Homily – Luke 18.9-14, P25, YC, October 27, 2019

Tags

abundance, alongside, bad, community, good, identity, Jesus, light, love, ministry, parable, passionate, pray, shine, stewardship, walk

Today’s parable from Jesus is one of those short parables that seems pretty straightforward at first glance.  Jesus describes two men who go to the temple to pray.  One is a Pharisee – a law-abiding, God-fearing man who offers a prayer of thanksgiving, albeit one that is full of self-righteousness, comparing himself and his choices favorably against those of others – suggesting in a sense that others are outside of God’s favor and grace.  The other is a tax collector – a corrupt collaborator with the government who, full of shame, humbly confesses to God his sins.  Jesus tells us the tax collector, “went down to his home justified rather than the other.”

Our temptation is to hear this text and conclude something quite simple:  the Pharisee is bad and the tax collector is good; bragging about yourself is bad and being humble is good; being a faithful person who misjudges God’s abundance is bad and being a self-aware sinner is good.  The problem with reading the text in this black-and-white way is we miss little details.  With such a stark reading, we can find ourselves walking out of church today thinking, “Thank God I’m not like the Pharisee!”  And before we even notice, we realize we are praying the same prayer as the Pharisee from the parable!

But this week, I stumbled on a little translation difference that shifted this parable for me.  In verse 14, Jesus says, “I tell you, [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other…”  But scholar Matt Skinner argues the preposition, “rather than,” should be translated instead as “alongside.”  So, verse 14 becomes, “I tell you, [the tax collector] went down to his home justified alongside the other…”[i]  Skinner argues there is much more nuance in this parable than we often allow.  That both men are praying, both men have faults, and both go home justified in different ways.  Sure, the Pharisee limits the extent of God’s grace, and he is unaware of his sinfulness in such exclusion, but the tax collector is no innocent.  Both men go home justified alongside each other.

One of the things we have been celebrating this stewardship season is our identity.  When we say, “We are Hickory Neck!” we say we are a people who have raised over $170,000 for local charities, who have over 50 volunteers on a given Sunday, who support one another through spiritual offerings like Lectio Divina, Book Club, Bible Study, and Jam Sessions, who nurture children and young families, who welcome newcomers, who work hard, and who have fun.  We are all those things are more – I imagine each of us here has a mental picture about what we mean when we say, “We are Hickory Neck!”  One of those things is that we walk home justified alongside each other.

That is what I love about this community.  This is a community that is passionate about Jesus and take’s Christ’s light out into the world.  This is a community that is passionate about caring for one another – where all can feel loved and affirmed, and all can find a place to thrive.  This is a community that is passionate about serving our neighbors – those young families looking for a sense of belonging and affirmation, and those retirees looking for a new sense of home.  This is a community that is passionate about liturgy, music, having fun, sharing sorrows, honoring history, dreaming about future possibilities, and laughing – lots of laughing.  This is a community that is passionate about investing our individual resources into Hickory Neck so Hickory Neck can bless others as Hickory Neck has blessed us.  We are Hickory Neck!  We are a community who walks alongside each other.

But that’s just me.  I want to know what gets you excited about Hickory Neck.  I want to know what saying “We are Hickory Neck!” conjures in your mind.  At your tables is a list of ideas from our Stewardship Committee.  Reread those ideas, and then talk with the people at your table about what you think of that is not on the list.  Write them down as you talk, so the Stewardship Committee understands what is important to you as we support and fund ministry.  You have about five minutes to chat and make notes, and then we’ll regather with a word of prayer…

Let us pray.  God of abundance, we come to you as self-righteous, sinful followers, who regularly mess up.  But our heart is with you.  We want to be agents of your light and your love.  Help us to love you abundantly.  Help us to support your kingdom generously.  Help us to walk alongside one another, shining your light for others so they may give glory to you.  In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

[i] Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave #686 – Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 30),” October 19, 2019, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1192 on October 23, 2019.

On Festivals, Fitness, and Fun…

Tags

church, community, faith, festival, fun, God, good, grace, joy, love, muscle memory, passion, spiritual

Photo credit:  Charlie Bauer; permission required for reuse.

This week is one of my favorite weeks of the year.  This is the time when our church community transforms our property for our Annual Fall Festival.  Leading up to this week, there is a lot of organizing, delegating, preparing, and a fair amount of stress.  But this week, everything snaps into place.  The setup crew knows exactly what to breakdown and where it goes.  The Attic Treasures crew knows just what layout works and the room is magically converted to look like the same inviting space.  Later, our parking crew will come out and lay out where cars can park, tents will be erected, and all kinds of goods will be placed.  Having done the festival for nineteen years, we know the drill and seem to operate from muscle memory.

I love this week for several reasons.  One, I love seeing the community come together – both parishioners and neighbors alike, to make for a fun week of memories, laughter, and new experiences.  I love seeing people’s passion for helping others unfold in a way that is loving, affirming, and fun.  And I also love seeing people step up, taking on things that are a burden on their time, but doing so for the greater good.  The week truly is inspiring, and I love inviting the larger community into our joy.

This week – or perhaps next week after the dust has settled – I invite you to consider what other parts of your faith life might need to be flexed enough so that you have muscle memory around them as well.  Perhaps it is just making Sunday worship a part of your weekly experience with God – letting the routine of liturgy create a common pattern for you, while also seeing how the routine of liturgy creates surprising moments of grace and joy.  Maybe your muscle memory can form around inviting people to church.  I find the more I talk about a thing I am passionate about, the more talking about it becomes easy.  Or maybe your muscle memory will be around creating practices that feed your soul – our monthly book group, our yearly Women’s Retreat, a weekly Bible Study or Choir rehearsal.  If any of these practices create even a portion of the joy we experience during Fall Festival week, I expect you are in for a real treat.  I cannot wait to hear about it!

 

Sermon – John 2.13-22, Exodus 20.1-17, L3, YB, March 4, 2018

Tags

beautiful, bless, body, flesh, God, good, honor, incarnation, Jesus, Lent, ministry, repentance, righteous anger, sacred, Sermon, sinful, temple

Today’s gospel lesson is one of those lessons in Scripture that is so vivid we find looking away difficult.  All four of the gospels have this story, and three of the gospels use this story to convey Jesus’ righteous anger about how the practice around temple worship and obligatory sacrifice has led to monetary abuses.  Matthew and Luke even have Jesus calling the whole enterprise a den of robbers.  The story evokes images of Jesus flipping tables, or in today’s version, swinging around a whip like Indiana Jones.  We often recall this text when looking for evidence of Jesus’ righteous anger at injustice.  We are so familiar with this text we can almost hear the sermon about a call to justice in our heads.

But this week, the gospel has been speaking a different sermon to me.  You see, John’s version of this story is a bit different from the other three gospels.  First, John places this story in a very different place in his narrative.[i]  Unlike the other gospels who place this story toward the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, John places this incident in the second chapter, right after the miracle in Cana.  And in John’s version, Jesus does not lay into the moneychangers in quite the same way.  Instead of financial injustice, Jesus seems more concerned that those gathered have missed something critical – in the obligatory administering of sacrifices at the physical temple, they have missed the fact that God is no longer tied to the location of the temple – and instead is found in the temple of Jesus’ body.  For John, the incarnation, the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, is central to the entirety of the good news and in this story specifically.

I realized this week that when I think about the Incarnation, I immediately think of the baby Jesus.  Somehow, like a child you do not see for a few years, my image of Jesus incarnate gets stuck in the manger.  And because the adult Jesus sometimes feels so superhuman, I forget about the earthy, gritty flesh of his body – the body that touches to heal, stoops down to wash feet, eats and drinks with others, cries wet tears, and breathes a last breath of the cross.  In coming to know the Messiah who heals, teaches, brings about justice, and is transfigured before the disciples, I forget the enfleshed Jesus – the human body in which God dwells – the only temple we need to draw nearer to our God.

We are in a season of flesh.  Lent is that season when we experience Jesus in deeply enfleshed ways.  What our disciplines or our practices do for us in Lent is help us remember that we are a people of flesh and our God was willing to take on that flesh to transform our lives.  We do not often talk about the profound reality of an enfleshed God, but I stumbled on a hymn this week that opened up the reality.  Brian Wren’s hymn Good is the Flesh says, “Good is the flesh that the Word has become, good is the birthing, the milk in the breast, good is the feeding, caressing and rest, good is the body for knowing the world, Good is the flesh that the Word has become.”  The hymn goes on to say, “Good is the body, from cradle to grave, growing and aging, arousing, impaired, happy in clothing, or lovingly bared, good is the pleasure of God in our flesh, Good is the flesh that the Word has become.”[ii]  Now I do not know about your own spiritual journey, but I do not think I have ever heard Jesus’ flesh being described so vividly.  The closest I have come has been in imagining the vulnerability of that enfleshed body in the cradle.  But capturing what being enfleshed means for all of life – from cradle to grave – somehow opened up John’s words about the temple of Jesus’ body.  God takes something we often associate with sinfulness – and transforms that flesh into something good.  “Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,” are powerful words that shift how we experience the fullness of Christ’s humanity.

Once we reconnect with the goodness of God’s flesh – the incarnation of Christ – then we begin to see all of Jesus’ ministry not stuck in a manger but immersed in the flesh of life.  Karoline Lewis reminds us Jesus’ fleshy life was important, “Because a woman at a well, whose body was rejected for the barren body it was, experiences the truth of neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem; because a man ill for 38 years, his entire life to be exact, whose body has only known life on the ground, is now able to imagine his ascended life; because a man born blind, is then able to see, and to see himself as a sheep of Jesus’ own fold; because Lazarus, whose body was dead and starting to decay, found himself reclining on Jesus, eating and drinking, and with his sisters, sharing a meal once again.”[iii]  Not only is Jesus’ incarnation good, making flesh good, Jesus’ ministry is about blessing, healing, and restoring physical bodies.

Once we connect with the goodness of God’s flesh, and the power of Jesus’ fleshy ministry, we are forced to see something we do not always feel comfortable with – the goodness of our own flesh.  Now I do not know about you, but my experience in church has not been one in which the church tells me how good my body is.  In fact, today’s inclusion of the ten commandments usually reminds me of the opposite – of the myriad ways my body is sinful:  from the words that come out of my mouth, to the ways in which I hurt others and take things with my body, to the ways in which I covet things and other bodies.  And those sins do not even touch the ways in which I learn the message that my body is imperfect – how my body is not the right height or shape or gender, how my body is not fit or strong enough, how my skin color, hair, or nails are not quite the ideal.  But if God takes on flesh and says, “Good is the flesh,” and if that enfleshed God engages in a ministry of blessing flesh, then surely part of what we remember today is how good and blessed our own flesh is – how God made our flesh for good.

Now, here comes the tricky part.  Once we realize “Good is the flesh,” that ministered to the flesh, that our flesh is beautiful and revered, then we are forced to make yet another leap – that the flesh of others is also beautiful.  Those bodies we would like to subjugate, regulate, and decimate are no longer able to be separated from the goodness of God’s flesh or our own flesh.  Barbara Brown Taylor argues in An Altar in the World, “‘One of the truer things about bodies is that it is just about impossible to increase the reverence I show mine without also increasing the reverence I show yours.’  In other words, once I value my own body as God’s temple, as a site of God’s pleasure, delight, and grace, how can I stand by while other bodies suffer exploitation, poverty, discrimination, or abuse?”[iv]

This week, we enter that kind of work.  As we welcome guests through the Winter Shelter, we affirm the goodness of all flesh – of God’s flesh, of our flesh, and especially the flesh of those who have no shelter, who work hard all day but cannot secure housing, who live lives of uncertainty, of insecurity, of scarcity.  Once we recall the incarnation of Christ, the dignity of our own incarnation, our work immediately becomes to honor the incarnation of others.  We certainly accomplish the work of honoring flesh this week through the Winter Shelter.  But as we keep walking our Lenten journey, we will struggle with our bodies.  Even our collect today says, “we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul.”  But our invitation this Lent is to also struggle with claiming our body as good – and using the goodness of the flesh to bless other flesh.  Our repentance this week is not just of the sinfulness of the flesh, but we repent this week of the ways in which we do not honor how “Good is the flesh that the Word has become.”  Amen.

 

[i] Joseph D. Small, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 92.

[ii] I found this hymn in the commentary by Debie Thomas, “The Temple of His Body” February 28, 2018, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=1675 as found on March 1, 2018.

[iii] Karoline Lewis, “Body Zeal,” February 26, 2018, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5071 as found on March 1, 2018.

[iv] Thomas.

On Saints and Community…

Tags

All Hallows' Eve, All Saints Day, care, community, connect, feast, God, good, Halloween, joy, sacred, saints, secular

Photo credit:  kanecountyconnects.com/2016/10/complete-list-of-halloween-trick-or-treat-hours-in-kane-county-communitys-2016/

I have never been one for promoting the spirituality of All Hallows’ Eve.  I have done children’s liturgies before, but I always suspect that the lure of trick-or-treating is too strong to encourage people to fast on October 31^st.  As an adult, I have never been that into Halloween either.  I never dress up or throw big parties.  As a parent, I take the kids out, and we have candy to pass out at our home, but besides the promise of candy being around, I do not get too invested in the holiday.

But last night, something powerful clicked for me.  We live in a neighborhood that is very easy to walk with kids, and our youngest is old enough that she is starting really enjoy door-to-door trick-or-treating.  As we walked, I realized something new was happening.  Everyone in the neighborhood was genuinely engaged.  Adults made eye contact with one another, smiling and greeting with a heartiness I had not seen before.  Older members of our neighborhood were delighting in the children, making connections over costumes and candy.  Most of the time, I think of our neighborhood as being the place where we live.  But last night, our neighborhood felt like a community:  a community of people who care about each other, want to connect with each other, and are happy to share a little bit of joy in a sometimes very disappointing world.

Though our neighborhood was doing something entirely secular, there was something sacred about our interactions last night.  Though we were not fasting for All Hallows’ Day, our honoring of each other was a way of preparing me for today’s feast day.  Our connections last night made me realize how connected we are to the saints:  people who seem totally unlike us, whose lives feel disconnected from our own, and yet, whose stories bring us comfort, encouragement, and assurance.  The communion of saints makes us realize how much larger our “community” really is, and how full of goodness and hope it can be.  If you are longing for that kind of connection to the saints, or even a connection to a modern community, I hope you will join us tonight as we celebrate All Saints Day.  Come feast on the holy meal, share a good word, and look into the eyes of those who see you for what you are:  a beautiful child of God to be honored and celebrated!

On hollowness and hallowedness…

Tags

abundance, empty, God, good, gratitude, grief, hallow, hollow, house, memories, moving, sadness, tradition, transition

Photo credit:  https://www.nationalpropertytrade.co.uk/dealing-with-empty-property/

As I mentioned recently, I have moved a lot in my lifetime.  If my calculations are correct, I have moved about 15 times (and that’s only counting college once, despite the fact that I moved to a different dorm every year, and twice my junior year).  As you might imagine, the moves have occurred over a lifetime – from as young as one-year old to this move in my late thirties.

At some point over the years of moving I developed a tradition.  When the whole house is empty, the truck fully loaded, and the cars ready to pull out, I quietly slip back into the house and walk through every room.  There is something about the hollowness of an empty home that you have lived in:  the echo of your feet as you walk through the house, the lingering hints of artwork once hung, and even the scents of people or food.  There is an ache that the emptiness causes – a finality like none other.  But there is also the rush of memories:  the child you brought home from the hospital, the sleepless nights as the toddler transitioned to a “big girl bed,” the parties and family celebrations, and the countless visitors.  In the silence of the empty house you can hear the hint of years of laughter, remember the nights of tears shed, feel the warmth of a child rocked to sleep, and see the shadows left by the lamp as you wrote by night.  Though the house is empty, the house has been your home, steeped in love for however long you have been there.  The hollowness reveals the hallowedness of the space.

This week I continued the tradition.  Though I have given myself little time to grieve the phase of my life’s journey, tonight I realized how sad I am to close this chapter.  God has been so very good to us here – four years of marriage and children and work and play is a lot.  We have been blessed by new friends and experiences.  We have grown and changed for the better.  In the quiet of the house, I am deeply grateful for the abundance God has shown us.  God is good.  All the time.

Reconciling Preparedness and Blessedness

Tags

blessed, church, God, good, gratitude, moving, packers, plan, prepared, transition, wonderful

Photo credit:  www.bestofboston.com/best-of-boston-all-stars-liberty-hotel/

For those of you who know me well, you know that I am not the friend you want nearby in case of an emergency.  I’m not the quickest thinker on my feet.  I could tell you of countless stories involving blood and fire at construction sites to prove my point.  Knowing that weakness, I tend to compensate through preparation.  I will plan, think through various contingencies, and consult experts to make sure that if an emergency comes up, I do not have to think on my feet as much – I’ve already figured out various scenarios.

So for a consummate planner and preparer, you can imagine how this move has put me over the edge.  I, perhaps crazily, decided that my last Sunday at my current parish would be Easter Sunday.  The movers would come later in the week, and then we would head out by week’s end.  I had a plan.  But then I forgot how busy Lent and Holy Week are.  I forgot how challenging dealing with children who are on break can be.  I forgot how many logistics would be necessary for buying a new home, starting new schools, and starting a new job.  I forgot how much time I would need to commit to spending time pastorally with the parishioners who had been in my care for the last four-plus years.  Consequently, when the packers arrived today, I was nowhere near as prepared for them as I had planned.

Now that may not sound like a big deal, but as someone who is a crazy planner and as someone who has moved more times than I can count, this a grave disappointment.  By Wednesday night I was in a panic about how little was done.  I was aghast at my lack of preparation.  All that purging, all that organizing, all those donations, all that cleaning I had planned went mostly undone.  For someone like me, this is the ultimate anxiety-inducing experience.

So this morning, as I sit with packers in a flurry around me, I am working on breathing.  I am working on accepting I have done what I can do.  Despite my inner criticism, I am working on listening to the reassuring voice of God telling me, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  Instead of concentrating on the list of incomplete things, I am reflecting on all the good and wonderful things of these last weeks:  heartfelt goodbyes, beautiful liturgies, yummy food, laughter and tears, and hugs and kisses.  I am recalling all the blessings of these years with St. Margaret’s and the community of Plainview.  And I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the ways that God has been with me in the midst of it all.  I am gloriously unprepared today – but that lack of preparation has opened a window for the goodness of God to take over.  Thanks be to God!!

Sermon – Luke 15.1-3, 11b-32, L4, YC, March 6, 2016

Tags

bad, church, death, family, forgiveness, God, good, grace, honor, layers, Lent, love, parable, prodigal son, refreshment, repentance, respect, Rose Sunday, saints, Sermon

Growing up, my Grandfather was considered a saint.  He was kind and funny.  He was a wiz in the kitchen, and he always made you feel good.  He was beloved by all, and was known as a champion for the underdog.  That narrative was affirmed at his funeral as we told stories of his kindness and generosity.  He was without blemish and probably could have remained so had I not asked questions.  But over coffee one day, I had a conversation about the saintliness of my grandfather with my aunt and uncle.  Over the course of our conversation they slowly opened my eyes about how my grandfather was more nuanced that I realized.  What I interpreted as kindness they helped me see as, at times, avoiding conflict to the detriment of others.  What I saw as peacemaking could be interpreted as not standing up to bullies.  Slowly the one-dimensional man I knew developed layers – layers of goodness and weakness; layers of helpfulness and harm; layers of perfection and flaws.

We regularly do the same thing with those who have died – whether canonized saints or beloved family members.  In death, we honor all the goodness about them and gloss over the bad parts.  A classic example is one of my favorite modern-day saints, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  He spearheaded a movement with grace, insight, and boldness and inspired generations.  But I remember reading later in life how his treatment of women in the Civil Rights Movement was not always as admirable.  Slowly his layers emerged for me.  Although I still admire his work and writings, his life is more nuanced now.

Now some people will argue that we should not speak ill of the dead – that we should show our respect by letting go of the bad and only honoring the good.  In some respects, I understand why people do not want to dishonor the dead.  But I think telling stories that only make others seem perfect without honoring their flaws hurts us more than helps us.  That is why I love the parable of the two sons from our gospel today.  I resists calling the parable the parable of the prodigal son because I think both sons have something to teach us.[i]  In the parable, we can easily see the two brothers in one-dimensional ways.  The older brother is the good and faithful son for loyally supporting his father and the family business.  The younger brother is the bad son who insults his father, squanders his ill-gotten inheritance, and shamefully asks for more than he deserves.  Those one-dimensional stories are stories we know.  We have friends, family members, or maybe some of us even who are those characters – the responsible older sibling, or the troublemaking younger sibling; the child whom the parent always brags about, or the child about whom the parent seems embarrassed; the child who brings the family honor, or the child who brings the family shame.

But like any good parable, these characters are not as one-dimensional as they seem.  I was thinking about the younger brother this week and I realized we never hear about his impression of the party his father throws.  We suspect he is grateful for his father’s forgiveness, and we honor the humble way the younger son repents, but that party must have been hard.  Everyone at the party knows his sin.  Asking for his portion of his father’s inheritance before his father’s death was tantamount to wishing his father were dead.[ii]  In order for his father to give the younger son the money, he would have had to have sold off some land – a fate even worse for a culture who understood their land to be God’s promised gift.[iii]  Though his father’s forgiveness must have been a relief, I cannot imagine the rest of the town being so gracious.  I wonder whether the son stayed humble and repentant during the party; whether he was able to relax into his newfound forgiveness, laughing and joking; or whether he felt uncomfortable, bristling from his neighbors’ judgment and sideways glances.

Of course, we cannot forget the older brother.  The dutiful, obedient, hardworking brother loses all his perfection in his reaction to this party.  The older brother throws a temper tantrum of epic proportions.  He whines about the abundance his father shows his brother – perhaps rightfully so, since the money and fatted calf used for the party comes from what is left of the older son’s inheritance.[iv]  He complains about how he has never experienced such bounty and celebration.  He resents his father’s lack of gratitude for all the older son’s dutiful work.  Some of the son’s indignation is warranted.  He was, in fact, the good son, and his younger brother had behaved badly.  But the rewards of the story are not playing out so simply.  The older brother overreacts.  You see, his response is equally disgraceful to his father.  In the day of this parable, the host of a party was never to leave his guests.  Going to his older son would have been seen as disrespectful to the guests he had invited.[v]  But just like he goes out to meet his younger son, the father goes out to meet the older son, offering him similar generosity and abundance in the face of his son’s sin.

Part of why we love this parable so much is that we can identify with all the characters.  We are a people of nuanced layers too.  We have our younger son moments and our older son moments.  We have moments when we are bastions of forgiveness and grace, and moments when we withhold that forgiveness and grace.  Those among us who are known as having deep wells of patience have our moments when we snap.  And those among us who are known as being judgmental or stern have our moments of insightful kindness.

Our layers are why we have seasons like Lent and days for healing prayers.  In Lent, we shuffle home from our partying, wastefulness, and self-centeredness and return to our forgiving Lord.  In Lent, we bring our resentfulness, jealousy, and self-righteousness to the altar as we long for another way. In Lent, we bring our judgment of others and our judgment of ourselves and exchange them for freedom for humility and compassion.  Having a healing service in Lent allows us to do those things in a tangible way – not just to pray for physical healing of ourselves and others, but to pray for spiritual healing for those layers that are not as beautiful as others.

In order to honor that work of self-reflection and repentance, the church gives us what is called Rose Sunday, Refreshment Sunday, or even Mothering Sunday.  The idea is that being half-way through Lent, we take a day to break our fasting in these forty days.  In many parishes, to reflect the respite from penitence and fasting, the vestments and paraments change from their usual Lenten array to a beautiful rose-colored array.  On this day, we take a break from wallowing in ashes and our sack cloths, and we find refreshment in our Lord’s forgiveness and redemption.  In England, apprentice boys took this day off to visit their mothers, hence the one designation as Mothering Sunday.  We hear that invitation into gladness today in our psalm, “Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away!  Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, and in whose spirit there is no guile!”[vi]  After weeks of repentance, heaviness, and weight, today the church invites us into forgiveness, lightness, and joy.

Rose Sunday is like the father in our parable today – full of forgiveness, grace, and love for us and all our layers – the good and the not-so-good – because we all have the layers.  Today the church runs out to greet us, leaves a good party, and meets us where we are – and loves us.  Today, the church says, “I see your layers, and I love all the parts of you, fully.”  Today the church is a fool for forgiveness, not wisely teaching us a lesson about humility, but senselessly lavishing upon us grace, love, and freedom from our self-centeredness and self-righteousness.  On this refreshment Sunday, the church invites us to remember that we are beloved children of God, a God who knows all our layers and loves us anyway.

I invite you today to take on the fullness of refreshment this day.  Whatever you have been working on this Lent, whatever guilt you have been harboring, or whatever sinfulness you have been examining, know that your sins are forgiven.  Know that you can come forward for healing prayers, not asking for healing and wholeness, but celebrating the healing and wholeness you have already experienced.  Know that you can come to the Eucharistic table not just for solace only but for strength; not just for pardon only, but for renewal.  As we say in our Rite I prayers, Jesus says to us, “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”[vii]  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, “Perspective Matters,” February 28, 2016, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4553 as found on March 3, 2016.

[ii] N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004),187.

[iii] Leslie J. Hoppe, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 119.

[iv] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family,” April 17, 2006, as found at http://www.barbarabrowntaylor.com/newsletter374062.htm on March 3, 2016.

[v] David Lose, “Lent 4 C:  The Prodigal God,” February 28, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-4-c-the-prodigal-god/ on March 3, 2016.

[vi] Psalm 32.1-2.

[vii] Matthew 11.28.  BCP 332.

On being good…

Tags

Advent, Barth, behavior, Christ, church, forgiveness, good, Paul, repent, Romans, sin

Driving home from school this week, my daughter and I talked about some challenges she is having with poor behavior in the classroom.  We talked about some strategies to help her work on it.  I encouraged her to just keep trying.  Exasperated, she said to me, “I am trying.  It’s just so hard being good!”

Her words to me were both funny and profound.  I felt sympathy for this little first grader who is trying her best.  But I also felt an odd sense of relief.  I thought to myself, “I’m so glad I am an adult and don’t have to worry about ‘being good’ anymore!”  Then today, we read the lessons for the feast day for Karl Barth.  The epistle was from Paul’s letter to the Romans (7.14-25).  Paul says, “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  It dawned on me that I was being self-righteous with my daughter.  As adults, we do not ever “grow out of” struggling to be good.  Adults struggle with our sinful nature as much as children do.

Karl Barth knew a little about sinfulness.  During the rise of Hitler, Barth argued that the Church’s allegiance to God in Christ gave the Church the moral imperative to challenge the rule and violence of Hitler.  In fact, when Barth refused to swear an oath to Hitler, he lost his professorship.  One of the greatest theological minds of the twentieth century, Barth argued about sin that the Incarnation was the bridge between God’s revelation and human sin.

Photo credit: http://www.sacristies-of-the-world.com/?tag=advent-wreath

Talking about sin during Advent may seem strange to some.  Most of us are more focused on buying gifts, preparing our homes, and going to parties.  But the reason we have to celebrate in the first place is the nativity of our Lord – that bridge between God’s revelation and human sin.  Even in the first weeks of Advent, we hear from John the Baptist telling us to repent of our sins.  The time of Advent is not the Church’s way of delaying the gratification of Christmas.  Advent is an invitation to prepare our hearts and minds for the Christ Child.  Part of that preparation is examining our own sinfulness – to right our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with one another.  Being “good” is not easy.  But Advent is our reminder to keep trying – even when being good is hard.  My suspicion is that our work of repentance will not only warm our hearts with the forgiveness we receive from God, but also help us to be agents of forgiveness.  Lord knows we’ll need a heap of that too when the holidays come!

Sermon – 1 Kings 2.10-12; 3.3-14, P15, YB, August 16, 2015

Tags

bad, baptism, baptismal covenant, God, good, journey, king, love, Sermon, shrewd, Solomon, wisdom, wise

Let me tell you a story that a friend of mine once told me.  Once upon a time, there was a wise prince.  Following his father’s death, the prince became king, married a beautiful princess from a neighboring kingdom, and began to rule his people in a way that honored God.  One night, God came to the king in a dream, and told him he could have anything he wanted.  Being a humble man, the king did not ask for money, power, or a long life.  Instead, the king asked God to make him wise so that he could care for the people.  God was very pleased by this request, and God decided to grant the king wisdom.  And, as a reward for being so humble, God said the king could have wealth, honor, and long life too!  The king became known all over the land as a wise king.  People traveled far and wide to hear the king’s wisdom.  The king’s kingdom flourished, his rule becoming a Golden Age for the kingdom.  After forty years of peaceful success, the king handed over his throne to his son.[i]

The king in that story is a real king:  King Solomon from our Old Testament reading today.  As we baptize Kayla today, we wish the same things for her that King Solomon has.  We pray that she might be wise in her decisions, that she might have a close relationship with God, and that she might honor others.  And to help her become those things, we as a community pledge to support her, and we promise to try to do those things too.  On this special day, we look to the future with hope and optimism, praying that God will make Kayla as wise as Solomon.

But, we have to be careful.  You see, once upon a time there was also a shrewd prince.  When the prince’s father died, the prince ordered that his older brother be killed so that he could become king instead.  As he began his rule as king, he killed many more people out of revenge for the way they treated his father.  Then he set out to build a kingdom of riches, power, and honor.  But this king was greedy.  He wanted so many things that he made the people suffer.  He made the people pay taxes, and forced them to build lavish homes and temples.  He collected 700 wives and 300 concubines.  Many of the women worshiped foreign gods, and so the king started to worship those gods too.  He was not loyal to the God we know.  By the time he died, the people were very angry, and they revolted when the king’s son tried to take over.  A big war broke out, the kingdom divided in two, and the world fell into chaos.[ii]

Here’s the funny thing about the bad king.  That bad king is Solomon too.  Isn’t that weird?  We often remember all the good stuff about Solomon – and there is a lot of good stuff.  But there is a lot of bad stuff about Solomon too.[iii]  In fact, we skipped that part in our reading in church today.[iv]   The same king who humbly asks for wisdom is the same king who gets greedy when good things happen to him.  The same king who wisely rules the land also forgets about loving the people he is ruling.

When we think about Kayla’s journey with God in the years to come, we want her to be like wise Solomon.  But the truth is Kayla, and the all the rest of us, are probably a mix of wise Solomon and naughty Solomon.  We are a mix of both because we all learn that we can never be perfect.  But the good news is that God loves us anyway.  When we baptize Kayla today, and we renew our baptismal covenant, we recognize that truth.  We pray that we all will be wise, and kind, and blessed.  And we recognize that we will have to work really hard to not be greedy, unkind, and separated from God.  But we also promise that we will take care of each other on the journey, helping each one of us find our way back to being good servants of God.

So how about we find another way to tell Solomon’s story?  “Once upon a time there was a king.  He had big dreams, as most of us do.  He had great faults, as most of us do.  He lived a life marked by success and failure, nobility and disgrace.  He loved God and he didn’t.  He pleased God and he didn’t.  He left a legacy that was neither perfect nor wretched, as most of us will.  But he was loved by God throughout, even when his foolish wisdom shattered God’s heart.  As we are.”[v]  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “A King’s Tale,” Journey with Jesus, August 9, 2015, as found at http://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/324-a-king-s-tale on August 12, 2015.

[ii] Thomas.

[iii] Cameron B.R. Howard, “Commentary on 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14,” August 19, 2012, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1358 on August 12, 2015.

[iv] Andrew Nagy-Benson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays Yr. B, Batch 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 2.

[v] Thomas

Sermon – 1 Samuel 8.4-20, 11.14-15, P5, YB, June 7, 2015

Tags

choice, control, decision, free will, God, good, Israelites, king, redeem, Samuel, Saul, Sermon, trust

One of the movies I enjoyed growing up was called Freaky Friday.  The movie debuted in the seventies starring a young Jodie Foster, but they remade the movie in 2003 with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan.  The premise of the movie is a mother and her teenage daughter are at each other’s throats.  They are constantly fighting, arguing that the other person cannot possible understand the difficulties she is facing.  On one fateful Friday morning, the two make a flippant wish.  With great gusto and anger they both say, “I wish you could live in my shoes for just one day!”  Of course the two get their wish, and spend a crazy day trapped in the body of the other.  There are fun mishaps like the under-aged daughter trying to figure out how to drive a car and spending lots of mom’s money which is suddenly at her disposal.  There are also those stressful moments as the mom tries to take a high school test on material she has long since forgotten or trying to navigate being teased at school.  By the end of the movie, both mother and daughter are frazzled by the demands on them, overwhelmingly regretful of their wish, and just want to go back to life the way it was.  They have to work together to figure out how to reverse the wish, which basically includes coming to a point of fully appreciating the difficulties each of them faces in life and loving each other deeply.

Unfortunately, there was no Freaky Friday for the people of Israel in Samuel’s time.  Samuel had been a great prophet for the people, teaching them the ways of God.  But Samuel was aging, and his sons were proving they would not be able to fill Samuel’s shoes, as they were corrupt and abusive.  Normally, the people of Israel would have been on their own until God decided to elect another prophet for them.  But the people of Israel felt threatened.  There were great powers all around them, many of which were battling for power and control.  The Israelites looked to those nations and noticed one major difference between themselves and the other countries – kings!  And so, with great gusto they had Samuel ask God to give them a king.  Now, we have to understand how petulant the Israelites sound.  In their immaturity, they whine, “We want a king!  All the other kids have kings, and we need one too.  Then we will be guaranteed to be protected!”  Samuel is outraged on God’s behalf.  Asking for a king is tantamount to admitting that the people of God do not trust God to protect them.  They are basically asking to totally change their centuries-old relationship with God – no longer being governed by God, but being governed by a human being.  God agrees to grant their wish, but advises Samuel first to warn them about what they are asking.  Samuel does – like a parent, he rips into them about what they can expect – to give up their young men to fight in wars, to give up their young women for service to the empire, for their livestock and best fields to be taken by the king.  And when they begin to sense the injustice of the king, God will not answer their cries.  And of course, like a petulant child, the people demand their king anyway.

Who among us has not similarly negotiated with God?  We take the higher paying job even though something in our gut tells us we should not.  Years later we find ourselves unhappy and unfulfilled.  We stay in romantic relationships that are not life-giving because we are more afraid of being alone than we are of being in an unsatisfying relationship.  We spend more and more money trying to fill a void in ourselves, even though we know the void never goes away.  Like the people of Israel we turn away from God, trying to control and protect our lives, while God longs for us to instead turn toward God.

Here is what I love about this story though:  God actually had a fair amount of choices in this story.  God could have smote the people for their disloyalty.  God could have simply refused and told them to get on with life.  God could have negotiated or come up with a compromise.  Instead, God respects the people’s free-will.  God presents the disadvantages of taking on a human king; but then God lets the people choose – even choose the wrong choice.  I find God’s action encouraging because God’s action tells us a lot about our relationship with God.  God actions show us that our free-will is so important to God, that God will not rule over us like a dictator, but will let us make our own decisions – even when our decisions are not very good ones.  That kind of relationship between us teaches us that God respects us, empowers us to make decisions, and let’s us have a fair amount of control in our lives.

But even more encouraging than God respecting our free will is that fact that God can make everything good anyway.  The people of Israel did in fact make a poor choice that they paid for dearly – all that Samuel predicted came true in the person of King Solomon.  But God also made their poor decision great “in the form of a Davidic dynasty with a historical significance beyond measure.”[i]  The human choice of an Israelite king would later be redeemed through the coming of Jesus of Nazareth – descended from that same line.[ii]  If God can redeem a centuries old poor decision, surely God can redeem the many poor decisions we make in life.  And that is good news!  Amen.

[i] Roger Nam, “Commentary on 1 Samuel 8:4-11 [12-15] 16-20 [11:14-15]” as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2472 on June 3, 2015.

[ii] Patrick J. Willson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Yr. B, Proper 5 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 6