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Homily – John 15.1-11, Martin Luther, February 19, 2015

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Today we honor Martin Luther.  Born in 1483, Luther’s intellectual abilities were evident at an early age.  Though his father wanted him to go into law, Luther at age 22 entered a monastery and was ordained a priest two years later.  After five years, Luther became professor of biblical studies at the University of Wittenberg.  His academic work led him to question the selling of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church.  On October 31, 1517, he posted on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg the notice of an academic debate on indulgences, listing 95 theses for discussion.  The Pope and Luther went back and forth, but Luther refused to recant.  Three years later, Martin was excommunicated.  When Luther was threatened with arrest, his own prince put him in a castle for safekeeping.  There Luther translated the New Testament into German and began to translate the Old Testament.  He also worked on worship and education for the church. He introduced congregational singing of hymns, composed hymns, and put together liturgies.  He also assembled catechisms for education.  He wrote prodigiously and died more than 20 years later.

A lot of us think of Luther today and remember him as being victorious.  Luther was a key leader of the Reformation and we think of him only as a winner.  But we forget that much of his life was lived under threat.  Though excommunication might seem like no big deal to us today, Luther’s very life was in danger because he stood up to the corrupt church.  And even though he evaded the authorities, the only “life” he had was while being hidden away in a castle – basically an imprisoned life without the ill treatment.  We remember Luther as being the victorious reformer, but that work was not without some suffering.

What Luther learned was that life is a constant time of pruning.  Jesus says in our gospel lesson, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.  He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit.  Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it a bear more fruit.”  Branches that are not bearing fruit, God removes.  But even those branches that are producing are trimmed back.  No branch is free from the cutting process – all will be affected.

In many ways, that is what Lent invites us into today:  a time of clearing and pruning.  There are certainly things in our lives that are not bearing fruit.  Though it may feel painful, those parts of our lives need to be cut off.  But even where we see hints of growth, we need to do some uncomfortable trimming to get to real productivity.  We many not write songs, produce liturgies or write education catechisms like Luther did in his pruning time in the castle.  But if we can endure the clearing and trimming, imagine how much greater our flourishing can be!  Amen.

 

Sermon – Mark 8.31-38, L2, YB, March 1, 2015

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

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How many of you have taken on a discipline for Lent?  I have been talking to many parishioners and most of us are taking on something.  Either we have agreed to say our prayers more regularly, we are reading a book or scripture more often, or we are doing some kind of community service or good deeds.  Many of us have committed to playing Lent Madness, which sounds like fun, but still involves reading about the saints each day.  In this way, our Lenten disciplines are burdens – things that we might not make time for normally or are just things we don’t really enjoy doing, but we do them hoping to learn something.  Or perhaps, as we hear Jesus say in our gospel lesson, we are denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Jesus.

To be honest, I am not sure most of us know how to deny ourselves.  We are trying to deny ourselves by following Lenten disciplines.  We are denying ourselves chocolate.  We are denying ourselves more time on Facebook or Instagram so that we have time to learn about saints.  We are denying ourselves extra sleep so that we have time to get up and exercise.  But I am not sure that is what Jesus means when he says we should deny ourselves.  I think what Jesus means when he says we need to deny ourselves is that we need to realize that life is not all about us – our needs, our wants, our plans.

Several of our teens and pre-teens are going through a program called Rite-13.  One of the parts of that program is a liturgy in which we bless a transition they are facing in life – from being shaped primarily by their parents to being shaped by their peers and community.  In that liturgy they will stand on one side of the church with their parents at the beginning, but then they will move over to the other side of the church with their peers – symbolizing this change.  For the teens, I think they often enjoy this part because the move toward their friends feels like freedom – finally getting rid of their overbearing parents.  But what many teens do not realize is that although the freedom is indeed fun, that freedom is also scary.  They are stepping out of a place of safety and protection – out of a situation where it is “all about you” – into a place of vulnerability and trust – into a situation where it is not going to always be about you.  In fact, very often they will need to tend to the needs and concerns of their friends more than their own needs and concerns.

This is what taking up our crosses and denying ourselves really means.  Taking up our crosses means finally seeing that our faith is not just about us and God.  Our faith involves a community that needs us.[i]  And as we learn more, we will find that not only does our church community need us, but the community outside of these walls needs us.  So denying ourselves and taking up our cross means that we might need to be the Christ-like person who helps someone without enough food.  Taking up our cross is going to mean that we might need to be the Christ-like person who stands up for someone else, either by stopping a bully or by advocating for systemic change.  Taking up our cross is going to mean that we might need to be the Christ-like person who talks about their faith even when talking about God might make you seem un-cool.

Julian of Norwich, who was actually one of the saints who almost won Lent Madness a few years ago, once said, “If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me.  But in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”  We are not guaranteed a carefree and safe path just because we are a part of a community and because we offer love.  But love, which we find in the gift of community, will be with us whether we succeed or we fail.[ii]  One of my favorite pictures is from of a friend of mine who has two boys.  When the second was born, the older brother came to the hospital to see his new younger brother.  My friend took a picture of her older son holding the younger son.  The look on the older son’s face was priceless – the look was a look of utter distain.  In his grimace you could see anger, jealousy, and a sense of betrayal.  That one picture captured perfectly what most of us feel when we realize we are not the center of universe.  For many of us, that is what taking up one’s cross feels like.  We deny ourselves, valuing the community over ourselves.  When we do that, we will often feel the same way that older brother felt.  But what I also know is that eventually, the older brother came to love the younger brother – he found a playmate, a confidant, and a friend.  Like Julian explained, in loving outside of himself, that brother was not always protected from getting bruised up from time to time.  But he has always found love – in others, and especially in God.

That is our invitation today:  not to deny ourselves the simple pleasures in life, but deny ourselves the privilege of being the center of universe.  That work is not always fun, and sometimes we will feel like that older brother with a grimace on our faces.  But sometimes, when we really let go of our focus on ourselves, we find something a lot greater – a love that we could never experience alone – a love that can only come through God and our neighbor.  In that way, taking up our cross and denying ourselves does not seem so bad.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, “A Different Kind of Denial,” February 22, 2105 found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3542.

[ii] Becca Stevens, The Way of Tea and Justice (New York: Jericho Books, 2014), 46.  Stevens quotes Julian’s words found in Revelations of Divine Love and adds her own commentary.

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

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sermon – 2 Kings 2.1-12, Mark 9.2-9, LE, YB, February 15, 2015

16 Monday Feb 2015

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One of the often told stories I heard at a parish where I once served was the birth story of a set of twins.  The parish was celebrating its annual fundraising gala – a party that welcomes hundreds of people and raises nearly $100,000.  The event is one of the major social scenes of the Christmas season.  People don their furs, sparkling dresses, and tuxedos, wait staff float around with hors d’oeuvres and drinks, jovial bidding wars happen in the silent auction, and laugher and music fill the halls.  On this particular night, when the entire parish was wrapped up in merry making, one parishioner was being whisked away to the emergency room.  She was pregnant with triplets and the babies were coming early.  Something was wrong and the word began to slowly spread through the bubbling parish hall.  Shocked into sobriety, many of the parishioner’s friends left the party and went up to the quiet chapel upstairs.  They began a prayer vigil for the mother and the babies.  That night was a night of contrasts:  parishioners and guests oblivious to the crisis; parishioners who were worried, but agreed to keep the event going; and parishioners who could no longer be present in the face of crisis and who were brought to their knees as this mother and the doctors battled to save as many of the babies as they could.  Eight years later when I met the twins, that story was told time and again as if the event had happened yesterday.

That night was what I would call one of those thin moments.  Thin moments are those moments that are so spiritual, so sacred that you can actually feel God.  One person explains that the feeling of thin moments is “undeniably life-affirming, breath-stopping, mind-tingling, goose bump-motivating, heart-melting, soul-quenching, and wonderful.  And by wonderful I mean truly full of the wonder, the awe, the mystery, the otherness of God.  Celts talk about two worlds that exist in one place – thin places.  This world, the here, and the other world, the more, the one that’s just on the other side we mostly can’t see now because now see through a mirror dimly.  Celts believe a veil exists between the two worlds.  The veil is like a thick wool army blanket.  But every once in a while the blanket gets worn down so you can see through it, like gossamer.  Those are thin moments.  Grace moments.  When for just a second you glimpse something that’s greater than the present moment, something that connects you to everyone else.”[i]  Of course, not everyone reacts to those thin moments in the same way.  I think that is why that some people were drawn to the chapel on that awful, wonderful night while others needed to busy themselves at the party.  When life, death, God, and wonder are all mixed in a moment, we all respond differently.

Today in our scripture lessons we have two such thin moments:  Elijah being taken up in a whirlwind to God and Jesus being transfigured before the disciples.  What I love about these stories are the widely different responses to the thin moments.  In the Elijah story, we have all sorts of activity.  Elisha, knowing that Elijah’s death is coming soon refuses to leave Elijah’s side.  Three times, Elisha tells Elijah, “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”  Elisha’s way of coping with that thin space between life, death, God, and wonder was to cling to Elijah for as long as he could.  Meanwhile, there were a bunch of prophets around Elisha who wanted nothing better than to gossip about the pending death.  Two different groups of prophets come to Elisha and say, “You know the LORD is taking your master away from you today.”  You can almost hear the catty pleasure they take in knowing this information.  In the face of a thin place, these prophets want to gossip and flaunt their knowledge.  Elisha’s response to them is to insist on silence.  As the prophets try to engage him, he cuts off their pandering by responding, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”  Elisha prefers to quietly be present in the presence of the thin space.  Other prophets seem to agree.  The third group of prophets does not taunt Elisha.  They too know death is coming, and they stand at a distance as Elisha and Elijah cross the Jordan.  They keep watch, holding the pair in awe and in prayer.

Meanwhile, in Jesus’ story, we see additional reactions.  In the face of Jesus’ transfiguration, Peter, James, and John have different reactions.  James and John seem to be content with silent terror.  They have no idea what to say and so they say nothing.  Meanwhile, Peter also has no idea what to say, but words bubble out of his mouth anyway.  He starts fussing around in the thin space, busily wondering if he should make dwellings for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses.  You can sense the nervous energy in his response, as silence is too discomforting for Peter in the thin space.  That is the funny thing about thin spaces – some people run around nervously, while others gather around and gossip for comfort; some demand silence and proximity, while others stand at a quiet distance; some are terrified, while others eager to stay connected.[ii]

I have seen the same reaction in people when they travel on mission trips.  Mission trips, especially in foreign countries really take people out of their comfort zones.  Not only are you struggling through the basics like sleeping on floors, boiling water for fear of sickness, using facilities that are not exactly modern, you are also sometimes struggling with language barriers, hard labor, extreme poverty.  Add on to all of that the sacred, thin moments that come when people meet one another and God in the ways that one only can in a rural Honduran or Dominican village and you have a recipe for all kinds of reactions.  I have seen stoic men break down in tears.  I have seen nervous women babble on for hours.  I have seen normally talkative teens retreat in quiet discomfort.  And I myself have had all of those reactions and many more.

What is key in all of these reactions to the sacred is that none of them are inherently wrong.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the groups of prophets who want to gossip with Elisha about Elijah’s pending death.  There is nothing inherently wrong about getting tongue-tied, excited, or totally silent.  We all react differently to those thin spaces because those thin spaces are the times when we come closest to the God who is beyond comprehension, beyond the earthly, beyond us.  Our reactions have nothing to do with whether we are a good Christian or a bad Christian.  Our reactions have more to do with the fact that we are humans, and God, especially God in those close, intimate, thin moments, is utterly non-human.

Although there is nothing wrong with our varied human reactions to the sacred, the important message for us today is that we pay attention to the thin moments and our reactions.  I have often wondered what would have happened if Elisha had not been paying attention that day when Elijah told him he was heading to Bethel.  Elisha would have missed a life-defining moment if he had busily said, “Okay, catch you later Elijah!”  If those prophets had known something was happening to Elijah but had decided to focus on other work that day instead of keeping watch on the other side of the Jordan, imagine all that they would have missed.  Or if Peter, James, or John had turned down Jesus’ offer to go up the mountain or even earlier had declined Jesus’ offer to follow him, they would have never had this terrifying, babble-making, yet wonderful moment with Jesus.

That is our invitation today: to pay attention.  Pay attention to the thin spaces that are given to you in life.  They do not just happen on mountaintops or near the River Jordan.  They happen all the time in simple, everyday moments.  God is constantly breaking in to this world, and revealing God’s self to us through those around us.  We may not respond in the perceived “right” way, but that is the joy of our lessons today.  The only “wrong” way to respond is to not pay attention at all and to miss the chance to respond, however messily.  The prophets and disciples assure us that we will be in good company in whatever our responses are – our only job is to make sure we pay attention enough to have a response.  God is waiting in thin moments for each of us.  Amen.

[i] Cathleen Falsani, as quoted at http://esteevalendy.blogspot.com/2010/04/thin-moments.html found on February 13, 2015.

[ii] Wm. Loyd Allen, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 438.

Homily – Luke 12.4–12, Vincent, January 22, 2015

16 Monday Feb 2015

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This past week I was able to visit the Rite-13 class.  They were discussing the call narrative of Moses.  We talked about the many ways Moses tries to avoid his call and the excuses he gives.  We talked about how God knows Moses well and has intimate conversations with him.  And then an interesting question came up.  We wondered whether God cares about each one of us in the same way God seems to have cared about Moses.  The responses were varied, but the one that stuck with me was the skeptic who wasn’t sure that God really cared about each of us – especially when there are about 6 billion of us in the world.  How could God know and care about each little thing about each one of us?  And then I recalled the gospel lesson we heard today: “even the hairs of your head are all counted.”  When we did the math about the numbers of hairs on all the billions of people in the world, we were all a little stunned into silence.

That is the hard part of our gospel lesson today.  Can we really believe that God is so infused in our lives – and that God cares what is going on with each and every one of us?  The question is one that Christians have been asking for centuries – is our God big enough to really know and love each one of us?  I am sure Vincent, who we honor today, asked that same question.  Vincent was a native of northwestern Spain, born in the late 200s or early 300s.  He was ordained deacon by Valerius, the Bishop of Saragossa.  In those years, the fervent Christian community in Spain suffered great persecution by the Roman emperors Diocletian and Maximus.  The governor of Spain had Bishop Valerius and Deacon Vincent arrested.  According to legend, the bishop had a speech impediment and Vincent often preached for him.  When the two prisoners were challenged to renounce their faith or else be tortured and killed, Vincent turned to his bishop, willing to make a stand.  Vincent’s bishop encouraged him to defend the faith.  Vincent’s passionate defense angered the governor.  The bishop was exiled and Vincent was tortured and finally killed.  Vincent is venerated as a bold and outspoken witness to the truth of the living Christ.

I am sure there were days, especially at the end, that Vincent wondered whether God really knew the hairs on his head.  To Vincent and even to us in our lesser trials, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, you are of more value than many sparrows.”  Then and now, Jesus affirms that none of us is forgotten by God.  When we question God, when we feel forgotten by God, or even when we forget God, God is still there valuing the hairs of our head.  That is God’s profound promise every day.  Even when we flounder, or when, like Moses, we try to avoid our call or feel unworthy for the work God gives us to do, or when the pain of life feels overwhelming – God is with us, guiding us, valuing us, loving us.  Thanks be to God for God’s abundant care and grace and the reality that we are of more value than many sparrows – each one of us!  Amen.

Sermon – Mark 1.21-28, E4, YB, February 1, 2015

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

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I have often joked that of all the people in the world who needed to become a parent, I was one of them.  I say this because I am a person who likes routine and order.  I like things done a certain way, and prefer to have a sense of control over things.  Of course, this is one of those areas in life with which God and I often struggle.  Jesus even teaches about the need to let go of control and trust God.  Whenever I read that passage I nod in assent, remembering the many times God has proven God’s self to be trustworthy.  I put up my hands in defeat, and try to trust God.  And then about 48 hours later, I am sneaking back to grab the reins again.

That is why parenthood has been so good for me.  Parenthood challenges this weakness over and over again.  My eldest is at the age where she wants to do things herself.  This is a good and natural development.  But for someone who likes a sense of control, this good and natural development can be maddening.  I cannot count the number of times I have had to literally bite my tongue instead of jumping in with some explanation about a better way to do a task.  I cannot count the number of times I have had to clinch my hands to prevent myself from just taking over a task, so that the task would be done the correct, and often faster, way.  Sometimes I wonder whether God is chuckling to God’s self when God sees me fumbling through this reality with my children over and over again.

The people who had gathered at the synagogue in Mark’s gospel lesson today have a similar experience.  They are not unlike most of us here.  Every week they go to temple, following the same pattern of worship, expecting the same experiences.  There is a certain comfort for them knowing what to expect.  They have learned to watch how the scribes debate and have a dialogue about the traditions.[i]  This is how they learn and decipher truth and is a natural part of their weekly experience at temple.  But today is different.  Today there is a new teacher in synagogue, and he is doing things all wrong.  His teaching style is more declarative than deliberative.[ii]  For some reason he teaches with tremendous authority, as if he really is sure of what God would say or think about certain things.  Jesus is not following the rules, and those gathered at the temple have no idea what to make of him.  He even is able to exorcise an unclean spirit out one of the worshippers who is present.  They had not even realized the man had an unclean spirit, and here Jesus is, casting the spirit out.  How did he know?  Where did Jesus get the idea that he had the power to do such a thing?

If ever we doubted that we come from a long line of faithful Jews, today is the day we realize how closely related we are.  I cannot count the number of times I have heard this same conversation at Church.  Why did the priest use that prayer today?  We never use that prayer.  Why did the Vestry make that decision?  We never used to do things that way.  Why did the Activities Committee change that event?  We never do the event that way.  I have sat in many a meeting discussing a change or a new way of doing something and invariably someone will say, “If we change this someone might get upset.”  After many years of experience, my response has finally become, “When we change this, someone will definitely be upset.”  That statement may sound obvious or maybe even sound judgmental or harsh.  But what I have come to find is that expecting that change is unsettling and makes people upset actually makes the wave of resistance to that change not a frustrating thing, but a happily expected reaction.  In fact, a wise old priest once told me, “If you are not upsetting people, you are not doing your job.”

Just the other day, my oldest daughter and I were making scrambled eggs.  She was fumbling through breaking the eggs.  I must have picked out two or three shell pieces that day.  Then she was stirring the eggs so haphazardly, my tongue started hurting again.  My clenched hands had to strain to stay at my sides to avoid “just taking over this one part.”  We all do it – and not just with children.  We think we know a better way to accomplish a task, so instead of inviting someone to help us, we do the work on our own.  We know the historical way something has been done and we forcefully teach a volunteer that way instead of hearing their idea of how to do something differently.  Instead of a shared, collaborative ministry, we take over a task ourselves because we can get the task done faster and more efficiently if we do not have to sit around a talk about the many options available.

But you know what happened when I bit my tongue and pinned my hands to my sides that day?  The eggs tasted just as good as they always do.  Though I could have had a stress-free cooking process otherwise, you know what else happened?  My daughter had a big, proud smile on her face when we devoured those yummy scrambled eggs.  I have seen the same thing happen here at St. Margaret’s.  When I started team teaching with other adults, we gained some tremendous and transformative teaching material.  When we let some excited volunteers start a community garden, we not only fed the hungry in our neighborhood, we also made some new friends by letting our neighbors, AHRC, help water the garden.  When we revamped our family Christmas Eve service, we found that the service attracted new people, and in fact has become more popular than our once favored midnight mass.

I have been thinking this week about that man with the unclean spirit in today’s gospel.  The funny thing is that no one seemed to notice the man beforehand.[iii]  Had the leaders of worship and learning been in control that day, the man might have come to temple and left temple equally tortured.  He may have come hoping someone would notice his pain and suffering and left realizing that no one could really appreciate the depths of his struggle.  But because Jesus is there, teaching in a way that only the Holy One of God can, the unclean spirit reveals himself, and is cast out by Jesus.  Had Jesus not been there, doing things the “wrong” way, the poor afflicted man may have never been cleansed and given new life.

I wonder what ways we are not like the scribes and those gathered at the temple.  I wonder how our way of insisting on the familiar blocks us from seeing unmet needs.  I wonder how our reliance on ourselves and our guarding of control forbids new life from breaking in and shining new light into our community.  Today we will pray the Litany for Healing.  Every month we make space for people to come forward for healing prayers.  Most of us come forward for some physical ailment we are facing or for healing prayers for a loved one.  But our healing prayers do not just have to be prayers for the healing of our bodies.  They can also be prayers for healing our spirits.  If an unclean spirit has taken over you – like a spirit of control or manipulation – perhaps today is the day you ask God to release that spirit from you.  Or perhaps you have lost a sense of joy or connection.  God can heal that brokenness today too.  Or perhaps you know that you need God’s healing, but you cannot articulate the brokenness, even to yourself.  Our healing prayers can be for you too.  Much like Jesus could see the unclean spirit when others could not, my guess is that Jesus knows what is troubling your heart today too – even if you cannot articulate that pain yourself.  And much like that day at the temple, albeit in a way that was unusual, uncomfortable, and unexpected, Jesus can work in you, casting out the darkness and blasting through with light.  Amen.

[i] Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 1.21-28,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2343 on January 28, 2015.

[ii] Skinner.

[iii] Ofelia Ortega, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 310.

Sermon – Jonah 3.1-5, 10, E3, YB, January 25, 2015

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Whenever a family has two children, often the children fall into two stereotypes – the goody two-shoes and the rebel.  The goody two-shoes generally follows the rules, rarely gets in trouble, and usually does what they are asked to do.  The rebel on the other hand makes their own rules, is regularly in trouble, and rarely does what they are asked to do.  The goody two-shoes conforms to expectations and the rebel blazes their own trail.  Many a harried parent has said to their rebel child, “Why can’t you just be more like goody two-shoes?!?”

Today, our scripture gives us not just one set, but two sets of such siblings.  First we have Jonah in our Old Testament lesson and the disciples in our gospel lesson.  When Jesus calls out to the disciples who are fishing and tells them to follow him, all four disciples drop their nets, abandon their family and livelihoods, and follow Jesus.  They do not ask questions.  They do not take a moment to consider the invitation and carefully discern whether to go.  They do not even complain.  They immediately drop what they are doing and follow Jesus.  The disciples are our goody two-shoes today.  The rebel, then, is Jonah.  If you remember, God came to Jonah early on and told Jonah to go to Nineveh.  And while Jonah did respond immediately, his response was to run in the complete opposite direction.  He runs the opposite direction, hops on a boat, and makes his escape.  Of course we know how that turns out.  Jonah is tossed overboard when the seas get out of control, and he is swallowed by a large fish.  Even in our lesson today, when God tells Jonah a second time to go to Nineveh, we can tell Jonah’s heart is not in the work.  Later we find out that when God forgives Nineveh, Jonah rebels again, throwing a temper tantrum of epic proportions, proclaiming that he wish he could die he is so upset.  Jonah is our rebel today.[i]

Our second set of siblings is found in the Jonah story itself.  We know that Jonah has already rebelled and taken to the seas to escape the job he is supposed to do.  But look at how he does execute his work.  When he finally does proclaim the judgment on Nineveh, he only says five words in Hebrew, translated, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  Jonah is a grumbling, half-hearted rebel of the Lord.  Meanwhile, Nineveh proves to be our goody two-shoes this time.  This is the most surprising turn of events too.  Nineveh is a brutal power in Jonah’s day.[ii]  They are known for their vicious treatment of the people of Israel.  They are the enemy.  But when the residents of Nineveh hear the judgment of the LORD – Jonah’s brief, half-hearted one – they immediately respond.[iii]  All the people put on sackcloth, even the king and the animals; they take up a fast, sit in ashes, and turn from their violent ways.  Talk about a 180!  And what makes the situation all the more ironic is that Nineveh, the city we might normally label as the rebel in this story, actually comes out as the goody two-shoes; and Jonah, the prophet of God, who should be the goody two-shoes turns out to be our rebel.

In our world, we know what happens to these two archetypes.  The goody two-shoes are ones who get straight A’s, have successful careers, have happy relationships, and lead stable, content lives.  They are held up as the shining examples for all of us.  The rebels, on the other hand, are the ones who get sent to the principal’s office, have spotty employment, are in and out of relationships, and are known for their instability.  Though the rebels may be fun to be around, they are not as dependable as the goody two-shoes.  And for those of us who are rebels, we are told time and time again to get our act together.  In our world, society is quite clear about which role we should choose.

The good news is that God is not like the rest of the world.  God has enough room for everyone.  God invites everyone: rebels like violent Nineveh and Jonah, and goody two-shoes like the disciples and the reformed Nineveh.  God encourages both and God gives second (and third and fourth) chances to both.  God’s mercy is so abundant that God is willing to totally change God’s mind.  Like the old hymn goes, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea; there’s a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty.”  The grace in our stories today gives us hope that those uptight goody two-shoes and those restless rebels among us both have a chance in God’s eye.

But the good news today is not just easy news.  The good news comes with work too.  God has mercy for both Nineveh and Jonah, but God does not let either off the hook.  God saves Jonah from the perilous sea and the big fish.  But then God puts Jonah back to work.  God does not destroy Nineveh, but only when Nineveh turns from its evil ways.  God is much like the parent who loves their children equally – both the goody two-shoes and the rebels.  But part of that equal love is also an equal expectation that we all respond to God’s invitation.  We may all respond differently, but God will not rest until we respond.  The question today is what invitation from God have we been avoiding, and how might we take up God’s invitation anew?  God is waiting for our response.  Amen.

[i] Kathryn Schifferdecker, “Commentary on Jonah 3.1-5, 10” found on January 22, 2015 at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2347.

[ii] Callie Plunket-Brewton, “Commentary on Jonah 3.1-5, 10” January 21, 2012, found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1214 on January 22, 2015.

[iii] Joseph L. Price, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 270.

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

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ii] Lose.

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

[iv] Rogness.

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

Homily – Luke 6.27-36, Martin Luther King, Jr., January 15, 2015

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Today we honor the life and work of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Born on Jan. 15, 1929, Dr. King was the son and grandson of Baptist preachers.  After earning his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University, he became pastor of a church in Montgomery, Alabama.  A year later, Dr. King was catapulted into national prominence as the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott initiated by Rosa Parks.  He was able to rally both whites and blacks with his nonviolent demonstrations and his ability to be an articulate prophet.  Dr. King’s work was instrumental to the passage of three Civil Rights acts in the 1960s.  He was constantly threatened, attacked, and jailed, but Dr. King refused to back down.  He was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 while advocating for local sanitation workers.

Dr. King was a man of tremendous faith, and I imagine he read the passage we heard today from Luke many times.  Jesus teaches those gathered to love:  love their enemies; love through non-violence; love by giving freely without expecting anything in return.  In a time when he had plenty of reasons to hate and be bitter, Dr. King chose love, over and over again.  When he was arrested, he loved; when he was stabbed, he loved; when he was threatened and his home bombed, he loved.

Malcolm X, a contemporary of Dr. King, disagreed with him on this point.  He did not believe in nonviolence.  He had seen too much pain, suffering, and degradation.  As his people were beaten, abused, and murdered, Malcolm X wanted to fight back.  Many people judge Malcolm X, saying he should have embraced nonviolence like Dr. King.  I think we judge because we have a hard time admitting that there is a part of us that is a fighter, too.  Nonviolence sounds fine until you are slapped in the face; nonviolence sounds romantic until your children are threatened; nonviolence sounds noble until you watch your brothers and sisters beaten and murdered.

What Dr. King does is inspire us – inspire us to live a Christ-like life in modern times.  We may be past segregation and legal oppression of people of color, but there is still racism and oppression, as seen by many recent cases in the news.  Jesus and Dr. King today invite us and remind us to be agents of love.  In a world that needs less violence, we can be agents of love, mercy and grace.  Amen.

Sermon – John 1.1-18, C1, YB, December 28, 2014

15 Thursday Jan 2015

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If you have ever spent much time with a young child, you know that one of their favorite questions is, “Why?”  You can have a ten minute conversation in which every statement you complete is answered with a, “Why?”  Now this could mean that you, as an adult, are stimulated to really ponder the meaning behind the things we say or do.  And in fact, many children, after hearing several answers to their questions, will simply answer, “Oh,” or “Okay.”  But more often, this kind of conversation often results in frustrated exasperation where you either conceded, “I don’t know,” or you resort to your conversation ender, “because I said so.”

When I hear John’s gospel today, I like to imagine a curious child has heard Luke’s gospel of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and angels, and has simply asked, “Why?”  Why did Jesus have to be born?  Why was Jesus born in a manger?  Why did angels go visit those shepherds?  Why didn’t Mary seem to understand any of this?  To all of those questions, John’s gospel answers, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  Now if we understood that circular explanation, we still might ask, “Why?  Why did the Word become flesh and live among us?”  John’s answer continue:  “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”  Now most of us might be too confused to ask “Why?” at this point. We might, like a child, simply answer, “Oh.”  And those of us who are bold enough might even profess our confusion.  To this, John’s answer would likely be a simple repetition, “So that we might become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

This is John’s answer to the “Why?” of Luke’s Christmas story.  Why did God take on human flesh in the persons of Mary and Joseph, and have that birth witnessed by angels and shepherds?  God took on human flesh because, as one scholar explains, “God has called us God’s own children, individuals who hold infinite worth in God’s eyes, deserve love and respect, and will be used by God to care for God’s beloved world.”[i]  I do not know about you, but that is the kind of answer that should make most of our whys end with an “Oh!”  God came to the earth in the person of Jesus, took on human flesh so that we could become God’s children, because we hold infinite worth in God’s eyes, deserve love and respect, and will be used by God to care for God’s beloved world.  That is some of the best, most affirming news I have heard in quite some time.

The trick though, is not to let our “Oh!” be the end of the story.  If you can truly hear God’s words for you today – that we continue to celebrate Christmas because Christmas has a profound affect on our lives – then we have more work to do.  Now I do not know if you have already selected your New Year’s Resolution yet, but if not, perhaps you can take on a new resolution this year.  In light of John’s gospel, I invite you to consider taking on a daily mantra for the next month.  Maybe you say the words as the introduction to your prayer time.  Maybe you say them in the mirror after you get out of the shower.  Or maybe you say them in the car on the way to work, school, or on your daily errands.  The mantra goes like this:  I am God’s child, deserving of love and respect, and God will use me to change the world.[ii]  Let’s try the words together now, repeating after me:  I am God’s child, deserving of love and respect, and God will use me to change the world.  One more time so that you have the words in your mind:  I am God’s child, deserving of love and respect, and God will use me to change the world.  I invite you to try the words once a day, everyday, for at least one month.  Then perhaps at the end of January, you can look back at Christmas, and your response will no longer by, “Why?” or “Oh!” but instead can be, “Okay!”  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “An Unsentimental Christmas Sermon,” December 30, 2013, found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2980 on December 26, 2014.

[ii] Lose.