Homily – Luke 2.8-20, Blue Christmas, December 21, 2018

Tags

angels, Blue Christmas, Christmas, hope, Jesus, joy, life, light, Mary, peace, rest, sad, Sermon, shepherds, slow, weary

One of the Christmas songs we do not sing tonight is “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”  Up until this year, I was mostly familiar with the first verse, which says, “Peace on the earth, good will to men,” and “The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing.”  Those words have always felt more like an aspiration than my reality.  I do not know about you, but the holidays are rarely a time of stillness and peace for me.

But this year, I stumbled on a verse of this song that is not in our hymnal.  The verse says, “And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow; look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing; oh, rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!”

One of the challenges about Christmas is that we can sometimes lose our place.  When we listen to the old carols, we either hear songs of peaceful silence or we hear songs of beautiful, glorious praise.  The same is true of our secular experiences of Christmas.  We are filled with retouched nostalgic memories, with songs that tell us we should be rockin’ around Christmas trees, or cozying up with loved ones.  But sometimes Christmas is none of those things.  Instead Christmas is a time when the gap between our reality and the projection of all the things we should be feeling grows ever wider.

I think that is why I was captivated by this extra verse of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”  “And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow; look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing; oh, rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!”  Suddenly, the otherworldliness of the angels are there for us too.  Whether life feels like a crushing load, whether your daily toil is bringing you down, or whether you are just weary, the song invites us rest by the weary road – because the angels have a song for us too.

I used to serve at a church where Christmas was the pinnacle of events.  Families would wear evening gowns and tuxedos to church, they would send their servants to reserve rows of seats, and the coat rack was full of fur coats.  Christmas was another soiree in their perfectly formed lives, and church was host of their glamorous party.  But what always amused me about that experience was the contrast between their polished, perfect lives, and the rustic, imperfect story of the angels and shepherds.  I wondered if they understood the ironic contrast of their experience and scripture’s experience.  What did they know of being crushed beneath life’s load, the toil of taking painful, slow steps, and the weary road?

Not until many years later did I realize that the weariness of life can infect anyone.  Those in tuxedos and evening gowns were struggling with broken marriages, estranged family members, and the grief of death as much as someone gathered in a candlelit historic chapel.  Those whose servants went to reserve a seat in church were just as lonely, unfulfilled, and afraid as those who are servants.  Those whose fur coats lined the coat racks were experiencing a sense of failure, a lack of fulfillment, and a longing for meaning as much as someone slipping quietly into a service like tonight.  Weariness affects the donkey who carries a pregnant Mary; the shepherds who keep watch all night; the innkeeper who feels pulled in many directions with no vacancies to accommodate need; with Josephs who are on a path they did not choose, but who feel obligated to be faithful; and with Marys who say yes and hold hope, even though the dread of impending suffering is almost palpable.[i]

You see the angels came not to a perfect world, to a perfect people, delivering perfectly good news.  The angles came to a weary world, with weary people, delivering good news that would not dismiss our weariness, but relieve our weariness.  That is why I love this service so much.  I love our Blue Christmas service because Christmas is all about a wearied people, with a crushing load, with painful steps, welcoming a savior who gives us hope that we will not be weary forever, that God will walk our weary roads alongside us.

On this night, I share this blessing for all of us:  “May the world slow down enough this season for you to catch a glimpse of a star in the sky and a light on the horizon.  May the earth pause enough for you to catch the faint sound of a baby’s cry on the wind and the song of the angels through the trees.  May the slow time of Christmas night bring joy to you, and hope, and light, and more than anything else, rest to your waiting spirit.  All you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow; look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing; oh, rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!”[ii]  Amen.

[i] Melissa Bills, “All This Weary World,” December 18, 2018, as found at https://youngclergywomen.org/all-this-weary-world/ on December 18, 2018.

[ii] Bills.

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God’s Gifts in the Chaos…

Tags

Advent, beauty, blessing, breath, chaos, Christmas, crazy, gift, God, kids, life, moments, relationship, sacred

Photo credit:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/214835844696012029/

Every December since our elder child was about two or three years old, the same thing happens.  The anticipation of Christmas turns our children into possessed creatures.  They argue more, act out in school, whine at the drop of a hat, and generally become entirely unpleasant to be around.  No matter how much I try to minimize the excitement of Christmas, the buzz around them is unavoidable, and, ergo, crazy behavior.  I found myself so frustrated the other day with the constant effort to reign them in that I had the distinct thought, “I just wish Christmas was over already!”

But I soon as had the thought, I knew I did not mean it.  You see, despite the mayhem of the season, in these last days of Advent, there are still sacred moments everywhere.  As we read our Advent devotional this week, one of the questions was, “Who are you praying for this Advent.”  My younger daughter immediately said, “I want to pray for all dead people.”  “Oh,” I said, “like whom?”  “Like MeeMaw,” she said.  And despite the fact that they nearly broke half the ornaments that came out of the ornament box, now, every morning, both girls rush to the tree to plug in the lights and find the ornaments that play Christmas tunes or funny sounds, twirling around in their nightgowns to the sounds.  And last week, as they had their Christmas dance performances, I teared up watching them, remembering how very special dance had been to me growing up.

The same can be true in any season.  Whether we are putting our heads down, trying to finish one more project, or absorbed in technology for extended periods of time, or simply fixated on our endless to-do lists, we can achieve a lot, but miss life along the way.  Fortunately, we are blessed with a God who is continually trying to get our attention anyway – who is relentless in pursuing relationship with us.  In these last days of Advent, God invites us to take a deep breath, lift up our heads, and open our eyes to the beauty of the sacred all around us.

Hickory Neck offers us the opportunity to do that over the next several days.  Whether you come to our Blue Christmas service, our last Advent liturgies, Christmas Eve services, or the service on Christmas Day, there will be multiple times to see glimpse of the sacred all around you – ways in which the manger is a window into the greater redemptive work God is doing in the world.  Whether it’s with an encouraging word from our Blue Christmas service, the sharing of memories at an upcoming funeral, or the wedding vows that one couple will renew on Christmas Day (sixty years later!), what we learn is that in the chaos of life, God is gifting us sacred gifts in tiny, momentous ways.  Today, I invite you to receive God’s gifts among the chaos.

On Balance and Harmony…

Tags

balance, church, God, harmony, health, life, prayer, spiritual life, wellness, wholeness, work

Photo credit:  https://crossfitodyssey.com/sunday-story-balance-vs-harmony/

I recently visited the William & Mary Wellness Center for a presentation on how they help students create a culture of wellness.  After the presentation, someone asked about how to create work-life balance.  The presenter said the Wellness Center does not teach work-life balance, because work-life balance is a myth – something that can never be achieved because we can never perfectly balance our work life and our personal life.  He went a step further to suggest that attempting to achieve work-life balance is quite unhealthy because it places pressure upon us in each arena.  One will never spend an equal amount of time in either arena, and attempts to create a one-for-one balance only create more stress and anxiety.

Instead, what he teaches is work-life harmony.  He knows that we will never achieve, and arguably should never desire, a balance of the two arenas.  But the two arenas can work in harmony in such a way to create a more happy, healthy lifestyle.  As an example, the presenter talked about an orchestra.  If you tried to work on balance within an orchestra, every instrument would sound equally, making for a horrible racket.  But if each instrument plays in harmony with one another – well, then you have a masterpiece!

I have been wondering if the same might be true with our spiritual life.  Now I will be the first admit, I would love to see my parishioners at church every Sunday – partially because I know how healing and life-giving communal worship can be, but also partially because I just like my parishioners so much.  Church is more fun when everyone is there.  But using the harmony model, I think our spiritual life needs a sense of harmony too.  We need to create space for worship, learning, service, and outreach.  We need to find time for fellowship, formation, and evangelism.  We need to be sure we are both being fed and feeding others at church.  But we need to do that in a way that creates harmony in our lives.

Now I imagine some of you are thinking, “Awesome, my rector just said I don’t have to come to church as much so that my life is more in harmony.”  And maybe that is true for you.  But I suspect that the opposite may be true.  My guess is that for many of us, our spiritual life is not in harmony with the rest of life:  we aren’t finding time for formation, for worship, or for service.  The good news is that I am not suggesting you find balance – just harmony.  I remember complaining once to my Spiritual Director that with young children and a busy work life and a desire to be present to my husband, my prayer life was suffering – I just wasn’t praying like I used to.  Gracefully, he suggested that I shouldn’t worry about praying in a certain way – as if only praying the Daily Office everyday is real prayer.  He suggested something much more harmonious in life.  “Perhaps at this stage of life, the best you can expect is a prayer spoken at a stop light, or an exhausted thank you before drifting off to sleep.”  We all struggle with spiritual harmony.  I wonder what solutions are working for you today.  How are you finding harmony with work, life, and God?

Homily – Ruth 3.1-5, 4.13-17, P27, YB, November 11, 2018

Tags

acceptance, Armistice Day, baptism, Boaz, change, covenant, dignity, God, gun violence, honor, life, Naomi, respect, Ruth, sanctity, Sermon, veterans

My intention today had been to talk about Emersyn, whose baptism we will celebrate today, and the gift that she is giving us through her baptism.  When we baptize someone into the family of faith, we also take time to remember our own baptismal covenant.  We remember the promises we make about how we will live our lives, promises we just renewed last week at another baptism.  One of our promises is to respect the dignity of every human being – to respect human life.

We respect human life because we learn to do so in Holy Scripture.  Today, Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz teach us how to respect life.  If you remember, Naomi is a widow who has not only lost her husband and her two sons, but who is left shepherding two foreign daughters-in-law; she is so shattered, she asks people to call her Mara, which means bitterness, instead of Naomi, which means pleasantness.  Ruth, one of those daughters-in-law, is equally bereft; having married into a foreign family, widowed herself, she pledges allegiance to a people who point out her foreign identity at every turn – in fact, she is regularly called, “Ruth, the Moabite from Moab” – or in common language, “Ruth, the foreigner from a foreign land (a land the people hated, by the way).  Boaz is an upright man, put into a precarious situation by Naomi, who sends Ruth to lay at his feet so that he might serve as their redeemer.  But despite the fact life is hard, life brings sorrow, and life treats us like a hated foreigner, Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz respect the dignity of each other.  They respect life.

We need people like Emersyn, Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz because we have been doing a pretty horrible job of respecting life lately.  In just the past two weeks, we have had four “soft target” attacks in our country.  “Soft targets” are attacks that happen in simple, everyday life – where people are having a cup of coffee, celebrating with friends over food and drink, picking up groceries, or worshipping in their house of worship.  In the last two weeks, 27 people were slain in soft target areas:  Two shoppers were gunned down in a Kroger parking lot in Kentucky; Eleven people were gunned down while worshiping in a synagogue in Pittsburgh; Two women were gunned down in a yoga studio in Florida; and twelve people were gunned down in a bar in California.[i]  We can pray for the victims, and attempt to find motives behind shootings, and even bemoan the mental health system.  But until we are willing to make concrete changes, we as Americans disrespect life.  We as Christians fail to respect the dignity of every human being when we do nothing to change our culture of acceptance around gun violence.

Our Veterans helped us understand this failure many years ago.  One-hundred years ago, this day was marked not as Veterans Day, but as Armistice Day – the day we were able to stop a war, to stop aggression, to stop the denigration of life on both sides.  Armistice Day was a day to honor the end of World War I, but perhaps even more powerfully, Armistice Day was a day to honor the dignity of every human being.  On that day, after 8.5 million soldiers had been killed, 100,000 of which were American, you could see the sheer joy in people’s faces as they flooded the streets, realizing death would be no more – that human life would be honored once more.[ii]

Today we have the opportunity to celebrate too.  We have the opportunity to honor and respect the sanctity of life – the life of beautiful baby Emersyn, the lives of our Veterans, and the lives of those shattered by unrestrained gun violence.  The question is whether we will accept the invitation.  Scholar Cameron Howard says in the book of Ruth, we do not experience God in the story as some divine physical presence, as a booming voice from heaven, or as a visible mover of events; instead, we experience God through the characters in the book – God is revealed to the world through the actions of the characters of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz.[iii]  The world is not that much different today.  The world needs to see God through us too.  Emersyn needs to see God through us.  Our community, state, and nation need to see God through us.  The growing population of those scarred by gun violence need to see God through us.  The only question remaining is whether we will say “yes,” to the invitation, or at least, “I will with God’s help.”  I promise God’s help is waiting for you when decide to respect the dignity of every human being through your actions, revealing God’s presence in the world.  Amen.

[i] Eliott C. McLaughlin, “This is the 4th ‘soft target’ Attack in 2 Weeks,” November 8, 2018, as found at https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/us/soft-targets-thousand-oaks-bar-shooting/index.html on November 9, 2018.

[ii] Alexis Clark, “In Photos Unpublished for 100 Years, the Joy of War’s End on Armistice Day,” The New York Times, November 9, 2018, as found at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/world/europe/armistice-day-100th-anniversary-photos.html on November 10, 2018.

[iii] Cameron B.R. Howard, “Commentary on Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17,” November 11, 2018, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3890 on November 8, 2018.

 

On the Sanctity of Life…

Tags

change, complicit, God, goodness, holy, image of God, life, mass shooting, sacrifice, stewardship

Photo credit:  https://bigvalleygrace.org/life-is-sacred/

This past Sunday, I was assigned to be the preacher.  I had done my research and preparation, I had incorporated the theme from our stewardship campaign which would be culminating on Sunday, and I had finished the sermon by Saturday morning.  By that evening though, I found out there had been another mass shooting, this time at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.  This one was particularly heart-wrenching because it was at a place of worship, committed by someone who explicitly wanted to persecute people from the Jewish faith – my brothers and sisters.  So, on Saturday night, I had the age-old question of a preacher:  do I need to change my sermon?

Ultimately, I decided to mark the event liturgically with our prayers, but not address the incident in my sermon.  I could not preach about it because I was not ready.  Something about this incident hit me differently, but I could not yet articulate it.  And one of my homiletics professors always told me if you are going to preach something pastorally sensitive, make sure you have carefully constructed your sermons to pastorally address the issue.  And I just wasn’t there.

But in the days since the massacre, and after having a few conversations with parishioners about their frustration that I didn’t mention it, I am finally beginning to be able to articulate why this particular mass shooting is so upsetting.  The problem for me with this shooting was not that it occurred in a place of worship.  Despite the fact that I think those places are sacred places, gunmen and those with bombs have long desecrated houses of worship.  The problem for me was not that the shooting was anti-Semitically motivated.  Christians have long been complicit in anti-Semitism and if we are going to get upset about a shooter, we need to be equally upset about our own culpability in not rooting out that sin.  The problem for me is that this mass shooting was the final straw in helping me see that we as a country, and more importantly, we as a Church, have become complicit with the devaluing of all life – that same very life we claim to be made in God’s image, and created in goodness.

That accusation may feel harsh for you, as you are not likely a person who has ever committed violence with firearms on another person.  But until we as a society, and we as Church, decide that human life is sacred, these incidents will never stop.  The Oklahoma City Bombing happened weeks before I graduated from high school.  The Columbine High School massacre happened weeks before I graduated from college.  Essentially, for my entire adulthood, our country and our Church has not been willing to definitely say, “No, this is not who we will be.  We will make concrete changes so that this doesn’t happen again.”  And so it keeps happening.   At colleges, in schools, at workplaces, in homes, and in houses of worship.  To African-Americans, to immigrants, to the LGBTQ community, to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  To teachers protecting students, to police officers protecting innocents, to mothers protecting children.  Yes, I am outraged that eleven beautiful children of YHWH were murdered senselessly in their most sacred place of worship.  But I am also outraged that we as a people are unwilling to do something about it.  We are so scared of losing, of sacrificing, of giving up something that we do nothing.  We become complicit, unable to hear from a mother who lost her kindergartener and say, “This will not happen again.”  And so it does.  Again, and again, and again.  Because this is who we are.  In our unwillingness to change, we have become a country who does not value life, who does not stand up for what is sacred, who does not see God in every human being.

My dear readers, I implore you, please take this day or this week or this month to do better.  I know it is hard, and compromise is nearly impossible in our current political climate, and you deserve certain rights.  But when the Lord our God created us in God’s image, God said that it was very good.  Our job while on this earth is to protect that goodness – even if it means not winning, sacrificing, and giving up some things.  Because until we are willing to make a change – any change – this is our reality.  This is our America.  This is our norm.  I don’t want that.  And I suspect you don’t either.  So, crawl with me.  Creep with me.  Scratch with me to make our way back to that blessed place where we hold life as sacred, where we stand in the light with all our brothers and sisters and see the holy in each one of them, where we can look at another person, no matter what political views they have, and say, “it is very good.”  And then help us to live into that goodness.

On Grieving Together…

Tags

community, companion, death, eternal life, God, grief, Jesus Christ, life, mortality, pastor, strength

Photo credit:  https://www.everplans.com/articles/how-to-make-sure-your-legacy-lives-on-after-youre-gone

Grief is a funny thing.  We all experience it differently, respond to it differently, and let it impact us differently.  Sometimes we let grief do its work and then we are done; sometimes the grief sneaks up on us; and sometimes the grief never fades, a constant companion.  This week my grandmother passed away.  We knew this call would come soon.  I had taken my girls to see her months ago for a goodbye.  She had been in Hospice and had stopped eating.  But in the flurry of living – of clothes strewn about, water sloshing around, story-telling, cleaning, and brushing, the news of death was jarring.  For a moment I thought I would wait – share the news with the girls at a more appropriate time.  But then I remembered there is no appropriate time.  Death happens when it happens, and its companion, grief, comes as it will.

My initial work was helping my girls navigate their grief.  Upon receiving the news, my younger’s eyes got wide, and she was quick to assert that we needed to leave so that we could “take ‘Mee-maw’ to the hospital and take care of her.”  I tried to explain that it was too late, but she insisted that if we rushed, we could help her.  Once her disappointed face registered reality, she proclaimed, “Well, I’m not going to die!”  Then began a conversation about mortality and eternal life.  And a new level of grief began.

Meanwhile, the older child seemed to hold her thoughts and emotions at bay, being equally distracted by her sister’s reactions.  We talked about it briefly as I tucked her in, and she seemed okay.  The next morning, after I had dropped her off at camp and was heading back to my car, she ran back up to me and gave me a big hug and started crying.  “I’m sad about what happened yesterday.”  I honestly wasn’t sure what she was talking about until she explained her delayed reaction to Mee-maw’s death.  Time stood still as we grieved together.  A minute later, she was drying her face with the back of her hand and running to catch up with friends.

My own grief finally caught up with me as I watched an emotional movie later that night.  The truth is, my grandmother was a complicated woman.  She was the matriarch of the family who sometimes ruled with an iron first – even if you were only aware of her power subconsciously.  She was intimidatingly smart, held a wealth of knowledge in her mind, and could talk to any stranger.  I loved and respected her, and also saw her many flaws and the ways she hurt people.  She was not really a loving, doting grandmother, but a woman who held everyone to high standards and pushed us to be our best.  I was often afraid of the woman who insisted on the title “Grandmother Andrews.”  But in these last years, I loved seeing her humanity as a new generation of greatgrandchildren called her “Mee-maw.”

As I wade through grief this week, I welcome your prayers.  Even pastors need pastoring sometimes.  But also know that I am praying for you and the ways in which grief continues to be your companion:  for the grandparents, parents, spouses, and friends lost; for the marriages, jobs, and pregnancies lost; for the possibilities, dreams, and loves lost.  You especially have my prayers as grief reminds us all of our own mortality.  As you hold me, I also hold you in the promise of eternal life, a new reality in Christ Jesus.  May that grounding strengthen each of us as we stand together in the already and the not yet.

Almighty God, look with pity upon the sorrows of your servants.  Remember us, Lord, in mercy; nourish us with patience; comfort us with a sense of your goodness; lift up your countenance up us; and give us peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  (BCP 467, amended)

Sermon – John 15.9-17, E6, YB, May 6, 2018

Tags

Christ, church, fail, forgive, God, hurt, Jesus, life, love, pain, pretty, profound, redefine, Sermon, share

Jesus’ words today from John’s gospel have been beckoning me all week.  “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love…I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete…You are my friends…You did not choose me but I chose you.”  These are words that our weary souls need to hear.  We long for the wide, open embrace of God, the unconditional acceptance, the assurance that everything will be okay.  Jesus’ words today are a warm blanket we crawl into and wrap around ourselves, draping over our feelings of sadness, loneliness, doubt, insecurity, and uncertainty.  Jesus’ invitation to abide in his love is the fulfillment of every longing, aching need in our lives, and today Jesus offers that love freely, abundantly, joyfully, completely.

For some of here today, that is your sermon:  Jesus loves you, chooses you, befriends you, and completes your joy.  The humbling, overwhelming love of God invites you into that warm blanket, and you do not need to speak – just accept the gift and abide with God this week.[i]

For others of us, we may be a little too hardened to fully receive the invitation to abide in God’s love.  I used to serve with a priest whose main sermon, no matter what the text, was God loves us.  She said those words so often I remember I would sometimes stop listening.  My cynical self would start the diatribe, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  God is love.”  The problem for many of us is love has failed us.  We have been in love, been loved by family or friends, or even have felt God’s love.  But we have also been hurt, rejected, or felt abandoned by all those parties.  And if we feel the failure of love too often, “Abide in my love,” sounds too shallow to have meaning, too romantic to last, too wonderful to be sustained.

For those of us who might roll our eyes at the saccharine nature of love we have experienced in the world, we may need a different sermon today.   Part of our challenge is we have defined love in such a way that we will be disappointed every time.  We watch movies, read books, even gaze at couples in those first dreamy weeks of new love, and think we know what love is.  Love becomes two people who agree all the time, who are always able to look lovingly at another never noticing imperfections, who never experience conflict, and who are always happy.  And if that is our expectation of love, we will always be disappointed.  For those of us in this camp, our sermon today is to redefine love.

A few years ago, Paul and Lucy were such a couple.  They had a romantic beginning – meeting in medical school, Paul was funny, smart, and playful.  As they built a life together, they began to dream and to plan.  When Paul finished his 90-hour workweek rotations, and life got back to normal, they would try to have a baby.  Everything was perfect – at least everything was perfect if you did not look too closely.  And then Paul got the diagnosis – a cancer that would give him two more years of life.  And suddenly everything changed.  Lucy’s life began to become about taking care of Paul, walking him through treatments, holding him in pain.  And Paul’s life became about making sure Lucy could enjoy life beyond him.  At one point, Paul assured Lucy he wanted her to remarry after he died.  The two even agreed to have that baby they had been planning.  Lucy worried having a child would make dying worse for Paul.  “Don’t you think that saying goodbye to a child would make your death more painful?” she asked Paul.  He replied, “Wouldn’t it be great if it did?”[ii]

What Paul and Lucy show us is love is not some sappy, sentimentalized emotion best captured by a romantic comedy with a great soundtrack.  Love is beautiful not because love is perfect, pretty, polished.  Love is beautiful because love is “all in,” ready for the ugliness of life, willing to take on pain and suffering and see that pain as a blessing.  Of course, Jesus describes love in the same way in today’s gospel lesson if we are paying attention.  We find ourselves so tarrying in the comforting love language and we sometimes miss the other love language in the text.  “Keep my commandments…love one another as I have loved you…lay down one’s life for one’s friends…go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”  Jesus shows us what love looks like throughout his life.  He kneels down and tenderly washes the dirty, worn feet of his companions.  He accepts and welcomes adulterers, oppressors, and outcasts of every kind.  He loves and forgives, even when betrayed by his closest friends.  He gives up his life in the most gruesome, humiliating way.  Jesus’ love is not pretty or polished.  But Jesus’ love is profound.

That kind of love is the kind of love that drove most of us to Hickory Neck.  Maybe we came thinking we wanted a perfect, polished, pretty loving community that would make us feel loved too.  And many times, Hickory Neck is just that.  But other times we find a different kind of love at Hickory Neck – a love that stands by us when spouses die, when marriages fail, and when children stumble into dark places; a love that stands by us when diagnoses come, when tragedy strikes, and when sinfulness overcomes us; a love that stands by us when we disagree, when we hurt one another, and when we fail to meet each other’s expectations.  That kind of love sits next to us when we cry, even when no words are exchanged; that kind of love receives awful news and is able to simply say, “this is awful,”; that kind of love prays for us even when we do not realize we are receiving or need prayer.  The love we often find at Hickory Neck may seem to others to be messy, imperfect, and even difficult.  But the love we find at Hickory Neck is much more akin to the kind of love that mimics God’s love for us, that lays down our lives for one another.

The challenge for us today is in four tiny words from Jesus, “Go and bear fruit.”  Both the unconditional blanket of Christ’s love and the messy, ugly, beautiful love of Christ are for us today.  But that gift of love becomes fullest when shared.  We practice that sharing of love every week here at Hickory Neck – with the people we like, and even the people we may not like as much.  But our practicing is preparation for sharing that love beyond these walls – with the family member who drives us crazy, with the neighbor whose annoying habits reveal a lack of love, with the stranger who makes us uncomfortable.  Now, you may go home today and start thinking to yourself, or your friend might say to you, or even Satan himself may start asking you, “Yeah, but won’t that kind of love hurt?  Won’t you be risking pain and hurt by giving that kind of love?”  Today, Jesus invites you to say, “Wouldn’t it be great if it did?”  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, “Abide in my Love,” April 29, 2018, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5142 on May 2, 2018.

[ii] David Greene, “Inside A Doctor’s Mind At The End Of His Life,” February 12, 2016, as found at https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=466189316 on May 3, 2018.

Sermon – Psalm 23, E4, YB, April 22, 2018

Tags

action, church, dying, funeral, God, Good Shepherd, goodness, life, living, promise, pslam, pursue, Sermon, shadow

Many years ago, I was planning the funeral of a longtime, beloved church member.  We had visited on multiple occasions, and I knew all the stories about her children, including the son who was no longer going to church.  We talked about Jesus and her faith walk, and I always looked forward to sassy, witty, heartfelt stories.  When I sat down with her children to plan her funeral, I had an idea of what I could expect.  As we chose the lessons for the funeral, I shared with them that many people appreciate hearing the 23^rd Psalm.  “Oh, no, we can’t do the 23^rd Psalm,” the family protested.  A bit taken aback, since the parishioner I knew would have loved the psalm, they explained to me what had happened in her last days.  Her daughter had been comforting her one afternoon and decided to start reading scripture with her mom.  She started with the 23^rd Psalm, and the mother snapped at her, saying, “Don’t read that one!  I’m not dead yet!”

Every year, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, we hear the 23^rd Psalm.  Though many of us are more familiar with the King James Version, the words of Psalm 23 are words that are familiar even to those who do not attend church regularly.  Whether we have heard the psalm at a funeral, or read the psalm at someone’s deathbed, or seen the psalm on someone’s wall, the 23^rd Psalm is one of the most well-known psalms in our culture.  Even in surveys, when asked about their favorite piece of scripture in times of trouble, many respondents name Psalm 23.[i]

In some respect, this familiarity and preference is a blessing and something to be celebrated.  But in other ways, this familiarity can be a tremendous hindrance to hearing these sacred words with fresh ears.  For example, most of us hear the psalm’s words as words of comfort for the dying.  We hear the words, “the valley of the shadow of death,” and we assume the whole psalm is about death.  Lying down in green pastures, remaining by still waters, gathering at a table, and having goodness and mercy follow us all sound like end of life images.  We envision the peaceful, beautiful resting place, gathered around the heavenly banquet table, and we take home the promise that no matter what happens in life, at least the ending will be a place of respite and relief.  And in some ways, that is true.  But I am not sure that is what this psalm is ultimately about; this is a psalm not about death, but about life.

The 23^rd Psalm is a psalm on the move.[ii]  Throughout the psalm, we hear the activity of life.  Those green pastures we are going to lie down in are the places where we will find rest after a long day.  Those still waters are the sources of water we will need to drink in this earthly life.  Those righteous pathways we will be on are the paths of ethical living, those paths where we will seek and serve Christ, loving our neighbor as ourselves.  That rod and staff that will comfort us because those are God’s tools that will push and pull us toward our vocations and the purposes God gives us.  The dwelling we do in the house of the Lord is not the eternal dwelling place, but the earthly church where we find renewal for the journey.  That valley of the shadow of death is not the valley of death, but those shadowy places in our lives where we are reminded of the darkness of death:  times of illness, divorce, unemployment, loneliness.  The 23^rd Psalm is not ultimately about a promise in death, but about the promise we are given in life – the promise of refreshment, restoration, reinvigoration for the journey of life.

This winter Charlie and I attended a training on church development.  One of the first images from the presentation was that of a base camp on a mountain.  We talked about the purpose of a base camp – what people need from and do at a base camp.  Ideas included rest, refreshment, preparation, and stocking up for the journey.  No one mentioned making a permanent home or using base camp as a place of escape.  Our instructor then asked us how a base camp is similar to Church.  We began to talk about how Church does the same thing – is a place of refreshment, rest, preparation, and stocking up for the journey.  Church is not a place to escape the real world or to hide away from hurt and pain.  Instead, Church is the place where we refill our tanks so that we can go out into the world – gathering the strength we need for the journey.  Church is not the house of the Lord where we will dwell forever.  In fact, that translation, “to dwell” is not helpful.  The word in Hebrew that is translated as “dwell” is better translated as “return.”[iii]  So instead of talking about a place where we will hide out from the world or imagining the heavenly kingdom where we will dwell, the psalmist is talking about the place we will keep returning – the base camp, the Church, where we will keep returning for strength so that we can get back into the world doing the activity of discipleship – the life where we will rest, drink, walk, be righteous, commune, and serve.[iv]

So just in case I have ruined Psalm 23 for you forever, making the psalm feel more like a psalm of work and labor as opposed to a psalm for rest and relief, have no fear.  There is one more line that similarly gets mistranslated which may open this text for you in another way.  In verse six, the psalmist says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”  Again, understanding the original Hebrew is helpful.  The word translated as “follow” is better translated as “pursue” or “chase down,”  Goodness and mercy shall chase me down all the days of my life.[v]  Shifting that word does a similar thing as the rest of the verbs in this text.  When goodness and mercy follow us, we often think of hindsight.  Bad things happen to us, but when we look back, we will see goodness and mercy came out of the bad things.  But the psalmist says something more powerful than that.  The psalmist says that goodness and mercy will pursue us – will hunt us down and knock us over with their power.  We will feel threatened by that valley of the shadow of death, or we will worry about places to lie or drink or walk.  But the psalmist tells us those worries are futile because even in the midst of those stresses, God’s goodness and mercy is constantly seeking to bowl us over.

Scholar Gary Simpson says this about God’s goodness, “The goodness of God is in every place before we ever arrive at any particular place.  The good things that happen to us along life’s journey do not happen because we have arrived.  God’s goodness has already been where we are planning to go.  The goodness of God is so present that every direction that we turn to look, wherever we are, we bump into goodness again.  It is perhaps egocentric and arrogant to think that goodness follows us.  The goodness of God goes ahead of us, clearing out new ground, pulling us to new terrain, lighting a pathway in the dark places of new possibility, opening doors that no one can shut.”[vi]

I think that parishioner resisted hearing the 23^rd Psalm in her last days of life because like many of us, she had trapped the psalm in the land of the dying.  But the 23^rd Psalm is a psalm for the land of the living – a psalm that commissions us to continue our work of discipleship, to move out into the world with the promise of the essentials we will need, to keep returning to God’s house for sustenance and refueling, and to remember that no matter what we face, God’s goodness is already there, chasing us down.  On this Good Shepherd Sunday, perhaps you were hoping to hear a few words of comfort, longing to dwell in this house for longer than an hour today.  But today, that Good Shepherd is prodding you with a staff, filling up your tank so that you can go out into the world, serving as God’s disciple in all the green pastures and right paths where God leads.  You can do your work because no matter how much those shadows linger, God’s goodness will chase you down – all the days of your life.  Amen.

[i] Rolf Jacobson, “Commentary on Psalm 23,” March 30, 2014, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2004 as found on April 19, 2018.

[ii] Joel LeMon, “Commentary on Psalm 23,” April 25, 2015, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3646 on April 19, 2018.

[iii] LeMon.

[iv] Cameron B.R. Howard, “#602 – Fourth Sunday of Easter,” April 14, 2018, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1008 on April 17, 2018.

[v] Gary V. Simpson “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 438.

[vi] Simpson, 440.

On Resurrection Living…

Tags

afraid, Christ, church, death, Easter, Eastertide, eternal life, free, identity, Jesus, life, resurrection, transformation

I have been thinking a lot about death lately.  That probably sounds a bit morbid, but given my profession, should not be much of a surprise.  I think death has been on my mind for lots of reasons:  we celebrated the death of an incredible woman at our parish last week, our Adult Forum series during Eastertide is about death (end of life care, wills, legacy giving, funeral planning), and this Sunday’s lessons, although beloved, are quite common readings for funerals.  Everywhere I turn seems to offer reminders of death, and yet here we are in the season of Easter – a time to honor resurrection – to honor Christ’s victory over death!

One of the reasons we are freed up to talk about death in Eastertide is because death is changed through the resurrection of Christ.  In light of the resurrection, we see our life and death differently.  We proclaim that difference in the Book of Common Prayer at funerals.  “Life is changed, not ended,” we say in the burial office.  Whereas the secular world would have us consume life to its fullest, ignoring the inevitability of death; would have us preserve our bodies and make ourselves look younger to ignore our natural aging; would have us avoid conversations with our loved ones and community about death, the Church says something different.

The Church says Christ’s resurrection changes life so much, talking about death is no longer morbid.  The Church says, the promise of eternal life allows us make those funeral plans with a spirit of joy, not a spirit of dread.  The Church says that our time among the living is meant to bless and honor others, so making that will and designating those legacy gifts to a church are in great congruence with our understanding of resurrection living.  An Adult Forum series on death (or Resurrection Living, as we have called it) or reading lessons from funerals during Eastertide makes perfect sense.  Those exercises free us from seeing death as final, encouraging instead a life of resurrection hope and joy – a life lived in the light of eternal life.  I hope you will join us this week at Hickory Neck as we dive into that new identity and welcome the transformation of life in the light of the resurrection.

Photo credit:  http://www.rlmonline.com/about-rlm/

 

 

Sermon – Luke 2.1-14, CE, YB, December 24, 2017

Tags

chaos, Christmas Eve, church, God, holy, Holy Family, Jesus, life, love, manger, peace, silent, story, worship

Sometimes arriving at the manger on Christmas Eve feels a bit like just barely sliding into home plate.  When little ones are around, you have scurried about, making sure their tights and bowties are on, while trying to squeeze in one last family picture while everyone still looks nice.  By now, you have probably served or been served a meal, purchased and wrapped gifts, prepped or cooked food for tomorrow, sent out cards, decorated the house, and run countless errands.  And none of that includes the four hundred things that will be done in the next twenty-four hours.  Arriving here and semi-put together is a minor victory, with the promise of a peaceful, beautiful hour of worship, before preparing for the chaos to resume tomorrow.

The unfortunate thing is that the story of tonight is not all that much less chaotic.  Though we sing songs like Silent Night or Away in a Manger, or though we exchange cards with pastoral, peaceful settings, nothing about that night is silent.  And I am pretty sure the little Lord Jesus makes lots of cries.  The chaos of the holy family is not unlike the chaos in which we sometimes find ourselves.  Remembering how scandalous Mary’s pregnancy and relationship with Joseph are, the chaos continues as Emperor Augustus sends out a decree that forces a very pregnant, uncomfortable Mary away from her hometown to the crowded city of Bethlehem.  Before they can secure housing, Mary goes into labor.  Not only is she dealing with the drama of delivering a child for the first time ever, she is delivering without so much as the comfort of a home.  And then, just as they are trying to figure out nursing, and soothing, and the fear and wonder of parenting, along come some rowdy, likely filthy, shepherds, who have also not had a silent night.  In fact, they have heard the terrifying chorus of the heavenly host and been told a most preposterous story – so much so, they gather up their livestock and come to see.

With all the chaos of our own lives, and with all the mayhem of that holy night, why do we do it?  Why do we come to church at all?  Maybe we come to church on this night specifically because on this night, more than perhaps any night ever, we find the wonderful revelation that God can take the messy chaos of life and make our mess holy.  You see, as much as we love tonight’s beautiful story, what happens this night is beyond the chaos of registrations, no vacancies, angelic revelations, and messy encounters with strangers.  In order to understand the enormity of what is happening tonight, we broaden our scope.  Tonight’s event – the nativity of our Lord –  is the culmination of a much larger story.  The story started when there was no earth or humankind, when God formed the earth from the formless void.  When we first sinned against God and were cast out of the garden, to when we kept sinning and God flooded the world, to our deliverance from the hands of pharaoh and our arrival in the promised land, to our sinful desires for a king that led to the eventual confiscation of our land.  We are a people who have been oppressed so many times and rescued so many times we can barely count.  And in that rollercoaster of a relationship with our God, as we failed time and again, God, who never gives up and never cedes love, does something unheard of:  takes on human flesh, comes to us in the form of a vulnerable child, with the plan of redeeming us forever and granting us eternal life.

Maybe we come to church tonight because tonight is about God’s unending, undying, unfailing, uncompromising love for us.  Despite centuries of chaos, disobedience, and failures, God shows up tonight in a mighty way.  Despite the chaos of the times and of this night, God shows up among the outcast.  Despite the chaos of our own times, in our seeming inability to tend to those most outcast, God comes once more to redeem us.  We come to church tonight because we long to grasp the enormity of God’s love for us, the extents to which God will go for us, and the hope which only God can give to us.

But the news is even better than that.  I do not believe the beauty of tonight is in trying to find a holy moment, where God’s love speaks to us in an otherwise chaotic life.  In fact, you might not find that moment tonight because despite the fact that you were physically able to get here, your mind may still be somewhere else.  The good news is that is okay.  The deep, lasting peace of this night is not found in a single church service (though I must say, the service certainly helps).  The deep, lasting peace we are looking for comes from the reality that we do not find God’s love and peace in spite of the chaos of life.  Tonight teaches us that God hallows the chaos of life.

Based on our standards, God should have placed this precious child – the God incarnate – in the wealthiest, most well-guarded palace, where a person of great wealth could have given the baby everything the baby needed.  A person of power could have protected the child, brought honor to the child, raised the child up to assume the power of a Messiah.  If we had something so precious, we certainly would have worked to find the best of what we have to protect that preciousness.  And yet, God takes on flesh in an unmarried, inconsequential woman of little means.  God takes on flesh amidst the common people, being born in the lowliest of estates.  God takes on flesh and announces the news not to kings and rulers, but to shepherds – those disregarded by society as being of little import.  From the very beginning, the extraordinary thing God does is done in the midst of the ordinary – worse yet, among the marginalized and outcast.

God takes the mess of life:  our divisions, our stratifications by class, gender, and race, our subjugation of the poor, our inability to refrain from sin, our messes and chaos – and God makes our mess holy.  God sanctifies our chaos, reminding us that in the midst of chaos, God is present.   In the midst of chaos, God is doing a new thing through us.  In the midst of chaos, God is love and makes us agents of love.  I cannot promise that the chaos will not try to overtake you when you walk out the church door tonight.  But just like you will find small glimpses tonight of the overwhelming love God has for you, you can find God present in the chaos of life too.  God is continually breaking through, birthing in you Christ’s light and love, using you to make room in the world for the Christ child, using you to announce good news of great joy for all people.  If that doesn’t break though the chaos, I don’t know what will!  Amen.