Sermon – Luke 11.1-13, P12, YC, July 28, 2019

Tags

authentic, disciples, God, honest, Jesus, language, Lord's Prayer, power, pray, prayer, real, relationship, Sermon, teach, vulnerable

One of the practices highly recommended to clergy is having a spiritual director.  My director is a professor I had in seminary.  He is wise and insightful, and always helps me not only see the bigger picture, but also see goodness in what sometimes feels like darkness.  But perhaps my favorite thing about him is the way he prays.  You would think with such a spiritual, learned man, his prayers would be profound and flowery – worthy of the kind of prayers we find in our own Prayer Book.  But instead, his prayers are the opposite.  They are awkward and fumbling.  You can hear long pauses in them as he struggles to articulate what he wants to say to God.  He uses everyday language, rarely capturing the phrases we normally hear in prayers.  The first several times I heard him pray, I was admittedly a little disappointed and, when I’m really being honest, a bit judgmental.  But in time, I began to see his prayers differently.  His prayers may not be artfully constructed or perfectly paced, but his prayers are never canned or artificial.  His prayers may not be theologically intricate, but his prayers are honest, vulnerable, and capture the deep profundity of whatever you have just shared.  His prayers are not pretty, but they are real and raw – more real than most prayers I have heard.

Of course, I am not the first person to wonder, worry, or wander through prayers.  Today, the disciples ask a simple favor of Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  The disciples at this point have seen Jesus pray many times.  They see how good he is and they see how important prayer is in his life.  In fact, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is regularly found in prayer.[i]  They watch Jesus enter into prayer with God for months, and they long to be able to do that too.  And so they come to Jesus, and they vulnerably submit their request:  teach us to pray.

Their request is full of implications.  First is the admission that they do not have the first idea about what they are doing.  Maybe they learned some prayers in temple, or maybe their parents prayed with them.  But they realize in watching Jesus that they do not actually know how to pray themselves.  Not really.  Second, they see a real connection between Jesus and God that somehow is revealed in Jesus’ prayer life.  Perhaps they see how prayer strengthens him in his weakness and how he is more vulnerable with God than even with them.  They long for that kind of connection with God too, but still, they are not sure how the whole thing works.  Finally, a deeper implication is at hand in the disciples’ request.  Perhaps they are not only asking Jesus how to pray, but also wanting to know what is actually happening in prayer.  Perhaps they have tried praying on their own – for an illness, for a new job, for a broken relationship – but the prayer did not work.  They want Jesus to teach them the right way to pray so that the results they desire are fulfilled.

And so, Jesus responds.  Jesus gives them the ultimate prayer – the prayer we call The Lord’s Prayer.  The prayer Jesus gives them is so beautiful and powerful, that two thousand years later, people who never go to church seem to know this prayer.  This is the prayer we pray when we pray the rosary, when we end our days, and at the end of every Eucharistic Prayer.  This is the prayer we pray when we have no other words.  This is the prayer we teach our children to pray and we sing in our own unique Hickory Neck way.

But if you look at Luke’s version of this prayer, the prayer sounds a little more like one of the prayers my spiritual director might pray.  As one scholar says, “Pious convention has conditioned most of us to repeat this prayer so quietly and reverentially that we fail to recognize how we are risking an aggressiveness incommensurate with bourgeois manners.”[ii]  In other words, the Lord’s Prayer is kind of pushy.  There is no flowery language or even polite deference or usage of the word “please.”  Instead, Jesus just tells us to ask for a bunch of stuff:  give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us.  And every week or even every day, we say the same words – give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us.  And if we keep reading Luke’s gospel, after the prayer, we hear Jesus saying that our prayerful life with God is akin to being a pushy friend who through their shameless relentlessness[iii] is able to get a friend up out of bed in the middle of the night.

So why in the world do we teach our children this prayer when the prayer is so flagrantly pushy?  Next week Ella and Charlie will be receiving their First Holy Communion.  First Communion is not really the norm in the Episcopal Church.  As a priest, I first encountered First Holy Communion on Long Island, where the Episcopal Church was highly influenced by the Roman Catholic tradition.  Though the Episcopal Church’s theology is that any baptized person can receive communion, some families prefer their children to understand what Holy Communion means before receiving instead of learning to understand communion through experience.  There really is no wrong way to approach Eucharist, but if we are to do a First Holy Communion, one of the things we require candidates to do is learn the Lord’s Prayer.  In part we do that so that there is at least one part of the Eucharistic service they have memorized and in which they can fully participate.

But there is another reason we have candidates learn the Lord’s Prayer.  We want candidates to learn the Lord’s Prayer because the Lord’s Prayer teaches us about what our relationship with God is like.  Our relationship with God is not flowery or picture perfect.  We  may have moments of poetic beauty with God, but when our relationship with God is at its deepest, we cry ugly, full-bodied tears, we rage about injustice – both personal and in the world, we confess our shame and sorrow for the awful things we sometimes do, and we laugh and rejoice with the kind of dancing we would only do in the confines of our homes.  We do not use language with God containing the formality of language we use with strangers; we use language with God we would use with a friend who knows all our foibles and loves us anyway.  All of that is not to say the poignant prayers of the Prayer Book cannot inspire faithfulness; they can and do.  But we teach the Lord’s Prayer to our children so they know we can say unsure, vulnerable, real words to God.

That is what Jesus is really teaching the disciples.  Jesus does not tell the disciples to “ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you,” because he is saying prayer is a vending machine for our every wish.  Jesus tells us to ask, search, and knock, because prayer and our relationship with God is active and relational.  As one scholar asserts, Jesus teaches us the Lord’s Prayer because he wants his disciples to know, “prayer is not a meek, contrived, and merely ‘religious’ act; [prayer] is the act of human beings who know how hard it is to be human.  Real prayer cannot be faked.  [Real prayer’s] only prerequisites are sufficient self-knowledge to recognize the depths of our need, and enough humility to ask for help.”[iv]

This week, I invite you to take a cue from Jesus’ own relationship with God.  Maybe you will start with a prayer like my spiritual director’s – one that does not lead with preplanned words, but instead tries to authentically say the words on your heart; not a structured collect, but a raw conversation with God.  Jesus gives you permission to ask for those things you need, the forgiveness you desire, the protection you long for, and the deliverance you seek.  Jesus invites you to just be you – to be a human with the God who loves you and made you in God’s image.  And if all that fails, then you can say the Lord’s Prayer.  You can rest in the assurance that although Jesus’ prayer sure sounds pretty, his prayer is one of the most honest ones you can offer – the small step you can take in connecting back to your Lord and your God.  Amen.

 

[i] James A. Wallace, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 289.

[ii] Douglas John Hall, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 288, 290.

[iii] Wallace, 291.

[iv] Hall, 290.

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On Looking for Miracles…

Tags

behavior, change, community, feeding, generosity, God, hoarding, miracle, prayer, security, selfishness, sharing, St. Peter, substance

Photo Credit:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366777/mediaviewer/rm1454393856

This past Sunday, our parish gathered to watch the film Millions (2004).  The film tells the story of two brothers who accidentally come into the possession of a bag with cash, and what they each want to do with the money.  The younger brother, still reeling from their mother’s death, regularly has visions of and conversations with saints, where he discusses the moral issues of how to handle the money.  My favorite scene is between the younger brother and St. Peter.  As St. Peter is talking to him about miracles, he tells him about the Feeding of the Five Thousand story.  But this Peter’s version is a little different than the one we all know.

In the film, Peter says what actually happened that day was not really a miracle.  A boy showed up with some sardines to share with the hungry crowd, and Jesus had the disciples pass them around.  But when each person received the plate, they did not take any, because they had been hiding a stash for themselves.  So, each person took their own stash out, and ate that food instead.  Some people even had a little extra, and so they added a small amount to the plate.  Peter argues there was no magic because the food did not actually multiply.  But as he talks the story through, he confesses perhaps a miracle did happen – the miracle of people sharing their food; the miracle of a once stingy people, hoarding their own food, to a tentatively generous people, willing to share.

What St. Peter was cheekily alluding to was a miracle not of substance, but of changed behavior.  Though the scene is meant to be playful, I have been thinking about that distinction ever since.  We are in a time of stingy hoarding; perhaps humans always are.  But in the face of our selfishness, I often find myself praying for a miracle – for God to act dramatically to change these awful patterns in our society.  But perhaps the miracle we need today is not a miracle of substance, but a miracle of changed behavior.  Perhaps we need little boys with plates of shared sardines to inspire us to let go of our own death grips on security, and open up our hands and hearts to generosity.   Perhaps when we open up, others will see works of miracle in our simple changes of behavior.

What are you hoarding this week on which you can loosen your grip?  Who are the children you have been ignoring who have something inspirational to share with you?  How might you slowly begin to let go of your posture of inward protection and look around your community to see who might need you and your open arms?  I invite you to be open to a miracle of changed behavior this week, and to let me know what ripple effects you see.  Maybe St. Peter is right about us, even today!

A Confession and a Call to Action…

Tags

change, church, community, confess, God, grief, gun violence, indifference, inevitability, love, mass shooting, power, prayer, recommit, resignation

Photo credit:  https://www.firstchristianjax.com/event/prayer-vigil/

Over the weekend, a mass shooting happened in Virginia Beach.  Virginia Beach is less than an hour and a half away from Hickory Neck.  Some of our parishioners were colleagues with some of those killed.  There are many Episcopal Churches in Virginia Beach, and I know their priests have been working hard on pastoral care and preparing funerals.  Having a mass shooting so close to home, and certainly within our Diocese, has made this new reality of mass gun violence weightier and more tangible – as if the violence is making its way toward my personal sphere.

On Tuesday, our Bishop joined a worship service at an Episcopal parish in Virginia Beach.  As I thought about the service, I found myself wondering what liturgy they might be using, and how one even constructs a liturgy when you and your community is under such stress.  And then a dreadful thought occurred to me – one that is painful to confess.  I thought, “well, maybe I should develop a liturgy now when I’m not overcome with grief and counseling others, so the liturgy is easily modified for the situation.”

As soon as I had the thought, I crumpled in grief.  This is where I have come.  After years and years of devastating, massive amounts of death, countless pleas for us to change – change something, anything, and sermon after sermon preached about how we must do and be better, I have allowed myself to succumb to inevitability instead of demanding change.  This realization has been sitting with me all week, and it still brings me to tears when I recall my own sense of resignation.

This week, my prayer for us is a bit different.   My prayer for us is that we recommit to working for change.  My prayer is that we not let the sin of indifference or the sense of inevitability paralyze us from being agents of love and change.  My prayer is that we stop letting the sense of powerlessness take away our power.  I do not want to develop a “just in case” liturgy.  I don’t want to have to officiate over such a liturgy.  I want us all to acknowledge that we want to be better, and start doing the hard work of gathering diverse peoples to the table and finding a path forward.  Let’s be the Church – the Church our community needs.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  (BCP, 815)

Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YC, April 19, 2019

Tags

broken, community, cross, darkness, disciple, find, God, Good Friday, humanity, identity, incomplete, Jesus, lost, passion, prayer, Sermon, sin

When I was in college, I would occasionally find myself sitting in the back of the enormous Chapel.  Sometimes I do not even remember actively choosing to go inside the Chapel.  Somehow my body seemed to know I needed something before my brain did.  The cavernous, quiet building rarely had large crowds.  Or maybe my late-night study sessions meant I was there after everyone had left.  Regardless, I would find myself on a hard, wooden pew, just sitting there.  I am not sure I was there praying necessarily.  At least not in the traditional sense.  More often I was sitting there in desperation.  Sometimes I was at the end of a semester, completely overwhelmed and feeling incapable.  Other times, I was feeling a deep sense of loneliness, despite being surround by tons of friends and classmates.  Other times, I simply felt lost, not sure about my purpose or what in the world God was doing with my life – if God was even there at all.  But mostly, when I sat on those pews, surrounded by magnificent beauty and architecture, I felt a profound hole in my heart.  That Chapel was sometimes the only place I could go and be honest about my profoundly weak humanity.

I think worshiping on Good Friday is a little bit like that.  Unlike other times of worship, we do not usually come to this service looking for praise and joyful singing.  Instead, this day is a day where we willingly come to acknowledge and honor those parts of our lives where we feel a profound sense of brokenness, sinfulness, and incompleteness.  We read Scripture that speaks to our deepest pain and suffering.  We say prayers that address the fullness of need for ourselves and the world.  And we venerate the cross – staring at the object that brings into sharp focus our weakness and humanity, and our need for something bigger than ourselves.

On a day like today, I am grateful for John’s Passion Narrative.  All the Passion Narratives from the gospels tell a similar story – the last moments of Jesus’ time with the disciples, his trial and crucifixion, and his death.  And despite the fact that the story in all four gospels is heart-wrenching, something about John’s version digs deeper – shines a light into those dark places we prefer to keep hidden from the light of day.  But in John’s gospel, there is nowhere to hide.  We experience a deep sense of being bereft of our own sinfulness as the sins of those in our narrative mirror our own.  These are not just the common, everyday sins of life.  The sins of the characters today are the sins of denying our very own identity.

Often when we talk about Judas, we think of his failure as a thing he did to Jesus.  But Judas’ sin goes deeper than betrayal of Jesus.  Judas denies his very discipleship.  After all those years of following Jesus, trusting the salvific work of the Christ, believing and proclaiming Jesus’ Messiahship, Judas denies his discipleship by no longer following and instead trying to control the work of God.  You see, Judas follows Jesus because he believes Jesus is starting a political revolution – is becoming the conquering Messiah.  Jesus is not living into that identity as much as Judas wants, so Judas gives Jesus a push.[i]  But when Judas brings all of those soldiers to the intimate place where he discovered his identity as a disciple, we see how deep Judas’ sinfulness goes.  The garden had been a home for the disciples – where they had gathered regularly, in intimate community.  To bring those soldiers there – to the place that defined his own discipleship – is the marker not of an indiscretion, but of a complete denial of who he is.  In John’s gospel, the last appearance of Judas is not of remorse, or suicide, or judgment of Judas.  John simply says, Judas stands “with them.”  With them is not just a physical location; with them is a theological one.  By seeking to control Jesus, by walking away from relationship with Christ, and by standing against Jesus in the very place of intimate identity-making, Judas takes a new identity.  He denies his discipleship, and instead stands with them.[ii]  And as much as we might want to judge Judas, we all know that there have been times when we were fed up with God, and decided to take matters into our own hands.  The more we think we know better, the further we step away from following Christ, denying our own identity in Christ.  The more we seek control, the further we step away from our intimate relationship with Jesus, and instead stand with someone or something else.

Peter denies his identity in a slightly different way.  When we read John’s gospel, we can easily conflate John’s version with the versions from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  In those gospels, Peter is asked whether he knows Jesus.  His response is he does not know the man.  But in John’s gospel, the question to Peter is different.  He is not asked if he knows Jesus, but whether he is Jesus’ disciple.  To say, “I am not,” is not just a denial of knowledge.  Peter is denying his very identity.  As Karoline Lewis asserts, “In the Gospel of John…Peter’s denial is not of Jesus but of his own discipleship.  …To deny discipleship is to deny one’s relationship with Jesus and the intimacy that makes Jesus and his followers virtually inseparable.  Peter does not deny Jesus, but denies being a disciple.”[iii]  Because we live in a time when we are rarely asked about our identity as people of God, we think of ourselves as immune to Peter’s temptation or somehow incapable of such identity denial.  And in some ways, we may be right:  our denial of identity is not usually as straightforward as Peter’s.  But that doesn’t mean we do not regularly reject our identity.  In small, everyday ways, we find ourselves making accommodations that fracture our intimacy with Christ – decisions that we can rationalize at the time, but when we look back realize have become of slow pattern of denying whose we really are.  And before long, we get so far from discipleship that no one even knows we are Christ’s disciple.

But the denials of identity are not just limited to Christ’s disciples.  Even the religious authorities lose themselves in their attempt to squash the Jesus movement.  The leaders of the faith community are so convinced that Jesus is wrong, they negotiate with a secular leader to get what they want.  And when Pilate, who knows what they want is wrong, pushes them to recognize they are wrong, the religious authorities say something that seems innocuous enough.  But saying, “We have no king but the emperor,” is the ultimate denial of their identity as a people of God.  The people of faith, who were once freed from a king over them, who journeyed forty years, claiming God as their king, who have an everlasting covenant with God, deny the covenant to get what they want.  By claiming the emperor, they deny their very identity.  The people of God, who are about to prepare the Passover feast – the feast that celebrates their release from Pharaoh, “embrace a latter-day Pharaoh whose overthrow the Passover is intended to celebrate.”[iv]  Although we like to demonize the chief priests, we too have pledged loyalties to things other than God.  Perhaps not as dramatically as the religious authorities, but we have all known those moments when a declaration slipped out of our mouths that we later come to realize was denial of everything we claim to be.

On this most holy of days, we can journey so far into the darkness of humanity, of the ways we deny our very own identity, that we can walk out of this beautiful historic chapel feeling lost – having received no encouragement for our bereft hearts.  But I do not think the point of Good Friday is to walk with us into the darkness without giving us a sliver of light to hold onto in these next hours.  Though our reading ends with the finality of Jesus in a tomb, where we are better left is at the foot of the cross.  At the foot of the cross is where we find identity again.  At the foot of the cross, we find a new community being formed.  Jesus gives his mother to the beloved disciple; and to the beloved disciple, he gives his mother.  In other words, Jesus creates a community of mutual care – a new family, a place of forming identity in Christ, even as Christ is departing.[v]  The very reason we gather in community on Good Friday is because we need this group gathered here – this group gathered at the foot of the cross – to bring us back from the denials of our identity, and help us reclaim whose we are.  Today is certainly a day for claiming how deep our own betrayal of God is, but today is also a day of claiming a community who can help us walk back.

I think that was what I was doing all those years ago in college as I sat on those cold, hard pews of the Chapel.  I knew I was lost, that my angst was not just the anxiety of tests and deadlines, but was a much deeper angst about identity.  And although that Chapel was mostly empty, that Chapel reminded me of all the times I had gathered in sacred spaces with the community of the faithful.  Even when the Chapel was empty, the Chapel was somehow a reminder of the mothers and brothers who gathered with me at the foot of the cross.  The only difference today is you do not have to imagine a community gathered with you at the cross.  We are right here with you.  We are struggling right along with you on this journey called discipleship.  Together, starting at the foot of the cross, we will find our way.  Amen.

[i] Jim Green Somerville, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),300, 302.

[ii] Karoline M. Lewis, John (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 218-219.

[iii] Lewis, 222.

[iv] C. Clifton Black, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),303.

[v][v] Lewis, 229.

On Race, Lent, and Children…

Tags

America, brokenness, children, Civil Rights, confess, Jesus, Lent, prayer, race, racism, repentance, shame, sin, unite

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

This past week, our family traveled to Mississippi to visit friends.  On the trip we were able to see both the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.  While the museums were appropriate for our older child, who has been studying the Civil War and Reconstruction in her Social Studies Class, our younger child was a bit mystified by the museums.  She struggled with understanding the concept of history versus modern day, but she especially struggled with why people were hurting and killing each other.  She clearly made the connection that Caucasians (or “peach-skinned” people as she called them) were being mean to African-Americans (or “brown-skinned” people), but she could not fathom why.  With every video or picture, I was barraged with questions about why people were doing what they were doing, or why someone would kill someone like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Explaining the atrocities of American racial history to a five-year old is one of the most gut-wrenching experiences I have had.  I already struggle with the shame of our history and my participation in racism.  But to expose my child to the sinfulness and brokenness of our country made the shame deeper.  As the museum bombarded me with statistics around racial disparities, as prerecorded voices shouted out awful words that were once shouted out to people of color, and as “Precious Lord,” or “We Shall Overcome,” played overhead, I was reminded of all that we have been through as a country, and how much further we have to go.

In Lent, we do a lot of confessing of our sinfulness and working on repentance.  On Ash Wednesday, we confessed our exploitation of other people, our blindness to human need and suffering, and for “all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us.”[i]  In the Great Litany this Lent, we prayed, “From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity, Good Lord, deliver us.”[ii]  In the Exhortation in the Penitential Order, the priest asked us to “Examine your lives and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, that you may perceive wherein you have offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or deed. And acknowledge your sins before Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life, being ready to make restitution for all injuries and wrongs done by you to others; and also being ready to forgive those who have offended you, in order that you yourselves may be forgiven.  And then, being reconciled with one another, come to the banquet of that most heavenly Food.”[iii]

As we finish these last days of Lent, as we hear the passion narrative on Sunday, and as we walk the days of Holy Week next week, I am reminded of how much work we still have to do.  For me, I will be contemplating the ways in which I participate in the systems and practices of racism in our community, working to not only be better, but to teach my children to be better.  And knowing our work of repentance is on-going, I look forward to our Eastertide book study that will allow us to delve into these issues even more.  This week I pray for the whole human family:

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.[iv]

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

[i] Book of Common Prayer (BCP), 268.

[ii] BCP, 149.

[iii] BCP, 317.

[iv] BCP, 815.

On Shielding the Joyous…

Tags

cautious, evil, God, grow, happy, joy, joyous, prayer, shield, sinfulness, spread

Photo credit:  https://www.rebeccahintze.com/blog/2018/1/23/how-to-create-joy-in-your-life/

A couple of weeks ago a parishioner of mine asked me what had changed.  “Changed?” I asked.  “Yes,” he said.  “You seem full of joy lately.  You are almost glowing at the altar.”  I have been thinking about his observation and wondering what the cause could be – what might be the reason my countenance has changed.  And then I realized what it must be.  I am happy.  I am full of joy and that joy is evident.

As a pastor, and someone who sees the worst of the worst at times, I am very cautious about claiming joy or happiness.  I think there is something deep in the recesses of my subconscious that is afraid to claim joy or happiness because I am afraid to jinx it.  If I simply say aloud, “I’m happy,” surely some tragedy will come along and steal my joy.  I also think the power of evil slips in at times and tries to convince me that joy or happiness is equal to perfection; if life is not perfect, it cannot be happy or joyous either.  On one level, my hesitancy around claiming joy is silly and superstitious.  But on another level, I have begun to wonder if it is selfish.  By not claiming my joy, claiming my happiness, I do not allow those around me to know how happy they make me.  But, equally important, by not claiming my joy, I do not allow God’s joy to spread.

In The Book of Common Prayer, one of my favorite prayers comes from Compline.  It reads, “Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.  Amen.”   (BCP, 134)  I have always loved the petition “shield the joyous,” because we ask God to protect not just those who are suffering, but also those who are experiencing joy.  Maybe we ask that because joy can be fleeting.  But maybe we ask that because we know the sinfulness of the world would rather squash joy than have it thrive, grow, and spread.

Knowing full well I could jinx things, I ask your prayers that God might shield my joy:  that God might help me to celebrate the myriad ways I love my church and the joy my parishioners give me every day; that God might help me honor my daughters and husband by telling them how much joy they give me, even in the tiny things; that God might help me to shout on the mountaintop how much we love being a part of Williamsburg, the friends we are making, the connections we are establishing, and the service in which we are engaging.  And then, I ask your prayers that I might take that protection of my joy and share it with others – so that we might be a people of joy, sharing joy, spreading joy.  If you need a little joy, or you want to pile on some joy, let me know.  I am happy to share and receive.  And when my well of joy runs low, I will look for your joy to bring me back up.  Together we will keep praying for God to shield the joyous, for all of our sakes!

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?

GC79: Prayer and Presence

Tags

asylum, Detention, families, General Convention, God, Hutto, immigration, isolation, prayer, presence, women

Photo credit:  Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly (reuse with permission)

On Sunday of General Convention, the Convention invited us to step out into the world on issues of injustice.  The Bishops gathered to protest against gun violence in the morning.  At midday, we were all invited not to a protest, but a prayer service – a service of solidarity with our sisters seeking asylum in this country.  I was a bit conflicted about the prayer service.  My parishioners have been trying to reconcile their sense of the injustice of families being torn apart at our borders, but with divergent opinions about how immigration and asylum should work in the United States.  I certainly have my opinions about the matter, but I always try to honor the diversity of our community.

Ultimately, I decided that we can always stand to pray.  And so, with a friend and her one-year old daughter, we drove to the Hutto Detention Center for a prayer service.  The Hutto Detention Center was once a prison in Texas.  It is run by a privately-held, for-profit corporation, and hosts women – some of whom have been separated from their children, but all of whom are awaiting help from lawyers as they process asylum petitions.  The day was sweltering hot, and we were in a field by the Center.  Around 1,200 Episcopalians had gathered, with a line of buses surrounding us that had brought many from Austin.  The former identity as a prison was obvious – small, skinny windows, stark, cold walls, high, barbed fences.  Songs were spontaneous at times:  We Shall Overcome, Amazing Grace, This Little Light of Mine.  There were spoken prayers, and impassioned pleas for justice.

I found myself staring out at the building, wondering about the stories, fear, and suffering inside.  I later learned that there have been high occurrences of sexual assault in the Detention Center.  As the child we were with cooed and chattered, I wondered about the hole in my heart I would feel if my children were stripped from me – children I would protect at all costs.  A portion of the crowd walked to the street to get closer and I felt myself drawn to their path.  I wanted a connection with the women inside so deeply.

As we stopped at the entrance, chants began.  “We see you, God loves you.”  “You are not alone.”  Songs followed.  As tense, cold guards stood in front of us (for whom I was grateful and sympathetic toward), I found my grief increasing.  There were rumors that the guards would have pulled the women away from the windows, so it was possible that they would not even hear us.  But as we began to move back to the field, we saw them – women waving in windows, waiving towels behind tall windows.  Later, we would find out from Grassroots Leadership that, “A woman called from Hutto after today’s prayer and told us they were glued to the windows until the last bus left the detention center.  Women inside were crying, saying they knew they weren’t alone after seeing so many people there.”

I know this is a complicated issue for many of us.  But I have to tell you, prayer, relationship, and empathy would certainly get us a long way.  Those are humans, fleeing violence, degradation, and persecution in their home countries, stuck behind cold walls, being persecuted in another country.  And for that, we could all stand to do a lot more praying.

GC79: When People Start Getting Real…

Tags

apathy, children of God, compromise, conversation, Episcopal, General Convention, Jesus, justice, prayer, relationship, truth, uncomfortable

General Convention, July 6, 2018.  Photo credit: Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly (reuse with permission)

One of the things that I am finding powerful about General Convention is a willingness to enter into a time of truth-telling.  Before I arrived, the House of Bishops hosted a listening session of stories from women who have been sexually harassed or abused in the context of the church.  From what I hear it was a powerful experience of honesty and vulnerability, and I believe many of the bishops (most of whom are male) were moved by the experience.

Last night, I sat in on a hearing for people to offer their testimonies about a couple of resolutions involving marriage rights, particularly same-sex marriages.  Much of the conversation was about a resolution put forth involving a compromise (B012).  According to the resolution, bishops can still make decisions with their conscious for their priests and diocese, but would give permission for any priests who feel called to celebrate same-sex marriages to do so with the oversight of another bishop of the Church.  The testimonies lasted for almost two hours (not including the two hours earlier in the day), and many things became abundantly clear.  Our LGBTQ brothers and sisters are hurting and longing to be treated as equal children of God.  And our more conservative brothers and sisters are fearful about not being able to be faithful to their understanding of Scripture and tradition.  The tension was high.  But also present was a spirit of graciousness.  People of opposing views were sitting beside one another, able to make eye contact and stay in the room.  I came away realizing that what I was seeing was what compromise looks like – no one fully happy, but a path forward for now.  And in a county that seems incapable of compromise, it was a gift to see the Church moving in that direction.

And then today, we spent time together talking about Racial Reconciliation – a topic that my conversation partner said has been a topic for twenty years of General Conventions – which means we haven’t gotten there yet.  It was an inspiring, beautiful, hard time, but a time I was glad to see us have.  One of my favorite speakers, the Rev. Nancy Frausto, had this to say, “This society has been contaminated by the plague of apathy.”  In other words, in a political environment where injustice is rampant, we cannot afford to let apathy infect us.

I do not know where these conversations will lead.  I suspect we will not solve the world’s ills at this Convention.  But what we are starting to do is show the world what it means to be a diverse people who stay together, find a compromise, and love and lead together.  It is not easy.  In fact, it’s pretty uncomfortable. But following Jesus is pretty uncomfortable too.  If the Church can’t do it, I’m not sure we can ask anyone else to do that work.  I’m proud of the Episcopal Church tonight.  And I will continue to hold her in my prayers.

On Discipleship and Decisions…

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decisions, disciple, discipleship, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, General Convention, identity, Jesus, prayer

Photo credit:  https://religionnews.com/2015/07/02/episcopal-church-expansive-inclusive-thanks-gay-marriage-votes-commentary/

Today, I am traveling to Austin for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.  General Convention meets every three years and is a bicameral legislature that includes the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops, composed of deputies and bishops from each diocese. During General Convention, deputies and bishops consider a wide range of important matters facing the Church.  Some years the issues have a huge impact (examples include the ordination of women and members of the LGBTQ community, as well as same-sex marriage).  Other years, General Convention works on important issues that are less flashy.  Regardless of the news cycle, the work of General Convention is about continuing to define who and whose we are, and making sure our work reflects our identity.

I am attending this year as an alternate clergy deputy for the Diocese of Southern Virginia.  My work is to support the eight clergy and lay deputies and our bishops, helping them make important decisions, and filling in when breaks are needed.  The official meetings take place July 5-13, but there are already many committee meetings happening.

In talking to a clergy colleague about my participation in General Convention he asked me, “Why in the world did you volunteer?”  I have been thinking (and laughing) about that question, and after reflection, I realized why I was so interested in serving.  One of the things I preach about a lot is about identity – understanding it, naming it, living into it.  In the current climate of the United States, our identity as disciples of Jesus is an anchor.  But just saying we are disciples without critically examining our lives through that lens does little good.  For me, being a part of General Convention is a way of participating in the work of honing our identity as Episcopalians, and where applicable, helping us to better live into that identity.

I look forward to serving the broader church, our Diocese, and ultimately my parish through this work.  This kind of work creates the space for making us all better, and I am hopeful about what the week can bring.  I ask your prayers for the General Convention over the next many days.  Like any family, parish, Diocese, or church who tries to come to consensus across differences, we will need your prayers to listen deeply, speak intentionally, and make decisions thoughtfully and prayerfully.  I look forward to sharing this experience with you!