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
Monday, June 30, 2008
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, April 27, 2008
Neverland
from Easter 6, RCL - year A
Do we remember the commandments?
Do we remember that the Holy Spirit is our defense?
Do we remember very often that God required a leap of faith to mature us as Christians – as the whole Church?
It is easy to believe that tradition requires constancy from us. It is easy to say that we ‘live and move and have our being’ in God, but to really do so in the furnishings of our Anglican tradition. It is easy to claim that we have found our “2nd star on the right and straight on ‘til morning” path to heaven.
But where do those directions actually take us? These are Peter Pan’s directions to Neverland. Neverland is where we remain children forever. Neverland is where we find the comforts and constancies of childhood. Neverland would appear to be a perfect representation of heaven. After all, were we not admonished to have faith like little children?
Yes, but we weren’t told to act like them.
Neverland isn’t heaven. It isn’t a taste of the kingdom of God. Neverland is really just more of the same – all the jealously, the anger, the hurt and the longings of real life, but with less coping skills. Neverland is life without the possibility for change.
Now, I think very few people actually confuse Neverland with Heaven but I think that a lot of us are confusing it with the Church. Most of us, individually and corporately think we are preserving, with our buildings and traditions and interpretations of Scripture, a perfect slice of God’s kingdom. We think we are creating something set aside, something sacred, in the world. And we are so sure this is the case that we can no longer see through our smells nor hear through our bells that the world we have created ‘in here’ is exactly like the world ‘out there’ but with less coping skills.
And that is the saddest thing of all. Because we have those coping skills but they are like the alarm clock in the alligator. We are so afraid of that alligator, that leap of faith and imagination to truly envision the Kingdom of God here on earth, that we cannot snatch the clock back, we cannot allow ourselves to grow up.
What if we want to, though? How do we escape our Neverland? How do we start creating God’s Kingdom on Earth instead of echoing what has happened to God’s creation in microcosm?
Exit Peter Pan, stage left. Enter Jesus Christ, stage right. Because it is true that Jesus told us to have faith like little children in the Father. But, he has fundamentally altered the parent-child relationship. We have been invited to have a different relationship with God than Moses had with Him. The burning bush was scary and said, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Through Christ, we get to grow up. Now the Father is approachable because our big brother has softened Him up a bit, and our Father can now say, “I raised you right, use your best judgment, and if it doesn’t work, I will forgive you and we will figure it out together.”
How can we believe in that freedom and that forgiveness? We can believe in that forgiveness because when our best effort meant we killed Jesus, God forgave us and used it as an example forever. We can believe in that freedom because we are not alone as we sometimes imagine. We have an Advocate, whom we can hear when we are following the commandments, Love God first. Love your neighbor with the same care you give yourself.
What should we do with this freedom and forgiveness? We could create a Neverland, a place no different than the world of hopelessness around us. We could fear change and cling to tradition. We could argue over who owns the buildings, who is allowed to be God’s child, and start wars over the correct interpretation of such phrases as “the atonement by the sanctification of the most precious body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ.” As long as we fight each other instead of the despair of the world, we show the world that we have no peace to offer. We can create this Neverland because we are the adult children of God. We have been left to our best devices – if we will choose to use them.
Do we remember the commandments?
Do we remember that the Holy Spirit is our defense?
Do we remember very often that God required a leap of faith to mature us as Christians – as the whole Church?
These are our defenses. These are our devices. These are what build the Kingdom of God as a light in the darkness of despair instead of Neverland.
What if we embraced the commandments? What if we started every meeting not with a recitation of minutes but a reading of the Parable of the Good Samaritan? What if we really took to heart St. Peter’s admonition that “it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering is God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil?” Peter Pan believed if you ignored it, it would go away, but we know this to be false. Suffering will continue to exist because that is our growing edge, and because that is part of accepting the consequences of an adult relationship with God.
But if we choose, daily, to be God’s representative in the middle of human despair, if we choose, daily, to take that leap of faith, then not only will we be following the commandments, not only will we have received the Holy Spirit, but people will be drawn to us. And if we choose, daily, to be present to God’s people, then we will be able to answer them when they ask, “why are you doing this for me?”
Our defense, our testimony, is, in the end, all we have to give. It is fashionable to call it a faith story, but that is misleading. A story is something we make up. A story will lead us to Neverland. Defense is no better, because a defense is an excuse, a justification in the face of wrongdoing. We are not wrongdoing. The Kingdom of God will not come about through legislation; it will not come about through soup kitchens and homeless shelters. We do not need to leave Neverland to vote and none think they are hungry in Neverland, but they starve all the same. Because what humans are looking for cannot be found in stories or excuses, but only in God. Only in God do we have testimony; only in God do we have truth. The truth that feeds the soul, that faces the despair, that creates the relationships that build the true Kingdom of God.
Remember the commandments.
Remember that the Holy Spirit is our defense.
Remember that God required a leap of faith to mature us as Christians – as the whole Church.
Amen.
Do we remember the commandments?
Do we remember that the Holy Spirit is our defense?
Do we remember very often that God required a leap of faith to mature us as Christians – as the whole Church?
It is easy to believe that tradition requires constancy from us. It is easy to say that we ‘live and move and have our being’ in God, but to really do so in the furnishings of our Anglican tradition. It is easy to claim that we have found our “2nd star on the right and straight on ‘til morning” path to heaven.
But where do those directions actually take us? These are Peter Pan’s directions to Neverland. Neverland is where we remain children forever. Neverland is where we find the comforts and constancies of childhood. Neverland would appear to be a perfect representation of heaven. After all, were we not admonished to have faith like little children?
Yes, but we weren’t told to act like them.
Neverland isn’t heaven. It isn’t a taste of the kingdom of God. Neverland is really just more of the same – all the jealously, the anger, the hurt and the longings of real life, but with less coping skills. Neverland is life without the possibility for change.
Now, I think very few people actually confuse Neverland with Heaven but I think that a lot of us are confusing it with the Church. Most of us, individually and corporately think we are preserving, with our buildings and traditions and interpretations of Scripture, a perfect slice of God’s kingdom. We think we are creating something set aside, something sacred, in the world. And we are so sure this is the case that we can no longer see through our smells nor hear through our bells that the world we have created ‘in here’ is exactly like the world ‘out there’ but with less coping skills.
And that is the saddest thing of all. Because we have those coping skills but they are like the alarm clock in the alligator. We are so afraid of that alligator, that leap of faith and imagination to truly envision the Kingdom of God here on earth, that we cannot snatch the clock back, we cannot allow ourselves to grow up.
What if we want to, though? How do we escape our Neverland? How do we start creating God’s Kingdom on Earth instead of echoing what has happened to God’s creation in microcosm?
Exit Peter Pan, stage left. Enter Jesus Christ, stage right. Because it is true that Jesus told us to have faith like little children in the Father. But, he has fundamentally altered the parent-child relationship. We have been invited to have a different relationship with God than Moses had with Him. The burning bush was scary and said, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Through Christ, we get to grow up. Now the Father is approachable because our big brother has softened Him up a bit, and our Father can now say, “I raised you right, use your best judgment, and if it doesn’t work, I will forgive you and we will figure it out together.”
How can we believe in that freedom and that forgiveness? We can believe in that forgiveness because when our best effort meant we killed Jesus, God forgave us and used it as an example forever. We can believe in that freedom because we are not alone as we sometimes imagine. We have an Advocate, whom we can hear when we are following the commandments, Love God first. Love your neighbor with the same care you give yourself.
What should we do with this freedom and forgiveness? We could create a Neverland, a place no different than the world of hopelessness around us. We could fear change and cling to tradition. We could argue over who owns the buildings, who is allowed to be God’s child, and start wars over the correct interpretation of such phrases as “the atonement by the sanctification of the most precious body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ.” As long as we fight each other instead of the despair of the world, we show the world that we have no peace to offer. We can create this Neverland because we are the adult children of God. We have been left to our best devices – if we will choose to use them.
Do we remember the commandments?
Do we remember that the Holy Spirit is our defense?
Do we remember very often that God required a leap of faith to mature us as Christians – as the whole Church?
These are our defenses. These are our devices. These are what build the Kingdom of God as a light in the darkness of despair instead of Neverland.
What if we embraced the commandments? What if we started every meeting not with a recitation of minutes but a reading of the Parable of the Good Samaritan? What if we really took to heart St. Peter’s admonition that “it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering is God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil?” Peter Pan believed if you ignored it, it would go away, but we know this to be false. Suffering will continue to exist because that is our growing edge, and because that is part of accepting the consequences of an adult relationship with God.
But if we choose, daily, to be God’s representative in the middle of human despair, if we choose, daily, to take that leap of faith, then not only will we be following the commandments, not only will we have received the Holy Spirit, but people will be drawn to us. And if we choose, daily, to be present to God’s people, then we will be able to answer them when they ask, “why are you doing this for me?”
Our defense, our testimony, is, in the end, all we have to give. It is fashionable to call it a faith story, but that is misleading. A story is something we make up. A story will lead us to Neverland. Defense is no better, because a defense is an excuse, a justification in the face of wrongdoing. We are not wrongdoing. The Kingdom of God will not come about through legislation; it will not come about through soup kitchens and homeless shelters. We do not need to leave Neverland to vote and none think they are hungry in Neverland, but they starve all the same. Because what humans are looking for cannot be found in stories or excuses, but only in God. Only in God do we have testimony; only in God do we have truth. The truth that feeds the soul, that faces the despair, that creates the relationships that build the true Kingdom of God.
Remember the commandments.
Remember that the Holy Spirit is our defense.
Remember that God required a leap of faith to mature us as Christians – as the whole Church.
Amen.
Friday, April 25, 2008
The Joy of Old Friends
There are no friends like old friends, or so the saying goes. They have seen you at your worst and still like you. They have seen you at your best and are not jealous. They know your stories and are excited for the latest update; how your spouse is doing, how old the children are, what you are working on now. Don’t get me wrong, I like new friends too, but the old friends keep us connected to our lives.
I have had the great fortune of being away from many of my friends for the last year. It didn’t feel fortunate at the time but that is precisely the point. By being removed from our comfortable places, we get the jolt we need to reevaluate the decisions that we have made. You know the ones, they nag in the back of the mind. The ones we may have made in anger or in haste. By experiencing discomfort, it could be the result of moving to a new town or even a death of a loved one, we get a second chance to look at our lives and perhaps, correct the course.
God calls to us to keep faith, to keep community. Our relationships are what ground us, our friends are what remind us, that our God is found in the ties that bind us, one to another. Jesus was trying to get us to expand the length and increase the quantity of those ties, because, through God, we are capable of compassion and friendship with people we think we can’t like, that we have become angry with, that are different from us.
If you’ve had a jolt lately, like me, I encourage you to try looking for the blessing, the opportunity to reevaluate those things that are nagging you. But most especially, I encourage you to look up an old friend and say, “Hi.” To all of you that I have missed and have missed me, it’s good to be back and I am glad to see you.
I have had the great fortune of being away from many of my friends for the last year. It didn’t feel fortunate at the time but that is precisely the point. By being removed from our comfortable places, we get the jolt we need to reevaluate the decisions that we have made. You know the ones, they nag in the back of the mind. The ones we may have made in anger or in haste. By experiencing discomfort, it could be the result of moving to a new town or even a death of a loved one, we get a second chance to look at our lives and perhaps, correct the course.
God calls to us to keep faith, to keep community. Our relationships are what ground us, our friends are what remind us, that our God is found in the ties that bind us, one to another. Jesus was trying to get us to expand the length and increase the quantity of those ties, because, through God, we are capable of compassion and friendship with people we think we can’t like, that we have become angry with, that are different from us.
If you’ve had a jolt lately, like me, I encourage you to try looking for the blessing, the opportunity to reevaluate those things that are nagging you. But most especially, I encourage you to look up an old friend and say, “Hi.” To all of you that I have missed and have missed me, it’s good to be back and I am glad to see you.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tradition - Old School
2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5
Proper 27 Yr C BCP
It’s a funny thing-tradition. If you were to listen only to the news or only read the online journals of prominent Epsicopalians, you would think that our little corner of the Christian Church had managed to corner the market not only on pure Orthodox faith but the front row seats to the Apocalypse as well.
In other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
So, the gospel today talks about the tradition of marriage and the resurrection and there are all sorts of views on marriage in our church and indeed, in the whole world vying to be the last word on tradition and I’ll get to that, but I found that spending some time with Paul and learning what he thought of tradition was actually more useful than choosing sides and picking out Pauline text to back me up.
Because here is the thing – Paul was a crazy traditionalist.
We are all actually a lot more like Paul than Peter. Paul did not know Jesus personified – he only knew Christ crucified and resurrected. In fact, our experience of Jesus is larger than Paul’s because he didn’t have the gospels. Paul didn’t even have Paul – he was truly living on the cutting edge of faith. So why was he going on about tradition? Edges seem like the sort of place where tradition would lose its authority.
Well, because Paul was Paul. He had a conversion experience on the way to Damascus; he didn’t get a concussion resulting in amnesia. Paul didn’t become someone else, he became Paul – renewed. In the same way, our baptism is our own conversion experience and no matter how sanctified the water is – it doesn’t drown out our past or give us amnesia about who we are, instead it allows us to see the same world but with renewed and indeed sanctified vision.
A lot of people didn’t get what Paul was doing – obviously, or he wouldn’t have had to keep writing letters saying, do what I said, already! One way of seeing what Paul was doing is to think of him as a tentmaker. Paul was tying knots in the fabric of Christianity but he wasn’t making thread. Tradition was the warp of his weaving. It was the thread that stabilized the newly formed cloth. Because remember, Paul really took to heart the idea that the Christ fulfilled the prophecy. It had to connect with the old if it was to fulfill it, but it didn’t have to be the same thing. One might say that for Paul, tradition had to be sanctified by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And what the heck does that mean anyway. Well, it probably means I spend too much time reading theology books and need to get some more fresh air. But what it really means is that tradition, also known as “that’s the way we’ve always done it” only matters, only works, if it sets the thing it is about aside for the glory of God because Jesus died and was resurrected. So, I suspect that who Paul was writing to had a lot to do with what particular traditions needed to be maintained, to get people to stop paying attention to the small stuff, and to start paying attention to the huge amazing and astounding fact that Jesus was resurrected. It isn’t like this happened all the time. God really isn’t in the habit. Even today, we don’t bury Aunt Muriel and go back in three days to make sure she didn’t get resurrected or anything.
And that brings me to the gospel. Paul and Jesus were in complete accord on this. The resurrection makes talking about tradition sort of meaningless. Jesus spent a lot of his ministry telling and showing people how he was coming to fulfill the law and then showing us all how much we had mucked up the intention of the law with our traditions about it.
One of my favorite, oh, call him an anti-apologist curmudgeon, is GK Chesterton. In his book Orthodoxy he says that "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.”
So, in giving the vote to the dead, we have to remember that the dead not only can be dead wrong, but they are certainly entitled to change their mind now that they have come face to face with the glory of God. And don’t forget about the legion of dead who are there because some living person honored tradition over life itself. I suspect that the dead actually have a pretty radically different view of things now that they are not longer afraid of death. So let’s not assume how they would vote at all.
Instead, lets consider that Jesus is trying to tell the Saducees that the traditions of the living, like marriage, matter to the living, but that the priorities of the resurrected are all but incomprehensible to us. This is especially true if we spend too much time hanging onto traditions that aren’t working anymore. That way being – to keep us focused on the amazing astounding stupefying fact that Jesus was resurrected.
If we, as Christians, truly believe that we live in a now and not yet state of resurrection ourselves. If we as Christians truly believe that we are the hands and feet of Christ, then we are the tools of the resurrection. It is our duty, then, to make sure that all Christians(past present and future) live lives focused on the amazement of resurrection, of being a wholly new creature, set aside for God’s own joy. That is our mission, that is our story of salvation. Freedom from fear; fear of death, fear of being stranded at the altar, fear of being married to seven brothers.
Traditions are useful only in that they free us from our fears. Traditions are useful only if they liberate us to see God as clearly as possible, and the clearest we will ever see the Glory of God is to believe as literally as we can, the resurrection of the Christ. Because when we can really believe that, we can really believe that our sins are forgiven and we can really get on with the important stuff – which is liberating others from their fears and letting everyone see the face of God shining into the world.
All things come of thee, oh Lord
And of thine own, have we given thee.
I pray each of us goes into the world this day, a shining beacon of God who lights us all from the inside. And I pray each of us trust in our faith with the strength of our tradition, which is of Jesus Crucified and Christ Resurrected. Amen.
Proper 27 Yr C BCP
It’s a funny thing-tradition. If you were to listen only to the news or only read the online journals of prominent Epsicopalians, you would think that our little corner of the Christian Church had managed to corner the market not only on pure Orthodox faith but the front row seats to the Apocalypse as well.
In other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
So, the gospel today talks about the tradition of marriage and the resurrection and there are all sorts of views on marriage in our church and indeed, in the whole world vying to be the last word on tradition and I’ll get to that, but I found that spending some time with Paul and learning what he thought of tradition was actually more useful than choosing sides and picking out Pauline text to back me up.
Because here is the thing – Paul was a crazy traditionalist.
We are all actually a lot more like Paul than Peter. Paul did not know Jesus personified – he only knew Christ crucified and resurrected. In fact, our experience of Jesus is larger than Paul’s because he didn’t have the gospels. Paul didn’t even have Paul – he was truly living on the cutting edge of faith. So why was he going on about tradition? Edges seem like the sort of place where tradition would lose its authority.
Well, because Paul was Paul. He had a conversion experience on the way to Damascus; he didn’t get a concussion resulting in amnesia. Paul didn’t become someone else, he became Paul – renewed. In the same way, our baptism is our own conversion experience and no matter how sanctified the water is – it doesn’t drown out our past or give us amnesia about who we are, instead it allows us to see the same world but with renewed and indeed sanctified vision.
A lot of people didn’t get what Paul was doing – obviously, or he wouldn’t have had to keep writing letters saying, do what I said, already! One way of seeing what Paul was doing is to think of him as a tentmaker. Paul was tying knots in the fabric of Christianity but he wasn’t making thread. Tradition was the warp of his weaving. It was the thread that stabilized the newly formed cloth. Because remember, Paul really took to heart the idea that the Christ fulfilled the prophecy. It had to connect with the old if it was to fulfill it, but it didn’t have to be the same thing. One might say that for Paul, tradition had to be sanctified by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And what the heck does that mean anyway. Well, it probably means I spend too much time reading theology books and need to get some more fresh air. But what it really means is that tradition, also known as “that’s the way we’ve always done it” only matters, only works, if it sets the thing it is about aside for the glory of God because Jesus died and was resurrected. So, I suspect that who Paul was writing to had a lot to do with what particular traditions needed to be maintained, to get people to stop paying attention to the small stuff, and to start paying attention to the huge amazing and astounding fact that Jesus was resurrected. It isn’t like this happened all the time. God really isn’t in the habit. Even today, we don’t bury Aunt Muriel and go back in three days to make sure she didn’t get resurrected or anything.
And that brings me to the gospel. Paul and Jesus were in complete accord on this. The resurrection makes talking about tradition sort of meaningless. Jesus spent a lot of his ministry telling and showing people how he was coming to fulfill the law and then showing us all how much we had mucked up the intention of the law with our traditions about it.
One of my favorite, oh, call him an anti-apologist curmudgeon, is GK Chesterton. In his book Orthodoxy he says that "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.”
So, in giving the vote to the dead, we have to remember that the dead not only can be dead wrong, but they are certainly entitled to change their mind now that they have come face to face with the glory of God. And don’t forget about the legion of dead who are there because some living person honored tradition over life itself. I suspect that the dead actually have a pretty radically different view of things now that they are not longer afraid of death. So let’s not assume how they would vote at all.
Instead, lets consider that Jesus is trying to tell the Saducees that the traditions of the living, like marriage, matter to the living, but that the priorities of the resurrected are all but incomprehensible to us. This is especially true if we spend too much time hanging onto traditions that aren’t working anymore. That way being – to keep us focused on the amazing astounding stupefying fact that Jesus was resurrected.
If we, as Christians, truly believe that we live in a now and not yet state of resurrection ourselves. If we as Christians truly believe that we are the hands and feet of Christ, then we are the tools of the resurrection. It is our duty, then, to make sure that all Christians(past present and future) live lives focused on the amazement of resurrection, of being a wholly new creature, set aside for God’s own joy. That is our mission, that is our story of salvation. Freedom from fear; fear of death, fear of being stranded at the altar, fear of being married to seven brothers.
Traditions are useful only in that they free us from our fears. Traditions are useful only if they liberate us to see God as clearly as possible, and the clearest we will ever see the Glory of God is to believe as literally as we can, the resurrection of the Christ. Because when we can really believe that, we can really believe that our sins are forgiven and we can really get on with the important stuff – which is liberating others from their fears and letting everyone see the face of God shining into the world.
All things come of thee, oh Lord
And of thine own, have we given thee.
I pray each of us goes into the world this day, a shining beacon of God who lights us all from the inside. And I pray each of us trust in our faith with the strength of our tradition, which is of Jesus Crucified and Christ Resurrected. Amen.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Moving off Commonhouse
So, I am not adverse to technology, only adverse to upgrading. I have been putting off migrating my blog over to something more attractive and easier to use for about a year. Since I am about to leave town for a month, I am, of course, messing with it now.
No promises of substantive posts for the summer, but by fall, it should pick back up again.
No promises of substantive posts for the summer, but by fall, it should pick back up again.
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