Sermon – John 3.14-21, Numbers 21.4-9, L4, YB, March 14, 2021

Tags

belief, choice, cross, glory, God, grace, Israel, Jesus, Lent, light, Moses, salvation, Sermon, serpent, sin, transform

Our scripture lessons today offer two contrasts:  a story from the Hebrew Scriptures which might be unfamiliar to you or at least may seem wildly strange, and a story from John’s gospel that is so familiar, you can probably quote a portion of the text if I simply tell you the citation, “John 3.16.”  What is strange about this combination is the unknown, uncomfortable story is a window into the overly familiar, commonplace story.  If we have any hope of understanding either of them, we need to dive into both.

At the point where we join the story from Numbers, God has been infinitely patient with God’s people.  Some might argue too patient.  God has saved God’s people time and again, wresting them from brutal slavery, miraculously helping them flee through the Sea of Reeds, helping sweeten bitter drinking water when they murmured, granting them manna when they complained of being hungry, giving them water out of a rock when they grumbled about being thirsty, offering them birds to eat when they whined of manna-fatigue.  Grace and patience abound with God.  Until this day.  The Israelites throw yet another fit, and God snaps.  This time, God sends poisonous serpents among the people, and many of them die.  When the people beg for help to Moses, God instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole; if people gaze upon the serpent, they will live.  For a God who asks the people have no idols or gods before God, a serpent on a pole is, quite frankly, just weird.

Meanwhile, we have a super familiar text from John.  “For God so love the world that he gave his only Son.”  We love this verse because the verse reminds of our abundant, loving, graceful God.  Of course, we sometimes gloss over the rest of the troublesome parts of this text.  The rest talks about how Jesus saves the world – as long as the world believes.  Here is where the questions start to pile up for us.  Do we really believe that some people are condemned?  Is God’s love conditional?  What happens if we doubt?  Does that count as not believing?  Can eternal life be given and taken away based on the seesaw of my behavior?  The trouble is if we focus on God’s grace, we can make salvation seem arbitrary, with no essential place for human response.  But if we focus on human faith, we may be in danger of making salvation a human accomplishment, restricting God’s initiative universally.[i]  The only thing that seems to be clear is that God gives us a choice.  When we commit evil deeds, when we deny God through our behavior, when we linger in the darkness, we are making a choice.  And the text tells us today that the consequence of that choice is condemnation.

The answer to so much in these texts seems to lie in verse fourteen of John.  Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  As scholar Debie Thomas writes, “In the Old Testament story, God requires the Israelites to look up.  To gaze without flinching at the monstrous thing their sin has conjured.  It’s the thing they have wrought, the thing they fear most, the thing that will surely kill them if God in God’s mercy doesn’t intervene and transform the instrument of pain and death into an instrument of healing and life.  In order to be saved, the people have to confront the serpent — they have to look hard at what harms, poisons, breaks, and kills them.”[ii]  The same seems to happen with Jesus on a cross.  Thomas goes on to say, “In the cross, we are forced to see what our refusal to love, our indifference to suffering, our craving for violence, our resistance to change, our hatred of difference, our addiction to judgment, and our fear of the Other must wreak.  When the Son of Man is lifted up, we see with chilling and desperate clarity our need for a God who will take our most horrific instruments of death, and transform them, at great cost, for the purposes of resurrection.”[iii]

The truth is, I am not sure either of these texts answer some of our basic questions, especially around those of belief.  But tying them together today, we do find an invitation – to change our gaze away from the judgment of others, the wondering about who is in and out, the questions about God’s retribution, and gaze on the cross – the body that reminds us of the goodness of God in spite of our sinfulness, that reminds us of God’s grace in spite of our lack of deserving, that reminds us of God’s unconditional love despite our inability to keep failing.  Our invitation is to take seriously the words of that old hymn, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.”  As we continue on the path of Lent toward the cross, today’s texts remind us of where we are going and why.  Our invitation is to look up at the horrible, wonderful truth of what Jesus does in the cross, and stand in the light of his glory and grace.  Amen.

---

[i] Joseph D. Small, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 118.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “Looking Up,” March 7, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2944-looking-up, on March 12, 2021. 

[iii] Thomas.

On Sacred Ground and Stories…

Tags

God, holy, Moses, power, sacred, sacred ground, story, struggle, tender

Photo credit: https://gracechurchanderson.com/2017/09/holy-ground/

Last week, our parish kicked off a program called “Sacred Ground.”  The program comes out of the Episcopal Church and is meant to be a program to help Caucasians begin (or continue) to wrestle with the issue of racism.  As part of the introductory materials, Bishop Michael Curry retells Moses’ call narrative.  If you remember, God tells Moses to take off his shoes beside the burning bush because he is standing on holy ground.  Bishop Curry submits that the ground is holy not because of the fire but because it is the place where God tells God’s story.  Curry further suggests that anytime someone shares their story, we are standing on sacred ground with them.

As our group began to tell our stories, I began to realize perhaps this is why we are struggling as a country and community these days.  So often we assume we know people’s stories based on their political stances, their social media posts, or even our chitchat with them on a daily basis.  But every person has a story – a journey of joys and sorrows, a path of successes and failures, and a walk of pride and shame.  And until we make space to hear that story, we will judge, assume, and desecrate the holiness of others.

This week I came across a story of a project in Denmark called the Human Library.  People go to public libraries and instead of borrowing books they “borrow” people.  Each person is given a “title,” such as “Unemployed,” “Refugee,” or “Bipolar.”  When you borrow the person, you sit with them for thirty minutes and hear their story.  The idea is to break down prejudice through the power of story.

This week I invite you to reach out to someone you do not know much about – someone you only know superficially, someone different from you, or someone you already know will rub you the wrong way and ask if you can hear their story.  In this time of social distancing, maybe you start with projects like Humans of New York or StoryCorps.  But maybe you use a phone, FaceTime, or outdoor coffee as your method to connect with someone local.  Either way, this week I invite you to take off your shoes and stand on some holy ground with one another and your God.  Perhaps once we all have our shoes off, we will find ourselves walking much more tenderly with one another.

Sermon – Deuteronomy 34.1-12, P25, YA, October 29, 2017, 8 AM

Tags

anniversary, future, God, history, Israelites, Joshua, journey, Kingdom, Moses, past, present, Promised Land, Sermon

This morning our community is celebrating our past, present, and future.  We celebrate the community of Hickory Neck, who one hundred years ago, came together to consecrate this historic church, which had been dormant of worship since the Revolutionary War, used varyingly as a school and hospital.  We celebrate a community who committed itself this year to paying off our debt which covered the cost of our New Chapel, as well as renovations to existing buildings.  And we celebrate our commitments to financially support Hickory Neck in the year ahead through our pledges of offerings.  In each celebration, we see glimpses of who Hickory has been, is, and is becoming.

We are not unlike our ancestors, the Israelites, as we find them on the brink of the Promised Land.  Today’s lesson from Deuteronomy tells the story of the last days of Moses and the beginning of Joshua’s leadership.  In their mourning over Moses’ death, the community remembers the profound ways in which God, through Moses, changed their lives.  They were exiles by famine from their land, enslaved by the Egyptians, and indebted to Pharaoh.  But Moses became their advocate, leading them out of slavery, across the Sea of Reeds, and through the long years of the wilderness.  Moses took all their complaints and whining, and advocated for food, water, and safety.  Moses took their metaphorical wandering, and delivered a new law from the Lord.  Moses organized their community and empowered the next generation to lead.  Moses’ death reminds the people of Israel all they have been through.  Their mourning is where they find themselves in the present:  no longer wandering, but not yet into their next phase of life.

And yet, Moses’ death also points them to their future.  Moses has already blessed Joshua as their next leader, and Joshua will take them into the Promised Land.  Moses is even given the gift of seeing the beauty of that land, as far as the eye can see.  Though Moses knows he is not to cross over, God shows him all that is to come.  The vision is vast, abundant, and blessed.  We suspect Moses can die in peace having seen the land of milk and honey, even if he himself will not experience the land.  And Moses has already seen Joshua receive the spirit of wisdom.  There is nothing left to do but join God in the heavenly kingdom.

On days of introspection about the past, present, and future, we can easily gloss over all the hard stuff.  Though today the people of Israel honor their esteemed leader, and they have the Promised Land ahead of them, we do not often get a sympathetic retelling of the Israelite story.  For the last several weeks, we have heard stories of the Israelites complaining about water and food, but we forget how debilitating hunger and thirst can be.  We read the story of the construction of the golden calf recently, but we rarely wonder about what waiting blindly at the foot of the mountain for Moses to return felt like or the doubt his absence created.  We also recently heard the story of the Passover, but we rarely imagine how terrifying that night must have been and what being saved meant.

I have wondered what stories linger behind our own history.  I have asked our historians about the Hickory Neck community one hundred years ago.  I have wondered who the members were, what their feelings were about the old church that was no longer theirs, or what inspired them to regather.  But we have no record of their story:  their passion that lead to us worshiping here today.  We can only imagine the negotiating they did, the partnerships they forged, the strain they underwent in those early years.  And though many of you were here when we built our New Chapel, I was not.  I imagine there were lingering doubts and concerns about whether a capital campaign, and taking on a mortgage was a good idea.  I am sure there were anxieties about church growth and identity.  And I already know some of that same labor is true today.  We wonder where the Holy Spirit is guiding us, what ministries will define us, and what people will join our community and change us for the better.  The future is always ambiguous and daunting.

That is why I appreciate our parallel story of the Israelites, Moses, and Joshua today.  As one scholar writes, what our ancient story and our modern story reminds us of is “Building the realm of God is a process, and we each have our part to play, even if we will not be around to see all our hopes come to fruition.  Even if we will not be present for the final outcome, it is important that we build the realm of God in the here and now, trusting God to work through each of us to bring about God’s vision for the world.  Furthermore, God assures us in [today’s Old Testament reading] that there will be people to continue leading us to the promised land and building God’s kingdom after we are gone.  The emergence of Joshua as the new leader of the Israelite people shows us that the work to be done is bigger than any one individual, and God will continue to provide prophetic presence through different people and voices.”[i]

In both the stories of our biblical and historical ancestors, we are reminded that we are a part of a greater narrative – each phase of the journey filled with challenges, hard times, and anxious moments.  But each phase is also filled with successes, celebratory times, and joyful, life-giving moments.  That is why we have been talking about journeys this month.  As we have reflected on our personal journeys to generosity during stewardship season, we have heard countless stories of how our journey has evolved, changed, and deepened.  We have also heard of the fellow pilgrims along the way who taught us about generosity and shaped our journey along the way.  What we have been doing this month, and what our Old Testament lesson and our current celebrations remind us of is “there is value in the journey.  The value lies in the growth, the relationships, and the spiritual development we experience along the way, not to mention the incremental progress we make toward creating the just and peaceable world that God desires for all of creation.”[ii]

Our invitation this week, is to continue to invest in the journey.  Each of you have shared with me the innumerable ways that Hickory Neck has influenced your journey.  I cannot tell you the countless times that this building alone has played a powerful part of your experience here.  I cannot tell you the multiple times I have heard about the passion and excitement that enlivened your faith life as we built a new worship space after hundreds of years on this land.  I cannot tell you the hundreds of times I have heard dreams and vision whispered in my ear as you have envisioned what the next steps of our journey together at Hickory Neck will be.  There will be hard moments and joyful moments, times of struggle and times of celebration.  Today we are reminded of the God who journeys in each phase with us, and empowers us as partners on the journey to change the kingdom of God here on earth.  God will empower us to stay on the journey together.  I cannot wait to see where the journey leads!  Amen.

[i] Leslie A. Klingensmith, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplement to Yr. A, Proper 25 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 4.

[ii] Klingensmith, 6.

Sermon – Lk 9.51-62, Gal 5.1, 13-25, P8, YC, June 26, 2016

Tags

campaign, Christ, cranky, Elijah, focus, Galatians, God, Jerusalem, Jesus, leader, love, Moses, neighbor, politics, purpose, Sermon, single-mindedness

Whenever we are in an election year, I find myself wondering how Jesus might fare in a political race.  I mean, he has a pretty awesome platform:  liberation for the poor, forgiveness of debts, healing, even eternal life.  But Jesus would be a modern campaign manager’s nightmare.  I can imagine the harried manager running around in circles after hearing this week’s text.  Just as Jesus is gaining ground and growing his constituency (or as the text calls them, disciples and followers), and just as Jesus is starting to gain prestige with comparisons to other great leaders, like Moses and Elijah, Jesus starts running his campaign into the ground.

We hear the campaign crumbling through four different incidents in our gospel lesson today.  First, we hear the story of how Jesus and his crew need shelter.  The Samaritans refuse them hospitality, and James and John, remembering how the great Elijah brought down fire on his opponents, ask Jesus if they should do the same thing.  Reigning down fire on the enemies would certainly make for great evening news coverage and might even result in a surge in the polls.  But Jesus does nothing of the sort.  Instead, Jesus just ignores the affront and keeps going.  Surely Jesus’ campaign manager would be crushed when his prepared speech about the Samaritans does not see the light of day.

Next, Jesus gets some promising news.  On the campaign trail, someone shouts, “I will follow you wherever you go!”   The campaign manager must be salivating as he hopes to tweet the comment and post the interchange on Vine or Snapchat.  But, then Jesus ruins the whole moment by saying, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  Not exactly the best promotional video for Jesus’ campaign.  Who wants to follow a guy whose response to “I’ll follow you anywhere!” is basically, “If you follow me, get ready to feel ostracized, abandoned, and alone.”?

The day keeps getting worse for the campaign manager.  Two other people are ready to commit their lives to supporting the Jesus campaign.  But instead of joyfully receiving them after they have packed their bags and said goodbye to their families, Jesus crankily says, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” and “No one who puts the hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  At least the great Elijah showed a little more patience than Jesus in his leadership.  If you remember, when Elijah called Elisha to follow him, he gave him the chance to say goodbye to his family.  But not Jesus.  A new sheriff is in town and he has no patience for other agendas.  I can just imagine the team of writers that the campaign manager would have to assemble to wax Jesus’ words and make them more palatable.  Jesus would be a modern political campaign’s worst nightmare.

The way the text reads today, Jesus comes off as heartless and dismissive.  But if we are really honest, Jesus can come off as heartless and dismissive through much of the gospels.  We like to remember the lovey-dovey stuff about Jesus:  the healings, the tender moments of compassion, or the motivational parables.  But like any good marriage, with all the love that comes from Jesus, we must also take the hard, uncomfortable stuff too.  Yesterday, two of our parishioners got married.  The day was a day for love and joy.  But the day was also a day for honesty and reflection.  You see, the bride and groom had both lost their first spouses to disease and death.  Between them, they have enjoyed over 90 years of happy marriages.  Though both of them are thrilled to have found love and companionship again, they entered their marriage yesterday with the sobriety that can only come when you really know what you are getting into.  I can do all the premarital counseling I want with a young couple getting married for the first time.  But eventually they will have to learn for themselves that marriage is hard and love is even harder.  Love is not all roses and champagne.  Love is working through tough times, making sacrifices, and living with a partner who can sometimes be as cranky as Jesus.

The reason we stay in committed, loving relationships is that we understand the ultimate goal:  to love and care for one another for the long run.  Jesus is probably cranky in our vignettes today because he too has an ultimate goal:  his love for us which leads to the cross.  At the beginning of our story today, the text says, “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  This is our cue about Jesus’ seemingly bad mood.  Jesus does not have time for teaching and coddling.  He does not have energy for a leisurely stroll, where he can tell long parables and then explain their meaning.  No, Jesus has turned his face to Jerusalem.  We can hear in that one sentence, “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem,” an indicator of Jesus’ demeanor.[i]  I am not sure Jesus would have ever made a savvy politician anyway, but he certainly would not have done so at this point in his ministry.  Where we are in Luke’s gospel is a turning point – a dramatic shift in the narrative.  When Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem, everything else fades away.  He takes on a “singlemindedness of purpose that is prompted by God’s profound love for humanity and all the world.”[ii]

In his epistle to the Galatians we read today, Paul has become a bit cranky too.  The Galatians are fighting and Paul tells them to “stand firm,” or, in other words, to be single-minded in their love for one another.  Paul says, “…through love become slaves to one another.  For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  As one scholar argues, “Being good at love, …requires a fair share of determination.  Loving another is not the easiest of commitments to make.  Love, it ought not surprise us, is going to require a little crankiness along the way.  Everything that has value does, and love is what has ultimate value for, of course, it is the only thing that lasts.  According to Paul and Jesus, it really is the only commandment, the only thing life is really about.”[iii]

Though both Jesus and Paul sound cranky and harsh today, I do not think they are either.  Why Paul asserts that the Galatians stand firm and why Jesus condemns those who put their hand to the plow and then look back is because both of them know our tendencies.  “Perhaps Jesus recognizes our tendency to put off the moments in time that might actually make a difference in what we say about him.  Perhaps Jesus sees that we come with ready excuses to defer our proclamation because we think we need to be in a better place, a better time, a time when the stars align so as to make our experience of the Gospel the perfect it was never meant to be.  Perhaps Jesus simply says stop making excuses and start imagining experiences that invite ‘let’s see what happens’ instead of ‘I need all my stuff figured out.’”[iv]

That is what happens when we really love one another.  We do not worry how savvy our political campaign is.  Instead we worry about what really matters – our call to love one another as Christ loves us.  Once we start doing that, party affiliation and grandstanding matter very little.  In fact, politics becomes a lot easier when we use the Jesus standard of love.  When we single-mindedly focus on love, our actions fall less into one political party or another of this world, but instead fall into focus on the kingdom of God.

Now, like our newlyweds will you tell, loving our neighbor is not easy.  Love as a political campaign will be frustrating and at times will make us quite cranky.  But by focusing on love, we allow ourselves to let go of all the extraneous stuff of life and focus single-mindedly on God’s purpose for us.  Sorting priorities becomes easier, caring for one another becomes more satisfying, and living into our purpose in this life comes more naturally.  Perhaps that would be the slogan that Jesus’ campaign manager would eke out of all Jesus’ interactions today:  All we need is love.  Amen.

[i] Elaine A. Heath, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 190.

[ii] David J. Lose, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 195.

[iii] Stacy Sauls, “Cranky Jesus,” June 30, 2013, as found at http://day1.org/4897-the_cranky_jesus on June 23, 2016.

[iv] Karoline Lewis, “Every Moment Counts,” June 19, 2016, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4679 on June 22, 2016.

Homily – Luke 12.4–12, Vincent, January 22, 2015

Tags

call, care, God, grace, homily, Jesus, Moses, unworthy, value, Vincent

This past week I was able to visit the Rite-13 class.  They were discussing the call narrative of Moses.  We talked about the many ways Moses tries to avoid his call and the excuses he gives.  We talked about how God knows Moses well and has intimate conversations with him.  And then an interesting question came up.  We wondered whether God cares about each one of us in the same way God seems to have cared about Moses.  The responses were varied, but the one that stuck with me was the skeptic who wasn’t sure that God really cared about each of us – especially when there are about 6 billion of us in the world.  How could God know and care about each little thing about each one of us?  And then I recalled the gospel lesson we heard today: “even the hairs of your head are all counted.”  When we did the math about the numbers of hairs on all the billions of people in the world, we were all a little stunned into silence.

That is the hard part of our gospel lesson today.  Can we really believe that God is so infused in our lives – and that God cares what is going on with each and every one of us?  The question is one that Christians have been asking for centuries – is our God big enough to really know and love each one of us?  I am sure Vincent, who we honor today, asked that same question.  Vincent was a native of northwestern Spain, born in the late 200s or early 300s.  He was ordained deacon by Valerius, the Bishop of Saragossa.  In those years, the fervent Christian community in Spain suffered great persecution by the Roman emperors Diocletian and Maximus.  The governor of Spain had Bishop Valerius and Deacon Vincent arrested.  According to legend, the bishop had a speech impediment and Vincent often preached for him.  When the two prisoners were challenged to renounce their faith or else be tortured and killed, Vincent turned to his bishop, willing to make a stand.  Vincent’s bishop encouraged him to defend the faith.  Vincent’s passionate defense angered the governor.  The bishop was exiled and Vincent was tortured and finally killed.  Vincent is venerated as a bold and outspoken witness to the truth of the living Christ.

I am sure there were days, especially at the end, that Vincent wondered whether God really knew the hairs on his head.  To Vincent and even to us in our lesser trials, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, you are of more value than many sparrows.”  Then and now, Jesus affirms that none of us is forgotten by God.  When we question God, when we feel forgotten by God, or even when we forget God, God is still there valuing the hairs of our head.  That is God’s profound promise every day.  Even when we flounder, or when, like Moses, we try to avoid our call or feel unworthy for the work God gives us to do, or when the pain of life feels overwhelming – God is with us, guiding us, valuing us, loving us.  Thanks be to God for God’s abundant care and grace and the reality that we are of more value than many sparrows – each one of us!  Amen.

Sermon – Exodus 3.1-15, P17, YA, August 31, 2014

Tags

discomfort, God, holy ground, Moses, paranoia, sacred, Sermon, shoes

Shoes are a funny thing.  Their basic function is protection – from rough roads and paths, from debris and water, from extreme heat and extreme cold.  Not having shoes can lead to injury, disease, and disability.  But having shoes can create problems too.  Once feet are covered, they can become sweaty or smelly.  Shoes can hide unkempt toenails or misshapen feet, making us hesitant to remove them at times.  And of course, shoes can also be markers of status – those fancy Nikes or Manolo Blahniks.

And so when we are asked to remove our shoes, our first response can often be panic.  Every year when we do the foot washing on Maundy Thursday, I hear people chatting about their foot concerns.  Holy Wednesday of that week could be relabeled, “Holy Pedicure Day.”  I have overheard parishioners strategizing about socks versus hose, about pre-washing their feet before the service, and about avoiding the foot washing part of the liturgy altogether.

Our paranoia about feet and footwear can be found everywhere.  We all know people who have a “no shoe rule,” in their home.  Sometimes when you forget about that rule, you may panic, wondering if you put on those socks with the holes in them that day.  In my daughter’s nursery care room, there is a sign that asks everyone to take off their shoes before entering the room since the little ones who are crawling will put everything in their mouths – including debris from shoes.  Because I usually have my five-year old in tow, plus a baby in my arms, the trouble of shoe removal is often annoying.  When I traveled to Burma, I bought special sandals because we were told that the Burmese always remove their shoes before entering any building.  I knew with such frequency of removing shoes, I had to worry about sandals that were both comfortable for lots of walking, but also easily slipped on and off.

This fall, St. Margaret’s will be offering a new Sunday School program for our Middle School students.  The program is called Rite-13.  The program is meant to help middle schoolers to start claiming their faith lives and their adulthoods as their own.  They will spend time talking about images of God, their prayer lives, their understanding of God’s call to love one another, and what being a young person of faith means.

One of my favorite lessons from Rite-13 is one that talks about prayer.  In the lesson, the young adults and teachers are not admitted into the room unless they take off their shoes.  When I taught this lesson many years ago, the reaction was immediate.  Some of the kids giggled, some looked worried; other kids refused at first and hung back, while others seemed skeptical, but willing.  The action was simple, but the action of taking off their shoes created unease.

Though our Old Testament lesson is filled with vivid images of burning bushes and Moses debating with God, the line that caught my attention this week says, “Come no closer!  Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”  As I pondered on this moment for Moses, when God proclaims the ground to be holy and worthy of shoes being removed, all those places where I have also been asked to remove my shoes kept coming back to me – Maundy Thursday foot washings, my friend who insists that shoes be left at the door in the winter, my daughter’s nursery school room, Burmese diocesan offices, and that Rite-13 classroom.  Though some of those places require removed shoes for religious purposes, some of those places make that request for purely practical reasons.  But despite the sacred and secular division, I found myself imagining each of those places as places that God might call holy ground.

When I come forward for foot washing on Maundy Thursday, I do so to allow the foot washer to claim their servant ministry.  As I vulnerably offer my battered feet, and they humbly kneel to wash those feet, the ground becomes hallowed in the sacred exchange.  As water splashes on the wooden floor, something holy happens on that ground.

When I visit my friend’s home, and slip off my shoes in respect of her rules, something sacred always happens.  Whether we share a hearty laugh, we commiserate over a glass of wine, or we simply break bread together, God is present between us.  The carpet of her home is holy ground.

When I drop of my daughter at school, and dutifully take off my shoes, I mark the space as something other than simply a place to care for children.  Those workers are joining me in the sacred work of raising a child – of sharing in milestones, of caring for bodily needs, of loving and sharing joy.  By taking off my shoes, I remind myself that God is present with our children even when we are not there.

When I entered a building in Burma, I always loved the visual of piles of flip flops near the door.  On those cold cement floors walked servants of God who simply wanted to know that they were not forgotten by their American Christian brothers and sisters.  And though we struggled to communicate in vastly different languages, the friendships that we forged were forged on holy ground.

And when I entered that Rite-13 classroom, and those teenagers and I began to talk about what prayer is and who this God is that we worship, with our feet exposed to each other, our awkward, vulnerable conversations were held on holy ground.

When we hear Moses’ dramatic call narrative today, we often think that Moses is told to take off his shoes because that specific ground at Horeb is holy.  But I wonder if something else is happening in this story.  Perhaps the ground itself is not holy, but what is happening on the ground is what makes the ground holy.  The soil itself is not made up of particular particles that are inherently holy.  The soil becomes holy because of what happens there.[i]  God calls Moses to a task that will change his life forever – to free the people of Israel from bondage and to lead them to the Promised Land.  In this sacred conversation between Moses and God – even when Moses argues with God constantly about how ill-equipped he is for this mission – the ground becomes hallowed because of the vulnerable, honest, sacred exchange between a holy servant of God and the great, “I AM.”

We encounter holy ground in our own lives everyday.  That holy ground is obvious to us in some places – at the communion rail, in our favorite pew, or in our favorite prayer spot.  But this week, Moses invites us to see holy ground in more unexpected places – in our workplace, at school, in our homes – and to take off our shoes in recognition of the holy encounters that are happening.  Now, there may be some places that removing your shoes is impractical – while waiting for the train on your morning commute, on the playground at play, or in your favorite restaurant.  But I want you to at least imagine taking your shoes off in all the places you find yourself this week and see how your perspective changes.  Maybe with your shoes off, that guy who elbowed you on the LIRR seems more sympathetic as you look at the dark circles under his eyes.  Maybe with your shoes off, that silent orderly who cleans up the neighboring hospital room seems like more of a crucial part of the hospital than the doctors and nurses.  Maybe with your shoes off, that clerk at the grocery story who barely makes eye contact seems much more interesting as you ponder how she makes a living serving you.  And when you lay your head down to sleep each night this week, I invite you to thank God for the holy ground in your life and the opportunity to remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.  Amen.

[i] This train of thought inspired by reflections by Anathea Portier-Young, “Commentary on Exodus 3:1-15,” found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2136 on August 28, 2014.

Homily – Deuteronomy 6.20-25, James Theodore Holly, March 13, 2013

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God, Haiti, homily, James Theodore Holly, love, Moses, story

Today we honor James Theodore Holly.  Holly was born a free African-American in Washington, D.C., in 1829.  Though he was baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, he later became an Episcopalian.  Holly was ordained a deacon in 1855 and a priest in 1856.  He served as a rector in Connecticut and founded the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting the Extension of the Church among Colored People.  He was a friend of Frederick Douglass and worked with him on many projects.  In 1861, he left his job in Connecticut to lead a group of African-Americans to settle in Haiti.  In the first year, his mother, wife and two children died, but Holly stayed on with his two small sons.  In 1874, Holly was ordained the first Bishop of Haiti – making him the first black man to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church.  Bishop Holly served the Diocese of Haiti until his death in 1911.  Bishop Holly had a passion for the gospel and wanted to ensure that the Gospel was accessible to all.

Our Old Testament lesson today reminds me of what Bishop Holly’s ministry might have been like.  Moses talks to the Israelites and tells them their children will be someday asking them, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the LORD our God has commanded you?”  In other words, “Why do we have to follow all these rules?”  And Moses tells the Israelites not to explain the rules, but to explain their history.  Moses sounds like an old grandpa, “Now let me tell you a little story …”  The children of Israel probably rolled their eyes, but what Moses is trying to remind them of is who the God is who gave those laws.  When you know that God is a loving God, who freed them from bondage and delivered them to the Promised Land, the rules just became a natural response.  So, luckily, the law is not followed “because I said so,” but because we know no other way to respond to the LORD who loves and cares for us so much.

That is the message Holly took to Haiti.  He wanted them to know how much God loved them.  That is the same message we share with those we encounter, too.  When someone challenges us about the hypocrisy of the church, the ways we do business, or the challenges we face, all we have to do is say, “Now let me tell you a little story …”  Your story may be Moses’ story; your story may be about a man named Jesus; or your story may just be about your walk with your loving God.  The point is to tell the story so that others might come to know God’s love, too.  Amen.