Sermon – Mark 1.29-30, EP5, YB, February 7, 2021

Tags

Bible, disciples, discipleship, feminist, God, Jesus, mother-in-law, resurrected, Sermon, serve, Simon, theology, women

This morning I want to let you in on a little secret:  I do not actually love all of the Bible.  Now I know, I am a priest.  I am supposed to love all of Holy Scripture, the tome of inspired words from God.  Even in our ordination, priests proclaim, “I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”[i]  And while I do believe what I said in my ordination about Scripture, there are still things in Holy Scripture that make me cringe, and, quite frankly, make me dread preaching them.

Today’s lesson from Mark is one of those texts.  We read of the miraculous healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, and my immediate reaction is, “Great!  Here we go again! A woman gets healed, and what’s the first thing she does?  Go to the kitchen and make the men some food.”  I was bracing myself this week for how I was going to stand here and talk about a woman being healed – actually, not just healed, but the word in the Greek is “raised” – the same word used for what happens to Jesus in his resurrection in Mark 16.6.[ii]  I was all ready to go with my defensive theology when I read the words of one scholar.  He simply says about the mother-in-law, “Mark introduces the first deacon in the New Testament.”[iii] 

My daughters and I enjoy reading a periodical called Bravery Magazine.  Every quarter a new edition features a woman who has shown bravery in the course of her life.  The one my younger daughter and I are reading now is about Eugenie Clark, a famous marine biologist, sometimes referred to as “The Shark Lady.”  Eugenie broke all kinds of boundaries about what women could do, but throughout our readings about her, one quote from her stuck with me, “I don’t work at something because I think it’s important.  I work at things that, to me, are interesting.”[iv]  In other words, Eugenie did not set out to care for marine life because she wanted to prove women are equal to men.  She set out to love and care for marine life because she found that work interesting – or as we might say, she was living out her call or vocation.

The same can be said about the mother-in-law of Simon.  She is not simply serving Jesus and the men with him.  She is not even “bowing to cultural convention, keeping in her restricted place as a servant.”  She is being a deacon, a “disciple who quietly demonstrates the high honor of service for those who follow Jesus.”[v]  What those labeled as disciples do not understand, and as one scholar reminds us, will not understand until Easter, is being a disciple of Jesus means becoming servants.  These named disciples will fight this reality the entire life of Jesus, in fact, later in Mark vying for primacy and privilege.  But this woman, as scholar Ofelia Ortega says, this resurrected mother-in-law, “has overcome all the selfishness and restrictive teachings and has been close to Jesus; deep down she is already a Christian, diakonisa [deacon], a servant of the church gathered in her son-in-law’s house…her diaconal work is the beginning and announcement of the gospel.”[vi]

As much as I would like to argue we are all like the mother-in-law, no matter what our gender, I think most of us are more like the male disciples, who are still trying to figure out discipleship.  We are still busy trying to rush Jesus out of his time of prayer to do more work, to control or contain the work of the Messiah, and certainly to guard our dignity in our daily lives.  But what the mother-in-law reminds us this week, is that if we wish to seek Jesus, to know and feel the presence of God, to understand our call in this crazy world, our first job is to serve:  to return to our baptismal covenant promise of seeking and serving Christ in all persons.

So how do we do we do this?  How do we shake ourselves out of own sense of control, our own agenda, or even, especially these days, our sense of weariness about this world?  We claim our discipleship, our invitation to serve.  We may start very small.  Maybe we start in our families like the mother-in-law and serve – not begrudgingly emptying that dishwasher while muttering, but joyfully honoring the ways Jesus has raised us up and given us power to serve.  Maybe we start with our neighbors, those feeling lonely or anxious, and send them a card or make them a meal.  Or maybe we start with those unknown to us who are suffering and serve them through advocacy or our labor.  We do not have to fully understand our service, and we will likely fail at doing that servant ministry as faithfully as the mother-in-law.  But Jesus has raised us up so that we can start afresh each new day.  Amen.

---

[i] BCP, 526.

[ii] Ofelia Ortega, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 334.

[iii] Gary W. Charles, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 335.

[iv] Beard Elyse, editor, Bravery Magazine:  Eugenie Clark, vol. 13, The Prolific Group, 2020, 4.

[v] Charles, 335.

[vi] Ortega, 334.

Sermon – John 9.1-41, L4, YA, March 22, 2020

Tags

blind man, cause and effect, comfort, Coronavirus, faith, God, good, grace, hope, Jesus, journey, light, questions, see, Sermon, sight, sin, suffering, theology

I must confess to you:  I have been dreading talking to you about this text all week.  The presence of cause and effect in this text is overwhelming.  The text says multiple times that the reason the blind man is blind from birth is because he sinned (and since it was from birth, there is the implication his parents sinned, and the blind man is being doubly punished and exists in double sin).  Those gathered insist that Jesus must be sinful too because he does not follow the law – he heals on the Sabbath, and he cannot possibly speak for or act for God as a sinner.  Jesus also says those gathered are sinners for they cannot see God.  Even at the beginning of John’s story, even Jesus says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

I have not wanted to preach this text today because I do not at feel comfortable with the cause and effect nature of this text, especially what that cause and effect nature seems to imply about suffering.  Can Jesus really be saying this man was made blind so that God could be revealed?  Is this text saying God causes suffering – pain, disability, ostracizing from community, poverty so deep that only begging will ensure survival?  That concept is a huge hurdle for me because that is not at all my theology of suffering.  And I especially do not like hearing that theology of suffering this week – a week when we are watching the cases of Coronavirus creep up in our country and double in our county and have begun asking the same sorts of questions the people in this passage are asking:  Where is God in this?  Why is God allowing not only this terrible virus to happen, but the accompanying societal upheaval?  Is God causing this suffering for some greater good?  This kind of health crisis pulls at all of us and in our innermost, private places, and makes us wonder, even if we cannot say the words aloud, “Did God have something to do with this virus?”  Or sometimes we find ourselves not embarrassingly asking the question, but boldly shouting at God, “What in the world are you doing?  Why aren’t you here fixing this?  How could you do this?!?”  The absolute LAST passage I want to hear when we are asking these bone-deep theological, desperate questions is a text that seems to imply God causes suffering for God’s own glory.

That is why I am especially grateful for biblical scholars who can journey with us in interpreting scripture.  Biblical Scholar Rolf Jacobson took a look at that same verse that has been nagging me all week, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”  Luckily Jacobson is better at Greek than me.  He explains that the writers of the New Revised Standard Version inserted text into the English translation that simply is just not there.  In the original Greek, the words “he was born blind,” are not there.  Instead of the text saying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him,” the text actually says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned [period].  In order that God’s works might be revealed in him, we must work the works of him who sent me…”  According to Jacobson, Jesus is not saying the man was blind so God could be revealed.  Jesus is saying no one sinned.  But given the situation, God has given his disciples the opportunity to do something good to reveal God’s goodness.[i]  In other words, God does not cause suffering.  But God can use us in the midst of suffering for good.

I don’t know about you, but that has shifted my understanding of this text completely.  All of the arguing about who sinned, what laws you must follow to be holy, and who should be in or out are a distraction.  The same can be true of us.  When we start trying to logic our way through fault, or sin, or blame – even blame on God, we lose our way; we become blind like those gathered and arguing in our text today.  Instead, this text is inviting us to ask different questions.  Instead of whose sin caused this virus, we can ask, “How can I be a force for good in the midst of this virus?”  Instead of why God is doing this or allowing this to happen, we can ask, “Where are the opportunities to see God acting for good in the midst of suffering?”  Instead of where is God in this, we can ask, “Where am I finding moments of God’s grace in this?”  I am not arguing our questions and demands of God are not valid at this time.  In fact, I think our quiet doubt of and our raging anger at God are perfectly normal – and maybe even necessary for honest relationship with God.  What I am arguing is this text is not a reinforcement of our sense of darkness, but instead an invitation into light – an invitation to seeing when we may feel blinded.  My prayer this week is that we stumble into those moments of light this week – that we find those moments of grace upon grace that give us renewed comfort, hope, and faith.  May God bless you in the journey toward the light.  Amen.

[i] Rolf Jacobson, “Sermon Brainwave #713 – Fourth Sunday in Lent,” March 14, 2020, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1240, on March 19, 2020.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, March 24, 2019

Tags

free, fruit, gardener, God, gossip, Jesus, process, repentance, Sermon, shame, sins, theology, worthy

Mrs. Bonita was always there.  Whether we were going to or from school, running to a friend’s house, or picking up snacks from the corner store, Mrs. Bonita was always sitting on her porch, watching the comings and goings of our neighborhood.  The porch was covered, so she was there, rain or shine, hot or cold.  Of course, her complaints increased during the extremes, but they were just interspersed in the real attraction to Mrs. Bonita’s porch:  gossip.  Mrs. Bonita always knew everyone’s business, and she was not afraid to share that business – along with commentary.  She was the one who taught us that a lot of bad things happen when you are “not right with the Lord.”

Invariably, we all found ourselves on Mrs. Bonita’s stoop.  I suppose there was some lure to her commentary.  After an afternoon popsicle on her porch, you could begin to think all the problems of the world were the fault of someone else – Mr. Smith’s smoking habit, Mrs. Jones’ drinking problem, or the Jacobs family’s divorce.  But we all knew sitting on that stoop was a guilty pleasure to be avoided, because sooner or later, whether you wanted her to or not, you would be the topic of Mrs. Bonita’s gossip.  Suddenly, what had felt like a guilty pleasure at other’s expense became a source of shame.

For a long time, I thought Mrs. Bonita teaching us a sense of shame was counter to that “Lord” with whom she was always suggesting we get in line.  I thought shame was counter to what Jesus would have us feel.  But this week I was listening to a podcast interview with Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, and he argues quite the opposite.  He suggests we need a lot more shame in our society.  Stevenson argues, “I think the way human beings evolve, the way we get to a consciousness where we no longer do the things we shouldn’t be doing, is we develop a consciousness of shame.”[i]  This shame is the same shame that motivates us to create laws that protect the most vulnerable instead of blaming the victim.  As people of faith, we understand this reality more than anyone.  We know that part of our faith identity is committing to the process of confessing whom we are and what we have done, or left undone, and then making a conscious, albeit imperfect, effort to change – to repent.  As Stevenson says, “There is a role for shame, not as an end, but as a process.”

This is what Jesus is trying to capture in today’s gospel lesson.  Those who have gathered around Jesus are a bit like those who gathered on Mrs. Bonita’s porch.  They begin telling Jesus about the latest gossip in town.  The Galileans who were slaughtered on their pilgrimage to the temple, whose blood was mingled with the blood of the holy sacrifices; or the thirteen who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed.  Those gathered around Jesus were expecting the same verdict Mrs. Bonita often gave, “Those Galileans and those in that tower must not have been living right with God.”  Perhaps they were looking to boost their own pride, or perhaps they were actually looking for a genuine explanation of why bad things happen to good people.  But mostly, they were looking to redirect shame.  And Jesus is not having it today.

Jesus does something in our gospel lesson that Mrs. Bonita never did.  Jesus tells a parable about an unproductive fig tree the vineyard owner wants to cut down, and the gardener who pleads the tree’s case.  His method is a little indirect, as parables often are, but the result is jarring.  When those around Jesus want to gossip and cast shame, Jesus basically says, “I need you to redirect that shame to yourself – not as an end unto itself, but as a process to make yourselves whole before God.”  In other words, Jesus ask those gathered to stop worrying about the big philosophical questions like why bad things happen to good people, and instead ask questions that matter.[ii]  How can I change my own behaviors and patterns so that I not only reflect God’s glory, but I also begin to produce fruit?

The shift Jesus suggests today is both convicting and freeing.  Instead of getting caught up in the business of others, instead of gossiping about the problems of those people, and instead of getting caught up in theological rabbit holes that, while fascinating, ultimately just leave us stuck in our heads, Jesus wants us to look inward – to do the work of repentance that might actually change the world.  Instead of casting shame, Jesus wants us to harness shame, to raise our consciousness, so that we might bear fruit.  The work of repentance is much more productive work than any kind of outward looking and judging.  Besides, as scholar Fred Craddock suggests, “without repentance, all is lost anyway.”[iii]

As an adult looking back, I have often wondered how Mrs. Bonita’s stoop might have been transformed if she had helped fellow gossips turn to repentance.  If after a good gossip session, she might have said, “And now what about you?  I heard you have been up to some shameful stuff too.  What are doing to change?”  Of course, I am not sure Mrs. Bonita would have had as many guests on her porch had she asked those kinds of questions, but she certainly would have done a lot more to transform the neighborhood instead of indirectly hoping our own shame might help us “get right with God.”

The good news is that when we are terrible gardeners for one another, Christ is the gardener we all need.  The gardener in Jesus’ parable tends this same unproductive fig tree for three years, to no avail.  Even the vineyard owner is ready to rip the tree out of the ground and start over.  But not the gardener.  The gardener not only asks for mercy for the tree, the gardener commits to much, much more.  The gardener begs for one more year to aerate the soil, to get his hands dirty with manure to help nourish the tree.  The gardener does not give up on the unproductive tree, but instead offers to double down, to massage the environment in an effort create a total change in this tree.  As one scholar suggests, “The manure around our roots is the very blood of the one who pleads for our justification before God, the one through whom we may offer up the fruits of the kingdom to our Creator.”[iv]

I know repentance is hard.  I know our sins are so overwhelming that we would much prefer to look at someone else’s sins than our own.  I know the temptation of front stoops is to wax about theological questions that really just distract us from our own sinfulness and the need to bear fruit.  My invitation for you this week is to redirect your attention to the gardener, the one who is, at this very moment, aerating your soil, tirelessly fertilizing your roots so that you might let go of the “stuff” of life, and instead, through repentance, bear fruit worthy of our God.  That kind of work will not be as fun or escapist as sitting on a front porch with the local gossip.  But that kind of work will free you from needing to escape in the first place.  Amen.

[i] Bryan Stevenson, “Cohen Testimony & Just Mercy (with Bryan Stevenson),” Stay Tuned with Preet, NPR, February 28, 2019, as found at https://www.npr.org/podcasts/551791730/stay-tuned-with-preet on March 20, 2019.

[ii] David Lose, “Lent 3 C: Now!” …in the Meantime, March 22, 2019, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2019/03/lent-3-c-now/ on March 22, 2019.

[iii] Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation:  A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 169.

[iv] Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 96.

GC79: Compassionate Compromise

Tags

Christ, compromise, Episcopal Church, General Convention, LGBTQ, marriage rites, protest, theology, traditional, witness

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

As an alternate to General Convention, I stood ready to fill in when deputies needed a break from the floor.  On the two sessions where I was able to serve as a Deputy, I was able to participate in the debate, revision, and voting on B012, entitled Marriage Rites for the Whole Church.  This resolution came to be because although we authorized marriage rites for same sex couples at the 78^th General Convention, there was a provision that allowed bishops who hold a theological position that does not embrace marriage for same-sex couples to forbid his or her priests from conducting such rites.  This left the LGBTQ community in those dioceses unable to be married in their home parishes by their home priests, despite a change in the legal ability to do so.  This was deemed a compromise that could keep everyone at the table despite our theological differences.

However, given the protests of the LGBTQ community and their supporters, B012 proposed an option for priests and their parishes who wanted to conduct marriages for all despite their bishop’s protest to seek the oversight of another bishop in the Episcopal Church.  The resolution allowed for bishops and protesting churches and clergy to hold their ground, while also allowing dissenting clergy and parishes to minister to their community fully.  I talked about the testimonies and debate about this issue earlier.  The resolution was heavily edited as a result of that that testimony, and what came before the House of Deputies seemed like a well-crafted compromise.  But the debate on the floor indicated something quite different.  Our more traditional brothers and sisters felt their theology was being compromised, and many diocese in Province IX, including churches in foreign countries where same-sex marriage is still illegal, were threatening to break from the church.  It was a heart-wrenching debate, and our own deputation was even divided on what to do.

When the vote finally came, we voted by orders – so that the entire house could see how the lay and ordained voted.  As the minutes ticked by, my stomach turned.  I honestly did not know what would be the best outcome, and I feared for our path forward.  When the votes came in, they were overwhelmingly in favor of B012.  I am not sure what changed people’s minds, and I am not sure how people came to see that this was a good compromise.  My only reflection was that everyone was a bit unhappy, not fully getting what they wanted – which is the definition of a good compromise, if you ask me.

I do not know if the passage of B012 will have any negative impact in the future.  What I do know is that the process seemed to model something we have a hard time doing in the United States – compromise.  I have always said that if the Episcopal Church cannot model compromise, respect, and dignity, we cannot expect the world outside to do so.  The passage of B012 in both Houses made me feel like there might be hope for all of us to witness compassionate compromise through Christ to others.

Sermon – Romans 5.1-5, John 16.12-15, TS, YC, May 22, 2016

Tags

activity, attention, community, disciples, doctrine, faith, God, grace, grow, guide, heresy, Holy Spirit, Jesus, learn, love, seminary, Sermon, suffering, theology, Trinity, Trinity Sunday, world

In seminary one of my favorite professors was our theology professor.  I did not like her because of the subject she taught.  In fact, her class was one of the classes that gave me the most headaches as I struggled to understand theological arguments.  Instead, what I liked about her was the way that she taught.  She had a dizzying intellect, and yet she had the ability to gently make you feel like you were not an idiot.  Someone in class would ask a question, trying to get their head around a theological concept.  Her soft response would be, “Oh, yes, yes, I could see how you might get to that conclusion.  So-and-so also argued that heresy in the fourth century.”  Or she might answer, “Oh yes, that heresy is one of the church’s favorite,” and then go on to explain how the church struggled to counter the heresy.  What I loved about her responses was she let you know that although you clearly did not understand the theological concept, you were not the first person to struggle to understand and you will not be the last.  Struggling to understand and articulate a cogent theological concept without slipping into a heretical argument is a basic part of being a Christian.

What I loved about the pastoral nature of my professor’s responses was she understood that being able to articulate a definition of God is incredibly difficult.  More important to her than you getting that articulation correct was your engagement with the concept.  Perhaps she understood that theologians for centuries have tried to do the same thing – define who God is and what God means.  That may be why she never seemed bothered by our heresies – because she knew that her role, and in fact the role of the church, is to be involved in the ongoing endeavor of naming God’s activity in our world.[i]  That is the same work that we do every year on the feast of Trinity Sunday – embracing the endeavor of naming God’s activity in our world.

To help us in that endeavor, we get two great pieces of scripture today.  In our gospel lesson from John, Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit will guide the disciples into all truth.  Jesus’ promise to the disciples tells us those closest to Jesus, those who have been sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning truth from the source, are still going to need help.  The disciples, who will be commissioned to go out into the world to share the Good News, will not do that work alone.  The Spirit will go with them, helping them to continue to learn and grow into the fullness of faith.

I was recently invited to come to Sunday School for a little round of “stump the priest.”  I laughed at the title, but inside I was thinking, “What if they ask a question that really does stump me?!?”  Luckily, a cooler head prevailed.  The truth is they probably will stump me – several times over.  But that will give us a chance to talk about how the Spirit guides us into all truth – in childhood, in young adulthood, and into our older years.  But more importantly, I hope that we get the chance to talk about how the community of faith is a vital part of that learning of all truth.  We are certainly dependent on the Spirit, but we are also dependent on each other, because the Spirit so often speaks to us through people and the words of those around us.[ii]

That is one of the things I love most about being in the Episcopal Church.  The Episcopal Church has always been a place where ambiguity is okay.  As David Lose explains, “…being part of being a Trinitarian community [means] striving to be a place that knows it doesn’t have all the answers, and so consequently makes space for conversation and values those who bring different voices and experiences into its midst.  Conversation, valuing difference, being inclusive – these things aren’t easy, but genuine community, while challenging, is also creative, productive, and enriching.”[iii]

The other great piece of learning today comes from our reading in Romans.  On the surface, this piece of scripture has always troubled me.  Paul’s claim that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, has always sounded a little dismissive about suffering.  But I do not think Paul meant for this formula of suffering leading to hope was not meant to be prescriptive, but descriptive.[iv]  In other words, he is not saying those who are suffering should be grateful.  What he is saying is those who are suffering have the opportunity to not waste the pain.  Peter Steinke says, “We ‘waste’ suffering if we gloss over, deny, avoid, or neglect its message…. If, however, we can learn from pain, [pain] is not wasted but a source of life and health.”[v]  My suspicion is that Paul is trying to capture what we learn from our gospel lesson today.  Even in the midst of suffering the Holy Spirit and the community of faith can guide us into all truth.

I have been a part of parishes that have a communal component to their premarital counseling.  In addition to meeting with the priest, each engaged couple is partnered with a married couple in the parish for mentoring.  One would think that the married couple’s job is to tell the engaged couple how to do everything and give them advice.  But more often, the couples end up talking about how hard marriage is, what struggles they have dealt with, and how they got through the suffering.  The relationships between the mentors and the mentees often last well beyond the wedding.  When done with honesty, vulnerability, and compassion, the couples realize that they gain strength from one another and find a place where they can go when they are looking for truth and guidance.

Our gospel and epistle lessons today weave together an understanding of the Trinity that is both vertical and horizontal.[vi]  Vertically, we learn that our understanding of God is ever changing and dynamic – much like God is ever changing and dynamic.  I think that is why my professor was so open to us stepping into and out of heresies and doctrine.  She knew that every Christian had to take that journey of steps and missteps.  But I think she also understood that truth was ever evolving and that the Spirit was with us in that journey.  She was not worried about us because, “…a critical characteristic of faith is an ever-striving and dynamic making sense of God.  The Trinity [cannot] be the only way to get God.  [That theology] is as limited and finite as our humanity.  [The theology of the Trinity] is one attempt of the church to articulate the being of God in a particular time and place.”[vii]  We will continue to walk toward truth in our own time and place too.

Horizontally, our lessons teach us that we find our way to that truth the Spirit is showing us through the vehicle of those around us – both those in the church, and those outside our walls.  I cannot count the number of times I have learned something profound about God by someone who never harkens the door a church.  Our job is to pay attention:  pay attention to the way that God is using others to show us more about God; pay attention to the ways God invites us to interpret our sufferings with others; pay attention to those who are struggling toward truth along with us.  We will surely step into heresy now and then.  But we will also step into God’s love and grace through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and those around us.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, “Trinity Talk,” May 15, 2016, as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4648 on May 18, 2016.

[ii] David Lose, “Trinity C:  Don’t Mention the Trinity,” May 17, 2016, as found on http://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/trinity-c-shh-dont-mention-the-trinity/ on May 18, 2016.

[iii] Lose.

[iv] Richard L. Sheffield, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 39.

[v][v] Sheffield, 41.

[vi] Lose.

[vii] Lewis.

Sermon – John 6.1-12, P12, YB, July 26, 2015

Tags

abundance, baskets, church, disciples, five thousand, Jesus, scarcity, Sermon, theology

On one of the first days on a mission trip to Burma, our team went to Church.  Like any good Anglican Church, the Burmese have their own version of Coffee Hour.  Lots of people wanted to be around us, but mostly all we could do was smile and nod because of the language barrier.  One of the mothers of the parish came up to us and asked our translator if we were hungry.  She said she would bring us some Mohingar.  When she returned, we discovered Mohingar was a soup.  My teammate and I graciously thanked our host, but suspiciously eyed the soup.  I mean, it’s soup, so how bad can it be, right?  But it’s soup – there’s not telling what is in that thick broth.  But when you are a guest, you eat.  And, so, with many eyes on us, we tentatively ate our Mohingar.  As we ate, flavors filled our mouths.  The soup was good – really good.  In fact, this “Mohingar” was probably the best soup I have ever eaten.  This was no ordinary soup – Mohingar is like a meal in soup form.  Mohingar has eggs, noodles, fish, banana stems.  It sounds strange, but I promise you it was delicious.  I had no problem needing to pretend to graciously like the soup.  It was amazing!  At the end of my very satisfying, filling bowl of Mohingar, I raved to our host.  Unfortunately, that meant she insisted I have more.  I later realized on that trip in Burma, that this was always the practice with food.  If you even came close to finishing your food, you were always offered more – more rice, more fish, more fruit, more Mohingar.  We finally broke down and learned how to say, “I’m full” in Burmese.  What I learned about food in Burma was that showing love and hospitality meant showing abundance through food.  That is not to say that our hosts were well-off.  In fact, many of them were struggling.  But even in the midst of poverty, abundance found a way.

The disciples in our gospel lesson today were not accustomed to this practice of abundance.  Instead, they were quite adept at the practice of scarcity.  When Philip is asked where they can buy bread for everyone, he calculates the number of wages that would be needed to feed such a crowd, basically concluding that there is no way they can afford to feed so many.  When Andrew is presented with just a little food from boy – five loaves and two fish, he scoffs.  His scarcity mentality is too limited to imagine how greatness can come from so little.  I am sure that when Jesus told the disciples to sit the people down, the disciples were vacillating between skepticism, disbelief, and maybe even fear of what would happen when all five thousand people realized how hungry they were and how little this Jesus and his disciples had.

We are all familiar with this theology of scarcity.  Karen Yust imagines the same scene in a contemporary congregation.  She says, “One might expect the [Vestry] to echo Philip’s money-management concern, pointing out that the congregation does not take in enough revenue to support such a project.  The outreach committee might reinforce Andrew’s position, stating that the congregation has earmarked only a small percentage of its income for mission giving and the proposed project’s needs far exceed the allocated amount.  The groups responsible for discipleship and worship may not even offer an opinion, as they are busy preparing for a fast-approaching religious festival.  The buildings and grounds committee may assist with seating everyone on the lawn, although some [committee] members might worry about the effects of this event on the property’s landscaping.  It is likely that none of the congregations’ boards or committees would expect to participate in a miracle, as that is not what they signed on for.”[i]  On the surface, those behaviors are all smart behaviors.  Vestries have fiduciary responsibility for parishes.  Outreach committees must be wise in managing their aid.  The Altar Guild, Buildings and Grounds Committee, and Sunday School teachers all have areas of responsibility that need tending.  Even I have parameters around my discretionary fund and how often one person or family can receive aid.  The challenge is when a group of people have gathered to serve and glorify God, but only have a limited financial ability to do so (and trust me, big parishes sweat paying the bills as much as small parishes do), a seemingly necessary but nasty habit evolves – a theology of scarcity.  We all have faced that temptation.  Think about the last time you were planning your pledge to the church.  I am sure each of us looked at our income and other financial obligations before deciding what we had left to spare for the church.  We want to be sure that if we give generously to the church, we still have enough to pay the bills!

But Jesus does not seem to know anything about this theology of scarcity.  In fact, Jesus seems to have developed the opposite theology – a theology of abundance.  Of course, this feeding of five thousand should be no surprise.  This is the same Jesus who turned water into wine in Cana – and not just a little wine, but gallons upon gallons of wine; and not just any wine, but the best wine they had had all night long.  This is the same Jesus who will later explain to his disciples that in God’s house, there are many dwelling places – not just room for each of them, but many dwelling places.  In John’s gospel, “we are confronted with this profuse and full-measured flood of God’s grace mediated through the Christ.”[ii]  Nowhere does Jesus invite us to be careful or reserved.  Instead, Jesus keeps reminding us of the abundance of God.  Not only can he feed five thousand people, there will be leftovers.  And my guess is that those leftovers were there even after Jesus kept asking if they wanted more – until the people found the right words for “I’m full.”

Today, Jesus leaves us with baskets – twelve to be exact.  Twelve full baskets that are left over after feeding five thousand.  Those baskets sit there, challenging our every tendency to live on our own scarcity or fears of insufficiency.  Those baskets sit there, challenging our tendency to hoard, save, worry, and live a very small, safe life.  Those baskets sit there, challenging all the times we would rather pull back than push forward.  Instead, the baskets sit here today, right here at St. Margaret’s, inviting us to exercise faith in God’s abundance.  The baskets sit here today, calling us as a community to go places we have never been, to do things we have never tried, and to be things we have never envisioned.[iii]  The baskets sit here today, reminding us of all the times St. Margaret’s has had enough and emboldening us to live our lives as though we will always have not just enough, but an abundance.  The baskets sit here today, inviting us not be a people of anxiety and competition, but a people of generosity and hope.[iv]  Those baskets – that message of abundance is our good news today.  Amen.

[i] Karen Marie Yust, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 284.

[ii] Charles Hoffman, “More than Enough,” Christian Century, vol. 123, no. 15, July 25, 2006, 18.

[iii] Hoffman, 18

[iv] H. Stephen Shoemaker, “Bread and Miracles,” Christian Century, vol. 117, no. 20, July 5-12, 2000, 715.

Sermon – Isaiah 6.1-8, TS, YB, May 31, 2015

Tags

experience, forgiveness, God, hem, Holy Spirit, Jesus, repentance, robe, Sermon, theology, Trinity, Trinity Sunday, volunteer, worship

“God sat Sunday in her Adirondack deck chair, reading the New York Times and sipping strawberry lemonade, her pink robe flowing down to the ground.  The garment hem was fluff and frill, and it spilled holiness down into the sanctuary, into the cup and the nostrils of the singing people.  One thread trickled loveliness into a funeral rite, as the mourners looked in the face of death, and heard the story of a life truer than goodness.  A torn piece of the robe’s edge flopped onto a war in southern Sudan and caused heartbeats to skip and soldiers looked into themselves deeply.  One threadbare strand of the divine belt almost knocked over a polar bear floating on a loose berg in the warming sea.  One silky string wove its way through Jesus’ cross, and tied itself to desert-parched immigrants with swollen tongues, and a woman with ovarian cancer and two young sons.  You won’t believe this, but a single hair-thin fiber floated onto the yacht of a rich man and he gasped when he saw everything as it really was.  The hem fell to and fro across the universe, filling space and time and gaps between the sub-atomic world, with the effervescent presence of the one who is the is.  And even in the slight space between lovers in bed, the holiness flows and wakes up the body to feel beyond the feeling and know beyond the knowing…”[i]

I stumbled on Michael Coffey’s poem as I struggled with the idea of how to preach about the Holy Trinity on this Trinity Sunday.  And then I realized something:  we understand theology much more through experience than through reading some heady fourth-century theologian.  The concept of the Trinity is not an easy one to understand.  In fact, the concept is so complicated that most of us try not to think about the Trinity at all.  We simply know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as truth, and do not worry too much about the details.  That approach is probably fine most of the time – until you have to explain the concept of the Trinity to a child or non-believer.  Trying to explain how God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all the same and yet all distinctly separate is not as simple as it sounds.  Then try to explain how all three are co-eternal and I promise you, you will get looks of confusion.  The questions about how Jesus can be born in a particular time and place and yet be co-eternal with the Holy Spirit and God will make anyone stutter.

I have begun to wonder then if part of why we do not often spend time working through the theology of the Trinity is because we do not necessarily need to think about the Trinity – we simply need to have an experience of the Trinity.  That realization became clearest to me this week as I thought about our lesson from Isaiah.  Now you may be wondering how I found an experience of the Trinity in the Old Testament.  Certainly, we need the fullness of the New Testament to really understand the Trinity.  But we have to remember that the Trinity has always been – remember that word “co-eternal”?  Now I must admit, this notion makes me uncomfortable too – reading a New Testament theology into the Hebrew Scriptures is what a lot of purists call anachronistic – a chronological inconsistency where we juxtapose two different time periods incorrectly.  But given our theological understanding of the Trinity as being co-eternal, many theologians argue that seeing the Trinity in our Isaiah text today is not, in fact, anachronistic.[ii]  If you buy that logic, the song the seraphs sing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts…” reminds us of the old hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy” which contains the line, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”  The seraphs’ song hints at the three persons of the Godhead.  And when God wonders what prophet God will send to the sinful people, God says, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  That “us,” by many scholars, is considered yet another precursor to the concept of the Trinity.[iii]

But all of that is academic to me.  We can certainly debate whether or not the Trinity is hinted at in the Isaiah reading today.  But what is more important to me is that we get a better understanding of the experience of the Trinity through the Isaiah story.  The story starts with Isaiah seeing the Lord sitting on a throne, with that hem that Michael Coffey describes so vividly in his poem.  The text says the hem of God’s robe fills the temple.  Imagine, as Coffey does, the hem of that robe filling this entire church.  Imagine fabric billowing over the pews, draping over the altar rail, spilling out the front door.  Imagine us stumbling over the enormity of that fabric, getting tangled up in the hem’s folds.  And all of that fabric swirling around us is only the hem of the robe – not the whole robe, but the hem of the robe.  Isaiah’s description is of a God that is larger than life, that is incomprehensible in size and vastness.  Just the tip of God’s garment is larger than the greatest Cathedral and certainly overwhelming in a space like our intimate church.

In fact, the experience of God is so overwhelming, that Isaiah is brought down to his knees in fear – not a simple fear of God, but fear because Isaiah realizes he is woefully sinful and unworthy of being in God’s presence.  He even shouts among the folds of fabric that entangle him, “Woe is me!  I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips…”  That is the second experiential understanding of the Triune God.  First we are overwhelmed by the Trinity’s vast, mysterious incomprehensibility, and second, we are crippled by the shame of our sinfulness in response.  But then, another profound realization happens.  When Isaiah confesses his sinfulness, the seraph simply touches his mouth with a hot altar coal and Isaiah’s sin is blotted out.  That is the third thing we discover about the Trinity.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are quick to forgive a repentant heart.  No Hail Mary’s are necessary.  No Our Fathers.  Forgiveness is swift and full – much unlike human capacity for forgiveness.  Finally, we learn yet another interesting thing about the Trinity.  God-in-three-persons needs us.  The Lord says, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  There is not strategic plan; there is no preordained conception of who should go.  God does not say, “Isaiah, you shall go and be my prophet,” which is unusual because in most of the call stories we hear, God does call people by name.  But not with Isaiah.[iv]  Here, the Trinitarian Godhead is wondering who in the world will go and be the prophet.  That is what we finally see about the Trinity.  The Trinity openly invites – and according to Isaiah’s response, “Here am I: send me!” we learn that the Trinity inspires people to recklessly volunteer for things they probably shouldn’t.

Of course, when we really think about what we learn about the Trinity in Isaiah: that God is vastly other, inspires repentance, readily gives forgiveness, and causes wanton willingness to serve the Lord, then we begin to see that all of those insights are part and parcel of our own experience of the Trinity every week in worship.[v]  Every week, we start our worship in praise.  We praise God in word, song, and prayer.  We marvel at the vastness of God’s hem as we read and reflect on God’s Word.  We profess our Trinitarian faith in the Creed and then we confess.  Like Isaiah, all that praise, wonder, and realization of God’s enormity pulls us down to our knees as each one of us confesses our unworthiness aloud.  A chorus of voices comes together as we each confess our faults and failings over the past week.  And then, just like a snap, the priest delivers God’s forgiveness.  We are offered the Eucharistic meal, which, like the coal on Isaiah’s lips, wets our lips with forgiveness.[vi]  And when the priest tells us to go out into the world rejoicing in the power of the Spirit, we find ourselves overwhelmed with the words, “Here am I; send me!”  We find ourselves jettisoning ourselves into the world, longing to serve the God whose robe knocks us over and whose meal sets us free.

Michael Coffey’s poem brings us full circle to our Trinity Sunday ponderings.  About God’s robe, Coffey concludes, “…And even as we monotheize and trinitize, and speculate and doubt even our doubting, the threads of holiness trickle into our lives.  And the seraphim keep singing “holy, holy, holy”, and flapping their wings like baby birds, and God says: give it a rest a while.  And God takes another sip of her summertime drink, and smiles at the way you are reading this filament now, and hums: It’s a good day to be God.”[vii]  Amen.

[i] Michael Coffey, “God’s Bathrobe,” as posted on May 31, 2012 at http://mccoffey.blogspot.com/2012/05/gods-bathrobe.html as found on May 27, 2015.  Punctuation and formation changed for ease of preaching.  Original structure found on website.

[ii] Donald K. McKim, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 30.

[iii] McKim, 28.

[iv] Patricia Tull, “Commentary on Isaiah 6.1-8,” found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2458, May 31, 2015, as found on May 27, 2015.

[v] Kristin Emery Saldine, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 28, 30.

[vi] Melinda Quivik, “Commentary on Isaiah 6.1-8,” found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1284, June 3, 2012, as found on May 27, 2015.

[vii] Coffey.