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Seeking and Serving

Monthly Archives: July 2017

On the Legacies we Leave…

26 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

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action, change, dignity, immorality, indignation, legacy, Monticello, righteous, sin, slavery, Thomas Jefferson

IMG_5640This past weekend, my husband and I took a trip to Monticello.  Before I tell you much about my experience, I must confess that I am not a Thomas Jefferson scholar by any means.  I knew his role as a founding father, how revered he is – especially in this part of the country, and more recently, that he was likely the father of several children through a slave he owned.  Though my knowledge was admittedly superficial, that combination of information left me wanting to know more about this prominent man in American history.

Knowing the role Jefferson played in history and his relationship to Sally Hemings, I was surprised to learn Jefferson had written quite a bit about the immorality of slavery.  He found the practice of slavery and the slave trade to be an abomination; and yet, he also found extracting himself from the institution to be insurmountable in his generation.  As I listened to Jefferson’s revolutionary words, I felt myself becoming angry.  If Jefferson was so incensed by the system, feeling morally convicted, why didn’t he do something about it?  Why didn’t he work for change?

Now, I know the counterarguments.  Of slave owners, Jefferson was one of the less brutal ones.  Jefferson was a product of his day – an entire nation and economy caught up in and dependent upon the institution of slavery.  But despite those acknowledgments, I felt frustrated.  Of all the amazing legacies Jefferson left, and with the brilliant mind he had, why not more action against slavery?  And if he could not affect systemic change, why not at least change the system at Monticello, freeing and hiring the slaves he owned?

Luckily, my righteous indignation only lasted a few minutes.  In the midst of my anger at Jefferson, a deeper truth hit me like a ton of bricks.  I realized I am leaving a legacy around the issue of race too.  When relatives look back at my life hundreds of years from now, what will they say about my inaction around racial reconciliation?  Will they look at the violence against and degradation of African-Americans in the twenty-first century and say, “Why didn’t she do more?  If she believed in the dignity of every human being, why didn’t affect change?”  It would be easy to leave Monticello or any discussion about slavery feeling a sense of moral superiority.  Instead, I invite you to join me in reflecting upon our complicity with the sin of racism in our own day, considering how we might change our own legacy.

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On Sports, Story, and the Spirit…

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

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challenge, conversation, faith, faithful, fun, hope, Jesus, journey, movie, power, race, racial reconciliation, sports, story

banner-top-basketball-960x275-960x275

Photo credit:  coachcarter5.blogspot.com/p/plot-summary.html

This summer, our church was looking to do two things:  we wanted to offer a “light” educational series that adults could enjoy and we wanted to continue our conversation about racial reconciliation.  One might think those two goals do not go together.  But we were not to be deterred.  We settled on the option of watching movies that were about racial reconciliation.  Movies are certainly fun, but the topic still wasn’t capturing the “fun” or “light” criteria.  Then the idea hit us:  sports movies!  Sports movies allow us to be entertained, while sneaking in powerful stories of hope, challenge, and encouragement.

The model has worked even better than I suspected.  Our first two movies have been 42: The Jackie Robinson Story and The Blind Side.  The last two movies are Coach Carter and Invictus.  We were able to feature four sports:  baseball, football, basketball, and rugby.  Each week we have been able to cheer on teams, laugh at comical moments, and pause with discomfort when truth broke through.  Our conversations have been rich – each movie bringing up parallels in our own stories – about race, about respecting the dignity of every human being, and about our journey with faith.

I think what has made that work is each movie is based on a true story.  We did not make that connection when planning the film list, but it has been a powerful surprise.  Unlike a fictional film, which could be dismissed as romantic, overly simple, or unrealistic, these movies show us real people, trying to live faithful lives on and off the field.  Their stories have been encouraging us to do likewise – examine how we are living faithful lives on and off the field.  Ultimately, I think that is the only way we are going to make our way toward racial reconciliation:  sharing our stories and listening to others’ stories.  It would be easy to do otherwise; to keep our heads down and ignore what is happening in the world about us.  But these stories invite us into another way of being.

The invitation of our Faith and Film series this week is for us to find ways to engage outside of the theater.  Maybe you start by telling someone about this awesome movie you just saw.  Or if you are feeling more confident, maybe you simply talk to a friend or coworker – either of your race or another – and start with a confession, “I watched this movie and it has made me think about [insert your thoughts here].  What is your experience with that?”  Using the movie or your own story allows you to do what Jesus did all the time – engage people where they are through the power of story.  I believe reconciliation starts there:  one story at a time.

Sermon – Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23, P10, YA, July 16, 2017

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Sermons, Uncategorized

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business, evangelism, extravagent, fear, fertile, Good News, Jesus, listen, parable, seed, soil, sow, sower

I don’t know about you, but this gospel lesson always makes me a little nervous.  As soon as I hear about the different types of soil where seed is sown, I start to get paranoid.  I think of the countless times when I did not understand what the kingdom of God was about, or what God was trying to teach me, and how the evil one started clouding my thoughts.  Or, I think about that those moments where I have been filled with new fervor for God, only to get distracted or anxious, and lose that sense of intimacy with God.  And the good Lord knows that I have been more than distracted by the cares of the world and the lures or preoccupation around money and lost touch with my faith.  Of course, by the time I get through that litany of doubt and self-loathing, I feel a sense of doom.  I will never work hard enough to be good soil!

The good news is this parable is not about me or you.  At least not in the way we think.  Whenever scholars talk about this text, the text is referred to as the parable of the sower – not the parable of the soils.[i]  By getting distracted by all of the ways we do not measure up or the ways in which our faith is sometimes shallow, unsophisticated, or self-centered, we miss the point altogether.  This is about the nature of Christ – the original sower of the Good News, and the expectations of how the disciples will be similar sowers.  To understand what that means, we need to let go of our anxiety about our soil, and hone in on the nature of the sower.  You see, the sower might recognize that three-fourths of soil is not fertile.  The sower even confesses that of fertile soil, the yield will be different – some hundred-fold, some sixty, and some thirty.

Being aware of this math, you would think the sower would develop a strategic plan, assessing how to maximize productivity, avoid burnout, and get the best return.  That is certainly how modern farmers would go about things.  I learned this week of a new machine produced by a major farming company that has perfected the art of planting seeds.  The planter slows down the seed through the use of a small puff of air.  That puff of air makes sure the seed does not roll where it should not, and perfectly lands where the farmer intends.  The machine is a genius development through science.  And that machine is nothing like the sower in Jesus’ parable.[ii]  Despite all the data – that three out of four seeds will fail to thrive, and of those seeds planted in good soil, the productivity will vary in size, the sower casts seeds in all of the soil.  The sower takes his time, his money, his knowledge and, based on our standards, wastes it.  The sower just throws seed everywhere, letting whatever happens happen.  The sower knows that each seed will do something – whether be feed for birds, or experience the joy of new faith, or even get close to growth before distraction.  But the sower does not care.  The sower seeds with abandon.  The sower sows with reckless extravagance.

I am not sure I am capable of sowing like the sower sows in this parable.  I think about Jesus encouraging his disciples to be recklessly extravagant sowers, and instead, I think my method would be a little more like what Barbara Brown Taylor imagines.  Her modern retelling of Jesus’ parable goes something like this:

“Once upon a time a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came along and devoured them.  So he put his seed pouch down and spent the next hour or so stringing aluminum foil all around his field.  He put up a fake owl he ordered form a garden catalog and, as an afterthought, he hung a couple of traps for the Japanese beetles.

Then he returned to his sowing, but he noticed some of the seeds were falling on rocky ground, so he put his seed pouch down again and went to fetch his wheelbarrow and shovel.  A couple of hours later he had dug up the rocks and was trying to think of something useful he could do with them when remembered his sowing and got back to it, but as soon as he did he ran right into a briar patch that was sure to strangle his little seedlings.  So he put his pouch down again and looked everywhere for the weed poison but finally decided just to pull the thorns up by hand, which meant that he had to go back inside and look everywhere for his gloves.

Now by the time he had the briars cleared it was getting dark, so the sower picked up his pouch and his tools and decided to call it a day.  That night he fell asleep in his chair reading a seed catalog, and when he woke the next morning he walked out into his field and found a big crow sitting on his fake owl.  He found rocks he had not found the day before and he found new little leaves on the roots of the briars that had broken off in his hands.”[iii]

This version does not work as well as Jesus’ parable.  In fact, this version captures our resistance to the kind of extravagance Jesus is promoting.  We like control, measured actions, and predictable results.  We like efficiency, productivity, and practicality.  Just look at any church that has been planted in the last twenty years.  The Diocese conducts a study, location is considered for months, research is done to ensure maximum yield before a new church is ever begun.  Or even look at our own evangelism efforts.  We are strategically considering neighborhoods that are near the church, where people may be looking for a church home, or how people may fit in with certain demographics before we spend capital on evangelism campaigns.  And all of those efforts are smart business.[iv]

But that is not the kind of business that the sower in the parable is about.  The sower is about throwing the Good News everywhere.  The implication for us is clear.  The sower’s example means that we too need to be extravagant with our sowing of the Good News.  We cannot look around our neighborhood and say, “I mean, he already has a church, or she clearly had a bad experience with the church, or we’re not even that close, so….”  We tend to wait for months to ask someone to even come to a movie or a fall festival, let alone church.  What if they say no?  What if they avoid us afterwards?  What if they assume we’re pushy?  What if they ask me a question I can’t answer?  We get so caught up in “what ifs” that we are like a sower standing frozen with our pouches.  Instead, Jesus’ sower is standing beside us whispering, “Go ahead.  Throw the seeds anyway.”  The sower not only tells us to not be afraid of talking to others about our faith and the Good News of God in Christ, the sower tells us that we should not care – not care if the soil is fertile or what the yield will be.  In knowing the yield will be limited to 25% of those approached, the sower says we should just throw that seed, that Good News all over the place, because ultimately, what the seed does, or how the soil is, is not our responsibility.  Our responsibility is to sow the seed.

The sower in our story encourages us to be another way.  The sower says, “Hey you, on the path, in the thorns, in the shallow soil, and in the succulent soil, I want to share something with you.  Hey you with birds, thorns, rocks, and nutrition creeping in, I want to spend some time with you even though it may be a total waste of time.  I want to listen to you, I want to reflect with you on where God is acting in your life, I want to tell you why I got up today and drug myself to this awesome place called Hickory Neck.”  I know the work sounds scary and even illogical.  I know even attempting to sow seeds may feel like a task you are just ill-equipped to do – or you may assume is the work of the clergy.  But let me leave you with this:  you came here today because this community means something to you.  You came here because you are fed here, challenged here, loved here.  Why wouldn’t you want to invite someone into that wonderful experience?  Why are you clutching onto a pouch of seeds that could mean new life for someone else?  Jesus has already warned us that the return will feel low.  But you never know when you are going to encounter that soil that produces not just thirty- or sixty-fold, but sometimes a hundred-fold.  In fact, scholars tell us that those numbers indicate an unimaginably large amount of productivity.  A good amount of produce would have been seven-fold.[v]  Jesus promises much more return!  We cannot control how our Good News will be received.  Our invitation is to be as illogically, recklessly, extravagantly gracious and loving sowers as our loving Lord who could not care less about the results.  So grab your seeds, and let’s go!

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 26.

[ii] Rolf Jacobson, “SB549 – Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 15),” Sermon Brainwave Podcast, July 8, 2017, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=911 on July 10, 2017.

[iii] Taylor, 28-29.

[iv] Theodore J. Wardlaw, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 237.

[v] Talitha J. Arnold, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 236.

On Baseball, Community, and Church…

12 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

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baseball, church, community, disciple, God, Good News, Little League, Lord, love, meaning, ritual, serve, support

baseball kids

Photo credit:  newprovidencepal.org/baseball/

This summer we have had the joy of supporting both a friend’s and a parishioner’s little league baseball teams.  Not having boys myself, it has been a long time since I watched a little league game.  In fact, after the first game we saw, I shared with my husband that I could not imagine giving up so much family time for one member’s extracurricular interest.  He understood my hesitation, but invited me to look around.  You see, with all those mornings, afternoons, and evenings at the baseball field; with the ritual of packing chairs, canopies, and ice chests; and with the repeated gathering of parents and siblings, slowly, slowly a community is formed.  Parents learn about each other’s lives, siblings convert boredom into adventures, and guests are quickly made to feel welcome with a shared chair, beverage, or joke.

What those teams, especially travelling teams, have done is create a community.  They have created a group of people who know each other’s stories, who share wins and losses together, and who slowly learn to talk more than just baseball – but life!  They have created a community where kids do not just have one set of parents – they have a whole community of moms, dads, and siblings.  They have created a community that revolves around ritual, memory-making, and maybe even meaning-making.  In many ways, those teams have created something similar to what Church creates.  Church too creates a multigenerational community – where every elder is a grandma, and every adult can parent children.  Church too creates a community where wins and losses are shared together, where stories are known, and companionship is created.  Church too revolves around ritual, memory-making, and meaning-making.

Church creates community, but uses that creation for a different purpose.  The community of Church nurtures, forms, offers comfort, and creates community, but almost as a side-benefit to the main work we do.  Our purpose is to shape disciples for sharing and living the Good News of God in Christ.  So, while we are loved and supported in the community, we are loved and supported so that we can go out into the world to love and support others.  While we share stories, wins, and loses, we also go out to listen to others’ stories, naming where we see God acting in their lives.  While we participate in ritual, making memories and meaning, that same ritual sends us out to love and serve the Lord in the world.  We may come for the community Church creates.  But we stay because that community demands we be much more.

Today I am grateful for our many communities.  In fact, I think we all need more than just Church communities to keep us grounded in the world God created.  But if you haven’t been to church in a while, I invite you to give it a try.  You may find even more than you were looking for!

On Food, Tears, and God…

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

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comfort, community, emotion, familiar, food, God, intimacy, memory, power, relationship, taste, tears, worship

IMG_5249About ten years ago, I traveled with a group of seven seminarians to Myanmar, or Burma.  The purpose was to learn about, develop relationships with, and support the Anglican Church in Myanmar.  I could talk for days about that four-week trip, but one of the experiences that lingered with me was the food.  Part of why the cuisine lingered with me was because each of my three years in seminary we had one or two Burmese students at the seminary.  After the trip, we took to having reunions at a local Burmese Restaurant.  We found the meals reminded us of the flavors of that trip, the food comforted our Burmese friends, and the fellowship kept the experience vivid and meaningful for years to come.

This past weekend I was traveling in the area of my seminary and made a trip to the restaurant for lunch.  I ordered my two favorite, most potent memory-invoking dishes:  mohingar, a fish-based soup, and pickled tea leaf salad.  I had been looking forward to the food for weeks – so much so that I was salivating by the time I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant.  What I was not expecting was the wave of emotion that accompanied the food.  As the heat of the salad opened my sinuses, I was reminded of multiple episodes on our trip where funny food-related experiences happened – a too-hot pepper eaten, the presentation of tiny birds as an appetizer, an avocado milkshake.  As I sipped the mohingar, the warmth in my belly reminded me of all the times the food, though foreign, was exceptionally comforting – like discovering a comfort food you never knew you missed.  As those memories and feelings emerged, I became overwhelmed and found myself fighting back tears.  The rush of emotions was completely unexpected and disorienting, and I could not be sure whether I was sad or profoundly happy.

I have talked a couple of times about the power of food, taste, and memory (both here and here) to connect with our spiritual life.  But what I realized this weekend (as I tried not to cry into my mohingar) is that food and taste point to the powerful experiences that can happen in faith communities.  For the team that traveled to Burma, the food was a tool for bringing us together and sharing memories.  For our Burmese friends and fellow students, the food was an opportunity to experience intimacy and trust that I do not think would have happened in the classroom alone.  The taste of the familiar dishes were not simply familiar tastes.  They were also tools for creating and sustaining community, and honoring that community through the senses.

This week, we will be starting a new summertime worship service at Hickory Neck.   Though rooted in our Episcopal and Anglican identity, the service is a departure from our Sunday morning services.  We are using different prayers and music; we are settling into a more casual style of worship and preaching; and we are even changing small things like the type of bread we eat for communion.  Part of the changes are certainly meant to shift the sensory experiences of worship.  But another part of the changes is meant to shape community a bit differently – to create a sense of intimacy, familiarity, shared spiritual journey.  I am not sure if pita bread will be able to accomplish all of that, but I hope you will come out and give this new offering a try.  Who knows what memories, relationships, and encounters with God you will create?!19264649_1524550660934522_2960725217281690693_o

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