Too Much Stuff: August 4, 2019

Pentecost 8, Year C                                                                          

Luke 12:13-21                                                                                                                                           

I recently read that one of the safest bets in real estate over the last several decades was not family homes, apartments or luxury condos.  It was self-storage lockers.  You know the places I am talking about---big storage locker where you can put all those things that don’t fit into wherever you are presently living.  It has grown to be a 38 billion dollar industry.  Almost 10% of Americans rent a storage locker. Storage lockers even come with some bells and whistles.  Now there are companies that will pack and deliver your things to your storage locker.  They will even provide an online photo inventory of what you have in your storage locker.  Part of the reason why this industry is growing is that people are moving into cities, where space is more limited. You have to downsize and there are some things you can’t part with, so you store them.  But part of this growth comes from our constant acquisition of stuff and our inability to part with that stuff.

            The parable we heard today is about more than just stuff.  It’s about greed.  That is how Jesus introduces the parable: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  The story is about a rich man whose land produced ample goods one year.    He had so much extra food, he ran out of space to put it.  He decided that he should pull down his current barns and build bigger barns.   Storing food is a wise thing to do.  We all have extra food in our pantry.  Most of us have never seen our pantry completely bare.  Even if it’s not food you want to eat, there’s always something there.  Also, we have to remember that farming is not always consistent. There could be a horrible crop next year and then he would need all that stored food.  He couldn’t just go to the store to buy food if there was a bad year.  Saving food is not what makes the man greedy.

            What makes him greedy is how he makes the decision.  It’s all about him.   Most of the parable is the man talking to himself. He asks, “What should I do?”  He then makes his decision solely on his own wants and needs.  He even says, “And I will say to my self, ‘Self, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink and be merry.”  It’s all about him.  He never considers the workers who toiled for this abundance.  He never asks his neighbors if they might have a need.  For all we know, he could be surrounded by starving masses.  But that is not his concern. His entire concern is his own needs and his own comfort. 

            This rather uncomfortable parable comes right before one of my favorite texts.  In this text, Jesus told his disciples, “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or your body, what you will wear.  Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.”  It’s a comforting passage, but not quite as comforting when we remember it comes right after this challenging parable.  What Jesus was saying is that if you really don’t want to worry, you have to give things up.  Most people, at least people I know, don’t say that their life goal is to collect lots and lots of stuff.  Most people won’t even admit that their goal is to have more than they need.  What people say (and I am one of these people) is that they don’t want to have to worry about money.  We just want to be comfortable.  We want to have enough. The problem is, “enough” is a moving target.  Just when you think you have enough, you find that you are missing something, or someone else has something that you desperately need.

Just the other day, I was telling my friend that I really needed a pair of black sensible shoes, because I wear a lot of black.  I felt like I was being very reasonable as I was talking about black shoes, not the red ones I really wanted.  I just counted and I own 7 pairs of black dress shoes.  Now in my defense, only three of them are very comfortable and only two of them work for Sunday mornings. But still, to say that “I need black shoes” is positively ridiculous. I am fairly sure that if I bought another pair, I would discover that I was missing something else.

            When Jesus was telling his disciples not to worry about what they ate or wore, he was telling them that stuff and money won’t ever ease our anxiety, which is why that text comes right after our parable.  The rich man determined that once he had all that stored food he could, “relax, eat, drink and be merry.” He thought he could free himself from his anxiety if he had enough food to last him for years.  Yet what he had forgotten, perhaps what he never realized in the first place, was that not only was the food he had a gift from God, but his life was a gift from God.  He thought he could protect himself with his bigger and better barns.  But in the end, he could have surrounded his home with walls and a moat, but his life was still in God’s hands. 

            As long as we fool ourselves into thinking that an abundance of possessions will free us from anxiety and fear, we will never have enough.  We will always need more.  Even if that rich man had lived, he would never have had enough.  He would have still been a fool.

            I don’t have a storage locker.  I have shelves. About 5 years ago, my husband took up wood working, partially because I kept asking him to build more shelves (bathroom shelves, shoe shelves, closet shelves, garage shelves, benches with hidden shelves.)  I am currently waiting on some book shelves.  I thought I needed these shelves to be organized. Yet what I really need to be organized, is to have fewer stuff. 

I looked up the numbers and it appears that the demand for storage lockers has leveled off.  It might me because people are obsessed with the books and Netflix special called, “Tidying up” where a nice woman encourages people to get rid of things that don’t bring them joy.  That might be a good solution, but I am not sure it addresses the disease itself, which is greed.  We care far too much about what we have in relation to others.  We seek safety and security in what the world can provide for us.  That’s not a healthy way to be.  Now I am not going to tell you to give up your stuff, but if you find yourself spending a lot of time protecting your stuff, organizing it, or trying to get more stuff---if you spend time judging yourself for what you don’t have  or judging others for what they have—if you forget that everything you own is a gift from God, then I encourage you to consider what that is doing to your life.  Because I have never heard of anyone saying on their deathbed, “I wish I had spent more time worrying about my stuff.” 

            One of the saints of our church, Augustine once said, “God gave us people to love and things to use, and sin is the confusion of those two things.”   Far too often we love our things and use people to get more things.  We protect our things so fiercely, we forget the people who go without.  After this service, we will pack 10,000 meals.  This is part of Rise Against Hunger which is an organization working to end world hunger by 2030.   While that seems daunting, it’s not impossible.  In 1990, 24% of the world was hungry.  Now it is down to 10%.  That is still too much, but it is evidence that when people come together and look outside themselves, they can change the world. It’s ok to have stuff.  Just remember that stuff will not save you. It will not bring you the joy that you crave.  That only comes when we can be grateful for what God has given us and share with those who have little.

Be a Neighbor: July 14, 2019

Year C, Pentecost 5                                                              

Luke 10:25-37                                                                                   

            We all know the story of the Good Samaritan.  Hospitals, churches, and even laws are named after it.  The story has become so well known, so secularized, that it has lost much of its power.  It is easy to interpret it as a simple morality tale, but there is more to this story.  Our Gospel reading begins with a question posed to Jesus.   “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  It’s a good question.  It’s kind of like asking, “What do I need to do to get to heaven?”  Jesus volleyed the question back to the lawyer. The lawyer was an expert in the law, so Jesus asked him, “Well, what’s written in the law?” (By the way, in referring to the law, Jesus was referring to scripture---specifically the first 5 books of the Old Testament.)  The lawyer provided the right answer ("You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.") and Jesus encouraged him to follow that law so that he might live. 

Now our text says that the lawyer was trying to test Jesus. Maybe he was at the beginning.  But I think his next question indicated that he really was searching for answers.  Part of the law that he quoted was loving your neighbor as yourself.  Had he merely been testing Jesus, it would have been wise for him to leave it at that.  But he asked a follow up question: who is my neighbor. 

            Jesus could have given a straightforward answer.  He could have said, “Anyone and everyone.” But instead, he told a story, because it’s easy to dismiss an answer like “anyone and everyone.”  In the story, 2 religious leaders pass by a man lying on the side of the road.   Neither stops to help. Now, there are a dozen good reasons why they would have passed without helping.  It was an infamously dangerous road.  They could have been afraid that it was a set up as this was a fairly common technique that thieves used.  They could have assumed that the man was dead and had they gotten even close to a dead man, they would have broken one of their holiness codes and become unclean---which means they would not have been able to perform their jobs.  Their intentions or lack of intentions isn’t the point.  We like to focus on them because it’s always easy to point out the hypocrisy of others.

            But Jesus was not interested in their motives. The star of the story is of course the Samaritan.  Jesus never referred to him as the good Samaritan.  He didn’t have to.  His deeds proved that he was good.  Jesus did specify that he was a Samaritan.  This was important because Samaritans were loathed by the Jews.  It wasn’t just that they didn’t like them. They were enemies. In the story right before this one in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus and his disciples were rejected in a Samaritan village.  No one would have expected the hero to be a Samaritan, but that was part of what made this such an intriguing story.  Often when we hear this story, especially in secular environments, the focus is on the person lying in the ditch, the person in need.  The moral of the story is that the person in need is our neighbor. But after the parable, when Jesus asked the question of the lawyer, he didn’t ask who was the neighbor.  He asked who acted like a neighbor.  It wasn’t the man in the ditch.  It was the person who showed mercy—the Samaritan. 

The reason this distinction matter---the reason this specific question that Jesus asks matters--- is that it is so easy for us to argue about who is and who is not worthy of our mercy and compassion.  It is easy to judge people who we think aren’t helping enough or are helping too much, perhaps enabling.  Right now in our society, we spend a lot of time blaming anything and everything on different categories of people. It’s the ultra right.  It’s the unpatriotic left.  It’s the lazy millienials. It’s the entitled boomers.  Humans love to put people in categories.  Yet we get really irritated when someone tries to categorize us because we don’t want to be put in a box.  It’s so much easier to judge others. 

Who is our neighbor? That’s not the question Jesus was asking.  Because the answer really is everyone, but that’s way too hard to wrap our heads around.  So Jesus made it more concrete.  Instead of challenging us to identify our neighbor, he asked, how can you be a neighbor?  The answer is to show mercy to those who are suffering.  There are no qualifications, quantifications or specifications on who we are helping.  Show mercy.  This parable isn’t about the poor soul lying in the ditch.  It’s about our actions as the brothers and sisters of that person lying in the ditch. 

This conversation between the lawyer and Jesus started out as a debate. This lawyer wanted a debate. It’s so much easier to debate what we believe rather than act on what we believe.  The longer we debate and argue, the less we actually have to do.  Let’s stop talking about who our neighbor is and focus instead on how to be a neighbor, a good neighbor. 

We are about to baptize a baby.  There are few things we do in church that are more uplifting than welcoming a child into the household of God. Right before the baptism, we all affirm our baptismal vows together.  One of the questions we ask is: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? The people respond, “I will with God’s help.” I get it. Being a neighbor, showing mercy…it’s a challenge. We might wonder how to start. The answer is in the question of our baptismal covenant. Seek and serve Christ in all persons.  That’s how we start.  We seek out Christ in people.  We seek out the good and then we find a way to reflect that good.  Look at Wyatt.  How can you not love a baby like that? That baby deserves our love and compassion.  Remember that’s how we all start. We are all born into the world as children of God, deserving love and compassion.   We don’t usually stay that cute and fragile, but we never stop being beloved children of God who deserve love and compassion.  Don’t worry about who your neighbor is. Instead practice being a neighbor.  Seek and serve Christ in all person’s with God’s help.

Hope is a noun: June 16, 2019

Pentecost 1, Year C                                                                            

Romans 5:1-5                                                                                    

            I recently listened to a podcast that examined religion from the perspective of a social psychologist.  This psychologist has examined religions over the centuries and millennia from a Darwinian perspective---trying to figure out why some religions flourish at specific times and then diminish in importance or disappear altogether.  One of his theories is that religions that emphasize a God who judges and punishes are more likely to succeed because fear is a powerful motivator.  If you are taught that if you don’t go to church, you will go to hell, then you might very well go to church.  However, religions or denominations like our own that emphasize a loving and compassionate God are less likely to survive.  If you look at the history of the Christian Church, it was a much more powerful church when we were using fear.  It was not necessarily healthy or good, but definitely effective.  

            We all know that fear is a powerful motivator.  We see it in our political atmosphere all over the place.  And this use of fear to control people is not a new method.  In Jesus’ time, one of the ways the Romans controlled the Jews was through fear and violence. They often used violence or threats of violence to quell insurrection. This is one of the reasons why crucifixions were public spectacles.  The Romans knew how powerful fear was.  There were some Jews who felt that the best way to respond to violence, was with more violence.  And one can hardly blame them.  It’s a natural reaction. 

Yet Jesus and his disciples refused to respond with violence.  Jesus wielded his power in a much different way.  He did so with love and hope. This idea of hope was not new to the Jewish people. They had been hoping and praying for a messiah for centuries.   Jesus was able to embody that hope for many Jews—and that was why he became a danger to the Romans.  So the Romans killed Jesus….at least they thought they did. As we know, Jesus conquered death.

            While Jesus’s resurrection was real and profound, it was witnessed by a limited amount of people.  Those who witnessed it tried to spread the news, spread the hope, but it was difficult news to digest.  It caused more divisions in the Jewish community.  Consequently some Jews felt that they had to respond with fear and violence against this break away group—the Christians.  Paul was one of the worst oppressors of the new Christians.  He had not known Jesus when he lived and certainly had no reason to believe that this rabble rouser was the messiah and had been resurrected.  Because of this, Paul persecuted the followers of Jesus, and when I say persecuted, he killed them.  That was how he displayed his power and wielded control. 

  Paul had little reason to hope in this dead messiah, until that fateful day on the road to Damascus when a bright light from heaven struck him blind and he heard Jesus speak to him.  From that moment, Paul went from persecuting Christians, to being one of the greatest evangelists of all time.  From that flash of light and hope, Paul’s life got a lot more dangerous, a lot more uncontrollable. 

Several years went by before he wrote the letter to the Romans which we heard today.  During those years Paul converted thousands, and planted communities of Christians over hundreds of miles.  He was also beaten and imprisoned for the message of hope that he carried.  While he accomplished a great deal, he was sometimes discouraged by the fickleness of the new Christians.  He would plant a church of passionate and zealous Christians only to later hear how they had been manipulated by false messiahs and wooed by messages of easy answers and immediate gratification.  What is the point of hope if you can get everything you need in an instant?  That is one of the things that the false messiahs provided, immediate gratification.  That is one thing our culture has gotten very good at providing.

In these five verses from Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul tells the story of hope, the birth of hope.  “…we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us.”  It is essentially a recipe for hope.  Yet unlike most of those tantalizing recipes we see in magazines with ingredients like grape seed oil and shallots, this is a recipe with very basic ingredients, ingredients that most of us already have, or ingredients that are presently growing inside us.   

That is the good news.  The challenging news is that some of the ingredients that grow inside us… grow despite our best efforts to avoid them.  No one wants suffering, but it is inevitable.  For some, it comes in the form of a natural disaster like tornadoes or flooding.  For some it comes from unnecessary and preventable shootings in our office buildings, schools and streets.  For some, in the form of health problems; physical or emotional.  For many it comes in the form of loss; loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of a dream.  Whoever you are, suffering at some point in your life is inevitable. 

Yet my point is not how or why we suffer, but what we do with the suffering.  Often suffering leads to despair, an uncontrolled and unrelenting despair.  But Paul, who was no stranger to extreme and extended suffering, believed that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope doesn’t disappoint us. In my suffering, there were moments when I felt like despair was the only possible outcome.  What always protected me from abject despair was God’s presence, even when God’s presence felt murky and undefined, I could still feel it.  

It is times like that, when we have to choose between despair and hope.  It is times like that when hope feels incredibly dangerous. It is not the canned hope that so many things in our culture provide.  It is not the isolated hope that self-help books give us.  It is wild hope, dangerous hope, hope that cannot be controlled because it is not ours to control.  It is God’s.

Often times we try to control hope with phrases like “cautiously optimistic.”  I have used that phrase.  It’s a smart way to be.  It’s a safe way to live.  I am just not sure it’s Christian.    I often think that I can protect myself from disappointment if I do not let myself hope.  But that is kind of missing the point. When Paul spoke of hope, it wasn’t the verb….it was the noun.   We don’t hope for something.  We strive to live a life that will lead us to hope itself…because the embodiment of the hope is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Hope is not the means to an end, it is the means to glory.

There are some churches, some religions that still use fear as a motivator.  Yet we---Christians—have something so much more powerful than fear. We have hope.  Ironically hope is a much braver tool than fear and in some ways, it’s a more dangerous and scary tool to wield because it is completely beyond our control and it requires things like suffering and sacrifice.  However, Jesus promised us in our Gospel text that we would never be alone in this journey toward hope. The Holy Spirit is with us.  Jesus calls us to live with the power of Holy Spirit-- to a wild and untamed hope that leaves us breathless and sometimes terrified.  The best way to face that fear, is to do it together, as a community of faith.  Let us together throw cautious optimism out the window. Let us be dangerous--dangerously hopeful.   

The podcast I referred to in the beginning is: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/16/628792048/creating-god

Holy Detours: May 26, 2019

Acts 16:9-15                                                       

Year C, Easter 6                                                                                            

            I like lists, plans and schedules.  I like things to be as efficient as possible.  When they closed my grocery store, I was devastated, not because I particularly liked the grocery store, but because I was able to create my list in such a way that it went in order of the way I walked through the store.  Every week I would time myself, trying to shave off just a few minutes.  Had I been one of Paul’s travelling companions, I would have gone completely crazy.  In reading the portion of Acts where our reading comes from, I looked at maps of Paul’s three main missionary journeys.  It is amazing how far he traveled, much of it by foot.  Our reading for today comes in the middle of his second journey and it might just be one of the more inefficient portions of his journey.  Our reading begins at verse 8, but I want to share the verses that come right before. 

“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.”

            What is interesting about these verses, is that the Holy Spirit basically caused holy detours in Paul’s missionary journey.  It doesn’t say how the Holy Spirit got this message across, it just did. Perhaps this rerouting wasn’t a big problem for Paul, but I think he was using a strategy and if he was this messed that all up.  He had a plan for where he was going.  I am sure it was frustrating to him when he kept being turned around, but he still persevered and kept an open heart and mind. 

We know his heart and mind were open, because he responded to a night vision where a man from Macedonia pleaded with him to come and help them.  That was the only direction he had…a man from Macedonia.  Macedonia wasn’t a small town where it would be easy to find a man who someone saw in a vision.  It was a region.  Yet this did not deter Paul. If this is where his holy GPS was guiding him---then that is where he would go.  The text says that as soon as he saw the vision, his small group immediately crossed over into Macedonia.  They eventually landed in Philippi which was a leading city of Macedonia. 

            Why Philippi?  The vision didn’t mention that particular city. But here is where Paul’s strategy becomes apparent.  Philippi sat on the Egnatian Way, which linked the East to the West.  It was a town on the crossroads and it was full of retired Roman soldiers who were free to travel through the whole Roman Empire.  It was the perfect launching point for a mission to Europe.  Landing here was a result of holy detours, visions and planning. 

Typically, when Paul ended up in a city, he would find a synagogue to preach in.  That was his comfort zone as a rabbi.  It was also a good place to meet like-minded people, people who might be particularly receptive to the message of Jesus Christ.  But for some reason, Paul did not go to a synagogue. On the Sabbath, he went outside the gate of the city to a place by the river as he had heard that this was a place of prayer.  There he found a group of women and sat down and talked with them.  That in itself is pretty amazing-- Paul, a Jewish Pharisee sat down with a group of women and talked about faith. 

In that group, was a woman named Lydia.  The text says that, “The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.”  As a result, she and her whole household were baptized.  We do not know much about Lydia except that she was a dealer of purple cloth, a worshipper of God, and was from Thyatira.  What is interesting about Thyatira is that it was one of the places where the Holy Spirit had forbidden them to go earlier in the chapter.  In introducing Paul to Lydia, God was bringing this region to Paul.  It kind of reminds me of that saying, “When life closes a door, God opens a window.”   But here, God didn’t merely open a window of opportunity, God opened Lydia’s heart.

            This was possible, because Paul responded to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Paul, despite the fact that he had a strategy and a plan, still listened to God. In doing so, he opened himself up to a new opportunity, a new mission field.  He left the confines of the synagogue.  He left his safe place and in doing so, brought the word of God to an entirely different community than he had previously planned.  Philippi wasn’t just the crossroads of the East and West, it was the crossroads of the Christian faith. 

            Today, in a culture that many are calling post-Christian, we find ourselves at a crossroads.  We can do what we have always done and stay in our comfort zone, or we can open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, so that we can meet people like Lydia, people who may already be worshippers of God, but are yearning for something deeper. Paul didn’t merely preach at Lydia and that group of women, he received their hospitality and support.  He became part of their community for a short time so that they could be a part of the body of Christ. 

So what does that look like for you or for St. John’s? It’s a hard question to answer, because it could look like anything (which is exciting and daunting). That said, let’s consider one opportunity on the horizon. Next Sunday, we will have a special presentation during our adult forum on our neighbors—the Hampton City Jail. One of our members who works as a deputy in the jail will speak about his experiences there as well as the needs as he sees them.  We will also have our pastoral associate Jane Price talk about her ministry leading a Bible study every week at the jail. Then Victoria Mitchell will talk about an opportunity for us to bring joy and kindness to our neighbors by delivering books---not just donating them, but walking by the cells and delivering them. 

Paul left the city gates of Philippi and in doing so discovered a group of people who were not only ready to hear the word of the Lord, but willing to provide hospitality to those who delivered that word.  This will be our opportunity not to leave the gates of the city, but to enter another gated city, a city of people desperately in need of God’s message of love and forgiveness. This might not be something you do, but let’s use this as an opportunity to think beyond our walls and gates.  We are at the crossroads of the Christian faith.  We can either follow our own plan doing things as we have always done them or we can open our hearts to the nudging and direction of the Holy Spirit. 

You have a purpose: May 5, 2019

Year C, Easter 3                                                       

John 21                                                                       

            How can you not love Peter? If you have ever  said something you have regretted, doubted yourself, boasted, embarrassed yourself after boasting, loved too quickly or too fiercely, if you have ever said one thing and then done the complete opposite, acted just a little impulsively, or fallen and gotten back up…then you cannot help but love Peter, or at least appreciate him and his flawed beauty.

            When my brother got married, my oldest brother made a video that included pictures and commentary of almost every embarrassing incident in my brother’s life.  It was quite thorough as my brother was 38 at the time and had a very full and adventurous life.  When I think of Peter, I imagine that kind of video.  It would start with Jesus calling Peter and his brother Andrew while they were fishing.   Jesus asked them to be fishers of people. Peter did not hesitate.  He simply dropped his net and followed him.  We see that impulsive nature again when Peter is out in another boat. He saw Jesus walking on water and told Jesus that if it was really him, he should call him and then Peter would walk on the water.  Jesus complied and immediately Peter was out of the boat, walking on the water, only to sink moments later.  Or there was that time that he argued with Jesus and was rebuked. Or the time he was trying to helpful and he offered to build tents for Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration. Or the time Jesus wanted to wash his feet and he refused, only to then ask Jesus to wash his whole body.  There are more moments on this memory reel than I have time to share.  Some of them are funny, some awkward, and some heart breaking.

            Today’s story in the Gospel of John would definitely be on that reel. It contains humor, joy and a little pain.  Peter was once again on a boat.  This was obviously a place where Peter was comfortable.  It was the place where he once found his identity and purpose.  He was after all a fisherman.  At this point in our Gospel story, he had already seen Jesus in the flesh a few times, but still seemed to be surprised to see him here on the Sea of Tiberius.  He didn’t even recognize him at first.  But as soon as he knew it was Jesus, he did what Peter does, he jumped into the water. He put his clothes on first as that was what you did when you met your Lord and Savior, but he jumped because he had to be the first to meet Jesus.  He could not possibly wait for the boat to cover the short distance to the shore.  I have a lot of theories about why he didn’t wait, but I am fairly certain it would be foolish to put a lot of thought into those theories, because that wasn’t who Peter was.  He didn’t put a lot of thought into it things, he just dove right in. 

            One of the first things Jesus asked was that Peter go and get the fish so they could cook them and eat them.  Jesus was always very good at directing people and making sure they were playing a part in what was happening.  He wasn’t just good at directing people.  He was good at providing direction for people’s lives.  He still is.

You all remember the one moment on Peter’s memory reel which is what he is most known for.  After Jesus’ arrest, Peter was asked if he knew him and he said no.  He denied knowledge of Jesus not once, but three times, just as Jesus had predicted.  Today’s Gospel isn’t the first time Peter had seen the resurrected Jesus, but it is the first time we know of that they had a ny real heart to heart.

            After they had eaten the fish, Jesus pulled Peter aside and asked him one of the most vulnerable questions you can ask someone. He asked Peter if he loved him.  Peter replied that he did.  Peter even added, “You know I love you.” ---because this was Jesus asking the question and he knew all things.  Jesus replied, “Feed my lambs.” Jesus asked this same question again. This time Jesus responded by saying, “Tend my sheep.” Then he asked a 3^rd time. The Gospel writer tells us that Peter was a little hurt that Jesus had to ask three times.  Did he doubt Peter? Why ask three times?  Because Peter had denied Jesus three time and Jesus knew it was important that he was able to affirm his love for Jesus three times.  It was a step for Peter towards healing and growth. 

            We also know Peter was impulsive and prone to answer things quickly without thinking. Perhaps Jesus wanted to make sure it would sink in.  Also, he wasn’t  just asking if he loved him, he was giving him a job. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. Remember, Jesus was the Good Shepherd. He took care of his people.  He was passing this job on to Peter. 

It was an appropriate job for Peter. He didn’t tell Peter (at least not here) that he needed to go and learn how to preach, or teach or perform miracles.  Peter probably ended up doing all those things, but on that day, Jesus spoke to Peter’s strengths.  Jesus basically said, take care of my people.  While certainly all of Jesus’ disciples were capable of caring for others, Jesus knew that Peter was especially prepared.  Peter knew what it was to sin in a monumental and public way, and then be forgiven.  He knew what it was to be loved in spite of himself.  Jesus knew that Peter would be able to share that love and embody that love because Peter needed it so much in his life. 

            We all have a purpose in this life.  Some of you might consider your job to be your purpose or your role as a parent or spouse.  That might be it.  But I think that Jesus has a deeper purpose for each of us and that purpose is developed, not from our gifts, but from our failures, our fears, even our sins. You know, I have never known a pastor who said, “I wanted to be a pastor because I’m was so good at being a Christian, I thought, I should do this professionally.” I am sure those pastors are out there, but I don’t know them.  Part of why I became a pastor was because I knew how badly and desperately I needed God’s love. Some of the best therapists out there are those who have struggled with mental health.  Some of the best physical therapist are those who know what it is to overcome physical injuries or limitations. 

Your purpose might not be your occupation.  I can’t tell you what it is. But you have a purpose designed by God. It will challenge you and it will help you be a better Christian.  Jesus needs our help.  He didn’t ascend to his father in heaven until he told his disciples what their purpose was.  He needs our help.  You might be thinking—well great, but how am I supposed to know the purpose? Praying helps.  I would encourage you to look at the memory reel of your life and identify the times when you have needed God.  There are all kinds of spiritual gift inventories out there that are supposed to provide direction.  They are helpful. However, if you look at the stories in the Bible, God doesn’t call people who are gifted in one way and then encourage them to find a purpose that matches that gift.  No, he encourages to people to wade into their fears and insecurities and find a purpose there.  That is scary, but that is why we have this faith community.  We are to be your companions on this journey, this journey to find purpose and belonging.  Come to me, or Mark, or our pastoral care associate, Jane.  You have a God given purpose.  God needs you to discover that purpose because there are a lot of sheep that need caring for in this world.  We are the sheep, but we are also the shepherds.  God needs our help to transform this tear drenched world we live in.  We can no longer live merely for ourselves. Discovering our purpose isn’t about self-fulfillment.  Discovering our purpose enables us to transform the world into the world God created it to be.

Why are you here: April 21, 2019

Luke 24:1-12                                                                                                                        

Easter, Year C                                                                                                                          

            I have a question for you all.  Why are you here?  I am sure there are many reasons. Many of you might not be sure what that reason is.  Some of you are here because you come every Sunday and church and faith are important to you.  Some of you are here because it’s Easter and your family has always come on Easter. It’s a tradition. Some of you are here because the world is changing far too fast and you yearn for something that doesn’t change, something you can rely on.  Some of you are here because you want to hear the music and see the church full of lilies and azaleas.  And while some reasons may be better than others, I don’t believe there is a bad reason to be at church.  Because the ultimate reason for your presence here today is that God wants you here and will use whatever excuse necessary to get you here.

            While I do not know why you are here, I bet that none of you are here for a surprise.  I suspect very few people (if any) came to church thinking, I wonder what’s going to happen today.  Is Jesus going to rise again?  Are we going to sing Jesus Christ is Risen Today?  We come to Easter Sunday with a certain set of expectations.  And I get that. I know what it is like to go to church with expectations.  I was raised Catholic and one of the things I loved about the Catholic Church was the music. I go to Catholic Church once a year when I am on vacation and visiting my parents in New York and let me tell you, I get very annoyed if I don’t hear any of my favorite hymns.  Often I end up there around July 4^th and get a bunch of patriotic hymns, which really annoys me.  I think, I show up once a year, you would think that they could play my hymns.  I realize that is not a good attitude.  I should be there to worship God, but sometimes, I get too wrapped up in nostalgia and end up irritated.

            When the women went to the tomb, we know what they were expecting.  They were carrying spices so that they could anoint Jesus’ dead body.  It was an important religious custom that they were performing.  Of course, that is not what they ended up doing.  As we all know (because we have heard the story) the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.  No dead body to anoint.  The text says that they were perplexed.

            The windows in my office overlook our beautiful cemetery and I often see people visiting graves of loved ones who have died, either carrying flowers or just going to visit.  Imagine one of those people arriving at a grave and seeing the gravestone pushed over and a gaping hole with fresh dirt around it.  It is almost unimaginable.  Consider the fear, the confusion, the anxiety.  Would there be hope?  Probably not…because dead people don’t come back to life.  It’s one of things in life we depend on, death and taxes.  Once a body is buried or put in a tomb, that body stays  there. 

            In the Gospel story, when these women discovered the empty tomb, they were approached by two men in dazzling clothes (most likely angels).  The presence of these men did not bring comfort. They brought more fear.  The women could only bow their heads.  Instead of greeting the women or telling them not to be afraid (which is what angels typically did), these two men asked them a question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”  Then the angels reminded the women of the things that Jesus said to them when he was alive.  Meanwhile, we the readers are drumming our fingers impatiently asking ourselves why these women are so obtuse.  Jesus told them this was going to happen.  Why are they so surprised?  Why?  Because he died! These women saw him die and saw him buried.  Where else would they go to look for him besides a tomb?

            To their credit, they were able to take it all in.  When the angels reminded them of what Jesus said, they remembered Jesus’ words, heard them with an entirely different perspective. They remembered how they felt about him when he was alive, the way he stirred not only their hearts, but the hearts of the masses, the way he healed people, the way he loved without condition.  They remembered him and his words.  In remembering, they believed.  They were able to overcome their limited expectations and find hope in that empty tomb. 

            Why do you look for the living among the dead?  We do that all of the time.  After the horrible fire was extinguished at Notre Dame Cathedral, we saw pictures of the charred remains. We saw the video of the wooden steeple falling to the ground. We saw the hole in the vaulted ceiling.  But the most amazing picture was that of the gold cross surrounded by smoke and embers, seemingly untouched.  It stands in defiance of the wreckage that surrounds it.   Life in the midst of death.

            It might seem that the question those two angels asked is meant to point out the error on the part of the women, the foolishness of looking for Jesus Christ in a tomb.  But they weren’t foolish at all.  They were loyal to the end.  What they realized deep in their hearts, was that sometimes we do find the living God in the most desolate of places. Despite the fact that they were expecting to find a dead body, they were open to the possibility of life.  If they weren’t, they would not have listened to those angels.  They would have come up with a rational explanation for it all.  They laid down their meager expectations as soon as they were reminded of Jesus’ words. 

            In the resurrection stories, Jesus often had to remind the disciples, before they could recognize him. In the Episcopal Church, we do that every Sunday when we celebrate communion. We don’t just do it on special days.  We do it every Sunday because we need that reminder.  Our lives are so full of distractions---we need someone to remind us every Sunday of who Jesus was, what Jesus said, how we died, and how he rose again.  Read the Eucharistic Prayer.  It’s all there.  We say those words every Sunday. Then because Jesus realized that words are not always enough, we receive the body and blood of Christ at the altar rail. 

            God calls us to let go of our meager expectations. Our Lord is so much bigger than we can imagine.  He comes to us not only in the emptiness of a tomb, but in the charred remains of a burned cathedral, or the steel beams forming a cross in the wreckage after 9-11, or the darkest moment of our lives.  Death, nor fire, nor war, nor sin can conquer our God or confine our God.  Allow yourselves to be surprised by God.  Allow yourself to be reminded of God’s deep and enduring love.  Come to God’s altar. Come again and again. 

            Sometimes the challenges of our lives forces us to build walls around our hearts and we find that it is easier not to be reminded of God’s love, because then we open ourselves to being disappointed.  I understand that fear.  But this is Easter Sunday and those walls cannot protect you from a living God.  If we believe in a living God and a loving God, then those walls will shatter.  They will come down and God will come in to our hearts and our lives.    

What is your sacrifice?: April 19, 2019

Good Friday

            On April 12th, 1963, while Martin Luther King was in the Birmingham jail because of the demonstrations against segregation, eight prominent Alabama clergymen (including the Episcopal Bishop of Alabama) published a letter in the local newspaper.  The letter urged people to cease their support of Martin Luther King as he was inciting violence, despite the peaceful intent of the protests.  Four days later, on Good Friday, Martin Luther King wrote a lengthy response to these clergy men.  The letter is referred to as “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It would be impossible for me to summarize it as the letter as it is approximately 7,000 words, and they are all important words. 

            The letter was critical of what King referred to as the “White Moderate”—those who supported desegration but wanted to wait until a more appropriate time.  King was also critical of the white churches.  He wrote: “But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.”

            It is not a coincidence that he wrote these words on Good Friday, a day when the church talks the most about Jesus’ sacrifice, a day when we are reminded of the betrayal of not only Judas, but Peter and the other disciples who abandoned Jesus when he needed them the most.  At my last church we always did a drama for Palm Sunday. As the assistant, it was my task to cast the drama.  There were of course a few people who I called on several times.  At one point one man said to me, “How come I always have to be the bad guy?”  I responded, “The only good guy in this story is Jesus and no one wants to play him either.”  It’s true.  If you look at all the people in the story that we hear every Palm Sunday and every God Friday (which includes Peter, the chief priests, Pilate, the soldiers, the crowd), no one ever comes out looking good.  Only Jesus, and he gets crucified. 

            Of course the biggest betrayal comes from those closest to Jesus--his disciples.  We all know about Judas and his outright betrayal.  We know about Peter’s denial.  Yet there were 10 other apostles.  Where did they go? Where were they during the trial?  Where were they at the crucifixion?  The Gospel of John mentions that one of the 12 apostles was at the foot of the cross.  The Gospel does not name the disciple.  It only refers to the “beloved disciple.”  I sometimes wonder if that was done so that we could all see ourselves in that spot.  There were some women (including Jesus’ mother) who were at the foot of the cross, but the other 11 disciples were missing.  

            We can’t be sure why they are missing, but since the Gospel tells us later that they went into hiding because they were afraid, I assume they were trying to save themselves.  They were afraid that if people associated them with Jesus, they would either be arrested or crucified.  I do not blame them. They were terrified and I would have been as well.  They were not ready for this kind of sacrifice.

            I often wonder if I would have been brave enough to support Martin Luther King as a white pastor at that time.  I just heard a pastor talk about the experience of having to flee in the night because his father had the audacity to work with African American pastors in the 1960s.  His life was threatened.  The life of his family was threatened.  His father risked a great deal to stand with African American pastors and he paid a price.  I am not sure I would have been that brave. I would have almost surely been part of the white moderate. 

            In the quote I read at the beginning of this sermon, King said that we need to recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church.  Yet we can see that before the early church was born, the leaders of that early church made a lot of mistakes. They weren’t ready to sacrifice, not until after the resurrection.  They needed to witness not only Jesus’s sacrifice, but his triumphal re-entry. 

            It’s hard to reclaim that sacrificial spirit because we have been comfortable for far too long.  Most people don’t come to Holy Week service.  Sometimes it is because work or family makes that difficult.  But sometimes I think it is because we would really rather just skip over the sacrifice and rejoice in the triumph of the resurrection.  We feel that the sacrifice already happened and now we can just enjoy the benefits of that sacrifice.  Unfortunately, without the sacrifice, as Martin Luther King said, we forfeit our authenticity.  If we cannot stand up for unpopular truths and marginalized groups, then we are no longer the church that the early apostles created and ultimately died for. 

            I am not going to tell you what sacrifice looks like for you.  Only you can know that. But for me, it means that I can no longer let fear determine my actions or reactions.  I cannot constantly worry about what other people will think.  Good Friday asks us all to consider what sacrifice looks like for us.  If you are already the kind of person who likes to “tell it like it is,” then doing that more, isn’t really a sacrifice.  For some of us sacrifice will look like more listening and less talking.  For some of us, it will be about speaking out more.  Only you and God can know what sacrifice looks like for you.  But I can tell you one thing, if the sacrifice feels good and is easy, it’s not sacrifice.  If it makes you a little sick and anxious, it just might be. 

            While sacrifice is not easy, it is not the end.  At the end, we have resurrection.  Martin Luther King never gave up on the church and Jesus never gave up on his disciples.  He forgave them after his resurrection and they were transformed into a new p eople---a people bold enough to proclaim the Gospel in a hostile environment.  The last line of Martin Luther King’s Letter was: “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”  That is what Christian hope looks like.

****I encourage you to read the full letter: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html