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Seeking and Serving

Monthly Archives: March 2013

Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YC, March 29, 2013

29 Friday Mar 2013

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cross, dark, Good Friday, hope, Jesus, light, Sermon, sin, stark, ugliness

Good Friday is one of the most difficult liturgies in the Church year.  The tone of the liturgy alone is stark.  Without our usual adornments and vestments, without music, and without our sacred sacramental feast, we are already feeling bereft.  But added on top of all this starkness is our passion reading from John.  This is one of those stories that gets worse and worse as we read.  Our tendency in the face of such overwhelming grief and failure is to start disassociating ourselves from others, somehow hoping to deny that there is ugliness in each of us that could lead to the exact same results had we been there.

We would like to believe that we would never betray Jesus in the way that Judas does.  Surely nothing could ever lure us into such a treacherous act.  Unless, of course, we think Jesus needs a little motivation.  Many have argued that Judas’ betrayal is caused by his desire to push Jesus into the role of a political Messiah – to assume the military power that rightly belongs to Jesus.[i]  If we believe as Judas does that Jesus is the political Messiah that we had been waiting for, perhaps we too might find some way to give Jesus a push to fight back.  Surely we have all experienced impatience and pushed others along the way.  Judas’ ugliness seeps into even us at times.

If we have to admit that some of Judas is in us, then at least we can imagine that we would not betray Jesus as Peter does.  We all know that Jesus has said following him will lead to death – we would say “Yes,” to that servant girl’s question because, come what may, we would stand with Jesus.  But how many of us have failed ourselves and our friends under similar pressure.  That survival instinct – that desire to protect ourselves takes over all the time – even if only in the form of white lies that cover our interests.  We have to remind ourselves that Peter wants to be a better disciple – he does attempt to protect Jesus with the sword, and he at least follows Jesus into the cold courtyard.  Who knows if we could have done that?  So parts of Peter must be in us too.

If we concede some of Judas and Peter in us, surely we can at least claim that we are not like Caiaphas.  Surely we would never look at Jesus and claim, “It is better for one person to die for the people.”  Surely we always stand on the side of goodness – except, of course, when we are choosing the lesser of two evils, as Caiaphas claims he is doing.  I remember a classic ethics case in seminary.  A group of Jews were hiding from the Nazis.  A baby in the group starts crying.  The ethical question is this:  Do you suffocate the child in order to protect the lives of the whole group, or do you save the child, knowing that the entire group will be discovered because of the crying baby and most likely murdered.  Just because one option is less evil does not make the option good.  Unfortunately, Caiaphas can be found in us also.

Perhaps, then, we can still deny the Pilate in ourselves.  We see in Pilate a man who knows the right thing to do, but who keeps waffling, trying to weasel out of a decision.  But we too have had times of indecision, even when we know what to do; because the right thing is rarely the easy or popular thing.  How do any of us fare when faced with a group who is staunchly opposed to what we know is right?  Yes, Pilate is in us too.

Having experienced many passion narratives where we have been required to say the “crowd” part, “Crucify him,” we would like to believe that we would never be like the chief priests who shout this line.  Surely we would not succumb to that same behavior.  But in the last several years, we have heard enough stories about mob mentality to know the power of the mob to deteriorate morals.  People say and do things they would never do otherwise when egged on by a crowd.  I think about that school bus monitor who was taunted by four boys on a school bus.  When the parents saw the video, they could not believe their children had done such a thing – had fallen in with the group.  We look at those boys and wonder how that could have happened, forgetting the times we have been swept up in anger or pushed to the point of breaking.  Yes, we have some of the chief priests in us.

So if we cannot deny all these individuals, perhaps we can at least deny the behavior of the soldiers.  We would never flog Jesus and mock him in the ways that they do.  We would not nail him to that cross or gamble for his clothes or pierce his side.  But all we have to do is remember those scandalous photos of the military prison in Abu Ghraib less than ten years ago to realize how corrupted judgment can become, especially for those who have to desensitize themselves to violence as soldiers often need to.  We all take on the behaviors of those biblical soldiers from time to time.

This is what makes Good Friday so difficult.  Certainly we are devastated about what happens to Jesus.  But more importantly, we are devastated because we know deep down, in the most sinful parts of ourselves, we too have betrayed Jesus, denied him, judged him, condemned him, rejected him, mocked him, cursed him, flogged him, and killed him.[ii]  What is so painful about this day is not so much Jesus’ painful death, but our own participation in that death.  That is why we leave here in silence, and why we keep watch in the face of our sinfulness.

But even in this most despairing of days, there is one sliver of hope for me.  Just as we can be Judas, Peter, Caiaphas, Pilate, chief priests, and soldiers, perhaps we can also be like Mary and the beloved disciple.  Perhaps we could also find the goodness in ourselves that would take the risk of standing at the foot of that cross.  Perhaps we can find in us the one who keeps watch until Jesus draws his last breath.  Surely we have all done this throughout our lives.  We too have set at the bedside of a loved one in their final hours.  We have fought sleep, given in to grief, rubbed a withered hand, and waited through the ambiguity of those last hours.

This is the image that gives me hope today.  I think of the countless bedsides I have joined, as we loved someone through to death.  We have spoken in hushed voices, patted each other on the back, and shared hugs.  We have shed tears, reminisced with stories, and prayed the prayers and psalms.  We have stumbled through goodbyes, hoping our words and presence show forth our love.  We have simultaneously felt helpless, and felt like we were doing the right thing.

This is our invitation today.  We claim all of the Judas, Peter, Caiaphas, Pilate, chief priests, and soldiers in us, but we also claim those who stand at the foot of the cross in us too.  The beauty is that we can do both – in fact we can stand at the foot of the cross more honestly if we recognize all the parts in us.  And we can stand at the foot of the cross more vigilantly when we look around and see the community of faith who stands there with us.  We can lean on one another, giving one another strength to live into the light over the darkness.  Even as we see him hanging on the cross, we stand as a community unwilling to let the darkness overcome the light.  Recognizing the dark and light in each of us, even on this darkest of days, we can choose to stand at the foot of the cross together, and claim the light.  Amen.


[i] George Arthur Buttrick, Ed., The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 1007.

[ii] Jim Green Somerville, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 302-304.

Sermon – John 13.1-17, 31b-35, MT, YC, March 28, 2013

29 Friday Mar 2013

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disciples, foot washing, Jesus, love, Maundy Thursday, Sermon

IMG_2898_2Tonight our actions mirror the actions of our gospel lesson.  Like the disciples, we gather around the table.  I imagine our potluck meal was not unlike the meal the disciples had with Jesus that night – an intimate meal with friends who feel like family, sharing stories, laughter, and woes.  We too are a ragtag team of followers, gathered at a meal, who seek to know our Savior better, and who lean on a community of faith to join us in the journey.  As the disciples did that night, we will also have our feet washed.  I imagine our discomfort in having our feet washed, and even our wondering what the foot washing means, are not that different from Peter’s struggles.  Finally, we too will come to the Eucharistic table.  This night was the night that Jesus instituted the sacrament of Eucharist.  Like Jesus shared his last meal with the disciples that night, we too receive the sacred body and blood of Christ for the last time until the Easter Vigil.

In observing the patterns of our gathering this night, we could feel pretty good about ourselves.  We could look at the synchronicity between us and the disciples that night and feel like we have joined them in a great memorial of our brothers in Christ.  But tonight is not just about imitating manual acts.  The entire point of that night – the table fellowship, the washing of feet, the sharing in Christ’s body and blood – is not about the actions themselves.  The point of that night was establishing a way of being.  Jesus establishes the way that the community will be together:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This command to love one another is perhaps one of the most difficult commands of Jesus.  All we have to do is look at two people in the room that night to see what Jesus means.  Both Judas and Peter are in the room when Jesus says that they are to love one another.  That means when Judas hands Jesus over to die, and when Peter embarrasses them by three times denying the Savior he claimed to be willing to die for, that the other disciples will have to find a way to love both Judas and Peter later.

For us, that means when our family members, friends, fellow parishioners, and even strangers betray us, we too will have to love each of those individuals.  Love is not an easy act.  Love means that we have to accept the role of servant, the one who kneels down on the floor and washes the dirty feet of another, even a betrayer.  But we also have to be the person who allows him or herself to be cared for in a similar way.  Margaret Guenther once said, “If we love one another as Jesus loves us, we must be ready to put aside our grudges, hurts, and righteous anger.”  Guenther admits, “I tend to love with my fingers crossed.  I’m ready to love almost everyone, but surely I can’t be expected to love the person who has harmed me.  Or who does not wish me well.  Or who seems hopelessly wrong-headed.  Surely I am allowed one holdout, one person whom I may judge unworthy of love.  But the commandment has no loopholes; it demands that we let go of our pet hates, the ones we clutch like teddy bears.”[i]

NPR does a series called StoryCorps.  I will never forget one story I heard about a woman who befriend the boy who killed her son.  At first she was filled with anger at her son’s murderer, but then twelve years later, she went to visit the young man in prison and everything changed.  “He became human to me,” explained the woman.  They departed that day with a hug.  Twenty years after the murder of her son, the woman and the murderer now are neighbors, caring for one another like a mother and son.  She demands the same attention from him a mother would, and he always strives to care for her and earn her approval.  She plans to see him graduate from college – something her own son never got to do.  And maybe someday go to his wedding.[ii]  This is the kind of love that Jesus is talking about on this sacred night.

Luckily, the Church gives us our liturgy tonight to encourage us on the way.  If we want to love as Jesus commands, we can come forward, and be willing to be loved through the washing of our feet.  If we want to love as Jesus commands, we can earnestly confess our sins before others, recommitting ourselves to love.  If we want to love as Jesus commands, we can come to the table one more time, perhaps kneeling by someone with whom we have a grudge, and being renewed into the way of love.  And if we want to love as Jesus commands, we will take all the strength that we gain from this night, and we will walk out those doors a people transformed – transformed into beings who love with abandon, not caring on whom we waste the love or how or whether the love is returned to us.  When we love in this way, we love like Jesus – and everyone will know that we are Jesus’ disciples by our love.  Amen.


[i] Margaret Guenther, “No Exceptions Permitted,” Christian Century, vol. 112, no. 15, May 3, 1995, 479.

[ii] Story found at http://www.npr.org/2011/05/20/136463363/forgiving-her-sons-killer-not-an-easy-thing as of March 25, 2013.

Sermon – Luke 19.28-40, PS, YC, March 24, 2013

25 Monday Mar 2013

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Holy Week, Messiah, Palm Sunday, parenting, passion, prophecy, Sermon

palm-sunday-australiaWhen I was in third grade, I had one of those classic rite-of-passage moments.  The day started out simply enough.  At school, my friend, Buffy, who normally sat right behind me, was out sick that day.  On the way to lunch, another friend, Holly, lamented how much she missed having Buffy there.  I agreed, but casually mentioned that I was getting more work done because Buffy was not distracting me by talking so much.  The comment was a rare, blatantly honest comment about how, although I loved my friend Buffy, Buffy did tend to talk a little too much.  That moment of rare, brutal honest cost me dearly.  That night, Holly called to tell me how upset Buffy was that I said she talked too much.  I was devastated and embarrassed.  I could not believe Holly had betrayed my confidence and told Buffy what I said.  Now I was forced to call Buffy and figure out how to meaningfully apologize.  This was a tall order for a third grader.

What I remember most about that interaction is the presence of my mother.  Before I got up the courage to call Buffy to apologize, I came to my mother weeping.  I was weeping out of remorse, I was weeping out of embarrassment, and I was weeping because I felt like I had no legitimate excuse for my words.  How could I keep Buffy as a friend with her knowing how I felt about her talking habits?  My mother stood by my side, encouraging me to face my fears, assuring me that everything would eventually be okay.

As I look back at that day now as a parent, I can only imagine how my mother must have felt.  She must have felt awful for me, knowing how painful removing one’s foot from one’s mouth can be.  She must have known that this kind of grievance would take a long time to forgive, and that I would have to maintain a tone of repentance, without the assurance of forgiveness.  She must have anticipated how difficult my apology would be and how vulnerable offering that apology would make me.  But my mother must have also known that all of those experiences are a part of growing up and being in relationship with others.  She could not navigate my mess for me.  She could not take away my discomfort.  She knew I just needed to go through the experience, and would be transformed in the process.  I remember my mother being infinitely supportive; but years later, I imagine my mother must have felt impotent and helpless as I navigated the realities of growing up.

In some ways, I think that Holy Week leaves us with that same sense of impotence and helplessness.  We would love nothing more than to finish our worship today with Jesus’ story on that blessed Palm Sunday.  Everything is there.  The prophecies are being fulfilled:  Zechariah already foretold of how the Messiah would come triumphantly, but humbly, riding on a donkey.[i]  Everyone is already singing those words from the Psalms, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  There is no mistaking that the pieces of the puzzle are all present – Jesus is the long awaited Messiah and the people finally get it as they lay down their blankets and celebrate their king.  We should be able to say, “The end,” today and all go home, ready to celebrate again next week.

Unfortunately, we do not get off so easily.  Like a mother who wants to shield her children, we want to shield Jesus and ourselves from the pain that will come this Holy Week.  We want to skip the Passion Narrative – or at least save the narrative for Good Friday – delaying the inevitable.  But our liturgy today does not let us avoid the uncomfortable remainder of the story.  I have long been told that the reason we read the Palm liturgy along with the Passion Narrative is because so few church-goes actually attend Holy Week services.  But I think there is more to today’s liturgy than cramming everything into one Sunday.  I think we hear the Passion Narrative with the Palm liturgy because the Palm liturgy can only be understood in light of the Passion.  If we try to claim victory today with our palms, we miss the work of the Messiah.  We forget the rest of prophecy if we stop with the palms.  The palms simply mark our acknowledgment of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah.  The Passion gives us the consequences of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah.

Using the parenting lens this year has helped me with my normal disappointment in Palm Sunday.  Normally, Palm Sunday makes me feel like a failure.  Here I am in one moment singing, “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” joining the festival procession with my palms, and the next moment shouting “Crucify him!”  This liturgy has always made me feel like a failure.  But the parenting lens changes things for me.  If I think of this day not as a failure on my part, but as the experience that Jesus must live through in order to free us from our sins, somehow I feel less impotent.  Somehow I am better able to sit with Jesus today, knowing that I cannot change his journey, but also knowing that his painful journey will lead to greater things.  Without the recognition of Jesus’ identity in the palms liturgy, and the shameful death of Jesus in the passion narrative, we cannot get through to the other side – to the Easter resurrection that awaits us.

So today, we take on the role of supportive parent.  We sit in the kitchen, pretending to read a magazine, while intently listening to the painful journey of Jesus.  If we are good parents, we let the drama unfold as the drama needs to unfold.  But we also keep watch, waiting to be called into the fray to offer our love and support.  We cannot control Jesus’ journey, and in the end, that is for the best – because the end of Jesus’ story is much better without our meddling ways anyway.  Amen.


[i] George W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 152.

Holy mess…

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

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Holy Week, incarnate, messy, Prayer Book

Last week I was officiating a committal service in our cemetery.  It had rained the day before, so not only was the ground very soggy, but also the dirt that I use to throw on the casket during the service was a bit wet too – despite the fact that we tried to keep it covered overnight.  What I did not realize was just how wet the dirt would be.  After I tossed the dirt, my hands we covered with crumbling mud.  Despite my efforts to rub the dirt off my hands, my Prayer Book pages got dirty and even the back of my Prayer Book had smudges on it.

As someone who loves books and likes to show my respect for books by caring for them gently, normally something like this would freak me out.  But my Prayer Book lives a very different life than my other books.  My Prayer Book has been sullied with dirt and sand from funerals and interments.  My Prayer Book has gotten damp from baptisms and the use of an aspergillum.  The pages in my Prayer Book that have the ordination liturgy have oil smears because the bishop anointed my hands so that I may anoint others.  No one could ever argue that my Prayer Book is pristine.

But that is exactly why I love my Prayer Book.  My sullied Prayer Book reminds me of the incarnate life we all live together.  Each dirt smear reminds me of a beloved parishioner, or a family who was completely unknown to me until they came to me for liturgical help.  Each hint of a drop of water reminds me of the babies and young adults I have baptized into the faith.  Those touches of oil remind me of the many times I have said healing prayers with others.  My Prayer Book caries in it the incarnate memories from this blessed vocation I am privileged to live.

As I think about next week – Holy Week in the Church – I am looking forward to more of those incarnate moments with others.  Palms that will be shoved into the back of my Prayer Book, Chrism that I will receive from the Diocese that may drip on those pages, water from the washing of feet that may splash into the book, and wax from the Vigil candles that may drip on a page of my beloved Prayer Book.  The liturgies of Holy Week not only encourage us to remember Jesus’ journey toward the cross and resurrection, but also the liturgies involve our senses, our bodies, and our messy incarnate ways.  I am looking forward to messy memories next week with St. Margaret’s!

Sermon – John 12.1-8, L5, YC, March 17, 2013

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

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community, death, faith journey, God, Holy Week, Jesus, Judas, Lazarus, Mary, poor, Sermon, tension

With Holy Week only a week away, today’s Gospel lesson throws us into preparation for that significant week.  Six days before the Passover – six days before Jesus will sit down with his disciples for their last meal together – Jesus sits down for another significant meal.  Jesus returns to Bethany, to the home of the family he loves – the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.  The foreshadowing is all there.  Lazarus, and the lingering smell of his once-dead body, is at the table as a vivid reminder of the death that awaits Jesus.  The two of them sharing table fellowship together both brings to mind the resurrection of Lazarus, and foreshadows a more important resurrection that is soon to come.  Even Mary is preparing us and Jesus for his death, as she uses costly perfume, nard that she has saved for the day of Jesus’ burial, to anoint Jesus now.  Death is heavy in the room.  What sounds like a simple reunion of friends is actually the foretaste of what is to come in a mere week.

So in the midst of this sacred, significant moment, what does Judas do?  Judas totally misses what is happening in the moment.  On one level, Judas is right.  That bottle of nard – a whole pound of fragrance – would have cost about $20,000 in today’s terms[i].  Judas has spent years with Jesus hearing nothing but Jesus’ preference for the poor.  We cannot fault Judas for seeing the potential good that the same bottle could have done for the poor.  But like any good church member, Judas gets stuck in the ways he has learned.  Judas takes a really good practice – Jesus’ passion for the poor – and makes that practice rigid and lifeless.  This valued practice blinds him to the other realities that are unfolding right before him.

We behave like Judas all of the time.  We too have ideas about what we should do and how that should be done.  Our reasoning might be very informed and, under normal circumstances, deeply rooted in our faith and tradition.  But sometimes we too are off base.  We miss the big picture.  When I went on my mission trip to Honduras, we spent an entire winter and spring preparing for the trip.  One of the many books we read was a book by a woman named Elvia Alvarado.  Elvia was a poor Honduran woman who saw much strife in her country and who slowly became an organizer and advocate for change.  But along the way she tells of many atrocities that happened in Honduras to the poor.  As I read the book, I became more and more outraged and incensed about what was happening to the Honduran poor – so outraged that I wanted to go and do something, to make a difference for the people who could not speak for themselves.  But in her concluding remarks, Elvia says something quite shocking.  Elvia asks every gringo reader (gringos being white people from the United States) not to come to Honduras to solve their problems.  In fact she tells the gringos to stay where we are.  She says that this work is the Hondurans’ work to do.  But what she does charge the gringos with is working on our own stuff.  She asks us to look at the systems in our own country that encourage oppression – governmental trade policies, manufacturing and farming practices, and our own purchasing patterns.  Elvia’s words to me were like a slap in the face.  Elvia basically said to me, “Don’t bring your savior mentality down here and think that you will save us all.  Instead, stay at home and work on the ways that you and your country are a part of the problem.”

Elvia’s words to me and all of us are not unlike Jesus words to Judas that night.  What Elvia taught me is that we do not always have the whole picture.  We may have learned a lot, we may have spent a great deal of time studying our faith or developing our relationship with Christ, and we may feel like we have a pretty good idea about what God calls us to do and be.  But what we forget in our confidence is that God is always on the move, always breaking into the world in new ways, and always opening up new paths for us.  The moment that we think we have God figured out – and particularly the moment that we start telling others what they should and should not do – is the moment that Jesus slaps us in the face with another reality.

So if we are not to be imitating Judas in this story from scripture, what do we glean from Mary’s actions?  I once heard a story about an experience at a stewardship conference whose theme was generosity.  When one of the presenters spoke about offering a gift directly to God, the clergy began to yawn.  The presenter then pulled a $100 bill from his wallet, set it on fire in an ashtray, and prayed, “Lord, I offer this gift to you, and you alone.”  The reaction was electric.  Clergy began to fidget in their chairs, whispering about the legality of burning currency, and murmuring about how they would happily take any more money he felt like burning.  In that nervous room, the speaker asked, “Do you not understand?  I am offering it to God, and that means it is going to cease to be useful for the rest of us.”[ii]

In many ways, Mary “wastes” her perfume on Jesus much like this presenter wasted that $100.  But Jesus does not see Mary’s gift as wasteful.  He declares the gift to be appropriate in that moment, and is gracious enough to receive the gift with gratitude.  He understands that the extravagant gift is rooted in Mary’s confidence in the boundless capacity of God’s love.  “Mary pours out her whole bottle of perfume without regret because she knows it is only a trifle compared to the magnitude of God’s love that she sees in the Messiah before her.  Mary knows that Lazarus will die again, and she knows that Jesus will die, but she believes with even greater passion that Jesus can bring victory over death.”[iii]

This tense interaction between Jesus, Mary, and Judas invites us into another kind of tension.  The story invites us to live into the tension of what we know about God and what is still unfolding.  We need to learn the “rules” or the “law” of this crazy life of faith.  But we also need to learn the “way of being.”  We need to learn when to focus on the details and when to see the big picture.  We need to learn when the time has come to “waste” an extravagance on another.  When Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you,” Jesus is not giving us an out for caring for the poor.  Instead Jesus invites us into a “both-and” tension.  Yes, we are to care for the poor.  That is living into the law of our life together.  And, we also need to have the presence of mind to see when something so significant is happening, such as losing our Savior to the cross, that we pause our other work.  This is the way of being in our life together.

Ultimately, we need both Judas and Mary for our faith journey today.  We need that person in our community who will always remind us of the laws that we live by and who will always remind us of the ways things should be done.  But we also need that person in our community who is the crazy one who will open up for us the lavish ways of God and who will remind us to let go of the law enough to see God’s bigger picture.  Without each person in our community, including those individuals who have not yet come to St. Margaret’s, we only have a portion of the community we need to fully embody the community of faith.  Without the “both” and the “and” we are incomplete.  Sometimes that means we will not agree.  The “boths” and the “ands” of our community will experience a tension so strong that we may hear Jesus shouting, “Leave her alone.”  But both the “boths” and the “ands” need each other.  Jesus gives us all value today, but Jesus also requires us to value one another.  Amen.


[i] George W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 142.

[ii] William G. Carter, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 142.

[iii] Beth Sanders, “Heaven Scent,” Christian Century, vol. 124, no. 5, March 6, 2007, 19.

Homily – John 4.31-38, James Theodore Holly, March 14, 2013

16 Saturday Mar 2013

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fear, God, harvest, homily, James Theodore Holly, Jesus, work

James Theodore Holly was born a free African-American in D.C. in 1829.  He became an Episcopal priest in 1856, serving as rector in New Haven.  In 1861, he resigned to take a group of African-Americans to settle in Haiti.  His wife, mother, and two children died the first year.  But Holly stayed on with two small sons, believing God was with him.  In 1874, Holly was consecrated as first bishop of Haiti, and the first black man raised to the office of bishop in the Episcopal Church.  During his tenure as bishop, he doubled the size of the diocese, established medical clinics, and took over the Diocese of the Dominican Republic in 1897.  He died in 1911.

In looking at the dates, Holly went to Haiti at the beginning of the Civil War in the U.S.  What a dramatic move; and then what a dramatic experience in Haiti!  Holly must have heard these words from Jesus in a unique way:  “Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest?’  But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.”  Holly could have waited until the war was over; he could have bailed when so many in his family died; but he heard the urgency of Jesus’ call, he heard the demand to act now, no matter what.

I think too often we are afraid, paralyzed by fear or some strange sense that certain things have to be in place before we act (four more months, then we will act).  Just hearing our Lenten speaker from St. John’s talk about their church’s garden confirmed this truth.  Instead of months of planning, gathering data, negotiating opinions, he just jumped.  They fought a lot, people had to chip in to make it work, and they made mistakes.  But they also had a harvest to feed the poor, right here in Huntington.

As individuals, I wonder what work we are hindering because of our fears or concerns about propriety?  As a community, I wonder what work we are hindering because of our fears or concerns about propriety?  Our text and Holly’s witness encourage us to let go of our fears and anxieties and jump into the harvest.  Jesus reminds us that God has already sown the field, and has invited us to jump into the work God is doing.  We are the only ones in our way.  Our invitation is to jump.  Amen.

Be still…

15 Friday Mar 2013

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church, God, Lent, prayer, quiet, stillness

You may not know this about me, but I am not a natural when it comes to silence.  As an extrovert, silence feels like it should be filled.  When I lead worship that needs a silent moment, I often make myself take a couple of additional breaths before I break the silence, knowing that my own tolerance for silence is much lower than most people’s tolerance.  A couple of summers ago, I was a part of parish that covenanted to pray with scripture for twenty minutes a day for ninety days.  The idea was that a bulk of that twenty minutes was not meant to be spent talking or analyzing biblical scripture, but to be silent in the presence of God’s word, making room for God’s living Word to speak.  As you might imagine, the practice for me was brutally painful.  But I learned a lot about myself and my prayer life that summer, and changed many of my practices as a result of the experience.

That is why I am grateful for “Quiet Days.”  I am grateful for the many communities who have realized that the Church often needs to invite people to come to Church and just be.  Be quiet.  Be still.  Be with God.  Even if it is only for a few hours, the Church and other religious groups often offer mornings or days where people can stop being busy and really make space for God.  I first discovered Quiet Days in seminary, but they have been an active part of my ordained ministry ever since.  They are truly one of the Church’s greatest gifts to us.

This weekend, my own parish is offering a Lenten Quiet Day and I could not be more excited.  I am excited for all of the reasons I just described, but I am also excited because two parishioners offered to lead the meditations for our Quiet Day.  So not only do I get to be a part of a community that has invited everyone into a time of quiet with God, I too will be able to fully enjoy the quiet time with God, hearing how God is moving in through our parishioners’ meditations.  This Quiet Day has not become one more thing on my busy to-do list, but instead has become an invitation for me to come and be still with God.  I grateful to these parishioners who have offered up their gifts, and I hope that if you are nearby, you will join us too.  Come enjoy the gift of quiet in our otherwise busy, loud life.

Sermon – Luke 15.1-3, 11b-32, L4, YC March 10, 2013

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

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envy, forgiveness, God, grace, prodigal son, relationship, self-righteous, Sermon

The parable of the prodigal son is one of those beloved parables – the perfect parable for a Lenten journey.  Part of the story’s perfection is that there are so many characters with which to connect.  This year, I have been lingering on the older son.  The older son has every reason to be angry with his father’s lavish forgiveness.  The older son has done what has been expected of him.  He is obedient, hard-working, and would have never insulted his father as deeply as his brother does.  He is the consummate good and faithful servant.  And so when his father, who, by the way, has never given much praise for the older son’s obedience, throws a party for his wayward brother, the older son finally snaps.  He throws a first-class temper tantrum, refusing to come into the party and then yells at his father about the injustice of such a party.

What is so real for us with the older son is that we know his reaction all too well.  Two strong emotions take over the older son.  First, he is struck down with a serious case of envy.  The older son sees the party for his wayward brother, and covets the party.  Never once has he been offered even the smallest of parties for himself and his friends.  The older son has a case of what the Berenstain Bears children’s books call the “Green-Eyed Monster.”  In the Berenstain’s book, The Green-Eyed Monster, Brother Bear is celebrating his birthday, receiving gifts.  Sister Bear is mostly fine with this arrangement, remembering her own birthday party earlier in the year.  That is, until Brother Bear gets the most beautiful, sleek bicycle she has ever seen.  Then the Green-Eyed Monster takes over.  But just so that the adults do not think they are immune, before the story ends, Papa Bear gets a visit from the Green-Eyed Monster too when a neighbor gets a fancy new car.  The point is that envy and jealousy are all too familiar to us.

The other emotion that takes over is self-righteous indignation.  The older son is clearly right about his younger brother.  His younger brother did sin, was disrespectful, behaved selfishly, and disgraced the entire family.  The younger brother does not deserve the reception he receives.  But that is exactly what makes the reception so full of grace.  But the older son is so blinded by his self-righteous indignation, that he cannot see the blessing of his father’s reaction.  As one person describes his situation, the older brother is “standing outside in the dark, perfectly right and perfectly alone.”[i]

When we do premarital counseling, we talk about the ways that spouses and partners behave in disagreements.  Every family and couple has them, and so our counseling is a way to talk about handling disagreements in a healthy way.  I once had a priest tell me that the three most important words for any marriage are, “I.  Am.  Sorry.”  They sound like three words that are simple enough to say.  But somehow we have such a hard time saying them.  Partly I think we struggle with saying them because we think they mean admitting guilt or, even worse, defeat.  And few of us like to lose.  But that same priest told me, the next three most important words are, “You.  Are.  Forgiven.”  As hard as apologizing can be, sometimes forgiving can be even more difficult.  But forgiveness is the only thing that can keep our relationships in balance.  Ideally, by one person saying, “I am sorry,” and the other saying, “You are forgiven,” both parties give up some of their power.  Both parties submit something of themselves to the other.  When one party is unwilling to say one of these things, they become like the older son – perhaps perfectly in the right, but also perfectly alone in their rightness.

What the older brother teaches us is that sometimes we have a choice between being right and being in relationship.  In some ways, much like the younger son has been in a distant country, the older son is also in a distant country.  He has cutoff connection to his brother, to his father, and even to those who have gathered to rejoice over the new life his brother has been given.[ii]  In choosing to be right, he stand out in the darkness, unable to rejoice in another’s joy, closed off the hope of redemption and reconciliation.  In Rembrandt’s The Prodigal Son, the older son stands at a distance, hands crossed in front of him, standing in a darker section of the painting.  His face is lighted, but only to highlight the way in which his distance is important.  Like in the parable, Rembrandt shows the older son, in his rigid, distant body language, as choosing rightness over relationship at that moment.

In the face of this stubborn resistance to forgiveness and grace, the father in the parable shows equal abundance toward his two sons.  According to etiquette of the time, leaving his guests at a party was a breach of social mores.[iii]  But the father ignores social mores for both sons.  The father disregards common practice, and seeks out his older son in the same way that he ran to his younger son upon his return.  The father reminds the older son of the promise that still awaits him.  Then the father invites him into his joy – to celebrate a reconciled relationship – much like the reconciliation the older brother can enjoy if he just comes into the room.

Perhaps why the older son’s story is lingering with me is because we do not know how he responds to the father’s invitation.  The story ends with the ultimate cliffhanger that does not let you know whether the older son remains outside the party or comes inside the party.  Certainly the father’s desire is for him to come in, but we do not know whether the son chooses rightness or relationship.  I have wondered what would happen if the older brother went into the party.  What if the younger brother fell at his brother’s feet too, saying those three hardest words, “I am sorry.”  What if the two men simply embraced – saving words for later.  What if the joy and laughter of that room cracked through the older brother’s tough exterior, and warmth began to seep into his heart.  What if…

In many ways, I think the story ends openly to remind us that we too have a choice.  We too can choose to be right – to hold on to the things in life about which we are justifiably angry and disappointed.  We have every right to protect ourselves and even our family and friends from the kinds of behaviors that hurt us emotionally.  We can be guarded and keep our distance – standing out in the darkness of rightness.  Or we can choose to come into the party, and see what happens.  We may not be able to say “I am sorry,” or even, “You are forgiven,” but we can at least step through the door, into the warm glow of a room that is bursting with abundant grace and love for us and for all – that place where all are forgiven and all are loved.  Amen.


[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Evils of Pride and Self-Righteousness,” Living Pulpit, vol. 1, no. 4, O-D 1992, 39.

[ii] David Lose, “Preaching the Prodigal,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=672 on March 8, 2013.

[iii] Leslie J. Hoppe, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 119.

Homily – Matthew 24.9-14, Perpetua and her Companions, March 7, 2013

14 Thursday Mar 2013

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faith, homily, love, martyrs, Perpetua, risky

Today we honor Perpetua and her companions, martyrs at Carthage in 202.  Petpetua was a young widow with a small child and several slaves.  Along with other Christians preparing for baptism, they were arrested when they refused to offer sacrifice to the divinity of the Emperor.  They suffered under miserable conditions in a prison.  But Perpetua had these incredible dreams about heaven that encouraged her in her resolve and her insistence on declaring her Christianity.  She and her companions were put in an arena with a leopard, boar, bear, and savage cow.  Perpetua encouraged them, but eventually all were put to death by a sword.

Our lessons today all warn of a similar fate for us.  Jesus tells his disciples they will be tortured and put to death; hated, betrayed and abused.  We know from people like Perpetua and the disciples that this was the reality for many Christians and for many years.  But today, I think martyrs are always a little hard to relate to.  Who among us in risking our lives by telling someone we are Christian?  Who among us will be tortured for our faith or even for being here in this church today?  The life of a martyr is so foreign that we rarely feel connected.

But I think what Pepetua invites us to do today is to consider the ways that our faith puts us in risky situation:  the racist joke someone makes that we refuse to laugh at because we know all people to be children of God; the gun-control march we walk in because we see the violent ways we have turned on one another and we refuse to allow one more child of God to be killed so that we have the right to accumulate assault weapons.  These may not lead to death or even suffering.  If anything, they may lead to disagreements, exclusion from certain social circles, or embarrassment.

When Perpetua and her companions were being mangled by animals, she stated to her friends, “Stand fast in the faith and love one another.”  In order to truly love one another, we will have to take risks, we will have to face discomfort.  Perpetua died in suffering, but her love of God and love of neighbor never died.  We too can let go of our selves and love God and neighbor, even when it is uncomfortable.  Amen.

Homily – 1 Timothy 4.6-16, Cooper and Wright, February 28, 2013

14 Thursday Mar 2013

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Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, call, Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, gifts, God, homily

Today we celebrate Anna Julia Haywood Cooper and Elizabeth Evelyn Wright.  Cooper was born in 1859 to an enslaved woman and a white man.  She went on to study at St. Augustine’s, and Oberlin College, and eventually became the fourth African-American woman to receive a doctorate.  She was a teacher who insisted on equal education for African-Americans.  She even served as a college president.  Wright was born in 1872 to an African-American father and a mother of Cherokee descent.  She studied at Tuskegee and worked to form schools for rural black children.  Though she faced much opposition, including arson, she started a college for African-American young people that eventually became Voorhees College.  Both of these women were privileged to receive an education when they did.  But they did not keep this gift to themselves – they worked hard to ensure they brought others with them.

One could imagine that both Cooper and Wright, women highly influenced by the Episcopal Church, might have read the epistle lesson we heard today.  “Do not neglect the gift that is in you … put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching: Continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

Many of us may not have been teachers, professionally, but we have at times neglected the gifts that are in us.  For quite some time, I avoided my call.  I avoided.  I tried substituting other things.  I tried doing good work, just not the work I was given to do.  We all do this from time to time; we neglect the gifts God has given us, because we are afraid of where they will take us or how hard the road will be.  But our epistle reminds us that living into a call is not just for us; it’s for others as well.

Cooper and Wright knew this to be true.  Their work was for others, but their work also fed themselves.  Though we may not be teachers like Cooper and Wright, we learn from them and our epistle that we are all teaching others.  When we neglect the gift in ourselves, others notice.  We have to only think of our most admired friends and saints to know that passion inspires passion.  Just by living into our gifts and vocation, we bless others without even realizing it.  God sees the gifts in you.  Your work is to nurture that gift and live into that gift fully before others.  Amen.

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