Homily – 2 Corinthians 2.14–17, Matthew 6.19–23, Andrei Rublev, January 29, 2015

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Christ, devotion, God, homily, icon, Rublev, senses, spirituality

Today we honor the life and work of Andrei Rublev.  Generally acknowledged as Russia’s greatest iconographer, Andrei was born around 1365 near Moscow.  At a young age he became a monk in an orthodox monastery.  There he began to study iconography.  Icons are central to orthodox spirituality.  They are used both in liturgies and in personal devotion.  Icons are not physical portraits, but instead are images of someone meant to provide access to the spiritual and divine.  For Andrei, painting an icon was a spiritual exercise. As he worked, he would reportedly say the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me).  His icons were ways of accessing God in a unique way.

I first encountered icons in college.  Having grown up in the United Methodist Church, the devotional use of icons was a foreign experience.  But on my ecumenical mission trips, I was introduced to modern icons of Martin de Porres and Oscar Romero.  The images were jarring and gave me small window into the lives of these modern-day saints.  These stories, in turn, inspired in me a new sense of passion for the Gospel.  This is what icons are supposed to do – jar the senses in such a way that one experiences God in new and fresh ways.

Our lessons for 2 Corinthians and Matthew highlight the ways our senses play a role in our faith.  2 Corinthians talks about the aroma or fragrance of Christ.  At first, that language sounded foreign to me, but then I remembered the many times incense has stirred something in my faith.  That one fragrance can totally change a worship experience, opening up the holy in unexpected ways.  Meanwhile, our gospel lesson talks about the eye and how the eye can be a source of light – like the experience of praying with icons, our visual cues are what bring most of us to a more focused place of worship – whether seeing a crucifix, the drama of the Eucharistic prayer, or the flickering of a candle, these visuals bring our focus back to God who is trying to connect with us in new and fresh ways.

Our invitation today is to find which senses might be out of touch with God.  Maybe we haven’t been really paying attention to the taste of the Eucharistic meal.  Maybe we haven’t been listening to the power of music to lift us up.  Maybe we have not been seeing the beauty of this space and all that the space inspires in us.  These are the gifts God gives us every day – sensing ways of making our faith fresh and engaging.  How might God be inviting reconnection with you?  Amen.

Anticipating Advent…

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Advent, Jesus, prayer, quiet, spirituality

Advent is a season that often gets lost in the buildup to Christmas.  For many of us, Advent is simply pre-Christmas.  Pre-Christmas entails buying gifts, juggling parties, meal planning and cooking, and generally running around at break-neck speed.

Unlike pre-Christmas, Advent invites us into a completely different posture.  Advent invites us into a quiet expectation.  We know that something incredible is coming – the birth of the Christ Child.  And we hold our breaths in anticipation, waiting to marvel at the miracle of Jesus’ birth.  Advent is the Church’s gift to us – a time for contemplation and prayer.

The funny thing about Advent is that the Church usually forgets to slow down too.  Like everyone else, we schedule Quiet Days, parties, and learning.  We squeeze in meetings before the end of the year, and we rush to keep up with the liturgies.  But this year, something is a little different at St. Margaret’s.  Because of the Hurricane, many things that were planned were either canceled or delayed.  Therefore we do not have a Quiet Day, there is no Diocesan Convention, and there are fewer meetings.  However, what is left seems right:  an Annual Meeting to review what has been an incredible year; a Movies with Margaret night that is light enough for us to learn and share easily; a Christmas party for us to gather in fellowship with the entire community; and some incredible liturgies, including Advent Lessons and Carols, our Cemetery Memorial service (a wonderful gift for those who find the Christmas holidays difficult), and two very different Christmas Eve services.

Given that St. Margaret’s has enabled us all to slow down a little bit, I invite us all to treat Advent like a spiritual discipline.  Come to Church every Sunday in Advent.  Find a devotional to direct your time daily (see resources below).  Carve out some time to just come to the Church and sit quietly with God.  Our intentional observance of Advent is a gift that we can give to ourselves this year and that we can share with a friend or neighbor.  During what can be a noisy season, Advent at St. Margaret’s might just become the best gift you give to someone else this year.

Resources for Advent

1)  Advent Calendar/Devotional:  Fling Wide the Doors

2)  Book:  Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent, by Enuma Okoro

3)  Other Diocesan Suggestions:  Mercer School

Sermon – 1 Samuel 1.4-20; 2.1-10, P28, YB, November 18, 2012

Tags

God, prayer, Sermon, spirituality, vulnerability

I have been thinking a lot about prayer this week.  Prayer is one of those parts of my life that is always a struggle.  I have learned all sorts of methods of prayer over the years and have leaned on various methods when I needed certain kinds of guidance.  But there are times when I can tell that my prayer life has gotten off track.  One of the recurring questions that every spiritual director has asked me is, “Have you lifted this up to God in prayer?”  I always hate when that question comes up, because inevitably the answer is no.  I am the kind of person who will diligently work and struggle to figure something out or will bear pain alone for quite some time before the thought occurs to me to offer up my burden to God.

A video has been circulating on the internet lately called, “Coffee with Jesus.”  In the video, a man meets Jesus for coffee, which is his prayer time.  The video shows a two-minute montage of prayer requests, attempts to pray the Lord’s Prayer, and requests for superficial things, all the while with Jesus waiting patiently to speak.  When the man finally stops talking and takes a breath, Jesus leans forward to speak.  But before Jesus can start, the man cuts him off – closing his prayer with an abrupt “amen,” and running out of the coffee shop for his next appointment.[i]  The video of this man’s superficial, wandering, disjointed prayer that makes no space for listening to God is both funny and painfully uncomfortable.  The truth is that many of us resist deep, abiding prayer that is vulnerable and that cedes control to God.  Only when we hit rock bottom do we finally come to God in authentic and meaningful prayer.

As we read Hannah’s story today, I wonder if Hannah did not have the same problem with God.  Hannah is barren.  Now if you remember, in biblical times, barrenness is a condition that excludes women from community.  By not producing a child, not only is the woman seen as less than others, there are often accusations made about her sinfulness:  barrenness was believed a form of divine punishment.[ii]  So Hannah is cut off from society.  Then Hannah has the great misfortune to have Peninnah as a co-wife.  Now, co-wives were a given at that time, but this co-wife was the worst.  As if Hannah’s shame and sadness were not enough, Peninnah taunts Hannah about her barrenness.  Perhaps Peninnah treats Hannah horribly because she is jealous of her husband’s love for Hannah, but nothing excuses Peninnah’s behavior.  Peninnah, mother of many children, flaunts her fertility in the cruelest way.  Hannah’s husband, Elkanah, is not much better.  He certainly tries to care for Hannah – he gives her a double portion for sacrifices, and he deeply desires to personally fill the void created from a lack of children.  But Elkanah’s way of supporting Hannah only shows that he does not fully understand the experience of barrenness.[iii]  And as if all of this was not enough, even Eli, the priest, is equally unsupportive.  Eli sees her silent prayers in the temple, and he accuses her of drunkenness.  With everyone in her life against her, we hardly have to imagine how Hannah ends up in the temple, deeply distressed and weeping bitterly.

What I wonder though is why Hannah takes so long to go to God.  We do not hear of Hannah going earlier in life to God about her barrenness.  We do not hear about Hannah going to God about Peninnah before years of taunting accumulate.  We do not hear about Hannah going to God about her marriage.  Instead she copes with tears and refusing to eat.  I can almost imagine the spiritual director asking, “Have you taken any of this to God?”  Hannah has to become completely overwhelmed before she finally cedes her utter devastation to God.  Only when the burden is so overwhelming that she can no longer muscle the burden herself does she finally go to God.

We all follow the pattern of Hannah at some point in our lives.  We have some strange notion of being so in control of our lives that we should only burden God once things have gotten out of control.  We have all spent our prayer time without being truly, nakedly vulnerable with God.  We refuse to cede control to God even when only the two of us are in the room.  We are so stubborn with God – so guarded, so non-trusting, and so territorial.  I am reminded of that ol’ time hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”  The hymn is all about our prayer life, but one line in particular says, “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

Luckily God shows us all what can happen when we finally take everything to God.  Hannah finally breaks down and gives her pain to God.  She comes to God with the raw reality of pain.  She is not afraid of what others will think of her prayers, even if they assume she is drunk.  Hannah’s willingness to come before God, to give everything to God out of her utter isolation, results in the birth of Samuel.  Samuel not only relieves Hannah’s burden, Samuel is a gift back to God, and a gift for the entire people of Israel.  God’s blessing for Hannah is not just the fulfillment of a bargain.  God acts through Hannah to offer promise for all God’s people.  In fact, through Samuel, Israel’s first king, Saul, will be appointed.  Israel will become great, and their great king, David will rise from a lowly shepherd boy to become their leader.[iv]

We understand the enormity of this action when we hear Hannah’s song that we read today in lieu of a psalm.  Hannah’s song is only partially about her own personal victory.  Hannah’s song is about the victory of God in the face of uncertainty.  Hannah’s song illustrates how God acts in a way that totally upends the entire social order.  “He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor,” proclaims Hannah.  Samuel’s birth is not just for Hannah; Samuel’s birth is a promise for the entire people of God.  We see in Hannah’s experience in prayer that when we finally do give everything to God in prayer, God’s response can be more immense than we could ever ask for or imagine.

Hannah’s story gives us several gifts this morning.  First, Hannah reminds us of the joys of a rich prayer life with God.  Hannah’s prayer life is not perfect, and neither will ours be, but when we dare to be fully vulnerable with God in prayer, Hannah shows us the abundant blessings that await.  Second, Hannah reminds us that God responds to us.  We may not hear a booming voice from above that tells us the right thing to do or we may not receive an email confirmation that our request has been received, but God does respond to us in tangible ways.  The answer may not be what we want to hear, but God will respond to us in a way that offers us comfort.  Finally, Hannah reminds us of the dramatic ways that God is acting in the world around us, even when those needs are the furthest from our minds.  Hannah did not ask God to subvert the social order, but in God’s action to restore Hannah to fertility, God manages to do so much more by restoring all the people of God through the birth of Samuel.[v]  Our invitation today is to follow Hannah’s lead, to let down our guard with God, and to marvel at the wonderful deeds that God has done.  Amen.

---

[i] http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/mini-movies/10219/Coffee-With-Jesus.  Found on November 17, 2012.

[ii] Frank M. Yamada, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 291.

[iii] Martin B. Copenhaver, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 292.

[iv] Kate Foster Connors, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 298.

[v] Connors, 298.

Prayer…

Tags

God, hurricane, prayer, scripture, spirituality, suffering

Save me, O God, *
for the waters have risen up to my neck.

I am sinking in deep mire, *
and there is no firm ground for my feet.

I have come into deep waters, *
and the torrent washes over me.

I have grown weary with my crying; my throat is inflamed; *
my eyes have failed from looking for my God.

One of the things that got disrupted when we lost power for a week was my morning routine of praying Morning Prayer in the Church once my husband is off to work and my daughter is off to school.  Before I let myself get overwhelmed with the day’s tasks, I try to center my day with Morning Prayer.  Part of what I love about Morning Prayer is that it keeps the scriptures actively in my prayer life.  From time to time, a text that I would never have picked out myself jumps out at me with vital meaning for the day.

That happened last week when I was finally able to get back to some semblance of normalcy after the Hurricane and Nor’easter.  Psalm 69 was the assigned psalm, and before I could even get past verse one, I was overwhelmed with the images of the past two weeks:  destructive waters covering homes and businesses; the waves of water sweeping away children; the tears as homes burned to the ground.  Scripture, and especially the psalms, does not often literally describe what is happening in modern times.  But on this day, in this time, this psalm seemed to be an ode to those of us recovering from Hurricane Sandy.

But the psalm also beautifully did what psalms always do – metaphorically capture the struggles and joys that we face.  As I prayed this psalm, the waters became the anxieties that were up to my neck.  The mire was the mess of emotions left behind as life did not return to normal.  The deep waters were the struggles that seemed insurmountable, whose torrents kept pushing us under.

“In your great mercy, O God, *
 answer me with your unfailing help.

Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; *
 let me be rescued from those who hate me and out of the deep waters.

Let not the torrent of waters wash over me, neither let the deep swallow me up; *
do not let the Pit shut its mouth upon me.

Answer me, O LORD, for your love is kind; *
in your great compassion, turn to me.”

And like any good psalm, in addition to venting my pain, the psalm invited me to turn to God, giving words to my prayer.  But the prayer was not just my prayer.  The prayer was a prayer for all of us.  For parishioners still without power, for parishioners facing the cost of cleanup, for neighbors not so far from us who lost everything.  The words not only offered a tender request to God, they also offered the urgency that I felt in the depths of my heart.  I am so grateful for Holy Scripture in times like these – in times when the people of God have been there before and who give me permission to be fully human and vulnerable with God.

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you…

Tags

faith, God, prayer, spirituality

On of my new favorite places is the prayer candle station at St. Margaret’s.  I was first introduced to prayer candles at my field education parish in Alexandria, VA.  I always marveled at the beauty of the candles burning, but never understood the practice fully.  Then, a year and a half ago, I went on pilgrimage with my parish in Delaware.  A colleague shared with me her practice of lighting candles and praying for people throughout the pilgrimage, and I became an immediate convert.  I started carrying coins and small bills just so that I had something to put in the donation box at each church as I lit candles along the way.

So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered that St. Margaret’s had a prayer candle station.  I love those candles for so many reasons.  Sometimes my prayers or my silence in prayer just is not tangible enough.  Lighting a candle makes me feel like I am doing something.  But once the candle is lit, it does so much more.  Watching the flickering of the candle calms the “doer” in me.  The flame’s flicker makes my prayer feel active – as if the prayer is alive outside of my heart.  Sometimes just staring at the flame allows me to quite myself enough to listen to God.  The active flame allows my energy to be somewhere outside of me so that I can be thoroughly silent.  There is also great comfort in the way that the flame burns for hours after I leave.  Even though am not bodily present, my prayer lingers on without me.

But what I especially love about our prayer candles is that they are not just for me.  Parishioners use them all the time – remembering those who have died, worrying about the health of a loved one, or lifting up their own struggles to God.  Having just blessed several pets, I imagine there has been a candle or two for a beloved pet.  I see our young children lighting candles.  I do not know if they fully understand the practice, but I sense that they understand that something holy is happening when they light those candles.  We often have family members of those buried in our cemetery on Sundays, and they often light a candle.  My favorite, though, happens when I walk into the nave at night, when all the lights are out, as I am rushing to another meeting.  I catch in the corner of my eye that one or more candles are burning.  At those moments, in the darkness, I pray to God for whoever has lit the candle, knowing that I am witness to the sacred conversation between someone and God.

Last week we celebrated St. Francis, and as I prepared to preach about him, I discovered that he asked that Psalm 141 be read to him as he was dying.  Verse two of that psalm has been replaying in my head all week, “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.”  Sometimes, I think we assume our prayers are only a mental exercise – words we craft for God.  But our prayers involve all our senses – our hands that light candles, touching the flame to the wick; our eyes that watch the life of our prayers in the flame; our noses that smell the fragrance of incense lifted to God.  How is God inviting you into prayer this week?  What sensory practices feed your journey with Christ?

Refreshment…

Tags

faith, hunger, spirituality

This weekend my parish is hosting its annual Fall Festival.  Like any major event, there is a flutter of activity and anxiety about making the event a success – both for the tangible results of raising money for the parish and our outreach efforts, but also for the satisfaction of seeing months of labor come to fulfilling fruition.  Consequently, the St. Margaret’s campus is a bit different this week.  There are many more people on the campus, a lot more activity around the church, and the grounds have been beautifully transformed as we prepare for our guests.

In the midst of all this flurry comes Yom Kippur.  The average church might not notice Yom Kippur, but St. Margaret’s is blessed to be neighbors with a wonderful synagogue.  We offer up our parking lot for their congregants this day, and the neighborhood is transformed with people walking to worship.  On this overcast day, I am grateful for the pause that our Jewish brothers and sisters are giving me.  On this day that our brothers and sisters fast, pray, and confess their sins, I am reminded of my own need to root myself in devotion to God, even when it feels like there is no time.  My brothers and sisters, simply by living out their faith, are encouraging me this day to take a break from all the flurry of life to remember why I have life, and why that life is so abundant.

Tonight, I am grateful for the opportunity to take a similar pause with my faith community.  Tonight we begin a six-week series focused on hunger.  Even in Plainview, New York, there are people who struggle with hunger.  And so we are gathering together to prayerfully reflect on scripture, to educate ourselves on the complexities of hunger, and to inspire ourselves to live out Jesus’ call to feed the hungry.  As I was preparing to teach tonight’s session, I began to wonder whether this week was a good week to start an education series, given all our stress and anxiety about the Fall Festival.  But eventually, I came to see that this is just what we need before this event.  Not only does taking this hour help us to get out of our own stress and think about a very different imminent stress that our neighbors face everyday.  Focusing on hunger tonight can give us the motivation we need to raise as much money as we can to help combat hunger here on Long Island.  I am thinking of tonight’s class as a water-break for the soul in a marathon of running this week.  I am looking forward to the refreshment!