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Searching the crowd…

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Any time I am in a city, I have a strange habit of expecting to see someone I know. Somehow being around that many people makes me feel like I must surely know someone in the crowd.  Now, when I lived in Wilmington, Delaware, my habit was not unwarranted.  In fact, the better expectation was how many people you would run into and from what connection you would know them.  But in cities like New York City or Washington, DC, the habit is a little silly.  We all say “It’s a small world!”  But I am pretty sure I have never accidently run into someone I knew in Manhattan.

So imagine my surprise this week, while on a quick trip down to the DC area, I ran into a former parishioner while waiting to get on my return Amtrak train.  What I had anticipated as being a long, quiet trip of catching up on work and sleep turned into a fun, vibrant train ride with an old friend.  Being from Delaware, he got off at Wilmington, while I continued on to NYC.  But the unexpected moment of recognition and time together was a tremendous treat.  Suddenly my searching the crowds in DC did not seem so unreasonable!

Though I often make fun of myself about my silly habit, I wondered this week if my practice of searching crowds of strangers for familiarity is, in fact, an exercise in hope.  One of our deepest longings is to be known and loved.  Being known makes us feel valued, affirmed, and comforted.  It gives us a sense of belonging, and harkens back the knowledge that we are beloved children of God.  But asking to be known is a hard thing to do – it requires vulnerability, openness to rejection, and letting down one’s guard.  Most of the time, when I scan crowds, I am sorely disappointed.  But every once in a while, a joyous reunion of recognition and being known happens – not unlike stumbling into Jesus’ open arms.

This coming Sunday in Lent is referred to as “Rose Sunday,” a Sunday of refreshment half-way through Lent.  I wonder in what ways we might take a break for penitence and reflection on our sinfulness and remember to walk in the world as a people of hope.  In what ways are you searching the crowds for reminders that you are a beloved child of God?  Keep an eye out so you don’t miss those gracious moments of recognition, affirmation, and hope.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, February 28, 2016

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

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My dad, a retired Methodist Minister, and I have always disagreed about the use of the Revised Common Lectionary.  He always felt that the pastor’s duty was to listen to the movement of the Spirit and select scripture lessons that were relevant to what was happening in the life of the parish.  I argued that his method was rife with pitfalls.  The pastor could end up confusing personal preference with the movement of the Spirit, could push one’s own agenda too far, or could end up avoiding hard texts out of laziness or fear.  Instead, I argued, following the lectionary forces the preacher to be truly open to the Spirit – totally giving up control over what text is offered on any given day, trusting that the Lord will provide the message.

This week, I wished I had adopted my dad’s practice.  I looked at the gospel lesson and immediately, said, “Nope!  No way, now how.  There is no way I am going to preach that text to my people when we are in the midst of transition!”  My list of reasons for avoiding the text from Luke were long and, I believe, well-reasoned.  I did not want to preach about a tree not bearing fruit because in no way did I want to infer that I think St. Margaret’s is not bearing fruit, especially because my pending departure has created a sense of insecurity about the strength of St. Margaret’s.  The truth is, St. Margaret’s is bearing fruit.  There is the literal fruit that we are bearing in our Garden of Eatin’ which is feeding our hungry neighbors.  And then there is the figurative fruit:  the children we are raising up through reinvigorated Christian Education programs, the pastoral ministries we are offering to our cemetery families, and the love and care we offer to each other.

But I didn’t just want to avoid talking about barren trees.  I also had no desire to talk about manure today.  Quite frankly, I could just imagine how in the midst of transition a community could feel like they are getting a whole lot of manure dumped on them.  A gardener knows that to keep plants thriving we have to aerate the soil, pull out weeds, and double up with nutrient-rich manure.  But anyone who has driven by a recently tended garden knows that the stench of manure can make you want to quickly run in the other direction.  As we think about the burdens of a transition, the last thing I wanted to talk about today is the gardener’s suggestion of piling on hot, smelly manure.

Besides wanting to avoid talking about barren trees and smelly manure, I had zero desire to talk about trees getting chopped down.  For all of the conversations I have had with parishioners over the past few weeks, the most common one has been about fear for the future of St. Margaret’s.  Many of you are worried about our viability and fear what the instability of transition and new leadership will bring.  On one hand, your fears are not unwarranted.  We have watched neighboring churches decline to the point of closure.  We also know that we are in a time and culture when churches have to work a lot harder to grow and thrive.  But I do not think St. Margaret’s has to fear the ax in our passage today.  If we were having this conversation five or six years ago, I could see where the damage of past leadership could have been the end of St. Margaret’s.  But even that challenge did not pull St. Margaret’s under.  And we are in a much stronger place – we have changed so much for the better and grown into a tree producing fruit.  Are we in a transition?  Yes.  Is change coming?  Yes.  Is our tree going to be cut down?  I do not think so.

Unfortunately for me, we actually do follow the lectionary.  And since we do not get to pick and choose what scripture fits our needs at a particular time, we look for the ways that a text speaks to us despite our personal preferences.  The good news is that some of our initial reactions to this text are rooted in a misunderstanding of the allegory Jesus gives us.  Many of us assume that the landowner is God and the gardener is Jesus.  But nowhere in Luke’s gospel is God portrayed as an angry, vindictive God that needs to be placated or negotiated with by Jesus. Instead, God is the one who waits every day for the prodigal son to come home.  God is the woman who leaves no pillow unturned looking for her lost coin.  Luke’s depiction is of a God who rejoices over one who repents than over the remaining ninety-nine who need no repentance.

Instead, as one scholar suggests, “Given Luke’s consistent picture of God’s reaction to sin, then perhaps the landowner is representative of our own sense of how the world should work.  That is, from very early on, we want things to be “fair” and we define “fair” as receiving rewards for doing good and punishment for doing evil.  (Except of course, when it comes to our own mistakes and misdeeds – then we want mercy!)”[i]  But our God is a God of justice, not fairness.  When I struggle with these two words, I always remember a cartoon that has floated around.  The cartoon has three people trying to see over a fence.  One is short, one is medium-height, and one is tall.  All three are given two boxes to stand on.  Of course, the tall person can easily see over the fence.  The medium-height person can just barely see over, but the short person cannot see, even with the two boxes.  This frame is called fairness or equality.  But the next frame is called justice.  In this frame, the short-statured person gets three boxes, the medium-height person gets two boxes, and the tallest person gets just one box.  All three people can now see over the fence equally.

I tell you this story not because as short-statured person I totally get this cartoon!  I tell you this story because I do not think our God is an angry landowner demanding results and expecting everyone to figure things out themselves – to produce fruit without adequate help.  No, I think the gardener is actually God – our advocate looking for justice, not just fairness.    Perhaps God is the one raising a contrary voice to suggest that the ultimate answer to sin is not punishment – not even in the name of justice – but rather mercy, reconciliation, and new life.[ii]  So, in the threat of danger and even death, God is a god who intercedes, who demands mercy, and in fact, is willing to get down in the manure to make sure we thrive and bear that delicious, life-giving fruit.

Now, even the gardener is not naïve to think that our window for productivity is unlimited.  Even the gardener submits to the owner that if after a year, the tree does not produce, the owner may cut the tree down.  But I do not think God will let that happen.  God is “all in” with making sure we are redeemed – whether by getting dirty with us to help us grow, or by interceding again, even when the produce is just not there.  Not unlike Abraham who argued and argued with God to spare ten, twenty, even fifty people, our gardener is one of mercy, reconciliation, and redemption.

And that is why I love the lectionary.  Even when I fight, and kick, and say, “No way!” God finds a way to speak despite my reservations.  Where I had feared sending the wrong message about our walk with Christ, God comes through bringing good news of mercy, reconciliation, and redemption.  Bishop Curry says this about our text today, “The task of the disciple is to witness and then wait, to take our best step and leave the rest to God…We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.  Being freed from managing the results of our actions enables us to do something, and do it well.  We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.  We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.  We are prophets of a future not our own.”[iii]  I do not know about you, but I am over the moon that our God is one who is willing to fight to the last pile of manure to encourage and strengthen us.  If our God can do that, we are bound to rise again in hopeful new life.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Lent 3 C:  Suffering, the Cross, and the Promise of Love,” February 22, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-3-c-suffering-the-cross-and-the-promise-of-love/ on February 25, 2016.

[ii] Lose.

[iii] Michael B. Curry, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 97.

Sermon – Luke 4.1-13, L1, YC, February 14, 2016

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

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The irony of this being the first Sunday in Lent after the week we have had is not lost on me.  By now our parish should have received a letter from me explaining how I have accepted a call to a new position in Williamsburg, Virginia.  The letter has been met with a variety of reactions, from surprise to disappointment, from understanding to hurt, from confusion to anger.  But no matter what the initial reactions have been, the primary question from all has been, “What does that mean for St. Margaret’s now?”  That question and the news of coming change alone would have been enough for the week.  But then on Friday we lost one of the patriarchs of St. Margaret’s.  Though any death is hard, as a founding member and a perpetual evangelist, Chet will be deeply missed.  Given the week we have had, I cannot think of a better Sunday to talk about the wilderness.

In Luke’s gospel today, Jesus goes from the high of his baptism, where God proclaims Jesus’ identity as God’s son, out to the wilderness where he will be tempted for forty days by Satan.  The people of God are no strangers to the wilderness.  Before the people of Israel entered the land of promise in our Old Testament reading today, first they wandered for forty years in the wilderness.  Those years typify what a wilderness experience is all about:  confusion, fear, wariness, hunger, dissatisfaction, mourning, regret, anger, jealousy, and impatience.  In the wilderness, the people of Israel wondered why they had ever left Egypt, even though Egypt had been a place of slavery.  At least in Egypt they knew from where their next meal would come.  In the wilderness, the people of Israel whined about everything – a lack of food, a lack of water, a lack of direction.  They lost hope in God to provide for them so, in a moment of weakness, they had their priest construct a golden calf for them to worship.  They behaved so badly that a whole generation did not get the chance to see the promised land.  For Jesus, the wilderness is no different.  The wilderness is marked by scarcity and temptation.  Voices try to sway Jesus away from God.  And when Jesus was at his weakest, Satan himself came to tempt Jesus to take matters into his own hands instead of trusting God to stand with Jesus.

Of course, St. Margaret’s is no stranger to wilderness times.  Before we had parish status we went through several vicars, experiencing one transition after another.  When the twenty-year tenure of our first rector ended, many wondered how we would survive.  Clergy transitions can feel much like those wilderness moments for the Israelites.  On the one hand, transitions are full of promise as we imagine what new life a different clergy person might breathe into our community.  On the other hand, there are days when we glorify Egypt, when although our time in Egypt was not perfect and maybe had even become stale, at least we knew what to expect or had the stability of Father so-and-so.  Likewise, we have been through many parish deaths.  Each one hits us in a unique way, and each one makes us wonder what we will do without the person we have lost.  Who will be our warden, our treasurer, our coordinator of ushers, or our major donor?  How will we sing in the choir, laugh at coffee hour, or balance the budget without them?

That is the scary thing about the wilderness.  The wilderness tempts us into thinking and doing all sorts of things.  Although the three specific temptations of Jesus that Luke describes are certainly challenging, what is more unsettling is the underlying nature of temptation itself.  As one scholar argues, “…temptation is not so often temptation toward something – usually portrayed as doing something you shouldn’t – but rather is usually the temptation away from something – namely, our relationship with God and the identity we receive in and through that relationship.”[i]  What the wilderness has the chance to do is undermine our confidence in ourselves and in the community God made us to be.  That is what Satan is trying to do to Jesus:  erode Jesus’ confidence in his identity, in his security, and in his worthiness before God.  Satan did the same thing to the people of Israel for forty years, and Satan will do the same thing to St. Margaret’s if we let him.  Satan will try to erode our confidence that God is still acting and moving in this place and will continue to make this community a place of sacred encounter and experiences with God and God’s people.

As I was thinking about the wilderness of Lent, transition, and death, I kept coming back to the Holy Spirit.  You see, when Jesus goes into the wilderness, he does not go alone.  The text tells us that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.  The Spirit does not just drop Jesus off to fend for himself.  “…the Spirit continues to abide with him, enabling him to grow stronger through this season.”[ii]  Being filled with and accompanied by the Holy Spirit is the only way one gets through the wilderness.[iii]  The Spirit stays with Jesus in the wilderness because being chosen and anointed for one’s mission is not enough.  Jesus must be tested, being led to places of hunger and despair.  Only then does he learn dependence on God, who graciously provides for all our needs in all of life’s seasons.[iv]  The Holy Spirit enables Jesus to journey through the wilderness so that Jesus can learn that lesson about dependence upon the Lord our God.  The Holy Spirit’s company allows Jesus to see the powerful presence and abundance of God in his deepest need.

Thinking about the Holy Spirit this week has shifted my energy.  Instead of thinking about the wilderness with a sense of dread and familiarity, instead of bracing myself for impact, and instead of erecting soaring walls of protection to keep pain out, I found myself asking a different set of questions.  Where have I experienced God’s faithfulness in the wilderness?  How has my relationship with God been transformed?  How strong are the temptations of returning to old ways – to ways of relying on myself?[v]  Somehow, shifting the questions from where has God been absent in the wilderness to where has God or the Holy Spirit been present in the wilderness gave me a sense of hope.  Instead of looking for the bad – the dreariness of Lent, the burden of transition, the grief of death – I found myself wanting to look for the good – the blessing of time set apart with God, the opportunity for new life and growth, the reminder of resurrection promised for us all.

I will not tell you that the next forty days or even forty weeks will be easy.  In fact, I know that many of those days and weeks will be very hard.  But having been through Lents, transitions, and deaths before, and having watched Jesus held up by the Spirit, I can tell you that we have all experienced God’s faithfulness in the wilderness.  Though none of us likes the wilderness, the wilderness is a necessary part of our formation in Christ – like the necessity of wildfires to restore health and wholeness to ecosystems.  Just like those fires can contribute to overall forest health, the wilderness can contribute to our overall spiritual health.  In these next forty days, I invite you to not turn inward toward fear, protection, and isolation.  I invite you to turn to one another for strength and companionship.  I invite you to come to me as we all process what this change means for St. Margaret’s.  But mostly, I invite you to remember the Holy Spirit who is keeping vigil with each one of us.  The wilderness of Lent this year may be more palpable than in years past.  But I invite you to hold on to the hope of God’s promise to be with you in the midst of the wilderness.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Lent 1 C: Identity Theft,” February 9, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-1-c-identity-theft/ on February 11, 2016.

[ii] Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr., “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 44.

[iii] Karoline Lewis, “Filled With the Holy Spirit,” February 7, 2016 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4291 on February 11, 2016.

[iv] Tribble, 44.

[v] Kimberly M. Van Driel, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 47.

Sermon – Luke 9.28-36, TRS, YC, February 7, 2016

12 Friday Feb 2016

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Today is a pivotal day in the Church year.  In Advent, we start out the Church year anticipating and then celebrating God taking on human form in the Christ Child.  After Christmas we celebrate the season of Epiphany – a series of moments in which the true identity of Christ is revealed.  We hear first from the magi who devote their lives to finding Jesus.  At Jesus’ baptism we hear God claiming Jesus as God’s son.  In Cana, Jesus reveals his power at a wedding.  And then today, we close out the season of Epiphany with another revelation of the true identity of Christ – the transfiguration.

An epiphany is defined as a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure; or a revealing scene or moment – in our case, of the divine.  That is what is happens to Peter, James, and John on the mountaintop:  a revealing of the essential nature of Jesus as the divine son of God.  When they see Jesus standing there with Moses and Elijah, talking about Jesus’ pending departure or exodus,[i] Peter, James and John can finally connect the dots about all Jesus has told them.  And in case the dazzling white light, and the appearance of the ancient prophet and lawgiver are not enough, out of the cloud they hear God’s voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen.”  On this last day of Epiphany, we get the epiphany of epiphanies!

Many of us have had our own epiphanies when it comes to God.  Whether we suddenly and clearly hear God’s voice, whether someone says something so profound that it shakes us to the core, or whether we see Christ in the face of a child, we have all had those revealing God moments.  My favorite epiphany story comes from the parish I served as a curate.  The associate had a rare Sunday where he was the only clergy person serving at the altar that day.  Everything had been going along smoothly in the service.  After he pronounced and shared the peace, he started to make his way back to the altar when something caught his eye.  He froze as he realized at the corner of the alter sat a bat.  Panicked, he turned around and looked down the long aisle.  There, he says, standing in the Narthex by the baptismal font, bathed in light from the morning sun stood our Sexton, Walt.  The priest, mesmerized by and grateful for Walt’s presence, briskly walked down the long aisle to Walt.  As parishioners looked on with curiosity, the priest quickly whispered to the sexton about the rodent sitting on the altar.  “Don’t worry,” said Walt.  “I got it.”  The priest walked shakily back down the aisle, giving the bat a wide berth on the other side of the altar.  Before he could even start fumbling at the credence table, Walt mysteriously appeared from the side door with a t-shirt, walked past the priest, swooped the bat up with the t-shirt, and then disappeared out the other side door.  Though Walt would never claim sacred status, the priest that day saw Christ in him not unlike the disciples on the mountaintop.

Most of us have more traditional epiphany moments in life:  baptisms, confirmations, ordinations, or weddings.  Today, we will honor two people who celebrated their wedding twenty-five years ago.  Weddings are not unlike those mountaintop experiences.  The soon-to-be-married couple sees each other bathed in light – if not literally, then certainly figuratively.  That day seems to be a day when the couple sees only the goodness in the other person:  their beauty, their care, their compassion, and their love.  There is a certain clarity that comes on a wedding day:  this is the person who makes the other better.  Together they are better servants of God than apart.  Time almost stands still, noises drop into the background, and suddenly, the couple is offered a moment deep assurance that this is a good and holy decision.  I had fun talking with Bob and Janet about that day for them so many years ago.

I think God knows that we need those sacred moments because God knows what happens next:  we come down the mountain.[ii]  I always like to remind couples about their wedding, especially those married for a long time, because their mountaintop experience may feel far away.  When we come down the mountain, we see the realities of life.  No matter how dreamy someone seems basked in light, all of their imperfections are obvious outside of the light.  In Luke’s gospel, the next verses tell the story of a young man who needs healing.  The disciples fail to heal him and the father of the young man begs Jesus for help.  Jesus is frustrated with his easily distracted disciples and scolds them.  The disciples are definitely not on the mountain anymore.  Jesus is no longer gloriously bathed in light – now he is just a scolding teacher.

We know that feeling too.  For as many mountaintop experiences we have had – whether at a wedding or at a retreat or even in a holy moment of prayer – we also have those experiences in the fields of everyday life.  We may even wonder where that glorious God is in those moments.   In fact, when we stay in the valleys and trenches too long, we sometimes wonder whether we imagined the mountaintop.  How could we have seen things so clearly and radiantly when in everyday life we feel nothing but God’s distance?  We may begin to doubt, to experience anger, or to simply feel like God is absent.

Luckily today’s text gives us some hope in our valley and trench moments.  First, epiphany moments are so strong that they keep revealing themselves to us.  On occasions like an anniversary, we can go back to that mountaintop moment and ask, “Why did I choose this person?”  We do not need long to be flooded with list of reasons.  Suddenly all the little annoyances fade, and what is left are the loving, tender moments, the caring, sacrificial actions, and the joyful, abiding experience.  I imagine that is why Luke tells this story today.  Only three of the disciples were privileged enough to be on that mountain.  But in Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, I imagine they returned to this story again and again, recalling with affirmation how God had said that Jesus is God’s son.[iii]

Second, today’s text also gives us hope through the other part of God’s words.  God says, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  We are all going to have hard days.  But those hard days are even harder when we refuse to listen.  No matter where we are, no matter how low the valley, Jesus is there speaking to us.  We simply need to listen.  All the answers to our questions, all our cries for support, all our loneliness and aching is answered when we listen.  When we get caught up in the illusion of self-sufficiency and having everything figured out, we forget God’s words.  The epiphany today – Jesus’ transfiguration – reminds us that God is speaking.  We need only to listen.

This week Janet and Bob will bask in the glory of their anniversary and the renewal of their vows.  They may even experience some of the radiance of that initial wedding day.  But eventually, the anniversary bliss will fade as they come down the mountain.  In that journey back to reality, their hope will be in listening to Christ as God commands.  The same will be true for us.  This week we begin the journey of Lent.  As we step into that time of penitence and fasting, God’s words offer us hope, “Listen to him.”  If God is telling us to listen, we can be assured that Jesus is speaking.  Our journey off the mountaintop and into the valley in these next forty days will be blessed and full when we listen to our Redeemer speaking to us.  As grateful as I am for a retelling of that transcendent day on the mountain, I am even more grateful for the reminder that disciples, like us, came back down the mountain.  But even on that journey down, Jesus is still with them, speaking truth, love, and hope.  Amen.

[i] N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 114.

[ii] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 456.

[iii] Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation:  A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 135.

Sermon – 1 Corinthians 13.1-13, EP4, YC, January 31, 2016

12 Friday Feb 2016

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When I do premarital counseling with couples, I often find that they select the passage we heard today from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  They may not know anything else about the service, but they know they want this text.  Of course, I am happy to oblige.  I think the passage is the perfect passage for a marriage – but the reasons I like the passage are probably not the reasons the enamored couple likes the passage.  The couple usually likes the passage because the passage sounds so dreamy.  If I do not have love, Paul says, “I am nothing…Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…”  The couple usually looks lovingly at one another and says, “Yes!  That is how our love is.  And we want to always have this love.”  Watching the couple is sweet, really.  Seeing young, hopeful love reminds me of days long ago when I had that same naivety, and helps me remember all the goodness of my partner.

But the reason I agree to read the passage at weddings is because Paul is not describing romantic, dreamy, caring love.  Paul is describing how truly hard love can be.  Do you know how hard it is to not be irritable at 6:00 am after a sleepless night with a newborn and without the blessing of coffee and a hot shower?!?  Do you know difficult being patient is when you have asked that your partner do something a certain way ten times?!?  And love is not just difficult among partners – love is hard among family, friends, and churches.  Who among us with a sibling has not struggled with envy or resentfulness?  So, when a happy couple asks me to read this passage, I am happy to read the passage because I know that five, ten, twenty years from now they are going to need desperately to remember that love is patient and kind, is not envious, arrogant, or rude, and does not insist on its own way.  Because love the way Paul describes love is beautiful.  But love the way Paul describes love is one of the hardest things we do.

Of course, Paul’s letter is not meant for newlyweds.  Paul himself never marries, and truly did not seem to give much thought to or even recommend marriage.  Instead, Paul is still addressing the same Corinthians we have been hearing about these last couple of weeks.  If you remember, Paul wrote to a diverse community deeply embroiled in conflict.[i]  He had already written to tell them that although they each have varying gifts, each of their gifts is important.  Last week, we heard the portion of his letter that reminds them that they are a body of parts, and that each part is crucial to the body.  Into this set of instructions, Paul adds this next chapter about how the Corinthians are to act like that body:  they are to love in a way that is patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude.  In fact, Paul does not just describe how love looks, he describes how love acts.  As one scholar explains, the original Greek is better translated, “Love ‘shows patience.’  Love ‘acts with kindness.’  Here, love is a busy, active thing that never ceases to work.  [Love] is always finding ways to express itself for the good of others.  The point is not a flowery description of what love ‘is’ in some abstract and theoretical sense, but of what love does, and especially what love does to one’s brother or sister in the church.”[ii]

Of course, we can sometimes be like dreamy lovers ourselves when we hear Paul’s words.  We totally agree that our faith community should be one that expresses, and even actively shows love.  That is, until we are faced with how difficult expressing that love will really be.  This month we are reading Tattoos on the Heart, by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who serves in one of the most violent gang-inhabited areas of the country.  Father Gregory tells the story of a tiny kid, Betito, who became a fixture around the Homeboy Industries office.  He was funny, precocious, bold, and only twelve years old.  One holiday weekend, Betito was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was hit by a stray bullet.  Father Gregory kept vigil at the hospital, but despite their best efforts, Betito died that night.  At twelve years old.  But that is not the hardest part of the story.  You see, the police caught the shooters and Father Gregory knew them too.  He says, “If we long to be in the world who God is, then, somehow, our compassion has to find its way to vastness.  [Compassion] would rather not rest on the two in the van, aiming frighteningly large-caliber weaponry.  I sure didn’t.  …it was excruciating not to be able to hate them.  Sheep without a shepherd.  But for lack of someone to reveal the truth to them, they had evaded healing.  …But are they less worthy of compassion than Betito?  I will admit that the degree of difficulty here is exceedingly high.  Kids I love killing kids I love.”[iii]

What Father Gregory is trying to do, and what Paul is trying to teach the Corinthians is how to love the way that God loves:  with compassion, kindness, patience; in a way that is not envious, boastful, arrogant or rude; not insisting on its own way, avoiding being resentful.  At weddings couples can easily profess how they want to love each other in the right way.  What they do not often realize is how incredibly difficult that will be.  In fact, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine celebrated his first wedding anniversary.  We had had long talks about marriage before he even proposed.  He told me in that congratulatory conversation that I had been right.  That first year had been really, really hard.  Marriage is no joke, he told me.  But the truth is love is no joke.  Love is hard to do.  Love takes work, commitment, humility, right-sizing our egos, and patience.  Paul never says that love feels good.

But the understanding that love is hard is not just for newlyweds.  Understanding love is hard is important for all of us.  Paul’s warning is for St. Margaret’s today just as his warning is for the Corinthians.  If we distort what love is, we can be in danger of thinking that the mission of St. Margaret’s is to gather like-minded and likable people.  Doing so would certainly make loving each other easier! “But true love is not measured by how good love makes us feel.  In the context of 1 Corinthians, it would be better to say that the measure of love is its capacity for tension and disagreement without division.”[iv]  Like any family, we are always going to have disagreements, conflict, and tension.  No matter where we go or who we are, there is and will be disagreement and division.[v]  The mark of us being a community of love is whether we can weather those disagreements, sources of conflict, and tension without division.

The good news is that we have the capacity to be a community of love because God first loves us.  In verse 12, Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”  We are fully known and loved by God.  That love means that we are not left on our own to develop a capacity for patient, kind, un-rude love.  The love described by Paul “is a love we experience as God’s unshakable grasp upon our lives.  ‘That love’ is the source of our greatest security and, thus, our freedom to actually be patient and kind, to bear all things and not insist on our own way.”[vi]  “We can love because God has already fully known us and [loves] us anyway, and is working to make our lives and our communities look more and more like…busy, active, tireless love.”[vii]  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] Carol Troupe, “One Body, Many Parts:  A Reading of 1 Corinthians 12:12-27” Black Theology, vol. 6, no. 1, January 2008, 33.

[ii] Brian Peterson, “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13,” January 31, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2734 on January 28, 2016.

[iii] Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion,” (New York:  Free Press, 2010), 66.

[iv] Peterson.

[v] Karoline Lewis, “Love Never Ends,” January 24, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4249 on January 28, 2016.

[vi] Jerry Irish, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 306.

[vii] Peterson.

Sermon – Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YC, February 10, 2016

12 Friday Feb 2016

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One of the dangers of being a faithful Episcopalian is getting lured in by the liturgy.  The liturgy is certainly what reeled me into the Episcopal Church.  Having been raised as a United Methodist, I had seen a variety of styles and orders of worship.  On any given Sunday, you never knew what text the preacher would use.  And since Eucharist only happened 2-4 times a year, liturgy was not synonymous with rhythm.  But not so in the Episcopal Church.  Once you figure out the kneeling, sitting, and standing patterns, the liturgy becomes gloriously expected.  You get so used to the patterns that your body almost does the movements without thinking.  You love being able to be anywhere in the country and know that the liturgy will be familiar and the lessons predetermined.  When seasonal changes, like Advent or Epiphany, happen, you expect and appreciate the subtle differences more.  Since most people I know do not really like change, the Episcopal Church is like a little slice of predictable heaven.

The trouble with that sense of comfort is we can miss when something really powerful happens.  Ash Wednesday is one of those kinds of days.  Growing up in the south, I never really had an experience of Ash Wednesday.  College was my first exposure to seeing others with ashes while being invited to don them myself.  I remember thinking how exposed having ashes on one’s forehead must be.  Ash Wednesday seemed like a big deal.  But, I am an Episcopalian now, and like many other things in liturgy, the shock of Ash Wednesday has softened.

That is why I love having a young child around.  The first time my oldest really understood what the ashes were all about she exclaimed, “Ew, what is that on your head?!?”  Try explaining to a three year old what being dust means and why I needed to remember I would return to dust.  Watch the child’s face as they process what mortality means.  Wait for the heavy feeling in your chest when they ask if they can have ashes too – knowing that you will have to say, “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” to her precious, innocent face.

Today the Church invites us into a holy Lent.  The Prayer Book says this is a time of prayer, fasting, and self-denial.  Matthew’s Gospel talks about the disciplines of giving alms, prayer, and fasting.  Some of us will take up these specific disciplines.  Others of us will commit to reading scripture or a devotional book, giving up chocolate, or playing Lent Madness.  The Church tells us these practices or disciplines are to help us walk with Jesus in repentance.  The challenge with taking on a spiritual discipline in Lent is making sure the practice is not rote – much like our participation in liturgies can be rote.  The Church is not inviting us into the practice of disciplines out of habit.  The Church is trying to help breathe life into our faith – and one of the ways that we do that is to do something out of the ordinary to shake up our comfortable, unchanging practices.

Matthew’s gospel is pretty strict about the way those disciplines happen.  Jesus says that we are to be private about our alms giving, prayer, and fasting so as not to seem like hypocrites, boasting about our giving, piety, or suffering.  But who among us has not slipped on the slippery slope of hypocrisy?  Those of us who give charitably often find ourselves claiming that giving on our taxes.  Those of us who have ever attended a prayer breakfast or have told a friend that we will pray for them surely were being a little showy about our prayers.  And let’s face it, I cannot imagine fasting without complaining at least a little bit.  The question then becomes, “How can a text that implores private acts of righteousness be read on the day one receives the imposition of ashes, a very visible and public act of piety?”[i]

But Jesus is not looking to trick us.  He is checking our intentions – our authenticity.  The trouble with anything rote, whether liturgies or disciplines, is that we risk losing why we are doing them in the first place.  When I am busy complaining about fasting, I do not have space in my thoughts to remember those who go without food daily.  When I am busy talking about my prayer life, I am filling up the silence through which God most likes to speak to me.  When I am weeding through giving materials trying to decide who to support financially, I lose sight of the gratitude from which my giving originates.  The issue is not really whether or not public and private acts are authentic or inauthentic.  The issue is being intentional about not only choosing our disciplines, but living into them.

I invite you today to use the tool of liturgy to awaken your intentionality this Lent.  Listen to the prayers and psalms today.  Notice the discomfort of kneeling – whether you kneel physically or kneel in your heart.  Listen to and feel the gritty ashes being spread on your forehead, allowing the solemnity of the words wash over you.  Taste the bread and the sting of wine on your tongue.  As you allow the liturgy to be fresh today, take time in prayer to consider in what ways God is inviting you into deeper relationship, and what discipline you can realistically take on to get you closer to God.  The liturgy today is not about sending us out with pious reminders to others about our faith.  The liturgy today is about jolting our senses into understanding our humanity, sinfulness, and mortality.  Today, the Church uses the Church’s most familiar tool to create just enough discomfort to help us turn our hearts and minds to God – the God whose arms are wide enough to spread on a cross and wide enough to embrace us all.  Amen.

[i] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 22.

On hope and falling…

29 Friday Jan 2016

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Photo credit:  http://fscaston.org/events/advent-retreat/

This time of year, clergy and parish offices are in the throes of Lent and Easter planning.  Although the average parishioner will ease their way into the Lenten journey, the clergy and parish office are already ordering supplies for Holy Week and Easter celebrations, having mostly confirmed everything for Lent.  Though that reality may not be a surprise, what you may not realize is how challenging it is to hold two very different seasons in one’s heart and mind with authenticity.  It is hard to plan for Easter when we haven’t journeyed through the forty days of Lent.  It is difficult to jump to the command to rejoice, when we have not yet mourned Christ’s death.

Many of my parishioners will be the first to tell you how much they loathe Lent.  They love the joy of Christmas and Easter, and even enjoy the beauty of Epiphany and the season of Pentecost.  But Lent feels like a season of imposed darkness and gloom.  They do not like the dreary hymns and the long, sad journey and examination of our sinfulness.  My response is always the same:  how can we celebrate at the tomb if we haven’t mourned at the cross?

But as we have done our planning for Easter this year, I realized how insensitive I have been in my question.  The truth is I am only able to sit at the foot of the cross because I am fortunate enough to know what waits on the other side.  The disciples, followers, and family of Jesus did not have that luxury.  Their darkness was real, their fears justified, and their doubts reasonable and expected.  I do not mean to suggest that we “pretend” our way through Lent as some sort of contrived experience in repentance.  Instead, what I realize is that the only way I am able to explore my own sinfulness and depravity so deeply and authentically is because of the promise of and hope in the resurrection.  I am able to fall because I know Christ will catch me.  That does not mean the falling is any less scary.  No one likes to really delve into their brokenness and confess their faults to our God.  But we do so out of the promise of a God who loves us no matter what.

I hope you will explore our Lenten offerings at St. Margaret’s this year and take full advantage of a time for true self-examination and prayer.  Our God and the Church are journeying with you.  You are not alone, and you can trust in the never-failing love of Christ to catch you!

The Truth about Weddings…

20 Wednesday Jan 2016

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Photo credit:  http://www.freebibleimages.org/photos/wedding-cana/

Almost two years ago, we welcomed our second daughter, Cana into the world.  We have gotten countless questions about the choice of her name and we find ourselves telling the story about the wedding in Cana over and over again.  Sometimes the repetition is annoying.  But mostly, retelling the story is a gift in itself.  You see, the story of Jesus’ first miracle is a story of great joy.  There is the setting of a wedding – one already filled with merriment and delight.  There is the wonder of a miracle – the amazing ability of Jesus to convert water into wine.  And there is the shock of abundance – not just the enormous amount of wine that Jesus produces, but also the best wine of the evening.  There are certainly questions in the story:  What is happening between Jesus and Mary?  Is this kind of miracle an exercise in indulgence?  Why does Jesus choose this as his first miracle?  But the questions usually fade in comparison to the joy.  Jesus chooses an occasion of joy to bring forth a miracle of abundance and pleasure.  I cannot help but smile every time I read the story.

Attending a wedding this weekend, hearing the story of Cana in Sunday’s lectionary, and thinking about our own daughter Cana, I cannot help but be left with a sense of gratitude for the gift of abundant joy given to us by Jesus in his first miracle.  There are parts of Jesus’ story that are neither joyful nor abundant.  But this first miracle gives us a taste – a literal and delightful taste – of the abundance of God’s love and kingdom.  I really cannot seem to wipe the smile off my face when I think of any of the three of those reminders of Jesus’ abundance and grace.

Perhaps that is why I am so saddened by the continued discord in the Anglican Communion about gay marriage.  In my country, the occasion of the legalization and blessing of gay marriage in the Episcopal Church has been a source of great joy for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, as well as their allies.  That, coupled with the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy, has left many in our church feeling a deep connection to the joy and abundance that Christ brings.  And yet, that joy is bringing great sadness to a large portion of the Anglican Communion.  Here we are at the earthly banquet, and instead of a joyful occasion of abundance, we are at a different feast – one where family drama and strife is overshadowing the joy of some of our members.

The irony of the wedding of Cana being appointed for the same Sunday that the Episcopal Church is grappling with the Anglican Communion Primates’ decision to suspend the full participation of the Episcopal Church in the life and work of the Anglican Communion is not lost on me.  But maybe that is the truth of every wedding – the constant tension between heavenly grace and abundance and human sinfulness and frailty.  Behind every dreamy wedding is some glossed over (or sometimes very obvious) family drama.  But even in the midst of family tension, there are usually moments of grace – glimpses of the abundance Jesus wants to shower upon us.  That is what I am grasping onto this week:  in the midst of pain, and facing the ambiguity of these next years in the Anglican Communion, God will keep breaking through with abundance, joy, and miracle.  Though I do not know all the answers to the biblical or the ecclesiastical story, I am grateful for the gift of Cana.

Finding Grace in the Routine…

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

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One of the early parenting lessons I learned is routines are lifesavers.  Whether it was trying to create a predictable bedtime routine, figuring out how often the child needed to eat to prevent meltdowns, or simply helping the child live into the routine of childcare and school, routines almost always meant that everyone was happier – the child and the parents.  As the second child has come along, I have certainly become more flexible, but the rule of routine still proves useful to us as a family.

So after ten days of vacation at home with our extended family, you can imagine how happy I was that the children would be returning to their routines.  We had a lovely time off and even the adults got regular naps, but there were also a lot of time-outs due to poor behavior.  The lack of a routine was making the kids a little out of sorts.  So by Tuesday of this week, I was so relieved to see the return of my lovely, beautiful six-year old.  I knew she was in there somewhere!

Though I single out kids, the truth is adults benefit from routine as much as children.  One of the consistent conversations I have with recent retirees is their struggle with the loss of a routine.  What at first feels like freedom can instead feel like a sense of loss.  Once they figure out a volunteer routine, a regular schedule of lunches with friends, or even plan periodic trips to look forward to, the retirees find a sense of calm and purpose.

Our relationship with God is like that too.  When we fall out of the routine of prayer, we find connecting with God more difficult.  When we fall out of the habit of going to church, we find our weekends are missing something valuable.  When we fall out of the pattern of regular learning and serving, we find our relationship with God is not as deep as might like.  As we begin a new year, I invite you back into the comfort of routine.  I invite you to consider what you might like to change in your everyday routine that might enrich your relationship with God.  It may be that you want to sit down and consider a rule of life you want to follow.  Or it may be as simple as deciding you want to do one thing – go to church more regularly, pray each night, or read devotionally.  Whatever the routine you take up might be, my guess is that God will be happy to see the return of your lovely and beautiful self!

Homily – John 1.1-18, C1, YC, December 27, 2015

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

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I know many priests who love to read John’s prologue at Christmas.  They get excited just reading the text and they cannot wait to preach on the text.  I am not one of those priests.  The text is so dramatic and circuitous.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”  I know lots of people who love the poetic sound of these words, but to me, they just sound like gibberish.  I always have to read them three of four times to figure out what John is saying.  I struggle in hearing them to know whether John is being repetitive or if he is trying to lead me through some complex logic.  By the time I get to the fourth verse, I tend to mentally check out.  Besides, this is Christmas – can’t we talk about cute babies, loud animals, and singing angels??

Truthfully, John is not to blame for my apathy.  John’s prologue is true to the entire tenor of John’s gospel.[i]  John is not a gospel writer who is interested in telling an enthralling story of intrigue and delight.  John is much more interested in interpreting the story of Jesus.  He does not just want to report the what – he wants to report the why.  The other gospel writers are like that grandpa who always tells great bedtime stories.  John is more like the cryptic college professor who seems to speaking English, but nothing he says makes sense.

I sense my distaste for John says more about me as a consumer than about John as a writer.  As a lover of movies and books, I like to be entertained and drawn in by a story.[ii]  But the truth is, I know that the cryptic college professors have something very important to teach us too.  Today, what that professor has to teach us is to define what has happened in the Christmas event – not just the who, what, when, where stuff of a news feed.  John wants us to know what the who, what, when, where stuff means.  Actually, I think John wants us to know that the who, what, when, where stuff is only scratching the surface of the enormity of the Christmas event.  John wants us to know that although Jesus is born in a particular time and place, Jesus always was, is, and will be.  All that gibberish about the beginning and the Word and the Word being with God and being God is important.  What John does is set the stage for our entire theological understanding of who Jesus is.[iii]  Jesus is not just a special child.  Jesus is not simply a person.  Jesus is both human and divine.  John is outlining the crux of our entire faith in this prologue.

Though I do not suspect that John’s words today would be the best words to use when explaining to a child or a new convert to the faith who Jesus was and what he means to us, John’s words are at the heart of not only the Christmas story, but of our entire faith as Christian people.  When I served at an Anglo-Catholic parish, we did a lot of bowing, genuflecting, and prostrating.  One of the things that took some getting used to for me what genuflecting during the part of the creed that says, “by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate form the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”[iv]  At first I wondered why we genuflected there, but I followed along so as not to stand out.  After two years of that practice though, I came to see the strength in the gesture.  God does something powerful by taking on human flesh.  The incarnation is a game changer.  All that happened before the Christmas moment was transformed when God took on human form.  That is why, despite how wordy or convoluted the words may sound, we read them at Christmas because they help us understand the enormity of this event.   In the end, that realization is much more powerful than the who, what, when, where information.  The why is a much more powerful story today.  The why tells us of the astounding way that God loves us – so much so that God will go to unheard of lengths to be among us, to give us a glimpse of how to live in the way of God, and to redeem us for all time.  The why of this story may not be an engaging bedtime story.  But the why of this story blows our minds when we begin to grasp how insanely the Lord our God loves us.  We could all stand to do a little more genuflecting – either with our bodies or in our hearts – recognizing the tremendous significance of what God has done in the person of Jesus. Our invitation today is to thank and praise our God, and then to discern how that all-powerful love for us will change us to be agents of love and light as well.  Amen.

[i] Robert Redman, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 140.

[ii] Michael S. Bennett, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 142.

[iii] Redman, 142.

[iv] BCP, 358.