Learning to Change: August 20, 2017

Year A, Pentecost 11                                                 
Matthew 15:10-28                                                     

            When I was little and I heard the story of the birth of Jesus, I thought he simply dropped out of heaven. There was no real birth.  One minute the manger was full of hay and the next minute there was a baby.  I never thought of him growing up, being a toddler, or an adolescent.  Part of the reason is that the Bible tells us almost nothing about Jesus before he turned 30.  He was a baby.  Then he was 12.  Then he was 30.  Some people believe that there were stories about Jesus as a child, but they did not make it into the Bible because he was a child, doing childish things.  For instance according to these stories, when a child spurned him, he retaliated.  When he got in trouble for making clay pigeons on the Sabbath, he turned the clay pigeons into living birds, because he could.[1]  These stories speak of a child learning how to handle his power. It makes sense.  If Jesus was fully human, then he had to learn and grow.  He had to change. He was not born in the body of 30 year old, nor was he born with the mind of a 30 year old man.

There were also occasions where other people encouraged him to change. One example is the wedding feast.  It’s a familiar story.  They ran out of wine.  His mother asked Jesus to turn water into wine.  He said, no this is not my time. He did not think he was ready. His mother persisted and he agreed. He performed his first public miracle at the request of his mother.  Another example is our reading from today. Jesus had left his home turf and was in the region of Sidon.  This is important because this is an area that was populated by Gentiles, not Jews.  These were people that good Jews did not interact with.  The disciples had probably never been in a place like this. 

            As soon as he got there, a woman came to him, shouting “Have mercy on me Lord, Son of David, my daughter is tormented by demons.”  I am sure that he noticed that she was using the Jewish title for him.  “Son of David.” She knew who he was.  Despite that, he tried to ignore her. That was the easy thing to do, maybe even the polite thing to do.  He did not want to have to tell someone that he could not help her. 

Yet this Gentile woman, was relentless.  She could not take a hint. She kept coming at him and by now she had everyone’s attention, even the disciples.  They wanted him to just get rid of her. He tried. He told her the party line. He was just there for the people of Israel.  She could not be deterred.  She knelt at his feet…his feet.  There was no avoiding her.  He said, “It is not fair to take the children’s crumbs and throw it to the dogs.” That was what they called Gentiles.  Jews called Gentiles dogs because dogs were dirty.  They did not keep the purity laws. The children were the Jewish people, the chosen people.  His first duty was to the children—the Jews. 

            Instead of acting offended or lashing out, this woman chose another tactic.  She responded, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She understood and acknowledged what no one else had. That even if he was meant to tend to the Jewish people first, there was more than enough mercy to meet the needs of the rest of the world.  Even the crumbs, the tossed off waste of his abundant love was enough….enough for her, her daughter, and the world. 

            And here is when it gets tricky.  Jesus, the all-knowing, all powerful Messiah learned something in that moment.  All along, he believed that he was there for the lost sheep of Israel.  They were his primary mission. Yet he saw something in this woman. He saw perseverance, courage, faith and knowledge.  She understood him and his ministry better than the Pharisees, perhaps even better than the disciples. She knew that his love was so great, so powerful, that there was enough to go around.  She helped him see something that he had not yet seen.  Because of that he saw not just a woman kneeling at his feet, but a beloved child of God who was ready to hear his message and experience his mercy. 

            The reason people struggle with the idea of Jesus changing his mind is that implies that he not was right to begin with.  It means he was imperfect, that he was not all-knowing. Yet I believe that he was that much more powerful because he was open to change.  He was willing to learn, willing to learn from a woman, a Gentile, willing to let go of a belief that one ethnicity was better than another, willing to accept that his love was without limit.  There was enough to go around. He did not have to wait for the Jews to accept him before moving on to the next group. He could start his ministry to the Gentiles now.

As a church, we are called to be disciples of Christ, to follow his example.  Part of following this example, is being willing to change and to let go of our prejudice and fear.  Our world is a scary place.  Just this week, ISIS killed 13 people and wounded 100 in an attack on a popular street in Spain.  They gave no reason.  You don’t need a reason when your heart is full of hate.

Before that we experienced our own terror right here in Virginia.  We saw a display of hate that while not unprecedented, was certainly a wake-up call for those who thought that kind of racism was a thing of the past.  When I was a on a mission trip in Appalachia several years ago, I was driving alone looking for one of our groups. I was lost because GPS did not work there.  I drove down a stranger’s driveway hoping I could get some directions. Instead I ran into a member of the KKK.  He was not wearing a white hood, nor was he burning a cross.  He just wanted to share that I had wandered onto the property of a clansman. I was terrified, and I am a white Christian.  I kept thinking, what would have happened if our African American youth was with me in that car. I told myself that this man was just some crazy guy in the hills of West Virginia. 

Yet just last week, we saw it on a college campus.  We saw in on our newsfeed, twitter, facebook.  Hate was on full display.  The root of that hate is the belief that one group is better than the other, that one group is more deserving of God’s love.  Two thousand years ago, Jesus started something. He started to dismantle prejudice.  He told people that they were loved, no matter what they looked like, or who they were related to. He told people that they were to love their neighbor and their enemy.  As his disciples, we are called to continue his work.  Much like the woman who was seeking mercy, we cannot relent.  We must persist.  Like Jesus, we have to look at the prejudices within ourselves.  While we cannot produce miracles, we can bring healing to our community and our broken world. The first step in that healing, is acknowledging the brokenness.  In our Eucharistic Prayer for today, the priest says, “But we turned against you, and we betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another.” Then we break the bread as a symbol of Jesus broken on the cross, as a symbol of our own brokenness. That is not how it ends.  The way the prayer ends is that we all come to the altar. We all partake in the love that Jesus shared.   We become vessels of his love and grace. 

As those vessels, we have a responsibility to carry that love and grace.  While God’s love and grace has no limit, each person has a limit to the pain that they can bear.  No Jew should have to see someone wield a swastika, a symbol of their intended annihilation.  No African American should have to hear racial slurs hurled at them. Sometimes God’s grace looks like us, standing between hate and the recipients of hate. 

---

[1] The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: http://gnosis.org/library/inftoma.htm

 

Just Jesus: August 6, 2017

Year A, Transfiguration                                                         
Luke 9:28-36                                                                                    

            Recently, I have been trying to get more organized.  I realized that I was feeling scattered, trying to do a million things at once, but never seeming to get anything done.  I thought, this has to be fixable.  I just need to figure it out.  I have made some changes in how I set my schedule and ensure I follow up on tasks.  But the major change is that I don’t try to do more than one thing at a time.  I am sure most of you have had this experience.  You are sitting down trying to accomplish one task, and then your computer chimes and you find yourself reading an e-mail.  You start to reply but are distracted because you see on your phone that a text has come in.  You start responding to the text and then see a news item pop up on your screen and go to read the article. This can all happen in about 3 minutes.  By the time you have read the article, you have completely forgotten what you sat down to do.  Most people have experienced some version of this. 

With all of our technology and devices, we have become more efficient in some ways and less efficient in others.  Most people pride themselves on their ability to multitask, but the whole concept of multitasking is a myth.  I have a good friend who is a neurologist and she told me that it is actually impossible to do more than one thing at once.  What we do is that that we shift from one task to another rapidly.  Sometimes this is handy. However, I think a lot of times, it makes us more fractured and scattered.  That is why at a time when we are more technologically advanced than ever, there is a movement to become more mindful.  That is why things like yoga are so popular because there is a focus on being present in that moment.   

            While Jesus and his disciples were not affected by technology, they still knew what it was to be pulled in different directions.  Often times, Jesus would go off to pray because even the savior of humanity needed time to be away from people and day to day tasks.  Occasionally he would take a few of his disciples with him.  That was what happened in our Gospel reading for today.  He took three disciples up to the mountain with him to pray.  Yet instead of having some nice quiet time with their friend and teacher, Jesus, the disciples experienced a bit of a light show.  While Jesus was praying, his clothes became dazzling white and his face changed.  As if this was not strange enough, two men appeared out of nowhere.  They were not just any two men, they were Moses and Elijah, two pillars of their faith, two people who were supposed to be dead. 

            It must have been an amazing thing to behold—these three men together. Peter did the logical thing, he offered to make some tents for them. He offered to make tents…for two people who were dead.  It seems like an odd offer.  Even the Gospel writer comments that Peter did not know what he was talking about.  Peter is one of those people who always seemed to be saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.  For millennia people have been speculating what Peter was thinking when he made that offer.  Was it a display of hospitality?  Was he being practical?  One theory I have always liked is that he was trying to convince Moses and Elijah to stay a little while.  They had come a long way… back from the dead.  There were so many reasons why Peter would have wanted this holy moment to last longer.

            Lately, I have been wondering if it was something else entirely.  I wonder if it was just too much for Peter.  I wonder if the moment was so astounding, he just had to do something else. He needed a task to accomplish. He wanted something to do with his hands so he would not have to think about the ramifications of this moment.  He would not have to hear Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah about Jesus’ departure….which was Jesus’ death.  Who can blame him?  Why would he want to think about his friend dying?  How many of us have turned on the radio to tune out our thoughts, or watched a stupid television show to zone out? 

So much of what culture seems to be pushing right now is not things to make us more efficient, but things to distract us.  One of the things I love about writing sermons is that it is the one time when I am forced to sit in silence and let my mind wander. Otherwise, I am always listening to music or podcasts or reading.  Being distracted has become a way of life.

God does not like it when people try to avoid him or his message.  Before Peter could even finish his sentence, God sent a cloud over them.  Our text says, “a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.”  If this was not dramatic enough, God spoke from the cloud and said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  No more chitter chatter Peter! Stop your yapping and listen!  This is what I love about this specific text.  It says, “When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent…”  Moses and Elijah were gone.  There was no light show.  No clouds.  No booming voices.  It was Jesus…alone.   Thankfully the disciples had the presence of mind to keep silent.  I imagine that they had a lot of questions rolling around in their heads, but they knew that there was only one response to this kind of glory…silence. 

One of the things church should offer to every person is one hour a week where there is no distraction from God. It is one hour when we open ourselves up to what God might be telling us.  There are certainly people out there who have the ability to do that on their own, but those people are the exception and not the rule.  Of course we have our share of distractions, even in church, but the goal is to have time to focus on God.  Our opening prayer for today says, “Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty…” In case you are not familiar with this word, disquietude is the elegantly Episcopal way to say anxiety.

Life is full of so many anxieties, even if you are someone who does not suffer from technology overload.  Anxiety/worry is something we all carry.  Therefore, it is important to have some time in the week to unload those burdens.  Leave them at the door.  Because it is only when we can release these things (even release them a little) that we can truly behold the King—the King of Glory-- in his spectacular beauty.   After Moses and Elijah were gone—after the light show was over—after the voices stopped and the cloud receded, there was Jesus…just Jesus.  That is what we are looking for here every Sunday.  We are looking for Jesus.

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. 

               

---

[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.