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

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

Where everybody knows your name…

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

 

A child of God…

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

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I am a regular advocate for children in Church.  I think the practice shapes children at a young age and enlivens worship for the community.  Though distracting to some, the noise of children makes me feel like the church is alive and joyful.  That is why I always encourage parents with young children, because I know from experience that the noises of your own child sound ten times louder than they do to anyone else.  I also know that wrangling little ones can be frustrating some days and other days down-right impossible.  Many a parent has expressed to me that they are glad the sermons are posted online, since they often do not hear it when their little ones are particularly active.  I encourage parents to persevere and even make sure that Sunday School does not bleed into worship time so that our children can be present as gifts to the rest of the congregation.

But every once in a while, my own daughter reminds me how my principles do not always coincide with the realities of experience.  This past Sunday, as we were serving communion, my daughter managed to sneak away from her dad, and kneeled next to another parishioner.  When I reverently offered her the host, she abruptly grabbed it from my hand and shoved it enthusiastically into her mouth.  As her parent, my immediate reaction was to be a little embarrassed and to wonder what the other parishioners must think of my parenting skills.  Despite a couple of chuckles, I squashed my embarrassment, and moved on to the next person at the rail.  Later that morning, during the final hymn, my daughter joined me in the aisle as I sang and waited to deliver the morning’s announcements.  As the hymn was wrapping up, she dropped my hand and started shaking her hips in the center aisle, dancing to the hymn with reckless abandon.  Again, my initial instinct was to fret over what parishioners might think about the kind of dancing I was teaching at home.

Later, as I was thinking about the two incidents, several things came to me.  One, I was once again reminded how hard it is to manage children in the context of formal worship.  I am so grateful to the parents who do it every week and who allow us to be blessed by their children.  Two, I realized how hyper aware I am of my role within the church and how that role has some serious implications for my family.  In my ordination vows, the bishop asked me, “Will you do your best to pattern your life and the life of your family in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people?”  Sometimes, I think that question makes priests and their families feel like they have to be perfect – including in the pew on Sundays.  But what I realized was that my daughter was not shattering our “perfect” image.  She was inviting me to let go of pretenses and be real with our parish.  Being a parent, in fact being a human, is messy, and I do not need to pretend that I somehow have a better hold on being “not messy” simply because I am a priest.

Finally, what I realized on Sunday is that being a “wholesome example” means loving my child in the way that I love all our children at church.  When I could step back from the fact that my child was greedily grabbing Eucharist and dancing a little “inappropriately” in church, I could see the incidents totally differently.  When I could see my child as a child of God, I could see someone who was demonstrating how eager we all should be to receive Christ’s body at the table:  how our longing for Jesus sometimes is downright greedy and aggressive, and grabbing for the bread is a physical way of showing a passionate longing for Christ.  When I could see my child as a child of God, I could see someone who was moved by the Holy Spirit to joyfully dance before the Lord, not unlike David so many years before[i]:  someone who was actually inspired by the music being sung and played, not just dutifully and dispassionately singing the words.  I thought about how her body is a gift from God and how wonderful it was that she was using her body to praise God, even if my uptight-self resisted it.

One of the greatest reasons having children among our midst in church is because they help us get out of ourselves and our need to keep up appearances, and they help us to see the holy in new, exciting, and fresh ways.  So, please keep bringing those little ones.  We all need them to show us the face of Christ.  And for our parents, occasionally they might remind you how they are children of God as much as they are your children as well.

[i] 2 Samuel 6.16

The power of smell…

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Last week I was taking a walk for a bit of exercise on my day off.  I was trucking along when all of a sudden a fragrance hit me – the smell of honeysuckle.  I stuttered to a stop just so I could inhale the scent a little longer.  Honeysuckle is one of those scents that takes me back to a happy place in my childhood.  You see, every June when I was growing up, my family would travel to the mountains of North Carolina for the Annual Conference of the United Methodist Western North Carolina Conference.  The conference lasted a few days at the end of the week, but our family would go up on the Monday before and make the week our annual vacation.  Lake Junaluska holds many fond memories for me – canoeing on the Lake, crafts at the childcare center, swimming in the pool, feeding ducks, and in general enjoying the beauty of the property.  All those memories are triggered by the smell of honeysuckle, whose blooming always coincided with Annual Conference, forever connecting the smell with the memories.

Smell has a powerful way of connecting us to memories.  The smell of your favorite food that your mom used to make, the cologne or perfume of your first crush, the scent of baby oil, the aroma of coffee, or the smell of a campfire:  all of these smells have the ability to halt time for us and take us back to a place of warm, fond memories.  The scents conjure up people or places that made us happy and shaped our lives.  Though we rarely hold those memories actively in our everyday lives, a simple scent can bring a smile to our faces as those memories bubble up in our minds.

One of the things that I love about Episcopal Church is the way that the Church engages all the senses:  the sight of the cross, the touch of hands passing the peace, the sound of psalms being chanted, or the taste of communion.  Of course, as someone formed in “high church” worship, incense is the smell I associate with church.  When I was in seminary, I served in a church that used a lot of incense – I could smell it in my hair when I came home, I could smell it in my vestments when I put them on before services, and I could even sometimes smell it when the church was empty and dark, the incense still lingering in the walls.  Anytime I smell incense now, it has a calming effect on me.  Without thinking, I take a deep breath, and somehow am transported to memories of my experience with the holy – at churches, at monasteries, on retreat.  I have considered several times getting a home incense kit for devotions, just to help me connect to those memories.

Though many churches shy away from incense, what I like about incense is that the smell plants in our memories experiences with the holy.  Much like the fond memories of childhood, fond memories of church can help shape us and give us grounding throughout life.  The next time you are in church, I invite you to consider what smells might help ground you throughout the week.  Maybe it is the scent of holy wine, maybe the smell of extinguished candles, or maybe even the smell of weathered pages in a BCP or hymnal.  Whatever the scent, allow its power to reconnect you with God and transport you to a place where you knew God loved you and cared for you beyond measure.

Sermon – Matthew 28.16-20, TS, YA, June 15, 2014

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

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There have been many jokes around the Andrews-Weckerly household this week about why in the world I chose this Sunday, of all Sundays in the liturgical year, to return from maternity leave.  Trinity Sunday is sort of a dreaded Sunday for most preachers.  This is the Sunday that rectors give to seminarians, curates, and deacons because they feel overwhelmed by the prospect of preaching the doctrine of the Trinity in the pulpit – perhaps out of a fear of committing heresy or just out of a fear of producing a theologically correct, but pastorally unengaging sermon.  And trust me, the thought crossed my mind to let our beloved Deacon Anthony pinch hit today.

The truth is, we all struggle a bit with the Trinity, even if we do not realize that we struggle.  Think about your prayer life and whether you tend to favor one person of the Trinity in your petitions.  I know people who habitually pray to God, but somehow get tripped up on saying Jesus’ name in a prayer.  I know others who feel awkward praying to the Holy Spirit, not really sure what language to use.  Still, there are others who do not like the masculine images associated with God the Father, and so they are more likely to either pray to the Holy Spirit, or use feminine language for God.  And that is just our prayer life.  Have you ever tried explaining the Trinity to a four-year old?  Words like “coeternal” and “holy, undivided,” are difficult to explain to a kid who has learned the stories of the Bible, but does not quite know how to make sense of the fact that Jesus is both the Son of God and coeternal with God – or that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove, but is also the same God as God and Jesus.

Confused yet?  The good news is that you are not alone.  The Church took over a hundred years of debating to finally be able to articulate a coherent theology of the Trinity.  Theologians Arius and Athanasius debated long and hard over the persons of the Trinity, who they were, how they related to one another, and what the implications were for those theological conclusions.  Though we are quite used to the Creed we say every Sunday, and the use of the Trinity in blessings and other parts of the liturgy, those creeds and liturgies did not just develop overnight or without a great deal of arguing and prayerful consideration.

And yet, here we are today, celebrating Trinity Sunday and reading Jesus’ instruction to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus’ instructions today are not just for the disciples – those instructions are for us too.  So how are we supposed to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost authentically if we do not even really understand or feel comfortable with the idea of the Trinity?  Does our lack of understanding matter?  The first answer is yes.  We do need a working understanding of the Trinity, because a fuller understanding of the breadth of God helps us to engage in fuller worship of and relationship with God.[i]  We cannot go out into the world without understanding that, “The same God who is God over us as God the Father and Creator, and God with and for us as the incarnate Word and Son, is also God in and among us as God the Holy Spirit.”[ii]  In fact, our God is so big, so strong, and so mighty that we take an entire Sunday, Trinity Sunday, to celebrate this awesome God who is relational, self-giving, and full of love.  So, yes, our lack of understanding about the Trinity matters.

But the gospel lesson today tells us something else too – our lack of understanding does not matter.  The lesson from Matthew begins, “The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.  When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”  This group of disciples – a group who is already down to eleven – in their final encounter with Jesus still have some doubts.  Though they worship, they still struggle with questions, uncertainty, and confusion.  Jesus even has to tell them, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me,” because he wants them to understand who he is in relation to the God they know and love – a fact that they clearly still do not fully comprehend.  To this shrinking group of confused, doubting, questioning disciples Jesus declares, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Jesus trusts them to go and to make disciples and to baptize and to teach, even if they do not fully understand this Trinity business.  Jesus’ affirmation of the disciples even in the midst of their doubt is an incredible affirmation for us today too.

So if our understanding of the Trinity both matters and does not matter, how do we live into this ambiguity?  How do we faithfully live as disciples in this tension?  Well, the disciples tell us that too.  We live into the tension in community.  While I was on maternity leave, I gained a new appreciation for the value of community.  I watched this community from afar as you took on new responsibilities in my absence, as you ministered to one another, and as you shared the Good News, even when you did not realize that you were.  As you baptized a baby, buried a matriarch, and worshiped outside in God’s creation.  As you visited the sick, prayed for the weary, and fed the hungry.  As you taught our children, learned from one another, and walked the streets of Plainview as members of this church.  You did all of those things probably with a sense of the triune God, but also probably with a healthy dose of doubt as you worshiped and worked.

Many of you have asked me whether I missed being away from church during maternity leave.  Though there were certainly things that I enjoyed taking a break from, I realized palpably how much I missed our community of faith during Holy Week.  As I watched each day of Holy Week passing, I felt a sense of deep longing and absence.  I had not realized how strongly I am marked by the ritual and presence of this community.  Even when I struggle to define the Trinity, I have a community of faith that always gathers and makes meaning in my life.  Being absent from the community during that time was almost like losing an arm or being a foreigner in a foreign land.

This day that we celebrate is certainly about the creator, redeemer, and sustainer God that we sort-of know.  This day is also a day that we celebrate the wonderful gift of a community of faith with which to worship and doubt together in a beautiful dance before our triune God.  If you have not taken a moment recently to fully appreciate the gift of this community, I invite you to do that today.  If you have been so busy with renovation projects, running a ministry, or just trying to get to church, take a moment today to appreciate the gift of this community.  Or if you are relatively new to this community, or just do not feel like you have found your own ministry in this place, I invite you to take that next step, and to find a way to connect more deeply to the life and ministry here at St. Margaret’s.  I think you will find a wonderful set of companions who do not have “it” all figured out, but who worship in the midst of their doubt – and who have a triune God who is with them always, to the end of the age.  Amen.

[i] Stephen B. Boyd, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 46.

[ii] Steven P. Eason, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 46.

On touch…

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Being pregnant is a pretty incredible experience.  I have been so grateful to experience the phenomenon one more time with our second child, and continue to be amazed by the miracle of pregnancy.  Of course, being pregnant comes with a certain set of consequences too.  The funniest for me has been the way that the mother’s body becomes fodder for public consumption.  Not only does there seem to be a constant conversation about my changing body (usually accompanied by comments that would never be acceptable at any other time – like how “enormous” my body is getting); there also seems to be a strange longing to touch the growing belly, even by total strangers.

In general I have mixed feelings about being touched.  Understanding the miracle of pregnancy and the life and hope that it generates, I understand the longing to be connected to that gift.  I am especially patient about this longing when it comes from much older women – women who are long past childbearing age, and who in their advanced age seem to appreciate the gift of life more than those of us who are much younger.  But there is also a strange and somewhat uncomfortable intimacy that comes from having someone touch your belly – something you would never be permitted to at any other stage of life.

So imagine my surprise this past weekend while on retreat when, without permission or warning, a 90-year old Franciscan brother immediately placed his hands on my belly when he discovered I was pregnant.  He broke into a beautiful and meaningful blessing on my pregnancy, my unborn child, and my pending delivery, making the sign of the cross on my stomach.  Though my instinct was to pull away when he first touched me, somehow, his steady hands and his heartfelt blessing held me still.

As the brother pulled away with an encouraging smile, I realized two things.  One, I think we as a people have become incredibly guarded about touch.  We separate ourselves so much through technology and creating appropriate boundaries that, in the end, we sometimes limit touch altogether.  Life can become incredibly lonely and lack intimacy when the basic gift of touch – whether a held hand, a hug, or a reassuring pat – is denied to us as a society.  Two, as a priest, I think our profession has become so guarded about safe church practices that we forget the power of touch in our ministries.  It has never occurred to me to touch another pregnant woman’s belly to bless her – even when she is a longtime parishioner.  Even if the thought had occurred to me, I am sure I would have asked permission, felt self-conscious about the act, and stumbled over my words in my fumbling.  But this Franciscan brother reminded me that part of our job as clergy is to honor and celebrate the intimacy that Christian community creates, and to invite people into that sacred space.  Though I realize there is always a time and place to respect the danger of touch and the harm that it can do, I wonder if out of our caution we have not lost out on opportunities to open up the spaces where God can bless and sanctify all stages of life through the power of touch.  I know there are no simple answers, but having experienced the blessedness of sacred touch, I am grateful for a church that is willing to try to find the balance.

Sermon – Luke 2.22-40, Feast of the Presentation, YA, February 2, 2014

06 Thursday Feb 2014

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Throughout my time in parishes, I have been reminded again and again how different the varied groups are in church.  In one parish I served, the Twenties and Thirties group was struggling because the events that appealed to the single Twenties and Thirties members were not as appealing or convenient for the married Twenties and Thirties members – let alone the ones with children.  At another parish where I served, I remember trying to plan an event for a diverse group of families.  I suggested a particular time of day, keeping in mind the bedtime needs for our new infant.  After much debate, one of the other staff reminded me that families with older children do not need to start bedtime nearly as early as our family did.  I served in one parish that had Holy Eucharist on a weekday at 6:30 am, followed by Bible Study from 7:00 – 8:00 am.  As a sleep-deprived parent of a young child, the arrangement was hideous for me; but for those who worked in the City and needed to be there by 9:00, or for seniors who were up and fed well before 6:30 am, the timing was perfect.  And almost every parish I have been a part of has had youth lock-ins.  It is a special adult who is willing to supervise youth overnight, knowing that they may get little to no sleep, may need to navigate the energy and sexuality of teens, and are willing to be pretty silly and playful when they otherwise would like to be snuggling into a warm, comfortable bed for the night.

That is the funny thing about churches.  Though we all arrive on Sunday on time, relatively speaking, to do the same thing together, we all enter those doors with vast differences.  There are the basic differences – gender, age, marital status, and phase of life.  There are the personality differences – introverts or extroverts; morning or night people; spiritually expressive or quiet and contemplative.  And then there is what we bring in the door with us on any particular day.  Perhaps you just barely managed to dress and wrangle kids into the car to get them here today, probably running out of time to do much tending to yourself to get ready for church.  Perhaps you woke up with aches and pains today, but willed yourself to come anyway.  Perhaps you had a fight with a loved one recently, or even with a fellow parishioner, and you are not even sure if you are in the right mindset for church.  When we take into account all those widely diverse features of any particular gathered group, we begin to see how amazing the idea is that we even gather together at all.

I see a similar dynamic on the day that the holy family went to the temple for purification.  Mary needed to offer sacrifice in thanksgiving for a safe childbirth and sacrifice needed to be offered for Jesus as the firstborn son of the family.[i]  The family has already been through a great ordeal these past 40 days.  They managed to make their way to Bethlehem, had an eventful birth experience in a stable, had strange shepherd visitors, and are now back home.  I imagine at 40 days old, Jesus is still not sleeping through the night, Mary and Joseph are still figuring out this first-time parenting thing, and we can tell from their sacrifice of two turtledoves or young pigeons that the young couple is still struggling financially.[ii]  That this family made it to the temple for this traditional religious experience is a minor miracle.  We all know couples who have been in that stage of life at one point or another.

Meanwhile, we have Simeon.  He is a bit up in age, and has been waiting for a long time for the fulfillment of a promise.  The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.  That means that Simeon has spent a lot of time at the temple, just waiting for that long-anticipated day.  We know that Simeon is righteous and devout, and that the presence of the Holy Spirit is strong in him.  He is a man wise beyond his years, who has been taught to look for just the right thing.  We also know that he is a man of song.  When he finally sees Jesus, he breaks into a song of praise that is now known worldwide, sung at Evensongs and said at Compline or after Eucharists.  We know too that he is not afraid to tell the cold, hard truth, as he warns Mary what hardship is to come her way through her relationship with her son.  We all know a gentleman or two from church who both show forth a Spirit-filled life, yet is never afraid to speak truth – no matter how stinging that truth might be.

Finally, we meet Anna.  Anna is in her eighties.  She has been a widow for about sixty of those years, so we know she has had a rough life.  We also know that she spends every waking hour at the temple, worshiping, praying, and fasting.  Her whole life is centered on being in the temple.  We also learn that Anna is a talker.  When she sees Jesus for the first time, not only does she praise God, but she also talks about the child to anyone who will listen.  Surely we have met that older church gossip, who is always full of church news.

So we have this beautiful scene set before us:  the frazzled young family, struggling both physically and financially to just get by; the wise, righteous older man who is filled with the Spirit, but holds nothing back – not even if maybe he should; and the older prophet whose whole life is at the temple, and who has no problem catching people up on temple news.  In truth the scene is a bit comical.  Though the scene is meant to be another Epiphanytide manifestation of the identity of Jesus Christ, the scene is almost absurd in reality.

As I pondered this scene this week, I could not help to think about our community of faith, and how absurd we probably seem to outsiders.  We have all sorts of parents with children of various ages – many of whom have confessed their own frazzled lives to me on Sundays.  We have teens who struggled to get out of bed to come to church, but who are listening and will ask really hard questions from time to time.  We have empty-nesters who are so overjoyed to have a new lease on life that they are equally likely to be found at some exciting location as they are to be found at church.  We have retirees who are deeply spiritual, who will also give you a piece of their mind.  We have members who love when the guitar team plays and members who avoid church when the guitar team plays.  We have members who will come to every Holy Week service, and other members who are lucky to make it to church on Easter Sunday.

If you look at our wide diversity, you might wonder how in the world we all call the same community home; and yet we all do, and most of us cannot imagine life without this community.  That is the joy of church.  Though that older member might take you to task on something, you also know that they often speak with the love of someone who knows you can take it and you need to hear it.  Though there are Sundays when families feel like the behavior of their children has made their worship experience a complete bust, there are members around you who only get a glimpse of joy that week by being near your child and getting to know their beautiful personalities.  Though that church gossip might frustrate you at times, she is also the same one who has been praying for you and brought you a meal when you were sick.

That is what I love about the text this Sunday and the reality of Church.  Both the text and Church are extremely incarnational – they show us the depths of our messiness, but the beauty that can only emerge from that messiness.  Both show us how no matter how wacky the people are, God shows up, and reveals joy, hope, and grace.  Both show us that no matter how challenging our community might be at times, at its best, our faith community shows us how to better love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbors.  No matter what stage of life we are in, what personality we bring to the table, or what hurdles we overcame to get here today, we need each other because God needs and uses each of us.  For that messy, challenging, incarnate community of faith, I am forever grateful.  That is the good news we celebrate today, and the good news that we invite all our messy, challenging, incarnate friends into as well.  Amen.

[i] Lauren F. Winner, “Simeon’s Faithful Proclamation,” December 26, 2011, as found at http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/yearb/christmas1gospel-2/ on January 29, 2014.

[ii] William R. Herzog, II, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B., Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 167.

Holy chaos…

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

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This past Sunday, our church held its annual Epiphany Pageant.  Since the pageant involves using Scripture and hymns to retell the entirety of Jesus’ birth narratives, the pageant replaces most of the Liturgy of the Word (the part of the service when we traditionally read/chant the four lessons and then hear a sermon).  Though part of what we love about the pageant is the kids’ presence, we also love being invited into the familiar – rehearing the story of the Christ’s birth and incarnation and singing the hymns that we look forward to all year.

Inevitably, the pageant is a bit messy and chaotic – children forget where to go, costumes do not quite fit, or attention spans are just not long enough.  Situating the pageant within the context of worship also means that the entire worship experience that morning is loud and a bit difficult to stay fully engaged in – especially if you are looking for a quiet, contemplative reflection on the incarnation.

But to be honest, that is what I love about the pageant – the holy chaos of it all.  We often think about the birth of the Christ Child as a clean story, much like many of the two-dimensional artistic renderings we see of what looks like quiet adoration at a manger.  But the whole concept of the incarnation is messy:  from Jesus’ scandalous conception, to what had to have been an unsanitary birth among hay and animals, to stinky visitors like the shepherds, to the visit of three foreign men who act strangely and probably raise more suspicion than excitement.  The birth of Jesus is a bit of a holy mess, not to mention the rest of Jesus’ incarnate life, which involves hanging with those of ill-repute, with smelly fishermen, and with the seriously infected and ill.  Nothing about Jesus’ birth or life is sanitary, controlled, or predictable.

Later on Sunday morning in worship, as I distributed communion, I gave the body of Christ to the young girl who had just played Mary in the pageant.  In that moment, the chaos of the day disappeared, and the miracle of the incarnation became much more real to me.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, was just a woman, trying to live faithfully, caught in the holy chaos of life.  I found myself wondering what receiving the body of Christ, the body of her son, would have been like, especially once he was gone.  And just like Mary was just a woman, each one of us in church – the young girl, the middle-aged man, the aging woman – are all just people, caught in the holy chaos of life, trying to make sense of it all, but also eternally grateful for a God who takes on human flesh for us.  That is why Church is so incredible to me.  In the midst of contemplative prayer, and even in the midst of what feels like a loud, crazy liturgy, God can break through and speak truth to us.  I am grateful to our children for reminding me that God is incarnate in the midst of all of life – in the beautiful and quiet, but especially in the messy, loud, chaos of life.

Anniversary advice…

13 Friday Dec 2013

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

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

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

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

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