Tag Archives: Sermon

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

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

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.

Sermon – Matthew 4.38-48, E7, YA, February 23, 2014

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Julio Diaz has a daily routine.  Every night, he ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early so he can eat at his favorite diner.  One night, as Diaz stepped off the Number 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.  He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.  The boy demanded his money, and Diaz gave him his wallet, simply saying, “Here you go.”  As the teen began to walk away, Diaz shouted out, “Hey, wait a minute.  You forgot something.  If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”  The robber gave Diaz a confused look and asked, “Why are you doing this?”  Diaz simply said, “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money.  I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner.  If you want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.”

The teen tentatively followed Diaz to the diner and they sat in a booth together.  As they sat there, the manager, the dishwashers, and the waiters came by to say hi.  The teen then said, “You know everybody here.  Do you own this place?”  “No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz replied.  “But you’re even nice to the dishwasher,” the teen said incredulously.  Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught that you should be nice to everybody?”  “Yea,” responded the teen, “But I didn’t think people actually behaved that way.”

Toward the end of dinner, Diaz asked the teen what he wanted out of life.  The teen reacted with a sad look on his face, but did not respond.  Either he couldn’t answer – or he didn’t want to.  When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill because you have my money and I can’t pay for this.  So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”  Without hesitation, the teen returned the wallet.  Diaz opened his wallet and gave the teen twenty dollars, figuring the money might help him somehow.  However, in return, Diaz asked for the teen’s knife.  The teen gave the knife to him.[i]

Today’s gospel lesson is often taken in a couple of ways.  The words from Jesus about turning the other cheek and loving our enemies either sound so passive that we dismiss them immediately or they sound admirable, but totally impossible.  All we need is the last verse, which says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” before we throw our hands into the air, defeated before we have even begun.  In fact, if we are really listening, we can almost become angry with Jesus’ words.  All we have to think about is a victim of abuse and we bristle at Jesus’ instructions to simply turn the other cheek or go a second mile.  Or maybe we think of a lifetime of pressure to be perfect and all we want to do is angrily add Jesus to the list of people who are perpetually disappointed in us – including ourselves.  Of course we would never say those things aloud because this is supposed to be a beautiful text about loving your neighbor as yourself.  But really, who among us wants to love our enemies or pray for those who persecute us?

We are really good at hating our enemies.  As a country we demonize those with whom we go to war.  And depending on which news outlet you prefer, the Democrats, the Republicans, or the Tea Party are enemies of any progress we want to see in our country.  I am pretty sure the Republicans and Democrats in Congress have not been praying for each other over this past year.  And that does not even compare to the more personal enemies we have.  All we have to think about is that bully at school or work, that family member who is always trying to put you down, let alone that teen who looks like he might be ready to pull a knife on you and demand your wallet.  We are schooled to be empowered people who do not allow ourselves to be doormats.  We are not to turn the other check but to protect ourselves.  We are not to offer more of our stuff to someone threatening to take our stuff.  And we certainly are not schooled to give to every single person asking for a handout.  Surely, in turning the other cheek, we become a victim; in offering our cloak, we are enabling bad behavior; and in giving to beggars, we are simply perpetuating social problems.  We build strong, fortified walls around ourselves in the name of safety, protection, or wisdom.

The challenge for us is seeing what Jesus is really trying to do.  Our way of being demonizes others and simplifies quite complicated relationships.  Jesus way of being invites us to see with God’s loving eyes.  That is what Jesus means when he says to be perfect as God is perfect.  He does not mean for us to achieve some sort of moral or even everyday perfection; Jesus means for us to love as God loves.[ii]  God’s love does not allow us to use labels like “us” and “them.”  God’s love means looking at that enemy who hurts us, threatens us, or even scares us, and seeing the humanity lying beneath those ugly layers.  God’s love means transformation through the simple act of praying for our enemies.  Perhaps your prayer begins without words – just the mental image of the person.  But you may find that as you continue to pray for that individual, slowly you begin to see with God’s eyes.  What should you pray for?  What is redeeming in them?  What could God do to soften them and our relationship with them?

I think of Julio Diaz on that fateful night in the Bronx.  When Diaz told his mom what had happened that night, she said, “Well, you’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”  Clearly Diaz had this “loving your enemies” thing down.  In fact, maybe Diaz saw what Jesus could see – that in God, there are no enemies.  There are just people for us to love.  Diaz does not use Christian language to describe his philosophy.  He simply explains about his story, “I figure if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right.  It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”  Of course we would say, love your neighbor as yourself or do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Today, Jesus says, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

What is not obvious in either Diaz or Jesus’ stories is the subtext of what is happening.  In neither story is passivity the theme.  Instead, both are advocating for active transformation.  What Jesus is talking about is quietly resisting evil.  When he says to turn the other cheek, he is saying startle the person into the decision of whether to hit again.  When someone sues you for your coat, you giving them your cloak actually embarrasses them instead of you.  Though the person suing may have had a right to the coat, your offering your cloak too, being stripped down in front of everyone, humiliates the one suing more than being stripped down humiliates you.  And by walking that second mile, you claim ownership of your own being.  The one forcing you to walk a mile loses her power when you walk the second mile.[iii]  Diaz understood this.  By offering his coat and by inviting the teen to a meal, he shifted the power in the encounter.  By engaging that teen in conversation, and by probing further with him, he began to unravel the mystique of the thief, and found a vulnerable, desperate young man underneath.

The work that Jesus invites us into this week is not easy.  Shouting after a thief on an empty platform, trying to give him your coat and a meal is probably not that instinctive for most of us.  Quiet resistance is a lot harder than passive acceptance or violent retaliation.  Loving your enemies will not feel natural.  So maybe you start with prayer this week.  Maybe you simply start by praying for an enemy and see where the spiritual practice leads you.  That first step will begin the journey to seeing as God sees:  with eyes of love – difficult, radical, transforming love.  Amen.

[i] Story, slightly edited, as told in “A Victim Treats His Mugger Right,” March 28, 2008.  Found at http://www.npr.org/2008/03/28/89164759/a-victim-treats-his-mugger-right on February 21, 2014.

[ii] Barbara J. Essex, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 384.

[iii] Walter Wink, “How Turning the Other Cheek Defies Oppression,” May 4, 2009, as found at http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/9385 on February 20, 2014.

Sermon – Matthew 5.21-37, E6, YA, February 16, 2014

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Today is one of those Sundays when you hear the gospel and your response is, “Whoa there, Jesus!”  If there is not something in the gospel lesson that makes you uncomfortable, I would be shocked.  All the hard stuff is here today: conflict between family members and neighbors, lustful thoughts, divorce, and even oaths.  That last one may not sound all that upsetting, but wait until we talk about oaths, and you will start to get uncomfortable about that one too.  As modern-day Christians, there are parts of the Bible that we would just prefer to skim over – those tough lessons that we either do not abide by or totally disagree with – but that we try to ignore so that we can still claim to believe in Holy Scripture.  In fact, just last week in Adult Forum we were talking about how preachers in the Episcopal Church never get to choose the scripture for a given Sunday.  That is both the beauty and the challenge of being an Episcopalian.  By following the assigned lectionary, we hear the beautiful breadth of scripture, and are also forced to deal with the tough stuff of scripture.

Let’s review the tough stuff first.  First Jesus says that before the people of God offer gifts at the altar, they should make sure they are reconciled with their sister or brother.  Now if each of us had to make sure that all of our relationships were reconciled before we came to the Eucharistic table, I would imagine most of us would rarely receive Eucharist.  Think about that family member, that fellow parishioner, or that friend from school or work with whom you just had an argument.  Did you reconcile with them before coming to church today?

Next Jesus tells the people that avoiding adultery is not enough – they must even avoid lustful thoughts because that is as sinful as committing adultery.  You would have to be pretty immune to our entire culture not to face lust today – in advertising, in entertainment, and throughout media.  That does not even account for the lust we experience in spontaneous encounters with strangers, let alone with acquaintances and friends.

Then Jesus adds that anyone who divorces or who marries a divorcee is committing adultery.  With over half of marriages ending in divorce today, each one of us here is impacted by a divorce: if not our own, then the divorce of a family member or a friend.   I have a distinct memory of studying a Bible passage like this in Sunday School was I was in high school.  My teacher at the time had been divorced, but was thriving in a second marriage.  I asked her if we really believe Jesus’ words nowadays, and she insisted that we do.  I demanded to know how that could be since she and her husband were so happy and faithful.  She stated matter-of-factly that she and her husband would be judged for their lives.  To be honest, knowing how faithful she was, and how judged she felt by scripture, I began to question my faith altogether.

Finally Jesus instructs the people of God not to take oaths.  This one may sound a little strange, but basically Jesus is saying that you should never have to swear an oath because people should always be able to trust your word.  Your “yes” should mean yes, and your “no” should mean no.  So when your teacher asks you if you did all the reading or your boss asks you if you have completed a particular task, your “yes” better mean yes.  When you insist that you have not done something, you had better be sure that that “no” can be trusted.  In essence, there should be no need for you to swear at any point in life because your word can always be trusted.  You should not have to promise to not tell anyone else a secret because you have never told another person’s secret.  I do not know about you, but that makes me think a lot harder about what words come out of my mouth, sometimes even out of habit.

So are you uncomfortable yet?  Is your mind spinning from all the ways in which your behavior is contrary to what Jesus instructs today?  The good news is that there is actually good news.  Jesus does not offer these four rules as a way of making faithful living harder than faithful living already is.  As Jesus says in the verses preceding what we hear today, Jesus does not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law.  In other words, Jesus is still preaching the law of God, but Jesus is trying to get the people to see the intention behind the law.  So Jesus says, “Yes, do not murder, but really beware of anger altogether.”  Anger erodes not just our relationships with others but anger erodes our relationship with God.  Instead, by being a person who seeks reconciliation, we can be people bringing about the reign of God in our midst.[i]  Jesus longs for us to have the peace that comes in living a life that strives for reconciliation as opposed to the life that is willing to tolerate brokenness.  Of course, God knows relationships are complicated, and that some relationships are downright harmful.  But what Jesus is trying to get at is that longing for peace and reconciliation is the first step in healing not only specific relationships, but in healing the community of faith.

Jesus also affirms the original law about not committing adultery and not coveting; but he adds lust as being equally offensive.  Now I know this one is tricky because we are sexual beings and our sexuality is a gift from God.  But what Jesus wants us to acknowledge is that lingering on lust takes our attention away from healthy, loving relationships.  Furthermore, Jesus also affirms the dignity of every human being by affirming that no one should be treated as a sexual object.  Jesus is not saying deny your sexuality; Jesus is simply reminding us to celebrate healthy expressions of that sexuality.  I am reminded of a couple of music videos put out by pop-star Beyonce recently.  My first response to the videos was that they were pretty sexually explicit.  But when you listen to the words and see that her husband is the male counterpart in the video, you can see that Beyonce is simply celebrating the gift of healthy sexual experiences within the covenant of marriage.  Though the idea might be a stretch, perhaps what Beyonce is trying to communicate is not that she should be an object of sexual desire, but that we all should celebrate the gift of sexuality experienced within covenanted relationships.

Next, what Jesus says about divorce is not much different than what was already understood about divorce.  But what Jesus adds is a sense of accountability, particularly for men, to tend to the well-being of their wives, who are made the most vulnerable in divorce in Jesus’ time.  We all know the devastating effects of divorce; and fortunately, many of us have come through the other side to see the health and wholeness that come from ending unhealthy relationships and even in finding new thriving ones.  But what Jesus is really talking about here is being more attentive to the way that our actions impact the most vulnerable in society.  Our life decisions and actions are not made in a vacuum.  Jesus is encouraging us to be thoughtful and intentional about how we make those decisions and then how we handle their implications.  In the end, that sees to the welfare of a much broader range than simply ourselves.

Finally, what Jesus says about oaths is not as legalistic as it sounds, even though there are faith traditions that refuse to swear oaths.  Ultimately, what Jesus is trying to get us to see is that our words and our integrity matter.  If we are truthful people, then we have no need for oaths.  Jesus’ invitation is for us to be thoughtful about our words, not only being a people who actively tell the truth, but also being people who do not flippantly use words or make promises without considering their implications.

So ultimately, Jesus tells us today that our actions, our words, our relationships matter.  As followers of Christ, we do not get to be independent agents who care only for ourselves – a concept that is pretty counter-cultural in the United States.  Jesus’ words and their implications do put a burden on us and sometimes make us feel uncomfortable.  But in the end, Jesus words and their implications also make for healthier relationships, a healthier community, healthier relationships with God, and ultimately, a healthier version of yourself.  So embrace the uncomfortable, and know that Jesus has your back!  Amen.

[i] Marcia Y. Riggs, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 358.

Sermon – Luke 2.22-40, Feast of the Presentation, YA, February 2, 2014

06 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Throughout my time in parishes, I have been reminded again and again how different the varied groups are in church.  In one parish I served, the Twenties and Thirties group was struggling because the events that appealed to the single Twenties and Thirties members were not as appealing or convenient for the married Twenties and Thirties members – let alone the ones with children.  At another parish where I served, I remember trying to plan an event for a diverse group of families.  I suggested a particular time of day, keeping in mind the bedtime needs for our new infant.  After much debate, one of the other staff reminded me that families with older children do not need to start bedtime nearly as early as our family did.  I served in one parish that had Holy Eucharist on a weekday at 6:30 am, followed by Bible Study from 7:00 – 8:00 am.  As a sleep-deprived parent of a young child, the arrangement was hideous for me; but for those who worked in the City and needed to be there by 9:00, or for seniors who were up and fed well before 6:30 am, the timing was perfect.  And almost every parish I have been a part of has had youth lock-ins.  It is a special adult who is willing to supervise youth overnight, knowing that they may get little to no sleep, may need to navigate the energy and sexuality of teens, and are willing to be pretty silly and playful when they otherwise would like to be snuggling into a warm, comfortable bed for the night.

That is the funny thing about churches.  Though we all arrive on Sunday on time, relatively speaking, to do the same thing together, we all enter those doors with vast differences.  There are the basic differences – gender, age, marital status, and phase of life.  There are the personality differences – introverts or extroverts; morning or night people; spiritually expressive or quiet and contemplative.  And then there is what we bring in the door with us on any particular day.  Perhaps you just barely managed to dress and wrangle kids into the car to get them here today, probably running out of time to do much tending to yourself to get ready for church.  Perhaps you woke up with aches and pains today, but willed yourself to come anyway.  Perhaps you had a fight with a loved one recently, or even with a fellow parishioner, and you are not even sure if you are in the right mindset for church.  When we take into account all those widely diverse features of any particular gathered group, we begin to see how amazing the idea is that we even gather together at all.

I see a similar dynamic on the day that the holy family went to the temple for purification.  Mary needed to offer sacrifice in thanksgiving for a safe childbirth and sacrifice needed to be offered for Jesus as the firstborn son of the family.[i]  The family has already been through a great ordeal these past 40 days.  They managed to make their way to Bethlehem, had an eventful birth experience in a stable, had strange shepherd visitors, and are now back home.  I imagine at 40 days old, Jesus is still not sleeping through the night, Mary and Joseph are still figuring out this first-time parenting thing, and we can tell from their sacrifice of two turtledoves or young pigeons that the young couple is still struggling financially.[ii]  That this family made it to the temple for this traditional religious experience is a minor miracle.  We all know couples who have been in that stage of life at one point or another.

Meanwhile, we have Simeon.  He is a bit up in age, and has been waiting for a long time for the fulfillment of a promise.  The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.  That means that Simeon has spent a lot of time at the temple, just waiting for that long-anticipated day.  We know that Simeon is righteous and devout, and that the presence of the Holy Spirit is strong in him.  He is a man wise beyond his years, who has been taught to look for just the right thing.  We also know that he is a man of song.  When he finally sees Jesus, he breaks into a song of praise that is now known worldwide, sung at Evensongs and said at Compline or after Eucharists.  We know too that he is not afraid to tell the cold, hard truth, as he warns Mary what hardship is to come her way through her relationship with her son.  We all know a gentleman or two from church who both show forth a Spirit-filled life, yet is never afraid to speak truth – no matter how stinging that truth might be.

Finally, we meet Anna.  Anna is in her eighties.  She has been a widow for about sixty of those years, so we know she has had a rough life.  We also know that she spends every waking hour at the temple, worshiping, praying, and fasting.  Her whole life is centered on being in the temple.  We also learn that Anna is a talker.  When she sees Jesus for the first time, not only does she praise God, but she also talks about the child to anyone who will listen.  Surely we have met that older church gossip, who is always full of church news.

So we have this beautiful scene set before us:  the frazzled young family, struggling both physically and financially to just get by; the wise, righteous older man who is filled with the Spirit, but holds nothing back – not even if maybe he should; and the older prophet whose whole life is at the temple, and who has no problem catching people up on temple news.  In truth the scene is a bit comical.  Though the scene is meant to be another Epiphanytide manifestation of the identity of Jesus Christ, the scene is almost absurd in reality.

As I pondered this scene this week, I could not help to think about our community of faith, and how absurd we probably seem to outsiders.  We have all sorts of parents with children of various ages – many of whom have confessed their own frazzled lives to me on Sundays.  We have teens who struggled to get out of bed to come to church, but who are listening and will ask really hard questions from time to time.  We have empty-nesters who are so overjoyed to have a new lease on life that they are equally likely to be found at some exciting location as they are to be found at church.  We have retirees who are deeply spiritual, who will also give you a piece of their mind.  We have members who love when the guitar team plays and members who avoid church when the guitar team plays.  We have members who will come to every Holy Week service, and other members who are lucky to make it to church on Easter Sunday.

If you look at our wide diversity, you might wonder how in the world we all call the same community home; and yet we all do, and most of us cannot imagine life without this community.  That is the joy of church.  Though that older member might take you to task on something, you also know that they often speak with the love of someone who knows you can take it and you need to hear it.  Though there are Sundays when families feel like the behavior of their children has made their worship experience a complete bust, there are members around you who only get a glimpse of joy that week by being near your child and getting to know their beautiful personalities.  Though that church gossip might frustrate you at times, she is also the same one who has been praying for you and brought you a meal when you were sick.

That is what I love about the text this Sunday and the reality of Church.  Both the text and Church are extremely incarnational – they show us the depths of our messiness, but the beauty that can only emerge from that messiness.  Both show us how no matter how wacky the people are, God shows up, and reveals joy, hope, and grace.  Both show us that no matter how challenging our community might be at times, at its best, our faith community shows us how to better love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbors.  No matter what stage of life we are in, what personality we bring to the table, or what hurdles we overcame to get here today, we need each other because God needs and uses each of us.  For that messy, challenging, incarnate community of faith, I am forever grateful.  That is the good news we celebrate today, and the good news that we invite all our messy, challenging, incarnate friends into as well.  Amen.

[i] Lauren F. Winner, “Simeon’s Faithful Proclamation,” December 26, 2011, as found at http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/yearb/christmas1gospel-2/ on January 29, 2014.

[ii] William R. Herzog, II, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B., Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 167.

Sermon – Matthew 11.2-11, A3, YA, December 15, 2013

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

This sermon was only preached at the 8:00 am service, as our Bishop delivered the sermon at our 10:00 am service on Sunday.

Today marks fifty years of ministry by St. Margaret’s in Plainview.  On this day we remember our very rough beginnings at the Plainview American Legion Hall – a place where we often had to clean up empty beer bottles and ash trays before worship.  We remember the many people who have come in and out of lives and the ways in which they have made our ministry and life together richer.  We remember the pastoral leadership of the parish, and the ways in which each priest challenged and comforted us.  And we remember our own journey here – what brought us to this place, the ways that we connected, the ministries that we joined, and the reasons why we stay.  We take all these memories and we together say, “Thanks be to God for all that has been.”

Earlier this week, the bishop visited with our Vestry to talk about the work we are currently doing in Plainview.  We shared with him our new initiatives in outreach – the ways that we have adopted local families in need, the food we grew this summer in our Garden of Eatin’ to feed our neighbors, and the sandwiches we make with our interfaith brothers and sisters to feed those who do not know from where the next meal will come.  We shared with the bishop our evangelism efforts – our new website, blog, and Facebook page.  We talked about our efforts to spread the word about St. Margaret’s in our community – our mailings, signage, community presence at events, and even our challenge to get off campus more.  And we also shared with the bishop our ministry to spiritually feed everyone who comes through our doors – through education programs for adults and children, for spiritual offerings here and off campus, and through prayer and pastoral ministries.  The bishop was pleased with our efforts to reach beyond our walls and to find community partners in the process.  Together, we all said, “Thanks be to God for all that is.”

But the bishop did not let us off so easily.  He reminded us that we still had work to do.  He reminded us that this community is a largely un-churched community – full of people who have fallen away from the church or who have never known church.  He also reminded us that our mission field is not just in Plainview.  Our mission field is also in every place that each parishioner lives.  We are all agents of sharing the good news of Christ Jesus, and that our work more about welcoming people into a relationship with Christ than to grow the church.  The bishop also reminded us that there are still potential partnerships available to us.  There are ways that we can feed our current ministries through partnering with others, and we should not shy away from that work.  In many ways, I understood the bishop to be saying, “You have already made some great changes and are thinking outside of the box.  Now, keep making changes and keep thinking outside of the box.  Your work is not yet done.”  And so, with the bishop, together we prayed, “Thanks be to God for all that is yet to come.”

In many ways, I see parallels between what we are doing today and what is happening in our Gospel lesson today.  We are looking back, looking at today, and dreaming about tomorrow.  John the Baptist is in a similar situation.  As he sits in his cold jail cell, he thinks back to the prophets of old – of Isaiah who proclaimed that there would be one crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”  He recalls all that was said about the coming of a Messiah, and what the people of God could expect from the Messiah.  As he thinks about this rich past, he also looks at the current time.  He remembers how Jesus comes to be baptized by him, and how John feels unworthy to tie the thong of his sandal, let alone baptize him.  He begins to feel that his prayers have been answered, and God is finally acting in human history.  But he also feels those cold floors, those shackles on his limbs, and the permanence of those prison bars.  Is he mistaken?  Is Jesus not the Messiah?  If Jesus is the Messiah, surely his messenger, John, would not be sitting in this cell.  Perhaps there is more waiting in John’s future – perhaps the time is yet to come.

I have been thinking a lot this week about John’s jail experience and the many other prophets we know who have spent time imprisoned.  Of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who just a few months before the Nazis hanged him wrote, “Who am I?”  Though he eventually wrote, “Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine,”[i] I imagine Bonhoeffer could relate to John the Baptist’s prison questioning.  I also think about Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, or Martin Luther King, Junior in the United States who all sat in confinement fighting for a world ruled by equity and justice.  Though we admire them, surely they had dark nights of the soul during that time.  That is the funny thing about expectations though.  When things do not work out as we planned, we sometimes wonder whether God is acting at all.  John surely wondered whether God was present in Jesus.  Dietrich, Nelson, Aung San, and Martin must have wondered whether they were on the right track too.

I am sure that sitting in a jail cell leads one to wonder and dream about the future.  But when John inquires of Jesus what the future holds, all Jesus says is to look around.  He does not give John definite answers.  He simply points him toward the movement of the Holy Spirit all around him.  In some ways, as we look at the next fifty years we could also wonder about where we are going.  We too could wonder if the changes we are making are the right ones.  We could wonder if God will come in and light a blazing fire that will spark a renewal of ministry and blessing in this place.

And so today, in the midst of celebration and anticipation, we are given the wonderful collect of third Advent.  “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…”  We do not pray for reassurance, for confirmation, or for hope.  Instead, we pray that God will come among us and stir things up.  Now I do not know about you, but stirring things up is not exactly the reassurance I was hoping for today.  It is not the “well done, good and faithful servant,” I might have wanted to hear on our 50th anniversary.  But in some ways, I think this prayer is better.  This prayer, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us,” is a prayer focused more on the future than the past.  The prayer is our way of saying, “Okay, Lord.  We have been good and faithful servants.  Now, come among us and keep stirring our pot – because, as our bishop reminds us, our work is not yet done.”  We ask God to stir us up – to give us a new fire, a new spark for the work Christ has given us to do.  We know that in the stirring, we may come out looking differently than we expected.  We know that in the stirring, we may find ourselves disoriented or even trying life together new ways.  But we also know that in the stirring, the Holy Spirit moves in us to make us a better people for God.  Today we are grateful for all that has been and all that is.  And now we ask God to stir us up so that we can celebrate all that is to come.  Amen.

[i] John P. Burgess, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 72.

Sermon – Matthew 3.1-12, A2, YA December 8, 2013

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Today we are going to do something a little different.  We are going to try an exercise I found recently.[i]  I want you to pull out your bulletin or a scrap of paper, and grab the pencil in your pew or a pen you brought with you.  Next, I want you to make a quick “to do” list for Advent.  I want you to put all the things you need and want to get done:  maybe shopping for gifts, decorating the Christmas tree, sending those Christmas cards, or attending the kids’ school Christmas concert.  Maybe you want to make some end-of-year charitable contributions, or need to get those Christmas Eve services on your calendar.  I want you to put all the things on the list and feel free to be fairly exhaustive about what you want to get done in these next two and half weeks.  I am going give you a second, as I imagine your list is probably as long as mine.  And this is probably the only time I will ever encourage you to make a to-do list during the sermon, so enjoy!

Now, I want you to take a deep breath, clear your mind a bit, and I want you to daydream about what you hope Christmas will be like this year.  Think about the kind of day you want to have or maybe the kind of relationships you want to be a part of your life.  Think about what kind of world you want to live in this Christmas, and maybe even beyond Christmas Day.  Your hopes can certainly be about your immediate wants and needs, but they can also include your larger families, communities, and the world.  If you want, go ahead and take just another moment to write a brief sentence below your other list that captures your hope for your life and the world this Christmas.  As you are thinking about the kind of world you want to live in, think about the passage we heard from Isaiah today:  a world where the wolf shall live with the lamb, the cow and the bear graze together, and a nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp.  Perhaps this kind of harmony and peace is a part of your Christmas hope and can certainly be a part of your dreaming today.

Okay, now that you have your to-do list and your Christmas hope in mind, I want you to work backwards.  Look at the to-do list you made and circle those tasks that might contribute directly to your own deep hopes and longings about your life and this world.  Certainly, there are going to be some items on your list that are important in the short-term, but maybe do not contribute to your larger vision and hope.  Here is where our invitation lies today.  Perhaps this Advent can be a time of putting things in perspective and channeling our energy and resources to those things that matter most to us, to our families, to our communities, and to God.

Of course, that invitation may not have been what you initially imagined when you heard John the Baptist’s words today in our gospel lesson.  His words of repentance and judgment are honestly more scary than comforting this time of year.  I have many times wondered why we have to hear John’s words now, as we approach that blessed holy night, as opposed to some other text about happy anticipation or blessed expectation.  But John does not mince words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

I have been reading a lot these last couple of weeks about the season of Advent and people’s varying opinions about whether Advent is a penitential season or not.  I have been part of parishes that have insisted that Advent is not a mini-Lent, and refuse to take on anything that resembles the penitential nature of Lent.  But I have also been a part of parishes who see the themes in our collects this season and hear words like John the Baptist’s words today and cannot help but to claim the penitential nature of Advent.

Part of the challenge is that we all get a bit hung up on the fact that we think of repentance as being about guilt, inadequacy, and unworthiness.  We imagine that repentance is about our standard of moral worthiness or about our feelings of remorse.  Barbara Brown Taylor explains, “The kind of repentance most of us shrink from is all about us, in case you hadn’t noticed.  It is all about me, me, me, the miserable sinner.  No wonder it is so revolting.”  But, Taylor suggests that there might be another way to look at repentance.  “The other kind of repentance, the healing kind is far more interested in God.  It spends more time looking at the kingdom than the mirror.  It has more faith in God’s power to make new than in our own power to mess up.”[ii]  In fact, some have argued that repentance is about God’s desire to realign us with Christ’s life, God’s hope to transform us into Christ’s image.[iii]  Real repentance is not about our failings, but about God’s desires for us.

I think many of us want to avoid texts like our gospel lesson today, because the last thing we want to hear as we try to struggle through those Advent to-do lists is that we need to repent, and think about the kingdom of heaven coming near.  But John is not trying to push us to feel bad about ourselves this Advent season, or even to wallow in apologies.  Instead, repentance is about “re-orientation, a change of perspective and direction, a commitment to turn and live differently.”[iv]  Our gospel lesson today is not trying to get us to limit our hopes or define ourselves by our ancestry or piety, but to dream bigger dreams, and to work toward those bigger hopes on that Christmas hope list you just made this morning.  This is what John means when he says to bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Now if you imagine that I am saying that you have more work to do this Advent season, you are partially right.  I am inviting you to take up the work of living into your bigger hopes and dreams this season.  But I am also giving you permission to let go of those things on that to-do list that are not allowing you to focus on the real joy of this season: the joy of a life of repentance – of re-orientation.  Now you may not be able to get out of that party or those Christmas cards, but maybe your presence at that party will be marked by your new Advent re-orientation.  Maybe those cards will have a different message than you originally planned, or your approach to completing them may be full of love and compassion instead of obligation and annoyance.  John’s words for us today are a wake-up call, but not the wake up call that fills us with dread and self-criticism.  John’s wake-up call is a reminder of the hope of this season – the hope that is ours to claim when we are ready.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Hoping for More,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2901 on December 2, 2013.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “A Cure for Despair: Matthew 3:1-12,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 21, no. 1, Advent 1997, 18.

[iii] John P. Burgess, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 46.

[iv] Lose.

Homily – Matthew 6.25-33, TG, YC November 28, 2013

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Our gospel lesson today is one of my favorites.  Jesus’ instructions not to worry are a soothing ointment for the constant itch of worry in my life.  His words calm my nerves and remind me of the need for perspective.  I can almost imagine Jesus as a yoga instructor, calmly affirming a room of people who are trying to take in deep breaths and to relax their tight muscles.  As I think about the heavenly Father who knows my every need, I am given a sense of perspective and calm that I can rarely muster on my own.  Because I am a person prone to worry, this passage truly is one of my favorite passages from scripture.

That being said, this passage is also one of my least favorite passages.  We tend to think of ourselves as having a certain amount of responsibility in this life – a responsibility to use the talents God has given us to care for ourselves, and even to care for others.  But who among us has not had times when that was just not possible – either from being laid off or furloughed from work, not being able to find a job in unemployment, or having an injury that has made our work impossible.  Besides, what does Jesus expect us to do?  Just go about life, expecting everything to be handed to us – clothing, food, and drink?  The proposition seems naïve and ultimately frustrating.

But even harder than a basic frustration with Jesus is the underlying message of what Jesus is saying:  that through our behavior of worrying, we are implying that we have ultimate control over life, and that God plays little, or at least a superficial, role in our lives.  The presumption of worry is the presumption that we have the ability to fully control what happens and then fix things when they go awry.  Our worrying is a way of saying to God, “I do not trust you to handle things in my life.  I am not willing to give up that control to you.”  One question from Jesus summarizes this conflict for us, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”  Jesus really knows how to get to the heart of the matter, and when he does, his words feel like a stab to the heart.

Truthfully, there really could not be a better lesson for us today on Thanksgiving Day.  I imagine every one of us has had a worry about this day in the past week or more.  Talk about worrying about what you will eat!  We stress about what food to serve, how to accommodate our gluten-free friends in the menu, what items can be prepared in advance, how to get the moistest turkey, and whether we have made enough for those gathered.  Some of us have worried about what outfit to wear, knowing there will be countless photos trying to capture the happiness of this day.  And what to drink?  I know parties where the host has purchased copious amounts of wine, despite delegating wine to guests, for fear that there will not be enough to cover the gathering.  And those worries do not even cover the other worries of the day – how to fit in Eucharist while the turkey is still cooking, whom to sit near our cranky aunt, and what kind of arguments might erupt between family members.  For those hosting meals, many of us barely have a chance to catch our breath after the meal before the clean-up process begins.

But that is the beauty of this lesson today:  like our eternal battle between worry and control, this special day also has the potential for lost focus.  Our country, with all its flaws, gives us a day that is almost sacred in nature – a day set aside for gratitude and thanksgiving; a day when we can pause, and remember the abundant blessings of our lives and the incredible gift of this life.  And if we are at all considering what we are grateful for, our minds inevitably end up with God – the one from whom all blessings flow.  The simple act of thanksgiving melts away tensions, and turns our worry-hardened hearts to hearts overflowing with gratitude.  When we really think about all that we have to be grateful for, the list gets longer and longer – even if we are not even in much of a mood to celebrate.

I was wondering, then, how we might incorporate the lessons we learn today from the gospel and from Thanksgiving Day into a rule of life beyond this day.  Then I remembered the last line of the gospel, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  We have been singing these very words since September, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  And all these things shall be added unto you.  Alleluia.”  I have been singing these words every Sunday, and I took until today, with today’s gospel and today’s celebration to finally connect the dots.  The answer is not to throw up our hands, naively trusting God to put food on the table.  The answer is changing our pursuit – not pursuing the things that we think we want and need, but instead pursing the kingdom of God.  The rest is just gravy.  Amen.