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

God's Love is Unfair: March 31, 2019

Year C, Lent 4                                                        

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32                                                                 

            As some of you know, I have three older brothers; the oldest being 13 years older.  When he was in his late 20’s, he wrote a book that featured three brothers and a father who was in the Navy.  It bore some remarkable similarities to his life.  However, when I read it I was a little perturbed that there was no sister.  He just left me out completely.  I mentioned something to my brother about this and he replied, “This is a book about redemption, you don’t need redemption.” He was alluding to the fact that he and my other brothers were kind of wild children and teenagers.  I was not.  Also he was writing about himself as a high school student, which was when I was about 4 years old.  I was not satisfied with that answer.  It seemed to me, that I was being punished for being good.  What he did not realize was that I would get back at him by featuring him in sermons years later. 

            This Gospel reading is often referred to as The Prodigal Son.  The word prodigal is nowhere in the text. It has been assigned to the text because it describes a wasteful or reckless extravagance. Yet the way the father describes the younger son is lost, which is a far better description.  Additionally, it is not merely the story of one lost son.  It is the story of two sons who are lost.  One is lost in a distant country.  The other is lost in his own home, with his own family. 

            It might not seem so horrible to us that the younger son asked for his inheritance while his father was still alive.  However in this time period, that would have been considered the ultimate insult because it is basically saying to the father, “You are dead to me.”  In asking for his inheritance early, he cut himself off from his entire family.  To make things worse, he wasted that money on self-indulgent living.  He is not a likable character, not the kind of underdog you want to root for. He only returns when he runs out of money and is on the brink of starvation.  He’s kind of a jerk. 

            The other son isn’t particularly likeable either.  He is jealous and resentful.  While his brother is a jerk, you would assume that the elder brother would be at least a little happy to have his brother back safe and sound.  While the elder brother is not likeable, I think he is a little more relatable for most of us.  I imagine that most of us have had some experience where we have witnessed someone else being celebrated or rewarded when it was clear to us that they in no way deserved to be celebrated or rewarded.  It’s not fair.  I think there are few things that are more disconcerting to your average human than when we witness something that is unfair.  Despite the fact that most adults know life is not fair, we still feel the need to make it be fair.  And even if we know that life is not fair, we at least want God, the almighty, all knowing God, to be fair.  And why would an all knowing, almighty God, reward a son who wished his father dead, took his money and then came back when he needed him? 
            Why? Because there is nothing fair about God’s unconditional, unrelenting love.  When that unfair love is directed to us, it doesn’t seem to bother us that it is unfair.  Let’s consider this elder son.  It’s true that he was the good son.  He stayed with his family and did his work, but he also had servants.  It is clear from the text that his father was wealthy and generous.  He was able to provide for his sons in ways that other people could not.  His father was also clearly compassionate, forgiving and loving.  He was a good father.  He was the kind of father who ran out too meet his disrespectful and ungrateful son and pronounce forgiveness before forgiveness was even asked.  Do we really think the elder son ever lamented the unfairness of having a life like he had, having a family like he had when so many had nothing compared to him?  I doubt it.  Because he felt that was what he deserved. He was entitled to that kind of life. 

            He was lost, not because he had chosen to escape to another land, but because he chose resentment over gratitude, because he chose to lament the unfairness of a father who loved his brother too much instead of thanking God for a father who loved him with an unrelenting and all powerful love.  When we think of this parable, we can probably all see in our minds eye the father who runs out to meet his foolish and selfish son who treated him like he was dead.  It is a dramatic and compelling scene. But how many of us picture the father who then seeks out his bitter and unforgiving son and begs him to come inside; who reminds his petulant child that while he might not have rewarded him with a fatted calf, it didn’t matter because everything he owned, was already his. The father didn’t have to reward him with the fatted calf, because the elder son owned the fatted calf. God has already given us everything we need.

            When I was working on this sermon, I thought a lot about my own privilege and the truth is that most of are born into privilege, just by being born as an American. Most of us have guaranteed access to free education and clean water.  We take these things for granted even though there are many in our world (and some in our nation) who do not have these privileges.  But in the end, that is not what this story is about.  It is a story about something else we often take for granted--God’s grace. No matter where we are born or who we are born to, we all are born as children of God, beloved by God. 

Every day and every hour, we make a choice. We can either be grateful for this amazing gift, this amazing grace, or we can be resentful for the ways that life has cheated us, or what we do not have.  That was the sin of the elder son.  He could not be content or thankful for what he had because of his bitterness about what his own brother was receiving. 

It is hard to let go of resentment.  But there is a way.  Embrace gratitude.  You cannot be grateful and resentful at the same time. Thus when you find yourself growing bitter over some perceived unfairness, remember the gift that you have, the gift that God has given you.  Everyone gets lost at some point in their life.  Each one of us has a story of redemption. Part of what the season of Lent is about is admitting that we are all lost and then making the choice to be found. God is looking for you. God is that father who is staring into the distance, waiting for us each one of us to return to him. Embrace gratitude.  Choose gratitude. Because God has already chosen and embraced each one of us.

Footnote: If you are interested in this subject, I encourage you to read "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Henri Nouwen. It is inspired and helped me a great deal on this sermon. 

Look at the Stars: March 17, 2019

Year C, Lent 2                                                                         

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18                                                                     

            I started the ordination process when I was 26.  I had just finished my 3^rd year in seminary, so things were a little backwards for me.  Typically you enter the ordination process before going to seminary. Therefore, when they told me ordination was probably 2 years out (and that was only because the Bishop was supporting an expedited process), that seemed like forever.  It wasn’t-- but at age 26, it felt like forever.   People kept telling me to be patient and that, “God’s time is not your time.”  That was really annoying…because what can you possibly say to that when the vocation you are pursuing is one  that expects that not only will you trust God, but also talk to other people about the importance of trusting God?  I was told by a mentor that I needed to be careful that I never gave the impression (to anyone in authority) that I was in a hurry and certainly that I should not complain to anyone about how long it was taking. That turned out to be very good advice.      

            Thankfully God doesn’t have the same rules about complaining.  Because if God did, Abraham would never have become the father of a nation and one of the fathers of our faith. Then again, he had more to complain about than I did.  God had picked Abraham out of obscurity to be a leader.  He had promised Abraham, that if he obeyed him, he would be given land and children.   The piece about children was extra important to Abraham because by the time God called him, his wife Sarah was already considered barren, which means they were a bit on the older side.  Despite their inability to conceive, God had promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the dust of the earth. Yet by the time we get to our reading for today, decades have passed since that initial promise---Abraham had done everything that God had asked of him--- and he and his wife were still childless. 

            Thus, when God came to him and declared, “Do not be afraid…I am your shield; your reward shall be very great”---Abraham’s response was a little exasperated.  Now, obviously, I wasn’t there, but I imagine Abraham reacting a bit like this:.

         He essentially said, “You haven’t even come through on the first promise you gave me.  I want a child!” God’s response is interesting.  God didn’t say, “Look, your time isn’t the same as my time.  You need to be patient.” He said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.  So shall your descendants be.” He didn’t defend his promise or the lack of progress on that promise.  He expanded the promise.  He said to Abraham, this is bigger than you can possibly imagine.  Forget the whole dust of the earth analogy I used before, now I want you to imagine the stars of the sky.  That is how vast your progeny will be. 

And you know what, that was all it took for Abraham.  He believed.  He still had some complaining to do---but he believed.  Minutes later when God again promised him acquisition of land, Abraham asked him to give him some proof.  It’s not that Abraham didn’t believe God’s promise. He did.  But he needed something tangible.

            That’s when things get a little weird in our reading.  God asked Abraham for some animals that could be sacrificed.  He asked Abraham to cut the animals in two and then Abraham fell asleep.  When it was night, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the two halves of each animal.  After the smoking pot and flaming torch passed between the sacrificed animals, the Lord made his covenant with Abraham.  Really, he affirmed the covenant that he had already made.

            Let me break down the imagery of the smoking fire pot and flaming torch.  First of all the Hebrew word translated to covenant means, “to cut.” Thus, cutting the animals in half symbolized creating/cutting the covenant.  In this scene, the smoking pot and flaming torch symbolized the Lord and by passing through the cut animals, the Lord was showing Abraham that he was the one making the promise.   By passing through these dead animals, God was deepening the promise by making it about life and death.  One commentator (Rolf Jacobson) described this by giving God these words: “I pledge my very life as surety of this promise.  If I fail to keep this promise, let me be slain just as the goat, the sheep and the ram were slain.”[1]  It’s hard to get more tangible than that.

            Here’s the thing about God.  God always keeps his promises.  Sometimes it takes a little longer than we would hope.  It would be many more years before Sarah would conceive her first born.  And it would be even more years before God would make that ultimate sacrifice that he predicted that night with Abraham—sacrificing himself. 

We are in the season of Lent.  Every Sunday, Jesus comes a little closer to his death. While God did keep his promise with Abraham, God’s people did not hold up our end of the deal. We still could not commit to a relationship with God.   But God never breaks promises and God never gives up on his children.  His love is so deep and so wide, that God will do anything to redeem that love, even if it means dying on the cross.  So despite the fact that God did not break his promise, God decided that the only way we could see his love was by sacrificing himself. 

            It’s ok to complain to God.  Because if you are complaining, that means you are still talking.  If you are still talking, that means that you still have hope.  And as long you maintain that sliver of hope, God will find a way to break through and show you how deep and wide his love for you is.  When God told Abraham to look at the sky and try to count the stars, he wasn’t just reminding him of the number of ancestors he would have.  He was encouraging him to look outside of himself.  So often, we can get caught up in our own worries (or the worries of those closest to us) that we forget to open our eyes wide enough to see the evidence of God’s love that is all around us. 

During Lent we emphasize the importance of inner reflection and examination.  That is important.  But sometimes when we are doing that internal reflection, we are just talking to ourselves instead of talking to God, or more importantly, listening to God.  God’s love is deep and wide. It lives within us and beyond us.  If for some reason, you can’t feel God within you, look outside.  Maybe, do something trite like watching the sun set over the water or gaze at the stars on a clear night or listen to a particularly powerful piece of music or maybe just take a deep breath and remember how lucky you are to be breathing when for so many, breathing is agony.  Then when you have that experience, send me an e-mail or give me a call because I need reminders of God’s majesty and love as much as each of you.  Hopefully, that is what we are for one another in the church, evidence of God’s love, a love that will never give up.

---

[1] Rolf Jacobson from Working Preacher: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4001

Blaze of Glory: March 3, 2019

Year C, Transfiguration                                                       

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2                                                            

                       

            What would you do if you knew that you could not fail?  It’s an interesting question to ponder. There are some people who live like that.  They try anything.  They have no fear.  Sometimes that translates into recklessness, sometimes not.  Then there are those people who are scared, but they do it anyways because something or someone is supporting them, providing confidence and hope.  Jesus lived this way (as though he could not fail) and so did Paul and the other disciples.  Paul and the disciples were not reckless, although I am sure that some people around them thought they were.  They had confidence not because of displaced sense of self-importance but because they believed that God was in their corner.   

            The section that we heard from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is a bit tricky.  If it seemed a little confusing to you, you are in good company.  Paul was referencing the story of Moses.  When Moses encountered God in the Old Testament, God’s glory was so bright, that Moses’ face would glow. Then he would have to veil his face because God’s glory would actually scare people.  He had to protect people from God’s glory. 

            Paul was explaining to the Corinthians that everything changed when Jesus came, because God’s glory came to us in human form.  Even though Jesus died and his body left this earth, his glory remains, in the people of God.  We no longer have to fear God’s glory because humans are able to take on that glory.

            We do not talk a lot about God’s glory because it seems inaccessible—just out there.  However, the point that Paul was trying to make was that it is accessible. Jesus made it accessible.  If we turn to God, not only can we glimpse God’s glory, we can become a part of it.  We can be participants in God’s glory.  Paul wrote, “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”    

            If you look at the front of our bulletin, you will see that our mission statement is “to live in the Spirit of Christ.”  To some that might seem abstract and there is certainly room for interpretation.  If we read the mission statement in light of Paul’s words, then living in the Spirit of Christ means that we are being transformed into God’s glorious image from one degree of glory to another. It means that we can live without fear of failure because we have God’s Spirit.  Living without fear of failure doesn’t mean that we don’t ever fail.  In fact, it means that we will probably fail more often. It also means that we will have more opportunities to be the people who God calls us to be, to truly embody the glory of God. 

            Now I have to admit, that I am not really good at casting off fear and living boldly.  I am cautious.  (I have had some variation of the same hair style since I was in 5^th grade.) But I am not the only cautious one in our church.  Christians have become complacent over the last several hundred years.  We got comfortable in the 20^th century.  We became accustomed to being the majority.  We got used to sitting in places of power.  And once you have that comfortable position, well it’s harder to take risks.  We have more to lose. 

            The early church was full of risk.  We might say, well it was easier because they had less to lose.  While they did not have the reputation of the established church to worry about, they certainly had a lot to lose.  Paul was an important person in the Jewish faith.  He had authority.  He was also a Roman citizen, which meant he was well respected and a little more comfortable than the average Jew.  He gave that all up, so that he could walk hundreds of miles and talk to people about Jesus---so he could be beaten and imprisoned—so he could be mocked and criticized—so he could be the greatest evangelist who ever lived. 

            The first line of our reading for today is, “Since, then, we have such hope, we act with great boldness.”  When Paul said that we act with boldness, he was referencing not his own self confidence and valor, but the boldness that comes with freedom.  The origin of his freedom was the Spirit of the Lord.  It was the Spirit of the Lord that gave him the freedom to live as though he had no fear, to live boldly and to never lose heart. That Spirit of the Lord resides with all of us—gives us all the freedom to live boldly.      

            So forget that question I started with: What would you do if you knew you could not fail?  The better question is: What would do if you knew that failure was a part of our Christian journey and that failure was a part of bold action?  We don’t risk failing so that we can achieve glory, we take risks because we already share in God’s glory.  Every time we act with boldness in our life as Christians---we do so with the Spirit of God within us. By acting boldly, we come closer to the people who God calls us to be. 

            Being bold and taking risks is not easy.  I know that.  Yet I am convinced that our church needs boldness.  We need to take risks if we want to continue transforming from one degree of glory to the other.  If we are able to partake in these risks together, then we can be there for one another when we do fail and rejoice with one another when we succeed.

            There are a lot of people out there who will tell you that the church is dying.  I do not believe that.  However, if we continue on our current trajectory, the denominational churches won’t last the next 100 years. That makes me sad, because I think there are a lot of churches (St. John’s being one of them) that are worth saving.  If there ever was a time to be bold in our churches, it is now.  If there ever was a time to take risks, it is now. I believe that if we are bold in our faith and embody the glory of God, we will survive and thrive.  But if I am wrong…and the church doesn’t survive, wouldn’t you rather go out in a blaze of glory?  We have  been “fighten sin since 1610” but maybe it’s time to stop fighting against something and start fighting for something, fighting for transformation and God’s glory.  Will you fight with me?

#blessed: Feb. 17 2019

Jeremiah 17:5-10                                                                   

Year C, Epiphany 6                                                                             

            Our Gospel reading for today is part of the Sermon on the Plain, which is similar to a more familiar passage in the Gospel of Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount.  In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus is speaking to a large group of people about what it is to be blessed.  He has come down the mountain to be with the crowd and share a message of both blessing and woe. Typically the readings for every Sunday are picked in such a way that there will be connections between them. Sometimes these connections are rather muddy.  Sometimes, like today, they are quite clear.  The Old Testament reading, the Psalm, and the Gospel all talk about what it is to be blessed.  Unfortunately the concept of blessing has become quite misunderstood in popular culture.  You see it all over the place on social media (facebook, twitter, Instagram).  People talk about their most recent accomplishment and end with #blessed.  What they should really be writing is #lucky because blessing has nothing to do with personal accomplishments, fame or fortune.

            The way the Bible describes blessed is far different than the way most people use the word.  Jeremiah wrote, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord…”  The Psalm tells us that the people who are blessed are those whose delight is in the law of the Lord.  The Gospel reading takes it a few steps further from our common understanding, “Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated…”  Let’s start with Jeremiah…

            Jeremiah is best known as the weeping prophet in that he was often predicting destruction.  He faced persecution and at one point, was actually dropped in a big well and left to die. He knew what it was to suffer, to face hardship.  The imagery Jeremiah used in the text for the day is of foliage.  He wrote that those who trusted in mortals (themselves or others) as opposed to God were cursed.  They were like shrubs in the desert.  Those who were blessed were those who trusted in God.  They were like a tree in the desert. At first glance, you might think, well both of these are in deserts and probably struggle in the same ways.  But if you look at the text more closely, you will see that the shrub is in a parched place in an uninhabited salt land.  The tree is planted by water.  Its roots can reach toward that source of water.

            Plants often depend on rain and dew to keep them alive.  We all know that we have to water plants to keep them alive.  I have tried the not watering route and that really doesn’t work.  Even desert plants require some kind of water. However, the desert tree planted by water is not as dependent on the weather.  Even if the water is not right next to it, its roots can still reach toward that water for sustenance.  Sometimes you might see a grouping of trees or plants in the desert with no visible water.  That usually means there is a hidden stream that these plants are drinking from. 

            Jeremiah pointed out that these desert trees still encountered scorching heat and drought, but they had this alternate source of water keeping them alive.  It was their deep roots reaching out to the water that nourished them and kept them safe.  So it is with people.  We all face adverse situations in life.  Bad things happen to all of us.  Some of those bad things are avoidable, but much is not.  Jeremiah never said that blessed people didn’t face hardships.  Of course they do. The difference, is that those who are blessed, those who trust in the Lord do not let those bad things determine whether or not they are blessed.  The blessing is not exterior---it is deep within the soul. 

            Often times, when things are going well for me, I get this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that things might turn bad at any minute.  I get so anxious about the bad thing that might happen, that I have a hard time enjoying the good things that are happening. I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Then I get so anxious, I get almost greedy with my good fortune and I cling to it for fear of losing it.  Yet what I have learned is that as long as I depend on good things happening to feel blessed, well I am always going to be in that state of anxious grasping for good things.  I know I am not alone in this.

            Yet, what if…what if we could find contentment not in what is happening to us or around us, but in the source of all peace and joy…God.  That doesn’t mean you will never be sad or discouraged, but it does mean that deep within you will reside this inner peace.  We have all known that person who seems to carry that serenity and joy.  We think…how did they get like that?  What is their secret? It’s not a secret.  These people have found their source of life. They have tapped into that inner stream so that the drought will not parch them. Those are the people who know what it is to be blessed. 

            Blessing is not about prestige, money, success or even health. To be blessed is to be in relationship with God.  We are all blessed. God wants to have that relationship with all of us.  In case I have not convinced you about what blessing really means, let’s consider out Gospel reading. Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those hated…Why would Jesus say those people are blessed if blessing is supposed to be a gift of fortune or happiness?  Yet Jesus called them blessed because despite their hardships, they were still loved by God.  In God’s eyes, they were equal to all the people around them who acted as though they were superior. 

In those days (and today as well) people often associated prosperity and health with one’s goodness or sinfulness.  If you were good, good things happened.  The more God loved you, the better you were treated.  So not only were you suffering because you were hungry or treated unfairly, you were suffering because you thought it meant that God didn’t love you.

Most likely, the crowd Jesus was talking to were full of people who were suffering. These weren’t the important people of the community. These were the desperate people.  He was assuring them that they were blessed because God loved them.  And no human wielding any worldly power could take that away from them.  It might have been the first time they had ever heard that. It’s not that hard to imagine.  I think we all have those moments when we feel as though we could not possibly deserve God’s love.  Imagine being in that moment and being told by God in the flesh, that God does love you and that no matter what happens here on earth, one day you will rejoice. 

I learned an interesting thing about trees while preparing this sermon.  Most of us learned in school that trees pull in water from their roots and then some of that water is released from the leaves the next day.  In the 1990’s, scientists discovered that not only did trees release the water through the leaves, but through their shallow roots, which then watered the ground around them, providing nourishment to the plants around the tree.[1] 

The next time something gets you down---I want you to imagine for a moment a stream dwelling within your soul, a stream that never goes dry.  In that stream, God’s love flows. It courses through you.  Then act like that tree and release some of that light and love to the people around you.  The best way to understand what it is to be blessed, is to be a blessing for others, to be that stream that carries God’s love to the people who need it that most. 

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[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/26/science/plants-share-precious-water-with-neighbors.html

Love is a verb: February 3, 2019

Year C, Epiphany 3                                      

1 Corinthians 13:1-13    

                                                      

            As some of you know, I had a last minute drive to St. Louis right after Christmas.  I was officiating my niece’s wedding and planned to fly out early Saturday morning as that was the day of the rehearsal.  We missed the flight due to a couple of factors. So we started our drive at 6am, already slightly sleep deprived with a very disappointed 2 year old who was really looking forward to a plane ride.  We were in no way prepared for a drive that long and I knew I would be missing the rehearsal. One of my big fears as a pastor is that I will be late for a wedding or funeral.  Another fear is missing my flight. This was those two major fears wrapped into one tidy ball.

            Needless to say, I was not in a good mood and I really wanted to yell at my husband. I wanted to make sarcastic comments.  I wanted to be snide. But here was the problem. I had written the wedding sermon the day before. It was all about how important it is to be kind to your spouse. Presumably, I was going to have to preach this sermon the next day in front of God and my husband, and I was going to have to do it without feeling like a big hypocrite. So I didn’t yell. I didn’t make snide comments under my breath.  I was nice. It was really really hard. It took a tremendous amount of effort on my part.

            One of the readings for the wedding was this reading from First Corinthians that we heard today.  “Love is patient. Love is kind…it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable and resentful.”  We all know this one. You have probably heard it at 90% of the church weddings you have attended because it’s beautiful and poetic.  It’s about love, which is what we are celebrating when we attend a wedding. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter and he was by no means a romantic.  He was never married and even discouraged people from getting married. However, he understood the importance of Christian love in the context of our relationships with one another and our relationship with God (which is primarily what he was talking about).   

            I am going to get a little detailed on grammar, but I want you to stick with me.  When we hear the word kind or patient, we would classify those words as adjectives. They describe something. Therefore, we might read this passage and think that Paul is talking about the attributes of love.  He is describing love. However, Paul did not speak English, nor was the Bible originally written in English. This was Greek. In Greek, those are verbs---action verbs.  Usually when we think of action verbs, we think of words like run, walk, talk, laugh.  We don’t think of being patient and kind as an action verb.  You see Paul was not describing some romantic form of love that would easily fit on a greeting card. This was not descriptive.  It was prescriptive.  He was telling us how to love. So often when we talk about love, we portray it as a feeling, a feeling that can come and go.  But Paul was quite clear. Love was more than a feeling.  It was about action and effort.

            In 1995, Gary Chapman wrote a book called: The Five Love Languages.  The premise of the book is that we each have a primary language we use to express our love, which is not-so-coincidentally the same way we prefer to receive love.  The five love languages are: receiving gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time and physical touch.  In the Old Testament God showed his love in a number of ways. He gave humanity the greatest gift by actually breathing life into us.  The prophets provided words of affirmation and judgment on behalf of God.  God also served his people by providing food and water in the desert, parting the sea, and even winning military battles. 

            In the New Testament, God’s love language shifted a little.  He began by giving another huge gift…the gift of his only son. Then his son shared his time with people.  He provided words of affirmation through parables and conversations.  However, if I was to pick Jesus’ primary love language, it would be acts of service---whether it was washing the feet of his disciples, providing food to hungry people, healing the sick or turning water into wine. His greatest act of service was his death, his willingness to die for his people. That was how he ultimately showed his love.

            Paul understood all this. He talked a great deal about Jesus’ ultimate act of love.  In our reading from Corinthians, Paul was talking about how God’s love is manifest in our words and actions.  He wasn’t saying we need to do anything drastic like sacrifice ourselves.  He was not trying to recruit martyrs. In fact, he is giving us very tangible and accessible action verbs.  In the 13 verse we heard today, Paul provided 15 action verbs….15 ways that we can express our love for God and one another.  Being patient, kind, truthful, and never giving up are just a few of those actions.

            These are not easy things.  I am not sure that I would have been as kind as I was during that car trip had I not had a sermon looming in front of me about kindness.  The people of Corinth were facing far more difficult challenges than a long car ride.  These new Christian communities were unique in that they included a tremendous amount of diversity.  Previously, communities had formed around blood relatives, ethnic groups, socioeconomic status or religious upbringing.  The people in the Christian community of Corinth were coming from all kinds of different perspectives and they were having a hard time loving one another.  Even when they worshipped God, they still found ways to compete.  They were competing over who was more spiritual, more gifted.  We still do that. We are often comparing ourselves to other denominations and churches.  How often have you heard… “well at least we are not like those Christians.”  Even in our Christian communities today, we still have a hard time acting with and in love.

            In six days, Night’s Welcome will begin.  It is the week when we host the homeless in our parish hall.  We feed them. We provide lodging.  We treat them like our guests and show them the respect they deserve as our brothers and sisters.  It is a perfect example of how Jesus taught us to love.  It’s not easy.  We are forced to see things that we normally try to avoid.  I want to encourage you to take part in Night’s Welcome or in another one of our outreach ministries.  Or if you can’t do that right now, perhaps just reach out to someone who might be hard for you to love.  We all have those people in our lives.  We might be those people.

My hope is that the next time we hear this reading, we won’t envision a bride and a groom, but instead we will see a person who we loved even though they didn’t really deserve our love, perhaps someone we only saw once.  Or maybe we will remember a time when someone showed us kindness when we ourselves could not show that kindness.  Let us stop describing God’s love. We can let the poets do that.  Instead, let us show God’s love.   Let our faith be a verb—an action verb.