On Holy Week, Distance, and Hope…

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church, community, Coronavirus, creativity, different, digital, grace, grief, Holy Spirit, Holy Week, hope, intimate, physical, sacrament, technology, tradition

Photo credit:  https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/business/the-latest-holy-week-ceremonies-closed-to-public-over-virus/image_b2f632ed-6243-5410-accd-34ccf4865671.html

I remember the first time I was a Rector and planning Holy Week.  I was debating about whether to use the reserve sacrament on Good Friday or not.  I spoke to a priest colleague, and he shared the philosophy of the Rector under which he was serving:  on Good Friday, not even the consolation of the Holy Meal is available to us.

When our staff at Hickory Neck first started talking about Holy Week, we were faced with a stark reality:  there was no way for us to celebrate Holy Week the way we traditionally do.  Sure, we could use technology, and sure, we could try to do parts of what we normally do, but so much of Holy Week is physical and intimate – from waving palms, to washing feet, to kissing crosses, to huddling together around a fire, to having water sprinkled around, to gathering close in the dark, to finally gathering in a huge celebration with large crowds, Easter egg hunts, pictures with friends, and brass instruments.  There just is not a way to create that same feel digitally.  And so, Holy Week would need to be different.

For those of you who know me, you know Holy Week is superlatively special to me – it is my favorite week of the year.  So, for a moment, I grieved that loss, adding it to the long list of things I am grieving during this pandemic.  But then I took a deep breath, made room for Holy Spirit as I relaxed my grip on what I falsely imagined was under my control, and let the creativity flow.  Before I knew it, we were trying evensong for Maundy Thursday – a service we experienced daily on a recent pilgrimage in England.  We were creating a simple, powerful Good Friday liturgy.  And, I was trying for the first time a liturgy I had barely noticed in the Prayer Book – a Holy Saturday liturgy.

Holy Week and Easter will not be the same this year.  But, in all honesty, nothing is the same in this season of life.  If our lives are so distinctly different these days, it makes sense that our liturgies would be different too, as liturgies reflect the life of the people.  Somehow, creating this alternative Holy Week has felt like the Church settling in alongside the community and walking in step with them (from a safe distance, of course!).  Somehow, recognizing grief, discomfort, and sadness has made room for creativity, hope, and grace.  Somehow, experiencing a daily life much more in line with the journey of Holy Week is making Holy Week viscerally palpable, and ultimately healing, life-giving, and strengthening.  We still have a long way to go with this virus and its impact, but I am especially grateful for the gift of Holy Week this year.

Sermon – John 4.5-42, L3, YA, March 15, 2020

Tags

anxiety, Caronavirus, flesh, God, human, incarnate, incarnation, intimate, Jesus, Messiah, relationship, Samaritan, Sermon, vulnerable, well, woman

Today’s gospel lesson is one of those lessons that can be so full of intrigue that we miss what is happening in the text.  Most of us have heard this lesson hundreds of times, and have probably lingered on the part of the conversation where Jesus calls out the woman for living with someone who is not her husband, after already having had five husbands.  The conversation sounds straight out of Jerry Springer or Dr. Phil, where in the next scene we expect the other husbands to arrive, and a fight to break loose.

The problem with that kind of reading is we have the tone all wrong.  By narrowing in on what sounds like a “gotcha!” statement from Jesus right in the middle of about 40 verses, we forget all of the words and actions surrounding this event in the middle.  We have clues all along in the reading:  Jesus going through Samaria (when most Jews avoid Samaria); a woman appearing at a well at noon (when most of the woman have come and gone); Jesus (a Jew) talking to a Samaritan woman in broad daylight (a triple no-no); disciples appearing and engaging in conversation that sounds like The Three Stooges; talk of prophets, messiahs, disciples, and evangelism.

When we step back and take the broad view of this lesson, we are able to not be distracted by the sweep of the narrative, the scandalous and the absurd details, and the confusing stream of thought.  When seen broadly, we find a story that illuminates what having an incarnate God really looks like.  Too often, when we talk of the incarnation, we think of the baby Jesus, or the bodily, gruesome crucifixion.  But we sometimes forget the everydayness of the incarnation:  the fact that Jesus is thirsty and needs something from another, namely this Samaritan woman; the fact that Jesus initiates an intimate relationship, where two people can talk about the pain, suffering, and societal rejection of a widow and/or divorcee, who is simply trying to get by in a community that ostracizes her, even from drawing water from the well in the cool of morning; the fact that Jesus understands barrenness and empowers her to instead birth new believers.[i]  As Karoline Lewis says, says, “To take the incarnation seriously, to give it the fullest extent and expression, demands that no aspect of what it means to be human be overlooked.  To do so would truncate the principal theological claim of [John’s] Gospel.  At stake for the fourth evangelist is that Jesus is truly God in the flesh and every aspect of what humanity entails God now knows.”[ii]

I find this reading immensely meaningful today, because we are living in a moment when being flesh and bone is particularly precarious and unnerving.  A pandemic has gone all over the world and landed in our schools, our churches, our gathering places, and our homes.  Our lives have been upended by the threat of the Coronavirus, knowing the vulnerability of some in our community, and understanding suddenly how intricately intwined our lives are, even at a time when we have opined about how socially distanced we are.  This is a time when we feel very fleshy and vulnerable and here is Jesus talking to a vulnerable woman about his own fleshiness.

I don’t know about you, but I find this strange, circuitous conversation very comforting today.  In a time of anxiety, fear, and upheaval, Jesus is right there, in the midst of everyday messiness, and saying, “I feel you.  I understand.  I, your God, am incarnate, and I see and know you.”  And in response, the woman who is seen, known, and heard in turn goes to her community and becomes Jesus for others.  As Lewis says, “The woman at the well is not only a witness.  She is Jesus, the ‘I AM’ in the world, for her people.”[iii]

This is our invitation today too.  In the midst of upheaval, of disorientation, of anxiety, we are invited to be fully enfleshed Jesuses for others – to see their pain, their suffering, their uncertainty, and offer solidarity, comfort, and encouragement.  Even in a time of physical separation, we are invited into intimate relationship with one another, into relationships that honor the holy in one another, and help us all move forward.  This is what the Messiah does for us.  This is what we can do for one another.  Amen.

[i] Karoline M. Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 64.

[ii] Lewis, 55.

[iii] Lewis, 65.

The Pilgrim’s Way…Day 5

Tags

beautiful, blessing, body, connection, Eucharist, evensong, evocative, God, instrument, intimate, liturgy, music, pilgrimage, power, Salisbury, sound, spiritual, Winchester

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; reuse with permission only

Sixteen pilgrims from Hickory Neck Church traveled to England for 8 days of pilgrimage.  Our focus was on choral music, hearing Evensong or Choral Mass at a Cathedral, Minster, or college everyday.  This is the fifth entry, initially posted on our church Facebook page.  For those of you who do not follow us on Facebook, I am repeating the journey’s daily entries here.  Enjoy!

Salisbury/Winchester

Today, I was struck by the tremendous power of liturgy. We stumbled into a midday Eucharist at Salisbury Cathedral. It was spoken, and the homily was humbly short, but poignant. Then, as the priest set the table, she asked if anyone was a licensed Chalicist. I didn’t volunteer for fear someone else would want to help, and even unsure what the rules were in the Mother Church. But as the priest finished the Eucharistic Prayer, I determined I would just go up and offer to help. As soon as the priest saw my collar, she gratefully handed me the chalice. I found myself profoundly moved: doing something almost innate, but something that also felt foreign in the vast space, in a country not my own. And yet the power of Christ’s meal knows no boundaries. His blood is shed for you, and my body is His instrument.

Later this evening, we attended Evensong at Winchester Cathedral. The Adult singers and boy Chorister’s voices sang in perfection: clean and clear, expressive and moving. Their anthem, Deep River, is the third movement of Michael Tippett’s oratorio about the Nazi government’s violent pogrom against its Jewish population—called Kristallnacht. Pulling from African-American spirituals, this last movement holds a message of hope for the possible healing that would come from Man’s acceptance of his Shadow in relation to his Light. Combining the sound of spirituals and Anglican Choral singing, and the message of justice and reconciliation, I felt all my spiritual worlds colliding, and the words and sounds brought me to tears. I was amazed by how evocative a piece a liturgical music could be. I left Evensong feeling like I had journeyed with God somewhere deeply intimate and profoundly beautiful.

I don’t know if you have had one of those liturgical moments lately. If you are longing for that kind of connection, you are always welcome at Hickory Neck. And if you have found that liturgical blessing, do share it with someone who needs it!

The lyrics for Deep River:

Deep river,
My home is over Jordan.
Deep river, Lord.
I want to cross over into campground.

Deep River,
My home is over Jordan.
Deep river, Lord,
I want to cross over into campground.

Oh, don’t you want to go,
To the Gospel feast;
That Promised Land,
Where all is peace?

Oh, deep river, Lord,
I want to cross over into campground.

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; reuse with permission only

Sermon – Luke 2.8-20, CD, YC, December 25, 2018

Tags

birth, chaos, Christmas, forgiveness, God, holy, incarnate, intimate, Jesus, marriage, Mary, normal, quiet, Sermon, shepherds, vows, wisdom

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we split up the gospel of Luke.  On Christmas Eve we hear about the registration, and how all the families have to travel to be taxed.  That part of the story is when we learn about there being no room in the inn, and Mary giving birth, wrapping her child in bands of cloth, lying him in a manger.  But today, we get the part of the story I love.  I know the multitude of the heavenly host has inspired many a Christmas carol, but I like the very last part of the story:  the part where the shepherds have gathered with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, where others gather with them to marvel at the shepherd’s story and Mary ponders everything in her heart.

I like this last part, because this last part is the most normal, intimate moment we get in the birth narrative of Jesus.  Everything else is so chaotic – people migrating, hustling for space to stay, likely arguing about who gets to stay where.  Then there is the birth of Jesus itself, not only without modern medicine, but in the roughest of conditions.  Birthing children is hard enough as is – I cannot imagine the messy, loud scene of childbirth under such conditions.  And finally, the shock of not only an angel of the Lord, but also the chorus of the heavenly host in the middle of the night where there is usually no sound is mind-blowing.

Instead, I prefer the quiet scene at the end.  That is a kind of scene I can imagine.  Of outcasts thrown together, sharing stories, bonding over the craziness of the night.  Of an exhausted mother and father and shepherds lounging around, wondering what all this means.  Of the moments of silence when everyone’s eyes settle on baby Jesus who has finally drifted off to sleep, watching his chest rise and fall, wondering what else might rise and fall because of this tiny baby.  I imagine the bonding that can only happen at three in the morning, that can only happen through a people filled with hope in a hopeless world, that can only happen when God sweeps through your life in a bold way.

That’s why I love today’s service so much.  Last night was the night of holy chaos – of kids with pent up excitement for Christmas day, of dinners being prepared, trumpets leading us in song, and the loud chatter of old friends and family greeting one another.  But today, we enter the church in quiet, with no music to distract us, perhaps having left behind piles of wrapping paper or needy family members, having turned off our radios so that we can tell the old, old story.  On Christmas Day, I like to imagine we recreate that holy, intimate night, where old friends and strangers gather around the mystery of the incarnation, wondering what Jesus has in store for us today.  All we need is a little straw and sleep deprivation, and we can almost imagine ourselves there.

That is why when Margaret and Jim asked if we could renew their wedding vows on Christmas Day, wanting something quiet and sacred to mark their sixtieth wedding anniversary, I said an emphatic, “Yes!”  Marriage is a sacred institution too – where we welcome friend and stranger alike, where we sometimes meet people who change our lives but we never see again, where we share intimate time, and where we ponder what God is doing in our lives.  So, gathering again, sixty years later, we too gather like a band of misfits, sharing stories of marriage, of Jesus, and of community.  We let down our hair and marvel at the holy mystery of God, holding holy moments of silence like gifts, and giving thanks for the God who makes sixty years possible.

The other reason I love the idea of renewing wedding vows on a day like today is because today is a day of hope.  When God incarnate comes into the world, we are given the gift of hope – the promise that life will change dramatically.  As we ponder the baby Jesus with those in that quiet room, we also slowly fill with hope, knowing that God is doing great things.  The same is true of marriage.  When I marry two people, I never know how the marriage will go.  I am hopeful that the two will get to do things like celebrate sixtieth wedding anniversaries, but honestly, hardship and separation are equally likely.  But we marry people anyway because we have hope – hope that God is doing a new thing between two people, and will make those people better through God.  As Margaret and Jim recommit themselves to one another today, we again claim hope that God will do amazing things through their marriage, bringing blessing to all of us, not just to the two of them.

Our prayers for Margaret and Jim today are not just for them.  They are for all of us.  We need wisdom and devotion in the ordering of our common lives as much as they do.  We need to recognize and acknowledge our fault when we hurt others, and seek forgiveness of others just as they do.  We need to make our lives a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, and reach out in love and concern for others as much as they do.  All of that ordering of our lives is made possible by what happens today.  When God becomes incarnate in Christ, everything changes.  In that intimate space where strangers, exhausted, afraid, and full of hope, came together in the mystery of a miracle, life is changed.  Our gathering here today, to honor the incarnation, to celebrate the blessing of long marriage, and to create a sacred moment of intimate community, is the way we take the first step in living life differently – living a life of sacred incarnation.  Thanks be to the God who showed us the way in the incarnation of God’s only, begotten Son.  Amen.

Sermon – John 13.1-17, 31b-35, 1 Corinthians 11.23-26, MT, YC, March 23, 2016

Tags

change, communion, disciples, foot washing, intimate, Jesus, love, Maundy Thursday, meal, Sermon, tangible

As I was writing the sermon for tonight, I realized that maybe we have structured our evening all wrong.  We actually started off on the right foot.  We gathered over a common meal, assembled by dishes from each of our homes (or from the deli you swung by on the way here).  Our meal was a feast made by many hands, and completely organic – shared out of the varying gifts we bring.  In fact, we even did things in a way that was more in line with what Paul wanted for the Corinthians.  The passage that we read tonight from First Corinthians is mostly just the familiar text that includes Jesus’ institution of Holy Eucharist.  But in the verses before what we read tonight, Paul admonishes the Corinthians.  Instead of a true Eucharistic meal, where bread and wine are shared equally and intentionally, the Corinthians have gotten into the habit of having communal meals, but everyone fends for themselves.  In other words, their meal would be like if Kathleen had made a homemade casserole, Kim had grabbed Chinese takeout for her and the kids, Lois had brought the finest filet mignon with a glass of wine from a local fine dining establishment, and I showed up empty-handed.  Except in Corinth, you eat what you bring.  If you show up empty-handed, you leave hungry.  Unlike the Corinthians, at least we got that part right tonight.

But if I had been thinking, instead of coming up here to our beautiful worship space, we would have stayed downstairs.  Mid-meal, I would have taken off my jacket, rummaged around for a towel and bowl from our kitchen, and started washing your feet.  As I moved from table to table, we would have talked about what I was doing, and why Jesus did the same for his disciples.  You see, tonight, we hear the story that is only found in John’s gospel about how Jesus teaches the disciples to love and serve one another and their neighbors.  In order to love, which is going to be their primary mission, they will need to be able to get down on the floor among the crumbs and the remains of the festivities, and tenderly care for one another.

And further, had we been feeling really countercultural, I would have grabbed a loaf of bread that someone got at Stop-N-Shop, and some wine sitting on the beverage table, and we would have talked about how on the night before Jesus is betrayed, he breaks bread with his friends, telling them that the bread is his body, and the wine is his blood – given for them.  We would have passed the loaf around, tearing the bread into bite-sized pieces, dropping blessed crumbs everywhere, and looking into each other’s eyes as we pass the bread, reminding each other that this is the body and blood of our Lord.

If I had been thinking, that is what we could have done tonight – because that is what happens on this last night for Jesus:  a downhome, shared, messy meal, with uncomfortable, intimate moments, and a meal that does not necessarily feed our bellies but feeds our souls.  But Jesus’ words and experiences that night are not just for the disciples.  His words are words for the future.  He knows his death is coming.  In the face of death, he longs to remind the disciples what they will need to do after his death.  This last night is all about Jesus’ final instructions to the disciples.

That is why we call this day Maundy Thursday.  Maundy comes from the Latin word for mandate.  On this night we remember Jesus’ mandate to love one another as he has loved us.[i]  We remember Jesus’ mandate to serve.  And we remember Jesus’ mandate to eat together, feasting on the holy meal.  Where we remember that mandate does not actually matter – whether we remember among the old stones of a Cathedral, in the cozy, board and batten sanctuary of St. Margaret’s, or in the bustling, laughter-filled, sometimes messy Undercroft.  The location matters much less than the intentionality with which we listen to Jesus’ words.

Tonight I invite you walk through the last night of Jesus experiencing the tangibility of this night:  a meal with fellow believers, the washing of feet, Holy Communion, and the stripping of the altar as we head into the night watch.  But I also invite you to remember Jesus’ final mandate:  to love as he has loved us, to serve others, and to sustain our work through the holy meal.  The actions of this night are important, but even more important is the way that this night changes us tomorrow.  Amen.

[i] Mike Graves, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 271.

Sermon – I Kings 17.8-24, P5, YC, June 9, 2013

Tags

Elijah, God, healing, honest, human, intimate, prayer, relationship, Sermon

Last week I lost my watch.  When I say that I lost my watch, I do not mean I misplaced my watch.  I went for a walk, took the watch off while I was walking, and about an hour after my walk realized the watch was gone.  I searched the path of my walk, I looked all over the church and our house, but the watch is gone.  Now, truthfully, a watch is certainly replaceable, but this watch was sentimental – a gift from a special occasion that meant a lot to me.  So, of course, ever since I lost my watch, I have been praying to St. Anthony.  St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things.  The prayer I learned, and have been praying for over a week is, “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around, something is lost that cannot be found.”  Though I know the watch is most likely gone, I keep occasionally offering up the prayer with some desperate sense of hope.

We do funny things in our prayer lives, especially when things are not going our way.  We have been known to bargain with God.  “God, if you please just grant this one thing, I promise I will never blank again.”  We have been known to try to negotiate with God.  “I know that I am not perfect, God, but let me tell you about all the good I have done.  Surely you can grant this one thing to your faithful servant.”  And we have been known to rail at God.  “How can you do this to me God?  Haven’t I been through enough?!?”  Sure, we know the Lord’s Prayer, and we may pray the daily office at home, and we may even pray with scripture, especially our favorite psalms.  But when we are at our lowest, when we feel like we have tried everything we are supposed to say or do with God, sometimes our prayers simply reveal our broken, frustrated, desperate spirits.

This is the prayer that Elijah offers today.  Elijah has already created quite the imposition on a poor widow.  Elijah goes to the widow, a woman who is about to die of starvation, and asks her to feed and house him.  Now, God takes care of the widow’s lack of food, but while Elijah is still there, the woman’s son almost dies of illness.  The woman blames Elijah, and Elijah at first seems fairly composed as he asks for the boy.  But when he retires to another room with boy, Elijah lets God have it.  Elijah cries out to God in anger, rage, and despair.[i]  “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”  Elijah does not come to God with a polite request that God heal the son.  Elijah does not offer some traditional prayer of healing.  Elijah simply cries out to God.  He cries out to God for the injustice done to this poor widow – who is already clearly impoverished by having no husband.  The death of an only son would mean certain death for her as well.  Her son was her only hope for survival in this world.[ii]  Elijah boldly accuses God of an injustice – in fact accuses God of killing this boy and all that he represents to the widow.

Some may hear in Elijah’s prayer a sense of self-interest.  If he is proclaiming to be a man of God, and God then kills this woman’s only sense of hope, then the death makes Elijah look bad.  Who wants to follow a prophet of a God who kills the downtrodden?  Or, we might hear Elijah’s prayer as petulant.  Perhaps he sounds like a man whining about fairness – something childish and narrow-minded.  But I hear Elijah’s prayer as both fully human and as an honest portrayal of someone with an intimate relationship with God.  In any intimate relationship, the overly polite ways of being with one another end eventually.  In time, the only thing that works in that intimate relationship is being brutally and fully honest, holding one another to account and being totally open about the good and the bad of the relationship.  This is what Elijah is doing here.  Elijah, who knows God intimately, holds God to account.  “Really, God?  This is how you are going to treat people?  You claim to care about the poor and oppressed, and you have forced me to impose on this poor widow, and now you are going to let her only son, her only source of potential security die??”  Elijah does not ask this of God for himself or out of a sense of injustice.  Elijah asks this of a God whom he knows to be better than this – a God who loves and cares for the poor and oppressed.  And he also knows that God can do the impossible.  Elijah knows that God can bring this child from death to life.

What I love about this passage is twofold.  First, I love the very human, intimate depiction of prayer.  As Episcopalians, with our reliance on our Prayer Book and our desire for beauty and intelligence when we talk to God, we can become so formal with God that we forget that we have a real relationship with God who can handle our real words.  We can be brutally honest with God or even angry with God, and God will still love us.  We can be vulnerable and frustrated and desperate with God.  We can even come to God when we do not have words – when our emotions are so overwhelming that we no longer have anything left to say.  Elijah gives us permission today to be fully ourselves with the God who loves us no matter what.

I also love that we get this passage today because today is our monthly healing service.  Since I have been at St. Margaret’s, I have been regularly asked questions about our healing services.  Our tradition of monthly healing services that began well before my time here still has many of us questioning.  I have had adults ask me who they are allowed to ask prayers for – whether they can only ask for healing prayers for themselves or whether they can ask for healing for others as well.  I have had some of our teens ask me what we are actually doing when we lay hands on people.  Even my own daughter asked me why I made the sign of the cross on her forehead when she came forward once.  Elijah points the way to answers for those questions today.  By praying our litany of healing and by coming forward for ourselves and others, we proclaim several things.  We proclaim that intimate relationship with God means that we can be fully honest about all that is ailing us, our neighbors, and the oppressed.  We proclaim that God can do the impossible through prayer and we offer up our hopes that the impossible is possible for us too.  And we proclaim that although we may not understand God in the midst of suffering, we still come to God, hoping for healing, hoping for clarity, hoping for peace.  Whether you come forward today for healing is actually not that important.  What is most important is that you know that you can, that you know that your God is a God who can do the impossible but who also cares for you so deeply that God can handle all the parts of you – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Amen.

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[i] Carolyn J. Sharp, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 100.

[ii] Glaucia Vasconcelos Wilkey, “Pastoral Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 102.