Spirit of Adoption: July 23, 2017

Two churches celebrating Joshua's baptism (picture by Bob Harper Photography)

Year A, Pentecost 7                                                             

Romans 8:12-25                                                                     

            About two years ago, I wrote a newsletter article telling the parish that my husband and I were in the adoption process. People were extremely supportive and a number of people shared their own adoption stories with me.  There are several people in our parish who have adopted nieces, nephews or grandchildren. I loved hearing those stories.  By the time I had written that article, we had already been in the process for about a year.  When you are waiting that long, it is helpful to hear about adoptions that have really happened.  One of my favorite stories was from our pastoral associate Jane Price. Her granddaughter is adopted and Jane said something that made a real impact on me.  She told me that the adoption of her granddaughter had brought something new into their family, something that was unique and beautiful because it was so different.  She said that it was exciting because they had no idea what this child would become.  Her granddaughter ended up being an extraordinary dancer and she said, “She did not get that gift from any of us!”  Now surely, you all have stories of that special person in your family who broke the mold.  Just recently a friend of mine was describing her children. She said that her daughter was very similar to her…but her son, she had no idea where he came from.  He was not like either her or her husband.  She was not complaining.  She was simply marveling at his uniqueness.  

            I preach a lot about being children of God.  It is one of my favorite images. To be a child of God means that we have a special relationship with God.  It means that we are loved by God and no matter how many times we may disappoint God, no matter how many times God might disappoint us, we are family.  Paul’s letter to the Romans describes how we are children of God---but Paul describes this idea a little differently.  Paul writes that we are children of God because we have received the spirit of adoption.  It is by this spirit that we are given the privilege and the honor to call God by his most personal name—Abba.  The best translation for Abba is Daddy.  We have such an intimate relationship with God, we can call him Daddy. 



Before Jesus came to the earth and embodied God, people were not even able to say the name of God.  Even when writing the name of God, they would leave the vowels out because to say or write the name of God was forbidden.  Yet here Paul is telling the Romans that as adopted children of God, we call God Abba. 

            Now you might wonder, why do we need to even talk about being adopted children of God?  Why can’t we just be children of God?  There are a couple of reasons that Paul made this distinction. First of all, the early church was very much divided between the people of Israel/the Jews and the Gentiles.  It was initially thought that Jesus’ message of salvation was only meant for the Jews.  He was Jewish.  He spent most of his time with other Jews.  In the Old Testament/the Hebrew scriptures, it was the Jews and only the Jews who were the chosen people of God.  Therefore, it seems as though Paul had to find another way to describe how all people can now become children of God, even the Gentiles.  This illustration of adoption helped people see that even if you were not born a Jew, did not mean you were not a child of God, one of God’s beloved.   



The other possible reason has something to do with the recipients of the letter.  Paul was a citizen of Rome.  He was writing to the Romans and had a pretty good sense of the Roman laws and customs.  Adoption was a legal process in Rome in Paul’s time. At that time, having a son was critical to continuing the family line as well as caring for the parents as they aged.  If a family did not have a son or had a son who was estranged, it was common to adopt a slave who would then become their legal son. This son would now have the rights, privileges and responsibilities of being a legal member of this family.  It did not matter which social class this boy was born into. Once adopted, he was a member of this family and would inherit all that the family had.  The purpose of the adoption was not necessarily to benefit the child, but to benefit the family.  The hope of course would be that both the adopted child and the family would benefit from the adoption, but that was not the primary reason for it.



            So it is with our adoption as children of God.  Of course the adoption benefits each one of us personally, but it also benefits the whole human family.  With every new person who is adopted into our Christian family, we become stronger.  God has a vision for his family.  God knows what his family looks like.  With every new and different person, we begin to look more like this vision that God has for us.   

In some ways it is easy to talk about being children of God.  However, what we often forget is that if we are all children of God, than we are all brothers and sisters.  We are all part of this huge, wonderful, slightly crazy family.  And when we bring new people, different people into our fold, we discover new gifts and joys.  We also discover new challenges.   Being a part of this new family is not easy.  It takes work.  Not only that, it takes hope and patience. 



 So often with adoption, people look for similarities.  Even when it is crystal clear that your child is adopted, someone will tell you how similar their mannerisms are.  Those are wonderful things to hear, but I think it is helpful if we can find ways to celebrate the differences in our family, whether it is our biological family, our adopted family, or even our church family.  When my husband and I were beginning to think about adoption, we talked to other people who had adopted.  They said it was an incredibly difficult process, but that it was worth it in the end.  That is true in life as well.  Being an adopted child of God can be a difficult journey, but it is well worth it in the end. 

When we finalized our adoption 4 months after we brought Joshua home with us, the judge asked us several questions and said, “You know this is a no return state.”  Once those papers were signed, there was no going back.  Of course we joyfully agreed as that was what we were hoping and praying for, for years.  Yet that beautiful moment was not the end of the journey, it was just the beginning of another journey.  In our Christian journey, we occasionally have moments of clarity, moments when we get a glimpse of the beauty of this world, the beauty of the people of God. Paul wrote, “but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly while we wait for adoption…for in hope we are saved.”  That groaning is not simply groaning in pain, but in expectation.  We groan in expectation because we know what could be.  We know of the great gift that God has given us, the potential that each one us has. Therefore, we persevere.  We keep moving forward.  We do so because we know that no matter how difficult it can be, as adopted children of God, we are all bound to one another and bound to God. We can’t be returned!! Well, that is not quite true. We can be returned.  We can return to God.  Every time we stray from the path, God welcomes us back and rejoices in our return. 

Failing the Christian Way: July 16, 2017

Year A, Pentecost 6                                                  
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23                                                                                                

Steven Spielberg, Walt Disney, Fred Astaire, Thomas Edison.  What do these four men have in common?  They were/are incredibly successful in their endeavors. Yet they have something else in common. Before their successes, they failed. Steven Spielberg was rejected by film school multiple times. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas." In one of Fred Astaire's first screen tests, an executive wrote: "Can't sing. Can't act. Can dance a little."  Thomas Edison's teachers told him he was "too stupid to learn anything." Thankfully, not one of them gave up.[1]  They kept pressing on despite the failure and  rejection.

            In the last decade, there has been a lot of conversation and research about failure.  I became interested in this topic after reading an article about a conference called: FailCon. Apparently it was quite popular for a few years. The website describes it as a conference for startup founders to learn from and prepare for failure, so their businesses could grow quickly. It was an opportunity for people to share their failures and how they learned from their failures.  Most of the attendees were people who were technical entrepreneurs—the idea being that if you are starting something or inventing something, failure is inevitable.  But just because it is inevitable, does not mean that failure has to be the end of the story. It’s just a chapter of the book, not the conclusion.

            Moses, the Prophet Isaiah, King David, the Apostle Paul. What did they have in common?  They are leaders of our faith.  They are essential parts of our Christian story. They also failed.  Moses got lost in the desert for 40 years and never made it to the Promised Land.  The Prophet Isaiah was ridiculed, despised and miserable most of his life.  King David had an affair and had Bathsheba’s husband killed.  Paul went from being a leader of the Jewish faith to being a man without a home who was jailed and beaten numerous times.  Some might even say that Jesus was a failure.  He was God in the flesh and he was killed by humans.  Failure is part of the Christian story.  It is part of our story.

            It is also part of the Parable of the Sower. Many of us know this story well.  At least we think we do.  It seems obvious.  The sower scattered seed.  Some of the seed fell on a path and were eaten by birds.  Some fell on rocky ground, sprouted and then died quickly.  Some fell on thorns and when they sprouted, they were choked.  Then finally, there were seeds that fell on good soil.  Those seeds brought forth grain in abundance.   If you look at this story logically (which is rarely a good idea when reading parables), it seems like this sower was not very good at this job.  Three out of four of the areas he chose to scatter his seeds failed to produce grain.  He was incredibly inefficient and he was wasteful.  You have to wonder, what he was thinking.  He must have known which was the best place to plant seeds. Why not focus on the good soil instead of messing around with the thorns and rocks?

            Despite the sower’s apparent lack of skill, the seeds that fell on the good soil had an amazing yield. Some of that grain brought forth a hundred fold.  That is an exorbitant amount.  It is far above what would be expected with fertile ground.  Jesus wanted those listening to this story to know that the yield was so great—that there was an abundance where there should have been scarcity. Given the fact that ¾ of the seeds failed to thrive, it is remarkable that there was any harvest at all.  Yet there was and it was extraordinary.

            The vast majority of us are afraid of failure to some degree.  That fear affects people different ways.   Some people won’t take any risk, won’t try anything that might end in failure.  Others will take those risks but give up quickly when they sense failure or experience any kind of failure.  And some people will be like Moses.  They will wander for 40 years because while they seem to be going in circles, but they keep going because they know that the Promised Land is there.  It’s just going to take some patience and tenacity to get there. 

            About one year ago, we embarked on the Come and See program.  It was a program that entailed training and education about inviting others into our midst.  Virtually every church or faith community tells its members to invite a friend to church.  It sounds so simple, but few people ever do that.  When we first started the conversation, we talked about our fears.  Why are we so scared of evangelism of talking about our faith?  For many, it came down to a fear of rejection…of putting yourself out there, allowing yourself to be vulnerable.  This can be especially scary when the thing we are sharing with someone is precious and sacred to us and that person rejects it.  It leaves us a little raw.  There were some people who chose not to participate.  There were many who did. The majority of people who were invited never came.  Some came for a couple of Sundays and left.  A few stuck around. 

The lack of response was frustrating to me because we put a lot of time and energy into the program.  I was so nervous that I was sick the morning of Come and See because I was so afraid this program would fail.  Mark reminded me that this was about more than a couple of Sundays.  This was about changing the way people think about church and evangelism. It’s about teaching people to take risks.  That was helpful to me.  However, in preparing this sermon I realized that it is also about failure and learning how to move past that failure.  It is about experiencing rejection and not letting that rejection cripple us.  Of course this lesson applies to more than just a church program.  It applies to our whole lives.

            That sower could have been more careful about where he scattered his seeds.  He could have tested the soil and only spread the seeds on the soil he knew would produce a harvest.  He didn’t.  He threw it all over the place.  The reason he felt free to do that was because he knew there was an abundance of seeds.  He knew that as long as he kept planting them, God would keep providing them.  He knew that if he worried too much about the seeds that might fail and whether the soil was or was not fertile, then he would never plant anything.  So he just kept throwing the seed, knowing that there would be a lot that would produce nothing, but all God needed was a few. God would turn that small number into an abundance. 

So it is with the way we share God’s love with others.  If we worry too much about how our words are perceived—if we worry too much about the person who we are talking to, we will never accomplish anything.  The best we can do is put everything we have into our efforts.  Those efforts might only yield a small amount.  They might not appear to yield anything. It might even seem as though we have failed.  But if we keep trying, praying, hoping, believing---God will take our meager attempts and he will make them great. 

               

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[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-failed-at-first-2014-3/#nston-churchill-was-estranged-from-his-political-party-over-ideological-disagreements-during-the-wilderness-years-of-1929-to-1939-1

A different story: June 25, 2017

Year A, Pentecost 3                                                   
Genesis 21:8-21                                                                                 

 

            The story of Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham is complicated.    Normally when we talk about Abraham and Sarah, we talk about their faithfulness and their holiness.  God blessed them throughout their lives and promised a great nation from their descendants.  Unfortunately Sarah could not conceive a child in a time when a woman’s worth was dependent on her ability to have children.  Abraham and Sarah waited for decades, believing in God’s promise.  While God never wavered from this promise, it took a really long time to be fulfilled. Sarah decided that they needed to take God’s plan into their own hands.  Obviously God was not going to give her a child, so she decided that she would make it happen another way. 

Here is where it got complicated.  She told her husband to take a slave as his concubine, so that this slave could bear Abraham’s children and begin this great nation.  Abraham, being a dutiful husband, did as she asked.  While this sounds pretty horrible to us now, this was common practice for people in this day.  Abraham was a man of prominence.  Men of his standing and status had big families.  It was another sign of prosperity.   There was also that whole…father of a great nation thing.  How would that happen without children? Feeling powerless and frustrated, Sarah did what she had to do. 

While it was not  considered sinful at this time, for a man to take another wife, it wasn’t the plan that God had for them.  God’s plan was that Sarah would bear a child who would be Abraham’s heir. But no one can blame Sarah for doubting this at the age of 90. If God’s plan was for her to bear a child, it would have surely happened by now.  Her solution was a practical one and it worked….initially.  Hagar (the slave) became pregnant.  But before she even gave birth, Sarah regretted her decision and abused her so much that Hagar ran away.  If you put this in a modern context, it would sound like a horrible reality TV show that went a little too far.

            At this point, things looked pretty bad for all involved.  Hagar was abused and forced to flee.  Sarah was still childless and even more bitter than before. Abraham seemed to be caught in the middle and unable to show any moral backbone.  Thankfully, God stepped in. He found Hagar in the wilderness.  He comforted her by telling her, “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” He also told her to return to Sarah.  While this was not the news I would have wanted, “return to the person who is abusing you,” there was reassurance in more than just God’s words.  God appeared to Hagar.  She named God, “God who sees” because not only did God see her, she saw God, which is amazing.  In that time, no one saw God and lived.  Perhaps this is what gave her the strength to return to a hostile household.  Despite Sarah’s behavior, Abraham was still the father.  God even told her what to name her son.  It was to be Ishmael, which means, “he hears.”

            We do not hear any more about Hagar until our story for today.  Clearly the relationship between Sarah and Hagar has not improved.  Even after Sarah bore a son—the child that had been promised for so long--there was still jealousy. In addition to that, Sarah seemed afraid for her son.  Abraham and Sarah were wealthy in land and livestock.  Their firstborn son would inherit quite a lot.  Not only that, but their first born was the beginning of this great nation that God had promised them.  It was supposed to be her son, not Hagar’s son. 

Sarah asked Abraham to force Hagar and her son out.  Abraham was torn, but God told him to listen to his wife. This particular part is what a lot of people struggle with.  Abraham and Sarah are humans. They are flawed humans.  While Sarah’s actions are cruel, they are understandable to some extent.  What seems worrisome is that God would support Sarah’s decision.  In forcing Hagar and her son into the desert with meager provisions, there was a good chance they would die, or at least suffer a great deal.  It seems an odd thing for God to support.  But there was something else God said to Abraham besides just “listen to your wife.”  He said, “I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.”  In those words, there is an implicit promise that God would care for Hagar and Ismael.

            He did.  When their water was gone and death loomed in front of them, God heard the voice of the boy and spoke to Hagar again.  It is interesting that the text says that God heard the voice of the boy.  Ishmael wasn’t the one making the noise; that was his mother who was weeping and crying out. However, remember that the last time Hagar was out in the wilderness scared and helpless, God told her to name her son Ishmael which means “God hears.”  In naming her son, God promised that he would always hear his cries, even when he was too weak to cry out loud, God would hear him.  Remember also that Hagar had named God, “God sees.” In this story, not only does God hear and see, he helps Hagar to see.  He opens her eyes so she can see a spring of fresh water.  He opens her eyes and gives her the vision and the courage to keep going.  Even though she has been abandoned by everyone, God is still listening, still seeing. 

            There is a lot of debate about whether God plans our whole lives…meaning everything that happens ---happens because God wants it to happen that way. However, I am not sure this story of Hagar was part of God’s original plan. God did not want Abraham to take on a concubine.  He certainly did not want Sarah to abuse the concubine and then years later throw her and her son out to die.  God’s initial plan was that Abraham would be the father of a great nation and this great nation would begin with Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah.  That was what happened. 

But along the way, God had to create another plan to accommodate human’s need to take control of our own story.  God did not just create another plan, he created another story, of another nation—a great nation. God promised this to Hagar years before in the wilderness and he promised it again in our story for today.  Human sin can never forfeit God’s plans.  Sometimes it just creates more plans, more stories.  We don’t know all the stories because the Bible cannot tell all the stories, but it does not mean those stories are not out there. 

            It is the same in our lives.  We all have a story that we begin with. It is either a story we are told, or a story we develop about how our life is supposed to turn out.  But it never turns out that way does it?  It does not mean that God did not like that story.  It’s just that things shift in our lives, sometimes because of our decisions and sometimes because of things that we have no control over.  While that can be frustrating and at times discouraging, God is always there, willing to create a new and different story with us.  In the end, it’s not really about the details of our stories that matters. It’s about how we live those stories and how we welcome God into our stories. 

Funeral Homily for Tommy Sinclair

Matthew 18:1-5, 10-14                                   June 19, 2017

            “I have to say…” Those were the words Tommy used to begin every phone call.   The first couple of times, I thought I was in trouble…like he was going to say something he was disappointed about.  Sometimes that was true.  But even if he was just calling to ask when the service started, that was how he would start the phone call.  Whatever it was that Tommy was calling about, it was always important.  It was always something that he just had to say. Now that he is gone….there a few things that I just have to say.

            It is hard to describe Tommy.  When people try to explain him, they will inevitably say, “Well, that’s just Tommy.”  If you don’t know what they mean by that, well there is really no point in trying to explain because Tommy, is just Tommy.  This Gospel reading that we heard is a famous one.  We take it for granted that Jesus loved the little children.  There are so many cards, posters, paintings of Jesus with children gathered around him.  While that is a lovely picture, this reading is about more than just Jesus loving children.  One of his disciples had just asked him “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus answered that question by calling a child to him.  Most people today would agree that children are pretty important. In Jesus’ time, children were of little consequence, except to possibly their parents.  The only value children had were what they would one day be.  So when Jesus held a child and used that child as an example of the greatest in the Kingdom, that was quite extraordinary.

            We hear that term “childlike faith” bandied about a lot.  Usually when we think of a childlike faith, we consider qualities of children like innocence and wonder.  Those are certainly important qualities.  But there are also other qualities that we often overlook.  Children are dependent on others for their needs.  Children trust that others will take care of them. This does not mean that children do not have an independent or stubborn streak.  They do.  But at their core, they believe in the good of people and that people will care for them.  

            When I saw the outpouring of love for Tommy after his death, I thought, if only Tommy could have known how many people loved him (how many people would show up for this funeral), he would have been so touched.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is exactly what Tommy would have expected.  He expected to be loved and to be cared for. Here in our church community, Tommy was completely secure in the love people had for him.  Whereas others might think: Oh I can’t call that person again. I can’t ask for another favor.  That never occurred to Tommy.  While he was not always able to help others in the tangible ways that we helped him, there was no doubt that he would have if he could have.  We were always trying to find things in the office for him to do because he really wanted to help.  He did, in so many ways that I have only been able to see in retrospect.

            While Tommy was by no means perfect, the way he lived his life was a wonderful example of how Jesus asks people to live.  Jesus wants Christians to be dependent on one another and to be dependent on God. We should trust that we are loved by God and by one another.  Can you imagine living like that…believing people love you and want the best for you? That is how Tommy lived.

            After he died, I felt this profound sense of loss.  I could not understand it.  I knew Tommy, but not as long as most of you did.  I felt the loss, not just personally, but for this church.  When he died, it was almost like someone came in and stole a part of the church.  I have heard people described as fixtures.  I never truly understood that description until Tommy died.  He brought something to this place….something that cannot be replaced.  He embodied childlike joy and faith.  

I was talking to someone about Tommy yesterday and she said, “Well he was just Tommy.”  Then she added, “But he was our Tommy.” He was our Tommy, but he never really was.  As much as he loved St. John’s, his family and friends, and the town of Hampton, he loved God more.  I know that God is in this place.  I rarely say that I know what God would say in any given moment, but I think I can venture a guess right now. God is saying, “He’s my Tommy.  He always was and he always will be.”  I hope that Tommy’s life can be a reminder that while we all belong to one another, there is one that claims us as his own, and that is God.  We are God’s. I am so grateful to Tommy for helping me understand what it means to belong so completely to God.

Humans unite: June 18, 2017

Year A, Pentecost 2                                       
Matthew 9:35-10:23                                      

            Every week brings more bad news and Mark and I could probably preach on that bad news every week.  We do not, because most of us need a break from that news on Sundays.  What made the most news this week was not another terrorist attack or natural disaster, but a tragedy at baseball practice.  In the grand scheme of things, this shooting was not significant. In any given day in the United States, there are between 40 and 50 murders…a day.  While two people are in critical condition, this shooting has not resulted anyone dying . However, this shooting was particularly disturbing for a number of reasons.  It seemed random in that it was a nice suburb of Washington DC and the criminal was someone who wanted to inflict pain on as many people as possible.  The two people most seriously injured were a congressman and his security person; someone in the national spotlight. 

Yet I think that there is a bigger reason than all of these.  This baseball practice was not just any practice.  This was the Republican team practicing for a game against the Democrat members of congress.  This game has gone on for over 100 years.  Many of those participating said it was one of the last vestiges of comradery between these two opposing parties.  It had brought people together and even created unexpected friendships between those who would have otherwise been political enemies.  In this day of political divide, people are more desperate than ever for some display of unity in this nation.   Thus, it was that much worse that someone chose to attack one of the few places where people seem to get along, preparing for a congressional baseball game for charity. 

            We all know that this division in our nation is nothing new.  At this church, our building reminds us of how the Civil War affected our nation and our church.  This entire town was burned to the ground because one side did not want the other side to win.  While our walls remained, everything inside was scorched.  No-- division is nothing new in our country and our world.  The world that Jesus lived in was divided as well.  There were Jews and Gentiles.  There were Romans and the people they ruled.  There were slaves and free.  There were women and men. 

In our Gospel reading, Jesus said something that referenced one of these divisions.  To some it seems that he even reinforced the division.  When providing his disciples instructions for their first missionary journey, he said, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans…”  One of the reasons this is so strange is that Jesus did interact with Samaritan people.  He told parables where the Samaritan was the hero.   The last thing he said to these same disciples in this same Gospel before he ascended to heaven was, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” Knowing this, why would he tell his disciples not to go to the Gentiles?

            I believe it is because Jesus knew that they were not ready.  He had just called these men to be his 12 apostles.  They knew him a little at this point, but had not spent a lot of time in his company.  When he tells them later in the Gospel of Matthew to go to all nations, they have been with him for several years. They saw him heal and teach.  They saw miracles.  They saw him die and after three days rise again.  Obviously, it would still be difficult to go preach to all these people, but they would be more prepared. In our story for today, they were new to all of this.  Just going to the Jews in their region was going to be hard enough. 

            Jesus was compassionate and loving.  He was also smart and strategic.  He knew that his 12 disciples would need more preparation before they could head out to the big world and try to cross the large chasms of division.  One of the ways he prepared them to face this division was to be an example for them. They saw how he spoke to and about Samaritans.  They saw how he acted when he was in a foreign land.  But Jesus did something else that was pretty sneaky.  Most of these 12 disciples did not know one another when they began this grand adventure.   Jesus did not choose the rabbis or the scholars.  He chose fishermen.  He also chose a tax collector and a zealot.  

We all know that tax collectors were considered bad in the Bible.  They are always put on a list with major sinners.  There is a reason besides that people just didn’t like to pay taxes.  Tax collectors were traitors because they worked for the Romans, a government that oppressed the Jews and taxed them, but gave them no rights. Tax collectors were part of this oppressive government, and to make matters worse, they often earned their living by asking for more taxes that even the Roman government required. They were basically stealing from their own people.  Right alongside Matthew (the guy who works for the Romans), we have Simon the Zealot.  Zealots were essentially nationalists.  They hated the Romans and everything and everyone associated with the Romans. Their goal was to free the Jewish people from the tyranny of Rome.  They were prepared to use violence as necessary. 

In a group of 12 men, Jesus decided to pick these two. They lived together.  They worked together. They ate together.  That must have been crazy hard because under any other circumstances, they would have hated one another.  Yet there was one thing that always transcended that kind of hatred---hatred of the other.  That was (and is) the love of Jesus Christ.  By choosing this group of men who were so very different and probably antagonistic toward one another, Jesus was teaching his first lesson on overcoming division.  In order to truly bridge the divide, you need to be in one another’s company.

That is what is so disheartening about the shooting this week.  This man thought that he was hurting one group, but he was hurting both.  This was the one time when our national leaders came together and he was prepared to take that away from them.   As we all know, the game went on. They played their game. The Democrats won and they gave the trophy to the Republicans.  It’s a small gesture, but a gesture none the less.  In many ways, this act of violence has been a wake-up call for our nation, a reminder that there is one thing that brings us together…not just that we are Americans, but that we are humans, made in the divine image of God. That is what really matters.

As a church, we cannot necessarily end division, but we can be a model of what the Kingdom of God can be. People often say that they love St. John’s because their friends go here.  That is wonderful.  It’s good to have people you like, people you are comfortable with.  But you should also have people that you don’t like, people you look at and think if I they were not a member of the church, I would never speak to them. That’s the point.  If you want to find a group of like minded people, join a club.  If you want to find a group of people whose one commonality is a love of Christ, join a church. That is what sets us apart from so many other groups. That is what makes it hard to be a Christian, maybe even hard to come to church.  Jesus never told us it was going to be easy or fun. 

I believe that we, as a church, have something to show the nation and the world…that it is possible to rise above the differences.  It is not only possible, it is God’s will for us.  Yes, please, invite a friend to church. You know what would be even better...if you invite someone who is not a friend. 

Hot, hot, hot: June 4, 2017

Year A, Pentecost                                                         
Acts 2:1-21                                                                            

            Typically, I write my main sermon, and then I consider how I can take something from it and make it accessible to children.  For this Pentecost Sunday, I came up with the children’s sermon first and that informed my main sermon.  The reason I was thinking so much about my children’s sermon was because I was worrying about how people would handle singing Hot, Hot, Hot.  If you loved it, it was my idea.  If you hated it, it was still my idea.  I realize that some people might find it a little weird for church.  Pentecost is one of the three major feasts of the church year.  It’s bigger than Christmas in terms of theological significance.  Because it is such a sacred day, we should take worship seriously.  We should be solemn and stoic like good Episcopalians. But then I kept coming back to this reading from Acts.  I kept thinking about what a ridiculous and wild scene this must have been.

 The disciples were all in one place---they heard and saw the same thing.  They were somewhat prepared for this event. Jesus had told them that after he left, the Holy Spirit would come to them.   However, the huge crowd gathered outside of the disciple’s small enclave were not prepared in the same way.  They were prepared to some extent as they were there for their own holy feast, the Jewish feast of Pentecost. In the Jewish faith, Pentecost marks the end of the spring harvest.  It was when people gathered together to present their first fruits of the harvest.  It was a time to praise God and show gratitude for all God had given.  They were there for a spiritual experience, but the same one they had every year, not something they did not recognize. 

However, something got their attention.  They heard a loud noise and felt the strong wind. They heard the disciples speaking in their own language, even though there were people from many places with many different languages. Thus all the people in the crowd knew something was happening.  But they all discerned what was happening in different ways.

 Some people asked, “What does this mean?”  They were astonished and amazed. They wanted to understand.  They wanted to believe.  Others heard the same thing, but they sneered and accused the disciples of being drunk.  Different people had different experiences with the Holy Spirit. Those who were open to the newness of it all ended up being baptized that day.  3,000 people were baptized--which is remarkable.  But not everyone was.  Some left thinking that these people were idiots or charlatans.  They were faking this holy experience to get attention or power.

Peter knew what they were thinking. He took this opportunity to preach a sermon.  He started by saying that they were not drunk as it was 9am (apparently had it been 5pm, it would have been a different story---yet it was 9am). He then quoted the prophet Joel.  It’s an odd choice for a happy and spirit filled moment. Joel was a prophet who had lived about 500 years before and spent a lot of time telling the people of Israel to repent as the Day of the Lord was near and the Day of the Lord was full of destruction and judgment.  It was not a day to look forward to. For Joel, it was almost as if the presence of the Holy Spirit was a bad thing. 

Peter was taking this text and reframing it.  Peter was telling people that the Holy Spirit was not just providing salvation from something bad, but new life through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.  Jesus had brought something new to the earth.  Instead of taking it back with him when he ascended to heaven, he left the Holy Spirit with the people of God. It was up to the people of God to decide how they were going to respond to the Spirit and this new life, this changed life. Would they scoff because it was different and incomprehensible? Or would they open themselves to this new experience of God’s wonder?

Please do not misunderstand me.  I am not comparing Hot, Hot, Hot, with the flames of Pentecost.  I am not saying that if you did not feel the presence of the Spirit, you were clearly not open to it.  What I am saying, is that we all experience the Spirit in different ways.  We even experience this Spirit in different ways as we age and go through the phases of our lives.   Sometimes it is in moments of utter misery—a small light of hope in the darkness.  Sometimes it is a moment of silliness and joy.  Sometimes it just comes out of nowhere.  When I was working on this sermon, I wrote down my spiritual experiences. It is hard to describe what I mean when I say spiritual experience. For me, it is a moment when I can feel the presence of God in a very tangible way. 

It is an interesting exercise and I commend it to you all.  In about 10 minutes, I came up with 16 experiences. Some of these moments were sad and even embarrassing.  Others were light and joyful. Most I could not really put my finger on what the emotion was, it was just a moment of fullness. It was like a small light inside me burst through.  Yet there was one theme that kept popping up. Of all those moments, only two happened when I was alone.  Some were with small groups of 2 or 3.  The majority were with crowds, crowds of people worshipping God.

We often associate the Holy Spirit with mystical and contemplative times. Some people might even think that they have not experienced the Spirit because they are not a mystical or contemplative type of person.  That is what is so amazing about the Holy Spirit--it comes to all people, at all different times, in all different places.   While this unpredictability can be lovely, it can also be frustrating as sometimes we crave that experience and we don’t know how to find it.  In looking for the mountain top experience of transcendence and nearness to God, we think that we have to literally climb a mountain.  If you can, then absolutely, go for it.   But perhaps… you can also have that mountain top experience here at sea level worshipping God with other people who are sharing that joy or that sorrow…or just the pew.  You might be thinking, well this is the 3^rd time I have been this year and I have not felt it once.  You have to give the Holy Spirit more opportunities to work in you and around you.  The Holy Spirit does not appear on command.

When we had our youth pilgrimage in Ireland, we hiked to the top of a small mountain in the middle of the sea.  The view was breathtaking. If you were to have a mountain top experience, it would have been there. We had communion at the top where monks had worshipped and lived for centuries. I knew it would be this amazing experience.   Yet there were seagulls trying to get the bread, bugs in the wine, and tourists walking in and out of our sacred moment.  Plus, I was pretty sure we were not supposed to be having communion there. It did not feel holy or Spirit filled. When we were walking down, I said to one of our leaders, “That was not really the sacred moment I expected.”  He replied, “I bet the Last Supper was kind of like that, people interrupting Jesus, a bunch of people not really paying attention.  It probably did not seem so holy at the time.” That resonated with me.   The Holy Spirit (the presence of God) rarely looks the way we expect it to look.   I am sure that the scene we heard about in Acts was absolute chaos.  Many people walked away thinking, “Those people are fools.  God could not possibly be present in such foolishness.”  Perhaps even the disciples, upon whom the spirit had descended thought, “This can’t be what Jesus was telling us about.  We need something more real, more permanent.”   When we are stuck in our own expectations, we miss the fresh expressions of the Spirit.  We miss opportunities for transformation.  I was not there on that spirit filled Pentecost 2000 years ago.  I think if I was, I would have been pretty annoyed.  I like order and predictability.  But I hope that I would have at least tried to be open to the crazy beauty that surrounded me.    I hope that you will all strive for that openness as well.  I love our liturgy and music in the Episcopal Church.  But the Holy Spirit is far too big and unwieldly to be confined by our expectations.   Thank God for that.

Homeward Bound: May 14, 2017

Year A, Easter 5                                                  
John 14:1-14                                                              

            As some of you know, my parents moved here just last week.  It is wonderful to have them here.  I could not be happier for so many reasons.   Therefore it surprised me at how hard it was for me to say goodbye to their house.  My dad was in the Navy for almost all of my youth.  I was a late addition to the family and did not move around nearly as much as my brothers, but I never had a house or a place I was really attached to.  When we moved to a tiny town in upstate New York when I was 16, I was kind of miserable.  Yet I made amazing friends there and became very attached to the life my parents created. I loved that house. Even as a priest, my husband and I returned every year a few days after Christmas.  Driving up the road, I would see the Christmas lights hanging from the balcony of the deck and every light lit. The house sat on a hill and from the road it seemed like a tree house. 


Painting of the house at Christmas by my brother, Bill Vincent

          As soon as I walked in, I felt safe. I felt like I was home even though I had spent so little time there. This Christmas, as I packed up my old photo albums and yearbooks I could not stop crying.  I kept thinking, what is wrong with me??? They are coming to live near me! This is just a house. Besides, you know what they say, home is where the heart is.  That means a home can move. Yet even knowing that, it was still heart wrenching driving away for the last time.

            The words of John 14 are familiar to me and probably familiar to many people.  Those first 6 verses are the most common verses you will hear at any funeral…perhaps second only to Psalm 23, which we heard last week.   While I have never asked anyone why they chose those verses, I assume it has a lot to do with the first line, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  It’s something that we all need to hear when we are grieving.  It’s not saying, “Don’t be sad.”  It’s saying, “Don’t let your heart be troubled.”  To be troubled is a more permanent condition.  It’s the kind of sadness that has no hope. Jesus is saying, if you believe in me, there is always hope, even in grief. 

However, the part that sees to really resonate with people is, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”  Jesus then goes on to tell his disciples who are gathered around him, desperate for words of comfort and hope-- that he is going to prepare a place for them so that “there you may be also.”  Many of us hear this and envision Jesus up in heaven in a magnificent mansion fluffing the pillows and opening the shades to let the bright effervescent light of the sun in.  What could be more comforting than knowing that when this life is over, there will be a place for us that Jesus has prepared, a place where Jesus waits to greet us?  It is an incredibly comforting image and one that I have preached at many funerals. 

            I suppose that the only thing that could be more comforting than knowing that there would be a place for us after death, would be knowing that  there is a place for us while we are alive as well.  Another way to read this text is: “In my father’s house there are many abiding places.”  If you look through many of the readings for this Sunday, you will find this theme of abiding, or living with the Lord. It would seem that Jesus was not just referring to our final home, but the place where we can abide here, in this life. Jesus was telling his disciples (and that includes us) that there is a place here on earth where we can feel the presence of God, feel as though we are safe, at home. 

            When I was at college, there was one place where I always felt safe. It will be no shock to you to know that it was the college chapel.  Yet it was surprising to me at the time.  You see, before college, I had never felt at home in a church. Church was a nice place to go.  I liked the music.  I liked the essence of church.  But it never felt like home.  It was never a place I sought.  Yet in college, the chapel was always open.  There were rooms in the basement where we could study.  One fridge was always stocked with Diet Dr. Pepper.  And no matter what time you came (whether it was 10am or 1am) someone was almost always there.  I studied there. I made friends there.  I worshipped there.  It was a safe place.  It was a place where I felt that I belonged.  The reason I felt like I belonged there was not just that there were people I knew and comfy chairs, but I felt close to God.  It was like God was right there and I could pop in anytime.

            When Jesus told the disciples about a dwelling place that was prepared for them, he wasn’t just talking about a future place where we all congregate after death. He was talking about the place where God abides.  God isn’t just waiting for us in this mysterious place called, “life after death.” God is here with us now. This was important for the disciples to know because Jesus wanted them to understand that even after he died, was resurrected and ascended into heaven, he was still there with them. There was still a place for them, on earth, a safe place where God dwelled with them.  They did not quite understand it at the time.  It was only after Jesus spent time with them after his resurrection when they were able to fully comprehend what it was to abide with God, even though Jesus was not present in bodily form.  Once they started to understand that, they were able to help other people have a sense of that abiding presence of God here on earth.

            My parents moved last week.  I helped them a little bit on their move.  Even when their stuff was still in boxes….even though it was only the 2^nd or 3^rd time I had been there…I had this overwhelming feeling that I was coming home.  It is nothing like where they used to live.  It has none of the familiar smells, sounds, or views. But they are there. That is their dwelling place, which means it is a safe place for me.  I feel the same way about St. John’s.  When I walk into the sanctuary….it does not matter what day it is.  It does not matter whether it is full, empty or mostly empty…it feels like home.  It feels like the place that I belong, not because I am the rector here, not because I know the people here, but because this is a place where I can feel God.  That is my prayer for all of you; that you can find God in this place, that this can be a home for you in your joy, in your grief, and in your doubt.  There is always a place for you here.  But more importantly, there is a place for you anywhere you go.    When you experience the love of God, you are home.  Welcome home.