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Sermon – John 6.1-21, P12, YB, July 28, 2024

28 Wednesday Aug 2024

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This spring and summer your Vestry has been reading Mark Elsdon’s book We Aren’t Broke:  Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry.  Elsdon’s primary argument is that churches and faith communities have more resources than they realize and often neglect to utilize those latent resources as alternative sources of revenue and mission.  In his own setting, a campus ministry in the Midwest that no longer had students, they converted the parking lot of their worship space to a high-rise apartment building for students, with designated intentional communities for students.  The rental income from the apartments became a revenue stream that supported both the housing ministry and the worshiping community that emerged.  Whether churches repurpose their existing buildings for coworking space, redesignate green space for affordable housing, or simply rent their land for use by a business like a childcare center, Elsdon’s argument is that churches have an abundance at their fingertips that they rarely recognize or utilize.

As our Vestry has been dreaming about abundance and creative repurposing of resources, I have been seeing a lot of parallels from Elsdon’s vision and today’s gospel lesson.  Because every gospel has a version of the Jesus’ miracle of feeding a mass of people, and because this story is beloved, we sometimes gloss over this story without really hearing the story.  As scholar Karoline Lewis argues, “…a comparison of John and the Synoptic Gospels yields important differences and underscores particular theological themes in the Gospel of John.  The setting has a specific detail unique to John:  that of much grass (6:10).  This description alludes to and foreshadows the presentation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd in chapter 10.  The pasture for the sheep signals provision and abundance of life and this abundance is clearly present in the feeding of the five thousand.”[i]  In a place where there is abundant space, where an enormously abundant amount of people gets to eat until they are full, and there is an abundance of leftovers – twelve whole baskets to be exact – Jesus gives us insight into the abundant life that is found in him. 

But abundant thinking is not how most of us are hardwired.  As one pastor describes, “Much of the time our faith mirrors that of Philip and Andrew, who could not see past the six months’ wages or the meager five loaves and two fish.  We tend to base our living on our own scarcity or even on our own fears of insufficiency.  So we hoard and save and worry and end up living life in small and safe measures.  We pull back when we should push forward.  We give in to our fear of a shortfall rather than exercising faith in God’s abundance.  But Christians are constantly on call to go places where we have never been, to do things that we have never attempted, and to be things we have never envisioned.”[ii]

For those of you who have been around the Episcopal Church very long, you may know that we have something called “the reserve sacrament” – a fancy phrase for leftover communion.  When we celebrate the Great Thanksgiving, if any wine or bread is leftover, we set the elements aside in a safe place – in the New Chapel, we use the aumbry.  We then use the reserve sacrament the next week, or when your clergy take communion out to our homebound members.  But the holy meal we consume each week rarely needs that reserve.  I remember distinctly being asked once to come and deliver communion to a dying parishioner.  I came with a few reserve wafers in my kit and my flask of reserve wine.  But when I arrived, there were probably ten to twelve people in the room.  And although I expected some of them to say, “Oh, no thanks – no communion for me,” they all wanted to consume.  And so, I found myself making tiny wafers even tinier so that everyone might share the sacred meal with their grandma one last time.

Now, I am not suggesting Jesus gave super tiny bites to everyone on that huge area of “much grass.”  In fact, John’s gospel says they don’t just get what they need, they get as much bread and fish as they want – and there are still leftovers!  What I am saying is, Jesus is inviting us today to see with eyes of abundance.  To look at a room full of grieving people and figure out a way to make much bread out of little.  To talk to a business owner who serves our community and see what creative ways we can use our blessings to bless others.  To know that there is a shortage of housing for the workforce in our community and imagine if some of our property might be the solution.  I have been to enough potluck dinners at churches in my lifetime that we almost never finish every morsel of food – in fact, usually we are all taking at least a portion or two home of what we brought.  Jesus is inviting us into being a potluck community:  to see the abundance all around us, to remember where that abundance comes from, and to live and love abundantly in ministry without fear of scarcity.  As one scholar says, Jesus “…gives bread because he is Bread.  He makes possible the gathering of the body so that we might become his body, the church.”[iii]  Our invitation is to honor his generous, abundant legacy in the way we live, move, and have our being – as His Church in the world.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 83.

[ii] Charles Hoffman, “More than Enough,” Christian Century, July 25, 2006, vol. 123, no. 15, 18.

[iii] Debie Thomas, “The Miracle of Gathering,” July 18, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3081-the-miracle-of-gathering on July 26, 2024.

Sermon – Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16, Mark 8.31-38, L2, YB, February 25, 2024

15 Friday Mar 2024

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I remember in those first months of parenthood, an older mom and educator shared a bit wisdom with me.  “Remember, that your primary job as a parent,” she told me, “is to foster the independence of your child.”  At the time, her advice seemed a little strange – nothing about making the child feel loved, or reading to them every night, or creating safe space:  just fostering independence.  What I did not realize at the time was how incredibly difficult and grueling the work of fostering independence would be.  For starters, fostering independence in your children means giving up control – something I tend to like having.  And as if that is not hard enough, fostering independence means being the victim of your children’s own desire for control.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have been walking in my house muttering the words, “I am raising independent children.  I am raising independent children.  I am raising independent children.”

I think why this aspect of parenting is so tricky for me is parenting gets to the heart of one of the eternal struggles we have in life – and certainly with God:  our desire for control.  So, we should not at all be surprised to discover that during Lent, that is what both our Old Testament and our Gospel lessons are about:  ceding control.  We can start with Abraham’s story.  This is actually the third time Abraham has been promised a son – or at the beginning of our text, he is still Abram, not Abraham.  But we’ll get to that later.  Abram struggles like we do with control.  When he and Sarai are not pregnant at 75, or 86, or now 99 years old, he’s pretty sure God is not going to make good on God’s promise.[i]  So, Abram takes matters into his own hands and has a child with Hagar, Sarai’s servant, hoping he can make Ishmael the inheritor of God’s promise.  Abram and Sarai just could not trust and cede control to God about becoming pregnant themselves, especially since God’s promise is so ludicrously abundant.  In fact, in the verse immediately following what we read today, we are told Abraham falls on his face and laughs at God.  That is how ludicrously abundant God’s promise is for progeny. 

Of course, Peter is not much better when he needs to trust Jesus.  Jesus tells the disciples in Mark’s gospel that he will suffer and die to fulfill his role as the Messiah.  But Peter, and quietly the other disciples[ii], physically grabs Jesus and rebukes him.  The things Jesus is saying are not the way Peter or the others expected a Messiah to function for good.  As one scholar explains, they signed on for a crown, not a cross.[iii]  But Peter’s grasping rebuke of Jesus is about as literal of resistance as one can get:  an utter unwillingness to cede control of how salvation through the Messiah will work.  And so, Jesus says those stingingly harsh words, “Get behind me Satan!  You are thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do.”[iv]  Peter and the disciples are no better at trusting and ceding control to God than Abraham is.

In some way or another, I think most of our Lenten disciplines, most of the sinfulness that we are praying about or working on in Lent is rooted in this very issue: our issues with control and trusting in God.  We are so deeply rooted in the American ethic of working hard, achieving your goals, of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and realizing your own destiny that we leave very little space for God in our lives.  We love being endowed with free will, so the notion that we should just trust God or even give up control to God feels like a fool’s errand.  Having this ethic deeply seeded in our core identity, we, as one scholar argues, arrogantly “assume that we know what must be done, so that even a word from Jesus himself cannot dissuade us.  Blinded by our prejudices, presuppositions, and preconceptions of the way things must be, we would not be convinced otherwise, even were someone to rise from the dead!”[v]

Before we get slapped in the face five weeks from now, when Jesus actually rises from the dead, how might we begin to take a harder look at the illogical nature of our resistance to God?  I like to turn toward Abraham.  I’m going have you do what they do in my mom’s evangelical church, and turn back to the Word of scripture found in your bulletin, and grab a pen (or at least a pen in your imagination).  We’re going to look back over that text and literally or mentally circle every word of abundance in this Genesis text.  We find words like, “exceedingly numerous,” “multitude of nations,” “multitude of nations,” (again) “exceedingly fruitful,” “nations,” “kings,” “throughout their generations,” “everlasting covenant,” “offspring after you,” “bless,” “rise to nations,” “and “kings of peoples.”[vi]  Abram turned Abraham may not have much to say in how this covenant with God will unfold.  But everything we read about this covenant is not just blessing, but abundant blessing.  This covenant is oozing with generosity and indulgence.  The abundance of God’s covenant is embarrassingly, overwhelmingly over the top.  Even Abram’s name change is a marker of this abundance.  The Hebrew for Abram is “father;” the Hebrew for Abraham is “father of a multitude.”[vii]

I do not know what you are holding back from God these days.  I do not know where your lack of trust in God is making you grasp onto a sense of control, as though you know better than the Almighty.  But our texts today are inviting us to let go of the death grip on the way we think things should be, and to make space for the ways God is showing us how things can be.  We will not get our say in the matter necessarily – no amount of struggle will make things better.  But the promise is that when we give our lives over to Christ – when we put our trust in the God whose covenants are not just okay – or even pretty good – but are shockingly, unimaginably abundantly awesome, we are promised very good things indeed.  Some of those good things will be so good we find them laughable.  But that is just because our imagination and our abilities to produce abundant goodness are not like God’s.  But God gifts them to us anyway.  Our invitation is to open our hands and receive them.  Amen.

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 51.

[ii] Jouette M. Bassler, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 71.

[iii] W. Hulitt Gloer, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 71.

[iv] NAB, NJB translations as provided by Bassler, 71.

[v] Gloer, 71.

[vi] This notion of abundance in the text presented by Karoline Lewis in “#950: Second Sunday in Lent – Feb. 25, 2024,” Sermon Brainwave Podcast, February 18, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/950-second-sunday-in-lent-feb-25-2024 on February 23, 2024.

[vii] W. Sibley Towner, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 55.

Sermon – John 10.1-10, Acts 2.2.42-47, E4, YA, April 30, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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As a parent of young children, I often found that I mourned when certain stages ended.  One of the harder transitions was when I was no longer physically able to manhandle my children.  Before then, if a kid was refusing to move, or was throwing an epic tantrum, I could just swoop them up and manage their outburst physically.  But once I could not long hold their weight or battle those strong little arms, I realized my parenting technique was going to need a dramatic change – I was going to have to give up some control and figure out how to help both of us verbally work through what was going on in the moment.  Of course, that probably was the way I should have been parenting from the beginning, but sometimes a good swoop sure did feel good and gave me the illusion of control.

When I see images of Jesus the Good Shepherd – the biblical image we celebrate today – I find a similar sense of disappointment.  If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, I am metaphorically that helpless, probably not too bright, albeit cuddly sheep draped over Jesus’ shoulders.  That kind of image has always made me feel a little disempowered.  But this week I stumbled on a Byzantine icon[i] of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd which shifted things for me.  Instead of a sheep draped over Jesus’ shoulders, the icon has a person draped over Jesus’ shoulders.  Their eyes are closed, their body is limp, but Jesus, complete with the nail scars in his hands and feet, seems to effortlessly be carrying this person out of the wilderness.  The image did not necessarily make me feel empowered, but the image did humanize this metaphor for me.  I could easily imagine an adult who has been walking through the valley of the shadow of death, exhausted from suffering or grief.  Or I could imagine a protective Jesus who has swooped someone out of harm’s way.  And I can definitely imagine an adult who has worn themselves out with their own tantrum.

In John’s Gospel today, Jesus is shepherding the crowd through all those scenarios.  You may remember back in Lent we got that long story from John’s gospel about the blind man Jesus heals, only to have the religious community freak out about Jesus healing on the sabbath and not believing the man had actually been blind in the first place.  Well after the blind man proclaims his desire to follow Jesus, Jesus then turns back to the community of faith and offers this explanation of his healing the blind man.  His teaching in John is actually much longer than what we hear today – in fact, Chapter 10 of John’s gospel is usually divided into three sections – all about the Good Shepherd – but a different section is appointed for each liturgical year.  In year A, we get the “I am the gate,” or door, portion of Chapter 10.  We are told that when we pass through the gate, the “good shepherd,” tends to us so that we will have life, and have life abundantly.

This passage is the “so what” of Easter.  If you remember, people have been running around, demanding proof of Jesus’ resurrection, taking whole walks with Jesus before realizing who the resurrected Jesus is.  And so, Eastertide is a celebration of the resurrection, and we spend seven weeks trying to figure out what resurrection means.  The “so what” today then is that Jesus came, died, and rose again so that we might have life, and have that life abundantly.  And if that abundant life means Jesus has to carry us out of trouble, hold us when we cannot walk on our own, or haul us over his shoulder when we are just too stubborn to accept his gift of abundant life, that is what Jesus the Good Shepherd will do.  Jesus’ resurrection matters because his resurrection reminds us of the gift of abundant life.

But that story is only part one of our “so what” today.  The rest of the “so what” of resurrection happens in our lesson from Acts today.  Since Easter we have been reading in Acts about the beginnings of the church community.  We have heard two parts of Peter’s sermon after the great day of Pentecost, where he gathers the first mega church of over 3000 people.  Now we hear the “so what” of Jesus being the gate.  You see, when Jesus becomes the gate, the door through which we pass into the protected sheepfold, you know what that gathering of the sheep looks like?  We are not disempowered, limp bodies, lying under protection.  When we pass through Jesus’ resurrection, we join a community – a community of action.[ii]  The text from Acts says of that growing body, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”[iii]  As the community grows, they share in economic justice, sharing their wealth and caring for all equally.  They spend time together, eating with glad, generous hearts, praising God, and tending to the goodwill of all.  Jesus doesn’t just carry our limp, weary selves, and then deposit us into the world to try again.  Jesus brings us into a fold – a community of study, fellowship, communion, and prayer.

That is the beginning of your “so what” of Easter today.  We are an Easter people because Jesus gave his life so that we might have life and have that life abundantly.  As Easter people we are gifted that abundantly life so that we can enter the sheepfold of faithful community.  Your invitation today is hop off Jesus’ shoulders, walk through the gate of Jesus, and come into to a community of faith where we will study God’s word, develop meaningful relationships, come together around the common table, and pray.  When we gather in that kind of community, when we are fed mentally, physically, and spiritually, then we fueled for the rest of the “so what” of Easter.  Once nurtured in that generous, abundant community, we are led back out through the gate that is Jesus, better able to love and serve the Lord out in the world.  Thanks be to God!

[i] As found at https://www.etsy.com/listing/856250878/hand-painted-byzantine-icon-of-jesus?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_a-home_and_living-spirituality_and_religion-other&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQjwgLOiBhC7ARIsAIeetVDhfiQo66BpPPH4Bg02sff293o0Q8_YqIhIUuxfVbEDRA8-6wbArd0aAg3OEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_12559942249_120251207180_506897847531_pla-302895540136_c__856250878_122003557&utm_custom2=12559942249&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgLOiBhC7ARIsAIeetVDhfiQo66BpPPH4Bg02sff293o0Q8_YqIhIUuxfVbEDRA8-6wbArd0aAg3OEALw_wcB on April 29, 2023.

[ii] The idea of what life is like in the sheepfold is articulated by Matt Skinner in “Sermon Brainwave:  #901: Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A) – April 30, 2023,” April 23, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/901-fourth-sunday-of-easter-year-a-april-30-2023 on April 29, 2023.

[iii] Acts 2.42-47.

Sermon – Jeremiah 31.31-34, L5, YB, March 21, 2021

24 Wednesday Mar 2021

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I do not know about you, but I entered Lent this year already done.  We talked about this reality five weeks ago, back on Ash Wednesday, when I told you that it was okay if you did not give up something this Lent – because we have already given up so much in the last year.  We have already fasted what feels like twenty Lents during this pandemic.  And then this week happened.  We started out with the words of the Vatican, declaring that although our LGBTQ brothers and sisters were still to be loved and welcomed in Church, their “sinfulness” would not be blessed within the covenant of marriage by the Roman Catholic Church.  I cannot tell you the pain and suffering those words created this week for so many who live in faithful, loving relationships and marriages.  Then, just a few days ago, a man in Atlanta murdered people of Asian descent, sparking off conversations about the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans since this pandemic began.  Our own Sacred Ground circle, the group studying the institution of racism in our country – not just towards blacks, but towards indigenous Americans, Latinos, and Asians – just finished its ten weeks of work; and yet within the same week we are talking about racism yet again.  And then this week, as administered vaccines slowly rise in James City County, I see people becoming lax about masking and social distancing, some folks in public spaces barely covering their faces.  Even the test positivity rate – the one whose decrease has allowed us to enact regathering plans – is creeping slowly toward the numbers that will shut us back down again. 

That is why I found myself gravitating to Jeremiah this week.  Part of the attraction is the good news of the text, but a larger part of my attraction is empathizing with the Israelites.  Jeremiah writes in a time of desperation for the people of God. The Babylonians have razed the temple and carried King Zedekiah off in chains.  Effectively, the Babylonians have “destroyed the twin symbols of God’s covenantal fidelity.”[i]  Sometimes we talk about the exile so much that I think we forget the heart-wrenching experience of exile.  Being taken from homes and forced to live in a foreign land is certainly awful enough.  But the things that were taken – the land of promise, the temple for God’s dwelling, the king offered for comfort to God’s people – are all taken, leaving not just lives in ruin, but faith in question. 

But today, in the midst of the physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation, Jeremiah says God will make a new covenant.  God knows the people cannot stop breaking the old covenant, and so God promises to “forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”  Instead of making the people responsible for the maintenance of the covenant, God goes a step further and writes the law in their hearts, embodies God’s way within the people.  The words of Jeremiah in the section called “the Book of Comfort,”[ii] and this new covenant by God, show a God whose abundance knows no limits.  God offers this new covenant to a people who surely do not deserve another covenant.  God has offered prophets and sages, has called the people to repentance, has threatened and cajoled, and yet still the people cannot keep the basic tenants of the covenant established in those ten commandments.  But instead of abandoning the people to exile, God offers reconciliation and restoration yet again.  And because God knows we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves, God basically says, “Here.  Let me help you.  Let me write these laws in your hearts so that you do not have to achieve your way into favor with me, but you will simply live faithfully, living the covenant with your bodies and minds.”  And when even that does not seem to work, God sends God’s only son.  God never gives up on us or our relationship with God.  Even all these years after Christ’s resurrection, God is still finding new ways to make our covenant work.  

That is where I find hope this week.  Despite how broken we may feel because of this pandemic, despite how our nation seems incapable of not harming one another due to the color of our skin, despite the ways we seek to limit God’s love and abundance, God is relentless with God’s lovingkindness.  In Jeremiah’s text, when the Israelites have hit rock bottom, God turns not to vengeance or even a notion of just desserts.  God picks up the covenant of love, not relying on our hard work to be faithful, but declaring how God will simply put God’s law within us, will write God’s law of love on our hearts, will be our God and we will be God’s people.  In essence, nothing we can do will drive God from us.  And that, my friends, is good news indeed.  God sees us in all our fullness – light and shadow alike – and loves us anyway.  In this continued time of strain and strife, in this long night of COVID, God gives us good news.  As one scholar affirms, “God will bring newness out of destruction.  God will bring hope where there is no hope.  God will bring life out of death.  God will make a way where there is no way.”[iii]  Thanks be to God!

[i] Richard Floyd, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 122.

[ii] Jon L. Berquist, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 123.

[iii] Floyd, 124.

On God, Scripture, and Politics…

02 Wednesday Sep 2020

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This week, our church will finish our summer 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge.  At the beginning of the summer, I wanted to find something we could do as a community.  I was also aware the Bible was being used as a prop and as a symbol for certain political opinions.  I figured if Hickory Neck is helping form faithful disciples who can participate fully in civic life, we should know what is in the Bible – all of it!  And so, we began a reading journey.

The days and nights were long.  Twelve pages a day does not sound like much, but for anyone who got behind (or who like me, is still behind), we learned that twelve daily pages of biblical text was no simple feat.  We journeyed through fun, familiar stories, we drudged through laws and genealogies, we read stories that were repeated in other books.  We asked questions, we struggled with cultural differences, and we found some surprises.  We realized the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) comprises two-thirds of the Bible.  We fell in love with new books, laughed, and found modern parallels to life today.

This summer, I realized the gift of the 90-Day Bible Challenge was not just a reading journey – it was a journey into deeper relationship with God.  The Challenge did not allow us to dive deeply into our questions, particular stories, or even cultural issues.  Instead, the Challenge reminded us of who God is – a loving, forgiving, graceful God, whose commitment to covenantal relationship with God’s people is of utmost importance – even when we fail to be faithful over and over and over again.  In fact, watching the people God fail so many times helps us understand the tremendous depth of God’s love for us.  And seeing that overarching covenantal relationship from God’s perspective inspires in us a desire to reflect that abundant, forgiving, graceful love out in the world.

Thank you, Hickory Neck, for reminding me why the Bible is not a book that is to collect dust on the shelf or to only be consumed in small pieces during Sunday services, but a collection of books that speaks powerfully to this time – in ways that cannot be coopted by political agendas of the day, but whose witness of love does have powerful political consequences.  I am grateful for the reading journey that became a journey into deeper relationship with God and with neighbor.

Sermon – John 10.1-10, Acts 2.42-47, E4, YA, May 3, 2020

07 Thursday May 2020

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It could be that having been ordered to stay in our homes for almost two months, with no real end in sight, has made me a bit cranky.  It could be that the tidal wave of illness, death, and suffering bearing down on us has birthed rising anxiety and fear.  It could be the slow realization that having lived in this “new normal” will mean our old “normal” will be forever tainted and will never fully be restored has brought a sense of grief or despair.  Whatever the feelings and emotional responses we are having to this pandemic, they are creating a lens or a filter through which we interpret everything – including Holy Scripture.

For me, the initial lens or filter through which I have been reading Holy Scripture has been one of bitterness, resentment, and grief.  Take today’s lessons.  This Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is colloquially known as Good Shepherd Sunday.  The lessons on this Sunday every year give us images of pasture, protection, and pastoring.  And yet, this year, my initial response to the readings were resistance.  I am not emotionally ready to be cradled in the arms of a Good Shepherd.  I am not mentally ready to hear that Jesus wants us to have life, and have life abundantly.  I am not spiritually ready to hear about the post-Pentecost community gathered, breaking bread, spending time together in person in the temple and in homes, growing in numbers day by day.  I am not emotionally, mentally, or spiritually ready because hearing those wonderfully affirming things makes me realize how far from reality those things feel right now.

Of course, Church has not always been that way.  In fact, Church used to be exactly those things.  Throughout my life, Church has been the place where the Good Shepherd, where Jesus, has been the comforting figure who brings me into the fold, who knows me by name, whose voice brings assurance and confidence.  Church has been the place where I have found a community of people who make my life whole – a people who teach me about love, about calling, and about what family really looks like.  A little over a week ago, when over thirty of us gathered around our cars, seeing each other’s faces for the first time in months, as we prepared to drive to parishioners’ homes to sing Happy Birthday wishes, I was stunned at how powerful the feelings were of just seeing those beautiful faces, of having a glimpse of why this community has been so incredibly meaningful in my life, of remembering the comfort of being together.  The experience was a shock of love, care, and affection that opened up the gaping hole in my life I had so carefully covered up to protect myself from thinking about what I was missing in this pandemic.

So, does Scripture have any chance with us to be redeeming, restorative, and refreshing when our emotions are so raw?  Is there Good News today?  I have begun to realize in order to allow Scripture to have that power for me, I have needed to switch glasses.  On the Fourth Sunday of Easter in almost every year in memory, this Sunday has been about rose-colored glasses.  We talk about the Good Shepherd romantically and abundance superficially, we sing our favorite psalm, and we gather round and cozy up together.  But today, I hear Jesus inviting us to take off those rose-colored glasses (which he would have hated anyway), and slip on some clear glasses.  In those clear glasses, we can look at the community gathered in Acts and not imagine a loving community gathered and growing and peacefully breaking bread together.  Instead, scholars remind us the post-Pentecost community represents “different regions, speaking different dialects.  Some may not have shared the native languages of others, in spite of a shared Jewish faith.  There would have been distinct food preferences and different levels of financial security.  There would have been different prejudices to navigate, different interpretations of Torah and different political proclivities.”  And for those in charge of making the bread, those numbers growing day by day represented increased stress and strain, not jubilant joy.[i]  I imagine the chaos of that time was not unlike the chaos of sheep gathered into a fold – a noisy, messy, resistant bunch that the loving Shepherd had to prod, yank, and shove into said fold.

With new glasses, we no longer look with jealousy on that early gathered Christian community or that chaotic, smelly sheep fold, but instead begin to see commonality.  Just like the early Christian community trying to make her way through the chaos, we too are making our way through chaos.  We are overcoming technological hurdles, welcoming strangers from all over the community and the globe in our worship, and finding community even in our isolation.  Our gathering now is weird and awkward and frustrating.  But our gathering is also encouraging and life-giving and hope-making.  And as we watch people’s names pop up on the screen and as we see comments of reassurance, we see beauty in this particular community, we see hope percolating up despite us, and we see that even as life feels stripped of all goodness, the Good Shepherd is indeed offering us life in abundance.  This week, the Good Shepherd is not some picture-perfect stained-glass version of a Shepherd with a lamb gently hanging over his shoulder.  This week, the Good Shepherd is standing beside us, his arm cocked over our shoulder, shaking his head with us at the immensity of this crazy reality, and simply giving us a reassuring, unspoken smile, and a nudge into some abundant life this week.  Thanks be to God.

[i] Jerusha Matsen Neal, “Commentary on Acts 2:42-47,” May 3, 2020, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4443 on May 1, 2020.

On Being Agents of Joy…

12 Thursday Apr 2018

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Photo credit:  Photo taken by Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly on March 25, 2018.  Permission required for reuse.

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of one of the craziest seasons for a clergy family, we found a moment to head down to the historic district of our town.  My daughter had just received a bubble wand as a birthday gift and wanted to take it along.  Somehow, a bubble wand seemed like a bad idea – it being totally out of context in the otherwise historically accurate setting.  But, I was not in the mood for an argument, so I consented.

There we were, in the midst of tourists, costumed interpreters, walking along cobblestoned streets filled with colonial architecture, and my daughter was gleefully running down the sidewalk with her pink princess bubble wand.  Seeing her happy and joyful was enough to bring a smile to my weary face.  But what I had not anticipated was how her bubble-making would bring joy to so many around us.  A large visiting family burst into smiles as she rained bubbles on them.  Little children began tugging on their parents’ clothing, giggling and shouting, “Look!”  A mother wistfully thanked us, explaining that her preteens had been catching and chasing the bubbles behind us.  I saw some teenage girls light up with a long-gone innocence as the bubbles floated toward their laps.  Even a costumed interpreter whispered as she passed, “We all love your bubbles.”

What was so beautiful about that day was the way in which my little four-year old was able to freely and abundantly give away the unexpected gift of joy, laughter, and refreshment.  It was such a powerful thing to witness the strength of her gift; seeing her joy, and the spreading of her joy, brought me unexpected joy.  That kind of innocent, pure, wholesome goodness is so rare in life and my daughter gave it with abandon.

That wave of abundance, generosity, and joy made me wonder what ways we might be invited to be agents of joy.  Perhaps the opportunity could be as simple as bubbles.  I had a friend who kept them in her car for whenever she got caught in traffic (it is hard to stay cranky in traffic when bubbles are floating by).  But it could be something else – sending a card or making a phone call when a person randomly pops into your mind.  Starting a practice of thoughtful, tiny good deeds – little gifts to those whom you know need it, maybe even without credit.  Or maybe a new idea will strike you.  I would love to hear your ideas.  But more so, I would love to hear how it goes when you try it.  Practices of abundant joy are catching.  I can’t wait to hear about the joy you spread this week.

Sermon – Acts 2.42-47, John 10.1-10, E4, YA, May 7, 2017

10 Wednesday May 2017

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These last weeks since Easter Day, we have been telling the story of what happened after Jesus’ crucifixion.  We heard the wonderful stories of discovery on Easter Day, the news from Mary Magdalene that Christ is risen.  We heard that familiar story of Thomas and the other disciples who were able to see and touch Jesus’ risen body.  We heard that beloved story of the walk to Emmaus, where two disciples were able to walk and talk with Jesus, and were reminded that Jesus is still with them.  And then today, we hear in the Acts story what has happened to the disciples.  They have gathered a community of believers who are growing every day.  People are sharing the holy meal, praying together, living in community, and praising God in the temple.  They are seeing signs and wonders, they are being generous with one another, and they have even sold their possessions like Jesus told them to, and are sharing their resources.  Today’s reading from Acts takes all of good stuff from Jesus’ ministry, all the heartache of Holy Week, and all of the joy of Eastertide, and basically concludes, “And they all lived happily ever after!”

In some ways, I cannot imagine a better text for today.  At our later service, we will be confirming and receiving nine parishioners in the church.  These are parishioners who have been studying Holy Scripture, Church History, the sacraments, Church polity, spirituality, and vocation.  Some are teenagers and some have grandchildren.  Some have spent a lifetime in other Christian traditions, and others were born and raised in the Episcopal Church.  And all of them feel called at this point in their spiritual journey to claim their faith as their own and begin a new phase of their walk with Christ at Hickory Neck.  What better thing than for these reinvigorated Christians to hear than a text about what their life will now look like?  They will be sharing in communion, worshiping God in God’s temple, praying together, living generous lives, and sharing their resources communally.  Is that not the image you have of Hickory Neck?

Well….  Okay, so maybe Hickory Neck does not look exactly like that early Christian community.  We certainly have some things down.  We baptize, are generous with one another, share the Holy meal, and praise God in worship.  But as far as I know, we have yet to enter a relationship with one another where we have sold everything we have and are living communally.  I suspect there would be a stack of cots at the back of the church today since we would all need a place to sleep.  I suspect we would have a roster to indicate who was cooking us lunch after services today and who was on clean-up duty.  I suspect we might have a line of zip cars and bike shares in the parking lot every day for those who work further away from church.  I suspect that our retirees here would be responsible for the children while their parents are out working.  Though Hickory Neck has certainly gotten close to the early Church community, we have a long way to go.

Now some of you may be rolling your eyes right now – wondering if Holy Scripture is trying to make the case for socialism or some hippie compound.  Since you know I try to avoid politics in the pulpit, here’s what I can tell you:  there are some Christian communities that are in fact trying to get much closer to the early church than we have ever considered.  When the housing crisis hit almost ten years ago, there were stories about neighbors who made agreements.  One family would sell their house and move in with another struggling family.  The two families would double up in rooms, figure out childcare sharing, meal sharing, and payment sharing.  They found that although the home felt crowded, the home also felt like a place of support, security, and serenity.[i]  And of course, there are what are called, “intentional Christian communities” all over the country.  I had multiple friends from college who volunteered or took nonprofit jobs out of college and lived in these intentional communities.  They shared rooms in a house, took turns with the household duties, gathered for communal dinners every night, and shared in worship a few times a week.

But I think we all know that this lifestyle is not “normal.”  We are not raised nowadays to live communally with other Christians, sharing our possessions and life.  In fact, when we hear Jesus say today that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly, we often think that means that Jesus came so that we might experience financial stability, good health, and happiness.  We confuse our American sensibilities of achievement and accumulation of wealth, with the kind of abundance that Jesus is talking about.[ii]  The truth is, those crazy hippies in the early church were on to something.  They did have an abundance – but they had the abundance because they shared.  And they were able to share because they listened to the teachings of Jesus through his disciples, they broke break regularly, they worshiped in the temple, and they shared the good news.  Their understanding of abundance changed – not an overwhelming sense of monetary wealth, but an overwhelming sense of community, of belonging, of purpose, and of “enough.”

Now before we get too down on ourselves or start thinking about all our possession that we would need to sell, we know the story takes a twist.  Three chapters later in Acts we learn about two members of the community who keep some of their wealth back – they start hording, hoping no one will know their secret.  So, like any of us, not everyone was on board with the communal living thing.  But the majority of the community entered into a covenant about this new way of being together.

I like that we get this text today because I like how the text makes us all ever so slightly uncomfortable.  I like that our new confirmands and those being received are hearing this today because they will need to struggle with this notion of Christian community with each of us too.  I do not know if we will ever get to the ideal found in the early Church, but we need these days of the newly received to remind us that we are not there yet.  We have not yet lived into the abundant life that Christ intended for us.  We are still on our journey, prayerfully pondering how to open ourselves up to the invitation to live life, and live it more abundantly.

That is why at our later service we will reaffirm our baptismal covenant.  Like we do over and over again throughout the year, we remind ourselves of the promises we made in baptism and in confirmation.  To gather with the community of faith, to repent and return to the Lord when we sin, to share the good news of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace.  That baptismal covenant is our touchstone – that five-part measuring stick that lets us know those areas where we are really thriving in our spiritual journey, and those areas that need some work.  On Sundays like this, we get the questions once again, “Are you all in?  Are you ready for the gift of abundant life in Christ and all of the implications that gift involves?”  That gift is both a promise and a challenge – a blessing and what sometimes feels like a curse.  But we have all seen glimpses of that abundant life, and know how the abundant life is like milk and honey.  We just sometimes need a nudge to get us back on the way.  Amen.

[i] Joanna Goddard, “Two Families Sharing a House (Would You?),” October 26, 2015, as found at https://cupofjo.com/2015/10/communal-house-cohousing-san-francisco/ on May 4, 2017.

[ii] Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis, and Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave Podcast:  #539 – Fourth Sunday of Easter,” April 29, 2017, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=880 on May 3, 2017.

 

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

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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

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

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