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Homily – Philippians 4.4-9, Psalm 34.1-8, Luke 6.17-23, Thomas a Kempis, July 24, 2014

21 Thursday Aug 2014

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Today’s lessons are all filled with song.  The New Testament lesson instructs, “Rejoice in the LORD always.”  That simple phrase has been sung by huge gospel choirs who sing, “Rejoice in the LORD always, again I say, rejoice!”  Our psalmist says, “Taste and see that the LORD is good.” Most of us know that familiar communion hymn, “Taste and see, taste and see, the goodness of the LORD…”  Finally we hear the Beatitudes as told by Luke, “Blessed are you who are poor.”  The a cappela group Sweet Honey in the Rock put the Beatitudes to song as well.  Their rendition of the Beatitudes is so beautiful that the words sound different once you have heard the group sing them.  Many of the hymns and songs we know and love are steeped in the words of scripture and breathe new life into words that may have become stale to us.

Thomas a Kempis knew something about the power of words.  Born Thomas Hammerken in 1380, Thomas was a member of the order of the Brethren of the Common Life.  The group cultivated a biblical piety that stressed the inner life and the practice of virtues.  Their spirituality has influenced both Catholic and Protestant traditions of prayer and meditation. But Thomas is mostly known for his writing.  “The Imitation of Christ” has been translated into more languages than any other book except the Holy Scriptures. Millions of Christians have found his work to be a true treasure.  Thomas used the power of words to inspire the faith of others for hundreds of years.

What Thomas and our lessons remind us of is the power of words to motivate faith.  Sometimes, as in our lessons today, we need the sound of song to make those words come alive.  Sometimes, we need the inspiration of a profound writer to make the words breathe anew.  Today we celebrate the blessing of Thomas and of the many writers and songwriters who have inspired our faith.  We thank God for these witnesses and their gift of words to us.  Amen.

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

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

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

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

 

Homily – John 17.17-23, Isabel Florence Hapgood, June 26, 2014

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Today we honor Isabel Florence Hapgood.  Isabel was a lifelong Episcopalian who was a force behind ecumenical relations between Episcopalians and Russian Orthodoxy in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century.  Born in Massachusetts, she was a superior student, with an aptitude for languages.  She mastered Latin, French, Russian, Polish, and Church Slavonic.  She was able to translate subtleties of Russian into English, translating the works of Tolstoy and other greats.  She was also a prolific journalist.  It was travel in the late 1880s in Russia that cemented a lifelong love of Russia – especially the Russian Orthodox Church.  In fact, she loved its great Divine Liturgy so much that she got permission to translate the liturgies into English – work that was well received in Russia and in North America.  Her work for the common life among the Russian Orthodox in North America, her desire for closer relations between Russian Orthodox and Episcopalians, and her making the liturgical treasures of the Russian Orthodox tradition available to the English-speaking world has made her renowned.

Isabel saw what any of us have seen who have traveled.  Sometimes the faith expression of other groups helps us to see God more fully.  When I was in seminary, we were regularly responsible for leading prayers.  We often found ourselves in a section of the library that contained prayer books from around the world.  Popular favorites were from South Africa and New Zealand.  But others were influenced by Celtic worship or even the current English prayer book.  Somehow, other cultures’ liturgies helped us to see God and express our faith even better than we could through our own familiar patterns.

What Isabel and perhaps we were on to is hinted at in our gospel lesson today.  Jesus is praying for the disciples, that they may all be one.  Though I don’t think Jesus was anticipating the development of the church into various denominations, what his prayer hints at is that the Christian faith is one when we recognize Christ in one another – despite cultural and theological differences.

We experience that truth in the Plainview-Old Bethpage Interfaith group here.  Worshipping with other denominations and faiths helps us to see God more fully.  We experience that truth when we travel and worship in other churches and traditions.  Even our own worship is enhanced by our beautiful St. Margaret icon, painted by a Greek Orthodox iconographer.  Our experience of God is at its fullest when we recognize that we are all loved in and through Christ and we all reveal Christ to one another in big ways and small ways.  Amen.

Homily – Luke 12.2-12, Bernard Mizeki, June 18, 2014

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Today we honor the life and work of Bernard Mizeki.  Bernard was born in 1861 in what is now known as Mozambique.  In his teens, he escaped from his native land and fled to Cape Town, South Africa.  There he was converted by Anglican missionaries and baptized.  In 1891, he volunteered as a catechist for the pioneer mission to Mashonaland.  In 1896, an uprising of the native people happened against the Europeans and their African friends, making him a target.  Bernard was warned to flee, but he refused to desert his converts.  He was stabbed to death, but his body was never found, and the site of his burial is unknown.  There is a shrine near the place of his martyrdom, and he is honored as a native martyr and witness.

Bernard must have been familiar with Jesus Christ’s words from Luke’s gospel today.  Jesus is preparing the disciples for a great ordeal.  When Jesus says, “Do not fear those who kill the body …”, Jesus takes the disciples somewhere quite scary.  The disciples will be persecuted, put on trial, and even killed.  In the face of such a serious commitment, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid…the Holy Spirit will teach you what to say.”  Jesus Christ warns the disciples that this will be no easy journey – at least not easy in all the conventional ways.  As long as they can give up their fear of death, persecution, and humiliation, they will be fine.  Not hard at all, huh, Jesus?!?

When we hear Jesus Christ’s counsel today and when we hear of martyrs like Bernard, I am sure most of us tune out.  We are unlikely to face a similar fate in our lives.  And yet, their witness is still strong for us today.  What Jesus and Bernard highlight are those moments of clarity, those moments of utmost importance: when our bodies are wracked with illness and nothing else is clear but our love of God; when a loved one is near death and the holy is all that matters; when an injustice is so grave to us that we cannot sit idly by.  Those are the moments in life that define us, that define our faith and our relationship with God.  Jesus and Bernard remind us that those are the moments where we find true meaning in life – and no matter how scary they seem now, we will not be afraid.  Amen.

Homily – Luke 6.17-23, John Johnson Enmegahbowh, June 12, 2014

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Today we honor the life and ministry of John Johnson Enmegahbowh.  John is recognized as the first Native American priest in the Episcopal Church, serving until his death in 1902.  John was an Odawa Indian from Canada who was raised in the traditional healing way of his grandfather and the Christian religion of his mother.  He came to the U.S. as a Methodist missionary in 1832.  At one point, he tried to flee his missionary work and return to Canada, but was turned back by storms on Lake Superior.  He had a Jonah-like vision with God and got back to work among the indigenous in Minnesota.  He was a man known to consistently support peace, even when it made him enemies.  He helped train deacons for the Episcopal Church and was able to use his understanding of Native traditions to spread Christianity and enrich the mission work of the Episcopal Church.

When I think about John Enmegahbowh’s ministry, I imagine a scene much like the scene from our gospel lesson today.  Jesus comes down to the plain, gathering disciples and a great multitude, and teaches the Good News.  “Blessed are you who are poor…Blessed are you who are hungry now…Blessed are you who weep now…Blessed are you who when people hate you, …exclude you, revile you, and defame you…”  Jesus encouraged those gathered with the good news that life in Christ is different – that there is hope and promise. I imagine John Enmegahblowh thought much like Jesus, gathering downtrodden Native Americans, sharing the Good News with them in a similar fashion.

So what about us, who are not from an indigenous group, and who rarely find ourselves surrounded by a multitude of people?  Jesus’ message to us today is two-fold.  First, Jesus’ message is for us.  Though we may not suffer poverty or hunger, we have all known suffering.  Jesus Christ promises that laughter and joy are ours in the Kingdom of God.  Second, Jesus’ message is for others, to be shared by us.  Jesus and John invite us to be teachers in the ways only we can – through our unique stories, our unique gifts, and in our unique lives.  When we live into that call we will know the experience of being blessed.  Amen.

Homily – Deuteronomy 6.20-25, James Theodore Holly, March 13, 2013

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Today we honor James Theodore Holly.  Holly was born a free African-American in Washington, D.C., in 1829.  Though he was baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, he later became an Episcopalian.  Holly was ordained a deacon in 1855 and a priest in 1856.  He served as a rector in Connecticut and founded the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting the Extension of the Church among Colored People.  He was a friend of Frederick Douglass and worked with him on many projects.  In 1861, he left his job in Connecticut to lead a group of African-Americans to settle in Haiti.  In the first year, his mother, wife and two children died, but Holly stayed on with his two small sons.  In 1874, Holly was ordained the first Bishop of Haiti – making him the first black man to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church.  Bishop Holly served the Diocese of Haiti until his death in 1911.  Bishop Holly had a passion for the gospel and wanted to ensure that the Gospel was accessible to all.

Our Old Testament lesson today reminds me of what Bishop Holly’s ministry might have been like.  Moses talks to the Israelites and tells them their children will be someday asking them, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the LORD our God has commanded you?”  In other words, “Why do we have to follow all these rules?”  And Moses tells the Israelites not to explain the rules, but to explain their history.  Moses sounds like an old grandpa, “Now let me tell you a little story …”  The children of Israel probably rolled their eyes, but what Moses is trying to remind them of is who the God is who gave those laws.  When you know that God is a loving God, who freed them from bondage and delivered them to the Promised Land, the rules just became a natural response.  So, luckily, the law is not followed “because I said so,” but because we know no other way to respond to the LORD who loves and cares for us so much.

That is the message Holly took to Haiti.  He wanted them to know how much God loved them.  That is the same message we share with those we encounter, too.  When someone challenges us about the hypocrisy of the church, the ways we do business, or the challenges we face, all we have to do is say, “Now let me tell you a little story …”  Your story may be Moses’ story; your story may be about a man named Jesus; or your story may just be about your walk with your loving God.  The point is to tell the story so that others might come to know God’s love, too.  Amen.

Homily – Ecclesiasticus 38.1–8, William W. Mayo, Charles F. Menninger, and Their Sons, March 6, 2014

14 Friday Mar 2014

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Today we honor William W. Mayo, Charles F. Menninger and their sons.  The Mayo family name is probably the most familiar to us.  They built the first general hospital in Minnesota.  In 1883, when a devastating tornado hit, the Episcopalian Mayos joined the Roman Catholic Sisters of St. Francis to respond to the disaster.  Their work together developed a new type of patient care that emphasized the whole person – spiritually as well as physically.  Building on the vision of doctors working as a team with other medical professionals, not just as solo diagnosticians, the Mayo Clinic eventually emerged as a model for integrating person-centered medical care with the best in cutting-edge scientific and medical research.

The Menninger family were pioneers in establishing a new kind of psychiatric treatment facility in Kansas in 1925.  They helped transform the care of the mentally ill in ways that were more medically effective and more humane.  They were involved in advocacy and public policy development to support the needs of the mentally ill.  One of the sons, Dr. Karl Menninger, wrote a book in 1973 about how recognizing sin, within us and among us, is a key component in personal and relational health.  Both the Mayo and Menninger families’ work was transformative because of their commitment to treating the whole person – physically, emotionally and spiritually.

It is most appropriate then that today we read from Ecclesiasticus a passage honoring physicians.  The first time I heard this passage was at a funeral for a doctor.  I thought the blessing of physicians was a bit odd at first – why out of all the professions should they receive praise?  Certainly Jesus had an affinity for healing, and we have all been blessed by some medical professional at some point in our lives – truly we would be lost without our doctors.  But I think of all the other, professionals and vocations that are also blessings and wonder why physicians?  Once I was at an airport and saw a large group of those serving in the military returning home.  All those in the airport stopped what they were doing and clapped.  A friend near me wondered aloud, why we do not honor others in the same way – why no standing ovation for teachers, social workers, sanitation workers, and stay-at-home parents?  What would our world look like if we could praise each of us for the ways we actively live into God’s call in our lives?

That is really why we celebrate the Mayos and Menningers today.  Not because they are physicians, but because of the way in which they are physicians.  Their respect for the dignity of every human being is more to be commended than anything.  That is what the Mayos, Menningers, and our lesson invite us into today – to live more fully into our baptismal covenant and to our calls.  Amen.

 

Homily – 1 Peter 5.1-4, George Herbert, February 27, 2014

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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Today we honor George Herbert, a priest and poet in the church.  Herbert was born in 1593 to a well-connected family in England.  Though he flirted with politics, he eventually turned to the church, becoming a priest age 33.  Two things are notable about Herbert.  First he is well-known for his poetry, some of which became hymns.  He influenced many other poets, as his poems moved people on issues of prayer and the spiritual life.  Herbert was also well known for his devotion and service to others.  His approach toward life and ministry inspired many.  In fact, his words, “Nothing is little in God’s service,” remind Christians again and again that everything in daily life, small or great, can be a means of serving and worshiping God.  When talking about his poetry, Herbert seemed to meld the two passions when he wrote about his poems as being “a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul, before I could submit mine to the will of Jesus my master, in whose service I have found perfect freedom.”

What Herbert reminds us of today is the sacred nature of all our calls.  Sometimes, we do not feel comfortable using “call” language for what we do on an everyday basis.  In fact, we read passages like the one from first Peter, and we presume that only clergy, or “elders,” have a call.  Though first Peter is talking about how a spiritual leader should lead, we cannot assume we are exempt from similar instructions.  In fact, I might argue that the call that each of you live out in the world is far greater than the call I live in my position.  You have the much together jobs of witnessing in everyday life without such clear markers of faith and devotion like a collar.  And you have the ability to reach way more people that I could ever hope to because unlike what many people assume about me, you are actually “normal.”

What first Peter and George Herbert would both like us to see is that all of us have kingdom work to do, and our aim is to do that work faithfully and with enthusiastic hearts.  Herbert only lived to be 40 years old, and yet one of the things we honor is the way in which he was a faithful, humble, enthusiastic priest – not a bishop, or martyr, or leader of some great movement.  He was just a parish priest who knew that nothing is little in God’s service.  As we celebrate his passion for everyday life and everyday call, we too are emboldened by knowing that fulfilling our calls is not “little” in God’s service.  Amen.

Homily – Hebrews 2.10–18, Frederick Douglass, February 20, 2014

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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Today we honor Frederick Douglass.  Douglass was born as a slave in 1818 and separated from his mother at age eight.  His new owner’s wife tried to teach Douglass to read, but the owner put a stop to the practice.  Douglass learned to read in secret, earning small amounts of money when he could to pay people to teach him.  At the age of fourteen, he experienced a conversion to Christ in the AME Church and the spiritual music sustained him in his struggle for freedom.  In 1838, at age twenty, he escaped slavery.  An outstanding orator, Douglass was sent on speaking tours of the Northern States by the American Anti-Slavery Society.  His renown made him a target for recapture, so in 1845, his friends raised enough money to buy out his master’s legal claim to him.  Douglass was highly critical of churches that did not disassociate themselves from slavery.  He was an advocate of racial integration, and edited a pro-abolition journal.  Douglass died in 1895.

In thinking about Douglass and our country’s relationship with slavery, I have often wondered about the presence of Christianity in the mix with slavery.  Christianity was at times seen as a way to subdue slaves; at other times, Christianity was seen as a threat that could stir rebellion.  Of course, I imagine many slaves were attracted to Jesus and the story of God’s people more deeply than we will ever understand.  The epistle lesson asserts that, “Because Jesus himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”  Surely that message was both one of comfort and of liberation for slaves in our country.  In fact, Douglass even once said of the old spiritual humans that they followed him, deepened his hatred of slavery, and quickened his sympathies for his fellow slaves in bonds.  For Douglass, his faith strengthened him, emboldened him, and gave him a passion for helping others.

This is the invitation for us as well.  Though we will never fully know the pain of slavery, we do know the power of suffering.  What scripture and Douglass do today is remind us that, first, Jesus Christ suffered as we do to help others, and, second, our faith can strengthen, embolden, and give us a passion for helping others.  We may not affect change on the grand scale of Douglass, but his life reminds us that we still have work to do – that we can be a positive voice for change.  Our suffering will never be as great as Jesus’ or of slaves in this country – but any suffering we encounter can make us agents of change and help us to help others who are suffering.  Amen.