Autosermonium, a telling of Jonah and the Bush

This is the title of the book I will never publish. The sermons I write myself. There are a few on this blog already. Coming out of (I sure hope coming out of) 6 months of insanity, I'm sitting here carrying a migraine. The ones I bring on myself when, for lack of better language, I don't let my chi flow free. Surely there is some adequate Christian language for this, lost in a hole in the ground before the nutjobs raided the castle.

So here I am, hardly a Mothers Day sermon, although, if the church is your mother, here's my truth this week.

A reading from Johah 4 (paraphrased)

Jonah left the city and squatted down in the hills outside to watch God raise Holy Hell. God put up a bush to give him shade but in the morning, God killed the bush to get Jonah's attention. "Oh kill me already," said Jonah. "You're that angry about the bush, then," said God. "So angry I want to die," said the emo Jonah. "Jonah, you are all beat up about a stupid bush and you are completely avoiding the point - which is all the people in that town you stormed out of yesterday." Here endeth the lesson, and the book.

I've heard preaching on Jonah before. Usually, people talk about the whale and spend a ridiculous amount of time discussing the difference between a whale and a big fish. Which is a bush if I ever heard one.

I'm coming off a long season. In short, I skipped the liturgical celebration of holy week because I actually had to live it a couple weeks before and after that, anyone talking to me about the woes of the altar guild or copier errors would have sent me into a rage spiral. If you mentioned those things on facebook, I've unfollowed you. I'll try to remember after ordination season to put you back in the newsfeed.

So today, when I decided I needed to find a totem bible figure for this season of my life, Jonah came quickly to mind. I've always had a soft spot for Jonah and that damnable bush. So, I pulled up the story and read Chapter 4. The part I paraphrased.

And I realised, that stupid bush is the church. Which is just perfect, and horribly accurate, and why didn't I see this before. But really, the church is this dumb bush. The exact quote: " You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night." I can't tell you how many articles get rewritten every single day about the death of the church in America. Frankly, I don't have much patience for them anymore. Because at the end of the day, it's all summed up right here.

I suppose the impatience I have had with the church for so long has everything to do with the fact that they are still watering the damn bush half a mile out of town, leaving everyone to try to figure out how to save themselves.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to save people these days. Not in the Old Time Religion sense of getting them wet so they can clean toilets in heaven, but in the sense that the world is such a fucked up mess of a place to try and live and how do we all stop from going completely bonkers. For real, that trauma has replaced suffering in the common language is perhaps not a total disgrace, but that barely anyone can actually speak between the two languages without sounding like a complete twat is actually beyond disgraceful.

I spend a huge amount of my time with people either getting slammed by life, common enough, or escaping it, also common. The ordinary time of this culture, all of Western Civ, I expect, no longer has anything to hold it together. And I'm not proposing we try, like many Islamic countries are, to put the lid back on Pandora's box. The only way out is through, and I have no idea where all this leads. But, given the obsession of my generation with tribes, with creating family of choice rather than the national nuclear familial project we inherited, I expect that the larger project of culture will continue to wander down it's barrren path.

There are going to be new bushes. But they are going to be like any salvage plant - a tiny leaf in rooting powder and the rest of the plant, soil and pot, tossed in the trash to keep the rot from contaminating this new plant. And it probably won't even work. (Can you tell I do this sad trick often in my own gardening?) It's going to be very custom work, very small scale, and it's going to be hard pressed to attach the word institution to it. It's certainly not going to be paying anyone's salary.

And what's going to be the hardest I think, is that I have this great resource, but mostly, it's going to have to spend some time in quarantine before we see if it's going to survive. And in the meantime, I've got to figure out how to hold people together, navigating trauma and suffering, saving the people while decontaminating them, helping them toss the dead parts, the old soil and possibly even the pot.  (I think I've walked this metaphor right off the end of the branch, surely a sign to hit post and run.)




In case you are too lazy to go looking for this on your own...

Jonah 4 (NRSV)

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’ Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

 The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’

 But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?’ And he said, ‘Yes, angry enough to die.’ Then the Lord said, ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?’

Sermon for a Rainy Day

I decided to just write the sermon I needed to hear this morning and avoid the disappointment of a religious experience. I aplogize to Neil Gaiman for being my text, without getting permission, but as my blog has such a tiny readership, I am sure he will forgive me. Or not. Whatever.

I just finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I think that is what it is called. In any case, it's the new Neil Gaiman book, and I keep falling asleep last night trying to read the last 10 pages. I'm so pleased that someone is still creating mythology in this world.


It quite allowed me to coalesce something that has been floating around in my head. Which is the desperation, often not in the slightest bit quiet, that permeates the Christian religion I encounter these days. It looks a little different, depending on where you encounter it, but it never ceases to extrude desperation all over the conversation.


In one place, it is the desperation to care for the poor. Great gaping maws of need, and I'm not talking about actual poor people, but those who support and care for them. So much energy, bustling, running, yelling with words and actions, the physical needs of the world. The environment, the rights of this or that group, the food insecurity, the lack of clothing, water, immunizations, and on and on. It reaches as loftily as the well off can imagine and as nitty gritty as the lowliest child dying in his mother's arms as I write this.


It's all the same cry. Give me peace. Jesus left peace here. It's all around us. It's inside every one of us. How does that verse go, Peace I bring you, God's own peace I leave you. Something like that. But we keep running around as though if we dump enough sand in the hole, it will be an adequate substitute for peace. Neither chicken little, nor Joel Ostrogoth have peace. They are not sharing it with you. They are throwing sand, hoping to obfuscate the the lack of peace, because neither know what it is.


It is not catastrophizing, as my therapy puts it, even if there is a catastrophe looming.


It is not material security, as though most material security isn't a crap shoot of luck and circumstance.


It isn't even “making peace” with a situation, a pretty form of giving up.


I certainly can't give you any of those things. I spent too much time in therapy and I'm actually pretty shallow and selfish with my money. And if anything, my gift to this world is to point out the lameness, and I am never content. I have no idea what that means, and even medication isn't giving it to me. We are not meant to be content in this world. But it doesn't mean we are to be chasing money or solving problems, either.


This is the peace of the Lord.


I SEE YOU.


I HEAR YOU.


There is not, really, a damn thing that I can do to change your circumstance, to make your life into something it is not, but I can see it, I can hear it. And to the very, very, very best of my ability, I can see and hear your life through your own filter and not my own.


Lessons from a book I finished this morning. We can never truly see ourselves, wisdom won't bring it, therapy won't bring it, Strength Finder 2.0 is a waste of money if that is what you are trying to do with it. We can see others, if we stop trying to use them as mirrors as we seek ourselves.


I see you.
There is peace, because we so much want to see ourselves, know ourselves, understand ourselves.


The peace Jesus brings, the peace of the Lord is being seen. Being known.


And anybody can do it. It's not some special thing you learn in school, nothing about the circumstances of your birth or upbringing. Anyone can stop looking for themselves and start actually looking at other people.


I see you.


And when I am actually seeing you, actually hearing you, no matter who you are or what your circumstances, I can only love you. Not do anything for you or with you or about you. I can only love you, because you are shockingly amazing.


Another lesson from the book this morning – Personhood isn't a pass/fail exam. It just is.



But in those moments when I stop looking for me and start connecting with you. Then I am peace, I am the peace that Jesus brought to this world. And without doing a single thing, I bring about the kingdom of God.

Holding Out for a Hero

Third Sunday after Epiphany Year B

Jonah 3:1-5, 10Psalm 62: 6-141 Corinthians 7: 29-31Mark 1:14-20

I’ve known my husband a long time, and the whole time I’ve known him, he has collected life lessons. There are quite a few of them now, but the first one, from before we were even married is this, “the hero is the guy who just wants to finish his beer and go home.” 

I believe that this life lesson just might explain why Jonah is his favorite story in the bible. Because Jonah was a guy with a good job as a local prophet, when God called him out to do something extra ordinary. Something he really didn’t want to do. In fact, it took being vomited out of a fish for him to finally, grudgingly, do what God asked. 

So, being left with no choice, he proclaims destruction on Ninevah. 

You will note, Jonah does not preach repentance. He does not evangelize.  He couldn’t care less about the Ninevites, he is just trying to finish the job so he can go home. And yet, through Jonah, the kindgom of God draws near. The Ninevites believe God, they believe this cranky disgruntled prophet of God and their instinctive response is towards sackcloth and ashes. Towards repentance.  And what happened? “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”

I bet you didn’t know Jonah was a hero. Unless you’ve been cornered by my husband at coffee hour, you might never have considered a hero in quite that way. We tend to think of heroes as doers, as people in charge of a situation, people who get things done. People who solve problems. Heroes are people who know that “any minute now, I am going to be called to be more than I am.” Clark Kent, awkward reporter, Peter Parker, inept photographer. But at a moment’s notice, Superman. Spiderman. Hero.

The disciples are heroes of this sort. The sort that make mothers and fathers and spouses fear for their sanity. Jesus wanders along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and I imagine he says this to everyone he meets. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” I have to wonder if the gossip got ahead of him. “Some crazy man is walking along the beach looking for help netting people. I sure hope my kids don’t get any dumb ideas.” 

What were Simon and Andrew thinking? Did Simon have a fight with his wife that morning? Was he already wondering, what if I just dropped this net and walked away? 

What did Zebedee say to James and John, when they jumped out of the boat? Did he call after them, reminding them that this was their inheritance they were walking away from?

How did Simon and Andrew and James and John know that this minute was the minute they were being called to be more than they were?

How did they know, that this call was the call, the one worth walking away from what they had, what they knew, what they were? Like those fishermen, we are always facing choices that are bigger than we can really grasp at the time. Do I take that job? The one in a different state? Will it be good for my family? Will it change the world? 

I believe we all want to change the world, we all want to do something that is bigger than ourselves, something that will leave a mark. That’s not the same as famous or popular or rich, although that is what it means for some people. I don’t want to be famous, but I’d still like to be a hero, even if I’m the only one who knows that I’ve done something heroic. 

As Christians, we want to leave the world a better place than we found it, create a place that looks a little closer to the kingdom of God than we understood it, for people we know and for places we will never go. That’s what those fishermen did, even thought they had no idea, not in the moment, how it was all going to turn out. Still, somehow, by some faith, they knew they were being called to change the world.

Jesus is calling heroes. God is making heroes whether they want to or not. Are you already a hero? Or is there something holding you back? Is it the fear that you might have to leave everything behind? Do you believe being a hero is only possible if you go on a long perilous journey against your will or if you abandon your family to follow a man in strappy sandals? 

Sometimes the most world changing thing we can do is stick around, to stay home, to keep on doing the right thing, the thing right in front of you, even if it’s boring, or frightening, or completely lacking in glamour and prestige. Sometimes staying in relationship with someone or something impossible is absolutely the most heroic thing anyone ever did. Sometimes, it’s letting someone go. 

Sometimes the most heroic thing anyone can do is look at the present situation as though it were, in fact, part of the kingdom of God. It’s easy to say the future is going to be better, (or worse), than the present. It’s easy to look at the past, and imagine it could have been something else, it could have been perfect. It is often really difficult to look at the present and say, this is what it is, this is where I am, this is where God is doing great things. Even if we can’t see anything heroic about it. 

This is what I think Jesus said to those fishermen. “Leave those fish for people who can only see fish. The kingdom of heaven has more than fish. I know you. I know you can see more than fish. Bring all that you are, all that you can see. It’s going to be more important and more useful than those fish.” 

Jesus wasn’t looking for fishermen, because he wasn’t looking to catch some fish. He was and is looking for some visionaries, for some heroes - the kind who want to stay home and the kind who want to fly. He is looking for some people who can see the kingdom of God, and who can show other people, right in this present moment, that the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent. Believe in the Good News. For the kingdom of God is here. 

What are you afraid of?

Proper 28 - 

Zephaniah 1:7,12-18

Psalm 90:1-8(9-11), 12

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

I hate scheduling dental appointments. Sometimes, I skip prayer before bed and fall asleep with an episode of Star Trek Voyager instead.  I have been known to cheat on my budget by using my credit cards. 

What is it about knowing what we ought to do, then not actually doing it? Do you have some things that you know you ought to do, things that are even good for you, like exercising and eating more salad greens, that you just can’t seem to actually do?

 Sometimes, we know what we ought to do, but we don’t the resources or the energy to do it. Often, however, it’s not a matter of resources at all; it’s a matter of perception. Why is that? Why is it so hard to overcome perception so we can do those things we do have the resources and energy to do? Every one of those things I mentioned is something that I would actually benefit from. So, why am I so afraid to do the right thing? Because sometimes, the fear of the possibility of failure is greater than the consequences of failure itself. Let me say that again - The fear of the mere possibility of failure is greater than the actual consequences of failure. And I’m only talking about salad greens. 

Still, did any of you hear this mornings readings in this fearful way? Did you hear Zephaniah talking about days of wrath and the Psalmist talking about being consumed by wrath and Paul with his sudden destruction and Matthew’s weeping and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness? I admit, that was what stood out for me when I first looked at these lessons. Stuff like this makes it really hard to trust God - makes it really hard not to worry too much about failure - makes it hard to trust that actual failure isn’t as scary as the possibility of failure. 

All that doom and fear does makes the servant with one talent from today’s gospel a lot more sympathetic. Believing his master to be “a harsh man, reaping where he did not sow and gathering where he did not scatter seed” he took his talent and hid it in the ground, rather than use it. For this servant, the fear of the possibility of failure was greater than anything else he could imagine. 

I think that the difference between this slave, with his one talent, and the other slaves with their two or five talents is an imagined scarcity. One doesn’t sound like a lot. One doesn’t sound very abundant. But I think that depends on what you have one of. 

The parable talks about talents. It is a trans-literation rather than a translation of the Greek word talanta. But where English uses the word talent to mean those things we have natural aptitude for and can enhance with skill and training, talanta is a monetary term for about 15 years worth of income for a day laborer. Life expectancy being what it was, this was the equivalent of a lifetimes worth of skill and talent and money. 

Think about that for a minute, a lifetime of labor. 

Jesus is using money as a metaphor in this parable but he’s talking about faithfulness. That one talent is no small thing.  We receive this parable at the very end of his earthly ministry, at is a time when he is investing heavily in the faithful relationships he has built with his disciples. If the in-breaking kingdom of God that his life and ministry have begun is going to continue, it is going to be in the context of human lifetimes, in the context of human faithfulness.

A lifetime of faith. It’s all we can do sometimes to take things one day at a time, but what might those days be if we considered our faith, our labor, in the wonder of a whole lifetime? And in this parable, some are given as many as 5 talents. What might that even look like?

I think it looks like us. It looks like liturgy. Within the context of our faith, we are handed from generation to generation, lifetimes worth of faith. Not just our own lifetime and it’s potential, but the work of the whole communion of saints. It’s in the Lord’s Prayer that we have directly from Jesus, it’s in the Creeds that connect us to the clarifying moments of the fourth century, it’s in the sacraments of baptism and eucharist, where inward grace is made explicit for the whole community. 

Does it change the size of your faith to know that it is composed of the investment of lifetimes of faithfulness? It changes mine. 

The lessons today were full of this trust and faithfulness. Zephaniah says we are consecrated guests of the Lord. The psalmist says God has been our dwelling place since before the earth was even formed. Paul says that we belong to the day, so awake or asleep we live in Christ. Two servants in this parable have entered into joy. 

So why is, then, that when I listen to Scripture, I hear so loudly the fear of the saints who have gone before? This because I have stopped listening to God and to Scripture in faithfulness and start listening in fearfulness. Sometimes it seems easier to hear the bad things that could happen than to hear the trust in the good things that do happen. 

If we believe that all there is to God is a master who demands much and offers little, who doesn’t have room for failure, then it’s not surprising if we don’t notice these parts. If we believe that we have only one talent, and don’t believe that talent is worth a whole lifetime of faithfulness, then it’s not surprising we are afraid to grow that faith.

But, I wonder, what might we be missing, because we are afraid of the possibility of failure, afraid of letting God down?

Because our lives matter. And because there are consequences to how we nurture and maintain the kingdom of God, there is a lot of fearful talk in the Scriptures. As so many parables remind us - the harvest is not complete, the kingdom is now and not yet, the first fruits have been resurrected but not the last.

The full abundance of our faith is not the work of ourselves in isolation. It is the heritage of the whole communion of saints. It is the faithfulness of those who have come before to enrich us, and it is our legacy to enrich those who come after. Our children and grandchildren, our neighbors and friends, people on the other side of the globe and people on the other side of the century. 

In truth, none of us who have even a mustard seed of faith have only one talent of faith. We have this abundant cornucopia of faith. And even if it were one talent, a lifetime is so much bigger than we can even imagine. 

I look around this space, at all of you, and I see this abundant faith. The results of New Consecration Sunday reinforced for all of us that we have abundant faith, abundant grace. Our one lives are bursting with the abundant talents that we bring, that we receive, that we share. Listen to the faithfulness and know that it matters.

Compassion

I preached this at the Beatitudes Preaching Workshop. It was an excellent exercise in taking the time it takes and always to be reading a good book. I was reading a book by Wendy Farley called Theodicy and Divine Compassion. I mentioned it in the sermon, but I don't know if it got mentioned in the text.

“He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.” I should think so. But, have you ever wondered just what Jesus was fasting from? I think that Jesus is fasting from the power of Satan, from the voice of Satan in his head. And I think this because thanks to the polyphonic Spirit, this is what I am fasting from.

Have you ever wondered about the voices in your head? I expect that you, like me, actually have a bit of a Greek chorus – teachers, parents, song lyrics, spouses and partners, preachers and movies, the Huffington Post, NPR, and Fox News are but a few of the voices rattling around in there. All of those voices and more throw in their two cents when we need to make a decision. How do we decide which ones to listen to? How do we decide which one to trust?

Have you ever wondered if some of those voices might be Satan? I can usually tell by what are they offering? Satan offers us power; the power of domination. Those voices that say, “The Spirit doesn’t speak through me, why would anyone listen to me.” Those voices that say, “If everyone would just shut up and do what I tell them. Why is it that I am the only one who knows what we should do?” Those are some of the voices that keep us imprisoned and that enable us to imprison others. Those voices that create ‘the other’ rather than ‘the communion’.

The gospel for today is an invitation to follow Jesus in turning away from Satan’s power of domination. Which makes me wonder about the Hebrew Scripture it is paired with. The lectionary compilers, in conjunction with eons of historical thought, have offered us the story of the Fall, of Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and discovering shame. Traditionally, this story is used to explain why there is evil and suffering in the world of a benevolent God.

How do we reconcile the story of the Fall with things like the goodness of creation and free will and a benevolent God? Quite often, the answer to this is to say that Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and got their just reward. Unfortunately, this explanation is then extrapolated to say that whenever something bad happens to us, it is our fault, we caused it, we deserve our suffering. If we are going to read the story of the Fall as the beginning of Satan’s domination, so that Jesus can later refute that domination, we are going to have to answer some tough questions about consequences and freedom. It is easy to see how Adam and Eve had the freedom to act and the freedom to receive the consequences of that freedom, but the world is a lot more complicated than this story.

There is a difference between the suffering that happens when good intentions collide. The suffering that comes from freedom and leads to health and strength and it is not the same suffering that denies hope. God can and will redeem even hopeless suffering, but we cannot say that it is part of a causal chain from the Fall. We cannot say that it is deserved.

Domination is not the power of God. God’s power is love, and it is most readily seen in the act of compassion. Compassion is not an emotional response. It isn’t really an emotion at all, it is a verb, a very active verb. The hallmarks of compassion are righteous anger and sorrow in the presence of suffering, any suffering, but especially in the hopeless suffering of an abused child, of a Holocaust camp, of institutionalized segregation and racism.

You have to see a human as human, without any mitigating circumstances in order to feel compassion. You have to see the world as God’s good creation in order to act out of compassion.

It is all too easy to step over the homeless vet sleeping next to the newspaper vending machine in order to read and bemoan the latest atrocities of war. This is when the power of Satan wins. Because if we step over suffering we have stepped on compassion – we have abdicated our own divine righteous anger and sorrow.

Compassion is what Jesus offered on the cross. He did not curse the crowds, or offer a defense. He offered compassion, because compassion is the only way to break the cycle of domination. Compassion compels us to act in whatever way we can, short of domination, to bring more of God’s love into existence. Compassion says, “I have a dream.” Compassion says, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Compassion says blessed are the peacemakers and the poor in spirit and those who mourn, for they already see the kingdom of God. Compassion breaks the cycle of domination because it does not say, I know what is best for you, but says, I see you as a fellow human and my heart breaks for your pain. How may I serve you?

So my Lenten practice of saying no to the voice of Satan in my head is an exercise in compassion. I am, as it were, starting with myself. Because if I cannot break the bonds of Satan in my own heart, how can I ever imagine that I might break them for any other child of God? I invite you, in the four, now three days that we have together in this Sabbath time, to join me in my Lenten discipline. Shouting down Satan in your own hearts and minds. Anticipating the trampling down of death that is to come. Then we shall be able to overcome the powers of domination with the powers of compassion and lead others to do the same.

Senior Sermon

This is the showcase sermon. It should be up on the CDSP website for at least a little while, but as of yet, I don't know how to access it.


Sometimes, there are no words. Sometimes, there is nothing to say. Sometimes, we need to just sit down, be still and know that there is God.
Yet, this seems to be impossible for the average human. When something catastrophic happens, we engage in a cacophony of words – who, what, why, when, where, become vitally important. The answers don’t have to be helpful, sometimes they don’t even have to be true, but we need to hear them all the same.
For it seems the less we know, the less control we feel, the more we need to fill the world with our presence, with our words. Now, lest you think I am advocating for pure silence, this constant checking in does two very important things for us –
First, it tells us that we exist.
Second, it tells us that someone else is witness to our existence. Humans don’t work very well without other humans and perhaps this is especially true in crisis. We do not like to feel alone.
Not only do we direct this feedback loop to other humans, we humans direct it to God as well. Because when we aren’t sure of ourselves, of our own existence or place in existence, we get very concerned that God might be confused as well. We need to make sure that God remembers us – hears us – finds us. Our prayers get louder and longer and more public. They build into forms, and we name them. Litany, Lamentation, Thanksgivings and Prayers of the People. We call to God, over and over again. We get so busy calling out our existence, that we forget the second part, we forget to listen for the response.
It is because of this forgetfulness that Jesus gently rebukes us in today’s Gospel.
Do not heap up empty phrases.
Your many words will not get you heard.
It turns out more is not better. Because God knows what we need before we even ask.


This can be incredibly hard to believe, because no one else seems to know what we need before we even ask. Chances are your teachers and students don’t know what you need. Your parents and partners don’t know. Employees and employers don’t. Your children don’t. Your friends don’t.
You know it’s ok that I can’t read your mind. And, I know you can’t read mine. As humans, we have invented all sorts of ways to communicate with each other, to acknowledge each other’s existence, to help fulfill each other’s needs.
It is not just with each other that we use these tools. We translate these communication strategies to our prayer lives as well. So, not only do our prayers get complicated, how we deliver them does too. We pray in church, we pray in houses, we pray in cars and classrooms and shopping malls and on beaches, trains and airplanes. We use song, dance, beads, bells and candles. We use bracelets and poetry and labyrinths.


The ways in which we make ourselves known to God, and do so visibly to other humans, is probably infinite. And I suspect that most of the time, we get that all important second step, that acknowledgement, from the humans who witness our prayers.
This is where we must ask ourselves,
are we praying so others can see us, affirm us,
or are we seeking that response from God?
If the answer is God, then you can save your empty phrases for your resume. You can save your heaps of words for your children. God does not need them. God already knows what you need, even before you do.
If you pray a litany or a lamentation or a thanksgiving or a prayers of the people, remember what it is for. Remember whom it is for. More often than not, we pray these prayers for ourselves. We pray these prayers for the first part. We pray these prayers to know that we exist.
But do not forget the second part.
When looking for a response from God, less is more. When we seek confirmation that God is aware of our existence, our prayer posture needs to be one of listening.
And a prayer for listening is the prayer that Jesus gives us. Listen.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours. Now, and forever. Amen.
It’s all there. The work, the reason, the plea, the good and bad and ugly that we bring before God, it all fits in here. And it is just enough. So that the rest of our prayer can be the second part, the listening to God, who knows what we need before we ask. Who answers our plea for recognition even before we finish the Amen.
As you pray the rest of this service, this day, this season, pray for the second part. Pray you hear the answering acknowledgement of your existence, in love, in peace, in joy and even in your sorrow. There will be time for action. There is much to do. But first, there is time to pray. Pray for the second part.

Epiphany 7, YrA, RCL

I don't think this makes much sense as a sermon, but it is the notes I put in my pocket for a sermon that, like the rest of the family service at St. John's, requires full participation from everyone in order to make happen. There is something beyond satisfying to share the scriptures with people who have not already made up their minds about what it says and how they feel about it, and who want to have a conversation.

What are Rules?
ordering for life
how to live
best practices
Example – Rules for crossing the street
under 10?
10-20?
over 20?
Rules get more nuanced as we get older. We can make more decisions based on our experience once we have some experience, but when we don’t have a lot of experience, we have something like this service – we help each other with what comes next.

God has rules for us too.
Jesus – 2 rules (love God, love our neighbors as ourselves)
Moses-10 rules (love God, no false idols, honor mother and father, don’t covet what our neighbors has, etc)
Leviticus – book in the Hebrew Testament, the Older Books in the bible. It is full of rules, and like the crossing the street rules that we make for kids under 10, they can seem excessive or so particular that we can’t see how they actual relate to either Moses’ rules or Jesus’ rules. The section from Leviticus that is in our lectionary today is about lies and stealing.


“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.”

I admit, I am not a farmer, so really, to explain don’t lie or steal in this way doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. So, there’s more…

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD.
“You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
“You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.
“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18

God gives something that my mom didn’t when she gave me all those specific rules about crossing the street – God tells us why.

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

We are holy. Just like God is holy. Like Jane says in Godly Play about holy people. They come close to God and God comes close to them. Holy is what we are because we are God’s people. We don’t ever have to wonder about that. God does love us. And in some sense, we have God right inside us, just like the whole world has something of God in it. But, we aren’t God, and we don’t always know what the right thing to do is. So, just like our 9am service, we tell each other what comes next, and we help each other do the things God asks so that we can act in holy ways, as God made us. Sometimes, we need really really specific directions, like Leviticus, and sometimes we can carry a shorthand list, and sometimes, when we get some experience, we can just carry around Jesus’ two rules, and we are able to be holy and act holy more often than not. But until then, it is good that we have each other and we have the rules, the best practices of holy people who have come before, to help us along the way.

RCL I - Christmas 2010 (for homiletics)

I know it's not Christmas, but this was my last sermon for homiletics, and was pretty awesome. The gospel it is based on is Luke 2:1-14(15-20).



“Do not be afraid.”
A stranger walks up to you and says, do not be afraid.
Luckily, that doesn’t happen to me very often. Because on a cold dark night, I think that just might be an invitation to be very, very afraid.

Still, this is Jesus’ birth announcement, and God is using a tried and true method to communicate with us. And if the method seems suspect, well, so do the recipients. Who are these shepherds? More importantly, who do they know? Who can they tell?

No. Shepherds are not classy,
they aren’t glamorous, and they don’t attend parties with movers and shakers. God couldn’t have chosen more ordinary people to be the first to hear the news.

In fact, this birth announcement is our first clue that Jesus is here to show us a different way. Because this isn’t about glamorous movers and shakers. It’s about a baby. And everyone knows babies are no fun at cocktail parties.

Now, an angel might be. An angel seems to us a powerful being, maybe a creature with wings and halos and even an ethereal glow. Yes, I am sure that an angel could tell anyone, anything, that God wanted known. An angel like that could surely get the message to the right person.

Yet, lots of times, when God sends an angel, it has no wings, no glowing face, no face at all. It’s an idea in our heads that we can be so much more than we think we are capable of. Kinder, more loving, stronger, braver, more just, more outspoken on the behalf of others, more compassionate. Things we wish we could be, if we were, perhaps, a different person.

And even though we know, with absolute certainty, that we can’t possibly change, we step out and we try anyway. Sometimes, like those shepherds we think, ‘let’s go see if this is real.’ Sometimes we can do this, because we imagine the stakes are low. We think, oh, what’s the worst that can happen? No one will notice? That’s not so bad.

For the shepherds, it meant a walk back into town, and maybe a warm beverage on a cold night.

So they get to the inn, and sure enough, there is the sign, just like the angel said. There is a baby in a food trough in a courtyard. Which is just so unexpected that it must be a sign, and it must be true. Low stakes, it seemed, for the shepherds. Yet, it has glorious results for us all.

And it was not just the shepherds that had their faith affirmed that night. Mary has had the same experience as the shepherds. Almost a year ago, an angel came to her and said, do not be afraid. You will have a son, and name him Jesus, and he will be God’s son.
No pressure.

So, the angel gave Mary a sign. The unlikely sign that her elderly cousin would be pregnant for the first time. God being born at all is so inconceivable that Mary is given a sign that is also inconceivable.

Pregnancy is not a low stakes proposition. Not much was asked of the shepherds to confirm their faith. Just a walk, just what they could do. Mary’s faith was so great, she was able, on the strength of that angel’s sign, to go through a pregnancy and a birth.

Mary was able to listen to that angel, unafraid, and believe that angel and be something more than she could have ever imagined for herself.

It wasn’t just the shepherds whose faith was strengthened on that night in Bethlehem. Imagine how Mary must have felt to hear from a stranger that same message she herself had heard so many months before. Because, to hear someone else, someone who is not an angel, affirm our longing and truth is perhaps more powerful than anything we are told by a mythical creature.

I think that may be why, in the unfolding of creation, God sent us a child. God came among us, encased and embraced in the same flesh as us, so that when God said, ‘I love you’ it carried all the weight of our actual experience. Love for us is sticky and messy and complicated. We learn it by touch and through hormones and confuse it with other motivations. But it’s in the middle of that mess that we find the thing we know to be love.

This is our gift, this Christmas day.
Right in the middle of our busy, messy lives, Jesus shows us exactly how to move beyond the mess, and offers us the pure experience of God’s love in the way best suited to our understanding. As a child, as a parent, as a random bystander. We are all enfolded into the story of Emmanuel, God with us. Like the shepherds, we can all share the ‘good news of great joy for all people.’ We can all listen for an angel, and be something more than we ever thought we could be.

Advent 1 @ St. John's

this is the sermon i offered at the 8 and 10 am services at St. John's, Ross, CA. 9am is a different sort of service and the sermon was also about advent, but in the main, correlated the waiting of advent to pregnancy. there are no notes, and it wasn't recorded, so you will just have to take Aulden's word for it, that it was awesome.


Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your loves sake, Amen.

I don’t quite know why Advent makes that prayer come to mind, but every year, it does. Perhaps it is because Advent is when we watch. We watch for Jesus. We pay extra attention to our longing for a messiah.

Longing is an ordinary human action.

Our readings today speak of longing. We long for a time when our needs are met with abundance, when we don’t have to fight over scarcity anymore. Isaiah tells us about this.
We long for a place where God rules and justice prevails and peace is our birthright. The psalms speak to this.
We long for a time when we can be taken away from all our troubles. Jesus hears his disciples talking among themselves about this.

It is really normal to long for the end of fighting and struggling and misunderstandings. And it is really normal to cope with all the difficulties of life by ignoring as much of the strife as we can. It really is normal to wait for God to take care of the big stuff especially when we feel we are just getting by.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.

Sometimes, prayer is all we can do. Sometimes, giving the job to God is as much as we can manage, and this prayer carries that hidden desire. Do these things, because we don’t think we can. Jesus certainly teaches us how to pray, and tells us to pray often. But that isn’t all he tells us.

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

The gospel today is part of a series of teachings that Jesus offers his disciples, having just led them out of the temple, where he was pretty hard on the Pharisees for following the letter of the law and not the spirit. The letter of the law was keeping the Pharisees comfortable under Roman rule, but it wasn’t doing much for the rest of the Israelites.

So he has taken his disciples out of Jerusalem and he is trying to make it really clear to them
that who he is and
what he is here to do
is not what they think.

Because they thought Jesus was here to set up a government that would make everything good and just and fair, and take care of all the problems they didn’t want to think about. They are thinking that Jesus is going to make a place for them by kicking out the Romans and then the world will be perfect because they will be able to abdicate their responsibilities to Jesus.

That is what the disciples are hoping and thinking. But Jesus is telling his disciples and telling us, that we can’t abdicate our responsibility. We can’t assume that someone else is going to come and make things better, because we don’t know when that day will come. The kingdom of God isn’t what they thought it would be. The kingdom of God isn’t a government. We are the kingdom of God.

And while we don’t get to abdicate responsibility, we don’t have to go it alone. Jesus, over and over again, in his ministry, showed the disciples what to do, and promises that he will be with us.

Here at St. John’s we are part of that same story. We stand alongside the Israelites of Isaiah’s day, and the disciples of Jesus’ earthly ministry. We stand alongside our grandparents and parents and children and grandchildren in the continual unfolding of the kingdom of God. And in Advent we share in the hope and longing for peace in the world.

There are as many ways to share in the watching and working and weeping of the world as there are people. One of the ways is by making a house where all God’s people are welcome. As this is the last Sunday of the stewardship campaign, I am obliged to tell you that money helps make that happen. And I can tell you that the ownership you feel for having made even the smallest of pledges is greater than the guilt you might imagine over the size of that pledge.

And another way to share in that work is with your time and your talent. One of the ways I am doing that this year is directing the Christmas pageant. I am going to be spending some of my time bringing our children into this sanctuary, and some of my talent giving them the confidence to come in and teach us what it means for God to be with us.

I think Christmas pageants are important. Because the Christmas pageant is one of those few times when we let our children teach us what it means to be Christians.

And as I think about this community, and the ways in which we, like the people who followed Jesus during his human ministry, struggle with what it means to be like Jesus. It occurs to me that as a community, we have one line in the pageant. We have one response when the children come to us and look for shelter and warmth and a place to be safe with a new baby. We say ‘no room.’

During Advent, I think of the faith of Mary and Joseph, looking for a place to sleep, a place of peace, a place to give birth to the Son of Man. I think of all the longing I feel for a messiah to come. And I get really busy with all the traditions and responsibilities and think, I don’t have room for one more thing in my life.

But I wonder about that innkeeper, who had no room. I wonder if he was praying something like this prayer, when the knock came to his door. I wonder if it changed his mind.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your loves sake, Amen.

Christ the King - YrC

homiletics sermon, so really early, except this is the day I preached it.

Father, we thank you for the strength, the endurance, the patience, and the joy that enables us to share in the inheritance of the saints and be present to the kingdom of your beloved Son. Amen.

Today’s readings are from the last Sunday in the church calendar. The lectionary calls today Christ the King. However, unless our parish happens to be named Christ the King, we are unlikely to celebrate this in any particular way.

In truth, most of us are enjoying one last minute of calm before our lives are overrun with holiday parties, family gatherings, shopping and wrapping extravaganzas and just a general over consumption of everything. Each year we produce – collectively and individually – a great pile of lists of what we have accomplished that in more or less implied ways, identify what we hope to do differently next year.
Today, in this minute of calm, we can see that all this activity is pointing to something. It is pointing to our desires to be part of a community, to be loved, to be more than a worker in a job. I think the mere fact that we pile so much onto the last month of the year testifies to the importance we give to the end and the beginnings that follows.

So I find it a bit ironic that for Christians, at least liturgically and lectionary minded Christians, today is the end of the year. Today is the day we bring into sharp focus the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God.

Our readings today are shot through with images of kingdoms; kingdoms of safety and justice and righteousness. God lifts up good shepherds, good kings, good nations. Finally, God lifts up a son.

Colossians tells us, “For in Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself ALL things, whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Some of these images are clearly, for us, in the past. I haven’t needed a shepherd lately; I am pretty squarely in the democracy camp. But there is something about that cross, that reconciliation that is ongoing, that is even now. It keeps working for us – as a literal image and as an ongoing action.

The now of God’s reconciliation is as present for me, a sinner, as it was for the thief on the cross next to Jesus. In that critical moment of Jesus’ ministry, the thief begs him. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” he replies. The thief believes that the kingdom is in the future, yet Jesus reminds us that it is also today.

Like the thief, we, in our Christian journeys partake in this ongoing moment. Sometimes it’s flashy and instantaneous, sometimes it gently unfolds, and sometimes it’s as graceless as a sticky clutch. But the reconciling of all things, in heaven and on earth, always happens. It is always, somehow, this moment.

This moment is both now and not yet.

It is now because we are here, in the presence of each other, in the presence of the table, in the midst of the Word. We are reminded in Colossians that all things were created in and through Christ. “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church.” Here we sit; the church, the very body of Christ. The hands and feet and elbows and knees of the continuing reconciliation of all things. It is now.

And it is not yet.

Because in the midst of the lists and calendars and plans and parties and even a dentist appointment or two, we clearly see that the world is not reconciled to God. The world is clearly not at peace with itself. There are wars being fought, right now. There are clean up crews for hurricanes and earthquakes working as we speak. The world is not a kingdom of safety and justice and righteousness.

And yet, here we are, now, knowing that we are so beloved that God took on the flesh of a human so that we would feel that love without any boundaries.

Right now, between the end and the beginning of another year, we have this moment to compile our own lists and our own longings, for the now and not yet.

When did I act as the hands of Christ in the world?
How many moments did I use to reconcile rather than divide?
Can I reach for the not yet?
Can I live, even for a minute, in the moment of Paradise that Jesus promises even the guilty prisoner?
What can I do differently, now and not yet?

Tomorrow I start baking for the holidays. I start mailing holiday cards to people I don’t see very often. I begin rehearsals for the Christmas pageant. Tomorrow is a whirlwind.
Today.
Today is the day I will be in Paradise.

Audacity

The Gospel should be self evident from the sermon, but William Carey is a possibility in the Holy Women, Holy Men (Holy Smokes this is a lot of commemorations) trials to replace LFF.


“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

When’s the last time you moved a mountain?
How big was it?
How exciting was it?
Who did you tell?

William Carey moved a mountain. William Carey was born in 1761 in Paulerspury England, also known as the middle of nowhere, the place the Industrial Revolution forgot. His parents were weavers, they apprenticed him to a shoemaker, and he married the shoemaker’s daughter.

How in the world did he end up founding the Baptist Missionary Society? How in the world did he end up in India?
How in the world did he translate the Gospel into Sanskrit and Bengali and found a printing press that published in 44 languages or dialect of India?

“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
William Carey lived his life by this. William Carey moved a mountain. William Carey knew why he was a Christian and what he was going to do about it.

The father in our gospel today is someone else who wasn’t going to let a mountain get in his way. His boy was going to be healed, no matter how big a mountain he had to move. He heard about Jesus’ ministry and that the Apostles were able to do the same, and off he went. And when the Apostle’s couldn’t do it. Did he go home? No, he pushed his way right through the crowd to Jesus and said, Have mercy. I tried going to your disciples but they couldn’t cure him. Have mercy.

Not only is he so gutsy as to walk up to Jesus himself, he complains about the quality of service. And still, Jesus heals his boy.

William Carey called this: Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.

Jesus calls this faith the size of a mustard seed. When I compare a mustard seed, to a mountain, I realize that the operative word here is audacious. Possibly even obnoxious.

The kind of faith we are asked to have is not based on probability or likelihood or reasonableness.
It is something far removed from confidence, because it doesn’t come from our own abilities. In fact, it is so contrary to our own abilities that it takes a complete lack of embarrassment in order to live into it. Because if we are going to move a mountain, metaphorically or literally, our faith is going to look utterly ridiculous to someone who doesn’t have that sort of faith.

Are you prepared to act like a fool for Christ?

Because the apostles weren’t. When they asked Jesus why they couldn’t cure that epileptic boy, he told them, you don’t have enough faith.

I am guessing, the disciples had gotten a little confident. Cast out a couple of demons, move a bit of a molehill, and we all start thinking, hey, look what I can do.
But if I am doing it, faith isn’t.

Doubts.
Details.
Disbelief.

All of these can shake our confidence. If we aren’t careful, they will shake our faith, too.

Faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain. That isn’t very much faith. I think we don’t need to have Jesus himself lay hands on us to have faith the size of a mustard seed. I think I could have faith the size of a mustard seed. I think you could, too.

But a mountain. Really? Jesus isn’t just fooling around. He really means for us to move mountains.

And if we aren’t very good at it, we aren’t alone.
Jesus doesn’t just rebuke the apostles for not having enough faith; he rebukes an entire generation. “Faithless and perverse” he calls them. “How much longer must I put up with you?”

But if we want to be good at it, we can’t let embarrassment stop us.

William Carey didn’t. It seems William Carey wasn’t ever embarrassed, even if we, hundreds of years later, might wish to be embarrassed by him. The pamphlet he wrote in 1792, it was called “An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.” That same year, he co-founded a missionary society, the “Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen.” In 1793, he and another missionary were on a boat for India. Seven years later, they baptized their first convert.

There is a lot of faith in those 7 years. Because when all the missionaries that get sent to you die, and when wife has a nervous breakdown, and your child dies from dysentery and your printing press burns down and the East India Company doesn’t want you there, you know you are sitting on some mountain.

“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”

How many of us are living that kind of faith?
How many of us are an embarrassment to our family and friends?
How many of us are moving mountains?

“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Sabbath - 8/19/2010 Proper 19 Yr C - RCL

(I do believe I have finally found the "offensive" sermon that Sara mentioned when we last spoke.)
Here is the email that I used to forward her a copy.

Sara,

Thank you for letting me preach. Now that more people have had a chance to meet me and my family, I will send some updates from time to time for the e-notes. And I will let you know about my meetings with the diocese when they start happening. If not sooner, I will see you at diocesan convention.

Blessings,
heather lee

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen. 

About 10 years ago, I came back to church. When I told family and friends about this, I got all sorts of responses. A strong theme seemed to emerge. Christians can’t do an awful lot, and they can’t do anything on Sunday.

“Can you say that word?”

“Aren’t you supposed to pray before you eat?”

“Well, it was on a Sunday, and I know you only go to church on the Sabbath.”

To be fair, the church told me plenty of things about how to fit in and what we didn’t do on the Sabbath as well.

“We will seat you between the collect and the first lesson.”

“Acolytes cannot wear flip flops and their shirts must never show above their vestments.”

Please come back tomorrow, the person who handles our assistance program is not here on Sunday.”

All of these examples speak to our assumptions about the Sabbath. One I expect every one of us shares is – Go to church on Sunday morning. And as glad as I am to see all of you, it doesn’t really answer the Sabbath’s most pertinent question.

Why are we here?

The gospel lesson this morning offers two explanations for why we are here and what the Sabbath is all about.

In it, we find Jesus teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. This is something he doesn’t do very often. It’s sort of like being a guest preacher in church on a Sunday. And in comes a woman who is not really socially acceptable. Maybe she comes every Sunday, sneaking into the back pew and leaving early. Maybe she just came because she heard Jesus was going to be there. And Jesus, who isn’t a regular, who isn’t doing his regular Sabbath routine, notices her. He notices a woman, a woman who is in pain, and he is moved by his compassion for her suffering to walk right up to her and heal her. “Be healed, be forgiven, be loved.”

And she was.

And maybe she started dancing and clapping her hands and singing.

And maybe she wanted to join the vestry and the altar guild and the healing ministry team and all those other things we say we want to happen for a visitor in our church on a Sunday morning.

I want that. I have been relieved from suffering on a Sunday morning and I want everyone to feel that at least once in their lives.

But I have been coming to church for a long time now, and I think I know how that synagogue leader feels, too.

I’ve been exhausted at the end of a very long week and just wanted some peace and quiet – someplace to pray where I don’t have to think to hard about it.

I’ve been annoyed by contemporary music during a Rite 1 service.

I’ve been angry at God for the ability of an outsider to see and to fix things that I can’t see or I can’t fix.

I’ve been laughed at and shamed for being totally wrong.

And I’ve noticed this happens in the gospels a lot. We do the right thing and Jesus tells up we have it totally wrong.

Jesus doesn’t do this because the Pharisees and the synagogue leaders are bad people. He does it because they are, in fact, hypocrites. They have forgotten that there is a WHY WE ARE HERE to go with the HOW WE DO THINGS.

Jesus isn’t mad at them for keeping the Sabbath, he is angry because they have forgotten why we have one.

Now, I am fairly certain that in my library at seminary there is a right answer for the question ‘Why is there a Sabbath?’ Unfortunately, I left all those books in Berkeley. But that’s ok, because I think Isaiah gives us the answer.

“If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your OWN interests on my holy day,” says the Lord, “then you shall take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth.”

Which sounds to me like perspective. The Sabbath offers us perspective. It reminds us that we are lovers of God and why we are followers of Christ all the other days of the week. Which is the exact opposite of a break from being lovers of God and followers of Christ. And we have a choice of what to do with that perspective. We can apologize for the last six days, or we can get some perspective in preparation for the next six days.

We can practice Sabbath through our fear. As the letter to the Hebrews reminds us, we can be like Moses and the Israelites at Mt. Sinai – too scared to climb the mountain, too afraid to be vulnerable before God and accept God’s miraculous healing. We can learn to be complacent about the things we cannot change.

Or we can watch out for the things we can. Instead of cowering at the base of Mt. Sinai, we can climb Mt. Zion. We can be like the woman, stooped over but willing to take a chance. We can be like the crowd, witnessing a miraculous change in the life of our neighbor. We can be like Jesus, empowered to reach out and heal all that is within our power to heal. Mt. Zion, the letter to the Hebrews tells us, has a party going on. And it sounds like a marvelous place to gain perspective.

It sounds like a place, where maybe there is dancing and clapping and singing and all those things we say we want to happen on a Sunday morning.

Holy Wednesday

On the night he was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, “Take, eat: this is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.”

In a few minutes, we are going to break the bread, as we have done for 2000 years. In this chapel, we repeat this ritual 5 times a week, in most Episcopal churches, once a week, in some other churches, monthly, or quarterly or yearly, but this remembrance is our remembrance. It is to remind us of this concrete event between Jesus and his disciples. It points us to the events we will commemorate in full over the next three days.

We read about this last meal today, but I expect tomorrow is when most of us will more fully celebrate it. The rituals are prescribed but the forms will vary. Tomorrow, the brave among us will strip off one or more shoes and socks, and let someone in our parish, good friend or stranger, wash our feet, and then we too, will turn and do the same for another good friend or stranger. Tomorrow, we will celebrate the last meal around an altar, around a Seder table, around a dinner table. Tomorrow we will celebrate, even if somberly, because we all know what will happen over the following three days.

But that is tomorrow. Tomorrow is a world away, a lifetime away. Today is still a day in our regular lives. Tomorrow, we will read both the beginning and the end of this story, but today, we have Judas.

Who will betray you, Jesus?

"It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, "Do quickly what you are going to do."

John doesn’t offer an account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Other gospel writers do that. But we, and I expect even John’s audience already know that this is what is going on. We already know that this bread is Christ. That this oil is blessing. John presents us with this little vignette of Jesus offering himself to his own betrayer. And what are we to do with it? With Judas?



When I learned this story as a child, Judas was the villain, I imagined him as a Vaudeville villain – pointy waxed moustache and striped pants. I heard in this story; ‘Judas was born bad’, ‘he was always evil’, and ‘Jesus kept him around because he needed a fall guy’. As you can imagine, I never noticed the Eucharistic imagery in this part of the story.

Besides archetypal anti-hero, what do we even know about Judas? We know he was an apostle. We know he was reasonably responsible – after all, he carried around the money. We know that he was the guy who brought the authorities to Jesus. After that, there is a lot of speculation, and the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles and some of the Gnostic literature offer a lot of different tales, which mainly tell us that people were really trying to work out what it meant for Judas to be an apostle and a bad guy.

Judas was not just anyone. He was not just one of the seventy or one of the crowd. Judas was, as I said, the guy who was in charge of the money. And Judas was an Apostle before he brought the authorities to the garden, and he was an Apostle after Jesus was crucified. I think that it is important for us to remember, that Judas did not lose his Apostle-ship because of his sins, because Satan entered into him, to use the language of the Gospel.

We don’t either.

How often do we do things that seem like the lesser of two evils, or the best possible solution to an impossible situation, or sometimes, I know it was wrong, and I just did it anyway, because I wanted to. Sometimes, the money is too good to pass up.

How often do we stand in the communion line, waiting to receive the piece of bread, the drink of wine, the blessing of oil, and think about balancing the checkbook, or think the person in front of us could have used confession before coming up here, or, Lord have mercy, when is this service going to be over, I have stuff to do; I have a paper to write, I have a committee meeting to plan for, I have a doctors appointment to schedule; I have something clearly more urgent than staying awake just one hour in Gethsemane, more important than staying focused for a 45 minutes chapel service.

How very, very often, Satan enters into me, when I am standing in the communion line. And if this isn’t embarrassing enough, Jesus dips that bread, hands it to me, and tells me, “do quickly what you are going to do.”

Jesus knows, even as he is uniting himself to us, to become one with him and his purpose, that we are going to fail, that we are going to get impatient and forgetful and vengeful and make our choices based on such enlightened principles as, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It is not just our best that Christ asks that we bring; it is also our worst.

Jesus knows the good and the bad that I bring to this body of Christ called the Church. Jesus knows that I am doing my best, even when my best doesn’t even impress me. Even so, Jesus knows that my intentions count, so I need to keep coming back, yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly or even daily, to the table. Jesus offered Judas bread, on the night he was betrayed, offers me bread, on this morning when I betray him. Knowing full well that betrayal will happen, Jesus dips the bread and hands it over.

Tomorrow, we set into motion the crucifixion. Tomorrow, we wash some feet, we eat a meal, strip an altar and retell the institution of the miracle we celebrate today. Tomorrow we prepare to remember the really big corporate sin that God used to turn the world upside down. Today, we remember the little sins, the every day sins, the I don’t wanna sins, the sins of omission, the not really that bad sins, the sins of good intentions. Today, is a day like any other day, and there are a lot more today’s in the year than tomorrows. Today, is the day we have sinned against God, in thought word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. Today, we receive the bread and the injunction to "Do quickly what you are going to do."

And like Judas, tomorrow, we will be back.

Steadfast Love is yours O Lord

don't preach alot these days, but this was from last sunday. the most amazing blessed thing happened. father john had to explain to all the new faces why i was preaching-they didn't know me. h


“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.” For some of us, this election is payment for our deeds. For some of us who have worked towards civil rights, for a few years, for a few decades, since our birth, we feel as though God has blessed that work. Not because Democrins or Republicats have come into power, but because that which could never happen, a black man named Hussein, got elected and sworn into the White House.

Now I’ve been in the Bay Area, so I am sure that they are a little more crazy there than the rest of the country, but what I have seen there I have also seen on the television. A lot of people are acting like everything is going to be back to normal in no time flat. But that is too much hope and not enough reality talking. The truth is, no stimulus bailout tax-cut tax-hike cut across party lines is going to save us from the next few years. We will yet be repaid for our deeds. We will be repaid for our unchecked desire to make money and our collective illusion that Jay Leno is living a middle class lifestyle and I can too.

“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.”
Administrations come and go.
And yet, the Lord is still with us.
Christ is still with us.
The work is still with us. There is a lot of work to do.

We read a passage from Jonah today. And while it wasn’t my favorite part of Jonah’s tale, it is nevertheless, and entirely appropriate passage for us today. God sends Jonah across the face of the city crying “Repent! Turn back! Look what you are doing! This city is going to be undone!” Jonah may well be walking across our city, our country, even now. We see Jonah in situations where homes have been lost, jobs have been lost, savings have been lost. We hear Jonah in our own fear and uncertainty about our own security. None of us are exempt from either the fear or the blame. We have all benefited in the economic ponzi scheme of the last few decades. We have taken advantage of the unstable mortgages, either to buy our own homes or to build our retirement accounts from the bundling schemes. We have put our personal money into them, we have put our company’s money into them, we have put our government’s money into them and we have put our church’s money into them. We are in Ninevah, right now. Jonah is walking through the city.

So what can we do about it? Our story says that Ninevah repented and God relented. Now, the Scripture implies that the entire town of Ninevah repented. But I doubt it. God is a complete softie where we are concerned. Look at Noah. Look at Sodom. God turns his wrath for even the one. Does that mean that we here at St. David’s can pull out some sackcloth and ashes and this little band of the faithful can turn around the entire world economy? No. When we face the consequences of our actions, we get what God needs for us, not what we want for ourselves.

“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.”
We here at St. David’s have access to that steadfast love. We have faith in it. It gives us peace. We are no different than anyone else in the country right now. We worry about our jobs, our homes, our savings and retirement income. We worry about our children and their future. But in the midst of that fear, we also have release.

There are many who do not have that release. As we live out the next few years, people we know are going to see that release and they are going to ask why we are not afraid. We need to be ready to tell them. We need to be ready to help them.

Because when the hope is gone, when the change is imperfect, people will be in need, both in their physical lives and their spiritual lives. We have much work to do to be ready for them.

The present form of this world is passing away, Paul tells us. We don’t have the secret answers to what the new form will be, but we know that Christ is with us no matter what. When our deed is faith, and some days that is the hardest thing to do, we are repayed with Christ.

“Steadfast love is yours O Lord, for you repay everyone according to his deeds.”
So what does Christ have to offer us in today’s Gospel?

“As Jesus passed along the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew casting nets in the sea-for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Come follow me, I will make you fishers of men. And they went. A little ways off they say James and John, mending nets, for they too were fishermen. And Jesus called to them, Come follow me, and they did.”

We are all fishermen, from the highest to the lowest, we are all trying to feel safe in a large complicated world and we are all trying to keep our families safe. That fear made us greedy for security the sea does not offer. We are all in the same boat. Christian and non-Christian. Securities brokers and farm laborers. We are all in the same boat. We are all floating in the same sea.

What does Christ call us to do? Get out of the boat.

Christ invites us to stop trying to build our foundations on the sea, to stop trying to create safety in the ebb and flow of the tide, the chaos of life. When our safely is in God, even though financial markets will rise and fall, even though our lives will be easier some days, harder others, our emotions do not have to answer all of life’s difficult questions. We do not have to be the prime mover, the God, of our own lives, he can do the worrying and we can rest in the surety that whatever it is, it shall pass, however good it is, it is a gift. We can get out of the boat and stand on the land.

When Jesus called out, he did not say, The kingdom of God draws near-stand close to me. He said repent and believe in the Good News. He said, Come, I will make you fishers of men. What he did, was teach some people how to get onshore and immediately ask of them to turn around – do not head upland to safety- turn around and help someone else off the boat. We have the same responsibility to help people off the boat of uncertainty and fear as James and Simon. Sometimes that boat feels like a floaty ring in swimming pool and sometimes it feels like the Titanic, but the responsibility is the same.

We too have lost jobs and houses and savings. But we have our hope in Christ, not in the sea, not in ourselves. We were given to gift of safety, of peace. We have been led off the boat and we can, we must, give that gift to others. Amen.

The Bush

I keep waiting for the sermon I needed to hear the Sunday after the Stock Market crashed. I have been to a Eucharist 4 times since then, and I still haven't heard what I needed to hear. So I got annoyed and decided to write one for myself. I went looking for the lectionary readings and this was the alternate reading for that Sunday, September 21, 208. We got some pap about manna, which wasn't really helpful for the sense of agitated fear combined with the sense that this is probably what should be happening, given the crazed financial schemes we have been profiting from for the last decade or so. I think this was so appropriate that the sermon may have been sucessful simply as a re-read of this.

I offer it up, if anyone is still catching the dribbles that fall from this blog, as The Word of The Lord.

Jonah 3:10-4:11

When God saw what the people of Nineveh did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?" Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

The Well

Surely the worst sermon ever written, but some people got something out of it. It passed the criteria of people referring to it later in the week. But still, the worst sermon ever.

For the record, I am not preaching on any of the lessons specifically today. Having spent several hours of my life researching what the significance of adoption was to Roman culture, I can conclusively state that while the topic is really fascinating stuff, adoption isn’t. And the same goes for the gospel reading for that matter.

Instead, I am just going to let them sit on their own today and instead, speak plainly what Paul and the Gospel writer were both trying to tell us. The long and the short of which is that Christian community is about unconditional love and acceptance. And that that sort of unconditional love and acceptance can’t be found anywhere but in the Christian community because to achieve that, to even approach unconditional, is going to take a miraculous amount of forgiveness and acceptance.

Some of us are here today because we know this already. Some of us are here today because we are considering a partnership in the future. Some of us are here today because they are my friends and didn’t know how to say no way no how, lady. And so today’s sermon is mostly for them, because they maybe don’t know what I get out of church or why it matters enough that I am heading off to seminary.

So, because I didn’t like any of the metaphors available to me today, I am going to present my own. This metaphor is called, The Well, and it is actually Shannon Lee’s.

Once upon a time, there was a village. This village was around before electricity and indoor plumbing so everyone from the richest merchant to the lowliest serf had to get water from the communal well. Some of the people were old and didn’t have to work anymore, so they spent most of the day hanging out at the well. Some were working really hard or something about their lives was shameful to them, so they snuck out to the well at odd times and didn’t stay long. Most people who went to the well, however, went at the same time everyday so that they could see their friends and share all of the good and bad things in their lives and maybe do a little gossiping about other people, too.

One day, a rich overlord came to the village to install indoor plumbing. It would be great, he said, because people wouldn’t have to carry water every day. They could get more work done and they would only have to pay for their share of the water, for their own plumbing, not everyone else.

Most of the people thought this was great. Now, some of the old-timers kept going to the well because it was a habit, and sometimes people who couldn’t afford to fix their plumbing went to the well. But most people stopped going to the well. And they were a little bit sad and lonely. After while, people forgot that the water coming from their tap was the same water they had drawn from the well and they became mistrustful. Some of them installed filters and others began drinking imported mineral mountain spring water.

People forget all about the well. And they forgot that they used to share with each other, not just the water but the good and the bad things in their lives too. People not only became mistrustful of the water, they became mistrustful of each other. And the village was a hard place to live.

The best and the thing about parables is that everyone can hear what they need to learn. The nice thing about preaching on a parable, especially one you helped make up, is that you get to explain yourself. Jesus actually did this on occasion, but usually his explanation was as confusing as the parable itself.


In this parable, the village is the Christian community. And the well is the church. Christ is the water and people are people. An interesting thing has happened in the world, and I think it took a long time to fully flower, but the personal Jesus, the individually bottled spring water, actually is the antithesis of what Jesus did for us. And indoor plumbing is actually the antithesis of how we are meant to live.

You see, it isn’t just in the bible that people are made to live in community with each other, even sociologist that aren’t interested in the bible at all, tell us that people are made for community. If we live by ourselves too long, we go a little bonkers. And so people are always forming communities, we form nations and political parties. We form special interest groups and fan clubs. We form families. We are always trying to create a place to belong and we spend a lot of time trying out different communities, to see if they suit our needs or if they match our ideals. We do this with churches too. But then, a lot of churches are catering to indoor plumbing ideals just like the rest of the communities we form without Christ in the center.



This is because we are trying to bottle church when church is actually a well. You can’t bottle a well, it has moving parts and a geography. It is simply not amenable to glass bottles and designer labels. If we managed to bottle up a well, well, it wouldn’t be a well anymore. It would be bottles full of dirt and wood splinters and maybe some bits of an electric pump. You know, I don’t really have an answer for churches. Some get it, some don’t. I suppose all I can say is churches are made of people, and people are people.

But if we do find a church that is still a well, and for what it is worth, St. David’s is a well, right down to it’s immovable geography, then we find a place were water flows, where Christ exists just as he is meant to. And at the well, people are people. But with one extra special addition. The water. The forgiveness. In fact, the forgiveness and the acceptance that are so unconditional that people can be people and they can be community without having to pretend to be a certain nationality, or a certain political party or a certain special interest or a certain sort of fan.





In fact, people can be people and they can share all their good news and their bad news and they can know that even if something goes wrong, even if they hurt someone’s feelings or accidentally serve tainted fish at a banquet, no matter how horrible or awful it might be, there is always that forgiveness, that Christ, that water, to wash away the awfulness and eventually bring things to right.

I’ve shared my share of bad with this church and with the people here who are part of my other communities. Today. Today I want to share some of my good. There is only one person here today who was at my first marriage ceremony. Luckily, it’s the groom. But the biggest difference between the marriage I entered 13 years ago and the one I am living in today is the unconditional forgiveness that exists today that definitely wasn’t there then. Then, I made family out of someone I thought would fit into my community. Now, I make community, unconditional community out of family. I am both please and grateful that all of you have come to be part of that community and to bear witness to our family.