Lamenting is Good News 10.3.10

Today’s readings from Lamentations are Good News. Really.

You may ask: Where’s the good news in laments such as: How lonely sits the city that once was full of people? Or the thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall?

You see, the Good News of our faith isn’t always bright and cheery. A whole lot of scripture involves mourning, lamenting and grief.

And that’s ok, because Holy Scripture provides a road map back in time, showing us that the human condition has been the same for generations. Human beings, whether in exile after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, which is the setting for the Book of Lamentations, or whether a 21^st century people in a rust belt city trying to maneuver their way through this modern world; worry bemoan grieve and cry.

We, because of our hard-wired need for companionship, for community, because of our ability to love, experience loss. Relationships end, people leave us---they die, they divorce they move out they move on. We lose things too---jobs, homes, security, hopes and dreams. And when we lose these people and these things, we often become sad. Or mad. Or both. And when mad, when sad, we complain, we yell, we cry, we lament.

So, where’s the Good News in that?

The Good News is that God loves us in all sorts and conditions---God wants to be with us in all the things, at all times. Even the times when we are really really ticked off at God. Even when the pain we feel seems so unbearable we can’t stand it.

As you know, last weekend we hosted a group of jr high students from across the diocese. We got into a discussion of how they explain their faith to their friends.

One young woman, I’ll call her Emma, mentioned that you can’t really explain God, that you must experience God.

When Emma was 8 years old, her mother died of cancer. It was a quick death—some 8 weeks between diagnosis and death. Emma said, that when people would try and comfort her by saying, “now dear don’t cry, your mom is with God now,” she would feel worse. How dare God taker her mommy from her!

Finally a wise adult urged Emma to express how mad she was at God.

By having these self -described temper tantrums at God, Emma began to experience God, she got to know God.

By experiencing God, instead of trying to understand God, Emma came to a place in her grief which, although still incredibly painful and sad, became bearable. Manageable. God bless the adult who sat down with Emma and let her lament, let her rail against God and let her express her pain. For in doing that Emma showed an incredible faith. She let God have it without fear that God would abandon her. By letting God have it, Emma was able to welcome God back into her life. Because she was honest, because she showed God exactly who she was, she became more sure in her faith. At 8 years of age.

When my father died, my nephew John was not quite 14. Now many of you met John when he visited for my installation. Now 31 years old, John has severe cerebral palsy and as a result, cannot speak. In the middle of the memorial Eucharist for my father, John began to cry…not just the quite flow of tears so many of us were crying that day, but he let out a wail which ripped my heart out. It was an honest and real lament of a young boy who had lost his grandpa, his father figure, his confidante and his pal. To this day people remember John’s wail as emblematic of the pain we all felt. On that day, John let God and everyone else within earshot, know of his sorrow.

Lamenting is good for us. By expressing our sorrow, our worries, our anger, our grief and our sadness. By letting God have it, as it were, we’re doing exactly what Christ has asked us to do…. we’re giving ourselves---all of who we are---to God.

And that’s what God wants. God wants us just as we are, even if just as we are in any moment in time is angry, hopeless and despairing. That’s having faith. Faith that God accepts us in all the varied conditions we find ourselves in.

Suffering is a huge, unavoidable element in the human condition. To be human is to, at one time or another, suffer. No one gets an exemption from this suffering. the Book of Lamentations gives dignity to this suffering by insisting that God enters our suffering and is our companion in it.[1]

God is a companion in our suffering, God is a partner in our lament---now that’s good news.

Faith isn’t just what we have when things are going well. Faith isn’t just what we have when things are not going well and we reach out to God in calm and measured tones. Faith is also what we show when we love God enough—and trust God enough—to moan, bewail, cry and lament at God.

Faith is how we tap into the immense power of God in our lives. Faith is the invitation we give God, at any particular moment in time, to lead us. Faith is when we stop trying to be in charge and let God be in charge.

Lamenting is an act of faith---by railing at God, by screaming out to God, by quietly weeping in a sorrow so intense and so deep we cannot see anything else around us, we are laying ourselves bare before God.

And that’s just what God wants us to do.

For when we allow ourselves to be completely honest---and a lament is nothing if not honest----we’ve opened our hearts and our minds and our souls to God.

So don’t worry if your faith some days is the size of a mustard seed, don’t worry if some days you have only sadness and anger to give to God. For in sadness and anger, in loss and despair, in lamentations and exhortations we are presenting ourselves to God just as we are, just as God created us to be.

And that is, indeed, Good News.

Amen.

---

[1] Eugene Peterson, Introduction to Lamentations, The Message).

18 Pentecost, September 26, 2010

+From Wednesday’s Buffalo News: A lawyer who admitted Tuesday to stealing 2.7 million dollars from his clients in a complicated web of schemes, pleaded guilty to 33 felony counts as he admitted to fleecing 23 clients and loan agencies.

The reason? To finance an opulent mansion he was building in Orchard Park.

What would cause someone to commit such fraud? Well, perhaps DA Frank Sedita summed it up best when he said the lawyer’s motive was, “good old fashioned greed.”

Greed: an excessive desire for more.

This man’s greed caused him to a) break the law; b) take advantage of clients who, according to court records, “struggled financially as they waited for verdicts or settlements in their cases.”

Even though already wealthy, this man’s excessive desire for more caused him to lose sight of right and wrong, to disrespect his clients and to violate the trust they placed in him.

His being wealthy wasn’t what caused his problems, it was his crazy desire for more which became the problem. Because, that desire, when left unchecked, can become an obsession and obsessions distract and derail us. The distraction away from the good is what tripped him up.

And it’s this—this distraction away from the good-- which really gets Jesus’ blood boiling.

Jesus doesn’t care if we’re rich or poor, God isn’t interested in our debt to income ratio. God wants us—Jesus tells us---to take care of one another—to respect one another.

The Rich man, as we heard in Luke this morning didn’t do this. He didn’t treat Lazarus with love. He didn’t treat Lazarus with respect. I’m not even sure, in life, if the rich man ever even noticed Lazarus.

But after death? Well then the rich man noticed Lazarus—noticed him in paradise while the rich man? The rich man sat in exile, in torment, far from paradise.

Seems pretty cut and dry doesn’t it…..suffer in this life , get rewarded in the afterlife. Be rewarded in this life, suffer in the afterlife.

Seems like the rich are doomed and the poor will be exalted. But to think that is to only consider this story at face value, to assume that the primary issue is wealth, that somehow God doesn’t want us to be wealthy.

But wealth isn’t what this parable is about. This parable is about worth and how, when we find worth in things and in stuff, in power and prestige instead of finding worth and dignity in all whom we encounter-we lose our way.

The lawyer I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon appears to have lost his way. So did the rich man.

You see, somehow, when we get distracted by money, we get lost, and before we know it, we’ve cut ourselves off from God, stuck on the wrong side of the chasm, the wrong side of the divide.

How do we get so lost? Most of us here today don’t have to worry about being distracted by riches, but we have plenty of things to distract us---wanting what we want and wanting it now. Worrying about what we don’t have. We get lost when those things—the worries and the wants-- take priority in our lives.

So I don’t think this Gospel is about wealth at all. I think it’s about being aware. About seeing what’s going on around us and responding to it. When Jesus is railing against wealth he isn’t saying, being rich is bad. He’s saying, being blind to need is bad. Being deaf to need is bad.

Being unaware is what’s bad.

The Rich Man didn’t notice Lazarus until he needed something. Lazarus wasn’t another human being to the Rich Man, he was a means to an end. He was a servant. He was a slave. The Rich Man, if he ever looked at Lazarus at all, certainly didn’t see Christ in him. The Rich Man respected a lot of things—money, power and prestige but he forgot to respect the one thing we are commanded to respect: each other.

The Rich Man couldn’t , for all his riches, see what was right under his nose.

And there’s the problem.

If we don’t see what’s around us, then how will we ever find our way to God? If we’re so caught up in worries about money—---too much, not enough, whatever--if we let our concern about money or power or prestige take our focus away from seeking God in all we do, then we’re on the Rich Man side of the chasm, aren’t we? If we stay focused on the stuff of this world then we remain on the other side of the great divide, far apart, making it seem as if God is unreachable.

But God is never unreachable. God doesn’t hide from us, we hide from God. When we fail to see Christ in those around us, when we fail to offer assistance, regardless of how meager it may seem to us, we hide from God.

Now, this may not sound like a stewardship sermon, but it is. Because when we really notice one another, when we see Christ in all whom we encounter, when we, out of the love we garner from this community become strong enough to respect the dignity of every human being, no matter how challenging that may seem, we’ve hit the jackpot. Then we’re rich. And our job, once we receive such riches, is to give back.

Not because we have to, but because we want to.

So, listen carefully to our stewardship speakers, reflect on what this place has meant to you and then help us to continue this work, help us to be who you want us to be. Offer as much of yourself as you can. For in giving---of time, talent and treasure-- we bridge the gap between us and God. We bridge all divides.

In giving we arrive in the land God promised, a land flowing with hope and promise, a land where love of God and love of neighbor are embraced and lived. +

Pentecost 17, Proper 20 Yr C

+At the end of the announcements each week I say an offertory sentence, words taken directly from scripture to ready us for making and receiving offerings at the altar. We bring forward the collection plates, the bread and the wine and then we receive the gift of grace through the body and blood of Christ at the altar. I usually say “Walk in Love as Christ Loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” There are several others, including: “If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, then come offer your gift.”

The point of this sentence is that if we’re holding a grudge, if we have unfinished business, if we haven’t forgiven a misunderstanding, a debt, or a disagreement, then we aren’t ready to make an offering to God or to receive the abundant grace of God offered to us through the Eucharist.

God wants us free and clear when we come to this altar. That’s why we do a confession of sin just before we come with the gifts. It prepares us, it wipes the slate clean---it frees us.

Today’s Gospel-- the Parable of the Dishonest Manager-- is a story about the forgiving of debts. Not just monetary debts, but all debts---all the scores we keep—who has slighted whom, who owes whom an apology…we have a laundry list of things done to us, and things we’ve done to others ---which must be cleared from our hearts and souls before we can fully receive God’s love as offered to us through the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Today’s parable has a lot of conniving, debting and dishonesty in it. And it’s easy to get lost, trying to figure out who’s the villain, and who’s the hero.

To review-- there is an absentee landlord, landowner who has a resident manager to handle the day to day affairs of his business---which includes taking advantage of the farm workers---paying them an unlivable wage, charging them huge rents and then gouging them at the company owned store….

….In summary: the landowner was cheating the peasants, the manager was cheating the landowner and the peasants by taking a little off the top for himself. When the manager is caught by the landowner the manager turns to the peasants and by cheating the landowner even more, makes the peasants happy. There’s a lot of cheating and conniving going on here.

Luke wraps up this parable talking about faithfulness, dishonest wealth and true riches.

So, once again, it sounds like Jesus is condemning wealth.

But to just assume that and move on is to miss what Luke has been saying to us all summer----that all the riches of this world will never ever take the place of the riches God bestows upon us….for the grace of God is what makes all things possible –even our wealth. And to be able to fully receive God into our hearts we must be free of resentment, free of regret, free of burden.

For Luke, forgiveness is the name of the game. Luke tells us again and again that God is always ready to forgive. Abundantly, extravagantly outlandishly. That God, regardless of what we’ve done, is completely willing---anxious, actually---to forgive us.

Now, as we heard last week, while forgiveness is always available we must ask for it, we must long for it, we must seek it…forgiveness is not some free giveaway, it’s an abundant gift given to those who are ready to receive it, who have repented, have amended their lives and want to be washed in the forgiveness of God to start their life anew. A process we go through, week in and week out as we come to this altar to be forgiven, healed, renewed…fed in the glory of God, nourished to go out and do the work we have been given to do.

But, and here is where this week’s parable becomes clearer, forgiveness is not just something we receive …it’s also something we give….Jesus makes it very very clear in the Lord’s Prayer---forgive us our trespasses, our sins, our debts as we forgive those who have trespassed—sinned—debted against us.

Jesus is telling us, with this convoluted story of landowners managers and peasants, that we must forgive others—their mistakes, their faults, their debts---in order to be forgiven ourselves.

Our forgiveness of others is to have the same character as God’s forgiveness of us---as God’s love for us: it is to be abundant, extravagant and outlandish. It must be overflowing, it must be constant. With this parable we are told that we must forgive… that only in forgiving others can we truly accept the forgiveness God has for us. The forgiveness of God is so intense, so absolute, that we have to make room for it.

To do that, we must empty ourselves---of our resentments, our anger, our bitterness, our disdain and our petty scorekeeping. We are to-- simply and completely--- forgive people. Everyone. Not just those who have, in our eyes, earned it…..but everyone.

None of us can earn forgiveness, we can only desire it…and we only desire it, we only want it, when we realize, when we admit that we’ve made a mistake.

The manager had no right to forgive half the debts of those debtors.

But neither did the landowner have the right to pay those debtors an unlivable wage.

There is no villain in this story and there’s no hero …and that’s the point.

In this parable, everyone was making mistakes….everyone needed forgiveness….

Just like real life. We all make mistakes, we all need forgiveness.

Jesus is saying, don’t wait for someone to ask for forgiveness, just grant it…For it isn’t our job to keep score, it isn’t our job to decide who gets forgiven what when and how, Our job is to free ourselves enough to receive the fullness of God’s love.

By granting forgiveness, we lighten our own load of bitterness and resentment, we free up space deep within us, space which will be filled at the altar as we present ourselves, forgiven, healed and ready to be fed by the grace and truth of God, who forgives all our debts.

Always.

+

Sept. 12, 2010

How would you feel if, because of the actions of a few, you, because you identify yourself as a Christian, were discriminated against, hated reviled and wished harm?

It would feel lousy, right?

Perhaps you would say, “hey don’t blame me for the actions of a few crazy radicals. I am a ‘real Christian’ and I follow the teachings of Jesus to the best of my ability. I believe that God is Love and that we are called to love our neighbor, regardless of who they are or what they do.”

If there is one thing the actions of Terry Jones-- that pastor in Gainesville Florida who was spearheading the Int’l Burn the Qu’ran Day—did, was offer a tangible reminder of how the millions of peace loving, devout and honorable Muslims must feel in this day and age of misunderstanding the Islamic faith. It served as a reminder of how the actions of a very few can skew the perception of a great many. You and I are no more hate-filled Qu’ran burners, than the Muslims who worship at the mosque on Amherst Street are terrorists who wish us dead.

Fear is powerful. Fear can paralyze. Fear can antagonize. Fear can intimidate, fear can incite. Fear is a complex human trait…causing both flight---getting ourselves out of harm’s way---and fight---causing us to dive right in, fighting our way free of fear, free of danger.

Think about September 11, 2001. As terror took hold in NYC, Washington DC and that field in western PA did you react in measured tones, realizing that whoever was behind the attacks needed our prayers and forgiveness?

Probably not.

Because when we are terrified, when something happens which puts everything we believe, everything we trust in, everything we hope for in peril, we lose our measured selves, we lose perspective. We quickly lose our bearings, our way and can react in a manner we would never expect….we can become reactionary and intolerant.

Hate is kept alive when we let fear rule us instead of faith. Hate is kept alive when we claim that if we don’t attack first, then we’ll be attacked. Hate is kept alive when we believe that there are unredeemable people in the world. Hate is kept alive when we think that there are sheep or coins—to use the two examples in today’s Gospel—, which aren’t worth searching for, finding and bringing into the fold.

Of course we were terrified on 9/11/2001. We should have been! That is the absolute goal of terror----to keep us so scared, so frightened, that we stay stuck in reaction, we stay mired in misperception, we stay trapped in intolerance----

But what a good portion of this nation did, what a great many of you, I’m sure, did, was stand up and shout to the world…no, we won’t be reactionary, we won’t be fear mongers, we won’t HATE. We will LOVE. We will pray. We will try very hard to love our neighbor, even the neighbor who doesn’t look and act like us. We will FORGIVE. We will believe, in our heart of hearts that the Good Shepherd searches out each of us no matter how far we have strayed, no matter how lost we have become, no matter how heinous our crimes. Because the angels in heaven rejoice each and every time the lost is found, the sinner repents and the hater becomes the lover.

Love doesn’t overtake hate through further acts of hate---like racial profiling, burning Qurans or blocking the construction of a house of worship----love overtakes hate when we repent of our own misdeeds…for in repenting for our own mistakes builds tolerance for the errors of others.

Love overtakes hate when we pray our way though our terror instead of yelling our way through it.

Love overtakes hate when we remember that everyone, no matter how lost they are, is sought after by God--even misguided Pastors in Gainesville Florida and extremists who have done us great harm. Because we are all beloved daughters and sons of God and when any one of us repents and returns to the fold, there is great rejoicing in heaven.

So, as we remember the lives lost on 9/11 and the thousands of lives lost in the ensuing conflicts, when we hear about Qu’ran burning and protests against the construction of a mosque for the faithful Muslims of lower Manhattan, when fear grips our own hearts and hate seems so much easier than love, we must open ourselves to the power of grace, a grace which is freely bestowed upon all who seek it…not because we are better than anyone else, but because we all, at one time or another, will find ourselves lost and we all--- daughters and sons of the Torah, the Bible and the Qu’ran—are worthy of being found.

Amen.

Sept. 5 2010: Labor on, For the Glory of God Pentecost 15 Yr C

+I love Labor Day weekend. Not because it’s a weekend of cookouts and relaxing. Not because it’s the last hurrah before the routine of the September through June world takes root. No I love Labor Day because we sing one of my favorite hymns: “Come Labor On,” #541 in our hymnal. I love that the words of this hymn reflect God’s sanctifying of our daily work, our labor.

Our work, what we do to earn a living, to put food on the table, occupies a huge portion of our life, yet many of us don’t connect what we do 9-5, M-F with what we do here on Sunday morning from 8 until 9 [10:30-11:30].

This hymn states that God has given us the ability and the expectation that we will work, that we will labor. This hymn tells us that there is work to do and that, when we work hard with dignity and integrity, God is pleased.

Pleased with our efforts, please with our work. All our work. Not just work we do specifically “for the church.” God sanctifies all human labor. This hymn acknowledges that work is part of the human condition and that God notices.

Of course, we all want to be acknowledged for the work we do, to be told that what we’ve labored at all day, all week, all career, is worthwhile and appreciated. But it usually isn’t God we turn toward for that praise.

You see, when we’re focused on being acknowledged by our bosses, by the folks who sign our checks, by our friends and family; we forget that the acknowledgement that really matters, the honor that really counts, is that which we get from God.

And, remembering God in all we do is the message in today’s Gospel.

When Jesus tells us to hate mother, father, sister, brother he means, don’t lose our primary focus— remember God in all we do, not just in times of trouble, not just in times of joy-- but always and everywhere.

He knows how easy it is to get caught up in the here and now, to pay attention to the loudest voices around us, the voices of judgment and expectation put forth by our co workers, our bosses, our friends and our family.

Jesus is reminding us that what we do---that everything we do—is because of and for God.

As stated in the Book of Jeremiah, God, the great potter, has molded us from non-distinct balls of clay into the wonderful vessels we are today, complete with the unique attributes which make you, you and me, me. Each of us fulfills a different purpose within creation. This brings to mind another old hymn—I Sing a Song of the Saints of God. A hymn which details how all of us are saints in the eyes of God, no matter what we do. We can be teachers or doctors, shepherds or queens, soldiers or priests, or even slain by a fierce wild beast…..but the point is we all have specific gifts bestowed upon us by our creator and our job is to go out into the world utilizing these gifts, as best we can, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in.

Every job, even the wonderful job of being your rector, of being a priest, has drudgery attached to it, There are things I need to do on a daily basis which don’t feel, at first blush, to be furthering God’s kingdom. I bet your jobs feel the same way. But, and here is the point, when we are working at our daily tasks, no matter how mundane, we are living into the life God created for us.

We are God’s creation and all we do is of God.

When we get so caught up in just “getting through the day,” when our daily tasks become a burden, when we work simply to get to the end of the day, when we forget to see God at work even in the most tedious of tasks, we are turning our back on God.

Jesus is saying, “don’t let anything stand in the way of your love of God. ….it doesn’t matter if you can’t see the glory in what you do every day. . .because God sees it, and God has sanctified it.”

The regular-ness of our daily lives, our jobs as clerks, managers, accountants, teachers, construction workers, bankers, homemakers and volunteers… is where we live out the fullness of our faith.

The regular-ness of our daily lives—our Monday through Saturday lives, is more sacred than our Sunday morning lives. For it is in our daily lives that others are able to see God’s grace –a grace we gather each week here to celebrate and honor---at work in our lives.

What we have to do, what our task is as put forth by Jesus, is to do our very best to seek and serve Christ in all people—even when our bosses, our co-workers, our classmates, all our companions along the way ----drive us nuts, make us mad, hurt our feelings and exasperate us.

That’s when we’re carrying the cross of Christ. Carrying our cross and following Jesus is not proselytizing it’s not preaching…it’s living our regular, ordinary day in and day out lives.

If we live our lives doing the best we can, seeking and serving Christ in all people---even in those people who drive us nuts---then we’re carrying the cross of Christ, we’re ---evangelizing. Because, by being who God molded us to be, we show others that God loves us all and sanctifies all that we do.

So go out from here today, resuming the routine of a September to June world, knowing that God is with you in all you do, loving you for who you are and what you do, so that no matter what heartache befalls us, no matter what frustrations we feel at home, at work or at school, we are the beloved masterpiece of our potter God, a God who formed us to be exactly who we are.

So go, Labor on. Your work is beautiful in God’s sight. +

Pentecost 12 8.15.10

+Today’s Gospel isn’t light reading is it? There’s a lot of violent and disturbing imagery in it. At this stage of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is pretty riled up—he seems fed up with his disciples, disgusted with his followers and ready to chuck it all.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus seems really human. And that, to me, is wonderful.

The fact that Jesus is God incarnate---God in the flesh---is an absolute cornerstone of our faith. We embrace Jesus the man, born of Mary AND Christ the Son of God as two sides of the same being. While this seeming contradiction----being fully human and fully divine----is fundamental to our faith… have you ever stopped to think about how it must have been for Jesus?

How did he balance being fully of God and fully of Mary----how did he balance what he knew as divine and what he felt as human? If Jesus was fully human---and he was---then he went through the same developmental milestones we all do. He learned to recognize his parents, his siblings, other close relatives, he probably even developed separation anxiety when Mary first needed to leave him….he learned to crawl and to talk and to walk….he grew up like we all do….through trial and error…. fits and starts.

While we know very little about Jesus’ childhood and adolescence we get a couple of glimpses ----his being left behind in the temple when he was 12 and the wedding at Cana--- which show that Jesus was, as far as we know, a fairly normal boy---who, as he grew, began to test the limits of his parents. At times he drove them nuts and at times he was positive they didn’t understand him. Yes, my guess is Jesus went through the same growing pains we all do…but…….

how much did he know about who he really was?

Many suggest that Jesus came to terms with his identity as the Son of God and the son of Mary slowly over time, with full comprehension of just who he was and what would happen to him occurring at the Transfiguration---that time when along with Peter John and James, Jesus encountered Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop. Recent scholarship makes a very strong argument that Jesus, when he Elijah and Moses are enveloped in the cloud, grasps the full magnitude of his mission. That it’s on the mountaintop when Jesus realizes that his message of peace and love was going to be met with fierce and violent opposition and that he would need to fall victim to that violence to fully complete his earthly task…..

Such a realization would make anyone a little on edge….

And Jesus, increasingly throughout Luke’s Gospel, becomes a little more edgy. Jesus’ intensity increases following the transfiguration---he appears much more intent on getting to Jerusalem, he seems much less patient with his followers, he seems much more urgent and harsh in his movements and his message.

So today we encounter a Jesus who realizes that his time is short and that his task is immense. Today we encounter a Jesus who has finally come to grips with his identity and doesn’t understand why his followers don’t get it---today we encounter a man who is having a bit of an identity crisis.

He was anxious, he was stressed …..he was being very human…and if we really believe what we say we believe---that Jesus is the Son of God, born of a human woman, fully human and fully divine…. then we should embrace this Gospel, difficult as it is to hear---not because we want families to be torn apart, not because we support some reign of terror to accompany the end times---but because God so loved us, he came to walk among us, to grow among us and to dies among so that, once and for all we’d know---really know—that we’re never alone.

That’s the purpose of the gospels---this collection of stories, parables and teachings--- proof that we are loved beyond all reason. And that’s good, because being a Christian, as outlined by these same Gospels, isn’t easy.

Discomfort is a big part of Christianity….it is uncomfortable to stand up for what is right when it isn’t popular, it is uncomfortable to raise your pledge when the economy is so volatile it’s uncomfortable to pray for the people you don’t like, the people who wish us harm, the people it would be so much easier to hate.

Christianity, with it’s clear and non negotiable message of peace and justice for all, demands that we challenge the status quo when that status quo impedes any human being from living life on an equal footing with everyone else, it demands that when we know of injustice we do something to stop it, it demands that when everyone shrugs their shoulders and says, “that’s the way it has always been” we say, “no no that’s not acceptable, there’s another way.” Christianity demands that we be the pain in the patoot to the world. Christianity demands that we make ourselves and other people uncomfortable as long as inequality and injustice exists on earth.

It isn’t easy. And in today’s Gospel Jesus is telling us that being faithful can be very messy, very frustrating, very infuriating and at times pretty darn hard.

But, because ours is an incarnational faith, because we know that God came to live among us, as one of us in the person of Jesus Christ, we also know that, as we stand up for what is right and just, as we fight the good fight against violence and evil, degradation and despair, we are not alone…

…no matter who might abandon us along the way, no matter who may disagree with what we believe, we are never alone. We never have been and we never will be.

Because God has been where we are, and then some. Because God, given to us in the person of Jesus Christ knows how hard it is, because he has felt the anger the loneliness and the terror which is part of our human condition this Gospel today offers us Good News. Good News that although being a Christian may not be easy, and it may not be popular and it may not always feel good, it’s never ever lonely. And for that we can all say, Amen.

+

Pentecost 11 Proper 14 Yr C

Today’s Gospel has caused me fits all week. I couldn’t reconcile the loving message of “Do not be afraid little flock” with the end times apocalyptic imagery of “be ready for you never know when the Son of Man will come.” I just couldn’t figure out how “not worrying” could mesh with “be wary, the end is near.”

But then, a bat flew into my bedroom in the rectory.

Now it’s not unusual to have a bat in an old house…however, I have an unnatural terror of anything bigger than a fly flapping their wings near me… especially inside my house….A bat and me in the bedroom was terrifying, and as a result I spent a good portion of this week being very distracted. I wasn’t ready for anything except worry.

My worry and my obsession became so acute that I wasn’t living the life I normally do. I wasn’rtwasn’t taking the time to pray, I wasn’t taking the time to exercise, I asn’twasn’t taking the time to sleep. My priorioties, because of my worry, got all messed up.

And then, late on Friday night, it hit me---“this the point of today’s readings---worrying, fretting and obsessiong about things shows a tremnendous lack of faith.”

Faith is an elusive concept…it’s next to impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t have it and it is almost impossible to acquire through shear will and determination. Faith develops over time. It’s a give and take relationship between each of us and God. We give a little and God gives a little and pretty soon we’re engaged in a dance with God, we let go of something—usually worry, control or doubt--making room for more of God’s grace to seep into our daily lives.

Faith is a beautiful every changing thing….it’s wonderful when we feel full of it and it’s terrible when we feel devoid of it.

As I fretted about when and how that bat got into the house, as I worried that another bat may get into the house, I was devoid of faith. When I worried about the bat, I didn’t reach out and love my neighbor. When I obsessed about how terrified I was when the bat was swooping across the room, I wasn’t thanking God for the fact that I have a roof over my head, a roof that could also house a bat. When I was worried sick about that bloody bat I wasn’t at peace.

Peace is that space when we finally stop struggling, stop fighting. Peace is the space in which our faith lives.

It’s easy to think that peace is a God thing….but sometimes I wonder if peace instead is really an us thing. God’s peace is always with us, we just fail to notice a lot of the time.

God is Peace. When we’re distracted and worried we push that Peace, which is God, out of our consciousness And end up, much like the Israelites in today’s reading from Isaiah, forgetting to “do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow.” In other words, when we disrupt God’s peace, we don’t love our neighbor. When we disrupt God’s peace, we aren’t being faithful.

In our epistle from Hebrews the author reminds us that Abraham and Sarah had faith beyond all reason--- their ability to laugh at the absurdity of God’s promise of pregnancy at their advanced age, suggests a peace in their core, a peace which allowed them to toss their heads back and laugh at God’s gift….sure they worried and had their moments of doubt, but at their core Sarah and Abraham said, ok God, whatever you say. They may have been incredulous, they may have thought, “this is ridiculous” BUT they walked in the Peace of God, instead of running from it…

Instead of being ruled by fear, they allowed God’s good pleasure to take hold.

In the Gospel Jesus is telling us not to worry, to let God have God’s way with us, for if we do that, if we keep God uppermost in our hearts and minds then it is God’s great pleasure to lavish us with great joy—with the Peace and Love of God, the Peace and Love which is God.

The Gospel lessons of the past few weeks have been clear about one thing:

The distractions of life---worries about money, worries about legacy, worries about status, worries about bats, are all diversions designed to keep us in charge instead of God. And when we put ourselves ahead of God, when we cover that peace which is God with our doubts and our fears we become a “faithless generation.” When we shroud the peace and love --which is God--- with our own despair and fretting, we are turning our back on our Creator’s good pleasure.

When we fail to trust in God, when we forget to have faith, when we feel that having faith is just too risky, then we are denying the legacy of all who have walked this earth before us. We are denying the faithfulness of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses and Miriam, of Mary and Joseph.

Of course we need to be responsible and prudent, but when the due diligence of our daily lives becomes the driving force of our existence—then we are in trouble. For it is God’s great pleasure to see us toss our heads back and laugh at the fact that sometimes life doesn’t go as we plan, sometimes we have bats in our bedrooms and sometimes we have worry in our hearts.

In spite of whatever distraction life presents to us, our Creator God’s greatest pleasure is to give us the Kingdom---a place overflowing with peace and joy.

And maybe even a few bats. +