REMEMBER YOUR BAPTISM

Happy Groundhog Day!

2012-02-02T11:28:00.001-05:00

Feburary 2nd is a very significant day in my spiritual journey. Many years ago I went for my first visit with the Bishop to tell him I felt called to the priesthood. I did not know what to expect. Would he laugh? Toss me out into the streets? My rector at the time--and now my friend--Scott Oxford-- went with me. That way if I got tossed out into the street, the Bishop would toss Scott first and I would have a soft landing spot. Sometimes "ladies first" is not a good idea.

Actually Bishop Johnson's response to sharing my call was kind and very affirming. No one got tossed anywhere. At least not literally. I was, at that point, tossed into the discernment process of the Episcopal Church which at times can make landing on pavement seem like a better choice.

Of course, you already know that I was discerned, educated, ordained and all in all it has been a good journey. All in all.

Okay, you may be wondering what this all has to do with Groundhog Day. Yes, that was the date of my first visit with the Bishop but something happened in a phone call that followed that visit.

I spoke by phone with a friend, former rector and a key person who made me fall in love with Jesus again and with the Episcopal church for the first time--Doug Bailey--and told him it had gone well. He commented, with his trademark enthusiasm,"What an absolutely awesome day to go for a visit to the Bishop!" Of course I agreed with him though I was pretty clueless as to why Groundhog Day would be such an awesome day for the visit.

Was there some secret Episcopal Code that if I saw my shadow I would not be selected to go on through the process but if I didn't see my shadow I got to go straight to seminary? I was a bit puzzled so I tactfully said to Doug, "So Doug, tell me more why you say that?" (See, I was already preparing myself for CPE years later: so tell me more...how do you really feel...). Doug quickly responded (more trademark enthusiasm), "Jeanne,this is the feast day for the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple!"

Oh. Yes. Yes. Of course. I knew that. Actually it was pretty amazing to think about my visit to the Bishop coinciding with this feast day.

And I never, never forget the date of the Presentation (or of Groundhog Day)or of that visit to the Bishop.

I couldn't find a YouTube video of the Presentation but here is a pretty great little film about Groundhog Day.

The intersection of Elvis and Capernaum...Sermon for Year B Epiphany 4

2012-01-29T18:54:00.002-05:00

What have you to do with us?

If you go to Memphis, Tennessee
and you go to visit Graceland,
(and I can’t imagine why anyone would go to Memphis
and NOT visit Graceland),
in the Visitors’ Center you will see a film clip of Elvis Presley
right after he was drafted into the Army
and had arrived in Germany
where he was stationed.

A reporter asks Elvis,
“So what do you miss, Elvis?”
And Elvis says, “Memphis.”

“What is it you miss about Memphis?”asks the reporter.

“Everything.
Absolutely everything,” replies Elvis.

 I thought about that question and Elvis’ answer
when I thought about that day in the synagogue in Capernaum.

I imagine you remember that day
as well as I do.
It seems like only yesterday.

Jesus walked in with his backpack slung over his shoulder.
He was wearing a pair of bluejeans
a faded purple polo shirt,
and his usual pair of Chaco sandals.
Who is this man a few of us pondered?
What’s he up to?

That was so early in Jesus’ ministry.
Most people didn’t know about him yet.
We had seen him and his friends around Capernaum
but we certainly didn’t know what we would know later.
No one had a clue about what was coming, who he really was.

But as soon as he started to speak,
we knew we were in the presence of someone unlike anyone
we had ever met before.

An undercurrent of whispering went around the crowd--
Who IS this man?
He speaks with such authority.

Authority.
Many of us grew up in the era where the buzz phrase was
Don’t trust anyone over 30.

Jesus was over thirty.
(Just barely, but still...)
Could we trust this stranger?

Authority is not always a comfortable word for many of us.
We hear that word and we think bossy, judgemental, pompous, threatening.

But his authority was different.
Jesus didn’t seem interested in power or politics or success or position...
the only thing he ever seemed interested in was God.
He talked a lot about God (but so did a lot of other religious people).

But Jesus always brought everything--his words, his actions--
he brought everything back to love.
Love was everything.
Absolutely everything.

Not just loving God,
but how we are to love one another.
How we are called to see the “beloved” in each one of us.

Actually, most of us
don’t really remember exactly what he said
that day in the synagogue.
It was more how he said it.

There is another reason we remember that day in the synagogue.
The interruption.
That man who came bursting in, shouting,
What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Us?
There was only one of him.
Who is this us?

He was so loud.
I saw mothers clutching their children tightly.
I saw the faces of others hardening into a grimace.
If we hadn’t been so startled by his sudden arrival,
I am sure some would have tackled him and thrown him out--
it was so out of line to interrupt worship like that.

But Jesus was so calm.
I remember how he looked directly at that man.
It was as if he saw something
that none of the rest of us could see.

There was talk about unclean spirits, demons, evil.
What Luke Skywalker might call “the dark side of the Force.”

That day it was hard to tell if the man WANTED Jesus
to destroy his demons
or if he was afraid Jesus would destroy them--
and then what would he do without them?
We can get so dependent even on the negative and destructive.

But Jesus was having none of his fear or excuses--or were they threats?
Remember how the entire crowd just went completely silent
when Jesus said, “Be silent, and come out of him!”
Be silent.
We were.
We all were.
I think we were afraid to make a peep.

Maybe we were afraid that Jesus was talking to more of us
than that one possessed man.
Maybe we are all a little possessed of demons,
of unclean spirits.

I remember how the man convulsed
and the deep primal sound that erupted from his throat--
as he was freed from all that had been strangling him--
inside and out.

Freed.
A peace came over that man that I have never seen before.
And suddenly we were silent no longer--
everyone was amazed and everyone began to talk at once,
“Who is this man? Who is this Jesus?”
This faithful Jew who came into the synagogue on the sabbath--
and spoke and taught and healed.
What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

We were all so busy talking that day
I don’t remember seeing Jesus leave the synagogue.
But when I turned around he was gone.

We remember that day.
Something happened that we can’t really explain.
It didn't make rational sense
yet we understood that something amazing had happened.

The question that stays with me, that haunts me,
is what that frantic man said when he entered the synagogue.
Sometimes the most tortured people
are the most profound and honest truth tellers.

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

We need to keep asking ourselves that question.

We cannot keep Jesus trapped as our Christian poster boy--
nice, neat, well-scrubbed.
Jesus refuses to be kept at arms-length.

Jesus is often in our face.
Jesus stands before us to stare us down
just as he did with the unclean spirits that day.
Sometimes we do not like that one bit.
We hide.
We run.
We lie.
We make excuses.

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

What I have to do with you, says Jesus,
is to love you.
What I have to do with you, says Jesus,
is to shine the love of God so brightly upon you
that you are freed you from all that binds you.

Because God so loved the world
so that Jesus could come and so love us,
that we might go and love others,

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Everything.
Absolutely everything.

Bottle Trees

2012-01-28T10:43:00.000-05:00

My husband Tom and I both love bottle trees. We have been collecting blue bottles to create our own for a long time. We probably have enough bottles now but need to either find the right tree or create a welded "tree". It's probably going to be the latter as we have selected a spot outside our kitchen window where it would be perfect but alas! No real tree there.

Tom was recently at a conference and another attendee argued that the bottles don't have to be blue. That's true--BUT it is more traditional that all the bottles are blue.

Here's a great link to a website that tells the history of the bottle tree and also affirms blue as the color that spirits prefer.There's also a great excerpt from a Eudora Welty story that mentions bottle trees Check this out

And here is another bottle tree--this one has bottles of many colors--at Camp McDowell in Alabama.

Casting the net...Sermon for Year B Epiphany 3

2012-01-22T20:01:00.000-05:00

Our first reading today is from the book of Jonah.

Remember Jonah?
Swallowed by a big fish?
We usually hear the story as Jonah being swallowed by a whale
but the scripture text never really says “whale”--
it actually just says a big fish.
Indeed, whales would certainly qualify as big fish!

But our text today from Jonah
has skipped ahead--
we pick it up at the point where Jonah
has already been in the belly of the big fish
and has already been spewed up upon the beach.
And now,
God is calling Jonah a SECOND time.
God is persistent.
God is patient.
God will keep casting the net for us.

If you haven’t done much Bible reading,
Jonah is a great place to start.
Only 4 chapters long.
A narrative story.
A story full of the human condition.

You see God wants Jonah to do something,
to follow his direction to go to the city of Nineveh
and tell the NInevites they need to stop their wicked ways
and straighten up or else...

Or else...
It is never never good when God issues that kind of warning.

And Jonah,
unlike Simon and Andrew and James and John--
that we hear about in today’s gospel reading--
Jonah does not drop everything and follow.

In fact Jonah runs away.
Jonah thinks he can hide from God.
He gives it his best effort.

He gets on a ship heading AWAY from Nineveh.
Only there is a storm and everybody
is freaking out over the enormous waves
and the ship tipping this way and that way.
 After seeing the photographs of the cruise ship
that ran aground off the coast of Italy this week,
I can truly understand more about how terrifying that would be.

The crew on the ship are terrified.
Jonah must be feeling pretty guilty because he says,
“It’s me. It’s my fault.”

“What are you talking about,”ask the men aboard the ship.

“Well, you see,” confesses Jonah,
“God asked me to do something and I didn’t do it
and somehow I think this storm is related to me not listening to God.”

Now maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t.
The scripture does not say it was, it doesn’t say it wasn’t.
The crew on the ship don’t believe him.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jonah.
You did not cause this storm.”

But Jonah keeps on moaning and groaning
and finally,
maybe because they start to believe him
or maybe because they are just tired of listening to him,
the ship’s crew does as Jonah asks them to do--
they toss him overboard into the sea.

And the storm stops.
Hmmmm....
maybe there was a connection.

Only things don’t get much better for Jonah.
This is when the big fish enters the scene
and swallows him whole.
GULP!

This is where we get the expression “in the belly of the whale.”
It is not a place where any of us want to be--
but it is a place
where most of us have been or will be
(if only briefly--we hope)
at some time in our lives.

The belly of the whale---
(sorry, that just sounds better than the belly of the big fish)
is when life is at it’s darkest.
You aren’t going to find electricity inside that belly.

The belly of the whale
is when we feel swallowed up by doom and gloom.
The belly of the whale is that point
when we wish, we WISH we had done things differently,
lived life differently, made some different choices,
even just HAD a different life than the one were were given.
The belly of the whale is when we feel it’s over, pointless, hopeless.

But....BUT...it isn’t over you see.
Not even for Jonah. Not even when you are literally in the belly.
The big fish spits Jonah out onto the beach.
From GULP to BLECH!

Not a pretty sight or sound BUT Jonah is freed.
Jonah is given another chance.
That’s what we all want--one more chance.

So God speaks to Jonah a second time--
you see God DOES give us more than one chance--
God speaks and Jonah listens and this time,
Jonah follows what God asks.

He goes to Nineveh and tells those people--THOSE PEOPLE--
to shape up!
He tells them that God is none too happy with them
and they better watch out.

And you know what?
They do.
They hear Jonah.
They believe Jonah.
And they change.
They repent.
They turn their lives around.

From the high king to the lowliest person in the city of Nineveh.
They listen, they hear, they change.
Every single one of them.
(Jonah must have been some preacher is all I can say!)

The Ninevites change
and God is pleased and God forgives them
and loves them and cancels any and all plans for destruction.

This is where we might think the ending of the book of Jonah would be
“And they all lived happily ever after.”

No.

But you know why they all didn’t live happily ever after?
Because Jonah was ticked off.

Jonah could not believe that God was going to forgive--much less LOVE--
THOSE PEOPLE.
THOSE SINNERS.
THOSE NASTY NINEVITES.

Jonah goes off to pout.
He really does.
He wanted God to let the Ninevites have it!

Jonah is angry with God.
He goes and sits down and pouts.
God, you are SO unfair!!

And what does God do?
God makes a bush grow--this bush grows SO fast that it gives Jonah shade from the hot sun almost instantaneously.
(God must have invented the original MIRACLE GRO!!)

And then God creates and sends a worm
to attack the bush and make it die.
And Jonah throws another little fit.

Oh great!
I get thrown overboard.
I get swallowed alive by a big fish.
I get puked up on the beach.
You forgive the Ninevites
and now my bush dies, too!
Just kill me now, God!

But God says,
WHOA!  Hold on there Jonah!
You’re missing the point.
You had nothing to do with the growth of that bush.
You didn’t create it.
You didn’t water it or nurture it or care for it.
You have no right to be angry that it died.

You had nothing to do with the creation of the Ninevites--
they are my people.
You have no authority over them.

I can love whom I choose to love, Jonah.
There are one hundred and twenty thousand people in Nineveh, Jonah.
And they are all--they are ALL--my beloved children.

We are ALL God's beloved children.

I think we need to remember the whole story from the book of Jonah.
We need to be mindful of how forgiving
and how loving God really is.

Sometimes some of us will hear God calling us the first time around.
The gospel reading today is an example of that.
Simon and James and John and Andrew?
All Jesus had to do was walk by
and they listened and they heard
and they dropped everything and followed.
And I say, good for them!
That’s awesome.

But here is the truth in the real world.
Often God will call us and we don’t hear a word of it.
Often God will call us and we are too busy or too distracted
or too involved in our own self-destruction to pay attention to God.
Often God will call us and we will run the other way.

But God will call us again.
And God will rescue us from the darkness of the belly of the fish
that has eaten us alive.
God will give us a second chance and a third chance and more.
Because God wants us to change.
God wants us to be transformed
and become the best we can possibly be.

God will save us from ourselves--
if we are open to being saved.
We may be miserly and angry and in a snit--
but God is full of grace and mercy and compassion and love
and God prays
that we might learn to treat others that way, too.

To God there are no THOSE people.
We are all God’s people.
Every one of us--every living person on this planet--is a child of God.

We don’t get to pick who is in and who is out.
We are not the Creator.

What we do get to do is to learn to say thank you.
We get to say thank you,God
for loving me even when I am really unloveable.
Even when I am mean as a snake.
Even when I run the other direction.
Even when I keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Thank you God for loving all of us.
Thank you for walking by again and again
and calling our names.

Thank you for being patient.
Thank you for being persistent.

Each of us has our days
when we are as faithful and attentive
as Simon or James or John or Andrew.
We are spot on and follow as quickly and easily as we draw breath.

And each of us has our days when we are Jonah--
running away, lost in darkness,
longing for a God who cares more about being right
than being compassionate.

And each of us has our days when we are Ninevites--
in trouble and making trouble--and then...
through the grace and love of God,
we change.
We truly and honestly change.
And we do better.

And God is well-pleased.
God is patient. God is persistent.
God loves us more than we can ask or imagine.
That is the good news.

But life is short.
That is the not so good news.

Our call is to not throw away our lives or waste our days,
but to make ourselves ready,
ready to follow, ready to love,
ready to claim our place as one of God’s children.
Ready to cast our nets widely--just as God does--
and welcome all to join us.
Come on in!
The water's fine.

Amen.

Where are you?

2012-01-16T22:42:00.001-05:00

In case you were thinking I might have been taken up in the Rapture, no such luck. I haven't posted sermons for the last two Sundays simply because I haven't written sermons for the past two weeks. This is quite an unusual situation for me since I usually preach every Sunday.Even though I truly enjoy the study and preparation of a sermon, as well as the preaching itself, it has been good to have a break. To listen to other voices.

Two weeks ago I was away with our vestry on a planning retreat. It's become a tradition that we share a very informal but meaningful Eucharist together on Sunday morning to close our retreat time together. It's also part of this tradition that the vestry "preach" the sermon. This year, since the Sunday was the Baptism of Christ, each person at the retreat spoke briefly about what they remembered (or did not remember) about the day of their baptism. I also shared a brief reading about baptism from the old classic O YE JIGS AND JULEPS. (I know I have had this book for a long, long time because the cost printed on the cover is 60 cents!!)

Yesterday the Rev. Canon Jeff Batkin (who facilitated our vestry retreat this year) preached at St. John's, sharing some of what we talked about on the vestry retreat, specifically about discovering and celebrating our gifts as a parish and getting away from negative language. We have actually been doing this for awhile now at St. John's--focusing on the blessings.

I'll be back in the pulpit this Sunday, but for now, count your blessings.

Pleasant words are like a honeycomb...

2012-01-10T17:18:00.005-05:00

Pleasant words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the body...
Proverbs 16: 24

Kind words are indeed sweet. But I'm not really writing about words today (regardless of the title of this post), I am writing about honey. The honey we eat.

Now you may be wondering, why on a blog titled REMEMBER YOUR BAPTISM am I writing about honey? A lot of reasons. One reason is honey is mentioned in the Bible 61 times. Moses is heading to a "land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:6-8), John the Baptizer lives off "locusts and wild honey" (Matthew 3:4)) and there are quite a few other places in the Bible (especially Proverbs) that tell us that honey is good food, good medicine and a valued possession. We don't have any info (at least I don't) that ancient people kept domestic bees but we do know that wild honey was both treasured and a treat.

I don't know that I have ever had wild honey, but since I was a child, honey has been part of my life. My great uncle Crawford was a bee keeper and he always kept us well supplied with honey--the kind with the comb in the jar (which I loved to chew--the comb, not the jar). He lived a very long life and credited his long life and good health to having a few spoonfuls of honey each day. A pretty tasty practice.

If you go to the NC State Fair (an awesome event that happens every October in Raleigh) you should definitely check out the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association booth. You can buy honey that is jarred based on the region of the state where it was collected. This is not your pale, supermarket honey (though I admit, I like even that)--this is really robust honey in a diversity of colors and tastes.

I have no scientific proof whatsoever but I have found that if I feel a cold coming on, if I mix a drink of hot water, honey and lemon, it seems to chase the cold away. I've never tried "milk and honey" (guess I haven't made it to the promised land yet) but I like feeling connected to the people (and bees) throughout time and across land boundaries.

If you live in or near Asheville you know Laurey Masterton. Maybe you don't know her personally, but you have probably eaten at Laurey's in downtown Asheville (Biltmore Avenue across from the French Broad Food Co-op) or ordered one of their awesome take-home dinners or lasagnas. Her food never disappoints (if I could just get her to stop cooking with onions--but that's another story for another day). Laurey is not only a great chef and caterer, she is also a bee-keeper. And she's having a special honey tasting on January 26. Here's the scoop:

A Taste of Honey is happening here (at Laurey's) at 6pm on Thursday, January 26th. A fundraiser for ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Projects), who do so much for local produce in our area, it is a chance to do the following:

1) Help ASAP
2) meet some local beekeepers
3) Help Laurey(by tasting the honeys that she will feature in her book and helping describe them)
4) taste some honey-inspired foods and some foods that need bees for pollination
5) be part of the kickoff to a whole year of ASAP events
6) have fun!

The event is just $35.00 which gives you all of the above. They are even serving honey-lemonade (or if you'd like wine or beer, they'll have that for sale. Call 828-252-1500 to save your spots.

So if you want to taste the honey and support a great cause, call and go and eat honey. You might want to check out Proverbs 25:16 before you go---just to keep yourself in check!

The Bible says two thumbs up for honey!
Winnie-the-Pooh says two paws up--and one head in the jar!

What's wrong with the world and what can we do about it?

2012-01-07T22:07:00.002-05:00

Our vestry is on retreat at the beautiful Valle Crucis Conference Center. We have been working with the Rev. Canon Jeff Batkin in an Appreciative Inquiry process. We finished that work this afternoon (or should I say we came to a stopping point in the beginning of this work), took a break and then gathered again tonight for supper. After supper we had some fun activities planned by Roberta Rhodes our Commissioner of Joy (there's a longer story behind this position but essentially it evolved out of a sermon where I pondered the need for a Committee of Joy in all churches). After the joy, we gathered to watch the documentary film I AM by Tom Shadyac.

Here's what the film's official blog has to say:

I AM is an utterly engaging and entertaining non-fiction film that poses two practical and provocative questions: what’s wrong with our world, and what can we do to make it better? The filmmaker behind the inquiry is Tom Shadyac, one of Hollywood’s leading comedy practitioners and the creative force behind such blockbusters as “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty.” However, in I AM, Shadyac steps in front of the camera to recount what happened to him after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. Though he ultimately recovered, he emerged with a new sense of purpose, determined to share his own awakening to his prior life of excess and greed, and to investigate how he as an individual, and we as a race, could improve the way we live and walk in the world.

This fit right in to all we have been talking about at our retreat as we have explored what gives St. John's life and how we can make a difference in the world in a positive way. I can't recommend this film highly enough. It is not only engaging and entertaining it is challenging as well. There are some fascinating intersections between science and religion highlighted. The film includes interviews with everyone from Desmond Tutu to Coleman Barks (yes, he quotes Rumi, so you know I liked it!)to Norm Chomsky to Howard Zinn.

The bottom line is how incredibly connected we are with every living being and thing (even yogurt--you'll have to watch the film to get that one!)and how we all can make a difference. In fact we are making a difference already in every action, every word, every thought--so we want to make it count for the good.

I purchased the film on DVD (it was just released on January 3). Don't know if it is available for rental or streaming yet but it's worth owning. I would have loved to have seen it on the big screen when it was playing in theaters. But I'm happy to own it because I will probably watch it multiple times, as well as share it with others.

When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes
To love more
And be happy
----Hafiz

If the Wise Men were from North Carolina...

2012-01-06T09:18:00.005-05:00

Something light today to reveal and release a little laughter into the world.

This photo was posted on my friend David Umphlett's FACEBOOK page this morning with the heading,"..and the Wise Men said, 'Hi, Y'all!'". (David is the awesome priest at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in High Point, NC).

Actually, from where I'm from in North Carolina, they probably would have arrived and said, "Well, hey there!"

If you were to set out following a star, who would you ask to be your traveling companions? What three gifts would you offer? What would you say when you arrived?

Epiphany blessings to all!

What would you do??

2012-01-05T12:56:00.004-05:00

Seriously.
What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?

What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail?

It seems like this is a very good question to ask ourselves
as a step towards exploring our heart's desire.

This is also a good question to ask
as a step towards thinking about failure
and what that means to each of us.
What does failure look like, feel like?

I have several friends who recently lost their jobs.
In some ways I know this makes them feel like they have failed--
even though the truth is they were just collateral damage
in a wave of economic nips and tucks
or inconveniently in the path of someone's personal panic or professional jealousy.
Suddenly, even though they had no choice in the matter,
they are faced with trying to decide what to do.

The initial panic often, understandably, centers around money.
How will I live?
How will I pay my bills?
I'm too young to retire.
What's going to happen to me now? What will happen to my children?
What if I get sick and no longer have health insurance?

It's not surprising that Jesus talked about money so much and so often,
because our lives often revolve around a desire for financial stability.
Even for those of us who don't lust after wealth,
few of us want to follow the steps of St. Francis
and let go of all our possessions, all our security.

It is fine to "consider the lilies of the field"
until suddenly the possibility of any spinning and toiling
have been removed as options.
Losing your job and your salary and benefits
(if you were fortunate enough to have them)
is not theoretical;
it is real and often terrifying.
So I do not make light of finding oneself
(and it could happen to any of us)
without an obvious way to make a living,
with no continuing source of income.

But the question being posed here
is not what would you attempt to do
if money were no object.
The question here is what would you attempt to do
if you knew you could not fail?

Maybe Jesus wanted us to understand that there are times
when we are not held back because of lack of money or work.
There are times when we hold ourselves back because of our fears.

My husband has often said how much he would love to be a cartoonist.
He doesn't believe he has the artistic skills to do this.
Would he try it if he knew he could not fail?

I have often lamented how much I wish I had more time for writing.
Is it fear of failure that holds me back?

If we can free ourselves from fear of failure,what might we attempt?
What is it that really binds us from following our heart's desire?

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
What might you attempt to do even if you could fail?

What does a life lived without fears look like, feel like?

Ten things we can do if we really want to change the church...

2012-01-03T16:58:00.004-05:00

Ten things we can do if we really want to change the Church

We talk a lot about transformation and change in the Church. Are these just idle words or are we really serious about change? Do we enjoy patting ourselves on the backs more than we enjoy risking real change? Here are a few suggestions that might jumpstart change in our Church.

1. Under 40. Pass a resolution in your Diocese to only elect those younger than 40 to attend General Convention (or whatever it is you call your national gathering). Who does your diocese send to General Convention? Often it's the same lay and clergy deputies year after year after year? How many are under 40 years old? We say we care about the youth and that young people are the future of the Church. Let’s give them a tangible opportunity to shape the future of the Church. I would suggest that we use the same “under 40” guideline for our Diocesan Conventions, but we all know that some of our parishes would have no one to send from their congregations. Think about that, too.
(Full disclosure: I am 62 years old and, even though the "under 40" rule of thumb certainly excludes me, I love the idea of giving young people real voice and the vote).

2. Women only. Only allow female candidates for bishop for the next 250 years or so (that’s about how long only male candidates were on the ballots—and still are). If we had a more gender-balanced voice in the House of Bishops we might really change the Church. The last time we elected a bishop here in my Diocese, there was not even a woman on the ballot. When a member of the Search Committee was asked "Why?," his response was, "We couldn't find any women who were qualified." This was only seven years ago. Wow. Not a single qualified woman. I wonder how hard they looked?
(Full disclosure: I am a woman but harbor no personal call to the episcopacy. However, there are many gifted and qualified women who do feel called. Let’s elect them.)

3. Let retirement mean reinvention. Prevent parishes from hiring retired clergy for vacancies or even to assist. This is not to diminish the gifts of retired clergy, but they have had their time, they have their pension and they have the experience to open new opportunities for themselves. I know so many young clergy who are passed over for positions because there is a retired priest whom the parish can get on the cheap. Or there is a gaggle of retired clergy willing to serve for free. By inviting retired clergy to come back into parish ministry after retirement, we remove opportunities for young and newly ordained clergy and we also remove opportunities for retired clergy to go into the world and reinvent their ministry. Ever considered mission work? Ever considered how your presence as a volunteer at a food bank could change you and others? Ever considered how wearing a Wal-Mart blue vest or working on a grounds crew at a golf course might ripple the love of Christ into a hungry world? Celebrate the long ministry you have already enjoyed. Step aside so that young clergy can find jobs and begin to create their own ministry. Tent for God in new ways.
(Full disclosure: I am not retired yet but look forward to reinventing myself in a few years.)

4. Diversity: Ask questions. Take action. Don’t attend conferences that have only male speakers (or a single token female) or only white people on their agenda. Look at most homiletics conferences. Wow! Is Barbara Brown Taylor the only woman who has found her preaching voice? Question why your Bishop’s staff looks like the men’s locker room at the Country Club (AKA older white men). Where are God’s people of color? Diversity is a commitment not a buzz word.
(Full disclosure: I am white, beyond middle-aged—probably some would say old—female.)

5. Stop bargain shopping. Live and model being a community. Do the right thing, not the "cheap" thing. Episcopal Conference Centers exist to serve our Church. So why do we shop around for the cheapest deal? Oh, our college young adults don’t have enough money to have their retreat at our Diocesan Conference Centers—hmm…so then how do they drive those shiny new SUVs? Surely we can’t expect the Executive Committee—or Bishops—to stay in some rustic cabins? Stay with Church Health Insurance instead of getting your 29 year-old rector the cheapest insurance. Are we out for ourselves or are we here to be a Christian community? Stop balancing the budget on the backs of our staff and clergy. Women associates/assistants and women staff members are usually the first to be eliminated in a budget crunch or the infamous "reorganization." When will we lose the mentality of “she doesn’t really need a job”? We say the church is not a building but people; yet we preserve our buildings at all cost and eliminate people instead. Severance pay for a few measly months doesn’t make it right, Shame on us.
(Full-disclosure: My husband is the director of an Episcopal Conference Center. Incredible clergy and church staff I know have been “laid off” with little thought of the pain this causes. Those doing the laying off always use the phrase “after much prayer…” when making such an announcement. Just so you know--no one will ever believe you again when you talk about prayer.)

6. Tithe. Yes, that means 10% of our income. We each get to decide gross or net but a 10% minimum is where we need to be. Regardless. Wonder why our churches can’t afford a full time priest or a youth minister or to build a second Habitat House each year? Imagine what we could do if everyone tithed. Yes, do give time and talent but cough up some cash too. The mandate to tithe is not to build the coffers of the church, it's to do God's work in the world and to do it abundantly.
(Full disclosure: I do tithe, but hey! I grew up in the Baptist Church; and yes, it is really hard but I can't imagine doing otherwise now.)

7. Wear the hat and heart of a visitor. If you didn’t already know where to park or where the bathrooms are or in what remote nook you hold coffee hour after the service, could you find your way? Think about how frustrated you have felt wandering the maze in a hospital or other unfamiliar building. Being physically lost is not what makes us want to return. Signage helps. Welcoming people help more. Thinks about how easy it is to find everything in a Starbucks—and to find the Starbucks itself!
(Full disclosure: I like feeling welcome in strange places. I don’t like feeling stupid. My son works for Starbucks.)

8. Welcome Babies. Can’t afford a nursery or nursery workers? Consider adding a designated space to welcome young children right in the worship space itself. They do this in churches all over Wales and England. A soft carpet, a few rocking chairs, and quiet toys (this is not the space to add a xylophone unless you need a music program as well) create a space which includes parents and children in worship.
(Full disclosure: I am the parent of two adult children and four grandchildren. I have no problem praying or praising God with the accompanying sounds of children.)

9. Pray. Every day. Prayer--it's not just for Sundays. We can get so busy “doing” that we forget to take time for stillness and quiet and to keep some empty space open for God. I would like to have put this as number 1 for what we can do to really change the church, but I was rather afraid folks wouldn't keep reading.
(Full disclosure: If I have time to brush my teeth each morning, I have time to pray.)

10. Be church. Be the people of God for the world not just a chapel where the only purpose of your existence is to get warm and cozy with one another and provide for your own. We are called to change the world. If we are really going to set free the gospel into the world, we need to step out of our own comfort zones and let go of using the church as a social club instead of a place to grow the kingdom of God.
(Full disclosure: Like you, I'm trying.Maybe we just need to try a little harder. )

Okay, so maybe you think these suggestions are a little overboard. People were locked in the Tower of London for less. But these thoughts were not written to hurt or condemn, but simply to try to look at church with a new vision. I wrote this to challenge myself. We talk a lot about transformation and change in the Church, but talk is so cheap. Perhaps the first step is to take an honest glance to see if the Emperor Church is naked and then to start looking for some clothes in our own closets.

At the name of Jesus....

2012-01-01T18:14:00.000-05:00

Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Name
January 1, 2012

Today--January 1st-- is a Feast Day in the Episcopal Church.
No, we don’t mark New Year’s Day as a Feast Day.
Today is the Feast of the Holy Name.

It wasn't too long ago in the Episcopal Church
that this was known as the Feast of the Circumcision.
I think they decided to rename the day
because they must have noticed
that when folks came into church on this day
and saw the word CIRCUMCISION at the top of the hymn boards,
some folks just turned around and went out the door!

We're a little more comfortable
with Holy Name than Circumcision!
But both are accurate.

Scripture tells us that it has been 8 days
since Jesus was born
and scripture tells us
that his family kept Jewish tradition
by circumcising and naming the baby on the eighth day.
This was the event that made a child officially one of God’s people.
Even though the angel already told Mary what to name this baby,
it is this eighth day after birth that will make it official.

This is a difficult concept for most of us.
To not name a baby for eight days.

Many of us had our names selected long before we were born.
Sometimes, even before we were conceived.

I know when our daughter was a little girl
she planned to have twelve children--all girls, of course--
and all were going to be named after flowers--
Rose, Daisy, Dahlia, Petunia....

Well, over the years, plans change.
I think our daughter eliminated having 12 children
long before she was married
and she and her husband Jeff selected the name Penelope
for our youngest granddaughter--their only child.

But they had the name picked out weeks--
maybe even months--- before Penelope was born.

But names--whether you wait or whether you are ready--
are important.

Names are important.
Around Christmas a friend told me that her youngest son
asked her if “Christ” was the last name for Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

When I shared this with a parishioner here,
she wittily responded,
“No, their last name was Davidson.”
Remember in the scripture from Christmas Eve
we were told that Joseph was descended from the House of David.
Get it?
David’s-son.

Many of our names do have significant meaning.
Sometimes it is just to carry on a family tradition.
But sometimes it is done because a name has a deep meaning.

The angel Gabriel had already instructed Mary
she is to name the child Jesus.

The name Jesus is a Greek derivative
of the Hebrew Joshua or Yeshua--
and the name means
“the Lord helps” or “the Lord saves”.
The name tells us that Jesus is the one God has sent
to love, embrace, help and save the world.

Even though he is just a wee baby,
even though he hasn’t preached or healed or done any miracles,
even though Jesus is only eight days old
God is saying,
this baby is here to change the world.
This baby is here to help you, save you, change you.

Being named is being claimed.
Our parents give us a name
but for us as Christians, when our name is spoken at our baptism,
when the sign of the cross is made on our forehead
and the priest says,
“You are marked as Christ’s own forever,”
then we have been claimed as one of God’s children--forever.

It does not matter if we are baptized as a baby or as an adult,
God loves us
and believes and sees
that we are each full of possibility and promise.
No matter what, God knows our name
and God will never forget our name.

There is power in a name.

When I was a young child and had just moved into a bedroom by myself
(my brother and I shared a room for years--
him on the top bunk, me on the bottom)
then we built an addition on to our house
and our older sister moved into the new bedroom off the new den
and I moved into my sister’s old room
and my brother--well, you know,
the youngest always gets what is left.
He stayed in what had been “our” room.

So I had a room to myself.
And that is wonderful--but also lonely.
I can remember waking up in the middle of the night.
It was dark.
I was alone.
Then I heard a sound or saw a shadow that looked threatening
and so I would call out the name of the one I knew who would come:
“Mommy!”
It started quietly and calmly
but the volume and passion would increase as needed:
“MOMMY!!!!!!!!”

And I had a blessed childhood--
because when I called MOMMY,
Mommy always came, always showed up, always comforted,
always turned on the light .

There is power in a name.

Think about all the names we hear in scripture.
Some of you who serve as lectors know
that the Bible is sometimes full--overly full--
of lists of names
(many of them challenging to pronounce!).

From the very beginning, in the book of Genesis,
Adam is given a name.
And then Adam is given--by God--the gift
of being allowed to name other things.

Knowing someone’s name gives you have a connection to that person.
We all know how much it means to us
when someone remembers our name.

Remember the old television show CHEERS--the theme song---
where everybody knows your name....
We all want a place like that.
My prayer is that church, our church, can be one of those places.

The Feast of the Holy Name
reminds us to remember the name of Jesus.
Knowing this name
we have access to someone all the time.
We can call on him--
when we are in trouble, when we are overjoyed,
when we are worried, when we are sad,
when we wake in the middle of a dark night
and there is no longer a “mommy” to come to our rescue.

We have been given the name of one we can call on.
We should not use it loosely or profanely or lightly.
We should use it often
to remind us who has claimed us,
who loves us,
who walks with us.

There is a prayer, known as the Jesus prayer--
it is a very simple prayer--
and there are numerous variations--
but here is one version--

Lord Jesus Christ
Son of the Living God
have mercy upon me.

In a book titled The Way of the Pilgrim,
a book you can still read today,
a book written in the 1850’s,
this prayer is described in this way:

The continuous interior Prayer of Jesus
is a constant uninterrupted calling upon the divine Name of Jesus
with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart;
while forming a mental picture of his constant presence,
and imploring his grace, during every occupation,
at all times, in all places, even during sleep.

I love that image of praying "even during sleep."
Imagine that.
Knowing and calling for Jesus--even during sleep.

We know the name.
We have been given the gift of knowing the name of Jesus.
As we start our journey into the new year,
this is the name we may pray without ceasing,
this is the name that will always be there to help us.

This is the name of the one who knows us
and knows our name, too.

Jesus is the one who never forgets us.
May we never forget him either.

The Very Best Gift...a sermon for Christmas Day 2011

2011-12-26T20:39:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

It is Christmas Day and we are here to celebrate the birth of a baby.
But so much more than just that.
We are here to celebrate
the coming of God into the world in human form.
It’s called incarnation.

This day, this Jesus,
is all about love.
Unconditional and transforming love.

Thank you.
Thank you for coming out to celebrate Christmas Day
here at St. John’s.
As children of God--
and we all ARE children of God--
I want to tell you a story this morning,
as we are here,
surrounded by these glorious poinsettias.

Some of you may know this story
but the wonderful thing about stories
is they only get richer in their telling and re-telling.

There was a man named Dr. Joel Poinsett.

He was the first Ambassador to Mexico.
Actually he was called the American Minister to Mexico
because he was there in 1825
and the US did not have ambassadors until the late 1800’s.
One the things he brought back to the United States from Mexico
was this beautiful, bright red, star-shaped flower--
and there were only red ones at that time.

Some people called this plant “Flame Leaf”
or “Flower of the Holy Night.”
We of course call it the poinsettia--
named obviously after Dr. Joel Poinsett.

There is a legend connected to the poinsettia.
It is about two small children.
Their names are Maria and Pablo.
Maria is the older sister and Pablo is the little brother.

There once was a little girl named Maria
who had a little brother named Pablo.
Their family was poor.
Very poor.

They lived in a rural village and their family barely had enough food to eat,
much less any money for extras.

Christmas was approaching and their village was preparing for parties
and parades and lots of festivities.
Every year a large creche--a manger scene--
was set up in the village church.

All the children in the village were so excited
to go to visit the baby Jesus
and to present him with a very wonderful present.
All the children were thinking
about what gift their family would buy this year
to present to the baby Jesus.

Maria and Pablo knew
their family had no money to buy any gift at all.
Like the other children,
they wanted to give a really really wonderful gift to the Holy Child, too.
But sadly,
they knew they had nothing to bring as a gift.

But still,
still they wanted to go up to the village church
and see the baby Jesus in the manger
of the creche at the church.

And then, Maria and Pablo came up with a great idea!
Since they had no store-bought gift,
they decided to pluck some weeds growing beside the road.
They thought the weeds could make a soft bed for the baby.
They were very happy and excited that they would have something
to offer to the baby Jesus.

They arrived first and began placing their weeds in the manger,
all around the figure of the baby Jesus.
Just then the other children began arriving.
 You know, sometimes children--well, sometimes adults--
can be unthinking and cruel.
The other children began teasing Maria and Pablo--
making fun of them and laughing at their weeds.

Maria and Pablo were so ashamed.
They were almost in tears.
And then suddenly--
suddenly,
the weeds burst into bright red petals
that looked like stars.
The flowers were so beautiful that everyone gasped,
in awe of their beauty.
The weeds had been transformed
into the bright red beautiful poinsettias.

The weeds had been transformed.

It doesn’t take a miracle
for us to realize that we are like those weeds.
We too can be transformed by love.

The gift of love is the only thing God really asks of us.
There is certainly nothing wrong with buying someone a gift,
nothing at all wrong with receiving a gift,
But the message of Christmas
is that God sent a baby because of love
and that baby came to remind us
of what love looks like with a human face
and it is love and only love
that can transform our scraggly, weedy selves
into flowers of such beauty.

Poinsettias are a wonderful reminder
that the best gift we will ever be able to offer anyone is love.

In our reading from Titus this morning we hear:
When the goodness and loving kindness of God our savior appeared,
he saved us,
not because of any works of righteousness that we had done,
but according to his mercy...

We do not have to earn God’s love.
True love is always pure gift.

May these poinsettias that surround us this Christmas Day
remind us of the love of God that surrounds us
every day of the year.

Amen.

And Merry Christmas!

Silent Night (NOT)...Sermon for Christmas Eve Midnight Mass 2011

2011-12-25T01:53:00.000-05:00

There are two things that I especially love about this midnight mass.
The first is that it really is a midnight mass.
We will pass over from Christmas Eve into Christmas Day
as we celebrate the Eucharist.
It is so wonderfully counter-cultural to have church at midnight.
People are usually NOT at church at midnight.

I love this.
Because what it really says is
the Holy Spirit comes at odd and unusual times,
not necessarily prime time or convenient time.
What it says is that God is always doing the unexpected
and urging us to do the unexpected--
like come to church and stay past midnight.

It also reminds those of us who are usually in bed by 9 PM
that there are still some things
worthy of staying up late.
I do realize-- that for some of you,
midnight is hardly late--not late at all in fact--
but hopefully you too will admit
that midnight on Christmas eve
holds a magic for all ages,
for both night owls and early birds.

The other thing I love about this midnight mass is
after we have received communion,
the church lights are dimmed into darkness
and we each hold a lighted candle
as we sing.

We sing
the well-known
and much loved Christmas carol
"Silent Night."

Silent night, holy night....

Yet the truth is
it is unlikely that the night of Jesus’ birth was silent.
Holy, yes.
Silent, no.

Babies coming into the world generally don’t tend to be quiet affairs.

Think about the sounds.
Perhaps Mary crying out during the birth.
Joseph reaching for the child, whispering words of comfort,
to both baby and Mary.

Our theology teaches us that Jesus was fully divine and fully human.
I imagine that fully human baby
came into the world
not with uplifted hands in the orans position of blessing,
but wailing at the top of his little very human lungs.

Perhaps there were others there as well.
Joseph may have sent for help--
there may have been women from that Bethlehem neighborhood
that came to assist with the birth--
or if they weren’t there for the birth,
surely they came not long after--
bringing food, chattering, cooing,---
word of a new baby spreads quickly.

Tradition tells us there were animals--
lambs bleating, donkeys braying, a cow or two mooing--
perhaps even a crowing rooster and a clucking hen or two.

There may have been noises from the town streets-
a heated argument spilling out from one of the overly-full inns,
people chopping wood for fires,
peddlers calling out in the wee morning hours.

What a world of noise it must have been
for the newly-born Jesus.
Merry Chaos, little one!
Happy not-so-silent night!

Our culture today tends to make the Christmas story
a Hallmark special of sentimentality.
There’s nothing wrong with sentimental,
but it’s highly unlikely that this first century birth
was a Charlie Brown sort of Christmas.

There were noises and smells--
some not too pleasant no doubt.
I don’t think Mary--or Joseph-- was baking sugar cookies that night.

Mary, like most mothers who have just given birth,
was probably exhausted.
And like any new parents,
both she and Joseph probably can’t take their eyes off this baby.
They already know that God will use this child
in ways they cannot really imagine.
That in itself is both wonderful and terrifying.

Jesus is entering the world in a time of strife and terror.

There was no doubt great tension throughout the city--
everyone having to report for the census.
Be counted, be registered and then be taxed.
Not showing up was not an option.

Though surely at least one or two
thought of starting an Occupy Bethlehem movement.
Risky probably to even THINK such thoughts
under that regime.

Herod was not known as a good and generous ruler.
He was known as an executioner, a slaughterer.

The world was in desperate need of good news.

The baby is born and immediately the angels go out to tell the world.
They go out into the fields to tell the shepherds.
The good news did not go first to the wealthy and the privileged.
The news came first to the poor, these rural laborers--shepherds.

Can you imagine-- there you are living outdoors,
sitting beneath the night sky
and an angel shows up and says,
“Guess what? God’s Messiah, has been born--
just up the road! Come and see!”

At first the shepherds are afraid.
Surely there must have been at least a few moments of unbelief!

The Messiah? Just up the road? Really?!!
(Whoa! Angels, get a grip!)

But regardless of what the shepherds were thinking
or muttering under their breath,
Luke’s gospel says they went.
They went to see for themselves.

How important it is to go and see for ourselves.
How easy it is to discount even good news,
to scoff it away.
But the shepherds went.

You have to wonder--
if the news had gone first to the wealthy and the privileged--
would they have gone to see for themselves?
Would we?

The shepherds went with haste.

And what do you know?!!
There was a baby--a child lying in the feed trough, the manger--
and there was the mother, Mary
and the father, Joseph.

The shepherds heard, they went, they saw, they were stunned--
they worshipped--and they went out and told others.
Today we would call that model evangelism!

What does this story mean for us today?
How do we find light in the darkness
in a world today
which also seems in desperate need for good news?

Repeatedly God calls us to pay attention to “babies in mangers.”
I don’t mean that literally.
I mean we are called to pay attention
when we see God at work in the world in unexpected,
in surprising ways.
We are called to not expect God
to fit neatly into our or the world’s little box of expectations.

We are called to pay attention when love comes down
in unexpected places at unexpected moments.

We EXPECT (though it doesn’t always happen)
that we will meet God in church.
Isn’t church where God lives?
Yes and no.
Yes, I hope God lives here.
But God is not confined to church or to one place or to one people.

If we pay attention,
we might hear God speak to us
in the voice of the cashier at CVS
when she shares about the Christmas it snowed and
they lost their electricity
and their house was full of family
and they couldn’t cook the big meal they planned
and they couldn’t even shower
but how her granddaughter who was four years old at the time
remembers that “as the best Christmas ever.”
Sometimes what seems like a disaster
eliminates some of the busy-ness that fills our holidays
and just makes us treasure the being together,
being present with one another is the gift.
Love comes down.

If we listen
we may hear the voice of angels in a prison
or at a hospice bedside or in a school classroom
or in a parking lot.

A friend with three small children
recently shared that her middle daughter told her,
“Every night when Papa comes in to tell me good night,
he always tells me he loves me
and he tells me that I am important.”
Love comes down.

If we push aside our dark tendencies to blame others
or to lament the hard knocks that life has dealt us
(and life can wield some knockout punches),
we might rediscover hope--and even joy.
Love comes down.

When we feel we are too small,
too insignificant to make a difference
we might remember that we have been given immense power.

Last year Americans spent $ 450 billion on Christmas.
Clean water for the whole world--
including every single poor person on the planet,
would cost about $ 20 billion.
We are not without power.
We are just sometimes lost in the darkness
on how to best use that power.
We need to open our eyes and see the baby in the manger.

Coming out of the darkness and noise and conflict
and seeing a newly born baby,
is not the END of the story.

Kneeling or standing in silence
with one small lighted candle
is not the END of our service.

Christmas is the BEGINNING of our story.
Every year we hear the story once again
and every year we are given another chance to begin again.
To embrace the love that comes down.

Yes, we live in a noisy world,
a chaotic world, a troubling world.

But we still hold our candle in the darkness
to remind us of the words of the prophet Isaiah:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness
on them light has shined.

Christmas is our beginning.
Love comes down and love goes out.

From here we go out into the world
to give voice and vision
to those who have been pushed aside to the harsh margins.

The work of Christmas begins,
but does not end, tonight.

Howard Thurman puts it this way in his poem “The Work of Christmas”:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers [and sisters]
To make music in the heart.

 Love comes down.
Christmas is the beginning of the story.

Silent night, holy night...
love’s pure light....

Love’s pure light.

 Merry Christmas.

Advent is like a Beatles song....

2011-12-20T21:11:00.000-05:00

Advent is like a Beatles song....
Sermon for Year B Advent 4 2011

Today we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent.
Today sets us on the home stretch towards Christmas.
Christ’s- mass.

On Advent 1
I said that Advent is like an alarm clock.
And thanks to Michael Rhodes and a very loud drum,
we all WOKE UP (at least for a few moments).

On Advent 2
I said that Advent is like chocolate.
And thanks to Hershey’s and the story of St. Nicholas
we all got a TASTE of Advent.

On Advent 3, just last week,
I said that Advent is like a joy ride.
And a number of you have told me this week
that you needed to be reminded
that God wants us to en-JOY life--
in Advent-- and beyond Advent.

So...I have to continue the tradition, right?
Today I would like to say
that Advent 4 is like a Beatles song.
That’s right.
A Beatles song...this is a pretty obvious one---
think Let it be.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom,
let it be.

You see Mary, the mother-to-be of Jesus,
certainly knew a thing or two about times of trouble.

From the moment the angel Gabriel shows up on her doorstep
the times of trouble have begun.
Pregnant before married?
Trouble!
Having to face her family, the neighbors--AND tell Joseph!?
Trouble!
Exposing herself to the disapproval--or worse---
of the society in which she lived?
She finds herself
in times of trouble-- indeed!!

And yet, and yet...
there is something different about Mary.
She does have a wisdom that seems beyond her years.
She does have a willingness to be vulnerable
that seems to come right from her heart.

Mary is not without her fears--
remember, the angel says to her almost immediately,
Do not be afraid.

Her face, her eyes, her body posture must have told the angel Gabriel
that she is terrified.
Which also leads us to believe that having an angel show up
and speak to you
was not a common every day occurrence
even in the first century.

Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

You have found favor with God.
Well, that sounds a little better doesn’t it?
What might Mary first imagine though?
Oh, maybe God is going to give Joseph and I a fine house to live in
after we are married.
Maybe God is going to bless us with flocks of sheep and herds of cattle!
Perhaps the angel has come to tell me
that God is going to bless all our days together
so that we will live to a healthy, happy old old age.

Favor with God! This is great!
Hmmm...be careful about trying to fit God into the box
of your own imagination.

And then the angel hits her with the real news.
You’re going to have a baby, Mary.
A really really special baby.

I think Mary blanks out right after she hears that she is to bear a son.
Right after she gets the instruction to name this baby Jesus.
I don’t think she even hears--at least not initially--
all those things
about how great this baby will be
and how this son of hers
is really the Son of God
and as great their ancestor King David.

I think Mary stops breathing or hearing anything
right after the angel says...
...you will conceive in your womb...

What!!!? How can that be?
I’m so young. I’m a virgin. What are you saying?!!!
(News like this might have been the beginning
of people posting NO SOLICITORS (OR ANGELS)
next to their front doors!)

But Mary does not slam the door on the angel
or push him out into the street
or run and hide under her bed.

She is shocked.
She is stunned.
But she keeps listening.
Let all those who have ears hear.

She starts to turn those words over in her head and in her heart..

...you have found favor with God
...The Lord is with you
...The Holy Spirit will come upon you
...the child to be born will be holy
...For nothing will be impossible with God.

She stops jumping to conclusions.
and listens.

NOTHING will be impossible with God.

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be...”

Let it be.

Not "let it be" as in let it go;
but "let it be" as in let it become.

Let all you have told me happen.
Let everything God has promised become possible.
Let it be.
Yes,

Advent is like a Beatles song...

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

I cannot in any way confirm
that Paul McCartney
wrote this song thinking about the Annunciation.

But I can confirm that when the night is cloudy
when our lives seem lost in darkness
God is with us
and there is a light that tries to break through--
even against what may seem impossible odds.
There will be an answer.
It may not be the answer we expect,
but there will be an answer.

Remember how we started this season?
With me telling you that the word “advent”
is from the Latin word adventus
which means “come” or “coming”?

We are coming to the end of Advent.
We are coming to Christmas.
Mary has said YES!

The light of the world is breaking through the darkness.
The Word is about to be made flesh
and come.

And our response?

Let it be.
Let it be.
Let it be.

DEEP BREATH!!!!

2011-12-19T07:47:00.007-05:00

Sermon for the Ordination to the Transitional Diaconate
for Chris Cole, Sam Tallman, Ginny Wilder and Matthew Wright
December 17, 2011
The Catherdral of All Souls, Asheville, NC

DEEP BREATH!!!

That’s what I have written at the top of my sermon----deep breath!
In gigantic, big letters.
I know that message is for me
and probably good advice for you four who are about to be ordained--
and probably for this entire gathering of God’s people this morning.

Because ordinations ARE deep breath moments.

Look at all these people!!
(I think I heard they were putting in a live feed across the street at Starbucks!)

All these people--
your families, your friends--
all these people
are here because they love you--WE love you!!
We are also here because you give us hope for the Church.

Ordinations ARE futuristic in the best sense of the word.

I look at the four of you--Chris and Sam and Ginny and Matthew--
and all I can really think is WOW!

Here you are today--at the Cathedral--and you’re all wearing COLLARS!!
It’s happening.

You listened and heard and responded to God’s holy call.
You hopped in this little car
on the Episcopal roller coaster
of discernment--

This journey has no doubt felt distinctly uphill much of the time---
yet you are here today,
soon to say in response to the Bishop and to the Church,
“I believe I am so called.”

Ordinations are like being in the front car of the roller coaster
and you have been going what feels like up up up up up
for such a long time....
and now you have crested the hill...
and you can't see anything!!!!
It feels like there is nothing out there..
...it suddenly feels like the world
has dropped away from beneath you
and you are going over the edge!

There’s only one thing to do:
“WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”
(That’s the colloquial version of your ordination vows!

This is in not the end of your wild ride.
There will be more ups and downs to come.

Even before today, you have probably let loose
a scream or two in this process.
Perhaps even an occasional shout
to stop the ride and let you off--

but...
you DIDN’T get off.
You DIDN’T stop.

Nor did God.

Your collective journeys
have led you to interesting and diverse places--
an ashram in India,
the hallowed halls of the Biltmore Estate,
pilgrimages to Turkey, to Wales,
to the Holy Land,
to our companion diocese of Durgapur,
to CPE and Camp Kanuga
and the Appalachian Trail.

You have brokered financial deals, bagged groceries,
written songs, whirled with the Sufis,
trained employees, been employees,
played with the Fighting Friars, prayed with the monks,
and more. Much more.

You have worshipped with incense and with praise music.
You have prayed in chapels and beside the ruins of chapels.
You have seen God’s face in your classmates
and in people living on the streets.
I hope you have become very, very aware of the saints in your lives
who have made sacrifices
so that you can be where you are today.

Alll this and more has led you to this day.
December 17, 2011.

On this day in history
the poet Rumi died
the Aztec calendar stone was excavated
the US Government closed their official study of UFOs--
and the first episode of the Simpsons aired.

The Simpsons is the longest running animated series ever.
The creator Matt Groening has described the characters as
“creatures of consumption and envy,
laziness and opportunity,
stubborness and redemption.

Matt Groening says, “The Simpsons are just like the rest of us.
Only exaggerated.”

Just like the rest of us.

A dispute arose among the apostles
as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest.

These are the words we heard in Luke’s gospel this morning.

We don’t have to be in the process of ordination
to get all tied up in disputes among the apostles.

It is easy to waste a lot of time worrying about who is the greatest--
trying to over-work and “out-holy” our brothers and sisters in Christ.
But the instructions Jesus gives to all of us is simple:
Don’t.
Don't.

Our work, our call is not to be regarded as “the greatest”--
our part is to serve. Our PART is to serve.
When the whole community of disciples are called together,
as told in the Acts of the Apostles,
the instructions are
to devote ourselves to prayer and to serving.

Matt Groening is right--
we ARE like the Simpsons.
We live in a world obsessed with being the greatest,
having the most, beating out the other guy or girl,
winning.

Even in the first century,
Jesus notes that there are
those who are much admired
for wielding their power
and their position and their prestige over others.

Jesus notes that yes,
most people believe
that to sit at the table and be waited on
makes you special, makes you great,
makes you important.

But Jesus is never one to do the expected.

Here in Luke’s gospel,
Jesus says, ...I am among you as one who serves.
I am AMONG you as one who serves.

That is OUR call.
Not just the call for Matthew and Ginny and Sam and Chris.
We are all called to serve.

Not for reward or recognition
or promotion to a position of power.
Not to show the world how great we are or how important we are
or how holy we are.

Our vocation is to serve and to love.

We are called to live and to be
among our beautifully diverse brothers and sisters
on this beautifully diverse planet,
to love and serve one another
because we were all formed,
we were all consecrated
in the womb of God’s love.

On this day, December 17, 2011,
Ginny and Sam and Chris and Matthew
you will be ordained.
You will continue on the journey of your call to the priesthood.

Let go of any thoughts of being the greatest
and just be truly present with God’s people, with us,
among us.

In your diaconal call to serve,
may you breathe deeply,
love broadly
and live joyfully.

AMEN.

(Thanks to Tom Whittington for the above two photographs!

Advent is like a joy ride...

2011-12-16T06:04:00.001-05:00

Advent is a like a joy ride....
Sermon for Year B Advent 3

Now on Advent 1
I said that Advent was like an alarm clock.

Last week, on Advent 2,
I said that Advent was like chocolate.
But today--Advent 3--
I am saying Advent is like a joy ride.

Not the kind of joy ride where you steal a car
and go careening out of the parking lot on two wheels,
laying rubber.
But the kind of joy ride
like the first time you ever rode your two wheeler without training wheels,
or your first motorcycle ride
or just a ride in the car with someone you love,
going no place in particular,
just riding for the joy of going for a ride.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent
and today we have three candles lighted on our Advent Wretath.
Today we lit the pink--or the rose--colored candled.

If you remember we have a rose colored candle today
because this is known as Gaudete Sunday.

Gaudete is the Latin for “rejoice.”
If we were doing the mass in Latin we would say,
Gaudete in Domino semper
Rejoice in the Lord always.

Some churches even have special vestments for this Sunday--
rose colored vestments.
These rose colored vestments are only worn twice in the liturgical year--
once on the third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday)
and once on the fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetere Sunday)
(remember our Laughter Sunday dinner on Laetere Sunday this past Lent?)

Both of these Sundays are seen as special times of refreshment,
feasting and joy.

Today we “officially” celebrate the joy of the coming birth of Christ.
Some people even call the pink candle the joy candle.

Some of you know that I have been away part of this week.
I was helping lead an Advent retreat up in Valle Crucis.
I offered several meditations about Advent.
One of those meditations was about joy.

Even though I know there are several of you who were at the retreat,
I want to share some of those same thoughts with you here today.

I think joy is so important.
We can tend to think that being religious or pious
is only about being somber and serious and holy holy holy
in a rather fierce sort of way.

I have been part of a clergy group this fall
that has meant a great deal to me.
One of the others in that group is a woman named Joyce Hollyday.
Some of you may know Joyce--
she is active in prison ministry
and especially active in the opposition of the death penalty.
She is a UCC minister
and was the associate editor of SOJOURNERS magazine,
as well as the author of several books.

Joyce shared this story with our group one morning.
A friend of hers has been a church worker
in a Salvadoran refugee camp in Honduras.
She said that one of the refugee women
asked her why she always looked so sad.

Yvonne, the relief worker, talked about the grief she felt
over all the suffering she was seeing in the refugee camp.
She told the refugee woman that she was committed to give all of herself
to the struggle of the refugees.

The woman gently confronted Yvonne, saying,
“Only people who expect to go back to North America in a year
work the way you do.
You cannot be serious about our struggle
unless you play and celebrate
and do those things that make it possible
for you to really give a lifetime to it.”

Every time the refugees were displaced and had to build a new camp,
they immediately formed three committees:
a construction committee
an education committee
and “the committee of joy” (comite de alegria).

Celebration was as basic to the life of the refugees
as digging latrines
or teaching their children to read.

We must not forget joy.

Can you imagine how our churches might change
if we had a Committee of Joy?

Yes, that’s right--
what if we had the outreach committee,
the altar guild, the stewardship committee
and the committee of joy?

Imagine how our country might change
if the most powerful committee in congress
was not the Committee on Appropriations
or the Ways and Means Committee
but the Committee of Joy.

The Committee of Joy that makes sure we celebrate, play, laugh, rejoice.

Maybe Advent is a good time
to not only install a committee of joy in our churches
or our Congress
but to install one in our own lives.

Look in the mirror tomorrow morning
and say to yourself.
"Happy Advent!
I am now appointing you a member of your very own
Committee of Joy."

Imagine waking up each morning
and sitting down at the breakfast table with your cup of coffee
or your glass of orange juice
and making your to-do list---
...pick up milk at Harris Teeter,
...call about an appointment
to get snow tires tires on the Honda,
...write the first draft of my sermon---
...and oh yes!
What would the Committee of Joy like to do today?
What rejoicing and silliness and laughter and play
and celebration of life
should be on our list today?

Maybe we need to reserve the FIRST place on our to do list each day
for the Committee of Joy.
Maybe we all ought to go out this afternoon
and buy a great big pink candle
and put it right in the center of our tables at home!

We must never forget how short life really is.
We must never forget to enjoy life,
to allow ourselves to be happy.

Our scriptures all sing out this message of joy today.

Isaiah speaks of the “oil of gladness”.
Our psalm tells us that we will “reap with songs of joy.”
Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, writes,
“Rejoice always...”
And the heart of the message in the gospel of John
is one of good news, of great joy--
John is giving testimony to the One who is coming,
the One for whom we will soon stand and sing,
“Joy to the World.”

I know it is almost a mortal sin
for an Episcopalian to sing Christmas carols
before the end of Advent,
but you know the Christmas carol,
“God rest ye merry gentlemen”?

I was shocked when I discovered the placement of the comma.
That’s right --the comma.

You see it is not God rest ye, merry gentlemen.
Instead it is God rest ye merry, gentlemen.

You could cross out the word gentlemen
and still have the true meaning of that joyful carol.
GOD REST YE MERRY.

It is a perfect prayer for a holy Advent.
Especially a holy Advent 3.
God rest ye merry.

Here’s to pink candles!
Here’s to joy rides!

"It is what it is...."

2011-12-14T07:13:00.001-05:00

My friend Diana forwarded an email message to me recently. It came from her friend (and mine) Barb. The message is written by Barb's good friend Dave Trout. I was so moved by the message that I wrote to Dave and asked him if I might share it on my blog. I told him that his words are words that so many need but cannot express as beautifully as he has done here. He graciously said yes. Dave has cancer. You'll figure that out rather immediately. He also has wisdom and abundant grace. So take a few minutes. Realize how short and precious and beautiful life is. And put Dave Trout on your prayer list. Wrap this man and his family in prayers. And thanks, Dave, for letting me share this. The quilt shown here is made from a pattern called the "Patience Nine Patch." If I could quilt, Dave, I would make this for you. Since I can't quilt, I just put it here on this blog with prayers for you.

Friends,

This cancer journey has been a learning experience for me.
For instance, I’m learning the difference between patience and waiting.
Patience is when the nurse tries to draw blood twice
out of one arm and fails,
then finally draws it out of the other arm
on the third try—
and I don’t get frustrated.

Waiting is when there is nothing at all happening
but I have to stay because I “have an appointment.”

Over an hour after the appointment time,
I finally get in.
Then I wait for the doctor
who’s “running late.”
I’m just thankful he’s not “walking late!”
Now I’m waiting for my beard to grow back.
(Maybe it will be black and curly!)

Oh yes – I’m learning.

As most of you already know
I had to wait weeks for the Plan A surgery.
Finally, the day came
and I was ready. Let’s GO!

Afterward Dr. Nichols, the surgeon,
came to me and explained
that even though the tumor had shrunk,
the cancer had spread
and he couldn’t do what he had planned to do.

He was very apologetic and compassionate.
I was patient. (Pun intended!)

I’m learning that to ignore or dislike the facts
doesn’t change the facts.
(This is where I insert that contemporary phrase, “It is what it is!”)

The nursing staff at Riverside was terrific.
They were competent and sympathetic.
But when the doctor came in at 9:00 am two days later
and asked me if I wanted to go home or stay another day,
I impatiently said, “I WANT OUTTA HERE.”

Then, we waited until 5:00 pm
for all the dismissal “red tape” to be completed.
I was reminded of the young boy
who was on a trip with his dad and kept asking him,
“How long before we get there.”
The answer was always,” A long time yet.”
Finally, the boy asked,
“Daddy, will I still be four years old when we get there?”

I’m learning
that even when it seems like nothing is happening,
progress is being made.
We met with Dr. Moore, the oncologist, this week.
Now we’re on Plan B, Phase one.
He said the next thing for me is an even stronger chemo treatment.
I will have to have an infusion port inserted next week as an outpatient at Riverside.

Beginning Dec 19 I will have periodic infusions
at Zangmeister Center, but will also have to have a portable device
that will infuse the chemo for 24 hours five days a week
for up to 18 weeks, depending on my body’s reaction.

When he reviewed all the side effects of this particular treatment
(nausea, vomiting, depression, etc)
I was about ready to ask,
“Will it kill me?” but thought that might be tacky.

I am going to need patience!
I will have to trust progress is being made.

However, if you ask me how I am,
I will tell you what I told a surprised nurse
at the hospital when she asked:
“I am a man with cancer. Apart from that, I’m doing fine.”

My body is falling apart!
I’m inflicted with a vicious, aggressive disease.
I’m facing some very difficult days and weeks ahead physically
and an uncertain future.

I’m not happy or upbeat all the time.
Some days I just want to stay in bed.
But as for me and my spirit, I am doing just fine, thank you.

Like Abraham Lincoln said,
“The best thing about the future
is that it comes only one day at a time!”

I’m learning to be thankful in a whole new context.
Thank God for Pat.
Without her I would find this journey overwhelmingly difficult to face.

And thank God for you. Your calls, cards, and emails brighten my spirit
just knowing you are continuing to pray for me and Pat
as we move ahead.
We pray for you, too.

And thank God, with all the uncertainty,
I’m still learning many things.

I’m learning (perhaps too late in my career)
to ask someone with a serious illness not “How are you?”
but rather “How is your spirit?”

I’m learning the wisdom in the words,
“Hold everything loosely, except your faith.”

I’m learning the term “wait and see”
can be filled with hope as well as fear.

I’m learning by experience that the gracious gift of God’s Spirit is available for everyone to infuse us 24/7 with His grace to both wait and be patient for His will to be done—whatever that may be.

I’m learning even when it seems like God is not working; He IS working in our lives.

I’m learning to “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.”
(Psalm 37:7 NKJV)

I’ll keep you updated, but in the meantime,
remember God loves you and me.
That’s what this Christmas thing is all about.

He asked me to remind you.

dave

One-third cup of rice....

2011-12-11T05:48:00.000-05:00

I am a fan of the work that BREAD FOR THE WORLD does in fighting hunger. I became aware of their work when my friend Sarah worked there not long after we both graduated from seminary. Through a blog link from BREAD, I recently became aware of a "challenge" issued by the Rev. Jerry Hill of Buncombe Street United Methodist Church in Greenville, SC. He issued a "rice challenge"-- asking people to live on one-third cup of rice for one day. That is the typical amount of nourishment that 1 billion hungry people in the world receive each day.

In this holiday season when so many of our shopping carts are overflowing with abundance--and much of what is in our carts is not abundantly good for us (candy, cookies, peppermint ice cream...),it is hard to fathom only having one-third cup of rice for one meal, much less one day.

I have been haunted by this ever since I read those statistics--one BILLION hungry people who live on less than one-third cup of rice each day. Sometimes we have to look in the mirror and see that WE are the 1% and even when we think we have so little, we have so much.

This morning I measured out one-third cup of rice and put it in a zip-lock bag. Just a reminder. Just a reminder.

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31:8-9)

I see the moon...

2011-12-10T07:42:00.000-05:00

Part of my morning prayers includes reading a poem. Right now I am reading the poetry of Lisel Mueller in her book ALIVE TOGETHER. The poem I read this morning is Eyes and Ears. I was very struck by these lines:

I don't think the sun bothers
with us; it is too full
of its own radiance. But the moon,
that silent all-night cruiser,
wants to connect with us noisy breathers
and lets itself into the house
to keep us awake.

I love this image of the moon letting itself into the house. And indeed, I know too well this moon that keeps us awake. In the past I have not felt like the moon is much of a friend--making sleep impossible when sleep is what I want so desperately. When the moon is supposed to be full, I draw the shades, pull the curtains tightly and dream-mutter, "Go away, you big bright moon" as I crawl into bed longing for the darkness that brings sleep. Upon reading this poem by Lisel Mueller I think I may need to work to make friends with this "all-night cruiser" and wonder where its radiance is drawing me.

This morning I went outside to see if I could see the lunar eclipse. The news reports say the moon will be "super sized and blood red." At this point, all I am seeing are clouds. I don't think the east coast is the best place to see the eclipse so I may have to just marvel at the photographs.

Holy Advent, Bidden Blessings

2011-12-08T11:58:00.002-05:00

The Advent Retreat ended today and all went on their way. It was a wonderful time together. I may post some of the meditations I wrote for the retreat a little later, but for now wanted to post some of the beaded prayer pockets that were created during the retreat. Danby Ludgate, friend and artist, guided us through the design, sewing and beading process. You pray as your create one of these and then you place a prayer inside the pocket. You can either sew the prayer pocket closed after placing the prayer inside or you can leave one side open so the prayer can be removed and read. These are created to give to someone or to use yourself for holding prayers. The diversity and beauty of what the women on this retreat created was astounding. These beaded blessings so reflect the diversity and the beauty of the women themselves.

Take a look...

Holy Advent, Bidden Blessings

2011-12-06T06:48:00.000-05:00

I am at the Valle Crucis Conference Center this week with my friend and amazing artist Danby Ludate. We are leading an Advent Retreat which began last evening as fifteen of us gathered around the fireplace in the Inn. This morning will begin with a time of centering prayer around the labyrinth. Such a lovely way to begin the morning--sitting in silence with others. Our retreat follows a week-long silent centering prayer retreat. Even our gentle chatter must be waking up the walls here after that long and lovely soaking of deep silence.

This is third year that Danby and I have offered an Advent retreat here. Some people return each year and others arrive for the first time. The gathered group is the true blessing of these retreats. The meditations, the art project, the poems, the prayers, the song...all that surrounds this time weaves us together into this holy season, but the people...ah, the people! They are the true joy.

Advent is like chocolate.....

2011-12-04T04:52:00.000-05:00

Advent is like chocolate....
Sermon for Year B Advent 2

Advent is like chocolate.
Yes, you heard correctly--like chocolate.

This was confirmed for me on a recent trip to CVS---
Look at these Hershey kisses!
Wrapped in Advent purple!
Dark chocolate Hershey kisses.
So Advent!

Christmas is probably milk chocolate--
sweet, yummy, and loved by almost everyone.
But Advent is more like dark chocolate--
exceptionally rich,
a bit spicy
and definitely a touch of mystery.

In today’s gospel we meet John.
John the Baptizer.

If ever there were a mystery man, it is John.
Dressed in camel hair.
Eating locusts and wild honey.
John is a man with a message--
and he wants to be sure
that everyone gets an ear full.

It is interesting to note how Mark’s gospel begins.
We hear these words:
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ...

Mark’s gospel does not tell us one word about the baby Jesus
or shepherds or angels or Mary or Joseph--

The gospel of Mark just jumps in
with a full grown Jesus
being announced to the world
by a full blown prophetic mystery man.

Now remember--John and Jesus are cousins.
We don’t know how close they were
but John is clear
that he sees Jesus
as way more qualified that he himself is--
I can baptize you with water, says John--
but the One who is coming,
oh my!
The One who is coming is going to baptize you with the Spirit
and trust me--
nothing in your life will ever be the same.

John is crystal clear that he is the messenger.
John is crystal clear that he is NOT the Messiah.

It is unusual for someone to want to give all the credit,
all the glory. to someone else.
Most of us want to claim at least a little piece of the fame, right?

John is crystal clear that he is only preparing the way.
John is crystal clear that is not THE way.

This second Sunday in Advent is a good time to remember
all those who have gone before us
and prepared the way.
All those who let us have the credit
when they have done a great deal of the work.

But it is also a Sunday to remember that it is really not about us.
John is such a good reminder of this.
All of this--everything in our life--is really about God.
That is the message of Advent:
Everything is holy--open your eyes--prepare the way--be ready---
look! wait! watch!
prepare! hope! expect!
O come O come Emmanuel.
Emmanuel. God with us.

Advent is a time of waiting.
A time of expecting the coming of God.

A time when we can wonder and ponder the mystery of a God
who comes into the world
as a helpless, powerless, vulnerable baby.

This is not the Messiah people were expecting--
they were expecting a king, a soldier,
a man (yes, they were definitely expecting a MAN)--
a person of power and strength and control.
A person who will immediately right all the wrongs.
And then the Messiah shows up wearing a diaper!

God is full of surprises!
That still holds true today!

Tuesday, December 6 is the Feast day for St. Nicholas.
We may think of St. Nicholas
as just another name for Santa Claus.
But I want you to know the real story of St. Nicholas--
at least the story that is part of our tradition.

St. Nicholas was a Bishop.
That’s right--one of those fellows with the pointy hats (miters)
and a staff (crozier) in his hand.
He was the Bishop of Myra
which is now in modern day Turkey.
St. Nicholas lived in the 4th century.

There are many stories about St. Nicholas--
some of them almost Stephen King gruesome--
but the one I want to tell you today is this:

Now Nicholas did not start out as saint--
he started out as a regular person just like you or me.
When Nicholas was a teenager his parents died
and his parents left him a lot of money
which made him a very rich young man.
Nicholas went to live with his uncle who was a priest.

Now sometimes people who are hungry or worried or hurting
come to visit their priest.
One day Nicholas overheard a man talking to his uncle
about how difficult things were for him and his family.

The man had lost all his money.
The only treasure he had was his three daughters.
His daughters were old enough to get married
but in those days, in order for a young woman to get married,
they had to have some money or property to offer--
called a “dowry” to help the new family get started.

This poor man did not have any dowry money
so this meant his daughters would never be able to marry.
The man was very sad about this
and he felt that he had failed his family.

But it was more than just not having a dowry.
This family was so poor and so desperate that they had nothing to eat.
The truth is they were almost starving.
The man was faced with the only choice he felt he had:
to sell his daughters as slaves.

He could not feed them,
he could not imagine a future for them,
so he felt he had to do something to make sure they would at least live.
There were so many people overwhelmed by poverty
that the priest nor the church had the resources to help.

The night before the oldest daughter was to be sold as a slave,
she washed her stockings
(people wore cloth stockings in those days--
more what we would call knee-high socks)--
she washed her stockings
and hung them by the fireplace to dry overnight.

Then they all went to sleep--
the father and the three daughters.
 When they woke up the next morning,
the oldest daughter noticed a lump in one of her stockings.
She reached in and found a small, heavy bag.
When she opened the bag,
it had gold inside!
That’s right--gold coins!!!

Enough to buy food for their family,
enough so that she would not have to be sold as a slave--
even enough for her dowry!

The family was so happy!

The next morning another bag of gold was found.
Two of the daughters could now be saved.
It was all so wonderful
yet all so mysterious.

Now the next night,
the father decided he was going to stay awake.
He dozed off but when he heard a small “clink”--
the sound of the gold coins in the little bag
as they were being dropped into the stocking--
he jolted awake!
And what did he see?

He saw a young man running out of the room
and the father jumped up and chased after him,
reached out and grabbed his coat.
It was Nicholas!
The young man who lived with his uncle the priest.

“Nicholas!” said the father. “It’s you!
Thank you!
Thank you so much for helping us!.”

But Nicholas said,
“Please do not thank me.
Thank God that your prayers have been answered.
And please--do not tell others about me,
because I deserve no credit for this.
It is only through the grace of God
that I can give to others.”

The father told no one
and Nicholas continued helping people.
He wanted no attention or thanks.
He knew he had much
and he did not want others to go hungry. Or worse.

It was later that Nicholas was made a Bishop--
because a Bishop’s role is that of a shepherd--
one who looks after his people.
God’s people.

So it is because of Nicholas that we hang stockings by the fireplace
and awake in the morning to find little gifts.
When I was a child,
my brother and sister and I
always got a little mesh bag filled with gold wrapped
chocolate coins.
But it was not until I was an adult that I discovered
the history of this tradition.

You see Nicholas was like John the Baptizer in many ways.
He knew that he was not the source of abundance or blessing.
Both John and Nicholas knew
that there was someone
far greater than they could ever hope or imagine to be.

They wanted to share the good news with others.
They wanted to prepare the way for others to come to know God.

We are all potential John the Baptizers,
potential Saint Nicholases.
Every day we are sent out into the world
with an opportunity to share our abundance.
Sharing our wealth--
both our financial wealth and our spiritual wealth--
prepares the way
for others to receive and to know
the unconditional love of God.

The more unloveable or cynical or hard-hearted someone appears
the more they need this good news.

Every day we are sent as messengers, as angels,
to cry out in the wilderness--
but to also listen and look and pay attention
to those who are lost in the wilderness.
We are called to point the way to hope
and to the One who brings hope.

When you leave this worship service,
I will be at the door with my basket.
Adults get the dark chocolate.
Children get a gold coin milk chocolate.

But please do not thank me.
Take the piece of chocolate and say,
“Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God.”
Then go out into the world and share the good news.
The mysterious, delicious good news.

Advent is like an alarm clock...

2011-11-26T12:50:00.005-05:00

ADVENT IS LIKE AN ALARM CLOCK...
Sermon for Yr B Advent 1

Advent is like an alarm clock.
Advent is the liturgical season that will cry out to us week after week,
WAKE UP!
WAKE UP!
KEEP AWAKE!

We don’t really have to make a point to set this alarm clock,
it just happens.
Every year.

We do have to make a point to pay attention when the alarm clock rings,
when we hear those words to WAKE UP or to KEEP AWAKE,
to pay attention to the message of the Advent season.

Advent does not say
Shop
Party
Plan
Buy
Rush
Stress
Freak out

Advent says
Slow down
Pay attention
Be mindful
Wait
Hope
Expect with joy.

First the facts.
There are four Sundays in Advent.
To determine when Advent will start,
you find Christmas Day and then count back 4 Sundays
and there you have it--Advent 1.

The word “advent”
comes from the Latin “adventus”
which translates “coming”--
Advent is a time of waiting
and expectation for what is coming.

The baby Jesus is coming into the world.
This is the most obvious--Christmas will soon be here!

But Advent also sounds the alarm
that we are also waiting for Jesus
to come back agian.
Every week we say some form of this
in our Eucharistic Prayer--
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.

None of us really know what that coming again looks like
but we know it is one of the cornerstones of our faith--
it is something Jesus promised would happen.

To some it means that Jesus will literally come back
and walk upon this earth with us again.
In person. In human form.
To others it means that Jesus will come back
but we don’t really know
what that coming back will look like.
And to still others,
it means that every time we love one another, do good to those we love and to those who persecute us,
that Jesus comes in those acts, in that love.

Whatever we might believe about Jesus coming again,
the truth is
God comes into our lives every day in so many, many ways.
Advent is the alarm that sounds
and calls us to pay attention, to notice God at work in our lives and in the world.

Our altar hangings and vestments have changed to this rich purple color.
We use the same color for Lent
but do not mistake Advent for Lent.
Advent is NOT penitential.
Advent is a time of expectation and hope.

If you feel like you could use a good dose of hope in your life right now,
I say a welcome to Advent, the season of hope.

We have special candles for Advent.
We see them here in the Advent wreath.
(We’ll hear more about the Advent wreath at the Episcopal Moment).
We light one candle each Sunday of Advent.

One candle each week.
Because Advent is a time of waiting
of moving slowly,
of sitting with expectation and hope.
A time of looking forward with joy to all that can and will be.

The world around us
encourages us to put the pedal to the metal
and race into full Christmas frenzy--
shopping, planning, partying, stressing.
Advent sounds the alarm and sayds: Don’t do it.
Just don’t.
Just say NO says Advent.

Take it one candle at a time.

Imagine that every day for the four weeks of advent
an alarm clock would go off every hour--
we’ll make it every waking hour--
not a 24/7 sort of torture routine.

And when the alarm clock rang or chimed or beeped or whined..
we would take a moment and remind ourselves--
Keep awake.
We would remind ourselves to treat this hour, this day
as if it were our very first day on earth.
Treat it with the kind of wonder that a little child sees
in even the smallest things.

And when the alarm clock rang or chimed or beeped or whined..
we would take a moment and remind ourselves--
Keep awake.
We would remind ourselves to treat this hour, this day
as if it were our very last day on earth.
Live this hour, this day
as if there will be no more after this.

Advent is like the alarm clock
that wakes us up to what really matters.

I was in Ingles a few days after Halloween and I turned down the aisle
that for weeks had been overflowing with orange and black
and bags and bags of halloween candies.
I expected to see boxes of stove top stuffing and turkey roasting pans
but instead,
everything was already full blown Christmas--
candy canes and red and green.

But you see,
Advent is not red and green.
Advent is purple and pink.
Advent is waiting and hoping and expecting all that is to come.

Advent? says the mall.
You think it’s hard to selll Thanksgiving--
try selling Advent!

But Advent is the alarm that wants to wake us
to what the coming of Jesus means.

It is not about what you can buy and wrap and put under the tree.
There is nothing wrong with giving gifts or receiving gifts.
We all have fun with that.

But there is something wrong when we start to believe
that the only thing that matters are our material possessions.
There is something wrong when we start to obsess about “stuff”
instead of other human beings.

Advent reminds us that life is short and precious
and beautiful in so many, many ways.
Advent reminds us that if we slow down and look,
we just might see the face of Jesus
in some very unlikely and amazing places.

Advent is like an alarm clock.
There is no snooze alarm.
The time is now.
Wake up.
Keep alert.
Rejoice.
Give thanks.

The little sermon that wasn't...

2011-11-19T20:35:00.018-05:00

Every so often I don't have to write a sermon. Now for some clergy at large churches, this is more the norm than the exception--when you have multiple clergy on staff, you usually take turns in the pulpit. But when you are the only clergy person in a parish, more likely than not you are writing a sermon every week. I don't really mind this. I love to write. I love to write sermons.

But every so often it is nice to have a break. Tomorrow will be one of those days--only this Sunday is much much better than just a "break." Donna Marie Todd will be at St. John's tomorrow and she will offer a story sermon. Donna Marie is a phenomenal storyteller that I met several years ago at the summer conference of the National Association of Biblical Storytellers.

This is the third year Donna Marie has come to St. John's. It's become a tradition really. Her warm, personable style of storytelling and her beautiful voice always remind us that we stand on holy ground--not just at or in the church, but in the world. An added delight is that Donna Marie brings a different musician with her each year. This year Will Straughan who plays steel slide guitar (dobro) will join Donna Marie. Will is part of the group Red June.

So I won't be posting a sermon for Christ the King Sunday but here's the contact info for Donna Marie Todd and also a link to a YouTube video of Will playing with Red June. We'll have a lot to be thankful for tomorrow at St. John's. Sometimes it's good for the usual preacher to take a seat and listen.

Here's her website: www.donnamarietodd.net

Will playing with Red June at the Grey Eagle in Asheville.

Waddle or fly?....Sermon for Year A Proper 28

2011-11-13T22:01:00.002-05:00

Matthew 25:14-30

Jesus said, "For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, `Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.' His master said to him, `Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, `Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.' His master said to him, `Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, `Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master replied, `You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' "

Waddle or Fly?

Here we are.
Merrily reading or listening to this parable
..for the kingdom of heaven is as if...
and we’re thinking,
okay, another parable, another teaching story.
We get this.
Now we do feel a little uncomfortable with the talk about slaves,
but it’s not too bad we think,
because after all this sounds like a pretty good master,
trusting this slaves,
giving out little bags of his gold to them.
Hey! he’s not such a bad fellow is he?
Then off the master goes on his journey
and the slaves--at least the good and faithful ones--get to work.
Investing. Wheeling and dealing. Trading.
Multiplying the wealth.

And then the master returns
and he’s pleased as punch with the slaves
to whom he gave the five talents and the two talents.
They have invested well.
His trust in them was well-placed.

But then there’s that other slave--the one who got one talent. He did not double his one into two.
He dug a hole and buried his talent--
and he had a few things to say to the master upon his return--
“I knew you were a hateful, mean and self-centered fellow
so I figured I was in trouble no matter what---
so I just didn’t do anything.
Here’s your lousy one talent back at you.”

The master is none too happy.
But we’re not prepared for the explosion that follows.
The next thing we know
the slave who was the poor money manager
is being tossed into the outer darkness
and then...
then we get the statement--
and it’s credited to Jesus, friends---
then we get the statement:

For all those who have,
more will be given
and they will have an abundance;
but from those who have nothing,
even what they have will be taken away.

WHAT?!!!
To our ears
that sounds a lot like the rich will get richer
and the poor will get poorer.
Maybe that’s good news for the folks who are already rolling in money,
but what about the rest of us.

So how do we react to a gospel like this?
We can drop kick this gospel out into the back forty and ignore it, skip it.

Or we can say, “Well, I don’t believe Jesus really said that!”
Or we can go deeper, look more broadly, try to understand it,
both in parts and as a whole.

First let’s look at the parts.
First let’s talk about the money.

True, some people don’t think this parable is about the money at all.
They believe what the slaves are given are spiritual gifts.
But let’s look at it first on the straightforward level of cold, hard cash.

A talent was an extraordinary amount of money.
One commentary I read said one talent
would have been the equivalent of 15 years annual salary at the time!
So five talents would be like winning the lottery--
75 years worth of your annual salary!
Wow! Imagine!

This one slave who receives the five talents doubles his investment--
he has just super-sized what the master entrusted to him.

The second slave doubles his as well.
Not as much money as the first slave,
but still an amazing return on an investment.

Even the slave that got only one talent---
that’s still 15 years of the average annual wages!
Not bad, eh?
Most of us would welcome that!
Imagine if he had done something with that talent
instead of burying it in a hole.

So the bottom line in regards to the money is
that all the slaves received good and abundant gifts.

We do need to remember--
these really weren’t gifts--
they were loans.
It all belonged to the master.
The talents they were all given
were loans--investment capital.
Generous investment capital from a generous and trusting master.

Second, let’s talk about the words.Specifically, two of the words.
The word slave and the word master.
These are “loaded” words for us in this time and this culture.

The word slave makes us squirmingly uncomfortable.
So substitute the word disciple instead.

And substitute the word GOD or Jesus--you can pick-- for master.

So we have a story about God giving generously to three disciples.
The disciples do not receive equally--
but they all receive generously.

Let’s be upfront--we’re all a bit like the third disciple--
bothered when we don’t receive equally.
So why did he get more than I got?
What’s so special about her?
Some people get all the breaks!

And finally let’s look at the image of the master, of God, in this parable.
How do the slaves, the disciples, see their master?
How do they see the God?

This is probably the heart of this parable--
because how we see and envision God says a lot
about how we live our daily lives
and a lot about our current relationship with God.

The three slaves--the three disciples--
seem to have a very different image of God.

We don’t really know--at least not verbatim--
what the first two disciples think about God.

But we do know that they feel blessed with what they have been given
and they go and try to expand and multiply and do God’s will.
They take what they are given
and they get to work.
They want to please God, to do right by God,
to live in to the trust they see that God has placed in them
with such generosity.

The third disciple is quite clear that he doesn’t feel blessed
and he doesn’t think highly of the master, of God.
He sees God as harsh.

More of the finger wagging, tongue lashing, you better watch out
sort of God.
He does not see God as a generous giver--
but more as an unfair task-maker who makes life miserable.
The third disciple sees himself as the one who does all the work.
He sees God as an unfair, harsh judge.
There doesn’t seem to be an ounce of love for God--
and certainly no trust--from the third disciple.

Perhaps this parable is not about money
and not about spiritual gifts either.
Perhaps this story
is about what we do with all that has been given us,
most especially with the gospel.
Jesus is telling this parable because he wants the disciples
to not be dependent upon his presence---
but to be committed to sharing the good news, the gospel.

Some of us have been at our annual Diocesan Convention
for the past 3 days.
The keynote speaker this year, the Rev. Dr. David Gortner,
focused on evangelism.

Evangelism means asking ourselves the question
“What are we doing with the gospel?”
What are we doing with what we hear and learn from Jesus?
What are we doing with what God has entrusted to us?

Do we go out and spread the good news
like the treasure it really is?
Or do we just tuck it into our pocket,
and keep it where it won’t offend, won’t challenge,
won’t excite, won’t upset.
A tidy little gospel.

Are we like the third disciple who keeps his treasure in the dark?
Hidden away? Buried?
Good news is not worth much
if it is not shared.

We heard a story during one of the meditations at Convention
about a church that was made up of geese.
That’s right---geese.
And every Sunday the geese waddled into church
and the pews were filled with fluffy, feathery, honking geese.

The the preacher--also a goose--
every week stood up in the pulpit and said,
“You are an amazing congregation!
Because of the generosity of God’s love,
we can do anything. Absolutely anything!
In fact, we can fly!!
Yes! It’s true!! Seriously, my friends,
God created us so that we can fly.
Thanks be to God--we can fly!!!!”

And the geese in the pews would get all excited
and start honking and flapping and shouting out,
“We can fly! We can fly!”

And then the service was over, the final hymn sung, the dismissal given
and the geese all waddled out the door
and walked--waddled-- all the way back home.

They forgot all about flying.
They waddled home, waddled through the week, and next Sunday,
they waddled back in the door and into the pews..
for more good news which they promptly forgot,
which they buried, week after week...
and so it went...on and on and on.

Do we really believe that all things are possible with God?
If we believe we can fly, then why are we still waddling?

The first two disciples believed in a God
that had blessed them with good
and they went out and did more good with what they had been given.

The third disciple saw God as harsh, life as difficult and unfair.
That third disciple did nothing--
except perhaps complain and blame.

We have to ask ourselves
how can God build a relationship with someone committed to misery,
to resigned to waddling through life?
If we see God and life, as the enemy,
they will stay the enemy.

If we reject the true riches of life,
the inexhaustible abundance of God’s love, the real treasure--
then we have cast ourselves
into the outer darkness.
into a life of exhausting and self-pitying waddling.

There is good news.
But we must receive it and we must live it
and we must give it away to others.

Jesus calls us to fall in love
with a good and generous God--
to receive with open arms what God offers
and to invest deeply in God’s love--
so that we too might become rich--
wealthy in love and mercy,
generosity and compassion,
justice and kindness.
God creates us to fly.

So maybe this parable we hear in Matthew’s gospel today
is a mathematics parable.
Divide that group of three disciples into thirds.
The bad news is
the world is filled with 1/3 complainers and hoarders.
The good news is
we can choose to be part of the other 2/3--
those disciples who see what they have been given
as pure blessing.
Those disciples who are already heavily investing
in flying lessons.

Fly or waddle?
Once again,
Jesus is teaching us about choices.

Diocesan Convention....it's coming!

2011-11-07T10:45:00.001-05:00

On Thursday I and two delegates and two alternates from our parish will head to Kanuga Conference Center for our Diocesan Convention. Now Kanuga is probably the best location for any diocesan convention in the USA. I realize that most dioceses must meet in hotels or the large-large-largest church in a diocese. So I am very grateful that we get to go to Kanuga for ours. It's a beautiful place (plus there is that fabulous Kanuga toast--which I love. I really do.)

And I know that I said in my ordination vows that I would participate in the councils of the church..and I have and I do.

BUT (you knew there was bound to be a BUT didn't you?!?)...I just wish we could do the business of the church faster, quicker, more efficiently. Could we not have Diocesan Convention every other year instead of every year? I wish there was more Jesus and fewer resolutions about who's not paying their fair share and how do we craft a resolution to twist their collective little arms behind their backs and say "Pay up!" Full disclosure: our parish does not meet the 10% minimum. We are working towards it...inch by inch, dollar by dollar...and we have come a long way but we are not there yet. We know it. I know it. The vestry knows it. I think maybe the congregation knows it. So I guess I feel like maybe we don't need a buffet of resolutions about giving to the diocese. I like what a friend and colleague of mine said yesterday in our pre-Convention gathering of the Asheville deanery:"Ten percent is the biblical tithe. We know this. We don't need an assessment or an appeals board or any more layers of bureaucracy. We need to tithe. Period."

David Gortner is our speaker this year--he'll speak about evangelism. Seminarian friends at VTS (where he is on the faculty) say he's a good teacher and a good man. I look forward to what he has to share. Maybe I'll even share some of his thoughts on this blog.

And it is always wonderful to see folks that I don't get to see very often, though now that I live in Asheville--the center of the Diocesan universe--I see people much more often than I did when I lived in the high mountains of Valle Crucis (though no place on earth compares to Valle Crucis).

There's worship,too. I always love worship. I don't have a burning desire (or the requisite gifts that prevent one from losing their mind) to go to General Convention as a delegate but I'd love to go just to worship with thousands of other Episcopalians. Did I mention I love worship?

I guess I just wonder if maybe we would grow the kingdom of heaven here on earth a little stronger and more beautiful if we took the three days we go away for convention and actually did a work project together. Or did a walk about in different parts of the diocese--those places we aren't familiar with--to see the good works being done.

Okay, so I am a little lukewarm about Diocesan Convention this year. I will most likely change my mind once I park my car at Kanuga, lasso my neck with a name tag and see the first smiling face of someone I love (and there are many here in this diocese). So, a few more days to get things done in the parish and at home before hi ho hi ho it's off to Convention we go.

For All the Saints

2011-11-07T09:47:00.009-05:00

Sermon for Year A
All Saints Day

Did you know you can go to iTunes
and for just $ 1.99 you can purchase a PATRON SAINTS APP?

Now this is “app” as in “application”--for your iPhone or iPad--
not “app” as in Appalachian State University
which is often the first thing that comes to the minds
of those of us who live in this part of Western North Carolina.

Technology apps make something easily accessible,
helpful in every day situations.
The Patron Saints app can help you find the saint you need.

Do you want to sell your house?
You need to pray to St. Joseph
and then bury St. Joseph (only a statue)--head first--in your front yard.
Always losing your keys?
Prayers to St. Zita might help.
St. Isidore of Seville became the patron saint of the internet--in 1999.
If you’re worried about whales (as in the animal, not the country),
prayers to St. Brendan might help.

I found out there is no patron saint of drummers
but there are quite a few patron saints for musicians--
Benedict, Cecilia, Dunstan, Genesius, Gregory the Great, even
St. Paul--I take it musicians must need a lot of saintly help!

Of course we have our own saint--most Episcopal churches do--
ours is St. John.
Not St. John the Baptist
but St. John the Apostle and Evangelist.

Now our St. John is considered the patron saint of...to name just a few...
Patron saint against poisoning
(and to my knowledge no one here has ever been poisoned here at St. John's--
so St. John must be doing his work, right?)

Also John is patron saint for art dealers, authors, writers, bookbinders, booksellers, engravers, friendships, lithographers, painters, printers, publishers, papermakers, theologians and ...well, you get the idea.

St. John the Apostle and Evangelist keeps busy!

We can certainly look at saints as extraordinary people.
Unsurpassed examples of holiness and faithfulness.

But the New Testament calls us to see saints
as all those who believe in Jesus Christ and strive to follow.

Believers past and present and future.
We remember them all today
as we celebrate All Saints Day.

The altar hangings, the vestments have all been changed to white--
that tells us that today is a feast day,
even more of a great celebration than the great celebration
we celebrate with Holy Eucharist every week.

I read a wonderful story this week by Richelle Thompson
about a woman named Faye.
Faye was known for laundering money.

Literally.

At her small, rural church
Faye’s job was to collect the offering.
After the service, Faye took the collection home to her house
(Now this is a BIG BIG no! no! in our modern day audit-conscious churches!)
but it’s what Faye did--
and she hid the collection--cash and checks--
in her laundry hamper
until she could make the drive into town to deposit the collection
in the church’s account at the bank.

On occasion Faye would accidentally wash the collection
with the rest of her laundry.
The ink would run off the checks.
But Faye would just call and ask how much someone had given
and then she would fill that amount back onto the check.
Small town. Small church. Small bank.
But big, big love and trust.

Even when Faye was in her 90‘s,
she kept up with the collection
and she never failed to help with the dishes after a potluck dinner
and she knew the name of not just the adults,
but every single child in her church.

Faye did not martyr herself to lions
or reform the worldwide Anglican Communion.

She simply showed up
to love and to serve.
Faithfully.

A saint is a person of exceptional holiness.
That holiness may be recognized by the entire world,
by the church,
or just by us.

A saint is a person who has made a difference in our faith journey.

Today in celebrating All Saints
we celebrate that great cloud of witnesses--
those who have gone before us,
those who still surround us,
and it is just fine,
to even celebrate
even our own little witness amongst the crowd.

A reporter was assigned to do a story on Mother Teresa.
For several weeks he followed her,
shadowing her from morning until night--
sometimes into the night--
as she went about her work.

At the end of his time with Mother Teresa,
as he was preparing to leave,
the reporter thanked her and said to her, quite honestly,
“I wouldn’t do what you do for a million dollars.”

To which she quickly replied, “Me neither!”

The saints of God are not motivated my money.
The saints of God are motivated my overwhelming, unconditional love.

Love for God. Love for one another.

Take time today to give a shout out to the saints in your life.

For those saints we love but see no longer,
say a prayer of thanksgiving.
Remember them always in your prayers.

Oh, how our lives have been blessed by the saints of God!

And if any of your saints are still alive,
make time today
to actually say thank you.
Tell them what their witness of faith has meant to you.
How it has changed your life.

Call them on the phone.
Send them an email or a Facebook message.
Write them a letter.
Go knock on their door this afternoon and tell them.

Give a shout out to the saints.
To the saints throughout history
but especially to the saints
that have surrounded and blessed your own life.

Today we also need to celebrate the saints that planted this parish,
the saints who have nurtured it for over 100 years,
the saints that still plant and prune
and tend this little plot of holy ground.
The saints that made a place and a space for us to grow as witnesses
to God’s love.

For all the saints,
may we give thanks.

AMEN.

Lily Pad or Launch Pad?...Sermon for Year A Proper 26

2011-11-07T09:39:00.003-05:00

I want you to keep two images in your mind.
The first is a lily pad.
That’s right--a lily pad--floating peacefully on the water.
Crystal clear water with this beautiful lily pad.

The second image is the image of a launch pad.
That’s right the kind of launch pad that shoots a rocket into the air.

Lily pad. Launch pad.
Hold on to those images.
We’ll get back to them in a moment.

Now some of you may remember the hit song by
country singer Mac Davis that starts...

..O Lord, it’s hard to be humble
when you’re perfect in every way.
I can’t wait to look in the mirror,
‘Cause I get better lookin’ each day....

Now you may not care for country music
but Mac Davis captures the essence
of what Jesus is telling his disciples
about the scribes and the Pharisees.

These people are in love with themselves.
They do all their deeds to be seen by others.
Even their prayers and their worship are for show.

They like to have the seat of honor and be greeted with respect.
But they don’t lift a finger to help.
They let everybody else do the hard work
but they like to do the hard bragging
about all they do.

Jesus reminds us that God knows the humble.
Jesus sees clearly  and tells us very very clearly:
The ones
who like to show off to others,
they really don’t have that much to show.
The greatest among you will be your servant.

The greatest among you will be your servant.

This is our call--to be servants.
Servants to one another.
Servants to creation.
Servants to our church and our communities.
Servants to God.

jesus does not disagree with what the Pharisees are teaching.
Not at all
in fact, Jesus says, do whatever they teach you and follow it.

But then he adds
...but do not do as they do for they do not practice what they teach.

Jesus is proclaiming to his disciples
about how to be a community of faith,
how to be the church in the world.

You know the church is not a building.
The church is the people of God.
We are a little community of God’s people
named St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Now back to those two images you have been holding
in your mind:
Are we a lily pad or a launch pad community?

Is Church a beautiful place to come
and just sit and rest and soak in the colored light
from the stained glass window?
Or is church a place to be inspired,
to be launched into the world as a servant?

Lily pad or launch pad?

Paul says to the Thessalonians,
lead a life worthy of God.
A better translation of that word we hear as “lead” might be “walk”--
walk a life worthy of God.

n other words,
“Walk the walk that the gospel teaches you.”
Walk and behave and do in the world
the good news you have heard from Jesus Christ.

Walk the walk.

Jesus is not critical of what the Pharisees are teaching.
He is critical of the fact that they are not walking the walk.
He is critical of the fact that they are walking AWAY from what they are teaching.

Lily pad or launch pad?
Are we called as Christians to sit and be eye-candy--
or are we called to go out into the world and serve?

Serving does not wear one face.
You can serve with a Habitat hammer in your hand
and you can serve with a loaf of bread
delivered to someone who is suffering.
You can serve by offering your time to someone in prison
and you can serve by offering your time and transport
to someone who needs a ride to church.

Gandhi said:
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

I think Gandhi was talking about lily pad Christians--
not the launch pad Christians Jesus calls us to be.

For most of his life Albert Einstein had portraits of two scientists,
Newton and Maxwell, hanging on the wall of his office to inspire him.
But as he grew older he took down those portraits and hung two others:
Albert Schweitzer and Mahatma Gandhi.
EInstein said he needed new role models--
people who were not models of success,
but people who were models of humble service.

O Lord it’s hard to be humble...
And not because we are perfect.
(Sorry, Mac Davis!)

It is hard to be humble because the world around us
tells us in so many ways
that what we need is a beautiful new lily pad.
The world around us tells us that what we need is to be the best,
to beat out the competition, to win,
to get the best seats, the fastest car, the biggest paycheck,
to impress people.

I don’t think the Pharisees started out
turning their back on the launch pad.
I think they started off really trying to walk the walk.
But they got distracted by all the bells and whistles
and false truths of the lily pad.
And they wandered so far away
and felt they had so much to lose
that they just could not walk their talk.

Oh, they kept preaching and teaching and pretending to be holy.
But they probably feared and hated Jesus
because he revealed to them
the harsh truth about whom they had become.

Lily pad or launch pad?
Two thousand years later
we are still faced with choosing.

Who will we be as Christians?
Who will we be as the Church?

There is a story that many of you may have heard.
It is credited as a story told by a Cherokee Indian chief.

The old chief told his young grandson about a terrible battle
that was raging.
His grandson asked,
“Where is this battle?”

His grandfather replied,
“This battle is inside you. Inside me. Inside everyone.
This battle is between two wolves.
One wolf is Evil.
It is anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment,
lies, apathy.
The other wolf is Good.
It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy,
generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

“But Grandfather,” said the young boy, “which wolf wins?”
The grandfather looked at his grandson and replied,
“Which wolf wins?
Whichever wolf you feed.”

We are called to walk a life worthy of God--
to feed the good wolf,
to leave the lily pad
and launch ourselves into the world
proclaiming the love of God
loving and serving one another.

Taxes to pay? What do you say?....Sermon for Year A Proper 24

2011-11-07T09:25:00.003-05:00

Ben Miller and Michael Watts,
both professors in Economics at Purdue University,
wrote a paper back in 2009 titled,
“Oh, the Economics You’ll Find in Dr. Seuss.”

As the paper’s title indicates,
it’s about a variety of economic concepts
that one can find in the books
by children’s author Dr. Seuss.

I thought about Dr. Seuss and this paper on economics
as I read Matthew’s gospel this week.
There is much about economics in the gospels.

In today’s gospel
those trickster Pharisees
are out to try to entrap Jesus once again.

They send out their eager young disciples--
this time with some Herodians--
government officials.

I thought if Dr. Seuss had written this gospel scripture
it might start something like this:

Oh, Rabbi!
Could we ask you a question?

Taxes to pay?
What do you say?
Big emperor, little emperor?
Big God, little God?
Tell us, Jesus, what you think.
Help us throw you in the clink.

The disciples and the Herodians are pretty thrilled with their question--
They believe they have Jesus just where they want him--
with this lose/lose question.
Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor--or not?

Jesus is getting sick and tired of their foolish games.
And he tells them so:

Oh you silly hypocrites.
Oh you make me lose my wits.
Coming up with tests for me
As if I’m too blind to see.
What you want is rid of me--
Your questions are just foolery.

But Jesus takes a deep breath and asks:
Do you have one of those coins used to pay the tax?

Oh. Ooh. They’ve got him now.
They hand him a denarius.

And Jesus asks them.
Who’s head is on this coin?

They reply “The emperor’s.”

Alright, says Jesus. Tossing the coin back to them.
Then give to the emperor
what belongs to the emperor
and give to God what belongs to God.

The disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians were amazed.
Why?
Because they realize their little plan has not worked.
In fact their little plan has worked against them.
Their little plan is now a large dilemma.

Because essentially Jesus has trapped them.
Jesus has left them with a far bigger question than the one they asked.
What belongs to God?

They have already failed the test.
Just by having that coin in their pocket,
they have broken the first two commandments:

Commandment 1: You shall have no other gods before me.
Commandment 2: You shall not make for yourself an idol...you shall not bow down or worship them.

The commandments, given to Moses,
were not just words to be put on a bookmark
or memorized in Sunday School--
this was the covenant they had made with God.
This was their rule of life.

The Pharisees and the Herodians
have shown themselves to be compromised--
by having a pagan god--the emperor--
right in their own pockets.

Jesus is not talking about separation of church and state here.
First of all,
in the time of Jesus there as no ideology
that separated civic and religious life.
The concept of separation of church and state
originated with Thomas Jefferson in the late 18th century.
We have to be so careful
that we do not project our own modern culture
onto the culture of Jesus’ time.

You see the Emperor--or Caesar--was not just the head of state.
He was--by his own self-proclamation--proclaimed to be a god.
And if you didn’t worship the emperor as a god,
you were in serious trouble.

Now we can say, well, we don’t have an emperor any more,
so I don’t have to worry.
I’m down with Jesus.

Really?
What belongs to God?
That is the question Jesus is asking--then and now.

There is a lot about economics in the gospels.
Jesus taught more about money than any other subject.
27 of his parables--out of 43--have to do with money and possessions.
1 our of every 10 verses in the gospels deals with money.

The Bible includes 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 on faith,
and more than 2000 verses on money.

In the church today
we really do not like to talk about money.
Talking about money makes some of us uncomfortable.
It makes some of us mad.
it makes some of us guilty.
It makes some of us sad.
We feel “our” money is nobody’s business.
“Our” money.

The truth is
our relationship with money
is often very reflective of our relationship with God.

Jesus does not let us escape.
Jesus wants us to ponder and struggle and become more clear
about whom we really worship.

Jesus is asking a much more powerful and difficult question:
What really belongs to God?

It is rather amazing what happens
when we are willing to acknowledge that everything belongs to God.
When we are willing to live with that as our guiding principle.

Teresa of Avila lived in the sixteenth century in Spain.
It was a time when women had little voice, little influence, little power.
And yet...and yet..
she reformed her Carmelite order,
she founded 17 new communities,
she wrote 4 books
and she confronted and challenged many people--
both women and men (including John of the Cross)
about their relationship with God.

Teresa of Avila was very clear that all this was possible because of God.
Not because of her.

She wrote:

“Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to lived by you alone; and that there is only one glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.”

What belongs to the emperor?
and what belongs to God?
This is still the question with which we struggle.

And to close, in the tradition of Dr. Seuss:

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there.
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet...

You’ll encounter the emperor prowling his beat.
When will you bend? To whom will you bow?
What really belongs to God?
Pray upon this right now.

Pray upon this right now.
Amen.

Too Busy for the Banquet....Sermon for Year A Proper 23

2011-10-09T19:42:00.002-04:00

This is the third parable.
The third parable we have heard in three weeks.
Jesus is not giving up on the chief priests and the Pharisees.
This is third parable he tells them
as they confront one another in the Temple.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to...

That’s how the parable begins.
The kingdom of heaven.
What does Jesus mean by that?
What do we mean by that?

Is the kingdom of heaven up in the sky somewhere?
Will we only understand it only after we die? Probably.
Yet why is Jesus always talking about it here on earth?

Personally, I struggle with “kingdom” language.
I don’t really have an innate sense of what that means
because I have never lived in a country or in a time-period
with a king.
(other than Elvis Presley, perhaps).

So when my ears hear “the kingdom of heaven”
i usually translate that into “the dream of God”.

I hear and perceive the kingdom of heaven
to be what God deeply dreams for our world.
Our world right now.
As in heaven, so on earth.

The dream of God for you right now on earth is like.....
a wedding banquet.

The ultimate joyful feast--a wedding banquet.
An occasion for celebration and hope and looking to the future
with great expectation.

God dreams for us joy and hope and celebration.
But what do we dream in return?

If we are like those who were the first round of invited guests,
we turn our backs on God’s dream for the world.
We make excuses.
We don’t have time for God or for holy dreams.
We have plans and dreams of our own--
and many, if not most of them, often don’t include God.

Like those guests who turn away,
the truth is,
we don’t take God all that seriously either.
The scripture says “they made light of it.”
We live in a culture that makes very light of God.

The scripture says they went away,
one to his farm, another to his business...

We too turn away from God,
from doing God’s work in the world
from celebrating with God in worship,
because our lives are very very busy.

We make light of God’s dream
because our jobs require long hours,
our families are demanding,
our lives are already way too jam packed and busy.
God, I might be able to fit your dream in between 6 and 8 pm on..
Oh....no, that’s not going to work.
I have a meeting that night....

Sorry, God,
I am RSVP-ing to your dream for the world
with my regrets.

So God looks out on this world
and realizes that those who were invited
to help make the dream come true,
those whom God hoped would join the celebration
are too busy, too distracted, too apathetic, too hostile.

So God moves to Plan B.
Okay, God says, forget my Google Close Contacts list--
open the doors wider.
Welcome everyone to come.
Yes, everyone.
The good and the bad.
I’m fine with that says God.
Go out and gather people to come and join this feast.

Ah! The doors open wider
and the banquet hall is filled with guests.
Ah! thinks God--
NOW we can work together and make the kingdom of heaven
happen on earth.

Now, upon my first reading and study of this parable,
I thought--I wish Jesus had stopped right here.
Wouldn’t that be a great ending--good and bad, ALL are welcome?
Come in. Come in.

But I didn’t write Matthew’s gospel
and the parable continues.
The king--AKA God--
the king notices that one guest is not wearing a wedding robe.

 “Friend” the king says--
now one commentary I read this week said
think of the word “friend” here
as more like “Hey! Buster! How’d you get in here.”
Friend in this parable is probably not a term of endearment.

But whoa! God’s next words--oh my!
Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What?!!! Because he wasn’t dressed right?
YIKES!
Our immediate reaction is probably like that
of the ill-clothed wedding guests--
speechless!!

Okay, so maybe this guy
IS the equivalent of a first century wedding crasher--
he doesn’t care about the people there,
he’s just there for the buffet and the bubbly.
And he’s just been busted by the King.

But then we may think,
“Hold on a minute.
You open the doors wide.
You pull this guy off the street
and you expect him to have a tailored three piece suit
in his backpack?!!!”

But I think we miss the point of the parable if we go in that direction.

Think back to an earlier phrase--
“they made light of it.”

Jesus is calling our attention to the fact
that God’s dream for the world
and our role in that dream is not something to take lightly.

Our “wedding robe” is the way we our everyday lives.
The way we treat other people.
The manner in which we order our lives to put God first.
Or not.

Jesus is telling us in this parable
that God expects things from us.
Yes, God gives us grace--truly amazing amounts of grace--
BUT it’s not an entitlement--it’s a gift
and we who receive so much
are expected to give as well.

To give of ourselves.
To give of our lives.
God calls us to take our spiritual life as seriously
as we take our material life.

Think about it.
How many of us have ever spent a sleepless night
worrying about our spiritual life?
Yet most of us have spent more than one night
worrying about our material life.
How will we pay the bills?
Will I have enough money to retire?
How and I going to afford this or that?

Our material lives get so much attention.
Our spiritual lives and God too often have to wait in line.
Do we take the holy too lightly?

This is what this parable is asking.
Are you going to be part of God’s dream team
or not?

For many are called, but few are chosen.

God has wide arms. The invitation is broad.
Good and bad.
God is an equal opportunity inviter. God calls and calls and calls.

But to be more than called,
to be chosen,
means that we must choose God over the many other
competing factors in our lives.

We are called to be doers of the word,
not just hearers of the word.

We are called to take our Baptismal covenant seriously,
to not make light of things holy,

To be chosen means to put on our wedding robe.
every single morning,
and to do our very best to intentionally live
those promises we made to God--
our baptismal covenant--
to strive for peace and justice,
to respect the dignity of every human being,
to keep praying and showing up to break bread together,
to resist evil in every form and shape it takes.
to help make God’s dream for the world come true.

Jesus tells this parable
with the hope
that those hearing the story might change.

The doors are wide open.
The call has been issued.
The choices now are ours.

Sermon for the Blessing of the Animals

2011-10-09T07:19:00.001-04:00

Today we gather to bless the animals and to share communion.
There is one thing I know for certain about animals:
They don’t care for long sermons.

We bless animals on this day to honor creation
and to remember one of the saints of God--
Francis of Assisi.

Much has been written by many,
including Francis himself, about his life.

When Francis was a young man, he loved to party.
But even in that party time of his life,
he was not unaware of the world around him.
One night he left a party and looked up at the stars above Assisi.
He stood there just looking at the stars for a long long time.
He was truly in awe of what he saw.
He said, “If these are the creatures,
what must the Creator be like?”

I say that to you today--
if these are the creatures--this amazing assortment of animals--
what must the Creator be like?

I’d say the Creator is creative--imaginative--visionary--
and has a pretty great sense of humor.
I’d also say the Creator has an enormous heart
capable of immense love.

We don’t just love the creatures that look like us--
our hearts can also fill with love
at the sight of certain faces with whiskers
or at the wag of a tail.

St. Francis always felt that nature--the created world that surrounds us all--
was his first Bible.
That is an interesting concept.
Especially since,
according to an article I read by Richard Rohr this week,
the created world has about a 14.5 billion year head start
on the Bible.

God is a creative imaginative God
who uses anything and everything to get our attention.

But St. Francis was much more than a warm and fuzzy guy who loved animals.
He had a steadfast faith and a heart that overflowed with love.
To everyone. Truly to everyone.

At times in his ministry he was beaten, put in chains and suffered greatly.
He still tried to respect the dignity of every human being he met.
He lived in a time of religious extremists--
his goal was to be an extremist for love, for grace. To all.

He had a great love for the created world--for all things and all people.
We honor St. Francis not just today with the Blessing of the Animals,
but have made him a part of our Episcopal tradition,
by including a prayer attributed to Francis
in our Book of Common Prayer.

You can find it on page 833 if you want to look for it some time.
Here is the prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us show love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord,faith:
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

East Meets West: Centering Prayer and Yoga

2011-10-04T17:53:00.009-04:00

Tomorrow I am doing a presentation, along with awesome yoga instructor Nicole Kintz, at Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community in Asheville. My friend Judy Domer invited me to do this and I try to always say YES to friends. I am no expert on centering prayer but it is a spiritual practice that I value deeply. So I present tomorrow and developed this list of resources as a handout. I thought that these resources might be a useful post here on my blog for others as well. This list just touches the surface but is a good place to begin exploring.

Centering Prayer Resources

Recommended Books
The Cloud of Unknowing (author unknown)
14th century book on which the theology of centering prayer is based
You can read this on line, download to a kindle or nook or read it in book form.

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault

Open Heart, Open Mind: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel, by Father Thomas Keating

The Diversity of Centering Prayer, edited by Gustave Reininge

Organizations
Center for Spiritual Resources, www.csr.org
Director: Robbin Whittington, The Center is co-sponsored by the Episcopal DIocese of Western North Carolina and the Cathedral of All Souls. Their website is a great resource for programs going on throughout our diocese.

Contemplative Outreach, www.contemplativeoutreach.org
Link to a set of three CDs for purchase with Father Thomas Keating teaching about centering prayer: http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/Contemplative-Prayer/368.productdetails
Local chapter contact: Becky Hannah, becky.hannah@gmail.com

The Contemplative Society, http://www.contemplative.org/

Spirituality and Practice, http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com
Link to an on-line course on Centering Prayer with Cynthia Bourgeault that starts November 7th: http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/ecourses/ecourses.php?id=114&key=cb

Centering Prayer Retreats
St.Mary’s, Sewanee, TN : http://www.stmaryssewanee.org

Valle Crucis Conference Center, Valle Crucis, NC: http://www.highsouth.com/vallecrucis/events.php4

Welcome to the Vineyard--Year A Proper 22

2011-10-02T18:28:00.008-04:00

Today was our annual Parish Picnic. St. John's has a tradition of having the picnic at Lake Tomahawk in Black Mountain. This year, however, we had to move it back to St. John's and have it in the Parish Hall. Our weather the past few days has been unusually cold--like 48 degrees and windy! Even indoors we had a wonderful day. We worshipped in the parish hall and the acoustics made us sound like a choir of thousands when we sang. Today was also the first day of our Creation Season using a beautiful new liturgy and music, much of it from the Iona Community. A simple plastic folding table was transformed with a white cloth, votive candles, pottery vessels and fall flowers into our altar. After the worship, we moved in tables and chairs and enjoyed hot dogs, hamburgers and portobello mushrooms right off the grill, as well as a diversity of dishes and desserts that people baked and brought from home. The entire day was a powerful reminder of the abundance we enjoy and the abundance from which we are called to share.

WELCOME TO THE VINEYARD

We have in our gospel reading today another parable.
Jesus wants to be certain
that the chief priests and the scribes
understand the point he is making.
Jesus is not trying to be mean or trick them.
He simply wants them to open their eyes to the truth--
specifically, the truth about themselves
and their behavior.

This is difficult for any and all of us to hear at times.
The truth about ourselves.

So Jesus tells a parable.

The landowner plants a vineyard.
He does it with care.
He puts a fence around it to keep it safe, enclosed, hugged.
He puts a winepress there to provide revenue.
He builds a watchtower so they might ever be on guard
for those who would come to destroy
what they have planted and nourished.

Only the destruction comes from within, not from without.
The tenants get it wrong.
The tenants think this marvelous, abundant vineyard
is all their doing.
Yes, they have worked hard.
But the tenants forget that they are just renting.
They don’t own the vineyard.
They didn’t create the vineyard.
You get it.
God is the landowner.
We are the tenants.

We forget that we are not the ones in control.
We forget that we are not the center of the universe.

We forget that our lease here in this world is very short.
None of us know the terms of that lease.
None of us.

God is willing to give us everything we need--
but we get greedy.
We want it all--
even if that means taking from other tenants,
even if that means turning our backs on God.

Even when the priests and the Pharisees
understand that the parable is about them--
they still think the solution is violence--
we will just get rid of Jesus and everything will be hunky-dory.

They are so filled with fear.
Afraid they are going to lose their power.
Afraid they are going to lose their possessions.
Afraid of the truth.
They do not trust God.

So year after year,
generation after generation,
God keeps looking around.

Looking around for those who will care for his kingdom.
Looking around for those who will love all the children of the kingdom.
Who is willing to care for this vineyard--
who is willing to tend and to nourish
for the purpose of sharing the abundance with others,
not keeping the abundance all for themselves.

God hopes it will be you.
God hopes it will be me.
God hopes we can work together as a community
to care for the kingdom of God--this great and beautiful vineyard--
on earth as it is in heaven.

God gives each one of us gifts.
God creates each one of us to be completely unique.
No one--NO ONE--is just like any one of us.
That in itself is pretty amazing.

When you got here to the picnic
I asked you to write down one thing about yourself that is special,
that other people might not know.
I gave you some suggestions--
for example...
....it could be that you make the best brownies in the world.
(that would not be me,
but it certainly could be my husband Tom--
he really does make the best brownies in the world)
...it could be that you served in the Peace Corps
...or that you ran a marathon last year..
...or you have a cat named Ginger
that is the smartest cat that ever ever lived.

These might seem like frivolous things
but they aren’t.
They are little pieces of our stories.
Little bits of blessing
that make us all part of the body of Christ.

So now
I want you to take one of these slips of paper
(if you get your own slip,
you have to put it back in the bowl and draw another)
and then go on a search
for the person who wrote it.

Yes, you’re going to have to get up and talk to people.
Ask them a question...
you know, like "So, Mary do you like to hike?"
If Mary says no and your slip of paper says "I hiked Mt. Everest"
move on to another person and keep asking until you find the match.

When you find your person, go and sit down.

(During this time everyone is chaotically searching for the person who matches their slip of paper--it's a good chaos though, a joyful chaos!)

Let's come back together.
Now I’d like to ask that you introduce your person.
Say their name (you see this is a great way to learn names).
And then tell the group what you learned about this person today.
That little bit of their story that was on that slip of paper.

(Everyone introduces their person with a little bit of their story)

.......
We are a diverse group of people with many different gifts and stories.

We are all in the vineyard together.
We all have short term leases here.
We are all loved by God.
We are repeatedly called to love one another.
To really, really love one another.
Not just in words but in how we act, in how we treat one another.
We are all called to be good and generous stewards.

We are asked to fear not.
Don’t be afraid of generosity
or compassion or mercy or
forgiveness or love.
Be fearless!
YES! Be fearless!!
Live as Jesus calls us to live.
Love as Jesus calls us to love.
Be as God created us to be.

Don’t wait.
Please. Don't wait.
The lease is so so short.

Don't waste or hoard or destroy.

Open your ears to the truth.
Open your eyes to all the beauty and goodness and abundance
God has given us.

Right now. Right here.
In this very vineyard we call the Church.
In this little corner of that vineyard
that we call St. John's.

Amen.

WALK THE TALK...Sermon for Year A Proper 21

2011-09-25T19:22:00.004-04:00

WALK THE TALK

The chief priest and the elders march up to Jesus
and interrupt his teaching.
Jesus has come boldly into the temple--THEIR territory--
and has begun to teach.

The officials do not like this one bit.
They’d like to just throw him out--or worse--
but there is also an element of fear.

So instead of tossing him out
they question him, try to trick him.
They want him to convict himself--so they won’t have to do it.
They challenge Jesus in front of everyone.

The chief priests and the elders have a powerful need to CONTROL.
To control their space, their domain.

They question his authority---
What are YOU doing HERE?
Who gave YOU permission to speak in OUR house?

But Jesus does not answer their question about his authority directly.
Jesus will not be put on the defense.

He wants them to think--to ponder--to step away from THEIR authority
and to recognize God’s authority--over all of them--
over the priests, the elders, the people gathered--over Jesus himself.
Only Jesus seems to understand it is not THEIR house--
the temple is God’s house.

So he questions them about John’s baptism.
We need to remember
that at this point of the story John has been killed.
An almost fanciful beheading has made John a martyr to the people.

So Jesus asks the Temple leaders--
Was John’s baptism from heaven or was it just a human thing?
Divine or mortal?

It is an interesting question.
A question, which later in church history, authorities will ask
and struggle over about Jesus, too. Divine or human?

Perhaps this is even a question that we can ask ourselves about our own baptism:
Does our baptism come from heaven?
Or was it of human origin?

I wrote a little book of meditations about baptism a few years back.
I wrote that I was disappointed on the day my baptism--
which happened at age 11 by full immersion.
I was disappointed because I had truly expected to see rays of light
and a dove descend upon me that day at Emmanuel Baptist Church.

I was too young to realize--and too afraid to ask--
that those signs are not needed
to mark an event or us as holy and blessed.

I believe now that my baptism was absolutely from heaven--
walking into that deep pool of water
I was surrounded by more grace and love than I could imagine.

But Jesus isn’t asking about Jeanne Finan’s baptism.
Jesus is asking the priest and the elders to respond about John’s baptism.

And the truth is, they don’t know what to say.
It is a true “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” moment.
And they all know it.

So they respond much as we might,
when fearful,
they say, “We do not know.”

And then (and you can almost see Jesus trying not to smile too broadly)
Jesus replies,
“Well, if you can’t answer my question,
then I’m not going to answer your question.”

Jesus refuses to play their game.
Instead he turns and asks them a question:

What do you think?

And then the parable.
This wonderful way of teaching--of encouraging--people to think.

Two sons.
The father asks each son to go and work in the vineyard.
(Remember--it’s a parable--
think of the father as THE Father--God--
asking his beloved children
to go out into the world and work,
to spread the good news to all the world,
to LIVE the gospel.

The first son says, “No. I won’t go. I won’t do it.”
Maybe in terms of the parable
we could think of this response in the 21st century as something like,
“No. Forget it.
I’m going to Starbucks with the NY Times this morning.
I’m going to a movie instead of the Parish Work Day.
I don’t want to work on a Habitat House
with a bunch of Episcopalians.
So the answer is No.”

But then this child CHANGES his mind.

(This is an important point in the parable--
God gives us permission to CHANGE!!)

The first son goes and works in the vineyard.
He doesn’t make a big deal about
but something shifts inside of him--
or perhaps he goes against his rational thinking
and goes simply because of his great love for his Father--
He goes.
He goes and works.
He shows up.
He spreads the gospel by his actions--
by what he CHOOSES to DO.

And the second child?
He immediately says YES.
Of course I will go, Father.
Remember, I am your GOOD child, your pious child,
you OBEDIENT child.
Yes, yes, yes.

But that beloved child does not go, does not do as he promised.
His words are empty, meaningless--
because there were no actions that followed those words.

This son is all for show.

This child doesn’t need to change his mind--
he needs to change the center of his soul.

Perhaps this son never really intended to go--
he just says what he thinks the father wants to hear
and then forgets about it.
All talk no walk.

Then Jesus asks:
“Which of the two did the will of his father?”

It’s a pretty easy answer.
The priests and the elders know the answer--
The first son.

They KNOW what is right.
They KNOW what God asks of each of us.
Put some walk behind your talk.

And as soon as they answer Jesus,
they know they are trapped.

They know
because they realize they are all talk and little walk.
They detest Jesus
because he fully walks his talk.

And Jesus does not hesitate to tell them
how obvious their lack of walk is.
He tells them that the tax collectors and prostitutes are going to heaven
before you fakers.
That’s right--the lowest of the low,
the despised and the hated
will get into heaven ahead of you.
Why?
Because when they heard the talk--from John and then from Jesus--
they heard it as so true that they changed.
They could not change their past
but they were doing one amazing job of working in the vineyard
to change their present and their future.

And Jesus says to the Temple authorities,
“You did not change your minds and believe him.”

This is a message to all of us who come to church.
All of us who have made a covenant--
a covenant---a binding agreement--
with God at our baptism.
You see we, in so many ways, are the “Temple Authorities.”
We show up here week after to week to say,
“Yes, Lord, we believe.”

There is nothing wrong with believing
but we must be so careful.
It is so easy to just become wrapped up in the talk,
and forget that our real call is to walk the walk.

How do we walk that walk?
There are some obvious ways--
Habitat House, Welcome Table, MANNA Food Baskets, Room in the Inn, Family to Family.

And there are some less obvious ways--
loving our neighbors.
Even if those neighbors seem to us on first glance to be prostitutes
and tax collectors
(I don’t mean that literally--but I think you know what I mean).

Back in the early 70‘s Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sang,
“Love the one you’re with.”
They probably weren’t singing a gospel message with those words--
but when Jesus says, “Love one another,”
he never says, pick and choose. Love the ones you like.
He just says love.
Love the one you’re with.
Love all God’s children.

We also walk the walk with prayer.
We can’t just say we will pray for someone unless we really do pray.
If we want to walk the walk
we need to make sure we will go out into that vineyard of prayer
and pray, pray, pray.

We walk the walk by being good stewards--
of the earth, of this parish, of our bodies, our minds, our spirits.

We walk the walk by being willing to listen,
especially to those who feel that no one hears them.
We walk the walk
by being willing to change.

It is so easy to make excuses for not going into the vineyard.

I have thought a lot about the second son this week.
Was he just trying to impress his father?
Was he trying to trick his father?
Was he trying to outshine his brother?
Or did he intend to go--
and just got distracted?
He logged onto his FaceBook page or started watching a movie on television
or got lost in some other distraction.
Time just flew by
and then it was too late.
Oops! I meant to go into the vineyard.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying:
You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time,
but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Who does the second son think he is fooling?
Who do we think we are fooling sometimes?

Every week our service of Holy Eucharist opens with the priest saying
the “Collect --or prayer--for Purity”.
It begins:

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from you no secrets are hid...

Jesus is reminding us of this in the parable he tells.
God knows all our desires, all our secrets.
We may be able to fool the people around us--
though probably not as often or as much as we might believe--
but what we need to remember, what matters is,
God knows.

God knows if we are all talk and no walk.
God knows if we are trying to change.
God knows what is in our hearts.

And the good news behind all of this?
We hear it in the letter to the Philippians:

God is at work in you.

We are not cast in stone--not our hearts, not our minds, not our bodies or souls.
God is at work--always--in each of us.

Even when we say NO,
we have another chance to say YES.
Even when we say YES and then don’t live into that YES.
we have another chance.

God is at work in you and in me --
in each of us.
And that, my sisters and brothers in Christ,
is very good news.

Very good news for all of us.
Amen.

Be quick to love, make haste to be kind...

2011-09-24T08:48:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I led a retreat day at the beautiful Valle Crucis Conference Center. The title for the day was: "In the Midst of the Long, Long Season: Spiritual Practices to See Us Through Ordinary Times." Seventeen women joined me for this day of reflections, prayer, sharing and silence.

At the close of the day I offered a blessing that I often use at St. John's:

Life is short
and we do not have much time
to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us.
So be quick to love
and make haste to be kind.
And the blessing of God who loves you
be with you this day
and always.

One of the women, Rebecca, an awesome Baptist minister from Elkin, NC, asked me if I knew who wrote that blessing. I told her I, too, had wondered about it's origin. I first heard it from Marcus Borg at the end of a sermon he preached during the Calvary Lenten Series in Memphis. But just the day before the retreat, I had seen a variation posted on a website (my friend Susan Copley's parish, Christ Church, Tarrytown, NY) and it had a credit. I told the group I would follow up and post it here on my blog.

So here is what a little digging and googling has uncovered. A man named Henri-Frederic Amiel is credited with writing:

"Oh, do not let us wait to be just or pitiful or demonstrative toward those we love until they or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death! Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!"

You can certainly see the origins of the blessing in this quote by Amiel. He was a 19th century Swiss philosopher and poet. Not a prolific writer but definitely a profound one.

A few things....

2011-09-19T19:07:00.005-04:00

Last year I invited Mary Sorrells to preach during our stewardship campaign. Mary chaired our Diocesan Stewardship Commission for several years. She was truly excellent and the congregation responded to her so positively, as did I. What a blessing it is to hear new and heartfelt voices from the pulpit.

This year I thought: I need to invite another lay person to preach during our stewardship campaign. Yes, I pledge to St. John's as do most of the members of our congregation and I do not have a problem talking about money. After all, Jesus talked about money--a lot! But I also realize that some might see my giving as somewhat self-serving; after all, I am paid for my priestly ministry. So I began to pray, to discern whom I should ask. One person kept coming into my prayers over and over. So finally I sent him an email asking him to consider my request to preach. What a blessing that he said yes!

This past Sunday he was our guest preacher at both services at St. John's. His name is Chris Rhodes and he is a longtime member of St. John's and a gifted lay person with many talents--which he shares abundantly with our parish. He is truly one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. It wasn't until he stood in the pulpit this past Sunday that I discovered he is also a fine, fine preacher. What follows is his sermon.

Sermon at St. John's Episcopal Church for September 17-18, 2011

Several weeks ago I got an email from Jeanne, entitled, “a few things.” She had asked me if I would get up and talk about “giving.” My first reaction was, is that woman crazy, I’d be scared to death. After my heart settled I thought, what magic words could I possibly give to this congregation that would make them want to give more than they already are. No way. Later I realized, anything I can give this church to help in fulfilling her ministries, I’ve got to be willing to try.

I’m not a preacher, I can’t call this a sermon. I’m not a politician, so I won’t make a speech. I am a teacher, I could call this a lesson plan, but we’re not in school. I am who I am, so I guess I’ll just call it, the world according to Chris……..or perhaps I could call it “a few things……giving, in chronological order”.

Somewhere back between 1964 and 65 I can remember sitting on the living room floor of my grandparents home on Bell Road. While sitting on that unraveling braided rug one dark evening, thunder and lightning in the background, me, my brother, and my cousin were getting a lesson in Revelations. I appreciate my grandfather for making things easy for me to understand. He compared God to Santa Claus, someone who was always watching me, and of course was making a list and checking it twice. Well I’m here to confess, I’ve been naughty, but I hope I’ve also been nice. So I guess the best way for me to get into heaven is to give.

Then I grew to a young teenager, dropping coins in a mite box. I don’t remember why or anyone telling me why but someone probably said, “it was for the needy”. Needy, I would have thought, who’s needy. I had never seen a homeless person, I’d never seen dirty, holey clothes or rotten teeth, and of course I didn’t know about poverty in this country or starving children around the world. Like most kids growing up I guess I was too well protected.

Sammy was taken from his family at a very early age. I remember him crying for two days and daddy kept telling him, “Sammy, we love you.”

The college years were just a blur, so we’ll skip that. However I do recall loosing a contact because a little 8 year old mountain girl needed a spit cup.

I remember a conversation my father had with Sandra and me. He told us that we live financially backwards. We never have enough money when we’re young and we usually have all we need as we get older. Well at that time I felt like we were the needy ones. As I’ve grown older I tend to lean towards the feeling of today’s collect, to hold on to heavenly things.

So seriously, when did I start to make giving an important part of my life?
Perhaps it was when St. John’s went one Sunday afternoon uptown to the Church of the Advocate to feed the homeless and John Fisher boiled the biggest pot of rice I’d ever seen in my life.

What about when Gene Melton, during a fall festival would put on that silly, ridiculous wig and nickel and dime everyone in sight.

And the bake sales from the ECW, Anne Bryant deserves an award for all the hours that she spent in the kitchen.

How about Wolfgang, nailing plywood up on the roof of the shed so we would have more room to store more junk.

And Betty, sewing those precious clothes for dying infants.

From time to time some of the women here at St. John’s will bring a friend from Black Mountain with them to church on Sunday. I don’t know if anyone ever says thank you, but we do.

You know, we never had a hard time getting volunteers to work on the habitat house as long as Jane was around.

I remember seeing a commercial on TV about sponsoring a child and Sandra said, “why don’t we do that?,” and the day came when a representative from Food For The Poor visited St. John’s.

Maybe I began giving when I witnessed three dedicated ministers in Sonja, Bobby, and Jane, who, while between priests, held this church in their hands.

And you always felt so special when the bishop would smile at you if you accidentally forgot and addressed him by his first name.

I think of Paul, I believe he was wearing a Tux, serving chicken dinners to the congregation for a fundraising dinner and sing a long that the choir had sponsored. He kept telling those of us in the kitchen, what an excellent job we were doing.

I remember when someone let a homeless man spend the night here in the church for a while.

And I’ll always treasure the heartfelt thoughts and words of the outgoing senior wardens and how what they say, feels so real.

I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of seeing a small church develop its own habitat program and Patsy along with this small church gave practically everything they could to a poor woman who had nothing and finally for once, the last was first.

And I’m so proud of my aunt, for all the art work she has given this church.

As I wrote this and prepared for this day, I felt a deep appreciation for what Jeanne has to go through each week to give some of the best sermons I’ve ever heard. Jeanne you are our blessing.
I think of all the hard work and perseverance from the hearts of today’s congregation, as I can now look out and see God’s creation at this moment.

I think of all these people and I see how truly blessed I am to be among you, my brothers and sisters. We are a small church but we are a strong church, whose bound by love.
Giving is not something that happens or begins when you’re 4 or 13 or 25. It’s a culmination of experiences you breathe, see, and feel when God somehow finds his way to your heart.

I remember being in the choir room before my grandmothers funeral, my mother was calling out the hymn numbers. 318, and Penelope said, “oh no, not that one, I’ll never make it to the end.” And I thought, what’s that about. So I looked it up. “Here O my Lord, I see thee face to face.” I don’t want to miss out on that.

I sometimes wonder if God sends modern day Jesus to us in the form of a person holding up a cardboard sign. Jesus did not turn his back on us and remember, He’s making a list.
I don’t know if I’ll get to heaven. I give because there are people out there who are less fortunate than me and they need it.

I was watching the History channel 2 years ago on Easter morning before church, “The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ”. Can you imagine being laid on a cross, on the ground, your arms stretched out and having a nail driven through your palm and bleeding to death.

I received a thank you letter from the Food For The Poor organization one time and in it was this piece of paper that read, “And the king will say to them in reply, Amen, I say to you, whatever you did to one of these least brothers of mine, you did to me.” I don’t want to turn my back on Jesus.

I give because I have everything I need. I’m satisfied. I’m here………and I can thank God for that. Amen.

If there's anything I can do...

2011-09-15T22:26:00.008-04:00

We've all heard those words--if there's anything I can do. We've said those words to others. Sometimes we've said them simply because we wanted to say something and we didn't know what to say.

Josephine Hicks has just written and published a book by that title--IF THERE'S ANYTHING I CAN DO: What you can do when serious illness strikes and I highly recommend that you buy a copy and read it.

This book is the result of her four years of caring for her partner who had pancreatic cancer. She has taken a difficult and painful time of suffering and transformed it into a way to help others find their way through the labyrinth of serious illness and to help us--as friends, family, clergy--find a way to truly help. This small book is filled with wisdom and with heart. But it is not a syrupy sweet "oh bless your little heart" sort of book; it is direct and honest and practical. It reads like both a narrative and a guidebook.

Find this book. Buy it. Read it. Remember it.

And just in case you are thinking I am Jospehine Hicks' sister or agent----I'm not. I went and heard her speak this evening at the Cathedral of All Souls and was transfixed by her presentation. Bought the book there. Came home and read it all the way through. But I'll go back to this book again--many times.

Hicks is donating some of the profits to cancer research so you'll be doing double duty good by buying this book. Asheville & Western NC friends can find her book at my favorite bookstore ACCENT ON BOOKS on Merrimon Avenue. If you can't find it locally, you can go to the website to order:
www.AnythingiCanDoBook.com

Offering forgiveness...Sermon for Year A Proper 19

2011-09-11T19:10:00.011-04:00

I think we are all aware that today is September 11th.
It is ten years after this country was rocked by vicious attacks--
on the World Trade Center Towers, on the Pentagon
and on a plane that was purposefully crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

We have placed white hangings on the altar
instead of the green for the season of Pentecost
because white is the color we use for burial services--
but more importantly for Easter--resurrection.

In front of the altar this morning is a table with candles
to remind us that each person in this world
is a light.
Lighting a candle is a way we remember.
We remember a person or a day or some thing done or left undone.

On the table behind the candles is a block print by artist Margaret Parker.
It is one of the block prints she created for a book she did with biblical scholar Ellen Davis
about the book of Ruth.
This print gives us a visual image of what grief looks like.
It gives us a visceral image of what grief feels like.

September 11th is a day that all of us--
if we were alive and aware of that day ten years ago--
probably remember exactly where we were when we heard the news.

We have had other days similar to this.
December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Day.
My father was there--asleep in his army barracks on Oahu when the attack began.
December 7th never just slipped by in our family.

November 22, 1963--the day President Kennedy was shot.
I was in 8th grade. In Civics class.
I remember my teacher was called into the hallway
and she came back in crying
and then our principal spoke to us over the speaker
in all the classrooms
We were told the news and we were told to go to our lockers and go home.

We all have days in our own individual lives
that are forever sealed on our minds and hearts
but there are certain dates
that entire nations share.
September 11, 2001 is one of those dates.

Take a minute and remember where you were
and whom you were with that morning.

I was in seminary, sitting in the dining hall after chapel,
having a cup of coffee with two friends.

Another friend, Ken Brannon who was from New York,
came over to our table and said,
“A plane has flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.”

At first I thought he was kidding,
But when I saw the look on his face, I knew it was no joke.

I imagined a small plane, off course, lost--
crashing into one of the towers.
There is no way my imagination could grasp
what had really happened.
Just as we were about to ask Ken for more details,
the entire building where we sat violently shook.
I mean the windows rattled as if they were going to pop from their frames.

We did not know it at that moment,
but that moment was when the plane crashed into the Pentagon--
which is about a mile from the Seminary.

Like much of this country--and much of the world--
we would soon hear--and see--the details of this tragedy unfold.

Yes, today is the 13th Sunday after the Day of Pentecost,
but today, this is a day of solemn remembrance.

 On this day we remember those who perished ten years ago:
 + United Airlines Flight 93, Shanksville, Pennsylvania: 40 souls.
 + American Airlines Flight 77, Arlington, Virginia: 59 souls. 
+ The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia: 125 souls.
 + United Airlines Flight 175, New York, New York: 60 souls. 
+ American Airlines Flight 11, New York, New York: 87 souls. 
+ The World Trade Center, New York, New York: 2,606 souls.

Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives to these terrorists attacks.
The victims were people of many different faith traditions, nationalities and professions.

It was a tragedy beyond the scope of which any of us could have imagined before that day.

We also remember today those who have died since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began:

+ Those fighting in our American troops and our Coalition troops: 7,000 souls
+ Afghan and Iraqi troop members, civilians, contractors and journalists: over 900,000 souls

The death toll that began on September 11th now totals over one million souls.

Priests and preachers and lay ministers,
musicians and congregations
throughout the United States today
will acknowledge September 11 in their sermons,
their liturgies, their prayers and their music.

We are no different here at St. John’s.
This is a day of solemn remembrance.
Our challenge as Christians is to also help this become a day of forgiveness.
September 11 is not a specified day in our liturgical calendar.
When I began to read the scripture readings for this Sunday--
the same readings we read every third year for Proper 19--
I was somewhat stunned.
We have on this day
a gospel reading, a teaching by Jesus,
about forgiveness.
How ironic and profound
that on this day,
the gospel is about forgiveness.

Forgiveness is sometimes a very uncomfortable focal point
for those of us called to be as followers of Christ.

Peter is trying to be very magnanimous,
almost as if he is trying to impress Jesus
with how many times he thinks we should offer forgiveness--
So what do you say Jesus,
should we forgive someone SEVEN times?

Peter thinks he is going way over the top.
Jesus no doubt shocks Peter and everyone else when he says,
Not seven times but, I tell you, seventy seven times.

The parable that then follows
serves to remind all of us
that we ourselves have been forgiven so much and so many times
that we too must learn and try to be generous
in forgiving others.

This gospel calls us to forgive those
who did horrible evil to thousands of people
on September 11th.

Not just the evil done to those who died that day and in the weeks that followed,
but the evil done to all the families and friends
who still grieve and suffer.
I can guarantee that their pain is as real and harsh
as it was on that day ten years ago.

To forgive those who have harmed us
or harmed those we love is very very difficult.
Yet forgiving is precisely what Jesus is calling us to do.

Forgiveness is not an optional “if you choose to accept this assignment”
for us as Christians.
Forgiveness is at the very heart of our faith,
because love and forgiveness are bound together.
Inseparable.

It may be the most difficult thing Jesus asks of us.
I cannot imagine there is any person here today
who has not been hurt or victimized or suffered
at the hands of someone else.
Perhaps it was just a small slight--but still one that stung deeply.
Perhaps it was a childhood of abuse and inflicted pain
by someone who was stronger or older or more powerful.
Perhaps it was a betrayal by someone you trusted
or it was a deliberate attack by someone you didn’t even know.
Perhaps it was losing someone you loved
because of the carelessness or foolishness or incompetence
or maliciousness of someone--
someone who may still be walking around alive today.

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus selected such a high number--
“seventy seven”-
because he knew how much practice we were going to need.
Forgive seventy-seven times
and perhaps we will do it automatically on the 78th time.

Why is forgiveness so difficult?
Anger comes so much more quickly.
Revenge is so much easier to fantasize and romanticize.

We remember our hurts--
we hold on to them and number them
and keep them ever handy
to bring up again and again--
if only to ourselves.

But what we need to nurture is forgiveness.

What we need to remember
are the times when we needed forgiveness and received it.
In abundance.

The times when we hurt someone.
The occasions when we spoke harshly or acted thoughtlessly.
The times when we stood silently by as other people were hurt.

We need to remember all the wrong we have done
and the times we have been forgiven
for our thoughtlessness or our cruelty or our ignorance.

September 11, 2001.
It is ten years ago
yet the pain for many is still so fresh.
All the deaths that have followed in the wars that have followed and continue--
all the pain that surrounds each of those deaths.
People are not statistics.
They are human beings.
Lives that matter--to other people--and to God.

There is another September day etched in the minds of some.
September 16, 1963.
Perhaps because it happened almost fifty years ago it is easier to talk about.
A bomb shattered the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
Four little girls who had come to Sunday school that morning were killed.
Many were injured and the church was damaged.
Word of this tragedy spread around the world.

In Cardiff, Wales,
children began to collect money
to help replace the church’s shattered stained glass windows.

John Petts, a Welsh artist, offered to donate his services
to create a window for the church.
A local newspaper editor
launched a campaign to raise money for the venture.
They decided the maximum donation
would be half a crown (about 30 cents at the time)
because they really wanted the window to come from the people of Wales, and not just from a few individuals.

If you go to Birmingham to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church today,
and stand at the pulpit,
looking at the back wall of the sanctuary,
you will see this beautiful stained glass window.
Just as when we look towards the back of the church here at St. John's.

The light filters through the brightly colored glass
and the light touches--and blesses--
all who worship there.
At the center of the window at the Sixteenth St. Baptist Church there is a large figure of Jesus
with his arms widely outstretched.
His right hand pushes away hatred and injustice.
His left hand reaches out and offers forgiveness.

Underneath the figure of Jesus, the artist, John Petts, etched these words:
You do it to me.
You do it to me.

The people of Wales did not think about the differences
between themselves and the members of the Sixteenth St. Baptist Church.
They thought about all they shared in common.
They wanted to take some of the pain and sorrow of those families
and give them something beautiful to help them heal,
to show them they cared,
to show that they understood that each one of those four little girls mattered.

Today memorials are being dedicated at Ground Zero.
A symbol of the pain and sorrow and loss--
a symbol that we care,
that we know that each person matters in this world.

Not just in the United States of America that we so dearly love--
but each person matters in the entire world, in God’s world.

We cannot control what others may do to us,
but we can choose what we do to others.
Hatred and injustice need to be pushed away--
but forgiveness must simultaneously be offered
and given away generously.
What we do to others is no different
than what we do to Jesus.

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

As many as seven times?
Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Where two or three are gathered...Sermon for Year A Proper 18

2011-09-04T19:19:00.001-04:00

Where two or three are gathered...

Where two or three are gathered in my name,
I am among them.
That is what Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel today.

Where two or three are gathered.
That seems like a really small number of people
to merit Jesus showing up, doesn’t it?
Two or three?

But we need to look at this gospel in the context of the time period.
A huge church in the time when this gospel was written,
near the end of the first century
would have been about 50 people.
That would have been an enormous Christian church.

Just think---St. John’s in the first century---
we would have been a mega church!!

Jesus wants to be clear that he will be with us.
But isn’t it interesting--
he says when TWO or THREE
are gathered
in my name.
He is telling us something about being in community with one another.
It doesn’t take a crowd
but it does take more than just one of us.
He is telling us that we need each other.

Both the Gospel and the verses from Paul’s letter to the Romans
offer guidance about how we can get along together. TOGETHER.
As a community of God’s people.

We are given guidelines for how to work out conflicts and disagreements.

I heard a story this week
that reminded me of my "Episcopal Moment" from last week
when I spoke about the rubrics
in the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
as to when you stand and when you sit during a worship service.
Here’s the story.:

A young rabbi found a serious problem in his new congregation.
During the Friday service,
half the congregation stood for the prayers
and half remained seated,
and each side shouted at the other,
insisting that theirs was the true tradition.

Nothing the rabbi said or did
moved toward solving the impasse.

Finally, in desperation,
the young rabbi sought out
the synagogue's 99-year-old founder.

He met the old rabbi in the nursing home
and poured out his troubles.

"So tell me," he pleaded,
"was it the tradition
for the congregation to stand during the prayers?"
"No," answered the old rabbi.

" Ah," responded the younger man,
"then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?"

"No," answered the old rabbi.

"Well," the young rabbi responded,
"what we have now is complete chaos!
Half the people stand and shout,
and the other half sit and scream."

Ah," said the old man, "that was the tradition."

You see--conflict crosses all boundaries.
Boundaries of religions, traditions, cultures and time.

Even in the early church--even in it’s earliest days--
there was conflict.

The reality is that conflict is part of life.
Conflict in organizations and in families
keeps consultants and therapists employed and busy.
Conflict in the church keeps many churches bound up,
unable to loose what God calls us to do and to give in this world.

Most of us hate conflict.
Yes, there are a few that like to stir things up
and then either watch from the sidelines as others battle it out
or else, jump right into the drama.
(That’s probablynot a healthy or happy person.)

Most of us find conflict at least uncomfortable.
You know how toddlers sometimes, when they are feeling shy,
will close their eyes.
They think that if they close their eyes and they can’t see you,
then you can’t see them.

That’s how we often treat conflict.
We turn away or try to ignore the situation--
metaphorically closing our eyes--thinking if we can pretend we don't see the conflict
then it won’t be there.

We might consider Jesus a first century conflict resolution consultant.
Jesus knew that conflict exists. He was often right in the middle of conflict.
He also knew do that conflict does not just magically disappear.

Jesus gives very specific advice on what we are to do
Jesus isn’t just telling us how to resolve conflict--
he is really telling us how to live in community together.
But he knows that whenever human beings come together,
there will be disagreements. We are diverse people with diverse opinions.
Our challenge is to work out those disagreements
and to do so while still loving
and remaining in relationship with one another.

Jesus has a three step process:

First, go directly to the person.
That’s right--go right to the person--just you and that person--and confront the problem directly.
Confronting and naming a problem is not the same as blaming someone.
Jesus is not saying,
go to that person and give them in a piece of your mind.
Jesus is saying go to the person and tell the truth--
that you feel hurt.
Or if you are the one who has hurt someone,
go to that person and say you’re sorry and ask their forgiveness.
Talk with the person and find ways together
to restore the broken relationship.

Go to the person
before you have talked ABOUT the person
to one or two or twenty-two other people.

This is not easy.
When we have been hurt, we want to hurt back!
For most of us to resist that “hurting back,”
we choose to just avoid the person.
Or to turn a cold shoulder to the person.

The temptation is to seek revenge--either aggressively or passively--
but Jesus offers a different way, a better way.
Go directly to the person, tell the truth, confess that you feel hurt,
or that you are responsible for their hurt--
then work towards reconciliation.

This is what Jesus means and what Paul affirms
over and over in the letter to the Romans, when they proclaim:
Love one another. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Lay aside the works of darkness.
And make no mistake--acts of revenge are works of darkness.

Gandhi got it right when he said,
“An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.”

So that is step one.
Go directly to the person,
tell them how you feel,
work things out.

Jesus was a wise man.
He knew that not every conflict could be resolved in that way.

So he has a Step Two.
If the person won’t listen to you--or won’t even talk with you--
try going to them with two or three other people.

Now this is not for the purpose of out numbering someone.
Because, remember--this is not about revenge--
this is not even about wanting the person to admit they were wrong--
because the truth is,
YOU may be the person who is at fault.

The purpose of taking a few others with you
is to surround this person with love.
Surround them with love
so they might listen and hear what you want to say
and desire, as you do, to work things out.

But Jesus is a realist. He knows that even this second try might not work,
so he moves on to Step Three.
Jesus calls for the church to try to reach the person.
The whole community should reach out to this person,
hold them accountable but love them still.

Now this sounds scary.
It sounds like the church could go off on a witch hunt.
The truth is---and we all know it--
the church HAS gone on more than one witch hunt.
Some of us have horrible images of people being shunned
or made to stand up in church and being humiliated.

But the key to what Jesus is saying is in the next line:
...if the offender refuses to listen even to the church,
let such a one be to you as a Gentile or tax collector.

We need to remember that Jesus sat and broke bread and talked
to both Gentiles and tax collectors.
He did not exclude them, he did not reject them.
Jesus tried to respect the dignity of every human being--
even when he did not agree with them,
even when they did not agree with him.

Jesus is telling us that REGARDLESS--
and this is not about legal action this is about human interaction--
regardless, we are to love one another.

This is hard stuff.
Because essentially Jesus is saying,
your last resort people is to just keep on loving this person no matter what.

In his book Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner says
that love is the most powerful and powerless of all powers.

He writes:

“It is the most powerful
because it alone can conquer
that final and most impregnable stronghold
which is the human heart.
It is the most powerless
because it can do nothing except by consent.”

We cannot force reconciliation.
We cannot make someone love us
just because we love them.
We cannot force forgiveness
even when we beg for it.

But we can keep working to love someone--regardless.

American poet Edward Markam wrote:

He drew a circle that shut me out,
 Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. 
But Love and I had the wit to win,
 We drew a circle that took him in.

Sometimes we will find ourselves on the outside of someone’s circle.
We will try steps one and two and three and three hundred and three--
to no avail.

There is only one thing left at that point.
To hold that person within our circle of love.
They don’t have to love us back
but we can still love them.
And Jesus will be right there beside us.

As Christians our primary call is to love.

Aristides, a philosopher in the Second Century
noticed there was something different about those Christians.
He wrote:

"Christians love one another.
They never fail to help widows;
they save orphans from those who would hurt them.
If a man has something, he gives freely to man who has nothing.
If they see a stranger, Christians take him home and are happy,
as though he were a real brother...
If one of the is poor and there isn’t enough food to go around,
they fast several days to give him the food he needs...
This is really a new kind of person.
There is something divine in them."

Christians love one another.
As our own St. John said, over and over,
Little children, love one another.

Please understand that this call to love one another
does not mean
Jesus is asking us to remain in a situation or with a person
who is hurting us or abusing us.
But Jesus is telling us that revenge will not make the situation better
nor will it change the person.
Loving one another means we choose
to not return that hurt and abuse and hate.
We choose a different way.

There is a highway that is filled with bickering and jealousy,
violence and revenge, hate and fear--
and this highway is often very crowded.
It is usually about eight lanes wide on both sides and smoothly paved.

Jesus shows us a more difficult path to travel.
Not so wide, no so easy,
but it is the path
that leads us to the essence of all Love.

...where two or three are gathered in my name,
I am there among them.

We never walk the path of love by ourselves.
Never.

Spiritual but Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me.

2011-09-01T10:46:00.002-04:00

I read this on FACEBOOK this morning and felt it was really worth sharing. How many of us clergy types have heard the "spiritual but not religious" comment--or should I say, how many of us have NOT heard this comment. I like this article because I think she addresses and names what it means to be a community of faith. There is nothing easy about it--yet there is so much that is joyful and rich and deep about it. And challenging. DId I mention how challenging it can be to be involved with and stay engaged with a community that is both religious and spiritual.

I couldn't get a link to work so will just paste in the article. Worth reading and pondering. Indeed.

Home : Feed Your Spirit : Daily Devotional
Spiritual but Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me.

August 31, 2011
Matthew 16:18

"And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Reflection by Lillian Daniel

On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition.

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.

Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.

Prayer

Dear God, thank you for creating us in your image and not the other way around. Amen.

About the Author
Lillian Daniel is the senior minister of the First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She is the author, with Martin Copenhaver, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

God Calls....Sermon for Proper 17

2011-08-29T20:59:00.007-04:00

Last week I preached about the Exodus text.
About Shiphrah and Puah, the two midwives,
who refused to follow Pharaoh’s orders
to kill the boy babies of the Hebrew women.
And about Pharaoh’s daughter who pulls a baby from the Nile,
embraces him as her son and names him Moses.

It was not one of my shorter sermons.

I decided last Saturday night
to try to write the essence of that nine page sermon
in haiku form.
Haiku, if you recall, is short three line generally non-rhyming poem--
5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second,
5 syllables in the final line.
You get the idea.
It’s short.

So here is what I wrote based on that Exodus text from last week:

Shiphrah and Puah
sparing babies Pharaoh’s doom.
Moses laughs down river.

A three line sermon.
Even when I read it slowly,
it’s only ten seconds.
For some of you that might be your sermon dream come true!

This week our lectionary continues the Exodus story.

This week’s old testament reading
is about Moses and the burning bush,
about answering a call from God.

I believe we are all called by God.
Not just Moses.
Not just those who have had burning bushes
flame before their very eyes.
Not just clergy.
God calls every one us
to do God’s work in the world.

What is this work of God?
For Moses it was leading the Israelites out of bondage.

For Peter and the first disciples
it was to try to make sense of what Jesus was saying to them
so that they could tell others.
Even when they didn’t understand it all,
they still knew it mattered.
And they felt called to share that good news.

God calls us to different work,
using our different and very diverse gifts.
Throughout theological history,
people have tried to give us some guidelines
on how to live a holy life,
a life that nourishes us with goodness
as our opening collect says this morning.

Paul’s letter to the Romans
tells us how we should go about doing God’s work.
You heard that list of things we need to do.

Sometimes I think we tune out Paul.
We start to read or to listen and our brain goes,
Oh boy....here goes Paul with his list of
oh don’t you wish you were as perfect as I am.
I don’t think that was Paul’s intent.
I think he’s just trying to help us brothers and sisters in Christ.
 It’s probably a lot like preaching a sermon--
sometimes people will leave the services
and say, “Well, I know you were preaching to me this morning!”
Actually, about the only person I think I can preach to is myself.
But God opens our ears
to hear what we need to hear sometimes.

So I want us to imagine,
this portion of Paul’s letter to the Romans as a t-shirt.
That’s right a t-shirt.

Paul’s Top 20 List for following Jesus

(Now I am going to use the language from THE MESSAGE, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the New Testament, but you can follow along with your scripture insert which has the New Standard Revised Version translation)

1. Love from the center of who you are. Don’t fake it.
2. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.
3. Be good friends who love deeply.
4. Practice playing second fiddle.
5. Don’t burn out. Keep yourselves fueled and aflame.
6. Be alert servants, cheerfully expectant.
7. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder.
8. Help needy Christians.
9. Be inventive in hospitality.
10.Bless your enemies (no cursing under your breath).
11.Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down.
12.Get along with each other.
13.Don’t be stuck up.
14.Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
15.Don’t hit back.
16.Discover beauty in everyone.
17.If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody.
18.Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. That’s God’s job.
19.If you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink (your generosity will surprise him...)
20.Don’t let evil get the best of you. Get the best of evil by doing good.

It’s not a simple to-do list.
Perhaps there are one or two things that really called your name.
Maybe each of us only needs a top 2 or 3 things list.

Jesus kept it simple:
Love God. Love one another.

Paul is giving us some tips on how we live into that kind of love.

This kind of love is not easy.
It may cost us everything.
But it’s worth it.
It’s so worth it.

Now back to Moses and burning bushes and being called by God.
When you go through the discernment process
for the priesthood
you are asked (make that required)
to write a spiritual autobiography.
Depending on your age and your journey,
that can take pages and pages.

I had one of those pages and pages spiritual autobiographies.
But during that time of discernment,
I was still doing consulting work for museums
and was traveling--a lot.
One stormy afternoon I was sitting in an airport
waiting on a delayed flight.
To pass the time
I decided to write my spiritual autobiography--
the abbreviated version.
I had a little notebook and I decided it had to fit on one page.
Not quite a haiku--but short.

I don’t remember the whole thing--short as it was--
but here is how it started:

God called.
I was appalled.
I was resistant.
God was persistent.

God calls each of us.
We have to listen.
Maybe we hear clearly.
Maybe we see the burning bush on our first morning out on the mountain.
Or maybe it takes years.
But remember,
God is patient and God is persistent.

God expects something from each of us.
There is a holy way of living we are called to discover--
and to live.

We can try to line it out like Paul did--
our top 20 list--
or we can just try to keep it simple--

Love God. Love one another.
This love is costly. This love is difficult.
But it’s worth it.
It’s so so worth it.

Sermon for Year A Proper 16

2011-08-21T19:49:00.001-04:00

The Help:
Shiphrah and Puah and Pharaoh’s Daughter

Some of you may have seen the movie THE HELP
that is playing in theaters now.
Some of you may have read the book by Kathryn Stockett
that inspired the film.
THE HELP is a story set in Jackson, Mississippi in the late 1960’s--
a time of strict segregation and rigid, sometimes punishing,
social norms.

THE HELP is the story of a diverse group of women--black and white,
privileged and unprivileged--
and their struggle --at least for some--
to do what they know is right--
but is also extremely risky,
dangerous.
To speak up and to speak out.
To shine a light into the darkness
and reveal injustice and oppression.

THE HELP is a well-told story.
But it is certainly not a new story.
Injustice and oppression have deep roots.
The Bible tells us so--
again and again and again.

Today we hear from the book of Exodus
about two midwives-
Shiphrah and Puah.

Those are not familiar names that just trip off our tongues.
I don’t know about you
but I don’t know anyone today who has those names.

That’s rather too bad.
Because these two women in the book of Exodus
are quite remarkable.
Exodus is a remarkable story.

In Exodus we come face to face with what it means to be an oppressed people.
We cannot read the text and deny
that some human beings
are willing to impose suffering on others.

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt,
is the king-pin of oppressors.
In ancient and in modern times,
one link that connects all oppressors
is that they are usually fearful people.
They do evil unto others before others might do evil unto them.

Pharaoh is afraid of the Israelite people.
They are a people who are doing just as God commanded in the book of Genesis--
be fruitful and multiply.

Pharaoh is afraid that these people are becoming so populous
that they may soon have enough people, enough strength
to overcome Pharaoh and his kingdom.

What if the Hebrew people align themselves with Pharaoh’s enemies?
Pharaoh has no intention of losing his kingdom,
his wealth, privilege and power.

Pharaoh is afraid.
So he sets out to take control.
Pharaoh says, Let us deal shrewdly...
(Never a good sign when someone says that in the Bible!)

And Pharaoh orders Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives,
to murder--
to kill any and every boy baby born to the Israelite women.

Pharaoh didn’t care about the girl babies.
Girls were nothing.
But boys?!!
Boys grow up to be men--
men who can take Egyptian women,
men who can align with Pharaoh’s enemies
and go to war against Pharaoh and the Egyptians.
men who know the benefits of power
and privilege.

Pharaoh has the solution.
Kill the boy babies.

Pharaoh is fearful of the Israelite people.
He sees that they are growing,
in number and in strength.
He also takes note that even under the oppression of slave labor
and harsh living conditions,
are not broken.
Pharaoh is not stupid.
He is paying attention.
He notes,
The Israelite people are more numerous
and more powerful than we [are].

This is terrifying when you are the person in power.

The text says that the Egyptians came to “dread” the Israelites.
That word “dread” is better translated
as “sick to their stomachs.”

The Egyptians are disgusted by the Israelite people.
They don’t see that they have anything in common with these people.
They don’t see the Israelites as human beings.

But the things that frightens Pharaoh the most
is that he knows he NEEDS the very people he loathes.

Pharaoh’s economy needs these immigrants.
Pharaoh is scared out of his wits by these people
yet he is even more scared
that he might lose them
and in turn, lose his wealth.

You see Pharaoh can’t fill his storehouses with grain
without the Israelites.

Pharaoh can’t continue his expansive building projects
without the labor of the Hebrew people.

So he devises this plan.
His plan is to kill off all the Israelite boy babies.
The women--who pose no threat in his mind--can still serve as slaves.
He just needs to be rid of those boy babies.

Only things don’t go as he planned.

Shiphrah and Puah do not do what the King of Egypt commands them to do.
And Pharaoh hears about this.
He summons the two women to come before him.
Can you imagine the fear those women felt
standing in front of this ruthless man?

But the midwives found their strength from a source unknown to Pharaoh.
The text says--
But the midwives feared God...

These two women
truly believe
that God is more powerful than even Pharaoh.

Who are these two women?
The text of Exodus says they are Hebrew midwives.
But we don’t really know if they are Hebrew women
or if they are Egyptian women--
appointed to serve as midwives to Hebrew women.

We don’t know.
Their names sound like Hebrew names--
but if they were Israelites
why would Pharaoh trust them in the first place?

What we DO know is that Shiphrah and Puah
feared God.

This is not the same type of fear that Pharaoh suffers.
Their fear means to be in total awe of God.
These two women believe--
and from their actions it seems they truly believe--
that no worldly king,
is more powerful than their God.

These midwives disobey Pharaoh and show mercy.
These midwives embody God’s mercy.

They do not see the Israelite women as “those people” or “the other.”
They see these women--and their babies--
as fellow human beings,
all created by one God,
all loved by one God.

But Shiphrah and Puah do have
a marvelously crafted excuse for Pharaoh.
They explain their disobedience
by describing the Hebrew women
as giving birth so quickly that they, the midwives,
don’t arrive until after the babies are born.

Too late for the delivery, too late for the cunning killing of the baby boys.

It is probably a believable story to Pharaoh
because it fits with Pharaoh’s mindset that the Hebrew people
are nothing more than animals.
They are not like Egyptian women who give birth normally--
taking hours and hours of labor.

So Pharaoh’s plan has gone awry.

But oppressors almost always have a plan B.

If the baby boys can’t be killed at birth,
then Pharaoh decrees that
Every boy that is born to the Hebrews
will be thrown into the Nile.

But interestingly enough,
the next person who disobeys Pharaoh,
is Pharaoh’s very own daughter.
(Don’t you just love God’s sense of humor?!!)

When Pharaoh’s daughter finds this baby floating in a basket down the river,
she KNOWS he is a Hebrew baby
But she takes the baby and has compassion.
She takes the baby as her own son
and hires a conveniently present Hebrew woman--
as his wet nurse.
Pharaoh’s daughter just happens to hire the birth mother of Moses.

An Egyptian woman and a Hebrew woman come together
on the side of hope and life.
Moses is the son of BOTH of these women.

God has a way of bringing together the unlikely.
God often uses those who appear to have the least power
to do the most good.

Pharaoh is a person with immense worldly power.
He lives a life based on fear, exclusion and loathing of others.
Sadly, this is a model followed by too many
and too much of the world.

Fear.
If you can make people afraid, you can control them.
Exclusion.
If you can pit one group of people against another,
you can likely control all the people.

Loathing.
If you can make one group of people think they are better
than another group,
if you can portray the “other” as disgusting, non-human,
you can stay at the top.

Bullying is a small-scale example of Pharaoh’s model of relationships.
Turn on the evening news or pick up the New York Times
and you can find example after example
of Pharaohs still actively at work.

But God offers another way.
Certainly, as Christians, we recognize Jesus as one who walked a very different
path than Pharaoh.
But God was already revealing the other way long before Jesus.
Look at Shiphrah and Puah and Pharaoh’s daughter--
compassion, inclusion and risk.

Throughout history there has always come forward
some one or some small group of people
who refuse to do what they know is wrong.

Someone steps forward--often risking their own well-being, their very life--
someone steps forward and offers another way,
a vision that speaks of God’s dream for the world.
A vision that is comprised of risk and compassion and inclusion.

Compassion.
When she opened [the basket], she saw the child.
He was crying, and she took pity on him.

Inclusion.
This must be one of the Hebrew children...
and she took him as her son.
Risk.
But the midwives feared God.
They did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them...

Regardless of the situation or the time period,
when you decide to face and oppose Pharaoh’s kingdom,
you cannot expect things to be easy.
You cannot even expect that you will come out alive.

It’s why so many of us do not take those risks,
do not stand up or speak out for what we know is right.
It is much more difficult to oppose oppression
when we are not the oppressed.
It is also difficult
when we have a lot to lose ourselves.
None of us dislike having a comfortable life,
having privilege and power.

But we need to look at the lesson offered by Shiphrah and Puah.
We need to live in awe of God.
Not in awe of any other human being or any system of power.

We need to live by the model of Pharaoh’s daughter--
willing to risk for the sake of compassion,
willing to open our arms and hearts
to those who are being shut out and shut off
because we know that is wrong.

As baptized Christians,
we have made a covenant with God to follow Jesus.
Jesus who said--
Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven
and whatever you loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven.

Life is not about just hanging around
waiting for the pearly gates of heaven to spring open.
What we do here on earth matters.
How we treat one another matters.

God gives us choices.
We can choose a path that offers life to all--
or we can choose a path that sacrifices some people--
in order that a few might live extremely well.

God gives us choices.
Mercy or massacre?

God gives us choices.
Jesus came to remind us again.
Choose compassion.
Chose mercy.
Choose life.

God HAS spoken to God’s people.

Haiku Sermon

2011-08-20T21:24:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine started a Facebook group HAIKU FOR BREAKFAST. Being a haiku fan myself,and struggling to finish my sermon today, I decided to try writing the essence of the sermon in haiku form tonight. The text is Exodus 1:8-2:10. I'll post the nine page version of the sermon later tomorrow but here's the short version for tonight:

Shiphrah and Puah
sparing babies Pharaoh's doom.
Moses laughs down river.

You know. I really like the haiku version better than the nine page version.

The times they are a-changin'...

2011-08-17T10:14:00.003-04:00

I often ponder change. I wonder why it is so difficult for some while others easily take the stance of "It don't bother me, Poppy." People leave churches where they have worshipped for decades--even generations--if something changes that they feel they cannot bear. It is usually not a major theological shift--it is usually something like the 7:30 AM Sunday Morning service is shifted to begin at 7:45 AM or someone moved the flag to a different spot in the church. I am also aware that sometimes people depart a congregation they have loved for very good reasons.

But the truth is: change happens. Constantly. Even the details, the every day little things in our lives, are constantly changing. This summer Tom and I attended some worship services at Montreat Conference Center (which is just down the road from where we live). We noticed that the younger ministers preached directly from their laptops or iPads--no written, printed out copies. I am not there yet, but I liked this a lot. Seems environmentally friendly as well as an expression of the immediacy of the text and the ability to change/edit rapidly.

I read this post by Tom Ehrich on Mary MacGregor's blog (http://missionaryleader.blogspot.com/) and now I pass it on. Both Mary and Tom's blogs are well-worth following. I like it how posts can pass along from blog to blog to blog (appropriately credited, of course!)--it seems a new way of sharing the good news, or as D.T. Niles put it, "...one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread."

Here's how Mary introduced Tom's post:

I have come to appreciate Tom Ehrich's blog 'Morning Walk Media' alot. Recently he posted the following article. I hope he doesn't mind me copying it for you all to read. It is about the things we often cherish or think are essential that are only a means to an end and are disappearing from our lives. This includes church buildings. I urge you to read it and consider the implications for you as a missionary leader. Here goes:

The Yawning Divide Between Pencils and IPads
by Tom Ehrich, Religion News Service

In preparing a commencement address this week, I decided to werite it on my new Apple iPad, sitting on a sofa beside a window, using an app called Quickoffice. Big deal, you say. But, think about it.

A month ago, I didn't own an iPad. I had never heard of Quickoffice. I had never imagined that a touch-screen keyboard could be satisfying. I carried 20 pounds of gear, files and books onto an airplane; now I tote around a 1.3 pound iPad.

In one month's time, everthing has changed. What's the point? The point is change-rapid change, change in even the most basic functions we perform, like stringing words into sentences. New gear, new media, new ways to express thoughts, to store and process images, share ideas, collaborate with others, and manage time. Of all the current tools I use in my work, only one, a mechanical pencil, was in my toolkit a year ago.

Is it all about gadgets? Not in the least. I read this week about a family that sold their property in Arizona and now just travel around in a Winnebago, doing their jobs by internet and laptops. Others live and work on boats or run businesses from coffee shops.

My list: no car, no checkbook, no landline telephone, no lawn mower. Much that I considered normal a few years ago isn't even part of my life now.

Churches are forming without buildings, pipe organs, stained glass windows, pews or wood-paneled offices. Bricks and mortar universities are moving online. Even dating has moved online.

The point isn't to extol technology, but to note that most of these changes will seem normal any day now. Former ways, it turns out, weren't essential. We want to fall in love, yes, but whether we do so at a church social, company picnic, group meetup, or Match.com is just a detail.

We need to eat, but whether we shop at a corner market, a huge Cosco or online grocery is just a detail.

We need to have faith, but whether we find it in a building with a steeple, a house church, or walking with a friend is just a detail.

A divide is openining between those who still consider the details of yesterday's normal to be necessary and those who perceive the details as optional. When something is necessary, you fight to preserve it. When it becomes optional, letting go is no big deal.

Church buildings, for example , feel like sacred space and a solemn trust to some people, who sacrifice much to preserve them. Others say, "So what? We can worship in a hotel ballroom, meet at Starbucks, study online, and find the sacred anywhere." The point is faith , not facilitites.

Sorting out these two perspectives is wrenching work, filled with misunderstanding, suspicion of motives, loss of employment, loss of certainty, loss of common ground for imagining basic things. These deep divides aren't about age or maturity, education or income, or intangibles like respect. It's more disposition than anything. It's like the gulf between ranchers and farmers a century ago over need for fences. There are elements of self-interest, but also different ways of seeing history, land, values and future.

The obvious answer is to coexist: some using pencils, some iPads. But when so much is changining, and details are in constant dispute, the bonds of community can get strained.

Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York.. He is the author of "Just Wonder, Jesus" and founder of the Church Welllness Project. His website is www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter@tomehrich.

Orange is the New Black

2011-08-11T13:48:00.001-04:00

I just finished reading Piper Kerman's ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. I discovered it accidentally--yep, wandering around a bookstore (could somebody please pay me to do this??). I had never even heard of this book--once again, drawn to it by the cover art (thank you good graphic designers).

It is the story of the year that she spent in federal prison as a result of being young, stupid and carrying a large sum of drug money for someone she foolishly trusted. It's not so much the how of how she got to prison but what happens to her in the time spent there. If you have been misled to think that federal prison is only one step down from a country club, think again. This book will make you think again and again and again.

The relationships Piper forms with the other women in the prison and the deepening of her relationships with her family and friends outside the prison walls during this time are an interesting juxtaposition to one another. This book is also quite an eye-opener about our justice system, mandatory drug sentencing and the effects of that system on women and the children of incarcerated women.

I don't have any idea what it would be like to lose all my privileges and freedoms but this book gives a taste of that. Piper Kerman's story does not make excuses for what she did to wind up in prison but it is profound call for compassion for those who are imprisoned.

She's also able to write about this with wit and humor--otherwise i think the story would be one that is too hard to tell and even harder to read.

Sermon for Year A Proper 14

2011-08-07T23:04:00.002-04:00

A day at the beach

I wasn’t feeling so well that morning.
I was tired.
My sons and their children went on ahead into the village
to buy some supplies for our long journey home.
I told them I would just wait for them to return.
So I sat down on the shore to rest for awhile.

I saw that man, the one they call Jesus—
he was down by the water
and his disciples were casting out to sea in their boat.
They seemed to desperately want him to come along with them,
to get into the boat--
but he kept shaking his head, “No,”
and pushing their boat out into the deeper waters.

And then he walked right by me.
He gave me a slight nod-- but didn’t say anything.
He looked tired.
He looked as tired—no, even more tired—than I was.

I saw him walking up the mountain alone.
I almost got up to follow him.
to see exactly where he was going.
He’s just that kind of person—
you just want to go wherever he goes.

But I didn’t go.
I was afraid.
What if my family came back looking for me
and I wasn’t there?

Plus I’ve heard stories that he often goes off by himself—
to be alone with God, to pray.
I understand that.

Alone time is hard to come by.
Life is so busy.
There are so many demands.
Somebody always seems to need something.

Just as I was beginning to enjoy MY alone time,
sitting there on the beach,
I heard faint shouts, carried by the winds coming off the sea.

I could barely see the boat
but I could see the waves—tipping that little boat almost upside down.
It looked like the men in the boat were doing everything they could
to bring that boat back in to the shore.

And then here comes Jesus,
Calmly walking,
coming down the same mountain path he went up,
his eyes fixed on that little boat.
He walks by me and right down to the edge of the water
and then—now, I am telling you what I saw that day—
he walks right out—onto the sea.
That’s right—he walks right onto the sea.
Not INTO the sea—but right on top of the water.

I know, I know,
You think I am just a crazy ol’ woman imagining things.
I was NOT imagining him walking on that water—
I saw it. I think I saw it.
Though, to tell the truth, I couldn’t believe it myself.
I gave myself a hard pinch—
just wanted to be sure I hadn’t dozed off and was dreaming.

He just walked across the top of the water.
The men almost had the boat back in to shore
and then they see Jesus walking on the water
And they stopped.
They were close enough then that I could see some of their faces— slack-jawed, mouths dropped wide open!
They were scared!

Except for that fellow named Peter.
He is something else.
He grew up with one my sons
and since Peter was a little boy
you could hardly contain him.
My boy Zach tells me Peter is wild for Jesus!
I don’t have any problem believing the wild part!

So next thing you know, Peter is jumping out of the boat
and for a minute
it looked like he was walking on water too!
But that didn’t last but a second—if it happened at all—
and it is a good thing Jesus can walk on water
or Peter would have drowned.

Next thing I know,
they’re all in the boat
and suddenly the sea is calm.
Smooth as one of the stones you pick up along the shore
and hold in your hand.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying,
but it looked to me like Jesus was laughing.
Not laughing in a mean way—
but the way we all laugh
when we find ourselves with those we love—
even when they drive us crazy.

I don’t know what happened to all of them next
because my family was there and we wanted to make it
a little ways down the road towards home—
before it got too dark.
We planned to stay the night with some cousins along the way.

I had trouble going to sleep that night.
I kept thinking about all I had seen—or thought I had seen.

I kept thinking about that little boat
being tossed around by those violent waves.

There are days when it feels like I am surrounded by water on every side.
And there is no way to cross over,
No way to find my way back to shore.
I sometimes feel lost at sea.

My life feels like that boat sometimes.
I feel battered by worries and fears.
I worry about my children and my grandchildren.
I worry about my husband who has been so sick this past year.

How will we live
if something happens to him or to my sons?
Life is bare bones enough right now.
Some days it’s hard to have any hope for the future.

Sometimes I feel that at any moment
our little boat could tip over
and dump us all head first into a storm of despair.

Laying awake in the dark
I kept thinking about this man Jesus.
Did I really see him walk on top of the water?
Was that real?
How is that possible?

I know, I know,
A lot of people do not like Jesus.
I’ve heard the talk.
They think he’s a bunch of hooey.
They think he’s dangerous.

But what I know I did see
was his hand reaching out to Peter and pulling him up,
pulling him safely out of the water
and into the boat.

I saw the storm stop.
I saw the sea become calm.

I don’t know what to think about this man named Jesus.
but I know there was something about his presence
that brought peace—even to the waves.

I know there was something about his presence
when he walked by me that day—
that brought peace—even to me.

He didn’t prevent the storm from happening,
but he sure knew how to calm the waters.

I know he was there
when those friends of his needed him.

And somehow…
somehow I think
he might just be there for me, too.
And maybe for you…
And you…and you…and you.
Somehow I think
he might just be there for all of us.

Sermon for Year A Proper 13

2011-07-31T19:49:00.000-04:00

I WILL, WITH GOD’S HELP

It was my first trip to Machuca.
Machuca is a village on the top of a mountain in rural Panama.
At that time the only way to get to the village was up a dirt road
that resembled a washed out, dried up, deeply rutted river bed.

Into the back of a truck our group went
and bummmmmmmppppppity bump bump
up to the village we traveled.

We were in Panama on a mission trip.
We had gone to help the people of Panama.
We were working at the Episcopal camp in Santa Clara,
building several ranchos—a pavilion like structure
whose roofs are made of pencas, a type of palm leaf.

Being that none of us Americans had much penca experience,
our good Episcopal friends in Panama
had brought in some men from the village of Machuca to help us—
and we needed lots of help!

Most of the men spoke no English.
Many of us spoke no Spanish.
There were a few in the group—thanks be to God—who did speak Spanish
and we were quite dependent on these translators.
But you also learn
that much can be said without any words.
Smiles and laughter,
working and sharing meals together,
playing and praying together—
are the bridges built over language barriers.

At the end of our week working at the camp,
our new friends wanted to take us to their village,
to meet their families.

So down the road and up the mountain we traveled.

When we arrived at Machuca,
we met their families.
Shy smiles all around and then we were told to follow
and we walked through fields of tall grass
until we came to a rancho
where a large iron pot
was bubbling over an open fire.

These kind women of the village
had just that morning killed chickens
and prepared a traditional Panamanian soup, sancocho.

There were few chairs—
so most of us found a log or a spot on the ground to sit
and we were served.

You see we thought we had gone to Panama to serve.
We did not expect to BE served.

We thought we had gone to Panama to help.
In our wealth and comfort,
we were blind to seeing that we were the ones who needed help.

The women in the village of Machuca understood
and knew what it is to do more than “talk” Jesus—they lived “Jesus:”

YOU give them something to eat.
That is what we hear Jesus say to his disciples in the gospel today.

Everyone is tired. The day has been long.
The crowds have been enormous.
And the disciples are ready to call it a night.
Jesus, you need to send these crowds away
so they may go into the villages
and buy food for themselves.

And Jesus responds, YOU give them something to eat.

We are constantly being called by God
to get involved, to work together WITH God.

I need you to take your prayer book and turn to page 304—
The Baptismal Covenant.
This is the heart of who we are as Episcopalians, as children of God.

The subtitle under the Baptismal Covenant
could easily read: YOU give them something to eat.
Our baptismal covenant echoes this same call, this same command.

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

We do not respond—"You do that God. You can take care of that, Jesus."
We respond—I WILL—with God’s help.
I WILL.
I WILL teach Sunday School,
I WILL host a coffee hour, I will volunteer at Bele Chere,
I will weed the Memorial Garden, I will serve on the Altar Guild,
I will commit to being here for Eucharist every week,
I WILL say my prayers every day.
I will, with God’s help.

Will you persevere in resisting evil and whenever you fall into sin,
repent and return to the Lord?
We do not respond—"Well, it’s not my fault."
We do not respond—"I’m not the one who needs to say I’m sorry."
We respond—I WILL, with God’s help.
I will turn my life around. I WILL, with God's help.

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
When we were in the village of Machuca,
our words were pretty useless to one another.
But oh my!
What the people of that village proclaimed to us by their example!
The good news of God in Christ was all around us.
in every ladle of soup. In every smile.
I WILL, with God’s help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
We do not respond by picking and choosing the people we want as our neighbor.
The command is clear—ALL persons, loving ALL persons.
We don't submit our list of the people we choose as our neighbors.
We respond by saying,
I WILL,with God’s help.
I will seek and serve Christ in ALL persons.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
Our Baptismal covenant makes it crystal clear what is expected us.
YOU strive for justice.
YOU strive for peace.
YOU respect the dignity of EVERY human being.
It matters not that we are on shaky ground in some of these areas in the secular world.
We are children of God and
we respond by saying,
I WILL, with God’s help.

One of the people in our mission group named it right when he said,
as we walked through Machuca,
“I have never seen such material poverty in my entire life—
and I have never met people who are so rich in God.”

When the disciples go to Jesus and ask him to send the people away,
they are acting out of their poverty,
their own fear of scarcity and limited resources.

Jesus says to them—and to us—open your eyes
to the abundance that God has given you.

If we live into our baptismal covenant
there is more than enough.
Enough fish and loaves,
enough justice, enough goodness, enough peace, enough time,
enough love.
There is enough, there is plenty--
if we resist our hoarding, if we turn our backs on selfishness,
if we learn to be generous.
You give them something to eat because there is more than enough.
That kettle of sancocho—that chicken soup—is absolutely bottomless.

We need to take a closer look at our own kettles,
our own basket of gifts that God has so generously given to us.
Do we need it all?
Where is the joy in abundance
if we have nothing to share? Nothing to give away?

We too often want God to wave a magic wand
and make the world and our life perfect?
You do it, God.
You’re God, after all.

But God says over and over and over—
Throughout time, throughout history,
Throughout our own lives—
I WILL help you
but YOU give them something to eat.
YOU do something.
YOU take a risk every now and then.

Our default response to everything in life needs to be,
I WILL—with God’s help.

Why do we send people away hungry or lonely?
Why do we not have teachers for our children’s Christian formation?
Why do we not the time or resources or the interest to live into our Baptismal Covenant?
Perhaps all we can see are two little fish and five little loaves of bread
and we are so afraid there just isn't enough.

There is a large church in northern Virginia
that was embarking upon a multi-million dollar capital campaign,
a building campaign.
A small group of people within that large church spoke up and said,
“If we are going to raise several million dollars to serve ourselves,
we think we should raise a matching amount
to serve those in need,
for outreach ministries in our community
and in the world.”
What?
Preposterous! said the congregation.
What?
Ridiculous! said the clergy.
We can’t raise that kind of money from our congregation.
We’re large but we’re not that large!
We’re generous but we’re not that generous!

And yet those words of Jesus echoed—YOU give them something to eat!
It took some wrestling but the congregation decided—
WE WILL, with God’s help!
And they did.
There were loaves and fishes enough
for all to be fed and to be fed well.

How might we see new and abundant ways
to proclaim by word and example
the good news of God in Christ?
What are we willing to risk to seek and serve Christ in all people?

There are times when we are like Jesus—
we want to get in our own little boat and sail away
to a quiet, undemanding deserted place.
And yes! We all need Sabbath time.

But the purpose of Sabbath,
is to renew us to be able to respond with joy,
“I WILL, with God’s help.”

I had a friend, Barbara, and whenever you went to Barbara for a favor
she always said, YES!
Before you even told her what you needed,
her response was always YES!
I once asked her why she said YES before she knew what I was going to ask her to do
and she responded,
"You are my beloved friend
and if there is something you need,
I want to say YES!"
(Oh, how I miss Barbara!)

God says YES to us in so many ways.
God longs for us to say YES to those who need us.

What is God calling you to do? What is God calling me to do?
What is God calling St. John’s to do—-right now?

Even if we can’t answer that question—we can start—
we can start by praying—I WILL, with God’s help.
I WILL, with God’s help.
I WILL, with God’s help.

Pray and trust that God will show us the needs
and the ways to say YES to those needs.

Pray and remember the words that Jesus says to his disciples:
YOU give them something to eat.
YOU
give them something to eat.

Sermon for Year A Proper 12

2011-07-30T11:09:00.001-04:00

The kingdom of heaven is like…

As many of you know I have been on vacation this past week.
The most exotic place we traveled
was to Greensboro for a wedding.

The rest of the time we were at home in Valle Crucis
enjoying time with our daughter and her husband
and our absolutely charming little granddaughter, Penelope, who is now 14 months old.

I feel like I just spent a week
in the kingdom of heaven.
Being with those you love can do that.

Jesus is speaking in parables again.
trying to teach us about the kingdom of heaven—

The kingdom of heaven is like…
like a mustard seed…
like yeast…
like a treasure hidden in a field..
like a merchant in search of fine pearls..

The kingdom of heaven is like…
like a net thrown into the sea catching fish of every kind..

We don’t know if the writer of Matthew’s gospel
collected these diverse kingdom of heaven images
over a period of time --

Or if Jesus said them all at one time, in one teaching session,
hoping that at least one of these images
would make sense
to those who listened.

But regardless,
three things about the kingdom of heaven
grab my attention in the gospel today:

(1) The kingdom of heaven often starts very small.
(2) Treasure the moments
when the holy breaks through, and
(3) God welcomes everyone. Absolutely everyone.

The kingdom of heaven often starts very small.

The kingdom of heaven can often be seen in a small child.
Our 14 month granddaughter says thank you constantly.
Give her a cheerio and she says thank you.
Throw her a kiss and she says thank you.
Put a little pinecone in her hand and she says thank you.

I was absolutely humbled
by this tiny little person’s ability
to live in constant gratitude.

One small thank you can change everything.
Even coming from us big people—
Small thank yous build on one another.

The kingdom of heaven starts small—
one man Jesus
preaching in one small corner of the world
has grown far and wide and deep.
We have come a long way from Jerusalem.

Jesus started small but he started.
Twelve disciples.
Look how that small group has grown.

The kingdom of heaven can be seen in small churches.
Small churches like St. John’s make a difference.
We need to remember this and celebrate this
and be empowered by this.

I know that Harry Potter is all the movie rage right now,
but think back
and some of you may remember the character Yoda
from the Star Wars movies.
In one scene, Yoda says to Luke Skywalker,
Do or do not. There is no try.

Do or do not. There is no try.
Those are kingdom of heaven words.

Jesus is essentially saying this same thing to us in this parable.
A tiny seed or a tablespoon of yeast
may look so small that it appears to be worth nothing—
but we have flowers on the altar because a seed
did not “try”—it did!
We have bread for communion
because the yeast did not try—it did!

The same is asked of us.
The same is believed of us.
Jesus tells us
that even if we start small
the kingdom of heaven will grow large.
Jesus tells us that even if we start small
our efforts will be like leaven--
we will have bread enough to feed the multitudes.

The second thing I hear in these parables today is this:
Treasure the moments in your life
when the holy breaks through.

So often, too often,
we take for granted all we are given.
We are surrounded by treasure and pearls of great value
but sometimes we miss that.
Sometimes we are so busy wanting what we do not have,
that we miss all that we do have.

Sometimes we are so busy planning for the future
or lamenting the past
that we fail to realize the kingdom moments
that surround us right now.

We struggle to believe what Jesus repeatedly tries to teach:
WE are God’s treasure.
WE are God’s pearls of great price.
WE are God’s beloved children.

God’s love is always here, always with us—
but we do not always notice.

But when we do,
when these holy moments happen,
we need to pay attention
and truly see these moments as a treasure.

Sometimes the birth of a baby,
or an illness or even a death
makes us aware of the holy.

Sometimes it is a line in a poem or the lyric of a song
which becomes unexpectedly illuminated for us.

Maybe someone shares a story that surprisingly moves us to tears
or we walk in the doors of a church
firmly convinced that organized religion
is not our cup of tea and then…and then..

Suddenly we see the holy
and we see that it is everywhere
and in everything and everyone.

The light breaks through the everyday fog of our lives
and we know we have found the treasure
we were seeking all along.

And we know we want to hold on to this treasure for dear life—for our life.

And finally, the third thing I heard in Matthew’s gospel:
God’s net is very, very large.

The final parable in Matthew’s gospel today
tells us that the kingdom of heaven
is like a net thrown into the sea
and that net catches all sorts of fish.

We cannot be afraid to cast our nets widely and deeply.
We cannot be afraid to open the doors of our churches
and welcome everyone who wants to come in
and everyone who just randomly wanders in.

Everyone is welcome. EVERYONE.
The job of sorting is not our work to do.
According to Matthew’s gospel,
that work will be done later-- by the angels—not by us.

So these are the three things I hear today in the gospel:

(1) The kingdom of heaven often starts very small.
(2) Treasure the moments
when the holy breaks through.
(3) God welcomes everyone. Absolutely everyone

Parables are stories that let those of us who have ears hear.
(That means all of us!)
We undoubtedly hear different things at different times
because we are different people
at different points in our lives.

What did YOU hear today in these parables?
What is the kingdom of heaven like for you
at this moment
in your life?

The Little Duck

2011-07-15T10:05:00.001-04:00

I shared an excerpt of this poem long ago with my friend Donna. Today she sent me the entire poem.

The Little Duck
by Donald C. Babcock

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.
No, it isn’t a gull.

A gull always has a raucous touch about him.
This is some sort of duck, and he cuddles in the swells.
He isn’t cold, and he is thinking things over.

There is a great heaving in the Atlantic,
And he is a part of it.
He looks a little like a mandarin,

Or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree
But he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher.
He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have.

He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.

Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.
And neither do you.
But he realizes it.

And what does he do, I ask you. He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.

He has made himself a part of the boundless,
by easing himself into it just where it touches him.
I like the little duck.

He doesn’t know much.
But he has religion.

Published in The New Yorker Magazine, October 4, 1947

What helps you see clearly?

2011-07-14T09:47:00.002-04:00

What helps you see clearly? I was recently asked this question (via a blogpost by Mahan Siler--see link). Good question. My discipline of centering prayer is probably the most helpful practice I have for seeing clearly. Please don't believe for a minute that I am an expert at centering prayer and always have a deeply holy experience each day. I am guilty 100 times over of what the Buddhists call "monkey mind"--my mind hops and jumps and tumbles all over the place in those twenty to thirty minutes of intentional silence in the morning. But I show up. I set my phone timer with its little gong chime and I sit. In silence. In peace. Centering prayer helps me to stop and turn the world and worries away from my doorstep for a brief respite. Mahan uses the image (from Ronald Heifetz) of leaving the dance floor and going up onto the balcony. There are many ways to get to the balcony (and many situations that need that balcony perspective), but centering prayer is one of my stairways to the balcony and to seeing more clearly, to feeling more deeply the presence of God.

So what helps YOU see clearly?

Earnest Graham's Bible Comics

2011-07-13T09:17:00.003-04:00

There is a link to my friend Earnest Graham's blog here on my blog but I wanted to especially point out these great Bible comics he is doing for the Gospel readings right now. He's being really generous in letting folks use them in multiple ways. Check out his other work, too.

www.lookbothwaysartand faith.blogspot.com
www.earnestillustrations.com

2011-07-05T17:29:00.005-04:00

I was wandering around Accent on Books on Merrimon Avenue in Asheville (an awesome independent bookstore that is just perfect for indoor wandering) and I had this gift card from CREDO just sitting on alert in my wallet. The truth is I don't NEED any more books. I don't think I will live long enough to read all the ones currently on my bookshelves (not to mention all the ones on the shelves at the Black Mountain Library) But....NEED and WANT are not kissing cousins. So there is this book by Adam Thomas--DIGITAL DISCIPLE: REAL CHRISTIANITY IN A VIRTUAL WORLD and I picked it up. I liked the cover (I have bought a lot of books because I like the cover--hats off to fine graphic design); I liked that it wasn't too long (133 pages)--I am all about short books for the summer months--plus I knew I had two library books on my desk at home; I discovered he had graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary (me, too!); and in reading a few paragraphs I quickly discovered Adam Thomas is funny! So yep! I bought DIGITAL DISCIPLE and just finished reading it today and definitely recommend it. It's a good read with good insights into the Tech world of today. He is self-revealing and almost painfully honest about the good, the bad and the ugly of technology. I agree with Adam Thomas that technology offers diverse new ways to communicate and reach new audiences--but the Tech also provides new ways to isolate ourselves. Balance. The age old spiritual quest. It's interesting to me that he ends the book with his suggestions for staying spiritually centered using two quite ancient spiritual practices--the Ignatian Examen and Lectio Divina. DIGITAL DISCIPLE's outlook is full of refreshing hope for the Church and Adam Thomas gets extra points for his very entertaining footnotes.

Sermon for Year A Proper 9

2011-07-05T12:04:00.001-04:00

Sermon for Pentecost 3 Proper 9
July 3, 2011
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Asheville, NC
The Rev. Jeanne Finan

Yoked together in love

“Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse
of you teeming shore.
Send these,
the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

These words are from a poem titled “The New Colossus”
written by Emma Lazarus.

This poem might have been long forgotten
except these words were engraved on a bronze plaque
and placed inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
These words greet those who visit that Statue
that rises so prominently in the New York City harbor.

Even if you have never been there in person,
we all know what the Statue of Liberty looks like—
and that is not only true for Americans.
She is a very recognizable lady
for people throughout the world.

The Statue of Liberty was given as a gift of friendship--
a gift from France to the United States.
But its meaning and symbolism
has stretched far beyond what was initially imagined.

The United States has a history of welcoming immigrants--
welcoming those who long for freedom,
welcoming those who believe in possibility.

"Immigrant" has become a rather negative and politically charged word
In today's vocabulary.

We need to remember and continue to claim
the words of Emma Lazarus' poem.
Give me your tired…she writes.

This poem echoes what we hear in Matthew’s gospel this morning.
Jesus says:

Come to me, all you that are weary
and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest.

Most of us love this message- we welcome the comfort of it.

This verse from Matthew is on the sign that welcomes you to the hermitages
at the Valle Crucis Conference Center.
Welcoming those who are weary and have come away for a time of retreat,
for rest and renewal.

I imagine most of us, even if we have never taken time for retreat,
know what it is to feel weary at times.
We understand the need and the desire
to lay our burdens down—
to take a time for rest.
At least on occasion, at least for awhile.

Jesus goes on to say,
My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

As I prayed with those words this week,
I thought,
Really, Jesus?!!???
Really?!!!

I mean,
I know your story Jesus.
How can you say this?
My yoke is easy and my burden is light

Jesus’ yoke was not easy
nor was his burden light.
Was it?

Isn’t he talking about the cross—crucifixion--death?
Do we want to be yoked to that?

Jesus was not exactly Mr.Congeniality in hIs day and time.
People hated him. Despised him. Wanted to kill him.
They did kill him.
He was framed and then he was crucified.

How can Jesus say, My yoke is easy and my burden is light..?

Yet one thing Jesus is not is a “pollyanna.”
He had a pretty realistic view of the world and of people.

Look at the first part of this gospel passage.
We quickly notice that Jesus is not a happy camper.
He is frustrated.
He is frustrated because these people around him are never satisfied.
(Hmmm…I’m sure he would NEVER think that about us, right?)

Jesus describes how people reacted to John the Baptizer—
they accused him of having a demon--
because John lived a sparse and simple life—
neither eating nor drinking.

Then along I come, Jesus says, and I AM eating and drinking,
and I am accused of being a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners!
(Okay, so maybe that last part is true!)

This is rather like Jesus saying,
“What’s wrong with you people!!??
Are you never happy??”

Jesus is frustrated that people are so tied up,
so bound by their pettiness, their complaining,
their judging of others, so often unfairly.

But then—almost in mid-sentence, he changes.
Something turns his oh-so-human mind and heart.

Suddenly he seems to pay attention to a deeper feeling,
to what really matters.
Jesus calms down and becomes aware of his true feelings.
Life is not perfect.
Human beings are not perfect
but imperfection is no barrier for love.

Suddenly it turns for Jesus--as it does on occasion for us--
we are filled with love and the world is bright with hope and beauty.

So much so that Jesus invites us—come, give your burdens, to me--
Because I can handle them.

Jesus no longer looks at those around him with irritation or disappointment
but simply with pure love.

There is a story about the monk Thomas Merton.
One day he drives into nearby Louisville, Kentucky
(the city closest to his monastery of Gethsemane).
He parks his truck, gets out and looks around.
He looks around at all the people busily going about their day
and suddenly a feeling of pure bliss washes over him.
Completely unexpected.
But for that moment he knows that he is truly a part of all these people
And they are truly a part of him.
He is overcome with the feeling that he loves--truly loves--
all these people--every single one of them.
He is powerfully aware that love is the yoke we share.

Jesus wants us to take his yoke upon us--
a yoke of love and of peace.

You know I have heard that when animals are yoked together
they often put an older more experienced animal
beside a younger, less experienced animal.
The old one acts as a mentor, a role model.
Let me show you how we do this.
Let me show you how we work together.
Jesus offers us to share his yoke so that we might learn,
So that we might let go of our burdens--
the burdens of complaining and criticizing and judging--
the burdens of fear and anxiety and hopelessness.

Those words engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty
are not a message for tourists.
Those words are not a happy-go-lucky-so-glad-you-could-cruise-by greeting
Those words are written for those who have risked everything
for a different life, a better life.

My great-grandparents and my grandfather
arrived at Ellis Island,
coming to this country from Ireland.
They were immigrants.

Much of their story I do not know.
but I know they risked a long and hard journey
for the hope of a better life.

That is what Jesus asks of us:
Risk everything.
The journey will indeed be long and difficult at times
but the only way to make it through
is to yoke ourselves to love and kindness.

Take my yoke upon you,
And learn from me;
For I am gentle and humble in heart
And you will find rest for your souls.

We need to learn to give love away at every turn--
especially to those the world considers “wretched refuse,”
to the homeless and the poor and the suffering
and to those people no one seems to wants.

God wants and love us all.

Jesus says the same: Come to me ALL of you…

By yoking ourselves to the one who is love incarnate,
we too—all of us—
can learn love and humility, gentleness and kindness—

And then indeed,
we will find rest for our souls.

Sermon for the Baptism of Benjamin Henry Robertson

2011-07-05T11:55:00.002-04:00

Using the Lectionary readings for Trinity Sunday)
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Chapel of the Transfiguration
Kanuga Conference Center, North Carolina
The Rev. Jeanne Finan

The Baptism of Benjamin Henry Robertson

We are here today to celebrate
and to baptize Benjamin Henry Robertson.

Matthew’s gospel tells us what to do: …
..[baptize] them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We will do just that in a few minutes.
We will baptize Henry.

And I do mean “WE”
Yes, I am the Celebrant today—
but Henry will be baptized by so much more
and by so many more than just me.

Because God seldom works solo.
The theology of the Trinity gives us a hint of that--
God the three in one, the one in three.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God loves a community!!

Henry will be baptized in the name of the Trinity
and will officially
become part of the Christian community today.

Every one of you—every one of us—
regardless of whether you are here today
as a passionate believer or as one who questions
or even doubts—
regardless, we are gathered here today
as part of the body of Christ
who brings Henry to this font.

Who is this body of Christ gathered here today?

Certainly Anna and Ellen and Ben,
Definitely Henry’s grandparents and godparents—
all the rest of the family--
friends from many places.
All those saints who have gone before us.
All those who have sang and worshipped
and prayed here in this chapel.
Henry comes to the waters of baptism
to join the Christian community throughout the ages--
to be marked as others have been before him--
marked as Christ’s own forever.

We are all bound together with Henry.
Baptism does that.
Love does that.

Our readings this morning speak of great love.
A love that made God want to bring all things into being.

In the beginning God created…
God created heavens and earth,
day and evening
strawberries and bananas and macaroni and cheese.
Birds and aardvarks and golden retrievers
and every living creature.
And God created Benjamin Henry Robertson.

Did I mention that God doesn’t like to work solo?

I do believe we all know that Ben and Ellen got to be partners
in God’s great love that created Henry.

We are here today because we, too, are called
to be part of Henry’s baptism.
We too are called to be part of all that happens
in Henry’s life from this day forward.

We are called to be present around this font
and to be present with Henry as he grows
into all that God dreams him to be.

We are here for Henry
and to reflect seriously upon the promises made at baptism.

What will our lives show Henry about resisting evil?
What will our stories tell Henry
about fellowship and friendship,
about loving God and loving our neighbor?

What will our lives teach Henry about striving for justice,
about respecting the dignity of every human being?

Words are wonderful, beautiful creations.
I am a great lover of words.

But the Word of God is the word we are called to live,
not just talk about.
Henry will be watching.
Henry will be paying attention.
Henry will notice how we live.

We don’t get to come to a baptism as a spectator
any more than Henry is a spectator today.

Great love brought us here to this font today.
Baptism is a response to the unconditional love God offers us.
Baptism is saying YES!

Love makes us do crazy, wonderful, holy things.

Great love brought Henry to these waters of baptism today
and great love will send Henry out into the world.

Our call is to travel this journey WITH Henry—
with our presence
and with our prayers.

So let’s begin this wonderful journey together!
Let’s baptize Benjamin Henry Robertson!

Sermon for Easter Sunday 2011

2011-07-05T11:52:00.002-04:00

(oops! Sorry, got the Easter Sunday sermon posted after some later ones.)

Sermon for Year A Easter Sunday
April 24, 2011
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Asheville, NC
The Rev. Jeanne Finan

The Glory of Everything

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother
as they were setting the table for breakfast.

“Out to the hoghouse,” replied Mrs. Arable.
“Some pigs were born last night.”

“I don’t see why he needs an ax,” continued Fern, who was only eight.

“Well,” said her mother, “one of the pigs is a runt.
It’s very small and weak, and it will never amount to anything.
So your father has decided to do away with it.”

“Do away with it,” shrieked Fern. You mean kill it?
Just because it’s smaller than the others?”

So begins
E. B. White’s beloved children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web.

It is a story about a little girl named Fern who saves the life of a very small and very lucky pig named Wilbur.

It is also the story of Charlotte,
the beautiful, resourceful gray spider
who lives with Wilbur in the barn
and becomes his best friend.

Surrounded by his barnyard pals and cheered by Fern’s visits,
optimistic little Wilbur enjoys each new day—until….

…until one of the grumpy and rather arrogant old sheep
tells Wilbur what farmers do to pigs---
AKA where we get ham and bacon and pork chops!

Wilbur is horrified.

But his spider friend Charlotte comes up with a clever way
to save Wilbur from this horrible fate.
It is not the little girl Fern or the farmer but a common, everyday spider
who saves Wilbur.

Sadly, Wilbur cannot protect Charlotte
from her own death.
Charlotte comes to the natural end of her life as a spider—
but not before she has laid her eggs
in a carefully crafted egg sac.

And Wilbur guards that egg sac—
knowing that what looks to most
like a piece of insignificant fluff
holds new life.

Death
does not have the final word.

And that is what this day—this Easter day—is all about.
Death does not have the final word.

This is the day we shout for joy: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
(Now you say—THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA!)

We call it resurrection—the rising again to life.

And isn’t it interesting—
that the person who sees Jesus first--
risen from the tomb—
is a woman,

At best, a very every day sort of woman—
at worst, a woman with a rather sordid history-
yet she is the one--
Mary Magdalene—who is the first to see
the risen Christ.

The first to see is not a high religious or governmental authority.
Not Pilate nor Caiphas.
Not even one of the named disciples.
Not even Peter or John,
though they rushed to the tomb
when Mary Magdalene ran to tell them
the stone had been moved away
from the tomb’s entrance.

The disciples look around, see nothing, and they leave.

Mary Magdalene is the one who stays.
She has no idea what has happened.
Who could have rolled away the stone?
How can the tomb be empty?
She does not understand
But she does not leave.
.

This village woman who turned to Jesus
To help her get her life together,
Mary Magdalene stays.

And then there appears this man who asks,
Why are you weeping?

She is not sure at first
what or whom she is seeing.
The light of early morning is very dim.
Her heart is still in pieces from what has happened.

But then she hears a voice.
And she knows.
She knows exactly who calls her name.
She knows that as mysterious and rationally unexplainable as it may be,
she knows that voice.
And she knows that life
has the victory over death.

When Mary runs again to the disciples,
She does not say,
I think I may have seen Jesus.
She does not say,
You know, fellas, it may sound crazy but…
She ANNOUNCES to the disciples—
She is sure and she is certain—
I have seen the Lord.

We will never know—at least not in this world—
what Mary Magdalene really saw that morning.
But there is something so real,
almost bone-chilling real,
about the way this encounter is told in the gospels.

I had a professor—a New Testament scholoar-- once say,
“I can not doubt the resurrection in the gospel.
For if it was a story they wanted to make up,
just to prove a point,
just to promote Christianity,
they never,
never in a million years,
they never
would have had a woman
be the first to see the risen Christ.”

“As mysterious and strange as this resurrection account is,” he said,
“I can only believe it is true
and they could tell it no other way but this—
with Mary Magdalene
seeing
and being the one to go and tell the others.

“Whatever happened that morning,
it had to be a God thing.”

It is so important that we do not try to contain the resurrection
in a small and tidy box.
There was nothing tidy about any part of the life of Jesus.

Resurrection can never be limited to this one biblical event.
It is not just about Jesus.
Even the disciples knew that.

Resurrection—happens in so many ways in our lives.

Resurrection is about hope being born from the ashes.
Resurrection is about a friend
showing up to be the glue
when our lives are falling apart.

Resurrection is about a little church in Haw Creek
taking a leap of faith and courage
to knock out it’s old windows
and let the light shine in
and let the love shine out.

Resurrection is about looking for doors that open
when we feel confined to a life that is too small.

Resurrection is a God thing.
And we are all invited.
Women, men, children, pigs, spiders—all God’s creatures.

You see at the end of Charlotte’s Web
the egg sac breaks open—
and new life appears.
Charlotte’s children—hundreds of them come floating out of that egg sac—
on little gossamer parachutes.
And the love that Charlotte nurtured lives on in the world.

Resurrection is about all
that lives on after we die.

“Mr. Zuckerman took fine care of Wilbur all the rest of his days,
and the pig was often visited by friends and admirers,
for nobody ever forgot
the year of his triumph and the miracle of the web.

Life in the barn was very good—night and day, winter and summer,
spring and fall, dull days and bright days.
It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur,
this warm delicious cellar,
the garrulous geese,
the changing seasons,
the heat of the sun,
the passage of swallows,
the nearness of rats,
the sameness of sheep,
the love of spiders,
the smell of manure,
and the glory of everything.

Wilbur never forgot Charlotte.”

Resurrection.
Resurrection
is about turning our hearts to the glory of everything—
but never forgetting
those who helped us
make that turn.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Sermon for Year A Easter 7

2011-07-05T11:40:00.001-04:00

Sermon for Year A Easter 7
June 5, 2011
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Asheville, NC
The Rev. Jeanne Finan

It’s in the bag!

When I was in seminary—back when I knew everything—
I said to myself,
I will NEVER start a sermon by telling a joke.
But then you get out of seminary
and discover yourself doing A LOT of things
you said you would never do.

So here’s my joke.

There was a young lion in the jungle
who thought a lot of himself and his power.
One day he was out walking and he saw a hyena so he leaped over a bush
and landed right in front of the hyena and roared and said:
“I’m KING of the jungle. WHO are you?”
The hyena was terrified and ran away as fast as he could.

The young lion continued strutting
through the forest and he sees a zebra.
He leaps from behind a tree and lands right in front of the zebra.
“I’m KING of the jungle. WHO are you?”
The zebra is off and running as fast as she can run.

On through the jungle continues the young lion.
He sees a little monkey, sitting alone on the jungle floor.
He leaps toward the monkey and roars and says,
“I’m KING of the jungle. WHO are you?”

The little monkey just looks up at the lion and says,
“I’ve been sick.”

Sometimes we have to be reminded
that we are NOT the king of the jungle!!

Do not think that I missed the irony
of coming back sick after attending the CREDO conference—
a conference that focuses on wellness—
spiritual, physical, emotional, vocational
and financial wellness.
The conference was a stunning experience;
Being sick?
Not so stunning!

When I left the doctor’s office last week
I had so many medications and instruction sheets
they had to give me a little brown paper sack
to carry them in.

I momentarily flashed back to being a child
and visiting my grandparents in Wendell, NC.
My grandfather would give me a nickel
and I would run down the block to a little corner store—
Mr. Joseph’s—
and I could fill a little paper sack with penny candy for that nickel.

You know my heart still says I am still a little kid,
so excited to have that little sack of candy—
But sometimes my body says,
Oh honey! You ain’t no little kid any more.
Just look inside that bag!

But thanks be to God for the time and place we live
when we are blessed to have wise doctors
and caring, intelligent nurses
and medicines that can heal us and help us.
I pray and hope this kind of medical care will one day be available
to everyone in this country and around the world.

I am very, very mindful
that even in sickness, I am blessed.

And what a blessing it is
to be back home at St. John’s with all of you!
Thank you for all you did in my absence.
You ARE the church, remember?
And thank you for all you do in my presence as well--
Keep up the good work!

Indeed, I am back—
and Jesus has left.

That’s right—didn’t you hear that in the reading from Acts?
He was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
The Ascension.
We officially celebrated the Ascension this past Thursday
But our lectionary tells us about it once again on this Sunday—
Just in case we hadn’t noticed that Jesus is gone.

Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.
You can’t come again unless you have left.
Jesus is really gone.

And yet—it is not the gone part—
not the Jesus is up there in the clouds part—
upon which we are called to dwell.

Right after Jesus is taken out of their sight,
the disciples receive this message,
“Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

Do you sometimes find yourselves doing that?
Praying and looking UP?

But the message for us is don’t look up. Look around.

The disciples are told they will no longer see
the physical body they know as Jesus
but they are not left alone,
they are not left without comfort.

I am no longer in the world, says Jesus,
But YOU are in the world.
So love one another.
Protect one another. Help one another.

Orphans and widows—I leave in your capable care, says Jesus.
Those wandering in the wilderness—
I trust that together you will find your way.

There’s not one word from Jesus
That tells us that we are embarking on an easy journey.

In fact if we listen to first Peter, we hear:
Keep alert. Discipline yourselves.
Like a roaring lion, your adversary the devil prowls around,
Looking for someone to devour.
(see I told you my joke was tied to scripture!)

This is not an easy journey
But it is a journey filled with hope.

That is so how I felt at the CREDO conference I attended.
39 priests and deacons from the Episcopal Church --
from all over the country.

Parish priests and hospital chaplains.
Small churches, huge churches.
Clergy working with the privileged and affluent
and clergy working on Indian reservations and in the inner city.

I met two women who were among the first women ordained
in the Episcopal Church.
You must have a paying job before you can be ordained to the priesthood.
One of these women had to go to Canada to get her first job.
The other was only ordained because her home parish
Hired her as an associate for $ 5 per hour for 10 hours a week.
That was all they could afford.
But it was enough to get her ordained.
That was 31 years ago.
She is still doing ministry—still focusing on the hopeful promises—
in a church that should be ashamed for the way it treated her.

Yet I am convinced that the church is a place of hope
Not because of the clergy—
because we clergy tend to be more of the “looking up” people—
but filled with hopeful promises
because of people like you--the laity—
You are the looking around people--
you really are the hands and the feet of the church.

We all need to be people who take the WORD of God
and transform it into the WORK of God in our own lives
and in our communities.
Don’t look up—look around.

Jesus tells us that the journey will be filled with challenges
but that God will be with us and give us the strength we need.
God will provide the paper bag that will help us hold it all together.

Inside the paper bag
we hold joy and sorrow, good times and miserable times,
sweet candy and bitter medicine.
Sometimes this mixed bag just seems too heavy to carry.

But if we open our eyes we will see time and time again,
God shows up to help.

If we spend all our time looking up,
we might miss the help that is sent to us.
But if we look around,
we will see the many, many faces that God wears in our world.

Look around and give thanks for those who walk beside us
when the times are tough,
Look around and feast your eyes
on those brothers and sisters who are with us in our suffering
as well as our celebrations.
Look around and pay attention where God is calling you to reach out.

Take a careful look inside the little paper sack
that God has placed in our care—

Hope is so sweet.
Hope may be just the medicine we need in times like these.
Look around.

Sermon for Easter 4

2011-07-05T11:37:00.000-04:00

Sermon for Year A Easter 4
Good Shepherd Sunday
May 15, 2011
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Asheville, NC
The Rev. Jeanne Finan

I hear the voice…

You probably already get the theme for this Sunday…
in the opening collect we hear “Jesus is the good shepherd”
our psalm is Psalm 23—the Lord is my shepherd…
1 Peter talks about going astray like sheep…
and the gospel talks about sheep and shepherds as well.
Yes, you may have guessed—
today is known as GOOD SHEPHERD Sunday.

I imagine there are a lot of sheep sermons that will be preached today.
And I am not one to stray from that theme or tradition--
but first I want to tell you a story about pigs.
Yes, pigs!
And it is a true story.
It happened over in Cove Creek which is not too far down the road
from Valle Crucis where I live part of the week.

There is a farmer over in Cove Creek who raises pigs.
He doesn’t raise them in pens—he lets them run around in a big field.
When he goes to feed his pigs,
there is a bell right by the trough.
Sort of like a small version of our church bell out front.

He carries the buckets of their food—yes, it really is call “pig slop”—
and rings the bell and the pigs come running.
Just as our church bell tells the whole neighborhood,
it is time to come to worship—
This farmer’s bell tells the pigs
it is time to come to eat!
Pigs are smart!
Most of us are pretty smart
when it comes to finding food!
We, like all God’s creatures, are highly motivated for that activity!

So all was going well with the farmer and his pigs.
Until one cold winter day,
the farmer goes to pull the rope to ring the bell,
and the rope is missing.
Stolen?
Rotted away?
Who knows?

But here is the farmer
with his buckets of slop
and there are the pigs at the way far side of the field.
And they don’t see the farmer—or their food.

So the farmer picks up a stick from the ground
and hits it along the wooden fence rail.
The pigs look up when they hear the sound
and then they see the farmer pouring their breakfast into the trough
and here they come! Running!

So the farmer just doesn’t worry about replacing the rope to the bell.
When he comes to feed the pigs,
he just picks up a stick and starts hitting the fence….
Rap-rap-rap-rap—and here come the pigs.

And this works great all winter long.
But then…
here comes spring.
And here come all the woodpeckers
Who start tap tap tap tap all through the woods--
and the poor pigs are about running themselves to death
every time they hear a woodpecker!

The farmer fixed a new rope back on his bell.

Why am I telling you this story about pigs on Good Shepherd Sunday?

Because I don’t think it matters if we are sheep or pigs or people,
we need to learn to listen.

The pigs were listening,
listening for the one they knew would take care of them.
Feed them.

But then they started to listen to those who were calling them astray--
those false prophet woodpeckers!
Those woodpeckers
who couldn’t provide a bucket of slops if they tried!

And that is what we are taught in today’s gospel lesson.
Listen.
But listen carefully.
Listen for the voice of the one who knows your real name
and loves you because and in spite of who you are.

Listening is not easy.
Some of us
like to talk more than we like to listen.
This can get us into trouble on occasion.

The other challenge we face
is that there are a multitude of voices
calling our names every day, competing for our attention.

Voices that call our names and tell us we need to buy this
and we need to own that.
Voices that tell us we aren’t good enough or pretty enough
or smart enough or rich enough.

Those are the voices of the thieves and the bandits
we hear about in the gospel of John.
Those are the voices that want to rob us
of all that God’s goodness and mercy
and steal our lives away from us.

Jesus says, “Don’t listen to those who would destroy you.”

We have to learn to listen carefully
for the voice of the One who really love us,
for the voice of the One who truly want only the best for us.
For the voice of the Good Shepherd.

Because God wants us to have life
and to have it abundantly.

There are so many images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
There is a lovely drawing in the Weinhauer chapel
that a friend loaned to me.
A shepherd tenderly holding, hugging a lamb.

But recently I found another image of a shepherd that is so unlike
anything I have ever seen.
It is a photograph in Greg Mortensen’s book STONES INTO SCHOOLS
of a shepherd in Afghanistan.
The shepherd is walking along—following after his flock
and under his arm
he has a lamb.
Not cradled. Not tenderly cuddled.
He holds this lamb as if
He has just picked it up
and holds it tightly under his arm as if to say,
You were going the wrong way.
I am tired of you getting lost all the time.
How about you just stop wandering away.
Cut it out!

I love that as an image of Jesus—
Jesus who sometimes just gets tired of us mishaving.
Sometimes we need Jesus just to pick us up
and abruptly turn us around.
It’s not always pleasant or gentle when it happens,
but on occasion it just may be our salvation.

The Good Shepherd is not always tender or gentle or sweet.
Shepherds carry these shepherd’s crooks for a reason!
They reach out that crook and grab the sheep around the neck.

Think about that when Bishop Taylor comes in October
and processes down the aisle with his crozier—
which is just a glorified shepherd’s crook!

Sometimes we all need to just be picked up and walked away with,
As we hear Jesus speaking the truth in love and saying,
“I have just about had enough of your behavior.”

We can save ourselves from more jerks of the shepherd’s crook
if we learn to be better listeners.

We are called to listen.
To listen for our shepherd.

Sheep really can tell the difference between THEIR shepherd’s voice
and that of another.
Sheep know
who their shepherd is.

Stephen Plummer,
who died from cancer in 2005 when he was only 60 years old,
was the first Episcopal bishop of Navajoland.
A friend of his tells the story
of Bishop Plummer practicing his sermons by preaching to his sheep
when he was first ordained.

The sheep would stand absolutely still, staring at him,
Listening to his voice.
Because they recognized his voice.
Because they knew that this was the voice
of the one who cared for them.
They stayed near to him because they trusted him,
They knew they were safe.

We learn to recognize the voice of the one who is our Shepherd
by carefully and deeply listening.
Listening to scripture, listening to those who teach,
listening to the voice we hear in the silence of our own prayers.

There are so many voices out there in the world.
There are so many voices competing with one another.
There are indeed voices that will lead us away from the Shepherd
who loves us more than we can ask or imagine.

At times we may wander away,
even be gone for a period of years
or decades.

The amazing thing about shepherds
is they really do go looking for lost sheep.
The amazing thing about shepherds
is they don’t give up hope
of finding the ones who have wandered away.

The sheepfold is not surrounded by a high stone wall.
There is a gate.
And standing at that gate
is the One who loves us,
the One who calls us by name,
the One who welcomes everyone of us
to come inside,
to come home.

hello again

2011-07-05T11:35:00.002-04:00

It has been quite awhile since I posted on this blog. I got rather weary of posting my sermons so I stopped. That's the advantage of being the blogger--you can choose to blog or not to blog. Some sabbath time away from listening to and reading my own voice has made me realize that this blog is useful as a place to post sermons. So I will be posting a few recent ones now that I am back!

Sermon for the Feast of All Saints 2010

2010-11-07T17:09:00.002-05:00

Singing songs of sunbeams and saints

I recently read an article by a man named Dave Hurlbert,
who, like me, grew up in the Baptist Church.
Dave writes:
When I was a six-year-old Southern Baptist,
I loved singing “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.”

I, like Dave, remember singing that song as a little child
in the basement Sunday School classrooms
At Central Baptist Church--
feeling like I was the best and brightest sunbeam ever!
There was not a doubt in my body
how much Jesus wanted me for a sunbeam.

As I got older that sunbeam brightness got a bit tarnished
and at times I felt more like the Nirvana version of that song,
“Jesus DOESN’T want ME for a sunbeam!”

But by the grace of God, the journey continued,
And as an adult I discovered the Episcopal Church
and became an Episcopalian.
I don’t know if I still felt that Jesus wanted me as a sunbeam,
but I sure felt that I was wanted and welcomed as an Episcopalian!
I had found my home.

I quickly learned that the hymns we sing in my Episcopal home,
especially if we stick with the 1982 Hymnal,
the hymns are beautiful, pious, sophisticated, profound hymns—
but not too much along the line of Jesus wants me as a sunbeam!

But there is one (at least one) exception.
That’s hymn 293---I sing a song of the saints of God.

I remember so well the first time I heard this hymn.
I was still fairly new to the Episcopal Church.

Along comes All Saints Sunday
and suddenly we are singing …
And one was a doctor and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green….
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast!

I loved it. The words to this hymn made me smile!
And the tune was downright perky!
How on earth did this hymn get into our Episcopal hymnal!

Here is what I learned:

This hymn was written by a woman, a British woman,
named Lesbia Scott.
She wrote this hymn in 1929--
She was married to a priest
and she wrote a number of children’s hymns
and published them in a little book
called Everyday Hymns for Children.

But interestingly, this particular hymn
is much more popular here in the States than in Britain.
The research I did said that this hymn
is “particularly loved by Episcopalians.”

Now this hymn was in the 1940 Hymnal
but they were going to remove it
when they published the 1982 Hymnal.
The reason for its removal?
The Committee said it lacked “theological profundity.”

But when word of this began to circulate
there was a letter writing campaign like they had never seen before!
Episcopalians across the country wanted this hymn to stay in their hymnal.
And so it has.

I love this hymn because it reminds me, all of us,
that ordinary people,
going about their ordinary lives,
striving to love God and love one another,
can be true saints of God.
I think this is what Jesus is trying to tell his disciples
in his sermon on the plain in Luke’s gospel today.

It is possible to be one of God’s saints.
Being a saint is not about being perfect,
or perpetually pious;
Being a saint is not about checking off a long list
of holy accomplishments.

Being a saint is about making some choices
on how we choose to live our daily lives,
how we choose to treat other people.

Being a saint is coming to understand
that wealth and power and prestige
can be more woe than blessing
unless we are extremely cautious.

Being a saint is about loving our enemies.
Doing good to those who hate us.
Praying for those we know are not praying for us.
Treating other people the way we want people to treat us.

Is this easy?
Oh my, no!
But Jesus seems to believe it is possible.

Being a saint is about learning to live an upside down life,
Very much like Jesus lived an upside down life.

The world teaches us to get everything we can—the sooner the better.
More money, more power, more control, more revenge.
More, more, more.

But Jesus says,
Dear saints of God, live a life that is upside down from the world.
Don’t grab and grasp. Let go.
Let go of your power, your money, your resentments, your fears.
Less, less, less.
Saints seem content with less of everything.
Less of everything except love.
Unconditional and abundant love is the mark of every saint.

It is not easy to love unconditionally but it is possible.
It is possible simply because
God has already given unconditional love to each one of us.
It sometimes takes us a while to notice but it is there
and has always been there.

Unconditional love was planted in our hearts,
tucked away in our brains, infused into our very marrow
before we were even born.
We have never been without God’s love.

In 2003 an internet survey was run by anglicansonline.org
asking people to vote on what hymn would they want
on their desert island if they could only have one hymn.

Which one hymn would you want on your desert island?

I sing a song of the saints of God came in at number 14.
With all the hundreds and hundreds of possible hymn choices,
it is not too shabby to come in at number 14!

There can be no doubt that we love this hymn—
we long to be one of God’s saints!

They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still,
The world is bright with joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus’ will

You can meet them in school, or in lanes or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too.

For the saints of God are just folk like me—and just folk like you!
Going out into the world
to be sunbeams!

Sermon for Year C Creation 4

2010-11-07T16:57:00.001-05:00

The one who puts the pink clouds in the sky

Statistics show that 76% of Americans
identify themselves as Christians.
And 41% of Americans report that they attend church regularly.

However, several other major studies show
that people actually don’t tell the truth
about how often they attend church.
(Or maybe it just feels to them
that they attend more often than they do!)

The reality is that only about 21% really attend church regularly now—
with “regularly” being defined by the studies as at least once a week.

At our recent clergy conference we were given the statistics
that only 1/3 of the population in the United States
now attends church regularly—
but that study defined “regularly” as
meaning at least twice a month.

This means that 2/3 of the country is at this moment:
(a) still asleep
(b) not asleep but still in their pajamas
(c) sitting at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or Cracker Barrel
with coffee and a newspaper
(d) some place else other than in the pews, sometimes at work even.

I bring this up for two reasons.
The first reason is
the world has changed a lot
since Jesus told the parable we hear this morning.
The Temple is no longer our common denominator.

The second reason is
the world hasn’t changed much at all.
since Jesus told the parable we hear this morning.
We all come to church with different needs
and different attitudes.

Parables are teaching stories.
Jesus engages his listeners with a story
but he wants those listeners
to realize or learn something
bigger and more important than the story itself.
Usually he wants us
to learn something about ourselves.

The parable we hear in Luke’s gospel is this:
It takes place in the Temple, the Church.
We have two people in this parable.

First, we have a Pharisee.
I imagine the Pharisee
is definitely part of the 21% of the population
in church every week.

The Pharisee is over-the-top disciplined—he tells us this himself--
he does without food or drink—
he fasts-- twice a week!

The Pharisee tithes—gives 1/10 of his income to the Church.
Let me tell you,
stewardship committees and church treasurers all over the globe
pray for more Pharisees like this in the Church!

But there is another edge to the Pharisee—
he is critical and judgmental.
His joy is that he is not like other people.

The thanksgiving the Pharisee offers is
Thank you, God, that I am not like THOSE people.

The Pharisee comes to the Temple
not to praise God, not to be transformed,
but to give himself a holy pat on the back—
and to give a little verbal kick in the pants
to those who don’t measure up to his standards.

We need to be careful
what we bring with us through the door into the Temple.
We also need to be careful
that we do not say
Thank you God that I am not like this Pharisee!

One of the key sentences in this parable is this:
“The Pharisee, standing by himself….”
Standing by himself.

That’s where mean-spirited criticism usually put us—
ultimately standing by ourself. Alone.

You see these attitudes,
such as this Pharisee has developed--
and unfortunately passed on to some in the Church today--
these attitudes are at least partially responsible
for why some people choose
NOT to be part of a church.

Some people choose to stay away from church
because they believe the only people in churches
are judgmental holier-than=thou Pharisees.

Some people choose to stay away from church
because they do not want to become like the Pharisee.

But the Pharisee is not the only person in this parable.

We also have the tax collector.
Maybe NOT part of the weekly crowd at the Temple—
but maybe he is.

The tax collector may be standing up physically
but his heart is on its knees.

The tax collector did not come to the Temple to criticize any one.
He came to the Temple to look inside his own heart, his own soul,
and the only sinner he saw that day
was himself.
And he begged God’s mercy.

The tax collector is filled with shame --and pain.
The parable says, he was “standing far off.”

God has no desire for us to stand alone or to stand far off.
God longs for us to stand together,
To stand as a worshipping, caring community.

We as children of God,
we who do worship weekly
or monthly or even occasionally,
we need to spread the word that our pews--
at least in this church—
are broad and wide and long.
We need to continually seek ways to say and live into,
“ALL ARE WELCOME.”

We need to welcome the Pharisees.
We need to welcome the tax collectors
We need to welcome everyone in between.
We need to remember that we are welcome, too.
With our questions, with our doubts, with our fears, with our joys.
ALL ARE WELCOME.
Because God’s love is abundant.
There is more than enough to go around—
around and around and around.

We need to do more than just say, “Y’all come.
We need to go out into the world and invite people to come into the Church.
To come into the Church
with all your fears and doubts and skeptism and deep beliefs—
and let’s travel this journey together.

I don’t want to make your Episcopal barometers go haywire--
In case you are thinking I am about to send you out to Pack Square
or the Ingles parking lot with a sign
that says “Repent! The end is near!”

Evangelism to me is how D.T. Niles defined it:
“Evangelism is about one beggar telling another beggar
where to find bread.”

The world needs this good news.
Our community needs this good news.
Evangelism is about inviting a neighbor or a friend
to come to church with you one Sunday.

We need to go out into the world
and let people know that the Church is big and diverse!
And God’s heart is bigger than we can ask or imagine.

There is room for everyone.
There is room for the Pharisees who think they know it all,
and there is room for the tax collectors who weep
because they feel they know nothing at all.

Church at its very best
is a community of people who will welcome you and love you
and pray with you and pray for you.
And expect you to go and do likewise.

It is up to us
to change the way the world sees the church.
It is up to us
to change the statistics.

A few weeks ago, a preschool teacher
who teaches in a rather affluent pre-school
connected to a large University--
shared this story with me.

Listen in on this conversation of a group of 4-year olds:

Child 1: My birthday is the day before Jesus’ birthday.

Child 2: (Looking around the room) Who is Jesus?

Child 1: You know—Jesus!

Child 2: Jesus who?

Child 1: Jesus---THE Jesus—the Son of God!

Child 2: Who is God?

Child 3: (very excited) God is a light!

Child 4: (shaking her finger)
God knows everything you do—every thing!

Child 5: (joining in) God hears everything you say—every thing!

Child 2: Like Santa Claus?

Child 3: God is a light.

Child 6: (quietly) If you are really, really good,
God will put a pink cloud in the sky.
Just for you.

Child 2: Who is God? Who is Jesus?

My friends, we fool ourselves if we think the world today,
or even our neighbors,
know about God or Jesus or the Church.

We ourselves are all still learning, exploring, asking questions,
sometimes rejoicing, sometimes struggling.

We fool ourselves if we think that everyone knows
that there are churches that allow questions,
churches that really do welcome all God’s people.

We are the only ones who can go out into the world
and make that message of WELCOME ring true.
We are the only ones with the magic words, “Come with ME to church.”
Come with ME.

Come with me
and get to know the one who loves you no matter what.
Come with me
and get to know
the one who has a sky full of pink clouds.