Sermon – Jeremiah 31.31-34, L5, YB, March 21, 2021

Tags

abundant, comfort, covenant, exile, faith, God, hope, Jeremiah, Jesus, Lent, love, lovingkindness, pandemic, ruin, Sermon

I do not know about you, but I entered Lent this year already done.  We talked about this reality five weeks ago, back on Ash Wednesday, when I told you that it was okay if you did not give up something this Lent – because we have already given up so much in the last year.  We have already fasted what feels like twenty Lents during this pandemic.  And then this week happened.  We started out with the words of the Vatican, declaring that although our LGBTQ brothers and sisters were still to be loved and welcomed in Church, their “sinfulness” would not be blessed within the covenant of marriage by the Roman Catholic Church.  I cannot tell you the pain and suffering those words created this week for so many who live in faithful, loving relationships and marriages.  Then, just a few days ago, a man in Atlanta murdered people of Asian descent, sparking off conversations about the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans since this pandemic began.  Our own Sacred Ground circle, the group studying the institution of racism in our country – not just towards blacks, but towards indigenous Americans, Latinos, and Asians – just finished its ten weeks of work; and yet within the same week we are talking about racism yet again.  And then this week, as administered vaccines slowly rise in James City County, I see people becoming lax about masking and social distancing, some folks in public spaces barely covering their faces.  Even the test positivity rate – the one whose decrease has allowed us to enact regathering plans – is creeping slowly toward the numbers that will shut us back down again. 

That is why I found myself gravitating to Jeremiah this week.  Part of the attraction is the good news of the text, but a larger part of my attraction is empathizing with the Israelites.  Jeremiah writes in a time of desperation for the people of God. The Babylonians have razed the temple and carried King Zedekiah off in chains.  Effectively, the Babylonians have “destroyed the twin symbols of God’s covenantal fidelity.”[i]  Sometimes we talk about the exile so much that I think we forget the heart-wrenching experience of exile.  Being taken from homes and forced to live in a foreign land is certainly awful enough.  But the things that were taken – the land of promise, the temple for God’s dwelling, the king offered for comfort to God’s people – are all taken, leaving not just lives in ruin, but faith in question. 

But today, in the midst of the physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation, Jeremiah says God will make a new covenant.  God knows the people cannot stop breaking the old covenant, and so God promises to “forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”  Instead of making the people responsible for the maintenance of the covenant, God goes a step further and writes the law in their hearts, embodies God’s way within the people.  The words of Jeremiah in the section called “the Book of Comfort,”[ii] and this new covenant by God, show a God whose abundance knows no limits.  God offers this new covenant to a people who surely do not deserve another covenant.  God has offered prophets and sages, has called the people to repentance, has threatened and cajoled, and yet still the people cannot keep the basic tenants of the covenant established in those ten commandments.  But instead of abandoning the people to exile, God offers reconciliation and restoration yet again.  And because God knows we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves, God basically says, “Here.  Let me help you.  Let me write these laws in your hearts so that you do not have to achieve your way into favor with me, but you will simply live faithfully, living the covenant with your bodies and minds.”  And when even that does not seem to work, God sends God’s only son.  God never gives up on us or our relationship with God.  Even all these years after Christ’s resurrection, God is still finding new ways to make our covenant work.  

That is where I find hope this week.  Despite how broken we may feel because of this pandemic, despite how our nation seems incapable of not harming one another due to the color of our skin, despite the ways we seek to limit God’s love and abundance, God is relentless with God’s lovingkindness.  In Jeremiah’s text, when the Israelites have hit rock bottom, God turns not to vengeance or even a notion of just desserts.  God picks up the covenant of love, not relying on our hard work to be faithful, but declaring how God will simply put God’s law within us, will write God’s law of love on our hearts, will be our God and we will be God’s people.  In essence, nothing we can do will drive God from us.  And that, my friends, is good news indeed.  God sees us in all our fullness – light and shadow alike – and loves us anyway.  In this continued time of strain and strife, in this long night of COVID, God gives us good news.  As one scholar affirms, “God will bring newness out of destruction.  God will bring hope where there is no hope.  God will bring life out of death.  God will make a way where there is no way.”[iii]  Thanks be to God!

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[i] Richard Floyd, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 122.

[ii] Jon L. Berquist, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 123.

[iii] Floyd, 124.

On God, Scripture, and Politics…

Tags

abundant, Bible, challenge, covenant, disciple, forgiving, God, love, neighbor, politics, question, reading, relationship, scripture, witness

Photo credit:  https://www1.cbn.com/teaching/bible-verses-love

This week, our church will finish our summer 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge.  At the beginning of the summer, I wanted to find something we could do as a community.  I was also aware the Bible was being used as a prop and as a symbol for certain political opinions.  I figured if Hickory Neck is helping form faithful disciples who can participate fully in civic life, we should know what is in the Bible – all of it!  And so, we began a reading journey.

The days and nights were long.  Twelve pages a day does not sound like much, but for anyone who got behind (or who like me, is still behind), we learned that twelve daily pages of biblical text was no simple feat.  We journeyed through fun, familiar stories, we drudged through laws and genealogies, we read stories that were repeated in other books.  We asked questions, we struggled with cultural differences, and we found some surprises.  We realized the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) comprises two-thirds of the Bible.  We fell in love with new books, laughed, and found modern parallels to life today.

This summer, I realized the gift of the 90-Day Bible Challenge was not just a reading journey – it was a journey into deeper relationship with God.  The Challenge did not allow us to dive deeply into our questions, particular stories, or even cultural issues.  Instead, the Challenge reminded us of who God is – a loving, forgiving, graceful God, whose commitment to covenantal relationship with God’s people is of utmost importance – even when we fail to be faithful over and over and over again.  In fact, watching the people God fail so many times helps us understand the tremendous depth of God’s love for us.  And seeing that overarching covenantal relationship from God’s perspective inspires in us a desire to reflect that abundant, forgiving, graceful love out in the world.

Thank you, Hickory Neck, for reminding me why the Bible is not a book that is to collect dust on the shelf or to only be consumed in small pieces during Sunday services, but a collection of books that speaks powerfully to this time – in ways that cannot be coopted by political agendas of the day, but whose witness of love does have powerful political consequences.  I am grateful for the reading journey that became a journey into deeper relationship with God and with neighbor.

Sermon – John 10.1-10, Acts 2.42-47, E4, YA, May 3, 2020

Tags

abundant, church, community, Coronavirus, emotion, filter, Good Shepherd, grief, Jesus, life, pandemic, pastor, protection, redeeming, resentment, restorative, Sermon

It could be that having been ordered to stay in our homes for almost two months, with no real end in sight, has made me a bit cranky.  It could be that the tidal wave of illness, death, and suffering bearing down on us has birthed rising anxiety and fear.  It could be the slow realization that having lived in this “new normal” will mean our old “normal” will be forever tainted and will never fully be restored has brought a sense of grief or despair.  Whatever the feelings and emotional responses we are having to this pandemic, they are creating a lens or a filter through which we interpret everything – including Holy Scripture.

For me, the initial lens or filter through which I have been reading Holy Scripture has been one of bitterness, resentment, and grief.  Take today’s lessons.  This Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is colloquially known as Good Shepherd Sunday.  The lessons on this Sunday every year give us images of pasture, protection, and pastoring.  And yet, this year, my initial response to the readings were resistance.  I am not emotionally ready to be cradled in the arms of a Good Shepherd.  I am not mentally ready to hear that Jesus wants us to have life, and have life abundantly.  I am not spiritually ready to hear about the post-Pentecost community gathered, breaking bread, spending time together in person in the temple and in homes, growing in numbers day by day.  I am not emotionally, mentally, or spiritually ready because hearing those wonderfully affirming things makes me realize how far from reality those things feel right now.

Of course, Church has not always been that way.  In fact, Church used to be exactly those things.  Throughout my life, Church has been the place where the Good Shepherd, where Jesus, has been the comforting figure who brings me into the fold, who knows me by name, whose voice brings assurance and confidence.  Church has been the place where I have found a community of people who make my life whole – a people who teach me about love, about calling, and about what family really looks like.  A little over a week ago, when over thirty of us gathered around our cars, seeing each other’s faces for the first time in months, as we prepared to drive to parishioners’ homes to sing Happy Birthday wishes, I was stunned at how powerful the feelings were of just seeing those beautiful faces, of having a glimpse of why this community has been so incredibly meaningful in my life, of remembering the comfort of being together.  The experience was a shock of love, care, and affection that opened up the gaping hole in my life I had so carefully covered up to protect myself from thinking about what I was missing in this pandemic.

So, does Scripture have any chance with us to be redeeming, restorative, and refreshing when our emotions are so raw?  Is there Good News today?  I have begun to realize in order to allow Scripture to have that power for me, I have needed to switch glasses.  On the Fourth Sunday of Easter in almost every year in memory, this Sunday has been about rose-colored glasses.  We talk about the Good Shepherd romantically and abundance superficially, we sing our favorite psalm, and we gather round and cozy up together.  But today, I hear Jesus inviting us to take off those rose-colored glasses (which he would have hated anyway), and slip on some clear glasses.  In those clear glasses, we can look at the community gathered in Acts and not imagine a loving community gathered and growing and peacefully breaking bread together.  Instead, scholars remind us the post-Pentecost community represents “different regions, speaking different dialects.  Some may not have shared the native languages of others, in spite of a shared Jewish faith.  There would have been distinct food preferences and different levels of financial security.  There would have been different prejudices to navigate, different interpretations of Torah and different political proclivities.”  And for those in charge of making the bread, those numbers growing day by day represented increased stress and strain, not jubilant joy.[i]  I imagine the chaos of that time was not unlike the chaos of sheep gathered into a fold – a noisy, messy, resistant bunch that the loving Shepherd had to prod, yank, and shove into said fold.

With new glasses, we no longer look with jealousy on that early gathered Christian community or that chaotic, smelly sheep fold, but instead begin to see commonality.  Just like the early Christian community trying to make her way through the chaos, we too are making our way through chaos.  We are overcoming technological hurdles, welcoming strangers from all over the community and the globe in our worship, and finding community even in our isolation.  Our gathering now is weird and awkward and frustrating.  But our gathering is also encouraging and life-giving and hope-making.  And as we watch people’s names pop up on the screen and as we see comments of reassurance, we see beauty in this particular community, we see hope percolating up despite us, and we see that even as life feels stripped of all goodness, the Good Shepherd is indeed offering us life in abundance.  This week, the Good Shepherd is not some picture-perfect stained-glass version of a Shepherd with a lamb gently hanging over his shoulder.  This week, the Good Shepherd is standing beside us, his arm cocked over our shoulder, shaking his head with us at the immensity of this crazy reality, and simply giving us a reassuring, unspoken smile, and a nudge into some abundant life this week.  Thanks be to God.

[i] Jerusha Matsen Neal, “Commentary on Acts 2:42-47,” May 3, 2020, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4443 on May 1, 2020.

On Being Agents of Joy…

Tags

abundant, agent, beautiful, child, gift, joy, power, spread

Photo credit:  Photo taken by Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly on March 25, 2018.  Permission required for reuse.

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of one of the craziest seasons for a clergy family, we found a moment to head down to the historic district of our town.  My daughter had just received a bubble wand as a birthday gift and wanted to take it along.  Somehow, a bubble wand seemed like a bad idea – it being totally out of context in the otherwise historically accurate setting.  But, I was not in the mood for an argument, so I consented.

There we were, in the midst of tourists, costumed interpreters, walking along cobblestoned streets filled with colonial architecture, and my daughter was gleefully running down the sidewalk with her pink princess bubble wand.  Seeing her happy and joyful was enough to bring a smile to my weary face.  But what I had not anticipated was how her bubble-making would bring joy to so many around us.  A large visiting family burst into smiles as she rained bubbles on them.  Little children began tugging on their parents’ clothing, giggling and shouting, “Look!”  A mother wistfully thanked us, explaining that her preteens had been catching and chasing the bubbles behind us.  I saw some teenage girls light up with a long-gone innocence as the bubbles floated toward their laps.  Even a costumed interpreter whispered as she passed, “We all love your bubbles.”

What was so beautiful about that day was the way in which my little four-year old was able to freely and abundantly give away the unexpected gift of joy, laughter, and refreshment.  It was such a powerful thing to witness the strength of her gift; seeing her joy, and the spreading of her joy, brought me unexpected joy.  That kind of innocent, pure, wholesome goodness is so rare in life and my daughter gave it with abandon.

That wave of abundance, generosity, and joy made me wonder what ways we might be invited to be agents of joy.  Perhaps the opportunity could be as simple as bubbles.  I had a friend who kept them in her car for whenever she got caught in traffic (it is hard to stay cranky in traffic when bubbles are floating by).  But it could be something else – sending a card or making a phone call when a person randomly pops into your mind.  Starting a practice of thoughtful, tiny good deeds – little gifts to those whom you know need it, maybe even without credit.  Or maybe a new idea will strike you.  I would love to hear your ideas.  But more so, I would love to hear how it goes when you try it.  Practices of abundant joy are catching.  I can’t wait to hear about the joy you spread this week.

Sermon – Acts 2.42-47, John 10.1-10, E4, YA, May 7, 2017

Tags

abundance, abundant, baptismal covenant, Christian community, church, communal, community, confirmation, disciples, early, Jesus, life, reception, resurrection, Sermon, uncomfortable

These last weeks since Easter Day, we have been telling the story of what happened after Jesus’ crucifixion.  We heard the wonderful stories of discovery on Easter Day, the news from Mary Magdalene that Christ is risen.  We heard that familiar story of Thomas and the other disciples who were able to see and touch Jesus’ risen body.  We heard that beloved story of the walk to Emmaus, where two disciples were able to walk and talk with Jesus, and were reminded that Jesus is still with them.  And then today, we hear in the Acts story what has happened to the disciples.  They have gathered a community of believers who are growing every day.  People are sharing the holy meal, praying together, living in community, and praising God in the temple.  They are seeing signs and wonders, they are being generous with one another, and they have even sold their possessions like Jesus told them to, and are sharing their resources.  Today’s reading from Acts takes all of good stuff from Jesus’ ministry, all the heartache of Holy Week, and all of the joy of Eastertide, and basically concludes, “And they all lived happily ever after!”

In some ways, I cannot imagine a better text for today.  At our later service, we will be confirming and receiving nine parishioners in the church.  These are parishioners who have been studying Holy Scripture, Church History, the sacraments, Church polity, spirituality, and vocation.  Some are teenagers and some have grandchildren.  Some have spent a lifetime in other Christian traditions, and others were born and raised in the Episcopal Church.  And all of them feel called at this point in their spiritual journey to claim their faith as their own and begin a new phase of their walk with Christ at Hickory Neck.  What better thing than for these reinvigorated Christians to hear than a text about what their life will now look like?  They will be sharing in communion, worshiping God in God’s temple, praying together, living generous lives, and sharing their resources communally.  Is that not the image you have of Hickory Neck?

Well….  Okay, so maybe Hickory Neck does not look exactly like that early Christian community.  We certainly have some things down.  We baptize, are generous with one another, share the Holy meal, and praise God in worship.  But as far as I know, we have yet to enter a relationship with one another where we have sold everything we have and are living communally.  I suspect there would be a stack of cots at the back of the church today since we would all need a place to sleep.  I suspect we would have a roster to indicate who was cooking us lunch after services today and who was on clean-up duty.  I suspect we might have a line of zip cars and bike shares in the parking lot every day for those who work further away from church.  I suspect that our retirees here would be responsible for the children while their parents are out working.  Though Hickory Neck has certainly gotten close to the early Church community, we have a long way to go.

Now some of you may be rolling your eyes right now – wondering if Holy Scripture is trying to make the case for socialism or some hippie compound.  Since you know I try to avoid politics in the pulpit, here’s what I can tell you:  there are some Christian communities that are in fact trying to get much closer to the early church than we have ever considered.  When the housing crisis hit almost ten years ago, there were stories about neighbors who made agreements.  One family would sell their house and move in with another struggling family.  The two families would double up in rooms, figure out childcare sharing, meal sharing, and payment sharing.  They found that although the home felt crowded, the home also felt like a place of support, security, and serenity.[i]  And of course, there are what are called, “intentional Christian communities” all over the country.  I had multiple friends from college who volunteered or took nonprofit jobs out of college and lived in these intentional communities.  They shared rooms in a house, took turns with the household duties, gathered for communal dinners every night, and shared in worship a few times a week.

But I think we all know that this lifestyle is not “normal.”  We are not raised nowadays to live communally with other Christians, sharing our possessions and life.  In fact, when we hear Jesus say today that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly, we often think that means that Jesus came so that we might experience financial stability, good health, and happiness.  We confuse our American sensibilities of achievement and accumulation of wealth, with the kind of abundance that Jesus is talking about.[ii]  The truth is, those crazy hippies in the early church were on to something.  They did have an abundance – but they had the abundance because they shared.  And they were able to share because they listened to the teachings of Jesus through his disciples, they broke break regularly, they worshiped in the temple, and they shared the good news.  Their understanding of abundance changed – not an overwhelming sense of monetary wealth, but an overwhelming sense of community, of belonging, of purpose, and of “enough.”

Now before we get too down on ourselves or start thinking about all our possession that we would need to sell, we know the story takes a twist.  Three chapters later in Acts we learn about two members of the community who keep some of their wealth back – they start hording, hoping no one will know their secret.  So, like any of us, not everyone was on board with the communal living thing.  But the majority of the community entered into a covenant about this new way of being together.

I like that we get this text today because I like how the text makes us all ever so slightly uncomfortable.  I like that our new confirmands and those being received are hearing this today because they will need to struggle with this notion of Christian community with each of us too.  I do not know if we will ever get to the ideal found in the early Church, but we need these days of the newly received to remind us that we are not there yet.  We have not yet lived into the abundant life that Christ intended for us.  We are still on our journey, prayerfully pondering how to open ourselves up to the invitation to live life, and live it more abundantly.

That is why at our later service we will reaffirm our baptismal covenant.  Like we do over and over again throughout the year, we remind ourselves of the promises we made in baptism and in confirmation.  To gather with the community of faith, to repent and return to the Lord when we sin, to share the good news of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace.  That baptismal covenant is our touchstone – that five-part measuring stick that lets us know those areas where we are really thriving in our spiritual journey, and those areas that need some work.  On Sundays like this, we get the questions once again, “Are you all in?  Are you ready for the gift of abundant life in Christ and all of the implications that gift involves?”  That gift is both a promise and a challenge – a blessing and what sometimes feels like a curse.  But we have all seen glimpses of that abundant life, and know how the abundant life is like milk and honey.  We just sometimes need a nudge to get us back on the way.  Amen.

[i] Joanna Goddard, “Two Families Sharing a House (Would You?),” October 26, 2015, as found at https://cupofjo.com/2015/10/communal-house-cohousing-san-francisco/ on May 4, 2017.

[ii] Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis, and Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave Podcast:  #539 – Fourth Sunday of Easter,” April 29, 2017, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=880 on May 3, 2017.

 

Homily – Psalm 1, Benedict of Nursia, July 10, 2014

Tags

abundant, Benedict, God, homily, law, meditate, Nursia, Psalm, rule, scripture, space

“Happy are they who delight in the law of the LORD, they meditate on his law day and night.”  The psalmist tells us that those who meditate on the law day and night are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit, with leaves that do not wither – and that everything they do shall prosper.  The image is a rich image – a tree planted near abundant water, with perfect produce and growth.  All we must do is meditate on the law constantly and this water and fruit will be ours – and everything we touch will turn to gold.

It sounds like a wonderful set of promises, and yet the promise hangs on one major task: to meditate on the law night and day.  Now I don’t know about you, but the only time I had to meditate on the law night and day was when I had an Old Testament final in seminary.  Most of us have full, full lives, and meditating on scripture is something we squeeze in  – if we are lucky.  We would love to be like those trees planted by water, and we would certainly love for everything we do to prosper.  But how can we access that kind of blessed abundance in the midst of our everyday lives?

Well, Benedict of Nursia, who we celebrate today, knew a little something about lives of meditation.  Benedict is generally known as the father of Western monasticism.  Born in 480, Benedict was disgusted by the life in Rome, which was overrun by barbarians.  His disapproval of the manners and morals in Rome led him to a vocation of monastic seclusion.  Others joined Benedict and he eventually developed a rule that has been used by religious around the world.  His rule structured the day with four hours of liturgical prayers, five hours of spiritual reading, six hours of work, one hour of eating, and eight hours of sleep.  His rule is intense and probably foreign to most of us, but his rule was also trying to create a life much like that tree in our psalm today.

The good news to me about Benedict’s Rule is that even Benedict does not meditate night and day – at least he gave his followers eight hours to sleep!  But both the psalmist and Benedict know that scripture gives us life.  Our invitation today is to consider how often we create space for God’s word in our lives.  The promise for us is an abundant, prosperous life of fulfillment with our LORD.  We are unlikely to take on Benedict’s Rule, but we can create a rule that fits our lives and invites that stream of water closer.  Amen.