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.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Stories
my husband once asked if i was a good writer or a good deliverer of sermons. well this one at least, i did not write, the holy spirit did so, and delivered it too. i wrote the words down about 2 hours before i spoke them, without any editing and i cried and knocked my knees together through the whole delivery. and so, in a personal note to him - i totally understand why he things old testament prophets were mentally ill, they were dealing with what we now call, out of body experiences.
So. I was sure that this was going to be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. 6 lines of Gospel on welcoming and 3 days at a Province 8 Stewardship, Evangelism and Congregational Development Conference. Yeah. You know, I’ll share with you a curse my grandmother left me. She said, Heather, you will never appreciate anything that comes easy. God and my grandmother are sitting in heaven these days just shaking their heads over that. Because last night, I typed up this lovely sermon on what I learned at Conference. And I knew it wasn’t great or prophetic or startling, or frankly even very interesting. And this morning I woke up with what conference planners call an ah-ha moment, but what I call prophetic revelation. And so, this morning, I wrote this down and stand before you now, but in my heart and shaking knees, I am sitting right beside you.
Today’s Gospel. Today’s Good News is about welcoming, it’s about hospitality and it is really about an old adage I learned as a child. “You get what you wish for.”
What I want to talk about this morning is what it is we wish for. It isn’t simple like a penny in a fountain. It is not talking about kindness begetting kindness. What we wish for is the self-fulfilling prophecy of our stories. Our story is who we are. Our story is the limiting factor of what we consider possible-and if we don’t believe something is possible-how can we recognize it when it comes along?
For instance, this community has recognized that this puny vessel can contain enough holy for one-and some to spare for a community, too. And that is why it takes community to discern anything – because one person, alone, before God, gets sand blasted – but a community standing together, telling the same story, spreads the power of God amongst its members and allows us all to approach the holy places, the thin places as they are called, without being burned by the magnitude of God’s desires for us.
In order for this to work the community must be telling the same story. In order for others to join the community it must know and live its story in a way that others can understand, can access, can tell authentically themselves. Because the story we tell that others can understand that others can tell authentically that they can see themselves in. That is the story that unfolds for a community.
Here at St. David’s this community tells the story of a general purpose meeting facility. We tell this story well. We, as Christians, tell this story to a generation, a population, that does not know our Christian story and cannot hear what we don’t tell. We are telling Colonial Heights, and the Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood Association, and the Portland Metro Area the story of space for rent.
Not only is it any wonder that only renters come to share our story, do any of us even remember when that became our story? I can tell you – space for hire has not always been our story. And I don’t harken back to any Golden Age, because I wasn’t born then. But I can tell you in 2004-that was not the story of St. David’s. Because I would not have come back the second Sunday. I would not have become an acolyte. I would not have met friends like Sam Gregory, and Jon Williams and the Horners. And I would not have made family like Pat Thayer and Chas Dean and the Browns. And I would not have joined the story if Fr John hadn’t been speaking of discipleship and hospitality.
I, Heather, do not stand outside the circle on this. I, too, tell the story of parks and recreation. I, too, think the brochure should be all business. I, too stand before the fiery bush and hear God in this Gospel saying – you are reaping what you have sown. You are living the story you have told. You are getting the welcome you have given.
Right now, at this time, we are at a junction. There begins yet another round of “what to do with St. David’s” If I remember correctly, the Standing Committee was supposed to have given our question some space on the agenda yesterday. Right now, we have the floor, to tell our story. And the question is-Do we tell the story of “Space for lease-cheap rates” or do we tell the Gospel? Do we tell the story of crucifixion and resurrection and reconciliation of all things?
When I first came to this parish, Molly told us all a story of Phoenix Rising. That was her story of St. David’s. Somewhere in my heart-I still hold that story, but with my mouth, with my feet, I have told the story of community center for so long, I wonder why I still get angry and surprised that people don’t show up on Sunday morning like they used to. Not in the golden era, but only since I have been here.
Today we have been given an invitation from God to wake up. To hear and feel the Holy Spirit. To speak and move as thought we ourselves would live and die and live again as Christ. Today, if we take it, we are given an invitation and Permission, to change the story we written, in assessment reports and newspaper articles. We are allowed to reclaim the Gospel as our primary story.
If it is God’s will, nothing on earth will stop it. Something I learned last week is that God speaks in prophetic and often crazy sounding language and I learned that while it takes courage, it takes faith, it takes a feeling of just giving in to the inevitable, when we let Him, God will speak through us.
Individually and collectively, we all have a story of the crucifixion and resurrection played out in our own lives. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. I plead for you to join me, and God invites us all, in a much more dignified way, to join in the new story – the old story – the only story. And see where that leads us. It will lead us home.
Heather Lee
Proper 8, Year A, RCL
June 29, 2008
So. I was sure that this was going to be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. 6 lines of Gospel on welcoming and 3 days at a Province 8 Stewardship, Evangelism and Congregational Development Conference. Yeah. You know, I’ll share with you a curse my grandmother left me. She said, Heather, you will never appreciate anything that comes easy. God and my grandmother are sitting in heaven these days just shaking their heads over that. Because last night, I typed up this lovely sermon on what I learned at Conference. And I knew it wasn’t great or prophetic or startling, or frankly even very interesting. And this morning I woke up with what conference planners call an ah-ha moment, but what I call prophetic revelation. And so, this morning, I wrote this down and stand before you now, but in my heart and shaking knees, I am sitting right beside you.
Today’s Gospel. Today’s Good News is about welcoming, it’s about hospitality and it is really about an old adage I learned as a child. “You get what you wish for.”
What I want to talk about this morning is what it is we wish for. It isn’t simple like a penny in a fountain. It is not talking about kindness begetting kindness. What we wish for is the self-fulfilling prophecy of our stories. Our story is who we are. Our story is the limiting factor of what we consider possible-and if we don’t believe something is possible-how can we recognize it when it comes along?
For instance, this community has recognized that this puny vessel can contain enough holy for one-and some to spare for a community, too. And that is why it takes community to discern anything – because one person, alone, before God, gets sand blasted – but a community standing together, telling the same story, spreads the power of God amongst its members and allows us all to approach the holy places, the thin places as they are called, without being burned by the magnitude of God’s desires for us.
In order for this to work the community must be telling the same story. In order for others to join the community it must know and live its story in a way that others can understand, can access, can tell authentically themselves. Because the story we tell that others can understand that others can tell authentically that they can see themselves in. That is the story that unfolds for a community.
Here at St. David’s this community tells the story of a general purpose meeting facility. We tell this story well. We, as Christians, tell this story to a generation, a population, that does not know our Christian story and cannot hear what we don’t tell. We are telling Colonial Heights, and the Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood Association, and the Portland Metro Area the story of space for rent.
Not only is it any wonder that only renters come to share our story, do any of us even remember when that became our story? I can tell you – space for hire has not always been our story. And I don’t harken back to any Golden Age, because I wasn’t born then. But I can tell you in 2004-that was not the story of St. David’s. Because I would not have come back the second Sunday. I would not have become an acolyte. I would not have met friends like Sam Gregory, and Jon Williams and the Horners. And I would not have made family like Pat Thayer and Chas Dean and the Browns. And I would not have joined the story if Fr John hadn’t been speaking of discipleship and hospitality.
I, Heather, do not stand outside the circle on this. I, too, tell the story of parks and recreation. I, too, think the brochure should be all business. I, too stand before the fiery bush and hear God in this Gospel saying – you are reaping what you have sown. You are living the story you have told. You are getting the welcome you have given.
Right now, at this time, we are at a junction. There begins yet another round of “what to do with St. David’s” If I remember correctly, the Standing Committee was supposed to have given our question some space on the agenda yesterday. Right now, we have the floor, to tell our story. And the question is-Do we tell the story of “Space for lease-cheap rates” or do we tell the Gospel? Do we tell the story of crucifixion and resurrection and reconciliation of all things?
When I first came to this parish, Molly told us all a story of Phoenix Rising. That was her story of St. David’s. Somewhere in my heart-I still hold that story, but with my mouth, with my feet, I have told the story of community center for so long, I wonder why I still get angry and surprised that people don’t show up on Sunday morning like they used to. Not in the golden era, but only since I have been here.
Today we have been given an invitation from God to wake up. To hear and feel the Holy Spirit. To speak and move as thought we ourselves would live and die and live again as Christ. Today, if we take it, we are given an invitation and Permission, to change the story we written, in assessment reports and newspaper articles. We are allowed to reclaim the Gospel as our primary story.
If it is God’s will, nothing on earth will stop it. Something I learned last week is that God speaks in prophetic and often crazy sounding language and I learned that while it takes courage, it takes faith, it takes a feeling of just giving in to the inevitable, when we let Him, God will speak through us.
Individually and collectively, we all have a story of the crucifixion and resurrection played out in our own lives. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. I plead for you to join me, and God invites us all, in a much more dignified way, to join in the new story – the old story – the only story. And see where that leads us. It will lead us home.
Heather Lee
Proper 8, Year A, RCL
June 29, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Cultural Competency
This is an interview I did for someone's work in sociology.
Heather Lee, a facilitator in cultural competency and race relations for the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon.
1. How do you feel that cultural competency goes beyond cultural sensitivity/understanding?
Cultural competency is within a continuum of cultural bias that starts with the belief that one’s own culture can solve everyone’s needs to a place where we understand that other cultures have the capacity to solve their own problems by means that are relevant to them.
Cultural sensitivity is not enough. The realization that there are other cultures is not enough to change the bias that our own solutions will solve the problems of other people.
2. Do you feel like this is something that can be learned? What methodology do you feel could be 'best practice'?
I work almost exclusively with people of European descent on the issues of White Privilege and Classism. As participants of the dominant paradigm in the United States, many people are unaware of the differences between simple cultural sensitivity and true cultural competence.
I do believe that we can learn cultural competency, but not in a classroom like setting. Cultural competency happens when we achieve a change of heart, not a grade or certificate of completion.
The most effective way to achieve this change of heart is to go, as individuals, into relationships with people who are not like us and to be willing to be absolutely wrong about everything.
3. How do you or would you like to see relationship building especially as it relates to cultural competency?
Relationship building is the only way to achieve true competency in any human endeavor. In this, culture is only a small part of the whole wheel of –isms, class, race, religion, gender, age, etcetera are all aspects where our ability to be broken and rebuilt in relation are going to be necessary to live in an increasingly small global village.
4. How would you see peer mediation fitting into this dynamic?
I am skeptical of peer mediation in general. People who may be considered peers on paper, such as both being board members of an agency or company, are likely not peers in all ways that they access power. Women and men, people of different races, cultures or immigrant status, the sort of company they work for, all of these factors and many, many more influence how decisions are mediated.
And when there is training and supervision, it isn’t peer mediation anymore.
5. Do you feel that the hierarchical model of most workplaces facilitates cultural competencies?
Hierarchical models are intrinsically Western in their orientation and design. Like all good systems, they are also self-perpetuating. If we are truly interested in achieving cultural competency in the workplace, we must be willing to look to those who are traditionally left out of the power structure of hierarchies and ask them what organizational structures would meet their needs and allow them access to power. Those of us traditionally in power must be willing to let go of that power in order that others may speak and lead. This is very hard to do.
Heather Lee, a facilitator in cultural competency and race relations for the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon.
1. How do you feel that cultural competency goes beyond cultural sensitivity/understanding?
Cultural competency is within a continuum of cultural bias that starts with the belief that one’s own culture can solve everyone’s needs to a place where we understand that other cultures have the capacity to solve their own problems by means that are relevant to them.
Cultural sensitivity is not enough. The realization that there are other cultures is not enough to change the bias that our own solutions will solve the problems of other people.
2. Do you feel like this is something that can be learned? What methodology do you feel could be 'best practice'?
I work almost exclusively with people of European descent on the issues of White Privilege and Classism. As participants of the dominant paradigm in the United States, many people are unaware of the differences between simple cultural sensitivity and true cultural competence.
I do believe that we can learn cultural competency, but not in a classroom like setting. Cultural competency happens when we achieve a change of heart, not a grade or certificate of completion.
The most effective way to achieve this change of heart is to go, as individuals, into relationships with people who are not like us and to be willing to be absolutely wrong about everything.
3. How do you or would you like to see relationship building especially as it relates to cultural competency?
Relationship building is the only way to achieve true competency in any human endeavor. In this, culture is only a small part of the whole wheel of –isms, class, race, religion, gender, age, etcetera are all aspects where our ability to be broken and rebuilt in relation are going to be necessary to live in an increasingly small global village.
4. How would you see peer mediation fitting into this dynamic?
I am skeptical of peer mediation in general. People who may be considered peers on paper, such as both being board members of an agency or company, are likely not peers in all ways that they access power. Women and men, people of different races, cultures or immigrant status, the sort of company they work for, all of these factors and many, many more influence how decisions are mediated.
And when there is training and supervision, it isn’t peer mediation anymore.
5. Do you feel that the hierarchical model of most workplaces facilitates cultural competencies?
Hierarchical models are intrinsically Western in their orientation and design. Like all good systems, they are also self-perpetuating. If we are truly interested in achieving cultural competency in the workplace, we must be willing to look to those who are traditionally left out of the power structure of hierarchies and ask them what organizational structures would meet their needs and allow them access to power. Those of us traditionally in power must be willing to let go of that power in order that others may speak and lead. This is very hard to do.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
June 10, 2008
This is from my mother. Interestingly, it is what I remembered a few days ago, that finally allowed me to let go of all this. Thanks mom, you rock.
How do I feel about you going into the priesthood? You know that I'm proud of you and I know that you can do anything you set your mind and heart to. God's chosen you to do his work and you have excepted his call. Not everyone will answer his call with a yes.
I love you and I'm a very proud mom.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Conversion
God calls to each of us, daily, moment by moment, throughout our whole lives, saying, “Come home. Come back. Come rest.” Come.
We get a lot of practice ignoring that call. Other, more immediate and more physical callings urge us away from God and into ourselves. But that self-absorption doesn’t stop God’s yearning, or ours. And sometimes, when we stop, because we want to or because we have to, we hear that call to Come, and we experience conversion.
Today’s gospel is a collection of conversion stories-stories from when God walked among us and said, Come, follow me, and people from all walks of life, in all circumstances made that leap into unconditional grace.
First, let’s meet Matthew. You might know someone like him. He’s got a job, but he doesn’t really like it. Maybe he works for the IRS and he hears from a lot of angry people who act like he makes the rules. He’s never getting a promotion and he is too old to change careers. He has no real connection to his past and he isn’t enthusiastic about his future, either. Nothing has ever really engaged his passions and suddenly, perhaps because he wasn’t paying attention to anything else, he realized that Jesus is walking by saying, hey-come on-let’s go. And Matthew is so amazed to discover his life is valuable, just as it is, that he just gets up and goes.
Matthew could be a slacker, trapped by too few expectations, or he could be a mid-level executive, trapped by too many – but Matthew heard God’s call and in answering - experienced conversion.
Of course, we can’t all be like Matthew. Some of us need to hear the invitation over and over again before we can believe it is actually genuine, actually meant for us. Some of us are more like those dinner guests or at least feel like the Pharisee’s might be right about us. Sometimes we don’t want to be a bother, sometimes we don’t think we have anything to bring to the table, sometimes we don’t think we were important enough, and perhaps we received the invitation by mistake. Sometimes we need to hear that invitation so many times we just give up. OK already! We say and in that moment of surrender – we are converted by grace.
Still, others might find their conversion similar to the woman who hemorrhaged for 12 years. It takes a lot of fortitude to hang on through 12 long years of chronic illness. But hemhorrhaging could explain any exhausting of our personal resources.
Are we trying to present the perfect life to our neighbors? Are we hiding alcoholism or mental illness in our families so we can look normal? Are we burying ourselves in debt to live in the right neighborhood? Do we stay up late at night worrying about things we cannot control?
If so, we might find ourselves like this woman, no longer able to help ourselves or hide ourselves. And like her, we might use the last of our strength to surrender to hope – to miracles – to grace.
Of course, not everyone is disinterested in their own lives, like Matthew, or consumed by them like the woman with a hemorrhage. And people who have always been at the table hardly need repeated invitations to attend. Some people are like the leader of the synagogue who lost his daughter.
I imagine him as a man who has always done the right thing. He has an even keel and leads a nice, sober and appropriate life. When his daughter dies, he does the right thing, he sends for the flute players, just as expected. But then he does something a little bit unexpected. He approaches God and asks for him to wake her up. He doesn’t offer any excuses or deals. He doesn’t point out that he has always done the right thing or that he has held up his part of the covenant. He comes submissive, a supplicant, and approaches that infinite grace, that miracle so expansive that it can bring about resurrection.
Lots of people come to church every week. They take their turn on the vestry and volunteer in soup kitchens. In fact, if asked, they would say they don’t need a conversion experience because they have been baptized their whole lives.
For some people, who give so much and expect so little, conversion is going to be a miracle as big as the resurrection. Now, I am not saying that if we are devout and follow all the rules that God will suspend the laws of Nature. But for some of us, even if no one else can ever tell, we will experience something just that big.
Conversions like that of the synagogue leader are the hardest to tell. They don’t always have an obvious miracle like his. But they do happen, they must, because while Christianity contains a nice set of rules for living, those rules aren’t enough to sustain a lifetime of service to the kingdom of God.
But we know, even if there isn’t a flashy story, we know when we finally, whole-heartedly succumbed to grace. Succumb not with our intellect but with our hearts. It happens when no practical effort on our part will satisfy any longer, when we can’t act in any other direction than towards God himself.
And when God’s call is answered by his own people, our communion expands, not one by one, as in baptism, but by infinity, as only unconditional grace can do.
Conversion isn’t necessary to practice Christianity. It isn’t a prerequisite of baptism. It isn’t necessary to serve on the vestry or in a soup kitchen, either. You will never find conversion experience on a job application, not even for the priesthood. Yet conversion is the moment when we allow our very selves to answer the call to Come. Come home. Come back. Come, follow me.
We get a lot of practice ignoring that call. Other, more immediate and more physical callings urge us away from God and into ourselves. But that self-absorption doesn’t stop God’s yearning, or ours. And sometimes, when we stop, because we want to or because we have to, we hear that call to Come, and we experience conversion.
Today’s gospel is a collection of conversion stories-stories from when God walked among us and said, Come, follow me, and people from all walks of life, in all circumstances made that leap into unconditional grace.
First, let’s meet Matthew. You might know someone like him. He’s got a job, but he doesn’t really like it. Maybe he works for the IRS and he hears from a lot of angry people who act like he makes the rules. He’s never getting a promotion and he is too old to change careers. He has no real connection to his past and he isn’t enthusiastic about his future, either. Nothing has ever really engaged his passions and suddenly, perhaps because he wasn’t paying attention to anything else, he realized that Jesus is walking by saying, hey-come on-let’s go. And Matthew is so amazed to discover his life is valuable, just as it is, that he just gets up and goes.
Matthew could be a slacker, trapped by too few expectations, or he could be a mid-level executive, trapped by too many – but Matthew heard God’s call and in answering - experienced conversion.
Of course, we can’t all be like Matthew. Some of us need to hear the invitation over and over again before we can believe it is actually genuine, actually meant for us. Some of us are more like those dinner guests or at least feel like the Pharisee’s might be right about us. Sometimes we don’t want to be a bother, sometimes we don’t think we have anything to bring to the table, sometimes we don’t think we were important enough, and perhaps we received the invitation by mistake. Sometimes we need to hear that invitation so many times we just give up. OK already! We say and in that moment of surrender – we are converted by grace.
Still, others might find their conversion similar to the woman who hemorrhaged for 12 years. It takes a lot of fortitude to hang on through 12 long years of chronic illness. But hemhorrhaging could explain any exhausting of our personal resources.
Are we trying to present the perfect life to our neighbors? Are we hiding alcoholism or mental illness in our families so we can look normal? Are we burying ourselves in debt to live in the right neighborhood? Do we stay up late at night worrying about things we cannot control?
If so, we might find ourselves like this woman, no longer able to help ourselves or hide ourselves. And like her, we might use the last of our strength to surrender to hope – to miracles – to grace.
Of course, not everyone is disinterested in their own lives, like Matthew, or consumed by them like the woman with a hemorrhage. And people who have always been at the table hardly need repeated invitations to attend. Some people are like the leader of the synagogue who lost his daughter.
I imagine him as a man who has always done the right thing. He has an even keel and leads a nice, sober and appropriate life. When his daughter dies, he does the right thing, he sends for the flute players, just as expected. But then he does something a little bit unexpected. He approaches God and asks for him to wake her up. He doesn’t offer any excuses or deals. He doesn’t point out that he has always done the right thing or that he has held up his part of the covenant. He comes submissive, a supplicant, and approaches that infinite grace, that miracle so expansive that it can bring about resurrection.
Lots of people come to church every week. They take their turn on the vestry and volunteer in soup kitchens. In fact, if asked, they would say they don’t need a conversion experience because they have been baptized their whole lives.
For some people, who give so much and expect so little, conversion is going to be a miracle as big as the resurrection. Now, I am not saying that if we are devout and follow all the rules that God will suspend the laws of Nature. But for some of us, even if no one else can ever tell, we will experience something just that big.
Conversions like that of the synagogue leader are the hardest to tell. They don’t always have an obvious miracle like his. But they do happen, they must, because while Christianity contains a nice set of rules for living, those rules aren’t enough to sustain a lifetime of service to the kingdom of God.
But we know, even if there isn’t a flashy story, we know when we finally, whole-heartedly succumbed to grace. Succumb not with our intellect but with our hearts. It happens when no practical effort on our part will satisfy any longer, when we can’t act in any other direction than towards God himself.
And when God’s call is answered by his own people, our communion expands, not one by one, as in baptism, but by infinity, as only unconditional grace can do.
Conversion isn’t necessary to practice Christianity. It isn’t a prerequisite of baptism. It isn’t necessary to serve on the vestry or in a soup kitchen, either. You will never find conversion experience on a job application, not even for the priesthood. Yet conversion is the moment when we allow our very selves to answer the call to Come. Come home. Come back. Come, follow me.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Will Travel, Have Jesus
this is an old sermon that i wrote, while traveling without my laptop, and found cleaning out some files. it isn't the best type job or the best editing i have ever managed, but i quite like the sermon. heather
A couple of years ago I was trying to find a mission statement to put on in some service leaflets when I ran across this parable. You see, I knew I wanted the great commandment, I just wanted the perfect phrasing, and Luke’s is over the top.
Love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself. This sounds great. It’s got sweeping power, yet it’s short and sweet. Good material for a bumper sticker, actually. There is just one problem with it. This is the lawyer’s answer and I forgot, when I chose this one-liner, that I am not following a lawyer – I am following Christ.
And like all things to do with Jesus’ ministry, it doesn’t fit well on a bumper sticker.
Even though I cannot condense the parable of the good Samaritan into a catchy sound bite, for a parable of Jesus, this one is pretty easy to understand. We don’t have to examine the properties of seeds. Pearls, yeast or fields in order to find the similarities between farming and faith. This story has actual people.
Now, it does have a certain type of person. I have heard other people preach about this parable and they have explained all about priests and Levites and Samaritans and even bleeding people and robbers. But there is really only one type of person in this story. Everyone, with the exception of the innkeeper, is a traveler.
I am traveling right now, and I have noticed one behavior that all traveling people, no matter how sociable, have in common. We are selfish people. We have a lot to do in a limited amount of time. We have schedules to keep, transportation to catch and appointments and reservations to meet.
Travelers are selfish people. None of the strangers we meet are likely to cross our paths again. It is easy to stop seeing the flight attendant as a person with a chaotic job and verbally chastise him for the temperature of the cabin or the poor parking at the airport. When we drive, it is easy for travelers to drive past cars on the side of the road. How can I help, we wonder? Everyone has a cell phone these days, and even if I stopped, I don’t know where the nearest gas station is.
When we travel, we don’t know our neighbors, so by bother using a story about travelers to tell us how to love God with all our hearts and minds and soul and strength? Why use a story about travelers to describe our relationship with neighbors? The people down the street, I can invite them over for dinner and come to love them as friends. But the guy over in Seat 3A actually lives in another country, how can I become friends with him?
The more I read the Good News, the more I understand why the priests, lawyers and politicians wanted Jesus dead. These are the three top job opportunities for people who want to separate everyone into US and THEM. What other response could they have to a man who says there is no US there is no THEM. Even the most alienating circumstances of our lives-when we are off wandering in strange lands – there is still no US and THEM. There is only God, in each being we encounter, and God is w ho we love with all our hearts and all our souls and all our strength and with all our being. For those of you who know Francis, she does this well. Francis has never met a stranger- only a friend she hasn’t been introduced to yet.
This parish lives the mission statement of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We welcome whomever God sends along, whomever comes limping in, whomever is in need of shelter. Somewhere, probably in Corinthians, Paul says he will be all things to all people in order to win them for Christ. And that’s not a statement of wish-washy political maneuvering. It is a statement of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Paul, a traveler if ever there was one, says, there will be no strangers because I will not let them be other than me.
Here at St. David’s, there is no stranger, there is only a friend we haven’t met met yet. There were two answers in today’s Gospel, there was the easy answer, the answer of the lawyer, Love God, with everything and love your neighbor as yourself. That answer fits nicely on a bumper sticker – it fits nicely on the bottom of a service leaflet. And it fits nicely into our lives as travelers.
For the lawyer, God is up there and neighbors are next door. So when traveling, when living, we can light a few candles for God and invite the next door neighbor over for dinner and every one else can go hang.
Then, there is Christ’s answer. God is right here and your neighbor is everywhere and it is going to take all your heart and all your mind and all your strength to make friends of all the strangers you haven’t met yet.
A-men.
A couple of years ago I was trying to find a mission statement to put on in some service leaflets when I ran across this parable. You see, I knew I wanted the great commandment, I just wanted the perfect phrasing, and Luke’s is over the top.
Love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself. This sounds great. It’s got sweeping power, yet it’s short and sweet. Good material for a bumper sticker, actually. There is just one problem with it. This is the lawyer’s answer and I forgot, when I chose this one-liner, that I am not following a lawyer – I am following Christ.
And like all things to do with Jesus’ ministry, it doesn’t fit well on a bumper sticker.
Even though I cannot condense the parable of the good Samaritan into a catchy sound bite, for a parable of Jesus, this one is pretty easy to understand. We don’t have to examine the properties of seeds. Pearls, yeast or fields in order to find the similarities between farming and faith. This story has actual people.
Now, it does have a certain type of person. I have heard other people preach about this parable and they have explained all about priests and Levites and Samaritans and even bleeding people and robbers. But there is really only one type of person in this story. Everyone, with the exception of the innkeeper, is a traveler.
I am traveling right now, and I have noticed one behavior that all traveling people, no matter how sociable, have in common. We are selfish people. We have a lot to do in a limited amount of time. We have schedules to keep, transportation to catch and appointments and reservations to meet.
Travelers are selfish people. None of the strangers we meet are likely to cross our paths again. It is easy to stop seeing the flight attendant as a person with a chaotic job and verbally chastise him for the temperature of the cabin or the poor parking at the airport. When we drive, it is easy for travelers to drive past cars on the side of the road. How can I help, we wonder? Everyone has a cell phone these days, and even if I stopped, I don’t know where the nearest gas station is.
When we travel, we don’t know our neighbors, so by bother using a story about travelers to tell us how to love God with all our hearts and minds and soul and strength? Why use a story about travelers to describe our relationship with neighbors? The people down the street, I can invite them over for dinner and come to love them as friends. But the guy over in Seat 3A actually lives in another country, how can I become friends with him?
The more I read the Good News, the more I understand why the priests, lawyers and politicians wanted Jesus dead. These are the three top job opportunities for people who want to separate everyone into US and THEM. What other response could they have to a man who says there is no US there is no THEM. Even the most alienating circumstances of our lives-when we are off wandering in strange lands – there is still no US and THEM. There is only God, in each being we encounter, and God is w ho we love with all our hearts and all our souls and all our strength and with all our being. For those of you who know Francis, she does this well. Francis has never met a stranger- only a friend she hasn’t been introduced to yet.
This parish lives the mission statement of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We welcome whomever God sends along, whomever comes limping in, whomever is in need of shelter. Somewhere, probably in Corinthians, Paul says he will be all things to all people in order to win them for Christ. And that’s not a statement of wish-washy political maneuvering. It is a statement of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Paul, a traveler if ever there was one, says, there will be no strangers because I will not let them be other than me.
Here at St. David’s, there is no stranger, there is only a friend we haven’t met met yet. There were two answers in today’s Gospel, there was the easy answer, the answer of the lawyer, Love God, with everything and love your neighbor as yourself. That answer fits nicely on a bumper sticker – it fits nicely on the bottom of a service leaflet. And it fits nicely into our lives as travelers.
For the lawyer, God is up there and neighbors are next door. So when traveling, when living, we can light a few candles for God and invite the next door neighbor over for dinner and every one else can go hang.
Then, there is Christ’s answer. God is right here and your neighbor is everywhere and it is going to take all your heart and all your mind and all your strength to make friends of all the strangers you haven’t met yet.
A-men.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
June 1, 2008
Again, with the drafts...this one of my first try at a Spiritual Autobiography
As I look back with the perfect vision of hindsight, even now, it seems that things are
unfolding as they should though I often had no idea how they were related at the time.
My education has brought me to this place in my spiritual journey even as my spiritual
formation has affected my education choices. I can wish that my journey was more
original but I cannot say that I would change anything.
It seems too cliché to start a personal essay with, “I was born.” But it is true none the
less that my spiritual journey has been powerfully affected by the fact that I was born
at all. As part of the first generation to grow up knowing that babies did not have to be
born, I was powerfully reminded that “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” wasn’t
about my soul, it was about my breathing. In my youth, the struggle for my soul was
not between apathy and faith but between the moral certitudes of Southern Baptist and
Catholic grandmothers.
I always went to church as a child. The God of my earliest memories lives in snow
encrusted edifices lit by flickering candles. Gradually, He morphed into the revival tent
God of simple truths, rousing songs and playdough. Eventually, He became the damning
God of Revelations.
By the time I reached college, I had reached the end of my patience with the shaming
God of my youth. One of those grandmothers had died, the other had lost interest, and
my pastor had no answer but prayer. I took a Bible as Literature class and became furious
that for so many years I had been expected to understand God’s Word in a vacuum.
Convinced that the Church had no answers for the metaphysical questions of Truth or
Beauty, I changed my major – to philosophy. It was through the philosophy department
that I met my first spiritual mentor. Dr. Betty listened to my complaints, encouraged my
questions and never presumed that his answers might be the only answers. The result was
not a crisis of faith but a crisis of existence. It was through this drastic repositioning of
myself in the cosmos that I was able to let go of the God of my youth and be receptive to
adult faith.
The defining characteristic of life is that it only stops once. Eventually I got off the
couch, got married, had kids and finished my philosophy degree. I did not go back to
church and became quite indifferent to Christians. Unlike many families, I was not the
instigator of our return to Church. My husband, who had never lost his faith so much
as stopped watering it, needed to share his faith with our children and needed to find
his own way back to God. I went along. I cried a lot. I was amazed to discover that the
lessons of charity and community that I heard as a child had a place in the adult church.
It was at this church that I met my second faith mentor. Katherine was in the ordination
process when I met her although I did not know it at the time. At 30 years old, a supposed
inheritor of the women’s movement, I had never met a woman who was a faith leader. I
knew many women with power in the church, but that power was always resource power,
a withholding or negative means of expression. As I watched Katherine’s ordination into
the priesthood of the Episcopal Church, began to see that women could hold and share
the positive, authoritative power of God’s love.
As I have answered God’s call, and not the altar call of belief, but the baptismal call to
action, I have watched the Spirit expose hidden gifts that others have seen but I have
not. In my mothering circle, I have been the one called in for miscarriages and broken
relationships. I have many times been the first to receive good news of jobs, births and
weddings. I have often been an arbitrator of moral dilemmas, the one to sound out the
answer the question, “What should I do?” I have had to flip my self-perception head over
heels. No longer am I a shy person who vomits at the mere thought of public speaking,
but a preacher. No longer am I the only one home when things need hearing, I am
available for that very need.
I have come to see how important it is for ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
Indeed, my perverse fear is that I may be extraordinary, and then how will I get anything
done? It isn’t the martyrs or even the apostles who have impressed me with their abilities
to preserve or testify the gospel of Christ, but the women who opened their homes, with
or without permission, and formed the first communities. It isn’t the movers and shakers
of theological debate that motivate my growth, it is the people who can listen to gossip
and still see Christ in both the speaker and subject. I want to be one of those people.
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