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Sermon – Luke 24.36b-48, E3, YB, April 19, 2015

23 Thursday Apr 2015

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I have been thinking this week about the power of food.  In almost all my mission trips, there was a food story.  Whether I was uncertain about eating what looked like undercooked chicken in the Dominican Republic, or I was struggling with the proper way to eat the tiny bird I was given in Burma, or I was trying to swallow the freshly made tamale in Honduras when all I wanted to eat was a saltine because I was so sick – there was always a dramatic food story from each trip that led to endless jokes later.  Of course there are good food stories too.  There are those foods that you always eat when you visit a favorite restaurant, the foods you beg your mom to make when you visit home, or the foods whose recipes you try to master before your grandfather passes away and the magic taste is gone with him.  Food is a powerful thing.  There is the basic need for food for sustenance, there is the nostalgia and delight that the smell and taste of food can bring, there is the adventure of trying new and exotic foods, and there are ways in which food can be the enemy – from overeating to disordered eating.  Food is the common denominator among all peoples, and in many ways, our life is centered around food.  The common joke in the South is that you know a family is a good southern family if they are planning their next meal while eating the current one.

So today, when Jesus says, “Have you anything here to eat?” Jesus harnesses the power of food to do something equally powerful.  In Luke’s gospel, the women have found the empty tomb and reported the news to the disbelieving disciples.  Peter has confirmed the news, but the disciples remain huddled in fear.  Two of those gathered have an encounter with Jesus on their walk to Emmaus, and return to the disciples to share the news.  Finally, in our lesson today, Jesus appears among them.  Though he offers peace to them, and tries to calm their doubts and fears, the text tells us that they are joyful, but still in disbelief and wonder.  Despite the fact that the disciples have received multiple testimonies of the risen Lord and despite the fact that the same risen Lord is standing right in front of them, offering them peace and assurance and even showing his wounds as proof of his identity, the disciples just cannot get their heads around this strange new reality.  And so Jesus resorts to the one power left he has to reach the disciples – the power of food.  To this scared, confused, disbelieving gang of followers, Jesus says the most basic, normal question, “Have you anything here to eat?”

Who among us has not tried to use food as the great peace maker?  Almost every time we go to visit family, our family anxiously asks, “What do you guys eat?”  Whenever we host friends, we are careful to ask about food allergies or what kinds of foods they do not like.  Pretty much every birthday party we have been to with our five-year old has served pizza and cake – because apparently, every kid likes pizza and cake.  Nothing feels better than satisfied eaters around a dinner table.  Once people are happily eating, the conversation flows and the laughter soon follows.  Likewise, when we make the wrong food choices for a meal, the results can be disastrous.  I always have loved the scene from the film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when the Greek girl invites her very non-Greek boyfriend to meet the family.  The whole family has gathered, a pig is on the spit, food is flowing, music is playing, and the favorite Aunt comes up the boyfriend and asks him what she can serve him.  The Greek girl tries to calmly and quietly explain that her boyfriend is a vegetarian.  The Aunt seems confused, and so she explains that her boyfriend does not eat meat.  The Aunt loudly asks, “What do you mean he doesn’t eat meat?!?”  The room suddenly stops – a record scratches as the music halts, a glass drops from a stunned hand, and jaws drop as they stare at this strange boyfriend.  But the Aunt, ever the gracious host, quickly affirms the boyfriend and says, “That’s okay, that’s okay.  I’ll make lamb!”

Though the Aunt clearly does not comprehend the practice of being a vegetarian, she still leans on food as a way make peace.  Once she has made peace, the party continues, and the family gets back to knowing the foreigner and welcoming him as family.  That is because food has that power.  Food can break down walls between foreigners, food can soothe old hurts, and food can help make new friends.  Food has power.

Jesus seemed to know this truth.  When appearances, conversations, and physical evidence cannot not seem to calm the disciples enough for them to understand what God is doing in the risen Christ, Jesus resorts back to the one thing that can transform everything.  “Have you anything here to eat?” is not just a question about whether there is food in the house.  His question is a disarming one – a question that not only requires the mundane work of preparing food, but also gets the disciples into a place a familiarity, comfort, and ease.  In this place, gathered around the table with food, the disciples are finally put in a place where they can really hear Jesus.  In fact, the text says that Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures.  Finally, after confusion, fear, and disbelief, through the power of food comes clarity, wisdom, and direction.  Jesus is able to break through, create understanding, and most importantly, commission the disciples to spread the good news to all the nations.[i]

On those mission trips, those funny food stories always led to something more powerful.  That questionable chicken was procured for us because the village leaders knew how hard we had labored and they wanted to give us food to sustain us – even if it meant driving out of the way to obtain the chicken.  And once we ate, the hungry villagers ate too.  Those tiny birds that we panicked about in Burma were actually quite a delicacy.  They are a rare treat that were painstakingly prepared by the women of the church.  And though I am sure our faces betrayed our uncertainty, you could not have seen more proud looks on those women as we began to pick through those tiny bones for meat.  Those mounds of fresh tamales were like a death sentence to me in Honduras.  But I learned that the women of the village had pooled their money for the ingredients and had been working all day to prepare for the feast.  After we ate those delicious offerings, there was great dancing and celebration as our team honored a productive week with our village hosts.

Churches understand the power of food.  I still hear stories at St. Margaret’s about the progressive dinners held back in the day.  Parishioners who are often quite overbooked will clear their calendars for our annual parish picnic.  I have told many a friend that St. Margaret’s is the only parish I know whose Coffee Hour truly lasts an hour – sometimes more if the conversation is really hopping.  Even our most recent new endeavor of providing a family-friendly worship and fellowship opportunity is centered around food – Pasta, Pray, and Play.  Churches understand the power of food to bring people together, to enrich relationships, and to create new connections.

But probably most important for the Church is the power of food to heal, reconcile, and embolden.  The Eucharistic Meal is the primary way we use the power of food.  For those of us who have been receiving communion our whole lives, we sometimes forget the power of that simple meal.  I remember, at one of the services when one of our young people received his first communion, the look of consternation on his face when he first tasted the dry wafer.  I do not know what he was expecting, but I can tell you, that wafer shocked his senses.  That is what our Eucharistic Meal is supposed to do.  We spend an hour pondering and praying about what God is doing in our lives, we confess our failures to live as faithful servants of God, we reconcile with our brothers and sisters in the peace, and then we stand humbly before God and receive a meal that restores us and makes us whole.  That single meal gives us the peace and the power to get back out into the world and try again – try again to be the witnesses Jesus invites us to be today.  That is the power of this food – this meal can transform us and enable us to be faithful witnesses in the world.  When Jesus says today, “Have you anything here to eat?” we say emphatically, yes, we do.  Amen.

[i] Sarah S. Henrich, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 429.

Sermon – Mark 16.1-8, EV, YB, April 4, 2015

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Tonight we celebrate one of the most ancient, and in many traditions, the most important liturgies of the Church.  This is the festival of the resurrection of our Lord – despite what you may have learned about Easter Sunday.  Tonight is the night that we liturgically mark that shift from Lent and the Passion to our Lord and Savior’s Resurrection.  The church gives us this incredible gift tonight, and our job is to hearken back to an innocent sense of awe as we realize what God does through Jesus Christ.

Luckily the Church helps us hearken back to that innocent sense of awe through the structure of the liturgy.  I like to think the Church’s work in the Easter Vigil as being like that Grandfather in the movie The Princess Bride, who visits his sick grandson to read him a fantastic story.  In that movie, the grandson is skeptical – that in fact his grandfather might be planning to read him a boring or sappy story.  But the grandfather insists that this story is one of the greatest stories ever told – a story that his father read him, that he read to his son, and now, he would read to him.

The Church is like that grandfather to us tonight, who gathers up the grandchildren around him, and says, “Let me tell you a story.  This story is greater than any other story you have ever heard.  This story is full of intrigue and surprise, full of the primal elements, full of drama and passion, and full of twists and turns you do not expect.  Do you want to hear the story?”  And before the grandfather can even begin, the grandchildren are waiting with baited breath.

“Once upon a time, before there was time, or people, or even land or sky, the earth as we know the earth was a formless void – filled with watery chaos.  God created the world as we know the world, and proclaimed that creation, ‘good.’  Sometime later, that world fell into sin and God used water to cleanse the whole earth through flood.  To the one person God saved, God promised to never do such destruction again and made a covenant of protection.  Much later, the people of God were fleeing a horrible fate – an awful leader who had enslaved the people.  This time, God once again manipulated the water – both to save God’s people and to destroy those who wished to destroy God’s people.  On the other side of the sea, on dry land, the people rejoiced.  Later, the people fell away from God and although God was grieved, God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel.  God told Ezekiel to reassemble the dry bones of God’s people, and to breathe new life into them.  And the people lived again.  Much later, when the people had become dispersed and disheartened, God proclaimed new hope.  God proclaimed that God would gather God’s people again and would eliminate their despair.

“But after all of that – after creation and floods, after the division of the sea and the giving of new life to old bones, even after promising to save the people – after all of that, yet still the people of God lived in sin and in separation from God.  And, knowing no other way, God did something so unexpected, so wonderful that we could never repay God.  God sent God’s Son to live and breathe among us, to show us the way of faithful living and the way to eternal life.  And as if that were not enough, that same Son was betrayed by his friends, mocked and reviled, and killed on a cross.  That was a dark, painful time – darker and more painful than anything the people had known before.  And so the people of God did the only thing they knew to do:  they mourned, they hid in fear, and a few brave women went to tend to this precious gift they had been given, making his death as sacred as they knew how.  But something amazing happened – something no one ever anticipated.  The Son of Man, the Prince of Peace, the Messiah, Jesus was not there.  And the disciples went from east to west, sharing the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.”

At the end of the film The Princess Bride, the grandfather finishes the book, and tells his grandson to go off to sleep.  The once skeptical grandson hesitantly addresses his grandfather, “Grandpa?  Maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow.”  His grandfather smiles and responds, “As you wish.”  Those words are significant because in the story the grandfather tells, the main characters say, “As you wish,” as their code word for, “I love you.”  Tonight, we too hear the story of our salvation, the great sweeping of our history with our Lord, and the salvific work of our Savior Jesus Christ, and we too find ourselves strangely warmed, longing to perhaps hear the story again.  And to us, the Church says, “As you wish.”  Amen.

Sermon – John 13.1-17, 31b-35, MT, YB, April 2, 2015

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

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The dinner table is where sacred things happen.  The dinner table is where food is served that can satisfy a hunger, can heal an ailing body, can delight the senses, and can invoke a nostalgia like no other.  The dinner table is where stories are told, days are recounted, prayers are said, and laughter is had.  The dinner table is where places are set, dishes are passed, plates are cleared, and remnants are cleaned.  The dinner table is the host of all things mundane – like that frozen meal you threw together before you ran off to the next thing; and the dinner table is the host of all things momentous – like that gloriously planned and executed Thanksgiving meal that you hosted for your friends and family.  Because the dinner table can do all these things, the dinner table becomes the place in our home where sacred things happen – a holy site for one’s everyday and one’s extraordinary moments.

The dinner table where Jesus and his disciples gathered for that Last Supper was no different.  They had gathered at table hundreds of times in the three years they had spent together.  There had been learning and laughter, stories and questions, arguments and celebrations.  In many ways, all of these things seem to happen in the course of this one night during the Last Supper.  Jesus and the disciples are likely chatting up a storm, talking about the days events, when Jesus does something extraordinary.  He gets up, takes off his outer robes, and washes the feet of his disciples.  This kind of event is unheard of.  Hosts and well-respected teachers do not wash others feet; that task was assigned to a household slave.[i]  And some of the midrashic commentary suggests that not even a Hebrew slave was expected to perform such a menial task.  Instead, the slave might bring out a bowl of water, but the guest would wash his own feet.[ii]  So of course, a lively debate ensues with Peter, who does not understand what is happening.  Jesus washes Peter’s feet anyway – and washes Judas’ feet – before returning to that dinner table to explain what he has done.  He goes on to explain that not only will he die soon, but also that he expects a certain behavior after he is gone – that they love one another.

That is the funny thing about dinner tables.  They can bring out the most sacred and holy of conversations.  The dinner table is where one tells his family that he has terminal cancer.  The dinner table is where one tells her best friend that she lost her job and has no idea what she is going to do.  The dinner table is where the young couple announces that that they lost their pregnancy.  The dinner table is where the college student tells his parents that he is dropping out of school.  We tell these awful, scary stories at the dinner table because we know that the table can handle them.  The table is where we gather with those who we care about and is therefore the place where we can share both the joys of life and also the really hard stuff of life.  Though our table may have never hosted a dinner as beautiful as one of the tables Norman Rockwell could paint, our table is still a sacred place that can hold all the parts of us – the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly.  We can share the awfulness of life there because we know that those gathered can handle it, and can carry us until we can be back at the table laughing some day.

What I love about our celebration of this day is that all of those things – the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly – were present that night with Jesus and his disciples.  So yes, earlier in the evening, there probably is a raucous conversation.  The disciples are gathered at the table, in all their imperfection: those who love Jesus with a beautiful innocence and those who greedily hope to be at Jesus’ left and right hand; those who humbly understand Jesus and those who want Jesus to victoriously claim his Messianic power; those who profess undying faithfulness (even though they will fail to be faithful) and those who actively betray Jesus.  At that table Jesus not only talks about how to be agents of love, Jesus also shows them how to love.  On this last night – this last night before the storm of Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, and death – a sacred moment happens at the dinner table.  And though we do not hear the story tonight, we also know that Jesus then breaks the bread and offers the wine, instituting the sacrament of Holy Communion.

We know the rest of the story.  The disciples, who still do not really understand Jesus fully, muddle their way through footwashing and Holy Communion.  Then those same dense disciples sleep their way through Jesus’ last prayers.  One of those disciples becomes violent when a soldier tries to seize Jesus.  And eventually, most of the disciples betray and abandon Jesus altogether.  To this unfaithful, dimwitted, scared group, Jesus offers a sacred moment at the dinner table, inviting them into the depths of his soul and a pathway to our God:  and encourages them to love anyway.

Our own Eucharistic table is not unlike that dinner table with Jesus.  Tonight, we too will tell stories, sing, and laugh.  We too will wash feet in humility, embarrassment, and servitude.  We too will hear the sobering invitation to the Eucharistic meal, and will walk our unworthy selves to the rail to receive that sacrificial body and blood.  We too will argue with God in our prayers, pondering what God is calling us to do in our lives and resisting that call with our whole being.  We too will lean on Jesus, longing for the comfort that only Jesus can give.  And we too will hear Jesus’ desperate plea for us to also be agents of love – not just to talk about love, or profess love, but to show love as Jesus has shown love to us.

In this way, our Eucharistic table is not unlike the dinner table in your own home.  Our Eucharistic table has hosted countless stories, arguments, and bouts of laugher.  Our Eucharistic table has witnessed great sadness and great joy.  Our Eucharistic table feeds us, even when we feel or act unworthily.  And our Eucharistic table charges us to go out into the world, being the agents of love who are willing to wash the feet of others – even those who betray us and fail us.  This Lent, we have been praying Eucharistic Prayer C.  In that prayer, the priest prays, “Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal.”[iii]   This Eucharistic table, like our own dinner table, can handle all of us – all our failings, sinfulness, and brokenness.  This table can fill us up with joy, forgiveness, and peace.  This table can be a place where we find belonging, identity, and security.  But this table is also meant to build us up – to give us strength and renewal for doing the work God has given us to do – to love others as Christ loves us.  Sacred things happen at this table.  Those sacred things happen so that we can do sacred things in the world for our God.  Amen.

[i] Guy D. Nave, Jr., “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 279.

[ii] Mary Louise Bringle, “Homiletical Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 279.

[iii] BCP, 372.

Sermon – Mark 1.9-15, L1, YB, February 22, 2015

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

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Lent is a funny season.  Lent gives us all these seemingly horrible things and calls them gifts.  We kick things off with a bang on Ash Wednesday.  We gather in the church and kneel before God while someone tells us that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  In other words, we come to church to be reminded that death is real, death is unavoidable, and death is coming.  With the exception of people facing severe illness or people beyond a certain age, death is not typically a part of our everyday conversations.  Rarely are you drinking a latte with a friend who casually says, “So you know we are going to die, right?  Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but we will both die.”  That is because death for us is one of those conversations that we do not really like to entertain because death brings down the mood and makes us feel sad.  And yet, that is how we kick off the season of Lent.  “Happy Lent!  We’re all going to die!”

And if that were not sobering enough, the Church takes the next forty days reminding us of our brokenness, of our sinfulness, and of our failures.  We kneel more, confess more intentionally, and pray to reconnect with God.  The season seems to gather us up, place us sackcloth, and then let us wallow in our own sense of unworthiness.  Why in the world would any of us make a commitment to come to Church in Lent with the promise of such guilt and sobriety?

Actually, I think most of us have a love-hate relationship with the wilderness we find in Lent.  We do not want to do the hard work that Lent requires, and yet we also desperately long for a place that acknowledges the reality of all that is hidden behind our perfectly constructed masks, and invites us to just be still and present with our LORD.  In a world that Photoshops, creates whole lines of anti-aging products, and fights death tooth and nail, the church creates a season where we look at ourselves without enhancements and work towards contentment, peace, and even joy.  Lent is a season of honesty, “when the church reminds us of what our culture denies – that our days are limited, and that we’ve made a mess of things.”[i]

Of course, the church did not really invent Lent per se.  The people of God have been experiencing the same concept for years, most frequently in the wilderness.  We know the stories well:  Noah completing his forty days on a ship, floating in his own, albeit probably very loud, watery wilderness; the people of Israel wandering the desert wilderness for forty years; and, as we hear on this first Sunday in Lent, Jesus, led out to the wilderness by the Spirit for forty days immediately after his life-changing baptism.  Each of those experiences are full of Lenten themes:  being taken out of the comforts of life; wondering whether there will be relief from suffering, whether there is dry land, food in the desert, or Satan himself; and glimpses of hope, whether from an olive branch, manna from heaven, or tending angels.  These wilderness experiences, or Lenten-type journeys, pave the way for renewal and reinvention.

This winter, one of our Movies with Margaret features was called The Way.  In the film, a father and his adult son have become somewhat estranged.  The son decided to travel the world to find himself, and the father scoffs.  Months into his son’s travels, the father gets a call.  His son had decided to walk the Camino – the pilgrim’s path in France and Spain that pilgrims have been walking since the ninth century.  Unfortunately the son died while walking the Camino, and the father now needed to pick up the body.  While going through his son’s hiking pack, the father replays their last conversation – about how his Dad is too rigid and never travels anymore since his wife died.  Untrained and unprepared, the father straps on his son’s pack and begins to walk.  He confesses he has no idea why he is walking, but he walks anyway.

The movie goes on to document what might be described as the father’s own wilderness journey.  He deals with getting lost, trying to sleep in noisy hostels, not being able to get rid of talkative fellow pilgrims, losing his bag briefly in a river, getting arrested, and later having his bag stolen by a gypsy.  When he gets to the end of the journey, he takes his documents to the pilgrimage office to have the paperwork authorized and get a certificate of completion.  Before the official will sign his paperwork, he asks a question that stumps the father.  “What is your reason for walking the Way?”  The father stammers.  He cannot put into words why he grabbed his son’s bag and started walking.  Recalling the last fight he had with his son, the best he can come up with is, “I thought I needed to travel more.”

Mark does not give us many details about Jesus’ journey in the wilderness.  Unlike the other gospels, we do not hear the details of his encounter with Satan.  We do not really understand what happens with those wild beasts – whether they were friends of foes.  We hear about some angels at the end, but we do not know how much they are present.  All we really know is that Jesus is in a wilderness for forty days and that those days happen after he is baptized and proclaimed the beloved and before he can begin his earthly ministry.

We too start a wilderness experience today.  At the beginning of our liturgy we confessed many things.  We confessed blindness of heart, pride, vainglory, hypocrisy, envy, hatred, and malice.  We confessed our inordinate and sinful affections and our fear of dying suddenly and unprepared.  We confessed our loneliness, our suffering, and our ignorance.  And we prayed for our enemies.  The ashes from Ash Wednesday and their message of the inevitability of death still linger in our subconscious.  Like the father in The Way, we put all of those confessions and acknowledgments in a pack, put the pack on our back, and we begin to walk.  None of us knows what will happen on this forty-day journey.  We do not know how our Lenten disciplines will shape us, or what external factors will impact our lives.  But we begin the Lenten journey anyway.

The promise for us is refreshment at the end of the journey.  For me, that refreshment is the Easter Vigil.  At Easter Vigil, I put down my pack full of my forty days’ worth of experiences.  I hear the piercing words of the Exultet and the old stories of our salvation told in the darkness.  I watch candles flicker as we sing hymns.  And then I watch the church explode with light and the sound of bells.  We say the forbidden “A-word” after a forty-day hiatus.  We feast on the Eucharistic meal after fasting from that meal since Maundy Thursday.  And we rejoice in our risen Lord.

In the movie, The Way, the father reaches the end of the pilgrimage and has a sacred moment in the church at the Pilgrim’s mass.  He decides to keep journeying further to spread his son’s ashes into the sea.  And at the end of the film, we see him traveling to other places – finally taking up his son’s challenge to see more of the world.  That’s the funny thing about journeys.  They are not the end of the story.  Our Lenten journey will be a true pilgrim’s journey.  But our journey will not end at the Vigil.  Just like Jesus’ journey did not end with angels tending to him.  As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “Even after he left the wilderness, [Jesus] carried [the wilderness] inside him, and far from fleeing [the wilderness] later in his life he sought [the wilderness] out.  Without the wilderness he might not have been the same person.  Because of the wilderness he was not afraid of anything.”[ii]  We all need the wilderness to shape us and mold us.  Our Lenten pilgrimage will change us, both as individuals and as a community, because in the church, we do not journey alone.  Your fellow pilgrims are here in the pews beside you – perhaps to annoy you, or send you on a detour – but maybe also to bail you out of jail from time to time.  Together we are pilgrims on the way, being transformed for new life beyond Lent.  Amen.

[i] Dan Clendenin, “To See Death Daily,” posted February 16, 2015 at http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20150216JJ.shtml.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Four Stops in the Wilderness,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 24, no. 2, Lent 2001, 4.

An invitation…

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

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In my line of work, I deal with death a lot.  The first two calls a family usually makes when a loved one dies are to the funeral home and to the priest.  I have done funerals for people I have known and loved, and for people who I have never met.  I have done funerals for people who were deeply involved with and committed to the Church, and for people who actively avoided the church.  I have done funerals for grandmothers, husbands, sisters, and children.  I have held the hand of a shallow-breathing senior who had lived a long life but was approaching the last hours, and have touched the tiny hand of a stillborn.  Death is ever present in my life, always a phone call away.

So you would think that Ash Wednesday would not be that jarring to me.  A day meant to remind us of the fragility of life, that we are dust and to dust we shall return, really should not be that extraordinary.  But every year it gets me.  Though I deal with death when it comes my way, Ash Wednesday is a little different.  Ash Wednesday involves reminding people who may be nowhere near death to ponder the shortness of life.  Each time I spread gritty ashes on a forehead, my whole being shutters.  I think of the many laughs I have shared with the person my age; I think of the illness someone in their 50s overcame and the fullness of life they have enjoyed since then; I think of the bounding energy of the six-year old and how much joy they bring; and I think of the quiet confidence and wisdom of the grandmother figure.  Every time I say, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” I feel like I am whispering a dark truth into each person’s ears.  There is nothing more sobering than those words, than those grainy ashes, than those shared moments of eye contact.  And no matter how well I clean up afterwards, a little black residue remains on my thumb, reminding me how close death lingers.

Though the reality of Ash Wednesday is sobering, and perhaps something one might want to avoid, I find that most people who come for ashes are relieved.  They are relieved for the gift of a church that will remind them of things of ultimate importance.  They are relieved for some perspective and levity in a world that tells them if they push more, do more, achieve more, they will somehow be happier.  They are relieved to be shaken out of the distractions or the fog of life and to be invited into a sense of clarity and purpose.  I certainly am relieved in that same way.  Because I am the solo priest at my parish, I usually have a parishioner also spread ashes on my forehead.  No matter who I end up asking, there is always a moment of shared humility and connection.  I am grateful to the church for the gift of Ash Wednesday and the invitation for a holy Lent.

Comfort food…

30 Friday Jan 2015

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Whenever my family and I travel to familiar places, there are required food-related stops.  When we go to San Diego, it is El Indio, Rubios, and In-N-Out.  When we go to Delaware, it is Capriotti’s and Rita’s.  When we go anywhere South, it is Krispy Kreme, Chick-fil-A, and Waffle House.  Somehow our trips do not feel complete until we have made it to our special food establishments.  In fact, in San Diego, the very first stop after the airport is not home – it is straight to El Indio.  We look forward to the food for weeks before our trips, and we make sure that whatever agenda is planned, those food stops are figured into the master plan.

Not only do we make the stops because the food is amazing (because it is!), we also make the stops out of a sense of nostalgia.  Because many of those establishments have not expanded to where we currently live, there is a way in which the food brings us back to other times in our lives.  The sense of taste overwhelms the mind with memories, and we find ourselves savoring not just the food but the treasured experiences as well.  Food has a tremendous power to create a sense of home – sometimes even more so than a particular house.

I have often felt that same way about the Eucharistic meal.  Though I celebrate Eucharist multiple times per week now, every once in a while, powerful sensory experiences overwhelm what could be the mundane.  The flavor of the host (yes, those bland wafers actually do have a taste), whether or not the host is stale or crunchy in your mouth, the sharp taste of communion wine at a time that would not normally be acceptable for consumption of wine – all of these sensory experiences can make communion powerful over and over again.  And sometimes, the familiarity of the taste and texture is also comforting.  When all else in my world seems out of control, that moment of receiving the body and blood of Christ is centering like nothing else can be.

I wonder what you have done lately to connect on a sensory level with God.  Maybe you have missed church these last couple of weeks (or months, or years).  Maybe you come to church, but you disconnect during the familiar Eucharistic prayer because it is just too familiar.  This past Sunday at St. Margaret’s, we sang “Taste and See,” one of my favorite communion hymns.  The words are based on Psalm 34.  Like a familiar dining establishment, whenever I read the psalm, I think of the song.  And whenever I think of the song, I am reminded of the many powerful times that holy meal has shaken up my senses in fresh ways.  I invite you reconnect with God this week on a sensory level.  Perhaps you will remember another place you call home.

Sermon – John 1.43-51, E2, YB, January 18, 2015

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

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I have lots of friends who swear that Wicked is their favorite musical.  They know all the songs, they have seen the show multiple times, and they reference lines from the characters.  The cult around the musical feels just like that – a cult.  When I confessed that I had not ever seen the show, my friends were aghast.  “You HAVE to see the show!” they would exclaim.  To be honest, they were so passionate about Wicked that I had almost decided that there was no way the show could be that good – surely I would be underwhelmed.  But finally, after much cajoling, I went to see the show with some friends.  And all of a sudden, I got it:  the witty humor, the creative back story, the emotional narrative, and the moving music.  I could not stop thinking and talking about the show for weeks.

Though we have all had encounters with people who are passionate about something – the latest show, a newly released movie, or a favorite restaurant – I imagine that few of us are as passionate about church.  We just do not have the same fervor about church as we do about other passions in our life.  Somehow, being publicly passionate about those other things seems more socially acceptable than being publicly passionate about church.  Our initial concerns are usually about social stigma.  We do not want to become that person that people avoid because we are always babbling on about church.  Our fear may also be about what to say.  How do we explain to others what draws us to this place and makes us spend a good portion of our time here?  Or maybe we have lost some of our passion about church.  Perhaps we come to church out of habit or some longing, but we are not so jazzed about church that we are rushing around, telling friends and strangers alike, “You have to come and see my church.  It is awesome!”

Though we may not be running around like excited new Christians, the disciples of Jesus did in the early days.  In our gospel lesson today, we are told that when Philip meets Jesus and begins following him, he finds Nathanael and says, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”  And when Nathanael scoffs, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip is undeterred.  Philip excitedly insists, “Come and see.”  You can almost imagine Philip’s big grin and irresistible enthusiasm.  “Come and see,” he says.  This is his simple invitation.  Come and see.  The words are warm and inviting.  The words are gentle and hospitable.  The words, “Come and see,” are not some forceful demand or even a judgmental threat.[i]  There is no, “or else,” at the end of Philip’s invitation.  His invitation is light and easy:  Come and see.

That is our greatest fear when we talk about evangelism.  Because we have such a meaningful relationship with God and the church, we do not want to be associated with Christians who judge and condemn.  We would never be that Christian on a street corner telling people that they are going to hell unless they repent.  In fact, those are the very people who sometimes make us paranoid to even admit our faith in public.  Or maybe we have friends or family who were hurt by the church, and although we still feel drawn to the church, we want to respect their pain.  I have lost count of the number of my own friends and family who have had those negative experiences:  divorcees who felt judged or downright excluded when they wished to be remarried, women who wanted to be priests but felt that sense of call when the church did not affirm the ordination of women, or lesbian and gay friends who just did not feel welcome or treated as equals in the church.  The list is extensive and even if our church experience is not like that, we fear being associated with “those Christians.”

The challenge for us is that we get so caught up in the “what ifs” of sharing our faith that we forget the really wonderful things about our faith.  Philip reminds us today of the simple joy of our faith and our relationship with Christ.  Take a moment to think about your favorite thing about the life we share in this faith community.[ii]  I do not want you to worry about some elaborate theological explanation of your faith.  I just want you to think about your favorite thing about your experience here at St. Margaret’s.  Maybe your favorite thing is the community, and the warm welcome and inclusion you have felt here.  Maybe your favorite thing is the way that the worship experience connects you to God or opens up new truth for you.  Maybe your favorite thing is the way church is like an oasis, a place where you can breathe in the midst of the chaos of life, and find some sense of peace.  Or maybe your favorite thing is something else altogether.  But think about that favorite thing that keeps you coming back here week after week.

Now, imagine sharing that favorite thing with someone else, and inviting them to come and see for themselves.  Before you panic, I want to reassure you.  I am not asking you to go to someone and persuade them to become a Christian.  I am not even asking you to “prove” the truth of the Christian faith.[iii]  I am simply inviting you to invite someone you know to come and see that aspect of our congregational life that you enjoy.  When we have talked about evangelism before, many of you have told me about how you do not really have any friends you can invite to church.  Actually our excuses are numerous (and yes, I say “our” because I have the same excuses too).  We may worry that our friends live too far away, or maybe they already have a church community, or maybe you just do not like to mix your friends community with your church community.  Many of you have turned to me and either said, “Well, isn’t it the priest’s job to grow the church,” or “That is what our website is for.”  And the answer to those things is yes.  Yes, the rector plays some role in people’s attraction to a church and certainly many seekers find us through our website.  But the number one way that people come to a church is by personal invitation.  Every study I have read says that the number one way to attract people to your parish is through personal invitation.

The good news is that the personal invitation is not as scary as the invitation sounds.  Just look at Philip.  When Nathanael scoffs and says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip could have had any number of responses.  As one person argues, “Philip could have given Nathanael some of his own opinions.  He could have said, ‘This Jesus knows a lot about the Bible.’  Or he might have said, ‘There is something about this man Jesus that draws me to him.’  Even when Nathanael expressed skepticism about ‘anything good coming out of Nazareth,’ Philip might have listed some successful people from Nazareth.”[iv]  But Philip does none of that.  His offer is warm, simple, and gracious.  Come and see.

The beauty of our gospel lesson is that Philip’s testimony to Nathaniel is not that impressive.  His testimony would not win any academic awards or even impress most people.  But his invitation does get Nathanael to in fact, come and see.[v]  And that is what our gospel is inviting us to do today too.  Not to come up with some master plan or some convincing argument.  But to think about the one thing that draws you to this place, and then simply share that one thing with someone else.  Your closing argument will then be easy.  Come and see.  I cannot imagine a better gift that you can give to those you know than to let them see the one thing that gives you life, gives you joy, and gives you passion; and then to invite them to come and see.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Epiphany 2B:  Come and See,” January 12, 2015 found at http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/epiphany-2-b/.

[ii] Lose.

[iii] Michael Rogness, “Commentary on John 1.43-51,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2314 on January 14, 2015.

[iv] Rogness.

[v] Ted A. Smith, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 263.

Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, YB, CE, December 24, 2014

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Most of us have a favorite Christmas movie.  Whether we like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” or “A Christmas Story,” many of us find that until we have watched that special movie, we do not feel like Christmas has really arrived.  My personal favorite is “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” – the animated one, not the newer one with Jim Carrey.  I love the cute little dog that the Grinch dresses up like a reindeer, I love the little girl who sweetly encounters the Grinch dressed as Santa, and I love the songs throughout the movie.  But my favorite part is when the Grinch hears the Whos singing on Christmas morning despite their supposedly ruined Christmases and how the Grinch’s heart is warmed and grows in size.  Part of what I love about the movie is the movie’s wonderful lesson about the true meaning of Christmas – that material goods and abundance do not make Christmas:  only love and community make Christmas.  But I think the real reason I love this movie is its familiarity.  I like that I can watch the movie every Christmas and the movie never changes.  I like that no matter what house I lived in growing up, or where I found myself as an adult, or even how happy or sad I was on a given Christmas, the familiarity of the movie made me feel like I had something to ground me.  When all else in my world was changing, the movie never changes.

I think that is why we find ourselves at Church on a Christmas Eve too.  Every year we find ourselves sitting in a pew hearing the same story of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels, and the baby Jesus.  The story is so familiar that we could probably recite the story if pressed.  Whether we are a child or an adult, at home or far away, with loved ones or alone, the story never changes.  That changelessness, that familiarity is something we eagerly anticipate every Christmas and in large part is why we come to Church this night.

Familiarity is something we all long for at Christmas.  When we have lived long enough, we come to know that despite the fact that we celebrate Christmas every year and we try to keep familiar traditions, our celebration is never the same.  Invariably someone has passed away and their absence changes our experience; a family member is not present because of a falling out in the past year; the grandchildren become too old to play silly games or make crafts and the mood is different; or any other number of things have changed – divorce, births, illness, job loss, or moves.  Even if you still gather with your family or a set of friends, change is inevitable at Christmas.  And because we all know how unsettling change can be, we long for something that is unchanging that we can cling to and with which we can ground ourselves.

This Advent we have talked a lot about how much turbulence and change has been happening in our world.  We have watched as the world has erupted in violence.  The atrocities, suffering, and fighting have been so vivid that many of us have stepped away from watching the news.  We have seen unrest in our own country, as issues of race, class, and gender have collided.  And in case any of us were tempted to believe that those issues of race, class, and gender are someone else’s issues, we have only to look at as far as Staten Island to know that we are not yet in a place of peace and justice.  The noise of unrest is so loud that there are times when instead of listening to the news we turn to music, sports, or any other escape we can think of to run from the reality of our world.

The funny thing is that though we turn to our gospel lesson for comfort and familiarity, the same noise that we find in our lives and in our world is present in our reading tonight too.  The very reason that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus end up in a stable is that the Roman Empire has been greedily looking for more ways to bring in money into the empire.  And so peoples are being displaced, making their way back to their hometowns so that the empire can determine whether they have collected enough money from the people.  The Pax Romana is bearing down upon the people, and this nobody couple from Bethlehem is just one more victim of the injustice of the system.[i]

Perhaps that background noise is part of why we love this story so much.  Despite the chaos of that night and of that time, good news comes – to shepherds, to angels, to Mary and Joseph.  We savor the familiar words of goodness that override the story:  “do not be afraid”; “good news of great joy”; “peace among those whom he favors.”  To displaced Mary and Joseph, to disenfranchised shepherds, and to distant little Bethlehem peace, joy, comfort, and hope explode on this very night.  We have learned from hearing Scripture Sunday after Sunday that Scripture can often be hard, challenging, and downright condemning.  We spend much time throughout the Church year struggling with where God is challenging us to live differently and beckoning us to live more Christ-like lives.  But not on this night.  On this night, we get assurance, comfort, and joy.  We get an innocent baby – in fact a baby that will change the world for good.  Like young parents ourselves, we can worry about money, health, and safety later – because on this night of Jesus’ birth, we just want to cling to the Christ Child and all that the child represents.

Now there are times in our lives when clinging to the familiar just for the sake of comfort is a bad thing.  Maybe you yourself have been criticized for living in the past, romanticizing what once was, especially at this time of year.  But this is one of those rare instances when the Church says that we have permission to live in the past and cling to the familiar.  That is because this familiar – this story of Jesus’ birth – is worthy of that kind of devotion.  We are not staking our claim on something superficially good when we come to Church this night – we are not clinging to a romanticized past that can never fulfill us.  We are clinging to an event that happened a long time ago, but whose significance changed things forever.  In this incarnate experience of God, the game changed for all time.  God became flesh and dwelled among us, and we are changed for the better.

So tonight, I invite you accept the gift of familiarity and comfort.  Let this night warm your heart and soul and cling to the familiar story and all that the story means for us.  Hold fast to that comfort, and return to these words whenever you need them.  We have 364 other days to worry about what is going on in the world.  In fact what happens here in Scripture tonight deeply impacts how we will respond to that world the rest of the year.  But that is for another day.  Tonight, take the gift of comfort, joy, and hope and let that gift fill you up and strengthen you for the work God has given you.  Use that gift as fuel, and then let God’s holy meal fill your belly so that you are strengthened for the work ahead.  May God’s peace and joy fill you up and overflow out of you to others.  And then be agents of peace through the Prince of Peace who comforts you tonight.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Something More,” December 18, 2011 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1612 on December 20, 2014.

Homily – Isaiah 25.6-9, Cemetery Memorial Service, December 20, 2014

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Our Cemetery Memorial Service has become one of my favorite services of the year.  That may sound a little strange to you, but what I like about this service is the service’s honesty.  This time of year, there is a lot of dishonesty floating around:  the notion that buying things can make you happy, the assumption that everyone has abundant food this time of year, and even the idea that there is such a thing as the perfect family, the perfect Christmas, or the perfect life.  We see glossy ads, hear songs about loving, joyful Christmases, and watch movies that package Christmas with a pretty bow.  Though most of us know in the depths of our hearts that there is no such thing as a perfect Christmas experience, no one wants to talk about that reality.  We prefer that everyone stay in their lane, and put on a happy face.  Perhaps we have even convinced ourselves that we can “fake it ‘til we make it.”  In other words, if we say we are happy and that everything is perfect at Christmas, perhaps we and Christmas will become so.

But instead of buying into the Christmas hype, the Church tells another story today.  Simply by gathering us together as mourners, the Church acknowledges the pain and sadness that is often right below the surface at this time of year.  While others are decking the halls, rocking around the Christmas Tree, and having a holly, jolly Christmas, the Church invites us in, and encourages us to acknowledge the other part of Christmas – the part that is hard, sad, or empty.  We make space for grief, for honoring a loved one, and for acknowledging a sense of absence.  I have especially been grateful for that gift this year.  About a month ago, our family lost a grandfather.  He had lived a full, long life, and we know that he is at peace with the Lord.  But his absence is more obvious in the small parts of life.  Upon flying out for the funeral, my husband realized this would be the first time his grandfather would not meet him at the airport.  As we have prepared for holiday treats, we realized that our annual box of chocolates would not be arriving from him this year.  As we send out Christmas cards, I realized I would need one less card this year.  And those are just the things related to our family.  St. Margaret’s also lost a long-time parishioner this month – one who had been a major presence in our ministry here, whose bed I sat next to as we said prayers in his last days.  In addition to the grief of his family, our entire community is mourning the hole that he left.  Add into that grief the grief felt all over the world from violence, war, and hunger, and we come here today with much to offer up to God.

Of course, that is what I bring into this place today.  And each of you has your own story:  of wives, fathers, and daughters lost; of patriarchs in your family and of children whose lives were ended too soon; of lives well-lived and of lives barely lived at all.  To each of us, the Church says today that our mourning and our sadness are okay.  The Church creates this window of time where we can stop, be still, and know that God is with us.  The Church acknowledges the imperfect nature of this holiday, and celebrates anyway.

That is why I love the words we heard from the prophet Isaiah today.  The text says, “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.  And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.”  What is so inviting about the words from Isaiah today is that they put our experiences in perspective.  Yes, our Christmas meals may not be utter perfection.  But God is preparing a feast for us that is more perfect than anything we could ever prepare ourselves.  Any darkness we feel now will be swallowed up by God.  Any tears we shed will be wiped away by our Lord.  Any sadness we feel at the dinner table will be eclipsed by the pure and holy joy we will find at God’s feast of rich food and well-aged wines.  Our loved ones are already enjoying that feast ahead of us.  Our joy is that we too are promised the opportunity to join them at the heavenly banquet when our time comes.

So this Christmas, give yourself permission to experience Christmas imperfectly.  Give yourself permission to be both joyful and sad.  Give yourself permission to lean into God when you need the strength to carry on.  And know, that maybe, just maybe, if you allow yourself to focus on the much grander feast that is to come and that already is for our loved ones, maybe you will find smiling a little easier.  Maybe you will find moments of joy that shine light into the darkness.  Maybe you will even find the ability to let yourself laugh and sing and to celebrate this imperfect holiday.  That is my wish for each of you.  That the blessing of this night will create a small, steady flame that warms and encourages you in the days and weeks to come.  Amen.

Keeping Christ in Christmas…

19 Friday Dec 2014

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I live in an area of our country that has a lot of “Keep Christ in Christmas,” signs.  I think people post these signs for all sorts of reasons:  for fear that Christmas has become too secular and lost its focus on the birth of the Christ Child; out of resistance to Christmas becoming a consumerist holiday; as a defensive response to what feels like a mandate to be “politically correct,” (i.e. saying “Happy Holidays!” instead of “Merry Christmas!”).  Many of these arguments make sense to me.  I myself have a hard time explaining to my five-year old why Christmas is both the celebration of Jesus’ birth and the day Santa Claus comes.  I too feel lured in by the advertisements that want me to spend more money than I have in order to show my love and affection.  I too want to be fully Christian, not wanting to minimize my faith in order to honor others’ faith.  In fact, it was not until I moved to a community with a large Jewish population that I really had to think about whether my “Merry Christmas!” greeting was even appropriate.

But here is my issue:  when I see those (sometimes very large) signs posted all around town, they do not sound like a gentle reminder or encouragement to return to our Lord.  When I see them, I feel like someone is shouting at me, “Keep Christ in Christmas!!”  Those signs do not feel well-intended, encouraging, or uplifting.  They seem angry, defensive, and off-putting.  They make me feel like I am guilty and should be ashamed of something.  And if I, as a priest in the Church, feel criticized, judged, and reprimanded by the signs, imagine how someone feels who knows very little about the Church.

A meme has recently been floating around that helped me identify what it is that is so off-putting about the normal “Keep Christ in Christmas” sign.  The sign says, “Want to keep Christ in Christmas?  Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies.”  The quote comes from Steve Maraboli, and I think his words get at my struggle.  What I like about this quote is that it does not just describe how to reclaim a holiday.  This quote describes how to live as an authentic Christian, to live like Christ, in the midst of this holiday.  That is a much more powerful witness to me than simply insisting people keep Christ in Christmas.  Perhaps instead of saying “Keep Christ in Christmas,” our message could be, “Be Christ this Christmas.”  When we busy ourselves with being Christ to others it is a lot easier to remember the reason for the season – no fussing and finger-wagging necessary.