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Sermon – Matthew 15.10-28, P15, YA, August 17, 2014

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

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We have all either heard or said the words ourselves, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Maybe your dad said the words when you overheard him using an inappropriate word.  Maybe your mom said the words when you caught her being impatient with someone.  Maybe you said the words when your own child caught you having a late night treat that you said was off limits to everyone.  Do as I say, not as I do.  The phrase is our universal way of admitting that even though we know the right things to do, we do not always do them.  In essence, we are failures.  In this simple phrase we hear echoes of Paul’s words to the Romans, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”[i]  But the phrase, “Do as I say, not as I do,” is a little bit more than simply admitting failure.  The simple phrase is also a phrase full of frustration, exasperation, and impatience – a rueful admitting of defeat, a hint of embarrassment at one’s failure and hypocrisy, and a petulant insistence that your words be heeded anyway.

What is harder than hearing a parent utter these words is hearing Jesus utter words like this today.  The beginning of our gospel lesson is a long passage in which Jesus explains how misguided the Pharisees have become.  They are so caught up in worrying about rituals that the Pharisees have not noticed that what is coming out of their mouths is much more offensive than what is going in their mouths.  Instead of worrying about the legalities of cleaning rituals, Jesus is instead insisting that they need to worry about how their words are defiling them more than their unclean hands are defiling them.

So after this long diatribe about how the Pharisees are essentially being hypocrites what does Jesus do?  He gets caught being a hypocrite himself.  He has just given the disciples a lecture about worrying about the words coming out of their mouths when Jesus turns around and basically does the exact same thing.  A poor Canaanite woman comes to Jesus, shouting for mercy for her demon-possessed daughter.  Normally the gracious healer, Jesus totally ignores the woman.  Then, when the disciples beg Jesus to send her away, Jesus makes some snide remark about how he is only here on earth to help the Israelites, not some lowly Canaanite.  When the woman throws herself at Jesus feet, Jesus then says the unthinkable – something so awful that even we are embarrassed.  Jesus says to the woman, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  Even to modern ears, Jesus’ words sting.  We like the kind, generous, caring version of Jesus – not this version of Jesus who calls people dogs and refuses to help them.  But even worse is what happens next.  The Canaanite woman calls Jesus to task.  “Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

We have all been there.  We have all been mid-stream in doing what we thought was the right thing, living our lives the best way we know how when someone – a child, a friend, or even a stranger – has called us out and made us see the ugliness in our words and actions.  I have been caught several times by my daughter.  We have a practice of praying before our meals at home, trying to teach our daughter some easy prayers.  One night we were out with friends who I knew were not church-goers.  When the meal came, we all began to eat.  But my daughter, rather loudly asked, “Why aren’t we saying the blessing, Mommy?”  I tried to quickly and quietly shush her, but I am sure whatever stammering I did only made things worse – both for my daughter and our friends.

Most of us are pretty hesitant to talk to people about church, especially why they do not go to church.  We are hesitant because at some point in our lives we have had pointed out to us how the church is full of a bunch of hypocrites.  And, honestly, few of us have a response to that accusation because we know we do not live the lives we aspire to live.  Even Mahatma Gandhi is rumored to have said, “I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”[ii]  The sting of that quote or conversations that involve similar accusations usually make us steer clear of even bringing up church with our non-church friends.  Or when we try to address their valid concerns, we end up stammering into some explanation that basically ends up sounding like, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

The problem with these encounters is that none of us likes to admit is that though we go to church, and though we pray to God, and though we raise our children in the faith, we still do not really have this whole faith thing all figured out.  We are still unsure about some things, we do not always understand why we do what we do, and most of us are not confident enough in Holy Scripture to feel like we could hold our own in a debate.  Though many of us have had powerful experiences with God, most of us still feel like failures in being good Christians.  In fact, if you ask most adults in church, the two things they dislike the most are teaching Sunday School and evangelizing.  The reason we dislike those two things is because we are afraid – afraid of being asked a question we cannot answer or afraid of being exposed as the hypocrites we fear that we really are.

The good news is that we are not alone.  Even Jesus, the same Jesus that Gandhi praises, has been in our shoes.  When the Canaanite woman comes back at Jesus with her sharp accusation about even dogs getting crumbs, Jesus has a choice.  He can pull the classic parental line, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Surely he is exasperated by the Canaanite woman and all the disciples constantly pushing him and asking questions.  A simple, “Do as I say, not as I do,” and then a stomping away in the other direction would not be unforgiveable.  Or Jesus can take a moment, check his pride at the door, and admit he is wrong.  And that is exactly what Jesus does.  “Woman, great is your faith!” Jesus says, and heals her daughter.  Jesus finally hears the Canaanite woman and admits he is wrong.  He could have easily stood his ground, stuck to his mission to the Israelites, and followed tradition.  But instead, Jesus chooses mercy over pride.  Jesus chooses to admit he is wrong over saving his reputation.  Jesus chooses change over tradition.  As ugly, embarrassing, and unappealing as Jesus seems earlier in this story, Jesus’ willingness to change his mind, change his behavior, and change his entire mission makes him much more appealing, inviting, and energizing.[iii]

Though hard to listen to, Jesus’ transformation in this story is an invitation to us to be open to such transformation in our own lives.  There is something wonderfully freeing about Jesus’ simple transformation.  All Jesus basically does is say, “You know what, I was wrong.”  Instead of stammering through some awkward response to my daughter about why we were not praying with the non-church-going friends, I could have just said, “You know what, you’re right.  Let’s say a prayer.”  That simple giving of thanks probably would have been way less awkward, hypocritical, and confusing than just thanking God out loud.  Or when someone accuses us or our church of being hypocrites, we could just say, “You know what, you’re right.”  Once we confess our sinful natures and then explain why church still holds some meaning for us, maybe we could open the door to a more honest, vulnerable conversation about the good stuff of our church.

The invitation today from Jesus is simple.  Be open to the fact that we are all going to mess up this whole faith thing.  We are all going to preach one thing and do another.  And instead of saying a hurried, “Do as I say, not as I do,” we can all start a different conversation.  Instead we can all try to say, “You know what, you are right.  I am sorry.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make a change.”  My guess is that the freedom your confession brings will not only liberate you, but liberate others as well.  Amen.

[i] Romans 7.19.

[ii] I say that this quote is rumored to be from Gandhi because I could not find a source for the quote.  There seems to be debate about whether Gandhi actually said these words, this quote is legend, or this is a combination of comments he made.

[iii] David Lose, “Pentecost 10A: What the Canaanite Woman Teaches,” as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2014/ 08/ pentecost-10a/ on August 14, 2014.

Sermon – Genesis 32.22-31, P13, YA, August 3, 2014

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

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One of the things we often talk about in church is our relationship with God.  We talk about God as a companion on our journey – one who walks with us as we grow and develop and change in our faith life.  Some of us enjoy that image because the image recognizes the ways that our relationship with God evolves over time.  We talk about God as one who is in dialogue with us – one who needs us to listen as much as we talk.  Many of you have talked to me about how often you forget the listening part of your relationship with God, not realizing how your prayer life has become more of a monologue than a dialogue.  We talk about God as one who requires vulnerability – one who wants not just the glossy versions of ourselves that we present to the public, but also the messy, angry, and sometimes ugly versions of ourselves that we rarely let anyone see.  Some of us have felt a sense of comfort and freedom in vulnerability, while others of us have found vulnerability too challenging.  But rarely do we talk about God as sparring partner – a prize fighter, capable of leaving real physical scars, leaving us marked visibly for others to see.

That is the image we get from our Old Testament lesson today.  In order to understand how Jacob comes to wrestle with God at the Jabbok, we need to go back in Jacob’s story.  Jacob is a twin, the brother of Esau and son of Isaac and Rebekah.  Jacob receives his name because the name Jacob means, “the one who takes the heel.”[i]  Because he grabs on to the heel of his brother as he follows Esau out of the womb, he is named Jacob.  The name turns out to be quite appropriate.  Jacob will be grabbing and grasping for much of his life.

Jacob’s life unfolds like a soap opera.  When Jacob is older, we are told that Jacob manipulates Esau out of his birthright.  Then, Jacob tricks his blind father Isaac into believing that he is Esau so that he can cheat Esau out of the blessing due to him as the firstborn male.  Jacob flees for his life from his angered brother Esau, returning to his family’s homeland.  There he meets Rachel and falls in love.  Unfortunately Rachel is the younger of two unmarried sisters, and the tradition is the eldest is married first.  In a twist of fate, Jacob is on the receiving end of deception when he is tricked into marrying the older sister Leah.  He has to continue working for Laban to get Rachel too.  But not to be outdone, Jacob manipulates Laban, and manages to trick Laban into giving Jacob most of the family’s livestock before Jacob flees yet again with his large family and wealth.  But Jacob can only run so long before fate finally catches up with him.  Some twenty years since leaving home, Esau is in hot pursuit of Jacob.  Scared, Jacob sends some gifts as an attempted bribe for Esau.  But he hears that Esau is approaching with 400 men, and so Jacob splits up his family and sends them ahead of him, leaving Jacob alone at the Jabbok in the dark of night.

This is where our story picks up today.  The story is a bit confusing, but basically Jacob wrestles with God all night long.[ii]  We are told that the two seem to fight as equals, but at the end of the scuffle, God strikes Jacob in the hip, leaving Jacob with a limp.  Jacob asks for a blessing from God, once again grabbing in life.  God asks Jacob his name, and instead of lying to God like Jacob lied to his father, Jacob comes clean.  “Jacob,” he says.  Now this part may sound simple enough, but God is not simply asking for and getting Jacob’s name.  Jacob is confessing.  “I am Jacob – grasper of a heel.  I have grabbed my whole way through life:  cheating, conning, scheming, plotting, and taking what does not belong to me.  I am thoroughly psychologically broken, and now you have broken me physically.  So please, give me, cheater that I am, a blessing.”  And what happens next is a total transformation.  God gives Jacob a new name, “Israel.”  God names Jacob, “Israel,” because Jacob is one who struggled with God – yisrael.  No longer will Jacob be known as the grasper.  Instead Jacob will be known as one who struggled with God – and though marked by a limp, is one who came out a new person – Israel.  With his new name, “Jacob enters into a new future, and passes his name, faith, and future on to his descendants, who bear that name even unto this day.”[iii]

The reason why I tell you the whole of Jacob’s story today is because we cannot fully understand the metaphor of wrestling with God until we understand Jacob as a person.  Jacob, father of the people of God, is by no means a shiny example of faithful living.  From birth, Jacob seemed destined for a life of manipulation, attempts at control, a willingness to deceive for personal gain, and constant scheming.  And though we would like to wag our fingers at Jacob, the truth is, there is a little bit of Jacob in each of us.  The reason we disapprove of Jacob is because at some point in our lives we have been a grasper of heels.  Perhaps we have not deceived on such a grand scale as Jacob, but we have certainly tried to manipulate situations toward our own personal gain.

I am reminded of the movie Mean Girls.  The movie chronicles the ways that high school girls manipulate, lie, and maneuver to become and stay popular.  At the center of the movie is a character called Regina George, the most popular girl in school, who is simultaneously loved and hated by her peers.  Most of the characters despise her, but oddly also find themselves drawn to her and want to be like her.  By the end of the movie the entire charade collapses, and all the girls come to an unspoken agreement to stop pretending, manipulating, and scheming, and simply be themselves.  Regina manages to redirect her aggressive ways into sports, and the satisfaction mellows her in the rest of her life.

Though Regina’s transformation was not a spiritual one, her change is as dramatic as Jacob’s – a total change in the way she operates, but not without the scars of the past.  I would imagine if we asked either Jacob or Regina if they would give up a limp caused by God or scars from high school, both would say, “no.”  The battles were necessary for the complete transformation of both – and the lingering injuries help remind them to never go back.  The reason they would say no is because the wrestling, the battle, the sparring has transformed them into something new and wonderful.  No amount of limping could detract from the new blessed lives each of them can now live.

The same is true for us.  There are parts of our lives that cannot simply be healed or gently be brought to God in prayer.  There are parts of our lives that we are going to need to enter into battle with God for in order to transform them.  The wrestling is necessary because the wrestling forces us to push through whatever is separating us from God and who God calls us to be.  And for those of us who are particularly stubborn or prone to grasping, the wrestling is required to break down our wills enough to get us to the place of being able to confess – confess who we really are to God.  Then, and only then, will we find our transformation – a renaming of who we are so that we can be fully who God invites us to be.  But be forewarned – no one leaves the ring from a match with God without a few scars.  Amen.

[i] Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 6.

[ii] Amy Merrill Willis, “Commentary on Genesis 32.22-31” as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/ preaching.aspx? commentary_id=2132 on July 30, 2014

[iii] David Lose, “Tell Me Your Name,” July 24, 2011 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post= 1597 on July 30, 2014.

Sermon – Romans 8.26-39, P12, YA, July 27, 2014

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

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These last few weeks of following the news have been rough.  As the situation in Palestine and Israel has deteriorated once again, I have listened as story after story of deaths by bombs has been reported.  Even hospitals, which would normally be left as safe havens, have been decimated – with doctors, nurses, and injured peoples killed.  Words keep getting thrown around like “justified,” and “terrorism,” and “power.”  But at the end of the day, people are being killed for the sake of safety and security.  As we imagine each Palestinian mother, father, and child dying, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

Then there is the Church in Mosul in Iraq.  As ISIS has moved in, they have demanded that all Christians either convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or be executed.  As hundreds of Christians have chosen to flee, many have been robbed and abused.  Homes and places of worship are marked with the letter “N” for “Nazarene.”  Those labeled buildings are being destroyed or taken over by ISIS.  The Christian community that had been present for over 1600 years is almost completely gone now.  As we imagine Christians fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

Finally, much closer to home, children are crossing our own borders in waves.  Thousands and thousands of unaccompanied minors are fleeing violence, abuse, and poverty in the hopes of asylum in our country.  Just to have crossed the border means these children have already been through significant ordeals.  Without parents and sometimes without a word of English, they come in the hopes of safety and security.  While our governmental leaders and even some of us worry about long-term solutions and costs to our country, many religious communities are offering emergency food, shelter, clothing, and medicines.  As we imagine rooms filled with confused, scared, vulnerable children, we hear the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words.

There are many things about today’s portion of Paul’s letter to the Romans that I find confusing.  Paul says wonderful things like “…all things work together for good for those who love God,” and “If God is for us, who is against us?” and “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”  And yet, could any of us utter any of these phrases to a Palestinian, a Christian in Mosul, or a Latino refugee child in Texas?  How can Paul admit that we have deep weaknesses, so strong that the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words, and yet still believe that nothing can separate us from God?  Instead Paul’s words come off as pithy to those of us who also groan with the agony of this world, overwhelmed and feeling helpless in a world that bombards us with awful, terrible news of suffering and pain.  If God is for us, we are unsure that God’s team really can win.  We have seen too many things working together for evil to believe that all things work together for good.  And we in fact feel very separated from the love of Christ, especially at times like these.

Many years ago, while I was serving as a chaplain, I met a woman who had been ill for quite some time, and who was wondering whether death might be approaching.  We talked for a long time, and she finally admitted to me that she had stopped praying.  She had stopped praying because she no long knew what to say to God.  She had run out of words, and she was afraid to show any of the anger that was bubbling up inside of her to God for fear that God would abandon her.  She felt alone – isolated both from the world and from God – and that feeling left her bereft.  She could not even pick up the Bible anymore because of Psalms like the one we heard today that begins, “Give thanks to the LORD and call upon his Name…Sing to him, sing praises to him, and speak of all his marvelous works.”  Those words made her angry.  She did not want to give thanks to the LORD, and she resented the Psalms for telling her to do so.

Being a person of faith is not easy.  We often find ourselves in these conundrums.  How are we to trust in the LORD, stake our claim on God’s love, when much of our experiences run counter to the idea of God’s love conquering all or nothing being able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?  When our lives have not turned out how we expected, when our loved ones suffer, or when the world seems to be doling out more hatred than our souls can bear, we find leaning on God’s love to be almost impossible.

And yet, that is Paul’s invitation today.  Paul takes our broken selves and heaps piles of love on top of us.  When we are weak, and we do not even know how to pray, Paul says that the Spirit helps us.  The Spirit knows our pain and suffering, and in fact, the Spirit too groans in pain and suffering – with sighs too deep for words.  The “Spirit’s groans are unspeakable words of intercession for those of us who groan in weakness.”[i]  Why does the Spirit think that God might hear?  Because God has made those same groans.  Every time God’s people broke their covenant with God, God groaned with sighs too deep for words.  As God’s son hung on a cross, God groaned in agony over his death.  God knows our groans because God groans too.  God groans when Christians are forced from their homes in Iraq.  God groans when God’s people kill one another in the most holy of lands.  God groans when we turn innocent children into political issues.

And yet, even in those darkest moments of groaning, God loves us.  Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword cannot separate us from God’s love, Paul tells us.  “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says Paul.  Paul, who had persecuted and murdered Christians earlier in his life, turns his life around and embraces love.  Paul who has seen and participated in the worst of life manages to see that the loving embrace of our God never left him; and then he shares that love with others.  He is thoroughly convinced.  Nothing.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Not even death, not even evil rulers, or awful abuses of power, or sinful ways, or wayward people of faith can separate us from the love of God.  Nothing.[ii]

As I have been following the news this week, I have begun to see God’s love percolating.  I listened to an interview with a Jewish teen who is studying in Israel right now.  The interviewer asked the teen how he felt about Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and though the teen initially stated that he supported Israel’s actions, as he talked his way through the complicated issue, he finally confessed that he simply did not want anyone else to have to die – on either side.  As violence continued in Mosul, I watched on Facebook as people changed their profile pictures to the symbol for “N.”  The explanations for the changes are simple.  “I too am a Nazarene.”  As politicians struggle to find the most economical, politically savvy way to handle the children seeking refuge in the United States, I have watched Christians of all stripes advocate for these children – from Catholics and Episcopalians to Evangelical Protestants and Southern Baptists, from Quakers and United Methodists to Unitarian Universalists and Jews.  Russell Moore, of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention was quoted as saying, “These children are made in the image of God, and we ought to respond to them with compassion, not with fear.”[iii]

As I visited with that woman in her hospital bed, we talked about the other Psalms: the ones that invoke God’s wrath and vengeance.  All of the anger and abandonment that she felt was also present in those songs to God.  She was not the first to rail against God.  And she would not be the last to rediscover God’s love for her.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Not hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.  Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.  Not bombs or evictions or refugees.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

[i] J.R. Daniel Kirk, “Commentary on Romans 8.26-39” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx? commentary_id= 2152 on July 25, 2014.

[ii] David M. Greenhaw, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 282.

[iii] Michael Paulson, “U.S. Religious Leaders Embrace Cause of Immigrant Children,” as found at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/us/us-religious-leaders-embrace-cause-of-immigrant-children.html on July 23, 2014.

Sermon – Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23, P10, YA, July 13, 2014

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Growing up as the child of a rural Methodist Minister, there was never a lack of fresh produce in our home.  Now that was not because my family went to the grocery store a lot or because we grew our own vegetables, but because multiple times per week, we would find a brown bag sitting on our porch, full of produce from parishioner’s gardens or farms.  Sometimes we knew who they came from, but sometimes they were entirely unmarked bags just waiting for us.  And sometimes people caught us at home so we were able to thank them properly.  But my favorite bags of food came from a local farmer and church member named Frank.  Frank was a funny guy – always wearing his overalls, with a bandana hanging out of his back pocket.  Frank had lived on farms his whole life, and he had a funny way of talking about the farm.  Anytime we tried to thank him for the tomatoes, squash, or cucumbers, he would just scoff and tell us that they were some of Old Bessie’s volunteers.

Bessie was his tractor.  Frank used Bessie to seed his fields, but Bessie was temperamental.  The device that shot the seeds into the field did not really operate properly – it would turn off and on at will, and so Frank always tried to get Bessie into position as quickly as possible before she start spewing seeds.  But invariably, Bessie would spray seeds in the barn, in the ditch on the way to the fields, along the roadside, and even by their house.  Though he would curse and yell at Old Bessie, Frank never seemed to get the glitch fixed, and I guess he loved Bessie too much to trade up for a new one.  Consequently, he would get “volunteer” plants all over his property.  Instead of pulling them up, as they grew and produced all over his property, his youngest sons had to go around and pick them.  These “volunteers” from Bessie were the producers of much of the food we ate throughout the summer and fall.

In a lot of ways, I think the sower in Jesus’ parable today is a lot like Bessie the tractor.  Jesus says that the sower throws seed all over the place – on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and in good soil.  By farming standards, the sower is pretty awful at his job.  Most farmers and gardeners are quite careful about how and where they plant.  For those of you not involved in our own community garden here at St. Margaret’s you may not know that they spent quite a long time planning and researching for our garden.  They thought through where the best sunlight would be, how deep the bed should be, what kind of soil to put into the raised bed, and what kind of weed cover to put down.  They even managed to secure some fox urine pellets to spread around the box to deter rabbits from eating all our hard work.  Nowhere in the planning did our Garden Committee suggest we just take some seeds and throw them around the property and see what happens.  And yet this is what the sower seems to be doing in Jesus’ parable today.

The question is why the sower sows seed in such a seemingly wasteful way.  The sower must know that seeds do not get a chance to grow when they are so exposed that birds will eat them before they can germinate.  The sower must know that the soil is not deep enough in the rocky areas to take good healthy root.  The sower must know that thorns usually choke out plants, not letting them grow to full maturity.  So why does the sower not simply save the seed for the healthiest soil?

The scarier part of that question is the next natural question.  Why would Jesus also recommend that the disciples spread the Good News in such a haphazard way too?  When Jesus explains the meaning of his parable, he explains that when they share the Good News, there are going to be times when their sharing feels like fruitless sowing.  The devil is going to come in, people’s enthusiasm is going to wane over time, and others will simply be distracted by the cares of the world.  Very few will actually receive the Good News and flourish and thrive.  And yet Jesus seems to be saying, “Sew the seeds of the Good News with abandon anyway.”

Jesus’ advice to the disciples goes against any sound business practices.  I have been a part of many dioceses who do church planting, and in every case they spend years examining the numbers and making plans.  They look for areas of new population growth, where young families are moving in or are already present, where Episcopal Churches have not yet been built, and where there are many who are unchurched.  They develop carefully constructed publicity campaigns and gimmicks to spread the news about the newly forming church.  Billboards, paper ads, new websites, and promotional events are planned.  Nothing about church planting today is like what Jesus is talking about in this parable.  In fact, many of you have had similar feelings about church growth here in Plainview.  Many of you have expressed the sentiment that church growth in Plainview is pretty much a waste since our community has such a large Jewish population.  And of those neighbors who aren’t Jewish, the rest are Catholic.  So instead of throwing our precious evangelism budget away in our neighborhood, many have encouraged me to either figure out different neighborhoods or to target other towns altogether.

So what is Jesus really suggesting and why do we not seem to want to listen?  On Memorial Day weekend, about twenty parishioners walked in the Plainview Memorial Day Parade, promoting St. Margaret’s.  Two faithful parishioners dressed up as garden vegetables to help us advertise the work of our Garden of Eatin’.  As we walked along, we handed out seed packets and small brochures about St. Margaret’s.  Before the parade began, I remember wondering whether anyone would want our handouts.  I know people love to catch candy and other trinkets, but I could not imagine anyone actually being interested in what we had to offer.  I made a point to watch to see if my theory was right.  As I expected, a few people said “No, thank you,” when offered our handout.  However, I was almost shocked when I noticed that several people gladly took our handouts – in fact one woman specifically asked if she could have one.

What I, and probably many of us, would judge as rocky or thorny soil, actually turned out to be good soil.  That is what Jesus is hoping to get the disciples and us to see.  We can never know what different soils will do.  When we share the Good News, we have no way of knowing what kind of soil we are sowing seeds into.  In fact, I would be willing to guess that many times we often judge soil incorrectly.  And since we are probably not the best soil experts, Jesus instead tells us to sow with abandon – to throw our good news all over the place because you never know when a hand might extend toward us, wanting some of the good news we have to share.  That is a part of the fun!

For years I have suspected that Farmer Frank never repaired Bessie on purpose.  I think he enjoyed the mystery of where the tractor’s seeds would germinate and grow.  He liked sharing the abundance of that crazy tractor.  He liked teaching his children about volunteer plants and the importance of sharing God’s blessings.  And he especially enjoyed spying his neighbors who would stop along the road and pick some extra squash or tomatoes, because they knew Frank and Bessie would not mind.  Bessie made all of that possible, and to repair her would have been to take some of the joy and blessing out of life.

This is the invitation of Jesus to us today:  to be like an erratic, haphazard, wasteful sower of good news.  Yes, you might be known as that crazy lady or guy who talks about God too much.  And, yes, your words might fall on deaf ears or be forgotten tomorrow.  But occasionally, your words will be just the words that someone needed to hear that day.  Your reckless sharing of your blessed experiences with God might just be the food someone was longing for.  In time, you may just find that being a crazy sower of good news is kind of fun, and brings you as much fruit as it brings others.  Amen.

Sermon – Romans 7.15-25a, P9, YA, July 6, 2014

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Today we are going to do something a little different.  I want you to grab a partner – maybe someone sitting beside you or someone sitting in the row in front of or behind you, and I want you to look at the tags in your shirts or dresses to see where they are made.  And when you are done, I want you to shout out the locations.

One of my favorite musical groups, Sweet Honey in the Rock, is an a cappella women’s group that sings spiritual and political songs.  One of their songs is called “Are My Hands Clean?”[i]  Here are the words:

 

I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world; 35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America; In the cotton fields of El Salvador; In a province soaked in blood, Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun; Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.

Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill; A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal; Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time; In South Carolina; At the Burlington mills; Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of; Dupont.

Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela; Where oil riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day; Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world; Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago; Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas; To the factories of Dupont; On the way to the Burlington mills; In South Carolina; To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador.

In South Carolina; Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric; for Sears; Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea; Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—; Far from the Port-au-Prince palace; Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications; For three dollars a day my sisters make my blouse.

It leaves the third world for the last time; Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me; This third world sister; And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse; On sale for 20% discount.

Are my hands clean?[ii]

 

The point of the song and the point of us thinking about where our clothes come from is that there is a lot more to our everyday living than we can ever imagine.  My shirt being made in Guatemala or the Dominican Republic is just a small piece of the story.  Many hands touch that shirt before I ever purchase the shirt – in fact, even the hands that sell me the shirt have a story.  Somewhere, and some times multiple somewheres, along the way our garments are a part of a bigger story – one that regularly involves injustice, oppression, and poverty.  And through our participation in the process, we become a part of that system of sin.

I remember when I worked for a non-profit that advocated for the people of Guatemala, a story had come out about the Gap and how they were using manufacturers that were what we would call “sweat shops.”  I remember telling my boss that I was thinking of no longer shopping at the Gap, and he asked me why?  I thought my reason would be obvious, but before I could elaborate, he explained that almost every clothing manufacturer was touched by the sinful industry of oppression and injustice.  And if not our clothes, then our food or personal care products could also be perpetrators.  The idea of boycotting one company was pointless to him because a boycott could only make the smallest of dents in an unjust world.

The despair that he created for me that day was like the despair that Paul has in our lesson from Romans today.  “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  I know his words are a bit convoluted, but basically, Paul is articulating how hard doing the right thing is – even when we know the right thing to do, we cannot seem to do the right thing.  And that is assuming we know the right thing to do in the first place!

So what are we supposed to do in this messy world of sin, with our sinful participation in that world?  Well, the church invites us to confess.  Every week after we pray, before we partake of the holy, cleansing meal, we confess our sins – known and even those unknown to us (like those injustices caused by simply putting on a shirt today).  And we confess aloud together – so that we know that Mrs. Edith sins, just like Hunter sins, and just like I sin.  And we even admit together that not just our words and deeds are sinful – sometimes our thoughts are sinful too.  We admit that even though we bit our tongues this week, the sinful thought was still there, letting evil creep into our lives.

But after the confession, an incredible thing happens.  We are forgiven.  We are forgiven again, for the millionth time, and invited to the table as a reconciled community.  We are fed together, having fully acknowledged our sinfulness, and recognizing how we all have work to do.  Finally, we are sent out into the world:  to try a little better this week, to care a little more, to long for justice a little more, and to keep trying to seek and serve Christ in all persons.  Our worship and scripture tell us, “no,” our hands are not clean.  But we are blessed by the God who saves us, and we go forth into the world to keep trying.  Amen.

[i] Found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9sBRnVeUuI on July 3, 2014.

[ii] As found at http://collegeofsanmateo.edu/integrativelearning/learningcommunities/commons/James/AreMyHands Clean.pdf on July 3, 2014.

Sermon – Genesis 22.1-14, P8, YA, June 29, 2014

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

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One of the great things about the lessons in the summer is that we often get these dramatic stories from the Old Testament.  Last week, we had Hagar and Ishmael’s story.  Today, we have the story of the binding of Isaac.  Both of these stories are the dramatic kind of stories that make us uncomfortable and certainly make many people say, “Well that’s the Old Testament God…not the God that I know.”  We cannot fathom who this God is that “tests” people, deliberately asking them to commit the most heinous of crimes – killing one’s own child.  We are perplexed by Abraham, who upon God’s instruction, simply goes to where God sends him, fully willing to commit this most horrible crime, all the while deceptively luring his child to death.  And poor Isaac – we question how God can expect this test of Abraham’s not to create lifelong psychological scars on Isaac.

The only way I could find my way out of this story this week was to reconsider each character in the text.  I started with God, whose test of Abraham feels more like torture.  I have never felt comfortable with the concept of a god who puts us through tests.  That kind of agency and intervention by God is counter to my understanding of who God is.  I do believe that Satan or the powers of evil regularly test us, and awful things simply happen at times.  But our God is a God who gives us free will – who allows us to make mistakes, but never actively manipulates us in a way that could be labeled as testing.  God does not send us cancer, or take our children, or leave us hungry.

So why does this story say that God “tests” Abraham.  Well, one clue is found in the first sentence.  The story begins with this sentence, “After these things God tested Abraham.”  “After these things,” is not just some transitional phrase like, “In other news…”  Those “things” the story refers to are not insignificant.  If you remember, Abraham has had a circuitous journey, and quite frankly, Abraham has not proved to be very trustworthy so far – constantly taking matters into his own hands, and making a mess of things.  Take, for example, those two times that Abraham’s wife Sarah ended up in a harem in Egypt and Canaan.  Both of those times Abraham lied about Sarah, saying she was his sister, simply to protect himself from being killed by a covetous king.  For a man who trusted God so much that he was willing to leave everything behind, Abraham clearly did not trust God fully enough to take care of Abraham and Sarah.  And so he concocted these horrible lies, forcing Sarah into an awful position – not once, but twice!  Then, of course, there was that time that Abraham did not believe that God would give him children.  So the untrusting Abraham and Sarah got impatient, and decided that Abraham should father a child with Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar.  That fiasco led Abraham’s beloved son being cast out into the wilderness, never to be seen again.  So “these things,” are not insignificant things.  Any of us in relationships with family, spouses, or intimate friends know that trusting someone who betrays your trust over and over again is difficult, if not impossible.

Meanwhile, God is making a pretty big leap of faith in the person of Abraham.  God has already witnessed failure after failure in God’s people – from Adam and Eve to Cain and Abel; from the cleansing of the earth with Noah to the return to sin at the tower of Babel.  And so God takes all that experience with broken covenants and this time attempts to enter into relationship with God’s people through the person of Abraham.  All will be blessed through this one person, the blessing passing through Abraham like a prism, “through which God’s blessing is to be diffused through the whole world.”[i]  So in taking on such a substantial risk, and in seeing Abraham falter many times, a time of testing does not sound so abhorrent after all.  In fact, we begin to see that God is making God’s self pretty vulnerable with Abraham.  And because God grants free will, God cannot know what choices Abraham will actually make.[ii]  The longing for assurance while in a vulnerable position is only natural – one we experience anytime we decide to put ourselves in vulnerable positions with others.

So after coming to some peace with God in this story, I began to pick apart Abraham.  Why does Abraham submit to this test?  He has taken matters into his own hands before, including arguing against killing all the Sodomites.  Why does he submit to God now?  In fact, when God commands Abraham to take Isaac up for sacrifice, Abraham does not protest at all.  The ancient rabbis tried to address this frustration by proposing a little embellishment.  Whenever the rabbis did not understand something in biblical text, they would create a little midrash, or imaginative expansion of the text, to help interpret the text.  So in their retelling of the Genesis story, they create a dialogue between God and Abraham.  In the original text we heard today, all we have are these words:  Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah…  The midrash changes the story to read like this:  “Take your son,” God says.  “I have two sons,” Abraham replies.  “Your only one,” God says.  “This one is the only son of his mother, and this (other) one is the only son of his mother.”  “The one you love,” God clarifies.  “I love them both,” Abraham argues.  “Isaac,” God finally asserts.[iii]

What the midrash tries to do is highlight what might have been going on inside Abraham – something the story never tells us.  Just because Abraham obeys does not mean that he likes obeying.  We can also surmise some of Abraham’s conflicted feelings in other parts of the story.  We hear how torn he is by the ways that he responds to both God and Isaac.  When God calls upon Abraham, he replies, “Here I am.”  That age-old response to God, hineni, is Abraham’s way of showing deference to God.  But Abraham says those same words to Isaac when Isaac calls to him.  “Here I am, my son.”  You can almost hear the devastation in his voice.  But you also hear a deep sense of respect and love for his son – the same deep respect and love Abraham has for God.  Ultimately, what we see in Abraham is a deep trust that things might work out for the best.  When Isaac asks where the lamb is for the sacrifice, Abraham says, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”  Some might read that as a white lie, told to placate an inquisitive son.  But I like to imagine that Abraham hoped against hope that God would in fact provide a lamb, instead of his son.  In fact, perhaps that is the only thing Abraham has left in this horrible story – a trust that God will act and save his son.

Finally, there is Isaac.  As I read this story this week, my immediate thought was, “Poor Isaac.  He has some serious therapy in his future!”  And perhaps that is true – that Isaac is the innocent lamb, deceived, and almost killed.  In fact, many scholars call this story, “The sacrifice of Isaac,” as opposed to “The binding of Isaac.”[iv]  But there is more to Isaac’s story than meets the eye.  In the story, two times the text says of Abraham and Isaac, “and the two of them walked together.”  We know enough about scripture to know that when something is repeated, that repetition is significant.  The text does not say, Abraham led Isaac or Abraham forced Isaac.  The text says the two walked together.  We do not know how much Isaac knows at this point, but the way that the two walk together suggests a certain equality – as if the two face this test together.  Though we imagine Isaac terrified under his father’s knife, perhaps Isaac allows himself to be bound, facing this test with is father, fully trusting as his father does that God will provide the lamb.

The artwork depicting this story varies widely.  There are frightened pictures of Isaac, anguished depictions of Abraham, and strong angels who forcefully grab Abraham’s raised arm before he can damage Isaac.  But my favorite depiction is one by Peggy Parker.[v]  Peggy’s woodcut shows a bound, but peaceful Isaac, curled up on the altar.  Abraham is lovingly and with grief looking over Isaac, a knife hidden behind his back.  And above them both is a large angel, wings spread widely, arms extended over them both, as if lovingly embracing the father and son.  What I like about Peggy’s rendering is that there is a sense that all three characters are vulnerable, all three characters are pained, and yet all three characters trust their vulnerability with one another.

This is our takeaway today.  This story is tough – I doubt that I will be using the story as a bedtime story anytime soon.  But this story also reveals how hard being in relationship with God is – not just for us and our loved ones, but for God too.  We are all trying to love and trust one another.  And just like in any other relationship, that love and trust is hard work.  But when we understand that each of us in this relationship, fully committing to being vulnerable and trusting each other, somehow we find the courage to take that first step.  And when we take those steps, we do not take them alone and we are not forced.  We take them together, equally sacrificing security in the trust of something much greater with our God.  Amen.

[i] Ellen F. Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 2001),60.

[ii] Ellen F. Davis, “Radical Trust,” July 26, 2011 as found at http://www.faithandleadership.com/sermons/ellen-f-davis-radical-trust on June 25, 2014.

[iii] Davis, Getting Involved, 55.

[iv] Kathryn Schifferdecker , “Commentary on Genesis 22.1-14,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/ preaching. aspx?commentary_id=2138 on June 26, 2014

[v] http://www.margaretadamsparker.com/biblical/biblical_abraham.aspx as found on June 27, 2014.

Sermon – Genesis 21.8-21, P7, YA, June 22, 2014

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Alice sat on her bathroom floor crying.  The bathroom was the only place she felt like she could get a moment of privacy.  Her tears were the release she found for what felt like an impossible juncture.  Last summer things had been okay for Alice.  She was coping with her divorce, and managing to feed and care for her son on her own, despite the fact that her income from cleaning houses was so small.  She had managed to work out some government assistance that gave her enough cushion to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.  Life was not easy, but life could be a lot worse.

But during the last year, her world began to fall apart.  After a work injury, Alice could not clean houses for months.  Being self-employed meant she had no one to fill in at her houses.  After several months, her customers all got new help.  Because she was not working, her government assistance began to lower.  The assistance programs required that clients work to receive assistance.  Alice could not clean houses because of her injury, and she did not have enough education to qualify for any other type of work.  As the money became more and more scarce, Alice began to fear for her son.  Her son was looking thinner and more sickly each day.  He did not understand what was happening, and his deserved frustration and led her to the bathroom to cry.  Things had gone from bad to worse as Alice feared they would have no food, no home, or that she could lose her son.  All that was left to do was to cry:  to cry tears of sorrow, to cry out to God for mercy.

Hagar knows Alice’s tears.  We remember that Hagar is the handmaid for Sarah, Abraham’s wife, whom Sarah had given to Abraham to take as a wife because Sarah was infertile.  Hagar resented this action, and has already suffered a great deal, grappling with her powerlessness and lack over control over her most private, personal space.  Today the text brings us forward a few years in Hagar’s family.  Hagar’s son Ishmael is growing into a young boy, and Sarah has finally conceived her own son.  The birth of Isaac is a joyous occasion that all of the family celebrates.  But just as Hagar has begun to reclaim her personhood, Hagar suffers again.  Sarah sees Ishmael – the son that reminds her of her infertility, who will not represent the blessed line of Abraham – playing with Isaac – her own son, whom she proudly bore and who will mark the blessedness of Abraham’s line.  Sarah turns to Abraham and tells him to send Hagar and Ishmael away.  Although Abraham is crushed by the idea, God supports Sarah’s decision.  For Hagar, the world is against her.  We hear no words from Hagar as Abraham loads water and bread on her shoulders, gives her Ishmael, and sends her out into the wilderness.

Hagar wanders in the desolate wilderness until she runs out of water.  Looking at her son, whose death she imagines is immanent, Hagar puts him under the shade of a bush and walks away.  She walks away and cries out to God.  She cannot watch the death of her son.  Not after all she has been through.  She cries out to God as her last resort.

The tough part of this story is figuring out why this is happening.  Why would Sarah condemn Hagar and Ishmael to death by having them driven out into the wilderness?  Why would God agree with Sarah, especially when Ishmael’s birth was Abraham and Sarah’s choice in the first place?  Why does Abraham give up his first son so easily, without a word to Hagar?  The grief in this passage feels overwhelming, and we are left pointing angry fingers in multiple directions.

Hagar’s wilderness moment is familiar to us today.  We have those times when we feel like everyone is against us, including God.  The wildernesses of our lives are those desolate, lonely, dark places of wandering.  The wilderness is a scary, stark place of solitude that takes us to the depths of our finitude and forces us into encounters with God.  In the wilderness, we experience God in a way that we cannot not experience God elsewhere.  In the dry desert of suffering, which is scorching by day and frigid by night, with little water, we experience a sense of nakedness and vulnerability that we try to mask in our everyday lives.

Despite the darkness in the Genesis text today, there is also incredible hope for the suffering.  The last third of the text we hear today is filled with God’s action for the afflicted.  First, God hears Ishmael.  The text says “And God heard the voice of the boy.”  This word “to hear” is important on many levels.  In the original Hebrew, Ishmael’s name means “God will hear.”[i]  Already, Ishmael’s name – God will hear – comes to fruition.  God hears Ishmael.  Further, the word “to hear” in Hebrew, shamah, connotes more than physical hearing.  As we have talked about before, “to hear” in Hebrew also means “to understand.”  God understands how Ishmael and Hagar cry out.  God hears and understands their pain.

The second action we encounter at the end of this passage is God making a promise.  The angel of God speaks to Hagar about Ishmael saying, “I will make a great nation of him.”  We know from scripture that God does not make promises lightly with God’s people.  God fulfills God’s promises.  If God says that God will make a great nation of Ishmael, Hagar knows to believe God.  No matter how dire things seem, God makes a promise, and God does not disappoint.

The third action we encounter is that God opens Hagar’s eyes.  The text says that “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”  In the opening of Hagar’s eyes, God allows Hagar to perceive God’s presence and action in her suffering.  God lifts the blindness that suffering and desperation create.  God shows Hagar the gift of life that God provides in the well of water.  God’s gift is abundant, and God reveals the gift when Hagar cannot see.

The fourth and final action is that God is with Ishmael.  The text says, “God was with the boy.”  The verb “to be” is one of the most simple and basic of words.  When applied to God, “to be with” has great meaning.  The text says that in all Ishmael does, in all the experiences Ishmael has, in all that Ishmael’s journey entails, God is with him.  God does not abandon Ishmael.  God does not forget.  God is with him.

I am reminded of one of my favorite Gospel hymns.  The hymn is called “He’s an On Time God.”  The song talks about the ways that God always comes to our need just when we need God.  The refrain goes, “He may not come when you want Him, but He’ll be there right on time.  He’s an on-time God, oh yes He is.”  The song describes the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea just before the Sea collapsed on the Egyptians, the relief of Job’s suffering, and the feeding of the 5,000 by Jesus.  What I love about the song is the booming chorus of singers and the repeated affirmation that God is on time.  Of course, the theology of the song is a little trickier.  I think the song misses something by suggesting that God is not always with us.  But the song is on to something.  I might rephrase the refrain to be something like – suffering may not end when you want it, but you will realize God is with you in the suffering right on time.  In this way, God is an on-time God.

We may not understand God’s actions, or why we suffer, but God is with us.  Hagar is a great gift this week for reminding us about what our relationship with God is like.  Hagar reminds us that we have an active relationship with God.  Hagar shows us that we can cry out to God in our suffering.  Hagar demonstrates to us that God is not a far away god who is removed from our daily lives.  By crying out to God, we reveal our earthy, dynamic relationship with God.

Meanwhile, God’s actions toward Hagar show us that God has a reciprocal relationship with us.  God is active in our lives.  God hears us, understands us, and will act in our lives.  God is with us, all of the time, especially in our suffering.  When we enter into that relationship with God, crying out to God, we let go of notions of distance from God or personal control of our lives.  We allow God to open our eyes so that we can see God’s action in our lives.  By opening our eyes, God shows us the blessings God has for us.  God did not tell Hagar and does not tell us what our blessings will look like.  But there will be blessings.  God will open our eyes to reveal the bounty of blessing for us.  As we enter into that holy, vulnerable relationship with God, allowing our eyes to be opened, we see God’s blessings – right on time.  Amen.

[i] Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 2 (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 88.

Sermon – Genesis 12.1-4a, L2, YA, March 16, 2014

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

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I remember when I got accepted to Duke for my undergraduate education.  The invitation felt like a dream come true.  I was so ready to leave home and start my “adult” life, I was beyond thrilled to be able see Duke basketball games in person, I was eager to start my studies so that I could take on that big job, and I knew I would have a ton of fun.  As I packed my bags, I felt like the world was full of promise and hope and I just knew I was going to have an awesome college career.  And truthfully, my college experience was one of the best experience of my life on so many levels – one where I learned so much more than I expected, I made lifelong friends, I experienced my first sense of call to ministry, and I did in fact enjoy many a basketball game.  But that first year of college was nothing like the picture looking back now.  I had an awful freshman roommate, I struggled with the rigor of classes at first, I had a hard time finding a group of friends I really liked, there were multiple things I either tried out for our wanted to be invited into that I was not, and there were times that I wondered what in the world I was doing there.

As I listened to our Old Testament lesson today, I wondered how much Abram felt the same way about his own journey.  The very short passage from Genesis says, “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”  At first glance, Abram’s invitation sounds awesome!  He is invited on a journey with God and he is promised that God will bless him, will give him plenteous offspring and power, and that he will essentially be famous.  Who wouldn’t want to pack up their earthly belongings and hit the road with that kind of invitation?  The upcoming journey sounds like one full of promise, hope, and abundant joy.

Of course, there are a few slight indicators of how hard this journey might actually be.  First God tells Abram to leave his country, his kindred, and his father’s house – all without a map of where they will be going.  “In traditional societies the kin group is the source of identity, economic benefit, security, and protection.  To leave such a fundamental social network is to put a great deal at risk.”[i]  And then there is the text that we do not read today.  In the verses immediately preceding this text, we are told that Abram’s father has just died.  We all know what the death of a parent can do to a person, and can at least imagine the intense grief Abram is working under when he says yes to God.  And there is more that we do not read today.  The text immediately after where we stop also tells us that Abram is about 75 years old at this point.  So a man well beyond the prime of life, who is in the midst of grief, who has probably long sense lost hope of bearing any children should be able to guess that this journey would not be all roses and rainbows.

And in fact, we know that the journey is not as hope-filled as our lesson makes the journey out to be today.  This man whom God says will be blessed and be great hits all kinds of bumps along the way.  If you remember, Abram passes off his wife as his sister several times so as to avoid danger to himself.  When he still does not have any offspring, Sarai eventually convinces him to sleep with her handmaiden Hagar.  Though she bears him a son, Abram eventually casts Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness when his wife Sarai gets jealous.  And of course, we cannot forget that Abram is also forced to take his one son by Sarai, Isaac, up on a mountain to be sacrificed – believing all along that God intends for Abram to kill his only heir.  Sounds like a real journey of blessing, right?

That is the funny thing about journeys.  We are not often promised that our journeys will be blessed.  But even when we hope that they will be blessed, the blessing never comes immediately and is often masked by long intervals of pain and suffering.  We have lived that life here at St. Margaret’s.  Fifty years ago, God told the people of Plainview to, “Go.  Go from your current town, your church community, and the building you are familiar with to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great church, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”  At least, that is how the histories read about St. Margaret’s.  Full of hope and expectation, large groups of people gathered first in an American Legion Hall and then in a semi-completed church building.  It was a time of anticipation and promise, and the people went.  Of course, no one could know what the next fifty years would hold – a slew of clergy, some staying longer than others; church growth and church decline; building challenges and times of construction to fix old problems; new adventures like a church cemetery; painful arguments with severed relationships; new friendships that will last a lifetime; a young rector who is not only a woman, but who also gets pregnant while she serves.  When God said, “Go,” who would have ever guessed the journey would play out the way the journey has.

Sometimes our Lenten journeys have that same feel.  We fill ourselves with pancakes, and then the next day, kneel with resolve to take on some discipline.  We look forward to the blessings of Lent – the intimacy with God the journey will bring, the learning will we do, the peace we will gain, or even the couple of pounds we might lose.  And when we hear a story like the Old Testament lesson today, we feel pumped up and ready for an exciting journey.  We may even imagine God making similar promises to us:  You will be blessed in this Lenten journey.  And yet, if we think back to any Lent in the past, we might remember how difficult our discipline became by week four or five.  We might remember how that cool discipline we chose did not really turn out to be as great as we imagined.  And depending on how stable we were at the time, that sense of failure could have brought more of a sense of curse than blessing.

How do we know that blessing awaits and what do we do in the meantime?  What do we do when those days come – because they will – when we feel discouraged and lose that sense of promise and hope that God gives today?  If we look to Abram, we see that our only option is to go – to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  The lesson today says, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.”  The journey for Abram is risky, full of potholes, and ultimately full of some wild twists that might have turned Abram back at any point.  And yet, “Abram went.”  We are lucky enough to know that Abram becomes Abraham – the man that would eventually become a father of entire people – in fact of several faith traditions.  But Abraham never got to see the fullness of that blessing.  His life was more one of blessing in hindsight, not really an everyday blessing-fest.

In some ways, that is all we can do too.  God constantly calls us into a journey – whether during Lent or in whole phases of life.  God promises to bless us and love us along the way.  But we know the journey will be hard at times, and leave us feeling discouraged.  And when that happens, all we can do is put one foot in front of the other, and keep on going.  Of course, we have each other along the way, much like Abram had Lot.  In fact, the last words of today’s lesson are, “and Lot went with him.”  So whether you are in that blessed state of bliss, or you are already struggling in your steps, God still tells you to go.  Our response is difficult, intimidating, and profound, but also extremely simple.  We go, knowing God is with us.  Amen.

[i] Carol A. Newsom, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 53.

Sermon – Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YA, March 5, 2014

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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As many of you know, Lent is my favorite season of the liturgical year.  I love the spiritual discipline Lent encourages, I love the liturgical uniqueness of Lent, and I love the ways that Lent encourages us as a community live life differently, even if only for a little while.  By Ash Wednesday every year, I usually have a set discipline in place, and I am eager to get going.  But this year, I find myself in a situation in which I have never been.  With the pending birth of our second child, I find myself hesitant to commit to any spiritual discipline this Lent.  I have no sense of how tired I will be, or how upended my home routine and family life will be; I have no idea whether I will be too exhausted to stay connected digitally to the world, or whether technology will be my way of escape when everything else is disjointed; and besides the desperate prayers of an exhausted, weary mother, I have no idea how to tend to my spiritual life once I step away briefly from my churchly life.

I confess this sense of being lost about Lent because I imagine some of you may be feeling that same sense of being lost as well.  We have been buried in an awful winter, longing more for spring and the joys of Easter, than preparing for burrowing deeper into the depths of penitence and discipline.  Our news feed is full of local and global disaster, making even the normal joy of international events like the Olympics feel a bit hollow.  And we have a growing itch to be more settled here at Church – as we trip over one another trying to find adequate space for normal activities while our undercroft is under construction, as our Vestry makes changes to better equip us for ministry, and as our Rector steps away for a time, making us all have to assume responsibilities that burden our already full plates and sparking concern about how we can thrive without our leader at the helm.  Who has time for figuring out a Lenten discipline when we feel like we are just barely managing our lives?

Into this sense of discombobulation, Jesus comes at us in the gospel lesson today with a scathing critique of our spiritual lives.  Jesus wants us to give alms, but to do so with such secrecy that even our own selves are unaware of our sacrifices.  Jesus wants to take our prayer to our private rooms, so we are not tempted to bring attention to ourselves in public.  Jesus wants us to gussy ourselves up daily so that no one notices the longing and discomfort our fasts are creating for us.  To be honest, his words are a bit confusing and seem contradictory to Jesus’ other messages.  This is the same Jesus who later in Matthew says, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.”[i]  So which are we supposed to do?  Are we to keep our faith humbly hidden so as not to be seen as braggadocios, or are we to shout about our God on the mountaintop, or at least in the local diner, so that others might see the goodness of what God has done for us, and want to join us in that joy?

Perhaps a better place for us to begin is to imagine Jesus offering this teaching with a bit of sarcastic humor.  This past stewardship season we showed a video about the ways in which people give to church with muddled intentions.  The video has a series of clips with people doing things like using their generous giving to garner the decisions they want made in church or dramatically holding up their pledge envelopes before dropping them in the plate.  Imagine the person who would rather put coins in the offering plate for the noise they make than put in bills which silently but strongly support ministry, and you have the idea.  This is the kind of ribbing Jesus is doing when he describes the showy alms giver.

In high school, I was friends with a girl whose father was an evangelical pastor.  I remember going out to dinner with her family once, and being mortified before our meal began.  Once our plates of food arrived, her father stood up in the middle of the dining area, and very loudly began a prayer that, I promise, was easily five minutes long.  My cheeks began to redden as he went on and on.  I could feel the shifting of people near us as they became equally uncomfortable.  As I peeked mid-way through his prayer, I could see a waitress approach our table for drink refills and the recoil back to her station.  I was so relieved the next week at school when my friend apologized for her dad and made a joke about how much she actually hates eating in restaurants because her food is always cold by the time the prayer is over.  This is the kind of prayer Jesus jokes about too when he sends us to our rooms to pray.

And we all know examples of that complainer who has taken up fasting or whatever form of denial they have chosen for Lent.  They regale you with stories of how they almost fainted, or how they had to avoid their favorite activities in order to stay faithful.  You almost want to give them a handkerchief so that they can more dramatically tell their tale of woe as the lift their hand dramatically to their heads.  These are those whom Jesus teases when he says to put some oil on your face – so that even if you cannot keep your mouth quiet with complaints, at least you will look good.

The challenge with us in Lent is not that our spiritual disciplines need to be so rigidly hidden away.  The danger comes when our disciplines become more about ourselves than about our relationship with God and one another.  Jesus is not telling us not to exercise our piety.  Jesus is trying to jokingly help us to see the ways in which our piety can become a stumbling block to others seeing the goodness of God.[ii]  Think of the person who gives generously, who prays prayers that always seem to touch you, or who shares with you what fasting has done for them in a way that inspires you.  Jesus is telling us to be more like them:  not to dramatically hide away our almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, but to do that almsgiving, prayer, and fasting with a genuine humility that invites others to want to know more.  And at the end of the day, Jesus is also telling us to chill out – to enjoy whatever discipline you have chosen and not to worry so much about performing that discipline, but humbling trying that discipline within a community of people who can laugh at themselves as they try to do the same.

This Lent, as I begin this journey with you, my discipline is going to be about giving myself a break, and not taking myself so seriously.  I am trusting that by not pushing myself to take on some discipline that will only make me feel like a failure by week two of newborn sleep deprivation, that God will be present, revealing God’s self to me and showing me that God can work in spite of me and in spite of what promises to be a very unique Lent in the life of a priest.  I am trusting that God, the faith of this community, and my intentional letting go this Lent will work in harmony to make this time a time of holy connection to God.  Jesus invites you into the same trusting release this Lent.  No matter what discipline you assume, or what battles you face in the coming forty days, God will give you moments of insight and blessing, and even a bit of humor to keep you going.  Amen.

[i] Mt. 10.27

[ii] Patrick J. Willson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 25.

Sermon – Matthew 17.1-9, LE, YA, March 2, 2014

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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As many of you know, I really enjoy movies.  I like dramas, comedies, independent films, documentaries, and action films.  But what I rarely admit is that I also enjoy my share of cheesy romantic comedies.  One of those romantic comedies, Notting Hill, tells the story of a famous American actress who is filming in England.  She stumbles into the shop of a normal Englishman and the two of them begin an awkward, but sweet romance.  Unfortunately, the actress’ fame keeps interrupting their relationship – whether with the surprise appearance of paparazzi, a planned date foiled by a press junket, or the confusing boundaries between the public version of the actress and the private version of the actress.  After a hiatus, the actress returns to England to see if the couple can make a go of things one more time.  The Englishman is extremely reluctant, but in her final plea, the actress reminds him that although everyone knows her as this famous actress, she is also just a girl who would like to have the love and companionship of a boy.

In some ways, I read today’s gospel with that same sense of tension between the extraordinary and the ordinary.  Today, on this final Sunday of Epiphany, we find one more manifestation of the identity of Christ.  On this Transfiguration Sunday, we hear the incredible story of Jesus’ transfiguration.  All the drama is there.  Peter, James, and John are up on a mountain – our first clue that something powerful is about to happen.  While they are there, Jesus transforms into an array of light:  his face shining like the sun, and his clothes shimmering in dazzling white.  And as if that were not shocking enough, the great prophets, Moses and Elijah appear, and begin talking to Jesus.  Finally, a thundering voice comes from a blinding cloud with new revelation, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.”  Now Jesus had heard these words at his baptism, but this is the first time the disciples are actually hearing them.  Jesus is not a prophet just like Moses or Elijah.  Jesus is the divine son of God.  If the disciples had in any way questioned the identity of Jesus, those questions are put to rest.  In response, the disciples fall to the ground, overcome with fear.

When I was a parishioner at the Cathedral in Delaware, I helped teach Rite 13, a class for middle school students.  In one of the sessions we talked about our images of God.  The prevailing images among the young people were of a distant God, one who is Lord over us, perhaps one who sits in a throne, and who is a bit inaccessible.  One even admitted that God was a bit scary.  I do not think those young people’s images of God are that far off from our own images of God.  We often see God as distant, transcendent, full of mystery, and far from our reality.  God is that not-so-relatable father who we may love, but also feel a certain sense of being so different from that we could never fully connect.  God is that famous movie star we have even met, but because of our differences, cannot fully connect with.

Into this reality comes Jesus, whose transfiguration today reveals the fullness and the incredible nature of Christ.  When we say that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, today’s gospel lesson gives us a picture of that dual nature.  Jesus is all those things that we know about God – mysterious, transcendent, and “other.”  As the Son of God, he can be nothing other than fully divine.  And yet, when the disciples are cowering in fear on the ground, overwhelmed by their brush with celebrity, Jesus comes, in his full humanity and touches them.  He gently touches them and says, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  That distant, “other” God we know could never do that.  That distant God had never taken on human form in order to physically touch us.  And yet, that distant God is present in Jesus Christ, doing just that – gently touching overwhelmed disciples and allaying fears.  God in Jesus is that everyday person, simply wanting to love us.

This week I read a reflection by a priest friend of mine.  He was at his Diocesan Convention recently, an event at which he rarely speaks.  But an important issue arose, and he felt as though he could not avoid speaking.  He stood up, argued his case, and faced a heated confrontation.  In the end, the assembly agreed with him and his opinion won over.  As he sat back at his table, a friend quietly whispered in his ear, “You’re shaking.  I’m going to touch you for a little bit.”  As the friend laid his hand upon his shoulder, my friend could feel his blood pressure lowering and the tension releasing from his body.[i]  In a world that has become extremely and wisely cautious about touch, we sometimes forget the power of touch.  We all have had powerful experiences with touch:  whether we received a similar hand on the should as reassurance that all would be well; whether we received a hug that was just slightly longer than normal, but much needed, after confessing some bad news; or whether someone just held our hand for a while, as a silent, encouraging gesture.

Our liturgies understand the power of touch.  When someone lays their hands on us – in ordination, in confirmation, or in healing – something about the weight of those hands stays with us.  Maybe the sensation of that touch stays with us as a reminder of a powerful experience; maybe the weight of the touch becomes a release of something held inside for a long time; or maybe something holy passes between the person laying on hands and the person who has hands laid on them.  For those of us who have gone to Ash Wednesday services, we know the powerful experience of the gritty feel of ashes being rubbed across our foreheads.  That combination of touch and grit has a power to evoke all kinds of images – from the dust of creation, to the coarseness of this life, to the inevitability of our dirt-filled grave.  Or perhaps your most familiar experience with touch comes in the Eucharistic meal – the weight of the wafer as the priest presses the wafer into your hand, or the feel of the weighty chalice as you direct the chalice to your mouth.

Both our experiences with touch and the disciples’ experience with touch point us to the magnificence of what happens on Transfiguration Sunday.  As God takes on flesh in the person of Jesus, God is both that transcendent, mysterious, “other” God, and God is that earthy, fleshy, gentle God who can place a comforting hand on our shoulders, tell us to get up, and not be afraid.  That is what we have been celebrating in these weeks since Christmas – the miracle of what God accomplishes in the incarnation and the impact of what God made flesh means in our lives.  As one scholar writes, “This is the way that God comes into the world:  not simply the brilliant cloud of mystery, not only a voice thundering from heaven, but also a human hand laid upon a shoulder and the words, ‘Do not be afraid,’  God comes to us quietly, gently, that we may draw near and not be afraid.”[ii]  God is both the untouchable, but revered celebrity and the very real person through whom we are touched, comforted, and emboldened to get up and not be afraid.  For that reality, we celebrate our God with our final alleluias of this season, with the touch of healing, the embrace of the peace, and the weight of Christ’s body and blood in our hands.  Amen.

[i] Steve Pankey, “The Power of Touch,” as found at http://draughtingtheology.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/the-power-of-touch/ on February 27, 2014.

[ii] Patrick J. Willson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 457.