Some of you have it scheduled for this Sunday evening. That is a mistake....our next evening meeting is March 22, sorry for the confusion.
BTW, I need to go to Chicago--my sister is having surgery--so I will not be here March 15th.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ash Wednesday
From today's posting by Jim Wallis at Sojourners:
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain,
spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock
ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care
and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river,
spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.
- T.S. Eliot,
from "Ash Wednesday, VI"
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain,
spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock
ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care
and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river,
spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.
- T.S. Eliot,
from "Ash Wednesday, VI"
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
update for February 22
Hi everyone,
We have acolyte trainings scheduled after the 9 AM and 11:15 AM Eucharists. Allie will be out of town, so no meeting in the youth room...enjoy the brunch on the Walker Room.
We have acolyte trainings scheduled after the 9 AM and 11:15 AM Eucharists. Allie will be out of town, so no meeting in the youth room...enjoy the brunch on the Walker Room.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Great Gathering
We had 11 people go to The Church of the Ascension to see the display of icons. Very interesting. Thanks to Fr. Armand Kreft and Ascension's seminarian, Pete Cornell, for their hospitality. And the lunch following at The Towne was great fun. Thanks to everyone!
So Choose
Sermon preached at St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo NY Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany
The Rev. Cathy Dempesy
When I was a little girl and would go home for lunch—yes we actually did that in the olden days-- my grandmother would say, “go into the bathroom and wash school off your hands.” It conjured an interesting image, as if one could wash a school from their hands. Of course I knew what she meant—clean up before eating! The fact is, if she hadn’t said that it wouldn’t have seemed right---it was part of our lunchtime ritual. It helped move me from the atmosphere of school to the atmosphere of home. When Mother Liza and I sit down for lunch she always has a bottle of anti-bacterial lotion available so we can “wash our hands.” Besides physically cleansing us, these rituals help transition us from one state to another.
Anthropologists agree—rituals are very important and are often the primary identifier of a community. Rituals identify us as a community—churches are full of ritual— as Mother Liza has explained many times, our rituals all have reasons, some clearly defined, others more murky. But one thing’s for sure, our rituals identify us as who we are and within that identity comes a certain security.
In today’s readings the performance of a cleansing ritual was the difference between being fully accepted in the community and being outcast and shunned. To be seen as unclean in the ancient world was to be thrust out of the acceptable and into the unacceptable, from part of to separate from. To be cleansed was to heal from that separation, to be returned to community.
In our reading from Kings, Naaman travels from modern-day Syria to Israel to be healed by Elisha. So great was his desire to
be clean in the eyes of others, Naaman left his Gentile homeland for an unfamiliar Jewish land. Although Naaman was one of the King’s most favored advisors he remained on the outside being viewed as unclean, as diseased., a harbinger of death [The shunning of the afflicted was not just a thoughtless response to illness-- disease was seen as a turning away from life, from the divine, and turning toward death and evil.] . His interest wasn’t in the ritual as much as it was in the end result---being accepted! That’s really the catalyst for most humans---we don’t want to be rejected, we don’t want to be shunned, we want to part of instead of apart from. Because of that, I don’t think the readings for today are about leprosy per se. Nor do I think they’re quaint tales of ancient people practicing shameful acts of rejection. Instead I think they’re parables for us, reminding us that when we separate others from us, we separate ourselves as well. When we shun others, we are shunning God. It is the rejection of the
Kingdom of God here on earth that’s today’s leprosy. And we all have it, in one form or another.
We work really hard to avoid being shunned, to avoid being rejected.
And often, our efforts to be acceptable cause us to shun and reject our own values, our own beliefs. Look at the economic crisis we find ourselves in, isn’t it a result of how, in an effort to get more, to acquire more we created a culture of work-aholics needing to work more and more so as to earn more and more so as to buy more and more. And it doesn’t stop there. To give our kids a jump on others, so they can get into a prestigious
school which will let them get a great job so they can earn more and buy more they’re scheduled from morning til night, often 7 days a week. All of this busyness, this scheduling-- this running turns us from the light of community toward the darkness of division.
I know someone who is always in a rush-- moving a million miles an hour. When asked how she is, her reply never varies: “I’m so busy, I can’t even think.” That’s been the same response for five years. Sure her life, at first glance, is really busy, but is it full? Her kids are involved in a number of activities, she and her partner both work full time, and with three kids, two dogs life gets hectic… but what I see is a flustered disquieted woman who’s just trying to make it through the day. She is, as the television therapist of the 1980’s, Leo Buscaglia said, a human doing, not a human being. When we abdicate being for doing we separate ourselves from each another and from God. It’s the busy-ness which keeps us apart. The primary symptom of our modern day leprosy? Being too busy.
Much how the lepers of long ago needed to shout “unclean unclean” to announce their arrival, so people could deliberately avoid them, I think our busy-ness alerts others that we’re not available for community, we’re not available for relationship….with each other or with God.
We all could use some ritual cleansing, to promote our healing, to rid us of the stuff that separates us from God.
Much like washing our hands disrupts the germs on our hands from forming into a full-blown virus, healing our souls, cleansing our spirits, disrupts the darkness that so seductively tries to overtake our lives.
Maybe we need to, as in today’s Gospel, CHOOSE to be healed, to be cleansed from our form of leprosy. By asking Jesus to choose to heal him, the Leper had already made his choice….he wanted to be healed. It was that desire, that wanting to be cleansed which allowed him to receive the healing power of God. Naaman chose to be healed as well, otherwise he wouldn’t have stepped out of his comfort zone, his community, his culture to travel to a foreign land in search of cleansing.
Both men needed to be receptive to the healing for the healing to work.
The events of Thursday night showed us all how important community is—in one sudden horrific moment in time all our busy-ness stopped and we turned toward one another and toward God seeking solace, support and understanding. In this moment of time in the aftermath of such tragedy, we are poised to be receptive, poised to be healed.
Cleansing, healing of any sort requires that we stop, accept that we need it and want it and then be open to receiving it. Will we carry this lesson past this moment in time? Will we take all that ails us, all that separates us from the lushness of a life full of the spirit and present it to God? Will we choose to be healed and to make this place, St Paul’s Cathedral, a cleansing spring of refreshment for all who desire to be healed? Will we choose to slow down long enough to turn away from all our doing and be with God? As we transition from Epiphany, a season of light to Lent, a season of necessary darkness which prepares us for the burst of light on Easter morning, may we all “so choose.”
Amen.
The Rev. Cathy Dempesy
When I was a little girl and would go home for lunch—yes we actually did that in the olden days-- my grandmother would say, “go into the bathroom and wash school off your hands.” It conjured an interesting image, as if one could wash a school from their hands. Of course I knew what she meant—clean up before eating! The fact is, if she hadn’t said that it wouldn’t have seemed right---it was part of our lunchtime ritual. It helped move me from the atmosphere of school to the atmosphere of home. When Mother Liza and I sit down for lunch she always has a bottle of anti-bacterial lotion available so we can “wash our hands.” Besides physically cleansing us, these rituals help transition us from one state to another.
Anthropologists agree—rituals are very important and are often the primary identifier of a community. Rituals identify us as a community—churches are full of ritual— as Mother Liza has explained many times, our rituals all have reasons, some clearly defined, others more murky. But one thing’s for sure, our rituals identify us as who we are and within that identity comes a certain security.
In today’s readings the performance of a cleansing ritual was the difference between being fully accepted in the community and being outcast and shunned. To be seen as unclean in the ancient world was to be thrust out of the acceptable and into the unacceptable, from part of to separate from. To be cleansed was to heal from that separation, to be returned to community.
In our reading from Kings, Naaman travels from modern-day Syria to Israel to be healed by Elisha. So great was his desire to
be clean in the eyes of others, Naaman left his Gentile homeland for an unfamiliar Jewish land. Although Naaman was one of the King’s most favored advisors he remained on the outside being viewed as unclean, as diseased., a harbinger of death [The shunning of the afflicted was not just a thoughtless response to illness-- disease was seen as a turning away from life, from the divine, and turning toward death and evil.] . His interest wasn’t in the ritual as much as it was in the end result---being accepted! That’s really the catalyst for most humans---we don’t want to be rejected, we don’t want to be shunned, we want to part of instead of apart from. Because of that, I don’t think the readings for today are about leprosy per se. Nor do I think they’re quaint tales of ancient people practicing shameful acts of rejection. Instead I think they’re parables for us, reminding us that when we separate others from us, we separate ourselves as well. When we shun others, we are shunning God. It is the rejection of the
Kingdom of God here on earth that’s today’s leprosy. And we all have it, in one form or another.
We work really hard to avoid being shunned, to avoid being rejected.
And often, our efforts to be acceptable cause us to shun and reject our own values, our own beliefs. Look at the economic crisis we find ourselves in, isn’t it a result of how, in an effort to get more, to acquire more we created a culture of work-aholics needing to work more and more so as to earn more and more so as to buy more and more. And it doesn’t stop there. To give our kids a jump on others, so they can get into a prestigious
school which will let them get a great job so they can earn more and buy more they’re scheduled from morning til night, often 7 days a week. All of this busyness, this scheduling-- this running turns us from the light of community toward the darkness of division.
I know someone who is always in a rush-- moving a million miles an hour. When asked how she is, her reply never varies: “I’m so busy, I can’t even think.” That’s been the same response for five years. Sure her life, at first glance, is really busy, but is it full? Her kids are involved in a number of activities, she and her partner both work full time, and with three kids, two dogs life gets hectic… but what I see is a flustered disquieted woman who’s just trying to make it through the day. She is, as the television therapist of the 1980’s, Leo Buscaglia said, a human doing, not a human being. When we abdicate being for doing we separate ourselves from each another and from God. It’s the busy-ness which keeps us apart. The primary symptom of our modern day leprosy? Being too busy.
Much how the lepers of long ago needed to shout “unclean unclean” to announce their arrival, so people could deliberately avoid them, I think our busy-ness alerts others that we’re not available for community, we’re not available for relationship….with each other or with God.
We all could use some ritual cleansing, to promote our healing, to rid us of the stuff that separates us from God.
Much like washing our hands disrupts the germs on our hands from forming into a full-blown virus, healing our souls, cleansing our spirits, disrupts the darkness that so seductively tries to overtake our lives.
Maybe we need to, as in today’s Gospel, CHOOSE to be healed, to be cleansed from our form of leprosy. By asking Jesus to choose to heal him, the Leper had already made his choice….he wanted to be healed. It was that desire, that wanting to be cleansed which allowed him to receive the healing power of God. Naaman chose to be healed as well, otherwise he wouldn’t have stepped out of his comfort zone, his community, his culture to travel to a foreign land in search of cleansing.
Both men needed to be receptive to the healing for the healing to work.
The events of Thursday night showed us all how important community is—in one sudden horrific moment in time all our busy-ness stopped and we turned toward one another and toward God seeking solace, support and understanding. In this moment of time in the aftermath of such tragedy, we are poised to be receptive, poised to be healed.
Cleansing, healing of any sort requires that we stop, accept that we need it and want it and then be open to receiving it. Will we carry this lesson past this moment in time? Will we take all that ails us, all that separates us from the lushness of a life full of the spirit and present it to God? Will we choose to be healed and to make this place, St Paul’s Cathedral, a cleansing spring of refreshment for all who desire to be healed? Will we choose to slow down long enough to turn away from all our doing and be with God? As we transition from Epiphany, a season of light to Lent, a season of necessary darkness which prepares us for the burst of light on Easter morning, may we all “so choose.”
Amen.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
J2A for Sunday February 15
This being the third Sunday of the month we will not meet during the education hour, instead we ask the youth to attend the 11:15 Eucharist. afterwards we will head to The Church of the Ascension (North and Linwood) to view their exhibit of icons form other faith traditions. From there we will go to The Towne (Elmwood and Allen) for lunch. Please bring money for lunch. Pick up is at 2pm, at Towne.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
It's Astounding
Fourth Sunday after The Epiphany
1 February 2009
St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Mark 1: 21-28
Do you remember the last time you were amazed and astounded? Perhaps it was just recently, when this country nominated and then elected an African American as President, or earlier when the nomination battle was between a woman and a black man. Maybe it was longer ago, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, or when cell phones laptops, and iPods became ubiquitous…..there have been a lot of things invented , developed and discovered in the past 40 years… many of them astounding.
Of course being amazed and astounded isn’t only a reaction to positive things—we are amazed and astounded by horrific things as well….9/11, torture at the hand of Americans, a Roman Catholic priest’s denial of the Holocaust, the utter failure of our financial system in the United States.
Astonishment knocks the socks off of us, throws us off our game, sets our heads spinning….and we see evidence of this throughout scripture. From the act of Creation itself to the wonder of the Old Testament prophets and through to the Good News of the Gospel people have been amazed and astonished. In the NRSV translation the words amazed and astonished occur nearly 100 times throughout the Bible. Biblical folk spent a lot of time being surprised.
It can be disorienting, this being so surprised.
And that disorientation is, I believe, the point. The disorientation of surprise provides an opportunity, an opening for something altogether new to emerge. Without the disorientation, the dizziness and the confusion our well-heeled and hard-wired responses will just kick in as if on autopilot. We’ve all done it, as soon as someone at work suggest s a new way to do something our initial response is to say that won’t work, we’ve tried it before, we’ve never done it that way. The old way, even is it isn’t that effective, is much more comfortable than a new way. Have you ever tried to change a family tradition? Generally this is met with great angst. My poor brother in law suggested a new way for my family to celebrate Christmas and all youknowhat broke out----but the truth is, he was right, we do need to find a new way to celebrate as a family, because I always have to work on Christmas! It would have been a lot easier to just keep it the way it always was, but to do that would be to cut me out of the celebration completely and keep us as a family from trying something new. While he may have felt like the devil incarnate for awhile, our response became more measured and now we’re developing a new tradition to bring us all together on a yearly basis. The surprise of the announcement disoriented us and before we got re-oriented we were on to something new. From our astonished amazement at the suggestion of something different came an ingenuity to create something new.
In today’s Gospel. Jesus does two astonishing things; he teaches not as the scribes, using midrash, but as someone with authority to proclaim something new instead of re-interpreting something old. Then in the exorcism Jesus rebukes the evil sprit and the spirit listened. The witnesses were astounded. And this, their reaction is key to the story. Throughout this Epiphany season we hear various accounts of how the manifestation of Christ came to be. How the Word made flesh infiltrates, impacts and changes the world, as we know it. It begins with the heavens opening up and God’s voice declaring Jesus His Son, as His beloved. It ends with the Transfiguration of Christ on the last Sunday, when God implores the disciples to behold His beloved Son and to listen to him. Epiphany is full of epiphanies of a new awareness, amazing and astonishing, changing us from an old way toward a new.
It is in the upheaval of something altogether new that allows change to gain a foothold.
Is the amazement of the witnesses in the synagogue at Capernaum that day because of God’s love as displayed through Jesus? Or are they amazed and astonished at the bravado of this traveling preacher from Nazareth. Offended by his arrogance, frightened by his new teaching, alarmed that even evil spirits obey him?
What about us? Has the Good News amazed and astonished us into letting go of our fears and doubts or does the astonishment turn us away from God? The lesson today is not just that God so loved the world he sent his Son to be among us…no the lesson today is also about how receptive we are to this gift. Will we let ourselves be so moved, so caught off guard, so astonished and amazed that we will drop our defensives and let the healing power of Christ envelope us, fill us and renew us?
When push came to shove and our economy tanked, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became unbearable to many of us, we were ready, as a nation to try something new. We were amazed at how our prosperity security and good standing in the world could fall apart so quickly and within that amazement a new thing emerged. An African American President with very little traditional political and governmental experience, but sporting a message which struck something deep within many of us caused us to throw caution to the wind, bigotry to the trash heap so we could embrace a new thing. Out of upheaval, fear and confusion came something fresh…. will we have the staying power to accept this change for good? Or will we retreat to the old ways of partisan politics, with our leaders not so much leading as cow-towing to lobbyists and big donors? I don’t know, I hope this dawn of a new era lasts, but I also know it’s hard to astonish us anymore--
It no longer amazes us that we travel through space or can split an atom, or can communicate instantaneously with texting, instant messaging and twitter. It is no longer outlandish and unimaginable that our leaders become corrupt or that the moral compass of the US seems to have broken. We’ve become immune to so many things…but every Sunday as the Gospel is proclaimed, I pray that we’ll still be amazed that through a carpenter from Nazareth the love of God is presented to the world full of power and grace, surprise and disorientation. Astonishing.
Amen.
1 February 2009
St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, NY
Mark 1: 21-28
Do you remember the last time you were amazed and astounded? Perhaps it was just recently, when this country nominated and then elected an African American as President, or earlier when the nomination battle was between a woman and a black man. Maybe it was longer ago, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, or when cell phones laptops, and iPods became ubiquitous…..there have been a lot of things invented , developed and discovered in the past 40 years… many of them astounding.
Of course being amazed and astounded isn’t only a reaction to positive things—we are amazed and astounded by horrific things as well….9/11, torture at the hand of Americans, a Roman Catholic priest’s denial of the Holocaust, the utter failure of our financial system in the United States.
Astonishment knocks the socks off of us, throws us off our game, sets our heads spinning….and we see evidence of this throughout scripture. From the act of Creation itself to the wonder of the Old Testament prophets and through to the Good News of the Gospel people have been amazed and astonished. In the NRSV translation the words amazed and astonished occur nearly 100 times throughout the Bible. Biblical folk spent a lot of time being surprised.
It can be disorienting, this being so surprised.
And that disorientation is, I believe, the point. The disorientation of surprise provides an opportunity, an opening for something altogether new to emerge. Without the disorientation, the dizziness and the confusion our well-heeled and hard-wired responses will just kick in as if on autopilot. We’ve all done it, as soon as someone at work suggest s a new way to do something our initial response is to say that won’t work, we’ve tried it before, we’ve never done it that way. The old way, even is it isn’t that effective, is much more comfortable than a new way. Have you ever tried to change a family tradition? Generally this is met with great angst. My poor brother in law suggested a new way for my family to celebrate Christmas and all youknowhat broke out----but the truth is, he was right, we do need to find a new way to celebrate as a family, because I always have to work on Christmas! It would have been a lot easier to just keep it the way it always was, but to do that would be to cut me out of the celebration completely and keep us as a family from trying something new. While he may have felt like the devil incarnate for awhile, our response became more measured and now we’re developing a new tradition to bring us all together on a yearly basis. The surprise of the announcement disoriented us and before we got re-oriented we were on to something new. From our astonished amazement at the suggestion of something different came an ingenuity to create something new.
In today’s Gospel. Jesus does two astonishing things; he teaches not as the scribes, using midrash, but as someone with authority to proclaim something new instead of re-interpreting something old. Then in the exorcism Jesus rebukes the evil sprit and the spirit listened. The witnesses were astounded. And this, their reaction is key to the story. Throughout this Epiphany season we hear various accounts of how the manifestation of Christ came to be. How the Word made flesh infiltrates, impacts and changes the world, as we know it. It begins with the heavens opening up and God’s voice declaring Jesus His Son, as His beloved. It ends with the Transfiguration of Christ on the last Sunday, when God implores the disciples to behold His beloved Son and to listen to him. Epiphany is full of epiphanies of a new awareness, amazing and astonishing, changing us from an old way toward a new.
It is in the upheaval of something altogether new that allows change to gain a foothold.
Is the amazement of the witnesses in the synagogue at Capernaum that day because of God’s love as displayed through Jesus? Or are they amazed and astonished at the bravado of this traveling preacher from Nazareth. Offended by his arrogance, frightened by his new teaching, alarmed that even evil spirits obey him?
What about us? Has the Good News amazed and astonished us into letting go of our fears and doubts or does the astonishment turn us away from God? The lesson today is not just that God so loved the world he sent his Son to be among us…no the lesson today is also about how receptive we are to this gift. Will we let ourselves be so moved, so caught off guard, so astonished and amazed that we will drop our defensives and let the healing power of Christ envelope us, fill us and renew us?
When push came to shove and our economy tanked, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became unbearable to many of us, we were ready, as a nation to try something new. We were amazed at how our prosperity security and good standing in the world could fall apart so quickly and within that amazement a new thing emerged. An African American President with very little traditional political and governmental experience, but sporting a message which struck something deep within many of us caused us to throw caution to the wind, bigotry to the trash heap so we could embrace a new thing. Out of upheaval, fear and confusion came something fresh…. will we have the staying power to accept this change for good? Or will we retreat to the old ways of partisan politics, with our leaders not so much leading as cow-towing to lobbyists and big donors? I don’t know, I hope this dawn of a new era lasts, but I also know it’s hard to astonish us anymore--
It no longer amazes us that we travel through space or can split an atom, or can communicate instantaneously with texting, instant messaging and twitter. It is no longer outlandish and unimaginable that our leaders become corrupt or that the moral compass of the US seems to have broken. We’ve become immune to so many things…but every Sunday as the Gospel is proclaimed, I pray that we’ll still be amazed that through a carpenter from Nazareth the love of God is presented to the world full of power and grace, surprise and disorientation. Astonishing.
Amen.
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