Forever empty?

Tags

darkness, discipline, Episcopal, God, happiness, journey, Lent, light, Louis C.K., redemption, sadness, sin, technology

Photo credit: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/23/louis-ck-texting-driving_n_3974759.html

I was talking to a parent recently about the challenges of raising children.  She reminded me of an awesome interview by Louis C.K. with Conan O’Brien.  The interview itself is funny and, as fair warning, quite crass (do not watch it with impressionable ears nearby – the link can be found here).  But what struck me about the interview is what I would label as pretty powerful theology by Louis C.K.  In his interview, he argues that we use technology to fill our time so that we can avoid the reality that there are parts of life that are tremendously sad and times when we feel utterly alone.  He further argues that by filling up that dark space and not allowing ourselves to fully experience that deep sadness, we never get to true happiness.

I was struck this week about how appropriate Louis C.K.’s words are for the Lenten experience.  I have a couple of parishioners who really dislike Lent and find it horribly depressing.  In some ways I agree with them.  Lent is somewhat depressing, and for some odd reason, that is what I like about Lent.  I never could fully explain that reality until I heard this interview.  What Louis C.K. points out is that sometimes we really need to go to those dark places.  Otherwise, we can never really find the true, deeply abiding happy places too.

In the Episcopal Church, The Catechism in the back of our Book of Common Prayer says this about sin:

Q:  What is sin?
A:  Sin is 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.
Q:  How does sin have power over us?
A:  Sin has power over us because we lose our liberty when our relationship with God is distorted.
Q:  What is redemption?
A:  Redemption is the act of God which sets us free from the power of evil, sin, and death.
(BCP 848-849)

Lent gives us the opportunity to really examine our own sinfulness – the ways in which we have distorted our relationship with God, other people, and all creation.  Many of my friends have given up some form of technology for Lent – by not checking Facebook, taking Sabbaths from TV or the internet, or putting down their cell phones at certain points of the day.  My guess is that their discipline will create room for them to contemplate their sinfulness, or as Louis C.K. might say, their “forever empty.”  My prayer for them is that their practice leads to an ability to find their way back to God, who redeems us and helps us find that true happiness.  I am curious about how you are journeying into your own “forever empty” this Lent, and I look forward to hearing how that journey leads to the light.

Sermon – Mark 1.9-15, L1, YB, February 22, 2015

Tags

Ash Wednesday, church, death, honesty, Jesus, journey, Lent, penitence, pilgrimage, pilgrims, Sermon, sobering, wilderness

Lent is a funny season.  Lent gives us all these seemingly horrible things and calls them gifts.  We kick things off with a bang on Ash Wednesday.  We gather in the church and kneel before God while someone tells us that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  In other words, we come to church to be reminded that death is real, death is unavoidable, and death is coming.  With the exception of people facing severe illness or people beyond a certain age, death is not typically a part of our everyday conversations.  Rarely are you drinking a latte with a friend who casually says, “So you know we are going to die, right?  Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but we will both die.”  That is because death for us is one of those conversations that we do not really like to entertain because death brings down the mood and makes us feel sad.  And yet, that is how we kick off the season of Lent.  “Happy Lent!  We’re all going to die!”

And if that were not sobering enough, the Church takes the next forty days reminding us of our brokenness, of our sinfulness, and of our failures.  We kneel more, confess more intentionally, and pray to reconnect with God.  The season seems to gather us up, place us sackcloth, and then let us wallow in our own sense of unworthiness.  Why in the world would any of us make a commitment to come to Church in Lent with the promise of such guilt and sobriety?

Actually, I think most of us have a love-hate relationship with the wilderness we find in Lent.  We do not want to do the hard work that Lent requires, and yet we also desperately long for a place that acknowledges the reality of all that is hidden behind our perfectly constructed masks, and invites us to just be still and present with our LORD.  In a world that Photoshops, creates whole lines of anti-aging products, and fights death tooth and nail, the church creates a season where we look at ourselves without enhancements and work towards contentment, peace, and even joy.  Lent is a season of honesty, “when the church reminds us of what our culture denies – that our days are limited, and that we’ve made a mess of things.”[i]

Of course, the church did not really invent Lent per se.  The people of God have been experiencing the same concept for years, most frequently in the wilderness.  We know the stories well:  Noah completing his forty days on a ship, floating in his own, albeit probably very loud, watery wilderness; the people of Israel wandering the desert wilderness for forty years; and, as we hear on this first Sunday in Lent, Jesus, led out to the wilderness by the Spirit for forty days immediately after his life-changing baptism.  Each of those experiences are full of Lenten themes:  being taken out of the comforts of life; wondering whether there will be relief from suffering, whether there is dry land, food in the desert, or Satan himself; and glimpses of hope, whether from an olive branch, manna from heaven, or tending angels.  These wilderness experiences, or Lenten-type journeys, pave the way for renewal and reinvention.

This winter, one of our Movies with Margaret features was called The Way.  In the film, a father and his adult son have become somewhat estranged.  The son decided to travel the world to find himself, and the father scoffs.  Months into his son’s travels, the father gets a call.  His son had decided to walk the Camino – the pilgrim’s path in France and Spain that pilgrims have been walking since the ninth century.  Unfortunately the son died while walking the Camino, and the father now needed to pick up the body.  While going through his son’s hiking pack, the father replays their last conversation – about how his Dad is too rigid and never travels anymore since his wife died.  Untrained and unprepared, the father straps on his son’s pack and begins to walk.  He confesses he has no idea why he is walking, but he walks anyway.

The movie goes on to document what might be described as the father’s own wilderness journey.  He deals with getting lost, trying to sleep in noisy hostels, not being able to get rid of talkative fellow pilgrims, losing his bag briefly in a river, getting arrested, and later having his bag stolen by a gypsy.  When he gets to the end of the journey, he takes his documents to the pilgrimage office to have the paperwork authorized and get a certificate of completion.  Before the official will sign his paperwork, he asks a question that stumps the father.  “What is your reason for walking the Way?”  The father stammers.  He cannot put into words why he grabbed his son’s bag and started walking.  Recalling the last fight he had with his son, the best he can come up with is, “I thought I needed to travel more.”

Mark does not give us many details about Jesus’ journey in the wilderness.  Unlike the other gospels, we do not hear the details of his encounter with Satan.  We do not really understand what happens with those wild beasts – whether they were friends of foes.  We hear about some angels at the end, but we do not know how much they are present.  All we really know is that Jesus is in a wilderness for forty days and that those days happen after he is baptized and proclaimed the beloved and before he can begin his earthly ministry.

We too start a wilderness experience today.  At the beginning of our liturgy we confessed many things.  We confessed blindness of heart, pride, vainglory, hypocrisy, envy, hatred, and malice.  We confessed our inordinate and sinful affections and our fear of dying suddenly and unprepared.  We confessed our loneliness, our suffering, and our ignorance.  And we prayed for our enemies.  The ashes from Ash Wednesday and their message of the inevitability of death still linger in our subconscious.  Like the father in The Way, we put all of those confessions and acknowledgments in a pack, put the pack on our back, and we begin to walk.  None of us knows what will happen on this forty-day journey.  We do not know how our Lenten disciplines will shape us, or what external factors will impact our lives.  But we begin the Lenten journey anyway.

The promise for us is refreshment at the end of the journey.  For me, that refreshment is the Easter Vigil.  At Easter Vigil, I put down my pack full of my forty days’ worth of experiences.  I hear the piercing words of the Exultet and the old stories of our salvation told in the darkness.  I watch candles flicker as we sing hymns.  And then I watch the church explode with light and the sound of bells.  We say the forbidden “A-word” after a forty-day hiatus.  We feast on the Eucharistic meal after fasting from that meal since Maundy Thursday.  And we rejoice in our risen Lord.

In the movie, The Way, the father reaches the end of the pilgrimage and has a sacred moment in the church at the Pilgrim’s mass.  He decides to keep journeying further to spread his son’s ashes into the sea.  And at the end of the film, we see him traveling to other places – finally taking up his son’s challenge to see more of the world.  That’s the funny thing about journeys.  They are not the end of the story.  Our Lenten journey will be a true pilgrim’s journey.  But our journey will not end at the Vigil.  Just like Jesus’ journey did not end with angels tending to him.  As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “Even after he left the wilderness, [Jesus] carried [the wilderness] inside him, and far from fleeing [the wilderness] later in his life he sought [the wilderness] out.  Without the wilderness he might not have been the same person.  Because of the wilderness he was not afraid of anything.”[ii]  We all need the wilderness to shape us and mold us.  Our Lenten pilgrimage will change us, both as individuals and as a community, because in the church, we do not journey alone.  Your fellow pilgrims are here in the pews beside you – perhaps to annoy you, or send you on a detour – but maybe also to bail you out of jail from time to time.  Together we are pilgrims on the way, being transformed for new life beyond Lent.  Amen.

[i] Dan Clendenin, “To See Death Daily,” posted February 16, 2015 at http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20150216JJ.shtml.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Four Stops in the Wilderness,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 24, no. 2, Lent 2001, 4.

Sermon – Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, AW, YB, February 18, 2015

Tags

Ash Wednesday, blessing, community, discipline, expectations, God, Joel, Lent, rend, repent, separation, Sermon

For those of us who have been around the church for any amount of time, we have become quite accustomed to the season of Lent.  We dutifully find a Lenten discipline:  buying that book we are going to read, ridding the house of chocolate, or purchasing new athletic gear for the exercise we plan to take up.  Or if we are feeling particularly uninspired, we may ask our friends and family what they are giving up for Lent this year, in the hopes that something will inspire us too.  We do all these things because we feel obligated.  We take up a discipline because that is what we are supposed to do, not because we particularly want to take up the discipline.  Lenten disciplines have sort of become the second-chance for New Year’s Resolutions.  Whatever failed then might have more luck if we do the discipline in the name of Jesus.  Then we can feel doubly good because not only did we give up red meat for Jesus, but we also lost four pounds.  In that way, Lent is great!

The challenge with that kind of engagement with Lent is that our practices become more about giving up something for the sake of giving up something instead of giving up something because that sacrifice will drive us into the arms of God.  When we choose a Lenten discipline, we choose that discipline not out of habit, or out of peer pressure, or even in the hopes of the secondary benefits (like losing weight or finally getting through our pile of books).  To get to the true heart of Lent, we choose our Lenten disciplines out of a sense of urgency – out of a sense that something needs to change and something needs to change now.

That is what the prophet Joel was trying to say to the people of Israel in our Old Testament lesson today.  You see, “Tradition held that on the Day of the Lord, God would come to vindicate Israel, to judge the nations that had opposed and oppressed her, and to reverse the status quo in favor of the people of Jerusalem”[i] The Israelites had come to believe that the Day of the Lord would be a day of celebration and vindication.  Any sacrifices they made or disciplines they assumed were because they were anticipating a reward.  But Joel tells them that their very identity as the chosen people of God is what brings them up short.  Instead of favor, they will receive a harsher judgment than anyone.

As a parent, I tend to read a lot of parenting blogs and articles.  One of the on-going conversations is about whether children should receive compensation for their chores.  People make arguments that children should never be given money for chores, because paying children for chores teaches them that they should only participate in the life of the family if they will receive something in return.  Instead, many critics argue that chores should be presented as work that is simply expected of all capable members of the family.  In doing chores out of membership instead of reward, the critics argue that children learn a sense of pride and belonging.  Their argument is similar to Joel’s:  favor and belonging in God’s eyes comes with expectations, not prizes.

But Joel’s critique of Israel goes even deeper.  Joel reminds the people of God that not only do they need to repent, they also need to repent with their whole heart.  Joel says they are to rend their hearts, not their garments.  The rending of garments was a ritual practice of repentance.  But Joel insists that God does not simply want ritual repentance.  God wants the kind of repentance that is felt deep in one’s heart.  They are to “approach God in sincerity, rather than by ritual; to beseech God’s mercy through genuine mourning for sin, rather than by cultic rite.  Joel calls for true repentance, the complete turning away from destructive patterns, selfish, inclinations, and self-righteous expectations.  God wants the whole person, not some outward sign…”[ii]  To rend one’s heart was not simply an emotional response.  As one scholar suggests, “Since the heart was considered the seat of thinking and willing, [a commitment of the heart] implied total dedication.”[iii]

That is the kind of discipline we are invited to take up this Lent.  Disciplines that reflect on the ways that we have separated ourselves from God, the ways that we have become so wrapped up in ourselves that we have pushed God away, and the ways that we have simply neglected our relationship with God – those are the disciplines that will create meaning and substance.  When we think about rending our hearts, our disciplines will make space in our lives for us to stop in our tracks, to turn around on our current paths, and to journey back to God’s open arms.

The good news is that we do not do this work alone.  In fact, Joel insists that God not only wants the whole person, God wants “the whole people, the whole city of Jerusalem, indeed, the entire nation.  This is not a call to the pious, or to the willing, or to those who are expected to make offering to the Lord, but to all.”[iv]  When Joel says to gather the aged, the children, the infants, and the newlyweds, he means that even those who normally would not need to repent need to come into the fold.  God is interested not simply in a personal relationship with the people, but with a communal one.

This year, I invited the parish to join me in the solemn practice of playing Lent Madness.  Most of you have wondered why I invited us to play together, especially in something that seemed so silly.  Some of you complained that the process seemed too confusing, or just were not sure why we needed to do something as weird as a sports and saints hybrid.  Part of my motivation in getting us to do a discipline together is that I know how hard isolating Lenten disciplines can be.  When we set a goal of praying or reading scripture for an hour a day during Lent, no one should be surprised when we fail ten days into the practice.  Perhaps we fail because we are doing the practice out of a sense of obligation to be holy.  Perhaps we fail because we have not really done the hard work of rending our hearts – searching for the ways that we are deeply separated from God and need to return to God.  Or perhaps we fail because we were too prideful to repent in the context of community.

Now I am not insisting that you play Lent Madness.  I am simply suggesting that sometimes our piety is so about ourselves that we forget the community of saints sitting right beside us who long to rend their hearts too, but cannot seem to do the work alone.  Together we can do the hard work of rending our hearts.  We can do the hard work of repenting, of truly turning back to the God who longs to be in communion with us.  We can do the hard work of being a vulnerable, loving, supporting community.  Our encouragement in all this work comes from Joel too.  Joel affirms for us that for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.  Joel even conjectures, “Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind.”  The expectations are high.  The work is hard.  The community works together.  Because our God is gracious and merciful.  And who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind?  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 3.

[ii] Lose, 5.

[iii] Dianne Bergant, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 5.

[iv] Lose, 5.

An invitation…

Tags

Ash Wednesday, ashes, church, death, dust, God, holy, invitation, Lent, relief, sobriety

In my line of work, I deal with death a lot.  The first two calls a family usually makes when a loved one dies are to the funeral home and to the priest.  I have done funerals for people I have known and loved, and for people who I have never met.  I have done funerals for people who were deeply involved with and committed to the Church, and for people who actively avoided the church.  I have done funerals for grandmothers, husbands, sisters, and children.  I have held the hand of a shallow-breathing senior who had lived a long life but was approaching the last hours, and have touched the tiny hand of a stillborn.  Death is ever present in my life, always a phone call away.

Photo credit: http://www.commonschurch.org/event/ash-wednesday/

So you would think that Ash Wednesday would not be that jarring to me.  A day meant to remind us of the fragility of life, that we are dust and to dust we shall return, really should not be that extraordinary.  But every year it gets me.  Though I deal with death when it comes my way, Ash Wednesday is a little different.  Ash Wednesday involves reminding people who may be nowhere near death to ponder the shortness of life.  Each time I spread gritty ashes on a forehead, my whole being shutters.  I think of the many laughs I have shared with the person my age; I think of the illness someone in their 50s overcame and the fullness of life they have enjoyed since then; I think of the bounding energy of the six-year old and how much joy they bring; and I think of the quiet confidence and wisdom of the grandmother figure.  Every time I say, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” I feel like I am whispering a dark truth into each person’s ears.  There is nothing more sobering than those words, than those grainy ashes, than those shared moments of eye contact.  And no matter how well I clean up afterwards, a little black residue remains on my thumb, reminding me how close death lingers.

Though the reality of Ash Wednesday is sobering, and perhaps something one might want to avoid, I find that most people who come for ashes are relieved.  They are relieved for the gift of a church that will remind them of things of ultimate importance.  They are relieved for some perspective and levity in a world that tells them if they push more, do more, achieve more, they will somehow be happier.  They are relieved to be shaken out of the distractions or the fog of life and to be invited into a sense of clarity and purpose.  I certainly am relieved in that same way.  Because I am the solo priest at my parish, I usually have a parishioner also spread ashes on my forehead.  No matter who I end up asking, there is always a moment of shared humility and connection.  I am grateful to the church for the gift of Ash Wednesday and the invitation for a holy Lent.

Sermon – 2 Kings 2.1-12, Mark 9.2-9, LE, YB, February 15, 2015

Tags

Elijah, Elisha, God, Jesus, pay attention, respond, sacred, Sermon, thin moments, thin spaces, Transfiguration

One of the often told stories I heard at a parish where I once served was the birth story of a set of twins.  The parish was celebrating its annual fundraising gala – a party that welcomes hundreds of people and raises nearly $100,000.  The event is one of the major social scenes of the Christmas season.  People don their furs, sparkling dresses, and tuxedos, wait staff float around with hors d’oeuvres and drinks, jovial bidding wars happen in the silent auction, and laugher and music fill the halls.  On this particular night, when the entire parish was wrapped up in merry making, one parishioner was being whisked away to the emergency room.  She was pregnant with triplets and the babies were coming early.  Something was wrong and the word began to slowly spread through the bubbling parish hall.  Shocked into sobriety, many of the parishioner’s friends left the party and went up to the quiet chapel upstairs.  They began a prayer vigil for the mother and the babies.  That night was a night of contrasts:  parishioners and guests oblivious to the crisis; parishioners who were worried, but agreed to keep the event going; and parishioners who could no longer be present in the face of crisis and who were brought to their knees as this mother and the doctors battled to save as many of the babies as they could.  Eight years later when I met the twins, that story was told time and again as if the event had happened yesterday.

That night was what I would call one of those thin moments.  Thin moments are those moments that are so spiritual, so sacred that you can actually feel God.  One person explains that the feeling of thin moments is “undeniably life-affirming, breath-stopping, mind-tingling, goose bump-motivating, heart-melting, soul-quenching, and wonderful.  And by wonderful I mean truly full of the wonder, the awe, the mystery, the otherness of God.  Celts talk about two worlds that exist in one place – thin places.  This world, the here, and the other world, the more, the one that’s just on the other side we mostly can’t see now because now see through a mirror dimly.  Celts believe a veil exists between the two worlds.  The veil is like a thick wool army blanket.  But every once in a while the blanket gets worn down so you can see through it, like gossamer.  Those are thin moments.  Grace moments.  When for just a second you glimpse something that’s greater than the present moment, something that connects you to everyone else.”[i]  Of course, not everyone reacts to those thin moments in the same way.  I think that is why that some people were drawn to the chapel on that awful, wonderful night while others needed to busy themselves at the party.  When life, death, God, and wonder are all mixed in a moment, we all respond differently.

Today in our scripture lessons we have two such thin moments:  Elijah being taken up in a whirlwind to God and Jesus being transfigured before the disciples.  What I love about these stories are the widely different responses to the thin moments.  In the Elijah story, we have all sorts of activity.  Elisha, knowing that Elijah’s death is coming soon refuses to leave Elijah’s side.  Three times, Elisha tells Elijah, “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”  Elisha’s way of coping with that thin space between life, death, God, and wonder was to cling to Elijah for as long as he could.  Meanwhile, there were a bunch of prophets around Elisha who wanted nothing better than to gossip about the pending death.  Two different groups of prophets come to Elisha and say, “You know the LORD is taking your master away from you today.”  You can almost hear the catty pleasure they take in knowing this information.  In the face of a thin place, these prophets want to gossip and flaunt their knowledge.  Elisha’s response to them is to insist on silence.  As the prophets try to engage him, he cuts off their pandering by responding, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”  Elisha prefers to quietly be present in the presence of the thin space.  Other prophets seem to agree.  The third group of prophets does not taunt Elisha.  They too know death is coming, and they stand at a distance as Elisha and Elijah cross the Jordan.  They keep watch, holding the pair in awe and in prayer.

Meanwhile, in Jesus’ story, we see additional reactions.  In the face of Jesus’ transfiguration, Peter, James, and John have different reactions.  James and John seem to be content with silent terror.  They have no idea what to say and so they say nothing.  Meanwhile, Peter also has no idea what to say, but words bubble out of his mouth anyway.  He starts fussing around in the thin space, busily wondering if he should make dwellings for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses.  You can sense the nervous energy in his response, as silence is too discomforting for Peter in the thin space.  That is the funny thing about thin spaces – some people run around nervously, while others gather around and gossip for comfort; some demand silence and proximity, while others stand at a quiet distance; some are terrified, while others eager to stay connected.[ii]

I have seen the same reaction in people when they travel on mission trips.  Mission trips, especially in foreign countries really take people out of their comfort zones.  Not only are you struggling through the basics like sleeping on floors, boiling water for fear of sickness, using facilities that are not exactly modern, you are also sometimes struggling with language barriers, hard labor, extreme poverty.  Add on to all of that the sacred, thin moments that come when people meet one another and God in the ways that one only can in a rural Honduran or Dominican village and you have a recipe for all kinds of reactions.  I have seen stoic men break down in tears.  I have seen nervous women babble on for hours.  I have seen normally talkative teens retreat in quiet discomfort.  And I myself have had all of those reactions and many more.

What is key in all of these reactions to the sacred is that none of them are inherently wrong.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the groups of prophets who want to gossip with Elisha about Elijah’s pending death.  There is nothing inherently wrong about getting tongue-tied, excited, or totally silent.  We all react differently to those thin spaces because those thin spaces are the times when we come closest to the God who is beyond comprehension, beyond the earthly, beyond us.  Our reactions have nothing to do with whether we are a good Christian or a bad Christian.  Our reactions have more to do with the fact that we are humans, and God, especially God in those close, intimate, thin moments, is utterly non-human.

Although there is nothing wrong with our varied human reactions to the sacred, the important message for us today is that we pay attention to the thin moments and our reactions.  I have often wondered what would have happened if Elisha had not been paying attention that day when Elijah told him he was heading to Bethel.  Elisha would have missed a life-defining moment if he had busily said, “Okay, catch you later Elijah!”  If those prophets had known something was happening to Elijah but had decided to focus on other work that day instead of keeping watch on the other side of the Jordan, imagine all that they would have missed.  Or if Peter, James, or John had turned down Jesus’ offer to go up the mountain or even earlier had declined Jesus’ offer to follow him, they would have never had this terrifying, babble-making, yet wonderful moment with Jesus.

That is our invitation today: to pay attention.  Pay attention to the thin spaces that are given to you in life.  They do not just happen on mountaintops or near the River Jordan.  They happen all the time in simple, everyday moments.  God is constantly breaking in to this world, and revealing God’s self to us through those around us.  We may not respond in the perceived “right” way, but that is the joy of our lessons today.  The only “wrong” way to respond is to not pay attention at all and to miss the chance to respond, however messily.  The prophets and disciples assure us that we will be in good company in whatever our responses are – our only job is to make sure we pay attention enough to have a response.  God is waiting in thin moments for each of us.  Amen.

[i] Cathleen Falsani, as quoted at http://esteevalendy.blogspot.com/2010/04/thin-moments.html found on February 13, 2015.

[ii] Wm. Loyd Allen, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 438.

Homily – 1 Kings 17.1–16, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, February 8, 2015

Tags

Anne Hutchinson, Elijah, expectations, fresh, God, homily, religious freedom, Roger Williams

Today we honor two prophetic witnesses:  Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson.  Born in London in 1603, Roger Williams was a priest in the Church of England.  He found that he could not abide by the rigorous, high-church policies of Archbishop William Laud, and in 1630 he sailed to New England in search of religious liberty.  Once he arrived in Boston, life did not go as expected.  The civil authorities were punishing people for religious offenses.  Because Williams felt church and state powers should be separate and that individuals should be able to follow their consciences in matters of religious belief, he left Massachusetts and founded a settlement in Providence and formed the colony of Rhode Island.  Rhode Island formed a new constitution that granted wide religious latitude and freedom of practice.  Though he founded the first Baptist church in Providence, Williams refused to be tied to an established church.

Anne Hutchinson also immigrated to Massachusetts in hope of finding religious freedom.  She was an outspoken advocate of the rights and equality of women, challenging the dominant views of Puritan leadership.  Hutchinson held women’s Bible studies, where she welcomed critical examination of the faith.  In 1638, she was tried by the General Court of Massachusetts and branded a dangerous dissenter and banished from the colony.  She eventually relocated to the Bronx, where she and members of her family were killed by Siwanoy Indians in 1643.  Both Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson are remembered as early champions of religious liberty and prophets of individual freedom.

What I like about Williams’ and Hutchinson’s stories is that their lives did not end up how they expected.  Both Williams and Hutchinson came to Massachusetts with the expectation of finding their ideal freedom – and while both were disappointed, both kept at it, continuing to seek where the Spirit was moving and revealing truth.  Their spiritual journeys remind me of Elijah’s journey.  When Elijah flees to the wilderness, the LORD sends ravens to provide sustenance.  When the water dried up, Elijah could have felt defeated, but he kept on going and then has an profound experience with the widow in Zarephath.  In the face of impossibility, of failure, of abandonment, God keeps showing up.

I think that is what Williams, Hutchinson and Elijah remind us of today – to never give up.  The journey will likely not look how you expect, but God will be with you, making a way.  And it may be that in that scary in-between, God finds new and fresh ways to reveal God’s self.  The trick is to hang with God in the meantime.  Amen.

Homily – 2 Corinthians 2.14–17, Matthew 6.19–23, Andrei Rublev, January 29, 2015

Tags

Christ, devotion, God, homily, icon, Rublev, senses, spirituality

Today we honor the life and work of Andrei Rublev.  Generally acknowledged as Russia’s greatest iconographer, Andrei was born around 1365 near Moscow.  At a young age he became a monk in an orthodox monastery.  There he began to study iconography.  Icons are central to orthodox spirituality.  They are used both in liturgies and in personal devotion.  Icons are not physical portraits, but instead are images of someone meant to provide access to the spiritual and divine.  For Andrei, painting an icon was a spiritual exercise. As he worked, he would reportedly say the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me).  His icons were ways of accessing God in a unique way.

I first encountered icons in college.  Having grown up in the United Methodist Church, the devotional use of icons was a foreign experience.  But on my ecumenical mission trips, I was introduced to modern icons of Martin de Porres and Oscar Romero.  The images were jarring and gave me small window into the lives of these modern-day saints.  These stories, in turn, inspired in me a new sense of passion for the Gospel.  This is what icons are supposed to do – jar the senses in such a way that one experiences God in new and fresh ways.

Our lessons for 2 Corinthians and Matthew highlight the ways our senses play a role in our faith.  2 Corinthians talks about the aroma or fragrance of Christ.  At first, that language sounded foreign to me, but then I remembered the many times incense has stirred something in my faith.  That one fragrance can totally change a worship experience, opening up the holy in unexpected ways.  Meanwhile, our gospel lesson talks about the eye and how the eye can be a source of light – like the experience of praying with icons, our visual cues are what bring most of us to a more focused place of worship – whether seeing a crucifix, the drama of the Eucharistic prayer, or the flickering of a candle, these visuals bring our focus back to God who is trying to connect with us in new and fresh ways.

Our invitation today is to find which senses might be out of touch with God.  Maybe we haven’t been really paying attention to the taste of the Eucharistic meal.  Maybe we haven’t been listening to the power of music to lift us up.  Maybe we have not been seeing the beauty of this space and all that the space inspires in us.  These are the gifts God gives us every day – sensing ways of making our faith fresh and engaging.  How might God be inviting reconnection with you?  Amen.

Homily – Luke 12.4–12, Vincent, January 22, 2015

Tags

call, care, God, grace, homily, Jesus, Moses, unworthy, value, Vincent

This past week I was able to visit the Rite-13 class.  They were discussing the call narrative of Moses.  We talked about the many ways Moses tries to avoid his call and the excuses he gives.  We talked about how God knows Moses well and has intimate conversations with him.  And then an interesting question came up.  We wondered whether God cares about each one of us in the same way God seems to have cared about Moses.  The responses were varied, but the one that stuck with me was the skeptic who wasn’t sure that God really cared about each of us – especially when there are about 6 billion of us in the world.  How could God know and care about each little thing about each one of us?  And then I recalled the gospel lesson we heard today: “even the hairs of your head are all counted.”  When we did the math about the numbers of hairs on all the billions of people in the world, we were all a little stunned into silence.

That is the hard part of our gospel lesson today.  Can we really believe that God is so infused in our lives – and that God cares what is going on with each and every one of us?  The question is one that Christians have been asking for centuries – is our God big enough to really know and love each one of us?  I am sure Vincent, who we honor today, asked that same question.  Vincent was a native of northwestern Spain, born in the late 200s or early 300s.  He was ordained deacon by Valerius, the Bishop of Saragossa.  In those years, the fervent Christian community in Spain suffered great persecution by the Roman emperors Diocletian and Maximus.  The governor of Spain had Bishop Valerius and Deacon Vincent arrested.  According to legend, the bishop had a speech impediment and Vincent often preached for him.  When the two prisoners were challenged to renounce their faith or else be tortured and killed, Vincent turned to his bishop, willing to make a stand.  Vincent’s bishop encouraged him to defend the faith.  Vincent’s passionate defense angered the governor.  The bishop was exiled and Vincent was tortured and finally killed.  Vincent is venerated as a bold and outspoken witness to the truth of the living Christ.

I am sure there were days, especially at the end, that Vincent wondered whether God really knew the hairs on his head.  To Vincent and even to us in our lesser trials, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, you are of more value than many sparrows.”  Then and now, Jesus affirms that none of us is forgotten by God.  When we question God, when we feel forgotten by God, or even when we forget God, God is still there valuing the hairs of our head.  That is God’s profound promise every day.  Even when we flounder, or when, like Moses, we try to avoid our call or feel unworthy for the work God gives us to do, or when the pain of life feels overwhelming – God is with us, guiding us, valuing us, loving us.  Thanks be to God for God’s abundant care and grace and the reality that we are of more value than many sparrows – each one of us!  Amen.

A time to laugh…

Tags

comedy, gift, God, humor, joy, laughter, sacred, Spirit

This week I had one of “those” days.  I had a funeral at 10:00 am, which I had specifically scheduled early in the day so that I could run over to Clergy Day with the diocesan clergy, hoping to fit in a few hours with colleagues.  Of course, the day before it snowed and iced, and the schools were on a two-hour delay.  My oldest would need to board the bus at the exact same time the funeral was to begin.  So with lots of help and rearranging, I managed to figure out a way to take my youngest to childcare by 9:00, bring the oldest back to church with me while I setup the funeral, and then have a parishioner take her to bus stop while I began the service.  Perfect plan!  Of course, that is not exactly how it played out.  As I was loading bags in the car, I discovered a small bird in the garage.  Then, as I was doing a last-minute pumping, my infant started crying inconsolably.  Then my eldest could not find her favorite snow books and also began crying.  Once I managed to get everyone in the car and to nursery school, we found out the director was stuck in traffic and school would be opening ten minutes late.

That was the point at which I started laughing.  I have no idea why, but suddenly my whole morning just seemed comical – hilarious really.  I kept laughing.  Despite my eldest daughter’s confusion about why I was laughing so hard, she started laughing too.  Somehow the stress of the morning lifted.  Despite all my scurrying around nothing could keep this day on track – and through unbridled laughter, that reality was suddenly okay.

Laughter has a sacred place in my life.  One of my favorite activities with my husband is watching stand-up comedy.  Though we have pretty different senses of humor, when we find a comedian who can make us both laugh, it is more precious than gold.  And although he regularly laughs at things I deem inappropriate for humor, his belly-laughs make it impossible for me to stifle a smile.  At other times, you can find my husband, eldest daughter, and me huddled around the baby trying to get laughs out of her – which of course lead to our own laughs.  When my eldest and I get into a struggle of wills, I have found laughter to be the key to unlocking the tension and setting us back on track.  In fact, just the other day, as I was struggling to get her out of bed, for some reason I started making funny faces at my daughter.  She started giggling, which got me giggling.  Before I knew it, she was out of bed and we were having one of the more pleasant mornings we have had in a while.

A beautifully captured laugh.

Laughter is gift of the Spirit.  I think of the many times that laughter comes up in scripture.  When God tells Abraham that Sarah will bear a son in her old age, she laughs.  In fact, their son’s name, Isaac, means “he laughs.”  Ecclesiastes proclaims that there is a time for everything, “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…” (3.4)  Even in Luke’s beatitudes, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” (6.21)  I think God longs for us to have more laughter in our life.  Through our laughter, we get a glimpse of the unbridled joy of God – a joy that can fill our entire bodies.  I invite you this week to make some space for laughter.  My guess is that you will find God there too.

Sermon – Mark 1.21-28, E4, YB, February 1, 2015

Tags

change, control, expectations, God, healing, Jesus, parent, struggle, trust, unclean spirit

I have often joked that of all the people in the world who needed to become a parent, I was one of them.  I say this because I am a person who likes routine and order.  I like things done a certain way, and prefer to have a sense of control over things.  Of course, this is one of those areas in life with which God and I often struggle.  Jesus even teaches about the need to let go of control and trust God.  Whenever I read that passage I nod in assent, remembering the many times God has proven God’s self to be trustworthy.  I put up my hands in defeat, and try to trust God.  And then about 48 hours later, I am sneaking back to grab the reins again.

That is why parenthood has been so good for me.  Parenthood challenges this weakness over and over again.  My eldest is at the age where she wants to do things herself.  This is a good and natural development.  But for someone who likes a sense of control, this good and natural development can be maddening.  I cannot count the number of times I have had to literally bite my tongue instead of jumping in with some explanation about a better way to do a task.  I cannot count the number of times I have had to clinch my hands to prevent myself from just taking over a task, so that the task would be done the correct, and often faster, way.  Sometimes I wonder whether God is chuckling to God’s self when God sees me fumbling through this reality with my children over and over again.

The people who had gathered at the synagogue in Mark’s gospel lesson today have a similar experience.  They are not unlike most of us here.  Every week they go to temple, following the same pattern of worship, expecting the same experiences.  There is a certain comfort for them knowing what to expect.  They have learned to watch how the scribes debate and have a dialogue about the traditions.[i]  This is how they learn and decipher truth and is a natural part of their weekly experience at temple.  But today is different.  Today there is a new teacher in synagogue, and he is doing things all wrong.  His teaching style is more declarative than deliberative.[ii]  For some reason he teaches with tremendous authority, as if he really is sure of what God would say or think about certain things.  Jesus is not following the rules, and those gathered at the temple have no idea what to make of him.  He even is able to exorcise an unclean spirit out one of the worshippers who is present.  They had not even realized the man had an unclean spirit, and here Jesus is, casting the spirit out.  How did he know?  Where did Jesus get the idea that he had the power to do such a thing?

If ever we doubted that we come from a long line of faithful Jews, today is the day we realize how closely related we are.  I cannot count the number of times I have heard this same conversation at Church.  Why did the priest use that prayer today?  We never use that prayer.  Why did the Vestry make that decision?  We never used to do things that way.  Why did the Activities Committee change that event?  We never do the event that way.  I have sat in many a meeting discussing a change or a new way of doing something and invariably someone will say, “If we change this someone might get upset.”  After many years of experience, my response has finally become, “When we change this, someone will definitely be upset.”  That statement may sound obvious or maybe even sound judgmental or harsh.  But what I have come to find is that expecting that change is unsettling and makes people upset actually makes the wave of resistance to that change not a frustrating thing, but a happily expected reaction.  In fact, a wise old priest once told me, “If you are not upsetting people, you are not doing your job.”

Just the other day, my oldest daughter and I were making scrambled eggs.  She was fumbling through breaking the eggs.  I must have picked out two or three shell pieces that day.  Then she was stirring the eggs so haphazardly, my tongue started hurting again.  My clenched hands had to strain to stay at my sides to avoid “just taking over this one part.”  We all do it – and not just with children.  We think we know a better way to accomplish a task, so instead of inviting someone to help us, we do the work on our own.  We know the historical way something has been done and we forcefully teach a volunteer that way instead of hearing their idea of how to do something differently.  Instead of a shared, collaborative ministry, we take over a task ourselves because we can get the task done faster and more efficiently if we do not have to sit around a talk about the many options available.

But you know what happened when I bit my tongue and pinned my hands to my sides that day?  The eggs tasted just as good as they always do.  Though I could have had a stress-free cooking process otherwise, you know what else happened?  My daughter had a big, proud smile on her face when we devoured those yummy scrambled eggs.  I have seen the same thing happen here at St. Margaret’s.  When I started team teaching with other adults, we gained some tremendous and transformative teaching material.  When we let some excited volunteers start a community garden, we not only fed the hungry in our neighborhood, we also made some new friends by letting our neighbors, AHRC, help water the garden.  When we revamped our family Christmas Eve service, we found that the service attracted new people, and in fact has become more popular than our once favored midnight mass.

I have been thinking this week about that man with the unclean spirit in today’s gospel.  The funny thing is that no one seemed to notice the man beforehand.[iii]  Had the leaders of worship and learning been in control that day, the man might have come to temple and left temple equally tortured.  He may have come hoping someone would notice his pain and suffering and left realizing that no one could really appreciate the depths of his struggle.  But because Jesus is there, teaching in a way that only the Holy One of God can, the unclean spirit reveals himself, and is cast out by Jesus.  Had Jesus not been there, doing things the “wrong” way, the poor afflicted man may have never been cleansed and given new life.

I wonder what ways we are not like the scribes and those gathered at the temple.  I wonder how our way of insisting on the familiar blocks us from seeing unmet needs.  I wonder how our reliance on ourselves and our guarding of control forbids new life from breaking in and shining new light into our community.  Today we will pray the Litany for Healing.  Every month we make space for people to come forward for healing prayers.  Most of us come forward for some physical ailment we are facing or for healing prayers for a loved one.  But our healing prayers do not just have to be prayers for the healing of our bodies.  They can also be prayers for healing our spirits.  If an unclean spirit has taken over you – like a spirit of control or manipulation – perhaps today is the day you ask God to release that spirit from you.  Or perhaps you have lost a sense of joy or connection.  God can heal that brokenness today too.  Or perhaps you know that you need God’s healing, but you cannot articulate the brokenness, even to yourself.  Our healing prayers can be for you too.  Much like Jesus could see the unclean spirit when others could not, my guess is that Jesus knows what is troubling your heart today too – even if you cannot articulate that pain yourself.  And much like that day at the temple, albeit in a way that was unusual, uncomfortable, and unexpected, Jesus can work in you, casting out the darkness and blasting through with light.  Amen.

[i] Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 1.21-28,” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2343 on January 28, 2015.

[ii] Skinner.

[iii] Ofelia Ortega, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 310.