A Sweet and Subversive Christmas

+“Glory to God in the Highest and Peace to God’s People on Earth. Tonight, in the City of David, a savior is born, the messiah, the Prince of Peace.”
Sweet words.
The account of Jesus’ birth is one of the most familiar stories of all time, filled with classic images: angels and the heavenly hosts, that wild star, a young peasant girl and her stalwart betrothed, a barn with sheep, cows, goats, donkeys, straw and that feeding trough—the manger—it’s a sweet tale.
And one of the most subversive, revolutionary and radical stories of all time.
Did Jesus’ birth really go this way? Who knows? . Early Christians didn’t seem to care how or where Jesus was born. ..so writing a birth narrative just didn’t seem necessary. But, for some reason, the story developed late in the first century, over 50 years after Jesus’ death. Is it Fact or Fiction? Well, frankly we don’t know. As Biblical scholar Marcus Borg puts it, it may not have happened this way, but it sure is true.
In other words, the story of Jesus’ birth, while it may or may not be Fact, certainly represents a fundamental Truth of our faith, expressing the absolute foundation of what Christianity is all about: that the oppressed, the outcast, the outliers of society are beloved by God and until they are treated with respect and dignity, our job, as Christians, as people of faith, as the descendants of Mary and Joseph, is not finished. As Martin Luther King, in his Letter from a Birmingham jail said: injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. This is the legacy of Mary and Joseph, the legacy of the birth we celebrate tonight, the subversive meaning of the Christmas story: everyone, lowly and despised shepherds, mysterious Hindu star gazers from the east, a woman and her betrothed, a simple carpenter from the non-descript village of Nazareth, everyone is beloved, adored and cherished by God.
 We, as followers of Jesus, as believers in the dignity of every human being, must take this sweet story of Jesus birth and live into the subversive message within it.
We are called on this most holy and peaceful of evenings, to be subversive through our own sweetness and concern.
When we are sweet to the outcasts of society—when we care for the rejected, the hated, the despised—we are being subversive. When we reach out a hand of greeting to the mentally ill, the imprisoned, the sick, the different, the unusual then we are, through our sweetness, being subversive. Being radical, being revolutionary.
When we treat creation sweetly, caring for the environment, protecting our natural resources for our grandchildren, we’re being subversive. When we say no to big oil, to pharmaceutical companies, to the users of pesticides, the industrial polluters, the people who refuse to accept any responsibility for tomorrow--- when we say no to them-- then we are, through our concern, being subversive. Being radical. Being revolutionary.
When we stand up to those who bully, when we say no to those who abuse, when we say yes to the children, the elderly, the ill, the lost, the frightened,
 when we expect, when we demand, integrity from our elected officials we are being just what, just who Jesus came to be: a sweet yet determined soul who will not rest until the Kingdom of God on earth is full of grace and truth, full of mercy, justice and peace.
And therein lies the real truth of the Christmas stories, therein lies the reality of our task on this Christmas Eve and all the days to follow: we must stand on the shoulders of Mary and Joseph, the couple who birthed and raised the source of all sweetness and subversion, a revolutionary preacher, a radical rabbi, a man who was from God, who was of God and who has left us, his children, to fulfill his mission. We stand on their shoulders knowing that in the sweetness of Christian charity and hope lies a revolutionary and subversive fact: that all people ALL PEOPLE, are as loved by God as that sweet baby, born in a barn, wrapped in rags, resting in a manger. And that it is our duty, our job, our goal to make sure they—all of them----know it. Glory to God in the Highest and Peace to God’s People on Earth. Tonight, in the City of David, a savior is born, the messiah, the Prince of Peace.
And tonight, in this City of Good Neighbors, in the streets of Los Angeles, in the prairie of Kansas, in the bayou of Louisiana in the streets of Baghdad and the alleys of Kabul, in the neighborhoods of Beijing and in the savannahs of Africa many babies will be born, children who, along with their parents, their siblings, their friends and neighbors, deserve the respect, the hope, the dignity and the justice demanded by, pleaded for and lived into by God in the flesh, Jesus, the Messiah. The Son of God, The Prince of Peace. And our job, as lovers of that babe in a manger, as followers of the radical revolutionary and subversive preacher man from Nazareth is to continue to offer the hope, demand the dignity and strive for the justice given to us this night, wrapped in rags and laying his head on straw.
May your Christmas be sweet and may the revolution, begun in that barn, continue in all of us, the subversive children of God. +

We are wonderful enough to be God's Advent IV

+Nothing is too wonderful to be true.
Nothing is so holy it’s unreachable.
And nothing is as sacred and wondrous to God as we are.
But that fact, that we are wonderful in God’s eyes, can be very difficult for us to believe and to accept. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Handmaiden of the Lord, the Favored One can teach us a lot about graceful acceptance of the incomprehensible Love God has for us.
 Mary was the first disciple and she serves as the opening salvo of the incarnation that is the Christmas miracle.
She said yes, she walked with faith, she journeyed in trust and, even though she had nary a clue what was going to happen, she responded to God’s beckoning. She was open to God’s in-breaking into our life, our world, our human condition. That’s what God asks of each of us. And Mary was the first to say, “yes.”
Mary was a young girl who had no remarkable pedigree, no history of exhibiting outrageous faith and who was from an ordinary family.
So, why did God choose her?
Because she was ordinary, and ordinary humans—people like you and me, people like Mary and Joseph---are absolutely adored by God.
This is the true miracle, the true wonder of the story of Jesus’ birth: it happened to regular people.
Regular people were chosen to bear and raise God in the Flesh.
Regular people who responded with amazing, astounding and outlandish grace, but were regular people nonetheless.
I suppose we could say that God knew Mary would say yes.
I suppose we could say that God knew Joseph wouldn’t throw Mary to the curb when he found out about the pregnancy.
I suppose we could say that God had this whole thing planned out, like some type of masterful puppeteer, but there’s no evidence to suggest this to be true.
Rather there is a preponderance of evidence to suggest that God approaches us and asks us---all the time---to be the bearers of God’s wondrous light to the entire world and that, those of us who say “yes” are in for the ride of our lives.
Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Aaron and Miriam, David and Nathan, Ruth and Naomi---these are not people of extraordinary moral character or tremendous faith when God reaches out to them. As a matter of fact, most of them tried their darndest to, at best, ignore and, at worst, reject God’s overtures. But, regardless of their hesitancy, each and every one of them ended up being servants of God, bearers of Good News, prophetic witnesses to the inching forward of creation toward the perfection and unity of all things longed for by God, promised by the prophets and realized, in part, by the First Advent….to be realized, in full, on the occasion of the Second.
God doesn’t choose us for who we are at our worst moments, God chooses us for who we can be.  And God knows that we all---all of us---can be something amazing. Something wonderful. Something prophetic. Because God knows we are—each and every one of us—someONE amazing, someONE wonderful, SomeONE prophetic.
We just need to find our voice, our faith, our trust.
And then we need to
use our voice,
exercise our faith
and exert our trust.
We can learn how to do this, by considering Mary.
Mary asks Gabriel, “How Can this Be?”
Gabriel replies, it can be because you, like all of humanity, is favored by, loved by and longed for by God. And nothing—“NOTHING is impossible with God.”
Mary, HEARING that nothing is impossible with God, BELIEVING that nothing is impossible with God, TRUSTING that nothing is impossible with God simply responds with:
“Here I am Lord. Let it Be according to Your Word.”
She didn’t do a cost benefit analysis. She didn’t consult her business manager or her therapist or her life coach.
She simply said, Here I am Lord. Your servant. Let it Be.
Mary wasn’t some sacred prophet of old, re-birthed to do God’s work in the world; she was an ordinary young girl presented with a wonderful gift: God’s favor.
Mary wasn’t any holier than you and me. But, perhaps because of her age, perhaps because she was from a small country town, perhaps because she was so in awe of having an angel visit, or maybe just because she was receptive to wonder, Mary stepped aside and let the Love of God take her over, making her an extraordinary instrument of God.
Although Mary wasn’t any holier than you and me,  she sure was brave.
Not because she had a child before marriage. Not because she stood by Jesus all the days of his life, not even because she said yes. No Mary was brave because she trusted. She had faith and she truly believed that NOTHING was too wonderful, too outrageous, too incomprehensible to be true… even the fact that God can and that God does love each and every one of us enough to name us God’s Favored One.
We’re regular folks who’ve been graced with God’s Favor.
And my Advent wish for each and every one of us is that we accept this favor and learn, by taking baby steps, to trust this Favor and to live into it through Faith, accepting that the Love of God isn’t too wonderful to be True, but it is too wonderful to be ignored.
 It’s too wonderful to be tossed aside.
It’s too wonderful to be denied.
Mary’s soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. Her spirit rejoices in God her Savior and her wonder is sacred, her trust holy and her example for us?
Priceless.
Nothing is too wonderful to be true, and nothing is too holy to be unreachable and nothing---nobody---is beyond God’s loving embrace.
For we are wonderful enough to be God’s.
Amen.+

Advent 3 Mission Possible

+Remember the old television program, Mission: Impossible? At the beginning of the show, that week’s mission would be outlined for the agents by a disembodied voice coming from a reel to reel tape recorder. Before the closing words, “This tape will self-destruct in 5 secondsl” came the equally iconic phrase: “Your mission, if you choose to accept it is:” In Advent, our mission, if we choose to accept it, is to let the seeds of hope promised by the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, pronounced by John the Baptist and incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ to germinate within us, growing to great heights.
You see as we wind into the last two weeks of Advent, it’s time for us to wake up and see the light. It’s time for us to accept our mission: preparing the soil of our souls, allowing the  seed of God’s word to take hold within us putting down deep and strong roots of faith.
Last Saturday, Bishop Bill held an Advent retreat for all the priests of the diocese. Our morning speaker was the Bishop of Rochester, Prince Singh. Bishop Singh made an excellent presentation and one of his statements has stayed with me all week.

He said:
“Advent is a time when we remember and celebrate the first Advent, the incarnation of Christ through Jesus’ birth. Advent is also a time when we anticipate Christ’s second coming, the second Advent, if you will, when Christ comes in glory to unite this world and the next in apocalyptic drama.”
Bishop Singh then said, and this is what has stuck with me all week: “well, that covers the past and the future, but what about now? What does Advent have to tell us about the present time?
Where can we find the Christ in today?”
The answer, of course, is right here. Christ is in the world today through us. We are the Body of Christ. In the present, in the today, in the here and now. We’re it.
And while we’ve spent a lot of time this Advent talking about preparing ourselves for the in-breaking of God-in-the-flesh right here on earth, I’m not sure we’re all aware of just what that means. God’s breaking into the here and now goes much more smoothly, if we welcome God’s presence in our lives.  If we are open to God’s desire to dwell within, between and through us. It means receiving this incredible gift. Accepting it, ingesting it, embodying it. Being it. Growing it.
To be the Body of Christ in the present day means we must welcome, as John tells us in today’s Gospel, the Light of the world, into us. We must be a vessel for that light, letting it fill us-- growing, gaining more power, more luminance, more wattage.   All we need to do is notice the light. Accept it. Receive it. For once we accept The Light, we are giving God the room to do God’s work within us.
Light is a big deal this time of year. As the author O.E. Rolwaag puts it in his classic novel of prairie life, Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie “[the winter days are] bleak and gloomy, with cold that congeal[s] all life. ” As frontal systems stall along the banks of the Great Lakes, the dark can really get to us. We can go days without seeing the sun. Vitamin D deficiency is a significant medical issue around these parts!
I think all the Christmas lights people put up is a subconscious response to the enveloping darkness of winter. I’m not sure how dark it gets in the Holy Land—I’ll report back after my trip---but my guess is that the dark was a scary thing in the time of Jesus. No electricity, no battery operated lanterns, no flashlight apps on smart-phones…when the sun had set and the clouds obscured the stars and the moon, it must have been pretty darn dark.
So referring to the coming of the Messiah as the coming of the light makes sense, for the light brings security and comfort. In the light of day things generally look more hopeful, we feel more capable, less vulnerable, less alone. Light brings Hope. Security. Comfort.
Simply put, Light feels good. Jesus as the Light of the World, feels good too. So what’s the problem?
Us. You see we have a part to play in God’s presence in the world—in the current Advent---but, we have a tendency to complicate everything. Our part, our mission, if we choose to accept it is to receive the light, welcome it within us, as best we can, and then step back and let God, let the Holy Spirit do the rest.
One commentator puts it like this:
“It is crucial for our salvation that we know what is the work of God, and what is our work… that we don’t get these two things mixed up – expecting God to do what we must do, or, trying to do what God must do.
One key distinction between what is our work, and what is God’s work is that it’s our work to prepare for God’s presence, to be open to God, to trust God, to receive God’s presence, to respond to God’s blessing, and to accept the mission that God gives; but it is God’s work to provide both the seed and the fruitfulness.
Advent is a time for us to prepare the soil. God provides the seed and Jesus Christ--the light of the world—comes to nurture that seed into a hearty, flourishing plant of faith growing and blooming within us.
This mission—spreading the Good News of Christ throughout the world-- may seem like a huge goal, a difficult task, a mission impossible, but we don’t do this alone. We don’t have to worry about the seed or the fruit. We don’t have to worry about how the plant will fare—we don’t even have to worry about the harvest. We just need to prepare the soil---our very selves—to receive the seed and then simply to turn toward the light. For this mission, the mission of being the Body of Christ in the Here and Now is, with God’s help, definitely a Mission Possible. +

Comfort O Comfort Not Soothe O Soothe Advent 2 2011

+I like to be comfortable. After a cold walk with the dogs, I love nothing more than to change into flannel pants and a cozy sweatshirt.
We talk about comfort all the time---when someone seems really self assured and calm we say, “They’re so comfortable in their own skin.” Or when we eat a big old pot roast, or make a nice steaming stew, we say we’re indulging in comfort food.
With the wonderful phrase, “ Comfort, O Comfort my People, the prophet Isaiah is expressing a common refrain---we like to be comfortable…we long to be comfortable.
The Israelites whom Isaiah is addressing have just returned from exile; returning to a land their parents and grandparents had been forced to leave behind. A land the current generation had never lived in. For them, “home” was simply a fantasy, a place where problems never existed, where, if they could just get back, everything would be fine. But the fact is, back home, everything wasn’t ok…they had idealized the thought of “home”, they put a return to Judah on a pedestal.
I know the feeling. I bet you do too. How many of us have said, “everything will be ok, just as soon as I make a little more money, or just as soon as the kids get a bit older, or as soon as my parent’s health problems stabilize, or as soon as my boss gives me a break.”
The Israelites thought, “everything will be ok, once we get home.”
But Isaiah is saying that, while returning home was certainly soothing, it couldn’t provide the comfort they –we all—long for…because:
Only God can do that. There is one and only one source of comfort: God. We can only be comfortable once we allow ourselves to rest in the arms of God, for that is where the essence of comfort resides.
We mistake all sorts of things for comfort. Often, what we think comforting is, actually, soothing.
And soothing is qualitatively different than comforting.
To soothe is to alleviate, placate, relieve.
To comfort is to give strength and hope.
Soothing is temporary. Comfort is forever.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with being soothed---there’s an awful lot of discomfort in our daily lives which is alleviated through soothing….and, even though when the soothing ends the discomfort returns, that little respite  gives us the energy to fight through the annoyances, disappointments and worries of daily life.
But sometimes really bad things happen to us: Death, illness, abuse, heartbreak and hopelessness. Things that make us feel fragile, vulnerable, at risk. When that happens, we don’t need soothing, we need, we crave, we long for, comfort.
When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I found great comfort in people who responded to the news with cursing, laments and tears. I found their reaction very honest and true. What really drove me nuts were those people who said, “oh you’ll be fine.”
I know these people were just trying to soothe me…to give me a little relief…but I didn’t want to be soothed, I didn’t want to be distracted. I couldn’t be distracted. Because-- and those of you who have dealt with deep hurt, fear and heartache know what I mean--when experiencing such gut wrenching, life changing events, nothing distracts you.  You never forget what you’re going through. You can’t. Soothing may distract, but it does not comfort. And comfort is what I longed for. Comfort was what I found when I lamented, when I cried, when I cursed. Because when I fell apart, I realized I was letting go of all my control, I was letting go and I was, to steal a phrase from AA, Letting God.
A United Church of Canada minister, David Ewart says that
“[Isaiah] speaks words of comfort NOT because PEOPLE are resilient, strong, courageous, resourceful, hard-working, dedicated, etc. Indeed, Isaiah reminds us of an inescapable reality – people are like flowers and grass that wither and fade. And so too our resilience, strength, courage, resourcefulness, hard work, dedication, etc. also wither and fade with us. ..[Isaiah maintains that only one thing truly comforts us, because] only one thing never withers or fades – the word of God. ” Isaiah realized that only by letting go of the “what ifs” and the “if onlys,” the “whens” and the “one days,” do we let God’s comfort wrap around us.
God’s comfort is the one thing that doesn’t wither and fade.
 As our life unfolds, things happen: our path gets crooked, our valleys become deeper, the mountains of despair grow ever higher and our spirit suffers. Soothing may take our mind off of the bumpy road, the deep valleys and the treacherous mountains of life, but when the soothing ends—and soothing always ends—we are left with the crooked, the deep and the tall troubles of life. But when we focus on comfort, when we diligently and deliberately seek comfort in our lives, the road is straightened, the valley is raised, the mountains are lowered and our spirit is buoyed.
Perhaps we all need to do a comfort inventory.
Are we ready for Comfort? Really Ready?
Because…
to get to Comfort, we have to go through lament.
to get to Comfort we have to go through the wilderness.
to get to Comfort we have to shed all the things we use to soothe us.
to get to Comfort we need to become vulnerable.
And to be vulnerable we must trust…we must trust that the Great Comforter is waiting for us, hoping for us, anxious for us to let go and to trust
--just as John the Baptist did.
--just as Mary and Joseph did.
And, just like Jesus did.
Because we, to really feel the Comfort of God, must trust all the way to the cross, the tomb and beyond.
Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of the Great Comforter, to ready ourselves for accepting the presence of God in our very lives and into our very beings. It’s a time when we accept that life is not always easy, and that fixes are not always quick. It’s a time when we accept that soothing, while less risky to pursue will, in time, wither and fade. It’s a time when we, each and every one of us, must prepare our vulnerable selves to accept the greatest gift God has to offer: a baby, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. +

Do you see me now? Pentecost Last 2011

Can you hear me now? This phrase was made famous by a cell phone company several years ago; it really took off and is part of our vocabulary.
In today’s Gospel Jesus asks a similar question: Do you see me now? Do you notice me now?
They asked: “Lord, when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?
When was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? “
Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you just as you did it to one of the least of these, who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Each time you saw them, you saw me.
Each time you noticed them, you noticed me.
Each time you helped them, you loved me.
Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.
You don’t see me now, do you? You don’t notice me here, do you?
What we do unto others, we do unto our Savior.
What we do unto others, we do unto God.
In our Baptismal Covenant we promise to seek and serve Christ in all whom we encounter. Seeking and serving Christ requires looking, seeing and noticing.

Do you see God now? Do you notice Jesus there? Right there…. you know, the guy walking down the street, ranting to himself.
The very unpleasant woman on the other end of the customer service phone
The child you have nurtured who has turned her back on you.
The spouse you loved and cherished who has left you.
The angry, spiteful neighbor….
God is there, Jesus is there. Do you see God in them, do we notice Jesus standing among them?
How we treat others is how we treat God.
On this Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of our church year, we look at what has been and what will be—we reflect on the life of Jesus on earth, we remember his death and resurrection as we await his coming again---we’re reminded that we’re graded, we’re evaluated, we’re judged by how much we saw, how often we noticed, God in the other.
Because each and every time we notice another person--really notice them… really look in their eyes, really listen to what they have to say…every time we do that we  make more room for God, through Christ, in this world.
And each and every time we forget, we ignore another person, every time we fail to hear what they say, we are closing ourselves, and the world around us, to God’s never ending effort to break through and into our everything.
The Apocalypse—the end of time---is a time when the barriers between this world and the next will be broken down, when the nations of this world fall away and we unite—all of us---under our one true King, our true Ruler, God as presented to us through Jesus Christ.
And every single time we notice God in another, each time we really see Jesus, seeking and serving him in all whom we encounter, we are bringing that time ever closer.
The apocalypse, contrary to what our readings seem to suggest is not an event. It is a process. The end of time is simply the end of time as we know it and the beginning of time as it has always been.  The Coming of the Day of the Lord. The end of life as we know it and the beginning of life eternal, doesn’t happen in one fell swoop, it happens over time, with each and everyone of us doing our part.
To bring about the unification of this world and the next , to bring about the day of the Lord, the Return of Christ on Earth, we must break open room for The Christ to dwell. We must break away from all that ensnares us. We must free ourselves from all that scares us, we must loosen the grips of doubt and reach out and up ready to receive our King. Our Lord. Our Beloved God.
Each and every time we live our life as God intended, each and every time we mimic Jesus in our actions, we bring that day ever closer.
Our job is not to simply live a decent life, biding our time until we get to heaven. Our job is to break down the distinctions between this world and the next, to break down the barriers which keep us overly concerned with our individual well being instead of our corporate well-being.
As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it: We are called to look at each other and see Christ. It’s as simple, and as hard, as that.” To accomplish this seemingly simple yet still so very difficult task requires Grace.
When we see God in the other, when we notice Jesus in the eyes of that other person, it’s because of Grace. The God-given ability to see beyond ourselves, our own wants needs and fears and look at the bigger picture—that ability is a gift from God, it is a gift of God…and when we receive and open that gift—when we release that grace…it spreads. From me to you and from you to another and on and on and on.
It’s that chain reaction of grace, that domino effect of noticing God in each other, of seeking and serving Christ in all whom we encounter, which allows the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom. The more we break ourselves open to Love, the more the source of that Love, God, is given room to move about here on earth.
Jesus Christ as our King seems like an a odd title for this itinerant preacher who spoke of the sanctity of the poor, the sick, the outcast, the rejected…..But Christ as the King of a world where the Divine is noticed in all, where the Holy is respected by all and where the Love of God is the rule and not the exception—that is a world where Christ, as King, makes sense.
Can you hear me now?
Can you see me now?
Do you notice me now?
Yes God, we do.
Thanks be to God. +

Sometimes Everything Has to Fall Apart Nov 13 2011

+Sometimes there’s pain and suffering before we get to joy.
And sometimes, everything has to fall apart to open up space for the new.
Chaos often precedes order. Things tend to get really messy before the new is established. While most of the time Incremental change works best, other times bringing about change requires something more dramatic, more sweeping, more all-encompassing. And such dramatic change can feel frightening and uncomfortable, it can seem thoughtless, even violent.
Remember our October Storm, the Columbus Day weekend 2006 snowfall that destroyed thousands of trees and left many of us without electricity for over a week? It seemed as if this storm was a disaster and that we’d never recover.
But, speaking from my own experience as a homeowner on Woodward Ave. at the time, the impact has been intense…but a disaster? Not at all.
The hundred year old magnolia tree in our front yard was one of the first to fall that night…but within two years of nature’s violent and seemingly capricious pruning that tree bloomed more fully and brilliantly than it had in a generation.
The trees that weathered the storm are healthier, more vibrant, more full of life. Yes, we lost a lot of old familiar trees, but through nature’s pruning, the new landscape is stronger, richer, fuller.
Sometimes there’s pain and suffering before we get to joy.
Sometimes everything has to fall apart before a new order can be born
Of course we could have, in a measured fashion, pruned the trees, but no one would make the dramatic cuts needed to bring forth such incredible new life. The storm did what we wouldn’t do. Opening ourselves up to the threshing of the old in order to make room for the new, is something most of us won’t do without kicking and screaming. After all, the old, even if it’s weakening, even if it’s stagnant, even if it no longer works very well, is still more familiar, more comfortable than opening up to the unknown unfamiliar new thing.

Sometimes there is pain and suffering before we get to joy.
Sometimes everything has to fall apart before the new can be born.
None of us likes today’s readings—a violent God banishing people to eternal damnation, a God of vengeance, a God of judgment. A God who is willing to rip apart the old in an effort to usher in the new.
In Zephaniah, the prophet is sharing a particularly vivid description of the Day of the Lord—the apocalypse.
Zephaniah was writing to the people of Judah soon after their last great king had died—Josiah. Their future uncertain, the glory days seemingly past; he was writing to people who were  looking backward, toward what was, and slowly realizing what will not be again. On the one hand the old order was destroyed. On the other, a new order was being formed, something incredible. The people had a choice—look back or move forward. What Zephaniah in our first lesson, Paul in our second and Jesus in our third tell us is this :
Sometimes everything has to fall apart before the new order can be born.
The Jews of the early first century, CE believed that the coming of messiah would be preceded by a lot of pain and suffering, a time when the good would be separated from the evil---when the worthy would be taken up into the arms of the holy leaving the rest behind to sure and certain destruction.
Jesus doesn’t shy away from this imagery…he just turns it around a little bit.
Well a lot bit.
You see Jesus did come to separate the sheep and the goats and the wheat and the chaff. But not to condemn one to eternal damnation and the other to paradise. Jesus’ separation is between those who “get it” and those who don’t followed by  a clear and precise road map for those who wish to move from the “I don’t get it,” to the “I do.”
The Parable of the Talents—our Gospel reading today-- provides just such a map.  The story tells us about money—a lot of money—and how each slave manages his masters’ fortune. But, of course, the meaning of the parable has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with riches. You see the bottom line to Jesus’ message here is—live life, take what you have been given and do good---don’t live in fear of what might happen, live in hope of what will happen. For life happens, stuff happens, some good and some bad, some thrilling and some terrifying but, if we live our life embracing all of our unique, varied and “especially for us” talents, if we use them to further the march of creation, then we’ll be ready for whatever comes next.
Think about it. If I had run out the evening of the October storm and shaken the snow off of the leaves the magnolia tree wouldn’t have snapped.
And it wouldn’t have grown back with such a vengeance. It wouldn’t be so healthy. If I had played it safe, the tree would have survived, endured, existed.
But I would have denied it the opportunity to regroup, to shed some of its old and tired bark, and embark on growing anew. Of being born again.
Jesus came to earth as an October storm: he came to shake up the old order and bring in a new. He, as he stretched out the loving arms of his holy embrace on the hard wood of the cross, loaded all the destruction, all the vengeance and violence, all the crying and gnashing of teeth upon his beaten body and, with the wail which tears through us all on Good Friday, caused everything to fall apart, once and for all, so that, on that first Easter morning, he could walk out of that tomb presenting us with something all together new.
A God of vengeance and violence is part of our biblical heritage…but it is only part of the story…the full story—the rest of the story-- includes a young man from Galilee who took all of the violence, all of the vengeance we can muster and defeated it. For every one. Forever. The itinerant preacher from Nazareth takes our fear, our doubt, our love of order and hatred for uncertainty and rips it to shreds, leaving us with the space to allow something all together new to germinate. Leaving us open to being Born anew. Again and again and again.
Sometimes there is pain and suffering before we get to joy.
Sometimes everything has to fall apart before the new can be Born.
And sometimes we need to let the snow fall, the branches crack and the old fade away. For you never know what will grow in its place. +

All Saints Sunday Nov. 6 2011

In our church calendar, this past week could easily be labeled: the week of death. Besides Holy Week, no week in the church year is more death-loaded than this one. But, because we are a Resurrection people, death isn’t the end and a week of death focus is not morbid.
I’ll always remember the moment my father died. After 9 months of fight, he just couldn’t battle lung cancer anymore. We knew that it was The Day, for he had requested the morphine drip and the doctors said, once the morphine began he would fall into a coma and then slip away. Having never seen anyone in a coma before, I was shocked to discover that it’s not a passive state. Periodically he would moan, move around and, scariest of all, open his eyes… but behind those eyes, there was barely a hint of Dad….On the one hand, there he was. But, on the other hand, there he wasn’t.
Finally around 4 in the afternoon, he died. It was then that the creeping vacancy I’d noticed earlier was complete. Just moments after his death there was no semblance of “Dad” left.  One moment I looked upon my father and the next, an empty shell—just an abandoned container of failing muscles and skin…Dad wasn’t there, he was GONE.
Dad’s soul had taken flight, his earthly fight complete. As we read in the Book of Revelation:
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no
longer be any death;
there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain;
 the first things have passed away."
Dad’s first life, the temporal one was over, his second, life eternal continued… he was off to take his place with the saints.

I have shared these remembrances of Dad’s death with many of you before, and I’m sure I will again…for his death, the experience I had of it---has formed me and my theology of death, my theology of the saints, for the almost two decades since it occurred.
For at that moment I realized---not intellectually, not even religiously, but spiritually and temporally, in my soul and in my bones---I realized that who we are is far beyond what we see, or what we hear, or what we smell or what we touch. We are what’s inside—our soul—and that soul is encased in our bodies at birth and removed from our bodies at death. Our bodies are containers, they’re not us.
Ok, so this is a basic Christian belief and one you probably all thought I should have learned LONG ago—but knowing something and knowing something are vastly different.
On April 18, 1993 I learned that lesson.
A lesson which is at the crux of our theology of the saints.
Death is a fact of life-- it’s a universal experience. …and it fascinates, terrifies and befuddles most of us.
We spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out just what the after-life is all about---it’s one of the reasons the book Heaven is Real is so popular---we want proof, we like proof--because even though we proclaim it, we don’t really know it—we can’t really know if Heaven is Real.  We just have to believe it. That’s what faith is all about.
And that makes an awful lot of us uncomfortable.
This past week was our officially sponsored Church search for an  understanding of life, death and the after-life—the Tridduum of All Saints—All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day and All Soul’s Day.
These three days give us three distinct glimpses into life eternal. Of life after death:
Halloween-- derived from an ancient Celtic observance of a time when the veil between this world and the next is thinned---lifted even---giving us a glimpse of the other side. This practice allowed the living to help the dead complete their journey from this life to the next—by protecting them from evil spirits so they could safely arrive into the embrace of the Holy.
All Saints Day--- a day to relish in the glory of the Saints, thanking them for what they’ve given us.  It is so important to our faith we celebrate it twice—on the actual day, November 1 and on the first Sunday after Nov 1—today. I wear my gold, we pull out as many stops as we can—for we want the saints to know, we appreciate them, we love them, we rely on them.
The third and final day is All Souls—the Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed---a day focused on all who have died in the past year. A day we allow ourselves to remember those who have died. To miss them, to long for them.
The All Saints trifecta helps us to honor that Great Cloud of Witnesses, the great cloud of souls who have left us in one way, yet return to us in another.
Our uniquely Anglican theology says that this Great Cloud of Witnesses—the saints of God---is made up of all sorts and manner of people:
Saints of the Church Universal----Mary, Joseph, Peter, Paul
Saints of the Church specific---Elam Jewett, Darwin Martin, the Northrups, Ruth Noller, The Barry’s, John Mears, Fred Tripi
And Saints of our own families---my dad, my grandparents…
People who no longer physically walk among us, but who nonetheless inspire us, encourage us, berate us, and nudge us.
IS Heaven Real? Are the saints really surrounding us, right now?
Well let’s get real quiet. Listen….Listen intently.
Do you hear them? Can you feel them?…they’re right here…our parents, our grandparents, our sons and daughters, our friends and neighbors our patriarchs and matriarchs, the saints of the church universal, the saints of this parish specific, the saints of our towns, our families….
The saints of God, that Great Cloud of Souls are witnesses—witnesses to our lives, witnesses to our hopes, our dreams, our longings. Partners in our searching, helpers in our times of need. They are the Holy Spirit’s foot soldiers here on earth. Right now, we’re surrounded, surrounded by this great cloud of souls: Folks who long for us, miss us and pray for us. Just as we do them.
So Happy Death Week, Happy Eternal Life Week, Happy Day of All Saints--may we continue to be encouraged and sustained by that great cloud of souls---folks like you and me who have done and continue to do extraordinary things for us, Saints to Be. Amen.

Love isn't just a noun. It's a verb October 22 2011

+Growing up, my family didn’t say “I love you.” It wasn’t that my family was cold... I knew I was loved…but we were the poster-child for WASPs—White Anglo Saxon Protestants.  In our Irish family, talking was very popular, but talking about feelings? Not so much. Our family, more than anything, avoided being vulnerable…and talking about love made my family of origin far too vulnerable for our WASP sensibilities.

But love is a whole lot more complicated than just saying it. In Greek there are a number of words to describe the various and sundry things our English word LOVE describes. Love, as expressed by Jesus, is “agape” literally translated as: a Feast of Love.  Perhaps instead of calling our service “Holy Eucharist” we should call it a Love Feast, for that is exactly what we’re doing, we’re Feasting on Love. Once fed in this manner we are strengthened to go out into the world, seeking and serving Christ in all others.

It’s good we’re strengthened, for when we commit to living out the message of Christ in the world—being his hands and feet, his eyes and ears, and his mouth—we are making a significant, difficult and lifetime commitment. A promise to live according to the Greatest Commandment, the greatest two, actually, upon which hangs everything else: Loving God with all our might and loving our neighbors just as God loves us.

In the Jewish tradition there are roughly 613 commandments, (go ahead and count they are listed in Deuteronomy and Leviticus) and it was out of those 613 the Pharisee in today’s Gospel asked the question: which of these is the greatest?

Now of course, this was a trick. For by asking Jesus to name the greatest, they are backing him into a corner of blasphemy—for to place any of those commandments above another was to violate the very law the commandments outlined. However, Jesus, in his way, outsmarted them, for he didn’t “diss” the other laws, he just said that the rest of them flow out of the two he mentions. In shorthand Jesus is saying Love God because by loving God—by actually trying to give God back a modicum of what God gives us--- we will be filled with such an abundance of Love that loving our neighbor—loving everyone, no exceptions—will come more naturally.

         In other words, You gotta give it. You’ve gotta do it. Love isn’t just a noun. It’s also a verb. As one commentator notes:

Biblical love is not passive and it is not strictly emotional. In the Old Testament, there are references to many kinds of love, but the love referred to here by Jesus is… far from passive. It is the active response of the faithful person to the love of God...To love God with all one's heart, and soul, and mind, is to choose to respond to [God’s love]. Feelings and emotions do not enter into the equation.[1]

My parents would love this quote---especially the part about feelings and emotions------but of course, we aren’t talking about the love we have for our parents, our children, our spouses or partners. We’re talking about God’s love for us and our love for God. The love from which all other love flows. What today’s Gospel commands us to do is to allow the Love we experience when we are fed at this table to nourish us in the ways of Agape---in the ways of a Love Feast. And, when we’re nourished at this feast, we can’t help ourselves, we must share this love with others, by acting out of Love, in Love and through Love. Clayton Schmit, a seminary professor puts it this way:

This means that, to those with whom we are intimate, to those we do not know, to those who may be dirty or repugnant, and even to those who harm us, we can act according to the law of love. We can be merciful and gracious. To love the neighbor as ourselves is to make a conscious choice and act upon it.  …

When we love God's people, we are always, and at the same time loving God.[2]

You see, as UCC minister Kate Huey says:

[The] primary component of biblical love is not affection but commitment. Warm feelings of gratitude may fill our consciousness as we consider all that God has done for us, but it is not warm feelings that [the Greatest Commandment] demands of us but rather stubborn, unwavering commitment" [3]

Commitment means giving of ourselves, it means giving this place (GS, ASC) your time, your talent and your treasure. It means increasing your pledge or pledging for the first time---not because I ask you to, or our stewardship speakers ask you too, but because your love for God is so great you feel compelled to return that love to God…..

And, we return that Love by taking what we’ve been given—for all things come from God------and give it back.

Now, some of you may be thinking, all I have to give God is heartache, bills, poor health, and unhappiness. You know what? That’s OK, give it to God. Let God have it. If you don’t feel you have any bounty at all, if you feel as if God hasn’t given you anything good, then give all the bad back to God. For God can take it. God will take it. God wants to take it. You see, that’s what this Agape, this God Love is all about-----God loves us so much that God wants all of us---our heart, our mind, our soul, our anger, our fear, our sadness….and our abundance, our joy and our bounty. God wants it all.

We fail to live into the Love commandments when we stop giving it all to God. As long as we hold onto what we have—good bad and ugly--- as long as we refuse to give any of it up--- God is left out of our lives. And God, above all else wants to be part of our lives. That’s why God took on skin and bone, heartache and pain in the person of Jesus---because God wants the whole of the human experience.

Maybe that’s the best way to understand this God Love, this Agape----God so loves us, God even wants us on our worst days.

Love isn’t just a noun, it’s also a verb.

Biblical Love isn’t just a feeling….it’s an action. Love isn’t a sentiment as much as it is a commitment. Feeling Love is one thing, doing Love is something altogether different.

---

[1] Clayton Schmit Arthur DeKruyter/Christ Church Oak Brook Associate Professor of Preaching Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena, CA www.workingpreacher.com accessed 10.21.11

[2] ibid

[3]Kathryn Matthews Huey, http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/october-23-2011.html

Sometimes You Have Squeeze the Word 10.2.11

[1] This sermon has been significantly influenced by two contributors to the Text This Week (textweek.org) commentary website: David Lose from workingpreacher.org and “Two Bubbas and a Bible” from lectionarylab.blogspot.com Thanks to them for their always thought-provoking commentary.

+Sometimes you have to squeeze a scripture reading until the gospel leaks out . This remark, attributed to Martin Luther, certainly fits with today’s reading from Matthew. At this stage of our church year, we hear lots of parables, many difficult to read, to hear and to preach! We’re heading into the home stretch of the lectionary and in our readings the rest of the way, Jesus’ time is running short and his patience with BOTH his followers and his detractors is running thin.
The parable uses today’s Isaiah reading—known in ancient Israel as The Song of the Vineyard-- as a jumping off point. In it God is the landowner and we, God’s beloved, are the vines---God tends to us and we, in response, produce delicious, pleasing fruit. But then the parable shifts, with Jesus reporting that the vines don’t produce as God had hoped. Instead of good and pleasing fruit, the vines—we—produce wild grapes, untamed, unsuitable for making good wine. God looks the situation over and says, “Well, I did the best I could. I’ve done all I can. I can’t pour good money after bad. I’m going to abandon the whole thing and find someplace else where I can be more productive.”
God abandoning God’s people? God giving up on…..us? Where’s the Good News in that?
Like Luther said, sometimes we have to squeeze our scripture to get the gospel—the good news—out.
Remember, all scripture, while divinely inspired, was written at a specific time and focused on a specific audience. The context of our scripture readings is important.
Matthew was writing in a time of great turmoil. The Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed and the Jews needed to re-invent themselves. How could they move forward without the unifying symbol of their Temple? Of THE temple . Furthermore, he and his followers believed the Jesus sect was and should remain  a part of Judaism while many other followers of Jesus   were breaking away from Judaism altogether. Put all of this under the shadow of the looming, ever dangerous Roman Empire and you had a period of time---roughly 80 BCE-- when the world Matthew knew was disappearing before his very eyes.
It could be easy, in such a situation, to feel abandoned by God, to feel forgotten. So, it’s understandable that the Jesus Matthew portrays is angry at the Temple Leaders, frustrated with the status quo and easily ticked off with the seemingly increasing ignorance of his followers. Matthew was cranky and hence, so was the Jesus of his Gospel.
In today’s parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus begins with a version of the familiar Isaiah vineyard story but, around verse 33, he changes direction and tone. The landowner—God (remember this parable is an allegory, each and every character, landowner, tenants, servants…is representative of someone else)—has trusted the vineyard—God’s creation---to tenants— to us. When it comes time to check out the progress of the vineyard, the owner sends servants/messengers-- the prophets—to check on things. …to collect rent—to see what they –what we--have done with the vineyard—with the creation given over to their to our care.  
Of course then the tenants, --us--do an astoundingly cruel and stupid thing: they—we-- beat one of the servants and kill the other.
Yet the owner—God-- being either amazingly tolerant or intensely stupid, sends more servants who get beaten and killed. So then the owner, thinking for sure this will convince the tenants to do the right thing---sends his son….
And sure enough, the tenants beat and kill the son.
Jesus then stops telling the story, looks at his hearers and asks them to finish it.
What should the owner do with those tenants who killed his messengers, who killed his son? “Simple,” the people say,  “he’d come with an army and kill the bad tenants and give the vineyard to good tenants.”
Right you are, Jesus says. “And the Kingdom of God, the true vineyard of the Lord, will be taken away from you!” oops. I bet they didn’t see THAT coming.
Remember, parables are tricky, they say a lot and each time we hear them, we’ll hear more, or at least we’ll hear different, because who we were when we last heard this story, isn’t who we are today.
This is where we have to squeeze the words a bit, so we can release the message of Good News.
The true vineyard of God will be taken from us? We’ll be abandoned? We’ll be rejected?
Well yes. And no.
You see the true vineyard---living as the beloved children of God we are, accepting that God is always with us, always providing for us, always ready to help us---is something we abandon, something we let go of, something we reject.
When we forget that all we have is from God, when we try to finagle a way to horde it, sure that if we aren’t clever it will be taken from us; breaks us….we lose our way, we literally fall apart:
As The Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton  says:
The Word of God is a powerful stone, it pounds on our hearts, shatters our ego and self-serving pride; leaving us to pick up the pieces and make something altogether new…
As Jesus says in verse 44 “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces . . .”

But –and here’s the Good News— in that very brokenness is the opportunity for new life. You see, the Word of God not only breaks us, it also heals us. Once we have come face to face with the honest truth about ourselves—that we are the one’s who reject God, not the other way around—only then are we able to receive, to accept and to hold onto the good news about God and God’s undying love for us in Christ.
When we really squeeze the Word as found in scripture we discover this Gospel truth: God doesn’t reject, God doesn’t abandon, God doesn’t run away.
We do. God just waits, patiently and lovingly until we realize that the only fruit worth bearing, the only vine worth tending is the one that keeps us firmly rooted in and connected to our landowner: God.

Amen.

Joy Brightens Despair, Gratitude Defeats Resentment and Faith Elbows out Fear. 18 Sept 2011 Yr A

Jonah was a bit of a whiner, wasn’t he? He was sent to Ninevah to turn them away from their “evil” ways. Then, when the people do change their tune, leading God to “spare” them, Jonah is furious. In our section of scripture this morning it’s difficult to fully understand just what Jonah is ticked off about, but suffice it to say that Jonah begrudges God giving God’s grace to the people, without, in Jonah’s mind, giving HIM an equal measure of that grace. He’s envious. He’s ungrateful. He’s a bit of a brat.
God responds, “well Jonah, it’s my grace to give and I choose to give it extravagantly. You can be angry about Ninevah, you can be angry about the withered bush…but neither of those things are your concern….it’s my creation, my choice.”
That’s the thing about God’s Grace. It’s given according to Divine Rationale, Divine Choice, Divine Decision. And the fact that God’s Rationale, Choice and Decision doesn’t make a lot of sense to us from our limited human perspective---is why Jesus gave us the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.
  It’s tough to be a day laborer . With no regular employment –the workers stand in the town square hoping that some landowner would hire them for the day (This still happens today with the migrant workers up in Niagara County.) Trouble is, there were more laborers than labor. So while some folks—the healthy looking and lucky-- were chosen to work all day. The unlucky or unhealthy were passed over. But in today’s Gospel, everyone’s lucky. Over the course of the day they’re all hired, some for a 12 hour shift, some for just an hour---yet EVERYONE is promised and receives a fair wage -- nothing more, nothing less -- just as they were promised. Those who worked more hours than the others were angry. It just doesn't seem fair. But as the landowner reminds them it is fair – they’re being paid just what was promised... It’s not their concern –It’s his choice to pay the later workers a full day’s wage, after all it’s his money, it’s his treasure. The landowner’s generosity isn’t based on time worked. His generosity is based on his abundance and his willingness to give extravagantly out of that abundance----sound familiar? But, still, even though it’s the Landowner’s prerogative, just like it’s God’s, the laborers who worked the longest—get cranky. It isn’t fair!!!! Perhaps the laborers have been talking with Jonah!
So why all the crankiness at the generosity of the landowner, the generosity of God? At the good fortune of others? Because deep within in our human nature lies a fear of scarcity---a fear that there won’t be enough. That if our neighbor has more, then we’re destined to have less… there isn’t enough for everyone. When we lack trust in God, when we fail to believe what Jesus has told us—time and time again!—we become insecure, a little whiny and definitely cranky-- assessing our lives not through the abundance we’ve been given by God but instead by what we feel we still lack. Cain and Abel, the freed yet still sojourning Israelites, the disciples arguing over who is the greatest--- we tend to look at life from a sense of what we could have, should have and don’t have instead of what we do have, through the grace of God. It’s joy vs. despair, faith vs. fear. Gratitude vs. resentment.
The gloom of despair overshadows the brightness of joy. Gratitude cannot co-exist with resentment. Faith has a difficult time elbowing out fear.
Gratitude begets joy and abundance, while fear begets resentment and scarcity.
Soon we’ll begin our Stewardship campaign—a time when we ask for all of us to consider what this parish means to us and how much we’re willing to give to keep our mission going.
Is our economy in tough shape? You bet. Is it easy, is it fair to ask people to increase their pledge during these tough times? Well, if we ask from a stance of fear, probably not. But, if we ask, if we answer from a stance of gratitude--when we answer out of our joy, and our faith then it is Absolutely fair. For what is fair is realizing that all that we have, no matter how sparse it may seem in comparison to others, is God’s bounty, graciously and abundantly GIVEN to us out of our Creator’s love for us. Our job, both as the people doing the asking and as the people doing the responding, is to focus on the gratitude of what is, not on the despair of what has been, what might be or what could be.
Last week the Bishop preached about new life emerging from the dust of death.  About joy coming out of sorrow, about the abundance of hope promised by God through the gift which is Jesus of Nazareth. He mentioned that the imagery of Psalm 30 was a great comfort to him during those dark days post 9/11. When I reflected on the psalm I realized how much it speaks to me when I consider the choices presented during a stewardship drive—I wonder if it spoke to Jonah as he considered the events in Ninevah or to the laborers w hen they considered the landowner’s generosity in the vineyard:
“O Lord be my helper, turn my wailing into dancing….my heart sings to you without ceasing, O Lord My God I will give you thanks forever.”

We can wail or we can dance. We can be miserable or we can be joyful.  Our choice is whether we want to fan the flames of hope or douse that fire of hope with fear. As Bishop Bill said, we can look down into the pit of despair or up into the heavens with praise.***yesterday I walked in the Bosom Buddies Fundraising Walk for Roswell Park’s Breast Cancer Resource Center. As I was given my Pink Survivor’s T-Shirt, I burst into tears: tears of gratitude, tears of faith, tears of joy. For I know that my choice, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer was to wail or to dance. Because of my faith community, because of our faith community, I was able to dance. Because of the love and support I received from the parishioners at Good Shepherd and the trust I have placed in God [I hardly ever, snatch it back. ;-)] my gaze is turned toward the heavens, shouting praise….***
Our stewardship campaigns at both Good Shepherd and Ascension will be about the hope that rises out of the dust, the faith which defeats fear and the gratitude that beats back resentment.
Our hearts can sing to God without ceasing, I think they should sing to God without ceasing, I think they will sing to God without ceasing, because God’s love showers us without ceasing.
Joy, faith and gratitude will beget more joy, more faith and more gratitude. We have made a huge leap of faith and it is paying off…our attendance is higher than it’s been in a long time, there’s a spirit of togetherness and love which is palpable to all those around us. Our Bishop has challenged us to live out our faith in new and bold ways, trusting us to joyously journey into this new covenant--  singing our hearts out and stepping ahead in faith,  trusting that God’s unequaled and divinely fair abundance leads the way. So let the journey continue- my heart is singing, my faith is dancing and my joy knows no bounds.
 Amen.

Sermon from 9.11.2011

Our lectionary, the readings assigned for each Sunday are on a three year cycle. What this means is that there’s no way the Lectionary designers chose today’s readings specifically for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. However, they are perfect for today, instructing us in the ways of tolerance, forgiveness, compassion and mercy---attributes which were and are easily lost when struck to the core as we were on Sept 11, 2001. So, instead of a sermon this morning, I give you those words from  Scripture and the words of San Diego psychotherapist A. B. Curtiss, who’s poem The Little Chapel That Stood pays homage to the Episcopal Chapel of St. Paul’s which stood in the shadow of the Twin Towers, and unscathed thanks to the towering branches of a Sycamore Tree, offered the rescue workers solace and hope during those heartbreaking days. And, hope is just what faith—be it Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu etc. promises. Thanks be to God.

The Little Chapel that Stood, by A. B. Curtiss
Around the Chapel of Old St. Paul
Blow the dancing leaves of the coming Fall.
In the morning breeze they leap and fly
Beneath the towers that scrape the sky.
George Washington’s family worshiped here;
Alexander Hamilton’s grave lies near.
Since Seventeen Hundred and Sixty Six
Has stood this house of God and bricks.
Solid and steadfast as time whirled around it,
Unchanged since horse and carriage found it.
A solace to presidents help to the poor. No one was ever turned from its door.
An immigrant’s refuge, a sojourner’s peace
Where hope is born and sorrows cease.
As the centuries passed, and the city grew dense, Its buildings grew higher and wider, immense.
And tallest and grandest, the city’s great pride. The New York Twin Towers rose up by its side.
The stress of power, the rush of people
Found comfort and rest beneath its steeple.
But doom, doom was coming all the time;
Doom, doom to a city fair and fine;
Doom doom was in the planes that climbed;
Doom doom, and then the sirens whined.
Two planes hi-jacked by a terrorist crew
Struck the twin towers: no warning no clue!
Who thought it could happen, or knew what to do?
Firemen came and New York’s Men in Blue.
Through the flying glass and smoke and din,
Thousands rushed out, as these brave men rushed in!
On the stairwell to safety there was no stranger. Each helped the other flee from the danger.
And some who climbed down remember, clear-cut, the faces of firemen climbing up!
And then, oh unthinkable thought!
They fell.
One tower, the other, they fell, fell, fell.
They fell with a rush and they fell with a roar.
The sky was blank where they’d been before.
And more was lost than who can say;
It was our hearts came down that day.
Through the clouds of black no one could see
How far [had] spread this calamity? The giants around it had come to a fall, but not the Chapel of Old St. Paul.
It was something of wonder, a symbol of grace, the steeple still there, not a brick out of place.
Some say [that] giant sycamore tree[’s] wood had saved the Little Chapel that Stood.
The old chandeliers that they’d packed away, through two world wars, they did not sway.
Then the crystals reflected a busy scene when the doors opened up to the [rescuing teams]
There were firemen’s shoes on the old iron fence, where they’d earlier hung them in haste, quick and tense
As they pulled on their boots and raced to the Towers,
Climbing melting steel [in]to flaming showers.
Oh what gallant men did we lose
Who never came back to get their shoes.
Ground Zero smoldered, dark and grim. Our hearts stood still, then we pitched in.
Helpers brought shovels, and pails and pans.
If they had nothing else they dug with their hands
To clear the mountain of crumpled steel
From a nightmare that was all too real…
Rescuers worked through the night and the day.
In the chapel they’d pause, then go on their way.
A hot cup of coffee, something to eat
Here the firemen, welders, policemen would meet.
All would come to rest from their labor
Volunteer, doctor, brother, neighbor.
We raised up the flag from the dust and the pain.
Freedom that’s lost must be won once again.
Each one of us is a link in that chain, to do something grand, or do something plain.
First we take heart, then we take aim, our littlest good deed is never in vain.
Working together is how we got through it.
Little by little we learned how to do it.
It’s nice to be big and its nice to be tall.
But sometimes being little doesn’t mean being small.
Just like the Chapel of Old St. Paul.
Hear the bells of freedom and what they say. Terror may come but it will not stay.
It will shake our world but we will not sway.
It will block the path but we’ll find our way…


Amen.

 The Little Chapel That Stood, A.B. Curtiss, Old Castle Publishing, Escondido, CA, 2003.

The Rockiness of our Faith doesn't Phase God

+The Rev’d Dr. Delmer Chilton, a Lutheran pastor and author refers to the Peter of today’s Gospel as Rocky, stating:

Why [did] Jesus decide to give Simon-Bar-Jona the nickname Rocky... that’s what the name Peter means…. It comes from “petra” Latin for rock or stone…Most of the time people who are nicknamed Rocky are stalwart, unmovable, straight-ahead, no-nonsense kind of guys, like Rocky Balboa. Somehow the name Rocky doesn’t seem to fit Simon son of Jona. For this Rocky, this Peter, was, to [be blunt], not very dependable… hot one minute, cold the next:

I’ll walk on water, Lord. Then Oops, help, I’m drowning!

I’ll never let them take you Lord, give me that Sword. Then Jesus? Never heard of him.

Lord, I’ll stand by you forever. Then Well, Jesus is dead, I’m going fishing.

Was Jesus making fun of Simon by calling him Peter?

Was Jesus joking when he said that on this rock of questioning, unstable, doubting and undependable faith I will build my church?

Why would Jesus choose someone so flawed, someone so irritable, undependable, doubting, questioning, fearful and full of angst as Simon Peter? Someone so……….

Like us? Shouldn’t the foundation of the church, the foundation of God’s reign in this world be entrusted to someone more deserving, more capable, more reliable?

Apparently not.

You see, God rarely chooses the all put together and the likely. Consider Abraham and Sarah, the parents of our faith—an aged, childless pair who doubted, scoffed and laughed at God.

Then there’s Moses….an abandoned Levite child raised in Pharaoh’s household, chosen to lead his enslaved kindred out of slavery, into a land of milk and honey. But nothing went smoothly for Moses as , over the next forty years, he stumbled and stammered his way in and out of favor with the Israelites and God.

But God hung in there and Moses is held in high esteem by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Abraham, Sarah, Moses, along with countless other flawed and very human humans were all prophets. Apparently, in God’s eyes, one needn’t be perfect, one needn’t even be particularly capable, to be chose. God plucks prophets, redeemers and saints --even a messiah---out of the unlikely of places, unusual of circumstances. Who can forget the details of Jesus’ birth--a peasant girl and her stalwart partner Joseph struggling to find any place to lay their heads—ending up in a barn alongside donkeys, cows, sheep, hay and that crazy star.

So why not Simon Peter, a Galilean fisherman full of bravado and self-assurance one moment, cowering behind pillars of doubt, fear and denial the next?

Just like us.

Peter wasn’t Jesus’ favorite, or even the most devoted apostle. But Peter’s the one. Obviously Jesus saw something in Peter that he thought was perfect for the establishment of the community of the faithful-- the church. And although I don’t know that Jesus envisioned denominations, dioceses, parishes ,Church conventions, reformations and schisms (well he probably figured there’d be fights) when he mentioned “Church,” I do think the choice of Peter sheds light on the Church as an institution, it’s past, it’s present and it’s future.

You see, Peter was flawed; Jesus knew that, God knew that, we know it. But God was willing to let Peter make his mistakes and Jesus was willing to let Peter grow into his role, because they knew that a big part of learning, of growing, is making mistakes. We don’t learn without making mistakes. Mistakes are instructive and useful, as long as we review it, take corrective action and try again. Going through this process teaches us---as individuals and as communities of faith.

Admitting our mistakes and then trying again. That’s what living a faithful life is all about folks. Most Sundays we have corporate confession and absolution. We confess our sins and we are absolved, forgiven. All of us.

How can God forgive what I’ve done, you may ask. Or, how can my forgiveness be wrapped up in the forgiveness of that scoundrel a few rows over?

But, you see, forgiveness, God’s forgiveness of us is abundant, constant and without caveat. Our forgiveness by God is assured as long as we admit, that we’ve made a mistake and strive, with all our might, to learn from it. That’s reconciliation and repentance: an amendment of life. We don’t promise to never make another mistake, we simply promise to learn from those we do make and when we mess up, admit it, make it as right as we can and move on. It’s what we tell our children all the time. Admit your error, fix it and try to do better next time.

This is what the church as an institution: parish, diocese, national church, the Church universal---needs to do: reconciliation, repentance, amendment of life. The Church and churches make mistakes: some small, resulting in hurt feelings, others large, resulting in atrocities, but regardless of the magnitude, the church MUST admit its, our, mistakes. And then do better. So often the Church has not done this. We preach a God whose love knows no bounds, whose care for us is never compromised, yet we hide our mistakes, too proud or too ashamed to admit the error of our ways. When we, as a church, do this, we’re insulting God, we’re denying the lessons we’ve learned from all who’ve come before us.

Why was Peter chosen to be the cornerstone of our faith, the gatekeeper of salvation and the symbol of the Church as Institution? Because. ….

While Peter said:

I’ll walk on water, Lord.

Oops, help, I’m drowning!

We’ve said (and say)

We’ll serve the poor, just after we skim some off the top

And while Peter exclaimed:

I’ll never let them take you Lord, give me that Sword.

Jesus? Never heard of him.

We’ve proclaimed:

We’ll love everyone, no exceptions. Well, except for the Jews. And the Muslims.

And the women. And the Gays and the Lesbians, and the people with disabilities……

And when Peter exhorted:

Lord, I’ll stand by you forever.

Well, Jesus is dead, I’m going fishing.

We’ve said:

Yes, the church is greater than the sum of its parts but if you make that decision, I’m leaving.

God, chose Peter in spite of, maybe even because of , his flaws. God knew who Peter was, God knows who we are. But God also knows who we, through the help of the Holy Spirit, can be. Rocks and all.+

The Crumbs of Grace Feed this Fierce Mother 8.14.2011

+When I served at the Cathedral, everyone called me Mother Cathy. This freaks some folks out, reminding them of scary Mother Superiors from old movies. For others it feels artificial and forced. At first I couldn’t stand it, preferring to just be called Cathy. But I must admit, since leaving the Cathedral and moving to Good Shepherd and now Ascension, I kind of miss it. Never having been a Mother in the usual sense (unless you count my dogs) the respect and affection attached to the title Mother was something I, deep down, longed for and came to enjoy. It’s not the formality of the title I learned to love, it was that respect and affection. Of course, not all the images conjured by the term “mother” are pleasant.

For those who didn’t enjoy the love of a mother in the traditional sense, the term can bring painful memories. For those who have recently lost their mother, it can pierce the heart. “Mother” is a powerful image. An icon of sorts.

When we are blessed to have an attentive, healthy, aware mother, we are supported through, defended by, and cared for by a force stronger than anything else in nature. To paraphrase the famous saying , “Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.” I wish that type of mother, or mother figure in all our lives. The Canaanite Woman in today’s Gospel was such a mother. She would not be denied or pushed aside, regardless of the consequences.

Remember, she’s not a Jew—but a Gentile who approaches Jesus and his followers with determination, pride and a love beyond all measure. Her story is remarkable on a number of levels, not the least of which is the fact that she out-wits Jesus and gets him to admit he is wrong. At this stage of Jesus’ life (in Matthew’s Gospel) Jesus is still coming to grips with who he is and what his mission is to be. Jesus, and in turn his disciples, consider his mission, his ministry, to be for the Jews…and only for them… the fulfillment of the covenant established by God through Moses. He’s traveled to Syro-Phonecian territory, a predominantly non-Jewish region, to get some rest and relaxation…assuming that no one would pay him any attention, since he wasn’t “their messiah.” Suddenly, out of nowhere, comes this woman screaming for Jesus to heal her daughter. She has trouble written all over her---there’s no man: no husband, no father, no brother…an unaccompanied woman approaching a group of men is bizarre and completely inappropriate for that culture. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, not only is she a Gentile---she’s a Canaanite--her ancestors came from the land of Canaan---the residents of the land promised to Moses, the destination for the Exodus people. A land the Jews forcibly wrestled from the Canaanites.

Her ethnicity is dripping with symbolism, a symbolism further underscored by Jesus’ response when the disciples ask him to get rid of her: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But Jesus is wrong. He’s been sent to the lost sheep of the world---he’s to heal all the broken, to lift up all the down-trodden, to heal all the sick…but he doesn’t get it. The Canaanite woman—the unaccompanied, unclean woman who should, on all accounts, despise the Jews, does get it.

This woman—a desperate and determined mother--helps Jesus see the full scope of his mission, she teaches the Teacher.

Jesus learns.

Mothers have a way of doing things like this---of knowing more than they should, of acting braver than they think they are, of enduring whatever it takes to get their children what they need.

This Canaanite mother was no different. She was a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, most people cringe when they hear Jesus’ response to her “Lord, help me” plea.

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

What???? Has Jesus lost his mind? Can this possibly be the same Jesus who teaches that we must love everyone, no exceptions? Yes, it can be. Yes it is.

Jesus is simply saying, in language not unusual for his culture, that he was the messiah for the Jews and that his work was for them—the lost sheep—not for anyone else.

But, not to be denied, the woman says,

“yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She hasn’t taken offense, she isn’t going to make a scene. But she also isn’t going away. She accepts where Jesus is at—that he has come for the Jewish people and no one else—and challenges him with the very fact that dogs will eat the crumbs which fall from their master’s table and that all she wants—this unclean, unaccompanied, socially unacceptable person—are the crumbs of his grace. She has such faith in who Jesus is, and such desperation to help her child, that she is willing to accept the left-overs, the trash, if it will save her daughter. Hell hath no fury and Hell hath no smarts, like that of a desperate mother!

Thank God the woman responded as she did. For if she hadn’t, her daughter would not have been healed, and Jesus wouldn’t have been taught.

Mothers, and mother figures across the ages, have tempered their fury, have bridled their rage,and at times have swallowed their pride….not because they felt unworthy, not because they felt unclean, not because they felt uneducated…but because they have put their own needs aside in order to provide for their children. For mothers---those who have earned that moniker in their life---set aside their own desires, their own pride, their own needs in order to provide for those whom they love without reason, those whom they love beyond all measure, those for whom they will lay down their very life…not because they’re super-human, not because they’re heroes, but because they are, plain and simple: mothers. Sound familiar?

Jesus came to teach us that God loves us beyond all reason, beyond all measure and without any limit. We worship the One who laid down his life for us. Not because we deserve it, not because we earned it, but because God, our eternal parent has a love for us which is fierce. Just like a mother.+

Aug 7 : It's like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree

+It’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.

Quite an image isn’t it?

But the statement is a fitting saying for so many of our efforts. For me, trying to understand assembly diagrams is a lot like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. I maneuver the paper this way and that, I think I just about have it…. and then the whole sticky mess ends up on the ground—leaving the product unassembled and me, frustrated.

Our readings today describe various efforts to identify, describe, [name] and prove God.

But our efforts to name God, our efforts to prove God’s existence, our efforts to conjure up a fitting image for God is a lot like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. Just when we think we’ve got it, we end up with an unassembled sticky mess.

Of course, that doesn’t stop us from trying. In the First Book of Kings, Ezekiel tries to see God, to touch God, to know who God is. Ezekiel searches wind, earthquakes and fire trying to find a fitting image for God.

In Exodus, Moses tries to name God…he implores God---whom should I say you are? And God answers, simply, “I am.” God is. Period. Trying to explain it more than that usually leads us into a sticky mess. But just like Jell-O and that tree, we try. Some of us find God in an image of an old white grandpa- like figure sitting in a throne, overlooking creation. Others of us find God in nature, in a beautiful sunset or in the roar of waves crashing on the shore. Others think God is light. The images of God are as varied as the type of people in our world…people will always be searching for God, trying to find the one definitive image. But just as quickly as one person finds what they consider the image, another person comes along to dispute it.

The fact is, God has many different names, God has many different faces. God is found in all sorts of places and in all sorts of conditions. It really depends on your perspective. But, as Ezekiel discovered in the Book of Kings, he only finds God, once he and everything around him, quiets down. Only then does he discover where God always is, and always will be--right there, in the silence of the world, in the shear and utter silence of our souls.

The thing is trying to name God, as Moses did or try to image God, like Ezekiel did or to try and prove God in Jesus, as Peter did, isn’t the point. Faith is.

While God- and the faith we have in God, through Jesus Christ-may, at times, seem fleeting, evasive, hard to describe and difficult to see; God, the divinity of God’s Son, Jesus, and the faith in this which we proclaim, is never absent.

Only our ability to notice it is.

Only our ability to trust in it is.

Only our ability to accept it is.

Such was the case with Peter.

Jesus liked metaphors. Peter liked proof. Jesus used his faith in his mission to fuel his work. Peter questioned this faith and seemed always to challenge (or deny) the mission.

Peter, in his zeal to KNOW THE TRUTH, TO PROVE THE TRUTH, TO LIVE THE TRUTH, didn’t just try and nail Jell-O to a tree, he tried to jackhammer it:

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and began walking on the water…but when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, began to sink and cried out to Jesus, “Save me.”

Peter, who initially called out to Jesus in bravado and determination, ends up crying out to him in fear and trembling. What happened? What changed? Well, the sinking, of course…but what caused the sinking? Was it physics? Perhaps. But maybe, just maybe it was something else. Because, to me, the most important words in that whole section of scripture is “when he noticed.”

Peter was doing fine until he noticed what was happening. Once he noticed that he was walking on water, once he noticed the strong headwind, once he noticed that there was no safety rope, no life preserver; once he noticed that his walking on water was a sheer act of faith…. he began to sink.

Not because there was no life preserver, not because walking on water is physically impossible. No, he began to sink as soon as doubt took hold.

He sank because he stopped living his faith and started noticing his doubt.

He began to sink not because he lacked faith, but because he doubted he had enough. He began to sink because instead of going with it, going forward in faith, wherever it took him, he looked down, looked around and became afraid and full of doubt.

Doubt drags us down. Doubt sinks us, doubt is what defeats us.

Peter loved Jesus, but he didn’t want to walk on the water because of that love; he wanted to walk on the water to make Jesus prove himself. That’s not faith, that’s doubt.

Jesus knew that Peter doubted , that he questioned. He knows we doubt, he knows we question. But Jesus, just like with Peter, is always with us, ready to reach out an arm to save us from sinking into the despair of doubt. All we need to do is cry out, reach out and hold on. Trying to live our lives on our own, without asking for help, with out reaching out and holding on will leave us a sticky unassembled mess on the ground just like that jell-o and the tree.

Faith, isn’t something to be proven, it’s something to be witnessed.

And to be witnessed, our faith must be lived.

Living it means, walking on the water in spite of the wind. Living it means loving, forgiving and, most of all, believing. Believing in God means trusting that God is always here. Living our faith means knowing that, after all the noise of the world-- the screeching winds, the rumbling earthquakes, the rushing floodwaters and the blasts of battle stop, if we listen very carefully, if we look very closely, if we feel very honestly, we will discover that our Creator God, the God who loves and lives in, around and through us, is still here, deep within, where our souls rest in utter silence.

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