stable on December 1st, the Church reminded me of the journey toward the stable – of prophecies and promises, of visitations and expectations, of hopes and dreams.  And believe it or not, slowly over the years, I found that there were actually Advent songs that I liked, and eventually came to love, cherish, and anticipate every year.  Many of my favorites we hear today:  O Come, O Come Emmanuel; The Angel Gabriel; and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.  Not only are the words beautiful, but the music reaches something deep inside of me and invites me into a rich, reflective reverence as I block out all that beckons me into a break-neck pace of life.  I find that the music calms my spirit and invites me into contemplation and quiet before our God.

And so today, on this first Sunday in Advent, the Church gives us the gift of Advent Lessons and Carols.  Leading up to this day, many of you have asked me, on this day of joint worship, as we head into our Annual Meeting, why we would not have Holy Eucharist.  The strict answer is that the liturgy of Advent Lessons and Carols does not recommend Holy Eucharist.  But the better answer for me is that by having a service so outside our normal pattern, we are marking the differentness of this season of Advent.  By starting out the season with a service so out of the ordinary, we proclaim that Advent is not ordinary.  Our behavior during Advent will not be ordinary – at least not the ordinary of the secular world this time of the year.  As we claim this season of Advent is as quiet oasis during in an otherwise frenzied time, we shake up our senses so much that we cannot help but to set our intentions for these four weeks on a different way of being throughout this season.

I invite you today to drink in the gift of Lessons and Carols.  I invite you too soak in the differentness of this day, letting the service awaken your senses to what is to come.  I invite you to listen to the lessons, many of which you will hear again throughout Advent, remembering why the birth of the Christ Child is so momentous.  I invite you to meditate on the music of this day, letting the words speak new truth to you, and allowing the melodies to calm and renew you.  Advent is the Church’s gift to you, and our service of Lesson and Carols reminds us of the availability of that gift.  Drink from the rich, deep pools of refreshment waiting for you today.  Amen.

Homily – Matthew 6.25-33, TG, YC November 28, 2013

05 Thursday Dec 2013

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Our gospel lesson today is one of my favorites.  Jesus’ instructions not to worry are a soothing ointment for the constant itch of worry in my life.  His words calm my nerves and remind me of the need for perspective.  I can almost imagine Jesus as a yoga instructor, calmly affirming a room of people who are trying to take in deep breaths and to relax their tight muscles.  As I think about the heavenly Father who knows my every need, I am given a sense of perspective and calm that I can rarely muster on my own.  Because I am a person prone to worry, this passage truly is one of my favorite passages from scripture.

That being said, this passage is also one of my least favorite passages.  We tend to think of ourselves as having a certain amount of responsibility in this life – a responsibility to use the talents God has given us to care for ourselves, and even to care for others.  But who among us has not had times when that was just not possible – either from being laid off or furloughed from work, not being able to find a job in unemployment, or having an injury that has made our work impossible.  Besides, what does Jesus expect us to do?  Just go about life, expecting everything to be handed to us – clothing, food, and drink?  The proposition seems naïve and ultimately frustrating.

But even harder than a basic frustration with Jesus is the underlying message of what Jesus is saying:  that through our behavior of worrying, we are implying that we have ultimate control over life, and that God plays little, or at least a superficial, role in our lives.  The presumption of worry is the presumption that we have the ability to fully control what happens and then fix things when they go awry.  Our worrying is a way of saying to God, “I do not trust you to handle things in my life.  I am not willing to give up that control to you.”  One question from Jesus summarizes this conflict for us, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”  Jesus really knows how to get to the heart of the matter, and when he does, his words feel like a stab to the heart.

Truthfully, there really could not be a better lesson for us today on Thanksgiving Day.  I imagine every one of us has had a worry about this day in the past week or more.  Talk about worrying about what you will eat!  We stress about what food to serve, how to accommodate our gluten-free friends in the menu, what items can be prepared in advance, how to get the moistest turkey, and whether we have made enough for those gathered.  Some of us have worried about what outfit to wear, knowing there will be countless photos trying to capture the happiness of this day.  And what to drink?  I know parties where the host has purchased copious amounts of wine, despite delegating wine to guests, for fear that there will not be enough to cover the gathering.  And those worries do not even cover the other worries of the day – how to fit in Eucharist while the turkey is still cooking, whom to sit near our cranky aunt, and what kind of arguments might erupt between family members.  For those hosting meals, many of us barely have a chance to catch our breath after the meal before the clean-up process begins.

But that is the beauty of this lesson today:  like our eternal battle between worry and control, this special day also has the potential for lost focus.  Our country, with all its flaws, gives us a day that is almost sacred in nature – a day set aside for gratitude and thanksgiving; a day when we can pause, and remember the abundant blessings of our lives and the incredible gift of this life.  And if we are at all considering what we are grateful for, our minds inevitably end up with God – the one from whom all blessings flow.  The simple act of thanksgiving melts away tensions, and turns our worry-hardened hearts to hearts overflowing with gratitude.  When we really think about all that we have to be grateful for, the list gets longer and longer – even if we are not even in much of a mood to celebrate.

I was wondering, then, how we might incorporate the lessons we learn today from the gospel and from Thanksgiving Day into a rule of life beyond this day.  Then I remembered the last line of the gospel, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  We have been singing these very words since September, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  And all these things shall be added unto you.  Alleluia.”  I have been singing these words every Sunday, and I took until today, with today’s gospel and today’s celebration to finally connect the dots.  The answer is not to throw up our hands, naively trusting God to put food on the table.  The answer is changing our pursuit – not pursuing the things that we think we want and need, but instead pursing the kingdom of God.  The rest is just gravy.  Amen.

Giving thanks…

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

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At 6:30 this morning, I got a call from the Chair of my Buildings and Grounds Committee.  He was worried about the amount of water we are getting here and asked if I would run over to the church to make sure the undercroft had not flooded overnight (as his basement at home had).  Luckily I was dressed, but our family was in the morning flurry of getting showers, eating breakfast, and making lunches.  I had hoped to sneak over to the church quietly, but as soon as my daughter found out what I was doing, she wanted to go too.  So we rushed to find her shoes and raincoat, I rushed to grab an umbrella, and we ran out the door.  About half-way to the church, I realized I had forgotten the church keys.  As I quickly tried to rush my 4-year old back to the house, I realized that my lack of church keys meant I also had left my house keys inside the house.  Of course, my husband was in the shower.  Needless to say, there was lots of doorbell ringing over the following five minutes.  Ah, the joys of a crazy, scattered priest and mother.

For this and so many other reasons, I am tremendously grateful that my husband suggested we take this Thanksgiving to just have a quiet holiday alone.  As an extrovert, my immediate response to his request was a bit of sadness and wistfulness – Thanksgiving is supposed to be about loud families or friends and yummy food.  But then I remembered how for the last several weekends in a row I have had multiple church commitments, how last week alone I had three night meetings, and how my husband I have felt like ships passing in the night these last several weeks.  I knew the wisdom behind his request, and so we have gathered a much smaller amount of food, and have plans to just be together as a family this weekend.  Well…and maybe clean the house and unpack some baby stuff.  But at least we are doing that together!

I know for most of you, Thanksgiving is not really about quiet and retreat.  That may feel like a foreign, if not uncomfortable, concept to you.  But even if you are planning to gather with your loud Uncle Joe or your nagging mother-in-law, I hope that you will take a moment to take a little breath, and remember in the quiet what Thanksgiving is really about.  Maybe you invite your family into prayer before the meal, maybe you invite everyone to share something they are grateful for, or maybe you just do your own self assessment of the bounty surrounding you on every side – of food, of shelter, of clothing, of laughter, of a God who loves and cares for you abundantly.  And if that is the only breath of thanksgiving you can afford on that day, then you have taken a sip of the pool of thanksgiving available to you.  And if you are thirsty for more, find a church holding a Thanksgiving Day service, and give yourself an entire hour of this kind of thankfulness.  It may be the greatest gift you give yourself this holiday season.

St. Margaret’s Church celebrates Holy Eucharist on Thanksgiving Day at 10:00 AM.  All are welcome!

Homily – Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, November 26, 2013

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

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I grew up in the South, where being a person of faith meant you were either a Baptist or a United Methodist.  It was not until well after college that I began to meet and really get to know a few individuals of other faiths – learning about both their cultural and religious experiences.  I even had an interfaith clergy support group back in Delaware – during which much of our time was spent discussing differences and similarities in polity and worship.

So I was thrilled when I heard there was an interfaith group here when we moved from Delaware to Plainview two years ago.  I was looking forward to who would be in the room, and finding an instant support group of fellow persons of faith.  So you can imagine my surprise when I, southerner that I was, went to my first meeting and realized that as a Christian, I was a minority in the room.  I do not think I have ever been in a room of clergy when I felt like there were significant portions of the conversation that I just did not understand – whether it was a particular holiday, a way of doing business, a language barrier, or knowing what to order at Ben’s.  I had always thought that interfaith differences were not that significance – if we are all persons of faith, surely that identity creates enough common ground for us to work together.  But the truth is that among the clergy, and perhaps among you as persons of faith, we are so steeped in our religious identity and culture, that we forget how particular that experience is to us – and how foreign that experience is to others.

That is why I love this service so much.  We have found a holiday that we as Americans can all recognize and celebrate – regardless of our faith background.  And yet, we as a community of faithful people gathered here tonight claim this day not as just a secular day to eat copious amounts and gather with family and friends, or even a day we can all commonly agree upon because we are Americans.  We claim this day as a sacred day – because we know that true thankfulness belongs to God – the source of sustenance and life itself.  In the Episcopal Church, we have a special liturgy set aside for Thanksgiving Day.  I never knew that until I became a priest.  In fact, at my first cure, I remember learning about the service and being totally annoyed, thinking, “What, I have to work on Thanksgiving too?!?”  But after my first Thanksgiving service, I knew why the Episcopal Church had set aside time for worship:  because the world around us tries fill this day with “stuff” other than true thanksgiving.  We slave over food, we fret about misbehaving family members, we jostle for position around the TV for the Macy’s parade or the football game, and some of us even go out shopping, especially as the stores try to lure us out of our homes to spend money.

But the community of faith makes another way for us.  The community of faith says that if we are going to dedicate an entire day to thanksgiving, let’s talk about what giving thanks is really about – to whom we really need to give thanks.  Tonight, we turn to scripture.  The palmist says, “It is good to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High.”[i]  We say together, “Praise God!  Bless God’s name!  For God is good; God’s steadfast love, [God’s hesed] is eternal; God’s faithfulness is for all generations.”[ii]

To be honest, praise and thanksgiving is not necessarily something that we are always good at doing.  We are really good at complaining to God, or asking God for things, or worrying to God.  But we often forget to truly praise God, to thank God for God’s abundant love and faithfulness.  I am not sure if our prayers to God tend toward being self-centered or we just are simply a culture who tends to complain or want something from God.  And I am not saying those kind of prayers do not have a time and place.  Our God can take all of that from us and more.  But when we turn our prayers to prayers of thanksgiving, we may be amazed at how we, and all that we are worried about, are transformed.  Centering ourselves in gratitude and thanksgiving puts even the direst of situations in perspective.  We remember not only that God is with us, but we also see those around us differently.  Our hearts grow in love and compassion simply by praising and thanking God.

Of course, there are practical implications to giving thanks to God.  Somehow that annoying uncle or nagging mother seems a lot more lovable when our hearts are rooted in this kind of thanksgiving.  Somehow that fallen soufflé or that dry turkey seems much less important than the fact that we have food at all – let alone shelter, warmth, and electricity.  That is the power of thanksgiving for us as a community of faith.  When we turn to God, from whom all blessings flow, we turn our hearts toward generosity as well.  We find ourselves buying extra food to feed our neighbor.  We find ourselves making time to serve others – whether making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with our interfaith brothers and sisters, or in some other way.  We find ourselves focusing less on ourselves, and more on the wonderful creation God has given to us – and in turn we find ourselves much more well-taken care of than when we were wrapped up in ourselves.

And so tonight, we set the tone for this national holiday.  We proclaim a true day of Thanksgiving – for the abundance of food, for the privilege of rest, for the blessing of life – but mostly for the God that gives us such life, who cares for us more than we deserve, and who loves us more than we can imagine.  We give thanks for a God beyond our full comprehension or knowing, and we give thanks for the interfaith community who, despite all our differences, collectively reminds us to whom we belong.  May your Thanksgiving holiday be a sacred time with the God who created you, sustains you, and loves you.  Amen.

[i] Ps. 92.1

[ii] Ps. 100.4-5