December 14 and 20, 2010

Dear friends,

I am meeting with Canon --, the director of Vocations for the
Diocese of Oregon, on Thursday the 16th. We will be meeting to talk
about what I need to do in order to get to Vocations Conference this
May.

It has been a long road, with many hurdles, some of my own making, to
get to this beginning. At one time or another, you have taken the time
to listen to my hopes and dreams and woes and worries. I am blessed to
have so many people willing to take some time to encourage me on this
journey, sometimes with a much-needed kick in the pants.

If you find a moment on Thursday to send up some love, I am sure it
will come back to me.

If you find you have nothing else to do during the first week of
January, I will be taking the General Ordination Exams and any
requests for a miracle at that time would also be greatly appreciated.


Blessings this Advent season. The Lord is almost here.


Dear friends,

Thursday went fantastic. What i really needed was for someone in that
office to say, I want to move forward with you. And, to be completely
honest, I wasn't ready to move forward before, but I couldn't have
done the work I needed to do at home anyway. Of course, that said, the
bishop and canon think it is really weird that the vocations director
wouldn't accept any paperwork from me before I went to school, even if
I didn't go to vocations conference, but we are going to just sort it
out.

And then I came back, and finished my last paper, and celebrated
--- 13th birthday over many days and in many ways...
... and Christmas pageants and I haven't actually had a
chance until today to sit down and let people know. I just about
blanketed my email contact list...

I am not worrying about the GOE's, because when I realized the worst
thing that could happen is that I would have to form a study group and
talk with them about it, well, that would be my preference in any
case, so it became a bit of a win/win.

And we had another completely awesome and totally different pageant
this year. I even had a good time, once I remembered that Christmas
pageants are why I am doing all the work, and not the other way
around.

I hope that your Christmas celebrations are unrolling in a fantastic fashion.

Love and Kisses in the name of the Baby Jesus!

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.

December 3, 2010

And after this - epic fail. Made more wonderful since I lost the answers and comments in a hard drive crash. Suffice to say - I failed every test. And was amazingly supportive and helped several people pass their make up exams. 


Dear Ms. Heather  Lee ,

Congratulations! Bishop Michael Hanley has nominated you to take the 2011 General Ordination Examination as one step in your process toward ordination in The Episcopal Church. The General Board of Examining Chaplains will administer the GOE electronically and you will have to log onto the GBEC website at www.episcopalgbec.org to obtain vital information about the GOE and how and when to take it.

Therefore you MUST log onto www.episcopalgbec.org IMMEDIATELY, using the “Candidates” link (on the left of the top menu bar) and the following:

Log On ID: 
Password: 

When logging on the first time, change your password to one you can remember.  You cannot access vital information or take the GOE without it!

After you log on and change your password, please read the Candidates Welcome Letter for VITAL information about the GOE such as:
        • dates and times
        • its evaluation
        • what happens afterwards

Also read General Instructions about:
        • how to access and take the GOE

Finally, take some time to familiarize yourself with the website and its links, which should answer all of your GOE-related questions.

If you still have questions, please feel free to contact us at email or phone number.


Faithfully yours,

---
Executive Director & GOE Administrator

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.