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Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YC, March 29, 2013

29 Friday Mar 2013

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Good Friday is one of the most difficult liturgies in the Church year.  The tone of the liturgy alone is stark.  Without our usual adornments and vestments, without music, and without our sacred sacramental feast, we are already feeling bereft.  But added on top of all this starkness is our passion reading from John.  This is one of those stories that gets worse and worse as we read.  Our tendency in the face of such overwhelming grief and failure is to start disassociating ourselves from others, somehow hoping to deny that there is ugliness in each of us that could lead to the exact same results had we been there.

We would like to believe that we would never betray Jesus in the way that Judas does.  Surely nothing could ever lure us into such a treacherous act.  Unless, of course, we think Jesus needs a little motivation.  Many have argued that Judas’ betrayal is caused by his desire to push Jesus into the role of a political Messiah – to assume the military power that rightly belongs to Jesus.[i]  If we believe as Judas does that Jesus is the political Messiah that we had been waiting for, perhaps we too might find some way to give Jesus a push to fight back.  Surely we have all experienced impatience and pushed others along the way.  Judas’ ugliness seeps into even us at times.

If we have to admit that some of Judas is in us, then at least we can imagine that we would not betray Jesus as Peter does.  We all know that Jesus has said following him will lead to death – we would say “Yes,” to that servant girl’s question because, come what may, we would stand with Jesus.  But how many of us have failed ourselves and our friends under similar pressure.  That survival instinct – that desire to protect ourselves takes over all the time – even if only in the form of white lies that cover our interests.  We have to remind ourselves that Peter wants to be a better disciple – he does attempt to protect Jesus with the sword, and he at least follows Jesus into the cold courtyard.  Who knows if we could have done that?  So parts of Peter must be in us too.

If we concede some of Judas and Peter in us, surely we can at least claim that we are not like Caiaphas.  Surely we would never look at Jesus and claim, “It is better for one person to die for the people.”  Surely we always stand on the side of goodness – except, of course, when we are choosing the lesser of two evils, as Caiaphas claims he is doing.  I remember a classic ethics case in seminary.  A group of Jews were hiding from the Nazis.  A baby in the group starts crying.  The ethical question is this:  Do you suffocate the child in order to protect the lives of the whole group, or do you save the child, knowing that the entire group will be discovered because of the crying baby and most likely murdered.  Just because one option is less evil does not make the option good.  Unfortunately, Caiaphas can be found in us also.

Perhaps, then, we can still deny the Pilate in ourselves.  We see in Pilate a man who knows the right thing to do, but who keeps waffling, trying to weasel out of a decision.  But we too have had times of indecision, even when we know what to do; because the right thing is rarely the easy or popular thing.  How do any of us fare when faced with a group who is staunchly opposed to what we know is right?  Yes, Pilate is in us too.

Having experienced many passion narratives where we have been required to say the “crowd” part, “Crucify him,” we would like to believe that we would never be like the chief priests who shout this line.  Surely we would not succumb to that same behavior.  But in the last several years, we have heard enough stories about mob mentality to know the power of the mob to deteriorate morals.  People say and do things they would never do otherwise when egged on by a crowd.  I think about that school bus monitor who was taunted by four boys on a school bus.  When the parents saw the video, they could not believe their children had done such a thing – had fallen in with the group.  We look at those boys and wonder how that could have happened, forgetting the times we have been swept up in anger or pushed to the point of breaking.  Yes, we have some of the chief priests in us.

So if we cannot deny all these individuals, perhaps we can at least deny the behavior of the soldiers.  We would never flog Jesus and mock him in the ways that they do.  We would not nail him to that cross or gamble for his clothes or pierce his side.  But all we have to do is remember those scandalous photos of the military prison in Abu Ghraib less than ten years ago to realize how corrupted judgment can become, especially for those who have to desensitize themselves to violence as soldiers often need to.  We all take on the behaviors of those biblical soldiers from time to time.

This is what makes Good Friday so difficult.  Certainly we are devastated about what happens to Jesus.  But more importantly, we are devastated because we know deep down, in the most sinful parts of ourselves, we too have betrayed Jesus, denied him, judged him, condemned him, rejected him, mocked him, cursed him, flogged him, and killed him.[ii]  What is so painful about this day is not so much Jesus’ painful death, but our own participation in that death.  That is why we leave here in silence, and why we keep watch in the face of our sinfulness.

But even in this most despairing of days, there is one sliver of hope for me.  Just as we can be Judas, Peter, Caiaphas, Pilate, chief priests, and soldiers, perhaps we can also be like Mary and the beloved disciple.  Perhaps we could also find the goodness in ourselves that would take the risk of standing at the foot of that cross.  Perhaps we can find in us the one who keeps watch until Jesus draws his last breath.  Surely we have all done this throughout our lives.  We too have set at the bedside of a loved one in their final hours.  We have fought sleep, given in to grief, rubbed a withered hand, and waited through the ambiguity of those last hours.

This is the image that gives me hope today.  I think of the countless bedsides I have joined, as we loved someone through to death.  We have spoken in hushed voices, patted each other on the back, and shared hugs.  We have shed tears, reminisced with stories, and prayed the prayers and psalms.  We have stumbled through goodbyes, hoping our words and presence show forth our love.  We have simultaneously felt helpless, and felt like we were doing the right thing.

This is our invitation today.  We claim all of the Judas, Peter, Caiaphas, Pilate, chief priests, and soldiers in us, but we also claim those who stand at the foot of the cross in us too.  The beauty is that we can do both – in fact we can stand at the foot of the cross more honestly if we recognize all the parts in us.  And we can stand at the foot of the cross more vigilantly when we look around and see the community of faith who stands there with us.  We can lean on one another, giving one another strength to live into the light over the darkness.  Even as we see him hanging on the cross, we stand as a community unwilling to let the darkness overcome the light.  Recognizing the dark and light in each of us, even on this darkest of days, we can choose to stand at the foot of the cross together, and claim the light.  Amen.

[i] George Arthur Buttrick, Ed., The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 1007.

[ii] Jim Green Somerville, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 302-304.

Sermon – John 13.1-17, 31b-35, MT, YC, March 28, 2013

29 Friday Mar 2013

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IMG_2898_2Tonight our actions mirror the actions of our gospel lesson.  Like the disciples, we gather around the table.  I imagine our potluck meal was not unlike the meal the disciples had with Jesus that night – an intimate meal with friends who feel like family, sharing stories, laughter, and woes.  We too are a ragtag team of followers, gathered at a meal, who seek to know our Savior better, and who lean on a community of faith to join us in the journey.  As the disciples did that night, we will also have our feet washed.  I imagine our discomfort in having our feet washed, and even our wondering what the foot washing means, are not that different from Peter’s struggles.  Finally, we too will come to the Eucharistic table.  This night was the night that Jesus instituted the sacrament of Eucharist.  Like Jesus shared his last meal with the disciples that night, we too receive the sacred body and blood of Christ for the last time until the Easter Vigil.

In observing the patterns of our gathering this night, we could feel pretty good about ourselves.  We could look at the synchronicity between us and the disciples that night and feel like we have joined them in a great memorial of our brothers in Christ.  But tonight is not just about imitating manual acts.  The entire point of that night – the table fellowship, the washing of feet, the sharing in Christ’s body and blood – is not about the actions themselves.  The point of that night was establishing a way of being.  Jesus establishes the way that the community will be together:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This command to love one another is perhaps one of the most difficult commands of Jesus.  All we have to do is look at two people in the room that night to see what Jesus means.  Both Judas and Peter are in the room when Jesus says that they are to love one another.  That means when Judas hands Jesus over to die, and when Peter embarrasses them by three times denying the Savior he claimed to be willing to die for, that the other disciples will have to find a way to love both Judas and Peter later.

For us, that means when our family members, friends, fellow parishioners, and even strangers betray us, we too will have to love each of those individuals.  Love is not an easy act.  Love means that we have to accept the role of servant, the one who kneels down on the floor and washes the dirty feet of another, even a betrayer.  But we also have to be the person who allows him or herself to be cared for in a similar way.  Margaret Guenther once said, “If we love one another as Jesus loves us, we must be ready to put aside our grudges, hurts, and righteous anger.”  Guenther admits, “I tend to love with my fingers crossed.  I’m ready to love almost everyone, but surely I can’t be expected to love the person who has harmed me.  Or who does not wish me well.  Or who seems hopelessly wrong-headed.  Surely I am allowed one holdout, one person whom I may judge unworthy of love.  But the commandment has no loopholes; it demands that we let go of our pet hates, the ones we clutch like teddy bears.”[i]

NPR does a series called StoryCorps.  I will never forget one story I heard about a woman who befriend the boy who killed her son.  At first she was filled with anger at her son’s murderer, but then twelve years later, she went to visit the young man in prison and everything changed.  “He became human to me,” explained the woman.  They departed that day with a hug.  Twenty years after the murder of her son, the woman and the murderer now are neighbors, caring for one another like a mother and son.  She demands the same attention from him a mother would, and he always strives to care for her and earn her approval.  She plans to see him graduate from college – something her own son never got to do.  And maybe someday go to his wedding.[ii]  This is the kind of love that Jesus is talking about on this sacred night.

Luckily, the Church gives us our liturgy tonight to encourage us on the way.  If we want to love as Jesus commands, we can come forward, and be willing to be loved through the washing of our feet.  If we want to love as Jesus commands, we can earnestly confess our sins before others, recommitting ourselves to love.  If we want to love as Jesus commands, we can come to the table one more time, perhaps kneeling by someone with whom we have a grudge, and being renewed into the way of love.  And if we want to love as Jesus commands, we will take all the strength that we gain from this night, and we will walk out those doors a people transformed – transformed into beings who love with abandon, not caring on whom we waste the love or how or whether the love is returned to us.  When we love in this way, we love like Jesus – and everyone will know that we are Jesus’ disciples by our love.  Amen.

[i] Margaret Guenther, “No Exceptions Permitted,” Christian Century, vol. 112, no. 15, May 3, 1995, 479.

Sermon – John 12.1-8, L5, YC, March 17, 2013

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

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With Holy Week only a week away, today’s Gospel lesson throws us into preparation for that significant week.  Six days before the Passover – six days before Jesus will sit down with his disciples for their last meal together – Jesus sits down for another significant meal.  Jesus returns to Bethany, to the home of the family he loves – the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.  The foreshadowing is all there.  Lazarus, and the lingering smell of his once-dead body, is at the table as a vivid reminder of the death that awaits Jesus.  The two of them sharing table fellowship together both brings to mind the resurrection of Lazarus, and foreshadows a more important resurrection that is soon to come.  Even Mary is preparing us and Jesus for his death, as she uses costly perfume, nard that she has saved for the day of Jesus’ burial, to anoint Jesus now.  Death is heavy in the room.  What sounds like a simple reunion of friends is actually the foretaste of what is to come in a mere week.

So in the midst of this sacred, significant moment, what does Judas do?  Judas totally misses what is happening in the moment.  On one level, Judas is right.  That bottle of nard – a whole pound of fragrance – would have cost about $20,000 in today’s terms[i].  Judas has spent years with Jesus hearing nothing but Jesus’ preference for the poor.  We cannot fault Judas for seeing the potential good that the same bottle could have done for the poor.  But like any good church member, Judas gets stuck in the ways he has learned.  Judas takes a really good practice – Jesus’ passion for the poor – and makes that practice rigid and lifeless.  This valued practice blinds him to the other realities that are unfolding right before him.

We behave like Judas all of the time.  We too have ideas about what we should do and how that should be done.  Our reasoning might be very informed and, under normal circumstances, deeply rooted in our faith and tradition.  But sometimes we too are off base.  We miss the big picture.  When I went on my mission trip to Honduras, we spent an entire winter and spring preparing for the trip.  One of the many books we read was a book by a woman named Elvia Alvarado.  Elvia was a poor Honduran woman who saw much strife in her country and who slowly became an organizer and advocate for change.  But along the way she tells of many atrocities that happened in Honduras to the poor.  As I read the book, I became more and more outraged and incensed about what was happening to the Honduran poor – so outraged that I wanted to go and do something, to make a difference for the people who could not speak for themselves.  But in her concluding remarks, Elvia says something quite shocking.  Elvia asks every gringo reader (gringos being white people from the United States) not to come to Honduras to solve their problems.  In fact she tells the gringos to stay where we are.  She says that this work is the Hondurans’ work to do.  But what she does charge the gringos with is working on our own stuff.  She asks us to look at the systems in our own country that encourage oppression – governmental trade policies, manufacturing and farming practices, and our own purchasing patterns.  Elvia’s words to me were like a slap in the face.  Elvia basically said to me, “Don’t bring your savior mentality down here and think that you will save us all.  Instead, stay at home and work on the ways that you and your country are a part of the problem.”

Elvia’s words to me and all of us are not unlike Jesus words to Judas that night.  What Elvia taught me is that we do not always have the whole picture.  We may have learned a lot, we may have spent a great deal of time studying our faith or developing our relationship with Christ, and we may feel like we have a pretty good idea about what God calls us to do and be.  But what we forget in our confidence is that God is always on the move, always breaking into the world in new ways, and always opening up new paths for us.  The moment that we think we have God figured out – and particularly the moment that we start telling others what they should and should not do – is the moment that Jesus slaps us in the face with another reality.

So if we are not to be imitating Judas in this story from scripture, what do we glean from Mary’s actions?  I once heard a story about an experience at a stewardship conference whose theme was generosity.  When one of the presenters spoke about offering a gift directly to God, the clergy began to yawn.  The presenter then pulled a $100 bill from his wallet, set it on fire in an ashtray, and prayed, “Lord, I offer this gift to you, and you alone.”  The reaction was electric.  Clergy began to fidget in their chairs, whispering about the legality of burning currency, and murmuring about how they would happily take any more money he felt like burning.  In that nervous room, the speaker asked, “Do you not understand?  I am offering it to God, and that means it is going to cease to be useful for the rest of us.”[ii]

In many ways, Mary “wastes” her perfume on Jesus much like this presenter wasted that $100.  But Jesus does not see Mary’s gift as wasteful.  He declares the gift to be appropriate in that moment, and is gracious enough to receive the gift with gratitude.  He understands that the extravagant gift is rooted in Mary’s confidence in the boundless capacity of God’s love.  “Mary pours out her whole bottle of perfume without regret because she knows it is only a trifle compared to the magnitude of God’s love that she sees in the Messiah before her.  Mary knows that Lazarus will die again, and she knows that Jesus will die, but she believes with even greater passion that Jesus can bring victory over death.”[iii]

This tense interaction between Jesus, Mary, and Judas invites us into another kind of tension.  The story invites us to live into the tension of what we know about God and what is still unfolding.  We need to learn the “rules” or the “law” of this crazy life of faith.  But we also need to learn the “way of being.”  We need to learn when to focus on the details and when to see the big picture.  We need to learn when the time has come to “waste” an extravagance on another.  When Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you,” Jesus is not giving us an out for caring for the poor.  Instead Jesus invites us into a “both-and” tension.  Yes, we are to care for the poor.  That is living into the law of our life together.  And, we also need to have the presence of mind to see when something so significant is happening, such as losing our Savior to the cross, that we pause our other work.  This is the way of being in our life together.

Ultimately, we need both Judas and Mary for our faith journey today.  We need that person in our community who will always remind us of the laws that we live by and who will always remind us of the ways things should be done.  But we also need that person in our community who is the crazy one who will open up for us the lavish ways of God and who will remind us to let go of the law enough to see God’s bigger picture.  Without each person in our community, including those individuals who have not yet come to St. Margaret’s, we only have a portion of the community we need to fully embody the community of faith.  Without the “both” and the “and” we are incomplete.  Sometimes that means we will not agree.  The “boths” and the “ands” of our community will experience a tension so strong that we may hear Jesus shouting, “Leave her alone.”  But both the “boths” and the “ands” need each other.  Jesus gives us all value today, but Jesus also requires us to value one another.  Amen.

[i] George W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 142.

[ii] William G. Carter, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 142.

[iii] Beth Sanders, “Heaven Scent,” Christian Century, vol. 124, no. 5, March 6, 2007, 19.

Homily – John 4.31-38, James Theodore Holly, March 14, 2013

16 Saturday Mar 2013

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James Theodore Holly was born a free African-American in D.C. in 1829.  He became an Episcopal priest in 1856, serving as rector in New Haven.  In 1861, he resigned to take a group of African-Americans to settle in Haiti.  His wife, mother, and two children died the first year.  But Holly stayed on with two small sons, believing God was with him.  In 1874, Holly was consecrated as first bishop of Haiti, and the first black man raised to the office of bishop in the Episcopal Church.  During his tenure as bishop, he doubled the size of the diocese, established medical clinics, and took over the Diocese of the Dominican Republic in 1897.  He died in 1911.

In looking at the dates, Holly went to Haiti at the beginning of the Civil War in the U.S.  What a dramatic move; and then what a dramatic experience in Haiti!  Holly must have heard these words from Jesus in a unique way:  “Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest?’  But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.”  Holly could have waited until the war was over; he could have bailed when so many in his family died; but he heard the urgency of Jesus’ call, he heard the demand to act now, no matter what.

I think too often we are afraid, paralyzed by fear or some strange sense that certain things have to be in place before we act (four more months, then we will act).  Just hearing our Lenten speaker from St. John’s talk about their church’s garden confirmed this truth.  Instead of months of planning, gathering data, negotiating opinions, he just jumped.  They fought a lot, people had to chip in to make it work, and they made mistakes.  But they also had a harvest to feed the poor, right here in Huntington.

As individuals, I wonder what work we are hindering because of our fears or concerns about propriety?  As a community, I wonder what work we are hindering because of our fears or concerns about propriety?  Our text and Holly’s witness encourage us to let go of our fears and anxieties and jump into the harvest.  Jesus reminds us that God has already sown the field, and has invited us to jump into the work God is doing.  We are the only ones in our way.  Our invitation is to jump.  Amen.

Soul food…

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

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IMG_1397This year my Lenten discipline has been a lot more ambiguous than in years past.  I have been working on being attentive and more present in my life and in my ministry.  Like I said, ambiguous.  But in some ways, the practice has been quite a blessing.  Instead of busying myself with a practice or suffering through giving something up (and probably complaining about either), this year I have been able to step back and see what is working and what really is not.

The wonderful thing about this practice is the ways in which I see that I am being fed.  At our parish, we have had a series of speakers to prepare us for the construction of a community garden that could feed our neighbors in need.  The speakers have been an incredible blessing to me, showing me the simple ways that we can use our vast property for good, but also the ways that we can be a part of some really incredible ministries that are already thriving.

I also just returned from a great conference that fed me much more than I expected.  So many times in the Episcopal Church we get downhearted about the future of the Church and its leaders.  But I just spent time with about twenty of the Church’s leaders and I was blown away by their passion, intelligence, humility, and enthusiasm.  As opposed to a gathering of competitors (Episcopal priests have a tendency to do this from time to time…), it became a gathering of people truly wanting to learn from one another, to celebrate successes, and learn from failures.  I have not been this hopeful for the Church in a while.  For that I am grateful.

Another source of nourishment this Lent has been the practice of following Lent Madness.  In the first couple of match-ups, I found myself getting indignant when my saints “lost.”  But as the weeks have past, I have found I am worrying less about how many I “win” and how much I am learning.  Last weekend, I was worshiping with a Diocesan group and the lessons for the liturgy were from the feast day of Chad of Litchfield.  Imagine how excited I was to immediately know his story before the Bishop was able to explain it to us.  What was once yet another competition has become a great source of nourishment for me in this Lent.

I hope you are finding sources of nourishment this Lent.  I hope your practices are teaching you something about your relationship with Christ or at least inviting you back into relationship with Christ.  During this season of Lent – a season often marked by fasting – I hope your journey is full of filling nourishment for the soul.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, March 3, 2013

04 Monday Mar 2013

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We are half way through Lent, and this is the time that we begin to take stock.  But we do not always take stock of ourselves, humbly repenting of the ways we are stumbling with our disciplines.  No, we look at everyone else.  When we ask our fellow parishioners how their Lenten disciplines are going, we are not asking out of Christian love.  We are asking because we hope they are failing more miserably than we are.  We need to hear that someone has lapsed in their practice or given up altogether so that our weak attempts to hold on do not seem so weak after all.  We are a judgmental people, and we rarely offer the forgiveness that we so long to receive.

Jesus knows this as he listens to those gathered around him in our Gospel lesson today.  They are lamenting with Jesus about two groups of people who have recently suffered – the Galileans at the hand of Pilate and those near the tower of Siloam.  “Isn’t it horrible, Jesus,” they seem to be saying.  The insinuation is that those in Galilee and in Siloam must have sinned gravely to receive such suffering.  The assumption was a common one among the people of Israel.[i]  We remember the friends of Job who immediately assumed Job must have done something wrong to deserve his severe suffering.  Those gathered around Jesus are hoping that Jesus will confirm their suspicions – that Jesus will turn the spotlight on the sinfulness of those people, so that they can all shake their heads in judgment.

But Jesus will not take the bait.  Instead, Jesus tells this story:  Once upon a time, there was a fig tree that was not bearing fruit, and had not bore fruit for three years.  Fed up, the vineyard owner decided to cut down the unproductive tree.  But before the vineyard owner could touch the tree, the gardener made one last plea.  The gardener asked for one more year.  In that year, the gardener would dig around the tree, spreading manure at the roots of the tree.  If after a year of such care the tree still did not produce fruit, then the owner could chop down the tree.

The message seems to be clear in Jesus’ parable:  repent, change your ways, and start producing fruit, or you will be slaughtered.  But this interpretation of the parable gets all the parts confused.  The people gathered are not the gardeners begging God, the vineyard owner, for one more year to tend our garden.  That version of the parable would be too simple.  Instead, God is the gardener – the one negotiating grace – and they are the unproductive trees.

I have been thinking about life as the unproductive fig tree all week.  An unproductive tree is still very much alive – the tree goes about the business of breathing in and drinking up nutrients.  The tree is surviving, but not thriving.  But the tree is doing about all the tree can do.  The tree cannot fertilize itself.  The tree cannot aerate the tree’s own soil.  In order for the tree to thrive, the tree is dependent upon the gardener for the kind of care that produces fruit.

This is where I got stuck in the parable.  First, Jesus tells the people to repent; but then, Jesus tells the people that they are immobile trees, incapable of changing anything without the help of a gardener.  As someone who likes who likes to do, to be active, to achieve something, this parable is especially difficult.  If Jesus had just said to repent, I would have had a task to do – a job to accomplish.  Repenting, amending my ways, returning to God are all things I can work on and do.  But being a tree that just stands there, waiting for someone to help her, depending on God’s grace feels a lot less comfortable.

This Lent I really struggled with choosing a spiritual discipline.  I have tried all sorts of practices in Lent in the past:  reading a daily devotional, taking up a prayer practice, creating an exercise routine, or even giving up a foul mouth.  I tend to like the practices that add something to your life, rather than take something away.  But this year, nothing seemed to fit.  I talked to my spiritual director about my quandary, and she suggested something radical.  Instead of taking on something or giving up something, she suggested I just commit to just being more aware.  My busybody nature was totally confused and apprehensive.  But my spiritual director encouraged me to just try – to try spending this Lent, not busying myself with a discipline, but daily taking stock of my life patterns and observing.  This non-practice practice has been the most awkward experience for me.  As a person who needs tangibility, I have been left with this intangible practice.  No checklist to consult, no achievements to track:  just a practice of being, of letting God work on me.

I think what my spiritual director has been trying to get me to live into is the tree identity of our parable today.  In naming ourselves as the tree in Jesus’ parable, we are claiming a couple of things.  First, we are claiming that we are utterly incapable of determining our future.  The tree in the parable is not bearing fruit, and nothing the tree does will help the tree change this status.  The tree cannot try harder or behave differently.  The tree is simply a tree planted where the tree is.  Second, in identifying with the tree, we are claiming that we are dependent upon the gardener.  We are dependent upon the gardener’s mercy – the gardener who lobbies for one more year of trying.  We are dependent upon the gardener for determining the kind of nourishment we will receive.  We do not get to consult the gardener about the type of care we think we need.  We must trust the gardener to do what the gardener does best.

What I like about this parable today is that the parable takes us out of our comfort zones and puts us squarely in God’s hands.  First, by telling the people to repent, Jesus takes the people out of a mode of comparing and judging others and puts the people in the mode of tending to themselves.  His instruction to repent is almost Jesus’ way of saying, “Why don’t you stop worrying about what Pilate did and what the people of Siloam did, and why don’t you take stock of your own stuff.”  And then Jesus takes the wind out the sails of the people even further.  His parable tells them that not only do they need to not worry about what everyone else is doing, they need to realize that even the things that they are doing do not matter – because ultimately they are trees dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to thrive.

Now this may not sound like good news to us, but this is a tremendous word of grace for us today.  In the midst of the season of Lent, that season that we are typically kneading the dough of our lives, trying to get ourselves just right for God, Jesus leaves us with a word of grace.  Jesus’ parable today shifts our energy this week.  Instead of desperately grasping to change and amend our lives, Jesus invites us to let go:  to let go of trying so hard, and to remember the God who lovingly offers to do the work of digging in our soil and spreading smelly manure so that we might bear delicious fruit.

As we have been thinking about gardening this Lent, I have been hearing many stories of your own gardens.  For those of you who garden, you have lived this invitation that Jesus offers.  You have lived through a season where the tomatoes did not make it, where the new crop was not planted in the right place, and where critters have come in and destroyed.  And for those of you who are seasoned at this work, the common phrase I hear from you is, “Ah well, we’ll try again next year.”  This is the kind of letting go that Jesus is inviting us into this week.  This is the kind of trust in God that Jesus encourages.  As we come forward for healing prayers today, an old gospel hymn keeps running through head when I think of Jesus’ parable today.  The chorus says, “Your grace and mercy brought me through.  I’m living this moment because of You.  I want to thank you and praise you too.  Your grace and mercy brought me through.”  In the midst of our Lenten journey, we pause today to recognize the ways in which we are simply trees in God’s garden, dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to get us through.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 92.

Sermon – Philippians 3.17-4.1, L2, YC, February 24, 2013

25 Monday Feb 2013

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When a person is ordained as a priest, they make a series of vows.  One of the scariest ones for me was this question:  Will you do your best to pattern your life and the life of your family in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people?  The question sounds simple enough:  Will you be an example to others?  But the question is anything but simple.  The question asks whether the priest will shape their lives so that parishioners, neighbors, and the world will understand the teachings of Christ through the priest’s life.  And not only is the priest responsible, the whole family of the priest has to be an example.  So when your three-year old is having a meltdown in Target, and your nerves are shot from a morning of similar tempter tantrums, and your spouse and you have argued about discipline, you and your family are supposed to be emanating Christ in Target.

Of course, the priest is not the only one who is supposed to be living a Christ-like life.  When we are baptized, and every time we affirm our baptismal covenant, those promises we renew are all about living a Christ-like life.  And yet, we rarely walk the walk that we talk.  I think one of the most common retorts to a petulant teen by a parent has been, “Do what I say, not what I do.”  We know the life we are supposed to live – even the life we want to live – and yet we fail miserably at that life everyday.  One of my favorite online videos is a video for Welcome Back Sunday in the fall.  The video talks about the top reasons why people do not come to church.  One of those reasons is that the Church is full of hypocrites.  We know the ways that we feel like hypocrites and the world knows the ways we act like hypocrites.

So, when we read our epistle lesson to the Philippians today, we may be shocked by Paul’s words.  Paul, who has regularly said that followers of Christ should imitate Christ, now says, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.”  Paul’s instruction to imitate him is bold.  Paul does not say, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Paul says, “Do what I do.”  Modern skeptics that we are, we immediately assume Paul has developed an inflated ego.  We know that telling people to imitate you is the first step toward a nasty fall.  Such a bold claim is setting Paul up for failure – because none of us are perfect.  Paul’s words immediately remind us of the hundreds of clergy who have fallen – who have embezzled, had affairs, abused children, abused alcohol, and have failed to be faithful pastors.  Surely Paul is setting up himself and the many people who are following him for failure.  Why would he do such a thing?

What we lose in our jaded, skeptical, snarky twenty-first century selves is the reminder of how learning and formation have happened for centuries.  Both Jesus, and Paul his disciple, “know that true moral and spiritual formation depends on tutelage under a master – learning to follow the habits and practices of one who has become proficient in a particular trade or skill.  Indeed, this is the precise meaning of the word ‘disciple’:  a learner or pupil.”[i]  In this way, disciples are learning from someone wiser than themselves, and in fact are imitating the teacher’s teacher.[ii]  So when Paul says imitate me, he does not really mean imitate Paul, but imitate Paul, who is imitating Jesus Christ.  Imitate the teacher’s teacher.

What I find comforting then, is that Paul is not saying he is perfect.  He is not boasting about his perfect imitation of Christ, but only encouraging others to imitate Christ as he imitates Christ.  What Paul knows is that our lives are never perfect.  But if we are not imitating something worth imitation, then we are already losing the battle.  And so, Paul’s imitation and our imitation many years later may be rough versions of Jesus Christ, but our imitation is still rooted in that great teacher who taught so many before us.

How we imitate Paul today is a bit more complicated.  We too must find our teachers who point to The Teacher.  The trick is not to think too remotely.  When asked who our role models are, many of us will name famous people of faith – Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mother Teresa.  And those folks will give us much to ponder about our faith life.  But the problem is, sometimes those people are so removed from our lives that they cannot really teach us how to live our lives as Christians.  I did a book study with a group once to prepare us for a prison ministry.  The book was about a woman from California in her fifties who gave up everything and moved into a prison in Tijuana as a nun to become an advocate for the men and families affected by the prison.  She lived in a cell in the prison and she ministered to the guards and the prisoners alike.  She transformed the place into a place of humanity.  She helped everyone equally, and managed to mobilize thousands of Americans to support the desperate needs of the Mexican prison.  Mother Antonia was an amazing role model that we all found incredibly inspiring.  But at the end of the series, one of the group members confessed that despite the fact that she appreciated Mother Antonia, she really would have preferred to have read a book about someone a little more like herself.  Mother Antonia was so dramatically different from her life that she found that instead of being inspired, she was left without a true mentor to imitate.

This is why Paul offers himself up as an example.  Not because he is some stellar example of Christ, but because he is in relationship with those with whom he is talking.  Paul realizes that the most powerful person to learn from is someone right in your community.  “Paul is directing the gaze of the community not toward some type of individual perfection, not even toward the supreme perfection of Christ…but to the realization of Christ’s love within the community itself.”[iii]

So Paul is inviting us to do a couple of things.  First, Paul is inviting to name our own teachers.  One of my favorite set of teachers is a couple I know from college.  When Rebecca and David were married, they bought a home in North Carolina much larger than what they would need.  The house was a fixer-upper, but they had dreams.  Their dream was to make the house into an intentional Christian community that also serves as a transitional house for families.  So, people who are in-between jobs, a woman who is recently divorced, or really anyone the local pastor recommends is welcome to come live in their home.  They have some house rules about sharing work, community meals, and weekly worship.  But Rebecca, David, and their two sons are imitating Christ in this radical lifestyle.  When I am really wondering how to live a Christ-like life, I look at this family and see how far I have to go.

But even Rebecca and David can be a little too removed.  So sometimes I just look at those around me.  I look at the spiritual disciplines of parishioners here.  I look at the ways that you care for those with physical limitations.  I look at the ways you tend to this property or the ways that you serve our neighbors in need.  Much like Paul and his community, we are not perfect.  We too struggle to understand how faith is lived right here in Plainview.  Our engagement in that struggle is what points us toward Christ.

This leads us to our second invitation from Paul – to recognize the ways in which we are all teachers to others.  When you leave this place every Sunday, you are not just Barbara or Bob or Paul.  You are Barbara the Christian from St. Margaret’s.  You are Bob who shows what being a person of faith is all about:  not because you are perfect, but because you are struggling to be like Christ.  That video about why people do not come to church has responses to each person’s fear or hesitancy about Church.  When one person complains that the Church is full of hypocrites, the Christian honestly and humbly says, “And there’s always room for one more.”  That kind of raw honesty is the kind of honesty that leads to trust, that leads to sharing, that leads to opening our doors to others.  That is the kind of honesty that makes others not only want to imitate us, but also to join us.  Paul invites us then to boldly proclaim, “Imitate me,” so that we can figure this journey out together.  Amen.

[i] Ralph C. Wood, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 62.

[ii] Casey Thompson, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 64.

[iii] Dirk G. Lange, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 65.

Sermon – Luke 4.1-13, L1, YC, February 17, 2013

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

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Having grown up in the mostly Methodist and Baptist South, I grew up a culture that had no problem talking about the devil or Satan.  If you are starting to doubt yourself or are feeling abandoned in some way, a Southerner has no problem declaring, “That’s just the devil trying to pull you away from the Lord.”  My experience in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and especially with Episcopalians in those areas, is that people are not as comfortable talking about the devil and labeling the devil’s work in our lives.  I am not sure why we get so skittish talking about the devil.  Even the Great Litany, which we pray this morning, makes us uncomfortable with all its “devil” references.  My suspicion is that our hesitancy is a fear of sounding superstitious or a general lack of understanding or comfort with talking about the devil.  Perhaps we are not even sure the devil exists.  I too find myself in the camp of having a difficult time wrapping my head around the concept of the devil.  But I must also admit that when I have been told that my current troubles were due to the devil meddling in my relationship with God, I have felt better.  There is something quite freeing about naming the devil in the midst of our lives.

Our gospel lesson today highlights why we are so skittish about the devil.  The devil works in the thin space between good and evil.  For example, the three temptations of Jesus from the devil are just ambiguous enough that Jesus could reason his way into responding positively to the devil.  First the devil asks Jesus to turn a stone into bread.  Now if Jesus decides to do such a thing for himself, who is famished from fasting for forty days, we could see his action as self-serving and certainly in line with the devil.  But if Jesus turns the “abundant stones that cover Israel’s landscape into ample food to feed the many hungry people in a land often wracked by famine,”[i] then in good conscience, he might begin to consider the devil’s tempting offer.

Next, the devil tempts Jesus with the power to rule over all the kingdoms of the world.  Now if Jesus decides to take such authority out of a desire for power and greed, we could easily deem his action as rooted in self-serving sin.  But, if Jesus agrees to take that authority so that he can rule the world with justice, then the deal with the devil becomes a bit murkier.  If you remember, at the time of the Gospel, the land is under the heavy hand of Rome.[ii]  Jesus could easily turn their suffering to justice if he accepts the devil’s offer.

Finally, the devil tempts Jesus to prove God’s protective care.  Now if Jesus were jumping from the pinnacle of the temple just to show off how protected he is, then we could judge Jesus to be behaving in a sinful way.  But Jesus is committing to a tremendous journey.  Jesus might like some assurance that God will care for him.  In this light, the request does not seem like that much to ask.

The temptations for Jesus are not unlike the ways that the devil tempts Adam and Eve so many years before.  What the devil does is plant a seed of doubt, making Adam and Eve wonder why God would keep such beautiful fruit from them – why God would keep the truth from them about the tree.  The devil’s work is to constantly keep picking away at trusting relationship with God, fostering mistrust between God and God’s people.[iii]

Several years ago the film Doubt received several Oscar nominations.  The movie explored a Catholic Church and School where the head nun accused the priest of sexual misconduct.  But the story is presented so ambiguously that even by the end of the movie the viewer is not sure if abuse took place or not.  This is that thin place between truth and lies, between trust and mistrust where the devil thrives.  And truthfully, even in the movie, with whom the devil is cooperating is unclear.  This is the danger in all of our lives today – the lines between God’s work and the devil’s work are so close that we have a hard time naming the devil in our lives.

Luckily Jesus’ responses to the devil give us some guidance today.  In each of the three temptations, Jesus leans on his deep understanding of Holy Scripture.  Jesus leans not on his own personal strength, but instead leans on the truths that he learns in the Hebrew Scriptures.  We see how powerful Jesus’ response is because the devil attempts to distort this strength as well.  In the third temptation, the devil quotes scripture himself, trying to lure Jesus back into that thin place.  But Jesus cannot be fooled.  Jesus knows that the devil is using partial scripture citations that can be misleading out of context.[iv]  Jesus knows that a dependence on Holy Scripture will support him in his weakness.

As we begin our Lenten journey, today’s gospel lesson gives us much to ponder.  First, we are invited into a time of pondering how the devil might be acting in the thin spaces between faithfulness and sinfulness, manipulating our mistrust of God for the devil’s gain.  In order for us to understand how the devil might be acting, we will need to first label the ways in which we mistrust God.  If there are areas of our lives which we do not entrust to God: a particular relationship, a job or school decision, something challenging at work or at home, or an uncertain future, these are areas that are most susceptible to the devil squeezing his way into our lives.  Our invitation this week is to spend some time reflecting on the areas of mistrust of God in our lives and to pray for strength to turn those over to God.  Only when we understand where our mistrust is can we begin turning back into a trusting relationship with the God that loves and supports us.

Second, Jesus invites us into a deeper relationship with Scripture this Lent.  We have already seen how Holy Scripture sustained Jesus at his weakest hour.  Whatever your Lenten practice, consider how you might incorporate some additional Scripture reading into your week.  And if that feels too burdensome, you can use today’s Scripture insert and meditate on those four lessons at home.  If you are feeling more adventuresome, you can start praying Morning or Evening Prayer from the Prayer Book at home.  That prayer practice will expose you to a good amount of scripture.  And if you are feeling really adventuresome, you might just pick a book of the Bible and start reading.  You may be surprised at the parallels in scripture and your own life.

The invitations today are many.  In this time of Lent, we are encouraged to enter these forty days knowing that Jesus has been there himself and managed to lean on the God who saves us time and again.  If Jesus can lean on God in his weakness, we can lean on God in our weakness too, even if we are not totally ready to trust God with all of ourselves.  Just admitting that hesitancy is the first step to kicking the devil out of our thin spaces.  Amen.

[i] Sharon H. Ringe, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 47.

[ii] Ringe, 49.

[iii] David Lose, as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=668 on February 15, 2013.

[iv] Darrell Jodock, “Antidote for Temptation,” Christian Century, vol. 112, no. 6, Feb. 22, 1995, 203.

Sermon – Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YC, February 13, 2013

14 Thursday Feb 2013

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I have been thinking about death a lot lately.  We lost one of our beloved parishioners yesterday, and another parishioner is sick enough that we have been talking about death.  The journeys with those parishioners have made death much more present for me.  Then, last week I was listening to an interview with Oscar-nominee Bradley Cooper who talked about how he nursed his father through to death.  Cooper explained how the death of his father dramatically changed Cooper’s perspective on life – how that last gasp of air by his father was the very moment that Cooper’s entire worldview shifted.  Then, just this weekend I watched a film called 50/50, a dramatic comedy that chronicles the way a 27 year-old deals with a cancer diagnosis that gives him only a fifty percent chance of survival.  At every turn, death seems to be whispering to me.

Part of my job as a priest is to bring a certain sobriety about death as death approaches.  That is not to say that I am a party pooper, but my role is to name the truth that is approaching – earthly death and reunion with our Lord in eternal life.  In fact, the Church is one of the few places left in the world that openly and regularly talks about death.  In a world that encourages anti-aging treatments, who has desensitized us to death as we have moved away from an agricultural lifestyle, and whose medical advances have extended life much longer than before, we learn that death can be conquered and should be fought at all costs.

Pushing against this secular understanding of death, the Church gives us Ash Wednesday.  The Church looks at our flailing efforts to preserve life and as we are humbly kneeling at the altar rail, rubs gritty ash on our heads and says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  There is no, “Don’t worry about death; you’ll be fine!”  Instead those grave words, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” echo in our heads, haunting our thoughts.  Every year the Church reminds us of the finite amount of time we have on this earth.

This is why I love Lent so much.  The Church dedicates forty days to a time where we cut to the chase and honestly assess our relationship with God.  We take a sobering look at our lives, a sobering look that could be reserved only for the time of death, and we discern what manifestation of sinfulness has pulled us away from God.  Our Prayer Book defines sin as “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.”[i]  Lent is the season when we focus on repentance from our sin – not just a feeling guilty about our sinfulness, but eagerly seeking ways to amend those relationships and turn back toward resurrection living.  What most people get only at the time of death, we are given every year at the time of Lent:  a time of sobering realignment.

This is why we get Matthew’s gospel lesson on Ash Wednesday.  As we begin our sobering Lenten journey, the gospel lesson names disciplines and practices that can help us along the way.  Jesus names those ancient practices that have brought people back to God for ages – giving alms, praying, and fasting.  Each one of these practices has ways of bringing us closer to God by shaking up our normal routines.  Of course, any Lenten practice can have the same effect.  Giving up caffeine, taking on a new fitness regiment, or reconnecting with nature are equally valid ways to shake up our routines enough to notice the ways in which we have become more self-centered than God-centered.  Although Jesus names the disciplines of alms giving, prayer, and fasting, the actual discipline itself is not the issue for Jesus.  The issue is our intentions in our practice.

This is why we hear Jesus labeling so many people as hypocrites in our gospel lesson today.  Jesus is less concerned about what disciplines we assume and is more concerned about the authenticity behind those disciplines.  Jesus is not arguing that private acts are authentic and public ones are inauthentic by nature.  What matters is the desire and motivation behind these practices.  We have all seen this in action.  One of my favorite comediennes jokes about this very behavior in one of her shows.  She talks about how people sometimes use prayer requests as a means of gossip.  In one of her jokes, she has the gossiper of the church inviting people into a prayer circle so that they can pray for someone in the church who just got pregnant, even though the news was supposed to be private.  We all know the kind of hypocritical behavior Jesus is addressing.  This kind of behavior will never get us to the sobriety we need to right our relationship with God and others.

Of course, any kind of practice we take up this Lent can be corrupted.  The giving up of a particular kind of food can be more for weight loss than a connection to God.  The taking up of a volunteer activity can be to fulfill a requirement for something else.  Whatever we do this Lent, that deprivation or incorporation is meant to help us restore our relationship with God, other people, and all creation.  So when we give up a food, instead of glorying in the fact that we lost a few pounds, we can instead see how that food has become an emotional crutch that keeps us from leaning on God and others.  When we take on a new prayer routine, we slowly begin to see how little time we give to God in our daily lives.  Whatever our practice, Jesus is concerned that authenticity be at the heart, so that we can more readily prepare for Good Friday and Easter.[ii]

And so, in order to shake us out of our self-centered, sinful, distant ways, Ash Wednesday gives us death.  Ash Wednesday grittily, messily, publicly reminds us of our death, and then leaves us marked so that we can humbly enter into a Lenten reconnection with God.  Ash Wednesday throws death in our faces so that we can wake up in a world that would have us keep striving for longevity of earthly life instead of striving for intimacy with God here and now.  This Ash Wednesday, our ashes are the outward reminder of the sobering journey we now begin, because only when we consider our own death can we begin to see the resurrection glory that awaits us at Easter.  My prayer is that our journey this Lent is not one of painful guilt, but instead one of glorious reconnection with our creator, redeemer, and sustainer.  Amen.

[i] BCP, 848.

[ii] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 24.

Homily – Luke 4.40-44, Samuel Shoemaker, January 31, 2013

14 Thursday Feb 2013

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In our gospel lesson today, Jesus experienced the first of many attempts to contain Jesus and his ministry.  After healing many, Jesus goes to a deserted place, to rejuvenate, most likely, but the crowds follow, begging him to stay.  They want to keep Jesus Christ to themselves, to use him as they need.  But Jesus will not stay: “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to other cities also …”  Jesus must keep moving, sharing the Good News beyond one particular place.

We do this 2,000 years later.  Though we say we want to grow, we like our small, close-knit community.  We like what Jesus is doing now, and we are not sure how much change we actually want.  Besides, if we are going to grow, we would like people to come to us, not us need to keep moving outside these walls, bringing people in.  Of course, this is not simply a St. Margaret’s problem.  The entire Episcopal Church is in decline because we really struggle with that whole “evangelism” thing.

Samuel Shoemaker, who we honor today, would not have liked our guarded, protective ways – even if we are in good company.  Shoemaker, born in 1893 in Baltimore, was influenced by many evangelical thinkers.  He learned the power of personal evangelism, and during his 16-year tenure in New York City at Calvary Episcopal Church, his church grew exponentially.  He knew the power of personal evangelism and giving authentic witness to one’s faith.  Eventually, Shoemaker started movements of sharing faith in the workplace and ministering to alcoholics through AA.  Shoemaker kept making the “box” of church wider, keeping that same pace of Jesus, who could not be kept by one town or community.

The good news with Jesus and even Shoemaker is that they push us in good ways with results more bountiful than we could imagine.  Yes, Jesus could have stayed in one town forever, and healed and cared for all.  But Jesus Christ also knew he could do more.  Shoemaker could have ministered to those inside the church and not worried about who wasn’t there.  But because he did, the good news and ministries became whole movements in the church.

Our invitation today is to think bigger.  We can make tweaks here and there, but maybe we can think bigger about our ministry and witness here in Plainview.  Who knows which risks will pay off and what changes will lead us to boisterous new life?  We may not know what that will look like in the years to come.  But our invitation is to stay open, to keep moving and to boldly go out into the world with Jesus.  Amen.