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

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

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

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?

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...

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?

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...

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!