“Job said to God, ‘Do something!’ God said to Job, ‘I did. I created you.’ It’s up to us. Here. Now.” Proper 7B St John’s Wilson, St Andrew’s, Burt June 24, 2018

+In our first reading this morning God is responding to the long lament of poor ol’ Job. What I find interesting is that
nowhere in God’s FOUR CHAPTER response does he say to Job, “I’m sorry” nor does God explain why such horror befell Job. Instead, God’s response is more along the lines of “I’m God. You’re not.” Period. But I don’t think God’s being dismissive—-I think God is saying to Job…and to us…. you are one speck, one moment in the history of all things. I have created everything that has been and everything that will be. Don’t worry about my motivation, worry about yours.
OK let me explain.
I don’t know about you, but for the past week I’ve struggled, feeling helpless and hopeless regarding the fate of immigrant children on our border. Now let me be clear—I’m not wanting to engage in a policy debate.
But as the Bishop of Washington DC, Mariann Budde wrote this week:
This is not a partisan issue that divides us. It is a moral concern that unites us as Americans, as people of faith, and especially for those of us who follow Jesus.
Our faith implores us. It demands of us, it expects of us that we never…and I mean NEVER… sit idly by while one of God’s children is in anyway demeaned, disrespected, or dismissed.
If anyone sitting here today could listen to the recordings of those children calling out for their mamas and papas, if anyone sitting here today could watch video of children in cages without any familiar loving adult with them and not be sick to your stomach, heartbroken, outraged, despondent and felled to your knees in prayer, then you may need to do an assessment of your soul.
It’s easy to say, I didn’t vote for him
It’s easy to say, the media has blown this all out of proportion.
It’s easy to say, these laws have been in the books for a while, this President is just implementing them.
It’s easy to say that the actions of the government are out of our control.
It’s easy to be like the disciples in this morning’s Gospel and just sit back horrified and terrified waiting for Jesus to do something.
But that’s not how it works.
We have a role to play in this.
Yes, we must pray.
But prayer without action is, as St Paul tells us, a clanging cymbal, a noisy gong signifying nothing.
My friends, we must act.
As followers of Jesus Christ we must seek and serve Him in all persons, loving our neighbor as our self. We must strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. These promises that we make in our Baptismal covenant mean that we cannot sit idly by while our government participates in state sponsored, taxpayer funded child abuse. When we hear children crying for their mothers, when we see these children in cages, when our own President echoes the words of the Third Reich saying that these immigrants, these refugees, these children will “infest our country,” we better do something.
You see it is fine and good to pray to God to stop this insanity but guess what? It can’t stop there. We have a role to play too. It’s the point God is making with Job.
God has created everything and everyone.
Including us.
God created us. With our brains and our passion, with our free will and with our faith.
God created us to have dominion over the earth.
Jesus tells us to go and make disciples, to seek and serve him in all that we do.
The Holy Spirit was bestowed upon us to give us the strength and the motivation and the courage to do the work that we’ve been given to do.
And what is that work? To love as we have been loved.
To speak up for the voiceless
To stand up for the downtrodden
To love as we have been loved.
What is this work we’ve been given to do?
To be afraid but then to go forward anyway.
To have faith that God will be with us as we do this work.
It’s not our job to shake our heads and say, what a shame.
It’s our job to raise our voices, saying “there must be another way. A better way. A loving way.’
Job says to God do something.
God says to Job, I did. I created you.
You do something.
It’s up to us my friends. Here and Now.
It’s not over, it is clear that our country is full of intolerance and hate. It’s full of fear and trembling. It’s full of despair and despondency.
And this week it seems to be a country where somehow it seemed ok to use children as pawns in a political debate.
In this country at this time, we are putting children, alone and afraid, ripped from their parent’s arms, in cages.
In the name of God let us do something.
Because God didn’t create us to be spectators God created us to be participants.
In the name of all that is holy, in the name of our redeeming sustaining and ever-loving God we must make sure that hate never wins, that hope is never lost and that Love in all its forms reigns supreme. Amen.

Proper 5B Trinity Hamburg, 2018 Who Goes There? A Child of God

+Thomas Wolfe wrote, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” Of course, you can, but it won’t be the same.
I grew up in a small village outside of Chicago. We lived right in the center of town and were so connected with the community that when my oldest sister was married she and my brother in law stopped at the local grocery store between the wedding and the reception to say hi…. The local merchants were a part of our family.
But, now that I haven’t lived there for many years, I don’t really fit in. There’s a whole new generation of people who are integral members of this small community. Unless there’s a real old timer around, when I walk into one of the local haunts people look at me as a stranger. It doesn’t take too long away before you move from being an insider to being an outsider.
 Jesus had such an experience when he returned to Nazareth after what had been a whirlwind first few months of ministry. He’d gained quite a following and was saying and doing things that, frankly, a good kid from Nazareth, the child of Joseph and Mary, wasn’t supposed to do. Back home folks barely recognized this charismatic leader who was ticking off the temple authorities left and right. He was breaking the sabbath, he was touching the unclean… and then, probably most shocking of all… he denies his own family—mother, brothers, sisters.
     Jesus had left home and came back acting at best like a jerk and at worst, like a possessed lunatic. It’s a tough scene to watch, and a difficult Gospel reading to hear.
But before we pile on and decide that Jesus has LOST HIS MIND, , let’s remember that what Jesus seems to say is not always what Jesus means.
 When he appears to reject his family what Jesus is really doing is proclaiming that there’s something greater than family something greater than all the human structures we’ve erected to order our world….something greater than society, something greater than government, something even greater than the love we have for our mother, our father, our sisters, our brothers, our wives, husbands, partners and children. He’s speaking, of course, of the Source of all Love: God. Before we were the child of our parents, before we were the spouse of our partner, before we were the parent of our children we belonged to God. Jesus is saying, all of these structures—be they family as mentioned in the Gospel or governmental as mentioned in Samuel, mean nothing if before these things, we don’t remember, we don’t acknowledge and we don’t proclaim ourselves beloved children of God. At our core we must love God first and foremost because before we were even = formed in the womb, God adored us.
      This is wonderfully illustrated by the tradition of the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria ---Remember the Hapsburgs? For more than 600 years they ruled much of Europe. In 1916 Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria, a member of the Hapsburg line, died. The story of his burial went like this:
A procession of dignitaries and elegantly dressed royal mourners escorted the coffin. A military band played somber funeral music as the torch-lit procession made its way down winding narrow stairs into the catacombs beneath the royal Monastery in Vienna.
At the bottom of the stairs were great iron doors leading to the Hapsburg family crypt. Behind the door was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna.
The Commanding officer rapped on the door and cried out. “Open!”
The Archbishop replied, “Who goes there?”
“We bear the remains of his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, Franz-Josef I, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Defender of the Faith, Prince of Bohemia-Moravia, Grand-Duke of Lombardy . . . .” And so it went, through the entire list of his 37 titles.
The Cardinal responded: “We know him not!” The officer knocks angain and the Cardinal again replies, “Who goes there?”
The officer answers, using the informal title saying,  “We bear the remains of Emperor Franz-Josef I of the Hapsburg line.”
“We know him not,” the cardinal said again. “Who goes there?”
This time the officer replied, “We bear the body of Franz-Josef, our brother, a sinner like all of us.” At that the doors swung open and Franz-Josef was welcomed home.
     We move around a lot in our world—I read someplace that the average American will move 12 times in their lifetime. Roots are hard to maintain in such a transient culture. Each time we move, we establish new friendships, we lay down new roots….but at the end of the day… whether our relationship with the family we grew up with, the family we married into or the family we raised ourselves is still solid and familiar, we need, we long for, roots that attach us wherever it is we find ourselves. And what Jesus offers us in today’s Gospel, and what the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna so boldly demands of royalty and peasantry alike, is a connection, a family tree, a hometown we can always count on, a place we’ll always be welcomed, a place we always belong. You see, the good news in today’s readings is that as long as we maintain that primary relationship with our loving Creator God as experienced through the Holy and Undivided Trinity, we are never ever alone. For this is the family from which all other families spring.  As long as we keep that relationship vital and healthy, then we’ll always be on the inside, we’ll always be a “part of.” Because, whoever else we may be, whatever other relationships we may have, there is one title and one relationship that can never be taken away from us; we are always beloved children of God, born out of the waters of baptism and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever.
Who goes there? We do, beloved children of God.
Amen.
  story taken from The Lectionary Lab: http:lectionarylab.blogspot.com for Proper 4B 2012

Love Makes a Church. Or a Temple. Or a Mosque…. Proper 4B June 3, 2018 Trinity Fredonia. Baptism

+I have a friend who is a priest in Chicago. One day I was at his church as he was preparing for a big parish event…as he was running around he was muttering, “Jesus never had a church, Jesus never had a church.” At the time I wasn’t sure what that was all about but now, after being ordained for a decade, I get it….sometimes the business of the church feels as if it’s overshadowing the business of God.
     It’s true, Jesus didn’t have a church, nor did he have a denomination. Jesus simply had a message and some followers. But the message was revolutionary and his followers were growing, so he also had to deal with the institutional faith of the day—the Temple and the temple authorities. Jesus may have been fully human and fully Divine, but even his Divine nature had to deal with church—or in this case temple--- politics.
     In today’s Gospel those authorities were none too happy with Jesus. The specifics of the argument are a bit arcane; suffice it to say the authorities had one interpretation of the Jewish restrictions on activity during the sabbath while Jesus had a broader, wider more encompassing view. The authorities were basing their opinion on human-made (although no doubt Divine inspired) law. Jesus was basing it on who God is, what God wants, and what God needs. You see,  the Jewish people had their “law” handed down to them from Moses. Jesus’ followers had the requirements of God presented to them by God in the flesh,Jesus Christ. Yeah, this is an argument the temple authorities are going to lose every single time.
The authorities had Divine law interpreted by human beings---complete with what humanity brings to the table—flaws and foibles—while Jesus had, well Jesus had the inside track…. Jesus had God. Jesus knew what it was the Lord required of us….because he was and he is the Lord. The authorities had nary a chance.
And just what is it that God requires of us, just what is it that God dreams for us, just what is it that God created us to be?
God made us out of Love to be Love to give Love, to share Love.
Now when I say love I don’t just mean the love we have for our spouses, our children, our parents, our siblings, our friends. I don’t just mean the love a couple has for one another on their wedding day, or the love a family has for a baby (like baby Angel who will be baptized in a few minutes---at the 10:30 Eucharist---), no I mean the source from which all of that love springs. I mean the source of all that is good and holy and joyful and peaceful and justice-filled in this world. I mean God. For God is Love. Period.
Today as we baptize Angel (and as we at the 8:30 renew our own baptismal vows) we  “re-up” the fundamentals of our faith:
That we love the Creator of all—God.
That we proclaim Jesus, God’s son,  as our Lord and Savior.
That we embrace the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ specific gift to us.
That we seek justice for all. That we stand up and speak out when other children of God are unjustly treated. And that means more than shaking our heads and saying, “what a shame,” it means doing something to make sure that justice is served. Always.
That we respect the dignity of every single person. Everyone. Everywhere. Always. Meaning that if people aren’t being treated with dignity---if they are hungry, lonely, naked…or they’re in prison, or they’re children ripped from their parent’s arms due to political instead of compassionate decision-making…or they’re sick with no access to quality healthcare, or they’re not safe in their classroom….
You get the point….by virtue of our baptism we promise, we vow to see Christ in all whom we encounter and to be Christ to all those we encounter.
In sum, we promise to Love.
It’s all about Love, my friends.
Two weeks ago our Presiding Bishop captivated the world with his words about Love delivered at the Royal Wedding. Why did his message so captivate the 2 billion people who heard them? Because our world is a hurting place. Our world is an increasingly angry place. Our world is an increasingly dark place. Our world is hungry for, is desperate for, Love.
     On this day when we make ourselves a brand new Christian, when we celebrate Angel as the beloved child of God that he is--- formed out of love to love and to be loved, let me close by quoting Presiding Bishop Curry:
“…Imagine a world where love is the way.
Imagine our homes and families where love is the way. Imagine neighborhoods and communities where love is the way.
Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce where this love is the way.
Imagine this tired old world where love is the way….
When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again.
When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.
When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary.
When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more.
When love is the way, there's plenty good room - plenty good room - for all of God's children.”
     My friends, Love is the way. It’s the best way, it’s the certain way, it’s the only way.
Love one another. Love yourself. And above all else, Love your God, for God loves you, God loves us, beyond all understanding. Always and Forever. Amen.