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Sermon – Malachi 3.1-4, A2, YC, December 8, 2024

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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The professional choir at the parish I served as a curate would perform Handel’s Messiah every Advent season in preparation for Christmas.  I remember my first Advent the Rector told me about the performance with excitement and anticipation, and all I remember thinking was, “Oh goodness!  Do I have to go??”  Do not get me wrong, I love Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus as much as anyone, but that piece is only about three-four minutes long and is only half-way into the three hours of singing that Handel’s Messiah takes. 

Music is a funny thing in Advent.  Since we hardly ever hear music at this service, you may not remember the hymns designated for singing in Advent.  But most people I know who regularly attend services with music do not really love Advent music.  Unlike familiar, comforting, endearing Christmas carols, Advent hymns are “discordant, unsung, and unpopular in many congregations.”[i]  I have known choir members whose skin crawls from Advent music, and I imagine some of you are here today because the idea of a whole service dedicated to Advent Carols which we will hear at 10:00 am sounds like torture. 

The problem might be that Advent music is not as catchy as Christmas music.  But I think there is a deeper truth to our distaste of Advent music.  The music of Advent points to the themes of Advent:  of apocalyptic demands to be alert, doing acts of righteousness to be right with God; of judgment so stringent to be compared to a refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap; of needing to bear fruit worthy of repentance so as not to be chopped down and thrown into the fire; and of bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.  None of that is quite as catchy as a holly, jolly Christmas.

Perhaps the issue is that Advent music tries to do the same thing scripture does.  In 1741, Handel wrote to a friend of his masterpiece Messiah, “‘I should be sorry if I only entertained them.  I wished to make them better.’  The composer challenges [us] to go beyond feeling good to doing good.”[ii]  The same was true for Malachi.  Malachi brings good news of a messenger coming to prepare the way of the Lord and that we will be purified enough that our offerings will be pleasing to the Lord as they once were before.  But Malachi also reveals the fearful questions of the people.  “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”  These are just two of the twenty-two questions in the fifty-five verses of Malachi.[iii]  But they are questions we all ask if we are paying attention during Advent.

I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, women poured pregnancy stories over me.  A camaraderie of sorts began to build, the state of our friendship altered because we were now going to share something we had not before.  But what I always noticed about those stories is whenever I expressed my nervousness about labor, their eyes darted away, and they made wistful promises about how anything resembling pain would be forgotten.  The more their warm countenances shifted to wary, twitchiness, the more I suspected labor would be a painful reality.

The same is true for the infant we will welcome once again on December 24th.  As much as we cry out, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” as much as we sing of “Silent Nights,” and as much as we dream of “Joy to the World,” our Christmas celebration comes with a price – the price of preparation, of messengers making the way for joy, of fire burning away all that corrupts us.  Advent is not about entertaining us.  But, much like Handel hoped, Advent is meant to make us just and better, so that we might be right with God when that infant is placed in the arms of the Church.  Advent is for Malachis, for Zechariahs, the father of that coming messenger, and for you and for me.  And although we may feel like we have been refined enough to last a lifetime after the last election season, the refining God is doing now in each of us means, as one scholar assures, we will “be re-formed in God’s image, and [that re-forming] will be good.  No matter how we feel about it now.  No matter what we may be afraid of now.  When we are refined and purified as God promises, it will be good.”[iv]  As much as we may dread that awful Advent music or loathe those heavy, foreboding stories of Advent, we do so together, knowing that we are being refined tougher, so that, together as a community, we will welcome the Christ Child with open, ready arms.  Amen.

[i] Deborah A. Block, “Pastoral Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1  (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 30.

[ii] Block, 30.

[iii] Block, 26.

[iv] Seth Moland-Kovash, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1  (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 31.

Sermon – Proverbs 31.10-31, P20, YB, September 22, 2024

02 Wednesday Oct 2024

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As the presidential election approaches in just about six weeks, I have spoken with many of you about a rising sense of anxiety and despair.  One of the things I have noticed about the last three presidential elections is that we have kind of gotten lost – so caught up in big personalities and dramatic events that we have lost sight of one core question in elections:  what do we need in a president to create a just country that reflects the priority of love.

Since I always tell our community that I do not preach politics – just Jesus – I thought I would turn to scripture this week for guidance.  I started with the daily office.  On Wednesday, I came across Psalm 72.  The psalm begins, “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son.  May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.  May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”  “Yes,” I thought, “This is the president we need.  After all this debate and controversy, this is the kind of president I want.”  Then I kept reading.  The more I read about this noble king, the more the king sounded a lot like Jesus.  Finally, a truth seeped through – this year, as I am considering my choice for President, I have not been looking for an actual person.  I have been looking for a savior; and that is not fair to any human being.  Any person running for president is going to be flawed.  And we already have a Savior – we do not need another one. 

Then I turned to our Old Testament lesson for today: the so-called “capable woman” from Proverbs.  I spent some time with this text when I was writing my thesis in seminary, so I am always drawn to this familiar text.  But the more I read about this woman this time, the more inadequate I felt.  She makes clothes, rises before dawn to feed her family, manages a staff, purchases a field, and plants a vineyard by herself.  She in an entrepreneur, selling her wares for good money.  She cares for the poor, and is a wise teacher.  She does all this and is happy.  As a priest, mother of two, and a wife, I feel woefully inadequate next to the capable woman.  In fact, in Hebrew, the word to describe her is not really “capable” per se.  The word, hayil, is a word that means much more than capable.  Hayil is primarily used in the Old Testament to describe men of great power, valor, and strength.  Hayil is a term for powerful warriors.  In fact, this Proverbs woman and Ruth are the only women in the Old Testament to earn the title normally reserved for men.  The Proverbs woman is not just capable; she is a woman of strength and power.  She is a superwoman. 

The challenge with these two images – the righteous king and the powerful woman – is that neither of these labels feels attainable.  For women, the Proverbs woman of power is especially loaded.  Many of us long to be a woman of hayil.  We want to be a woman who can do everything – work outside the home, manage our finances, care for a home and family, maintain a healthy relationship with God, have power and honor in our lives.  This is the challenge of the modern woman – society is opening doors for us to do everything – to work, to raise a family, to be successful.  But the reality is that we either kill ourselves trying to do everything, or we feel horribly guilty for our many failures.  Unlike celebrities, who seem to manage family, fame, and face with ease, we feel overwhelmed and woefully inadequate.  In fact, as I was pondering preaching this text this week, I stumbled across a quote from one seminary professor.  She writes, “Many of you will conclude this text is too much a minefield and steer clear, with good reason.”[i] 

Of course, today is not just a sermon for the women in our community.  Men often feel the same sense of being overwhelmed by trying to do everything.  Forget the kingly imagery from the Psalm.  There is often pressure for men to be financially stable, and if you have a family, to provide for them.  There is now an expectation that men play a role in the rearing of children and doing housework, being involved in the community, and caring for the upkeep of your home.  As I have read parenting magazines over the years, I have seen story after story of men trying to navigate the modern family’s expectations of playing both traditional and nontraditional male roles.  And for the man and woman running for President, expecting a “just king” or a “capable woman” places incredibly unfair expectations on either candidate.

So, what do we make of this woman of hayil in Proverbs today?  Like the King in Psalm 72, I wonder if the woman in Proverbs is perhaps not a particular human, but an ideal.  All the practices of the woman of strength are practices that we should strive to embody – we are to be industrious, using the talents that God has given us for the good of ourselves and others.  We are to work hard and to care for the poor and needy.  We are to use our words wisely, and shape the next generation to love kindness and walk humbly with God.  And most of all, we are to fear the Lord.  Fear in this sense is not the kind of fear that cowers from God, but that holds the Lord in awe, marveling at the majesty of God, rooting our lives in that sense of wonder, gratitude, and reverent humility before the Creator.[ii]  But mostly, this text is a reminder that we do not put these expectations just on presidents – these are expectations, or ways of life, for each of us.

The good news is that we do not strive for the ideal of hayil alone.  Perhaps a better image for us today is not a single woman of hayil, but a community of hayil.  This text from Proverbs is not inviting us to be all things to all people, but instead is inviting all men and women to consider together what the tasks of a family, church, or community are, and to consider the ways we can share in those tasks together.[iii]  When we focus on only one woman, we miss that this text encourages us to think about the partnerships between men and women in the work of the community.  This text is not a beautiful hymn to one human woman, but is a lesson about interdependence, partnership, and the contours of community.[iv]

That’s what excites me about Hickory Neck.  We are on a journey to become a woman, a community, of hayil.  I see you using your time, talent, and treasure to help in the ways that you are most gifted.  I see you praying for one another, especially when one of us looks particularly overwhelmed or stressed.  I see you looking beyond our doors about the way we can individually and collectively care for our neighbors in need.  I see you leaning into our creativity to make a path forward in a new reality.  In this moment, Hickory Neck is living as the woman of hayil.

Of course, we still have work to do – we are still accomplishing the ideal as a community.  A priest friend of mine had a set of triplets in her parish.  She knew that the mother could not manage all three alone – one person only has two arms!  So, the priest arranged for a rocking chair in the narthex to help ease the babies’ tempers.  There were older women in the congregation who, within seconds of a cry, would swoop up one of the babies and rock the child in the side aisle, without the mother having to even ask for help.  There were men who caught the crawling babies under pews and returned them to their mother.  And mostly, there were patient parishioners, who would focus through the cries of the children to hear the sermon without complaint.  We too can offer this grace to one another.  Whether there is a parent with a child who could use some help, whether there is a parishioner who needs a hand to get to the communion rail, or whether we offer prayers for someone who we notice is struggling this week, we are a community who can exemplify the holy partnership we see in scripture today.  We can acknowledge that our work is best accomplished together because our shared labor expresses faith, hope, and love in ways that build us up and bring us together.  We can all be that woman of hayil, that superwoman for the wider community, but only if we do the work together.  Amen.

[i] Amy Oden, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25-2/commentary-on-proverbs-3110-3, September 23, 2012, as found on September 20, 2024. 

[ii] Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 79.

[iii] H. James Hopkins, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 77.

[iv] Hopkins, 79.

Sermon – Mark 6.14-29, P10, YB, July 14, 2024

17 Wednesday Jul 2024

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Today’s gospel lesson contains one of those iconic stories that is so vivid the story is seared in our minds.  In short, John the Baptist is decapitated by Herod Antipas who serves John’s head on a platter.  On the one hand, the brutal scene, depicted in art for centuries, is one we prefer to acknowledge and move on.  Certainly, this is a cautionary tale for the prophetic life.  John is now dead, and Jesus takes the reins.  But there is so much more to this story.  There is John’s faithfulness to making a way for the inbreaking of the kingdom – including the criticism of Herod Antipas’ marriage to his brother’s wife.  There is the king’s imprisonment of John mingled with his fascination with John, leaving him sitting at John’s feet enthralled by John’s teachings.  There is the vengeance of Herodias, the criticized wife of Antipas, who manipulates her daughter into asking for John’s head.  There is the proud Herod Antipas who makes ridiculous promises to his daughter and spinelessly agrees to kill John despite his knowing better – just to save face in front of his friends.  This is a story so woven in political and ethical intrigue that we do not like to look too closely for fear of seeing modern-day parallels.

But what is perhaps more intriguing about trying to avert our eyes from this brutal, shameful scene is that John’s beheading is not the first time scripture hands us a story like this.   “The story looks like a reprise of 2 Kings 16-21, the story of Queen Jezebel, the enemy of Elijah.  Just as Jezebel manipulated her husband, King Ahab, so Herodias manipulates Antipas.  Just as Elijah indicts Ahab and Jezebel, so John the Baptizer indicts Antipas and Herodias.”[i]  Furthermore, there are parallels to Esther’s story, whose husband also promises her anything she wants, up to half of his kingdom.  Esther uses her promise for good, able to thwart the villain Haman’s plan to kill off her fellow Jewish brothers and sisters.  Reflecting on the canon of scripture, we cannot avoid the ugly truth that scholar Amy-Jill Levine uncovers:  that “Death at the hands of corrupt authorities is the fate of John, and Jesus, and of countless others who have done the right thing, at the cost of their own lives.”[ii]

So, what do we do with this tale of terror laid at our feet today – a tale told time and time again in scripture?  I am intrigued by scholar Matt Skinner’s instruction look at the disciples.[iii]  In the very last line of our text today, Mark says, “When his disciples heard about [John the Baptizer’s murder], they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.”[iv]  If you remember, in the text last week, Jesus was shut down in his hometown and unable to perform miracles, instead sending out the twelve in pairs to cast out demons and to heal the sick.  For Jesus and his disciples, they got back to work.  And if we kept reading Mark’s gospel, in the verses that follow today’s story, we will hear how Jesus and disciples go on about their work, with Jesus miraculously feeding five thousand people.  John’s death is horrific, brought about by evil and sinfulness.  And yet, his disciples boldly come forward and bury his body.  Jesus sees John’s death and must know a similar fate awaits him.  And yet, he and his disciples get back to work, doing the good news of God in Christ.

Stories like John’s beheading are indeed graphic, sobering stories of what awaits those who live in the light of God.  And yet, time and again, Elijah, Esther, John the Baptizer, Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples keep going.  They keep doing the next good thing.  There is part of that model that feels unjust – surely, we should be fighting for justice, standing up to those who abuse power, who manipulate authority, whose self-centeredness and pride promote evil.  We revere plenty of saints who did just that kind of work.  And yet today, in the face of brutality, hopelessness, and injustice, the disciples of John and the disciples of Jesus just keep going.  They keep doing the work of the kingdom.

We are in an unprecedented time of political turmoil.  And in the coming weeks and months, given our diverse political backgrounds in this community, we will likely disagree about what our country can and should be doing.  But what brings us to this common table every week is a commitment to the life and ministry of Christ – the bringing about of a kingdom that is not of this world.  We will need each other – sometimes to figure out what the next best thing is, sometimes for the encouragement to do the next best thing, and always as a reminder that we disciples of Jesus need each other to do the next best thing.  We know from John, Jesus, Elijah, and others that doing the next best thing may end in personal suffering.  But we also know that continuing to do that next best thing helps bring us just a little bit closer to that kingdom here on earth.  We go together.  Amen.

[i] Amy-Jill Levine, The Gospel of Mark:  A Beginner’s Guide to the Good News (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 2023), 38-39.

[ii] Levine, 42.

[iii] Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 6:14-29,” July 14, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-15-2/commentary-on-mark-614-29-6 on July 12, 2024.

[iv] Mark 6.29.

Sermon – Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YA, February 22, 2023

01 Wednesday Mar 2023

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I have always felt Ash Wednesday is one of the most sobering days of the Church year.  One might think funerals are more sobering, but every burial office is an Easter celebration of resurrection.  On Ash Wednesday, we are pulled out of the hubbub of the ordinary, the busyness of days, and thrust into the stark reality of our sinfulness and inevitable death.  The priest lays out the invitation to a holy Lent; we feel the scrape of ashes on our foreheads with the foreboding words of our beginning and our end – no matter how old we are; we pray a litany of penitence, remembering our grievous sins.  And as if those acts are not enough, we hear from Matthew’s gospel how even when we engage in repentance, we must be careful not to engage in the wrong way.  Ash Wednesday strips us of all pride, confidence, and sense of accomplishment, and lays before us our weaknesses, failings, and vulnerabilities. 

I have always regarded Ash Wednesday and our Lenten experience as the ultimate self-directed season.  The ashes on our foreheads remind us of how we came into this world alone and we will go out alone.  The disciplines we assume this day for the next six weeks are catered to our own journeys, focusing on what we have discerned we personally need to right our own relationship with God.  When I confess, I am struck by memories of grievances I have committed – images and feelings flashing before me as a particular set of words hits close to home.

But as I read Matthew’s convicting gospel this year, something brought me up short.  All those warnings Jesus makes, “Beware of practicing your piety before others…whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet…when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…whenever you fast, do not look dismal…”, all of those warnings are not in the singular.  They are actually in the plural.[i]  So the words are more like, beware of practicing you all’s piety.  Or maybe in southern speak, “when ya’ll pray…” Jesus is not criticizing or singling out you or you or me.  Jesus is singling out the community of the faithful.

That may sound like semantics, but there is something quite dramatic about Jesus speaking in the plural versus the singular.  Every week in Sunday services, we confess our sins.  But we confess them communally.  Communal confession is an extraordinary event.  While we may feel lost or despondent about our inability to live in the light of Christ as individuals, when we communally confess, a room of voices is saying with you, “Me too!”

One of the things I grieved the most during the pandemic was our inability to gather in person.  I loved that we had and continue to have an online community – especially when people write things in the comments, greet one another, or meet Hickory Neck for the first time.  But our necessary isolation during the pandemic naturally led to a pattern of looking inward – sometimes so much so that we forgot we are not alone – that there is a whole community of faith who is walking this journey with us and struggling just as we are.  There is something quite powerful about listening to the voices of 7-year-old next to the 77-year-old – the person who looks so put together next to the person who is clearly struggling – the dad with children next to the widow – all confessing together.  Week in and week out, those myriad voices remind us we are not alone.

Tonight’s service very much calls us into reflection and repentance.  But our invitation tonight as we enter Lent is to remember that the act of reconciliation and redemption does not happen alone.  We all are invited into a holy Lent.  We all are invited into prayer, fasting, and alms giving.  We all are invited to remember we are dust.  In person, online, and hybrid together, we are not invited into solo, parallel journeys.  Our journeys are strengthened and made possible through the companionship of community.  You are not alone.  We are in this together.  And Jesus lights the way for us all.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, as described on the podcast, “Sermon Brainwave:  #889: Ash Wednesday – February 22, 2023,” February 17, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/889-ash-wednesday-february-22-2023 on February 20, 2023.

Sermon – Matthew 17.1-9, LEP, YA, February 19, 2023

01 Wednesday Mar 2023

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Historically, Lent has been my favorite season of the Church year.  I know to many people they enter Lent with a feeling a dread:  everything feels more somber, the music seems, to quote an unnamed choir member, dour, and the defeat of the cross looms large, literally shrouded in black the whole season.  But for me, those are the very things that make Lent so rich.  I love an intentional time of reflection, I enjoy music that speaks to the mourning of our souls, and I appreciate how the starkness of Lent feels like an honest mirror, reflecting the starkness of our humanity.  There is a physicality to Lent that feels authentic and important to a sincere spiritual journey.

Despite how that has been historically true for my own journey, this year, I find myself grudgingly walking toward Lent instead of purposefully and gratefully entering Lent.  Perhaps after many years of pandemic living I have had my fill reflecting on sinfulness and suffering.  Or maybe my excitement about our mutual sabbatical has me itching to get started on the joy instead of journeying through the work.  Or maybe there is self-work I have been avoiding, and I am not thrilled the Church year is taking me to task.  Whatever is happening, I find myself wanting to linger in Epiphany, to team up with Peter and make some dwellings for all the goodness that has been revealed to us since Christmas.  I find Peter’s words, “Lord, it is good for us to be here…” echoing in my ears as a plea for basking in the warmth of the transfigured Jesus for just a while longer.

In the Gospel lesson from Matthew today, when Jesus appears before the disciples with Moses and Elijah, in clothing dazzling white, Peter’s impulse in many ways indicates how Peter “…’gets it.’  He discerns the presence of God is there and seems to be making an attempt to rise to the occasion.”[i]  And as scholar Debie Thomas concludes, “Peter is absolutely right.  It is good to set aside times and places for contemplation.  It is good to gaze upon Jesus, whenever and however he reveals himself to us.  It is good to move out of our comfort zones and confront the Otherness of the divine.”[ii]  Who among us has not been an amazing retreat, had a powerful moment through music, or literally been on a mountaintop and felt a holy connection to God like nothing else?  We too have wanted to not just to linger a little longer, but maybe build some dwelling places to stay for a long while.

But as Debie Thomas also reminds us, “….it’s not good to fixate on the sublime so much that we desecrate the mundane.”[iii]  I remember many years ago reading The Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris.  In her book, she describes her journey to find the sacred in the mundane:  in folding laundry, washing dishes, even cleaning up the altar after church.  For the longest, she resented that work, especially knowing how often women are regulated to this mundane work.  And yet, slowly, she began to discover what Peter discovers today:  that no matter how glorious those mountaintop experiences are, they are not the fullness of experiences with the sacred.  As one scholar explains, “In this story the ascent to the heights of the mountain and ‘peak’ experiences of encounter with God is followed by descent into suffering and service in the valley of need where God’s calling beckons.  Ascent and descent are inextricably bound for the followers of Jesus, just as they were for him.”[iv]

If you are feeling a bit of dread about Lent this year too, there is hope in the text for all of us.  As the disciples are cowering in fear, Jesus does something incredibly mundane.  Jesus touches the disciples, whispering words about not being afraid.  Stanley Hauerwas tells us, “Jesus’ touch is significant.  By touching them Jesus reminds them that the very one who is declared by a voice from heaven to be the Son is flesh and blood.  In this man heaven and earth are joined”[v]  But also in that touch, we are reminded that although mountaintop experiences hold a significance in our hearts, our work is really about “…finding Jesus in the rhythms and routines of the everyday.  In the loving touch of a friend.  In the human voices that say, ‘Don’t be afraid.’  In the unspectacular business of discipleship, prayer, service, and solitude.  In the unending challenge to love my neighbor as myself.”[vi] 

By all means, take this last Sunday in Epiphany to enjoy the spectacular:  the music with drama and flare, the stories of otherworldliness, the excitement of intimacy with glory.  Celebrate and enjoy the spectacular today.  And, know that your invitation today is also to relish the unspectacular.  Our lives are spent in the valley between the mount of transfiguration and the mount of Calvary:  the valley where Jesus walks with us, helping us see the spectacular in the mundane.  If you are feeling unsteady, remember Jesus’ hand is on your shoulder – either metaphorically or through the touch of someone else with you in the valley.  This week, Hickory Neck joins together down this mountain and into the valley of Lent.  Maybe the valley won’t be so mundane if we walk together.  Amen.

[i] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew.  Belief:  A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 213.

[ii] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, Oregon:  Cascade Books, 2022), 111.

[iii] Thomas, 112.

[iv] Case-Winters, 215.

[v] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 155.

[vi] Thomas, 112.

Sermon – Matthew 5.21-37, Sirach 15.15-20, EP6, YA, February 12, 2023

15 Wednesday Feb 2023

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As a teenager, in my rural southern United Methodist Church, our Sunday School class each week was an in-depth Bible Study of some book of the Bible.  I have a distinct memory of one particular class where a condemning text arose about divorce.  My Sunday School teacher herself was divorced and was happily and healthily remarried.  I remember being aghast and indignant about the text, questioning my teacher about how divorce could be seen in such a condemning way, holding in my mind how beautiful my teacher’s current marriage was.  Her response to me was a defeated admission of judgement for herself and her husband that would not be remedied.

Once upon a time, I might have told you that faulty biblical interpretation like this is what drove me from the Methodist church to the Episcopal Church.  But the truth is, there have been many a times when Episcopalians do not fare much better.  When confronted with gospel lessons like we have today from Matthew, most Episcopalians are more likely to either brush hard texts under the rug, or minimize and point you to something shiny, like “It’s all about love, so don’t worry about that pesky Biblical passage.” 

Instead, today I invite us to acknowledge that Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel are hard.  When Jesus tells us we cannot approach the altar without being reconciled in our broken relationships, or that our natural urges are so destructive we should gouge out our eyes, or that divorcing or lying are gravely dangerous offenses, we get nervous and even defensive.  Where is that Jesus of love we like so much?  Is not this a place where we claim all are welcome?

In order to understand scripture today – in a way that is neither defeatistly resigned nor superficially glossed over – the discomfort we may be feeling today is actually a good thing.  The first thing you need to know about Jesus is that he was a skilled rhetorician.  Much of what you hear today about ripping eyes out and cutting off hands are used not literally, but figuratively to point to something very important:  the central importance of relationships in the community of the faithful.[i]  Jesus wants to shock and provoke, to unsettle and destabilize, because he wants to invite a reorientation.[ii]  I find theologian Stanley Hauerwas’ explanation the most helpful.  He argues, “Jesus does not imply that we are to be free of either anger or lust; that is, he assumes that we are bodily beings.  Rather he offers us membership in a community in which our bodies are formed in service to God and for one another so that our anger and our lust are transformed…Jesus is not recommending that we will our way free of lust and anger, but rather he is offering us membership in a people that is so compelling we are not invited to dwell on ourselves or our sinfulness…If we are a people committed to peace in a world of war, if we are a people committed to faithfulness in a world of distrust, then we will be consumed by a way to live that offers freedom from being dominated by anger or lust.”[iii]

Now I can tell you about how progressive Jesus words are about divorce since women were socially and economically marginalized by divorce at the time,[iv] or I could address anger, lying, or lust.  But all of these four vignettes are meant to point our attention not to the salacious nature of Jesus’ words, but what Jesus is trying to do for us.  Being a part of Hickory Neck or the wider body of Christ means our bodies are part of Christ’s body – that, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer suggests, we are so in communion with Jesus’ body that our infidelity is not just a sin against our own body, but against Jesus’ body.[v]  We come here not just to reassure our own selves, and to find restoration for our souls, but also to be a part of something bigger.  To become disciples, finding a purpose much bigger than our naturally self-centered ways, means becoming part of the larger body of Christ – a body that mends broken relationships, restores others to wholeness, and values the dignity of every human being.

The good news is that you do not join that body of discipleship alone.  Everyone of us here is on the journey to being a different kind of human than the outside world would have us be.  In fact, the reason we do this work together is we are better together than we ever could be on our own.  We hold each other accountable, we keep working on reconciliation when we fail, we offer grace and love in our very humanness.  The choice is ours.  As Sirach aptly describes today, the choice is always before us – the choice of life or death, of fire or water.  Our invitation today is to choose relationship – to choose the life of discipleship that joins us to the body of Christ, that roots us in the love of Christ, and enables our work of light in the world.  We cannot do the work alone.  Our invitation is to choose the love and light of Christ that we find his body, the Church, and in the relationships we find here.  Amen. 

[i] Ronald J. Allen, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 359.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew.  Belief:  A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 84.

[iii] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006),  69.

[iv] Case-Winters, 81.

[v] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as referenced by Hauerwas, 70.

How long, O LORD?

25 Wednesday May 2022

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Photo credit: https://www.kcrg.com/2021/11/08/prayer-vigil-planned-fairfield-high-school-spanish-teacher-found-dead/

Early this morning, I put my middle schooler on a bus.  She still lets me take her to the bus stop (as long as I stay in the car).  Everyday I pray as the 20 kids board the bus that they will be kind to one another and to themselves.  They are long-time experts in active shooter drills.  We acknowledge them, but I tend to minimize them because their normalcy breaks my heart. 

Later this morning, I put my second grader on a bus.  We still hold hands on the walk to the stop, she still plays with her classmates once we arrive.  Almost 30 kids board the bus everyday – from tiny kindergarteners to lanky fifth graders.  She is becoming an expert in active shooter drills too.  But because she is the age of some children who were shot to death yesterday in Texas, I couldn’t help calculating that the number of kids who didn’t come home last night in Uvalde was about 2/3 of the children on our bus.  I kept thinking about how sad my second grader is for school to be ending soon because she loves her teacher so much – and how traumatized my daughter would be if her teacher had died shielding my daughter and her classmates.  The more I picture standing outside that school waiting for news of my child’s fate, the closer I feel to crumbling in sobs of grief.

Yesterday, I did what we always do after a tragedy.  I quoted scripture on social media in the wake of the news.  “How long, O LORD, must I call for help? But you do not listen!  ‘Violence is everywhere!’ I cry, but you do not come to save.” (Habakkuk 1.2)  This morning as the bus pulled away, those words echoed in my ears, “How long, O LORD?” 

The response from God was stark, “I don’t know.  You tell me!”  I cried out to God yesterday and this morning for help to end this awful system of violence. In response, God reminded me I am God’s feet and hands in this world.  If I want the violence to stop, I can and should certainly pray.  But my prayer must in part be a prayer to summon political courage to actually do something.  And not just for me, but for all of us – those who would have us get rid of every gun in this country and those who would fight to the death for their guns – and everyone in between.  This problem is for all of us.  We are all to blame for massive shootings.  How?  Because in doing nothing, in finding no common ground at all, we are simply praying until the next massive shooting happens.  Whether you need to imagine your own children or your own childhood teacher in the faces of those who have died, allow the utter sorrow and pain to pierce your soul today so that tomorrow you do something – anything – to make a change.  And if you really want to make an impact, find someone whose opinion on gun control is different from yours and start talking about what you can do together to make a change.  That’s my prayer for us today.  That we start answering the question, “How long?” with “I change it today with you.”

On Being Apart While Together…

24 Wednesday Feb 2021

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Photo credit: https://www.indiatvnews.com/lifestyle/news-living-apart-together-the-new-relationship-trend-in-town-for-older-adults-380624

As a priest, especially a priest in a pandemic, you do not always know how the things you plan are going to go.  Most of the liturgical things we do are about 90 degrees off from what we “normally” do, and we just keep hoping they capture the spirit of the original liturgies.  I am blessed to serve an awesome congregation whose DNA is wired to be creative, playful, and experimental, so I always feel like we are in this together.  But I still find myself holding my breath a bit each time we try something unusual.

Ash Wednesday was no different.  We did our due diligence, made ample opportunity for parishioners and neighbors to get ashes for home use, and we figured out how to synchronize our ashes through livestreaming.  What I did not anticipate was what it would feel like to put ashes on my own head.  Even when I was a solo clergy person, I always had a parishioner put ashes on me after I put ashes on them.  But putting ashes on my own head felt very solitary – suddenly I was very aware of how separated we all are from one another – and how lonely that sometimes feels.

I pondered that reality for a few days before I remembered something else from Ash Wednesday.  We decided in the pandemic to still offer Ashes to Go – a drive through experience at our location.  As we distributed containers of ash, we gave people three options – “ash” themselves as we pray with them, take the ashes home and say a set of prayers we gave them, or take them home and watch our livestream and “ash” with us.  One family drove through and I gave the mom the three options.  She decided I should go ahead and pray as she put ashes on the foreheads of her two preschool children.  As I watched her work – this mom whose story I could all too easily imagine – the stress of parenting for almost a year in a pandemic, making hard decisions about childcare, juggling work, children, and family, trying to precariously hold it together.  Here she was, taking on the work of the spiritual nourishment of her kids too. 

And that is when I realized the truth.  We are very separated, often alone, and sometimes lonely in this pandemic.  But we are all feeling those things together.  When we gather online together, we are together in our apart-ness.  When we swing by the property for drive-through experiences, we are acknowledging our togetherness in our apart-ness.  When things remind us of our apart-ness, we are collectively reminded together.  It is a beautiful, awful dichotomy, only made better by the fact that we are, in fact, together in this.  This Lent, I invite you to pause to look around, and observe the small, sometimes tiny, reminders that we are in this together.  Even in our apart-ness, we are with each other in Spirit.  And the Spirit is enough to hold us together while apart until we can be physically together some day.

On Keeping Rituals Anyway…

17 Wednesday Feb 2021

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Photo credit: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/03/06/ash-wednesday-2019-wearing-ashes-marks-beginning-lent/3064920002/

Today is Ash Wednesday.  It is the day we gather to kick off the beginning of Lent.  The main marker of this day are the ashes rubbed on our foreheads in the shape of a cross.  This ritual action is so powerful that churches typically offer multiple services in their buildings and they hang out in train stations, street corners, or parking lots so that people can grab their ashes on the go. 

But this year Ash Wednesday is happening in a surreal setting.  Reminding us we are dust and to dust we shall return seems a little superfluous when death is all around us from this pandemic.  Beginning a season of fasting seems like overkill when we have been doing nothing but fasting for eleven months – fasting from a way of life we once knew.  Asking us to give us something for Lent seems tone deaf when we have been giving up things for almost a year.  And with large communities having lost power for several days, churches still on lock down, and best practices prohibiting us from actually touching ashes to others’ foreheads, the whole idea of this day seems like too much.

So why are we even bothering with Ash Wednesday this year?  A couple of reasons.  One of the base reasons is we need to keep the rituals of life to help us feel some semblance of normalcy – some reminder of the things that have been meaning-giving in our lives.  Two, we need reminders that God is present in the midst of all this mayhem.  Some of us have never felt God’s absence, some of us have felt the abandonment of God in this time, and some of us have just felt so depleted that God feels distant – not absent, but also not vividly present. 

I don’t know how you are holding up this Ash Wednesday.  I don’t know where you are on your journey with God these days.  But what I do know is that the church is here to walk with you, comfort you, and create space for wherever you are on the journey – whether driving through,  watching online, or catching up by email, phone, or text.  We are in this together.    

On Cups of Sugar and Other Gifts…

03 Wednesday Feb 2021

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One of the things I love about our public library is the way they display children’s books to catch your attention.  We have our favorite characters and series, but our librarians always pick books you might not find if you were just looking at endless rows of books.  In our last trip, we picked such a book called Addy’s Cup of Sugar.  There was a girl and a panda bear on the cover, so I was sure it would be a winner with my young daughter.  It also said it was based on a Buddhist story of healing, which sounded intriguing.

Little did I know how powerful this children’s book would be.  For those of you who have not read it (spoiler alert!), the book is about a girl whose cat dies.  She talks to her friend, the panda bear, about bringing the cat back to life.  The bear says the only way to accomplish that is for her to help him with the supplies he will need – specifically a cup of sugar from a neighbor; but the cup of sugar must come from a home where no one has experienced death.  So off Addy goes, and slowly we learn through her visits and beautiful conversations with neighbors that not one single house in her neighborhood has been unaffected by death.  You can imagine the conversation Addy and the bear have upon her return at the close of the day.

After recovering from being sideswiped by the emotional power of the book, I began to reflect on my work as a priest.  As part of my vocation, I am entrusted with fullness of people’s stories – grief they might not confess to their loved ones, weariness they may not show in their tough facades, anger at God they are afraid to claim aloud for fear of judgment.  Every once in a while, one of those poignant moments of sharing knocks the breath out of me and I am at a loss for words – because words cannot heal some hurts. 

Although I experience the depth of humanity more regularly than some, we all have the opportunity to do the same with our family, friends, and neighbors.  As the duration of this pandemic lengthens, I have been wondering if we all might need to start taking our own cups for sugar around the neighborhood (masked and socially distanced, of course), offering the opportunity for others to share their hurts, their sorrows, and perhaps their own struggles to see God.  Once we begin to see the wideness of the human condition, we also see how we are not alone.  Our cups of sugar then become not just gifts for ourselves, but for others too.