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Sermon – Luke 12.32-40, P14, YC, August 11, 2013

18 Sunday Aug 2013

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A few weeks ago, a parishioner told me about how he had run into a guy in the parking lot of a grocery store he frequents.  He knew the man to be homeless, and as he was doing his own grocery shopping, he purchased a couple of bags of food for the man.  When he stopped by the car to deliver the bags, the man was overcome with gratitude.  The homeless man’s gushing evoked something in this parishioner, and he found that he just opened his wallet and gave the man all the cash he had too.  That is the funny thing about generosity.  Generosity is kind of addictive.  When we see how much something small means to someone else, we find we want to do more.  And in some strange way, our entire perspective shifts.  Those pennies we were pinching now just seem like pennies:  their value and meaning shift.

This is what Jesus has been trying to get at these last two weeks.  If you remember, last week, Jesus told the parable of a man who was scolded for storing up his excess produce in larger barns, especially since that man would die that very night.  Today, Jesus talks more about the “stuff,” of life.  Jesus says, “Sell your possessions, and give alms.  Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Now I know:  most of us check out when Jesus says, “Sell your possessions.”  There are very few of us who can truly part with all of our possessions.  But what Jesus is really trying to get at is in the last sentence.  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Jesus wants his followers to see that the stuff of life is neither important nor unimportant.  But our attitude toward our stuff is what is important.

I worked at a parish when I was in seminary that was planning a remodeling of their building.  As different schematics were presented, the number one complaint I heard was, “We need more storage space.”  No matter how many different ways the architect and priest presented new layouts, the complaint about storage space kept arising.  When I finally asked the priest why they did not just put in more storage space into the plans, the priest told me this:  “You know what, Jennifer?  I do not want to put in more storage space because I know they will fill it.”  I was confused at first, wondering whether that might be the point – the parish had stuff they needed to store, hence the request for more space.  But eventually, what I came to see the priest as arguing was that no matter how much space they created, the parish would simply accumulate more stuff to keep storing.  Anyone who has upgraded from a smaller living space to a larger one knows how true this can be.  The more space we have, the more we tend to fill the space with stuff.

The trouble is not inherent in the stuff.  Our stuff is not necessarily evil.  The trouble with our stuff is that much like the land owner last week, when we get so focused on storing and maintaining stuff, our focus or our heart becomes fixed on the stuff and not the potential for the stuff.  Seven years ago, Scott and I moved to a one-bedroom apartment at seminary.  We had more things than could move with us, so we got a storage unit back in Delaware.  When we finally moved to Long Island, we emptied that storage unit.  As I was looking for something in the basement the other day, I realized I have a ton more dishes in the basement than I ever use.  Part of me wanted to get them out and start using them.  But then part of me wondered whether if I could survive for seven years without those casserole dishes and extra glassware, maybe I did not actually need them.  That conclusion has led to some challenging thoughts about the potential for our stuff.

Now I know these texts the last two weeks make us feel uncomfortable.  We do not like talking about money or our stuff in church.  We do not even like talking about those topics in stewardship season, let alone in the comfort of summer!  But we get these texts this time of year because their message is important for us to hear everyday.  When we are so burdened with stress or anxiety about money or our stuff, or even the stuff we want to have but do not have, then our bodies become tense, and our hands tightly closed.  The trouble with those tightly closed hands is that we cannot receive God in the ways that God desires to come to us.  The warnings later in today’s text about being ready are not to “‘Be ready so that you will avoid punishment,’ but, rather, ‘Be ready so that you will receive blessing.’”[i]

That is why Jesus wants us to be aware about where our treasure is.  In fact, we hear his longing in his first words today, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  In other words, you do not need store up things or tarry in anxiety about the earthly stuff.  Our God, that loving father, is pleased to give you all the blessings of the kingdom; and not just in the heavenly kingdom, but here and now.

The question for us this week, then, is what “stuff” is getting in our way of receiving God’s blessing?  What are our arms so full of that we cannot have open arms to receive God’s blessing?  For me, I have been working on letting go not just of the physical stuff of life, but more my own emotional stuff.  Just last week, Simone and I went away for a week at the beach where we would share an 11-room house with other families.  I spent the weeks leading up to the trip worrying about what to bring, how I would haul all the beach “stuff” to and from the beach by myself, what toys or videos we would need for entertainment, and how I would manage the different meal schedule – since meals were served about two hours later than in the Andrews-Weckerly house.  Now certainly my weeks of preparation meant that I was well prepared.  But what I missed in all that preparation was that there would be ten other families present.  My concerns about being the sole parent for the week and how I would manage became all about me.  I forgot that God was giving me the blessing of ten other parents and at least two other sets of siblings to help me cope.  People chipped in with entertaining my child, by aiding with discipline, and with finding creative alternatives when the rains came.  I spent weeks trying to figure all this out by myself, when if I had just heard God’s word for me today, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” I might have been able to open my arms a lot sooner for God’s blessing.

The question is the same for all of us.  We all can stand to think about where our treasure is today.  Because God longs for our hearts to be in the blessings that God already decided to give to us.  What do you need to let go of today in order to open your arms for God’s blessing?  Amen.

[i] Audrey West, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 336.

Sermon – Luke 11.1-13, P12, YC, July 28, 2013

31 Wednesday Jul 2013

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During seminary, one of the requirements for becoming a priest is to serve for eight weeks in a hospital setting as a chaplain.  Now one might think that there is a hospital chaplaincy course or that the hospital gives chaplains training on how to be a chaplain.  But the truth is, we received two day of “training,” half of which was about just being in hospital, not about how to be a chaplain.  Needless to say, on day three, when the supervisor told us to go to our floors and to get to work, I was almost stunned into inaction.  What would I say?  What was I supposed to do? 

Of course, only hours into the job, I realized how much I had underestimated the challenges.  Not only did I have no idea how to enter a room and strike up a conversation that was not like the ones they were having with every doctor and nurse, I also had no idea how to pray appropriately for the Roman Catholic, the Pentecostal, the Jew, the United Methodist, the Episcopalian, and the uncertain person who was not sure about God but was still willing to let me pray.  I remember sharing my anxiety with a fellow Episcopalian and he simply said, “Oh, I always just pray prayers using the same format as the collects in the Book of Common Prayer.”  Despite my love for the collects in our Prayerbook, an entire childhood of praying like a Methodist meant that his advice offered little encouragement. 

The truth is I am not sure most of us are ever really taught how to pray.  We know a good prayer when we hear one, and we may even write down a prayer we like, but very few of us volunteer to lead prayer at the opening of a meeting or over a meal.  Part of the problem is that most of us think there is a right way to pray.  We imagine there is some magical formula like my friend from seminary suggested, or we worry that our extemporaneous prayer will not be smooth enough or use holy enough words.  We worry that the way that we pray somehow suggests the quality of Christian we are.  Prayer, like biblical literacy, is one of those areas that we get completely anxious about when pressed in public.

The good news is that we are in good company.  We hear in our gospel lesson today one of the disciples say to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  The disciples at this point have seen Jesus pray many times.  They see how good he is and they see how important prayer is in his life.  In fact, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is regularly found in prayer.[i]  They watch Jesus enter into prayer with God for months, and they long to be able to do that too.  And so they come to Jesus, and they vulnerably submit their request:  teach us to pray. 

Their question is full of implications.  First is the admission that they do not have the first idea about what they are doing.  Maybe they learned some prayers in temple, or maybe their parents prayed with them.  But they realize in watching Jesus that they do not actually know how to pray themselves.  Not really.  Second, they see a real connection between Jesus and God that somehow is revealed in Jesus’ prayer life.  Perhaps they see how prayer strengthens him in his weakness and how he is more vulnerable with God than even with them.  They long for that kind of connection with God too, but still, they are not sure how the whole thing works.  Finally, a deeper implication is at hand in the disciples’ question.  Perhaps they are not only asking Jesus how to pray, but also wanting to know what is actually happening in prayer.  Perhaps they have tried praying on their own – for an illness, for a new job, for a broken relationship – but the prayer did not work.  They want Jesus to teach them the right way to pray so that the results they desire are fulfilled.

In some ways, Jesus does that.  First, Jesus gives them a simple prayer.  When you pray, pray this.  The prayer is one that countless Christians have etched into their minds for over two thousand years.  Many of us have distinctive memories of learning the Lord’s Prayer, while others of us just simply know the prayer without remembering how the prayer became ingrained into our conscience.  The Lord’s Prayer is perhaps the only part of a funeral that everyone – even those who never go to church – seem to know and can recite.  This is the same prayer that we say every Sunday, that we teach our children, that we say near death, that we pray when we cannot muster up any other words.  In this way, Jesus teaches the disciples and all of us to pray. 

But then, Jesus goes on to really teach the disciples about prayer.  He tells this funny parable about a man who awakens his friend in the dead of the night because another friend has come to his house and he has no food to feed him.  The man in bed refuses at first, but after much persistence, he caves and gives his friend what he needs.  At the end of the parable, Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”  Yes, Jesus gives the disciples the words they can use to pray.  But Jesus is also trying to teach them about what prayer really is.  Jesus presents this parable of two friends in a relationship that involves give and take.  Jesus is trying to teach the disciples that prayer is about relationship.  The prayer relationship with God is one in which the disciples will be coming in the middle of the night asking for very inconvenient things.  The prayer relationship is active, deeply personal, and will involve asking for what they really need.[ii]  In fact, Jesus says of the man in the parable, “because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.”  Another translation of the word “persistence,” is “shamelessness.”[iii]  In other words, Jesus teaches the disciples that this prayerful relationship holds nothing back, cannot be embarrassed, and certainly does not worry about pretenses.

Unfortunately, we may hear those words about asking, searching, and knocking and remember every time that our prayers have not been answered, when we have not found, and the door has not been opened.  But Jesus is inviting us today to reframe prayer not as something we do with the expectation of an exchange:  I ask for healing, or a job, or a romantic partner, and God gives that to me.  We are still to come to God with those pains:  the longing for healing, the desire for vocational fulfillment, and the hope for partner who makes us happy and whole.  But instead of bringing those things to God because we want them solved, Jesus suggests that we bring those things to God so that all of ourselves is nakedly before God.  Only then can we have the intimacy with God that we desire and the realness of relationship we long to have. 

Now where this gets messy is when we start trying to understand why things happen – when we are not healed and people tell us, “It was God’s will,” or “Everything happens for a reason.”  But those answers hold little weight when a child dies or when someone loses their home.  I cannot believe in a God who wills those things to happen.  In fact, when a teen asks me why their parents are still getting divorced even though they prayed for the divorce not to happen, or when a mom loses a pregnancy and wants to know why God would let that happen, my answer has most often been, “I don’t know.”  I do not know why our physical ailments are not healed and why horrible or disappointing things happen to us.  All I do know is that God longs for us to bring all of that to God in prayer. 

So when I am angry, God wants me to let God have it.  When I am sad, God wants me to pour out my heart.  When I am lost, God wants me to share my wandering self.  And when I am not even sure God is with me or loves me, God wants me to just come and sit, even if I do not have words or if I do not feel like I can really trust God anymore.  When the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, Jesus gives them a simple, straightforward prayer, teaching them and us that we do not need holy words or even our own words – especially when we cannot find our own words.  But Jesus teaches us all so much more.  Jesus teaches us to be shamelessly honest about what we need whenever we are in need.  And Jesus teaches us that prayer is based on trust – not a trust that everything works out for the best or that we will get exactly what we want – but a trust that God is listening and God loves us and all the world.[iv]  Jesus’ teaching is not tidy – but Jesus’ teaching invites us in, encourages us, and holds us in this wonderful journey with God – the one who we come to know through prayer.  Amen.

[i] James A. Wallace, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 289.

[ii] Elisabeth Johnson, “Commentary on Luke 11.1-13,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx? commentary_id=1724 on July 25, 2013. 

[iii] Wallace, 291.

[iv] David Lose, “Teach Us to Pray,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2654 on July 25, 2013.

Sermon – Ecclesiasticus 51.9-12, Feast of St. Margaret of Antioch (Transferred), July 21, 2013

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

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Today we celebrate the feast of St. Margaret of Antioch, our patron saint.  The legends vary widely about Margaret, but in general, her story goes a bit like this.  Margaret was born to a pagan father, but Margaret was raised by a nurse.  The nurse introduced Margaret to Christianity, and the father disowned her.  As a young teen, she devoted herself to Jesus Christ, vowing to remain his bride for the rest of her life.  A few years later, a wealthy man passed her way and requested to take her as his mistress.  She refused, and he had her imprisoned and beaten.  Her captors felt sorry for her and begged her to submit to the man, but she assured them that though they saw suffering, she saw her pain as “sweeter than cream.”[i]  In her weakened state, she is believed to have faced a dragon, though some refer to the dragon as a demon or Satan himself.  The dragon tried to swallow her, and with a cross she held in her hand, she defeated the dragon.  Of course, this victory did not seal her fate.  Still refusing to submit to the rich man, she was eventually beheaded.

When I explain to outsiders about which Margaret is our patron saint, I often explain how we picked the weird one.  First of all, relating to martyrs is always difficult for modern Christians.  Few of us will ever face torture or persecution for our faith.  Though we may admire their commitment, imagining how we would show similar dedication is challenging.  Furthermore, relating to someone who commits their virginity to Jesus Christ might be difficult for many of us.  Though we may admire nuns and monks today, whose lives also involve a commitment to chastity, very few of us can imagine such a rule for ourselves.  Besides, we get entirely uncomfortable just talking about sex in church.  Add in the bizarre story about the dragon, and most of us start to mentally check out or at least assign Margaret to the category of fiction.  This distance creates a barrier for finding meaningful connection to Margaret.

Of course, some of our resistance is aided by our conflicted feelings about the value of saints.  What I appreciate about saints in the Episcopal Church is that we have a broader definition of saints than the Roman Catholic Church.  We have a wider variety of saints that are commemorated throughout the year, and in fact, our weekly Thursday Eucharist here at St. Margaret’s always focuses on a saint of the church.  What I find most appealing about saints is that they can often be aids for us in prayer.  Either we can pray to be more like a certain saint, or we can use saints as a vehicle through whom we pray to God.  St. Margaret of Antioch was known as the patron saint of women in childbirth.  “Because of the promises made just before Margaret’s death to assist anyone – especially women in childbirth – who has [St. Margaret’s] life written down, reads it, or has it read to them…[some of the copies of her story were] written on long strips of parchment which were fastened around the abdomens of women in labor.”[ii]  Though that practice may sound silly to us now, who has not prayed to St. Anthony when they lost something, or purchased a St. Joseph when trying to sell a home?

Perhaps where we find the most help today in understanding St. Margaret is from our reading from Ecclesiasticus.  The author begins the final chapter with these words, “And I sent up my prayer from the earth, and begged for rescue from death.  I cried out, ‘Lord, you are my Father; do not forsake me in the days of trouble, when there is no help against the proud.’”  I imagine Margaret cried out to God in a similar way in that prison cell.  I imagine there was nothing but prayer on her lips.  But even more than crying out to God in her pain and suffering, I imagine that Margaret more so prayed the words that the author of Ecclesiasticus also prayed, “I will praise your name continually, and will sing hymns of thanksgiving.”  Despite her many trials – being disowned, being captured and tortured, and being threatened with death – she somehow saw the sweetness of Christ in all of her trials.  She could still come to God in praise and thanksgiving, despite facing circumstance that called for nothing of the sort.

St. Margaret has a lot to teach us about today about prayer.  I was just in conversation with someone this week about their prayer life, and they confessed how good they are with their “thank yous and pleases” to God, but how rarely their prayer life is filled with adoration of God.  We all struggle with this kind of prayer relationship with God.  We are quite good at coming to God when we need something, and we occasionally remember to thank God for our blessings.  But rarely do we stand before God, arms and hands open and just stand in awe of our God.  We get caught up in a relationship with God as an exchange, and we forget how huge our God is and how tremendous God’s presence in our lives is.

Today, Margaret invites us to remember the awesomeness of our God.  She reminds us of the incredible work began here in Plainview fifty years ago in her name.  And she invites us into a prayer of adoration for the bountiful grace that awaits us in our next fifty years.  For the First Communion we celebrate today, for the bountiful produce that our Garden of Eatin’ is producing, for the blessing of Holy Matrimony that a couple plans for this afternoon, for the blessed fellowship we enjoyed yesterday at the Gibsons’, for the gift of life and ministry in this place, and for the saint who reminds us of the awesomeness of our God, we will praise the Lord’s name continually, and we will sing hymns of thanksgiving this day.  Amen.

[i] Sherry L. Reams, ed., Middle English Legends of Women Saints (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2003), 119.

[ii] Reams, 111.

Sermon – Luke 10.25-37, P10, YC, July 14, 2013

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

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Lisa had produced lots of stories like this over the last ten years.  They were human-interest stories for ESPN – the stories that drew people into the private pain and sacred celebrations behind their beloved sports.  Lisa loved her work, but she had never gotten as involved as she did four years ago.  In 2009 she met Leroy and Dartanyon – two high school wrestlers from a poor Cleveland school who were fighting against all odds.  Dartanyon was homeless and legally blind and Leroy had lost parts of both legs in a train accident.  Dartanyon often carried Leroy to classes up stairs, while Leroy helped Dartanyon with his homework.  Their story was so potent for Lisa that she could not walk away.  Over the course of four years, she would find herself doing everything from helping Dartanyon obtain his birth certificate, to ensuring they had food everyday; from helping them fill out financial aid forms for college, to connecting Dartanyon to a Paralympic coach.

When I saw Lisa’s story this week, I could not help but to think about the Good Samaritan from the gospel lesson today.  Most of us know this story well, and pretty much all of us want to strive to be a Good Samaritan; so much so that we spend time volunteering, we give money to aid important causes, and we even occasionally give a dollar to that guy on the corner.  But what struck me this week about the story of the Good Samaritan is that we often simplify the example of the Samaritan. We read this story and we know that we should not be like the lawyer or the priest or the Levite.  We should help others like the Samaritan.  The problem though with this simplified response to Jesus’ command to “Go and do likewise,” is that we skim over all the work the Samaritan did.  The text says the Samaritan, “went to [the victim] and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them.  Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’”

Several things strike me about this account.  First of all, there is a longevity to the care of the Samaritan.  The Samaritan does not simply give the man some bandages, or a cloak, or even some money, and then leave.  The Samaritan does not simply help the man to a local hospital or inn and then carry on with his life.  The Samaritan does not even care for the man overnight, and then depart, having certainly done his duty.  No, the Samaritan even pays for the man to stay and promises to return and pay for whatever else is due.  This is not a one-time exchange, or even a short-term exchange.  This exchange is a commitment to the long haul – a dedication not just to help but to be in relationship.  This is what Jesus means when he says we are to “go and do likewise.”

What is tricky about this kind of relationship is that this kind of relationship is messy.  Though there is some debate among scholars, many seem to think that the victim on the side of the road was a Jew.[i]  So not only was this victim beaten, robbed, and abandoned by those who should have cared for the victim, he was helped and tended to by a Samaritan – a man who was his enemy.  The Jews and Samaritans had a long-standing conflict.  The Jews had a very low opinion of the Samaritans.  Samaritans were seen as second-class citizens to be avoided at all costs.  So imagine when the victim woke up at that inn to find a Samaritan nursing him back to health.

Not to mention how complicated this is for the Samaritan.  He knows how most Jews feel about him.  He may have even felt the same way about the Jewish people.  But somehow, his sense of pity gets the best of him, and he finds himself not just asking if the guy is okay, but spending his time and resources on this complete stranger who is his enemy as well.  This encounter between these two men is not simply a one-way, clean exchange of helper and helped.  This is a messy encounter that leaves the two in a strange relationship that can only be possible through God’s grace.  Whatever biases the Jew had against Samaritans had to have been called into question that next morning.  Hatred of another cannot remain when one is the recipient of love as deep as the Samaritan shows.  And whatever biases the Samaritan had against Jews had to have weakened that day too.  You cannot dress a man’s wounds, care for him overnight, and return to check in on him without some of your defenses coming down.  The kind of neighborliness that Jesus is inviting people into is messy, complicated, and a bit scary.

Lisa, Leroy, and Dartanyon knew a little about this kind of messiness.  Dartanyon and Leroy not only faced the challenges of their own physical limitations, they also lived in a world of struggle.  Their school was a school marked by violence and active police presence.  Books were handed out and locked back up after each class.  Less than forty percent would ever graduate and untold numbers were left pregnant.  And white people were not necessarily seen as allies.  Meanwhile, Lisa had grown up on the other side of Cleveland.  Her parents scraped together money just so that she would not have to go to school with those her parents would call, “those people.”  Lisa and Leroy and Dartanyon grew up knowing each other as “the other,” and any attempt at a relationship brought these biases, baggage, and burdens to the foreground.

The funny thing is that when we read our gospel lesson day, we can feel that Jesus is scolding the lawyer in some way.  But I think what is actually happening here is a bit of healthy challenge.  Jesus fully admits that if the lawyer simply does what the law calls for:  to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself – then the lawyer will be fine.  Jesus is saying that even the slightest effort of loving God and loving neighbor is good and to be commended.  But in the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is hinting to the lawyer that there is a potential for more – a potential to know God more fully and to love more deeply than he could even imagine is possible.  And that kind of amped up grace and blessing can only come from messy, complicated, scary relationships with the other.

Recently, while Lisa, Leroy, and Dartanyon prepared for a follow-up story with ESPN, Dartanyon quietly asked Lisa the question that probably many others had wondered about but never asked.  “Why did you stay?”  Lisa’s response was automatic.  “I love you,” she answered.  “That’s what I thought you’d say,” he replied.  “But … why … why did you stick around and do everything you did?”  Lisa’s response was long and complicated because their relationship was messy, complicated, and at times maybe even scary.  But after much reflection, Lisa concludes, “I stayed because we can change the world only when we enter into another’s world.”[ii]  Though I have no idea whether Lisa is a person of faith, Lisa is preaching Jesus’ words today with her life.  She understands that being neighbors means not just helping people, but entering into their lives, and taking on whatever messiness that involves – because only then can we know the kind of love Jesus has for us.  In that sacred, vulnerable, tenuous reality that is relationship with the other is where we experience Jesus and the love Jesus has for all of us – even those we might label as the other.  Jesus knows how hard this will be.  But Jesus tells us to “Go and do likewise,” anyway because Jesus knows that we can.  Amen.

[i] Matthew L. Skinner, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 241.

[ii] Lisa M. Fenn, “‘Carry On’: Why I Stayed,” as found on http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9454322/why-stayed on July 9, 2013.

Sermon – Lk. 10.1-11, 16-20, P9, YC, July 7, 2013

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

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One of the challenges of our faith is connecting our modern world to the world of Holy Scripture.  Most of us have experienced the Living Word still speaking to us today, but some texts are a little more relatable than others.  Today’s gospel lesson is one of those un-relatable texts.  The more we think about those seventy who were sent out the more we conclude that their experience is totally foreign to us.  Jesus brings us up short right away when he starts talking about going out into the mission field to “harvest” people.  We get nervous just talking about the word evangelism, let alone trying to figure out what harvesting people means.  Our minds wander to thoughts about judgment and saving souls and a shudder moves down our spine.  Then we get into the gritty details of the text.  Jesus tells the disciples that they are to preach about the kingdom coming near.  Most of us hear the word “preach” and we immediately tune out.  “Oh, that’s what the priest does.  I guess this is not a passage about what I am called to do.”  And that thought does not even cover our aversion to the idea of preaching, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”  All we can envision is that guy in Times Square with the sandwich board yelling about how we are all going to hell for us to decide conclusively that this passage does not relate to us.  Add to these reservations the instruction from Jesus to cure the sick and we are pretty much done.  Most of us are not doctors and many of us are still uncertain about what role our faith plays in our health.

The truth is I am not sure the seventy others who Jesus sent out felt too confident either.  First Jesus tells them that the “harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”  So basically, there is so much work to be done that the seventy are going to be overworked and overstressed.  Next Jesus tells them, “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.”  Quite frankly, I would think most of the seventy would have been terrified by this statement.  I am sure they were panicked with questions about who these wolves were and whether their own lives were at stake.  Then Jesus tells them, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”  He goes on to explain that they are to be dependent upon the hospitality of others.  If they were not worried about working conditions already, this last bit of information might have set them on edge.  Basically Jesus sends them out with nothing – no safety net, no creature comforts, and no guarantees.  So the seventy are terrified and starkly vulnerable; and we, thousands of years later, are either equally wary or totally dismissive.

Back in April, the Vestry had a retreat about evangelism.  One of the stories the consultant told us was about her own harried experience with evangelism.  She was studying with a professor whose specialty was church growth, and her assignment for her thesis was to go to a local coffee shop and start talking to people about their faith.  The first week she went to the coffee shop, but was too terrified to talk to anyone.  When her professor asked her how it went, she totally lied.  She made up some story about talking to some people and how the conversations were good.  This charade continued for weeks.  Each week she would go to the shop, but be unable to take that first step.  And each week, she would lie to her professor about trying.  Finally, guilt won over, and she took a small step forward.  She made a little sign out of a folded piece of paper that read, “Talk to me about church, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”  She sat nervously, petrified of what would happen.  Eventually a woman came up to her and said, “I’d like to talk to you about church, but I’ll buy the cup of coffee for you.”  The following conversation was transformative for both of them, and the professor, who knew all along she was lying, was proud to see the consultant finally make progress.

Like there was good news for this consultant, so there is good news for the seventy.  Although Jesus does send the seventy out in a very vulnerable way, he does not send them alone.  Jesus sends them in pairs.  Having a partner offers all sorts of security in the midst of their vulnerability.  “When one of them falters, the other can help.  When one is lost, the other can seek the way.  When one is discouraged, the other can hold faith for both for a while.  That is what the company of believers does – we hold on to each other, console each other, encourage and embolden each other, and even believe for each other.”[i]

Second, Jesus promises the seventy that the harvest is plentiful.  Jesus does not tell the seventy that they are responsible for preparing the harvest – that is God’s work.  Their work is simply to gather the harvest.[ii]  This distinction is pretty tremendous because Jesus is saying that people are ready for his message.  Jesus does not tell the seventy that they will need to go out and convince people of the message.  Instead, he tells them that there are people who will already be receptive and are simply waiting for the seventy to gather them.

Finally, we hear that after this scary commission – as lambs among wolves, of walking over snakes and scorpions, and of being utterly reliant on the hospitality of strangers – the seventy return with joy.  This thing Jesus asks them to do does not leave them bereft or exhausted or even discouraged.  The seventy return delighted in what has happened to them; not because they did something, but because of the work that God did through them.[iii]

This gospel lesson has good news for us today as well.  Despite all of our hang-ups about the language – about harvesting people, the kingdom of God coming near, and about curing people – at the end of the day, this story is about our own call to share our experience of God’s grace with others.  When we think about this text in those terms, the language starts to shift.  When Jesus says we are to go out for the harvest, and that the harvest is plentiful, mostly Jesus is telling us that in our world today, people are eager for a word of Good News.  Even if they say they are not religious, or they do not normally talk about God, Jesus assures us today that there are many people who want to hear your story of gratitude about all that God has done in your life.  And when Jesus says the kingdom of God is coming near, he is not asking us to put on a sandwich board and grab a megaphone.  Mostly he is telling us to stop delaying and get out there.  The kingdom being near is his way of saying the time for sharing is now.  Finally, when Jesus tells us to cure people, we might consider the ways that our faith has been a salve for us.  Surely in your faith journey, at some point your relationship with God has gotten you through something tough and has returned you to wholeness.  Hearing some Good News might just be the same salve that others need.

And just in case you are not sure about all of this, I want to give you a little encouragement.  In our Vestry evangelism work, our first bit of homework was to go to a local gas station or shop and ask for directions to St. Margaret’s.  One of our Vestry members was shocked to find that the grocery clerk was able to give her perfect directions to our church.  The Vestry member found out that she lives in the neighborhood across the street, though she had never actually been inside our doors.  Just over a week ago, another Vestry member was chatting with a different grocery clerk about the amount of blueberries she was purchasing.  The Vestry member explained that they were for Church.  The clerk proceeded to ask her which Church and even said she might come by one Sunday.  And then yesterday, as I was stretching at the Y, a gentleman approached me who I had seen several times over the last year.  He said that he had seen me in a St. Margaret’s t-shirt the last time I was at the Y and he wondered what my affiliation was with St. Margaret’s.  In the conversation that followed, I learned that he had once attended St. Margaret’s and that he might consider coming back for a visit.

Though the language of this gospel might make us evangelism-wary Episcopalians nervous, the truth is that Jesus is simply inviting us to share the Good News of God’s grace in our lives.  He promises that we do not have to do the work alone – we always have good partners here at St. Margaret’s.  He promises that people are ready to hear our words – we all have a story of goodness about our faith journey here.  And he promises that there will be joy – we will all find surprising delights in this journey of sharing.  Our invitation is to be a laborer in the plentiful harvest.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “The Greater Gift,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2617, on July 5, 2013.

[ii] David J. Lose, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 217.

[iii] Richard J. Shaffer, Jr., “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 218.

Sermon – Luke 9.51-62, P8, YC, June 30, 2013

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

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This week, most of us will celebrate the fourth of July in some fashion or another.  Though the holiday is filled with words like independence, patriotism, liberty, and fireworks, mostly we are celebrating a sense of “home.”  Our celebration of the Fourth is really a celebration of the place that millions of us commonly call home.  Our songs celebrate this theme:  “God bless America, our home sweet home”; or “and the home of the brave.”  This is a day that we celebrate our home with a sense of pride, of belonging, and of identity.  Like any home, our country has faults and drawbacks, but our country is our home, and nothing else can replace the sense of comfort that home can bring.

Perhaps what we forget in our celebrations is that our “home” did not always feel that way.  Centuries ago, when the original settlers came to this country, the country felt nothing like home.  In fact, those settlers left what they knew as home, with all the comforts home offered, and came to this foreign place.  This was a place of newness and discomfort.  Nothing was familiar, and in fact much of what the settlers experienced was downright scary or dangerous.  Though settlers came here to establish a new home, that home-like feeling took a very long time to create.

Here at St. Margaret’s we have made a similar transition in the last fifty years.  I was just reading the rough draft of our fifty-year history this week, and I was thinking about the contrast of those early years with our experience of St. Margaret’s now.  Fifty years ago, St. Margaret’s was merely a group of people gathering.  We had no building, no clear identity, and certainly no sense of the familiar.  In fact, the story goes that when we would gather for Sunday worship in the American Legion Hall, the smell of smoke and beer lingered from Saturday night events at the Hall.  When people left their church homes to join St. Margaret’s, I am pretty sure smoke and beer on a Sunday morning was not exactly what they were dreaming of for their new home.

So as we Americans prepare to collectively celebrate our home, and as we at St. Margaret’s, in our fiftieth year of ministry, continue to celebrate our home, we find Jesus saying some pretty funny things about home in our gospel lesson today.  When someone along the road says to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go,” Jesus says to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  Then, when Jesus calls others to follow him, and they first ask for some basic things, like burying their father or saying goodbye to their loved ones, Jesus refuses.  In other words, Jesus basically tells anyone considering following him that they will lose all sense of home – not only the literal place to lay one’s head, but also all the comforts and familiarity of home.  Following Jesus is a calling into a homelessness of sorts.  Jesus’ calling into homelessness is pretty scary.  Following Jesus means giving up control and trusting that all will be well, which is a lot to ask, considering Jesus has already told them that all will not be well.  Their new “home” will be a place of suffering, persecution, pain, and homelessness.  Jesus’ new home sounds a lot like the home those founding ancestors of our country and those founding members of St. Margaret’s faced years ago.

To be honest, I am not sure I would have been able to follow Jesus as those men and women did so many years ago.  I am sure you already know this about me, but I am a pretty big fan of control – or at least the illusion of control.  I do not like the feeling of things being out of my control.  So when Jesus asks me to let go of control – of a sense of home and familiarity – I am not sure I would have said yes.

The good news is that I do not think Jesus is actually asking us to cede control to him.  Jesus is not really offering the choice of either us being in control or him being in control.  As we well know, Jesus did not head to Jerusalem with the mission of taking control or charge.  Instead, he set his path to Jerusalem to throw himself fully and completely into our out-of-control lives and to come out on the other side.  That is the promise of this Gospel – “not that we can be in control, or even that God is in control, but rather that God in Jesus joins us in our out-of-controlness, holds onto us, and brings us to the other side.”[i]  This is the homelessness Jesus is really inviting us into – this commitment to giving up the illusion of control, to take some risks, and to throw ourselves into this turbulent life and world, trusting that God joins us in the adventure, holds us through the ups and downs, and brings us in time to the other side.  When Jesus offers his hand out to others to journey with him into homelessness, this is the underlining promise – that he is with us in the journey into homelessness and out-of-controlness.

On my mission trip to Burma, we had a day when we were supposed to go see working Elephants in the forest.  We loaded up our truck, crammed in way too close, as usual, and began the bumpy journey.  But an hour into our ride, our truck had some mechanical issues.  We pulled into to what seemed to be a local mechanic, although our version of a mechanic shop and the Burmese version of a mechanic shop are very different.  Sensing that this stop would take a while, our tour guide suggested our team take a walk.  The seven of us followed, happy for a distraction.  During our walk, we came upon a rice paddy, and could see workers out in the field.  Although the team was content to observe from a distance, our guide recommended crossing the dikes to get a closer view.  We found his offer shocking.  We worried about trespassing, encountering swarms of disease-carrying mosquitoes, or falling off the dikes, which looked quite tenuous.  Most of the team looked at the sturdy ground on which we were standing and decided that we should not test the swampy paddy.  When our tour guide realized most of us were not following him, he came back to the place where he jumped to the first dike.  First, he pleaded with the group as a whole.  Then, he called me by name.  “Jennifer, please come with me.  It’s okay.  You can trust me.”  I looked into his dark brown eyes, and saw a sparkle of adventure and joy.  I looked back at the dirty – but dry – road wistfully.  Then I turned back toward our guide and his outstretched hand.  His smile conveyed a sense of confidence and encouragement that warmed my heart, and I found myself jumping across the water to the dike.

We all know that sense of crossing into Jesus’ homelessness.  Certainly our country this week has at many times felt out of control.  Though we call this place home, we have been bitterly divided about Supreme Court decisions and Congressional bills this week.  Those decisions have left us wondering what sort of home we are creating now.  The same could be said for St. Margaret’s.  Though many of us know this place as home, our home seems to be ever changing.  There are new ways of operating, new projects underway, and new invitations.  There is an ambiguity about who we will be and how we will change.  But the promise in all of this, especially in the emerging sense of homelessness in our country and in our church, is that God is right here with us.  God continually promises to be on this crazy ride with us.  That reassurance by God today fills us with hope, and a renewed sense of courage and joy as we journey forward.  Today, as we look into Jesus’ sparkling eyes, he calls us by name, and says, “Come on.  Let’s go be homeless!”  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Out of Control,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2614 on June 28, 2013.

Sermon – I Kings 19.1-15a, P7, YC, June 23, 2013

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

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This past week, I went down to a monastery in South Carolina for my annual spiritual retreat.  An annual spiritual retreat is one of the stipulations from my letter of agreement here at St. Margaret’s, so one could assume that we all know what going on a spiritual retreat means.  But I cannot tell you the number of people – parishioners, friends, family members, and fellow travelers – who have asked me the same question:  so what do you do on a spiritual retreat?  Some follow up with other questions about whether I have a schedule of meetings or classes or whether I really have to be silent the whole time.  But most people do not know what a spiritual retreat really looks like.

So imagine my surprise this week, when I opened the text for today, only to hear God twice asking Elijah, “What are you doing here?”  Having been asked that question by countless others over the last few weeks, I got a little defensive about God’s question for Elijah.  Thinking that I somehow needed to answer this question too, my first response was a response not unlike Elijah – who twice explains to God, in the exact same words, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”  As if God did not know that already.  God’s double question, and Elijah’s double response give a little clue about what is happening here.  God is not really asking what Elijah is doing there – at least not in the sense of, “What led you to come here?”  God is asking a much deeper question.  God’s question is the deeper question, “What does your being here say about me, about you, and about our relationship?  Given what you know, what are you doing here, Elijah?”

So instead of answering the question in the standard way – telling others about the silence of the day, the times of worship, the periods, places, and practices of prayer, or even about the monks themselves, instead I let God’s deeper question sit with me this week as well.  What are you doing here?  I found that each time I tried to answer the question the response was not as deep as God’s question.  So if I said I came to rest and refresh for my ministry, God’s response was, “What are you doing here?”  If I said I wanted help discerning answers to some heavy questions, God’s response was, “What are you doing here?”  If I said I just wanted clarity, God’s response was, “What are you doing here?”

This is the hard question from the text for all of us today.  God is asking this question of you this week too.  When you came in those doors and sat in that pew, God asked you, “What are you doing here?”  When you listened to scripture and when you pray, God is asking you, “What are you doing here?”  When you come to the Eucharistic table and consume Christ’s body and blood, God is still asking you, “What are you doing here?”  Today is one of those tricky days in Church.  There is no coasting through this service, just hoping to feel some sense of peace.  God is actively in our faces, asking us the tough question.

The truth is most of us feel like Elijah a good portion of the time.  We hear Elijah’s whiny response throughout this story.  When Elijah flees from Jezebel’s death threat, Elijah sits down under a tree and asks God to just let him die.  He even flops down under the tree hoping for death.  Of course, God does not allow that.  Twice angels wake him to give him food for the journey.  Even after this sustenance, Elijah finds another place to hide – a cave hidden away.  But God does not allow hiding there either.  We know Elijah’s pain.  We just want to come to church, hear some good music, hear a decent sermon, get that sustaining meal, and go back to the daily grind.  We do not want to hear what God says in the sheer silence.  In the sheer silence, God says, “Go.”  God tells Elijah to get back out there and do God’s work.  God does not coddle Elijah or comfort him in his fear.  Instead God tells Elijah to go.

At the end of the day, God’s words for Elijah were the same words for me during my retreat.  I may have lamented to God.  I may have worried to God.  I may have given some lengthy explanation to God about why I was there.  But before I could go any further, God stopped me.  “What are you doing here?  Go.”

When I was in college, the first year I danced with a team, we went to a training camp.  The coach realized pretty quickly those of us who were lacking in certain areas.  My challenge was that I could not yet do a toe-touch.  When we started doing them in training, the coach had us stand in line and one-by-one we had to do a toe-touch in front of him.  When he saw mine, he laid into me.  I basically remember him screaming something to the effect of, “I don’t care if you have to do sit-ups non-stop, or if you need to lift weights, or you just need to stand there and do toe-touches all day until you can’t move, I better see you up in the air before the season starts.”  At least, that is the clean version of what he yelled.  Never having played sports, I had never had anyone yell at me like that, and he put the proverbial “fear of God” in me.  And figuring he was serious, I started working out more and practicing more just to get to where he wanted me to be.

I hear God as being like that coach for us today.  God is kind of like a coach, getting up in our faces today, demanding to know, “What are you doing here?”  And before we can stumble through some Elijah-like complain fest, God says, “Go.”  God says that the dismissal we hear every week is not some cute phrase we say to conclude the service.  That dismissal is our “Go.”  “Let us go forth in the name of Christ.”  “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”  “Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.”  The answer to what we are doing here is to be empowered to go.  We can be fed by the word, by song, and by the meal, but the reason we do those things is so that we can go.  God’s question today is deep, hard, but simple:  What are you doing here?  And in case we are wondering what the answer is, God tells us:  Go.  Amen.

Sermon – I Kings 17.8-24, P5, YC, June 9, 2013

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

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Last week I lost my watch.  When I say that I lost my watch, I do not mean I misplaced my watch.  I went for a walk, took the watch off while I was walking, and about an hour after my walk realized the watch was gone.  I searched the path of my walk, I looked all over the church and our house, but the watch is gone.  Now, truthfully, a watch is certainly replaceable, but this watch was sentimental – a gift from a special occasion that meant a lot to me.  So, of course, ever since I lost my watch, I have been praying to St. Anthony.  St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things.  The prayer I learned, and have been praying for over a week is, “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around, something is lost that cannot be found.”  Though I know the watch is most likely gone, I keep occasionally offering up the prayer with some desperate sense of hope.

We do funny things in our prayer lives, especially when things are not going our way.  We have been known to bargain with God.  “God, if you please just grant this one thing, I promise I will never blank again.”  We have been known to try to negotiate with God.  “I know that I am not perfect, God, but let me tell you about all the good I have done.  Surely you can grant this one thing to your faithful servant.”  And we have been known to rail at God.  “How can you do this to me God?  Haven’t I been through enough?!?”  Sure, we know the Lord’s Prayer, and we may pray the daily office at home, and we may even pray with scripture, especially our favorite psalms.  But when we are at our lowest, when we feel like we have tried everything we are supposed to say or do with God, sometimes our prayers simply reveal our broken, frustrated, desperate spirits.

This is the prayer that Elijah offers today.  Elijah has already created quite the imposition on a poor widow.  Elijah goes to the widow, a woman who is about to die of starvation, and asks her to feed and house him.  Now, God takes care of the widow’s lack of food, but while Elijah is still there, the woman’s son almost dies of illness.  The woman blames Elijah, and Elijah at first seems fairly composed as he asks for the boy.  But when he retires to another room with boy, Elijah lets God have it.  Elijah cries out to God in anger, rage, and despair.[i]  “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”  Elijah does not come to God with a polite request that God heal the son.  Elijah does not offer some traditional prayer of healing.  Elijah simply cries out to God.  He cries out to God for the injustice done to this poor widow – who is already clearly impoverished by having no husband.  The death of an only son would mean certain death for her as well.  Her son was her only hope for survival in this world.[ii]  Elijah boldly accuses God of an injustice – in fact accuses God of killing this boy and all that he represents to the widow.

Some may hear in Elijah’s prayer a sense of self-interest.  If he is proclaiming to be a man of God, and God then kills this woman’s only sense of hope, then the death makes Elijah look bad.  Who wants to follow a prophet of a God who kills the downtrodden?  Or, we might hear Elijah’s prayer as petulant.  Perhaps he sounds like a man whining about fairness – something childish and narrow-minded.  But I hear Elijah’s prayer as both fully human and as an honest portrayal of someone with an intimate relationship with God.  In any intimate relationship, the overly polite ways of being with one another end eventually.  In time, the only thing that works in that intimate relationship is being brutally and fully honest, holding one another to account and being totally open about the good and the bad of the relationship.  This is what Elijah is doing here.  Elijah, who knows God intimately, holds God to account.  “Really, God?  This is how you are going to treat people?  You claim to care about the poor and oppressed, and you have forced me to impose on this poor widow, and now you are going to let her only son, her only source of potential security die??”  Elijah does not ask this of God for himself or out of a sense of injustice.  Elijah asks this of a God whom he knows to be better than this – a God who loves and cares for the poor and oppressed.  And he also knows that God can do the impossible.  Elijah knows that God can bring this child from death to life.

What I love about this passage is twofold.  First, I love the very human, intimate depiction of prayer.  As Episcopalians, with our reliance on our Prayer Book and our desire for beauty and intelligence when we talk to God, we can become so formal with God that we forget that we have a real relationship with God who can handle our real words.  We can be brutally honest with God or even angry with God, and God will still love us.  We can be vulnerable and frustrated and desperate with God.  We can even come to God when we do not have words – when our emotions are so overwhelming that we no longer have anything left to say.  Elijah gives us permission today to be fully ourselves with the God who loves us no matter what.

I also love that we get this passage today because today is our monthly healing service.  Since I have been at St. Margaret’s, I have been regularly asked questions about our healing services.  Our tradition of monthly healing services that began well before my time here still has many of us questioning.  I have had adults ask me who they are allowed to ask prayers for – whether they can only ask for healing prayers for themselves or whether they can ask for healing for others as well.  I have had some of our teens ask me what we are actually doing when we lay hands on people.  Even my own daughter asked me why I made the sign of the cross on her forehead when she came forward once.  Elijah points the way to answers for those questions today.  By praying our litany of healing and by coming forward for ourselves and others, we proclaim several things.  We proclaim that intimate relationship with God means that we can be fully honest about all that is ailing us, our neighbors, and the oppressed.  We proclaim that God can do the impossible through prayer and we offer up our hopes that the impossible is possible for us too.  And we proclaim that although we may not understand God in the midst of suffering, we still come to God, hoping for healing, hoping for clarity, hoping for peace.  Whether you come forward today for healing is actually not that important.  What is most important is that you know that you can, that you know that your God is a God who can do the impossible but who also cares for you so deeply that God can handle all the parts of you – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Amen.

[i] Carolyn J. Sharp, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 100.

[ii] Glaucia Vasconcelos Wilkey, “Pastoral Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 102.

Sermon – John 16.12-15, TS, YC, May 26, 2013

29 Wednesday May 2013

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When I was in seminary, I audited a class entitled, “Living Biblically:  Money, Sex, Power, Violence, and The Meaning of Life.”  The title alone made me want to take the class.  The class spent the quarter studying Jesus’ words and actions for some clues.  Of course, I did not leave the class with all the answers.  But the one thing that stuck with me from the class was this:  when looking for answers to “What would Jesus do?” you have to look at not only what Jesus says, but also what he does.  That may sound simple and obvious enough, but what we slowly began to realize is that what Jesus says and what Jesus does are often opposites.  So, if you look at what Jesus says, you find some pretty harsh words about how to live life and who is to be judged.  But if you look at what Jesus does, you find him living in a much more permissive and forgiving way.  We came to see Jesus as one with high standards and a low threshold for forgiveness and grace.  Of course, that did not mean we got all of our answers to our 21st Century questions about money, sex, power, violence, and the meaning of life, let alone answers to our questions about science, technology, and our modern world.

That is why I find our gospel lesson today so comforting.  Our lesson from John today is part of Jesus’ farewell speech with his disciples – his last words during that Last Supper.  You can imagine the hushed room, the feeling of something ominous approaching, the questions by the disciples, and the ever-patient Jesus trying to explain all the things they need to know.  Finally, Jesus utters these words today, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”  You can almost hear the frustration in his voice, as if he is saying, “I wish I could explain everything to you now fully, but I just can’t.”  In the midst of the weight of such a conversation, Jesus promises something better than they could possibly imagine:  the Holy Spirit.  Jesus explains that Holy Spirit will come and will continue to guide the disciples.  All of the things that they cannot understand now, all of the things Jesus cannot say, will be revealed to them through the Holy Spirit in the years to come.  Though Jesus will be physically absent from them, Jesus will be continually present with them through the Holy Spirit, revealing truth and perhaps even revealing what Jesus would do.

I think why I find this passage so comforting is not simply because we are promised the presence of God with us.  What I find comforting about this passage is that truth is not locked away in some book or some person from two thousand years ago.  Truth is accessible here and now through the Holy Spirit.  We call our scriptures the Living Word because the Holy Spirit enlivens the Word and speaks truth to us, even today.  This is also why we still have the community of faith– because the Holy Spirit creates for us fresh encounters with the revelation of Jesus.[i]  Jesus knew that our changing circumstances would bring new questions and challenges that would require us to think afresh, and Jesus promises the Holy Spirit will get us through.

On this Trinity Sunday, I am grateful that we get this passage.  Although we just had Pentecost, the Church is not always great about talking about the Holy Spirit.  Sure, we regularly say the Trinitarian combination “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” liturgically, but rarely do we give the Holy Spirit the credit the Holy Spirit is due.  I think the challenge is that we fear the Holy Spirit a little too much.  When we hear talk of the Holy Spirit, we are afraid someone is going to start acting strangely and then claim they were slain in the Spirit.  We are afraid that “the movement of the Holy Spirit” is just code for the movement that a particular person or group wants.  We are afraid our worship will become some seventies, hippie version of God to whom we cannot relate.  I know we are afraid or at least uncomfortable because I cannot remember the last Episcopalian I know, including myself, who began a prayer addressing the Holy Spirit as opposed to God or Jesus.

But this is how I know that the Holy Spirit is still present among us, guiding us to all truth.  One of the primary areas I see the movement of the Holy Spirit is in the practice of preaching.  I always say that somewhere between the preacher and the congregation is the Holy Spirit.  Preaching does not work without the Holy Spirit.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have sat down after preaching a sermon and thought that the sermon was probably the worst one I have ever preached.  But without fail, the sermons I think are the worst often receive positive feedback.  I also cannot tell you the number of times I have gotten into the pulpit with a specific message in mind, only to have a parishioner speak to me later about how something I said was so meaningful to them – only I swear I never said what they think I said.  Somehow the Holy Spirit helps the preacher to glean truth, and the Holy Spirit helps the congregation to glean truth.  Those truths may not be the same truths, but they are truths that lead us closer to God – which is what Jesus promises in our gospel lesson anyway.

Now, I do not mean to insinuate that this revelation only comes through preaching.  Revelation comes throughout our lives together.  The revelation of the Holy Spirit comes in that friend, coworker, or schoolmate who says something so profound that their words stick with you for weeks, and leads you into deeper prayer.  The revelation of the Holy Spirit comes in Bible Study or in an outreach activity when some experience leaves you with a profound sense of the holy in your life.  The revelation of the Holy Spirit comes in the mouths of our children, who say the most sacred and surprising things that open up new truth in unexpected ways.

This is why we dedicate an entire Sunday to celebrating the Trinity.  Without the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, we would not experience our spiritual journey in the same way.  Perhaps we are not truly comfortable labeling the Holy Spirit in our lives or praying to the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not ever present in our journey – in fact, making that journey possible in the first place.  We take today to celebrate the mysterious nature of all three persons who make up the one substance of the Trinity[ii] because only through this relational nature of the Trinity is our faith enlivened and is truth revealed.  So today, your invitation is to figure out your invitation.  Perhaps your invitation is to pray with a person of the Trinity that you have been avoiding for a while.  Perhaps your invitation is to listen for the ways that the Holy Spirit is revealing truth to you.  Or perhaps your invitation is to see the movement of the Holy Spirit through others this week.  On this Trinity Sunday, there is no way of avoiding invitation.  The question is which invitation is for you?  Amen.

[i] Eugene C. Bay, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 46.

[ii] Philip Turner, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 44.

Sermon – Acts 16.16-34, E7, YC, May 12, 2013

22 Wednesday May 2013

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If we were to break out a flip chart today and create two columns – one for those in bondage and one for those who are free – where would our main characters from Acts go?  At first glance, our “those in bondage” column might start with the slave-girl.  We are not even given her name.  She is simply called the slave-girl.  And we know from the story that she is a double slave – a slave to her owners who use her for money and a slave to the spirit of divination inside her.  Another addition to the “bondage” category might be Paul and Silas.  They are thrown into jail midway through our story, which clearly puts them in the bondage category.  Plus, the slave-girl calls them “slaves of the Most High God.”  The other column in our flip chart is those who are free.  We have several for that column.  There are those who own the slave-girl.  They are free to collect money for someone else’s performance, and they are free to get someone thrown in jail.  The judges who throw Paul and Silas into jail are also free – free to choose who is punished and who is not.  Finally, we might put the jailer into the free column as well.  He is a man with a steady, respectable job, who has power over those in prison.  So in the “bondage” column we have the slave girl, Paul, and Silas.  And in the “free” column we have the owners, the judges, and the jailer.

Most of us would certainly prefer to be in the “free” column on this chart.  The owners of the slave girl obviously have social capital and an income source.  They have influence and power, and up until Paul and Silas come along, they have the comforts of wealth.  The judges also have a great deal of respect and power in the community.  They are charged with keeping order in the community and protecting the community’s way of life.  Their roles in the community are admirable and secure.  Even the jailer has a clear sense of identity and purpose.  He may not have wealth and prestige, but he has a secure job and a sense of clear identity in the community.  He has a role that is understood and a vocation that is stable.  Meanwhile, the slave-girl is nothing like what we hope for ourselves.  Being possessed by a spirit and being owned by another individual do not usually make the top of our lists for happiness and fulfillment.  And in no way do we want to be like Paul and Silas, who not only seem to be homeless rebel-rousers, they also are physically brutalized and imprisoned.

The people in the “free” column are the people we most likely follow in our lives.  We want to be people with more money, with secure sources of income, and with power and influence.  We like independence and not being forced to rely on anyone else.  But we get so caught up in longing for these things in life that we sometimes forget the only desire that will make us whole – the desire for a deep relationship with Jesus Christ.  Even churches get trapped in desiring the wrong kind of freedom.  “If we just had as much money as St. Swithin’s, then everything would be fine.”  But the truth is that this kind of desire is never fulfilled.  Trust me, I have served at St. Swithin’s, and St. Swithin’s has just as many problems and stresses as we do every time budget talks come around.

Of course, like any good Bible story, appearances are not always as they seem.  The truth is that although we might put the slave-girl, Paul, and Silas in the “bondage” column, their true home is in the “free” column.  The slave-girl already knows the truth that no one else can see – that Jesus is the way to salvation.  And when she shouts that long and loudly enough, she is not only freed of her possession, she is free of the bondage of slavery – because her owners can no longer use her as they did before.  Even Paul and Silas, who are locked in jail, are in that “free” column.  What person, after being brutally whipped and thrown into a cold cell, can be found praying and singing praises to God in the middle of the night?  Only someone who is so free of the bondage of this world can be able to praise God in the midst of earthly suffering.

And of course, if those in our “bondage” column are actually in the “free” column, the same is true of those we originally put in the “free” column.  Those owners, who seem to have the earthly freedom of wealth, have actually become slaves to their wealth.  They are so enslaved to that wealth that when their source of income is freed, they lash out, bringing pain and suffering down upon others.  They cannot see the gift of freedom for the slave-girl; they only see the consequences for themselves.  The judges are no freer than the owners.  They are so enslaved to their rigid rules that they cannot see the inherent injustice that the slave-girl has faced for so many years.  Even the jailer is not truly free.  He is so caught up in his identity as a jailer that he is willing to take his life for his job.  He is ready to kill himself for what he thinks is a failure on his part than to see how this job has taken over his sense of identity.[i]

We do this too.  We are enslaved by our economies, our ways of doing things, and our senses of roles.  Think about the last party or gathering you attended.  What is one of the first questions someone asks to get to know a stranger?  “So, what do you do?”  We ask this question because our job or our role in society defines us in some way.  Several years ago, a friend of mine was going through a real low point in life.  She quit her job because she knew the job was not what she was called to do.  But she also had no idea what was next.  She was bold enough to say “no” to the old job, but was left clueless about what would be her next step.  This all happened when she was relatively new to a community, and still had not found a church home.  She confided in me that she had stopped looking for a church home because she got so tired of stumbling through an answer at coffee hour when she was repeatedly asked, “So, what do you do?”

So if we are enslaved by our ways of being, how can we get out of our bondage?  Our first cue comes from Paul and Silas.  Paul and Silas could have easily fled that jail when the earthquake happened.  They could have sped past the jailer, and been focused solely on their own self-preservation.  But we see that there is a peace in Paul and Silas that comes from true freedom.  Instead of weeping and plotting in that cell, they sing and pray to God.  Instead of running when the doors fling open, they ensure that the jailer is okay.  Instead of demonizing the jailer, they offer him baptism.  This is what true freedom looks like.[ii]

How do we get to this true freedom?  The jailer gives us the second cue.  The jailer asks Paul a simple question, “What must I do to be saved?”  In order to be saved, to gain that true sense of freedom, we must ask for help like the jailer asks for help that day.  Whether we ask a friend, a stranger, or God, we must ask for help.  This is not always easy for us.  We will have to risk our pride and we will have to trust others.[iii]  But asking for help is that first step in the journey out of the “bondage” column and into the “freedom” column.

Our invitation today is two-fold.  First, our invitation is to consider the ways in which we have become enslaved – the ways of being that we have assumed that have created a life of bondage.  That recognition leads to our second invitation – the invitation to ask for help, to trust in another to guide us into the freedom that can only come from Christ.  When we do those two things, we can know the peace of freedom that we see in scripture today.  Amen.

[i] David G. Forney, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 526.

[ii] L. Gregory Jones, “Come, Lord Jesus,” Christian Century, vol. 109, no. 16, May 6, 1992, 485.