On the Power of Pancakes…

Tags

community, dignity, feast, homeless, humanity, Jesus, meal, normal, pancakes, parish, profound, Shrove Tuesday, simple

Photo credit:  https://stpauls-exton.com/event/shrove-tuesday-pancake-supper/

Last night we had our annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper at Hickory Neck Episcopal Church.  In some ways, the evening was just like every other year:  pancakes, sausage, and cake were in abundance, people donned their beads, and festive music was in the air.  But this year there was one big difference.  We shared the evening with some special guests.  You see, we signed up to host a week of our community’s emergency winter shelter – but without checking the liturgical calendar.  So, we had two options – invite our guests to join us, or find an alternate location for our festivities.  The decision was not an easy one.  We talked for months about the theology of hospitality and service.  We talked about the realities of life for our guests, who are often tired and usually want to get some sleep as soon as possible.  We talked about privacy, fellowship, and discomfort.  In the end, we decided sharing the evening was the most authentic, hospitable way forward, not being entirely sure how the evening would go.

In my mind the evening had two potential outcomes.  The first one I imagined was of a typical middle school dance – the girls on one side of the room and the boys on the other, neither being bold enough to get out there and dance.  I worried that our guests would feel awkward or put on the spot to socialize.  I worried that our parishioners would feel uncomfortable and would avoid contact with our guests.  The other outcome I imagined was a profound evening, where guests and parishioners would mingle with ease, where deep conversations would be had, and where God would be palpably present.  In that scenario, we would see God in the faces of each other, and we would be deeply transformed.

The reality of the evening was neither of my scenarios came to fruition.  Luckily, no one behaved awkwardly or made anyone feel uncomfortable.  But there was also not a sense of deep transformation last night.  Instead, the evening was simple, authentic, and real.  Some of the guests and parishioners kept to themselves or stuck with those like them.  Some of the guests and parishioners shared in conversation over the feast.  Children played with parishioners and guests alike, serving as a great equalizer.  Jokes and laughter were shared, a meal was had in relaxed community, and the evening ended with the goodbyes of old friends.  The only thing profound about the evening was that it was profoundly normal.

As I reflect back, I suppose that is the best outcome we could have had.  Jesus sat with all sorts of people over meals, not necessarily to have contrived, poignant encounters, but to serve as an equalizer with people who were not treated equally.  Jesus knew the power of food to move people toward honoring the dignity of every human being.  That is what we did last night.  We had fun, we feasted until we could feast no more, and we honored our baptismal covenant by seeking and serving Christ in every person, loving our neighbor as our self, and respecting the dignity of other human beings.  Not bad for a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper!

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Sermon – Luke 11.1-13, P12, YC, July 24, 2016

Tags

action, active, disciples, God, goodness, Jesus, Lord's Prayer, Our Father, passive, pray, prayer, profound, relational, relationship, Sermon, tangible

This morning I have a little confession.  When I look at the texts for the upcoming Sunday each week, I rarely am excited about what lessons are presented.  Invariably, Jesus will say or do something controversial or, like today, the Old Testament lesson will say something super provocative that I do not want to think about addressing in the pulpit.  But this week was a bit different.  When I read today’s gospel, and heard the disciples asking Jesus to teach them how to pray, I wanted to cry, Yes, yes, Jesus!  Tell us what to do.  Teach us how to pray.  Because lately, my prayers seem hollow.  Whether I am praying about the nastiness and disrespect within this year’s political campaigns, whether I am praying about the sinfulness of racism in our country, whether I am praying about the way we dehumanize one another enough to think it is okay to shoot each other, or whether I am praying about someone who is not likely to recover from their illness and is facing the reality of mortality – I need Jesus to teach me how to pray.  I need Jesus to teach me how to pray, because I do not feel like my prayers are working.  “Lord, teach us to pray,” the disciples beg with a spirit helplessness, hopelessness, and haplessness that we can all identity with this week.

Into that sense of despair and longing, Jesus does two incredible things.  First, he gives the disciples something simple and tangible – something to cling to in the most desperate of times.  Jesus gives them what we call, “the Lord’s Prayer,” or the “Our Father.”  Luke’s version is not the version of this prayer that we are most familiar with – we know Matthew’s version much more familiarly.  In fact, even Christians who have been away from church most of their adult life can recall this one prayer.  We know the words so well that they become their own prayer beads, each word a talisman that our fingers and souls can cling to when our head and hearts are a jumbly mess.  The Lord’s Prayer is one for the ages – telling us what we know about God, what we hope for about the kingdom, and what we need as we go about our earthly lives.  Surely those words address all that we are facing right now.  Surely, when we have run out of our own words, those are words that we can mutter over and over again.  Surely those are the things we need:  God to reveal God’s self, to right the world, to sustain us, to forgive us and help us forgive others, and to protect us from ourselves and the enemy.  And on days when we do not have words, those are words that we can pray.  Jesus is very practical with his gift of a prayer for the ages.

But then Jesus does a second thing.  After giving the disciples something tangible, then he tries to teach them something much more profound.  He teaches the disciples about what prayer really is.  After giving the disciples the “Our Father,” Jesus does what Jesus always does – he sits them down for a little story.  Basically, an annoyingly persistent friend comes pounding on the door of a neighboring friend, looking for food to give to an unexpected guest. It’s midnight, and the irritated friend tells him to go home – everyone in his house has finally settled in for the night, and there is no way he is getting up.  But the friend “persists, and eventually the poor householder relents, not out of the charities of friendship but simply for the sake of his own peace and quiet.”[i]

The story is not the prettiest, but anyone who has had to put down a toddler for the fortieth time that evening knows how persistent that friend would have to be for the neighbor to risk waking up his children.  Jesus’ conclusion about the story of a persistent friend is, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”  This is where Jesus’ teaching gets tricky though.  Too many of us know that there have been times when we asked and we did not find, it was not given to us, and the door was not opened.  Those words from Jesus can seem empty for those of us who have experienced the opposite.  But Jesus is not describing the economy of prayer: that you insert a request, and, with persistence, you get what you want.  What Jesus is trying to say is that prayer is about relationship.  Like the relationship that we have with the buddy who will get up in the middle of the night, our prayer life with God is a reflection of the relationship with have with God.  Our prayer life is dynamic, involves conflict, necessitates initiative, and is relational.

One of my favorite hymns growing up was “What a friend we have in Jesus.”  The hymn is a sweet, simplistic hymn that basically says that we too often try to shoulder our burdens on our own.  The hymn argues that if we take our sins and grief, our trails and temptations, our weakness and heavy laden burdens, we will find solace in God.  The hymn is comforting, and its simplicity can make us feel good.  But as I thought about that hymn this week and our text today, I realized that the hymn tempts us in the same way that this text does.  The hymn tempts us into concluding that all we have to do is ask, seek, and knock, and everything will be okay.  All we have to do is “take it to the Lord in prayer,” or even say the Lord’s prayer, and everything will be okay.

But I do not think that is what Jesus is saying today.  By talking about how prayer is relational between God and us, how prayer is a practice that resembles the relationship of friends, we can come to understand prayer a little differently.  Like any healthy relationship, our relationship to God in prayer is going to change us.  Our time in prayer with God might lead us to finding, receiving, and having doors opened.  But our time in prayer might also lead us to acting, giving, and knocking doors down.  Jesus says that the sleeping friend gets up because of his friend’s persistence.  That word “persistence” in the Greek is translated alternatively as, “shamelessness.”[ii]  In other words, our prayers to God are to be shameless:  bold, audacious, and unfailingly confident.

As we think about our prayerful relationship with God, I was struck by a reflection by David Lose.  He asks, “How might we act differently this week if our prayers were offered to God confidently, trusting that God will respond so much more generously than any earthly parent?”   Perhaps [we] wouldn’t just sit back and wait for God to answer but would start moving, get to work, actually start living into the reality of what [we have] prayed for.  So rather than pray for someone who is lonely, maybe [we’d] go visit.  Rather than pray for an end to violence, maybe [we’d] campaign against the legality of military-grade semi-automatic weapons, or protest when police use unnecessary force, or go visit the police station to tell officers that [we are] grateful for their service and pray for their safety.[iii]  In other words, what if a prayerful relationship with God is not passive, but is active and challenging?

The good news is that despite all the heaviness of the news lately, and despite all the examples of intolerance and degradation, there are also examples percolating of goodness – the fruits of shameless prayer with our God.  In Dallas, I saw protestors hugging counter-protestors.  In Kansas, I saw police officers and Black Lives Matter protestors not only holding a block party together, but also making time during the party for a real, raw question-and-answer period.  In Cleveland, I saw protestors holding hands with a police officer and offering a prayer before the day’s events began.  Now, I am not saying that shameless praying with God is going to be easy or even lead to the open doors we want or think we need.  Anyone who has long-term friendships knows that friendship is hard.  But what I am saying is that prayer is powerful and when tended to, can lead to transformation.  So if you do not know where to start this week, start with the Lord’s Prayer.  If you are too frustrated or jaded to say those words, then just show up at God’s door.  As with any good relationship, showing up is half the battle.  Wherever you are in your prayer life, know that our God is a God who will answer – and will use us for goodness.  Amen.

[i] Stephanie Frey, “On God’s Case,” Christian Century, vol. 121, no. 14, July 13, 2004, 17.

[ii] James A. Wallace, C.SS.R., “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 291.

[iii] David J. Lose, “Pentecost 10C:  Shameless Prayer,” July 19, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/07/pentecost-10-c-shameless-prayer/ on July 20, 2016.

Sermon – Luke 22.14-23.56, PS, YC, March 20, 2016

Tags

burden, church, depravity, Easter, failure, gift, gratitude, Holy Week, Jesus, liturgy, Palm Sunday, profound, release, Sermon, sin

What strikes me this year about the passion narrative is the profound depth of failure.  We start off today with the glorious action of waving palms and declaring Christ to be the King, only to betray him and to deny that truth over and over again.  Judas, one of Jesus’ faithful disciples, fails Jesus by betraying him to the authorities.  The disciples fail Jesus by getting caught up in an argument about whom among them is the greatest – a self-centered argument on the best of days, but an utter failure of focus on Jesus’ last day.  Later the disciples fail Jesus by falling asleep while he prays in Gethsemane – when he had specifically pleaded with them to pray with him.  One of the disciples fails as he resorts to violence, striking one of the slaves of the high priest.  Peter, one of Jesus’ most loyal and insightful disciples, three times denies having known Jesus before others.  The leadership of the faithful fail over and over as they insist on Jesus’ death out of fear.  Pilate tries three times to release Jesus but succumbs to peer pressure and has Jesus killed despite the fact that he knows Jesus is innocent.  All the people gathered are willing to release a known murderer and insurrectionist in order to kill innocent Jesus.  Hanging in death, one of the two criminals by Jesus’ side derides Jesus to the end.  Even the soldiers mock Jesus as he hangs helplessly approaching death.

Jesus’ death on the cross is a grave enough sin to mourn today.  But when that sin is preceded by failure after failure after failure of the people to right their relationship with God, we see more clearly the deep recesses of human depravity.  The staggeringly long list of sins would be easy enough for us to dismiss as “those peoples’ sin.”  But that is part of the reason that we participate so tangibly in the liturgy today: waving palms, reading parts of the passion narrative, shouting “crucify him!”  We play an active role in the liturgy today so that we can understand how active our role is in the same sin of “those people.”  Listening to the story is heartbreaking – not just because watching others sin is hard to do, but also because we see ourselves in their sinfulness.  We know their failures because we fail too. We fail to honor Christ in our own day, we deny our Lord, we betray our God, we fail to be faithful disciples.[i]  Though there is a part of us that wants to claim we would never have been bystanders or participants in Jesus’ death, the scary reality is that we know we would have.[ii]  Their failure is our failure.

Acknowledging our utter depravity is important today.  We have spent the last six weeks pondering our sinfulness and working on amendment of life.  But perhaps we can never truly amend our lives without recognizing how deeply our sinfulness goes.  Our Lenten disciplines are meant to help us focus on one specific area of life that needs amendment, and in that way, our disciplines are effective means of bringing us closer to God.  But today, the Church reminds us that we have so much further to go.  Even if we managed to see amendment of life this Lent, today we are reminded of how our very nature is one of repetitious sinfulness that knows no bounds.

So why does the Church have us wallow so deeply in our sin today?  The primary reason we journey through the dark tunnel of our sinfulness and failures is so that we can more fully appreciate the enormity of next week.  Next week, our tone and content is almost the opposite – total joy and jubilation that our Lord is risen from the dead.  But in case we were tempted to become jaded by Easter – to be distracted by our new suits and dresses, the festive songs and flowers, or the bountiful meals – the Church wants us to remember how profoundly full of blessing Easter is.  The profound depth of our sinfulness is matched by the profound depth of love and forgiveness offered in Christ’s resurrection next week.  So although the depravity of this day may feel like overkill, that overkill is necessary for us to understand the shocking gift of Christ’s resurrection.  Although today’s sense of failure may feel overwhelming, I invite you to absorb the sobering reality of this day.  Carry that weight with you this week as we journey through the Holy Days.  If you are able to do that, the release of that burden on Easter Day may be more profound than any of the surface trappings of Easter.  And your cries of rejoicing will be born out of a place of deep gratitude and appreciation for the Lord our God, who loves us despite our failings.  As a people who know how little we deserve our Lord, we will rejoice with newfound appreciation of the God of love – the God who gave his only begotten Son, so that all that believe in him might have eternal life:  a tremendous gift indeed!  Amen.

[i] William G. Carter, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 182.

[ii] H. Stephen Shoemaker, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 181.