Root, root, root for the home team... Sermon for Year B Lent 4

ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM

We have been traveling through Lent with a different song
each week which reflects our scripture readings.
Lent 1 was THE RAINBOW CONNECTION (Noah and the rainbow in the sky).
Lent 2 we had “Get behind me, Satan” and the song was BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEWILDERED.
Last week it was a bit of a struggle to find the right song for Lent 3.
But finally I saw clearly
and, because the disciples understood what Jesus was saying
after he died,
I picked Johnny Nash’s I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW.

But this week was a snap.
I knew immediately what the song would be when I read the gospel reading the very first time.
You might have already guessed it.
Here’s a hint..
[Reach in bag and pull out a baseball cap and put it on.]
How about this?
[Hold up sign that says JOHN 3:16]

Got it yet?? It’s TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME!!



That song came to mind because at a baseball game (other sports too sometimes)
there is almost always at least one person in the stands
holding up a sign
that simply says: JOHN 3:16.

I wonder if people who don’t know that verse actually go home
and take the time to look it up in the Bible.
And even if they don’t have a BIble, they can find it on their computer.
In today’s world you can google JOHN 3:16 and find the verse:

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON
SO THAT EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM SHALL NOT PERISH
BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.

A beautiful verse.
Some people say that John 3:16 is the New Testament in a nutshell.

But you may be shaking your head and thinking,
JEANNE, JEANNE, that’s very interesting
but there are a lot more interesting things going on in these readings today.
DId you see the parts about snakes?

DId you see that GOD not only sends his son in John’s gospel
but God sends snakes in the Old Testament reading
from the book of Numbers--
God sends snakes and it says right here in black and white
..and the snakes bit the people..and people died!!!????

What’s going on here?

Is this the same God?
A God who sends poisonous snakes
and then a God who sends his son?
A God who sends snakes to bite and kill people
and a God who sends his Son to love and save people?

And we wonder why people sometimes shy away from the Old Testament!

I mean, after all, the Israelites are ONLY complaining, whining--
they don’t like the food, they’re tired,
they wish they hadn’t come on this journey at all.
Should people be killed for complaining?!!!
(Many of us hope not!)

But you see the Israelites have forgotten.
They have forgotten that this journey is not some wild ride
across the desert that Moses initiated and mapped out.
This journey is God’s idea.

This journey is the journey that will save them--
save them from the Egyptians,
from slavery,
from misery.
This journey will lead them to full being as God’s people.
But they have forgotten why they needed to leave Egypt in the first place.
They thought that as soon as they left
everything would be perfect. Easy street.

Sometimes we, too, think that way--
if we just find the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect car,
the perfect person-
everything will be easy,
Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks
I don’t care if I ever come back...

You see, the snakes are just a reminder.
Complaining and grumbling is what bites us.
If we lose hope, if we think we are running the show instead of God,
if we can’t see beyond the darkness and despair,
then, in so many ways, we are already dead.

The Israelites have forgotten.
They have forgotten that they are on their way home.
They have forgotten the purpose of this journey.
They aren’t happy with the way things are working out
and they forget--or stop believing--
what God has promised.
They are on a journey that will lead them to the Promised Land,
literally and physically
and spiritually.

The Promised Land is not just about heaven;
the promised land is about growing to become the people--the person--
God created us to be.
All growth does not occur in bright sunlight.
There are times of darkness, there are soaking rains--
there are even those occasional snakes.
Not an easy journey.

It is easy to lose hope.
It is easy to despair.
It is certainly easy to complain.
Because the truth is life is hard.
Sometimes very hard.

Life can be a treacherous journey.
We have to step very carefully through the desert of our anxieties and fears or we too will likely be bit.
We too can easily forget the light and love that surround us.
We can stumble and allow darkness to swallow us--
or we can pick ourselves up, skinned knees and all,
and go on.

God wants us to live.
God wants us to look up.
God wants us to know what true love really is.

For God so loved the world---
that is true love.
God loved us and all creation into being.

...that he gave his only Son...
whatever your theology,
whatever your status as a parent or non-parent,
we know this gift, this love
is immense and unconditional.

What this gospel tells us is that God gives us everything.
Absolutely everything.
Nothing is held back.

We need to look up and see that.
We need to stop whining and grumbling about all that we do not have.
We need to worry less about the snakes and the snake bites
and celebrate more what we are given as our daily bread.
And some days,
that is all we will get: just one day’s bread.

God is not an almighty umpire
wanting to call three strikes and throw us out of the game.

God is not a cheerleader either--that is our work to do.
We are here on this planet to be cheerleaders for one another.
To encourage each other, to care for each other.
You know,
...it’s root, root, root for the home team...

God is more like the coach at home plate.
Calling us to come home--
home to God’s deep love for the world and us.
God’s deepest desire
is for all of us to make it home.
Every one of us.

For God so loves the world.
For God so loves you and me.
For God so loves.

AFTER..... Sermon for Year B Lent 3

AFTER

I tried to find a song for Lent 3.
After all, we had THE RAINBOW CONNECTION for Lent 1
and BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEWILDERED for Lent 2.

But I couldn’t find a song about overturning tables or making a whip of cords.
I thought about WHO LET THE DOGS OUT
or Bruce Springsteen’s THE WRECKING BALL.
I didn’t find THE perfect song
until after I realized that this gospel is not so much
about the table overturning
as it is about what happens AFTER the table turning over.
So my song for Lent 3 has to be Johnny Nash’s
I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW.
More about that in a few minutes.

Back to the Temple.

This is no meek and mild Jesus.
Jesus is angry.
He didn’t just send an email saying could you not do these things--
using the temple for making a profit--
he didn’t calmly show up and enter into negotiations.
Jesus shows up mad!
He is furious.
He uses a whip to drive people out!!
This is some serious Jesus!

This story appears in all four of the Gospels--
which indicates that this really happened.
That this story is not just metaphor.

But what has happened here?

When Jesus enters the temple
he finds men selling cattle and sheep and doves.
They are selling these to those
who have made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Pilgrims were obligated to make a sacrifice.

They needed to exchange their Roman currency into Jewish money
in order to pay the temple tax---also mandatory.

Those who sold the animals and those who changed the money
were not honest business men.
Far from it.
They traded at an exorbitant profit.

It’s a little bit like buying a bottle of water at the airport.
You could buy it for 59 cents at Ingles,
but because of security regulations,
you can’t bring any liquids in (I understand that!)--
but he shops inside airport security,
will gladly sell you this 12 oz. bottle of water
for only $ 2.99.

Nothing one can do about it--if you want a bottle of water.
Or if you need some Roman currency
or an animal for sacrifice,
you pay the price.

But that doesn’t make it right.

Jesus is angry because of the exploitation and greed.
Jesus, as usual, is on the side of the ones who have little--
little in resources and little choice about the matter.

When asked to justify his actions with a sign to the authorities,
Jesus does not perform a sign.
He is not there to perform or to please.
Jesus talks about the temple being destroyed
and rebuilt in three days.

This must have been confusing--even to his disciples--
the building of the temple had begun over 50 years earlier--
and was not completed yet.
In fact it would not be finished for at least 20 more years.
But then there is a twist to the story:
gospel is very specific and says---
He [Jesus] was speaking of the temple of his body.

As we move farther into Lent,
closer and closer to Holy Week,
the gospel text becomes more and more prophetic about what is ahead.

Often when I read a passage of scripture
I try to listen for a word or a phrase that is “illuminated.”
The word or phrase that really strikes me, that stands out,
causes me to think.

This week it is the final verse of our gospel. Verse 22:

After he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this;
and they believed the scripture
and the word that Jesus had spoken.

The illuminated word for me in this verse is the word AFTER.

How often do we figure things out, understand things,
realize the value of something or someone
AFTER the fact?

Listen to this wisdom story by Anthony DeMello:

Once upon a time, a miser hid his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden.

Every week he would dig it up and look at it for hours.
Only one day, a thief dug up the gold
and made off with it.

When the miser next came to gaze upon his treasure,
all he found was an empty hole.

The man began to howl and wail with grief,
so his neighbors came running to find out what the trouble was.

When they found out, one of them asked,
“Did you ever use any of the gold?”

“No,” said the miser. “I only looked at it every week.”

“Well then,” said the neighbor,
“for all the good the gold did you,
you might as well come every week and gaze upon the hole.”

[Source: Anthony de Mello, S.J.; http://www.spiritual-short-stories.com/spiritual-short-story-242-A+Miser+and+His+Gold.html]

Sometimes we only understand the value
AFTER something or someone we love is gone,
AFTER we are left gazing at the empty hole that remains in our life.

How difficult it is to really understand, to be present
to the people, to the events, to the meaning behind the words
when we are in the midst of them.

This has always bothered me.
I want to be fully present to the moment.
I want to be alert and aware right now.
Somehow there is a sense of failure
to not get it-- until later.

Only this week,
as I studied this gospel,
I made friends with that word “AFTER.”
I thought,
You know, AFTER is okay.

God is not the White Rabbit of Alice in Wonderland fame,
pulling out a pocket watch
and chiding, You’re late! You’re late! You’re late!

God is not a journalist--
God is not trying to get down the who-what-when-where-how or why
of the story as it is happening.
God is always waiting for us in the AFTER.

God doesn’t care WHEN we get the meaning of the message--
God is incredibly patient.
It seems God has more of a “better late than never” mindset

God is so patient.
God waits patiently and faithfully
until we make our way to understanding.

AFTER is an interesting word,
but REMEMBER is a beautiful word.

When we remember something,
we put the event, the person, the actions
back together again.
We re-member.

We take all the parts and pieces
and put them together and make them whole.
We take all our parts and pieces
and realize that we too have been made whole in the process
of re-membering.

Remembering is an enormous part
of whom we are as Christians.

We began Lent on Ash Wednesday with remembering---
Remember that you are dust....

We celebrate the Eucharist each week--
We remember his death....
Do this for the remembrance of me.

The disciples were only transformed AFTER they remembered.
Then they understood.
Then they got it and knew what Jesus meant
and what he was calling them to do.

God gives us this gift-- of re-membering.
We re-build what once was.
We rebuild the temple.

And sometimes we have to tear down,
to empty out the old
to make room for the new and all that is holy.

God never considers us overdue or past tense or expired.
The time is never too late.

Because amazing things can happen AFTER...
I can see clearly now...finally...AFTER...

AFTER he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this;
and they believed the scripture
and the word that Jesus had spoken.

I can see clearly now.
Amen.

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered..... Sermon for Year B Lent 2

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered


Last week, Lent 1, was The Rainbow Connection.
This week, if I had to pick a song for Lent 2--
don’t worry--I promise I’m not going to sing this week--
my song choice would be
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Get behind me, Satan.
There’s the bewitching. Satan.

Bothered.
Well, first of all, Peter is bothered by Jesus saying
that the Messiah is going to suffer and be rejected
and be killed and die.
And then, Jesus is bothered by Peter,
because Peter wants Jesus to tell a different story.
to be a different Messiah than Jesus knows he is.

Bewildered.
Poor Peter!
Jesus just called him Satan.
And Peter can’t believe Jesus would say such a thing to him.

Get behind me, Satan!

We don’t often talk about Satan in the Episcopal Church,
and yes, we certainly can hear that word
with a touch of Saturday Night Live humor--
remember Dana Carvey’s portrayal of the Church Lady?

We can laugh at the stereotypical images of Satan or the Devil--
but we must admit,
temptation is very, very real.
Very real for all of us.

Peter could not bear hearing Jesus talk about his own suffering and death.
No. That’s just wrong, Jesus.
You are the Messiah!

The Messiah.
Everyone knew the Messiah was going to come--one day--
and settle the score.
The Messiah was going to charge in and right all the wrongs.
The Messiah was going to bring justice.
Everyone would rejoice
once they knew that the Messiah had arrived.

Imagine!
Imagine how happy Peter was
when he realized that Jesus was the Messiah.
Thanks be to God! Finally!
The Messiah is here!

But now, Jesus begins talking about suffering and persecution and dying.

Peter could not listen.
NO!
NO!
NO!
The gospel says that Peter took Jesus aside and REBUKED Jesus.
Sounds like a bold move!
Pretty strong language:
Rebuked.

But Jesus replies quickly and strongly and rebukes right back:
Get behind me, Satan.
Those are his words to his dear friend Peter.

Because you see,
how easy, how tempting --even for Jesus--
to be the Messiah
that everyone has dreamed him to be.
How easy, how tempting
to just be and act and say
what others expect of us.

But Jesus knows that image of him is a lie.

Sometimes people are not who we think they are
and it is their fault.
` They have tricked us, deceived us.

But sometimes people are not who we think they are
and it is NOT their fault.
In our own minds, in our own hearts,
we have tried to make that person be
he person WE want them to be.
We have deceived ourselves.
We stand right beside Peter.

Jesus knows the truth.
Jesus knows who he really is
and what he has come to do--
and he knows it will not be popular.

Because people may say they want to be saved,
people may say they want justice,
people may say they want change
but...

But we really only want these things
if it doesn’t intrude on our own plans and desires,
our own comforts and conveniences.

Some of you may know about Dorothy Day.
She was a social activist and devout Christian.
She was very clear about her love for God and for other people,
especially those on the margins.
Yet she was also very realistic
about what she called “the dirty rotten system”
and how we are all, in truth,
part of this unjust system
because we enjoy the benefits of the system.

Most of us do not think of ourselves as oppressors
or as people who would take advantage of others.
And yet...

Where were our shirts and our underwear made?
How about our shoes?
Our cell phone?
Who picks the tea leaves and the coffee beans we enjoy?
How much fuel do we consume driving alone in our cars or trucks,
when we could take a bus, carpool or even walk?

All these things are made affordable for us,
often because of the suffering of someone else
who is far less privileged.
Someone who could never afford the very items they make or mine or assemble.

Those who sacrifice because of our desires,
are usually faceless and nameless to us--
which of course makes it bearable,
makes it feel like we are not responsible or accountable.

But the truth is--
we buy, we use, we lust after these products.
We want our comforts even at the expense of others.

Temptation is everywhere.

In this country we are barraged with the temptation
to care more about stuff than human beings.

Power and possessions, consumption and competition
can throw us in the deep end of a "never-ending game"
(to borrow a phrase that Richard Rohr used in a recent email meditation)--
a loop that is self-maintaining, self-perpetuating
and self-congratulating.

That's the dirty, rotten little system
that DOrothy Day referred to.

I wish I could say this was not true in the church.
I wish I could say this is not true in my own life.
But sadly, Satan is still alive and well--
and I am part of a system that allows it to happen.

Jesus came to put a face on those who are faceless and nameless.
Jesus came to put a face on injustice.
Jesus came to tell the truth.
Jesus came to encourage us to be truth tellers--
even about the hard stuff in our own lives

We fool ourselves if we think following Jesus is in any way
intended to be an easy journey.

A worthwhile journey? Absolutely.
Easy? I think not.


Lent is a time to take at least a few steps
toward letting go of that which bewitches us--
the false Messiahs in our lives.

Living into Lent means confessing ourselves as Peter --
confessing that we too have longed for our church,
our Jesus, our families,
our own lives
to look and be a certain idealized,sanitized way--
when often nothing in our lives
or in the world is that way at all.

The truth should never be a discouragement.
Lent is a time for hope,
the hope that we can make a difference.

In the words of Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara:

Be careful of the way you live.
It is the only gospel that most people will ever read.

I want to say that one more time--

Be careful of the way you live.
It is the only gospel that most people will ever read.

Jesus wasn’t popular or rich or powerful.
Jesus knew that what he was saying and doing
was not going to be embraced--
neither by the Roman government nor by he religious authorities.
Not in the first century, not in the twenty-first century.

I live in constant amazement
at the selfish spin that is so often put
on what it means to be a Christian.
Following Jesus is about giving
not about receiving.
Following Jesus is about rejecting the very systems
that make us comfortable, even acclaimed.

We, too, are called to sacrifice.

Jesus refused to claim
being the Messiah the world had envisioned.
Jesus knew the world already had what it needed to end injustice.

Jesus looks to US--
to right the wrongs,
to feed the hungry, to heal the sick,
to comfort the suffering,
to bring justice to God’s world.

Yes, we do all these things with God’s help
but Jesus is quite clear
that we are the ones to do these things.

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered?
Jesus says,
Get over it.
Get behind me, Satan.

Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow.

For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake,
and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
For what will it profit us to gain the whole world
and forfeit our life?

What's this rainbow doing here in Lent?...... Sermon for Year B Lent 1

What’s this rainbow doing here in Lent?

They were sitting on the front porch.
Our son Jody was there for a summer visit with his grandparents,
my parents.
He was about 14 years old.

Each afternoon my mother and he
would take a glass of ice cold Minute Maid lemonade
and a pack of nabs or a few cookies
and they would sit on the front porch
and watch the traffic go by
as they enjoyed an afternoon break.

Sometimes my mother would water her petunias
which adorned the porch in multiple hanging baskets
or she would count the blossoms.
She loved to send me a daily count
when the petunias were in bloom--
32 blossoms today....
45 blossoms on Friday morning...
but this day was not a petunia counting day.

It was a rainy summer afternoon and they were just sitting there.
My mother was never at a loss for words,
so no doubt, she was chatting with our son about something.
Then they saw it.

My mother said,
Look, Jody! Look at the rainbow!
God put that in the sky just for us.
That rainbow is God’s promise.

To which our son replied,
Well, actually Granny, rainbows are a result
of raindrops in the air acting as tiny prisms.
Light enters the raindrop, reflects off the side,
and is then broken into a spectrum of color.

My mother was speechless--for a moment--
and then calmly replied,
That’s right.
God does all that and then puts the rainbow right there,
just for us,
as a sign of God’s promise.

Science and religion met on the front porch
in Raleigh, North Carolina that day.
And the good news is
a difference of opinion did not break them apart.

We hear in the Genesis story this morning a familiar tale
about Noah and a rainbow.
God says to Noah,
I have set my bow in the clouds,
and it shall be a covenant between me and the earth.
God is promising God’s people
that never again would God use violence and destruction
against God’s own people.
Noah and his family and all the living creatures
had survived the 40 days in the ark.

That’s what we are in the midst of trying to do as well.
Survive the 40 days --not of a flood--but of Lent.
4 days down and 36 more to go!

Lent is not a punitive time
but it is a time when we do a careful self-examination
of our lives and of our souls.

We set our hearts and minds to make some changes--
to repent--to do things a little differently.

Somehow the liturgical season of Lent
doesn’t seem like the season for a rainbow.
Rainbows are a little too beautiful to belong in Lent, aren’t they?

And yet... rainbows are a sign that the storm has passed.
Rainbows tell us that the sun is coming out
and there is better weather ahead.
Good news.

In Mark’s gospel we hear the good news of Jesus’ baptism.
It is the beginning of his ministry.
Everything that had gone before Jesus in time and history
is transformed from that moment of baptism forward.

Yet immediately--
(remember how much the writer of Mark’s Gospel
loves that word IMMEDIATELY-?!!)--
IMMEDIATELY after that new beginning, his baptism,
Jesus has to go--
in fact he is DRIVEN--into the wilderness.
And I don’t mean driven in a Subaru!

The Gospel tells us Jesus is driven by the Spirit--
he wasn’t driven into the desert by Satan or demons.
He was driven by the Holy Spirit.

Often it is our times of struggle and confronting temptation,
that help us grow and change.
Often it is our worst of times
that deepen our relationship with God--and with others.
In order to become our fullest selves
we must face and know the demons that call us by name.

The Spirit knew that Jesus had to go into the desert,
go through the desert
and come out of the desert on the other side
if he was going to have the strength, the wisdom
the courage and the wholeness
to do the ministry that was ahead of him.

Temptation, Satan, wild beasts--
they wear many masks--
but we have all known them--
sometimes in big doses
sometimes in tiny tastes.

Jesus did not do face that wilderness struggle alone.
And neither do we.

My favorite line in Mark’s gospel today is this:
...and the angels waited on him.

Part of our Lenten practice
is to let go of the notion that we are self-sufficient,
to recognize that we need help
and to trust that the angels are here for us too.

Even in the times we feel desperately alone.
God never abandons us.
Never.

Our journey through the season of Lent
reminds us that even in the desert
we can catch a glimpse of a rainbow,
if we remember to look.

Remember the original Muppet Movie?
Kermit the frog sitting in the dismal swamp,
playing his little banjo and singing,

Why are there so many
songs about rainbows
and what’s on the other side?

There is something about us--
humans and little banjo strumming green frogs-
we long to be connected to the “other side”,
to the kingdom of heaven,
to God.

Our Episcopal catechism defines sin
as anything that separates us from God.

Lent is about looking at the obstacles in our lives
that block us, that separate us,
that weaken or damage our connection with God.

...Have you been half asleep
and have you heard voices?
I’ve heard them calling my name...

I have set my bow in the clouds, says God.

God has promised to be in loving relationship with us.
Always and forever.
We are all God’s beloved children.
We just don’t always believe that.
We just don’t always live into God’s love
and act as if we are God’s beloved.

Lent is a journey,
the season when we consciously work on that “rainbow connection,”
a time when we make some changes that will bring us
into a better and deeper relationship with God,
with ourselves,
with others,
with all creation.

Someday we’ll find it
the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

And you.

Turning Over the Rocks........Ash Wednesday 2012

Turning Over the Rocks

Today is the day we begin our journey into Holy Lent.
Ash Wednesday.

There was a wonderful video posted on Facebook this week.
It was titled ASH WEDNESDAY AND LENT IN TWO MINUTES.

If we had some high tech equipment here at St. John’s,
I could show you that YouTube video
and we’d be done in--well, two minutes.
But you’re going to have to endure the low tech version--
which is my sermon
and we won’t be done in two minutes.

First the basic facts.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent.
It begins about 40 days before Easter.
I say ABOUT 40 days because we don’t count Sundays.
Sundays are always feast days.
Days of celebration.
Every Sunday is a day when we celebrate the resurrection.
That’s right.
We don’t just do that on Easter--
we are celebrating resurrection every single Sunday of the year.
So get your joy on for Sundays--even during Lent!

And yes,
that does mean that if you give up something for Lent
or take on something for Lent
you can have a break on Sunday---
but then back at it on Monday!

So Lent has 6 full weeks.
6 weeks x 7 days is 42 days.
Minus 6 (those 6 Sundays, remember)
and that means 36 days.

But we need 40 days.
Why?

Because it mimics Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the wilderness.
And also the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert
after their exodus from Egypt.

So the way we go from 36 days to 40 days
is by starting on the Wednesday before the first full week of Lent.
That would be Ash Wednesday.
We then add Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week.
So 36 days plus 4 days is 40 days.

That’s why we begin Lent on a Wednesday--
so we can legitimately come up with the 40 days.

Those are the numbers.
Those are the facts.

But facts keep us in our heads
and this day, Ash Wednesday,
the portal into Lent,
calls us to engage with our heart and our spirit.
With apologies to Dragnet and Sergeant Joe Friday,
“just the facts, m’am” is not going to cut it on this Lenten journey.

We live in a world where too often “it is all about me.”
We are obsessed with ourselves.
Our desires, our achievements, our physical appearance, our opinions.
Spiritually, this is a dangerous and destructive way to live.
But it’s hard to remember that
because “all about me” is the norm.

Ash Wednesday is a day when we shine a spotlight
on our “all about me” thinking
so we might notice the cracks,
if not the total fracture of our egocentric thinking and living.
Ash Wednesday is an uncomfortable day.

It is hard to think we have everything under our control,
when we hear the words,
Remember you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you will die.
Remember that life is short and we do not have much time.
Remember that we waste so much time and energy
seeking to be right, to be first, to be better than others.
to get our own way.

We don’t wear ashes on our foreheads to show others how holy we are.
We wear ashes as a symbol of our deep, deep desire for repentance--
our painful awareness
that we need to make some changes in our lives.

Lent is not a season for glorified New Year’s resolutions.

I once heard Lent described as the season of the year
when we turn over the rocks in our lives
and see what crawls out from underneath, from the darkness.
We turn over those rocks and face up
to what has been hiding underneath.

That’s a pretty frightening image.
But Lent is a time for serious self examination.

We can often fool ourselves.
We can sometimes fool others (thought probably not as much as we think).
But we cannot fool God.
Lent is the season to own up to that.

In our scripture readings today we hear the prophet Joel’s trumpet sound--
and it is sounding for us--
calling us to repent, to change.

We hear Paul’s anguish
as he pleads with us to reconcile our lives with God.

We hear Jesus warn us
of how even our fasting
can slip into the “it’s all about me” mode.
Look at me! I’m fasting! Don’t I do it so very very well.
Jesus says please...please don’t embark on this holy journey
to try to win a blue ribbon for keeping the most holy Lent.
Pay attention to where your heart is.

This season of Lent is really not a punitive season.
Is it serious, somewhat somber?
Yes.
We don’t even put flowers in the church
during Lent.

Is Lent about looking under those rocks in our lives?
Yes.
Because as long as we try to keep secrets
and hide a part of ourselves,
we are trapped.
There is not any part of our lives--of us--that God does not already know.
No secrets are hid, no desires unknown.

Lent is about letting go
and trusting those words we hear in today’s opening prayer:
God, you hate nothing you have made...

Take home that scripture insert
and mark those words with a neon yellow highlighter:
God, you hate nothing you have made
and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.

No matter how flawed we are,
no matter what ugly, horrible events
may be hidden under those rocks of our lives,
God loves us.
Go figure!
God created us and it is impossible for God to hate us.

But God does call us to a spiritual journey.
Our journey is to move towards repentance, change and accountability.

Not just to utter words that so glibly flow from our lips
and then are quickly forgotten--
God asks us to repent--
that’s a major action verb--
to change the things we know we need to change--
not so we can be perfect
but so we can become the person God created us to be.

So that we can be in a deep and honest relationship with God
and in a deep and honest relationship with other people.

Because it is about community.
It’s NOT all about me. It’s NOT all about you.
And it certainly is NOT about “divide and conquer.”

God tells us over and over and over again,
Old Testament, New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostic gospels--
God tells us
the purpose of being alive is to
to be in full communion with one another and with God.
Community.
Loving God and loving one another.
This is how we are called to live as God’s people.
It’s not easy but I’m not sure God cares an iota about easy or hard.
It’s just true.

Showing up for ashes on Ash Wednesday
is how we say okay.
Okay, God, at least for today--I get it.

Today is the day
we start to move the rocks.
Today is the day
we start to face all that we have so desperately tried to hide
or ignore or deny
about ourselves.
Today is the day
we start to believe--to really believe--that God loves us,
that God forgives us, that God is merciful,
that God desires only what is wonderful for us.

The singer Keb Mo might put it this way:
Get out of the way and let your light shine.

As Episcopalians we put it this way:
Remember you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.

WORLD MISSION SUNDAY...... Sermon for Year B Last Epiphany

Go Ye Into All the World

Every year in the Episcopal Church
we celebrate World Mission Sunday.
It is always observed on the last Sunday of Epiphany.
The purpose of World Mission Sunday
is to increase our awareness
of the wider global mission of the Episcopal Church.

You may have noticed when you came in today
the print hanging in the narthex.
It is a drawing of what used to be the window over the altar
in the chapel at Virginia Theological Seminary.

The chapel burned to the ground last year
and the window was destroyed.
But the message of that window was not destroyed.

The words written on the wall around that window are this:
Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.

Go ye into all the world.

Sometimes we grimace when we hear about WORLD mission--
after all, aren’t there enough needs right here in our own country,
in our own community.
Why do we have to do mission work overseas?

Because that’s what Jesus asks us to do.
Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.

For some of us, the “world” might be our neighborhood or our city
or wherever we find ourselves being called
to try to make a difference.
Jesus is always calling us to enlarge our vision.
He doesn’t want us to be limited to just wearing our reading glasses--
always focusing on what is right in front of us.
He wants us to simultaneously see with binoculars--
mission is both local AND global.
It is not an either/or proposition.
Jesus is always about the both/and.

Because the body of Christ is not limited.
The body of Christ does not have man-made boundaries.
The kingdom of heaven is very, very large.

It is so perfect
that we are dedicating new altar candlesticks this evening
because we as baptized Christians
have seen the Light of the World
and are always called to shine that light in every place.

It is so perfect
that we are dedicating new communion vessels this evening
because God is always asking us
to be vessels for communion
as we go about our daily lives in the world.

We celebrate WORLD MISSION SUNDAY
with the gospel reading about the transfiguration.
Everything changes.
The disciples begin to see Jesus and the world differently.

A good friend of mine from Seminary, David Copley,
is now the Mission Personnel Officer
for the national Episcopal Church.
David is the contact person for all our missionaries.
Yes, the Episcopal Church does have missionaries.

We have missionaries in 25 countries around the Anglican Communion.
Our missionaries are doctors, nurses, teachers,
accountants, farmers, computer technicians, administrators,
theologians and more.
Missionaries are young and old,
recent college graduates and people who have retired,
both lay people and ordained people.

David Copley says,
“Participating in God’s mission for the world
transforms us as individuals, communities and a Church.”

Participating in God’s mission for the world transforms us.

Whether we spend a year in Cuba as Mark Siler and his family did--
as you know Mark will be our preacher tomorrow morning--
or whether we go on a ten day mission trip to Panama or Honduras
or head to the Gulf Coast to help after Hurricane Katrina,
we cannot do any of this without being transformed.

Sometimes we don’t even have to leave home to be transformed.
A moment in our lives can open our hearts to the world.

When I was in seminary,
we had a number of international students,
most of them were already ordained and had been serving as priests
for quite a few years in their home countries.
They had come to the Seminary for more study
and many of them would go on to be consecrated as Bishops.

One day in the refectory--our dining hall--
i found Samwel, who was from Tanzania,
standing at the garbage can weeping

You see, when we finished eating lunch,
we took our trays to the window at the dishwashing station,
but first we scraped any food we did not eat into a garbage can.

Samwel stood at that garbage can weeping.
When I asked him what was wrong,
he pointed to the garbage and said to me,
“All this food--all this food that is being thrown away--
it could feed my entire village for a week.”

How often we fill our plates with food and then after a bite or two
decide we don’t really like it or we’re just not hungry
and so it goes into the garbage can.
We don’t really even think about it.
But suddenly, by getting to know someone like Samwel,
waste and hunger and need begin to wear the face
of a suffering Christ.
Mission is transforming.
Samwel was one of the missionaries God sent to transform me.

Jennifer McConnachie is a registerd nurse from our Diocese.
From St. James, Hendersonville.
She is serving in Umtata, South Africa. She runs a medical clinic there.
The clinic building has no electricity or running water.
She sees an average of 50 patients per day.

The community the clinic serves has over 300 families.
Their town is located at a garbage dump--literally.
Jenny and other volunteers, many from the community,
have established the clinic, a food distribution center, and a school.
None of these things existed
when Jenny McConnachie went to South Africa
with the Episcopal Church.

You and I might shake our heads and wonder,
how can she even make a dent in such an enormous problem?

But Jenny--and other mission-minded people---wake up each day
trying to think of ways
to make life better for one person.
One person at a time.

Lynn Coulthard is a member of St. Mary of the Hills in Blowing Rock.
She retired as a kindergarden teacher at Blowing Rock Elementary School.
She has an adorable little cottage style house in Blowing Rock.
What a charming, easy life she could have for the rest of her years.
But she had always wanted to be in the Peace Corps.
She applied, was accepted and went and served 2-1/2 years in Jordan.
Then she came back to Blowing Rock
and after about a year she met Bishop Dutta
from our companion diocese of Durgapur India
and she felt called again--
and went to India as a missionary from the Episcopal Church.

It’s why we have a Sunday designated as World Mission Sunday.
Perhaps God is calling you or someone you know.
And even if we cannot go to South Africa or India
or even to a disaster area here in our own country,
we can pray.
We can offer our financial support.
We can read and listen and try to understand
the deep meaning of those words,
Go Ye into all the world and preach the gospel.

Preaching with our lives, with our actions,
is far more powerful than any preaching done with words.

We too can wake up each day
trying to think of ways
to make life better for one person.
The truth is we are all mission personnel.
We are all called to participate in God’s mission.

Today is just one day hat helps us open our eyes and see
that God’s world is very, very big
and each one of us is needed.
Each one of us can make a difference--
to one person
and to the world.

Icon of the Holy Silence

One icon writing class and I am obsessed. I can't stop looking at or searching out icons. I will post more later about my experience in the class (it was wonderful--better than I could ever imagine)as I am still processing but wanted to share this morning's discovery now.

As best as I can understand, this icon is from the 18th century (Russian). It is known as The Holy Silence (or Hagia Hesychia). It portrays Christ before he became incarnate "and was made man." It stopped me in my morning Google ramble because it shows Christ as a woman. Which also makes sense since this icon is known as Holy Wisdom sometimes. And Wisdom is often referred to with feminine pronouns(or the Greek name Sophia).

But gazing at this icon today I thought about how all our boundaries and divisions barricade us into making God so small. As a woman, my heart sang to think about Christ as so fully me and me as so fully Christ--no gender boundaries, no boundaries at all.

The Holy Silence...or maybe in more colloquial terms:
Shhh! Jesus is a girl!

An interesing link...