Pentecost 2020

The Day of Pentecost

May 31, 2020

    I remember when Bill and I were preparing to get married.  One of the things we did as a young couple was go to our favorite department store and complete a bridal registry.   We didn’t have a large registry, but I remember how much fun it was to pick out some of the things that our friends and family would purchase to help us get started on our lives.   As I was telling one of my best friends about the dishes and pots and pans and things, she looked at me and said, “but Trace, who’s going to use all that stuff?” Obviously, my friend Susan knew me well, and knew that I was not much of a cook.  

The wonderful gifts from friends and family were meant to celebrate us as a couple, and they were also meant to help us to succeed, especially in our early life as a couple.  And, as wonderful as those gifts are, the successes that they bring are mostly superficial. Over time, our dishes have chipped, our glasses broken, towels fade… all of these bring a joy that is temporary.  The true gifts that a couple needs to succeed, are the kinds of things that cannot be measured; they are the kinds of things that help a couple get through things like raising children, job loss, critical illness, autistic children… then a couple needs the kinds of gifts that only God can give; commitment, deep and abiding love that goes beyond the physical, spiritual health and growth, community… these are the deeper gifts that cannot be measured; these are the gifts that help a marriage get through life, not just a dinner party, as fun as those are.

Let’s face it; life has been really difficult lately for many, many people, and we will continue to see some of this difficulty long after COVID 19 is a distant, awful memory.  And, it’s not just this virus that is taking up spiritual and emotional real estate for us. Watching the news lately has become one awful story after another. Our black brothers and sisters are being killed by white police and in the case of Aubry Amhad, by white citizens who thought they had the right to shoot someone whom they determined didn’t belong in the neighborhood.  Photographs of armed men protesting the directive to wear protective masks were scary enough; then to see videos of an officer of the law kneel on George Floyd’s neck when Floyd was handcuffed and unarmed…. Well, there are no words to describe that. Protests have turned into riots in some cities with massive destruction of property, perhaps because words have not worked; our black brothers and sisters are angry; I cannot even imagine what it feels like to be a parent of a young black man.  Black lives matter, beloved, because for so long we have said that they don’t. You don’t have to hate cops to believe that black lives matter; that’s not how community works. We can support good, brave, police officers AND the black members of our community; they aren’t mutually exclusive, as some groups might claim.

So, what might all of this have to do with Pentecost?  It has everything to do with Pentecost. As the church, we celebrate the gifts that we have been given that help our community function.  Gifts of time, talent and money are incredibly important and I thank God for this community that works so hard to help St. Michael’s be the church God has called it to be.  But, time, talent, and money, while important are much like the registry gifts for the young couple. They are necessary; but as the Church, each of us must go deeper to truly understand the gifts that the Holy Spirit has bestowed on each of us.  We will shortly renew our baptismal covenant; this covenant helps us to see what we might need to do in order to truly see the gifts that the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon us; THESE gifts, gifts of knowledge, wisdom, discernment, spiritual growth, love...these are the gifts that will help us to bring the Kingdom of God to earth; these are the deep gifts that will help us to get through those difficult parts of life where we must speak out against injustice, and do everything we can so that all of God’s children can be free.  Sins such as racism have no place in God’s Kingdom. The baptismal covenant asks us to pray, to follow the apostle’s teaching; it asks us to believe in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; it asks us if we will proclaim by word and example the good news of Jesus Christ… it asks us if we will resist evil, and when we sin, will we repent… will we turn our lives around and turn back to Jesus Christ? We will do all these things with God’s help. Beloved, we must look into the deeper gifts of the Holy Spirit in order for the Kingdom to be realized; we have to use those gifts especially when it’s hard, so that all of God’s beloved children, regardless of the color of their skin, will be able to live in the light of the good news of Christ.  So beloved, pray, read your bible, read books that might frighten you because the truth of racism is frightening.  The kingdom started with Jesus… it continues with us who have been given the Holy Spirit.  May we realize that the gifts of the Spirit are deep and difficult; may we use those gifts, gifts like wisdom, knowledge, faith, and prophecy, to search our own souls to root out sin, and help us to be the light of Christ is a hurting world.  Come Holy Spirit, come.

2 Christmas/annual Meeting

January 5, 2020

    While the Feast of the Epiphany isn’t until tomorrow, our lectionary gives us the option of using the gospel lesson for tomorrow, today.  We don’t get to have a second Sunday after Christmas every year, so it’s a treat to sing about Christmas for one more Sunday while we also celebrate the arrival of the wise men.

    The arrival of the wise men lets us remember that Christmas isn’t any safer than any other day or season of the Christian life.  We cannot just sit and rest in comfort with the animals and gaze upon the beautiful infant Jesus with Mary and Joseph. Things do not remain “tender and mild” for very long… as the wise men enter the scene there is fear and evil in the air.  Herod hears about the birth of the Messiah, the King who is going to save the people of Jerusalem; any “King” is going to be a threat to Herod’s power and also a threat to the Emperor in Rome; no other King must rise up, and so, Herod tries to trick the wisemen into telling him where this child is; as we read further in Matthew, we know that Herod decides to kill children under the age of 2 so that his throne and his position of power will not be threatened.  

It seems so awful to think that infants could be threatening to such a powerful person.  It brings the question of what power actually is, doesn't it? Perhaps that is part of the point of our Christmas celebration… to show us that what we believe is powerful really is just fear overblown to unbelievable proportions.

Another reason that the Christmas and Epiphany story is important, is that when these three wise men, who aren't Jews, recognize that the infant Jesus is a King to whom they owe homage, they become a symbol that Jesus has come not just for the Jews, but for everyone.  The Kingdom of God has begun on earth in the birth of Jesus, and it those outside of the covenants made with Abraham and with Moses, are now brought into the kingdom. That beloved means you and me, people of non Jewish background. We have been adopted by God, added to the ranks of the chosen people...a gift given to us by God who loves all that has been created…

These implications of the Christmas/Epiphany story are as important for us today as they were then.  This story of God entering into human history should compel each of us to live our lives differently than the world might dictate.  We are children and bearers of the Kingdom; we are not to be manipulated by the Empire; Herod allowed himself to be a herald of a false kingdom and it led him to perform unspeakable acts of violence against innocent children because he believed he was the rightful king.  He feared he would lose his wealth and his position, so he did everything he could to resist losing his throne. Fear is a powerful motivator, and Herod used his own fear to manipulate, frighten and control those he was in power over.  

It doesn't work like that in the kingdom of God.  

    In God’s kingdom, there is no fear or manipulation, because we know that Jesus is the one true King.  Our loyalties are not given to the empire, but to God; and so, we live as if we believe that the Kingdom of God, that the will of God, is ‘here on earth as it is in heaven’.  Kingdom people aren’t jealous or fearful of each other, because our biggest currency is love; and, we know that God has more than enough love to go around. God will never love us less than another, because it’s love that isn’t earned, but is freely given in abundance.  Status, wealth, earthly power, cannot motivate us because we have what we need; when we have more than enough, we give it to others who are in need, because we recognize the gift that God has given us, and so we give what we can to others. The wise men gave lavish gifts to the infant Jesus to show just a fraction of what his birth meant to them, to the Jews, and to the world; gifts fit for a true King.

    I said earlier, that the visit of the Magi, also represents the gift of Jesus to those outside the Old Testament covenants between God and Abraham, and God and Moses.  So all of us have been brought into those covenants to become children of God… it’s important for us to remember that our status in God’s eyes isn’t above others, or especially favored over others.  Just recently during the feast days of Hanukkah, violence was committed against our Jewish brothers and sisters in different communities; as children of God, who are loved by God, it’s our duty to speak against such attacks;  every person who has lived and continues to live on this fragile planet, are loved by God, and are loved equally… we as Kingdom people, are to love as our God loves, without jealousy and without fear; God’s kingdom has no room for violence against another.  Our world seems to be running counter to the kingdom. Humans seem to be more motivated by fear and a false sense of power, than they are by love; and perhaps that is our nature as people. Christmas, the great feast of the Incarnation, of God becoming human in Jesus, demands that we live counter to that nature.  Self preservation isn’t our guiding principle; loving others, no matter who they are or how different they are, is our guiding principle; living as people of the Kingdom of God, rather than as citizens of the empire is another guiding principle. War, prejudice, racism… nothing that devalues the life of another is part of the Kingdom of God, and nothing that devalues another has any place in our speech, our actions or our lives.

    And so St. Michael’s, today we will celebrate the Great Thanksgiving at the Lord’s table, and we will go from here to our annual meeting.  While the annual meeting is something that is required of us by the greater church, it is also an opportunity for us to celebrate who we are as a congregation, as well as to dream about our future.  A wise former bishop of mine used to say that a budget is a statement of mission; that we put our money in those places that are important to us as a church. And so I ask you to dream… it is a time for us of a new beginning together.  It is time for us to dream about how we as St. Michael’s Longview, will proclaim by word and deed, the Kingdom of God. It is time for us to show the love of God, freely given, to those whom God has given us. The fear and anxiety and yes, even the hatred in the world is palpable now; lots and lots of people are being REactive rather than active… it’s our time to shine… it’s our time to show those around us a better way… it’s our time to show the world what it’s like to live in the Kingdom of God, rather than the Empire… it’s time to show the Herod’s of the world what a true King looks like.  May everything we do today be pleasing to God and may the things we do this day give us knowledge of God’s love, and the strength to do God’s will in the world.

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

   

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday Year C
March 6, 2019

    Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.

Many people approach Ash Wednesday with a sense of dread… and when some of us walk around with a cross of ashes on our forehead, there are many around us who don’t understand what we are doing.  I have to admit, when I was a kid, I didn’t really get it; my family didn’t go to church, but I had friends who did, and when they came to school with a smudge of ashes on their heads, I was concerned.  

    As I have come to celebrate Ash Wednesday for a few years now, I am no longer afraid of what we do this day, and I have come to look forward to it, in its own way.  I think Ash Wednesday is important and even necessary for us. It has a way of cleansing us from the falsehoods that we engage in as we live in society. Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent that follows it, helps us to turn ourselves back towards God and to our true selves.  We know that none of us gets out alive, and today that reality is made clear as ashes are placed on our foreheads… remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return…” But I think that this marking is much more that that; in a way, it is a cleansing; today, and through this season of repentance, we are asked to come clean, to shed those parts of ourselves that are untrue; it is a time for us to become rigorously honest about who we are - for God already knows who we really are; we however, sometimes forget.  We indulge in desires and adopt practices that take us far from God and from each other; in an effort to belong in a society that will one day pass away, we sometimes forget to whom we really belong. Perhaps in our fear, when we have gone too far astray, we become afraid to turn back to God, afraid of punishment, afraid of being left alone; yet God has promised us over and over again, that we shall not be alone; that God in Jesus shall always be with us in the gift of God’s Holy Spirit.

    This day is a day of realizing that we are human, and being human is messy on the best days.  God knows that; God loved us so much that God entered into the messiness of human life to experience our joy as well as our sorrow.  What that means for us is that we do not have to hide who we are; God already knows; God has already been there so that we wouldn’t be there by ourselves.  We shall indeed return to the dust, but I hope that today reminds us that what comes between our creation and our death is important; God cares for each of us and for the lives that we live; our fragile selves are perhaps our truest selves, and I pray that each of us can come to know our own weakness, so that we might know the depth of our dependence upon God.  That, beloved, is our true self; that is what it means for us to be real; to not be hiding behind the false self that others would have us be…

    Today, may we begin a path to living as our true selves, remembering that even in our weakest and darkest moments, God brings strength and light.  May we remember that God loves us enough to allow the joy of Easter to be present even today. As we are anointed with the messiness of ashes, may we embrace our real selves as Jesus embraces us, remembering that even in our weakness, we are made strong in him.  Today, may we turn back toward God, and may the actions we embrace this holy season help us to remember it is God whom we need above all else.
   

   

Annual meeting/Epiphany 3 C

Annual meeting
January 27, 2019
3 Epiphany C

    When I was in my first parish, one of my responsibilities was keeping our youth program running, which included recruiting volunteers.  This was a large youth program that was split into three groups, and we needed several volunteers to make it work. So, one day, I had a conversation with a dad, whose son was in my senior high group.  I wanted the dad to be the junior high leader. When I first approached him, he said, “nope, no way, you got the wrong guy. I don’t have those skills, I’m busy….” you get the idea. So, I said, “just do my a favor.  Pray about it for the next week. If, in a week, the answer is no, I will respect that”. He agreed, and as he left, he said, “but it will still be no, so you better figure out who else to ask”. Ok, I said… I did not have someone else to ask, nor was I going to figure out who else to ask.  I too, was going to pray for the next week, and hope that he and the mom I had asked would both say yes.

    So, a week went by, and my office door was open, and suddenly, there he was, standing there with the mom I had asked who had also been reluctant to say yes… and he said, “I’ll do it if she does it!”, pointing to the mom… “I’ll do it if he does it!” she said, pointing to him.  And I just smiled. “So I take it you both prayed?” Yes, came the reply in stereo… Excellent… you are both going to be great… “I don’t know why I’m doing this”, he said, “this is crazy”. “God called you… it’s always crazy”, I said. Fast forward about 2 years, and I was no longer at the parish, and living in another town.  That youth group was going to be stopping for dinner in the town I lived, and they wanted our family to come and join them for dinner, which we did. The dad came over to me at dinner and said, “Well, I signed up for another term. This has been the most amazing, frustrating, maddening, life giving thing I have ever done. It’s all your fault.  Thank you”. Thank YOU… I said… for answering God’s call.

    Isn’t like that for most of us?  No, not me, you’ve got the wrong guy, I don’t know how to do this, God must have meant someone else, I’m busy… the list of “why we can’t” is endless.  And, we all know that Jesus is relentless when he asks something of us…

    Our readings for today are so perfect for a parish about to hold its annual meeting.  In our gospel, we hear Jesus reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah… "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Once he is finished reading, he tells those assembled that the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing, that is, Jesus, is the one whom the prophet is speaking of who is anointed to do all these things.   It’s kind of a brave and foolish act to come to your hometown and proclaim that you’re the fulfillment of scripture… but he is… and here’s the thing for us… there’s a sense in which we become the continuation of the fulfillment.  Jesus’ work isn’t over by a longshot. Because there are poor among us, there are captives today, there are those who need to have their sight, be in their physical sight or their internal, spiritual sight, there are those who are oppressed today, and those who need to know that they are the object of the Lord’s favor, here today in this church and out there on the streets of Oklahoma City, and on every street, every road, every dirt path, that exists everywhere… and because we have been anointed with the Holy Spirit of Jesus, it’s now the work he has given us to do.  We cannot say, I’m not the guy… we are the guys… there are no other guys, we are the guys. And Jesus never said it would be easy, or that other people wouldn’t get in our way; it certainly wasn’t easy for him… and if we are proclaiming and being good news to the poor and the oppressed, and the captives, someone, somewhere is going to get mad because they don’t understand a fundamental principle in the kingdom of God… and that is, there is enough for everyone.  God loves like God farms, remember?  Foolishly, extravagantly, and without caring what society has to say about it… and as Jesus’ ministry continues, we know that this foolish extravagance makes the powerful really, really angry.  And that’s still true in many places today…

    The good news for us, especially as we look at where we have been and where we are going, is that no one is alone in this work.  We have a community of brothers and sisters who have also received God’s call, God’s anointing to be Jesus’ hands and feet in the world.  As we hear from Paul this morning, the body of Christ has many members; none of us are the same; all of us have different gifts, and we are called to do our part as individuals and as a community, for the good of the Kingdom.  When I asked that dad to do ministry with the middle school youth, I knew that he was the member of that community that had the skills for that ministry; not all of us have those skills, it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask someone who didn’t have the ability to work well with kids; yet there were other places for those people to minister.  It’s the same with St. David’s. It can be overwhelming to think about the poverty that surrounds us, but our calling has been pretty clear; focus on one area; do it well… see what happens. It’s hard being a small church with fewer resources, but we are still called. What are we? We are small but MIGHTY… and look how much we have done and continue to do… the food baskets to Hilldale school have not only grown in the number of baskets per event, but we also give baskets three times a year instead of two; our Daughters of the King chapter has started a small lunch sak pantry so that no matter who comes through our doors, even if we don’t have money to give, no one leaves the building without something to eat; we have responded to the shortfall in our internal ministry to each other by creating more opportunities to connect in a class or study, or movie night; we now have more clergy that can help all of us connect to the interfaith ministries of our Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters who are also trying to help their neighbors here in Oklahoma City, a project that has been on my heart for some time, but one that I never seemed to have enough time to get to… we have more people involved in the worship of the church than before, something that makes worship so meaningful and wonderful.  Our sign is finally in… and people are noticing it. What a great way to let our neighbors know that we are here… Little by little we have done all kinds of improvements inside and outside; Hal, Paul, Tommy, Caleb, and various minions have continued to keep up with landscaping, making some changes both for looks and for function… it’s a joy not to have wet carpet in my office!

    We will celebrate all of this later at our official meeting, but I wanted us as the body of Christ that Paul talks about to know some of what we have been called to do.  I have no doubt there will be other ministry that we will be called to do as individuals and as a community… our lesson from Nehemiah tells us that “the joy of the Lord is our strength” and God is indeed filled with joy, filled with the knowledge of Jesus’ relationship with us when we honor the 2 great commandments that Jesus has given us, to love God and to love our neighbors.  We cannot do one without the other, for by loving and serving our neighbors, we love and serve God… and because we are members of the kingdom, members of the body of Christ, we know that there is enough… for us, and for all…

    So beloved, we are the guys.  We are the ones whom God has chosen for our particular call in this place and time… we are the guys.  
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing.  We ARE the guys...

A DOK profession/7 Epiphany C

7 Epiphany C
Feb. 24, 2019
DOK Profession

    Later in our service, we will celebrate with Sheilah Wiser, as she takes her life vows in the Order of the Daughters of the King.  Daughters of the King, is a religious Order for women in many different branches of the church; women who belong to the Order live their lives out in the world, living in their own homes, but they gather together in chapters or larger groups for worship and service.  Women in the Order live by a rule of life that they construct, which emphasizes a life of Prayer, Service and Evangelism. They also wear a special cross as a sign of their vows, that they wear for the rest of their lives.

    The 2 parts of the rule of life that are lifted up as being of prime importance are the rule of prayer and the rule of service.  Seems to me, that once again, that if we listen really carefully, we can hear echoes of “love your God and love your neighbor” when we hear those words.  Obviously, we are all called to these commandments, whether we take religious vows or not. Today, Sheilah, like other Daughters of the King before her, will vow to keep these two commandments at the center of her life.  She will do this, not as a person alone, but as a person who becomes part of a community of women who will help her to live into these vows, just as she will help them live into theirs. As someone who has taken vows in a religious community myself, I can say that my community is incredibly important to me, and to my living my rule of life.  None of us was created to live alone and cut off from others; it is in our nature, as I believe it is in the nature of the Holy Trinity, to live, and work in community.

    In today’s gospel, we have the next part of the sermon on the plain; what a great reading for a day when someone shall take vows!  As I said a couple of weeks ago, the Christian life is simple, but not necessarily easy. Jesus gives some guidance here about what it means to follow him; he shows us that God is always wanting us to go further and deeper into living as disciples.  As followers of Jesus, we are held to a different standard; we love not as others do, but we love even those who hate us; we give, rather than lend, expecting nothing in return. We are told not to judge or condemn… that’s kind of hard in this day and age, don’t you think?  It seems we are always trying to compare ourselves, or told to anyway, so that we can come out on top… we are constantly barraged with all sorts of news stories asking us to take sides so that we might demonize those who are different from us. That kind of behavior doesn’t promote peace or healing; rather it promotes fear and hatred; it causes us in our fear to see things that aren’t true; it can cause us to side with evil all in the name of “good”.  It can cause us to see things and believe things that aren’t true…

    One such story that has been on my mind for a while now, is the story of Emmett Till, an African American boy, who was visiting relatives in Mississippi in the summer of 1955.  Emmett was 14 years old in 1955 when he was brutally murdered by 2 white men who had accused the boy of flirting with a young white woman in her family’s grocery store. The men kidnapped Emmett, brutally beat him and shot him in the head.  Then they threw his body in the Tallahatchie river, tied with barbed wire to the 75 pound cotton gin that they made Emmett carry on his back to the river. His body was discovered and returned to Chicago, where he was from. His mother had a public service with an open casket, so that all could see the brutalized body of her son.  Her 14 year old son.  His murderers were acquitted by an all white jury.  Decades later, it was admitted that the testimony against the boy was false.  Fear, hatred, lies… all of these things caused people to act in violent, murderous ways to kill a 14 year old child.  Who kills a 14 year old child? And just so we realize that the story of hatred against this child isn’t over, the sign that was placed on the bank of the Tallahatchie where his body was found, has been vandalized numerous times; the last time that I was able to find was in August of 2018… the metal sign had been replaced just 35 days before and was once again shot and had several bullet holes…

    People who own family grocery stores probably don’t believe themselves capable of this kind of violence; many of us don’t believe it still continues… it continues for the same reasons it has since the beginning of time; it seems that we it is deep within our nature to need to be ahead of each other; we need to somehow prove that we are better than another; and if somehow we aren’t better, sometimes we try to figure out ways to look better; the story today of Joseph and his brothers is one such story; and yet, even though he suffered mightily at the hands of his brothers, Joseph manages to come out on top, saving his whole family from starvation.  Joseph's success at least in part was because he never let his relationship to God wither away. When he realized what his brothers had done and later how Potiphar's wife lied about him, he continued to believe in and pray to God. He never let that relationship suffer because he believed ultimately God would bring about the good. His brothers were jealous, and they lied about Joseph, and could have caused his death; certainly they caused him great suffering. Joseph prayed, and continued to serve God even when it would have been easy to to deny God to save his own skin; but we know the life of faith is not always if ever easy; praying to God and serving God sometimes take us to places we do not want to go… Emmett Till’s tragic story helped to ignite the civil rights movement so that others might one day enjoy the justice and freedom that Emmett did not; Joseph being betrayed and sold into slavery eventually brought about good for him and for his family…God’s faith, the faith lived in and through Jesus, is the faith that keeps all of us growing toward being the people that God has created us to be.  God’s love and God’s creative power are one in the same… if each of us can hold on to the faith given to us in the Holy Spirit, we can weather what others throw our way… not easily perhaps, not without sadness or anger, but in faith, we know that like the sheep led through the valley of death, we will come through to the other side.
    Today, Sheiliah will join other Daughters of the King by taking her solemn vows.  It is a day of celebration as well as a day of seriousness. She does not take these vows lightly.  She will promise to live a life of prayer and of service; and in those 2 places the third part of the rule is lived, and that is to evangelize.  My hope and prayer for her and for all of the Daughters of the King, especially the St. Clare chapter, is, like your patroness Clare, keep the Eucharist at the center of your worship life.  Meeting Jesus in the Eucharist is where we learn about love, about forgiveness, about being made strong in our weakness; it is where we all experience in all of our senses the life of Jesus… I hope you will pray daily, and offer up your whole life and all that you do, so that you might pray without ceasing, so that your life will be a living sacrifice and gift to God; I hope that you will be quiet, so that you might hear the voice of Jesus telling you what is yours to do in the world… and with that, I end with the motto of your Order:  “I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?”
   

Christ the King 2018

Christ the King
November 25, 2018

    What do you think of when you hear the name of Jesus?  What names for Jesus are your favorites? There are many names that we use to try and describe who Jesus is… If someone were to ask you who Jesus is, what would you say?   If we were to spend time meditating on the name of Jesus or a title that we use for him, I think we would all find that none of them are adequate. How do you describe the indescribable?

    On this, the last Sunday in the season of Pentecost, we are asked to examine who Jesus is… It is a question that we will get asked again and again as we enter into Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.  My hope for all of us, is that as we think about Jesus, our ideas will be challenged. If we get too comfortable, if Jesus becomes our pal, then perhaps we need to do some more work…

    It seems me that the conversation between Pilate and Jesus could be one of many places to start our own quest… Let’s remember that Pilate is a political animal.  The high priest sent Jesus to Pilate because of Jesus’ teachings, which are religious teachings… Throughout his ministry, Jesus did nothing to threaten Rome; he even paid his taxes with the coins of Caesar.  But when Jesus comes before Pilate, Pilate is not concerned about religious matters; Pilate is not Jewish; religious law is Herod’s business. Unless something becomes a threat to Rome’s authority, Pilate is willing to let it be.  So, Pilate puts the “problem” of Jesus into political terms: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus, always ready to confront worldly ideas, let’s Pilate know that there is indeed a kingdom, but it is not of this world; that whatever happens in this world does not ultimately affect who Jesus is.  Jesus then turns the tables on Pilate to talk about testifying to the truth… We don’t have Pilate’s question that follows in this morning’s gospel, but we know it from Good Friday. Pilate asks, “What is truth?” Truth, as we come to learn is Jesus… all of him… even as he goes towards his death after being sentenced by Pilate for a political crime that he did not commit.  

    Christ the King, is an interesting title, especially when we take this conversation between Jesus and Pilate into consideration.  Jesus looks anything but kingly here, especially as the story continues. What images come to mind when we think about kings? We tend to think about crowns, and gold, and jewels, and political power… Maybe we think about philanthropy as we think about the royal family in England… what we DON’T think about is a wandering carpenter who preaches that the poor will be rich, or who goes around touching and healing those who society has forgotten.   When we hear the title King, we don’t think about the God of love who creates because of love; we don’t think of God who puts aside being God in order to become human so that God and humanity can become joined as they were before…

    Jesus’ very existence challenges all that we think about what it means to be king.  For Pilate, and I daresay for us, king is certainly a political title that brings with it all manner of worldliness.  And here’s the thing.... We like worldliness. We like stuff, we like security, we like stability and we tend to admire those who can help us to achieve our goals.  We, like Pilate, are political animals who put a great deal of clout into systems and causes… and I’m not trying to say that’s all bad… this is the world that God loves, that God created out of love, and sent his Son to save; but it’s not what our lives as followers of Jesus are primarily about.  Jesus’s message, while it certainly has political consequences, has nothing to do with the human systems that we have put in place. The kingdom of God does not look like any political parties idea of worldliness… but it IS the kingdom that God has set in motion here in our time and place… and you and I are the workers who are to help bring it about.  It is not easy work, it is not glamorous work… but it is the work we have been given… it is where you and I will find life… it is where all of God’s creation will experience the love and mercy of God… Jesus came to testify to that truth, and to show us what it looks like… and he was rejected.

    What do you think of when you hear the name of Jesus?  As we enter the holy season of waiting… I pray that we may come to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is… I pray that like Pilate, our desire for power and our love of worldliness may leave us… may we empty our hearts and our souls, so that Jesus can fill them with his love and his desire for all the world.  May we replace power with generosity, fear with love, taking with giving… May we become subjects of the one king who is all truth… Jesus of Nazareth.
   

All Saints 2018

All Saints Year B
November 4, 2018

    I have had some interesting meditations these last 2 weeks,  as I thought about this feast of All Saints. I am always grateful that this is one of those feast days that we can move to the following Sunday, so that we can all celebrate this feast together as a community and family.  It’s important for us to gather and to remember those people in our lives who have gone on before us, who we one day hope to see again when the kingdom of God is fully realized…

    So, the first meditation of mine, and let me just say that none of these were planned…. But the first happened on Friday of last week, October 26.  I had been hearing the news that Matt Shephard’s ashes were to be interred at the Episcopal Cathedral in Washington DC, also known as the national cathedral.  As you may remember, Matt was killed 20 years ago, beaten by 2 young men, and lashed to a wooden fence on a cold night in Laramie Wyoming. He was found the next day by a passing bicyclist who from a distance, thought he was a scarecrow.  Matt died of his injuries a few days later in a Colorado hospital. You might also remember, that Matt was gay, and his murder was viewed as a hate crime that shook the whole nation. Matt grew up as an Episcopalian, and was active in the church.  His parents had not interred his ashes up to this point because they feared that his grave would be desecrated by anti gay groups. Can you imagine being afraid of burying your loved one because of hate? What really brought me to tears about this story, was seeing a photograph of Bishop Gene Robinson carrying Matt’s ashes down the long cathedral aisle during the processional.  Bishop Robinson is a friend of Matt’s family, and when he was elected Bishop of New Hampshire, he was the first openly gay person to be elected bishop. The hate speech and mail about his consecration as bishop was so severe, and taken so seriously by the FBI, that both Bishop Robinson and Presiding Bishop Griswold wore bullet proof vests under their vestments… as he addressed the congregation that day, Bishop Robinson said, “Gently rest in this place.  You are safe now. And Matt, welcome home”. Words of comfort for a grieving family and community; words that speak of hope that extends from this earthly place to a heavenly peace.

    My next meditation about today, was thinking about my dear friend and mentor, Bill Mahedy, who died in 2011.  By his own admission, Bill had reached curmudgeon status before he died. I miss being able to call him and talk to him about stuff… and I could talk to him about anything.  One of the things that I miss most about him, is being supported by his absolute loyalty. When I met Bill, he was the college and young adult chaplain for San Diego… he was also involved for many years as a VA chaplain, working with Vietnam Veterans.  If Bill loved you, or even mostly liked you, there was very little that you could do to change his mind about you; that man was loyal to a fault… and let me tell you, we young adults were not always the most well behaved bunch; but no matter what, we could count on Padre to have our backs, and help us get out of whatever nonsense we found ourselves in...That is the kind of friendship you don’t get to have with just anyone.  I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Bill a couple of weeks before he died; we blessed each other, and I said, “Well Bill, save me a seat at the banquet”. “Trace, just say YO! when you get there so I’ll know.” Two friends, saying goodbye for the last time, hoping and knowing that one day they would say hello again. Or Yo. Same thing.

    The third thought or meditation about today, concerns the reading from Isaiah that we heard earlier.  As I was driving up to the city on Thursday, I was listening to the reading and meditation for the day from the app, “Pray as you Go.”  The reading that was chosen for that days meditation was this reading from Isaiah. Listen to the reading again:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

After the passage was read, there were some questions asked of the listeners.  One question was, what was the image that spoke most to us? And as I thought about it, I thought about the great feast as God’s table where there is no more death, and in fact, that death is ended, swallowed up forever, and I imagined Jesus wiping the tears from all those who had been grieving… the next question was, what did the image invoke in us?  As I sat there praying, I thought, Oh, how I want this image to be true; how I want it to be true for Matt, for Bill, for me, for all of us, and for all of those whom we love and see no more… and as I visualized it some more, I could see myself there, with people I loved and missed, and what struck me the most was the laughter… It was a place of joy, a place of great love, where Jesus was so close to us we could touch him… and I also knew, that the reading was telling me something that was true; It was telling me about hope; it was telling me that the things I hoped for for myself and for everyone were true; that the kingdom of God was indeed a reality that we would all one day experience in full; that today, we might not see those we love, that today, we might share stories and memories, but that one day, we, like Jesus whom we worship, will be raised from the dead, and our tears and our brokenness will be no more; that is the promise… and as I prayed and meditated on the reading from Isaiah I knew it was true… and today, we live in that place of longing for that time; but this is no idle time for us because the kingdom of God has begun here in this time and place; it’s not just a distant promise that doesn’t demand something from us now.   The reason we consider these people saints, or any person a saint, isn’t because they are perfect or pious; my friend Bill could curse up a storm, just in case you were wondering where I get it from; and it might be that his undying loyalty was a bit misguided sometimes; but these people are saints to us because they give us hope; they show us that God can use any of us to further the work of the kingdom; that perhaps dropping an f bomb when talking to a Vietnam Vet makes sense; our saints show us what love looks like; they give us a glimpse of what God’s love looks like… a love that we will one day know in full; and they show us what it looks like to live in the fullness of God’s kingdom at least for a few minutes; and that perhaps is what sainthood is really about; real people choosing to live close to Jesus when they can… choosing to love us as imperfect as we are....choosing to be a glimmer of hope even when things seem hopeless. It was so for them… which is why we love them, and I pray it is so for us both here and at the great feast at God’s table, where we may hear words such as Bishop Robinson’s, you are safe… welcome home...