Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

Sermon – Romans 5.1-5, John 16.12-15, TS, YC, May 22, 2016

25 Wednesday May 2016

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In seminary one of my favorite professors was our theology professor.  I did not like her because of the subject she taught.  In fact, her class was one of the classes that gave me the most headaches as I struggled to understand theological arguments.  Instead, what I liked about her was the way that she taught.  She had a dizzying intellect, and yet she had the ability to gently make you feel like you were not an idiot.  Someone in class would ask a question, trying to get their head around a theological concept.  Her soft response would be, “Oh, yes, yes, I could see how you might get to that conclusion.  So-and-so also argued that heresy in the fourth century.”  Or she might answer, “Oh yes, that heresy is one of the church’s favorite,” and then go on to explain how the church struggled to counter the heresy.  What I loved about her responses was she let you know that although you clearly did not understand the theological concept, you were not the first person to struggle to understand and you will not be the last.  Struggling to understand and articulate a cogent theological concept without slipping into a heretical argument is a basic part of being a Christian.

What I loved about the pastoral nature of my professor’s responses was she understood that being able to articulate a definition of God is incredibly difficult.  More important to her than you getting that articulation correct was your engagement with the concept.  Perhaps she understood that theologians for centuries have tried to do the same thing – define who God is and what God means.  That may be why she never seemed bothered by our heresies – because she knew that her role, and in fact the role of the church, is to be involved in the ongoing endeavor of naming God’s activity in our world.[i]  That is the same work that we do every year on the feast of Trinity Sunday – embracing the endeavor of naming God’s activity in our world.

To help us in that endeavor, we get two great pieces of scripture today.  In our gospel lesson from John, Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit will guide the disciples into all truth.  Jesus’ promise to the disciples tells us those closest to Jesus, those who have been sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning truth from the source, are still going to need help.  The disciples, who will be commissioned to go out into the world to share the Good News, will not do that work alone.  The Spirit will go with them, helping them to continue to learn and grow into the fullness of faith.

I was recently invited to come to Sunday School for a little round of “stump the priest.”  I laughed at the title, but inside I was thinking, “What if they ask a question that really does stump me?!?”  Luckily, a cooler head prevailed.  The truth is they probably will stump me – several times over.  But that will give us a chance to talk about how the Spirit guides us into all truth – in childhood, in young adulthood, and into our older years.  But more importantly, I hope that we get the chance to talk about how the community of faith is a vital part of that learning of all truth.  We are certainly dependent on the Spirit, but we are also dependent on each other, because the Spirit so often speaks to us through people and the words of those around us.[ii]

That is one of the things I love most about being in the Episcopal Church.  The Episcopal Church has always been a place where ambiguity is okay.  As David Lose explains, “…being part of being a Trinitarian community [means] striving to be a place that knows it doesn’t have all the answers, and so consequently makes space for conversation and values those who bring different voices and experiences into its midst.  Conversation, valuing difference, being inclusive – these things aren’t easy, but genuine community, while challenging, is also creative, productive, and enriching.”[iii]

The other great piece of learning today comes from our reading in Romans.  On the surface, this piece of scripture has always troubled me.  Paul’s claim that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, has always sounded a little dismissive about suffering.  But I do not think Paul meant for this formula of suffering leading to hope was not meant to be prescriptive, but descriptive.[iv]  In other words, he is not saying those who are suffering should be grateful.  What he is saying is those who are suffering have the opportunity to not waste the pain.  Peter Steinke says, “We ‘waste’ suffering if we gloss over, deny, avoid, or neglect its message…. If, however, we can learn from pain, [pain] is not wasted but a source of life and health.”[v]  My suspicion is that Paul is trying to capture what we learn from our gospel lesson today.  Even in the midst of suffering the Holy Spirit and the community of faith can guide us into all truth.

I have been a part of parishes that have a communal component to their premarital counseling.  In addition to meeting with the priest, each engaged couple is partnered with a married couple in the parish for mentoring.  One would think that the married couple’s job is to tell the engaged couple how to do everything and give them advice.  But more often, the couples end up talking about how hard marriage is, what struggles they have dealt with, and how they got through the suffering.  The relationships between the mentors and the mentees often last well beyond the wedding.  When done with honesty, vulnerability, and compassion, the couples realize that they gain strength from one another and find a place where they can go when they are looking for truth and guidance.

Our gospel and epistle lessons today weave together an understanding of the Trinity that is both vertical and horizontal.[vi]  Vertically, we learn that our understanding of God is ever changing and dynamic – much like God is ever changing and dynamic.  I think that is why my professor was so open to us stepping into and out of heresies and doctrine.  She knew that every Christian had to take that journey of steps and missteps.  But I think she also understood that truth was ever evolving and that the Spirit was with us in that journey.  She was not worried about us because, “…a critical characteristic of faith is an ever-striving and dynamic making sense of God.  The Trinity [cannot] be the only way to get God.  [That theology] is as limited and finite as our humanity.  [The theology of the Trinity] is one attempt of the church to articulate the being of God in a particular time and place.”[vii]  We will continue to walk toward truth in our own time and place too.

Horizontally, our lessons teach us that we find our way to that truth the Spirit is showing us through the vehicle of those around us – both those in the church, and those outside our walls.  I cannot count the number of times I have learned something profound about God by someone who never harkens the door a church.  Our job is to pay attention:  pay attention to the way that God is using others to show us more about God; pay attention to the ways God invites us to interpret our sufferings with others; pay attention to those who are struggling toward truth along with us.  We will surely step into heresy now and then.  But we will also step into God’s love and grace through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and those around us.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, “Trinity Talk,” May 15, 2016, as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4648 on May 18, 2016.

[ii] David Lose, “Trinity C:  Don’t Mention the Trinity,” May 17, 2016, as found on http://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/trinity-c-shh-dont-mention-the-trinity/ on May 18, 2016.

[iii] Lose.

[iv] Richard L. Sheffield, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 39.

[v][v] Sheffield, 41.

[vi] Lose.

[vii] Lewis.

Sermon – Acts 2.1-21, Pentecost, YC, May 15, 2016

18 Wednesday May 2016

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Though I often share with people that I grew up in the Methodist Church, what that story fails to capture is my earliest experiences in church.  You see, before my father became a United Methodist minister, he, my mother, and I worshiped at a Pentecostal church.  So my first memories of church are quite different from my current experiences in church.  I remember the pastor putting his hand on a person’s forehead and the person crumbling to the ground, presumably slain in the spirit or healed of a malady.  I remember sitting in the pew once with a friend of my parents’ when the woman leaned over to me and whispered, “I’ll be right back.”  She then proceeded to run up and down the aisle, her hands waving in the air.  I do not remember anyone speaking in tongues, but I would not be surprised if that happened.

I have always found the fact that Episcopalians like Pentecost so much fascinating because we are about as far from Pentecostal as any church could get.  I have yet to find an Episcopal Church that encourages running up and down aisles, speaking in tongues, and being slain in the spirit.  That does not mean we do not move.  In fact, we stand, kneel, sit, cross ourselves, bow, and sometimes even genuflect.  You might find a few of us lift our hands in praise, but most of us keep our hands tightly to our sides.  You might find a few of us who will say an unprompted “Amen!” aloud, but they will likely get a few glares.  We are likely to, rather proudly, wear red on Pentecost.  But that is the extent of most Episcopalians “Pentecostalism.”  We like things much more ordered, predictable, and civilized.  In other words, if we are really being honest, Episcopalians are not all that big on Pentecost.

Our aversion to Pentecostal experiences are not all that unfounded.  All one has to do is look at the first Pentecost that we read about in Acts today.  The day the Holy Spirit comes down from heaven is a pretty disorderly, unpredictable, uncivilized day.  Wind whips through people’s hair, fire bursts into flames on people’s heads, and a cacophony of noise ensues that both makes no sense at all, and yet makes perfect sense to each person there.  Although that chaos may sound very similar to anyone with small children in the house, that chaos is not exactly what we have come to expect as civil Episcopalians.

But if we are to get our heads around Pentecost, we have to understand what was really happening on this feast of Pentecost.  The feast of Pentecost was known to most Jews as the feast of Weeks, or Shavuot.  Shavuot is the third of the three great festivals of Judaism.  Shavuot was a joyful celebration, in which the first fruits of the harvest were offered to God.[i]  But Shavuot was not simply an agricultural festival.  Shavuot, or Pentecost, was fifty days after the Passover.  At Passover, the Jews celebrated the saving of the Israelites from the death that came upon the firstborn of the Egyptians.  Fifty days after that dramatic event, the Israelites arrived at Mt. Sinai to receive the law from Moses.  And so, in addition to thanking God for the first fruits of the harvest, praying that the rest of the harvest might be equally bountiful, Pentecost was also “about God giving to [God’s] redeemed people the way of life by which they must now carry out [God’s] purposes.”[ii]

The parallels in and of themselves are uncanny.  At the Passover, the people of God are saved as death passed over their homes.  In Christ, the people of God are saved once again as Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.  At Shavuot, the people of God are given the new way of life, specifically through the vehicle of Torah, or the Ten Commandments.  At Pentecost this day, we are reminded of the New Commandment given through Jesus that we love the Lord our God and love our neighbors as ourselves.[iii]

So if this day is all about us being given the way of life that we must now live, what do we learn in this chaotic, uncivilized day?  Most remarkably, we see people speaking in tongues they do not know, and yet, all understanding in their native tongues.  That does not mean that all the languages suddenly became one – like making English the official language of Christianity.  Instead, “Pentecost gives power to the band of Jesus followers to speak the languages of the world, to tell the gospel in every language.  The early church [is] to bear witness to the ends of the earth in the languages of the people of the world.”[iv]

I have been thinking a lot about speaking other people’s languages this past week.  Having just moved from Long Island to Williamsburg, I have been keenly aware of language differences over the last month.  Of course, some of our differences in language are more about dialect than anything else – our vowels sound different, or r’s are sometimes dropped.  But a more poignant difference in our language is around culture.  On Long Island, communication is usually concise and incisive.  That may sound rather appealing, but the first time someone tells you how they really feel about you, and the way that they feel is pretty negative, the language can feel like a slap in the face.  Of course, that is not to say Southerners have the market on ideal communication.  I remember many a time growing up when someone said, “Bless your heart,” and their words had nothing to do with a blessing.

As I have been ruminating on those differences this week, I wondered whether those differences go beyond region and perhaps are at the root of many of our challenges today.  I have wondered if part of our country’s problem in communicating with one another is rooted in the fact that we are not speaking the same language.  Of course, most of us can speak English in this country, but even though we speak the same language, we do not speak from the same cultural reality.  There are experiences that I have as a woman that my male brothers will never fully understand.  There are experiences that my African-American brothers and sisters experience that I will never fully understand.  There are experiences that our young adults are having through technology that us older folks will never fully understand.  In some ways, I wonder if in America, we have become more like the people of Babel than the people of Pentecost.

Luckily, we are not beyond God’s power to make our Babel-like ways right.  There are all sorts of tangible ways we can work toward understanding others’ languages.  We have a pretty incredible collection of young adults in this parish.  Being a part of community means that we can reach out to our young people to hear their stories and trials – just as they can learn about our own stories and trials.  Being a part of community means that we can join any number of the outreach ministries of Hickory Neck and learn quite quickly what language and cultural context poverty creates.  Being a part of a community means that we can read authors whose cultural contexts are completely different from ours and learn more clearly why movements like “Black Lives Matter,” might have arisen in the first place.

That is the true invitation of Pentecost:  to step boldly into the chaos of differing languages, knowing that the Holy Spirit will bring about true understanding.  Of course, stepping into that cacophony is scary.  As N.T. Wright says, stepping into the cacophony means getting “out there in the wind, letting it sweep through your life, your heart, your imagination, your powers of speech, and transform you from a listless or lifeless believer into someone whose heart is on fire with the love of God.”[v]  That kind of transformation may not sound like what you were hoping by wearing red today.  But that kind of transformation offers the promise not of calming the cacophony of language all around us, but helping us hear in the midst of the chaos.  God, whose very existence in the form of the Trinity is three distinct persons, yet one, invites us to live as a community differentiated in persons, but untied in love.[vi]  That Pentecostal community will be loud, messy, and hard.  But that community will be life-giving, renewing, and beautiful.  Our invitation today is to step into the wind of the Spirit.  Amen.

[i] Margaret P. Aymer, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 15.

[ii] N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 1, Chapters 1-12 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 21.

[iii] Aymer, 17.

[iv] Aymer, 17.

[v] Wright, 22.

[vi] Michael Jinkins, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 18.

Speaking my Language

11 Wednesday May 2016

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Pentecost Sunday

Photo credit:  stbarts.org/worship/pentecost-languages/

As many of you know, I was raised in the South.  My San Diego-native husband tells me that when he met me in high school, I had an endearing North Carolina accent.  But after going to college with people from all over the country and living in Delaware, I found that my accent faded.  I tended to pick up phrases and patterns of speech from those around me.  Of course, one call from my Alabama-native mother, and all bets were off.  But about four years ago, my family moved to Long Island with our then two-year-old.  Surrounded by Long Islanders, she quickly started pronouncing vowels differently and dropping r’s.  I am not sure how much of the dialect I assimilated, but my ears certainly adjusted.

What I came to finally understand about all these dialects is that much more important than the sound of words are the culturally different ways people communicate with one another in different regions of the country.  My experience on Long Island was that people were very direct and incisive with their words.  Being from the South, this was more of a shock than the dialect.  In the South, people are indirect and subtle with their language.  Though I was raised to interpret conversations in the South, if I am honest, I found the Long Island way of communicating refreshing.  Although I sometimes felt like I was being slapped in the face by the brutal honesty of another person, when I went home, I knew where I stood.  That was not always the case in the South.  People are almost always polite, but hidden in the politeness are sometimes feeling of resentment or hurt, which cannot be addressed if you do not know how to hear the subtlety.

This Sunday, the Church is celebrating Pentecost.  If you remember the story from Acts, those gathered begin speaking in tongues.  The miracle was not in the speaking of tongues, but in the understanding of tongues by everyone gathered.  Each heard their own language and the message was clearly understood by all.  Having recently returned to the South, I find myself wondering in what ways the Church could be speaking more clearly.  I am not suggesting that one region of the country has the market on clear speech.  What I am suggesting is that as a Church, we are not always great at communicating the power of Christ in our lives.  We either get lost in “church speak,” or we try to academically explain matters of the heart, or, out of fear or discomfort, we do not speak at all.  As we honor the miracle of the work of the Holy Spirit over two thousand years ago, our invitation at Pentecost is to honor the ways in which the Holy Spirit can continue to enliven the church to speak understandably to a new generation.

Sermon – Acts 16.9-15, E6, YC, May 1, 2016

06 Friday May 2016

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One of the things that the Search Committee, Vestry, and I all talked about during our time of discernment was church growth.  Now church growth is a loaded topic because inherent in the conversation are a lot of assumptions.  One assumption is that we can talk about church growth without talking about change.  Many churches say they want to grow, but what they mean is that they want to find fresh meat for volunteer positions and new pledgers for the budget.  But inherent in church growth are not just bodies to fill out needs:  church growth means incorporating new people who will have new ideas, new dreams, and new ways of doing things.  The second assumption when we talk about church growth is that we can go about church growth passively.  In other words, as long as we have a good website, we have good programs, a shiny new Rector, and we are nice to people once they arrive, we will grow.  While those things are important and necessary, those things do not fully address how we get people to step on our property, how we encourage people to come back after a first visit, or how we incorporate newcomers fully into the life and ministry of the church.  The final, and my personal favorite, assumption is that church growth is done by the Rector.  The Rector can certainly help lay the foundation of a strong system of invitation, welcome, and incorporation.  But the primary way that church growth happens is through Church members inviting others to church.

All that is to say that my response to the Search Committee and Vestry went a little like this:  I am more than happy to give Hickory Neck all of the infrastructure Hickory Neck needs to grow; but Hickory Neck is going to have to work, be open to change, and get real comfortable with talking about their faith in the neighborhood.  Now I know many of you may be sitting here right now, cursing the Search Committee and Vestry for signing you up for some hard, scary work ahead.  But let me let you in on a little secret:  church growth (or evangelism, if we are feeling really sassy) is not that hard or scary.  That is the great thing about the readings from the Acts of the Apostles during Eastertide:  they are all about the growth of the church.  Last week we heard about how Peter began to understand that God was calling him to share the Good News with the gentiles.  Today, we hear about how Paul is diverted to Europe to share the Good News with the people of Macedonia.

Many of us get a little uncomfortable talking about apostles spreading the Good News because the stories about Peter and Paul seem strange and foreign.  They involve dreams or visions in which God tells them what to do.  They involve going to foreign lands to talk with strangers.  And they sometimes involve, as we will hear next week, getting arrested and sent to jail.  Most of us hear these familiar stories and assume that the stories do not really apply to us because they are historical, ancient stories.  But after the drama of being diverted to a foreign land and searching for a place to join with sympathetic people, what happens to Paul in our text today is not actually all that foreign or unrelatable.  The story tells us that on the Sabbath day, Paul and his companions go find where faithful people are gathered and simply start talking.  The text does not say that Paul gives a presentation about the merits of converting to Christianity.  The text does not say that Paul leads a worship service, with music and the holy meal.  The text simply says that Paul sits down among those gathered, and starts talking.  While Paul is talking, a woman in the group, Lydia, who we understand from the text is an independent woman of wealth[i], overhears what Paul is saying and is so compelled by what Paul says that she and her household are not only baptized, but insist that Paul and his companions come stay with her during their stay in Philippi.

Soon after I became a rector for the first time, I realized I had a lot to learn about church growth.  I read books, poured through research, and talked with experts in the field.  One of my favorite conversations about church growth was with a friend who does church consulting on growth.  In her formation, she had a professor who insisted as part of her training that she needed to go out into town and just start talking to people about Jesus.  She was terrified.  For the first few weeks of class, my friend, now a priest, lied to her professor.  Each week he would ask her how the project was going, and she would tell him that the project was going well.  Finally, the professor called her bluff and insisted that she immediately go somewhere and do her assignment.  So my friend went to a coffee shop, wrote on a piece of paper, “Talk to me about Jesus and I will buy you a cup of coffee,” and then set up her laptop in the hopes that no one would take her up on the offer.  Much to her chagrin, a patron came up to her and said, “I’ll talk to you about Jesus, but I’ll buy the coffee.”  The conversation that ensued was full of the stranger’s story – about how she used to go to church, how she still believes, how the church hurt her, but how she still misses having a church community.  My friend listened to the story, honored the stranger by acknowledging how hard her journey had been, and then did the one thing that is key when talking about church growth.  My friend acknowledged where she saw the presence of God in this stranger’s journey.  And, for good measure, my friend told her that if she ever wanted to try church again, she knew a great place that might just work.

That is the funny thing about church growth.  Church growth happens through real people having real conversations in real time.  Paul sits down with a bunch of women and starts talking.  My friend sat down with a stranger and listened and reflected back on the stranger’s journey.  That is the same invitation that I will be giving us to do over and over again in my time here at Hickory Neck:  that we start having real conversations with real people in real time.  Now I know what some of you may be thinking.  First, you may be thinking, “I cannot believe the Search Committee and Vestry decided to hire this priest who is going to make me do this!”  Second, you may be thinking, “I have no idea how to have real conversations with real people in real time!  What does she expect me to do?  Start talking to strangers at the coffee shop, on the golf course, and at the Little League game?”

Before you get too anxious, I want to give you a little piece of comfort from scripture.  In Peter’s story last week, in Paul’s story today, and in the texts coming up next week and at Pentecost, we learn that all of these encounters happen with the Holy Spirit going before, making a way for the encounter to happen.  In today’s story, Paul has no intention of going to Macedonia.  In fact, in the verses we did not read today, Paul and his crew actually had plans and made attempts to go to other places, but their plans were thwarted by the Holy Spirit.  Finally, Paul has a vision that he was supposed to go to Macedonia.[ii]  Once he and the group decide to follow that vision, everything becomes smooth.  Their travel is not thwarted, they easily find their way to Philippi, they stumble onto a group of women who are believers, and out of nowhere, just through conversations about faith, Lydia steps up and not only desires baptism, she demands that Paul and his company accept her hospitality.  That is the reality about growth:  yes, growth involves putting ourselves out there to have hard conversations, and yes, growth involves being vulnerable and uncomfortable, and yes, growth will even involve change to us personally and to our community as a whole.  But God shows us through the story of scripture, that the Holy Spirit is ever before us, making the way smooth.  When our intentions are simply to share our story, to listen to the stories of others, and to honor the ways in which God is already active and blessing us, then the rest flows smoothly.

We are probably going to be talking about church growth a lot in the years to come.  We will talk about how to grow, we will make changes that will create a strong foundation for invitation, welcome, and incorporation, and we will get out there and talk to our neighbors.  But at the heart of all that work is the promise that the Holy Spirit is ever before us, making the way smooth, calming our nerves so that God can work in spite of us, and showing us how our holy conversations will be a source of blessing to us as much as those conversations are a blessing to others.[iii]  We will do this work together:  you, me, and the Holy Spirit.  The work will be hard, scary, and beautiful.  The work will be a blessing to us all and allow us to be a blessing to this community.  We can do this work together, because the Holy Spirit goes before us.  Amen.

[i] David G. Forney, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 476.

[ii] Brian Peterson, “Commentary on Acts 16:9-15,” May 5, 2013, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1627 on April 27, 2016.

[iii] Peterson.

Sermon – Acts 9.36-43, E4, YC, April 17, 2016

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

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This morning I want start with some thanksgiving.  I would like to thank the members of the Search Committee and the Vestry for being so faithful in prayerful discernment with me and the other candidates for Rector of Hickory Neck Episcopal Church.  My interactions with them gave me a sense of hope and joy about what lies ahead for us as a community of faith.  Though I know he has moved on to his next cure, I would also like to thank Henry for being such a faithful shepherd among us, especially during a time of transition and upheaval while still being new to the priesthood.  He paved the way for us to be ready for this next phase of ministry.  And finally, I would like to thank each one of you.  You have put a tremendous amount of prayer and trust into this process, and I am grateful for your support of this parish.  I am looking forward to learning about your ministries in this place and helping bolster your good work in the world.

The people of Hickory Neck are in good company today.  In our reading from Acts this morning, we hear about another faithful servant of God.  Tabitha, also known in her community by the name Dorcas, is a disciple renowned for her good works and acts of charity.  We know that she is an adept seamstress, who uses her sewing prowess to clothe the needy in her community.  We know that her witness and work are so powerful that the widows who benefit from her charity are found weeping by her deathbed.  We know that her discipleship is so profound that two men journey to a nearby town to find Peter in the hopes that he might be able to do something miraculous for the woman who was a miracle for so many others.[i]

As I prayed with Tabitha this week, I realized how many similarities her witness shares with Hickory Neck’s witness and ministry.  One of the reasons I was attracted to Hickory Neck during the discernment process was the vibrancy of ministry and the health of the congregation.  I was impressed to learn that thousands of dollars raised by your annual Fall Festival go directly to supporting local outreach ministries.  I have enjoyed hearing stories about making meals, visiting prisoners, and collecting goods for our neighbors in need.  But even more impressive to me is the desire among parishioners to do more:  to dream bigger dreams about how not only we can use our hands to more directly serve the poor, but also how we might use the gift of this property more creatively to be a living witness of the love of Jesus in our community.  What I saw in the discernment process was a church who is healthy and vibrant and who is poised for new and exciting work.

Now what is funny about all those good vibrations is that juxtaposed with that percolating vision is a community who has been treading water.  After the decline of your last rector, a shortened interim period, and making due with only an assistant, many of you have also shared with me your sense that these last few years have also been a time of getting by, but maybe not necessarily thriving.  I would never suggest that these last years have been like a death – but maybe like a time of hibernation.  Like an animal who lives off their stored up energy and fat over the winter, Hickory Neck has been getting by with the things that she learned long ago:  good worship and music, solid pastoral care and welcome, and powerful outreach ministries and educational opportunities.

Now Tabitha is not hibernating.  According to Luke’s writing in Acts, Tabitha is not just sleeping.  She becomes quite ill and dies.  Truthfully, if Tabitha had been in a deep sleep, her story might be a little easier to believe.  I do not know about you, but miracle stories like Tabitha’s are always a little strange to me.  Whether the story is the one from First Kings, where Elijah brings the son of the widow back to life after a strange ritual of laying himself over the dead boy’s body three times[ii]; or whether the story is of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead after four days in the tomb[iii]; or whether the story is this strange one where Peter prays over a dead disciple and simply says, “Tabitha, get up,” and she does, these stories always seem strange to me.  One, I do not really understand the mechanics of raising someone from the dead.  Having never seen such a miracle myself, I cannot imagine how or why such a thing happens.  Perhaps I am too jaded by modern science, but part of me just does not understand raising people from the dead.  Two, I do not understand why people are raised from the dead.  The idea sounds great in principle.  I am sure the mourning families and friends are incredibly relieved.  But, with the exception of Jesus, all of the people who are raised from the dead must have to die again eventually.  I’m not sure why people even bother.  Finally, what I really do not understand about these stories is what they mean for us today.  Though we love these biblical stories, I know plenty of people who would like to see their loved ones raised from the dead.  Many of them might even have a case based on the good works they have done, like Tabitha.  Surely people like Tabitha deserve another chance to keep making a difference in the world!

Regardless of the fact that the text does not tell us how, or why, or even why not someone else, what the text does tell us is that Tabitha is in fact dead, Peter in fact raises her from the dead, and then the alive Tabitha is presented to her people, presumably to get back to doing all the good works and charity she had been doing before – or perhaps even better works of charity.  Implicit in Peter’s words, “Tabitha, get up,” is the notion that Tabitha’s work is not done yet.  In fact, Tabitha must have even greater works to do.  God is not done with Tabitha yet.

That is what I love about this story for Hickory Neck.  God is not done with us yet either.  As I was reading up about hibernation, one of the things I learned is that some species, like polar bears, hibernate while gestating their young.  I was blown away by that realization.  Pregnancy is that time when the host is usually taking on more calories, building up muscles to prepare for the birth, and dealing with the activity of a developing fetus – especially once the kicking begins.  I cannot imagine sleeping through that whole process or storing up enough sustenance to help both bodies grow and thrive during hibernation.

But the more I thought about the hibernating polar bear, the more I realized that is exactly what has been happening with Hickory Neck.  Perhaps these last couple of years have felt like a hibernation period – a time of lower energy and output.  But I wonder if Hickory Neck is not unlike a hibernating mama polar bear.  Though we have been keeping things steady, we have also been working hard on nurturing and producing new life.  We have not been sleeping to survive a cold spell.  We have been resting to cultivate and grow new life – a new life which is about to be born.

Today, Peter’s words and actions are for us too.  The text tells us that when Peter arrives he sends everyone outside, kneels down, and prays.  We have been praying too.  We have been praying that God guide us through a time of turbulence and transition, we have been praying that Jesus nurture us during our time of hibernating, and we have been praying that the Holy Spirit help us explode with renewed energy and life.  After Peter prays, his words to Tabitha are simple, “Tabitha, get up.”  Hickory Neck has received a similar charge.  When the Holy Spirit led us to one another, we heard the same words.  “Hickory Neck, get up.”  God is not done with us yet either.  That new life we have been gestating is eager to be born in and through us.  Finally, one more thing happens in our text.  The text says, “Peter gave Tabitha his hand and helped her up.”  Though Peter’s words are unambiguous to Tabitha, Peter does not expect Tabitha to get up and get to work alone.  He offers her a hand.  The same is true for us.  Though we are charged to get up and start caring for this new life we have been nurturing, we do not do the work alone.  The Holy Spirit is reaching out to us to help guide us to our feet.  I will be reaching out my hand to each of you, but I will also need you to reach your hand out to me.  And, more importantly, we will also need to reach out our hands to those not yet in our midst, who will be a part of the new life we have been gestating.  I do not know about you, but I cannot wait to see what our new growing family looks like.  So, Hickory Neck, get up!  Amen.

[i] Stephen D. Jones, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 429.

[ii] 1 Kings 17.17-24

[iii] John 11.1-44

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.

Embracing joy…

03 Wednesday Jun 2015

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Our Vestry and Parish just completed a Mutual Ministry Review – a time to reflect on the health of our congregation and to strategize about how to move toward greater health and wholeness.  There was a lot of positive feedback in the survey indicating the ways in which we have grown and changed for the better in the last three years of ministry together.  And of course, there was plenty of constructive criticism about what we can do to make our ministry together better.  Some of the feedback included things we could do quite easily, and some of the feedback will take longer to address.  But the Vestry was energized to make those changes and move toward wholeness.

Like with any feedback though, we quickly lost sight of all that is going well.  We lingered only for a moment on the good and positive work God is fostering among us, and we immediately dug in with the work we needed to do to improve.  Although I am super proud of our Vestry’s desire to dig in and do some of the dirty work of improvement, I want to take a moment to remind our whole parish of the need to prayerfully lift up the goodness in our midst.  Without being rooted in gratitude for all the goodness God has brought us, my fear is that we will be overwhelmed by the burden of improvement and not steadied by the encouragement of the Holy Spirit.

I was reminded of that lesson this Sunday.  This Sunday the Vestry started working on prioritizing our improvement work and making goals and deadlines for ourselves.  The work is important and necessary, but I must admit our spirits were a bit heavy.  But just thirty minutes before our meeting, in the context of worship, we honored all of our children and teachers who had participated in Sunday School, Rite 13, and Adult Formation this program year.  The transept was overflowing with people.  Because we use a rotation model for Sunday School, we had over 10 teachers and shepherds this year.  We had three teachers for Rite 13, and five teachers for adult formation.  For a parish with a relatively small average Sunday attendance, those numbers are tremendous.  And that does not include all the children who were present!  It was a glorious sight and a testimony to the good work we are doing to form us into a community that is seeking Christ.  Well done, good and faithful servants!!

My encouragement to all of us this week is to hold on to that moment.  Hold on to that image of a full transept of people who have spent the last year deepening their relationship with Christ, and marvel at the good work that the Spirit is doing at St. Margaret’s.  And give yourselves a pat on the back for the ways in which you have committed yourselves to being faithful builders of the Kingdom of God.  There will always be work to do, but my hope is that we can see the joy behind the work we do.  Because there is a lot to be joyful about!

Sermon – Isaiah 6.1-8, TS, YB, May 31, 2015

03 Wednesday Jun 2015

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“God sat Sunday in her Adirondack deck chair, reading the New York Times and sipping strawberry lemonade, her pink robe flowing down to the ground.  The garment hem was fluff and frill, and it spilled holiness down into the sanctuary, into the cup and the nostrils of the singing people.  One thread trickled loveliness into a funeral rite, as the mourners looked in the face of death, and heard the story of a life truer than goodness.  A torn piece of the robe’s edge flopped onto a war in southern Sudan and caused heartbeats to skip and soldiers looked into themselves deeply.  One threadbare strand of the divine belt almost knocked over a polar bear floating on a loose berg in the warming sea.  One silky string wove its way through Jesus’ cross, and tied itself to desert-parched immigrants with swollen tongues, and a woman with ovarian cancer and two young sons.  You won’t believe this, but a single hair-thin fiber floated onto the yacht of a rich man and he gasped when he saw everything as it really was.  The hem fell to and fro across the universe, filling space and time and gaps between the sub-atomic world, with the effervescent presence of the one who is the is.  And even in the slight space between lovers in bed, the holiness flows and wakes up the body to feel beyond the feeling and know beyond the knowing…”[i]

I stumbled on Michael Coffey’s poem as I struggled with the idea of how to preach about the Holy Trinity on this Trinity Sunday.  And then I realized something:  we understand theology much more through experience than through reading some heady fourth-century theologian.  The concept of the Trinity is not an easy one to understand.  In fact, the concept is so complicated that most of us try not to think about the Trinity at all.  We simply know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as truth, and do not worry too much about the details.  That approach is probably fine most of the time – until you have to explain the concept of the Trinity to a child or non-believer.  Trying to explain how God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all the same and yet all distinctly separate is not as simple as it sounds.  Then try to explain how all three are co-eternal and I promise you, you will get looks of confusion.  The questions about how Jesus can be born in a particular time and place and yet be co-eternal with the Holy Spirit and God will make anyone stutter.

I have begun to wonder then if part of why we do not often spend time working through the theology of the Trinity is because we do not necessarily need to think about the Trinity – we simply need to have an experience of the Trinity.  That realization became clearest to me this week as I thought about our lesson from Isaiah.  Now you may be wondering how I found an experience of the Trinity in the Old Testament.  Certainly, we need the fullness of the New Testament to really understand the Trinity.  But we have to remember that the Trinity has always been – remember that word “co-eternal”?  Now I must admit, this notion makes me uncomfortable too – reading a New Testament theology into the Hebrew Scriptures is what a lot of purists call anachronistic – a chronological inconsistency where we juxtapose two different time periods incorrectly.  But given our theological understanding of the Trinity as being co-eternal, many theologians argue that seeing the Trinity in our Isaiah text today is not, in fact, anachronistic.[ii]  If you buy that logic, the song the seraphs sing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts…” reminds us of the old hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy” which contains the line, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”  The seraphs’ song hints at the three persons of the Godhead.  And when God wonders what prophet God will send to the sinful people, God says, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  That “us,” by many scholars, is considered yet another precursor to the concept of the Trinity.[iii]

But all of that is academic to me.  We can certainly debate whether or not the Trinity is hinted at in the Isaiah reading today.  But what is more important to me is that we get a better understanding of the experience of the Trinity through the Isaiah story.  The story starts with Isaiah seeing the Lord sitting on a throne, with that hem that Michael Coffey describes so vividly in his poem.  The text says the hem of God’s robe fills the temple.  Imagine, as Coffey does, the hem of that robe filling this entire church.  Imagine fabric billowing over the pews, draping over the altar rail, spilling out the front door.  Imagine us stumbling over the enormity of that fabric, getting tangled up in the hem’s folds.  And all of that fabric swirling around us is only the hem of the robe – not the whole robe, but the hem of the robe.  Isaiah’s description is of a God that is larger than life, that is incomprehensible in size and vastness.  Just the tip of God’s garment is larger than the greatest Cathedral and certainly overwhelming in a space like our intimate church.

In fact, the experience of God is so overwhelming, that Isaiah is brought down to his knees in fear – not a simple fear of God, but fear because Isaiah realizes he is woefully sinful and unworthy of being in God’s presence.  He even shouts among the folds of fabric that entangle him, “Woe is me!  I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips…”  That is the second experiential understanding of the Triune God.  First we are overwhelmed by the Trinity’s vast, mysterious incomprehensibility, and second, we are crippled by the shame of our sinfulness in response.  But then, another profound realization happens.  When Isaiah confesses his sinfulness, the seraph simply touches his mouth with a hot altar coal and Isaiah’s sin is blotted out.  That is the third thing we discover about the Trinity.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are quick to forgive a repentant heart.  No Hail Mary’s are necessary.  No Our Fathers.  Forgiveness is swift and full – much unlike human capacity for forgiveness.  Finally, we learn yet another interesting thing about the Trinity.  God-in-three-persons needs us.  The Lord says, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  There is not strategic plan; there is no preordained conception of who should go.  God does not say, “Isaiah, you shall go and be my prophet,” which is unusual because in most of the call stories we hear, God does call people by name.  But not with Isaiah.[iv]  Here, the Trinitarian Godhead is wondering who in the world will go and be the prophet.  That is what we finally see about the Trinity.  The Trinity openly invites – and according to Isaiah’s response, “Here am I: send me!” we learn that the Trinity inspires people to recklessly volunteer for things they probably shouldn’t.

Of course, when we really think about what we learn about the Trinity in Isaiah: that God is vastly other, inspires repentance, readily gives forgiveness, and causes wanton willingness to serve the Lord, then we begin to see that all of those insights are part and parcel of our own experience of the Trinity every week in worship.[v]  Every week, we start our worship in praise.  We praise God in word, song, and prayer.  We marvel at the vastness of God’s hem as we read and reflect on God’s Word.  We profess our Trinitarian faith in the Creed and then we confess.  Like Isaiah, all that praise, wonder, and realization of God’s enormity pulls us down to our knees as each one of us confesses our unworthiness aloud.  A chorus of voices comes together as we each confess our faults and failings over the past week.  And then, just like a snap, the priest delivers God’s forgiveness.  We are offered the Eucharistic meal, which, like the coal on Isaiah’s lips, wets our lips with forgiveness.[vi]  And when the priest tells us to go out into the world rejoicing in the power of the Spirit, we find ourselves overwhelmed with the words, “Here am I; send me!”  We find ourselves jettisoning ourselves into the world, longing to serve the God whose robe knocks us over and whose meal sets us free.

Michael Coffey’s poem brings us full circle to our Trinity Sunday ponderings.  About God’s robe, Coffey concludes, “…And even as we monotheize and trinitize, and speculate and doubt even our doubting, the threads of holiness trickle into our lives.  And the seraphim keep singing “holy, holy, holy”, and flapping their wings like baby birds, and God says: give it a rest a while.  And God takes another sip of her summertime drink, and smiles at the way you are reading this filament now, and hums: It’s a good day to be God.”[vii]  Amen.

[i] Michael Coffey, “God’s Bathrobe,” as posted on May 31, 2012 at http://mccoffey.blogspot.com/2012/05/gods-bathrobe.html as found on May 27, 2015.  Punctuation and formation changed for ease of preaching.  Original structure found on website.

[ii] Donald K. McKim, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 30.

[iii] McKim, 28.

[iv] Patricia Tull, “Commentary on Isaiah 6.1-8,” found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2458, May 31, 2015, as found on May 27, 2015.

[v] Kristin Emery Saldine, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 28, 30.

[vi] Melinda Quivik, “Commentary on Isaiah 6.1-8,” found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1284, June 3, 2012, as found on May 27, 2015.

[vii] Coffey.

Sermon – Acts 2.1-21, PT, YB, May 24, 2015

28 Thursday May 2015

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There is something quite comforting about coming into the doors of a church.  There is a peace that comes over us when we enter the doors.  Despite the fact that a wooden bench would not be all that comfortable any other time, the sleek, hard pews give us a sense of stability and security.  The familiar motions of the liturgy give us just enough variety to keep us engaged, but enough similarity to give us a sense of comfort.  The distinct texture and taste of the bread and wine in our mouths somehow fill our entire bodies with tranquility.  When those doors close behind us, we feel protected from the outside world – a world that is noisy, harsh, and sometimes cruel.  Inside the doors we find warmth, calm, and serenity.  Slipping into the church is like slipping under a soft blanket that envelops us in security.

We are not unlike those disciples on Pentecost day.  The disciples had made a habit of retreating indoors ever since Jesus died.  Even though the miracle of Easter had happened, almost every time Jesus makes a resurrection appearance, the disciples are behind closed doors.  In fact, on the feast of Pentecost, the disciples were supposed be having a party with the rest of the community to celebrate the giving of God’s law.  But instead, we find them cowering once again in one room behind a bolted door.[i]  I suppose we cannot be too judgmental.  They saw firsthand what happened to Jesus.  Though his ministry had been revolutionary, he was tortured and killed like a common criminal.  Surely anyone associated with him or promoting his ministry and witness would receive similar treatment.  And we cannot forget their shame.  Though they had vied to be at his right and left hand during his ministry, and though they fawned over him when he was making an impact, when push came to shove, they all abandoned him.  And Peter was the worst.  Though he did not betray Jesus like Judas, he basically did the same thing.  In fact, his betrayal may have been worse because he vowed – swore to Jesus and everyone – that he would never, ever betray Jesus.  But he did betray him.  Over and over he denied he even knew the man who was an intimate friend and mentor.  We would probably be hiding behind closed doors too, trying to cover our shame.  Even with all the promises Jesus makes, and the ways he keeps appearing to the disciples, they just cannot seem to get over that hurdle of their shame and fear to step out into the light.

Maybe that is what the community of Christ would have been – a community that gathers in the shadows – had Pentecost not happened.  In the comfort of closed rooms that envelop like a warm blanket, they would whisper stories from the good ol’ days.  They could even develop some rituals just for their members – Jesus had taught them about washing feet and eating the Eucharistic meal.  In fact, maybe they could use that as a recruiting technique.  If word gets whispered around that they are gathering in the quiet, then maybe others will seek them out and ask to join them.  Maybe they do not need to go out like Jesus said and share the good news.  Maybe people will come to them.  They could even figure out a symbol – like a red door – to let everyone know how to find them.

Ah, but you see, God had other things in mind for those disciples.  I wonder sometimes how God ever puts up with us.  God tried for the longest to be in covenant with God’s people.  Over and over again God delivered them from peril.  Over and over again, God renewed God’s covenant with the people, even though they kept breaking that covenant.  Over and over again God chased after the people, longing to gather them like a mother hen.  God even went so far as to send Jesus, to be present among the people in flesh form, and died on a cross to redeem God’s people.  Even after the miracle of the resurrection, after destroying death forever, God’s people still sit hovered in fear, having forgotten all the ways that Jesus wanted them to live boldly.[ii]

And so, on this day, because they clearly could not muster that boldness themselves, something – or someone – breaks down the door – breaks down the walls – and explodes inside the disciples.  A violent, rushing wind fills the room and bursts the doors open.  Different languages – languages they had never spoken before – erupt out of their mouths.  The text says that the people are bewildered, amazed, astonished, and perplexed.  But the Greek text is much more vivid.  The original text says they are “confused, in an uproar, beside themselves, undone, blown away, thoroughly disoriented, completely uncomprehending.”  [You can imagine the chaos from just hearing the chaos of our reading today.]  No longer do the disciples hover in a darkened room.  They are loudly, boldly in the public square talking nonsense – and yet sounding perfectly clear to those gathered.  Even Peter, the one with the most to be ashamed of, the one who probably feels like the deepest failure, on this day manages to become all that Jesus intended for him to be.  When the disciples meet resistance and sneering, Peter stands up and does what he was meant to do all along.  He testifies.  He testifies in public, in the midst of scary chaos, and says the words that have been on his heart since Jesus died.  He proclaims hope, and promise, and fulfillment.  He steps out of the shadows and steps into the light.

How do they do it?  How do the disciples manage to get over their fear and shame and go out into the public square?  Well, they certainly do not do it alone.  The only way they are able to conquer their fear and shame and step boldly into the public square with their testimony is through the Holy Spirit.  Most of us do not really feel comfortable with the Holy Spirit.  We use words like the “Advocate” or the “Comforter” to describe the Holy Spirit.  We think of the Holy Spirit as the one who remains with us after Jesus is gone.  But in our text today, the Holy Spirit is not comforting.  In fact, the Holy Spirit is disturbing, disruptive, and life-changing.  As one scholar says, “The Holy Spirit is as much agitator as advocate, as much provocateur as comforter.”[iii]  In fact, the word in Greek for the Holy Spirit is Paraclete.  That word may be our best way to understand how this all words.  Paraclete is a compound Greek word that literally means, “to come alongside another.”  “In this sense, the Paraclete can be an advocate – to come along side to defend and counsel – or comforter – to come along side to provide comfort and encouragement.  But the one who comes along side might also do so to strengthen you for work, or to muster your courage, or to prompt or even provoke you to action.”[iv]

Last weekend at the Vestry Retreat, our facilitator gave us a challenge at lunch.  She gave us all an assignment.  We had to go up to a stranger in Panera and ask them whether they knew of an Episcopal Church in Plainview.  You should have seen the furrowed brows and the shifting in our chairs most of us did.  You should have heard the bargaining many of us did, promising to do it another day.  We’re not alone in our discomfort.  Tomorrow, you all have been invited to walk with us in the POB Memorial Day Parade to promote St. Margaret’s in the community.  Many of us have valid excuses for not going – the walk is rather long and some of us are out of town for the holiday.  But many of us just do not feel comfortable being the face of the church – giving witness to total strangers.  And that is not the only challenge before us.  Just this week, we posted the baseball schedule for the Little League team we are sponsoring.  The idea is for us not just to have our name in print on a big sign in the outfield.  The idea is also that we meet people where they are – at a baseball field at the POB Community Park on a Saturday afternoon – and just say hi.  We listen to their stories and we share ours.  I know that most of us will not get up the nerve to go sit with a bunch of strangers.  In fact, when we decided to sponsor the team and invite parishioners to go to games, one parishioner told me explicitly, “Oh, St. Margaret’s parishioners won’t go to a game.  They just won’t.”

Today we sit inside, huddled together in a place of comfort and familiarity.  We even painted our doors red and we hope people will find their way to us so that they might enjoy the beauty of St. Margaret’s as we do.  But our church is inviting us again and again to get out of that nostalgic pew, to go out in public, and proclaim the good news.  How in the world will we do it?  Amen.

[i] William H. Willimon, “Taking It to the Streets,” Christian Century, vol. 108, no. 15, May 1, 1991, 483.

[ii] Rob Merola, “Radical Reliance,” Christian Century, vol. 123, no. 11, May 30, 2006, 22.

[iii] David Lose, “Pentecost B: Come Alongside, Holy Spirit!” May 18, 2015, as found on May 20, 2015 at http://www.davidlose.net/2015/05/pentecost-b-come-alongside-holy-spirit/.

[iv] Lose.

Sermon – Acts 8.26-40, E5, YB, May 3, 2015

07 Thursday May 2015

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Have you ever heard a story so many times that you feel like you could recite it from memory?  There was a time in my life when I read the book Good Night Moon so many nights in a row that I could probably have told the story without even turning the pages.  But rereading books is not just a habit of young readers.  Adults do the same thing – we love a book so much that we may read the book again and again.  The familiarity of a story and knowing how the story will end can be quite comforting.  The same could be said of Bible stories too.  Though the Bible is a huge book with tons of stories, we tend to have our favorites that we read again and again.  We read and reread them because they give us a sense of comfort and they steady us in a world of chaos.

The challenge with a familiar story is that we sometimes get so used to hearing the story over and over that we stop really listening to the details.  That is especially true in our story from Acts today.  Philip, the educated evangelist graciously approaches the foreign, outcast eunuch and asks if he needs help interpreting scripture.  He then teaches the eunuch about Jesus, and graciously accepts him into the community of faith by baptizing in a nearby body of water.  In essence, this is a story about how the Jewish followers of Christ graciously open up the community to those who have traditionally been seen as outcasts.

At least that is how the story goes in my memory.  But as I reread the story this week, I began to realize that the comforting tale I had memorized is not quite as simple as I had remembered.  I had always thought of Philip as one of the educated disciples who graciously takes in the eunuch.  But Philip is actually an outsider in this story.  The Philip in our story is not the Philip from Bethsaida, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus.  This Philip is a Greek in Jerusalem, who is one of the seven appointed by the disciples to run the food pantry, the clinic, and the hospice program in Jerusalem so that the Twelve did not need to do that work.[i]  He is not necessarily well-educated, and in fact, is probably pretty disheveled and unseemly, given the relief work he has been doing with the outcasts of society.  The Ethiopian eunuch is an outsider too – in fact he is a double outsider of sorts because of his race and his sexuality.[ii]  Because of his dark skin and the fact that he is a eunuch means he would not have been allowed into the temple.  But this is no ordinary foreigner.  Yes, he is a double outsider, but he is also a highly educated, wealthy, powerful man.  He is in charge of the Queen mother’s treasury, he is prominent enough to ride in a chariot, and he is wealthy enough to own a scroll.[iii]  And although he is not allowed into the temple, he is returning from a time of worship in Jerusalem – so in some ways he is both a double outsider and a faithful follower.  When the eunuch invites Philip into his chariot, Philip is not the one being gracious – the eunuch is the one graciously allowing this disheveled man of faith into his pristine chariot.

Not only is there more complexity to the socio-economic status of these two men, there is also more to the interaction between the two men.  In my mind, Philip was the gracious imparter of wisdom in this story.  But in fact, the Ethiopian does not ask Philip to teach him – as if acknowledging that the two men are unequals.  The Ethiopian asks Philip to guide him – in other words, to journey with him into the Scriptures, and even eventually into baptism, as the two men go down into the water together.[iv]  These two strangers sit side-by-side and together read scripture and talk about what that scripture means.  Philip is on as much of a spiritual journey as the Ethiopian.  This is not a story about a well-educated follower of Christ taking in a marginalized outsider and converting him to Christ.  This is a story about two outsiders, unlikely to ever be sitting together, pondering the word of God together, and finding new life in Christ.

That’s the funny thing about stories – if we do not really pay attention and listen, we tend to fill in the blanks ourselves, often missing the big details.  As I have been watching the riots and racial unrest in Baltimore this week, I keep returning to that theme – that perhaps this is one of those instances where we have not done a very good job of listening.  I suppose I should not be surprised that we are not very good at listening.  We are a culture that talks over each other, that tries to force our version of truth upon one another.  I have listened to countless reporters this week argue with Baltimore residents and protests about their experiences.  I have read countless Facebook posts expressing anger and frustration about the civil unrest.  This whole week has felt like people are competing to have their own version of the truth being seen as the “Truth,” with a capital “T.”  In fact, just the mention of Baltimore probably has you thinking about your own feelings on the subject, mentally blocking any other narratives from your mind

When I lived in Delaware many years ago, I joined a group run through the YWCA that was meant to help foster healthy conversations about race.  One of the main rules of the group was that when an individual shared their story, we were not supposed to be in true conversation.  Each of us was to take turns telling our truths – without interruption or questions.  And the others in the group were to listen.  The method was so counterintuitive that the facilitator’s main job was to enforce the speaking and listening rules.  Although I struggled with the method, I must admit that I learned more in that group than I ever could have imagined.  When I listened – truly listened without assuming I knew how the story would end – I learned things about the experiences of black Americans that I had never known, and had certainly never experienced myself.  Truth unfolded for me like a blooming flower.

Those groups, and my experience this week of trying to prayerfully listen to the oppressed in Baltimore, reminded me of the interaction between Philip and the eunuch.  Back then, God’s chosen people and foreign, black, castrated men did not sit together and study scripture.  God’s chosen people were not accustomed to guiding people instead of teaching them.  God’s chosen people were not only not used to be called to accountability, they were also not likely to accept the criticism and change.  And yet, that is what these two men do.  And the only way any of this story happens is because both men listen – really listen to one another.

This winter I read a book called Toxic Charity.  The premise of the book is that much of the charity work that churches and communities do is flawed because that work is posed as work we do for others as opposed to with others.  The author criticizes communities that enter into impoverished areas, assuming they know what is best for the community.  Instead, the author suggests that those who want to help do so under the direction of those in need.  The main role of those who want to help is to assist the community in articulating their needs, and then empowering the community to make the systemic changes needed for long-term, sustainable change.  That kind of shift in charity work involves a lot more listening, humility, and a willingness to follow instead of lead.

In the case of Baltimore, in the case of Plainview, and really in the case of all Christianity, today’s story reminds us that there may not be simple answers to the world’s ills.  We cannot always fix what is wrong in our society – and in fact, perhaps we can never fix the wrongs without first being prayerful listeners.  As soon as we assume we know someone else’s story, or we know all there is to know about an issue, we have already shut down the movement of the Spirit.  And that is what this story is really all about.  This is not a story about how Philip converted a eunuch.  This is a story about how the Holy Spirit moved among strangers who had nothing in common and created commonality, love, and faith.[v]  The amazing work of Philip and the eunuch journeying to the baptismal waters together is only possible because both agree to vulnerably, honestly, prayerfully listen to one another, to learn together, and to be converted together.[vi]  Their story today invites us to go and do likewise.  Amen.

[i] William Brosend, “Unless Someone Guides Me,” Christian Century, vol. 117, no. 15, May 10, 2000, 535.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Homilietical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 457.

[iii] Paul W. Walaskay, “Exegetical Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 457.

[iv] Brosend, 535.

[v] Taylor, 459.

[vi] Nadia Bolz-Weber, “The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch,” April 20, 2012 as found at http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/yearb/easter5nt-2/ on April 29, 2015.