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Sermon – 1 Samuel 8.4-20, 11.14-15, Mark 3.20-35, P5, YB, June 9, 2024

19 Wednesday Jun 2024

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This morning, we get two powerful stories from scripture.  In our story from first Samuel, we hear the story of how the people of Israel come to demand a king to rule over them instead of God and God’s appointed judges and prophets.  They figure if they have a king like the other nations, then they’ll never have to worry about their safety and security.  A king will defend them in a way that looks familiar – like the other nations – than a way that feels like trusting a God you cannot see.  Of course, Samuel warns them – you pick a king and the king will take your daughters and sons into his service, will steal your land and produce as his own, will take your property and use it to his own benefit, will basically enslave you (not unlike the days in Egypt).  But the people insist none of that matters – as long as they have a king like everyone else.

Meanwhile, in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been healing people, driving out demons, saying some things, and generally making a raucous.  Here, two groups insert themselves – the scribes, who try to claim Jesus is possessed by a demon himself, and his family, who are concerned he has lost his mind and want to restrain him.  Jesus is so frustrated by their behavior, especially of his mother and brothers that he loudly states, “Who are my mother and my brother?”  In other words, he denies his very own family because they cannot see the truth in what he is doing.  In these two stories – of the Israelites wanting a king and of Jesus’ family demanding he behave in a certain way, we have people thinking they know better than God – taking matters into their own hands thinking they know how things should be.

I was talking to another parent recently about how parenting is probably the hardest job of all the vocations I have – particularly as a person who likes to imagine she has a modicum of control in her life.  In the beginning, although parenting is physically exhausting, parenting is also manageable in a way that is not so obvious.  For those infants and young children, you have a lot of control – what the child will eat and drink, what the child will wear, when the child will rest, where the child can go.  But as the child ages, they make more and more of the decisions – what they will wear, where they will go, with whom they will spend time.  This is, of course, how parenting should be – the raising up of an independent child.  But the more your child becomes independent the more you realize how the younger years were the “good ol’ days” – the days where you felt like you were in control (or at least convinced yourself you had more control than you probably did).  Parenting feels like the ultimate test for those of us who like a sense of control.

But the truth is, the ultimate test for those of us who like a sense of control is being a person of faith – following a God whose logic sometimes feels illogical, following a savior who says and does things that really push our buttons, and following a Spirit who takes us places we really do not want to go.  And so, we find ourselves, much like the Israelites, accepting slavery, abuse, and the loss of freedom just to get those things we think will make us happy and whole.  We find ourselves, like Mary and Jesus’ brothers, bossing around God, insisting God behave in ways that make us feel comfortable.  Instead, God tells them and us to trust – to trust that God will provide leaders who will guide us in the ways of justice and truth; to trust that even the things we cannot understand will lead to good; to trust that even though we cannot know what God knows, our wholehearted trust in the will of God is all that matters.

So how do we do that?  How do we, people of free will, in a country of democracy where “we the people” make decisions, in a time when choices are boundless and we must make them, how do we become people of trust – people of faith?  Well, I like to go back to that story of Jesus in a crowded room from Mark’s Gospel today.  Scholar Debie Thomas says, “…I can’t help but imagine what it must have felt like to be inside the house with Jesus that day.  I know intimately and well, as perhaps you do, the hunger to belong, to have someone safe and loving to belong to.  Regardless of our circumstances, we all know what it’s like to yearn for someone who can hold all of who we are, and love us still, without flinching.  That’s exactly what Jesus does for the crowds that day. He invites them in, he asks them to stay, and he makes them family. 

Yes, Jesus divides the house, and that process hurts.  But he doesn’t divide [the house] to make us homeless.  He divides [the house] to rebuild it.  To make [the house] more spacious, more welcoming, and more beautiful.  The Spirit of God is neither insane nor evil; the Spirit completes the good work he begins.  His will be a house of healing for the whole world.”[i]

Holy Scripture today is not inviting us to become some mindless, fluff who walk around without aim or purpose just “trusting that God will work everything out.”  God did give us freewill, and God does want us to use that freewill for good.  But what the Holy Spirit is trying to remind us of is that we do not have the whole story.  We cannot see the way in which Jesus is rebuilding the house.  We cannot fully know the feeling of being inside that home where true healing may be.  We cannot understand the fullness of the implications of our desires – which seem reasonable and justified to us.  But what we can see and know and understand is that Jesus is building a house of healing for the whole world.  And if we can stop trying to parent God, we can start beginning to see that God is constantly doing a new thing and inviting us into the family.  We just do not get to be the parent in that family.  And that is a very good thing indeed.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “A House Divided,” June 3, 2018, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1805-a-house-divided on June 5, 2024.

On Pastoring and Motherhood…

08 Wednesday May 2024

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Photo credit: https://community.thriveglobal.com/remembering-mom-hands-on-mothers-day-loss-support-memories-inspire/

One of the deepest privileges of being a pastor is being gifted with people’s stories.  Sometimes those are stories of great joy:  of new love leading to marriage, of the gift of children, of the excitement of a new vocation.  And sometimes those are stories of deep pain and grief:  of life lost, of hurts deeply experienced, of dreams deflated.  The sum of those stories is uncountable – they are words and emotions that drift in and out of the pastor’s consciousness – the vessel for all that needs to be said and released.  It means that even in the pastor’s moments of greatest joys, there is, at the subconscious level, the treasuring and honoring of deepest pain and suffering.

Normally, I find I am able to hold that reality with tenderness and grace.  But nothing challenges that ability more than holidays that desire to create a forced, well-intentioned experience.  Secular ones, like the approaching Mother’s Day this weekend, are the worst offenders.  On the surface there is nothing wrong with Mother’s Day.  I know countless people who have been tremendous mothers in my life and in the lives of others, who rarely get a thank you, let alone a day of honor.  There is nothing wrong with honoring the mothers in our lives.  The challenge is the sea of complicated feelings that come along with such an effort:  the grief over mothers we have lost, the suffering caused by mothers who were abusive or absent, the pain of those women who wanted to be a mother and never could or who were mothers and who lost their pregnancies or their children, and for the hurt of those relationships between children and mothers that is estranged.  Our much-deserved celebration of mothering is always tainted with the very messy reality of mothering.

For that reason, you will not find me liturgically celebrating Mother’s Day at church.  Instead, I invite you to put on your pastor shoes this Mother’s Day and hold in tension the beloved and the painful this day.  Reach out to friends who have struggled with infertility, lost a pregnancy, or grieve the loss of a child or a relationship with their child.  Reach out to those who had beautiful, healthy relationships with their mothers and now grieve their death every day.  Reach out to those who are mothering figures in your life, even if they never birthed you and give them thanks.  At our church, we quietly offer resources for the complicated nature of the day.  You can find them here, here, and here.  But whatever you do, use this Mother’s Day to “mother in” the love of Jesus, who could see mothers everywhere and honored all of them. 

Sermon – John 15.9-17, Acts 10.44-48, E6, YB, May 5, 2024

08 Wednesday May 2024

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When I was curate, I served with two other full-time priests.  That meant after about two years, I got used to our very different styles of preaching, but also some of the themes of our preaching.  I remember at one point, my Rector was preaching and I had the distinct thought, “Here we go again.  Another sermon about love!  Ugh!”  I remember being almost irritated thinking, surely there were other topics to preach about.

Sometimes I think we experience John’s gospel in the same way.  John’s gospel is repetitive and circular from the very beginning, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”[i]  But John is not the only one who is repetitive and circular – Jesus in John’s gospel is repetitive and circular too.  In the first five verses of John’s gospel today we heard the word “love” eight times.  “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”[ii]  And the funny thing about the gospel today is this is not the first time Jesus talks about love.  As I was reading verse 12, which says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” I immediately thought, “Oh, we must be reading the same text we read on Maundy Thursday!”  But you know what?  On Maundy Thursday, we read a passage from two chapters before what we heard today.  The words there are strikingly similar though.  On that night of washing feet, Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”[iii]

So what is the deal with Jesus talking about love over and over again?  Scholar Karoline Lewis argues that you cannot summarize Jesus in one sentence, so of course we have lots of sentences – even if they are repetitive.[iv]  But I think there is something deeper here.  I think Jesus knew that we, as humans, easily distracted.  “Yeah, yeah, yeah Jesus, I got it.  Love my neighbor! Oh look at that shiny thing over there!”  But even more importantly, I think Jesus knew that love – loving neighbor, loving self, loving God, loving others as Jesus loved is not easy.  Loving as Jesus loves means loving people that others (and even sometimes ourselves) would rather hate.  Loving as Jesus loves means mingling with people that society calls unlovable, difficult, and even evil.  Loving as Jesus loves means seeing dignity and worth in every human being – even when they hurt us, say awful things, or are just so different that they make us uncomfortable.  All we have to do is think about what we have been hearing in the lessons from Acts last week and this week to know that loving means letting people into your circle that you had no intention of letting in – breaking those boundaries that Father Charles talked about last week.  For Peter and the early disciples, that meant Jesus was not just for the Jews, but for Jew and Gentile alike.  And not just as charity, but as a way that transformed the entire community of Jesus followers – such that we find Peter dining and staying with Gentiles – who definitely are not kosher and might even be holding fast to other gods while committing to Jesus. 

So how are we supposed to do this really hard work?  How are we supposed to pull together the strength to love as Jesus loves?  I found comfort in words from scholar Debie Thomas this week.  If you remember, last week we heard the verses from John right before our Gospel lesson today, where Jesus declares he is the vine and we are the branches – he is the vine that we are to abide in.  Debie Thomas says, “My problem is that I often treat Jesus as a role model, and then despair when I can’t live up to his high standards.  But abiding in something is not the same as emulating it.  In the vine-and-branches metaphor, Jesus’s love is not our example; it’s our source.  It’s where our love originates and deepens.  Where it replenishes itself.  In other words, if we don’t abide, we can’t love.  Jesus’s commandment to us is not that we wear ourselves out, trying to conjure love from our own easily depleted resources.  Rather, it’s that we abide in the holy place where divine love becomes possible.  That we make our home in Jesus’s love — the most abundant and inexhaustible love in existence.”[v]

Yes, we will continue to hear about loving others because love is the most important message of Jesus.  And yes, loving will feel nearly impossible at times.  But as Thomas reminds us, “As is so often the case in our lives as Christians, Jesus’s commandment leads us straight to paradox: we are called to action via rest.  Called to become love as we abide in love.  In other words, we will become what we attend to; we will give away what we take in.  The commandment — or better yet, the invitation — is to drink our fill of the Source, which is Christ, spill over to bless the world, and then return to the Source for a fresh in-filling.  This is our movement, our rhythm, our dance.  Over and over again.  This is where we begin and end and begin again.  ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ ‘Abide in my love.’  These are finally not two separate actions.  They are one and the same.  One ‘impossible’ commandment to save the world.  It’s all about love.”[vi] 

That is our invitation today – to become love and to abide in love.  Perhaps in reverse order:  maybe we need to abide in Jesus’ love in order to know how to love.  But either way, we repetitively and circularly are invited to love – to love as Christ has loved.  Loving will be hard, loving will be messy, loving will be wearying.  But loving will also be beautiful, loving will life-giving, loving will be transformative – certainly of the other, but mostly of ourselves.  We can do that hard, messy, beautiful, sacred work by returning to the source of love and strength.  We can love as Jesus loves because Jesus first loved us.  Amen.

[i] John 1.1-3.

[ii] John 15.9-10.

[iii] John 13.34.

[iv] Karoline Lewis, as explained in the podcast “#963: Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 5, 2024” Sermon Brainwave, April 28, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/963-sixth-sunday-of-easter-may-5-2024 on May 2, 2024

[v] Debie Thomas, “It’s All About Love,” May 2, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3003-it-s-all-about-love on May 3, 2024.

[vi] Thomas.

Sermon – John 13.1-17, 31b-35, MT, YB, March 28, 2024

01 Wednesday May 2024

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Photo credit: https://lighthousesouthbay.org/resources/stories/maundy-thursday-family-worship-footwashing/

In my first year of seminary, we traveled to Burma for an Anglican Communion learning trip.  For a portion of the trip, we led an educational component for the theological students, which closed with a foot washing experience.  In my mind, the foot washing experience was so authentic:  those with empirically more power serving those with less; the leaders becoming servants; and certainly, the tangible re-creation of Jesus’ experience, since in Burma everyone wears those plastic flip flops, so their feet really are dusty in the ways that I imagine those disciples’ feet were.  The seven us of seminarians were feeling pretty good about ourselves – we were embodying the kind of love Jesus always talks about. 

But then something unexpected happened.  When we finished the last student, several students grabbed the arms of each us, and almost forcefully put us in the very chairs where we had been washing their feet – all with very little English to navigate the turning of the tables.  The role reversal felt all wrong – we were the ones who should be washing them, not them washing us.  Suddenly we were asked to be vulnerably touched, to humbly receive, and to ultimately right the balance of power between us.  The unplanned reversal left us shaken and uncomfortable, and a whole less sure of ourselves.

As I have been thinking about this Maundy Thursday service this week, that’s kind of what this service is:  messy.  Jesus, the one with power, lowers himself to the floor and washes the disciples’ feet – something not even servants would normally do, as they would simply provide the water for you to do the work yourself.  There are a few occasions where women might do this work, but certainly Jesus shouldn’t be stooping to women’s work.[i]  There is all kinds of messiness about the appropriateness of Jesus’ humble act that makes the disciples feel quite vulnerable.  But then there is the fact not only does Jesus do this humble, vulnerable act on his hands and knees, but also he does this for everyone, including Judas – his soon-to-be betrayer – and Peter – his soon-to-be denier.  Jesus washes the feet of the faithful follower and stumbling follower alike.  On the one hand, we can conceptualize how to humbly serve others – I imagine it gives us great satisfaction like we seminarians had in Burma.  But humbly serving those who literally betray you and shun you – that’s something else altogether.  All we have to do is imagine the politician who makes us the most angry, indignant, and rightly willing to protest.  And then imagine kneeling down and washing his or her feet – humbling yourself before them, willing yourself to tenderly touch the very human skin of your so-called enemy.

And so, by the end of this passage – where Jesus has argued his way through this lesson of foot washing, and as the verses that were edited out of our passage tonight would have told us, Judas leaves to betray Jesus, we are told a major kernel of truth – a command that this whole night is named for (Maundy literally means in Latin “command” or “mandate.”[ii]).  Jesus says, “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.”  Now we all LOVE to talk about this new commandment – we love to talk about love.  But those six words are the scary part of this commandment:  Just as I have loved you.  So that person who betrays us, denies us, works against goodness, who hurts us, who angers us – we are to love them just as much as the people we actually like.  Jesus is asking a lot tonight, folks. 

And so, in this service, in just a few minutes, we are going to do some messy things.  We are going to literally wash each other’s feet.  No matter how embarrassed we are by our imperfect feet, no matter how little we like being the recipient of care, no matter how much we might like the people in this room but we are not prepared to be really vulnerable with them – we will have the opportunity to both serve and be served tonight.  Then we will gather around the altar rail – with people we like and maybe people who frustrate us, with people who agree with our political opinions and people who really do not, with people we may not even really know all that well – and we will receive the blessed sacrament, elbow to elbow with everyone.  And then finally, we will watch as everything is taken away – the dishes from our feast, the adornments we love, the familiar things of comfort, even the light itself.  And the priest will scrub down the altar, with a sound that sounds like the scrubbing away of everything familiar and comforting. 

We do all these messy things because what Jesus asks of us is nothing short of messy.  “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  That is what we leave here tonight – on this Commandment Thursday – to go out in the world to do.  To love – to messily, vulnerably, frustratingly, painfully do.  To love – just as Jesus has messily, vulnerably, frustratingly, painfully loved us.  That command is what we hold on tomorrow as we allow Jesus to walk to the cross.  That command is what we hold on to through Saturday as he sits in tomb.  That command is what we hold onto when we mourn the entirety of his life – “the whole witness of the Word made flesh.”[iii]  That command is what we hold onto even when we joyously and fearfully celebrate what happens on Easter.  But that command is especially what we hold on to in the days and weeks to come – in this year of 2024 as we try to love – just as Jesus has loved us.  Jesus knows loving will be messy.  But Jesus gives us the messy gifts tonight to help us love anyway.  Amen.

[i] Mary Lousie Bringle, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 279.

[ii] James E. Lamkin, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 280.

[iii] Karoline M. Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 179.

On the Busyness of Holy Week…

27 Wednesday Mar 2024

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Photo credit: https://www.redletterchristians.org/why-we-want-to-skip-holy-week/

Holy Week is a funny time for liturgical churches.  Growing up in the United Methodist Church, I remember one Sunday (Palm Sunday), we put nails in the cross, and the next Sunday (Easter Sunday), we would put flowers in the same holes where those nails had been.  But services between the two Sundays were rare, if not nonexistent.  Once I became an Episcopalian, a whole world of liturgical wonders opened up.  Each church did Holy Week a little differently, but invariably, there was some kind of worship every night of Holy Week.  There were the traditional Triduum services:  Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil.  But then there were a whole variety of others things:  Taizé worship, Compline, Evensong, Healing Services, Tenebrae, Lessons and Carols, Vespers, and even special concerts. 

Among ecumenical clergy, I often get looks of skepticism, as if they wonder why we do that to ourselves (i.e. work so many nights in a row).  They are not wrong (it is certainly taxing), and I also do not promote the kind of martyred attitude many clergy assume while doing it.  For most of us though, there is something deeper happening.  Fellow clergyman Tim Schneck said it best in a recent post, “When you hear clergy strongly encouraging you to attend the services of Holy Week, especially the Great Three Days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil), it’s not just because they like to see more people in the pews, or it’s good for their egos, or they want parishioners to see how much effort goes into these liturgies.  It’s because they believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Christian faith.  It’s because they love you and want nothing more than for you to have such a moving encounter with our Lord, that it will change your life.  It’s an invitation rooted in profound love, and a recognition that there is literally nothing more important in the entire world than to participate fully as we collectively journey from the Upper Room to Calvary to the Empty Tomb.” 

I know life is full and stressful.  I know in my area, many families are rapidly approaching Spring Break and have a load of things to do to prepare.  But as a pastor – maybe your pastor – I want to gift you this most sacred week for your spiritual journey.  Whether you tune in online or join us in person at my church, let yourself be stirred by liturgies you do not often see, by actions you rarely do, and by music your rarely hear.  In what can easily feel like just another week, make a point to find yourself a church that can stir your curiosity about faith or your longing for meaningful connection or a sense of belonging.  But mostly, know that whatever you can do – even if it’s just Easter, know that there is a place where everyday this week, you can be reminded that you are loved – deeply, profoundly, and unconditionally.  And if you want to hear, taste, smell, see, and touch that love, the Church is waiting for you. 

Sermon – Mt. 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YB, February 14, 2024

21 Wednesday Feb 2024

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This morning, I got a fun text from a friend.  “Happy Ash Valentine’s Day!” she exclaimed.  I have seen all sorts of humor about the confluence of Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday this year.  From questions about whether the clergy might be making the sign of a heart instead of the sign of a cross with our ashes tonight (sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping that wasn’t just a rumor); to a meme from the National Church that says  “You can’t have VaLENTines with the LENT”; to actual candy conversation hearts that say “U R Dust,” “Ashes 2 Ashes,” or “Repent” instead of the traditional “Be Mine,” “True Love,” or “Kiss Me.”  Even my own daughter petulantly asked me, “Do we always have to celebrate Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day??”

Though the humor has been fun, what lurks under the surface is a discomfort with talking about death – especially on a day meant to be for celebrating the happiness of love.  But part of my job as a priest is to bring a certain sobriety about death to the world – no matter the day.  That is not to say that I am a party pooper or that I don’t like a good box of chocolates myself, but my role as a priest is to name the truth about what happens in death – 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 agrarian 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 – even on Valentine’s Day.  The Church looks at our flailing efforts to preserve life and as we humbly come to 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 – even on a day seems like we should be talking about love and life.

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, reading a daily devotional, 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 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, especially on a day for love, 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 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 or superficial happiness 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 or loveless deprivation, 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.

On Ashes, Valentines, and Ultimate Things…

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Photo credit: https://abidingpresence.net/newsfeed/2018/2/8/holiday-mashup

“Happy Ash Valentine’s Day!” my friend wrote this morning.  At first the greeting made me chuckle, especially given the number of grimaces and eye rolls I have received this year about how the Church has to celebrate Ash Wednesday on a day that is supposed to be about love.  Truth be told, I am not even sure how many faithful will even come to church tonight instead of going out to dinner or staying in for a cozy night with loved ones. 

But what I loved about that greeting today was how it married the two notions:  that you can celebrate love and death all at the same time.  In the same way that the Church soberly says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” the secular world, despite the obvious consumerism of the day, uses this day to soberly say, “No really.  I love you:  I love you my friend, I love you my co-worker, I love you my classmate, and I love you, my beloved.”  These two days, at their root, are meant to talk about ultimate things:  love and death.  And as a priest, when I walk individuals and families toward death, there is nothing but love hovering around.

I wonder if the confluence of Ash Valentine’s Day might be an invitation for us this Lent.  How might you use these next forty day to meditate and act on those things of ultimate significance?  How are tending your relationship with God in a way that acknowledges that relationship’s ultimate significance?  How are you loving your neighbor in a way that honors the ultimate significance of their dignity?  How are you caring for yourself in a way that shows the ultimate significance of your identity as a child of God?  I don’t know if you need some silly candy conversation hearts that remind you that you are dust – or if you need ones that remind you that you are truly loved.  Either way, I hope this Ash Valentine’s Day is a day you can enter into Lent with significance, remembering you are loved. 

Sermon – Mark 1.21-28, EP4, YB (Annual Meeting Address), January 28, 2024

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Before our family left for our cross-country trip during this summer’s sabbatical, I had been warned by a fellow parishioner.  “I never really understood the word ‘awesome’ until I saw the Grand Canyon,” she told me.  The word awesome seemed so underwhelming – maybe because we use the word for things that are less than awesome – an awesome movie, an awesome meal, an awesome day.  But as I stood at the rail, overlooking the massiveness of the Grand Canyon my brain scrambled.  It was as if my brain could not comprehend the sheer vastness of the view in front of me – how far does the canyon stretch?  How deep is the bottom?  How long did it take those specks that must be hikers to get there?  Or maybe, more deeply, how did God conceive of such an indescribably beautiful thing.  As tears welled in my eyes at the Grand Canyon’s inconceivability, I finally understood the word:  awesome.

In today’s Gospel, that is the reaction of the crowd to Jesus.  Jesus comes into the temple on the sabbath and teaches like no other teacher has.  The teachers they know “always say, ‘as Moses said,’ or ‘as Rabbi so-and-so said.’  Jesus [speaks] with a quiet but compelling authority all of his own.”[i]  And the people are astonished, awestruck, amazed.  And their amazement does not stop with Jesus’ unique authority in his teaching.  They see his unique words carry with them power to make the unclean clean.[ii]  Like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, their minds are scrambled.  They cannot understand this new thing.  They are just beginning to taste what one scholar describes as “One of the salient characteristics of [the Gospel of] Mark…the motif of surprise, wonder, awe, and fear…reactions [that] embrace all aspects of Jesus’ ministry…”[iii]  Those gathered today watch Jesus and can clearly say he is awesome.

This past year of ministry at Hickory Neck has struck me in a similar way.  I have stepped back many a time and looked at this community with a sense of awe.  I have told you repeatedly that one of the core values of Hickory Neck is our sense of curiosity – our willingness to try new things.  I talk about that core value a lot because that core value is extremely uncommon in churches.  Put more simply:  our core value of experimentation and playfulness is awesome.  I watched as your Sabbatical Team and your Vestry this past year embraced the idea of mutual sabbatical with gusto, confidence, and playfulness.  I watched as this parish didn’t just look at sabbatical as an obligation or a burden to bear, but as an opportunity to grow, try on new things, and encounter God in fresh ways.  I watched you learn, laugh, and love.  I watched you push yourselves and encourage one another.  I watched you grow in your relationship with God and one another.  And the view was awesome!

But I also watched you in the hard things this past year.  I watched as you grieved, struggled in your faith, and said goodbye to dear friends – all while embracing and comforting one another.  I watched our Stewardship Team take on a hefty deficit budget and decide to try a new approach to stewardship that felt uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and hard – and yet ended the year not only not incurring a deficit, but only using 8% of the savings we planned to use.  I watched as your Vestry held itself accountable to strategic goals the Vestry set for itself and I watched the Vestry struggle through hard questions of process and systems – and I saw the Vestry grow into the fullness of their leadership.  I watched a community struggle with decreased volunteerism and long-held preferences for the “way we have always done things,” – and I watched our community step boldly into doing things differently.  And I have to tell you, even (and maybe especially) in the hard stuff of ministry, the view has been awesome!

We started 2023 as almost two communities:  those long-timers who have been a part of Hickory Neck for ages but were away during long portions of the pandemic; and those newer members who made their way to Hickory Neck during- and post-pandemic who didn’t have a clue how things had “always been done” but knew they have found something special in this community.  One of our hopes had been that these two communities within a community would use our time of sabbatical to form a new Hickory Neck – to build a new way of being that involved shared leadership, creative ministries, and fresh encounters with the sacred.  I stand here today in wonder as I look at Hickory Neck a year later and I have to tell you:  the view is awesome!

We head into 2024 with some revenue challenges, with some needs for increased participation and leadership, and with the tensions that always exist in a growing church.  But we also head into 2024 with a renewed sense of wonder and awe in all that God is doing in this place.  From reenergized ministries to the wider community:  hosting the homeless, building beds for the children in our community who haven’t had a bed, feeding the hungry, and clothing those who struggle; to fresh, creative ministries that we have never tried before:  a children’s music ministry that will launch this summer with a chorister camp; to invitations to grow closer to that Jesus who is truly awesome – through liturgies, study, and service.  God has incredible things in store for us this year:  and the view is awesome!  Amen.    

[i] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 11.

[ii] Gary W. Charles, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 311.

[iii] John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 2 (Collegeville, MN:  Liturgical Press, 2002), 79.

On Being Love and Light…

29 Wednesday Nov 2023

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Photo credit: https://www.thekitchn.com/amazon-pipishell-shopping-cart-review-23250404

This week, I was out shopping for household basics and managed to get in a fairly short line.  But before I could load my items onto the conveyer belt, I noticed the customer checking out was having some sort of issue.  Eventually I surmised it was an issue with a credit card.  The staff and customer realized she was using a card the store doesn’t accept.  The customer rifled around for another card, but for some reason, during her flustered search, she became emotional.  I would not have noticed except the checkout clerk and the bagger immediately jumped into caretaking.  I heard them soothing her, assuring her everything was okay.  I then overheard the bagger explaining how his day had been pretty crummy too, with a broken-down car and a phone that fell into a rain puddle.  The mood lightened – for the three of them, certainly, but even for those of us further back in line who may have been tempted to become impatient or frustrated. 

I confess, I was in awe of the interaction.  Here were three very different people – of different genders, races, and socioeconomic statuses – and yet, in that moment, they showed anyone willing to see how to be a decent human.  That may sound simple, but with shoppers bustling around with the frenzy of the holiday season upon us, and the emotions that are often lingering right under the surface this time of year, it was a powerful reminder about our priorities this season.

I do not know about the religious affiliation of anyone in that triad, but in Church speak, those two staff members were showing the love of Christ to that woman – they were showing what our baptismal covenant calls “respecting the dignity of every human being.”  One of our core purposes at Church is to equip followers of Christ to go out into the world, sharing the love of Christ in their own particular vocation.  As Advent approaches this Sunday, I am reminded that the world needs that love now more than ever.  We certainly do that intentionally at Hickory Neck, with services like our Blue Christmas service that acknowledges how our vulnerable emotions can be bubbling right under the surface this time of year, or with our Invitation Sunday coming up that honors how much longing there is in the world for meaningful community.  But more importantly, I hope our church is empowering our parishioners to be agents of love everyday, who can, at the drop of a dime, see need right in front of them, and show compassion, mercy, and grace.  I look forward to hearing from you where you see invitations this week to show Christ’s love and light!

Sermon – Matthew 18.21-35, P19, YA, September 17, 2023

20 Wednesday Sep 2023

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One of the tricky things about Jesus’ parables is where to situate ourselves, especially when the parable is a familiar one.  As soon as we hear the words, “…the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts…” our brains jump ahead, “Oh, this is the one where the guy is forgiven of his debts and then two seconds later turns around and refuses to forgive someone else’s debt.”  We may have felt pity for the first slave who owed so much, we may have been shocked by his poor behavior toward the other slave, or we may have even thought, “That guy deserved what he got!”  But the thing that is the hardest to do when reading this familiar parable is to situate ourselves in the shoes of the first slave.  And yet, that is the entire reason Jesus tells the parable today. 

We know where to situate ourselves because of what happens before the parable.  If you remember our gospel last week, we talked about Jesus’ conflict resolution plan.  In the very next verse after Jesus explains how the community of faith is to handle conflict, Peter asks a question in today’s text.  The question is a fair one, and when we’re really honest with ourselves, one we may have asked God ourselves.  Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  The parable Jesus tells today is in response to Peter’s question about conflict, sin, and forgiveness in the community of faith.  Essentially, Jesus says, “Let me tell you a little story about forgiveness.”  So, we, who have resisted forgiveness ourselves like Peter, can situate ourselves with not just Peter, but with the slave who fails so miserably at forgiveness. 

Now, before you get too defensive about how you would never treat a fellow human being like the first slave treats the second, we need to think about Peter’s question first.  Theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains, “Peter’s question presupposes that he is the one who has been sinned against.  He assumes that he is in the position of power against the one who has wronged him.  But Jesus’s reply reminds Peter that he is to learn to be the forgiven.”[i]  Before we begin to think about offering forgiveness, we operate from one foundational truth:  we are a people who have first been forgiven.[ii]  Our forgiven status is at the heart of our ability to be a people of forgiveness.

But before we even talk about being a people of forgiveness, we need to talk a little bit about what forgiveness is not.  Some of us believe that forgiveness means excusing or overlooking the harm that has been done to us and saying that everything is okay.  For those who hold that belief, forgiveness can be equated with stuffing our feelings down deep inside or downright lying in order to keep the peace.  Others of us believe that forgiveness means allowing those who have hurt us to persist in their behavior.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is so important, that we become recurring victims of offenses.  Still others believe that forgiving means forgetting what happened.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is pretending an old hurt does not still hurt.  Finally, others see forgiveness as something that we can do at will, and always all at once.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness must be immediate and offered quickly.  The problem with all these models of forgiveness – of overlooking the harm, saying everything is okay, of allowing recurring behavior, of trying to forget, or forgiving once and for all – is that these models of forgiveness would have been totally foreign to Jesus.  According to author Jan Richardson, in Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness, “…nowhere does Jesus lay upon us the kinds of burdens we have often placed upon ourselves—burdens that can make one of the most difficult spiritual practices nearly impossible.”[iii]

So, if we know what forgiveness is not, we need to know what forgiveness is.  I like what scholar Debie Thomas has to say about forgiveness.  She says, “I think forgiveness is choosing to foreground love instead of resentment. If I’m consumed with my own pain, if I’ve made injury my identity, if I insist on weaponizing my well-deserved anger in every interaction I have with people who hurt me, then I’m drinking poison, and the poison will kill me long before it does anything to my abusers. To choose forgiveness is…to cast my hunger for healing deep into Christ’s heart, because healing belongs to him, and he’s the only one powerful enough to secure it.”  She goes on to say, “Secondly, …forgiveness is a transformed way of seeing.  A way of seeing that is forward-focused.  Future-focused.  Eschaton-focused.  …abuse and oppression are [n]ever God’s will or plan for anyone.  But I do believe that God is always and everywhere in the business of taking the worst things that happen to us, and going to work on them for the purposes of multiplying wholeness and blessing…Because God loves us, we don’t have to forgive out of scarcity. We can forgive out of God’s abundance.”[iv]

So how many times are we to forgive?  Not seven times.  Not even really seventy-seven times or seventy times seven, as some translations say.[v]  The forgiveness that first slave receives is hyperbolically abundant – the forgiveness by the king of ten thousand talents (or the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor)[vi] is almost ludicrous in its generosity.  But that is how abundantly God loves us.  We are invited today to love with that kind of ludicrous abundance too.  For our health, for our faith in the better world God is creating, we pray for the strength to ask God to “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  We are a forgiven people, who, because God loves us, can forgive not out of scarcity, but out of God’s abundance.  Amen.  

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 166.

[ii] Hauerwas, 166.

[iii] Jan Richardson, “The Hardest Blessing,” September 9, 2014, as found at http://paintedprayerbook.com/2014/09/09/the-hardest-blessing/#.VBOogcKwKi0 on September 16, 2023.

[iv] Debie Thomas, “Unpacking Forgiveness,” September 6, 2020, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2748-unpacking-forgiveness on September 16, 2023.

[v] Lewis R. Donelson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 69.

[vi] David Lose, “Pentecost 14A: Forgiveness and Freedom,” Sept. 7, 2014, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/ 2014/09/pentecost-14-a/.