On Thanksgiving and Imperfection…

Tags

God, gratitude, imperfect, love, messy, perfect, ritual, shadow, sinner, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day

Photo credit:  https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/collections/thanksgiving/

The last two weeks have been marked with rituals of thanksgiving:  a community ecumenical Thanksgiving service at the local Roman Catholic Church, Holy Eucharist on Thanksgiving Day at Hickory Neck, dinner and visiting with my dad, and, today, offering the benediction at the 400^th anniversary of the first official English Thanksgiving in North America.  The rituals have all been tremendous blessings and ways to center and ground life in gratitude, a practice that can sometimes fall to the wayside in the busyness of life.

However, what has struck me about this season of gratitude is how imperfect it has been.  Often when we think of Thanksgiving Day, we immediately picture Norman Rockwell’s famous painting of the perfect meal.  But as I checked in with people and as I watched those around me, I realized nothing about this season of thanksgiving has been perfect.  I had parishioners who just welcomed a baby a few days before Thanksgiving Day and had resigned themselves to having Chinese so that no one would have to cook or stress about taking the newborn out.  I heard stories of family drama over the menu for the day.  My own family was coming off a few hospitalizations so resigned ourselves to dinner out – which then got foiled by a two-hour wait, with a wait staff that looked like they wanted to be home with their own families.  The music and collaboration of clergy was beautiful last week, but we hold in tension our denominational differences.  Even the anniversary celebration today is consciously honoring the ways in which the histories of American Indians, African-Americans, and English-Americans bring a shadow over our celebration.

As I have been pondering this imperfection, this disconnect between our ideal of perfected thanksgiving rituals and the reality of the messiness of life, I have actually found deep spiritual comfort.  Nothing about our lives is perfect.  We are all sinners, trying to be better versions of ourselves.  Even our offering of thanksgiving is imperfect.  But the love of God is perfect.  God sees our messiness and loves us anyway.  God sees the ways we hurt each other, the ways we argue, the ways we are rude or unkind, the ways that we cannot always honor our rituals, and God loves us anyway.  In fact, I sometimes wonder if God doesn’t prefer our imperfection, for in confessing our imperfection, we are fully honest, fully vulnerable, and fully trusting of God.  We bring our real selves to God, and it is there that we give the most heartfelt thanksgiving.  We feel, know, and experience God most powerfully in those moments of imperfection.

This week, I invite you to continue your practice of gratitude with God and one another.  In our thanksgiving, we are not just thanking one another for appearance’s sake, but we are thanking one another in fullness, in love, and in generosity.  Use this week to find people to thank – for the big things and the very tiny things.  My guess is we may all start working toward the perfection of God’s love with each act of thanksgiving.

On Dreams, Change, and Gratitude…

Tags

baptismal covenant, change, church, community, courage, deferred, dreams, faithfully, Holy Spirit, hope, humility, investment, Jesus, kingdom of God, need, proud, tenacity, Thanksgiving, work

Photo credit:  http://debragaz.com/2016/10/17/we-can-walk-together/

This week, as the buzz of insects filled the air, the heat reflected off the pavement as the sun rose, and the smell of blooming flowers lingered nearby, I greeted families and watched an age-old tradition of parents dropping off children at school.  Some of the families were rushed, the parents trying to get off to work.  Some families took things more slowly, savoring the goodbye of the day.  Some families were worn down by anxiety and tears – of children and adults.  In the hubbub of greeting these families, reality hit me:  Hickory Neck did it!

You see, over ten years ago, the community of Hickory Neck Episcopal Church had a dream – to turn the blessing of property into a blessing for the community:  meeting a desperate need for childcare in our part of our county.  Countless hours were spent by many church members planning, calculating, and organizing.  It would take a tremendous investment to create a school from scratch, but the passion and vision were there.  Unfortunately, the preparation was complete right before the economic recession hit.  And the dream was deferred.

But the needs did not change – in fact they grew as the presence of young families, especially those transplanted away from extended family, grew in our neighborhood.  Hickory Neck’s dream was what a Search Committee invited me to participate in:  to help them take the dream off the shelf, and live out their baptismal covenant more fully in their particular context.  And so, the work began again.  After months of discernment and honest conversations, we realized Hickory Neck’s dream could still meet the needs of the community.

A year later, on a steamy September morning, I was struck with a sense of awe by the Hickory Neck community.  I have been a part of many congregations, and one thing I have learned is most communities resist change.  They might need change; they might want change; they might even say they are ready for change.  But in the deep recesses of their minds and hearts, they do not really want change.  Change is scary and could disrupt what drew them there in the beginning.  But Hickory Neck is different.  Hickory Neck is a community who has been fluid and flexible, who even when her dream began to morph and change, did not dig in her feet, but instead stepped out into the unknown and said yes to the Holy Spirit.  The humility, boldness, courageousness, creativity, and gumption of Hickory Neck brought me to my knees this week.

I am so proud of our community for trying a brave new way of ministry – one that comes from the congregation, will be nurtured by the congregation, and will eventually feed the congregation.  Though I have helped navigate logistics behind the scenes, the truth is, I feel so incredibly privileged to simply accompany Hickory Neck in the fulfillment of her dream.  In these last two and half years, Hickory Neck has given me hope in the future of the church universal.  If communities of faith can cast a vision that betters the surrounding community, journey through adversity to achieve that dream, and then actually live into that dream faithfully, then I think there is hope beyond measure for the kingdom of God.

A few weeks ago, a county official said to me, “You must be so proud of yourself for doing such good work at Hickory Neck.”  But I shared with him, “No, I’m so proud of Hickory Neck.  They are an inspiration to me every day.”  Today, I thank you, Hickory Neck.  I thank you for your witness of bravery, passion, and hard work.  I thank you for inspiring me to be a better priest.  I thank you for letting me be a part of this fantastic journey, in this fantastic community, doing the fantastic work of Jesus.  I am so proud of what Hickory Neck has already accomplished.  I cannot wait to see where we go next!  Oh, and if you are not already connected to Hickory Neck, I encourage you to stop by.  You are in for an incredible treat.  Don’t worry:  we’ve already saved you a seat!

Sermon – Matthew 25.31-46, P29, YA, November 26, 2017

Tags

American, Christ the King, Christian, feeding, God, imprisoned, Jesus, king, kingdom of God, Messiah, naked, politics, Sermon, sick, stranger, Thanksgiving, thirst, vocation

This past weekend we celebrated one of the most significant American holidays.  Thanksgiving has evolved over time, but generally involves people gathering with family, friends, or neighbors over a meal to give thanks for the blessings of life.  The concept sounds rather innocuous, but the meal can be fraught with challenges.  A few days before Thanksgiving this year, I caught the results of a poll.  The poll said almost 70% of people were hoping to avoid talking about politics with their family this Thanksgiving holiday.  According to the survey, the percentage of people wanting to avoid talking about politics is one of the highest in years.  Even though the numbers are unprecedented, the results are probably not a surprise to anyone here.  Politics is one of those topics polite conversations are supposed to avoid anyway.  But given the especially high tensions of our political climate lately, I can totally understand why almost three-fourths of us would want to avoid talking about our country’s deep divisions and political differences.  No need to ruin a day of attempted unity with a conversation about the very thing that divides us most deeply.

So, on the Sunday following the day when everyone wants to avoid talking politics, what are we going to do?  Talk politics.  Now before you get too anxious, do not worry.  We are not invited to talk American politics.  Today, our readings invite us to talk about biblical politics.  Today, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday – the last Sunday in the liturgical year before we start Advent next week.  The feast of Christ the King is not actually that old of a feast.  Pope Pius XI established the feast day in 1925 in response to growing secularism and a deemphasis on the primacy of Christ.  At the time, Europe was seeing a rise in non-Christian dictators, many of whom were seeking to influence authority over the Church.  Pope Pius wanted to remind the Church who was the head of the church, and the primacy of Christ for the Church’s identity.  Establishing Christ the King Sunday was not only a bold move by Pope Pius, the feast day was also needed if the Church were going to remain loyal to its identity.

The historical setting of the creation of the holiday is not all that unique from the biblical struggle with kingship.  If you remember, God is not at all on board when the people ask for a king.  You see, the people of God have already been on a long journey.  Abraham had settled them in a faraway land, which God had promised would be their land.  But famine struck, and the people were forced to flee to Egypt for sustenance, submitting themselves to a pharaoh – a new king of sorts.  For a while, that arrangement was not so bad.  But a new pharaoh meant a harsh life of enslavement.  So, God once again led the people out of the rule of a king, into the wilderness and eventually the promised land.  And what do the people ask for upon their arrival?  A king!  You see, they have been watching the other nations who have kings, and they want their own.  God wants them to see how God is their king.  But eventually God submits, giving them their hearts’ desire.  As predicted, an earthly king does not go well.  Sure, there are moments of enjoyment and blessing.  There are even some kings who do well – king David and Solomon.  But even the good kings come with human flaws.  As time goes on, the bad kings outnumber the good ones, and eventually the kingdom of God is ripped apart, and the peoples are scattered.

That is where we pick up things today in Ezekiel.  Recognizing the earthly kings have not worked so well, God promises to take the throne back, to become the people’s king once again.  God becoming king means the people will be gathered once again in their promised land.  They will have their wounds bound, their stomachs filled, and their thirst quenched.  They will return to an abundant land, with the rule of a comforting shepherd.  The promise to the wearied people of God is assuring and soothing; a balm to a scattered, disheartened people.  Their failures are ever before them:  their insistence on an earthly king have gotten them where they are today.  But admitting failure hardly seems onerous with the promise of redemption by God.

By the time we get to our gospel reading today, the people are yet again under an oppressive rule.  Rome has put her heavy hand on the people of God, and their hoped-for Messiah has not arrived.  The expectation of the Messiah was for a mighty, God-ordained leader who would vindicate the people, and establish a time of prosperity, power, and peace.  There are rumors that Jesus might be that Messiah, but much of what he has to say does not jive with what they are expecting.  Take today’s lesson, for example.  Jesus tells them the reign of God will entail feeding the poor, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, tending the sick, and visiting the imprisoned.  Those are all certainly good things to do, but they are not exactly what the people are thinking of when they imagine a Messiah.  Though those tasks are noble, they do not indicate a people who have triumphed over oppressive rule.

I suspect we know a little about that sense of disappointment and disorientation.  Now I know I said I was not going to talk about politics, but stay with me for a bit.  You see, no matter who our leader is, we will never be truly happy with an elected, human leader.  Human leaders, like those leaders in the times of Ezekiel are flawed.  Think of your favorite president in American history – the president that really represented the goodness of American ideals.  Think of all the great things he did, the advancements he made, the ways in which he made us a better country.  Now, in balance with all that goodness, think of all the flaws he had.  Every president had them.  For every advancement he made, there was an advancement he neglected.  For every inspiring quote he had, there were things he said that would make us shudder.  For every injustice he corrected, there were injustices he ignored.

That is the funny thing about being both an American and a Christian.  Though we have probably structured the government with the most potential for justice and balanced leadership, we still fall short of the goal – because we are human.  And because nothing we make or conceive or structure will be perfect, we lean into our Christian identity for guidance, comfort, and strength.  You see, the only king who will ever bring about a perfect kingdom is Christ.  And yet, even “perfection” is redefined by Christ.  The kingdom of God is not reproduced through democracy, socialism, monarchy, oligarchy, or totalitarianism.  The perfect system in Christ involves each us feeding the poor, giving water to those who thirst, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, tending the sick, and visiting the imprisoned.

I can imagine what you are thinking, because I am thinking the same thing.  Those jobs all sound nice, but how do we ensure justice, safety, and structure?  How do we govern?  The good news is, just as we talked about last week, we all have a vocation.  If feeding, sating, welcoming, clothing, tending, and visiting are the parameters of perfection, we are each to use our gifts to achieve that perfection.  So maybe your vocation is to physically feed the poor and sate the thirsty.  Maybe your vocation is to advocate for those in prison.  Maybe your vocation is to govern with the intention of creating laws that will tend the sick and clothe the naked.  How we approach perfection will vary widely, but that we strive toward perfection is what Christ asks today.  Christ is not actually all that worried about who our king is or what kind of government we choose.  Christ is concerned that our lives reflect his true kingship over us.  Christ wants us to live lives that, upon observation by others, make obvious who is our king.

Our invitation this week is to take stock of our daily living, making sure we have aligned our lives with the kingdom of God.  If you have gotten off track, there is time and support for correcting course.[i]  If you have mastered feeding the hungry, but are not so great at welcoming the stranger, this community is here to help you expand your kingdom work.  And if you are not sure you can get on board with this kingdom work at all, you may need to do what we all avoided this Thanksgiving – get to a table and start talking politics.  Jesus promises to be with us, joining us in the conversation, blessing our ponderings.  With Christ the King on our side, the work does not feel like work, the conversation does not feel like a curse, and the results produce much more for which to be thankful.  Amen.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 212.

On Cultivating Gratitude…

Tags

blessing, cultivate, enrich, God, gratitude, intentional, joy, practices, Spirit, spiritual, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day

Photo credit:  sixtyandme.com/50-women-over-50-express-their-gratitude-on-thanksgiving-day/

I don’t know about you, but I find my spiritual life has hills and valleys.  There are times when I feel especially close to God, and that closeness leads to a sense of overflowing gratitude.  And there are times when I fill up the extra space in my life with everything but God.  In those valleys, I sometimes feel God is far away – mostly because that is where I pushed God.  In those times, gratitude is often the last thing I experience.  Instead, I can be irritable and short-tempered.

In order to stay out of those valleys of self-absorption, I have found I need intentional practices of gratitude.  Celebrating Thanksgiving Day tomorrow helps put most of us in a spirit of gratitude (assuming we are not in a spiral of menacing traveling conditions, dread about time with challenging family members, or anxiety about food preparations).  But this year, I have found that I am coming into Thanksgiving Day with a full cup.  I am working on a stack of thank you notes for the generous pledges our parishioners have made to our church; the generosity of our parishioners makes writing the notes a joy.  Our church has been negotiating a new partnership which looks like may come to fruition; it is the culmination of a lot of dreams, most of which began before my arrival, and the promise of fulfillment is at times overwhelming.  And our church has two different services for Thanksgiving:  one with our ecumenical brothers and sisters, and a mass on Thanksgiving Day; both are occasions for deep joy and gratitude.

The thing about these events and experiences is they cultivate in me a spirit of gratitude.  When my spirit is primed for thanksgiving, every time I take a walk or hop in my car, I find a breathtaking tree that has hit its peak fall color.  When my spirit is primed for thanksgiving, the little things my family does – an unprompted “thank you,” a cleaning up of the kitchen, a spontaneous hug – all make my heart warmed.  When my spirit is primed for thanksgiving, I see the daily tasks of others that go unnoticed:  the county worker clearing a dead animal from the street, the childcare provider who sees my child being extra clingy and swoops her up in a big, distracting hug, or the administrator who has already thought about the things on my mind and started the projects I need accomplished.

If your spirit has not been primed, there is still time.  Perhaps you can start with tomorrow’s celebration, looking for glimpses of hope and blessing throughout your day (even in the midst of family drama, I promise you can find those glimpses!).  But do not let the thanksgiving end there.  Find ways to enrich your spirit each day:  whether it is putting on lenses of gratitude, taking up a tangible practice, or surrounding yourself with others who are naturally inclined toward an attitude of gratitude.  My suspicion is you will find your cup running over soon, and that overflow can be a blessing to others!

On Blessings and Curses, and Surviving Thanksgiving Meals

Tags

conflict, creation, fall, family, God, gratitude, heart, leaves, mind, prayer, space, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day

Photo credit:  www.fluentu.com/french/blog/french-fall-autumn-vocabulary-word-list

For those of you who know me well (or read this blog each fall), you know that I love the changing of the leaves during Fall.  Fall is my favorite season of the year – the cooler weather, the crunch of leaves, and the brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges that take your breath away.  The leaves turned later than usual this year in Virginia, so I have had time to enjoy their beautiful journey until now.  Just this week, a light wind was blowing, and a tree was raining down yellow leaves like a flower girl before the bride.  Some people like to stop and smell the roses.  I like to stop and revel in the beauty of God’s changing leaves.

Watching and being fed spiritually by that beauty this year led us to creating a Thanksgiving Tree at Youth Group this past Sunday.  We took a poster with a bare tree, and then used our post-it notes to cover the tree with things for which we are grateful.  We had five categories, including family, relationships, creation, God, and school/work.  I challenged the group to write down three things in each category – not just a one-word response, but an explanation of their gratitude.  Perhaps 15 notes seemed like overkill to the young adults, but what I was hoping was that the more they thought about the blessings in their lives, the less space the negative would have in their hearts and minds.

That is my prayer for each of you this week as we head into Thanksgiving celebrations.  Though we may have Normal Rockwell images of Thanksgiving Day meals in our minds, and although some of you may actually get that experience, the reality of most meals, especially if spent with family, is that they will include a fair share of conflict.  If you are lucky to avoid talking about politics, some other family drama will surely emerge.  Expecting that conflict, I invite you to start praying your thanksgivings.  If your crazy family promises to bring angst, start praying now about the things that bring you joy about each member of your family.  You may have to dig deep (Lord knows your uncle’s jokes can drive you insane – but maybe you can thank God for predictability with your uncle or for the knowing glances of your cousins).  But my guess is that the more you start looking at your family or friends with the eyes of gratitude, there will be a lot more space in your heart and mind for blessings than curses.

If you can master that practice of thanksgiving prayers throughout one of the more stressful days of the year, perhaps you can carry that prayer practice through the next month.  As you hone that spiritual discipline for the next month, you may find it becomes easier to carry it into the next year.  Given our current climate, we are going to need all the space we can get for blessings. 

Ecumenical Thanksgiving Homily – Ruth 2.2-9, Matthew 22.34-40, November 20, 2016

Tags

active, Boaz, community, ecumenical, God, gratitude, Great Commandment, homily, Jesus, love, mercy, ministry, neighbor, Ruth, Thanksgiving, worship

When I learned we would be gathering for worship as ecumenical brothers and sisters to celebrate a service of Thanksgiving, I could not have been happier.  But when I realized we would be reading from the book of Ruth, I was thrilled!  Ruth has always held a special place in my heart.  This woman, a complete stranger to our faith, teaches us more about faithful living than most of our ancestors. She marries a foreigner, quickly becoming a widow with no support, following her widowed mother-in-law to a foreign land.  In her abandonment, she pledges allegiance to a God who in many ways has felt absent.  And when they return the foreign land of Bread, and she sees Naomi may not be able to support her, she takes it upon herself to go sweat in the fields, and secure them a livelihood.  She even eventually permanently ensures their security by somewhat scandalously approaching Boaz for not only food, but marriage, and progeny.  Ruth puts all others before herself, and she is faithful to God and her family.  If anyone is a beacon of living into the Great Commandment to love neighbor as self, Ruth is that beacon of light.

But the more I thought about our text today, the more I realized that despite the fact that I love Ruth, we gathered here today are more like Boaz.  You see, we are people of privilege and power.  Though we can certainly name countless people who may have more wealth and influence than we do, most of us know where our next meal is coming from, have a roof over our heads, and have our basic needs met.  Some of us are even comfortable enough to enjoy much more than our basic needs.  In that way, we are much more like Boaz, a man with power and influence, who can use that power for good or for evil.

Boaz has little obligation to Ruth, the foreigner.  He knows she is connected to Naomi, making her adopted family, but allowing her to glean with the other gleaners would have been enough.  He didn’t have to give her tips about how to be safe from the men, give her access to drinking water, feed her his bread at mealtime, and tell his men to make sure she got extra grain to glean.  He did not have to say yes when she asked for his help in taking her in.  He did not have to negotiate with the next-of-kin to have her hand.  Boaz takes God’s command to love neighbor beyond what anyone would expect.

I have been thinking about Boaz as I have been thinking about our ministry together.  Though you may not know about each case, each of the clergy here work with families in need through the use of discretionary or alms funds.  Each church here has ministries that we support – whether food pantries, homeless shelters, elder care, medical clinics, or assistance with basic needs like back-to-school supplies, clothing drives, or holiday support.  And all of us collectively have taken that a step further and agreed to help provide more food assistance by starting up a local food distribution outlet through our partners at House of Mercy.  But just because we do that work does not mean that we do that work like Boaz.

My husband is a social worker in Richmond and he was recently telling me about a client’s experience with a church.  The client reached out to a church for assistance, and instead of pastorally working with the client, the church representative gave them a hard time, wanting to know what poor decisions the client had made that brought them to the church doors.  Now, I know we all screen the clients we help.  We have to be smart about how we help those in need.  But that client experienced a loss of dignity at that church that Boaz never exerts.  In fact, Boaz knows how degrading poverty can be.  He sees Ruth, and knows simply by her gender and foreignness that she is at risk for assault and manipulation.  And so, not only does he help her, but he looks at all those around him and hold them accountable for caring for the disadvantaged too.  He does not act alone in his mercy – he makes his whole community merciful.

As we head into a holiday marked for Thanksgiving, the church invites us to look at our ancestors for the best ways to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commandment.  Want to know how to love God and our neighbors?  Look at our sister Ruth.  Want to know how to show love, dignity, and compassion?  Look at our brother Boaz.  Though many of us spend this time of year reflecting on what we have to be grateful for, the church invites us also to use this time as a time of action.  Our gratitude is not passive.  Our gratitude is active – a call to action to love God and love neighbor.  I know many families who have a tradition of going around the Thanksgiving table, enumerating those things for which they are grateful.  Perhaps this year, our families can also enumerate what we are going to do in response to those things for which we are grateful.  Our ancestors, our Savior, and our faith communities are here to embolden us in that response.  Thanks be to God!

Participating in Gratitude…

Tags

blessed, cycle, generosity, gift, God, grateful, gratitude, note, sacred, thanks, Thanksgiving

Photo credit:  https://fastcompany.com/3057431/hit-the-ground-running/heres-what-to-write-in-your-thank-you-after-a-job-interview

In honor of Thanksgiving Day at the end of the month, a trend has developed that uses the entire month of November as a month of gratitude.  The practice has several forms:  journaling about at least five things for which you are grateful every day; posting daily on Facebook a note of gratitude; or using Instagram or other outlets to post a daily photo of something for which you are grateful.  The practice is quite spiritually based.  I have had countless spiritual directors who have encouraged me to use gratitude as a discipline for my prayer life – using the end of the day to give thanks for things in life as opposed to our natural tendency to look back at the day and make mental note of all the things that went unaccomplished or were hurtful to ourselves or others.

This past Sunday we gathered our pledges for the upcoming calendar year.  Each year in the Episcopal Church, parishioners are asked to fill out a pledge card, letting the Vestry, or governing board, know how much income can be expected so they can formulate a budget.  The pledge cards certainly serve a practical purpose.  But their use can also serve a deep spiritual purpose.  As I blessed three different baskets of pledge cards on Sunday, I had the thought that each of those baskets were like piles of thank you notes to God – a way of articulating how blessed we are and how grateful we are for the resources we have and our ability to share and support ministry with those resources.  Each card held a story – a story of someone who feels connected to and passionate about Hickory Neck, who has been nurtured and challenged in this place, who has a unique life story, and who has encountered Christ here.  As I thought of the conversations, prayers, and reflections those cards represented, I could not help but smile.  There is something quite beautiful in witnessing the intimate, vulnerable exchange between God and parishioner.  I felt privileged to bless that sacred act.

In the coming weeks, I have the privilege of entering into that sacred space of thanksgiving and gratitude.  I have the task of thanking each pledging member.  When the Stewardship Committee and I first talked about the campaign, we joked about whether my hand would be able to survive writing so many notes.  There may be times my hand actually does get sore, but so far, I am nothing but grateful to be writing those notes.  I have found that writing them has been a tremendous time of blessing – an opportunity for me to pray for each parishioner, to thank God for the gift of them to our community, and to send my blessings upon them.  The “duty” has become an incredible gift that keeps the cycle of gratitude going.

How are you participating in the cycle of gratitude?  In what ways do you cultivate a spirit of generosity, passing your sense of gratitude and blessing on to others?  I look forward to hearing how you are participating in the cycle, and how God is using you to bless others.

Sermon – Luke 17.11-19, P23, YC, October 9, 2016

Tags

church, compliment, duty, generously, giving, grateful, gratitude, guilt, Jesus, joy, leper, living, obligation, pledge, practice, praise, Sermon, stewardship, Thanksgiving, transformation, turning

I once knew a man who was impossible to compliment.  Whether you wanted to compliment a job well done or good deed, his response was always the same, “It’s not me.  All the glory goes to God.”  His response always left me feeling like I just offered a present that was rejected.  Of course, I totally agreed with what he was saying – none of us is able to do good without the God who empowers us to do so.  And truly, Jesus was not that great at accepting compliments either, especially if you recall all the times he asked people to keep a healing secret or to just go back to work.  But upon receiving a compliment, a simple, “Thank you,” would not have hurt this man.  After a while, I just stopped trying to praise his work or good deeds.

I think that is why I relate to the nine lepers who do not return to Jesus to give him thanks and praise.  There were ten lepers originally – nine who were Jewish and one who was a Samaritan.  We are not sure why the ten are together – the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies and rarely spent time together.[i]  We are told at the beginning of the text that Jesus was passing through a borderland between Samaria and Galilee, so there is a possibility that then ten men banded together through their disease instead of culture.  You see, both Samaritans and those of Galilee would have been seen as impure due to their leprosy.  Being exiled to the borders of their land, they may have found more in common than divided them.  And so, as a group, they shout out to Jesus for healing – careful not to approach him, of course, which would have been improper in their condition.  Respecting their distance, Jesus does not insist they come forward, but instead tells them to go to the priest to show themselves to be healed.  Along the way, they are healed, but they still would have needed to show a priest in order to be restored to their families and friends.[ii]

The Samaritan among them returns and gives praise to God, but the others do not.  We do not know how their journey unfolds.  Presumably they are faithfully doing what Jesus told them to do – going to the priest for restoration.  Perhaps they give praise to God once the priest restores them.  Perhaps they give praise when they are reunited with their families.  Maybe they even show their praise through helping lepers later.  But that is all supposition.  All we get today is Jesus’ criticism of the nine because they neglect to turn and give God praise and thanksgiving.

I have been reflecting on Jesus’ words this week, and what rubs me the wrong way may be the same thing that rubbed me the wrong way when that man I knew always refused praise.  In both cases, whether Jesus, or the man I knew, there is both implicit and explicit criticism of my own practice of gratitude and thanksgiving.  What irritated me about the man’s responses to me was that they made me feel guilty – that perhaps I was not grateful enough to God for the goodness in my life.  The same thing irritates me about Jesus this week – his judgment of the nine makes me feel guilty about the ways I have walked away healed and not given praise to God.

This week we are kicking off our stewardship season in a campaign called, “Living Generously.”  After the service, you will be receiving a packet of information about how you can support the ministry of Hickory Neck, and a pledge card that we will collect in a celebratory ingathering in just four weeks.  Most preachers would have read the text today and thought, “Yes!  The perfect Stewardship text!”  But the more I sat with Jesus’ words, the more I realized that his words actually bring up feelings of dread rather than joy.  Most people associate stewardship with the same sense of guilt that this reading brings up.  We feel guilted into showing gratitude, and so we guiltily look at our budgets and see if we can increase our pledge this year.

The first time I experienced the concept of pledging was when I started regularly attending an Episcopal Church.  In the churches where I grew up, you never had to tell anyone what you were going to give.  The preacher might have talked about a tithe – ten percent of your income.  But the preacher never wanted you to say exactly what you were going to give.  So when the warden of this church started explaining how he wanted us to pledge, I was aghast.  I remember thinking, “That’s private!  I don’t have to tell you how much I am going to give!”  Now, I knew we would probably tithe that year, but the idea of telling someone else about my giving seemed to go against every cultural norm I knew.  Fortunately, I stayed to hear the rest of the warden’s talk.  He explained that the way the church formed the church’s budget was through the knowledge of what income they could expect.  The Vestry would adjust expenses accordingly and try to get the budget balanced.  My outrage faded as I realized how responsible that model seemed.  Thus began my adult journey into pledging.

But that journey into pledging experienced a transformation about eight years later.  We were at a new church, and the priest asked to hold our pledge cards until a particular Sunday.  We did and the funniest thing happened.  In the middle of the service, a banner appeared.  The banner was processed down the aisle, joyful music started playing, and people started following the banner forward.  We placed our pledge in a basket, and I felt something stirring in me.  The priest blessed the pile of pledge cards, and something about stewardship turned in my heart – the pledging, the monthly giving was no longer an obligation or burden – something to be guilted into.  My pledge was a joyful sign of gratitude – a sign blessed by God and affirmed by the community.  And I have to say – it felt good!

In the gospel lesson today, the text says that the Samaritan turns back to Jesus.  That word for turns back is more than just a physical description – the action of turning back is a sign of deep transformation – a reorienting of the Samaritan’s life from duty to gratitude.[iii]  I do not think Jesus was looking for a guilty admission of thanks from the other nine lepers.  What Jesus is looking for is a transformation of the heart – a turning of one’s life away from obligation and duty to joyful gratitude and thanksgiving.

I was reading this week about a woman with an interesting habit.  Whenever someone asked her how she is – that basic question we always ask and anticipate the answer being, “Fine,” – instead she would say, “I’m grateful.”  No matter what is on her plate – stress at work or school, an illness that kept plaguing her, strife at home – her response is always the same, “I’m grateful.”[iv]  As I thought about her response this week, I realized that her response is probably one that took willful practice.  I am sure there were weeks when she really felt grateful.  But there were also probably weeks when she had to say she felt grateful even if she was not sure what there was to be grateful about.  But slowly, slowly, I imagine the practice cultivated a spirit of gratitude.  A practice like that can do exactly what Jesus wants for us all – a turning of the heart to praise and thanksgiving.  I know I will never be able to shift toward the kind of response that the man I knew always gave, rejecting praise altogether.  But learning to say, “I’m grateful,” might be a way for me to get a little closer to the same sentiment.

What that woman is doing, what Jesus is encouraging, and even what our Stewardship campaign is inviting is not a sense of guilt or burden, but a genuine invitation into a life that turns our heart to gratitude and transforms the way we see the world.  Now that does not mean that every time you write the check to fulfill your pledge you will part from that treasure with a joyful heart.  But that practice is a small invitation, every time, for us to turn our hearts and to see not only the God from whom all blessings flow, but to even see the blessings in the first place.  Jesus is not mad at those lepers because they are ungrateful – he is sad for them because they have denied themselves the gift of transformation.  That is the gift that he and the Church offer us every week – the gift of a transformed heart that can change everything.  For that, I’m grateful.  Amen.

[i] Audrey West, “Commentary on Luke 17.11-19,” October 9, 2016, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3029 on October 5, 2016.

[ii] Oliver Larry Yarbrough, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 169.

[iii] Margit Ernst-Habib, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 166.

[iv] David Lose, “Pentecost 21C:  Gratitude and Grace,” October 3, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/10/pentecost-21-c-gratitude-and-grace/ on October 5, 2016.

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clergy, God, Good News, interfaith, Jesus, life, love, mercy, ministry, more, Thanksgiving, Transgender, wideness, witness, worship

Every once in a while, I have experiences in ministry when I think, “Well I never would have imagined that happening!”  I admit that the experience is rare.  There is not a lot that surprises me anymore in this line of work.  Though I am relatively young, I still feel like I have seen it all.

But that has not been the case this week.  This week I found myself in two situations I would have never anticipated.  On Sunday night, our parish hosted the Long Island Transgender Day of Remembrance.  I had no role in crafting the liturgy or planning the evening.  I simply offered our space and was asked to give an opening and closing prayer.  In fact, the planning committee warned me that this would not be like a “church service” – so I should not get my hopes up!  But as I sat in my pew, watching testimonial after testimonial, listening to over eighty names of those who were murdered because of their transgender identity, and hearing beautiful music about the wideness of God’s love and the call to love “the other” – I tell you, I experienced “Church.”  You see, Church is supposed to be about worshiping our God who shows mercy and compassion, who calls us to love the outcast and the oppressed, and who compels us to go out and witness the Good News of God in Christ.  Sunday night, I felt like the Good News came back inside and witnessed to me.

Plainview-Old Bethpage Interfaith Clergy, November 24, 2015

On Tuesday night, I participated in my fourth Plainview-Old Bethpage Interfaith Thanksgiving Service.  Every year I find the service moving. I am grateful for a holiday that we can all honor without fear of stepping on each other’s toes.  But as I sat there last night, I became acutely aware of my surroundings.  On my left sat the Mufti from the local Muslim community and on my right sat the priest from the local Roman Catholic parish.  It occurred to me in that moment that the Mufti usually only says prayers with men.  The women pray separately.  And yet, there we were, side by side, giving thanks to God.  It also occurred to me that although the priest has been warm and affirming, his Church does not recognize my ordination as appropriately apostolic – especially given my gender.  And yet, there we were, as equal leaders in our respective communities.  Despite having had long relationships with the fellow clergy leaders, this was the first time I realized how radical our relationships are – to sit next to each other despite profound differences – and yet still be able to praise, lead, and worship together.

Truthfully, I do not know what God is doing this week.  On a basic level, I suspect God is reminding me that I am not even close to having “seen it all.”  But on a deeper level, I also suspect that God is inviting me to go further, to delve deeper, and to see more widely.  Perhaps a disadvantage to my profession is a naïve sense that I have a hold on who this God is that we worship and serve.  This week, God has humbled me by reminding me that God is so much more. As I anticipate celebrating Eucharist on Thanksgiving Day, I expect to approach the Table with keener sense of wonder, gratitude, and awe for the ways in which God is so much more.  What a blessed gift this week has been.  Thanks be to God for being more than I could ask for or imagine!

Sermon – 1 Samuel 1.4-20, 2.1-10, P28, YB, November 15, 2015

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anger, God, Hannah, honest, intercession, intimacy, praise, pray, prayer, relationship, Sermon, Thanksgiving, vulnerable

At some point in life, most of us have the experience of having a best friend.  Perhaps we met the person on the playground as a child; maybe we met him in college or at work; perhaps our best friend is a cousin or sibling; or maybe our best friend is our spouse or partner.  Regardless of how we met her, that best friend has seen the best and worst of us.  He has congratulated us when we got a part in the play, when we got a promotion, or when we found new love.  She has consoled us when we failed a test, when our heart was broken, or when a family member died.  He has seen us laugh so hard that we snort or pee in our pants, and he has seen us sob so hard that snot runs down our faces.  She has seen us dressed to the nines, and she has seen us in our stained, ill-fitting sweats.  And our best friend has taken the best and the worst from us too:  we have danced together, yelled at each other, confessed our darkest secrets to each other, and, yes, we have even hated each other at times.  Despite having experienced the very best and very worst of us, we know that she loves us deeply, he always forgives us, and she is always there for us.  The relationship is far from perfect, but the relationship is beautiful.

In many ways, the relationship we have with our best friend is similar to the relationship we have with God.  On our good days, we come to God with our thanksgivings and praise, offering our adoration and humility to God.  On our bad days, we are angry and curse God.  We confess things to God that we confess to no one else:  both those things done and left undone, but also those deep longings and desires that we do not admit to others.  We have cried a thousand tears with God and we have laughed with great mirth.  Although our best friend knows us better than any other human being, God knows even the stuff we are embarrassed or afraid to share with that best friend.  And since our Lord is not human, God’s forgiveness does not know the limits of human forgiveness.  Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our relationship with other human beings will never quite equal our relationship with God.

Given that intimacy, I am often surprised when people ask me about prayer.  Throughout my ministry I have had people ask me how they should pray, what they should say, or when or where is the best time and place to pray.  I think the challenge is that most of us have some notion of what prayer should look like.  We imagine the pinnacle of brayer being the Zen-like posture of monks in silent prayer.  Or when someone offers a prayer, we assume we should bow our heads, fold our hands, and shush others into silence.  Or when someone asks us to offer the prayer, we scramble to remember common prayer phrases like, “Holy God…Bless us, we pray…you alone are worthy…”  Our prayers sound very little like our everyday speech.  Sometimes, if we are feeling especially uncomfortable, we peek around the room to see what everyone else is doing.  People often ask me how to pray because they do not feel like they are doing it “right,” because their usual method of prayer has become stale or dissatisfying, or because when they pray, God seems far away or even like a stranger.  Or sometimes people come to me about prayer because they are overwhelmed with the suffering of the world:  the poverty, the gun violence, the terror that keeps striking in places like Paris.  How do we pray to God when suffering seems like an endless abyss?

In scripture today, we see Hannah pray twice.  In the first occurrence, Hannah looks nothing like our notions of prayer.  She has been emotionally tortured by Elkanah’s second wife, Peninnah – just like Peninnah does every year when they travel to make their annual sacrifice.  Peninnah is ever fertile and Hannah is barren.  And, probably because Elkanah loves Hannah more, Peninnah throws Hannah’s infertility in her face whenever she can.  Meanwhile, Elkanah is acting like a wounded puppy.  He does not understand why Hannah is so upset – isn’t he enough?  So Hannah escapes to the Temple to pray.  Her prayer is unlikely offered from a pew, while she delicately flips through a prayer book to find some pre-written prayers.  Her prayer is not said reverentially, with a bowed head.  In fact, she does not quietly whisper prayers to God with her eyes closed.  No, when Eli, the temple priest, sees Hannah praying, he accuses Hannah of being drunk in the Temple.  Now I do not know if you have ever been in the presence of a drunken person, but people who are drunk are rarely still and reserved.  No, I imagine Hannah was pacing.  Maybe she was waving her fists at God as the tears spilled down her cheeks.  Maybe there was rage and devastation in her eyes.  The text says that she is silent, but that her lips are moving.  I imagine she was giving God a piece of her mind.  And in fact, the text tells us that she even resorts to bargaining with God – promising to commit his life to the Temple if God gives her a male child.  If Eli thought Hannah looked drunk, the scene could not have been pretty!

The second occurrence of Hannah praying today is found in the Song of Hannah from first Samuel.  Here we see a very different posture of prayer from Hannah.  Instead of ranting and raving in the temple, here we see Hannah giving praise to God for the deliverance of a child.  Hannah is full of gratitude for her own good fortune.  But Hannah’s prayer is bigger than herself too.  She proclaims the Lord to be a liberator – one who frees the oppressed, brings low the privileged, honors the faithful, and cuts off the wicked.  In Hannah’s personal experience with God, she is given a glimpse into the global nature of God.[i]  Hers is revolutionary song because God has heard her prayer and answered her.  We see a very different form of prayer from Hannah the second time than we do from Hannah the first time.

For those of you reading along with A.J. Jacobs’ The Year of Living Biblically, prayer is common topic from the author.  Not a believer himself, Jacobs struggles with prayer.  He does not know what to do or say.  But he feels compelled by the Bible to be in prayer.  One of his spiritual guides suggests that there are four types of prayer – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.[ii]  Jacobs latches on to Thanksgiving at first.  He starts by thanking God for the food that has been prepared, in its many stages.  As he thinks about all the stages – the earth, the farmer, the packager, the person who puts on labels, the grocery stockers, the cashier – his prayer lengthens.  Jacobs also takes on intercessory prayer as a form of prayer – praying strictly for the needs of others.  Jacobs confesses, “It’s ten minutes where it’s impossible to be self-centered.  Ten minutes where I can’t think about my career, my Amazon.com ranking, or that a blog in San Francisco made snarky comments about my latest Esquire article.”[iii]  Slowly, Jacobs’ ideas about and experiences of prayer become transformed.  Prayer is not like what he thought prayer would be like.

That’s the great thing about prayer.  Hannah’s first “drunken” prayer of desperation and self-pity, her second prayer of adoration and revolution, and Jacobs’ ten minutes of intercessions that keep him from being self-centered are totally different.  My prayers in the car on the way to pick up the kids are very different from the prayers our Contemplative Prayer Group offers on Friday nights.  And the prayers of an evangelical pastor, which are accompanied by the creative tinkling of the keyboardist to emphasize and dramatize the preacher’s prayers, are totally different from the chanted prayers of the officiant of Evensong.  There is no single wrong or right way to pray.  And the same person who offers eloquent, beautiful prayers in the day can be the same person who rages against God in the night.

When we allow prayer to be what prayer needs to be, we let go.  Then our prayers become not some preconceived notion of what we think they should be, but become a real conversation between us and the living God.  Whether we are wrapped up in our own suffering, totally ceding our worries to God, or railing at God for the injustice and the inhumanity in this world, something powerful happens in prayer.  Where else can we stomp our feet at God, looking like a drunkard, except at the feet of God?  Ultimately, that is what is most important in our prayer life – being our honest, vulnerable, mercurial selves.  As one priest explains, “…The relationship we’re offered with God is a real one.  A genuine relationship.  The God who made the heavens and the earth wants to know us, and wants us to know [God].  And when we’re excited, we’re to gush out like Hannah breaking out into song.  And when things are falling apart, we’re to gush out like Hannah at Shiloh.”[iv]  God does not care what our prayers look like or even what we say.  God is just glad we show up.  Our invitation this week is to show up.  Amen.

[i] Kate Foster Connors, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 298, 300.

[ii] A. J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically (London:  Arrow Books, 2009), 95.

[iii] Jacobs, 128.

[iv] Rick Morley, “Pouring Out Our Souls – A Reflection on 1 Samuel 1.4-20 & 2.1-10,” November 8, 2012, as found at http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/2052 on November 12, 2015.