Building the Kingdom of God (with everyone's help)

The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn de Morgan, 1909

A sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 17, 2010. The lectionary readings are Amos 8:4-7, Psalm 113, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, and Luke 16:1-13.

If you’re downtown and go by the intersection of 10th Street and G Street, in the same block as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, you’ll see a new building going up. This new building is being built where in 1868, the First Congregational United Church of Christ began meeting. First Congregational UCC was founded in 1865 by abolitionists as the first racially integrated church in Washington, DC. In 1953, the building was condemned, torn down, and a new building built on the same spot. By 2004, this third building was showing its age and needed some extremely costly repairs. And then a developer knocked on the door.

I imagine that developer must have seemed a little like the devil who approached Jesus in the Gospels and promised Jesus all sorts of superpowers, capping the promise off with “all of this can be yours… all these things, I will give you…” After a couple of years of praying and bargaining, the church reached an agreement with the developer to sell its air rights for $17.4 million. The new building, now going up, will include a new space for the church on the ground floor, meeting spaces and program spaces, with condominiums overhead. The maintains ownership of the land but benefits from the sale of the air rights and profit-sharing from the sale of the condominiums. The church plans to devote a portion of the proceeds to further its social action mission including the Dinner Program for Homeless Women, local and international advocacy for peace and justice and housing for very low income people off site.

I imagine it was a difficult decision for the church to make a deal with the developer, even though, with hindsight, the deal looks pretty sweet. I don’t know what scripture might have guided the discussions, but the readings we have heard today would have given them a lot to think about.

The prophet Amos thunders forth from our first reading. “Hear this,” he says, “you that trample on the needy. You who cheat the poor and push around the defenseless. [God] will turn your feasts into mourning, and … your songs into lamentation.” The point to Amos’s preaching is not to criticize formal or elaborate worship. The point is that with all the resources at Israel’s disposal, with all the wealth in their temple, in their homes and in their hands, they are (at the end of the day) showing themselves to be a stingy, selfish people.

Amos points out the hypocrisy in Israel’s worship, in the ordering of their lives, in their culture. They have forgotten when they were poor. They have forgotten when they were aliens. They have forgotten when they were not the majority. But God never forgets. And God will bring justice. God holds God’s people accountable.

If the Old Testament reading reminds us about some of WHAT we should be doing, the Gospel suggests that our doing—our living out the Gospel, our working with God to bring about his kingdom, may involves some strange relationships. Our being faithful to God may sometimes mean our getting smart, shrewd and resourceful in the here-and-now.

In today’s Gospel, we hear about a rich man who has a dishonest manager. This manager is not only underperforming, but seems to be either skimming off the top or manipulating the funds in some other way. The accounts do not add up, and the rich man gives the manager notice. But the manager sees some of this coming. He knows his days are numbered, so he makes plans, and his plans involve building up “credit” with others. Before he leaves, the manager goes around to all of those who owe the rich man. He cuts his losses. He lowers each person’s total, collects what he can and tries to prepare for the future. He is a pragmatist and his quick thinking seems to get him back into the favor of his boss.
In this parable, Jesus is simply telling a story. He does not mean for his disciples or us to identify specifically with one character or another. He is not encouraging us to be cheats. He is not suggesting that the kingdom of God is achieved by dishonesty or duplicity. But there is the suggestion that the kingdom of God benefits from a shrewd mind and from a willingness to make use of all the resources at one’s disposal. The Christian faith is not helped by feeble-mindedness or by a kind of pious naïveté. Rather, in Jesus’ words, the “children of light” can learn a few things from the “children of this age.” That is to say that those who seek to follow Jesus can learn even from, and perhaps especially from some who are secular and even nonreligious. This idea is echoed in Matthew when Jesus sends out his disciples to be “as sheep in the midst of wolves, to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Today’s readings suggest that we have a role to play in the ongoing life of God and the unfolding of God’s kingdom. It matters what we do with what we have, whether we have just a tiny bit or whether we have a whole lot. Whatever we have can be used for God’s good will. What we have in terms of our energy, our mind, our faith, our compassion, our talent, our money--- all of this has a role to play in God’s unfolding kingdom.

Using what we have, for God, is the central message of today’s scripture. It is what Jesus is saying to his disciples—that even though the manager in the story is less-than-honest, perhaps he’s even a little shady and maybe even a little underhanded, the manager does everything he can to prepare for the future—he uses all of his resources in the most creative way he can, and it’s that creativity and resourcefulness that Jesus is lifts up for us.

Today in the undercroft we have various ministries represented. They look for volunteers. They look for new ideas. They look for new energy. As you look around you may not see the thing you are interested in doing, or it may be that God is whispering to you an idea that no one else has yet heard. Then, especially, I invite you to speak with someone about a way to use what you have in this little corner of God’s kingdom.

It may not be our calling to sell air rights and build a skyscraper. But who knows what God might call us to do?

Our Collect of the Day prays that even as we are surrounded by earthly things, that we would not be anxious about them, but hold on to what lasts, what endures, what helps others, and what furthers the community and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we learn to use all that we have and all that we are for God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Nothing is Lost

A sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 12, 2010. The lectionary readings are Exodus 32:7-14, Psalm 51:1-11, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, and Luke 15:1-10.

As we all know, yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In one way or another, many in our country have paused to remember those who lost their lives that day in New York, Pennsylvania, and our own area. Each of us probably has our own particular memory of that day. We go on about our lives until something – usually some little thing—surprises us with a memory of that day. We remember where we were and what we felt.

For me, there is one thing in particular that sometimes jolts me and reminds me of September 11, 2001. It’s whenever I see a homemade sign on a post or a wall announcing that something has been lost. Maybe it’s a bicycle, or a dog or a cat. Sometimes the announcements are graver, and appear on milk cartons or on television, announcing the tragedy of a lost child. But wherever I see them, those little posters remind me of coming up out of the subway on 9/11 at the 14th Street Stop, the farthest downtown one could stop. There, near St. Vincent’s Hospital, and on just about every flat surface from there on southward, were quickly made (desperately made), homemade signs announcing that someone was lost. Someone was missing. Someone was unaccounted for.

Over the next few days, there were a few stories about people who were found; people who had simply not been able to communicate with loved ones. Some had been evacuated from downtown and sent over to Staten Island, unable to reach worried loved ones until later. I would imagine there were similar stories from this area, of people temporarily out of touch, temporarily lost, who happily, were later found to be shaken, but very much alive.

People become lost in different ways. Alzheimer’s or dementia takes a person to some far away place. Disease, drugs or addictions contribute to loss. And we lose people through death. But however the loss happens, whenever it feels like someone’s been lost, the question arises (the questions arises in a lot of us, anyway), “Where is God?” Where is God when someone can’t find their way out of addiction? Where is God when someone’s brain allows her no longer to recognize her family? Where is God when people die senseless deaths?

Our scriptures today tell us exactly where God is. God is there. God is here. God is wherever God needs to be, seeking the lost, doing whatever it takes, changing divine plans, changing the course of history if it takes that, just to save and find one lost person.

In the first lesson today, the people of Israel feel lost. They feel afraid and cut off from God. They feel so lost that they begin to substitute other things for God—stuff of silver and gold. They begin to worship pretty things, expensive things. Finally Moses returns and he gradually helps them find their way again. And God actually changes his mind—changes his plans, changes the course of history—just to make a way so that his children can find love again, can find God again.

Our Gospel also shows us a God who will go to desperate means for us. God will do whatever it takes to find someone, and to bring that person home.

Jesus tells the story about a shepherd who has 99 sheep. One wanders off and can’t be found, so the shepherd leaves the 99 and pursues the one.

Jesus also talks about a lost coin. A coin has fallen out of reach, or has gotten behind something, or has seemed to disappear altogether. So, the woman stops what she’s doing and basically turns her whole house upside-down to find the lost coin.

The point in all of these stories is that God goes out of his way to find what is lost, to re-claim what is lost, to recover and restore anything and anyone who is lost. God reaches out for us. God looks for us. God does not stop calling our name.

The past week was unusual in that we had two funerals, one on Monday and another on Friday. At both, we used Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” At each, we invited people to read it in unison. It’s always amazing to me that even when there are people who might not have been in church in a while, the words to Psalm 23 sound familiar.

God leads us into green pastures—not that we’re cows or sheep, but the green pastures become a symbol for whatever is for us a place of rest and refuge, a place of nurture and sustenance. God lead us beside still waters, stilling the rapids of our life, slowing us down, and collecting us in one place. God restores our soul. Even when we walk through the “valley of the shadow of death,” we have nothing to fear, because God is there. Even if we don’t see God, even if we don’t particularly feel God in that moment—God is there. Even when there are those who die all too suddenly, those whose lives are taken, God calls, God loves, and God welcomes by name.

Psalm 23 reminds us that God leads us into a place where there’s an enormous feast, a feast so big that it includes not only everyone we’ve ever loved, but even our enemies, transformed into friends. There in the full presence of God, in the fullness of love, God anoints us and calls us by name.

Throughout scripture, names are important. Sometimes a person’s name is changed when they encounter God in an important way, and that might even be the case for us. We carry many names, after all: names we have been called by our parents, names yelled on playgrounds, nicknames we might try on for a while until we grow out of them. Then there are names we might try to grow into, and find that they don’t quite fit us. We might go for a while under a pseudonym – for safety, or for fear. But throughout it all, if we listen, if our hearts are open, God is calling our true name. We may not even recognize it at first, but if we strain to listen, we’ll hear it.

No one and nothing stays lost from God. God seeks and searches and calls out by our truest name, and calls us into love, into laughter, and into life everlasting. As the church, it’s our job to help one another hear God’s calling. Whether we are the lost who are found, or whether we are among those who fling open the door and welcome those who return—we are, all of us, called to join in the celebration.

We gather in this place at one table, eating from one bread and drinking from one cup. What we do is variously called the Mass, the Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper. But throughout all, it is the Eucharist, that Greek word meaning “thanksgiving.” We give thanksgiving because we were lost but are found, perhaps because we were kept out or left out, but now are welcomed. We give thanks because through this meal we are invited to be more forgiving, more merciful and more welcoming. Thanks be to God for finding each one of us and for bringing us home.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Memorial Mass for Ellis R. Mottur (1930--2010)

"Come Unto Me," stained glass window at All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church, Washington, DC

A meditation offered at the memorial Mass for Ellis R. Mottur, held at All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church September 10, 2010. Mr. Mottur's book, A Poetic Journey: From Fear-- Through Love-- to Faith and Felicity was published by Dorrance Publishing Co, 2010.

Gerontologists, those who watch the aging process closely, and our own grandparents, all tell us that when it comes to growing older—there is bad news and there is good news.

The bad news is that as we age, we become more our true selves. And you have probably guessed the good news: as we age, we become more our true selves.

So this means that in growing older, those things that irritate us, that get under our skin-- prejudices and places of ignorance all can intensify. Someone who is grouchy at 35 will probably be even grouchier at 95.

But the good news is that we also become more our true selves, the older we get. Where there has been generosity, or wonder, or hope, or love at 35…. with age on our side (and I would add, with grace on our side) into our 60’s and 70’s and 80’s we can become even more generous, even more hopeful, and loving beyond imagination.

Ellis Mottur is proof of this good news. As he aged, he just got smarter. He got sharper. He was able to understand more. He had more friends. He offered more love. He had even more faith.

If you knew Ellis in later life, you might never have known that he had struggled in his younger years. As he has expressed in his poetry, there were times when he felt like he

slashed through swamps of stagnant black;
….rushed from black to black to black;
….kicked [his] feet to the accepted beat;
…. but …dared--- [he] dared not look. (from “Flight Through Fear”)

But he made it. Whether it was the appearance of a sparrow (as he writes), or whether that was a symbol of some person or several persons, Ellis was lifted out of the dark places.

Ellis loved music and he especially loved Beethoven. That’s why we’re using some of the Beethoven sonatas today and why we’ll end our celebration singing (loudly and lustily) “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee.” In that Ellis knew a lot about most things, I would not be surprised if he loved Beethoven in part because of Beethoven’s own struggles and his ability to write and play and pray through those struggles. At the age of 26, Beethoven began suffering from tinnitus and began to lose some of his hearing. Over time, his hearing loss became profound, and it affected the way he interacted with people. It is said that at the end of the premiere of his Ninth Symphony (The Ninth Symphony from which we get the tune, Ode to Joy) Beethoven had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause of the audience; because he couldn’t hear it. Friends turned Beethoven around literally. Friends (and I think he might add, God, too, helped Ellis turn from doubt and depression, toward light and love.

The Gospel today is a familiar one to many. “In my Father’s house are many rooms.” I always recall the King James version that promises, “in my Father’s house are many mansions.” I can picture heaven as a sort of grand Kennedy-Warren, where each of us has a half-floor, every room has a view, and the ballroom downstairs is filled with music and laughter. It’s an ongoing party where everyone we’ve ever known and loved mingles and munches and dances. They dance on and on and on. I don’t think Ellis would have cared whether we end up with rooms or mansions. But I know one thing now--- he’s in heaven, and I be you that he’s leading the dancing.

Just before Communion, we will sing a hymn often called “Lord of the Dance.” It’s based on the Shaker tune, “Simple Gifts,” which was the basis for Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.” I hope you will try to sing it with us. It’s not easy, but at least notice the words. And if you feel like moving around a little bit, feel free. (It would be fun if word reached the Bishop of Washington that they were dancing in the aisles at All Souls—and that it was Ellis Mottur’s fault!)

The Church believes in life after death. Not that the physical, earthly life isn’t important. Just the opposite, what we do here follows us there. We just become more ourselves, as God has made us. But heaven is a full place—filled not only with famous saints and martyrs (the kind pictured in stained glass windows like these). But heaven is also filled with the ordinary folks, the “household saints.” We use the word “saint” like the scriptures and the Early Church used it—a saint is any person of faith—living or dead. And so, as we go about our lives, we are guided by the saints and we are guarded by them.

I love St. George, and like to think of him reminding me of how to be and how to live, but right a long with him are my grandparents, and friends, people not-so-famous, and people famous. Ellis is with the saints. As Tommy and Caroline and Teddy grow up, I hope they’ll feel their grandfather’s presence. Since Ellis is now in heaven, he’s joined some good company, and so I imagine him there, feasting and dancing, but also talking with the people he loved who went before him. Who knows, if he and the Kennedys begin talking, and planning and plotting, maybe their prayers can put a good jolt back into our economy! Maybe even the OTA will be funded again!

Ellis loved his friends. He was a model of loyalty. He could be fierce when he had an idea or a cause. And yet, he might be the first one to get sentimental, to leave a crowded room so that he could get away to a quiet place and put his thoughts into the form of a poem.

Ellis’s poem entitled “America” works not only as a poem, but as a prayer for our country, and even as a kind of creed.

When everything’s blackest, we must act brightest;
When doubts assail us, we must chart a course in confidence;
When enemies berate us, we must bury our anger;
When friends mistake our motives, we must persist in patience;
When the very foundations of our faith quake beneath our feet,
We must stand firmest upon them;
and when the New World seems farthest away,
we must move farthest toward it. (from “Our America”)

We rejoice in the eternal life of the Communion of Saints. May the wisdom, the tenacity, the love, and the humor of Ellis Mottur continue to inspire us and shape us. Amen.

A consuming fire

Baptism at All Souls, November 30, 2008

A sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 22, 2010. The lectionary readings are Isaiah 58:9b-14, Psalm 103:1-8, Hebrews 12:18-29, and Luke 13:10-17.


Last month when I was on retreat with some other clergy, we realized on the first day that the retreat center had evidently been talking to the fire inspector.

Last year, when we were together, each small group of us, when we got together to pray and talk about things, had a “group candle” we would light. It was a reminder of the Holy Spirit’s presence among us. Of course, the Holy Spirit doesn’t vanish when the candle isn’t lit, but it remained an important symbol of the Spirit. It was light. It was warmth. It was flame. It connected us to those biblical passages in which God’s Spirit is likened to fire. Before Jesus, John the Baptist explains that while he baptizes with water, one will come (the Messiah) who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. There is fire, too, at that first Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit makes herself known to the disciples by appearing as flames of fire, dancing over their heads, and the fire burns away confusion and difference, ignorance and misunderstanding, so that all understand each other. All of that comes to mind when one lights a candle, especially when one lights a candle among other believers, friends in the faith, with whom one has been praying, for whom one has been praying. But not this year at our retreat. This year, the candles were electric. They had a battery somewhere in them. And they had an “on/off” switch. It was different, this year.

One of my group, Christina, who is an Episcopal priest in Cuba, refused to look at the candle, “that thing,” she called it. At each of our small group’s meetings, I would playfully offer her the candle-thing and ask if she would like to “be our acolyte.” “No,” she said, “get that thing away from me. It’s horrible. It shouldn’t be.” Christina had no time for fake candles, fake-fire, or fake flame. I think she probably associated it with fake faith.

I suppose there might be a faith equivalent for an electric candle. It might look like someone whose practice of faith is artificial—it is “turned on” perhaps for Easter and Christmas, but otherwise the batteries can be removed for safekeeping. Or an electric candle faith might be like the kind of person who keeps his or her faith on a shelf. It is so private, so personal, so individual as never to risk – certainly never risking causing a fire, but also never risking helping another warm to the flame, helping another see by the light, helping another burn with the love of God.

But when we’re open to it, that’s what the Holy Spirit does within us. The flame offers warmth, light, and love.

In Isaiah, we’re told just that, that if we can just stop pointing fingers at each other and speaking in (what Isaiah calls) “evil ways,” then all kinds of things are possible. Our “light shall rise in the darkness, and our (previous) gloom, be like the noonday.” Through our faithfulness, others are blessed—they find food and have their needs addressed. Water comes to the parched, and keeps on coming. Old divisions are healed; separations overcome. When the fire of God burns within us, it spills over onto others.

In Jesus we see the light of God’s love burning brightly, so brightly that it attracts people from all over. When people see him, they want to follow wherever he’s going, because it seems to lead toward increasing light. When people meet him, they want to become different people, more like him, more like God. And when people feel him, they are healed. That’s what happens in today’s gospel reading with the poor woman who is bent over, who’s been crippled for some eighteen years. Jesus looks at her and refuses to see someone who is limited, someone who’s old, someone who is pitied, someone who doesn’t matter. Instead, he sees her as the child of God that she is. With his whole treatment of her, he loves her. The light of God shines on her like the light of the sun on a seedling, and love (and life itself) calls her to grow taller and stretch high so she can come to touch even God.

Whenever God burns within us there is warmth for others, there is light for others, and there is love. And when we’re open to it, there’s no risk of its being artificial, or temporary. There is no on/off switch. Instead, the fire of God that burns within us is a consuming fire.

The Letter to the Hebrews reminds the faithful of the way God’s fire went before the people of Israel, illumining the way, keeping them from stumbling. That same fire burns brightly in the Heavenly Jerusalem, the symbol of our meeting place with God, where the light is thick in its strength, amid innumerable angels feasting and celebrating, with the spirits of all those who have tried to live faithfully finally fulfilled, made holy, and made one with God. This is no flicker of a candle. It’s an eternal flame, so bright that is even gives light to those of us still on earth. We notice its glow. We move in its warmth. We are made holy by its light.

In just a few minutes, we will baptize James Raymond. We offer him a little of that heavenly, eternal, consuming fire as a symbol of the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within him. We baptize with water. We anoint with oil that seals with God’s spirit. And we offer a lighted candle. Some like to bring their candle out on the anniversary of their baptism. Others like to put it away with baptismal keepsakes. Either way, the real message is that God’s light burns within James, and from this day forward, God through him will continue offering light in the world.

A parishioner recently reminded me of a wonderful story that comes from the early years of Christianity, when women and men would go to live in the desert as a means of purifying and strengthening their faith. The desert itself was a bright place, but these people were looking for the light of God. They were looking to increase their own burning to be as much and as pure as possible. These desert fathers and mothers were called abbas and ammas. And so, there’s a story about Abba Lot, who goes to see the older and wiser Abba Joseph.

Abba Lot says, “Abba Joseph, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?”

And then, Abba Joseph, the old man, stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

May the Holy Spirit quicken the flames that burn within each of us. So that we might be consumed in the fire of God’s love.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Feasting with Mary

Detail of Nativity Window at All Souls

A sermon for the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin, August 15, 2010. The lectionary readings are Isaiah 61:10-11, Psalm 34:1-9, Galatians 4:4-7, and Luke 1:46-55.

Peter Gomes, the great preacher and teacher at Harvard, suggests that many Protestants have trouble with Mary because we assume she’s a Roman Catholic. He imagines what happens to an especially Protestant dean of a Cathedral after he died. This dean had little time for the Virgin Mary, and so when he finds himself in heaven. “Jesus comes down from God’s right hand and says, ‘Ah, Mr. Dean, welcome to heaven; I know you have met my Father, but I don’t believe you know my Mother.” (Sermons, Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living, p.11)

I should “come clean” and admit that in some ways it’s the Virgin Mary’s fault that I am an Episcopal priest. (If not her fault, then at least it happened with a good bit of her influence.)

In my introductory theology class in seminary our primary textbook was called Principles of Christian Theology by John Macquarrie. I studied the textbook, but it my reading the footnotes that got me on a path that would take me out of the Presbyterian Church and into the Episcopal Church.

Somewhere in that textbook, there was a footnote that referred the reader to a document published by a group called the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When I looked up this group in the seminary library, I found that not only were there papers and pamphlets, but also I found out that the group was truly ecumenical: it was made up of Lutherans and Presbyterians, Roman Catholics and Orthodox, Episcopalians and even a few Baptists. The group’s purpose was to try to recover the rightful role of Mary in Christian theology. Carl Braaten, a Lutheran theologian points out that “The vehement attack of the Reformation against the exaggerated cult of Mary in late-medieval Christianity diminished [Mary’s] place in the story of salvation, personal piety, and public worship.”

And yet, Martin Luther maintained a very high view of Mary. Luther wrote, “Mary does not desire to be an idol; she does nothing, God does all. We ought to call upon her, that for her sake God may grant and do what we request. Thus also all other saints are to be invoked, so that the work may be every way God’s alone.” (“Magnificat”, Luther’s Works, vol. 21, pp. 326-29).

The more I learned about Mary, the early church, and sacramental theology, the more I felt cheated at having grown up in such a Protestant background. While some Roman Catholics might have layers of cultural and folk tradition with which to sort through, I felt like I had nothing but ignorance and prejudice.

It is true that some of what has come to be believed about Mary springs from the hearts of faithful believers. Early Christians began wondering about Jesus. If, as the theologians insisted, Jesus was born of a woman, people began to wonder what that woman must have been like. The New Testament scriptures offer minimal information, but other scriptures and writings that circulated in the early Church also seem to point to Mary and her special place in God’s plan of salvation. In other words, Mary (or someone like her) needed to be there for God’s plan to work out. And that plan includes us and our eternal life not only with God, but also with Mary and all the other saints.

The Gospel reading for today is clear enough. In words we know as Magnificat, for the Latin “my souls magnifies,” we hear Mary praise God. The Angel Gabriel reveal to Mary that she is going to give birth to a very special baby, and while Mary’s first instinct might be to run far, far away; instead, she stands still. She remembers words that Hannah used to praise God (way back in 1 Samuel), and Mary quotes what she remembers of Hannah’s song, and then she adds her own twist.
In the Magnificat, we see Mary as faithful to God’s calling, even when it seems scary, even when it brings danger, even when it might turn everything one’s world upside-down.

In the Letter to the Galatians, our second scripture reading today, we hear Paul’s understanding that God is working through Mary, an ordinary woman, in order to create a new family, a family of God into which each one of us is adopted. No one is born with special standing. No one inherits more than another. But each one of us is like a stranger to God, like a slave to the things of the world, until we are baptized, until we claim God and God claims us, and we are adopted into God’s family.

The first scripture reading this morning, from Isaiah is another joyful passage: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall exult in my God;

Isaiah is writing to God’s people who have been help captive, and he’s announcing that it’s soon time to go home. They’ll be restored to their homeland, they’ll be reunited with loved ones, and there will be a time of peace and new life. “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”

Just as humanity encountered a fall in the first garden, the garden of Eden. Mary is understood as the New Eve. The womb of Mary is understood as the new garden, full of possibility and wonder and life.

Ideas and beliefs about the Blessed Virgin Mary have surely grown beyond what we find in scripture. The Protestant theologian Karl Barth had little patience with all of this. He famously said, “In the doctrine and worship of Mary there is disclosed the one heresy of the Roman Church which explains all the rest.” And yet, even as one among the saints—those heroes and heroines of the faith, those known and unknown—even as one of the saints, Mary deserves our attention, and I believe we can learn from her.

There are at least three ways in which Mary can be a model for us and can help us grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ. (From Beverly Gaventa’s books, Mary, Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus and Blessed One.)

First, there is (what Gaventa) calls “the vulnerability of Mary.” She allows God to direct her life. She is obedient in the truest sense of that term—her obedience in no way takes away her strength, her agency, her feistiness, her strong-mindedness (remember when she is at the wedding at Cana, and they’re running out of wine and she looks at Jesus as says, “Do something. Try to be helpful!”) Her obedience in no way diminishes her personality. And yet, she is wholly dedicated to God and God’s purposes.

Second, Mary is able to reflect on the events in her life. That’s no small thing. There have been times in my life when I’ve been regular at journaling. When I look back at those journals, much of my musing is embarrassing and seems immature, but then there are parts where I’m really surprised that I was able to notice something in particular God seemed to be doing in my life. It reminds me that in order to notice, I need to slow down sometimes. I need to pray. I need to open my eyes and look. Or perhaps close my eyes and listen. Mary NOTICED what was going on around her, and slowly, but surely, seems to have realized what God was unfolding in her life and in the world.

And finally, Mary can teach us what it means to be a witness of Jesus. You know the classic posture of the icon that shows the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Baby Jesus on her lap. And Mary is pointing very subtly as if gesture what she said: “Listen to him. Watch him. Do what he says. He is the way.”

A few years ago someone gave me a nightlight of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I like it especially because, in it’s small light-blue way, it symbolizes some of the attitudes one finds around Mary.

On one hand she has been diminished, turned into the stuff of folk-magic and kitsch. Her image appears on toast and on roadside underpasses just as surely as it she appears at the holy sites of Lourdes or Medjugorje. She might as well be blue, light the night light, like Vishnu, or like the Navi in “Avatar.”

And yet, the nightlight Mary is also a good image for those who have known something of her presence, her steadiness, her reliability, and her willingness to be a soft light showing the way. She shows the way to Jesus. She showing the way to eternal life in God.

May God’s Spirit help us to know the Blessed Virgin Mary and especially to know her qualities, so that we too might be brought to heaven, raised high with saints and angels, and behold the risen Christ face to face. In the name of the Father, and the of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

From fear to faith

The Virgin Hodegetria (she who shows the way)

A sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, August 8, 2010. The lectionary readings are Genesis 15:1-6, Psalm 33:12-22, Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16, and Luke 12:32-40.

This is an unusual Sunday in terms of the scripture readings all lining up around a particular idea. And that idea has to do with our fears: with what we may fear, with God’s desire that we be brought through and beyond fear, and finally, the scriptures offer us a hint of what a fearless world might look like.

We hear in Genesis the words, “Do not be afraid.” The word of God comes to Abram saying “Don’t be afraid, because God will be like a shield for him, protecting him, no matter what. God will be his shield, and what’s even more—especially in a culture where one’s descendants were one’s life—God is going to provide Abram not only with an heir, but with generations as plentiful as the stars. And so, through the mercy of God, Abram is brought beyond any fears he may have had about the future, and he becomes Abraham, the great ancestor of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. And all of that becomes possible because Abram got over his fear.

The Epistle reading, Hebrews, is a beautiful hymn, almost, to faith—faith, in some ways, being the other side of fear. By faith, Abraham obeyed, and looked, and followed. By faith, Sarah laughed, and followed, and conceived. In Hebrews we’re given that famous definition of faith: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.” Fear often has to do with the power of things unseen.

Fear, of course, can be good and useful sometimes. Especially at this time of the year, it’s just smart to be at least a little afraid of the water, afraid of sharks, afraid of standing in lightening or too much sun.

But fear can also stifle. Fear can keep us stuck.

Some of you may know the (1932) novel by Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm. It was also made into a wonderful movie, that for many of us, what our first introduction to the story. In the movie, a young woman, Flora Poste, is a smart nineteen-year-old from London, who is orphaned and begins to write various relatives to see where she might live. Eventually, she receives an invitation from the Starkadders, who feel like Flora’s father had been done wrong by their clan at some point, and so they owe it to Flora to take her in.

She arrives at Cold Comfort Farm, the Starkadders’ place that is just about falling apart. And there are dreary characters in every direction. The horse is named Viper, and the poor cows are named Aimless, Graceless, Feckless and Pointless. The whole sad family is ruled by a matriarch who refuses to come out of her room in the attic. Aunt Ada Doom, refuses to come out of her room because, years ago, as a girl, she “saw something nasty in the woodshed.” We never learn what she saw, and it doesn’t seem as though anyone in the family knows. It’s not even clear if she still knows what she saw. But the fear that began in the woodshed has completely infected her. That fear has changed her and made her small, and scared, and sad. And Aunt Ada Doom’s fear casts a spell over the whole farm.

I don’t want to spoil the whole story for you, but I will say that the arrival of Flora Poste, and her commonsense way of interacting with each family member eventually helps Aunt Ada to leave the fear in the woodshed where it belongs, and step into life again. And guess what? As soon as the fear is let go, the whole family finds freedom.

Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” “Do not be afraid, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The kingdom of God may look different for each one of us, but for most of us, at some level, I thing God’s kingdom has a similar effect in our lives as that of the transformation of Cold Comfort Farm. Whatever fears are gnawing at our insides, whatever fears perhaps have been scarred over the years, scarring us so that we even have trouble moving… whatever fears there are that limit us or hold us back or keep us stuck--- God pulls us through those fears, beyond those fears, into a world of faith, into God’s kingdom.

In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “Get ready.” And he uses several images to convey a sense of anticipation—to try to help us see what it’s like to greet the kingdom with faith, and not fear.
He says, “Be like those who are charged with taking care of a house while the owner is away. Be like those caretakers who are in charge while the head of the house is away at a wedding. Blessed are those who are awake at the return.”
He also says, “Get rid of the things that burden you, that weigh you down, that keep you from moving forward. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let go of fear.”
In the scriptures, as Jesus meets various people, each one is invited to step into the kingdom of God. And so often the people he meets are stuck in some way. They’re stuck in old habits. They’re stuck by past sins. They’re stuck in a warped perspective or stuck in a world that is so narrow they’re not able to breathe.

There’s a woman who has been caught in adultery. They’re ready to stone her, but even if they let her go, they’ll continue to see her as she used to be. They’ve got her stuck in a bad place. But Jesus forgives her and invites her to leave fear behind, and follow in faith.

Zaccheus the tax collector is stuck in a tree when Jesus walks by. But Jesus calls him out of the tree, and into and among people. Zaccheus doesn’t need to be afraid of being laughed at, made fun of, hated… Jesus says, “stop being afraid” and calls him into the kingdom.

On that first Easter, when Mary Magdalene leaves her fear in the cave, she’s able to see the resurrected Jesus. And she’s able to move forward into the kingdom of God Jesus promises.

The kingdom of God is different from the Magic Kingdom. I have a friend who is about to take his family to Disney World and so we were talking about the Magic Kingdom the other day. The Magic Kingdom comes in other forms, too—not only at Disney World. A kingdom that promises magic can be made of any illusory thing—of the promise of substances, of drugs, of experiences, of all the things that would have us make them rulers of our lives.

But the Kingdom of God is different. God’s kingdom begins here on earth and continues into heaven. Though it can SEEM magical, the kingdom of God is really about our being able to see the world (the world, other people, and ourselves) from God’s perspective. Not magic, but sometimes miraculous.

When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he’s not talking about a physical place. It is not a location as much as it is a state, a way of being, a type of consciousness, another awareness. The kingdom of God is where God’s will is actively done. The kingdom of God is that place where human needs are met, sin is forgiven, and lives are changed—by the truth of God’s love and by the fire of God’s forgiveness. The kingdom of God is that place where people live out the depth of God’s love—where we forgive each other and show love in practical, real ways. The Kingdom is that place where the God of heaven and earth, the God of all time and being, the God of all creation, stoops to wash the feet of a disciple, holds out bread and offers a cup. The kingdom of God breaks into our lives whenever we leave fears behind and do something bravely with faith.
Jesus calls us somewhere else. Saint John says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear.”
May the Holy Spirit enable us to leave fear behind, to claim from the saints our inheritance of faith. May the Spirit enable us to live daring lives of faith and love.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Living Richly

Narthex window, All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church

A sermon for Sunday, August 1, 2010. The lectionary readings for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost are Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23, Psalm 49:1-11, Colossians 3:1-11, and Luke 12:13-21.

Not long ago I met someone who was interested in the church I serve. “Where, exactly, are you in Washington?” “We’re in Woodley Park,” I explained, “right near the National Zoo.” “Oh,” this person said, “that’s a nice neighborhood. It must be a wealthy church.”

I have to say, I was a little taken aback by the person’s directness. But thinking about this morning’s Gospel—a Gospel that encourages us to be rich toward God—I looked the person right in the eye and said, “Oh yes, we’re an extremely wealthy church. But I don’t think we’re wealthy in the way you mean.” There are times—in our church life, as in family life—when we don’t have all the money we’d like. There are some things we cannot do, some things we cannot fix right away, some causes we cannot give as much to as we might like. But like some very poor families, we are extravagantly wealthy in other ways. We are rich in our worship. We are rich in our affection for one another. We are rich in our welcome and our invitation for all. We are rich in our care for those who need something—whether that “something” is a material need, a physical need, or a spiritual need. We are rich towards God, even though God calls us to be richer, still.

Whether we have money to throw around in this world is another issue, really. We’re to be rich toward God, and that has little to do with the actual amount of money in our back account. I sometimes think that God might be almost indifferent as to whether we are wealthy (or not). I do think God wants us to have enough, to have plenty, to rejoice in bounty, to have everything we need, and perhaps even to have lots of extra-- so that we can share and help out other people.

I believe God wants us to be full, satiated, complete and lacking nothing. But I don’t think God really cares whether we have one house or five. I don’t think God is bothered by what one drives, or what one wears, or whether one summers in Dupont Circle or the south of France. To get hung up on those questions is to miss the point of the Gospel.

Jesus suggests that we should be “rich toward God.”

Jesus has been talking with a group, probably a group of bystanders and some of the disciples. He’s been warning them about hypocrisy and trying to help them understand what it means to live a life completely dedicated to God. In this context, a man asks Jesus to take his side in a question over an inheritance. We don’t know the exact nature of this man’s question, but biblical scholars would point out that the reality of Jewish inheritance laws at that time held that the eldest son inherited twice the amount that might have gone to a younger sibling. Perhaps the speaker in the Gospel is one of the younger brothers.

I don’t know about you, but the part of me that longs for a world that is fair and just wishes that Jesus would take the man’s side. But that’s not the real issue here. Like he does in so many other situations, Jesus evades the political, cultural, or legal question. Instead, he goes right to the spiritual question.

Jesus uses the moment to point out to the crowd that the real issue real issue is about where one's heart is. It’s not about who has more money, or more stuff, or more power, or more prestige. It’s about how we use it. It’s not about how big the wedding is—it’s about whether you invite God or not.

The Jesus tells the parable about a man who keeps building up storehouses for all of his grain. But the man builds in vain because he is disconnected from God. The real issue has to do with our relationship with what we have. Does it lead us closer to God and God’s people? Or does it drive a wedge between ourselves and all that is holy? Jesus says we need to be “rich toward God.”

Being “rich toward God” has to do with the currency of things.

We speak of the “currency” of things because they move around, they go from one person to the next, they have a life and rhythm to them. Things in currency are not meant to be kept in one’s hands, but get their life out of being passed around and shared. Wealth is like that. It grows only through a certain amount of risk.

It’s that way with the currency of money, the currency of our relationships, and the currency of time. All of these are ways that we can be rich toward God.

Being rich toward God does involve money, at some point, and with the risk involved of letting go. I grew up in a church in which members tried to outdo one another in giving—anonymously. Over and over, again, there would be some major gift to the parish, some program, some extra music, some new mission begun—with a grant from an anonymous donor. That’s living richly toward God.

Being rich toward God also means being rich toward God’s people, how we spend ourselves through the currency of our relationships—both with the people inside the church and those outside. What would it be like if we lived richly toward one another, giving one another the benefit of the doubt, offering first mercy instead of judgment, extending first a welcome rather than wondering if the stranger might fit in or not?

And finally, how do we spend our time? Do we give any of it to God—for God’s use, as well as simply time to be with God, to allow God to draw us closer through prayer, through reading of the Bible, through worship? All of this has to do with being rich toward God.

When I think of richness, of people I have know who were incredibly rich, I always think of the prayer circle of church women who would send me little notes when I was in seminary. This was a group of women at my home church who prayed together and studied the Bible. Every so often I would receive a card from them. In the card would be seven one-dollar bills, sometimes nine one-dollar bills, and one time, a small fortune: thirteen! Each time, the ladies would scribble a message, something to the effect of, “We know this isn’t very much, but we hope you can do something special with it. Spend it on yourself, don’t do anything responsible!” That made it challenging. I would get an expensive ice cream cone and write them about it. Once when they sent money, a new coffee shop had just opened and I got a really expensive, fancy coffee.

What made this such a wonderful gift was not only their random sweetness. But also, I knew these ladies, and I knew that they were not wealthy women. Like many older people, they were counting every single dollar and trying to cover medications, transportation, rent, contributions to church, support of family and friends…. and out of this, they gave also to me. I experienced their generosity not out of their wealth, but out of their richness.

On this day when the reading from Ecclesiastes reminds us to keep a perspective on life; and when the reading from Colossians urges us to worry not about clothes, but about clothing ourselves with such things as “compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience; may the Holy Spirit show us what it is to be filthy rich—rich toward God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Paying (and Praying) Attention

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, 1570-1575, by Jacobo Robusti Tintoretto, Munich.

A sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 18, 2010. The lectionary readings are Genesis 18:1-10a, Psalm 15, Colossians 1:15-28, and Luke 10:38-42.


Simone Weil was a French philosopher who struggled with Christianity at a very deep level. Among her thoughts, written down in her notebooks, was an oft-quoted sentence about paying attention. “Absolute attention,” she writes, “is prayer.”

In the lesson from Genesis we see what happens when Abraham and Sarah simply pay attention. Abraham could have ignored the three strangers. He could have simply gone on about his business when he saw them. He could have been afraid of getting involved. He might have “passed by on the other side,” like some of those in the Good Samaritan story last Sunday. But instead, Abraham went out of his way to show hospitality. He seems to have recognized something special about them, some hard-to-put-your-finger-on quality. Perhaps it was holiness. Perhaps it was simply honesty. But whatever it was he saw, Abraham decided that it was worth the risk of being hospitable. And so, Abraham brings some water and lets the strangers wash up; he brings some bread, and dinner is served.

Abraham’s hospitality not only feeds strangers and makes for community. It also creates space. Henri Nouwen, in his classic little book, Reaching Out, explains that true hospitality does create space. It creates a free and friendly space for the other. Nouwen talks about the difference in visiting a friend who has every moment scheduled and planned, where the rules are firm and the expectations clear. This is very different, he notes, than visiting a friend who says, “Here is a key to my house. The refrigerator is stocked and what’s mine is yours. I hope you will feel at home.”

The way in which Abraham and Sarah receive the strangers creates space, allows for mystery and opens the way for a miracle. It is these three strangers who turn out to be angels of the Lord, with the outrageously good news that Sarah is going to bear a child.

Abraham and Sarah were able to be attentive. They were able to be absolutely attentive. They found that absolute attention is prayer, that absolute attention can allow one to see the miraculous movement of God.

In today’s Gospel, there is both attention and activity.

Martha is very active. She is busy, involved, and committed. I’ve always liked Martha. She works hard, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly and she makes things happen. I always pray for more Martha’s to be around in my church kitchen. But Martha also scares me a little, because I see a lot of her in myself.

Mary, on the other hand, is contemplative. She is quiet, calm, prayerful and deeply, DEEPLY attentive. She attends. She apprehends. She GETS Jesus; and all that he brings; and all that he means; and all that he promises; and all that he fulfills. It is because of this deep attention, this prayerfulness, that Mary is able to recognize Jesus as the Son of God, as God Incarnate, as God Among Us. It is because of her attentiveness that Mary has (in the words of Jesus) “chosen the better part.”

While Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part, notice that he in no way criticizes or scolds Martha. It’s only when Martha has become exhausted, when she is frustrated and angry and tries to get Jesus to side with her over her lazy sister that Jesus helps Martha see what she is doing. He slows her down. He asks her to breathe. “Martha,” he says, “you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful.”

This one thing that is needful might be called prayer. It might be called “the ability to see clearly, to apprehend a thing or a person for its true qualities.” It might also be called simply, “attention.”

The Church gives us moments that invite our full attention. These moments are called Sacraments. Prayer is the practice of paying attention. Holy Communion is the activity of giving attention, to God and to one another.

May the Holy Spirit slow us down and help us be attentive. May the Spirit help us, like Abraham and Sarah, to see miracles in our midst, and like Martha and Mary, to eat and drink and rest with Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Help for Getting out of a Ditch

The Good Samaritan by Van Gogh, after Delacroix, 1890.

A sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, July 11, 2010. The lectionary readings are Deuteronomy 30:9-14, Psalm 25:1-9, Colossians 1:1-14, and Luke 10:25-37.


In today’s Gospel the lawyer asks about the commandments. He wants to know what he needs to do in order to have things be right for when he dies, when his heart stops beating, and the only thing he sees in front of him is the face of God. “What must I do to inherit eternal life,” he asks. Jesus asks him what he knows about God’s law, what has he been taught? And the man replies with the well-known verse: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus applauds the answer. “You’ve got it,” he says. “Do that and you’ll inherit eternal life.” But the lawyer asks that other question, “Yes,” teacher, but “who is my neighbor?”

It’s a big question. It’s a question asked by countries, as foreign aid, disaster relief, and immigration are debated. It’s a question asked in our communities as we all face needs that more-than-surpass resources. And, then, it’s also a question that people of faith ask, especially since Jesus so often mentions the neighbor. If we’re going to follow Jesus, if we’re going to be Christians of any sort, we need to know something about our neighbor.

But this question alone, “Who is my neighbor” can be misleading. Too often, it can become a kind of puzzle of piety, a fill-in-the-blank for faith. The assumption sometimes (the assumption of the lawyer, and perhaps our own assumption on occasion) is that once we can just identify our neighbor, then we can begin to do ministry to her or him, and we will be saved. We just launch a mission study or report, and then areas of need can be carefully categorized and charted. Needs are assessed. The “needy” are identified. Then a committee or task force ranks these, a new venture is named with a snappy acronym or slogan, a program is begun, and ministry happens.
It is very much a ministry of doing unto others, but doesn’t necessarily take into consideration being neighborly.

I’m not knocking long-range plans and I’m in no way criticizing an organized approach to mission or parish life. But if we only ask, “Who is my neighbor?” and then go and “do unto them,” we may be missing something of the Gospel. We can miss the reception of God’s grace and we can miss how grace is meant to be the motivating factor in being neighborly.

Back in our Gospel, when the lawyer wonders, “Who is my neighbor?,” Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus turns the lawyer’s question around. Rather than asking who IS the neighbor, Jesus suggests the real question is, “who has acted as a good neighbor to another?” The real question that gets us closer to the kingdom of God is the question we can ask ourselves, “When have I been neighbored?” When has someone been neighbor to me? When have I been down on my luck, shoved aside and overlooked? When have I felt beaten and bruised, neglected and forgotten?

The point of the Good Samaritan story, I think, is to see ourselves in the ditch.

People often come by the church, trying to get out of a ditch. Sometimes they call, because in many listings, All Souls is right near the top, alphabetically. Sometimes they walk by and ring the doorbell. And then, sometimes when they see me on the street, dressed as a priest, they ask for money. I’m sure they ask you, as well. When this happens, I’m usually pretty careful. I ask good questions and I think I try to discern whether a person is scamming me or not. [Whether I should try to discern, or simply give when asked, is a topic for another sermon.] But I do have a weak spot.
If someone is ever stranded and is trying to get home, or get to their friends, or get “wherever,” I’m usually good for a few dollars. Even if it turns out the person is lying, I gamble on someone who says they are stranded because I remember once being stranded. I remember that particular “ditch.”

I was stuck in a train station. This happened I was in seminary (the first time around). I carried no credit cards and was between checks. I had just completed an internship in New York, had taken the train back to Princeton and had several pieces of heavy luggage. When I got to Princeton Junction, I found that I had missed the last shuttle into Princeton. There were no cabs. My friends were all away for the summer, and no one was around. And so I slept at the train station that night, waiting for the train the next morning. The neighbor didn’t come for me that night. Oh, I was in a safe, clean place—a far cry from really being lost or being stranded altogether, but that brief experience of dependence, of being out of control, of being vulnerable—has stayed with me. And it is that kind of experience that compels me to show compassion to (to “suffer with) others. Remembering the times when I’ve been in a ditch helps me to be neighborly to others. I’ve been in other ditches—when I was sick and someone called, when I was broke and someone loaned me a few dollars, when I was heartbroken and someone simply cared. I bet you have known a few ditches, as well.

One of the most famous “ditches” in religious imagery comes from the 14th century, from Julian of Norwich (1342-1416). When she was 30 years old, Julian almost died from a fever or some other ailment, and while she was sick, she received a vision from God. She wrote down her vision, but continued to pray to God for more insight. Twenty years later, she wrote down an extended version of the vision.

A part of her vision imagines a Lord and Servant. Julian sees a great Lord who has a devoted servant. The Lord sends the servant off on some errand, and the servant is excited to do it. But then the servant falls into a ditch. The servant “is greatly injured” as Julian writes. [The servant] groans and moans and tosses about and writhes, but cannot rise to help himself in any way . . . And all this time his loving lord looks on him most tenderly . . .with great compassion and joy.”

She goes on to explain that the great tragedy in this accident is that the Lord sees all of this and understands that the servant has simply fallen into a ditch. The Lord commends and approves the servant “but he himself was blinded and hindered from knowing this will. And this is a great sorrow and a cruel suffering to him, for he neither sees clearly his loving lord, . . . nor does he truly see what he himself is in the sight of his loving lord.” That can be the real tragedy of being in a ditch—we come to think we’re all alone, we’re forgotten, and that even God doesn’t see or care.

When Julian begins to understand her vision fully, she begins to see that Adam is the servant, who falls and is then raised up. But Christ is the Second Adam, and is the servant who willingness goes into any ditch or deep place, to redeem us, to be with us, and to love us. Christ is with us here and until that day when, (as Julian says) “every passing woe and sorrow will have an end, and everlasting joy and bliss will be fulfilled, which day and time all the company of heaven longs and desires to see” (Showings, p.276).

The collect for today asks God to grant that we might “perceive and know what things we ought to do, and that we might have the grace and power faithfully to fulfill them.”

In addition, may the Holy Spirit remind us of the times when we have been in ditch, so that we might call upon the memory of such times as we continue to love our neighbor.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heroes, Heroines, and Us

Electronic Superhighway:Continental US, Alaska, Hawaii (1995) by Nam June Paik, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

A sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 4, 2010. The lectionary readings are Isaiah 66:10-14, Psalm 66:1-8, Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16, and Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.

As we celebrate Independence Day, it’s appropriate that we’re often led by historians. They remind us that amid the picnics and concerts, the appliance sales and all of the red, white, and blue, there are real people who made our independence possible. There were real people who stood up, who wrote and sang and stitched and fought so that we might live in the country we do. We remember those names, of Betsy Ross, George Washington, Dolly Madison, and Paul Revere. More recent historians have helped us remember a larger picture, including the stories of people like Crispus Attucks, Prince Hall, and Sally Hemings, and those whose stories are still being told and shared. It’s right that we learn about our heroines and heroes, but it we keep them and their ideas only in the past, then Independence Day is a waste. They were real people, who lived lives like we do, and yet, because of their decisions, their sacrifices, their choices, their ingenuity and resourcefulness, they changed the course of history. If WE fail to be changed, to be enlarged or to learn from them, then their contributions mean very little.

A similar thing has to do with our reading of scripture. We can sometimes hear the old words and stories as hopelessly abstract and distant. People were different then, we say. They believed different things about God. They had different power structures. Often, in the name of faith, they oppressed and enslaved and conquered. We congratulate ourselves on having done well to move beyond some of that and we’re glad to be the people God has brought us to be. But like those in our more recent history, the people whose lives are reflected in scripture were real people who, at their best, were somehow captivated by the Spirit of God and they were changed. They became more than before. They made decisions and took off in new directions that changed the world. And in the Communion of Saints, their faith flows through us. We can learn from them. We can be changed because of them.

The Gospel from Luke tells us about such people—people long ago, but people, nonetheless. We heard how Jesus gets his followers organized. He picks 70 people. This number of 70 might be significant for a number of reasons— 7 and 70 are important in the Hebrew scriptures. Moses picks 70 elders to help him, and there’s even the tradition (Jesus would have known) that the primary version of the Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC(E), called the Septuagint, was translated by 70 scholars picked by King Ptolemy, who worked for 70 days to translate the text.

For whatever reason, Jesus picks the 70 and he sends them out in pairs. If you notice the verses we heard from Luke, you’ll notice that there was a break. The first section, verses 1-11 of the scripture, has Jesus give his instructions to the 70, like a coach in the locker room before a game, Jesus is giving them a sort of spiritual pep talk. Offer peace. Travel lightly. Get to know people. Be gracious. Be careful.

The middle verses, the ones we did not hear consist of a series of statements about some of the places who did not receive the good news brought to them. “Woe to them,” Jesus says. It’s as though word has come back that some of the 70 who have gone out are being given a hard time, and so someone—whether Jesus or someone else Luke hears of—is commenting on these places that seem obstinate, unwelcoming, and unfriendly.

Then we have the last section, verses 16-20. Here, it seems the 70, or some of them, have returned. They’re reporting success. They even seem a little carried away with how successful they’ve been, “Lord,” they say, “in your name even the demons submit to us.” Jesus then reflects on this, and his long experience with the devil, as though to say, yes, demons are out there. They always have been and they always will be, but in the end, God wins. Rejoice in the victories you have over the snakes and the scorpions and the serpents of the world, but don’t let it go to your head. Just be grateful to God, Jesus says, and keep close to me and to each other.

This reading can seem like it’s about spiritual heroes, the greats of the faith who left family and homes and jobs and went out as missionaries extradinaire. But I don’t think so. I think they were probably pretty ordinary people who responded to Jesus and tried to do their best.

We, who are baptized in Jesus’s name are also called to “go out,” even if we never move very far. We encounter others in our homes, in our families, at work, at play, in the neighborhood, in the supermarket. And wherever we go, we are called to take our faith with us and to deal with others with faithful heats. And that’s where some of Jesus’s advice to the 70 comes in handy. It becomes good advice for us, as we live our lives.

Be as lambs among wolves. Go into the world with gentleness and respect—love, even. But don’t be naïve. There are those who would be our enemies. There are those who do us in. There are those who would do us harm.

Know that the kingdom of God has come near you. Jesus promises that the kingdom of God begins in this life, as we grow in his love and his ways, this kingdom unfolds all around us and even within us. The kingdom is not a physical place to be visited. It is not a set of rules to be followed, or set of doctrines to be held. The kingdom can look like some of those qualities mentioned by the Apostle Paul to the Galatians: a place where people share in carrying each other’s burdens, where people are forgiven and olds wrongs forgotten, where a spirit of gentleness prevails, and hope never gives up.

“The kingdom of God has come near.” Elsewhere in the Gospel stories, Jesus gives us other images for what the kingdom of God looks like, for how it arises or how it’s uncovered. The kingdom comes in surprising ways—it’s like water turned into wine. It’s like yeast that grows in bread. It’s like a pearl uncovered in the depths of dark water. The kingdom of God is very near, and it’s this sense that we’re to embody, to embrace, and to share in the world.

And then, Jesus warns that there will be those who won’t understand his message of love. There will be those who, for whatever reason, don’t recognize or hear or want a God of love. The images offered by the Prophet Isaiah are strong images, but they can be overwhelming. God is like a mother who consoles her children on the breast. She gathers them close and loves them. She nurses and carries us, she lets us play on her knees. For some—broken down by circumstance or relationship, by addiction or disease, such an image of God seems invasive and dangerous. Jesus says, “Shake the dust off your feet.” Move on. Offer the love of God as best you can, but if people cannot or will not hear, move on. The kingdom of God is near and those who receive it, will receive it.

Those who have gone before us in the recent past of our country’s founding, as well as those who have gone before us in the distant past of our faith, would have us become like them, at their best.

In 1630, as people crossed the ocean to come to this country, John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, preached a sermon to that early group of Puritans looking for a place to worship and live in freedom. Well into his famous sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” he says, “Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of [the Prophet] Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God . . . We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.”

May we learn from those who’ve gone before us and may we be guided by them. As we continue to struggle with how to be faithful AND free, may we do so with the knowledge that the kingdom of God is very near.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Forgiven and Forgiving

A sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, June 13, 2010. The lectionary readings are 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15, Psalm 32, Galatians 2:15-21, and Luke 7:36-8:3.


Every Sunday, at every Mass, perhaps even more frequently, we say the words of the Lord’s Prayer. And within that prayer is a petition that has some difficulty built into it. “Forgive us our trespasses,” we pray, “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” The Presbyterians say “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” and the newer ecumenical version says simply, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

I hope that the phrase means that like I try to forgive other people, God would also forgive me. But what if the prayer really implies that God will forgive us insofar as we are able to forgive others? What if God’s forgiveness of me hinges upon, depends upon even, my ability to forgive others? If that’s the case, I might be in some trouble.

In both our first reading and our Gospel, we see that forgiveness often involves relationship. And for forgiveness to flow steadily, to be given or received, the relationships need to be in order, or at least the relationships need to be honest.

In our first reading we see King David, who has done just about everything he can do in order to move Uriah toward the front of the battle, so that David can have Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, for himself. Sure enough, Uriah is killed in battle, and David moves in for the woman he wants. But God sends Nathan the prophet to King David, and Nathan tells David this story about a man who had a perfect little lamb. But a stranger came into town and demanded the lamb. David hears the story and responds that this is unfair, unjust. The one who demands the lamb should be punished. And Nathan shows David that David, himself, is that man—the one whose greed and lust blinds him his own guilt. He needs to come clean before he can receive God’s forgiveness. He needs to come to a new place of honesty and clarity before God’s grace can flow.

In the Gospel, a woman approaches Jesus. She begins to bathe and anoint his feet with her tears and with an expensive ointment. The religious leaders, the Pharisees, are appalled at this. They ask Jesus, “Don’t you know who she is? Don’t you know what she’s done?

But Jesus DOES know her, and he knows all about her. He knows that God made her. He knows that God loves her, and he also knows (somehow) that she is sorry for her past and wants to move into the future – free, clean, and new. And so Jesus forgives her.

Forgiveness doesn’t happen in the abstract, it happens between two people, usually between two very human people. God helps the forgiveness, and there are times when I need God’s help to move me a little further one way, and sometimes I need God’s help to move the other person a little further. God desires forgiveness, a clearing of the air, so it’s not a difficult prayer to pray. But forgiveness is often very difficult to do.

And yet, a couple of weeks ago, the baseball world saw an amazing interchange of not only sportsmanship, but also of forgiveness, forgiveness of biblical proportion. I’m certainly not the first person to point to the unusual nature of the Detroit – Cleveland game.
Some of you know the story much better than I. It was a game that could have made history, with Armando Galarraga pitching a perfect game, 27 batters up, 27 batters down. Since 1880, there have only been 20 perfect games.

But there was a play that had Galarraga throwing the ball to first base. The ball got there before the runner, but the umpire, Jim Joyce, called the runner safe. The mistake in the call was almost immediately seen by the crowd, and instant reply showed it to be without question, the wrong call.

But then the most amazing thing happened. Galarraga simply smiled. As others have pointed out, Galarraga didn’t call his lawyer or the players union. He just went back to work.

When the umpire, Jim Joyce saw the video, he had tears in his eyes as he told reporters, “I just missed the [damn] call. I took a perfect game away from that kid over there who worked his [ ] off all night.” After talking briefly with the reporters, Joyce went to the Tigers’ locker room to apologize to Galarraga. Galarraga said later, ‘Nobody’s perfect. I understand. I feel for the guy.”

Forgiveness, when it happens, involves that sense of one’s being fully centered in oneself, knowing who one is, and knowing what’s most important. Jesus seems to have been like this in his dealings with people—he was so deeply connected to God, that he could understand the depth of God’s love for all people, and could extend that love. I don’t know if either Galarraga or Joyce is a person of faith (though something tells me that somewhere there is a Venezuelan mother and an Irish mother who can take some credit for their boys’ good manners). But both men certainly exemplified what it means to forgive.

"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us."

I still don’t really know whether my sins are forgiven based upon my own capacity to forgive, or whether the Lord’s Prayer suggests that forgiveness is similar in both directions, but I pray that we, all of us, might be so filled with the spirit of forgiving and being forgiven that we would lose track of who makes the first step, we would forget who made the first wound, and we would forget the time when we were not at peace.

May God forgive us, bless us, and continue to show us how to love one another.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Corpus Christi 2010

The The Wedding Dance in a Barn by Peter Brueghel the Younger, c. 1616

A sermon for Corpus Christi Sunday, June 6, 2010. The readings are from the Book of Common Prayer "Of the Holy Eucharist," Deuteronomy 8:2-2, Psalm 116:10-17, Revelation 19:1-2a, 4-9, and John 6:47-58.

In her wonderful book about feasting, M.F.K. Fisher offers insight into what we celebrate today. She writes

“Food for the soul is a part of all religion.” “Food for the soul is a part of all religion, as . . . savages know when they roast a tiger’s heart for their god, as Christians know when they partake of the Body and Blood at the mystical feast of Holy Communion. That is why there can be an equal significance in a sumptuous banquet for five thousand heroes, with the king sitting on his iron throne and minstrels singing above the sound of gnawed bones and clinking cups, or in a piece of dry bread eaten alone by a man lifting his eyes unto the hills.” [Here Let us Feast: A Book of Banquets (San Franciso: North Point Press, 1986) xiv, reprinted from 1946 Viking Press.]

Fisher is pointing out that every meal, no matter what, when or how—has some trace, some slight flavor, some hint of the Holy within it. She suggests that there can be “equal significance” in all meals and from a food writer’s point of view that may be so. But from a Christian perspective, (at least from my perspective) I would want to qualify that. Though the food we share in many places can be special, can be memorable, can bring about sensations long forgotten, can make peace, heal difference, and encourage love…. most of the food we eat is earthly food. Foyer Dinners offer sacred fellowship and holy fun, the food we will share later today at the parish picnic offers some of the same; meals with family, with loved ones, and friends—in homes, or in restaurants-- all of these can stay with us as memories that warm and enrich and remind us of who we are--- but the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ shared in Communion is of a different order. Made of ordinary elements, by the Holy Spirit, it is “super-sized” beyond all imagination.

In the back of our Prayer Book is the Catechism, often helpful for reminding us of some of the basics of Christian faith through an Anglican lens. In the section on the Holy Eucharist, there’s a wonderful part that talks about the benefits of what we do, the benefits of partaking of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It says simply, “The benefits we receive are the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our unions with Christ and one another, and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life.”

When we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are forgiven. We are forgiven again. Our sins are washed away at Baptism, but the ongoing accumulation of sin in our life meets its match in Holy Communion. Ignatius of Antioch called it the “medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, … that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ.” Medicine can taste bitter, sometimes, especially if our tastes are accustomed to other things. But the Holy Eucharist helps us. Like good medicine, it increases our resistance level. Like vitamins, it strengthens us.

The second benefit according to the Catechism has to do with strengthening our union with Christ and with one another. In a world that often suggests we live only for ourselves, that we protect at all costs what we think is ours; the unifying work of the Blessed Sacrament is counter-cultural. But it is live-giving. In Communion we are reminded that we need each other. The common cup and common bread underscore that we are not so different from one another, after all. Barriers of race and class and education, differences of national origin, or sexual orientation or marital status or income are all dissolved in the common chalice.
They are diluted by the cleansing water of the Holy Spirit. And the blood of Christ, which is to say the blood of God our Creator, restores us into once again being fully human even as it fills us with what is fully divine.

Finally, the Body and Blood of Christ, this holy Sacrament, gives us a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Mindful of the present, grateful for the reality of here-and-now, we are made aware in the Eucharist that we are also living toward a great feast that has no ending. Today’s reading from the Revelation to John is filled with images of this feast of praise and joy and love. We live into the salvation and power and glory of God. The voices of the faithful from all times and all places blend together in a holy noise that sounds like water rapids, like the clapping for joy of great waves, like a thunderstorm of laughter. This vision of heaven reminds us of our destination.

And so we celebrate this mystery, we step into it, we are drawn into it by God.

Near the end of his great work on the Eucharist, Dom Gregory Dix points out that, of all the things Jesus said and taught, most have been ignored. Or, if remembered, his followers (his disciples and us) have usually failed at doing them. But there was that one command on that one night, the night before his betrayal and arrest and crucifixion, in the meal he celebrated with his friends, when Jesus took, blessed, broke, and shared in eating and drinking, he commands his disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Keep on doing this, he commands. Dix wonders about this and ask, “Was ever another command so obeyed?”

He goes on to reflect, “For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it until extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacles of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth.”

Dix doesn’t suggest “why” we continue to fulfill this command, but I think in part, one reason is because it’s something we can do. As Dix says,

[People] . . . have found no better thing than this to do
for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold;
for armies in triumph
or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church;
for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat;
. . . .
or for a sick old woman afraid to die;
for a [student] sitting for an examination
. . . .
for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover;
in thankfulness because a father did not die of pneumonia;
for a village headman much tempted to return to his fetishes
because the yams had failed; [The Shape of the Liturgy, (London: Dacre Press, 1945) pp. 743, 744.]

… and on and on the list continues.

But we have our own lists, too, don’t we. When we can’t control the economy, when we can’t seem to help our fellow creatures in the Gulf, when we can’t heal the ones we love, when we can’t do so many things—we can, nonetheless turn our anger, our frustration, our hopes, our deepest desires into prayer. We can enact that prayer, embody it, and turn it into thanksgiving, into Eucharist, as Jesus did with his friends.

In the mystery of this meal, we are forgiven. We are brought together again into community, and we are pointed again toward God’s kingdom, God’s kingdom here and beyond.

And so, let us feast with Him who said, “They who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day ….They who eat this bread will live for ever.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.