Sermon – Luke 24.1-12, ED, YC, April 21, 2019

Tags

celebrate, celebration, church, confusion, doubt, Easter, faith, Jesus, journey, joy, loud, question, quiet, resurrection, Sermon, unbelievable, uncertain, victory

Easter is one of my favorite days in the church year.  I love how no matter whether we come to church every Sunday or if we haven’t been to church in ages, something about Easter draws us to the Church.  I love the celebration:  the Easter outfits, the fragrant flowers, the boisterous music, and the family of faith gathered at the communion table.  I love the sweet feeling of having emerged from the penitential season of Lent, and counting how many times we can say, “Alleluia.”  There is a loudness to Easter, an unbridled joy, a sense of victory.

What is funny about our experience today though is very little of the boldness of this day is present in Holy Scripture.  In fact, Luke tells a story that is quite the opposite of our experience today.  While we sing loud alleluias and hosannas, all of the characters in our gospel lesson today are in a totally different place.  They are mired in grief, lost in confusion, unsure about what has happened to them.  In a quiet, almost mechanical, numb way, the women who have been beside Jesus his entire ministry and were the only ones remaining at his death, come to the tomb in the fog of dawn, to do the work of tending to the dead body.  In their haze, no sense of closure comes.  Instead, more confusion comes.  Not only is the tomb empty, the angelic figures tell them Christ is risen.  The angels remind them Jesus had explained this to them, and things start to make sense.  But when the women return to tell the men, the men are so resigned and defeated, they mock the women.  Peter goes to check out the story, but even he does not come back with profound clarity.  He is lost in amazement – in awed confusion.  This story tells us very little about what this all means, what we should do, or how we should respond.  Very little about the gospel today is loud, triumphant, or jubilant.

Though I have been begging our musician for years now for more sound at Easter – a timpani to accompany the brass – the truth is, I kind of like how our gospel lesson today takes us in another direction.  Much of what we boldly proclaim today – that Christ is risen, his resurrection brings eternal life, and everything we know has changed – is pretty difficult stuff to believe.  Any of you who has spent time around an inquisitive child or a doubtful friend knows how difficult explaining the resurrection can be.  For our rational, twenty-first century selves, the theology of Easter is not only difficult to articulate, Easter is almost unbelievable.  And when we are really honest with ourselves, in the quiet of our own homes, we sometimes have moments when we are not really sure why we believe what we believe about Christ.

That’s why I love today’s gospel.  Today’s gospel reminds us of how unbelievable the resurrection of our Lord really was.  Sure, Jesus had said he would be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.  But his words sounded crazy at the time.  Now that Jesus’ words have come true, the women are perplexed, terrified, and rejected when they share their truth.  The men are paralyzed, doubtful, and downright mean.  On this early morning, the followers of Jesus only have their experiences of Jesus, their uncertainty of faith, and their attempts to believe the unbelievable.

To me, that is very good news indeed.  On this day as we sing songs about Jesus’ resurrection, and as we hear Peter preach with certainty in the book of Acts, and as we, with joy, proclaim, “Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed!” our gospel story reminds us faith is a journey full of doubt, questions, and confusion.  We come on this festival day not because we are absolutely certain about Jesus.  We come on this festival day because in our foggy dawns, we have had encounters with the risen Lord – even when we did not know how to articulate the encounters.  We come to this festival day because in our pain, suffering, and questioning about life – we have had moments when something from scripture or our faith life suddenly connected and made sense.  We come to this festival day because even in our doubts, there is some small part of us that cannot extinguish hope, that suspects Christ might have actually changed the world.

On this day, the Church does not want our theological explanations of the resurrection.  On this day, the Church invites us to recall those moments, however fleeting or miniscule, where we have encountered, or suspected we encountered, the risen Lord.  Our bold singing of alleluias only needs that small flicker of hope – or maybe our desire for that flicker of hope.  Our celebrating today only needs our presence – our willingness to be here, encouraged by others walking through the fog.  Our proclamation today that the Lord is risen, only needs our willingness to say the words.  The community gathered here today will do the rest.  We will say with you, “The Lord is risen indeed,” until someday we can all claim the astounding love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ ourselves.  Amen.

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On Paths Not Taken…

Tags

abandon, call, celebrate, Christ, God, invitation, journey, light, mission, missionary, path, proclaim, progression, shame, St. Mark

Photo credit:  https://www.pixcove.com/walking-bases-gravel-grit-feet-sneakers-path-trail-male-shoes-walk-man-legs/

Today is the feast of St. Mark the Evangelist.  Typically, this is the day we honor the author of the gospel of Mark.  Who Mark was is a little uncertain, as there are several references to Marks in scripture.  If we are to believe that they all point to the same person, we have some clues about his identity.  In Colossians, Paul refers to Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, who joined Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey.  At some point in the journey, Mark turned back, abandoning the mission.  Later, when the three are ready to journey again, Paul refused to travel with Mark because of his earlier abandonment.  Later, the two reconcile and Mark and Paul journey to Rome together.

St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice honors the fullness of Mark’s progression from turning back on his missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas, to proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ as Son of God, to bearing witness later in life as companions of Peter and Paul.  So often, when someone disappoints us or seems like a failure, we turn an eye of judgment upon them.  We may welcome them back in the fold if they repent or correct their ways, but we always remember in the back of our minds how once upon a time they disappointed us.  But the Basilica seems to claim Mark’s entire journey is a journey to be celebrated.

I wonder what those times have been when you have abandoned your own missionary journey.  Perhaps you felt an initial call and sense of passion, but then you got scared, or you started to doubt yourself or the call, or you just could not pull your life together to follow Christ’s invitation.  So often when we talk about faith journeys, we talk about forks in the road, or new paths, but we rarely admit those times when we did an about-face, and just let go of what God had called us to do.  Perhaps we are ashamed or fear the judgment of others.

What I like about St. Mark’s story is that God is present throughout Mark’s journey and God uses Mark no matter what.  Whether it was a vocation we quit, a relationship with a faith community we left, or a personal relationship we cutoff, God is ever present with us, using our actions for good.  Some of us will never return to the same path like Mark did.  But we certainly take something powerful from that experience of walking away.  I invite you to consider those turns on your journey which you have been holding in shadow and consider letting God’s light to shine on them.  My guess is you will find more people who want to celebrate your path than judge.

Sermon – Luke 15.1-10, Jeremiah 4.11-12, 22-28, P19, YC, September 11, 2016

Tags

breath, celebrate, chaos, church, create, destroy, destruction, formless void, found, God, hope, Jesus, joy, lost, order, parable, September 11th, Sermon

I remember that day like it was months ago, not years ago.  I was driving into work, and caught the story right as I was about to exit the car.  A plane had crashed into one of the twin towers.  I rushed inside to find a radio, and my boss and I spent the day listening to the story unfold.  That night, I got the first glimpse of the destruction on television, and the visual was worse than listening to radio updates.  When the first tower fell, and then the second, the wind rushed out of me as I watched the wind rush out of those buildings.  Life lost inside, life being forced away from the wreckage, chaos and rubble left in the wake.  An eerie silence fell upon us as we watched in horror.

In Genesis 1, the narrator tells us that God forms the earth out of the formless void – tohu wa-vohu, in the Hebrew.  Out of nothingness and chaos, God forms order – separating the watery chaos from the earth, dividing the day from the night, bringing vegetation, beasts, and humans to life.  God takes chaos and creates order.  But on that day fifteen years ago, many of us felt like the opposite happened.  All of our order, routine, and compartmentalizing exploded into havoc.  Two-hundred and twenty stories of order were thrown into disorder – which does not even take into account the madness of destroyed winding hallways in the Pentagon and the decision of victims to crash into their own deaths rather than allow terrorists to use their plane for more destruction.  That day, we felt thrown back into a formless void, unsure of what end was up, and what had happened to our world.

I would like to say all is back to normal now – that after fifteen years, we or God managed to bring order back to the earth.  But all one has to do is look at the news and the state of our planet and governments around the world and feel like we are still in the formless void of post-9-11.  That is what makes the reading from Jeremiah so unsettling today.  As a foil to Genesis 1, Jeremiah 4 describes the earth as waste and void – the same word tohu wa-vohu found in Genesis.[i]  Jeremiah says that a hot, destructive wind[ii] blows and the earth becomes a mess – there is no light, the mountains quake, the people and birds of the air are gone, the fruitful land becomes a desert, and cities’ lay in ruin.  Jeremiah goes on to say something even more jarring – that the people are foolish and stupid.

Now, I imagine you may be sitting here today thinking, “This is supposed to be a celebratory day, and I managed to invite a friend to church.  Can you find us some joy, preacher?!?”  Don’t worry – we will get there.  I am happy to name where hope is today, but before we get to hope we have to go with Jeremiah into that desolate place.  You see, for those of us who know hope and joy, we know we do not arrive there on a straight path.  With the exception perhaps of children who have not begun to sense the depth of our depravity, most of us have been through the barren land Jeremiah sees coming.  Perhaps we only saw that formless void in the midst of a national tragedy, but perhaps we found that nothingness in the face of death, divorce, or debt.  Perhaps the destructive wind blew through our lives when violence, illness, or loneliness overwhelmed us.  We do not need to live in this world too long before we know exactly what that barren land looks and feels like.  There is probably even a scar left behind, or a metaphorical box we keep so that the watery chaos does not drown us.

But here is the weird part.  Only when we claim those times in our lives of tohu wa-vohu, those moments when the world is a formless void, can we experience the fullest heights of hope and joy.  Jeremiah calls the people nasty names today not because they are bad people or because they are not smart.  He calls them those nasty names because they have failed to remember gratefully and loyally who created them.  They have begun to live as if there is no hope, no grace.[iii]  And that is why we come to church.  To not let the formless voids of life overcome us, but to surround ourselves with a group of people who will remind us that there is still reason and room for hope.  We eagerly gather in church because we want to be reminded that our God graciously, lovingly, and mercifully blows a creative air into our nothingness and creates again and again.

That is why we celebrate on this day that could otherwise be a day of overwhelming sadness.  We celebrate today because Jesus tells us two parables that remind us why we are a people of hope.  These parables of being lost are why we gather with laughter and smiles today.  These parables are why we host a party later this afternoon – because we want to mirror the joy that God has over lost coins and sheep.

So how do we turn ourselves from the depths of sadness to the rejoicing of a heavenly party?  We need to do some work first.  Because the parable of the Prodigal Son follows these two short parables in Luke, we sometimes jump ahead and want to conclude, “All we need to do is repent, and the Lord will be happy.”[iv]  But today we only get these two short parables, and for that we are quite lucky.  Here’s the thing:  sheep and coins cannot repent.  They do not have the capacity to understand their own sinfulness.  They do not even have the capacity to act.  The funny thing about sheep who are lost is that they do not go around bleating for help.  They know that such noise might attract a predator.   Instead, they crouch behind a bush or other cover, and try to become invisible – paralyzed by the fear of being consumed in addition to being lost.[v]  Likewise, coins have no agency.  They cannot shout from under the couch cushion, “Over here by the crumbs!!”  Those being found cannot cause God to find them.  Nothing we do can earn us being found by God.  Being found, as always, is a gift from our loving God – who is the kind of God who will always seek us, ever search for us, even when searching for us may seem like a lost cause.  And on top of that, when those who are lost are found, the party that ensues is lavish, extravagant, and a taste of the heavenly banquet, as the heavens rejoice with God.

When I was growing up, money was often tight.  Though my parents rarely talked about our finances, I could tell the financial strain made them anxious.  As an adult, my father finally explained how they got by in scarce times.  A box of produce would show up on our doorstep on a day my dad was wondering what we eat that night.  A large bill would be sitting on the table and in our mailbox he would fine an envelope of cash – sometimes with a note that said, “thinking of you,” but sometimes without even a name.  Now, I am not saying that our family’s experience was the best financial planning model, but what our experience taught us is that sometimes you have no control over the good that happens in your life.  Sometimes you do not even have a person to thank.  Regardless, whatever blessing, whatever good comes our way, what Jesus invites us to do today is to be people who celebrate the God who, sometimes completely illogically, searches us out and finds us – and then throws a party when we are found.

When I realized we would be kicking off our program year on the same day as the fifteenth anniversary of September 11^th, I was overcome with dread, wondering if maybe I could just ignore the anniversary and turn our hearts toward celebration.  But our scripture today made me realize that celebration – true, deep, heart-rending celebration – can only happen when we understand the depths of our indebtedness toward our gracious God.  Once we understand that debt, then we can celebrate with grateful hearts.  I am thrilled to be embarking on a new program year with Hickory Neck and look forward to all that this year brings.  But that sense of excitement is especially deep because I know the depths of the formless void – the chaos from which we were created and back into which we sometimes slide.  Having seen the barren land that we sometimes create, I can only be even more filled with gratitude that our God is a God who scours every corner to find the coin She has lost.  Today is a day for sobriety – but that sobriety also leads us to a celebration of the heart:  a lavish party with the heavenly host.  I am grateful to be a part of a faith community that invites me to be a person of abiding hope.  Amen.

[i] Anathea Portier-Young, “Commentary on Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28,” September 11, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2973 on September 7, 2016.

[ii] George W. Ramsey, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 51.

[iii] Dwight M. Lundgren, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 53.

[iv] Karoline Lewis, “Lost and Found,” September 4, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post= 4708 on September 7, 2017.

[v] Helen Montgomery DeBevoise, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 70.

On Big Changes…

Tags

baptism, being, celebrate, change, church, Holy Spirit, identity, nature, ontological change, ordination

The Reverands Jody Burnett, Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly, and Charles Fischer III, Cathedral Church of St. John, June 24, 2009

Later this month I will celebrate the seven-year anniversary of my ordination.  What most people remember about that day was that I was very pregnant.  I confess that my large belly in an alb and a stole were rather extraordinary.  But what I remember about that day was a brief, but profound encounter.  I had gotten to the Cathedral early to make sure everything was in place and everyone knew where to go.  I was bustling around, managing logistics, when I ran into my boss, who was the rector of the church where I was serving.  She saw that I had my clergy shirt on but that I had not yet put on my collar.  You see, although you are not technically ordained until midway through the liturgy, you put your collar on before the liturgy starts.  The idea seemed strange to me to put it on before the bishop laid hands on me.  And if I am really being honest, I was really nervous about the whole endeavor.  My rector put her hands on my shoulders, looked me square in the eye, and said, “Jennifer, it’s time.  Go put on your collar.”

When we talk about ordination, we talk about the newly ordained experiencing an ontological change – a change in who the person is and in the nature of her existence.  It sounds rather dramatic because the change is dramatic.  When we ordain someone, we forever set them apart for a specific role in the church.

This Saturday, we will join our new curate, Charlie Bauer, as he is ordained to the transitional diaconate.  Charlie will be facing a similar ontological change – committing the rest of his life to this new way of being in and for the church.  Ordained persons do not simply start a new job.  Their whole person and existence is changed.  That is why an ordination is so special – because it is a day set apart for honoring this tremendous change.

Of course, all people in the church have access to ontological change.  Both baptism and confirmation are considered similar ontological changes – something profound happens in those moments, moments that only happen once in a lifetime.  We are marked as something different, and the way that we live our lives changes forever.  Because that change for all of us is so profound, the church sets apart days that we reaffirm our baptismal covenant and ordination vows.  We want to remember those tremendous moments when we put on a collar or stole, when water was poured over our heads, when a bishop placed heavy hands on our heads, and when we felt the Holy Spirit whisk through the room.  I hope you will join us as we celebrate this ontological change with Charlie.  But I especially hope you will take a moment to remember your own change and how the Spirit invites you to reclaim your changed identity.

 

 

 

Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, CE, YC, December 24, 2015

Tags

agricultural, celebrate, Christmas, civic, extraordinary, family, gift, God, holiness, Jesus, Joseph, life, Mary, ordinary, Sermon, shepherds

In many ways, the story that we tell tonight is rather ordinary.  As the story begins, the government is doing what the government does – finding ways to tax the people.  And so the people without influence are herded – herded back to their hometowns to be registered so that the Emperor can be certain he is getting all he is owed.  But anytime you move masses of people, you get overcrowding.  That is what happens in Bethlehem this night.  Though Joseph’s extended family is expecting him, they run out of space.  Though the story says there is no room in the inn, the more likely scenario is that the family guest room was already full.[i]  So Joseph and his pregnant fiancé get the leftovers – the area of the home meant for the animals.  We’ve had those moments – when your delinquent uncle or your slacker friend shows up unexpected.  You grab a pillow and a blanket and offer space on the couch – or the floor if the couch is already taken.  This is just an ordinary night of making the space work.

Of course, no woman would want to give birth under these conditions, but that is the funny thing about birth – births happen all the time, whether people are ready or not.  Though every time a baby is born we marvel at the miracle of life, births are really much more commonplace that we give them credit for being.  Just like any other birth, Mary finds a place to lay the baby, and just like any other mother, Mary finds a way to swaddle the baby so that he can ease off to sleep.  And so in the messiness of managing civic life and familial life, here our story has us working through the ordinary mess of reproductive life.

And in case we were to get too excited about our story, God decides to reveal the occurrences of that night to even more ordinary people.  Enter the shepherds.  These are ordinary men, doing the necessary work of shepherding.  In fact, these men are so ordinary, they are almost invisible to the outside world.  They are not busy heading to their home town to be counted because according to the day, they are not worth counting.[ii]  They are the migrant workers that do the work no one else wants to do.  So while everyone is sleeping, or eating, or enjoying the warmth of a fire, the shepherds are out tending their flocks, focused on the ordinariness of agricultural life.

Of course, the story becomes interesting when we hear about all of the extraordinary parts of this story.  Yes, there is the same greedy government, the same crowded family, the same new parents, and the same business of farm life.  But something extraordinary breaks into the ordinary this night.  In the midst of everyday lives, God breaks in through the ordinary and proclaims good news of great joy.  The Messiah has been born – the long awaited Savior who will change everything.  In fact, the angels are so blown away by this extraordinary moment in time that they break into song, praising God.  That is what we do when faced with the extraordinary.  We praise God for God’s goodness and mercy and grace.  God takes on human flesh for us, and the angels do the only thing they can – they praise God in gratitude.

The shepherds’ initial reaction to the same news is quite ordinary – they go and talk to the family.  They tell Mary and Joseph what they saw.  Again, the scene is quite ordinary – a travel-worn family making due in rustic quarters having a conversation with equally worn shepherds.  No one is out of place in this scene – everyone is equally ordinary.  And yet, the extraordinary lights up the room.  So extraordinary is the night that the shepherds leave, glorifying and praising God.  They echo the response of the angels, expressing their overwhelming gratitude in the only way they know how – praising and thanking God.  Mary too knows how extraordinary this night is.  She treasures this extraordinary moment in her heart, left pondering what new thing God is doing.

That is what we love about this story:  the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the extraordinary.  The ordinary part we know intimately.  We too find ourselves living ordinary lives.  We work, we play, we laugh, we cry.  We pay our taxes, we deal with family, we go through labor pains.  We come to church, we pray together, we read scripture together, and we feast on the holy meal.  With the exception of a few fun vacations, nights out on the town, or the wedding of a friend, our lives are relatively ordinary.  I am pretty sure most of us have not witnessed a heavenly host bringing us good tidings of great joy.

We do not get the extraordinary most days:  except, of course, when we do.  Even in our ordinary lives, God breaks in with the extraordinary.  Just a couple of weeks ago a parishioner was telling me about how our conversations at church had finally worn him down.  When he ran into a homeless person on his walk in the City, he decided to finally give him some money – a practice that he never endorses.  Something about his experience with God was softening his resolve and he was able, in a moment of clarity, to see the humanity of the man.  Or the other week, I was talking to a teacher about the profound things her children sometimes say.  They sometimes say things that stop her in her tracks and make her reevaluate her way of being.  Or a few months ago I was talking to another person of faith about her prayer life.  She confessed rather sheepishly that sometimes in her prayers, especially when she makes room to listen to God, hears a response back.  She felt like she could not really explain the phenomenon well, but she knew the voice must be from God because the words rang so true and were nothing she would have come to on her own.

That is what happens in our ordinary lives – God breaks through again and again, overwhelming us with the extraordinary.  Those moments are gifts that we celebrate an honor, because they are just that – gifts.  That is the same reason we celebrate tonight.  We honor the gift that God gives us in Christ Jesus.  For all intents and purposes, Jesus is just another baby born under ordinary circumstances.  But we know that he is so much more:  God Incarnate, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Tonight is about honoring the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary.  Tonight is about claiming the joy that can only come from extraordinary acts of God.  But tonight is also about claiming the joy of a community that invites us to praise – to glorify God as we go our own ways this night.  We are blessed over and over.  In the trials and tribulations of ordinary life, we are so blessed by our extraordinary God and the community of faith that gathers with us.  In fact, the extraordinary nature of God hallows our ordinary lives, making them anything but ordinary.  Tonight, I invite you to embrace the extraordinary in our midst, to honor the holiness of the ordinary, and to find ways to share that extraordinary in our ordinary lives tomorrow.  Amen.

[i] Richard Swanson, “Commentary on Luke 2:[1-7] 8-20,” December 25, 2013, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1880 on December 22, 2015.

[ii] Michael S. Bennett, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 118.

Homily – Isaiah 25.6-9, Cemetery Memorial Service, December 19, 2015

Tags

baby, banquet, celebrate, child, Christ, Christmas, comfort, death, feast, heaven, life, love, Sermon, shadow

One of the little secrets that they don’t tell you about in ministry is that this time of the year is filled with death.  While the rest of the world is running around singing about this being the most wonderful time of the year, priests are bracing themselves for a slew of funerals.  I remember my first year as an ordained person our parish having five or six funerals in December.  I mentioned the oddity to my fellow clergy and they gave me a knowing nod.  “Oh yeah, December always has lots of deaths,” they told me.

A month of concentrated deaths would be strange in and of itself.  But probably what is even more strange is the juxtaposition of death and life in December.  You see, every year we celebrate new birth – in fact one of the most important births of our Christian identity.  And yet every year, in the face of wondrous new birth is the overshadowing of death.  Last year at St. Margaret’s, one of our beloved parishioners died days before Christmas.  On the morning of Christmas Eve, we celebrated his death.  That afternoon we celebrated Christ’s birth.  Life and death seeped into each other, making separating the two realities impossible.

I imagine the reality of death clinging so closely to life is not new to most of you here.  We gather this evening every year to honor the reality of celebrating Christmas in the shadow of death.  We set time apart to honor how fresh the death of our loved ones is at this time of year – whether they died months or weeks ago, or whether they died thirty years ago.  The problem is that no matter when our loved one died, they left a mark on our collective experience of Christmas.  Maybe they cooked Christmas dinner every year.  Maybe we always visited their house and exchanged presents.  Maybe they always told loud, awful jokes or made the holidays a little more bearable.  Whatever their legacy on this time of year, there is some part of our heart that is missing without them here.  Sure, we make new Christmas memories without them.  Eventually, there will be new babies, cousins, and grandchildren who will never know those loved ones we knew.  But for us, those loved ones are never far this time of year, however briefly stealing away some of the joy that this time of year can bring.

I think that is what I love about our Old Testament lesson today.  Isaiah talks about the coming kingdom of God.  Isaiah says, “…the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.”  There is something about that image of a feast that gives me great comfort this time of year.  Maybe the image is comforting because this holiday is often about comfort food – recipes that give us a sense of nostalgia or make us feel safe just through their familiarity.  Maybe the image is comforting because we can imagine that raucous table with a large crowd gathered eating, drinking, laughing, and sharing in each other’s joy.  Or maybe the image is comforting because we can connect our earthly banquets with the heavenly banquet – imagining those sacred moments and places where we really feel like our loved one’s presence is palpable at our Christmas table – a mystical union between the two feasts.

I cannot promise you that Christmas will be easy this year.  In fact, I suspect that those of you whose loved ones passed away years and years ago already know that Christmas will always have a tinge of sadness and loss.  Death and new life will always be oddly intermingled this time of year.  But I also suspect that may be on purpose.  Even though death is inevitable and keeps coming at us, reminding us of our own mortality, we keep celebrating the birth of the Christ Child and the new life and promise of hope he brings.  Nothing quite warms the heart like warmth of a swaddled baby.  Nothing gives us greater hope and wonder than the miracle of new life.  Nothing brings us deeper joy than the innocence and purity of a newborn.  We know that any baby can bring that kind of joy.  But celebrating the Christ Child is about even more – celebrating the Christ Child is a celebration of all that he will bring – the banquet that his life inaugurates and the feast that he creates for us.  Christmas will not be the same without our loved ones.  But Christ promises to keep bringing us new life until we can join our loved ones in that heavenly banquet that never ends.  Amen.

On being wonderfully made…

Tags

awesomely, celebrate, eyes, failures, fearfully, flaws, glory, God, goodness, positive, prayer, Psalm 139, version, wonderfully

This is a big week for our family.  Both of my girls are moving up in school.  The youngest is moving from the infant room to the toddler room.  The oldest is starting first grade.  It has been a big week, and I am certainly having some feelings.  Mostly, as I look at both of them, boldly tromping into their new rooms and onto the bus, I am in awe.  I marvel at how big they have gotten.  I marvel at how beautiful they each are in their own unique ways.  I marvel at their awesome personalities and the joy that they bring to others.  I know I am biased as a parent, and I also recognize all the days when my children are not awesome, but today I am profoundly moved by how awesomely and wonderfully made they are.

Photo credit: http://jennawaters.com/fruitful-fearful-wonderful/

As I thought about each of them today, I was reminded of that verse from Psalm 139, “I praise You, for I am awesomely, wondrously made; Your work is wonderful; I know it very well.” (Ps. 139.14, Tanakh translation)  Today, I felt like I received a small glimpse into the ways that God must look at each of us.  So often, we look at our flaws and failures.  Even our prayer time can be filled with regrets and apologies to God.  We know that we fall short of the goodness God wants for us.  But that is not how God sees us.  God sees the wonderful and awesome creature that God has made and God is greatly pleased with us.  Perhaps there are days when we greive God through sin and violence to ourselves, to one another, and to God.  But God has a tremendous way of cutting through all that sinfulness and seeing goodness in us.  God sees how we are awesomely and wondrously made.

This week, I invite you to connect with God’s version of you.  I invite you in your prayer time to let go of the flaws and failures and to instead celebrate the goodness of each day.  Maybe you will have to reach really far into your reflection to find something positive.  But my guess is that you do something each day that pleases God – however big or small.  Meditate on that goodness and give glory to God!

Anniversary advice…

Tags

50th, advice, anniversary, celebrate, change, church, Jesus

Courtsey of http://www.momentaryawe.com/blog/walking-into-the-light/

Whenever I meet a couple celebrating their 50^th anniversary, my question is usually the same, “So, any advice?”  The answers have varied widely: advice about whether or not it is okay to go to bed angry; varying ways of decision-making; and my personal favorite, to only argue in the nude.  As a child of divorce, in a generation of divorce, those couples who make it to fifty years garner a deep level of respect from me.  I find myself drawn to them, watching how they care for one another, wondering what rough patches they faced along the way that could have led to the dissolving of the marriage, but that they managed to survive.  As someone who has been blessed with twelve years of marriage, I am already amazed at the vast changes that have impacted my marriage.  I can only imagine what lies ahead in the next 38 years.

My parish celebrates fifty years of ministry this Sunday.  Over the course of the year, I have heard stories of times past and the joys of a long life together.  But this week, I find myself wondering what advice we might offer to anyone considering the next fifty years of ministry here.  Having listened to and watched my parish for the last two years, I see a few nuggets of wisdom emerging.  First, change is inevitable.  We often joke around here that we sometimes do things because that is the way we have always done them.  But the truth is many, many things have changed in our history.  Whether it was a particular clergyperson’s way of doing the liturgy, a particular party that “always” happens, or a group that has functioned for a long time, change is the one constant in our history.  Over the last two years of my tenure with St. Margaret’s, many have commented on the sheer volume of changes in our life together.  But from all the stories I hear, change has been a constant for the last fifty years of our life together.  So if we know change is constant, perhaps our task is not to prevent that change, but to find the best ways to be flexible in the midst of change, knowing some change with stick, and some will not.

Second, what feeds us today will not necessarily feed us tomorrow.  This bit of advice comes out of the wide variety of programs I have seen come and go over our fifty year history.  I have heard many people speak longingly about programs that have fed us over the years – a bowling team, a youth program, or a prayer ministry.  But just like we age and change over time, our spiritual needs and the needs of each generation changes over time.  This realization gives us two pieces of freedom:  first, we can let go of the idea that any one program is sacred because programs will come and go; second, we can keep dreaming and expecting that there are programs that are going to come along that dramatically impact our lives – even though we have yet to experience them.

Finally, though people, ministries, and systems come and go, one thing remains constant:  our love and longing for Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the one constant for every person who walks through our doors.  We may all experience Christ differently or may be at different points in our walk with Christ – whether at the beginning, in the midst of a deep relationship, or even questioning how we feel about him altogether – but Jesus and a longing for an experience with the sacred is what keeps us coming back to this place and keeps us inviting others into the joys we have experienced in this place.  Clergy will come and go, long-time parishioners will move or pass away, and life changes will bring people in and out of our parish.  But Christ is always with us – challenging us, feeding us, and forming us into better versions of ourselves.  Remembering that constant grounds us more than any of that stuff that inevitably changes over time.

As we gather this weekend, to worship, to feed on the Eucharistic feast, and to dance the afternoon away, I look forward to observing our parish – watching, wondering, and reveling in all that has been, all that is, and all that is to come.  I cannot wait to see what the next fifty years teaches us!

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

Tags

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

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

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

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

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

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