Deacon Pete's Sermon Christmas day 2013

You know that we have a barn full of animals at our home in Lockport. That means that most days I have two hours in the car to think, talk to myself and listen to music.  Frequently I use that time to work on sermons in my head. When I eventually have a thought worth working with, I use my phone to record the words.  Then I write a very rough draft and at that point I might discuss it with Cathy, to see if I'm going in the right direction, to get some help with words or just to see if it works at all

So, she had no idea when she was writing her last two sermons that I had been playing with the idea of using a Christmas song as the skeleton for this sermon.  And, I didn't tell her.   Since  her last two sermons quoted songs, I felt that I should go back to the drawing board, that you might be all "musiced" out.

It got me thinking.  How is it that we both thought of referencing Christmas songs?  We are very different people, and we have entirely different processes that we use to write sermons, why did we  both end up thinking "music".  Then I realized, we are inundated with Christmas songs on the radio and in television commercials beginning in November.  As a culture we have listened to and sung these songs for generations, in school recitals, at parties, while caroling, and in church.  One of our local stations has been playing Christmas music non stop since some time in November.   Really, it's a miracle people ever preach on anything else!

Isn't it amazing that the birth of a baby, a baby that looked like any other, that cried like any other, that learned to walk and talk and read and argue like any other should spawn such a musical outpouring?   The radio station that plays non stop Christmas music relies on advertisers to stay in business.  So, this music, it's profitable, people like it, it pays to repeat these mostly old songs over and over.

I performed an informal audit of the songs I heard while driving.  One in 5 were outright religious, Silent Night,  O Holy Night, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Noel, O Little Town of Bethlehem to name a few.  Imagine, in this day and age, a time of unrivaled consumerism and folks identifying as spiritual but not religious, in a country that is increasingly non Christian in orientation,  it is still profitable to play Christmas music.

Why is that?  What is it about this story that never wears out, this story that happens to ordinary people, a pregnant teenager and her loyal fiancée', who didn't desert her even though the baby isn't his?  We go to Bethlehem, all of us.  And we encounter a beautifully human story of a man and a woman, of her giving birth to a baby that she lays in a manger.  We see the star, see and hear a sky full of angels, smell the animals and the hay in the stable, probably smell the shepherds.  And beneath it all is the real story, the incarnation, the word made flesh, the stunning and unbelievable truth that God loves us so much, longs to understand us so much, wants so much to be in relationship with us that God came into this world as a tiny, helpless infant.

How can this be?  How can we be sure?  Well, we go to Bethlehem and see.  We see millions of lives made whole, we see prisoners visited, the sick healed, the naked clothed, the homeless sheltered  and the hungry fed.  Christ is born whenever love for one another  is demonstrated by ordinary people.  The child in Bethlehem is born whenever we put on Christ and remember that we are the eyes, the ears, the arms and the feet that God uses to bring "good news" to the world.

Marian Wright Edelman tells the story of a Christmas Pageant  a few years ago at Riverside Church in New York City.  The part of the innkeeper that night was played by a young man with Down Syndrome named Tim. He had practiced and perfected his one line "there's no room in the inn".  The big moment arrives, Tim stands in front of the congregation as Mary and Joseph slowly make their way down the  center  aisle.  They approach Tim and as the congregation leans forward, almost  willing him to remember his line, he delivers it perfectly.  "There's no room in the inn" he booms.  Mary and Joseph slump and turn away to resume their travels. Tim suddenly yells "wait!".  They turn back and look at him in surprise.  "You can stay at my house" he calls.  

And that's what today is all about.  Today is an occasion, an invitation, an opportunity to invite Jesus into our home, into our lives, into our hearts.  This baby, who grows to an adolescent that debates with scholars in the temple, this baby who is baptized by the wild and wooly John the Baptist, this baby who walks the country side for three years teaching and healing, who consorts with folks the world would rather not have exit, this baby who defeats death for us,  this baby needs and wants to find a home within us.

So, our presents are opened, dinner is in the oven, and we listen to the Carols one last time.  Let us pray to give Jesus shelter,  to find within ourselves something  stronger and braver, gladder and kinder and holier than we ever knew before or than we could have known without him.   Amen.

  See Marian Wright Edelman, "For Many Americans, Still No Room In the Inn."

  John M. Buchanan, "Christmas Eve 2001", sermon preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, December 24, 2001.

Christmas Eve 2013 "Do You?"

Christmas is full of great songs, with wonderful imagery of sleighs and reindeer, trees and gifts, donkeys, cows and sheep surrounding a makeshift crib in the most unlikely of circumstances. One of my recent favorites is
 Do You Hear What I Hear.
I heard it again for the first time not too long ago. I really listened and thought, THIS is a Christmas Sermon.

Said the night wind to the little lamb,

Do you see what I see

Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Have you ever heard the night wind? the whistling night wind can send a shiver through you: what's out there? Who's out there? Am I safe?
Once God came to be one of us as Jesus of Nazreth, once we trusted that a God was here because of love, nothing else, simply and profoundly and fully of LOVE, the night wind takes on a new tone-- a tone of endless and utter protection, as the night wind whistles through the window psne-- we stir from our sleep and then settle back in because we know we are safe, the night wind carries that wondrous star of hope to deliver us from loneliness, worry and fear. It protects us from doubt and hate and darkness.
Said the night wind to the little lamb. Do you see what I see? It's Emmanuel--- it's God, who's with us forevermore.

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear
A song, a song, high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea

do you hear what I hear?
It's ringing through the sky, a choir of angels singing at the top of their lungs--- and let me tell you, angels can be loud!!!-they're  singing, Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to all the earth!
They're saying, look ! Look right under that star with a tail as big as a kite, in that crib lined with hay--- it's a beautiful beautiful boy, Mary and Joseph's boy. God in the flesh, as innocent as a child as powerful as God. A regular boy kissed by God and sent to us. All of us, each of us, any of us who are ready to welcome him--- the Prince of Peace-- into our hearts. He has come for us. For you. For me. A man, a God,  savior. Jesus Christ.


Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
Do you know what I know
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring Him silver and gold
Let us bring Him silver and gold

The shepherds saw it with their own eyes, the animals in the stable, breathing the breath of holy warmth on this child who is destined to be a completely new kind of King. A boy who will grow into a man like no other, a man who will reach out to the outcast, the hated and the despised. A God who will know us—completely and utterly and thoroughly---and a God who Loves us—comlpletely and utterly and thoroughly. A man who is a God and who love us beyond all measure.
A gift of God, given to us from God. Given for you. And given for me.

Can you feel it? Can you hear it? Can you see it?
Do you know what I know? God is here. For all. For ever.

Said the king to the people everywhere,
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace, people everywhere!
Listen to what I say
The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

He has brought us goodness and light.
Look around.
Do you see what I see?
Love. HOPE AND peace.
He has brought us goodness and light. And it’s here, right now, for us to take, for us to embrace, for us to live.

Do you see?
Do you hear?
Do you know?
On this night, the whole earth is united under one star, singing one song and looking with wonder upon one miracle.
May the wonder of it all fill you to overflowing and may this Christmas bring us all that much closer to the dream of  the night wind, the little lamb, the shepherd boy and the mighty king:
Peace on Earth.
May you all have a Merry merry Christmas and a peaceful New year. Amen.

Advent 4 Yr A 2013 "What about Joseph?"

+What about Joseph?
A former intern of this parish, and my friend,
Fr. Paul Lillie, used to pose this lament at every turn during the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany seasons we worked together. On our pilgrimage to the Holy Land a couple of years ago, Paul made a point of showing me a stunning painting of Joseph and Jesus displayed at the Church of St Joseph in Nazareth. It’s a tender image of a grizzled working man gently holding the hand of his very young son. Images of just Joseph and Jesus are very difficult to find. A quick “google” of Jesus and Joseph paintings results in hundreds of thousands of images---with Mary Joseph and Jesus. very few  with just Joseph and Jesus.
Paul is right---what about Joseph,
why don’t we hear more about him?
Fortunately Joseph does get some attention in the Gospel we are reading during this church year, the Gospel of Matthew; today’s story of the angel visiting Joseph in a dream and then the tale of the Holy Family’s escape into Egypt to avoid persecution…and then?
Well then Joseph disappears from history. Scholars assume he was killed in one of the many Jewish insurrections against the Roman Empire early in Jesus’ life, but we don’t know.
What about Joseph?
Our prayer book is full of wonderful poetry the canticles (which are read at morning and evening prayer as well as Compline and…occasionally…on a Sunday morning) and the psalms are the most prolific sources of our liturgical verse. We have canticles attributed to all sorts of Biblical characters---the Song of Simeon is a song of praise commemorating the presentation of the infant Jesus 40 days after his birth on what has come to be known as Candlemas; there’s a song of Moses, several songs of Isaiah, a song for Creation and of course the most famous canticle of all: the Song of Mary, The Magnificat.
But what about a Song of Joseph? Even Zechariah, John the Baptist’s dad gets a song….but Joseph? Nada.
It’s a shame really. In this day and age we could really use a song about a good and decent man who, although terrified, confused and full of questions, does the right thing.
A faithful man who wonders as much as Mary did.
A loving man who cared as much as Mary did.
A mature man who knew the Son Mary bore was not biologically his, but Joseph loved him and cared for him as any Father does their Son.
Joseph was a good man. But he has no Song.
That is, until I was channel surfing a few weeks ago and came across some country music Christmas special. I can’t even tell you what it was called or why I stopped to watch…but by doing so I discovered a gem of a song, a song about Jesus, but sung from the perspective of Joseph .



I share it with you now in thanksgiving for all the fathers in this world who do the right thing.
In Thanksgiving for Joseph of Nazareth, Jesus’ earthly father.

 And for all father’s and father figures who formed us into who we all are today.

A Strange Way to Save the World
 ‘Sure he must have been surprised
At where this road had taken him
'Cause never in a million lives
Would he had dreamed of Bethlehem
And standing at the manger
He saw with his own eyes
The message from the angel come to life
And Joseph said...
(CHORUS)
Why me, I'm just a simple man of trade
Why Him, with all the rulers in the world
Why here inside this stable filled with hay
Why her, she's just an ordinary girl
Now I'm not one to second guess what angels have to say
But this is such a strange way to save the world
To think of how it could have been
If Jesus had come as He deserved
There would have been no Bethlehem
No lowly shepherds at His birth
But Joseph knew the reason
Love had to reach so far
And as he held the Savior in his arms
He must have thought...
(CHORUS)
Why Him, with all the rulers in the world
Why here inside this stable filled with hay
Why her, she's just an ordinary girl
Now I'm not one to second guess what angels have to say
But this is such a strange way to save the world.  ‘

...this is such a strange way to save the world...isn’t it? A seemingly ordinary young woman who, without knowing why it is or how it would end, said Yes.
A seemingly ordinary man who, without knowing why it is or how it will end, says yes.
These two people, ordinary people who became extraordinary simply by saying yes, brought us a baby. A simple innocent vulnerable baby.
Who will save us all.
Yes indeed, Joseph,
what a strange and beautiful,
What a strange and stunning
What a strange and magnificent way to save the world.
Joseph reminds us to thank God for good and decent men who say yes, no matter what.
Amen.

[1] A Strange Way To Save The World lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Songwriters: KOCH, DONALD A. / CLARK, DAVID ALLEN / HARRIS, MARK R.

Advent 3 Yr A 2013 He is the One. And so are We.

Have you ever wondered if it’s all true? Wondered if Jesus was really God in the flesh? Wondered if Mary birthed the Son of God, the Messiah? Wondered if God was really there, really here, with us, for us?
Did you ever wonder if all this was true?
It's a question that’s asked by the most faithful and the least-- how can it be that God is here? There’s still hatred and intolerance; there’s still violence, hopelessness and loss. How can it be that Emmanuel--God is with us --- is true?
Is he really the one?
John the Baptist wondered.
Now don’t get me wrong, John the Baptist BELIEVED.
He believed that he was the one to herald the coming of the King, he  believed  he was to serve as Elijah to the Messiah, that he was to announce the coming of the Lord. But we find him in today’s Gospel wondering if maybe, just maybe he made a mistake.
Are you the one to come he asks?
And by the way, if you are how come you’re letting me languish in this cell? Herod Antipas isn’t mellowing, my days are numbered, Lord. HOW ABOUT SOME HELP HERE?
John believed.
But, and here’s where I think we can relate, what he thought he believed wasn’t playing out like he thought it would. He had faith that the Messiah would come. He had faith in Jesus, but Jesus as Messiah? Jesus didn’t fit the prototype, he wasn’t what John expected.
Think about the Gospel stories we hear throughout the year, think about who they tell us Jesus is? It’s not who we expected, is it? We love the man who held children dear, who embraced the outcast and the hated. But to love that Jesus we must also love the Jesus who tells people to turn on their families in order to follow him, who tears up the temple, who compares a Samaritan woman to a dog.
Jesus isn’t always who we want him to be.
Our faith is something we hold dear, the stories of our faith nourish us, the rhythm of our faith soothes us.
But the reality of our faith?
Well that often shakes us to our core.
Where’s the star? The shepherds? Where’s Mary talking to the angel Gabriel? Why oh why must we get these readings about judgment and vengeance 10 days before Christmas? Why can’t we get a nice gentle lead into the story we all know and love? Well, because the story we know and love isn’t the point. The birth of Jesus isn’t the point. The life of Jesus and the life of all who follow him is.
The fact is, the details of Jesus’ birth are actually fiction anyway. He was born in Nazareth not Bethlehem. He was born in a cave not a barn. Jospeh was a stone mason, not a carpenter… But it doesn’t matter--it isn’t important whether Jesus’ birth details are factual or not, the story rings true in our heart. It’s a sweet story that  is an icon of our faith—the census, the barn, the star, the angels, the shepherds, the straw---
But in the weeks leading to up to Christmas there’s not a star a sheep or an angel in sight.
Instead we get readings foreshadowing the second coming of Christ, the time when Jesus will return to the earth to separate the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, the followers of God from the non-believers. We get this Gospel where John the Baptist—John the Baptist!—begins to wonder, are you the one? Because it sure doesn’t look like you are. Where’s the kingdom? Where’s the peace? Where’s the unity?
Jesus words echo here---what did you come out to see, to hear? A show? A flashy liturgy full of promises, requiring absolutely nothing of you except tossing some money in the collection plate and following a set code of conduct that, if followed guarantees success and happiness…the so –called Proseprity Gospel?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could come to church every Sunday, listen to the beautiful music recite the familiar prayers, hear a decent sermon now and again, enjoy our friends at coffee hour….and then go home and not think about it again until next Sunday?
But that’s not how it works is it?
We don’t just wander out of church on Sunday, we are sent out to seek and serve Christ in all whom we encounter.
We are sent. To be Christ in the world. Christianity isn’t a spectator sport, is it? We are sent. To see and to do. To notice and to help. To realize and to change.
Everyone doubts, everyone wonders, everyone questions. There is so much to do!
  John the Baptist is scared, he’s worn out and he’s worried. Had he made a mistake? Was Jesus really the one to come?
Jesus, instead of soothing John with a simple, YES and oh by the way here are your parole papers…tells John that he is the One because the lame walk, the blind see and the hungry are fed. He’s telling John –and us---that the work of God here on earth is accomplished one step at a time, one kind act at a time, one healing moment at a time. And that His coming—the first time and the second---are book ends. We, the Body of Christ on earth are the filler.
 We, the followers of Christ, full of wonder and doubt, full of hope and despair full of questions that have no clear answers, fill in the space between the first and the second coming one step at a time, one kind act at a time, one healing moment at a time.
Jesus is the Messiah. And we are his followers.
As we enter into the wondrous story of his birth, don’t worry about what is fact and what is not, worry about what is true and right: that God so loved the world, God sent Jesus to live among us. What we do with that is up to us.

Advent 2 Yr A 2013

+There are so many images that come to mind while hearing today’s readings:
Wolves and lambs lounging in a peaceful co-existence, leopards and lions playing, a baby crawling safely within the reach of the snake.
Gentiles being welcomed into Judaism through the cleansing act of baptism—no 30 foot walls being erected to keep the Palestinians out of Israel present here--the images are almost unbelievable!
And then we have wild and wooly John the Baptist flying INTO A RAGE at the Pharisees who’ve come to gawk at his baptizing act in the River Jordan. There he is, all smelly and wrapped in camel hair, his own hair and beard a rat’s nest of a mess, blasting his message to all within ear shot, a touch of crazed ramblings infused with a wisdom that cannot be denied.
And one of my favorite images of all—that earnest little blade of grass shooting up from the stump of a tree: a branch from the tree of Jesse.
Have you ever felt like a stump….a mere fragment of your former self?  A little dried up and worn down, feeling as if life has cut you off at your knees?
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse…” Who could imagine anything growing as they sat on the stump of utter despair? I’ve sat there myself, perhaps you have, too. You may be there now -- at that place where hope is cut off, where loss and sadness have deadened your heart.
  God’s Advent word comes to sit with us. This word will not ask us to get up and dance. It doesn't come in a blaze of glory, it isn't delivered on a chariot of fire.  It comes to where we are and it comes to us how we are...happy and hopeful, or sad and despairing, regardless, it meets us where we are.
Isaiah's words have come to us today—hopeful words creating a vision that is surprising in it’s simplicity and honesty. Nothing hyperbolic and lofty here.   The nation would never rise again. The shoot would not become a mighty cedar. No, the shoot to come will not be the expected. It will be different. It will be surprising… it will be a child!
From the 53rd chapter of Isaiah we read:
For he grew up before them like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
  Yes, a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse… fragile yet tenacious and stubborn. It will grow like a plant out of dry ground. It will push back the stone from the rock-hard tomb.
  It will grow in the heart of those cut off by unbearable sorrow until one morning they can look up again. It will grow in the hearts of people told over and over that they are nothing. Nobody. People who are hated, despised and left out. In the depths of that sorrow, in the grip of that hate, the plant will grow. It will break through the places where darkness dwells, where hope loses it's way, where loneliness spreads. The shoot will grow to sing shouts of Hosanna and Glory to God in the highest.
  What if we believe this fragile sign is God’s beginning? Perhaps then we will tend the seedling in our hearts, the place where faith longs to break through the hardness of our disbelief. Do not wait for the tree to be full grown. God comes to us in this Advent time and invites us to move beyond counting the rings of the past. We may still want to sit on the stump for a while, and God will sit with us. But God will also keep nudging us: “Look! Look -- there on the stump. Do you see that green shoot growing?”

O come, green shoot of Jesse, free
Your people from despair and apathy;
Forge justice for the poor and the meek,
Grant safety for the young ones and the weak.
Rejoice, rejoice! Take heart and do not fear,
God’s chosen one, Immanuel, draws near.
Getting ready, preparing our hearts for the coming of The Lord requires a willingness to open our hearts and receive the Love of God, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a straw lined crib.
In closing, Listen to this, a meditation written for Advent, let it wash over you, may it open a spot in your heart:



A miracle is brewing.
Can you
feel it,
see it,
touch it.?
It will transport us…back to a time when all was possible…forward to a time when all is possible.

The miracle will change us until we are all the same.
The miracle will cause the wolf to  live with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion.

The miracle is led by a child, for the child knows what we have forgotten:
That God is Love and Love is God and that Love is ours.
Always.

A miracle is brewing, it’s time.

time for the “us and thems” to be the we.
time when the “they and those” will be the you and me.
time when peace on earth will be.
Period.

A miracle is brewing, it’s time

Time for the miracle,
brewed in the thoughts of Isaiah
brewed in the yes of Mary.
brewed in the assent of Joseph.
brewed in the cries of the newborn savior,

to live.

Among us.
Within us.
Between Us.

A miracle is brewing.
Stir it.
Nurture it.
Tend it.
A miracle is brewing and we must –how can we not?—let it have its way with us.

(copyright The Rev’d Catherine Dempesy-Sims, 2011)

A miracle IS brewing.
Amen.

Proper 28 Yr C Consider this: This is How we are to Live

Happy Advent~ what? You mena Advent doesn’t begin for two more weeks? Funny, you’d think Christmas was already upon us, judging by all the Christmas ads flooding the airwaves, the Christmas décor up in the stores etc etc.
But, they may be on to something. Not Christmas in November, but Advent in November.
Did you know that in the ancient church Advent had six Sundays? According to the ancient church calendar, today would be the first Sunday of Advent. Regardless of when it actually begins, a common theme in Advent, the end of time, is introduced today.    


The prophet Malachai warns us: the day is coming, all non-believers will be destroyed: burned, trampled, left without root or branch. Jesus picks up on this happy theme—the temple will topple, plagues famines and wars will spread across the earth. Everything will fall apart and anyone, anyone who is a follower of Jesus will be arrested, persecuted and interrogated. It’s gonna be BAD!
But don’t worry, you’ll be ok. Everything around you will be in ruins but you? Us? The followers of the way? We’ll be great.
As long as we persevere in doing the right thing, living the right way and working hard. As Paul tells us in today’s Epistle: Brothers and sisters DO NOT be weary of doing what’s right.
Even though people will hate us for it, try to kill us for it, imprison us for it.
Why is it that every year, just as we get a little snow and there's a chill in the air, as we’re preparing for Thanksgiving, Christmas lists are being written and holiday parties are being planned, why do we get these violent readings about destruction, death and despair?
Well it’s a little complicated. You see the birth of Jesus—God coming to us in the person of Jesus Christ-- takes the familiar and makes it strange, takes the unfamiliar and makes it comfortable, takes the impossible and makes it possible. It makes the outrageous acceptable and the outcast become  "a-listers."
Jesus changes everything.
In other words, the world as we know it and the world as Christ envisions it can’t peaceably co-exist.
The world as we know it  has to blow up to make room for the world of Jesus.
This is where the reality of Jesus collides with the fantasy of “Christmas music 24 hours a day 7 days a week beginning in mid-October.”
This is where the reality of a God who loves us so much BUT understood us so little that God needed to come and live among us, as one of us, collides with ho ho ho’s and fa la la las
Advent and all it sets into motion (namely Christmas) blows the fantasy of Christmas right out of the egg nog.
Advent is shocking, disruptive and uncomfortable.
Why? Because Advent gets us ready for Christmas. It prepares us for the arrival of God in the flesh and that, the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ, is the single most chaotic, life changing, limit busting event of all time.
And it’s why I need to start talking about it now, 2 weeks before it begins.
Consider this your Advent preparation sermon!!
Consider this your warning, your clarion call, a voice crying out in the wilderness.
Consider this:
We must be willing to let go of everything in order to make room for Christ.
We must be willing to let go of everything in order to accept Jesus into our lives.
We must be willing to let go of everything to embrace the new way of living that this Jesus of Nazareth ushers in.
Today, on this second to last Sunday of the church year, we must remember one thing:
The arrival of Jesus may be heralded by a silent night humming the hymns of angels heard on high, but living the life Jesus has taught us to live requires guts. It isn’t easy. It isn’t neat and it isn’t always pretty.
Living the life of a Christian, living the way of Jesus requires much and the four weeks of Advent sure don’t afford us much time to get ready.
The majority of our church year is all about getting to know God and God getting to know us. The four weeks of Advent, and these two pre- Advent weeks are all about us getting ready for this encounter--the encounter that God has with us and we have with God-- preparing ourselves for the altogether new.
So...how are we to ready ourselves?
By blowing everything to bits.
And that, my friends is why we have these readings….because everything we know, everything familiar and comfortable will be, if we truly and fully enter into a new life with Christ, turned inside out and upside down.
Think about our readings from this summer and fall:
--the parables of Jesus that take the usual boundaries of society and tear them apart.
This is how we are to live our lives.
--Think about Jesus’ incessant encounters with the outcasts, the unclean, the unwanted and the forgotten.
This is how we are to live our lives.
--Think about Jesus’ intolerance for those who put the so-called rules of religion ahead of the common sense adage to love your neighbor as yourself.
This is how we are to live OUR lives.
-Think about the incorrigible Jesus who, to quote a Jim Croce song lyric of the 1970’s: pulled on superman’s cape and spit into the wind.
This is how we are to live our Lives.
Our lives with Christ, our lives in Christ.
Think about who Jesus really was:
a peasant who most of his contemporaries thought was a lunatic.
An itinerant preacher who was a constant source of annoyance to the Roman Empire.
A failed revolutionary in the eyes of many;
a revolutionary who did not topple the Empire, a revolutionary who did not usher in a Jewish state in the land of Israel, a failed revolutionary who was executed in a brutal and demeaning manner saved for the most hated of criminals.
This is the One we are to follow, this is the One we are to emulate. This is the One we are to invite fully and completely and totally into our hearts.
So yes, getting ready for the Christ event, otherwise known as Christmas, requires some preparation.
It requires some guts.
And it requires a whole lot of faith.
So welcome to the end of the church year. Welcome to Pre-Advent.
And Say good-bye to hearing about Jesus in this world and begin preparations to BE Jesus in this world prepare to be Jesus in this world.
Amen.

All Saints' 2013 Saints and Miracles: The Rule not the Exception

+Back in the 1990’s there was this great off Broadway play called "Late Night Catechism."
Set as an adult catechism class “Sister” is filling in for Father Murphy, who doesn’t want to miss his poker night. The play is structured around a list of saints the Vatican is reviewing…are they or aren’t they saints? –She reads the biography of each and then asks the question: "Saint or Not a Saint?” It’s a hilarious play and I urge you to see it if you can.
So, just what defines a saint? Not surprisingly, for Anglicans,  the definition is far more broad than the definition in the Roman Catholic faith. In Rome, a saint is canonized after a number of miracles have been attributed to the person.
Which then begs a follow-up question:
What constitutes a miracle?
Are there hard and fast rules defining what’s a miracle and what’s not?  Who gets to decide?
What’s a miracle, who’s a saint?
How do we know?



Maybe it’s like the late Supreme Court Justice Stewart Potter’s definition of pornography: “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it?”
Maybe we know the miracles of life when we see them.
Maybe we know the saints of this world when we see them.
What are the miracles in your life?
Who are the saints you know?
Have you heard about Jesse Lewis?
Jesse was six years old when killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School last December. While the rest of his classmates huddled in a corner, holding hands, Jesse stayed with his teacher on the other side of the room. The shooter’s gun jammed just after he shot and killed the teacher. While the gun was being reloaded, Jesse yelled: “Run!” to his classmates. And they did. They got out. And then the gunman killed Jesse. Jesse’s last act on earth  as a six year old was to save his classmate’s lives.
That’s a saint.
For quite awhile this summer we were praying for my friend Richard. Richard went into heart failure 14

years ago. For the past four years he has been kept alive by a portable ventricular assist device, otherwise known as a VAD, that he carried around with him in a bag.  This summer the VAD began to fail. There wasn’t enough heart function left for him to be outfitted with a new VAD. Time was running out. He needed a new heart.
On September 23, 2013 Richard received that new heart and this coming Saturday he will walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding.
That’s a miracle.
We don’t know much of anything about the donor.
What we do know is that his loved ones were brave enough, on the absolute worst day of their lives, to give the gift of life to 10 other people through organ donation.
The donor's family? Saints.
What makes a saint?
Well the heroic stories of Jesse and Richard’s donor certainly paint one picture of saints.
But are saints only those who give their lives for another?

Can’t we all, as the hymn goes, aim to be a saint, too?
Absolutely.
The how to guide is right there in today’s Gospel.
The reading from Luke is a portion of the Sermon on the Plain (Luke’s version of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount). In this, probably the most famous and familiar of Jesus’ sermons, Jesus lays out the ingredients of a saint when he recites the Beatitudes.
It’s pretty clear. We're blessed when we do the right thing.
It’s as simple as that.
So, just what IS the right thing?
Well, to take a page out of Justice Potter’s book:
I think we know it when we see it, think it or live it.
Jesse Lewis lived and died it.
The donor family knew it and lived it.
Esther’s grandson Javon knows it. Did you hear about him?
A couple of Sunday’s ago, Javon was sitting in his apartment on Main Street when he heard a horrific crash and ran outside to see the remnants of a car accident. One car was on fire with the elderly driver

trapped inside. Some bystanders were trying to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. Javon and an off duty Buffalo Police Officer sprang into action, extracting the victim from the BURNING car. Why'd he do it? Javon said because it was the right thing to do, that he didn't think, the natural instinct to help another just took over.
He’s right. The instinct to help our neighbor was knitted into our souls by God. The problem is, and here's the closest you'll ever hear me speak of original sin, something happened along the way and what we were created to be--- loving beings in complete harmony with this world and with God--- got derailed.
It became the exception rather than the rule.
And that's where saints come in.
The saints I've mentioned give us a glimpse into the human condition as God intended.
The saints I’ve mentioned lived, and in some cases died, following the directives outlined in the sermon on the plain.
You see, the saints lead us to where God wants us to go. This is why we celebrate them…they are beacons

leading us to live a life of blessing rather than a life of woe.
So who is a saint?
Are saints simply doctors, queens, shepherdesses on the green?
Are they only soldiers, priests and victims of fierce wild beasts?
Or are they simply folk just like you and me…folk striving to live as God intended, following the lead of those who’ve come before,  helping us all to be one too?
Who blesses you?
What blesses you?
Who are your saints?
What are your miracles?
They’ve lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still, the world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will. You can meet them in Sandy Hook School, or in a hospital, or on Main Street, or in church, or at home, or at work or at play, for the saints of God are simply folks who know the


right thing and do the right thing, God helping them along the way.
 I don’t know about you, but I aim to be one too.

Proper 25 Yr C If we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all. October 27 , 2013

Today’s parable convicts me. It convicts me because I, just like the Pharisee, have prayed the prayer of Thank God it’s them and not me. It convicts me, because of how many times I’ve  encountered someone and instead of responding in love, I’ve responded in fear. Someone homeless or mentally ill or intoxicated or in distress, or smelly or different or or or… How many times have I avoided these people and rationalized my actions by thinking, “well I give money to charities that care for people like them, I’m a good person, I’ve done enough? Truth be told, while I feel ashamed about this behavior, I can easily cover it with false righteousness.
It convicts me because I’m reminded that my actions are not that of a humble, God loving, God trusting person, but rather the actions of an uptight, rigid, going to always play by the rules of society—ignoring the cost-- person. In other words, it convicts me because it makes me way too much like the Pharisee and not nearly enough like the tax collector.
Did you notice how the Pharisee isn’t so much praying to God as he is lecturing? But in his efforts to point out how different---how much better—he is than the tax collector he forgets (or more likely he never knew) that it isn’t an either or proposition. He forgets that we are indeed our brother’s and sister’s keeper. If one of us has fallen, we’ve all fallen. If one of us is hungry, we’re all hungry, if one of us is abused, we’re all abused. If one of us is lost than none of us is truly found. He forgets that the way of Jesus is not the way of us against them it’s the way of and for us all.
If we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all.
At first glance, the Pharisee seems to be the insider in this story, the tax collector the outcast. But alas, it’s the Pharisee who is outside, it’s the Pharisee who’s lost, it’s the Pharisee who needs redemption.
Now that’s not to say that the tax collector is Mr. Good Neighbor. Remember, he is an agent for the occupying force of the day, the Roman Empire. He is no prize.
Yet he, at the end of parable goes away justified—forgiven, healed and renewed---while the Pharisee? Well the Pharisee has some learnin’ to do!
He needs to learn about community.
He needs to learn that this temple he worked so diligently to protect by following every Rabbinic code to a “t” was simply an edifice, a building, an empty structure, without the heartfelt prayers of its people.
Without its community.
Any community of faith more concerned with who is in and who is out misses the entire point.
All that we are and all that we have is through God’s abundant and indescribable mercy and grace.
The tax collector “got it.” The Pharisee did not.
Here’s what the Pharisee missed:
We’re all in this together. If the tax collector is standing outside the temple gates while you’re safely ensconced inside, then your work isn’t finished.
Until every single person who wants to be in the loving embrace of God is safely in that embrace, than none of us are.
We’re all in this together.
If our sister or brother is ill, outcast, lost or lonely than we are.
We’re all in this together.
And when I say all, I mean all:
Not just you and me, here today.
Not just those among us who aren’t with us today.
Not just the great cloud of witnesses who built this place and whose honor and legacy we strive to uphold.
Everyone.
As we hear the laments of our neighbors, as we hear the cries of anguish coming from those we do not know.
As we witness the persecution of the dispossessed the down trodden and the hated
We must do our level best to say…if you’re not ok, then I’m not ok.
It’s all about community.
When we act for all instead of for us, we’ll be exalted,  justified, and saved. Not for who we are or who we aren’t, but for what we do and for whom we do it.
Legacy is what our stewardship campaign has been all about. This week we are asking you to prayerfully consider what you’ll pledge to this place in 2014. How much money you’ll give, how much time you will commit and how you will offer your talents to us.
We’re embarking on a multi year campaign of changing the way we do business. We’re committed to lessening our reliance on the endowment and earning more of our spending money. We’re going to fundraise, we’re going to look at different ways these buildings can be an asset rather than a liability, and we’ll work  toward a goal of being self-supporting through our own efforts as opposed to on the backs of those who have come before.
We’re going to take the legacy of the joyful souls who endowed our parish with their treasure as well as their time and talents and create our own legacy to leave our children.
To do this work, we must balance our budget but, and hear me clearly, our legacy, as long as I have any say in it WILL NOT be about money. It will be about SERVICE. Service to each other, service to our neighborhood, service to our world, service to our past, service to our present, service to our future and above all else, service to God.
These gorgeous buildings weren’t built to insulate us from the needs of the world, these buildings were built to nourish, strengthen and embolden us to confront the needs of this world, and to bring all who desire it, the healing and life giving Love of God, one loving act at a time.
 That’s the legacy of Christ, that’s the legacy of God and here’s praying that it will be the legacy of US.
As you pull out your pledge cards this week please give of yourselves, not just of your wallet.
Give of your hope, not your despair.
Give of your faith, not your fear.
Give of your abundance not your scarcity.
Give of your trust, love and faith in the God who gives us all that we are and all that we have.
Give of your treasure, give of your time, give of your talent.
Give.
Amen.

Cancer Saved My Life. 2nd Annual Breast Cancer Service St Luke Day, October 18, 2013

Last Sunday I preached a sermon that asked the question, Have you been healed or have you been saved? The answer of course is that we, hopefully, have been healed and saved. But the point is this:
Being healed is fabulous. It absolutely rocks. But being saved? That’s everything. You see, to me, being healed is an event in our life, while being saved is a way of life.
Don’t get me wrong, I pray that everyone here who is or loves someone who is, affected by cancer will know healing. But healing comes in many different forms---for some of us it’s remission for others it’s cure, for others, it’s getting through the next round of treatment with our dignity and our humor intact. But for ALL of us, healing means little if we aren’t saved. Now, before you all think I’ve gone all fundamentalist on you, hear me out.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer October 4, 2010. I’d recently started a new job at a new church, I’d moved into a new home, I was looking forward!
Getting cancer wasn’t in my plans. Getting cancer isn’t ever in anyone’s plans. But we get it. A lot of us get it. One in three women and one in two men will get a dx of cancer in their lifetime. One in eight women will get a diagnosis of breast cancer. My mother, my sister, my first cousin and my aunt are all breast cancer survivors. I am a breast cancer survivor. My father died of lung cancer over 20 years ago. As did my aunt. My grandmother died of brain cancer. There’s a lot of cancer in our family.
I despise cancer.
Yet, cancer saved my life.
I have been healed from my cancer, and I am grateful, every single day of my life for the doctors, nurses, researchers and other staff at Roswell Park Cancer Institute for this health. They, through the grace of God, worked toward my cure and my health. I am grateful for my healing.
But I am more grateful for being saved.
Yes, cancersaved my life.
 Cancer made me change everything. I realized that I needed to be surrounded by life giving, as opposed to life sucking people. I learned who my true friends were--- the people who sat with me in the waiting room at the breast clinic—the same people who still sit with me when I go in every six months for exams; the people who took my calls as I obsessed and cried, ranted and raved; who quietly listened as I lamented and grieved the loss of friends I met in those waiting rooms, friends whose disease wouldn’t cease, friends who fought the good fight, friends I’ve lost to this disease; life-giving people who hold my hand when I hear that yet another friend has had a recurrence.
Cancer saved my life because it helped me realize
that I was a whole lot stronger than I ever thought I could be.
That I was braver than I thought.
That I realized while I wasn’t afraid of dying, I was a much bigger fan of living.
I realized that life can and does change on a dime so I better live every day as fully and as joyfully as I can.
I realized that my heart had room, that my heart needed, the love of a spouse, a lifelong partner who would take this journey, wherever it takes me, with me.
Having cancer made me realize—deep down in my soul how incredibly awesome God really is. Oh I knew it up here, but this taught me it in here.
Cancer saved my life.
Cancer gave me the courage to live my life I think God intended me to live my life.
Cancer gave me the faith to trust God. And to live into that trust.
Cancer showed me the truth: that nothing afflicts me alone. That God is always with me, through the love of family and friends, through the support of neighbors and co-workers, through the still quiet voice I heard when I lay on that exam table the day the lump was found, the voice that whispered, “you have cancer. And it will be ok.” Hear me clearly,
 That voice didn’t promise that I would live a long life, dying at age 103 as has been my plan, the voice simply said “it will be ok.”
 That’s the difference between being healed and being saved.
Healing is what happens to us at a particular time and regarding a particular ailment.. Salvation—being saved-- is what happens when we realize that our life isn’t defined by how long it is or whether we eventually lose our battle against disease, or whether we are lucky enough to live a life without disease, without hardship, without sorrow. Our life is defined by what we do with the life we’ve been given.
Cancer saved my life because I learned that cancer will only kill me when I am dead. In the meantime, I have a whole lot of living to do. My friend Mickey, whom I met through this service last year, gave me this little tidbit earlier this week: we all must LIVE until we die.
Our call is to Live.
Our call is to survive
Our call is to fight.
Our call is to live as best we can, as fully as we can, as honestly as we can and as joyfully as we can, until we are no longer alive.
Until we die.
Sadly for many of us death will come much sooner than we thought. But death doesn’t defines us, life does.
How we live, who we love, and what we do with all the gifts given to us, that defines us.
Everyone is healed, in one way or another. And everyone, everyone can be saved. So my hope for all of us here tonight, as we remember those we’ve lost, as we pray mightily for those still in the fight, as we offer thanksgivings for recovery, is that we all will live our lives fully and exuberantly and wonderfully up until the moment we take our final breath. Whenever that may be.
I wish you health, I wish you salvation, I wish you LIFE.
Amen.

[1] Sister Thea Bowman “Let me live until I die” accessed via an email from mnbdick@roadrunner.com on 10.15.13

Proper 23 Yr C Healed And Saved

+Nine were healed. One was saved. To me, that’s the down ‘n dirty take away from today’s Gospel about the healing of the ten people who have leprosy.

Oh sure there are other points Luke makes in this Gospel: the very clear message that this healing happened while Jesus and his friends were in a sort of cultural no man’s land---they weren’t in Galilee where they “belonged,” and they weren’t in Samaria where they most certainly DIDN’T “belong.” They were in a border region. The Greek word translated here actually means “the middle region” They were traveling in the middle area between Samaria and Galilee. They were neither here nor there. They were betwixt and between. They were, in effect, no where that mattered….

And they were approached. Accosted, pursued, sought out by a group of ten people, ten people who found one another after being cast out from their families, their homes, their villages.  Pushed out, denied, forgotten, shunned. They were united through their exclusion.

They were no longer anyone. And they were wandering in an area best described as no where.

Jesus and the ten are where we usually find Jesus —on the border between clean and unclean, safe and unsafe, ok and not ok.

Now, Luke gives us these details for a reason. He’s making sure his readers know that this story of healing didn’t take place in the temple. It took place out there, beyond the border of the safe, beyond the border of the comfortable. That’s important….we tend to forget that while it’s joyful when we gather on Sundays to worship as a community, we must never forget that this worship is simply the fueling station for the rest of the week. When you leave here you are to seek and serve Christ in all whom you encounter. All. Not just those we feel comfortable with…not just the familiar. Not just the safe. Being out there, is what Luke is trying to get across.

Now, let’s look at the actual healing part of this Gospel. It’s an interesting course of events---the group of ten approach Jesus-- They’d heard about this itinerant preacher and healer and what in the world did they have to lose by trying to get his help? NOTHING. So they holler at him as he approaches the nearby village. This isn’t a quiet meet and greet on the road into town. It’s a bit of a dust up.

      When I re-read this story on Friday morning I had an image of Jesus and his friends approaching the village and upon hearing the shouts of the ten, Jesus looks over his shoulder and says, in what I hear as a somewhat dismissive tone: All right, GO, get out of here, show yourselves to the priests. As if to imply, fine, I’ve taken care of you, now get out of my way, I’ve things to do.

 Lots of commentators keep Jesus really squeaky clean during these stories. That just doesn’t jibe with who I think Jesus of Nazareth was—he hung out in notoriously bad places with people of questionable character---he was a rabble rouser, an instigator and a pain in the patoot to a whole lot of folks. He was sweaty and smelly and dirty. He could be rude and outlandish. He could be cranky and annoying. After all, he was HUMAN.  He had good days and bad. So what makes us think that he kindly and gently said, in an angelic voice, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” Perhaps he was brusque. Perhaps he was annoyed and ticked off and said   “Go show yourselves to the priests” [say with annoyance] and then rushed on his way.

I imagine the scene playing out like that rather than a holier than thou preacher gently and lovingly giving them direction.

BUT and here’s the kicker, even when annoyed and rushed and hot and bothered, Jesus can’t help but feel compassion. He can’t help but HEAL them, even if he doesn’t take the time to stop and speak with them. He can’t help, amidst all the human-ness of his being, to also be Divine. That’s the beauty of our Savior. For he at all times and in all places, is BOTH.

And so, he gives his directive and the ten head toward the synagogue to see the priests. (No doubt hoping that this Jesus knew what he was talking about.) And as they turn on their way they are miraculously and thoroughly and utterly healed... It’s a miracle, they have been healed. Noticing this barely slows nine of them down. Who can blame them? They’re anxious to do exactly what they’ve been told---after all if that crazy preacher could heal them with just a word, he could also un-heal them if they didn’t follow his instructions.  They’re not the bad guys in this story—they did as they were told.

But then there’s the one….a Samaritan nonetheless… a foreigner to beat all foreigners-- a hated outsider who stops, and turns back toward Jesus, falling at his feet and praising God for this gift of health.

This isn’t just a simple thank you. It isn’t just rejoicing at being relieved of a particular ailment. No this one man, upon receiving the gift of healing, turned his whole life, his whole mind, his whole heart and his whole soul over to God. His behavior is a shout of “Hosanna in the Highest, you are my God and I am your child.”  His is a song of the saved, not simply a refrain of the healed.

Have you been healed, or have you been saved?

To be healed is a wondrous thing, worthy of our gratitude.

But to be saved is to go out into the world, seeking and serving Christ in all whom we encounter. No exceptions, no yes buts, no I can’t. It’s the challenge presented to us by Jesus in today’s parable---be grateful for your healing, AND be energized, renewed and inspired by your salvation.

Go out into the world, make a difference. Stand up and stand out as one who is Healed and Saved. For that’s what we are called to do. Thanks be to God.

Proper 22 Yr C The Faith Gang

+Our readings today are all about faith.
Faith in the light of horrible circumstances, faith as small as a mustard seed. They're all about faith.
But what is faith?
Think about it. Is it a thing? A commodity?
Is it a state of mind? Some type of mind over matter proposition?
Is it a simple platitude?
Is it a gift?
   For the authors of Lamentations and Psalms faith is something one holds onto and embraces even when all seems lost.
And frankly, they'd lost a lot: Jerusalem had been sacked and they were exiled in Babylon, forced into slavery.
For these people faith wasn't a gift, it wasn't a platitude. It was way of life.
Their Faith wasn't a stagnant, it was a dynamic.

It's' s that-- this idea that faith isn't a thing, it's an action-that Jesus is trying to teach us with today's parable of the mustard seed.
    The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith while they sit by passively, waiting for something to change.
I’m not sure what they thought Jesus would do…. whack them with his magic “increase your faith” wand?
    But Jesus isn't into magic, he's into reality and
He wants them to take what ever modicum of faith they have and use it. Activate it, exercise it. Because what Jesus knows and we have to learn is that with even a teeny mustard seed of faith, God can do amazing things.
Jesus is saying that the disciples should stop worrying (whining) about whether they have enough faith and just get down to the business

at hand.   to do what needs to be done, trusting in their own ability and God's grace.
    But the truth is, faith can be hard to come by---at times even the tiniest glimmer of faith is darkened by what we perceive to be the hopeless reality of a situation.
    Detroit is a city in a bad way. They have more square footage of abandoned properties than any other US city. If you drive through Detroit, you travel by miles  of vacant buildings, razed properties and over grown abandoned parkland.
There are pockets of hope, blight turned into successful urban farms.... But there remain a whole host of neglected dilapidated parks.
    What do you do, when the city you grew up in, perhaps the only home you’ve ever known, is no longer a place safe for children to live? How do you improve the quality of life for thousands

of people who have no other options except to live amidst the desolation and hopelessness? You can march on city hall and demand services, but if there isn’t any money, how in the world is that going to accomplish anything? You’re still left with overgrown parks inhospitable and unsafe for the children of your community.
Enter The Detroit Mower Gang....
“The Detroit Mower Gang is a group of people---caring citizens---that descend upon the abandoned parks of Detroit and mow them in a furious fit of weed whacking”
They are self identified do-gooders who refuse to let parkland go to waste and who refuse to allow bureaucracy and tightened city budgets to get in the way of children playing outside. Why do they do this? Well, they say, “ Because people need us and no one else is getting the job done.” ( www.detroitmowergang.com)

In other words, they consider Detroit their community and because they care for their community they are willing to take care of their community.
   It’s impressive what people can do with a little bit of faith and a willingness to give God the room God needs to increase that faith into something amazing and powerful.
The Detroit Mower Gang saw a problem: no safe green space for the kids of Detroit. They considered options: wait for the city to get around to it or take care of it themselves.
So they got down to business by exercising their faith.
   They exercised their faith---faith that if given a nice green space the families of inner city Detroit would get out and enjoy it.
They exercised their faith that if they just told people what they were doing they’d get enough

interested people to keep up with all the parks they’ve adopted.
They exercised their faith in the city they love by identifying the problem and then being part of the solution.
They EXERCISED their faith.
   I talk about this all the time---we are recipients of God’s immense and overwhelming love, we are recipients, as I said in the email this week, of God’s faith in us. A faith that never wavers, never wobbles, never falls down. A faith that we will take the mantel of God, the lessons of Jesus and make a difference in this world. That we will indeed Love one another as we have been loved.
  So what can we do with all the faith, all the hope, and all the trust, God showers upon us?
How are we going to get busy with the business of doing God's work in this world?
   
What is it you’d like to change?
What, in your community—in this community---do you care about? What, in this community are you willing to care for?
Do you care about it enough to do something about it?
And do you have even a mustard seed of faith to allow God to work through you in the remarkable way that only God can?
How can you be part of the Good Shepherd/Ascension Faith Gang?
What needs to be done?
What can you do?
What will you do?
Think about it.
Pray about it.
And then start doing something. Start exercising your faith. Here and now.
Amen.