And now a word from our church fathers....

My two cents on the Primates meeting last week, or somebody's two cents at least.


"Therefore I will put up with this church until I see a better one; and it will have to put up with me until I become better."
from Erasmus, found while reading The Reformation by Dairmaid McCulloch.

I mean, what else is there to say?

A Welcome to Remember

Greetings to all from San Francisco. Many of you know that the Lee family has moved to California following God's call and a good job. We are aclimatizing quite well to the sunshine and dry weather, although my skin is starting to dry out! I have had discussions with many of you about welcome and visitors to St. David's and I have recently gotten the welcome that I would challenge all members of God's church to meet.

We arrived for the Sunday morning Christmas Eve service at 11am. As you can imagine, the service was light on people, many chosing to come in the evening service instead. It is easy enough to hide in a large crowd if you are a newbie, but as we all know at St. David's visitors are hightly visible with less than 20 people in a large room. I must admit I am not a wallflower, but I was definitely a visitor to the sights and customs of this parish. As the celebrants and attendants gathered for the begining of service, Rosa Lee, the vicar, walked right up to me and said, "Heather, it's about time you got here."

If we are builing heaven right here on earth, Rosa Lee is the chief door greeter. One of the blessings of community is the quality of being known. Christ reminds us often in the Gospel, that we are known to God. But to relish the fullness of joy in being known by God's people, we must first trust that if He finds us worthy, then we must indeed be worthy. It can be scary to come to a new place with different customs and expectations. As disconcerting as it is within the tradition, imagine how difficult it is for people who have not grown up in the church, or who have had that trust violated.

That was the perfect greeting for me, in that time and place. As most of you know, my husband had been in San Francisco for several months before we joined him, and I was pretty resistant to leave my loving and trusting community of faith. We may be a people of the book, but we all read it pretty differently. I am a preacher, and I had concerns that I would find a community that I could still speak to. I am a homebody and what I like best is deepening old relationships, not necessarily making new ones. How perfect then, for me, to receive a welcome of the tardy child rather than the potential stranger. I knew that it was not just a priest who greeted me but God reinforcing the rightness of this move for our family and for His work in our lives.

I realize that not everyone can or should be greeted in this manner. But I think that no one who enters the doors of our churches should encounter a challenging greeting or a lack of greeting at all. We all enter the building with the desire of encountering God. It is the responsibility of those of us who already inhabit the halls of God's house to remember that we are not only the hands and feet of God doing good work in the community, but we are the voice and comfort of God's love to those who seek. Anyone who enters our buildings has already been blessed and found worthy by God, all we have to do is make sure we and they don't forget it.

Thanks be to God!

What are we waiting for?

Advent has rolled around again, and once again I am faced with the dual tasks of waiting and reflecting on the newborn Christ, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off shopping, decorating and attending holiday parties. This year, there is the added adventure of moving the week before Christmas Day. So, you would think that the fact that I have been snowed in for a week at my parent's house, on top of the week vacation I gave myself, would have me pulling out my hair. But I have, instead, found the space between waiting and running.

The week of my vacation, I had a lovely time. It was spent cooking for family that was coming for dinner and going out shopping for Christmas gifts. The week of Thanksgiving was spent in the same manner of all my weeks, running around trying to get as much done each day as possible.

But on Saturday, when I could and perhaps should have come home for church on Sunday, I instead accepted an invitation from my mom to stay and sew with some of her friends. We had a great time, of fellowship and laughter. We pieced utility (what my mom calls big squares stuck together in rows with no particular pattern) quilts for both children. We even quilted them, and mom was going to finish the binding and bring them for Christmas.

I did not watch the news until Saturday night. It turns out my window of opportunity to get home was Saturday. Saturday night brought in a storm so large and cold that it was the same storm in Seattle, WA as Denver, CO. It snowed all day on Sunday, a foot deep without drifting, in a sheltered area, on the back porch.

So, Sunday, we watched it snow, considered putting up the Christmas tree, and decided to bind those quilts. And start another one. We packed up our things in preparation of leaving Tuesday. I spent part of my time shoveling out the longest steepest driveway in America, and we started teaching the kids to sew. It did stop snowing, but it hasn't warmed above freezing yet.

Somewhere between Sunday and Wednesday, the frantic need to get home and get things done has been replaced by a complacency, a contentment to wait until it is safe and sane to be out again in the bustle. In the meantime, we have done more for my Christmas list than I ever imagined. My daughter is helping while learning to sew ( I won't say what, because some of you are getting them for Christmas.) The kids are not fighting and no one has said, "I'm bored."

I have learned a lesson about snow that I knew as a child but had forgotten once I grew up and moved away from it. The snow and the ice, which, in the right climate, are part and parcel of advent, are a physical reminder from God to slow down, and wait in hope, for good things. With no place else to go, we cannot run away from the problems and hurts. We cannot let them fester and we cannot ignore them. The trick, I think, is to use that snowed in experience as a metaphor for life writ large. Even if we are not snowed in, we need to remember the shut in, and we need to use this time to be with the hurt of the whole world. And we need to wait in hope, for with the coming of Christ, the healing of the problems and hurts is coming as well. And we need to remember that all year long. But we won't of course, and so we are given a season, each year, to reconnect with that feeling, with the waiting in hope, that is Christ born.

Advent 1: final sermon@ St. David's

It is Advent again. It seems a strange time of the year for a beginning to me. None the less, I have had several beginnings during Advent in my own life, and it is the time of beginning for the Church as well.

I have always wondered why this is the time of new beginnings. Why is it the beginning of the calendar year? Why is it the beginning of the Church year? This is the end of the natural year. If anything, it is the beginning of fallow time, hunkering down and waiting for the beginning time.

As a child, this was, in fact, the worst time of the year. It was too cold and dark to play outside after school. It hadn’t snowed yet, so we still had to go to school. Christmas was coming, but having no cornucopia in my childhood, this and my birthday were my sole chance for a present the whole year. As a member of the first generation of children that Reagan opened direct advertising and marketing to, having the right stuff had everything to do with your popularity in school.

So, as you can see it is difficult for me to imagine becoming childlike in Christ at this time of year. As an adult with Seasonal Affective Disorder, this is definitely a beginning for me. The beginning of days when it is difficult to get out of bed or get things accomplished: A difficult time for me to make plans or imagine going out to do holiday activities.

Why is this the beginning? Why is this the Season of Light, when it seems clear to one and all that it is deadly dark at 4pm? Well, it’s about hope. And it’s about where beginnings really happen.

Do you remember the first seed you planted in school? The little wax paper cup that you poked a hole into and the moist black soil you put in and patted down with your fingers? The impossibly small seed that you pushed into the soil, and your finger made such a big hole compared to the seed that you had to push the soil over it. And then, the waiting: the hoping that you were not overwatering it or underwatering it and that it was getting enough light inside and maybe you should take it outside for some fresh air. And all this time, you are carrying around and fretting over what is for all appearances, a cup of dirt with a hole in it.
You never did see the beginning of that little plant. The beginning of that carrot or bean plant was shrouded in darkness and mystery. All you had was faith.

That is the faith of childhood. And any gardener who sows seeds feels it over and over again. I do not have that faith. I always by starts, and maybe two or three because I am going to kill at least one by the time I figure it out. In this, as in my Christian faith, I need someone more experienced than me to show the way.

There is a parable at the end of the Gospel this morning. It’s another fig tree. Jesus tells us that when the leaves sprout, summer is already near. It is so easy to see the sprouts and think, ah, the beginning. But the beginning happened deep inside that tree, down in the roots, deep in the soil, in a hidden place and time that is invisible to everyone but that fig tree and God.

This is Advent, the season to work on that hidden, deep in the soil faith that makes us shine out, in a few months, that Christ is Risen. It is time to nurture with no visible sign of future reward that we will be a force for good in the world.
The rest of the Gospel, the one that so many are tempted to read with self-righteous superiority instead of God and Other-centered righteousness. It doesn’t offer us rescue from the woes of this life, caused by nature or man, it tells us that, if we have done the work of tending our faith, when it was small and no-one could see it, then, we will have the strength and courage to do the work that God has given us to do. When there is “distress among nations” and when people “faint from fear and foreboding” then is the time that God will work the miracle of life on our hope and w will be able, like the fig to sprout leaves and roll up sleeves and bring the kingdom of God that much nearer to a world in need.

The other half of this sermon was given by Ellen, our diocesan Episcopal Relief and Development co-ordinator. She gave a plug for the Millenial Development goals. She also mentioned that Bono was all over this. Later, at coffee hour, I shared the latest joke I can actually remember the punchline to... "What is the difference between Jesus and Bono? Jesus doesn't think he is Bono." Please, someone get me a new joke. I can only remember one at a time.

People Say I'm Crazy

Sometimes, if you are lucky, the Holy Spirit will write your sermon for you. This was one of those. Complete with delivery.

Who Do People Say I Am?

This is such an ordinary and human question. It comes out of our need to make sure that who we think we are and what we are projecting out into the world match up.

Even more so, it speaks eloquently to the fact that we are made by God to live in community. We do not exist as human beings without the interactions of other people. We are a blending of our ethnicities, nationalities, religions and families. There are many places where I have no name, I am only Francis' mom.

Who Do People Say I Am?

Marketing and advertising executives know all about this question. It isn't just breakfast cereals and automobiles that use our need to project who we are to sell us goods. There are an unending supply of businesses whose objective is to sell us the goods that make us identifiable in and of our religious communities. All of them are using that sliver of fear in each of us that always feels alone and fears being unconnected to the rest of our human family.

So, why would Jesus ask a question like this?

Who Do People Say I Am?

If anyone ought to know the answer to this, wouldn't Jesus? If anyone ought to never experience that fear of disconnect. But he doesn't ask the question because he doesn't know who he is, he asks it because he wants to know who his disciples think he is. They need to know this, because Jesus knows that they will be the ones to spread his message. They will be the ones who create this new understanding of God. They are going to need to get it right.

So, Who Do People Say He Is?

Mostly, people think he is just another prophet. But some people, especially the disciples and followers, are starting to call him the Messiah.

Now, for Jews, the Messiah was a great MAN who was going to be KING because he was going to toss the Romans out of Jerusalem and restore the promised land to the Jews, much like David had done. The Messiah was going to reaffirm the covenant with God and the Jews.

Jesus knew that a lot of Jews were looking for the guy. And now he knew that some of his disciples had visions of Chief Councilor to the King in their futures. Many of his followers, no doubt had left when he didn't issue any battle plans. Of all the things that people were looking for in a Messiah, a martyr wasn't one of them. Battle plans may start with annoying the powerful, but they usually don't end with a purposeful death.

So Jesus starts to instruct his disciples on this “battle plan” of annoying the religious powers, not the Romans. And he tells everyone he is going to be killed and raise back up in three days. If this is the plan, does anyone really wonder why Monty Python made a spoof of it?

Peter, bossy Peter, who always knows what is what, actually takes Jesus to task over this. Peter probably started lecturing him on the duties and responsibilities of Messiahhood.

Until,

Get thee behind me, Satan.

Jesus doesn't sound to grateful for the instruction, and you know Peter is mortally offended over this.

But why would Jesus yell something like this at Peter?

Because, he sounded just like Satan in the desert. Peter was perhaps unknowingly, but perhaps not unguided, in repeating that call from the desert. Jesus is in the know with God, and he wields considerable power. He has enough personal power to be the Messiah everyone is looking for. He can raise up an army and start a war. It is easy enough to overlook the killing fields if we keep the utopia always in the front of our mind.

But Jesus knows that utopias don't exist. They are never going to exist, not with free will. And Jesus is staring his own mortality in the face when he asks this question, Who Do People Say I Am. And what he really needs to hear is the same thing we all need to hear when we ask the same question.

We need to hear that our closest friends and companions and families really know who we are. It is theoretical knowledge that God knows us intimately. We all really need someone in the here and now that remembers we can't eat tomatoes without being reminded.

So here is Jesus, having to explain himself to the people closest to him. Just when he needed a connection to community, he found it wasn't there. How frustrating. How personally defeating.

Jesus needed a moment of downtime with companions, but he wasn't going to get it. Instead, it was time for a lesson. Because if Peter was the leader, even raising up and doing a jig on the table wasn't going to get this band of missionaries on the right path.

Here, Jesus realizes that the parables aren't working. These people need some concrete instructions. And they need to know that the cross is the thing. That the Messiah isn't coming for this world, with Romans and Republicans and Cereal advertisers. It isn't about what we want, it is about what we need, to be known, in community, in our humanness. And it doesn't take a war to do that. It doesn't take cars and houses and tennis shoes to do that. It only takes each other to be known as human.

When we hear that we are to die to our old way of life, we can take this pretty literally. Because our lives are made up in community, not just in flesh. And we must die to the old community if we are to take up our new life. It is abusive relationships that we must end. With our spouses, with substances like alcohol and food.

And we must not confuse the death struggle with perseverance. We aren't to struggle day to day, we are to change, completely. How? In the promise of new life, we must throw ourselves whole heartedly. If we hold out, because something might not work out, don't close any doors, then we won't have new life.

It doesn't happen overnight, or even in three days though. Dying to the old takes our whole lives, because every time we die to one bad relationship and nurture its rebirth, we find another and another that need the same attention. We are going to do it with spouses, with families, with drugs, with places and possessions.


Over and over, if we are growing in our new life, we are dying all the time. We are becoming more and more what God intended for us. This is kingdom living. This is what Jesus did say we could get here in this life, a community that knows us and helps us to keep dying and rebirthing our whole lives. In community, people farther on the path are always there to midwife us through to the next level.

I feel like a wet new Christian, from my experiences at St. David's and while I dread the leaving, I am energized by all I have become here, and I am excited to pay it forward into my new life in San Francisco. And I know that I am leaving behind a community that is ready and willing, always, to bring forth another lost soul into the fold, into the community, into new life.

Thanks be to God.

Rules of the Road

Mark 6: 7-13
Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.



When I read this passage, in the back of my mind, is the one about the birds and the grasses being taken care of by God. And then I praise the Lord, I am no missionary. Because at first glance, it looks like Jesus is sending the Apostles out like a bunch of first time hikers in September. We wouldn't dream of climbing Mt. Hood without a jacket, a bottle of water, a map, our cell phone, some layers of clothes.... you get the drift. But we do go off to the grocery store and the movies all the time without these things. And you know what? Even in the grocery store, you are a missionary. And all those directions work every day-not just when we head out to the Sudan or Peru.

To start, Jesus says, Don't go alone. This is sound advice. Even my mother advocates the buddy system. Buddies reinforce our behavior. Which is why she always cared who my buddy was. Because when we are together with other Christians we are always present in our Christianity. I have a parent friend at my children's school who is brave enough to say, “I am a Christian.” in a PTA meeting. I am not always that brave, but the time I spend with her is always time that I don't have to wonder if I sounds nuts for saying God moves in my life. With Karen, I am talking to someone who shares my view of the world, someone who is not looking for their own advantage but understands and supports my attempts to live authentic Christianity every day.

That support makes the next task easier. Take charge of the unclean spirits. I don't see a lot of socially outcast people in the course of my day to day life, but I do run into people possessed of 'unclean spirits.' People who are virulent gossips, who need to put someone else down to build themselves up. I do meet people who have a goal or cause that incites them to tell me whatever it takes for me to agree with them; so I will buy their stuff or sign their petition. It is hard to be strong in the face of people so invested in their own self interest. So it is good to keep friends around who will understand why you aren't interacting with advertising, or getting all worked up over the cause du jour. It is good to have friends to support you, because being a Christian is hard work. It is worth it, and it is joyful, but it is hard.

But as missionaries in our daily lives, we must do more than hide out with like minded people. We couldn't be missionaries if we weren't out in a mission field. And the best teachers are those who lead by example. Jesus led the Apostles by example, and then he sent them out to be an example to others. What Jesus was modeling for the Apostles, and for us, was dependence on God. The next set of instructions go against everything your mother ever told you about taking a trip.

Don't take snacks.
Don't pack a suitcase.
Don't set yourself up for pickpockets.
Take a stick (support) to help you over the rough spots in the road.
One pair of good shoes, and no cheating on the suitcase.

Oh, come on. What if I have allergies. What if it starts to rain? This is Oregon... I need to take money, what if my car breaks down? Well, that is answered right there-you are walking. You are modeling environmentally conscious living. And only one pair of shoes, well, I don't know about you, but I firmly believe in the right shoes for the right activity. If I am martyred, it will be because I stopped to take off my walking shoes and put on my running shoes on the way out of Antioch.

Seriously, there are buckets of good advice here. First, don't forget that you have a companion. And money is ultimately just an enticement for someone to get you to part with it. And, if they don't believe you are broke, well, you have a stick to beat them off with. And have you ever had to lug your suitcases from one end of the airport to the other? Exactly, and that was in air-conditioning with a smooth walkway.

Good advice if you don't want to be robbed, but what do you do when you get hungry, or tired or your shoe breaks? It may be possible to be in the mission field at home, with a good job, and not need any of these things when you are out shopping or at the library. But at some point, even if you don't think you are going to the beach to convert the cotton candy eaters, you are going to be in the mission field in Seaside, OR. So when your car breaks down, and your wallet washed out to sea, and then you lost your shoe trying to retrieve you wallet, what are you doing to do then?

Well, you are going to remember Mark 6:10, of course. I quote, “He said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.” But what it says in English is - If someone is kind enough to offer hospitality, take it. Don't look to your own advantage.

When you are standing next to your broken down car, wet, in one shoe don't ask your Good Samaritan if he is a mechanic or a shoe salesman. God is going to send the right person for the right job.

But that person may not be there to help you, you may be there to help them. You may not be the one in need. It might look like you need help. But you might be the help of someone else. You might be the example; of grace under fire. Of faith in God's good outcomes. And you may never know it.

Which is why we not only have a rule about taking hospitality, but one about jerks who drive by with rude comments. We are not allowed to curse their mothers, and we are not allowed to yell, “I'll pray for you.” which has to be the most obnoxious and least effective comeback of all time.

If someone doesn't offer hospitality, let them know by their own standards that they are breaking their own rules. I know it sounds like you ought to yell about their mothers, but really, you shouldn't. The Scriptures say, shake the dust off your feet because for Jews, that was how you let someone know, in their terms, that they had not been gracious. This is not a case of exchanging obscene gestures, but a pointed, specific, grounded response to inhospitality.

And it isn't to insult the person who insulted you. It is to draw the attention of bystanders, to leave them with some food for thought about their own response to the needs of others. One of the most interesting phenomenon of group behavior is the need for permission. A group of people will stand around and stare at a car accident until someone takes the initiative. Once that happens, people will start tripping over themselves to call 911 or to rip up their shirts for bandages. But it always takes that first person, that missionary, to step up and show the lack of action before action can occur.

So even this seemingly rude, unloving advice, is actually quite sound. They are actually all sound rules, not only for traveling outside your neighborhood, but they work to ground our lives, day to day, even if we never leave home. These rules keep us safe, they keep us focused on God, and they keep us in a state where we are by default of our actions, being a witness for Christianity. It is very easy, when we are at the grocery store or the library to let our Christianity slide, just not do or say anything to stand out. I am not advocating that we all start lugging our Bibles around and getting 'Jesus Saves Sinners' tattooed on our foreheads. But we must not forget that our Christianity asks of us to seek reconciliation and justice in the world at all times. Refusing to see the plight of others, even if we cannot fix it, is denying Christ.

When we first read this gospel, we all knew that we weren't missionaries, But what we may not have know, what we may not have realized is that when we sat down this morning, we were missionaries already. And in our gathering today, we are following rule number one, don't go it alone.

All the rest, they are hard, they are counter-intuitive, and they are scary and they go against all the advice of all the mothers I know, myself included. But all of those rules to not overplan are grounded in our community, in our not being alone.

Everywhere we go, everywhere we are, is a mission field.

comments closed until the celebrity died down

Thank you to everyone for visiting my site during general convention and just after, and for the huge compliment by Mad Priest.

I just spent the evening wiping spam out of my comments. I haven't been interesting to spammers since I started this site. I have also disabled comments on all my old posts so that I never have to do that again with those post, which is why some old stuff showed up on Blogger. Sorry about that.

While the headache is either from too much screen time or too much fame. The thanks is sincere.