Pentecostal Living
27 May 2012 Leave a Comment
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.
People occasionally ask me where I get my ideas for sermons. I like to think that the reason they don’t ask that more often is because it’s so obvious that I get my inspiration from the scripture of the day J. Sometimes, scripture gets a little help. Like I often get my inspiration from church signs. For the past week or two, the sign at the church on 39th between Division and Hawthorne has said: “Faith can’t be taught, it must be caught.” Don’t you love it? Welcome to the season of Pentecost. Our readings over the coming months are going to be all about what happens when people catch faith.
People who are new to the church will often ask me: What is Pentecost? I never heard of Pentecost. Why is it such a big deal? Why do we wear red? Pentecost is an important feast day because of what it means to the church. And it is a rich feast because of the amazing images conjured up by our readings.
It’s a wonderful occasion for churches to add special touches to the service, like today’s wonderful music, the gospel reading in many languages, the sounds of bones and rushing wind….I recently heard about the gospel proclaimed from a flaming bible. A bible, double-A batteries, some lighter fluid…that’s all I know. Here we have to content ourselves with the tongues of fire we heard about in the reading from Acts. Those tongues of fire that are the visible expression of the Holy Spirit, and the reason we wear red—flame colors—on Pentecost.
Pentecost means “fiftieth day,” and comes from the Greek word pente, or five. It was a Jewish Festival, also called the Feast of Weeks. The fiftieth day came after the completion of seven weeks after Passover. On that day, the first fruits of the spring harvest were offered to God, celebrating the tradition that the Ten Commandments were handed to Moses on Mt. Sinai 50 days after the first Passover. The commandments taught the Jewish people what it meant to be a people, a particular people called to follow a particular God.
The first Pentecost after the Resurrection also involves God’s revelation of what it means to be a particular people, called to follow a particular God.
There are two seemingly distinct aspects of Pentecost. The first is “the birthday of the church.” (I have been to church services where they sing “Happy Birthday, dear church” at Pentecost.) The second is “the descent of the Holy Spirit,” with its gifts that infuse us and give us power we didn’t know we had. The Holy Spirit is the glue that holds relationships—including whole communities—together. This glue is invisible, intangible, mysterious, and transformative.
The Holy Spirit is all around us this morning. In Ezekiel, the Spirit infuses dry bones with life. These bones are the whole house of Israel, God says to the prophet. The whole people of God. O my people, I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.
God’s people from throughout the middle east would have gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks, speaking all languages but united by their common faith in the God of Abraham, the God of the Exodus, the God of the wilderness and the God of the Jerusalem temple. It is into that gathering that the Spirit comes in a rush of wind and in tongues of fire. These tongues are not the tongues of strange speech that are the basis for the Christian tradition of speaking in tongues, or glossalalia. These tongues are not for strange speech but for speech that even foreigners can understand.
In Pentecost, God is once again turning the world upside down, confounding expectations and uniting unlikely companions through the miracle of the outpouring of Spirit into a common language.
Through all of scripture, the Spirit is associated with power. Take a look at the Book of Acts sometime, and see how often “power” occurs in the same context as “the Spirit.” This is not “power” in general, but quite specifically the power of new life in Christ. Look at the disciples before and after Pentecost. Before Pentecost, they were a pretty motley crew, bumbling around asking dumb questions like “when do we get to eat?” and “which one of us gets to be the greatest?” Sure, Peter gets some new eloquence after the Resurrection, but it is only after Pentecost that he and the other apostles go around preaching and healing, proclaiming God’s Kingdom.
Pentecost is how we live on the other side of the Resurrection, filled with the power of the Spirit. So what does this all mean? What does it mean about how we live, you and I, and all of us together?
It means that we are not just Easter People but Pentecost people when, like the first Christians we find common language to tell of God’s mighty works in our lives. What’s your story? How do you see the power of God in your life or in the world around you? I see it in the generosity with which so many of you have responded to the Covenant of Hope. I see it in the spirit of creativity and collaboration going on this week during the Village Building Convergence. I hear the power of God in our music and also in the music of children (and adults) just learning a new instrument.
Pentecost is always a baptismal feast—that’s why we sing “Wade in the Water” even when we’re not actually baptizing anyone. (Of course, if you want to be baptized, come talk to me after the service J) Our baptismal promises commit us to Pentecostal living: living lives infused with the spirit of God that connects us to all creation, to one another, to our enemies, and to people we’ve never met.
Take a look at the photo on the back cover of your bulletins. This remarkable work of art by Piotr Uklanski is titled “Pentecost.” I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but it is an installation of plates. Plates that you and I would eat off, along with a few cups and saucers. I love it, because it represents a transformation of simple, every day plates—maybe some of them chipped or cracked—together making something beautiful, something much bigger than one plate. This is how I like to think of our common life, as an offering to God of the work of our spirits.
Faith cannot be taught, it must be caught. I pray that your faith may catch fire with the Power of the Spirit, and that it may be so contagious that others will catch it, too, and that together we will proclaim the reign of God in our midst.
John 15:9-17 and Babette’s Feast: fruit that will last
13 May 2012 Leave a Comment
And I appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last.
Last Saturday night, a week ago, a dozen of us gathered to watch the movie, Babette’s Feast. How many of you have seen that movie? How many have seen it more than once? It’s one of my favorites, and every time I watch it, I see more and more layers to the story. In the film, a French chef escapes Paris during the bloody period of the Paris Commune in the 1870s. She finds herself in the remote village of Jutland on the coast of Denmark in the midst of a small community that is all about austerity and self-denial. Talk about culture shock! She has suffered terribly and lost much. In this isolated village she finds a new community, of sorts, and a new purpose.
Then something unexpected happens: She wins the French lottery. She celebrates by preparing an amazing meal for the small community in the village. I mean, an amazing meal. This is not a movie to see on an empty stomach. After the last glass of dessert wine has been sipped, after the last fig has been eaten, the last cup of coffee drunk, the community is transformed. Their lives have been touched by an abundance and extravagance they have never known. Old hurts have been healed. Babette, revealed as a generous creator of beauty and sustenance, has given them all she has to give. And she has borne fruit that will last.
The movie is full of opposites: Paris and Denmark, decadence and austerity, Roman Catholicism and seriously reformed protestantism. The faith community of the small village lives in the past. Their worship is as much in memory of their community’s founder as it is in memory of Jesus. They are always looking backward. Babette comes among them as one who has no past; she is only in the present until she prepares the feast that draws on her past, but also feeds the people around her in a way that transforms them for the future.
The community that gathers around Jesus during these Easter chapters of the Gospel of John is trying to understand their future, trying to understand what it means to be a community of faithful followers. (Isn’t this what we’re often about, trying to understand what it means to be faithful followers?) This is one of the tensions in Babette’s Feast: the little community in Jutland felt like they were being faithful by never forgetting the past, in fact truly embracing the past in all they did. Babette expressed her faith by creating delicious, sensual food.
This is my commandment, Jesus says, that you love one another as I have loved you. Not that you sit around talking about how much I have loved you, but that you love one another as I have loved you. Teaching, healing, feeding, companioning. Sacrificing. Washing one another’s feet, sharing food. This is how Jesus loved his disciples and this is how we are invited to love one another.
And I appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last.
In 1952, and in the years leading up to that year, the leaders of St. David’s, at that time a brave and generous cadre of vestrymen, decided their job as stewards of the faith community was to purchase a large piece of land on Harrison Hill and build this building. Construction began in 1952. I’m sure there was a period of careful planning and fundraising, but their work was nonetheless a leap of faith to bear fruit that will last. They were not looking back at the history of the parish; they were looking forward at the history of the parish. They were imagining a growing Sunday school, a thriving community center, a church on a hill in a vibrant neighborhood. And here we are, sixty years later.
While church leaders love to worry and complain about the burden of a building like this one, I like to think that it is also a blessing, part of our mission and ministry, not only to everyone who comes to worship here but also to all who come through our doors every day of the week. Many people call this place home.
As we contemplate what it means to have a church home and to give thanks for it, I invite each one of you to participate in the Covenant of Hope. You’ve read about it and heard about it here and there for several weeks. The Covenant of Hope is an opportunity for our community to help another community—a family—transition from homelessness into…home. In this, we covenant not only to provide a very modest form of financial support, but also to offer various expressions of community. To love our Covenant of Hope family as Jesus has loved us.
And I appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last.
The fruit that will last is what we do with our love, and how we share our community. Let us honor the brave souls who took the leap to build this building, by looking forward, not backward, by expanding our community and by giving expansively.
So now you might get an inkling of why all the “sixes” and “sixties” on the red pledge card in your bulletin. Sixty years of ministry in our home. Six decades of having a home from which to go forth and proclaim the good news of love.
I have always felt like Babette’s Feast—the meal itself—was about the Eucharist. When I watched it this most recent time, I saw how much it is not only about the Eucharist but also about giving absolutely the best we have to give of ourselves when we celebrate our common life around this table.
When we pray our prayers of thanksgiving from this table—and I always say “we,” because the priest is simply praying on behalf of all of us—we give thanks not only for what God has done for us in creation, but also for what God is going to do for the world as we go forth from this place and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. When we share the bread and the cup, we celebrate the promises of new life in Christ, the Kingdom of God that is upon us and within us, at this moment and always.
On our way rejoicing
06 May 2012 Leave a Comment
Acts 8:26-40: The eunuch went on his way rejoicing.
I printed out the lessons appointed for this Fifth Sunday of Easter a while ago, and found that today features one of my very favorite stories—the story of the apostle Phillip’s meeting with the Ethiopian Eunuch. Then I remembered that I preached on this story my very first Sunday at St. David’s. It’s hard to believe that it has been three whole years since I first stood here, preaching about this story from the Book of Acts.
How many of you were here on that day, three years ago? I’m sure the rest of you won’t mind if I preach the same sermon, right? That’s only sort of a joke; I do want to use some of what I said that day to reflect on where we are today.
A few days before my first Sunday here, I visited with a long time member of this community. Our conversation was a far-reaching one but eventually the subject turned to St. David’s and I said something about how excited I was to be coming here, and how full of hope I felt. He smiled and I expected him to say something like “we’re so glad you’re coming, too,” or words to that effect. Instead, he chuckled and said “Personally, I think you’re nuts!”
I disagreed then and I disagree now. Unless we’re all nuts. It was, and continues to be, a joy and a privilege to be here with all of you. But today’s celebration is not about me. This Sunday, like every Sunday, is a celebration of resurrection, in all of its forms: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the resurrection of a church that was almost left for dead, and the little and not-so-little resurrections in each of our lives.
Three years ago, we began an adventure. If you look “adventure” up in the dictionary, you’ll find something like “a wild and exciting undertaking of uncertain outcome.” A wild and exciting undertaking of uncertain outcome.
I talked a lot in the beginning about “the St. David’s adventure.” I hope many of us still feel as though coming to church is an adventure. That’s as it should be. We lose something if we think we’re past the adventure stage.
We are on a journey together, all of us, each one of us. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been part of the St. David’s story for 25 years or 2.5 years or 2 months or 25 minutes. You’re part of the story.
It was most fitting, three years ago, that we heard this wonderful reading from Acts.
Just to review: an angel sends Philip to Gaza. He travels on a wilderness road and encounters an Ethiopian eunuch returning from pilgrimage in Jerusalem. At that time, an “Ethiopian” was anyone from the region south of Egypt, which was considered among the farthest corners of the earth. Ethiopians were marginal Jews by virtue of being foreigners; a eunuch was even more marginalized. The fact that the Ethiopian is a eunuch is significant only because it adds to his foreignness, and would probably have excluded him from Jewish temple worship. When Philip encounters him, he is reading the prophet Isaiah. He asks Philip to help him understand the scriptures, and as a result decides to be baptized. They go down into the water together, and Philip baptizes him. The Ethiopian eunuch goes on his way rejoicing and Philip goes on his way evangelizing.
There are a bunch of elements to this story that speak to us about our journey as a parish, or might speak to you about your own individual path:
- This story is about a wilderness journey. Luke goes out of his way to say that the road on which Philip and the foreigner encounter each other is a wilderness road. A road through the desert. The wilderness—literally but more often figuratively—is the place where many of us have experiences that open us to new possibilities and a new awareness of God’s presence.
- The encounter is a transforming encounter between strangers, people who are foreigners to one another.
- The Ethiopian is wondering about something. He has a question. Whom does the scripture speak about? he wants to know. What are you wondering about? Who will you ask?
- Philip starts out thinking he’s supposed to be on his way somewhere, to Gaza, but where he is supposed to be is on the journey. That’s where the action is. Remember that part of the definition of adventure?
- Philip shares with the Eunuch the faith story that we all share. What happens to the Ethiopian is that he hears the stories from scripture and makes them his own. This process is part of conversion and part of formation. We make the Great Story our own every time we gather around this table for the Eucharist, sharing across time and space with all the others who have gathered to do the same.
- And finally, the encounter ends with the sine qua non of baptism: Water. (I love the eunuch’s spontaneous initiative: “Look! Here’s water! What is to stop me from being baptized right now??”) The water of baptism is the water of life. Like God the Holy Spirit, it is within us and all around us. This speaks to me especially in this season of creating new rain gardens and vegetable gardens and all the planting and new growth happening in us and around us.
* * *
This is an exciting adventure that we are on, you and I, this wilderness journey, through territory that is strange in some ways and familiar in other ways. A journey in which each one of us has a part, each one of us—whether you’ve been here for 35 years or three years or three months or 35 minutes—everyone has a job to do and a role to play in the adventure. “A wild and exciting undertaking of uncertain outcome.”
Does this mean that all of you are excited all of the time?
Does it mean that you will be on your way rejoicing with every new day?
And in our heart of hearts do any of us actually like undertakings “of uncertain outcome”? Not necessarily.
The story from Acts leaves out the tedium of discipleship, and the ambivalence that Philip may have had about the journey he found himself on. The author of Acts doesn’t tell us about the deep struggles with faith that the Ethiopian probably encountered when he arrived back at court. The story doesn’t have to tell us what it’s like to question one’s faith or one’s purpose and mission—I expect we’ve all been there at one time or another.
There’s a prayer I pray every morning. I used to think I was praying it about St. David’s, then I realized—duh!—that it is indeed a prayer for the whole universal Church of people seeking to proclaim the gospel and live a resurrected life. Some of you know it: we pray it at ordinations and we also pray it on Good Friday and during the Great Vigil of Easter. You can find it on page 291 of the Book of Common Prayer. Let’s pray it together:
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Let us be on our way rejoicing.
Love in truth and action
30 Apr 2012 2 Comments
Many thanks to Linda Goertz for preaching this fine sermon on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
When I was little, my family attended a church that emphasized a view of God that was very abstract. God was Mind with a capital M, Principle with a capital P. Although there were valuable things in that church’s practices, I had a hard time with the distance between who I was and where God seemed to be – very far off. Although they also said God was Love with a capital L, it didn’t seem like a love I could connect with. It was like the old story of the child afraid of the dark – her parents tell her there’s nothing to be afraid of because God is with her, but she says, “I want someone with skin on!”
Maybe that’s why I love the passage about the Good Shepherd. There’s a Lord there who knows what it’s like to have skin on.
This past week I came across an online conversation between sheep farmers in New Zealand discussing a “cast sheep.” In case you don’t know, that’s a sheep that has fallen down and tipped over on its back. If it pregnant or heavy with a lot of fleece it may not be able to right itself no matter how hard it struggles. A cast sheep like this is in real danger – they’ve been known to die in a few hours unless someone sets them upright.
So one of the New Zealanders had a ewe who’d been righted after being cast but for some reason couldn’t stay up on her feet afterward. Every time they’d haul her up, she’d collapse again. Eventually, one of the farmers from another town drove over to loan the first one a sort of sling for it, and the sheep was finally able to stand on her own.
But what really struck me was the way these shepherds talked about their sheep. Remember, those shepherds are out having to track down wayward animals at all hours and places, wrestle them out of trouble, medicate them, stay up all night during lambing season, getting dirty, smelly, miserably cold and frustrated when the sheep won’t do what’s good for them – and still they were saying things like, “When I left her today she baaaed at me so I came back and gave her more cuddles.” Or my favorite comment, “she is a silly old sausage.”
I kind of like the idea of Jesus thinking of me as a silly old sausage. I get lost, too, weighed down with possessions, worries, and the busy-ness that makes me feel important. Those are the times I really need to remember Jesus, the good shepherd — the one who leads us beside still waters, comforts us, spreads a feast for us. Jesus lays down his life for us wandering, shaggy, doubting sheep, because he loves us.
And that love calls for a thankful response. Just as the love we’ve received is real and tangible, we’re called to pass that love along, “with skin on.” Today’s epistle says, “. . . we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”
That’s a key word, abide. God will keep on loving us even if we don’t wake up and pass that love along, because God is too big to be changed by our frailties, to stop loving because of what we do or don’t do. But if we want that love to abide in us, stay with us and fill us with a power that goes beyond our own limitations – we need to stop hanging on to it. We need to open up and pass it along to our brothers and sisters.
We’re all called to the kind of love that walks with those in need — in person and not in theory. Many of you live out that personal commitment every day in professions of healing, helping, serving, building, or in your daily walk with children, friends and family. Still, many of us, and I’m definitely one, struggle with how to give to others as we truly want to do.
Barbara Brecht and I had the wonderful experience last Sunday learning more about the New City Initiative program called Covenant of Hope. You might remember that Sara talked about this a few weeks ago – it’s an opportunity for congregations to help make a home for a homeless family, providing money for rent assistance during a specific limited time period, along with simple acts of neighborliness like help with the move-in or monthly phone calls. We ALL have a great opportunity to learn more about this and other New City Initiative offerings next Sunday, May 6, thanks to the Kaliszewski’s, at their Open House. That information is in your bulletin and I urge you to attend; the program offers concrete ways we can make God’s love real for others.
One of the things Paul Schroeder of the New City Initiative talks about is Joyful Sharing. Not grudgingly sharing out of our own “barely-enough,” wearily doing something because we signed up years ago and got stuck, but joyful sharing. Making a conscious decision to share freely out of the fullness within us. Joyful sharing also means learning to say “no” to things that deplete our time and energy but don’t fill us — even if they’re “good” or “should” things. Learning to ask for help rather than trying to carry it all ourselves. Learning to prioritize our commitments and move toward what really calls us.
OK, I’m terrible at all that myself, and I need help. So here’s a radical idea: we could pray for each other about this specifically. We could pray for joyful openings to service, for new ways for each of us to pass God’s love along to those in need.
I don’t know — Sara doesn’t know — the Bishop doesn’t know — what your struggles are, where you need that joy, that in-filling to bring you comfort and enough strength to share the love you’ve received. But the Good Shepherd does. “I know my own and my own know me,” Jesus says. And he wants to abide in us — not visit us once in a while, not stand above us shaking his finger or tapping his foot impatiently until we get it all together – but abide in us, come right inside. He wants to fill us and empower us with love in spite of our failings. The person beside you right now, the people up here on the platform – we need each other’s prayers because we are all little children trying to learn to love in truth and action. I will pray for you; please pray for all of us and for those who are waiting for our help. Amen.
On the Edge of the Inside
22 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
(with gratitude to Richard Rohr for both the title and the subject)
Someone recently gave me an article that had been printed off the internet by the well known Franciscan monastic, writer, and teacher Richard Rohr. The article is called “On the Edge of the Inside: The prophetic position.”
In this essay, Rohr reminds us of a variety of religious traditions and mythologies where there is always some kind of guardian, or spirit, at doors and bridges, at entrances and exits. Rohr writes that “the edge of things is a liminal space—a…sacred place where guardian angels are especially available and needed.” He goes on to say “to talk your position on the spiritual edge of things is to move safely in and out, back and forth, across and return. It is a prophetic position, not a rebellious or antisocial one…When you are at the center of something”—on the other hand—“you usually confuse the essentials with the non-essentials, and get tied down by trivia…and job security.”
It was on the Internet, so it must be true.
So what does this say to us on this Third Sunday of Easter?
I would like to suggest that Peter and the other main characters in the Book of Acts are in that prophetic position, on the edge of the inside, and that the way they navigate that position is a component of the successful growth of the early church.
First, I offer a little sidebar to remind you that when we talk about prophets and prophecy in the Biblical sense (as opposed to the Harry Potter sense) we are talking not about fore-telling, but forth-telling, by which I mean speaking out and acting out on behalf of God, not predicting the future.
Back to Peter. Today’s reading from Acts starts in the middle of a story. What has just happened is that Peter and John, another apostle, were about to enter the temple for afternoon prayers and found a disabled man begging for alms just outside the temple gate. Peter speaks these lovely words: “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” The man is healed; he who had been lame enters the temple with Peter and John, walking and leaping and praising God. Everyone around them is astonished to see this act of healing and wonders: How can this be?
Peter’s speech, which we hear today, is the answer to that question. Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we made him walk? Peter right away gives credit where it is due: the power of God working through Jesus and the power of God working through those who follow Jesus.
The setting for this scene is perfectly symbolic of the edge of the inside: the temple represents the heart of the religious insiders’ world; the beggar, by virtue of his poverty and his disability, is on the outside. Peter and John are insiders—good Jews on their way to prayers—but they stop on the edge in order to bring the outsider in. Then they turn toward the insiders, speaking to them from the edge, and tell them about the suffering Messiah who rose from the dead for the salvation of the world.
In the story of some other disciples meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus, Jesus takes the disciples on a journey to the edge of the inside. They learn things from him about hospitality, about the importance of sharing food with strangers, about how stories change their meaning when we invite strangers into our midst. Jesus’ interaction with those disciples on the road turns them from people at the center of the inside, having their own private reminiscence about the things that have taken place, into people on the edge of the inside facing outward to invite, forgive, proclaim, and witness.
Here at St. David’s, I believe we are called to be at the edge of the inside. I also believe that we are called to maintain rather fuzzy edges between the inside and the outside. I think the dreamlike quality in the Emmaus story is a good illustration of the fuzzy edges. Two guys are walking along the road; another guy appears out of nowhere and enters their conversation in an unbelievable way. Then through a highly symbolic series of events he is no longer a stranger but their Risen Lord.
We don’t always know ahead of time how to get to that prophetic position on the edge of the inside, or even whether we’re there—that’s the fuzzy part. Here are some tips:
First, like Peter and John, like the disciples on the road in today’s gospel, face outward. See who is hovering around the edges, hungry or broken. Feed them. Invite them in. Share good news. Be good news.
Second, if you don’t like thinking of yourselves as prophets, think of yourselves as guardian angels, traveling companions. The perspective—the edge of the inside, is more important than what we call ourselves when we get there.
Third, if you find yourself confusing faith and proclamation with preserving the church, maintaining proper church protocol or fussing about your own role or authority in the church, you might be drifting too close to the center. Clergy and parish leaders are particularly susceptible to this drift. The closer we get to the center, the farther we get from the prophetic, guardian angel, companion-on-the-road position.
In a few moments, we will do what Jesus did with the disciples in the Gospel; we will break bread together in the name of Jesus. We always talk about the Eucharist as the center of our life together, the center from which everything else we do emanates. We gather around this central altar, our own version of the Holy of Holies. This morning I invite you to think of this holy meal not as the center but as the edge, the place we meet those whose voices are not heard, those straining to hear God’s voice.
There’s an invitation to communion from the Iona tradition that we’ve used here from time to time. I invite you to listen to it with ears of prophets and guardian angels on the edge of the inside:
This is the table not of the Church but of the Lord.
It is to be made ready for those who love him,
and who want to love him more.
So, come,
you who have much faith
and you who have little,
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a very long time,
you who have tried to follow
and you who have failed.
Come, not because it is I who invite you:
it is our Lord.
It is his will that those who want him
should meet him here.
Welcome to the edge.
Kingdom Economics
15 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
Almighty God, grant that we can show forth with our lives what we profess by our faith.
These words from today’s collect remind us that something happened at Easter. Some heard reports of the empty tomb and believed right away. Others, like Thomas, had to see the Risen Lord with their own eyes. The rest of us live by faith. What we profess by our faith, in the words of today’s opening prayer, is that Christ was raised from the dead. Faith is not certainty; we don’t call it “the paschal mystery” for nothing. Today’s opening prayer also reminds us that that something that happened at Easter makes a difference—or ought to—in how we live our lives.
How are our lives different as a result of the resurrection?
During the Easter season, we hear snippets from the Book of Acts in place of the Old Testament reading each Sunday. The Hebrew Bible is the story of the Jews becoming God’s people. The Book of Acts is the story of the earliest followers of Jesus becoming a church. In the Book of Acts we get a front row seat as the witnesses of the resurrection ask the question: how are our lives different as a result of the resurrection? What does it mean to follow the risen Christ when he is no longer among us, teaching and modeling ministry? What does it mean that he rose from the dead?
Today’s reading from Acts gives a lot of answers in just a few lines:
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul. The resurrection instilled in Jesus’ followers a unity of purpose and call. The ancient word for church, ecclesia, simply means those called out. They became a church by responding to their call to do and be something like what Jesus preached. They were a community of faith—that phrase we use so much—a community of faith in the truest, most literal sense of the word. If Jesus was raised from the dead as he predicted—members of the community might have said to one another—then he truly was of God, and all those things he said about the Kingdom of God must be true. Let us proclaim the kingdom Jesus proclaimed by how we life our common life. I’m not sure they sat around having that conversation, but it is certainly reflected in their actions.
No one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. What are they, communists? Private ownership of possessions of what makes the world go ‘round, right? As a community of faith, however, we claim ownership in common of some of the things that make us who we are. Our Book of Common Prayer, for example. It is the expression of how we pray, in common. Our worship spaces, our building and grounds. We don’t have little private kingdoms within these common spaces, although it is an easy error to fall into. This person’s pantry, that person’s sacristy, that person’s kitchen, another person’s garden. I hope we resemble the Acts church more than that.
With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The apostles were not only witnesses of the resurrection; they were witnesses to the resurrection. They had a story to tell and they told it, with power. We’ll be hearing more about this power in a couple of weeks. Part of what it means to be followers of the risen Christ is to talk about it. Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
I know, people would think we were obnoxious at best, crazy at worst, if we did this around our family and friends. They’d stop inviting us places. But how do we give testimony to the resurrection? How do we proclaim the good news of new life in Christ? That is the question we all need to keep asking, and answering.
There was not a needy person among them. A lot of us have taken turns sharing our needs with our faith community, right? Speaking only for myself: sometimes more than other times, I need to be liked. I need to be smart. I need someone to appreciate how hard I work. (Dan, where’s the violin?) I need someone to affirm my gifts. I need someone pay attention to me. We all have these needs, and I hope we all have appropriate ways to share them. But I don’t think these are the kinds of needs the early Christians tried to eliminate in their communities. I think they were talking about economic needs, medical needs. What are they, socialists? I’m afraid so.
This past week I’ve heard some wonderful stories about churches living out the Book of Acts in their own ways. I encourage you to collect some of these stories for yourselves. I’m going to share two stories, one that happened 30 years ago and one that is happening today.
In the early 1980s, mortgage rates were skyrocketing. In a small Mennonite community, several people with adjustable rate mortgages were having trouble making the higher payments and were in danger of losing their homes. So here’s what happened: ten households—couples and individuals—got together and realized that all of them, whether or not they had an adjustable rate mortgage, were living in service to their mortgages when they wanted to live in service to the Kingdom of God.
Each person put in a little extra toward one person’s mortgage until that mortgage was completely paid off. Then that person had substantial extra income each month that they could put toward paying off the next person’s mortgage, while everyone else also contributed whatever little extra they had. By the end of ten years, no one in the group had a mortgage. Not only that, but there was $55,000 left over, which they considered to be kingdom money, so the divided it by ten and gave it away to ten charities. was spent on charity. Each mortgage was the concern of the whole group, everyone in the group gave out of their abundance, and in the end they had enough left over to keep giving in abundance. I love this story!
The story that is happening today is one that some of you may have read about in the Oregonian over the past several months. I’m talking about the Covenant of Hope, which is a project of the New City Initiative. The New City—which is itself named after early Christian ideals taken from the Book of Acts—helps communities of faith connect with individuals and families wanting to transition out of homelessness. Churches that participate in the Covenant of Hope raise some money to help a family get settled into their own home.
Participating congregations commit to raise $800/month for three months. That’s $16/month for fifty of us, or $50/month for ten of us and $7.50/month for forty others of us. I think we could do this. Do you think we could do this?
As a Covenant of Hope church we would share more than money. We would share prayer, invitation, a “welcome home” shower, regular communication, and more. We witness to resurrection simply by being a community of faith sharing resources, distributing our wealth, such as it is, to each as any had need.
The General Thanksgiving at the end of the Morning Prayer service has some of my favorite lines in the whole Book of Common Prayer. Here they are:
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives….
This is how we witness to resurrection, and this is how our lives are changed by it.
Almighty God, grant that we can show forth with our lives what we profess by our faith. Come and see.
Swimming in the soup of cluelessness with Mary Magdalene (or: the Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!)
08 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
The Lord has risen indeed. Alleluia!
That’s good; you all have your lines memorized. We know this part about Easter, right? Christ is risen. Or at least we think we know that. Or we hope we do. Or we know someone in our family believes this, so we come with them on Easter Sunday. Or we don’t believe in it at all, but there’s something about going to church on Easter that’s important to us. Or maybe we’re back in church because we have young children or grandchildren and want them to have a shot at faith. Maybe we came as a favor to someone else. Or we love Easter more than anything. Maybe some of us don’t know why we’re here.
But by the time we get here this morning, the idea that Christ is risen is old news. It was in all the papers. The resurrection is a given by the time we get to this morning’s gospel. The tomb is empty, the linens that would have covered Jesus’ body are on the ground. At the risk of sounding heretical, Jesus is not the star of today’s story; he has had his moment somewhere off-stage before dawn.
The star of today’s gospel is Mary Magdalene. She’s the star because, like any protagonist in a good story, she goes through changes.
Mary does not show up at the tomb because she knows Jesus has risen from the dead; on the contrary, like some of us, perhaps, she shows up because she is not sure….about anything.
In the scene we just witnessed in today’s gospel, she doesn’t get what’s happened. She and the other two disciples go back and forth: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” The other disciples just go home. Mary sticks around, asking the same questions to whomever she sees: Where is he? Where have you taken him? Mary is having a rough morning.
The very best and certainly the most real Easter news for us today may be Mary’s cluelessness. She comes to the tomb full of fear and sorrow and confusion. Kind of like how we are when we find ourselves looking for God. Her experience is deeply personal, and deeply concrete. It has none of the abstraction with which we proclaim our faith in a formal way. Our Nicene Creed is a checklist for the essentials of orthodox Christian faith:
For our sake he was crucified (check);
he suffered death and was buried (check).
On the third day he rose again (check)
This is a statement of faith in the resurrection that over centuries has been handed down and tweaked and argued over by scholars. This doesn’t mean it’s not true for many of us; but—more heresy—the creed may not speak to us in the same way that Mary speaks to us on this Easter morning.
Mary Magdalene, the one we call “the apostle to the apostles,” doesn’t know what she’s seeing. There is no creed for cluelessness or doubt. Mary’s experience of faith is anything but abstract, right down to the linen wrappings lying in a bloody heap. All she knows is what she doesn’t know. Where is he? All she has are her questions. I’m guessing she’s not the only one. Mary’s experience at the empty tomb may seem centuries away from ours, and yet because she starts in this vague, confusing place, she can both nudge us and lead us toward the truth as she moves into the real experience of recognizing Jesus.
How will Mary recognize Jesus? Will she put on her glasses? Recognize a ring he’s wearing or a tattoo on his arm or a particular scar on his leg? Will she get close enough to smell the fragrant oil a different Mary poured over his head just a few days earlier?
What marks the turning point for Mary? What makes her know Jesus?
Jesus calls her by name. Hearing her own name, she feels a tingle of connection. Then she recognizes Jesus for who he is.
We have probably all had the experience of being called by name, realizing we are known when we didn’t know we were. Lord, you are in the midst of us, and you have called us by name, says the prophet Jeremiah.
We don’t usually recognize the voice of Jesus calling us. But we all know what it feels like to have someone call us by name. In a subtle way, it is an experience of the holy. Whether we are followers of Jesus or friends of Mary Magdalene, or both, we can convey that experience of the holy when we call someone else by name.
As an Easter community of people who wander into the empty tomb with all of our confusion, our questions, and our doubts, we are more equipped than anyone to pay attention to the nameless, voiceless ones who weep and wonder. As Easter people, we witness to the promise of new life whenever we recognize someone who is alone and confused, and call him, or her, by name.
There are some people I want to call by name. Earlier this week, a couple of us were joking about how I could spend the first five minutes of this sermon giving shout-outs to all the people here whom we just see once or twice a year.
But that’s not what we’re about.
I want to name some people who are not here:
Carey, David, Mark, Shannon, Abdul, Michael, Anthony, Todd, Ramon , John
This is a small sampling of people who are currently on death row around the country, whose executions are scheduled over the next few months. I don’t know anything about them, but I want to call them by name.
Cindy is the name of a woman who stands all day on an on-ramp to I-205, holding a sign that says “homeless. Please help.”
Susannah went missing from her family a year ago; her aunt thinks she was abducted by a pimp. She thinks he’s made up a new name for her. Susannah.
JJ lived on the streets for decades, and finally got into housing in the last year. Like so many people who move from the streets to permanent housing, he found himself completely alone. Someone found him last week on the floor of his room, too sick to move. He’d lain there for days.
Someone I know, someone who swims in that spiritual soup where many of us live, the soup of faith and doubt, went to see JJ, to sit with him as hospital workers tried to find someone to consent to turning off life support. She sat with him, with all of her questions and her doubts, all of her Holy Week confusion, and she called him by name. JJ died early yesterday morning, with the memory deep inside him of one of the last things he heard: someone calling his name.
Who is waiting for you to call them by name?
In a few minutes we’ll celebrate the reconciliation brought about by the cross by exchanging the Peace with one another. I’d like to suggest that this morning when you exchange the peace with those in the pews around you, that you call them by name. If you don’t know their name, it’s okay to ask.
If you came here today without a clue what Easter might mean for you this year, remember Mary Magdalene, who felt the same way, and became the bearer of such Good News. You are the star of today’s story. You are the Good News. God calls you by name.
Chronos meets Kairos
01 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.
And so, our journey begins. I’m talking about the Holy Week journey that is the climax of what some of us call the Church Year. April 1, 2012, meets Passiontide, which happens on a different date year after year after year, this complicated Sunday when Jesus enters Jerusalem to the sounds of joyful worship, and then is turned over to the authorities, tried, and executed. Particular events in a particular week two thousand years ago, which we re-enact and experience afresh in this 2012 week that begins today. We are traveling, through time and outside of time into a mystery that defies telling but must be lived.
The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to chronological or sequential time, while kairos refers to a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens. Chronos is quantitative; kairos is qualitative. Kairos is used to talk about the right moment, or the supreme moment. Kairos is time beyond time, time outside of time.
During Holy Week, we pay attention to chronological time: April 5, 6, 7, and 8. Six pm, 7 pm, 8 pm, and 10 am. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday. But the aim of our worship on those days is to enter into that time in between time, the time for all time that is kairos.
I know there are lifelong Episcopalians among you who have never gone to Holy Week services other than Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Holy Week is for you, no matter how many years you’ve lived without it. And there are others among you for whom this is your first Lent and your first Easter in an Episcopal Church. Holy Week is for you. I bet some of you in each of those categories long for some resolution to the betrayal and death we just heard about in the Passion Gospel. Holy Week is for you.
On Wednesday, we offer a preview piece of the Holy Week journey with Stations of the Cross. Traditional, ancient readings and prayers mark the steps along the way of Jesus’ final journey, with non-traditional images and non-traditional music. We’ll also have our own version of Jerusalem’s wailing wall, a place for you to enter into your own stories of loss or betrayal or mourning.
Thursday marks the beginning of the Triduum, a wonderful Latin word (with two u’s) that simply means “three days.” On Maundy Thursday we mark Jesus’ command to love one another and to live out that love through the celebration of the Eucharist. It is a time rich with symbol and ritual in a relaxed community setting.
On Good Friday, we offer two choices: the three hour service in the afternoon, and the traditional Good Friday liturgy in the evening. The afternoon service is a series of meditations on the seven last words from the cross, with lots of time for silence and for listening to music that is sublime and deeply moving.
The evening service on Good Friday is very simple. The church is empty of any adornments, and it is the one day of the year when we fast even from communion. We venerate the cross and we pray prayers, called the Solemn Collects, that we only pray on that one day of the year.
The former Bishop of Rochester, New York, used to say to his parishioners: If I don’t see you in church on Good Friday, I don’t expect to see you on Easter! Of course, I do expect to see you all on Easter, but the resurrection takes on new meaning when we enter into it through the emptiness and darkness of the Cross on Good Friday.
The Great Vigil of Easter on Saturday night is the dramatic movement from darkness and emptiness to light and resurrection. Bring bells to ring and a good appetite for omelets and champagne. I’d like to challenge each one of you to attend all of our Holy Week services, but if you can’t, consider simply adding one more to your week. You won’t regret it.
I’ve been talking about these services as if they were separate events, which, from a chronos perspective, they are. But from a kairos perspective, they are one service. There is no dismissal, and no postlude, at the end of this service, and you’re invited to leave church in silence. All of our services this week begin and end in silence until the end of our first Easter celebration on Saturday night. Time outside of time, time in between time, time beyond time.
And so, our journey begins.
Get your loves in order
26 Mar 2012 1 Comment
Sir, we wish to see Jesus.
Long ago, someone told me that somewhere in our diocese there is an old wooden pulpit with some graffiti carved in it, facing up so that only the preacher can see it. According to legend, it says “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” In other words, stick to the matter at hand. Don’t go on about your summer vacation or your grandchildren or the upcoming election or church politics. It’s about Jesus.
Sir, we wish to see Jesus.
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks, the gospel tells us. Who were these Greeks? Greeks were foreigners, people outside the Jewish religion. They might have made it a practice to go to the Passover festival in the same way that lots of us regularly attend the Greek Festival in Portland every October: great music, great food, a chance to tour that gorgeous church…..But these Greeks going up to worship in the temple had heard something about Jesus. They heard that he had a message for social and cultural outsiders as well as insiders. So they track down Phillip, whom they know is part of Jesus’ inner circle.
Sir, we wish to see Jesus. This scene has me wondering: what if some foreigners came to our doors, perhaps for Easter, or maybe this morning, and said to the ushers, or to the person next to them at the coffee pot: “excuse me, please, we wish to see Jesus.” What would you say? What would you show them? How would you help first time visitors to see Jesus? Would you catalog our ministries that proclaim good news? The list isn’t as long as it could be, but it’s a good list. Would you say to them: “Stick around for the Eucharist. Then you’ll really see Jesus!” This is what most of us believe about worship—that every Sunday we get to proclaim the miracle of resurrection.
What would you say if someone asked you to show them Jesus?
I’ve also been wondering what did the Greeks hoped to hear from Jesus, once they saw him. Perhaps they wanted to hear Jesus say yes, you’re welcome here. Even if you come from a very different religious tradition, or none at all, I get who you are. My message is for all people, not just the faithful establishment. You’re welcome here. Welcome home. That’s certainly what I would want to hear.
And what does Jesus actually say? Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoa. I’m not sure this is what the Greeks expected after traveling a long distance to seek out this controversial Hebrew teacher.
Here Jesus predicts his death—‘tis the season—and also says something about his purpose and our purpose. He came to bear much fruit, and to show us how to do the same. He doesn’t say: I am a grain of wheat….he speaks in the abstract; he speaks for all of us about God’s purpose and our purpose. Bear much fruit.
He makes a connection between bearing much fruit and death, which probably isn’t any more welcome news to us than it would have been to the people listening to him at that Passover festival centuries ago. Aren’t there other fruit-bearing images Jesus could have used that don’t involve the death of the one who bears the fruit? Has he never heard of renewable resources?
But something has to die in order for us to bear the kind of fruit Jesus preaches, the fruit of the reign of God, where all are healed, housed, and fed, where the world is transformed into a place where all are welcomed home. When Jesus says those who love their life will lose it, he is talking about so loving our own agendas that such love keeps us from nurturing the fruit of the reign of God.
Someone once said to me: It’s important to get your loves in order.
In other words, it’s okay to love your car, a great meal, football, your husband or wife….the point is to love God more, to love God’s kingdom and God’s call to us to proclaim the kingdom, more.
When Jesus talks about hating our lives in this world in order to keep our lives in eternal life, he’s not asking for a bunch of disciples who are miserable because they hate their lives so much. He is asking us to get our loves in order.
Remember the story of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah? Jacob loves Rachel more than anything, but he is given her older sister Leah as his bride. He has to work seven more years for Rachel. Scripture tells us: Jacob loved Rachel and hated Leah. Well, Jacob and Leah had seven children together and he cared for her for many decades in what was considered, in those days, a healthy, happy marriage. But he loved Rachel so much that anything other than Rachel felt like hate. This is the kind of love Jesus wants us to have for God. This is the kind of love with which Jesus wants us to work for God’s reign.
Strangers visiting our church asking to see Jesus might find him in each one of you who is willing to hold loosely the things of this world, to die to your driven self in order to build the Kingdom of God. This is eternal life, life lived to the fullest.
Before I close I want to go back, back 600 years before Jesus’ promise of a grain of wheat bearing much fruit when it dies, to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah blesses us with his promise of a new covenant to be written on our hearts. Someone once asked a certain Rabbi: “why did Jeremiah talk about God writing the words on our hearts? Why not in our hearts?” The rabbi’s answer is that when our hearts break, the word of God can fall in. Two weeks from now we will be celebrating God’s promise of renewal and new life through the resurrection. It is in hearts broken open that the word of God takes root.
These last weeks of Lent call us to cling to God, rather than to what is safe and familiar, so that we can experience new joys. During these last weeks of Lent I pray that you may hear the promises of God in ways that allow those promises to blossom in your hearts, that, as our collect says: among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found. Amen.
The Way of Suffering
04 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Last week, I ended my sermon with the question: What wonderful proclamation will possess you on the other side of the desert? The teaching from today’s gospel may not be exactly what we had in mind for a wonderful proclamation.
We don’t want to hear about Jesus’ suffering, certainly not on this day when we celebrate our patron saint, David—this is supposed to be a happy occasion! Happy because it is our feast day, because we share this time with friends from Bryn Seion and the Welsh Society, because of the wonderful feast of creativity happening across the hall in the form of the SE Portland Art Walk, and—never last nor least—the grand re-opening of our history room upstairs. It is also a bittersweet day, because for the first time in a long time, we are celebrating the feast of St. David without Tom Owen, who died a tragic and untimely death a few two weeks ago.
I like to think that Tom is celebrating St. David’s Day this very moment with St. David himself, surrounded by leeks and daffodils, and perhaps enjoying a glass of something beyond David’s self-imposed diet of bread and water.
My sense from what we little we really know about what kind of a disciple Saint David was, leads me to believe that he would not have had a problem hearing about suffering and death.
Jesus teaches his disciples—and anyone else who happens to be listening—that part of what it means to be the Messiah is that he must undergo great suffering, and rejection, and be killed. This is not the kind of messiah the disciples have signed up for! This is why Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. “Ah…with all due respect,” Peter might say, “ we were kind of expecting a savior who planned to kick out the Romans, and become a great king, maybe like David, and all of us, well you know….we could all be your top advisors.”
“Whoa!” says Jesus, loud enough so all the disciples can hear, “You’re talking like you’ve been listening to someone else besides me—Satan even! God’s plan is not about that kind of worldly power!”
To define discipleship as picking up one’s cross would have been a shock for Peter and his motley companions. We’re used to it. Crosses are all around us, in churches, on bumper stickers, around our necks, or tattooed on our shoulder. Crosses are how we mark ourselves as disciples of Jesus. So we often don’t think about what this really means.
When Jesus said to the disciples that if anyone really wanted to follow him, he must take up his cross, no one knew that this was the way that Jesus was going to die. They certainly knew what a cross was, and how the Romans used it, but hearing this from Jesus would have been new and shocking information. Have you ever found a new hero—a great boss or a wonderful professor or an amazing musician or political activist who makes you say: I’d follow that guy anywhere! Imagine that person saying to you: If you really want to learn from me, be prepared to die a miserable death. I wonder how many of us think about this when we hang a cross around our neck.
When we are called as followers of Jesus, we are called to die, over and over again. Not necessarily the same miserable, bloody, and painful death that Jesus dies, but we are called to die to our own needs and expectations, die to our own agenda, die to our own idea of how things are supposed to turn out, just as Peter must die to his idea of what a Messiah is supposed to be.
We are called to lose our lives as we conceive them to be. This kind of loss, this kind of death, can be excruciating.
Five hundred years ago Martin Luther talked about two different theologies. Remember that “theology” is an intimidating word that is simply shorthand for the question: “What is God up to?” The theologies Luther articulated were the theology of glory, and the theology of the cross. The theology of glory is built on assumptions of how God is supposed to act in the world. God rewards the good with riches, good health, and long life. God punishes the wicked, God brings strong, right-thinking people to power and prosperity. Those who do not succeed, or who fall victim to loss and failure, have surely done something wrong, or simply do not matter in God’s eyes.
The theology of the cross says that what God is up to is that God reveals himself to us as Jesus rejected and suffering on the cross. That where there is suffering, loss, disappointment, abandonment, and unspeakable grief, that’s where God is. God suffers with us. God is present in our suffering when we rage against him for inexplicable events, when we mourn the loss of a loved one, or when we suffer as the result of our own inability to hold our lives loosely for the sake of the gospel. God suffers with us when we suffer, and God suffers with us when we should be suffering but aren’t, when we aren’t seeing the poverty and heartache around us, because we’re too busy looking for signs of God’s glory and triumph.
Well, this is a cheerful message this morning, isn’t it? I do think it’s good news that God is a suffering God. To the extent that as we, as disciples, are willing to suffer with and for God, God suffers with us.
The other good news is the part of Jesus’ teaching in today’s gospel that none of the disciples pick up on: the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected, and be killed—we got that part—and after three days rise again. After three days rise again. When we are willing to let go of everything we think we are, everything we think we’re supposed to have and supposed to be, God transforms our loss and suffering into new life, just as he raises Jesus from the dead. Just you wait and see.
