Sermon – Luke 13.31-35, Psalm 27, L2, YC, March 13, 2022

Tags

confidence, defiant, hen, Jesus, lament, lectionary, lost, love, mistrust, Psalm, reliant, Sermon, theme, trust

When you listen to enough sermons in the Episcopal Church, you will eventually realize the preacher is using a set of lessons from what we call “the lectionary.” Unlike in other denominations, the Episcopal preacher doesn’t really get to go “off script” or preach a particular passage to promote an agenda.  And if you have visited other Episcopal Churches, you quickly learn that we all use the lectionary – whether you watch the broadcast of the National Cathedral or the broadcast of Hickory Neck, you will hear a sermon on the same scripture lessons.  But what you might not know is that within the lectionary there are two “tracks” – one where you read through the Old Testament in a semi-continuous way, and one where you jump around in the Old Testament to allow all the readings to have a similar theme as the Gospel.  Hickory Neck is currently following the thematic readings track.

What is interesting about that thematic track is you would think the Old Testament readings and Gospel would be similar.  But this week, the reality is quite the opposite.  In our Psalm today, we have the ideal follower of God.  The psalmist proclaims things like, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” and the Lord will “hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock,” and “Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path” and finally, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  The psalmist is a faithful follower of God, totally leaning into God for strength and protection, trusting in the Lord’s goodness, wanting to keep learning and being led.  The words of this psalm indicate a confidence in God, a trust in God’s protection, and reliance on the Lord.

And yet, everything in the Gospel text depicts followers of Jesus that are anything but confident, trusting, and reliant.  As Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, we hear a lament so profound as to cause shame and a sense of failure.  Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”  As one scholar describes Jesus, “He longs and grieves for his lost and wandering children.  For the little ones who will not come home.  For the city that will not welcome its savior.  For the endangered multitudes who refuse to recognize the peril that awaits them.  His is the lamentation of long, thwarted, and helpless yearning — ‘How often have I desired to gather you.’”[i]

Jesus’ lamentation describes the very opposite of the followers in Psalm 27.  Whereas the psalmist has confidence, trust, and reliance, the followers of God in Jesus’ day are lost, mistrusting, and defiant.  In this thematic year of the lectionary, how do we hold these contradictory images in tension with one another?  The reality is the two are not all that different.  In fact, I wonder if our work this Lent is in confessing the ways in which we are those lost, mistrusting, defiant chicks, fighting against the care of our mothering God so that we can be the followers of Christ who can profess psalms with confidence, trust, and reliance. 

This week, I invite you to consider the ways in which you are running away from your protective mother hen Jesus.  How are you fighting against Jesus’ care, Jesus’ love, and Jesus’ grace?  Who in your life is offering you care, love, and grace that you are resisting:  maybe because you do not like to be vulnerable, or you do not like to admit your need, or you just do not like other people in your business?  That care, love, and grace is coming from all directions, and our invitation is to simply say yes – to let ourselves be gathered in by this community and those who love you.  And if that hurdle is just too high this week, perhaps your invitation is to read Psalm 27 every morning this week – and nights too if you need – maybe even singing the Taizé song, “The Lord is my light,” until the repetition convinces you – so that the words of Psalm 27 no longer feel aspirational and become truth.  That way, the next time someone needs you to gather them in, you will have a psalm you can share with the authenticity, grace, and love that has been shown to you this week.  Amen.

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[i] Debie Thomas, “I Have Longed,” March 6, 2022, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2944 on March 12, 2022.

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On Hope and Confidence…

Tags

church, college, confidence, decline, Episcopal Church, future, hope, Jesus, leadership, living, mainline church, youth

Photo credit:  https://www.cmalliance.org/hope/

One of the things I have loved about my church has been the Choral Scholars we employ at our 11:15 am service on Sundays.  The eight singers are college students from William & Mary.  They come from all sorts of backgrounds – some grew up singing in their hometown Episcopal Churches, some are Southern Baptists, and a few have even been Jewish.  I have always enjoyed watching their journey through college, but I especially became appreciative of that relationship when this pandemic shut down our church.  Two Choral Scholars immediately became part of our four-person team livestreaming services every week, helping keep music at the center of our digital worship.

I was not sure what to expect, however, once the semester was over in June.  We managed to recruit two other students:  one, an out-of-state college student who grew up in our church and is home for the summer, and another who is also from William & Mary, but has never sung with our Scholars.  As each week has passed, I have slowly learned about their faith journeys and experiences.  And this Sunday, when our Music Director was on vacation, the substitute she procured is an organ student from William & Mary who sings at another local church during the school year, and who led a choral evensong with a campus group at our church last year.

As we sang and played together on Sunday, I had an epiphany.  I realized I was the oldest person in the room by several years.  After years and years of talking about the so-called decline of the mainline church, hearing myriad, often contradictory, reasons why the next generation is not coming to church (for more about this topic, check out this video by Dean Ian Markham), here I was a part of a worship leadership team primarily led by people in their very early twenties.  And they were not just playing supporting roles, like greeting people at the door or handing out bulletins.  They were in charge of the entire musical offering.  They were equals in leadership, and they were doing it with confidence and beauty.

In a few months, one of the high school students I mentored in my curacy will be ordained a priest.  Listening to her hopes for the ways the Episcopal Church can speak afresh to this world, wondering about the future lay leadership of our pre-med summer singer, and imagining the bi-vocational life our substitute organist who hopes to play on Sundays after college graduation while having a weekday career, gives me hope for the future of our Church.  Yes, our Church will continue to evolve and change, living online, living in cafes and bars, living in soup kitchens and childcare centers – but living and thriving.  Our Episcopal liturgies, our openness to the intellect, and our graceful blessing of all walks of life are the things that attract the young (and more seasoned!) people who are leading us today, and they are the strengths that give me hope for the Church of the future.  I have often resisted the doom and gloom of the predictions of the decline of the Church, but have been unsure how to legitimize my hunch.  This week I am grateful for the young people in my life who have given me some language and some confidence that Jesus is not done with us yet.  I hope you can feel that hope today too.

On Love and Basketball…

Tags

basketball, Carolina, confidence, criticism, doubt, Duke, game, gifts, God, Jesus, Joseph, love, redemption, rivalry, talents

Photo credit:  https://usatodayhss.com/2019/why-im-afraid-to-go-to-a-high-school-basketball-game

As we headed into the Duke-Carolina game tonight, my daughter asked me if I thought Duke would win.  She’s finally starting to pay attention to my passion for Duke Basketball, and so I sat her down to explain the phenomenon of the Duke-Carolina basketball rivalry.  I told her what every Duke or Carolina fan knows:  no matter what ranking either school has (including if one of the teams in unranked), no matter how well one team or the other has been playing against other teams, no matter which team’s arena they are in, when Duke and Carolina play you NEVER know who will win.  The rivalry is so intense that every time the two teams play, either team could win.  I am not sure whether the rivalry is so intense and so long-standing that both teams get inside their heads too much, or whether there is some weird psychological reason why this rivalry produces so much uncertainty.  All I do know is that when Duke and Carolina play, it truly is any team’s game.

As I was thinking about the game today, I was realizing how we often have people or entities in our lives that get in our heads and make us second-guess our gifts and talents.  We may be full of confidence, doing what we are born to do, and all we need is skeptical relative or an old high school rival to say something and our confidence stutters.  We may have thoughtfully prepared our next steps forward, consulting experts and resources, and in the middle of executing our well-thought-out plan someone raises a question we did not think of that makes us question our abilities or even the whole process.  Criticism can be tough, but what is worse is when we allow that criticism to erode our strong sense of self and purpose.

This coming Sunday, we will hear the story of when Joseph’s brothers discover that Joseph is alive and thriving (Genesis 45.3-11, 15).  Often when we read this story, we read it from the perspective of Joseph – being thrilled to have the persecuted one redeemed.  But more often, I think we are a little more like Joseph’s brothers – filled with jealousy, impulsive, and longing for love and affirmation.  In a moment of hateful weakness, the brothers sell Joseph into slavery; and in our lesson from Sunday, their reckoning happens.  As they come to pharaoh for help in their weakness, they are confronted with the one person who has every right to punish them.  But instead, Joseph is filled with love.  Joseph is able to see goodness.  Joseph is able to offer redemption.

Now I am not saying Duke and Carolina fans should just turn their hearts to love (I cannot look at that Carolina blue without feeling a bit nauseated).  But what we can all stand to remember from rivalries is that when we root ourselves in God’s love, when we live and operate out of love, things like criticism, self-doubt, and challenges have less power over us.  When we root ourselves in love, we are able to love ourselves the way God love us.  And, when we root ourselves in love, we can also see past ugliness of others and instead see God in them too.

So whatever you are facing this week, whomever is trying to tear you down (or beat your team), I offer you the collect for this Sunday:  O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing:  Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you.  Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.  (BCP, 216)

Is this me?

Tags

adventure, bold, challenge, change, comfort zone, confidence, creativity, fashion, God, goodness, identity, ministry, new, trust

Photo credit:  www.womansday.com/style/fashion/a6531/dressing-room-tips/

Those of you who know me well know that I am not a fashionista.  Though I manage to look pulled-together, that comes with a lot of help – mostly from my patient, much more fashionable husband.  I am constantly asking if things match, if certain shoes go with a particular outfit, or if certain accessories are right.  Over the years, my husband has learned to push me out of my comfort zone (as much as I will allow).  But in trying new looks or styles, invariably the question arises, “Is this me?”

As I have gotten older, I have begun to realize that I am the only one who can answer that question, “Is this me?”  Sometimes the answer is an obvious, “No!”  If I do not like the message the outfit sends, or if I know I will be fidgeting from discomfort, then I will never be confident in the look.  But sometimes the answer is, “It could be – if you want it to be.”  An outfit that obviously fits into your comfort zone does not need analyzing.  It is safe.  But one that is neither safely in the comfort zone nor way out of the comfort zone is in that sweet spot where you have to decide how bold and creative you want to be.  Because sometimes those new shoes bring out something adventurous in you.  Sometimes that new dress makes you a bit more self-assured.  And sometimes that accessory pulls out something inside of you that you did not realize was there.

That question, “Is this me?” is the same question Hickory Neck has been asking in these last months.  We have been through a pretty tremendous transition in leadership and identity.  When I started in April, many of you wondered what having a female rector with young children would look like.  Holding on to the memories of our two most recent rectors, and looking at this new rector, many of us wondered, “Is this me?”  And, then, just this past Sunday, we tried on something else – a Curate.  Now, Hickory Neck has been a two-clergy parish for many years in its past.  But the financial strain of transition and the uncertainty about identity has caused many to wonder if being a two-clergy parish is who we are now.

As our new curate has been settling into his office, I have been thinking that sometimes, the only way to answer the question, “Is this me?” is to just go for it.  Part of the equation will necessitate us being bold enough to live into a new identity under new leadership.  Like with a bold new outfit, we have to put our minds to living fully into the path we have chosen for our future.  But the other part of the equation is remembering how, like putting on a bold new outfit, sometimes our confidence will rise in spite of ourselves.  Just by living into our new identity, our sense of adventure, creativity, and confidence will grow.  Change is hard, and I know many of us this week may be wondering, “Is this me?”  For those of you asking that question, I encourage you to trust that God is at work for goodness among us – pushing us into that sweet spot where tremendous ministry can happen.  I don’t know about you, but I am pretty excited to live into our new look!

Stepping out on faith…

Tags

ambiguity, confidence, control, faith, fear, generosity, God, hope, trust

Courtesy of http://blog.catchthesun.net/2014/09/computer-tools-for-copy-editors-macros/

Control is something I write about a lot.  Perhaps I write about it so much because I never quite master giving up my desire for control back to God.  I am reminded of the book, Divergent, by Veronica Roth.  In it, the dauntless faction seeks to master its fears through simulations.  In the book there is disagreement about whether fears can ever actually be mastered or whether the work is just recognizing the fear and its cues, and then modifying one’s bodily response to those fears.

If you asked me this week whether I was in the “never mastering fears” camp, the answer would be a resounding yes.  As someone who values control, my life has felt totally out of control this week.  It started with a standby jury summons – every day this week I could not know the fate of my day until 5:00 pm the night beforehand.  So I was already in a state of ambiguity, hoping my childcare arrangement for the day would work.  Then, just as the week was starting, I received a late night pastoral care call night, necessitating a visit in the wee hours of the night.  Two nights later my youngest daughter had one of “those” nights: uncontrollable crying, waking up everyone in the house, and leaving us all weary.  Even as I sit waiting to be called for voir dire, I wonder what will happen today.  Needless to say, this creature of control is being pushed to the limit.

This experience is especially interesting to me as I think about what is happening at St. Margaret’s.  We are approaching our Annual Meeting in December, where we present our budget for 2015.  We do not know what our pledges will be this year yet, especially because some of our older members are quite frail.  So during budget planning, our Vestry had to step out on faith with an estimated budget – in fact, a budget that expects a deficit.  And yet, here we are, stepping into the great unknown, praying that God and the people are with us.

As I plod through my stressfully ambiguous week, I appreciate what kind of ambiguity and risk our Vestry has assumed.  But I especially appreciate their faith, hope, and confidence.  They are inspiring us to embrace generosity – generosity of our time, talent, and treasure.  I am grateful for the powerful witness this week.  They are an inspiration to me and the entire parish.