• About

Seeking and Serving

~ seek and serve Christ in all persons

Seeking and Serving

Monthly Archives: February 2013

Sermon – Philippians 3.17-4.1, L2, YC, February 24, 2013

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christ-like, example, imitate, Jesus, Paul, perfect, Sermon, teacher

When a person is ordained as a priest, they make a series of vows.  One of the scariest ones for me was this question:  Will you do your best to pattern your life and the life of your family in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people?  The question sounds simple enough:  Will you be an example to others?  But the question is anything but simple.  The question asks whether the priest will shape their lives so that parishioners, neighbors, and the world will understand the teachings of Christ through the priest’s life.  And not only is the priest responsible, the whole family of the priest has to be an example.  So when your three-year old is having a meltdown in Target, and your nerves are shot from a morning of similar tempter tantrums, and your spouse and you have argued about discipline, you and your family are supposed to be emanating Christ in Target.

Of course, the priest is not the only one who is supposed to be living a Christ-like life.  When we are baptized, and every time we affirm our baptismal covenant, those promises we renew are all about living a Christ-like life.  And yet, we rarely walk the walk that we talk.  I think one of the most common retorts to a petulant teen by a parent has been, “Do what I say, not what I do.”  We know the life we are supposed to live – even the life we want to live – and yet we fail miserably at that life everyday.  One of my favorite online videos is a video for Welcome Back Sunday in the fall.  The video talks about the top reasons why people do not come to church.  One of those reasons is that the Church is full of hypocrites.  We know the ways that we feel like hypocrites and the world knows the ways we act like hypocrites.

So, when we read our epistle lesson to the Philippians today, we may be shocked by Paul’s words.  Paul, who has regularly said that followers of Christ should imitate Christ, now says, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.”  Paul’s instruction to imitate him is bold.  Paul does not say, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Paul says, “Do what I do.”  Modern skeptics that we are, we immediately assume Paul has developed an inflated ego.  We know that telling people to imitate you is the first step toward a nasty fall.  Such a bold claim is setting Paul up for failure – because none of us are perfect.  Paul’s words immediately remind us of the hundreds of clergy who have fallen – who have embezzled, had affairs, abused children, abused alcohol, and have failed to be faithful pastors.  Surely Paul is setting up himself and the many people who are following him for failure.  Why would he do such a thing?

What we lose in our jaded, skeptical, snarky twenty-first century selves is the reminder of how learning and formation have happened for centuries.  Both Jesus, and Paul his disciple, “know that true moral and spiritual formation depends on tutelage under a master – learning to follow the habits and practices of one who has become proficient in a particular trade or skill.  Indeed, this is the precise meaning of the word ‘disciple’:  a learner or pupil.”[i]  In this way, disciples are learning from someone wiser than themselves, and in fact are imitating the teacher’s teacher.[ii]  So when Paul says imitate me, he does not really mean imitate Paul, but imitate Paul, who is imitating Jesus Christ.  Imitate the teacher’s teacher.

What I find comforting then, is that Paul is not saying he is perfect.  He is not boasting about his perfect imitation of Christ, but only encouraging others to imitate Christ as he imitates Christ.  What Paul knows is that our lives are never perfect.  But if we are not imitating something worth imitation, then we are already losing the battle.  And so, Paul’s imitation and our imitation many years later may be rough versions of Jesus Christ, but our imitation is still rooted in that great teacher who taught so many before us.

How we imitate Paul today is a bit more complicated.  We too must find our teachers who point to The Teacher.  The trick is not to think too remotely.  When asked who our role models are, many of us will name famous people of faith – Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mother Teresa.  And those folks will give us much to ponder about our faith life.  But the problem is, sometimes those people are so removed from our lives that they cannot really teach us how to live our lives as Christians.  I did a book study with a group once to prepare us for a prison ministry.  The book was about a woman from California in her fifties who gave up everything and moved into a prison in Tijuana as a nun to become an advocate for the men and families affected by the prison.  She lived in a cell in the prison and she ministered to the guards and the prisoners alike.  She transformed the place into a place of humanity.  She helped everyone equally, and managed to mobilize thousands of Americans to support the desperate needs of the Mexican prison.  Mother Antonia was an amazing role model that we all found incredibly inspiring.  But at the end of the series, one of the group members confessed that despite the fact that she appreciated Mother Antonia, she really would have preferred to have read a book about someone a little more like herself.  Mother Antonia was so dramatically different from her life that she found that instead of being inspired, she was left without a true mentor to imitate.

This is why Paul offers himself up as an example.  Not because he is some stellar example of Christ, but because he is in relationship with those with whom he is talking.  Paul realizes that the most powerful person to learn from is someone right in your community.  “Paul is directing the gaze of the community not toward some type of individual perfection, not even toward the supreme perfection of Christ…but to the realization of Christ’s love within the community itself.”[iii]

So Paul is inviting us to do a couple of things.  First, Paul is inviting to name our own teachers.  One of my favorite set of teachers is a couple I know from college.  When Rebecca and David were married, they bought a home in North Carolina much larger than what they would need.  The house was a fixer-upper, but they had dreams.  Their dream was to make the house into an intentional Christian community that also serves as a transitional house for families.  So, people who are in-between jobs, a woman who is recently divorced, or really anyone the local pastor recommends is welcome to come live in their home.  They have some house rules about sharing work, community meals, and weekly worship.  But Rebecca, David, and their two sons are imitating Christ in this radical lifestyle.  When I am really wondering how to live a Christ-like life, I look at this family and see how far I have to go.

But even Rebecca and David can be a little too removed.  So sometimes I just look at those around me.  I look at the spiritual disciplines of parishioners here.  I look at the ways that you care for those with physical limitations.  I look at the ways you tend to this property or the ways that you serve our neighbors in need.  Much like Paul and his community, we are not perfect.  We too struggle to understand how faith is lived right here in Plainview.  Our engagement in that struggle is what points us toward Christ.

This leads us to our second invitation from Paul – to recognize the ways in which we are all teachers to others.  When you leave this place every Sunday, you are not just Barbara or Bob or Paul.  You are Barbara the Christian from St. Margaret’s.  You are Bob who shows what being a person of faith is all about:  not because you are perfect, but because you are struggling to be like Christ.  That video about why people do not come to church has responses to each person’s fear or hesitancy about Church.  When one person complains that the Church is full of hypocrites, the Christian honestly and humbly says, “And there’s always room for one more.”  That kind of raw honesty is the kind of honesty that leads to trust, that leads to sharing, that leads to opening our doors to others.  That is the kind of honesty that makes others not only want to imitate us, but also to join us.  Paul invites us then to boldly proclaim, “Imitate me,” so that we can figure this journey out together.  Amen.


[i] Ralph C. Wood, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 62.

[ii] Casey Thompson, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 64.

[iii] Dirk G. Lange, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 65.

Sacred noise…

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

children, church, life, noise, thanks

kids-in-church

One of my challenges as a priest has been how to encourage parents who are worshiping with their children in church.  I want them to stay in church, but I also want to honor the occasional discomfort of their experience.  Of course, my opinion on this matter has changed dramatically since I became a parent, but what was once distracting noise by children in church has now become the sound of life to me.  A fellow blogger expressed this reality for me quite beautifully here.

But me telling a parent that they are welcome to stay in church does not solve much.  I cannot control the glares or the shh-es from other parishioners.  I cannot control the wave of panic that crashes over a parent when it feels like your child’s noises are as loud as a parade in a library.  I cannot even set an example because I am rarely actually in the pews with my fellow parents.  But I have experienced some of the grace that can happen when people are open to a child in church.  Back in December, I took my three-year old daughter to an ordination at the Cathedral.  She lasted relatively well for the first hour, but then became antsy.  I asked her if we should go after the peace, but she insisted she wanted to stay.  We made it back to the pew, and midway through the bishop’s praying of the Eucharistic prayer, my daughter impatiently asked, quite loudly, “Can I have the body of Christ now?!?”  Everyone around me giggled and I did too.  She broke the tension I had been feeling about her noise.  She probably voiced the fatigue that fellow worshipers around me felt too.  And she showed me that she fully understood what was happening, and was eager to receive the sacrament.  It doesn’t get more awesome than that.

I can’t force parents to stay in church with their kids.  I can’t force parishioners to always be sympathetic or even helpful.  What I can do is continue to hold all parents and children in prayer, thanking God for their presence, and the ways in which they keep me humble.  Thank you, parents, for all that you do to raise our children in the church.  We are blessed by you more than you know and always happy to have you in church.

Sermon – Luke 4.1-13, L1, YC, February 17, 2013

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

devil, Jesus, Lent, mistrust, scripture, Sermon, sin, temptation

Having grown up in the mostly Methodist and Baptist South, I grew up a culture that had no problem talking about the devil or Satan.  If you are starting to doubt yourself or are feeling abandoned in some way, a Southerner has no problem declaring, “That’s just the devil trying to pull you away from the Lord.”  My experience in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and especially with Episcopalians in those areas, is that people are not as comfortable talking about the devil and labeling the devil’s work in our lives.  I am not sure why we get so skittish talking about the devil.  Even the Great Litany, which we pray this morning, makes us uncomfortable with all its “devil” references.  My suspicion is that our hesitancy is a fear of sounding superstitious or a general lack of understanding or comfort with talking about the devil.  Perhaps we are not even sure the devil exists.  I too find myself in the camp of having a difficult time wrapping my head around the concept of the devil.  But I must also admit that when I have been told that my current troubles were due to the devil meddling in my relationship with God, I have felt better.  There is something quite freeing about naming the devil in the midst of our lives.

Our gospel lesson today highlights why we are so skittish about the devil.  The devil works in the thin space between good and evil.  For example, the three temptations of Jesus from the devil are just ambiguous enough that Jesus could reason his way into responding positively to the devil.  First the devil asks Jesus to turn a stone into bread.  Now if Jesus decides to do such a thing for himself, who is famished from fasting for forty days, we could see his action as self-serving and certainly in line with the devil.  But if Jesus turns the “abundant stones that cover Israel’s landscape into ample food to feed the many hungry people in a land often wracked by famine,”[i] then in good conscience, he might begin to consider the devil’s tempting offer.

Next, the devil tempts Jesus with the power to rule over all the kingdoms of the world.  Now if Jesus decides to take such authority out of a desire for power and greed, we could easily deem his action as rooted in self-serving sin.  But, if Jesus agrees to take that authority so that he can rule the world with justice, then the deal with the devil becomes a bit murkier.  If you remember, at the time of the Gospel, the land is under the heavy hand of Rome.[ii]  Jesus could easily turn their suffering to justice if he accepts the devil’s offer.

Finally, the devil tempts Jesus to prove God’s protective care.  Now if Jesus were jumping from the pinnacle of the temple just to show off how protected he is, then we could judge Jesus to be behaving in a sinful way.  But Jesus is committing to a tremendous journey.  Jesus might like some assurance that God will care for him.  In this light, the request does not seem like that much to ask.

The temptations for Jesus are not unlike the ways that the devil tempts Adam and Eve so many years before.  What the devil does is plant a seed of doubt, making Adam and Eve wonder why God would keep such beautiful fruit from them – why God would keep the truth from them about the tree.  The devil’s work is to constantly keep picking away at trusting relationship with God, fostering mistrust between God and God’s people.[iii]

Several years ago the film Doubt received several Oscar nominations.  The movie explored a Catholic Church and School where the head nun accused the priest of sexual misconduct.  But the story is presented so ambiguously that even by the end of the movie the viewer is not sure if abuse took place or not.  This is that thin place between truth and lies, between trust and mistrust where the devil thrives.  And truthfully, even in the movie, with whom the devil is cooperating is unclear.  This is the danger in all of our lives today – the lines between God’s work and the devil’s work are so close that we have a hard time naming the devil in our lives.

Luckily Jesus’ responses to the devil give us some guidance today.  In each of the three temptations, Jesus leans on his deep understanding of Holy Scripture.  Jesus leans not on his own personal strength, but instead leans on the truths that he learns in the Hebrew Scriptures.  We see how powerful Jesus’ response is because the devil attempts to distort this strength as well.  In the third temptation, the devil quotes scripture himself, trying to lure Jesus back into that thin place.  But Jesus cannot be fooled.  Jesus knows that the devil is using partial scripture citations that can be misleading out of context.[iv]  Jesus knows that a dependence on Holy Scripture will support him in his weakness.

As we begin our Lenten journey, today’s gospel lesson gives us much to ponder.  First, we are invited into a time of pondering how the devil might be acting in the thin spaces between faithfulness and sinfulness, manipulating our mistrust of God for the devil’s gain.  In order for us to understand how the devil might be acting, we will need to first label the ways in which we mistrust God.  If there are areas of our lives which we do not entrust to God: a particular relationship, a job or school decision, something challenging at work or at home, or an uncertain future, these are areas that are most susceptible to the devil squeezing his way into our lives.  Our invitation this week is to spend some time reflecting on the areas of mistrust of God in our lives and to pray for strength to turn those over to God.  Only when we understand where our mistrust is can we begin turning back into a trusting relationship with the God that loves and supports us.

Second, Jesus invites us into a deeper relationship with Scripture this Lent.  We have already seen how Holy Scripture sustained Jesus at his weakest hour.  Whatever your Lenten practice, consider how you might incorporate some additional Scripture reading into your week.  And if that feels too burdensome, you can use today’s Scripture insert and meditate on those four lessons at home.  If you are feeling more adventuresome, you can start praying Morning or Evening Prayer from the Prayer Book at home.  That prayer practice will expose you to a good amount of scripture.  And if you are feeling really adventuresome, you might just pick a book of the Bible and start reading.  You may be surprised at the parallels in scripture and your own life.

The invitations today are many.  In this time of Lent, we are encouraged to enter these forty days knowing that Jesus has been there himself and managed to lean on the God who saves us time and again.  If Jesus can lean on God in his weakness, we can lean on God in our weakness too, even if we are not totally ready to trust God with all of ourselves.  Just admitting that hesitancy is the first step to kicking the devil out of our thin spaces.  Amen.


[i] Sharon H. Ringe, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 47.

[ii] Ringe, 49.

[iii] David Lose, as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=668 on February 15, 2013.

[iv] Darrell Jodock, “Antidote for Temptation,” Christian Century, vol. 112, no. 6, Feb. 22, 1995, 203.

Homily – Ephesians 3.1-7, Mark 16.15-20, Cyril and Methodius, February 14, 2013

15 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cyril, Ephesians, exclusion, Gentiles, gospel, inclusion, Methodius, proclaim

Today we celebrate Cyril and Methodius.  Brothers in the 800s, born in Thessalonica, they are honored as founders of Slavic literary culture and apostles to the southern Slavs.  Adept at languages, they spread the Good News by translating liturgies and Scripture into Slavonic.  One might think their work was universally celebrated, but the brothers faced much opposition.  Although the Pope in Rome supported the brothers’ ministry, Cyril and Methodius received a lot of harassment from German bishops who saw Slavonic as a barbarous language.  Methodius was even imprisoned at one point, accused of heresy, and kicked out of the area; but Methodius just kept coming back.

It is interesting, then that we get Paul’s words to the Ephesians today.  Paul is reminding the Ephesians that he has been advocating for the full incorporation of the Gentiles.  What he has been preaching is that Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise.  We have heard Paul’s plea for Gentiles for ages, but sometimes I think we do not understand the radical nature of Paul’s work. God had a chosen people for a long time; they had been through famines, draught, and homelessness in the desert.  Now, all the laws and customs seems irrelevant in this new reality where Gentiles can join them.

The pattern keeps repeating itself.  The disciples didn’t want newbies distorting what they had so carefully constructed.  Cyril and Methodius faced the same challenge: the established Germans didn’t want these Slavs and their uncivilized lives ruining the Church community.  We do it too.  We exclude all the time:  her hair is too purple; we don’t want them coming in like they own the place; “those” people don’t even speak English.

But our Gospel lesson stops us right there.  “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news in the whole creation.”  All the world, the whole creation – not just people who look, act, talk like us.  Our questions today are many.  Who are we excluding?  Who is missing from this room?  How might we be bold enough to go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation?  Amen.

Homily – Acts 11.1-18, Cornelius the Centurion, February 7, 2013

15 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cornelius the Centurion, Gentiles, ministry, mutuality, St. Peter

Today we celebrate Cornelius the Centurion.  If you remember from our reading of Acts last year, this story of Peter and Cornelius gets retold multiple times.  Peter has this bizarre dream about a sheet that descends with four-footed animals.  God tells Peter to eat, and Peter resists because it is against his custom to eat animals deemed to be unclean.  But God insists that Peter eat.  After the dream, three men from Caesarea send for him, and Peter meets Cornelius.  Meanwhile, Cornelius had been praying; he was a devout man who feared God, gave to the poor and prayed constantly.  Cornelius was also given a vision to send for Peter.  Through their encounter, Cornelius becomes the first Gentile to be converted to Christianity – a big deal for the spreading of Christianity.

What I like about this feast day is that these lessons are not honoring the feast of St. Peter.  These lessons are not meant to honor the one who allowed the Gentiles “in.”  These lessons honor the Gentile who equally responded to God.  This emphasis dramatically shifts the power dynamic between Peter and Cornelius.  We do not celebrate the act of Jews converting Gentiles, but instead celebrate the movement of the Spirit among the Gentiles.

This distinction is important for us because it impacts so much of our ministry.  Cornelius invites us to redefine our definitions or boundaries around “us” and “them.”  When we do this with service work, the work becomes about us helping others, not about how we mutually grow in the encounter.  When we do this with evangelism, the work becomes about bringing them to us, not about how our “us” is incomplete.

What Cornelius does today is remind us of the experience of mutuality in ministry.  We are invited to be always open to the unexpected ways and in the unexpected people God will work through.  Cornelius invites us to learn the stories of those people we help with our food collections.  Cornelius reminds us that in speaking the Good News, we receive abundantly.  Cornelius reminds us, as he became the Second Bishop of Caesarea, that our lives are enriched by those who we deem as “other.”  Cornelius invites us to, like those in Jerusalem, proclaim: “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”  Amen.

Sermon – Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YC, February 13, 2013

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ash Wednesday, death, discipline, God, Jesus, journey, Lent, Sermon, sobering

I have been thinking about death a lot lately.  We lost one of our beloved parishioners yesterday, and another parishioner is sick enough that we have been talking about death.  The journeys with those parishioners have made death much more present for me.  Then, last week I was listening to an interview with Oscar-nominee Bradley Cooper who talked about how he nursed his father through to death.  Cooper explained how the death of his father dramatically changed Cooper’s perspective on life – how that last gasp of air by his father was the very moment that Cooper’s entire worldview shifted.  Then, just this weekend I watched a film called 50/50, a dramatic comedy that chronicles the way a 27 year-old deals with a cancer diagnosis that gives him only a fifty percent chance of survival.  At every turn, death seems to be whispering to me.

Part of my job as a priest is to bring a certain sobriety about death as death approaches.  That is not to say that I am a party pooper, but my role is to name the truth that is approaching – earthly death and reunion with our Lord in eternal life.  In fact, the Church is one of the few places left in the world that openly and regularly talks about death.  In a world that encourages anti-aging treatments, who has desensitized us to death as we have moved away from an agricultural lifestyle, and whose medical advances have extended life much longer than before, we learn that death can be conquered and should be fought at all costs.

Pushing against this secular understanding of death, the Church gives us Ash Wednesday.  The Church looks at our flailing efforts to preserve life and as we are humbly kneeling at the altar rail, rubs gritty ash on our heads and says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  There is no, “Don’t worry about death; you’ll be fine!”  Instead those grave words, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” echo in our heads, haunting our thoughts.  Every year the Church reminds us of the finite amount of time we have on this earth.

This is why I love Lent so much.  The Church dedicates forty days to a time where we cut to the chase and honestly assess our relationship with God.  We take a sobering look at our lives, a sobering look that could be reserved only for the time of death, and we discern what manifestation of sinfulness has pulled us away from God.  Our Prayer Book defines sin as “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.”[i]  Lent is the season when we focus on repentance from our sin – not just a feeling guilty about our sinfulness, but eagerly seeking ways to amend those relationships and turn back toward resurrection living.  What most people get only at the time of death, we are given every year at the time of Lent:  a time of sobering realignment.

This is why we get Matthew’s gospel lesson on Ash Wednesday.  As we begin our sobering Lenten journey, the gospel lesson names disciplines and practices that can help us along the way.  Jesus names those ancient practices that have brought people back to God for ages – giving alms, praying, and fasting.  Each one of these practices has ways of bringing us closer to God by shaking up our normal routines.  Of course, any Lenten practice can have the same effect.  Giving up caffeine, taking on a new fitness regiment, or reconnecting with nature are equally valid ways to shake up our routines enough to notice the ways in which we have become more self-centered than God-centered.  Although Jesus names the disciplines of alms giving, prayer, and fasting, the actual discipline itself is not the issue for Jesus.  The issue is our intentions in our practice.

This is why we hear Jesus labeling so many people as hypocrites in our gospel lesson today.  Jesus is less concerned about what disciplines we assume and is more concerned about the authenticity behind those disciplines.  Jesus is not arguing that private acts are authentic and public ones are inauthentic by nature.  What matters is the desire and motivation behind these practices.  We have all seen this in action.  One of my favorite comediennes jokes about this very behavior in one of her shows.  She talks about how people sometimes use prayer requests as a means of gossip.  In one of her jokes, she has the gossiper of the church inviting people into a prayer circle so that they can pray for someone in the church who just got pregnant, even though the news was supposed to be private.  We all know the kind of hypocritical behavior Jesus is addressing.  This kind of behavior will never get us to the sobriety we need to right our relationship with God and others.

Of course, any kind of practice we take up this Lent can be corrupted.  The giving up of a particular kind of food can be more for weight loss than a connection to God.  The taking up of a volunteer activity can be to fulfill a requirement for something else.  Whatever we do this Lent, that deprivation or incorporation is meant to help us restore our relationship with God, other people, and all creation.  So when we give up a food, instead of glorying in the fact that we lost a few pounds, we can instead see how that food has become an emotional crutch that keeps us from leaning on God and others.  When we take on a new prayer routine, we slowly begin to see how little time we give to God in our daily lives.  Whatever our practice, Jesus is concerned that authenticity be at the heart, so that we can more readily prepare for Good Friday and Easter.[ii]

And so, in order to shake us out of our self-centered, sinful, distant ways, Ash Wednesday gives us death.  Ash Wednesday grittily, messily, publicly reminds us of our death, and then leaves us marked so that we can humbly enter into a Lenten reconnection with God.  Ash Wednesday throws death in our faces so that we can wake up in a world that would have us keep striving for longevity of earthly life instead of striving for intimacy with God here and now.  This Ash Wednesday, our ashes are the outward reminder of the sobering journey we now begin, because only when we consider our own death can we begin to see the resurrection glory that awaits us at Easter.  My prayer is that our journey this Lent is not one of painful guilt, but instead one of glorious reconnection with our creator, redeemer, and sustainer.  Amen.


[i] BCP, 848.

[ii] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 24.

Homily – Luke 4.40-44, Samuel Shoemaker, January 31, 2013

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

evangelism, homily, Jesus, Samuel Shoemaker

In our gospel lesson today, Jesus experienced the first of many attempts to contain Jesus and his ministry.  After healing many, Jesus goes to a deserted place, to rejuvenate, most likely, but the crowds follow, begging him to stay.  They want to keep Jesus Christ to themselves, to use him as they need.  But Jesus will not stay: “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to other cities also …”  Jesus must keep moving, sharing the Good News beyond one particular place.

We do this 2,000 years later.  Though we say we want to grow, we like our small, close-knit community.  We like what Jesus is doing now, and we are not sure how much change we actually want.  Besides, if we are going to grow, we would like people to come to us, not us need to keep moving outside these walls, bringing people in.  Of course, this is not simply a St. Margaret’s problem.  The entire Episcopal Church is in decline because we really struggle with that whole “evangelism” thing.

Samuel Shoemaker, who we honor today, would not have liked our guarded, protective ways – even if we are in good company.  Shoemaker, born in 1893 in Baltimore, was influenced by many evangelical thinkers.  He learned the power of personal evangelism, and during his 16-year tenure in New York City at Calvary Episcopal Church, his church grew exponentially.  He knew the power of personal evangelism and giving authentic witness to one’s faith.  Eventually, Shoemaker started movements of sharing faith in the workplace and ministering to alcoholics through AA.  Shoemaker kept making the “box” of church wider, keeping that same pace of Jesus, who could not be kept by one town or community.

The good news with Jesus and even Shoemaker is that they push us in good ways with results more bountiful than we could imagine.  Yes, Jesus could have stayed in one town forever, and healed and cared for all.  But Jesus Christ also knew he could do more.  Shoemaker could have ministered to those inside the church and not worried about who wasn’t there.  But because he did, the good news and ministries became whole movements in the church.

Our invitation today is to think bigger.  We can make tweaks here and there, but maybe we can think bigger about our ministry and witness here in Plainview.  Who knows which risks will pay off and what changes will lead us to boisterous new life?  We may not know what that will look like in the years to come.  But our invitation is to stay open, to keep moving and to boldly go out into the world with Jesus.  Amen.

Homily – Acts 26.9-21, Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, January 24, 2013

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

conversion, homily, Jesus, St. Paul, story

Today we celebrate the conversion of St. Paul the Apostle.  Paul’s story is fresh in many of our minds.  Having read through Acts this fall, we heard his conversion story hundreds of times.  Saul, a brutal persecutor of Christians, has a profound experience with Jesus, and he changes his entire life.  This man who watched Christians be martyred eventually himself becomes martyred for Christ.  His change is dramatic; he totally devotes his life to Christ, especially advocating for the conversion of Gentiles.  That conversion experience for Paul becomes a rock – a story not only that he shares over and over, but that he uses as fuel for his journey.

Now as modern Episcopalians, Paul’s conversion story is intriguing, but not exactly relatable.  Few of us have a story of being converted.  In fact, few of us even have a story of being “saved,” as our Baptist brothers and sisters might call it.  And if we are truly honest, few of us even like to tell our faith story at all, at least not to anyone outside these walls.  Yet this is what Jesus calls us to do in the Gospel lesson today.  Jesus says we will be sent out like sheep among wolves, flogged and dragged before governors because of Jesus.  When we are to speak we are not to worry, because the Holy Spirit will give us the words.  For a people who feel uncomfortable even talking about our faith to others, these are not exactly emboldening words.  And Paul’s talk is not much encouragement!

So where can we find encouragement?  I find encouragement with Paul.  If you remember, Paul had a lot of support.  His Jewish and Roman identity opened a lot of doors and saved him many times.  Also, God gave Paul a story; he did not have to make up a new story every time.  He just told his story – the story he knew best – over and over again.  What Paul did was indeed scary, and we know the many scary moments he faces, but he did those things with some real support from the Holy Spirit.

This is why we can trust Jesus when he says, “Do not worry.”  Our story today is a lot less scary; we may face discomfort talking to others, but not flogging and death.  And we know our story; we have lived a great journey with Jesus.  Maybe we are still figuring it all out, but sometimes honestly sharing that ambiguity will open more people to Christ than certainty will.  So Jesus and Paul encourage us today.  They encourage us to let go of fear and to just start telling our story.  “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”  Amen.

Homily – Matthew 16.13-19, Confession of St. Peter the Apostle, January 17, 2013

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

celebrate, confession, homily, Jesus, Messiah, St. Peter

I got a little behind posting my homilies from our Thursday Eucharists.  The next few entries will catch us up!

Today we honor the Confession of St. Peter the Apostle:  that moment when Peter declares that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.  Peter is one of my favorite characters in the New Testament, mostly because he is always messing up.  He is the rock on which Jesus will build his Church – he even renamed Peter for this reason.  But Peter is always messing up, sinking in the sea, offering to build tabernacles at the Transfiguration, and denying Jesus Christ three times.

I don’t love that Peter messes up because I am superior to Peter.  I love that Peter messes up because I mess up so much too.  I am always doubting God.  I am always misunderstanding what God is doing.  I am always denying my Lord – in small and big ways.  Somehow, if Peter can do all these things and still be loved by Jesus, maybe there is hope for me.  What I love about today’s feast day, though, is that today celebrates a day when Peter gets it right – no beating up Peter; no making excuses.  Today is a day that Peter gets it, and we the church rejoice.

What is even more redeeming to me is that Jesus declares how Peter achieves this moment of clarity.  “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven.”  Peter does not achieve this clarity or earn it or do it on his own – only through God can he be this clear-headed rock of the Church, declaring, “You are the Messiah.”

This is how we, too, follow the life of Christ and our call in that life.  Only through God, who alone can make us all clear-headed, impassioned lovers of Jesus Christ.  We will continue to mess up, just like Peter, but we will have our moments.  Moments we make God proud, maybe even moments that make the church want to celebrate these proud moments.  Because not only do we celebrate our victories, we celebrate the One who makes those victories possible.  Amen.

Sermon – Luke 9.28-43, TRS, YC, February 10, 2013

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Jesus, mountaintop experiences, Sermon, Transfiguration

In the course of my life, I have moved around a lot.  By the time I was in third grade, my family had lived in four different places.  By the time I was ready to head to college, we had lived in three more.  From college until now, I have lived in five more places.  Having lived in so many new life situations, I have picked up a few tips about integrating into a new community.  One of the most important things to remember is that you only have a few months’ permission to reference how your last community did something.  So sentences that begin with, “At my old school…” or “At my last parish…” have a short lifespan.  For the first few months, people will tolerate and maybe even enjoy these stories because they are a way of learning something about you – what you prefer, what gives you joy, and what you do not like.  But the window for sharing this way does not last long.  When you share in this way for too long, people begin to wonder if you are dwelling on the past, not letting go of your old life and actually joining them in this stage of life.  When they hear you say, “In my last home town…” they now roll their eyes, thoroughly expecting you to tell them how perfect your life used to be and just how lame your – and consequently their – life must be now.  Only after years and years of experience have I developed the keen sense of when the looks of interest and engagement have turned to eye-rolls of impatience.

Of course, this reality is true of every single church.  The longer someone belongs to a church, the more often they can be found saying, “Well, when Father So-and-so was here, we used to…”  Whether the experience was a beloved mission trip, a particularly meaningful spiritual event, or even the old softball team, those events become legend among a parish – and become a sort of measure or even icon of how good life can be in church.  Anything new that happens is measured against this old, significant experience.

This habit can create all sorts of challenges.  For those who lived through the experiences, they become something that we cling to as so good and holy that we cannot open ourselves to something new.  In fact, nothing will ever match up to the memory because we have built up the memory so large in our minds that we probably block out anything negative about the older experience.  This kind of habit is a challenge for newcomers too.  Since the newcomers to church can never relive the event with us, they are forever excluded when someone starts telling these stories.  Sure, they enjoy learning something about the parish through these stories, but eventually they come to see these stories as a reminder of how they are still new, never fully belonging to the group.  Finally, the glorification of these old experiences tends to prevent us from lifting up the incredible experiences that are happening right here and now – hindering us from seeing the sacred experiences in our midst.  And lest anyone think I am picking on the long-timers in church, know that no one is exempt from this tendency; I have even seen children and teenagers catch on to this practice.

This same very experience happens to Peter on the mountain today in Luke’s gospel.  Tired and weary from an exhausting schedule, Peter, John, and James go up the mountain with Jesus to pray – and maybe even get a bit of rest.  In this exhausted haze, they see the glorious transfiguration of Jesus and the appearance of Moses and Elijah.  Blown away, Peter does the first thing that comes to mind – suggests they stay there, building dwelling places for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  Surely something this incredible should be held on to and preserved, remembered and treasured.  Peter’s idea is not inherently bad.  Mountaintop experiences are blessed gifts from God, meant to be savored and enjoyed for years to come.

But what Peter reminds us today is that holding on to mountaintop experiences with a desperate clinging does not actually feed us forever.  As one pastor reminds us, “if we build a booth to [those mountaintop experiences], erect a frame around them and enshrine them, we can end up worshiping those moments or memories or persons to the extent that they become a hindrance, a stumbling block or even idolatry – rather than unmerited gift from God and resource for service to others.”[i]

This is one of those lessons that keeps coming back to us.  A few years ago, I was brought into a parish’s mission program to reform and revitalize the mission trips they had been taking to the Dominican Republic.  I immediately recognized all sorts of missing components – preparation and formation before the trip; fundraising that brought others into the experience; and meaningful worship and reflection during the trip, just to name a few.  I pulled from the myriad resources I had gathered from years of doing mission trips, including what I thought was a pretty dynamic daily worship liturgy – one through which I had had a few mountaintop experiences.  So imagine my surprise when half-way through the week, one of the teens approached me and explained that the liturgy was not working.  He wanted something a little more fresh, and had some suggestions if I was open.  I winced, realizing how I had become Peter once again – building a booth around a liturgy, instead of noticing the new ways that the Spirit was moving on that trip.

We have choices about how we respond to the many mountaintop experiences of our lives.  “We can ruin them with ‘if onlys’ (if only I could stay here longer; if only things would never change; if only I could relive that experience).  We can reminisce about our experiences, caressing and massaging them as an excuse to disengage from the world.  Or we can allow them to prepare us for what God calls us to do next.”[ii]  We always have a choice.

The great thing about our gospel text is that the text gives us some clues about what Jesus wants the disciples to do with their mountaintop experience.  The lectionary gives us the choice of ending the gospel lesson at the end of the Transfiguration event, cutting out the next seven verses of Luke’s gospel.  But the story of the Transfiguration loses some of the story’s power if the story does not include the experience of coming down the mountain.[iii]  The text tells us two things.  First, the disciples keep silent about what they see.  They do not run around boasting about the story or lingering there too long.  Instead, they go back down the mountain and continue Jesus’ work of healing.  This is the second thing the text tells us.  Sometimes the best way to share our mountaintop experiences is not to rehash them, but to simply serve those who we encounter, our actions being the greatest way to multiply our mountaintop experience.

As we celebrate our fifty years of ministry in Plainview this year, our gospel lesson today challenges our patterns.  Those moments of baptizing individuals in this building when the walls were not yet finished, of finally obtaining parish status, of bowling leagues, of Cursillo groups, of conquering dark times, and yes, even of welcoming our first female rector – those moments are not moments where we invited to linger today.  Instead, as we look back at the last fifty years, we celebrate those moments not as “the good ol’ days,” but instead as the mountaintop experiences that keep pointing us back down the mountain.  Those experiences remind us of times of great intimacy and joy so that we can continue to name the presence of the sacred in our midst at this moment, and the ways that we are being transfigured everyday.  There will be moments, when like the disciples, we will need to keep silent about those times so that we can go down the mountain and let those moments manifest into the service of God in new and life-giving ways.  Our invitation today is to come down the mountain, celebrating the ways that our mountaintop experiences enable us to see God right here and now.  Amen.


[i] Phyllis Kersten, “Off the Mountain,” Christian Century, vol. 118, no. 5, February 7-14, 2001, 13.

[ii] Kersten, 13.

[iii] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 456.

← Older posts

Recent Posts

  • On Thanksgiving and Imperfection…
  • Sermon – Matthew 24.36-44, Isaiah 2.1-5, Psalm 122, Romans 13.11-14, A1, YA, December 1, 2019
  • Sermon – Luke 23.33-43, P29, YC, November 24, 2019
  • On Birthdays and Blessings…
  • On God’s Love…

Archives

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012

Categories

  • Sermons
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy