Mother Rebecca's Reflections

Litany for the Anniversary of the Attacks on September 11th, 2001

2011-09-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

I put this together for our parish to use on Sunday the 11th. Feel free to use/adapt as you would like.

Litany for the 10th Anniversary of the Attacks on September 11th, 2001
Grace Episcopal Church, Kirkwood MO

Celebrant: In peace, let us pray to the Lord, saying “Lord hear our prayer.”

Intercessor: We remember today the tragedy of the attack on our nation ten years ago as the twin towers fell, and planes crashed in Pennsylvania and into the Pentagon.

For our nation, which was forever changed that day, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For the victims of 9/11, for their families and loved ones, and for those who continue to struggle with pain, grief, loneliness, injury and fear, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For our President and for all leaders and policy makers around the world, that they may be guided by wisdom to find peaceable solutions, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For the Church, that we may be a channel of God’s peace and healing to the world, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For all victims of violence, tyranny, and terrorism, and for those who perpetuate violence, that the world may become a safer place for all people, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For our service men and women, for police officers, fire fighters, and all those who serve the public, that they may be protected from harm, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For peace and the grace to forgive, and for an end to all violence, war, terrorism, and hatred, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For the sick, the suffering, and those in need, especially…. we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

For those who died during the attacks of 9/11, for those who have died fighting terrorism, and for our loved ones who have died (especially…) we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

With thanksgiving we recall the outpouring of help, kindness, support, and generosity in the wake of 9/11, and the heroes who risked their lives to save others, that their example may guide and encourage us, we pray to the Lord.
Lord hear our prayer.

Concluding Collect: For protection

Celebrant: Assist us mercifully, O Lord, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of your servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by your gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St. Alban’s Day 2011

2011-06-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

St. Alban’s Day 2011

The opening words of our Gospel today are easily the most controversial words Jesus ever spoke, and so it is very difficult to begin our reading with them: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Luke’s Gospel records Jesus’ words in a slightly different way: “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.” The concept of division is at least a bit easier to understand than the sword, which may lead us to think Jesus is advocating violence, but it’s still a tough passage. Immediately after these words, Jesus follows by quoting from the Jewish Scriptures from Micah 7:6 regarding the division that would occur between family members. So, what is Jesus saying in this passage? And how do his words connect us to our celebration of our patron saint today, St. Alban the martyr?

First, let’s be clear that Jesus is not advocating violence in this passage. We know this because throughout the Gospels and the New Testament, Jesus is not only proclaimed as the Prince of Peace, but he consistently advocates for the way of peace, and of mercy and forgiveness, including turning the other cheek to one’s enemy. Jesus is not then, describing his purpose, so much as anticipating the actual result of his coming: it cannot be avoided that division will come because of Jesus in that, in choosing to follow Jesus, the sword of division necessarily comes between followers of Jesus and those who would reject him, even at times, among one’s own family members. While knowing and following Jesus brings internal peace to a believer, this does not mean we can expect the world or those around us to react peaceably to us.

Jesus’ words would have been very important and helpful to the early Christians, many of whom were rejected by their family members and even persecuted or put to death for following Jesus as their Lord. And here is where our reading connects us to St. Alban, our patron saint.
Alban actually fulfills the second part of our Gospel reading first: because he welcomed someone in Jesus’ name into his home, offering a disciple a cup of cool water. And in doing so, Alban welcomed Jesus himself. A Christian priest, who was a fugitive and was hiding during the persecution of Emperor Septimius Severus in the year 209, was given shelter and hiding in Alban’s home. Alban was a pagan Roman soldier living in Verulamium, an area in England just north of where London is today. Alban and the priest spoke together at length over several days and Alban experienced a deep conversion and decided to become a Christian, making a choice to follow Jesus, despite the risk to himself. The priest baptized Alban and later, when soldiers came to arrest the priest, Alban wore the priest’s cloak, and had himself arrested in the priest’s stead, being mistaken for the cleric. Alban was taken before the magistrate, who realized the deception, but ordered that Alban be punished anyway. Alban had the opportunity to recant in that moment, but instead Alban declared: "I worship and adore the true and living God who created all things." His words brought about his sentence: death by be-heading. As they marched Alban to his place of execution, it is said that the guard who was to kill him was so impressed by Alban’s witness that he too became a Christian on the spot and refused to carry out the execution. Nevertheless, Alban was killed on a hill across town from River Ver and became the first martyr in all of England. Alban’s would-be executioner was then killed and became the second martyr, immediately after Alban. And it also said that the third martyr was the Christian priest, who presented himself to the magistrate in hopes of having Alban freed, only to become a martyr himself. Many legends surround Alban’s martyrdom, including one that involves a spring bursting forth on the site where he was killed where many miracles and healings took place, as depicted in our fresco by James Hubble above the altar. Many pilgrims still make their way to the site of Alban’s death, where an abbey and later a Cathedral now sit, high upon a hill. The town itself changed its’ name to St. Alban’s.

For many early Christians like St. Alban, choosing to follow Jesus meant division and even death. For them, Jesus’ anticipatory words about his coming rang true. Jesus himself was the victim of anger and violence because of who he was and what he taught.

The beautiful thing about martyrs like Alban, however, is that while they experienced the sword on earth and lost their life…in losing their life they found it. As Jesus said, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” The Jewish singer Matisyahu puts it this way in his song, “King without a Crown”: “Strip away the layers and reveal your soul – give yourself up and then you become whole.”

For some, like the martyrs, they must literally give up their very lives to find God and wholeness. For most of us, the sacrifices are not as dramatic, but may be just as difficult. We need to ask ourselves the hard questions: “What do I need to give up? What must I lose so that I can find life?”

Recently I was struck by a story in the news about one man in Japan named Yasutera Yamada, a 72 year old who volunteered himself and then gathered over 200 retired nuclear engineers for duty at the dangerous Fukushima nuclear plant. He knew that the younger engineers were being exposed to deadly amounts of radiation which could show up now or later and kill younger workers and even impact the next generation of children. And so he rallied together a group who call themselves the “Skilled Veteran Corps” to step up for duty. These older, retired engineers, aged 60 or over, are saying that they are ready to sacrifice and even possibly die in order to keep the younger workers safe and out of harm’s way. The plan has not gone through with the authorities yet, but as I listened to Yasutera interviewed, I could sense that this man, by offering himself for such a dangerous duty, had indeed found deep meaning and purpose. This is a man who is offering himself sacrificially on behalf of others, and in giving up his life, is finding it. What a powerful example he and his group are to the younger generations of Japan, to live not in self-centeredness, but to give for others.

Wherever we are, and whatever we do, we will have opportunities to give of ourselves in some way, shape, or form out of love for God and others. If we practice in small ways to today, giving up those things that hold us, then we will be ready to give in even bigger ways should the need arise. Jesus, Alban, martyrs and people like Yasutera Yamada remind us and encourage us, that in losing our lives, we find our lives.

Trinity Sunday Sermon 2011

2011-06-21T10:25:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, but when speaking of the Trinity, it is very, very easy to get confused or fall into rather bad theology. As one professor told us, “Almost everything people say about the Trinity is heresy.” But still, we try, and we’ll try again today.

Here’s a little joke to demonstrate the point:
Jesus said, Whom do men say that I am?
And his disciples answered and said, Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elias, or other of the old prophets.
And Jesus answered and said, But whom do you say that I am?
Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."
And Jesus answered… and said, "What?"

But difficult as it may be, the Trinity is truly one of those doctrines that clearly distinguishes Christianity from all over faiths. No one else worships a Trinitarian God (and it’s also quite possible that no one else understands it either. More than one person has accused Christians of being polytheists.) But when you dig deep, you see that our faith is indeed monotheistic, and yet a little paradoxical. The Trinity truly is one of the most awe inspiring mysteries of our faith and that is why we set aside a day, today, to observe and even celebrate its’ wonder.

But what can we say about the Trinity without getting too bogged down? Essentially we believe that God has been revealed as three persons but one God. Those three persons have always existed, co-created our world (like we read in Genesis), and are all equally involved in the work of redemption and reconciliation. We are called to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And you can hear hints of the Trinity in Genesis from the text we just read. Listen again: “Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;” God is speaking of God’s self here in the plural, not singular. Yet Judaism has always affirmed monotheism, the doctrine that God is One. The famous Jewish prayer the “Shema” opens with the very clear statement: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” Likewise, Islam declares its belief in one God in their famous declaration: “There is no god but Allah” which is another way of saying, “There is no god but God.” Even Hinduism, which many people mistakenly define as strictly polytheistic, is actually monotheistic at its core and origins: Brahman is the unity, the one divine entity and the other “gods” like Vishnu and Shiva are simply various aspects or faces of that unity---like different expressions of the one God. But this is all a bit complicated and people get easily confused.

One amazing attempt to describe the Trinity is found in a Creed called the Creed of Saint Athanasius, which I always like to point out on Trinity Sunday because it is in our Prayer Books and is often recited in church on this day in England. We don’t know who authored it, but it has been in continual use by the church since the 6th century. I invite you to turn to it in your Prayer Books to page 864. We won’t read it today, but I’d like you to glance over the language. It contains such lines as “The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.” You may leave scratching your head with this language but it shows us how painstakingly the early church tried to parse out an accurate description of the Trinity. This is serious business!

So, indeed, we do affirm as Christians that God is a Trinity of three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet one God. But what impact does that doctrine have on your life personally?
Here is the really exciting and wonderful thing about the doctrine of the Trinity: we have not invited into a stagnant interaction with a sole being, but into a dynamic relationship of love already being shared among and by the three persons of the Trinity in self-giving, each one revealing God to us in a unique way. In other words, God is like a community. And it is the most incredible model of community imaginable. Not only are we invited to share in that life, but we can establish our own lives based on the Trinitarian model where our relationships are mutual, based on justice, peace, love, self-giving, and equality. The Trinity then is a model for our own families, churches and communities!

Certainly love requires more than one person to exist, right? And God’s very nature is love. An understanding of the Trinity then, allows us to proclaim, not just that God is loving, but that God “is love.”

On a recent TV show we were watching, a vain teenage boy was asked by a wise old wizard whether or not he was in love, in order to help break a spell that had been cast. “Yes, I am in love” the boy replied. “With whom?” asked the wizard. The boy responded, “With myself!” “Oh” said the wizard, “that doesn’t count.”

So for God to be love, God must have an subject to love, independent of you and I, and independent of mere self-love. God can truly “be love” because that love exists within the context of relationship within the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

And so it is no slight distinction that God is three persons in one God. It is a radical shift in our understanding of the very essence and nature of God as love.

So how does the Trinity impact us as individuals? Our whole reality is altered: because the very basis of our reality is none other than the loving communion of three persons who exist in perfect unity: the life of the Trinity is the basis for our life. Because of the Trinity, we can declare and know and experience that God IS love and we can live in that late. Then go and share the love! AMEN.

Pentecost: Come Holy Spirit!

2011-06-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy your consolations, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A good clergy friend of mine was recently interviewing with a church Vestry and as she recounted the interview she said, “They asked me how I was going to grow the church, because they need new members. I just told them the truth.” She paused a moment and I found myself wondering what “the truth” was, it seemed like it should be obvious to me, but it wasn’t and I wasn’t sure what she may have said. Then she said, “I told them that isn’t my job… that is their job. I said I would certainly facilitate them doing the work and ministry that needed to be done to grow the church, but ultimately growing the church is their ministry, the ministry of the baptized.”

I admit- I was impressed by her answer and I agree with her completely; I felt a bit silly for not realizing this obvious answer. But yes: she may have a role to play, but ultimately churches grow because of the ministry of the whole community, because of the ministry of the members of everyone there. One of the many odd things about being a parish priest is that you get blamed for a lot of things that aren’t your fault and you get credit for things that aren’t about you, and you also do a lot of ministry no one will ever know about. It just comes with the territory. In one of my former parishes, they realized this, and so at the end of every annual meeting, there was a tradition that I really enjoyed: a long time member would always stand up and remind us of an important truth. She would say that the Rector that year had been blamed for a lot of things that weren’t his fault, and that he also did a lot of things that no one saw or knew about, and for those things, she asked the members to stand and applaud, and the congregation always happily obliged with a rousing round of applause and smiles. She was nice enough to leave off the part about getting credit for things he hadn’t done though.

St. Alban’s has grown since my arrival and I have heard our members attribute that to my presence, but my part in this has been very, very small: it has primarily been a combination of God’s grace among us and the ministry that you all bring as members and friends of St. Alban’s. Even before I got here, you were reaching out to those in need, including the refugees who just starting to find their way into our community. And you have shown yourselves to be an open and welcoming church, time and time again, truly opening your hands and hearts to all who come through our doors, making St. Alban’s, in recent years, one of the most diverse if not the most diverse parish in the Diocese. This has been a Holy Spirit lead phenomenon. This is one of the important actions of the Holy Spirit: the Spirit moves upon and makes us one in the Spirit, regardless of our economic status or ethnic background. As St. Paul writes, “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

I have witnessed your Holy Spirit inspired love on many occasions and I know that will continue no matter who your next priest is…and this is why St. Alban’s has grown and will continue to grow- there is room for a lot more growth. I told the story recently to Drusilla Grubb, who is writing an article about St. Alban’s for the Diocesan Messenger, about one of those Holy Spirit moments I was blessed to witness when the gift of hospitality was very apparent here. I described a morning before church, as we were gathering in front to greet people, when a woman off the street who spoke broken English came up and asked us what kind of church we were. I answered and then she said she would come back when she was properly dressed. One of our choir members reached over immediately and warmly hugged this woman, a complete stranger, and said, “You are welcome here, please come and worship with us today, just as you are.” She then lead the woman into the church and the woman stayed, with a smile and tears in her eyes. The woman came back with a friend later that week to worship and said to me, “I told my friend to come here because Jesus is here.”

My friends: the Holy Spirit has gifted you, each one of you in a special way, and nothing can take that away. On this day of Pentecost we are invited to celebrate and remember the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the first followers of Jesus. We are also called to recognize and celebrate with deep joy, the Holy Spirit’s presence among us today. As St. Paul states in our lesson today, there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge …to another faith …to another gifts of healing…to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” You may have one of these very gifts or your gift may not be listed here (it’s not an exhaustive list by any means), but the Holy Spirit has blessed each of us at baptism with spiritual gifts . Our response and calling is to use those gifts, as the text says, “for the common good.” Your gifts of wisdom, faith, teaching, healing, or language...whatever your gift, is meant for the building up of the whole community.

Thank you for bringing your spiritual gifts and offering them back to God as you sacrifice, serve, or just do what comes naturally to you, here at St. Alban’s. If you haven’t yet offered your gifts, I invite to pray about that and ask God to reveal to you how you can serve God in this community, for the common good. And then know that this is a community blessed by the Holy Spirit’s presence and is filled with people who have been gifted in incredible ways by the Spirit.

Let us pray: Thank you Holy Spirit for being present among us and within the people of St. Alban’s. Thank you for your grace and love in our lives and enable us to hear your call, to open our hearts to your leading, and to use our gifts for your glory. Bless each member of St. Alban’s with an outpouring of your power so that they can do and accomplish all you’ve given them to do, confident of the spiritual gifts you have given them. We praise, honor, and glorify you this day. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

The Ascension

2011-06-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

I know many of you saw the billboards plastered around San Diego and across the nation warning of Judgment Day on May 21st. When I first saw the posters, I assumed they meant that there was going to be some kind of local church gathering whereby a pastor would “judge” people in the congregation, because I just couldn’t believe that anyone would be so bold (or even foolish) as to claim to know when THE Judgment Day and rapture was going to occur. But I soon discovered that people were selling their belongings and spending their life savings to advertise this event as the actual judgment day of the world, as predicted by Pastor Harold Camping of Family Radio. While many religious groups have attempted to predict Judgment Day and the end of the world in the past, they have always failed and will continue to do so. And it is truly strange phenomenon because the Bible is so very clear that no one knows the day or the hour of these events. In our lesson from Acts today, the disciples are inquiring about the end times and we hear Jesus saying, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” It really isn’t for us to know, but for some reason, we try anyway. We want to want to know what is going to happen and when, as if we it would give us some control.

After Jesus ascended, notice that the text in Acts notes that the disciples remained in that location, just standing there awhile, looking up into heaven. The angels had to come and ask them, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” and commend them on their way. I believe that we too get caught or stuck, perhaps not the in the same way that Harold Camping and his group did, but like the disciples, we spend a lot of time looking in the wrong direction.
Let me give another example from our world of looking the wrong way and thereby getting “stuck” on our spiritual journeys. If you visit the Holy Land you can go to the place where it is believed that Jesus actually ascended on the Mount of Olives. There is a shrine there that has been built around the imprint of a foot: it is deeply held by many that this imprint is actually the footprint of Jesus’ right foot, his last point of physical contact with the earth. This spot has been fought over by Christians of all kinds and with the Muslims. The building itself has been destroyed and erected time and time again over the centuries. Currently the shrine is controlled by the Muslims and is called “The Chapel of the Ascension,” a spot that both Christian and Muslim pilgrims travel to see and revere it as a holy spot. Now, I must confess, I’d love to see it myself, but even if this were the actual footprint of Jesus Christ, do we really think Jesus would want us spending much time staring at his footprint to show our love and devotion for him, let alone fighting over who controls that spot?

While the example of this shrine to a footprint and Pastor Harold Camping and his followers may be extreme examples, I think they further reveal something true about us as humans: we spend our time, way too much of our time, looking for meaning or attempting to make sense of the world by looking in the wrong places. Maybe we aren’t left looking toward heaven or proof-texting the Bible or fighting over footprints, but we spend time on the internet or watching television or reading magazines and books, looking and seeking purpose, even, at times, trying to understand life and control our future. And in doing so, we miss out on the clarity of Jesus’ directives and even on the true joy and excitement of living our lives as disciples of Jesus.
Now let’s back up for a moment and examine more closely what this Feast of the Ascension is really about that we commemorate today, and see if that aids us in our search. Why is this holy day so important and what is the point behind it (if it’s not to worship a footprint)?

The Ascension commemorates the day, following Jesus’ time on earth after the resurrection, when Christ ascended back into heaven. It is one of the top holy days of the year for Christians and is also one of the truly ecumenical holy days in our calendar because it is commemorated by Christians from all different traditions, along with the major holidays like Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. Going back as far as 1100, the feast of the Ascension and the days leading up to it were a time of solemnity because in it we remember that these were Jesus’ very last days on earth. There is a certain sorrow attached to this event, knowing that our beloved Jesus could not stay here with us forever, but had to return to the heaven. And yet, the sorrow is filled with joy, just as the cross is caught up with deep hope because Jesus’ ascension and return to heaven made the coming of the Holy Spirit possible and that lead to all kinds of new possibilities. You have probably noticed that in the Nicene Creed that we recite each Sunday we affirm the Ascension as one of the important aspects of Jesus’ life and incarnation when we say, “he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.”

And our Catechism in the Prayer Books says this: “Q: What do we mean when we say that he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father? A: We mean that Jesus took our human nature into heaven where he now reigns with the Father and intercedes for us.”

The ascension actually completes Jesus’ mission on earth, and, as the Eastern Orthodox are quick to point out, the ascension is the very culmination of the mystery of the incarnation. This is an amazing thing: Jesus did not become a human being and take on our human nature temporarily: no. Jesus took on humanity on forever and has brought our human nature into heaven itself. As the God-man, Jesus continues in this role by interceding on our behalf from heaven, the human and divine conjoined.

Additionally, following the ascension, Jesus’ physical presence was no longer confined to his person, it is now, mystically located in us, as the church, the “Body of Christ.” The incarnation continues in you and I, as baptized members of Christ’s Body who have been filled with the Holy Spirit. While on earth, Jesus could only be at one place at one time, but now Jesus is present everywhere in all his followers, throughout the entire world.

And so, in ascending, we, as disciples of Jesus, are now able to take up Christ’s call to receive the power of the Holy Spirit and to become witnesses of Christ’s love and saving power to the very ends of the earth. Our lives are full of meaning and importance: we have been given the chance to be Jesus’ body here on earth and to bring the love of Christ to all people, wherever we go, in every moment of every day. What this looks like for you may look different than what it looks like for me, but all of us share in this incredible vocation as followers of Jesus. We are witnesses everywhere we go: in the grocery store, in traffic, at home, at work, while serving refugees and the homeless, tucking a child into bed, hugging an old friend, visiting the sick, sewing a quilt, laughing with a neighbor, and comforting one who suffers. In that, Jesus is present. So, even if we do get stuck for a time and start staring in the wrong direction, losing our way or our purpose, Jesus is present to draw us back to the path.

Join in the celebration and miracle of the ascension today by lifting up your hearts… lifting them up to the Lord, and experiencing his miraculous presence in your life and in those around you.

Where is Home?

2011-05-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

Where is “home” for you? I mean the place that really, truly feels like home, a place you could go back to at any time and still feel at home? The place in my mind that still feels like “home” after many years is the house my parents bought when I was in the second grade, up in the mountains of La Canada in Los Angeles. I lived there until I went away to college and I have gone back many times to visit for holidays and vacations. We all call it the “Ocean View house” because that‘s the name of the street, and on a clear day, you really can see all the way to the ocean, far on the other side of Los Angeles County.

What makes a place a home though? For me, as home is where I feel safe and comfortable. Nothing is odd or strange or foreign, it is all calmly familiar. There are memories attached to it, both good and bad, but a sense of peace reigns, and there are particular spots that are favorite places at home, where I always breathe a deep sigh of relief, as if, after having been lost, I am now found. At home I feel like I belong, as if I am known to my home and my home is known to me. There is a sense of loving presence at home, even if the house is empty. All pretenses are gone and I don’t have to pretend to be anything I’m not, and that’s perfectly okay. Home is a soft place to fall.

During my travels in my late twenties I went to Europe - to England and France and I will never forget the experience of getting lost in a rather industrial part of Paris. I had a really heavy backpack with all my belongings and was confused by the subway system and got off in the wrong part of the city. I wandered the streets and became lost and no one, it seemed, would speak English to me. I grew increasingly frantic and scared, thinking how foolish I was to travel around Europe by myself. I was hungry and had very little money and it was getting dark and I didn’t know where to go or what to do. Finally I came across a hotel, it was far outside my budget, but I was so desperate that I got a room for the night, just to get off the street. It took me ages just to figure out how to make a simple phone call out of the hotel and back to the US, with all the country codes and my calling card and operators speaking in French. I’ll never forget the moment I heard my mother answer the phone and say “Hello?” I couldn’t speak because the mere sound of her voice caused me to well up with deep tears and I started to sob: her voice connected me to home and I was so terribly homesick. I wanted nothing more than to be home in that moment and I realized how important home really was, for all my desire for travel and adventure.

Deep down, I think we all yearn for “home.” Something in us, deeply desires to have that sense of being at home, at a level that goes soul deep. And it’s even deeper than just a place or a house. We can find a sense of home in our family members, or with friends and people that feel like “home” to us. Over the years I have met many newcomers at the different churches and ministries I have served, and if they are searching for a new church, I always encourage them not to settle until they have sense of “home” at a particular church. That doesn’t mean it’s all positive or that there’s no challenge involved, but a sense of home is important when it comes to finding and committing to a faith community.

I’ll never forget the experience I had when I found my sponsoring parish when I first entered the Episcopal Church. I had visited many churches and sat in many pews, but the day I sat down in the middle of Trinity Cathedral in San Jose, my whole body relaxed and I took a deep breath, a sigh of relief, and seemingly melted into the pew as if I had found something I had been looking for, for a long time. The Holy Spirit was heavy in that space and the red-wood beams and stained glass were a sight for sore eyes. Joining Trinity was a decision I never regretted and knew, somewhere deep in my soul, that I had come home.

When I visited St. Alban’s in 2007 during my interviews, the first time I walked into this church there was a feeling within me, as if I had been here many times before. The same feeling occurred when I met many of you, as if I had known you for quite awhile, even though we were technically strangers. It has always felt like home here to me at St. Alban’s.

Our Scripture lessons today have something to say about this concept of home. In the lesson from First Peter, we read that we are to come to the Lord, “a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.” Peter is referring to the body of believers here, that we as a community are called to become a spiritual home, one to another, rooted and built upon the living stone: Jesus. St. Alban’s is home to many of us, and that’s because this community is built on Jesus, our living stone, and we have allowed ourselves to be built up together into a spiritual home. This is not to be taken lightly, it is a beautiful and sacred thing, a true blessing. Many, many people do not have a genuine spiritual home, and they’re lacking this blessing in their lives. And it’s a blessing even when people here may annoy or hurt us, that’s part of being in community, and learning to extend and accept grace and forgiveness. This is sacred stuff.

And then in the Gospel lesson from John, Jesus says, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” The idea that Jesus himself has prepared a place for us, a true home, so that we can be where he is, is tremendously comforting. We search and search for a home on this earth, and sometimes we find something pretty good, but nothing can compare to the home that God has for us, for our home with Jesus.

I enjoy a TV show called “Parks and Recreation,” and on a recent episode, a character named Leslie was struggling with a decision she had made years ago, when she had turned down a job offer in a flashier city and had remained instead in her town of Pawnee. She asked her boss to recall what his advice had been back when she was considering the other position that had helped sway her decision. He said, “I told you I didn’t care what you did.” She smiled and said, “Yeah but what did you say after that.” He said, “I told you, you will get lots of job offers, but you only have one hometown." “Yeah, that’s how I remember it” she replied. As Christians we have only one hometown: and that’s in Christ.

I deeply believe that what we are all ultimately longing for when we seek home, is that sense of unconditional love, safety, protection, of being fully known and totally accepted, and that’s something that only God in Christ can give us completely and fully. For the Christian, then, Jesus is the ultimate soft place to fall. And where Jesus is, home is. Spend time with the Lord every day, worship in God’s house every week, and allow yourselves to be built up into this spiritual home, rooted in Christ, that exists not only here, today, but into eternity with God and one another. Amen.

Grief and The Good Shepherd

2011-05-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

Following the very difficult announcement I made to the Vestry last Tuesday evening that my family would be leaving San Diego and hence, I must resign as Rector of St. Alban’s, Canon Suzi told us, “You are now a parish in transition.” Transition means movement and change, a shifting from one state into the next, and it is the in-between time of that change: as one Vestry member quickly chirped, “Yeah, but I don’t like change.” Indeed, I can’t say many of us do.

This week I have been reflecting on the several Rectors who have served St. Alban’s in the past 35 years. I had the honor of knowing Fr. Treat, who was here for 22 years as Rector and was the Rector Emeritus when I came in 2007. I have a very precious memory of Fr. Treat at my Celebration of New Ministry. He was joking with me before the service with the very dry sense of humor he had, allowing me to shake the butterflies welling up in my stomach before the big event. And then I heard his heartfelt and solemn reading of my Letter of Institution as your Rector. It is such a good memory. I thought of him again as I read the Scripture texts for this week, noting that today is Good Shepherd Sunday and Fr. Treat, who was himself such a very good shepherd of this congregation, died on Good Shepherd Sunday two years ago. His love and legacy continues and since Fr. Treat, St. Alban’s has had 3 rectors, including myself.
Rectors are the pastors of the people in their charge, and the word pastor is a Latin word for “shepherd.” Christian ministers took on the term and title of shepherd after Jesus’ directive to Peter and the apostles to “shepherd my sheep” in the Gospel of John and following St. Paul’s exhortation to the leaders of the church in Acts to “shepherd the flock of God among them.” Pastors, of course, come in all shapes and sizes, with varying gifts and weaknesses, but hopefully, by God’s grace, they are meant to serve faithfully to bring about God’s will in the mission and ministry of the church in partnership with the members. It is a wonderful and sacred gift, and one I have treasured dearly here at St. Alban’s because of you all.

I was visiting a very old, historic church and I saw there a wall of photos of all the rectors that had ever served that parish, as many Episcopal Churches have. There were a lot of pictures, maybe 20 or so faces hanging with their dates below them. The Rector pointed out to me the varying terms that they had served, a few for just one or two years, some for four or five, and others for over a decade or more. I thought of St. Alban’s and what our wall would look like, and I noted how St. Alban’s has had a similar history of both short, medium, and long term rectors, and I even pondered what my dates would be….2007 to when? “Only God knows,” I thought.

But I the photos reminded me that all rectors are ultimately temporary shepherds and that there is only one true and lasting shepherd- the Good Shepherd, Jesus himself, who is the shepherd and guardian of our very souls. The Good Shepherd of St. Alban’s has always been here and will never leave, and that is why churches like St. Alban’s have continued to grow and thrive throughout the decades and even the centuries, they are following the Good Shepherd.

The role of course, as the sheep, is to listen for the voice of our Good Shepherd, who calls us each by name and “leads us out,” as Jesus says in our Gospel today. My family and I have had several months of seeking to listen and hear the Good Shepherd’s voice regarding out future, and I can tell you that is not always easy to listen, especially when it sounds like he is leading you away from some place you love. In fact, in looking at my own journey since early March, when Salvatore was offered the position as a post-doctoral research fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, I can track in myself the several stages of grief that hit since our own transition began.
The first stage of grief is shock and denial, and that was certainly my first reaction: “I don’t and can’t believe,” I thought, “that this is happening.” I was denying the fact that all of us would have to leave St. Alban’s and the San Diego area, where we are very happy. I love being the Rector of St. Alban’s, it has always felt like God’s hand had guided us together and that it is a wonderful fit. That’s just not something I’ve doubted and I have grown to love and become deeply attached to you all. So, that was definitely stage one for me, shock and denial.

The second stage is pain and guilt and it started for me when we began to really talk about what was best for our family given the news before us; it became clear that I needed to think about leaving soon, and then the pain really hit. I started to use the word “grief” when I spoke of it to my friends, especially as I contemplated having to resign. And guilt fell closely behind because of course, as your pastor, I don’t want to leave and I certainly don’t want to cause any amount of pain to any of you! Plus the guilt over all the things I didn’t do that I wanted to do or could have done but didn’t, of wanting to stay longer, and all of my own shortcomings related to my own limits and weaknesses as a priest and pastor. I am and have been far from perfect.

But by April I was in the third stage of grief: anger and bargaining. I was angry that things had not worked out for Salvatore’s very, very promising career as a gifted doctor of psychology since earning his PhD and angry that this meant our family would either have to be separated or that I would have to leave California and St. Alban’s: “two,” as I told God, “very terrible options!” I told God then, and only now do I see it as bargaining, that unless God opened a door for me in full time ministry, which, I figured, was going to take at least a year, I couldn’t possibly leave.

And then it didn’t work like that. That is when I hit the fourth stage of grief: depression, reflection, and loneliness, which I am still going through on this roller coaster of emotions. Once the transition and move became more real and tangible, I started to feel depressed, found myself reflecting a lot on what it all meant, and began feeling like no one could possibly understand what I was experiencing. And then the “possible” door for ministry opened itself this past weekend, when I was formally offered a new position to be on staff of a large and wonderful parish in the suburbs of St. Louis.

You can only imagine my feelings when I called the Bishop’s office and began planning last Tuesday’s Vestry meeting. You could say I entered that meeting with “fear and trembling” – although, of course, the dear Vestry was beyond gracious and loving. Canon Suzi, who was also present at the meeting, commented on how much care and compassion exuded from our Vestry members, and she is absolutely right. “That,” I told her, “is why I came here!” St. Alban’s is in good hands with so many gifted lay leaders and a very caring staff at the Bishop’s Office.

I suppose the good news in all these stages of grief is that the next step of grief is the “upward turn” where an adjustment starts to take place, followed by the sixth step of reconstruction and working through, and finally, the seventh and last step of grief: acceptance and hope. We each go through these stages at different paces, but we do have to hit each one to get to the next. Sometimes we move back and forth as well, which I have also been experiencing.

All of us who have experienced grief know that we will get through it eventually, that in God’s gracious plan there are steps to our grief that eventually lead to hope. Jesus is calling to us even now, calling us by name, waiting for us to hear him. Unlike the thief, Jesus tells us, he “came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” My friends, my flock (for 8 more weeks), my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ: my prayer and hope for you is that you all will continue to follow the Good Shepherd, just as you have, to have his life and to have it abundantly (not just a tiny bit, not just to survive, but to have it in great and magnificent abundance, with overflowing). Because Jesus, our Good Shepherd, is here, he is leading the way, and we are blessed in and by one another, as members of his beloved flock.

Mother's Day and Peace

2011-05-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday a clergy friend posted a link to images from a television program called, “America’s Top Model.” Apparently it is one of the top rated shows watched by young women in our nation. Awhile back they featured an episode where the beautiful young models had to create and pose for shots in which they appeared to have been brutally murdered. It was called the “Crime Scene Shoot.” To say that the images were gruesome and disturbing is an understatement, I literally felt my stomach tie up in knots after viewing some of the images. The point my clergy friend was making is that in our society, women continue to be devalued through unattainable standards of beauty, sexualization, and the making normative violence against women. What may be most shocking about this whole thing however, is that this episode aired with little notice, there was not the shock and outrage that should accompany something like this at all. The judge’s themselves, after viewing the images, had comments such as, “Death becomes you, young lady" and "Very beautiful and dead."

Those who were upset were brushed off by fans and the media alike in the name of “art.” Some responded with the idea that “no one was really hurt.” But when a young women are taught that violence is sexy or beautiful, or cool or edgy, hasn’t someone been hurt? Especially when we know the tragic statistics about domestic violence and violence and murder against women in our nation.

Then again, perhaps this issue begs another question…the deeper question about how we as a society have become so comfortable with violence? We have wholeheartedly embraced it and don’t give it much thought anymore in our movies, television, the news, in magazines, you name it. Graphic violence does not even get a film an R rating anymore. A friend of mine whose mother was brutally murdered by his father has boycotted all violent TV shows and movies because he literally cannot emotionally handle it. He says it means he can’t watch almost anything anymore. And yet, this kind of violence is glorified and even honored by our culture everywhere.

So what does Jesus, who died a very violent death, teach us in the midst of this? And in what ways do we all take part in the violence of our culture, partner with it, or simply enabling it with our complacency? How are we, as Christians, ultimately advocating and living out peace?
It is said that the Dalai Lama was once asked to hold a moment of silence to pray for peace. He refused saying something to the effect of, “No, go and be that peace.” We can’t kid ourselves into thinking that prayer without action is useful.

Sadly, we have become so conditioned to glamorizing violence that we have actually lost the goal that all our sights should be set on: the goal of peace. Peace in our hearts, our homes, our communities, our nation and the world. But we, like those who crucified Jesus, often aren’t even aware of what we’re doing, and Jesus’ prayer for the cross applies to us too in our complicitness with violence, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

In our own distractions and even by taking on the values of our culture, much like the disciples in our Gospel lesson traveling on the road to Emmaus, fail to even recognize Jesus and his desire for us as children of the Prince of Peace.

So what, you may wonder, does all this have to do with Mother’s Day? Quite a lot.
In Europe. Mother’s Day was originally a day that fell on the fourth Sunday of Lent and Christians used the day to honor “Mother Church” by decorating the church with jewels, flowers, and other offerings. That tradition came to America but its’ original purpose was altered some time later when Julia Ward Howe conceptualized Mother’s Day in 1870 with a slightly different purpose in mind. Julia was a Christian and the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic but she later she became so distraught by the violence and death she saw happening during the Civil War that she called upon all mothers to come together and protest what she viewed as the unnecessary killing of her sons, where the sons of mothers were killing the sons of other mothers. She called for an international Mother’s Day, a day celebrating both peace and motherhood. Here is an excerpt from her call in 1870:

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the meansWhereby the great human family can live in peace,Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly askThat a general congress of women without limit of nationalityMay be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenientAnd at the earliest period consistent with its objectsTo promote the alliance of the different nationalities,The amicable settlement of international questions.The great and general interests of peace.

Soon a West Virginian women’s group lead by Anna Reeves Jarvis began to celebrate this adaption of Howe’s holiday with the goal of reuniting families and friends that have been divided by the Civil War. They called it Mother’s Friendship Day. After Anna died, her daughter campaigned for the creation of an official Mother’s Day in honor of peace. She successfully petitioned the superintendent of the Sunday School where she taught and on May 10, 1908, the first ever Mother’s Day celebration happened at a Methodist Church in West Virginia and in a church in Philadelphia, making today the 103rd anniversary to the day of the first American Mother’s Day. All mothers were given white carnations that day. But her daughter, Anna Jarvis, did not stop there…she petitioned state governments, women’s group and churches to make this a national holiday. She finally convinced the World’s Sunday School Assocation to back her, who had key influence with congress. And so in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed it as a national observance, to be held the second Sunday in May, just as it is today.

So Mother’s Day is more than about honoring women and moms, it is day about reminding all of us, women, men, fathers, and mothers alike, to keep peace as our goal, to hold it out as the great aim in our world.

I am compelled to mention this story, because is alarming that today in our society we generally fail to view peace as the goal anymore. Almost no one even talks about peace as an ultimate goal. When one leader is toppled, the media’s next question is simply, “Okay, who is our next target?” We don’t stop to ask what we can do to achieve true and lasting peace in our communities, nation, or world. Violence has become the norm.

While we may give peace lip service and pray for it every Sunday, honest discussions and actions about it, whether in our government, our churches, in our personal lives, or in our society are quite rare. And of course we may disagree about how to achieve peace, and that’s okay, but we do need a renewed sense that peace is everyone’s goal. The aim for peace alone unites all us, particularly those of us in the household of God. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” and “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you”…”I have said this to you that in me you may have peace.” All our other aims are in vain if peace is not at the forefront, and so we need to reclaim this Mother’s Day that no matter who you are what you believe, the desire for peace and an end to violence is a goal for all humanity. And then, go and be that peace. Practice peace in all you do, see, say and listen to: because we can be peace every day. Amen.

Mary of Nazareth Speaks: The Cross and the Resurrection

2011-04-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

Easter Vigil 2011 Sermon

It seems that I was far too young to carry the responsibility that God gave me, but I do find peace in the words of St. Paul, that God chooses the weak in the world to shame the strong and God chooses the foolish to shame the wise. At age fourteen I felt both weak and foolish, so perhaps that made me an excellent candidate to be chosen by God. And I had been dreaming about being a mother since I was very little, hoping to be as good a mother as my own, I just didn’t expect motherhood to unfold the way it did, but who does? Life is full of surprises.
But there I was, pregnant out of wedlock, absolutely terrified that Joseph would either put me away or publically disgrace me. But God intervened and Joseph is such a godly man, marrying me and raising Jesus as his own. It is a rare man that marries a woman in such a state and raises a child not his own as though they were his own flesh and blood. And really, Joseph does not get the credit he deserves, while I fear I get far too much, but of course, all is grace, and Joseph doesn’t mind. All is grace, and my ability to say “yes” to angel Gabriel when asked to bear God’s Son was absolute, pure grace.

After Jesus’ birth, the reality of what was happening began to sink in when the shepherds and magi came to visit. The stories they told of the miraculous star and the heavenly host glorifying God, announcing my little baby’s birth astounded me. I pondered it in my heart from that day on and I never forgot a single word.

And of course I prayed and prayed and prayed. God had to be my strength because I feared that the load and responsibility was too much for me. I often wondered “why me?” And when my son looked up into my eyes as a child and later as a young boy, I wondered if he asked the same question and wondered if perhaps a wiser woman should have had my place. I don’t wonder anymore, because I’ve learned that no matter your task or calling in life, we are only able to do what we do because God grants us the grace and strength to do it. And that is what God granted me when I most needed it. All is grace.

As Jesus grew and started to become a man, I knew I had to let go. That fact hit me the day we thought we had lost him in Jerusalem during Passover when he was only 12 and we found him in the Temple, teaching the elders. I had to remind myself then that he was not only my little boy, but God’ Son.

Still, as his mother, it was so hard to let go; I loved him more than anything on earth. But as he grew, a shift was occurring, and one day, as I listened to him teaching the crowds, I saw that he had become my teacher too. Where once he sat at my feet as I taught him the Hebrew Scriptures, now he was teaching with authority to God’s people and had knowledge and wisdom that far surpassed my own. Now it was time for me to sit at his feet and learn.

At times, fear crept into my heart though, because I knew who he was and what he was meant to do. I could see the growing hatred and jealousy in the eyes of the religious leaders and scribes. It was becoming clearer and clearer that he was going to be killed. My instinct as a mother was to protect him, just as I had when he was young and fell down and needed comforting and love. But now, it was out of my hands, I was helpless, and I had to submit myself to God’s will, knowing it meant that I would lose my son. God grant me the grace I prayed.
To see your child suffer is the greatest pain a mother can bear, and words can’t describe the way I felt during his trial and subsequent torture. As Jesus walked along Calvary carrying the heavy cross, I scrambled through the crowds, hoping to catch his eye, to offer him some loving sense of comfort, but I was helpless. I wanted so much to tell the crowds to stop taunting my beloved son, couldn’t they see that he was not only innocent, but a miraculous gift from heaven to us all? When I finally saw him on the road, beaten and battered, falling to his knees, my heart broke. Time seemed to stand still as they slowly moved him from the road to Golgotha and then placed my boy’s body on that cross. I couldn’t stand to be there and see him suffer the excruciating pain, but I couldn’t leave either: that was my child, that was my Jesus.

That dark afternoon on the cross, my son, who had always been so loving, offered me yet one more act of love: looking at John and I he said, “woman this is your son” and to John, “this is your mother.” Even as he was dying he was thinking of others and thinking of me, knowing how much support we would need in the coming days and years without him. My sister squeezed my arm and Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas-my sister in law, all stood by me that terrible afternoon, offering their support as we cried, huddled together.

And then, my boy died. He died like a common criminal, in public disgrace… this loving gift from heaven. When they took his body off the cross, I held him for a long time, just as I had when he was an infant, and I began wondering if perhaps something had gone wrong in God’s plan…it seemed too much, too terrible. I looked for any sign of life, but there was none: my boy was truly dead. Weeping overtook me. They finally took Jesus from me and placed him in a nearby tomb. Because it was the Sabbath, we were not able to properly prepare his body for burial. It was the final insult.

I returned home and my family and the Mary’s all offered their support. But I was overwhelmed with grief, shocked senseless by what I had seen my boy suffer. And yet, and this is always true of God grace, even in that darkest hour, there were moments when I recalled the words of the angel and God’s promises. And in my heart I held on to that mustard seed of faith that this terrible suffering was not the end of the story at all, it was only the beginning. That Sunday morning when the Mary’s went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, I stayed home. I stayed home because, truth be told, I hoped the tomb was going to be empty.

When the women returned, excited and scared and filled with wonder, explaining what the angels had told them, that Jesus had risen, I knew it was all true. God had raised up my beloved Jesus from the dead and he was alive! God’s promises were good! The grief turned to joy, death turned into new life, and once again I realized God had done the impossible: this was the miracles of miracles! When I finally saw Jesus, he was changed, he was now the resurrected Christ and Lord, the Savior of the world, but he was also still the son I knew and loved. And everything I, we, had endured finally made sense. That’s the thing about life: while you’re in the thick of it, in the pain and suffering, it’s impossible to see the meaning or where it’s all going. It can feel like nothing more than senseless suffering. I could never have foreseen how much suffering my family and I would have to endure. Most of us don’t.

But be of good cheer my friends: God is faithful, God’s grace brought me through the worst imaginable and God’s grace will bring you through. The end of the story is much, much better than the beginning or the middle. As St. Paul says, “we do not lose heart…for this…momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.” And “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” I have lived this truth, I have seen it lived, and THAT is the true promise of Easter my friends! All is grace! Glory be to God! Alleluia! Jesus is risen!

Palm and Passion Sunday

2011-04-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those “knee jerks” of a day liturgically, where we start out the morning on a celebratory note proclaiming Jesus as our King and waving our palm branches, commemorating Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. And then our liturgy switches abruptly on us half way through, as we move into the reading of the Passion and Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion and death, carrying us right into the depths and heart of Holy Week, the holiest and most somber week of Lent and the Christian year. And while these two events, the triumphal entry and the crucifixion might feel unrelated, they are actually entirely intertwined, because it is Jesus’ triumphal entry that finally marks him as a troublemaker, as someone guilty of the final charge against him: high treason. Jesus was actually riding into Jerusalem, not so much a triumphant king, but like a lamb to the slaughter. And this was the only time he allowed himself to be publically proclaimed as the King and Messiah. Yet Jesus knows that this event will seal his fate and swiftly lead to his death: in fact, now all the ammunition needed to accuse and ultimately execute Jesus is in place.

It is actually impossible for us to begin to imagine the amount of suffering that takes place in a very short amount of time in this one week, starting with Palm Sunday and ending on Good Friday. But it is not difficult to hear just how much Jesus was suffering when we listen to his words from the cross when says, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Here Jesus reveals his humanity and human nature fully, voicing and feeling every bit as forsaken and abandoned by God as is possible. In fact, his frail humanity is so clear in this tragic moment, that many are uncomfortable with these words and in most of the classic Jesus movies, this line is actually removed or never uttered on the cross….it’s almost as if it’s too difficult to admit what Jesus was dealing with to include it. Instead of skipping it however, I want us to focus on those very words today: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Have you ever felt forsaken or abandoned by God? At some point, I now most of us will and I know that I have at many times. One of the key moments in my life, a time that I felt abandoned by God was actually while I was in labor with Charlotte in 2005. It was one of those horror stories that happen much too often in labor, but far from being a mere cliché, it was a nightmare I would not wish on anyone. Charlotte was 2 weeks over due and my OBGYN was nervous and wanted to induce labor with a drug called pitocin. Pitocin, in my mind, is a truly terrible drug, and it rolls off my tongue almost like a curse word because of my experience with it. Pitocin forces the body into labor, but it does it in a much more cruel way than the body does naturally: the contractions are much, much stronger and come much more quickly with pitocin than our bodies would have us do naturally. And I happened to be one of the unlucky few for whom pitocin just wouldn’t work until it was at a dose much higher than I could tolerate, and sent me into what they call “transition,” the final and worst part of labor, before my body was ready to give birth, for many hours. Suffice it to say that the pain that went far beyond my imagining . When those contractions hit, I was decimated… over and over again. I was refused pain medication because, as the nurse described it, I was not “progressing appropriately”…whatever that might mean. The pain was so bad that I was totally beyond the screaming and yelling type pain, I couldn’t even make a sound or speak aloud at all. And it turned out that those maximum contractions were so overpowering and lasted for so long that they actually cut off oxygen to poor Charlotte, and she was in grave danger for quite some time during the labor and right after the delivery due to severe a lack of it. In those long hours of the night, I truly believed we were dying, that both she and I would never survive and I was actually readying myself for death. Added to that was the the fact that God seemed totally absent to me in those hours. In fact, I felt as though I was being punished with some kind of hellish torment that would end in death, and my mind could make no sense of it. I was truly out of my mind in those hours, but I felt sure that I had been abandoned by any kind of loving God I had ever known. God didn’t seem to be anywhere in that Ohio hospital room at 3am.

Well, Jesus not only experienced tremendous amounts of physical pain, far worse than you or I can imagine, but also the spiritual pain of feeling abandoned by God. Add to that the emotional pain he endured because his suffering was public and he was mocked and tormented by the very people watching it. (I mean, at least the doctors and nurses weren’t actively spitting on me and ridiculing me during labor! Can you imagine?)

And Jesus had four groups of accusers who mocked him: the passers-by who shook their heads, which was a Middle Eastern gesture of derision, the religious leaders who taunted him by saying if he really was the Son of God, he would save himself, the “bandits” who were being crucified along with him who told him to get off the cross if he really was the Son of God, and finally, those who crucified him, who spit on him and further tortured him. In his most vulnerable and horrific hours, Jesus was rejected and despised by everyone around him. The people had abandoned Jesus and so, it seemed, had God.

The words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” are spoken by Jesus n Aramaic, which was the language Jesus spoke all the time. They also form the first line of Psalm 22, the Psalm we recite during the powerful Maundy Thursday service at the stripping of the altar. Jesus would have had the whole Psalm memorized and he would have known that it is about a righteous sufferer who feels abandoned in his pain, but ultimately ends on a note of trust. Still, the pain and feeling of abandonment was real for Jesus.

When we feel abandoned by God in life, maybe all we can do is say with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And in doing so, maybe we will be prompted to remember the end of the story, and not lose all hope.

After Jesus breathes his last and dies, the “curtain of the temple” was torn in two. This curtain, known as the “veil” was made of fine linen and was inside the Holy of Holies, which was God’s special dwelling place among the people. During the Israelites’ wanderings in the wilderness, God appeared as a pillar of cloud of fire in and above the Holy of Holies. There were figures of cherubim, angels who serve God and were in the presence of God, embroidered onto the curtain. Only the High Priest could pass into the Holy of Holies and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, and only after a long list of preparations, which included shielding his eyes. When that temple curtain tore, it was symbolic that the division between God and humanity had been removed in Jesus, and wenow had open access to God.

After the temple tore, the earth shook and rocks split, opening many tombs of the saints, those honored dead in Jewish tradition. The point of these descriptions is not to invoke fear, but to show us that Jesus’ death brings life. Even before we get to the Easter resurrection, we see Jesus’ horrific suffering and death bringing about new life, and we see clear evidence that God had not abandoned Jesus at all, but was present in the ultimate act of loving redemption.
Now, you and I know the end of this story, but we’ll save that for Easter. And I’m sure you can guess the end of my labor story if you’ve ever met my dear Charlotte. But please be assured, as we enter into this holiest of holy weeks together, that you are not alone in feeling abandoned at times, even Jesus felt that way in his lifetime, and know that God is with you in all your pain, fear, and suffering. You are never alone. And suffering is NOT the end of the story. To be continued….

Looking for Proof from God: Lent IV

2011-04-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

Text: John 9:1-41 It is very possible for us to be victims of religion, and specifically the institution of religion. We can also be victims to our own religious ideals, especially when we have religions notions about God that seek to put God in a box of our own making. Most of us do this, at one time or another, and so we expect God to act and do as we think God ought to act and do. We then determine whether or not God has come up short. When I was a graduate student I went through a series of faith crises, each one seemingly worse than the next, for a whole host of reasons, but one of the most outrageous things I did was spend several months during one of those crises, absolutely begging and pleading with God to show me a sign of God’s existence. My faith had become so full of doubt and fear that I felt the only way it could be remedied was if God showed me an actual real – life sign, a vision, a miracle, or some kind of proof that God existed. I should have known better because as children, my little sister, who is three years younger than I, started having doubts about God’s existence and she did the same thing. One night up in our bedroom, she and I were praying together and she said, “God, if you really exist, show me a sign of your existence, so I can believe in you.” We went to sleep and we were abruptly awoken by a doozie of an earthquake at about 4am. No one was hurt, but it was enough to really shake and scare us. As we were getting ready for school later that morning I said to her, “You know, it kind of seems like that earthquake could be God’s answer to your prayer…the evidence you asked for God’s existence.” She responded, “No it wasn’t, that was just an earthquake.” Now my point here isn’t to argue the idea one way or another, because I don’t know what to make of it even today. But as I pondered it, I wondered what proof would have convinced my sister, and I realized that there probably wasn’t much in the way of proof that would ultimately convince her, short of an appearance by Jesus in all his glory, and I didn’t think that was likely to happen. What it taught me is that asking for proof from God is a very tricky thing. Despite this experience, as I said, I went through a season of begging God for some proof during one of my faith crises. I had some specific ideas in mind of course….I wanted a vision, a real honest to goodness mystical vision of God’s presence. One night, at the peak of this crisis, I was alone in my car, crying and sobbing and asking God, yet again, to just show me something, something to prove God really existed. I remember saying, “If you’re really there and you really love me, please show me!” It was horrible. I sat in silence for quite awhile in my dark car that night and nothing happened. I started to cry again. And then, suddenly, it started to rain, lightly at first, just tapping my windshield, and then it started coming down hard and poured heavy on the roof of my car. For a moment then, it felt like maybe God was there and was crying with me, and this rain was a sign indeed. And then “no” I thought, it’s just rain…and it was going to rain anyway, it doesn’t mean anything. Asking God for proof is tricky thing. When we look at the religious leaders as portrayed in our Gospel lesson from John today, we see a group of people who have very specific, religious views of God. God really must fit into their box, their set of beliefs about God. Certainly they were not about to believe that Jesus was the Messiah without some kind of incontrovertible proof, some undeniable sign. I hope you caught the humor in this story because the multiple conversations the leaders have with the blind man are full of the ridiculous and of sarcasm. This blind man is miraculously healed and given his sight by Jesus when he responds to Jesus in faith, by washing his eyes in the pool of Siloam, but the religious leaders harass this man to no end. They harass him because this miracle doesn’t fit in their “box” or their understanding of God. For one thing, the miracle happened on the Sabbath, and surely God wouldn’t work or “heal” on the Sabbath, that was against the religious law. Or maybe, they thought, this man wasn’t really born blind, because how could a “sinner” perform such a healing without God’s help? There must be some kind of mix up or an outright lie. They even go so far as to get a hold of the man’s parents to see if he truly was born blind, but when the parents tell them the truth, they can’t accept their answer either. Nothing the man says can convince them, despite multiple conversations. And in fact, no answer was ever going to be good enough for them, because no sign can bring about faith in one who is spiritually blind and lacks faith. Jesus was acting outside of their preconceived religious notions about God, and therefore this miracle, and Jesus himself, had to be rejected. The miracle wasn’t a sign or proof, it was just a mix up or a hoax. I wonder how often our preconceived notions about God get in the way of us having genuine faith. We too so often walk around blind like these religious leaders, but we don’t know it. We are only able to “see” God the way we have predetermined God to be and act. If God doesn’t conform to our notions, then God either doesn’t exist or is not to be trusted. Anything and everything can or is given an alternative explanation. Whatever happens can always, always be chalked up to coincidence of course. Right now our world is in a huge state of change and flux. Its’ scary. The last several years have been turned the stability of our nation upside down. As we look at nations all around us and a;; the war and turmoil, and the devastation in places like New Zealand and Japan and elsewhere, we may find ourselves hard pressed to maintain faith, to see God. Our view of God is shaken and we may desire some proof of God’s benevolence, or even of God’s existence, in the midst of it all. I do not have all the answers, but Jesus has shown us that God is always on the side of healing and reconciliation, even if it doesn’t come on our timeline or in the way we expected. But as long as we insist on God doing and acting in ways we demand and expect, we will remain blind, just as the Pharisees remained blind to Jesus. In Lent we are called to examine ourselves and to repent where needed, and it may be that we need to repent of putting God into a box of our own making as individuals, as a nation, and as a global community. In our blindness, we may be failing to see what God is showing us, things that are right in front of us. Our demand for proof is no use. And so together we can pray, “Lord we are blind in so many ways; give us eyes to see you and to recognize your presence in your many unexpected ways, now and always.” Amen.

The Woman at the Well

2011-03-29T08:12:00.000-07:00

Lent III, John 4:5-42 Have you ever met an important or famous person but you didn’t know they were famous until later? It certainly changes the dynamics quite a bit when that happens unaware. My former parish of St. John’s in Worthington, Ohio was a very large and affluent church and when I was still new, I had no idea who the people were, in fact, being from the west, many big names in Ohio meant nothing to me. For instance, I didn’t realize the Provost of the Ohio State University was a member even though I had seen him there many times. And I often felt like the bumbling new assistant priest, totally out of place, not nearly educated enough, and still trying to find my way around an altar, while struggling with a number of personal and family crises to boot. There was one parishioner named John, whose family and children attended, and he often came to our Wednesday evening services and especially liked to talk to me about my sermons or other theological concepts, sometimes over lunch or at our weekday prayer gatherings. Over time he became one of my “cheerleaders” at the parish and would sometimes counsel me on leadership skills and encourage me saying that I had a lot of potential, that the national church needed me, and that I should strive to be a leader in the Episcopal Church. I found it very kind and flattering, but I didn’t think too much about it. It was only later that I found out who John was: he was a former Senator for Ohio and later he asked me to pray for him to have discernment about whether or not to run for governor of Ohio. John was recently elected as the governor of Ohio and I consider him a friend and even a mentor of sorts. While we don’t agree on every political issue, I know he prayerfully seeks to know and do God’s will and is willing to take time out of his schedule to help others, others who may not be "important" in the world’s eyes. His kindness and support helped me move out of my sense of insignificance in a time when I most needed it. Looking at our Gospel story, I relate to the woman at the well because she is not someone that by the culture’s standards is anyone to take notice of. I’ve always felt that way and I’m sure many of us have felt the same way about ourselves. But she was forever changed after her encounter with Jesus, the Messiah. If we were to take a poll, and ask the question: What kind of person would God choose to be the first to be given the amazing revelation that Jesus is the Messiah….what attributes would we come up with? I think we would tend to assume, especially given the culture Jesus was in at the time, that it would be man, very possibly a Jewish religious or at least a disciple of Jesus, they would be well known and respected, well to do perhaps, they would certainly be someone with a righteous or holy reputation, they would be someone Jesus knew very well, and really, we would probably imagine this revelation would be given to a large group of important people in a rather flashy way, so that the word would spread far and wide very quickly. That seems most effective. But Jesus chooses probably the most unlikely candidate we could ever imagine: He chooses a stranger, who is a woman (who men would not have spoken to in that culture), he chooses a woman who is not a Jew but a Samaritan, who was considered unclean (even despised), he chooses a woman who is of a lower class and is an outcast in her town, and he chooses a woman who not known for her righteousness, but is a notorious sinner with multiple husbands. And the conversation happens when Jesus is all alone with her: there is no crowd, just an audience of one. This one, very unlikely Samaritan woman. It happens not on a mountaintop or within the walls of the Temple or a synagogue, but during a casual conversation sitting beside at a well in the heat of the day, when no one else is around. There this woman learns that this ordinary Jewish man who is speaking to her is not plain or ordinary at all, but is THE Messiah, the chosen anointed one of God, who has come to bring salvation to all people. And he is talking to her and her alone in that moment, revealing the central truth of who he is to her, before he does so with anyone else. Why did he pick her we may wonder. But just look at the way this encounter with Jesus changed her: she went from being no one to being blessed by God with this incredible news, entrusted to carry the message to others, the very first missionary-evangelist in the Bible, a true leader in every sense. God does not choose those we would choose or those we think are important. And we might be tempted to think that this choice was a poor one, because who would ever believe this outcast woman? But in fact, her openness and her faith was contagious: and we learn that nearly her whole city was converted and they believed in Jesus because of her testimony. She brought the crowds to Jesus simply by sharing her story. The reason this story is so important to you and I is because God is showing us in this text that we, as individuals, matter deeply to God. You are known by God, God knows your name and your whole life story (the good, the bad and the ugly), and not only that, but God has a call and an invitation for you to do great things in God’s kingdom, if and when we are receptive. Those of you here who think you are the most unlikely candidates are actually essential in God’s kingdom, maybe you think you’re unimportant because others have told you that, or because you’re too shy, or don’t feel talented, or because you’re too young or too old, too flawed, too uneducated, too socially awkward, too weird, or too whatever…Jesus reveals in this story that you may be the very person God wants to use to do great things in God’s kingdom. Many of you already are. No matter who you are, God wants you to know Jesus , to know who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for you in love. The Good News if for you personally. Jesus is offering each of us today, right now, in this rather simple, every day moment, to come to the well and drink the Living Water that he offers us. Christ is here now and is present and wants to commune with you personally. Come and drink and eat. And when we leave here, let’s not keep this Good News to ourselves, but like the woman, share it with those we know and love, in our words and deeds: the Savior of the world has made himself know to you.

The Cross: Focal Point of Love and Rebirth

2011-03-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Text: John 3:1-17

I know this section of Scripture from the Gospel of John that we just read has been heard many times. Jesus speaks about being “born again” or “born from above” and many of us know the familiar words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the word…” We may even think of those John 3:16 placards people hold at football games, and so the text, in its’ familiarity, can fall flat. We’ve heard it so many times, like other popular stories from the Bible, and so it loses its’ power. I’d like us to try and revive this amazing passage a little today, because it’s almost as if the text itself needs to be reborn so that we can again hear its’ full impact again. Remember that this is heavy stuff: the deep mysteries of our faith.

First, let’s set the scene. This event occurs at night between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a well respected Pharisee and leader of his people. Nicodemus comes in the cover of darkness however, which gives us reason to believe that he is doing so in secret, so as not to be seen and then disgraced for consulting Jesus (of all people). He didn’t want to risk being found out, but he believes that Jesus must be from God and that God is present with him, as he states. Perhaps Nicodemus does not yet have faith in Jesus, but he has a faithful curiosity and he is willing to get the answers he seeks, even if he has to do it in secret. I wish we were all that curious!

So this is an important first step for Nicodemus. In response, Jesus reveals to Nicodemus a great and mysterious truth: that in order to see God, we must be born “again” or born “from above,” because it can be translated either way. In Greek, the word “born,” can actually have a metaphorical meaning, as in Jewish tradition when it refers to the idea of one’s life being changed into a new of way of living, like conversion. It can also just mean physical birth.

Nicodemus assumes the latter and gets very confused, taking Jesus too literally, asking him how one can actually re-enter their mother and be born again. Jesus clarifies and responds that we must be born of water and the Spirit. Here Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, and is alluding to the water of baptism.

In baptism we are reborn, and that rebirth occurs on two planes simultaneously. As Anglicans, we do not see the sacraments, or the sacrament of baptism as merely symbolic, as if the material reality meant nothing, but instead, we see it as making real and evident on the outside, the inward grace and gift from God that is going on spiritually, on the inside. The two work hand in hand. In other words, we understand, as Jesus explains here, that God brings to us grace and even the gift of salvation by working on two planes: the human/earthly/material plane and the Divine/heavenly/spiritual plane. God works in both realms simultaneously. To be human is to be both matter and spirit. God achieves salvation in both realms. This is most obviously demonstrated in the Incarnation: Jesus is both human/of the earth and divine/of heaven…the God-man.

This understanding extends to the sacrament of the Eucharist as well, where, in Holy Communion, we believe that we are not only receiving bread and wine (from the material earthly plane) but also the grace of Jesus’ presence in that bread and wine. After we consecrate the elements, that bread and wine has been changed forever and permanently and we no longer treat that bread and wine the same way: we store them in a tabernacle or an aumbrey, and we either ingest them or dispose of them respectfully into the earth, we don’t dump them into the sewer.

Another example of the incarnational nature of God’s presence is clear when we examine our theology surrounding ordination to the priesthood: we believe that once someone has been made a priest by the one, holy, apostolic Church, their priesthood can ever be erased: their very essence is in some way changed and made new, an indelible mark has been made, and so they do not merely function as priests, they ARE priests, and no Bishop or church can take that away. A Bishop can certainly tell them not to serve as a priest and prohibit them from offering the sacraments or ministering, but priestly ordination in the Anglican tradition can never be reversed or removed. The same is true of all the baptized: baptism is not something anyone can ever take away from you, you have been indelibly marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit as Christ’s own forever. So we have these two planes, always working together.

Now notice: God does not ask us if we want to be loved, God just loves us. Much the way a parent loves a child, whether they want that love or not. And sometimes we don’t desire that benevolent love, especially when that love leads us down a path we may not want, but that we desperately need. What a blessing to be loved that much, even if we are kicking and screaming.

Actions speak louder than words and in Christ, God acted. In Jesus’ death on the cross, God exposed both our sinfulness because we put God there, and simultaneously exposed God’s love for us in spite of it. In the cross we see humanity at its’ very worst: here we are crucifying God. While simultaneously we see God’s love as its’ deepest: God suffers and dies willingly to conquer sin and death, and to demonstrate that God’s love knows no bounds. God so loved the entire world, the whole kosmos, that all falls within God’s loving embrace. There is nothing you can do to get outside the kosmos, and there is nothing you can do to get yourself beyond God’s love. Jesus came, not to condemn, but to save. And God invites our faith filled response in return: just as the Israelites, who were bitten by poisonous snakes, but were healed the moment they looked upon the bronze serpent on the staff that Moses held, so all of us who look up to the cross of Christ in the hope of redemption are healed. God has done all the hard work and desires us to simply look up in faith. And each time we do that, we are healed and transformed…we are born from above, again and again.

The Lent I invite you to look at the cross frequently, to meditate on it, and see in it God’s love for you, the healing love which saves us time and time again. If we do that, then I know at Easter we will feel like brand new people, reborn: because we are. Thanks be to God.

Sharing the Message in the Midst of Temptation

2011-03-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

Lent I: Christian Practice #10: Share the Message
Text: Matthew 4:1-11

Today as we are just beginning Lent, we also conclude the preaching series we’ve been doing from our Guide to Christian Practices with our final, tenth, but very important practice, “Share the Message.” The message, of course, is the Gospel itself. And remember that word Gospel means “Good News” or “God’s Story.” Your story in absolutely part of God’s story. We all have our own “Gospel” to write, our own message of Good News. I will never forget a statement that has stayed with me over the years from one of my favorite elderly seminary professors, who was an acclaimed archeologist and Biblical scholar as she whispered to us in class one day, “Maybe the most important Gospel… is the one that you write with your life!”

So we are called to share The Message. How do you share the Message? Wait….let’s back up a step though, first we should ask: What message are you sharing? What message are you sharing with your family? Friends? Neighbors? Those you encounter in public? Because we are always sharing a message, whether in our words or our deeds. Is our message primarily good news or bad news? And, like my professor said, our lives themselves are likely the most important Gospels to those around us. Some will never pick up a Bible, but they will “read” the message of your life.

Remember the famous words of St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

So, our lives are always preaching a message of some kind. Unfortunately, the temptations of life, as our Collect reminds us, are “many.” And one of the biggest temptations you and I face are not the temptations to do horrendous evils. No, we are tempted, like Jesus was in his encounter with Satan, to do less with our lives, than God has for us. In fact, we more often tempted by the “good” instead of the “better,” that is, God’s great desire and will for us.

Voltaire said, “The good is the enemy of the best.” This is never more clear than in our Gospel story today when Satan uses the “good” to try and tempt Jesus. Satan’s first temptation of Jesus is: “Command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Now certainly, since Jesus had been fasting for 40 days and nights, there would be a tremendous temptation to give in and eat something. But I think the temptation is much deeper than appeasing Jesus’ immediate hunger. In fact, some theologians have said that this is Satan actually tempting Jesus to use his power to end world hunger. With a snap of the fingers, stones could become bread and everyone could have their fill. That’s quite a “good” temptation, isn’t it? Yet Jesus resists. And then that second temptation, “Throw yourself down” …so that the angels can “catch you,” is maybe not just for Jesus’ sake, but taking it another step it can be seen as the temptation to use shows of power to sway and influence people. It’s another “good” temptation. Yet Jesus resists. And then the final temptation from Satan is the promise to be given all the kingdoms of the world by simply bowing to Satan. Satan is willing to give up dominion of the world and give it all over to Jesus. Just imagine if Jesus had dominion over the kingdoms and nations of the world, how different would the world be? This temptation can be seen then, as using political power and authority to liberate humanity. But all of these Jesus rejects…they are, perhaps, good things, in and of themselves, in a vacuum, but in the end, they are all enemies of the best. Jesus’ calling was much higher than these: Jesus was ultimately called to bring about spiritual and eternal liberation to humanity past, present, and future, through his suffering, death, and resurrection. All of the other temptations that Satan posits may have benefited the people affected by it at that moment in time, but it would not have changed the world for all people throughout all time. It was not God’s ultimate plan of redemption.

If you have ever read the book or seen the controversial film the “Last Temptation of Christ,” you know the real temptation that Satan proposes to Jesus is not something that most of us would consider evil or bad…it was simply to end Jesus’ suffering on the cross, to get married and become a father and have an ordinary life. The temptation is to be a good man and have a nice life like most Jewish men of the time. In a vacuum, that action could be called “good” but given who Jesus is and who Jesus is called to be, this “good” is absolutely the enemy of the “best,” because it means that Jesus does not die on the cross, and does not complete his mission of reconciling humanity to God on the cross as the Savior of the world.

The German Jesuit Alfred Delp, who was executed by the Nazis, once wrote: “Bread is important, freedom is more important, but most important of all is unbroken fidelity and faithful adoration.” When you look at your life, can you say that you are living out the call God has for you? Are you preaching, by your life, actions, and words, God’s story? Or your own? Or someone else’s? Check the “good” that beckons and tempts you, and pray with an open heart to discern if God has something even better, so that the “good” never pulls you away from the best.

Because “Maybe the most important Gospel… is the one that you write with your life!”

Christian Practice #9: Serve Others

2011-03-09T14:28:00.001-08:00

Text: Matthew 17:1-9, The Transfiguration

Last year the Vestry surveyed the leadership and a variety of representatives from our congregation in what is called a “Mutual Ministry Review.” In that review members rated, among other things, our strengths and weaknesses as a congregation. The primary weakness and complaint that was received above others from that review was that we lacked the volunteers we needed to fully accomplish our ministry. Even though we have seen a rise in attendance in worship, there is still a big gap in terms of service and involvement beyond that.

With Lent nearly here, starting this Wednesday with Ash Wednesday, this is the time to prepare and decide on a Lenten discipline. What will you give up? What will you take on? Hopefully the practices of Lent will enrich the rest of your year and will ultimately carry you more deeply into your spiritual life and your relationship with the Lord. Our ninth practice from our Guide to Christian Practices is “Serve Others.” I’d like everyone to consider this practice more deeply as we enter Lent, given the feedback we received in our ministry review.

I think we are all, like Peter in our Gospel lesson from Matthew, tempted to set up camp, basically pitch our tents on the mountaintops of our lives, be that in worship or wherever we experience God. Peter, James and John had hiked up a high mountain to be alone with Jesus and had this amazing spiritual experience of Jesus’ transformation and seeing Moses and Elijah. Peter decided that this was the ultimate and was ready to camp there indefinitely. But this wasn’t what was meant to be and Jesus had to bring them all back down the mountain after that mystical experience, to go do what they were meant to do as servants of God. This event on the mountaintop occurred right before Jesus’ final days, when he would soon face betrayal, arrest, beating, the crucifixion and death. This was essential to Jesus’ life and ministry, this was the work God had given him to do. The transfiguration was a necessary preparation for the hard work of this ministry. Like Jesus and the disciples, we too have to make our way down the mountain to do the work of ministry and serve others.

Serving others can take so many forms, but it is something we’re all called to do and it is an essential part of the Christian life, even if it is not fashionable within our culture, where self-centered rules the day. And we have many so many opportunities to serve every day, and even right here at St. Alban’s.

In our 2009 Stewardship Time and Talent Survey the Vestry and I identified a number of service opportunities in the areas of Adult Education, Children & Youth Ministry, Communications, Church Governance, Finance, Fundraising & Fellowship, Hospitality, Human Resources, Pastoral Care, Outreach, Property, Stewardship, and Worship. Does anyone want to guess how many individual opportunities for service and ministry we identified? (95) That’s nearly 100 things you could do to serve others, just at St. Alban’s alone. Don’t let that overwhelm you though.

We don’t need you doing 100 things, as we discussed at our Vestry retreat last week, we just need every member, which is over 100 adults, to commit to about 2 things beyond morning worship, and then we would have all the volunteers and help we need to really thrive in our current ministries and make a difference, far beyond what we’re doing today.

So some examples: You could join and be committed to the Choir & Coffee Hour, or Sunday School and the Lenten Study, or being a Money Counter and a Sewing Sister, or do bake sales and Vacation Bible School or serve on Vestry and the Worship Remix, or the Prayer Chain and Stewardship, or the Refugee Ministry and the Altar Guild. The possibilities go on and on, and we haven’t even begun to talk about things we could do to serve beyond the ministries that are here at St. Alban’s.

My concern is that too many of us are getting stuck on the mountaintops and not making our way back down the mountain to serve regularly, in a committed way.

On the one hand, I want to say with Peter, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” It IS good for us to be here together on Sunday mornings as a community and it essential to us as members of Christ’s Body. At the same time, we have to hold out the vision of what our lives are meant to be in God’s eyes, way beyond this morning.

A Rector I used to work with always dismissed the congregation by saying, “This service has ended, your service has begun” to which we yelled, “Thanks be to God!” and I would chuckle because it sounded like we were thanking God that the worship service was finally over, but in reality, we should be grateful that, having been fed here with one another’s presence and in the Eucharist, we can leave and get back out into the world to serve. Archbishop William Temple once said: “The church is the only organization in the world that exists solely for the benefit of its non-members.“ Let me repeat that: “The church is the only organization in the world that exists solely for the benefit of its non-members.”

We do tend to get that backwards, including me: we tend to think that the church exists just for us, who are here. But when we fall into that trap, we are totally missing Jesus’ entire life, ministry, and message. The Church’s life, like Christ’s, is lived totally and completely for the wider world, in order to reconcile all people to the love of God. We do not exist as a church for our own benefit, even though there are many benefits to being a part of the Church.

It is good for us to be here. It is even better for us to be here and out there, down the mountain, serving others, because we are Christ’s hands in the world.

Practice #8: Give Freely

2011-03-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

It’s confession time: giving freely is by far the hardest of all the Christian Practices in our guide for me. I was raised in a home where scarcity was the constant mentality, even though we lived fairly comfortably. From a young age I had to work hard to get my small allowance that I had to use to buy all my own necessities like shoes, clothing, school supplies, and even my daily lunch at school. I was not automatically given these things, but had to earn them every week, so I had to budget very carefully, which meant I often skipped meals if there was something else I needed that week or that month. In high school I had to work an outside job so I could afford to drive and in college I had to pay my own way. In fact, while away at college, I’m proud of the fact that I was never sent even one dollar from my parents towards my day to day living expenses, I had to support myself completely with odd jobs. While it taught me to be very responsible growing up, this meant that I was always left in the position of never feeling safe, or like I had enough. I had to go without and sometimes went hungry. In seminary and grad school I earned scholarships to help pay my way, but in the summer, when student housing closed, I found myself temporarily homeless a few times, having to stay with friends and family, and feeling excessively stressed about it. I know I did not have it that bad, in fact, I was actually very fortunate in comparison to many others, but it did create anxiety for me around money from a young age.

The good thing is that I’ve learned to be content with little and I know how to budget and stick to it. The bad thing is that I really struggle to let go of the worry I carry around about maybe not having enough, never knowing if there will be a financial crisis up ahead, and I struggle to be generous and truly “give freely,” as if I can’t break out of the needy mentality. Maybe some of you can relate. I find though, that this fear has held me hostage. It’s hard to be the “cheerful giver” I long to be because anxiety rushes over me when it comes to giving. I’m the type of person that has to think long and hard about spending even $10 on something I had not planned for ahead.

Jesus’ words then in our Gospel are both comforting and challenging when he says, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” I love this passage, but I also find it so hard to apply.

There’s an old song by Carol Owens that goes, ‘'Freely, freely, you have received. Freely, freely give.” Our eighth practice, “Give Freely” and is inspired by these words. Please know that Jesus is not giving us some glib comment though, like “Don’t worry, be happy.” This word “worry” in the Greek means to be preoccupied or absorbed by something. It is too easy to let the preoccupations of this life and our needs narrow our focus, until we find ourselves in worry’s grip. Jesus wants more for us than that.

Of course, not worrying doesn’t mean that we should be irresponsible or not work hard. It simply means that in the final analysis, we are not to allow ourselves to be gripped by worry and fear about our daily needs, because life is far too important for that and our time on earth is meant for much, much bigger things. We don’t need to worry because God, who cares for the birds and the lilies, cares for us, so that we can care about more important things…like the kingdom of God.

This past Thursday a homeless couple came to the office to get some food cards. They were unusually joyful and positive. I asked the young man about his situation and he said, “Well, we just moved back here from Arizona because a job we thought we had fell through.” “Oh, I’m so sorry” I said, meaning it. He smiled and said to me, “Oh don’t be sorry, even though we’re homeless, God is still taking good care of us and I’m learning a lot about what it means to depend on God now. I never knew what homelessness was like, but I see now that God is good even in the midst of it.” This young man was teaching me about letting go and not worrying, even in the midst of what most of us would consider to be one of the worst crises we could imagine.
Like this young man, if we could really see all that God has given us and is already doing for us, how we have freely received so much; it would help us to freely give. I am inspired by what I believe is one of the most profound prayers ever spoken, a prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. They are words I aspire to. Part of what he says in that prayer is this: “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive.”

In this prayer we are taken one step further: not only do we give freely because we have received so much from God, but we give because we receive so much back when we do. (And I don’t mean we get a new car or a bigger house…I mean we get blessed in deeper ways, we get the treasure that lasts, not the stuff that rusts.) As Jesus said, it IS more blessed to give than to receive.

The question we must settle between us and God then, is how and in what ways we will give. The primary means by which a Christian gives back to God is through their church in a weekly, monthly, or annual pledge and donations. Beyond that we ought to be giving to others in need and to those causes that God puts on our hearts. And while it’s easy to make excuses not to give to strangers begging from us, it is hard to ignore Jesus’ words from last week’s Gospel lesson, “Give to everyone who begs from you.” There’s not much wiggle room in that, so we have to figure out how to live that call out. Maybe we don’t have much to give, but we all have something we can give. Some of our regular homeless visitors have come to the church and given me a gift they said they didn’t need. Some of our refugees will cook and bring me food for me from time to time. I have an angel mug that I use with my morning tea that was found and washed and then lovingly given to me by a homeless friend here in El Cajon. As a church, the pastoral account is set aside for charitable purposes and there are at least two parishioners that give faithfully to it now every month, in addition to the small monthly funding we get from our budget (because it is a totally separate bank account). Those donations fund the food cards we give away to the hungry and help others in need to pay for utility or medical bills or a motel room when it’s too cold or they’re sick. If you are uncomfortable giving away cash, you can give something to the pastoral account and then invite those who ask for your help to visit our office to get a food card. Another strategy, instead of giving away cash, is to simply carry food cards to local grocery stores or restaurants with you. One thing I do now is to keep a box of soft granola bars in my car to hand to the men and women who stand on the street at the intersections. They always receive it with a big “thank you” and “God bless.”

In giving freely, or asking God to help you to begin to learn give freely, you will find that blessings will return to you. That’s something I’m starting to learn, even if I had to get there kicking and screaming. Give freely, because we’ve received freely and you will be blessed abundantly today and into eternity.

Christian Practice #7: Engage in Community

2011-02-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

Today we read in Leviticus 19:18 this: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”If this sounds familiar to you, it is probably because Jesus lifts this up verse from Leviticus as the second the greatest commandment ever given, which he says is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

We are prone to ask, “Who is my neighbor?” just as the lawyer did when Jesus spoke these words to him. Jesus responds to that question with the story of the Good Samaritan…and the neighbor in that story turns out be someone completely different from us, a stranger, and even a natural enemy by race or religion.

Who might qualify as our natural enemies today, who are actually our neighbors? Muslims perhaps? People from other countries, especially countries where we are at war? People on the opposite side of the political fence from us?

And what if those very people move in next door and become our actual neighbors? Or what if they come to our church and become a part of our community here at St. Alban’s?

Well, let’s be clear: We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s not easy, it’s even a little scary, but we are to do it anyway, because this is the way of the one who would follow God in Christ. Leviticus flushes out for us some of the tangible ways we would love our neighbor: we will make sure they have enough to eat if they are in need “You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.” We will not steal, lie, defraud, slander, be unjust, or show partiality. Interestingly, among the things we are to do includes “reproving” our neighbor…that’s tough love, not just the warm fuzzies. The list could go on, but making sure they have what they need to survive is up at the top.

About a year and a half ago I was approached by a Church in the North County that was seeking worship space on behalf of one of their church plants here in El Cajon, where a large body of mainline Christians from Iraq were gathering and growing. As I spoke with the young Anglo pastor who was assisting them, I learned that they had approached every church in El Cajon and that we were among the last they had asked. They had been turned down by every church to date. When I asked the pastor why no one was able to accommodate them, he said that it was a combination of reasons…like a lack of space, but also because they were from Iraq and most churches expressed a lot of discomfort about that. I responded by saying, “Yes, but these are Christian brothers and sisters, many of whom were driven out and persecuted because of their faith and viewed as American sympathizers in their own country.” “Nevertheless,” the pastor said, “no one wants them at their church.”

When I spoke to our Vestry about it, they agreed that we should be willing to open our doors to these Christians in El Cajon. And in that moment, that was an act of your Vestry to love our neighbors. While the group did find another, secular location to meet, they expressed gratitude that at least one church had been willing to say, “yes” to them in El Cajon.

Most of you know that we continue to assist refugees from all over the globe who have been sent here to El Cajon, primarily to those from Burma, but also people from the Sudan and Iraq. Many receive food and your monthly donation items every Tuesday morning from our wonderful refugee ministry volunteers, in conjunction with the Episcopal Refugee Network. One Tuesday morning, someone who works for the ERN, asked me a question with great concern in her eyes. She said, “Is it okay with you that others know that we are helping refugees from Iraq?” “Yes,” I said, “Why do you ask that?” “Because,” she said, “Someone from another church told me that we should keep that a secret because its’ not good PR, but I disagree with that.” At that point my jaw dropped. (And just to be clear, we will never keep a secret the fact that we are doing what Scripture and our Lord calls us to do in feeding the hungry in our community. I don’t care if it’s bad PR, Jesus didn’t care about that and neither will we.)

We here at St. Alban’s are one part of the larger global Christian community. We are all members of Christ’s Body and we are all God’s children, no matter where we come from. We are equal members as well, whether we are from Ireland or the Sudan, from England or Iraq, from Germany or Burma. And one of the things I truly value and treasure is that we are an open community to people of all cultures. I love looking out upon our community gathered on Sundays and seeing people from all over the world together, one in Christ. I pray that will always be true of St. Alban’s, where “everyone is equipped to share and celebrate God’s love” as our Mission states. That statement is hanging above the entrance to our church building and behind you overhead, as we exit the church, thanks to Dick and Jill Walter. What a tangible reminder!

Our seventh Christian practice in our “Guide to Christian Practices” is “engage in community.” What that means in this context, is to invest yourself in the people here in the St. Alban’s community. Be present to one another, that includes worship, but come and be a part of community events that go beyond worship as well… like our upcoming Pancake Supper, our Maundy Thursday agape meal, and our adult education opportunities like our Lenten Study. There are opportunities throughout the year. Fellowship is not a luxury of the church, it is a necessity to our health and well being, both spiritually and emotionally. We are called, as a community, to carry one another’s burdens and share each other’s joys: how can we do that if we opt out of the very opportunities to get to know one another more deeply?

Today we live in a very isolated and individualized culture in the US. We are more mobile than ever and many of us live far away from friends and family, we often don’t even know the people who live next door to us. While online communities offer some level of support, through things like Facebook and email listservs, we cannot substitute online community for real life person to person and face to face community. We need one another, our fellow brothers and sister in Christ.

Something I hope we will focus on in the coming year is to start small groups here at St. Alban’s. This will be yet another way to connect with one another and share more deeply in each other’s lives and to ultimately fulfill the call to love our neighbors as ourselves. I am grateful for all of you and for the gift of THIS community in Christ.

Christian Practice #6: Worship Weekly

2011-02-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

Text: Matthew 5:21-37. Theme: Worship Weekly

Our lives follow along certain rhythms and patterns, and these rhythms keep us in harmony with one another and with creation. There are the four seasons, which although subtle in Southern California, are still present and necessary. We move along monthly rhythms in our calendar, just as there are monthly patterns to our planets and the moon. We also follow along a weekly rhythm, seven days with a God-ordained day of rest each week. Our days too follow daily patterns of waking, eating, and sleeping, along with the earth’s turning to face the sun and away again, light and dark, day and night. Our liturgical calendar follows annual patterns and rhythms that are in harmony with the seasons and days. And gathering at least once weekly for communal worship is an ancient tradition that has carried humanity through the millennia.

I grew up in a home where on Sundays we went to worship. It’s just what we did, it was a family pattern. As a child it became a habit and I looked forward to it. When I was a teenager, I wanted nothing more than to sleep in on Sundays and my parents eventually let me make that choice. I stopped going to church for several years, as so many teens and young adults do. But still, I felt as if I was missing something…my week was just “off.” Eventually that pattern and habit of weekly worship caught up with me again in young adulthood and I found it sustained me.

When we take a broad look at our lives, we see many patterns of living, and the habits we take on ultimately define us. Socrates said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” What is it that you repeatedly do?

One of the most common habits that we all engage in occurs in the way we think. Those things we fill our minds with…images, thoughts, self-talk… and with repetition those are the very things we become. The Christian psychologist David Stoop wrote an entire book about this entitled, “You Are What You Think.” What do you think about? What do you say to yourself about yourself? About others? About God? You are what you think. You are what you repeatedly do.

If, for example, you tell yourself every day that you are worthless, you will begin to believe that and then you will, in fact, become worthless…your actions will bear this out and actually become reality. On the other hand, if you tell yourself every day that you are valuable, you will eventually believe it and then you, in fact, will do, be and act in ways that are of great value. Someone once said, “Thought is action in rehearsal.”

I think Jesus is telling us the same thing in today’s Gospel…that our thoughts are actions in rehearsal, and that’s why they’re so important. If we get familiar, habituated, and comfortable with having angry and hateful thoughts towards someone day in and day out, it can eventually become absolutely murderous and we, perhaps, don’t even know it or feel it, or we may even excuse ourselves by saying we did not “do” anything. No, we didn’t do anything, but our thoughts are actions in rehearsal and they do alter reality, particularly when they become habit.

Jesus says we do the same when it comes to sexual immorality, we can be guilty of it just by our thoughts. So, just as our thoughts about ourselves over time can become self-fulfilling prophecies, so can our thoughts about others. And the fact is, we cannot claim to be totally innocent when we sin in our thoughts, even if our actions seem otherwise blameless. This is why the Book of Common Prayer leads us in confession by saying, ““we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”

What’s interesting about what Jesus is saying, is that on some level, his words totally level the playing field. Because if we apply righteousness to that which goes beyond action and extend it to what we think, then none of us can boast about being righteous, because all of us are guilty for something we’ve thought. Forget distinctions between the righteous and sinners! We’re all in the same boat.

Jesus goes on to say that we ultimately have to “blind” our eyes to that which causes us to sin. Jesus uses hyperbole here to get our attention and to drive home the seriousness of it. And it rattles us. But it really is better to go without a limb than to allow it to beat and hurt another person day and day out. And, frankly, “hell” can be experienced in the here and now, as those caught up in domestic violence or other forms of abuse know.

What we must do with this difficult passage then, is to ask where these words of warning from Jesus lead us? Jesus and Scriptures themselves use a number of different tactics to lead us all to the same place…and they are all leading us to the throne of grace. Once we see our sin, we realize that only the gift of grace can make us whole. And what better place to enter into grace than in communal worship?

Worship does something invaluable in transforming our hearts and minds. In confession together we find forgiveness and renewal. In communal prayer we find Christ present to us as a body. In Communion and in the Sacraments we find abundant blessings and the indwelling of Christ and God’s Spirit in our hearts, minds, and bodies. Worship reminds us that we are loved, we that we are of inestimable worth, it reminds us who we are in God, a precious child of God, loved so much that Jesus died to demonstrate it.

In worship we also recognize God for who God is: worthy of praise, adoration, and our devotion. Our lives take on a new meaning and perspective when we worship and praise the holy and almighty God of the universe who is greater than anything this world can throw at us. In worship we experience the transcendent and are lifted up beyond our present circumstances and into the One much greater than ourselves. Ultimately, a habit of weekly worship helps us to form new habits of thought and to replace the old, erroneous ones. Worship and the Sacraments have a truly sanctifying effect, and I don’t know about you, but I need that at least once a week. Sanctification is a grace and gift from God in making us holy. If we desire to be people of God, living a life of faith and growing in holiness, then weekly worship will be one of the habits that defines our lives. We are what we repeatedly do; may we choose habits of holiness.

Christian Practice #5: Study Scripture

2011-02-07T09:21:00.000-08:00

I grew up hearing popular children’s stories from the Bible, but when I re-dedicated my life to Christ in college, I realized I had very little knowledge of the actual contents of the Bible, like so many people today. After my second year of college I answered a call to go to Thailand and work with a native missionary family that I had befriended. The husband, a Thai pastor, told me that I needed to be ready to teach from the Bible as a Bible teacher when we visited the remote Lisu and Lahu hilltribe villages of Thailand. I protested, feeling totally inadequate for such a task. But the pastor insisted that not only did I have much more education and knowledge just by virtue of being raised in America, but that God would help me. For several months I prepared by buying an easy to read Study Bible. I read that Bible voraciously every day and marked it up on every page. I took an overview of the Bible class at my church, and started reading commentaries along with the Bible. I focused on the New Testament, particularly the Gospels and Paul’s letters, and actually found that within just several months I had vastly increased my knowledge and understanding of the Bible. This was really the moment that I became a true student of the Bible, something that all Christians are called to be…I just needed that extra nudge.

I left for Thailand full of nervousness and excitement. I will never forget how inadequate I felt on my first trip in to a Lahu village to be a “Bible teacher” when I was barely 19 with only 2 years of junior college under my belt. To get to the village, we had to traverse into the mountains by foot for many miles in deep mud after the monsoons. The mud was so thick we had to take off our shoes and hang them around our necks. I wasn’t adept at walking up mountains barefoot in mud and everyone in the group passed me by. I was so slow and kept falling, and cutting up my feet on sharp objects. As I approached the village, just barely before nightfall, I saw people coming towards me and my heart sank when I realized how truly ridiculous I must appear: sweating profusely, totally worn out, my face, clothes, and hair plastered in mud (mind you no one else fell on the way or was covered in mud)…it was beyond embarrassing. Someone motioned to me and showed me to a bathroom, or at least what I thought was a bathroom: It was a tiny bamboo structure with a large hole dug into the ground and a little bucket of water. It was too dark to see much of anything but they handed me some clean, dry clothes to put on. I tried to change into the garment, some lovely colorful thing that the women of the village wore, but I had no idea how to put it on…it had no ties, buttons or zippers. After several failed attempts I finally just bunched it up into a knot around me, and with my face red with embarrassment, stepped out and sat next to the fire. There were a lot of giggles. I could now tell that I not only had the garment on wrong, but actually backwards. Some brilliant Bible teacher I was going to be!

I second guessed myself all night…I felt like such an imposter, what did I really know? I was just some ignorant college kid that didn’t know right from left in this culture. How could I even imagine that I could be a Bible teacher for these people? The Thai pastor and translator I was with was brilliant and spoke 8 languages while I was still working on “hello” and “thank you” in the Lahu language. The next day I went back over my Bible lessons and prayed as hard and as earnestly as I ever had for inspiration and understanding from God.

What happened surprised me: but the Bible came alive to me in a way it never had during that week. To this day I fully believe I experienced something supernatural, because it was as if the words and their meaning were being opened up to me in a way that was totally unrelated to my actual knowledge or intelligence, but purely from the Holy Spirit. The Bible actually became a page turner for me and I couldn’t put it down, reading late in the night by candlelight.

And when I finally taught, nerves and all, the words flowed smoothly, and insights jumped into my mind when I would otherwise have drawn a blank. Every day we were there, more and more people came to hear me and my two fellow teachers. By the end of the week, that little Lahu church was overflowing with students of all ages, standing along the walls and in aisles because there were no benches left. At the end of the week we baptized a dozen people in the river from this little village and they thanked us over and over and over again with tears and smiles. I learned then how much God can and does teach us when we read the Bible, when we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal its’ meaning to us.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” When Jesus speaks about the law and the prophets he is talking about what we as Christians refer to as the Old Testament, but what is known as the Torah and writings in Judaism. Jesus is simply talking about the Hebrew Scriptures, explaining that his purpose is to fulfill the Scriptures. Then he says something rather amazing. Jesus says, “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” The word used here for” jot” is “iota.” The iota is the smallest, tiniest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, it’s comparable to a dot on our letter “i.” The word iota is used by English speakers in the phrase, “I don’t give one iota about it.” In other words, we don’t care even the tiniest bit about something. Here Jesus is saying that until heaven and earth themselves pass away, not even one iota will pass from the Scriptures until all is accomplished. Scripture is so important and central to us as people of faith. Jesus’ whole life was lived fulfilling the words of the Bible and we are called to do the same. But how can we do that when we don’t really know what’s in the Bible? This is where our 5th basic practice from our Guide to Christian practices comes in: “Study Scripture.”

Jesus goes on to express how important it is to keep the commandments that we find in Scripture, and even more than that, to make sure that our “righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees.” I find that statement intimidating because the scribes and Pharisees knew way more about the Scriptures than I ever will. They also followed the letter of the law. But Jesus says we have to do one better than that. Not only should we know what the Scriptures contain and follow them, but we need to make sure we aren’t just going through the motions. We are called to move beyond just the law and really live out the Gospel’s call to love, grace, and compassion, by looking at the intention behind the commands. As Jesus points out elsewhere, it’s really not enough to say, “Well, I never killed anyone” when one’s heart is full of hatred and murder.

The point behind studying Scripture is certainly not be become a legalist, it is primarily in order to know God better. If and when we’re open to God’s Spirit, we can find ourselves transformed by this book, THE BOOK, the one that contains God’s words and The Word: Jesus. It’s interesting to me how people will flock to read a new book that claims to be divinely inspired or reveals some new, secret truth, when so many have never taken the time to really read and study the Bible.

Leading up to the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Bible had been taken away from the people. They could not read the Bible and were not even allowed to read it, in their own language, lest they misinterpret it. They had to wait to hear about the Bible from the Pope and the clergy. One of the reasons we Episcopalians are Protestants today and are not Roman Catholics, is because during the Reformation in England we claimed the Bible for the people, in the English language. People like John Wycliffe and John Hus were among the first in the world to translate, circulate the Bible in the English language and teach the importance of reading the Bible in one’ s own language, but they did so upon risk of death. Among the many that were killed during the reformation, John Hus was burned at the stake and it is said that Wycliffe’s English Bible manuscript was actually used as kindling for the fire.

When we walk into Borders bookstore today we have a plethora of English Bibles translations and types at our finger tips, and we rarely realize what it took for us to have that opportunity. People gave their lives so we could read and study the Bible for ourselves because it really is that important and central to our faith. “Study Scripture.”

If you new to the idea but willing to start studying Scripture, I have a few suggestions.

1. Get a translation you feel comfortable with (whether in print or online). We read the New Revised Standard Version in our service. However, even that can be heady, so you may want to start with something simpler like the Contemporary English Version, the Good News Bible, or even The Message. Avoid the King James version.

2. Get a Study or Student Bible or even just a basic Introduction to the Bible to use during your reading.

3. Read just a little bit of the Bible every day. You can read through the Bible in a year by reading just a few chapters every morning. Start by reading the Gospels and then work your way into rest of the letters of the New Testament.

4. Finally, before you ever open the Bible, pray for God’s Spirit to give you understanding and an open mind and heart. Then expect to really hear from God…because you will.

The Scriptures are truly a treasure worth seeking!

Rector's Sermon and 2010 Report

2011-01-31T09:40:00.000-08:00

Theme: "Pray Daily"

It is fitting that our Annual Meeting is today, the day that we examine our fourth practice, “Pray Daily,” because prayer is absolutely at the heart and center of everything we do together as a church. St. Alban’s wouldn’t have been founded, had it not been for prayer, it wouldn’t have lasted, had it not been for prayer, and we would not be here today, gathered as a church…the people of God in this place, had it not been for prayer. And each one of you sitting here…you would not have been here today had it not been for prayer, your own prayers and the prayers others have prayed for you.

Every single Sunday morning part of my morning prayers when I start the day, before I begin to get ready is this: “Lord, bring everyone you are calling to be at St. Alban’s today to worship. Help them to hear your call and to get to there, and then help us to reach out with the love of Jesus to everyone who walks through the door.” I believe God answers that prayer every single Sunday morning and when I see each of you, I know that you’re here for a reason, that God has called you here, whether it’s just for today or for a life time…you were called to be here now and our task is to make sure we recognize it in one another and reach out in Christ in response. And our worship itself is filled with prayer: this is our time to pray, not just as individuals, but corporately as a community gathered. In worship, our prayers are said in unison and it is an amazing privilege to be able to approach God’s throne in this way.

As I put together our Parish statistics for the Annual Report and reflected on 2010, I saw so clearly that our prayers have been answered in so many ways. This year has been like a testament to God’s faithfulness. Our Sunday attendance continued at a steady rate of between 80-90 people a Sunday, with an average of 86, while our weekly attendance with our Sunday and weekday services is now at an average of 100. We again had a year with many baptisms, which I believe is one of the most exciting and tangible signs of answered prayer and God’s presence among us. We baptized 14 people into Christ in 2010. Looking back at just the last three years, we have baptized 40 people, which I find remarkable for such a small church. I’ll never forget the first baptism I did at St. Alban’s three years ago because when I asked the Altar Guild to set up for the baptism, I was told that it had been so long since we had a baptism that they didn’t remember how to set up for it. Well, God has given them plenty of practice since then! Thanks be to God!

We also confirmed/received 7 people into the Episcopal Church this year and our baptisms and confirmations are at the same rate as some of the largest churches in our Diocese…and that too can only be God in answer to our prayers.

St. Alban’s has also been active in discerning, praying for, and sponsoring one of our members who is discerning a call to the priesthood. Mike Stone has recently been accepted into the aspirancy process by the Diocese and will seek to move into the next step of Postulancy with the Diocese this March. Congratulations Mike…our prayers are with you in your continued discernment!

We can also see God’s answers to our prayers when we look at the goals that we set at our Vestry Retreat at the beginning of the year. Amazingly, we have reached those goals, most notably the completion of our Prayer Garden, a successful Capital Campaign, the completion of our “Guide to Christian Practices,” and the start of a new worship service. It’s been a busy year but God has been faithful and has heard our prayers.

And then there are those answers to prayer in our church that seem more miraculous than anything: the total recovery of a number of our parishioners from major surgeries this past year, or the raising of nearly $35,000 for our capital campaign in our small and humble church during one of the worst recessions in our history, or the amazing dedication of the band of volunteers, both youth and adult, lead by Mike Stone and Mike Park to re-roof our Parish Hall, or the large and generous anonymous donations that came in just when we needed it most to complete the roofing of our church and install our new sound system. Every single one of these items was covered in prayer, and those prayers were answered in ways we could not have imagined at the time.

The ongoing outreach that St. Alban’s does with a small group of volunteers for the homeless with our homeless meals at Wells Park, and the Kenya Kids, and our refugee ministry, continues to move forward by the power of prayer. We partner with the Episcopal Refugee Network and with our Presbyterian neighbors across the street to provide food and basic necessities every Tuesday morning to about 30 refugee families a week. Every month, as I have posted a call for donation items for our refugees…be it toilet paper or soap or toothpaste, the donations have come pouring in. Not a month goes by without generous donations for our refugees. On Mondays this year we started offering tutoring in the afternoon to refugee children with the ERN and a number of our parishioners volunteer with this as well. And today we will be commissioning Joy Knight, who spends so many hours of her week in volunteer service to our refugee families, as our “Coordinator for Refugee Ministry.” Our very own Moothaw was hired this year as translator by the Episcopal Refugee Network, and Betty Johnsen, SharonKay Fasso, and Joy Knight have participated on the Board of Trustees of the Network, so our ties with the Network continue to deepen as another part of Christ’s Body and our Diocese in San Diego. Joy and our other faithful refugee ministry volunteers can only do their ministry with all of our help and support and prayers.

On the subject of outreach I have some more good news to share with you: just before the New Year came, we received a very generous anonymous donation for the purpose of forging an even closer relationship with our ministry in Kenya and the Kenya Kids. This donation was specifically requested to be used to send Joy Knight, who has worked closely for the last several years with Hannah and the Kenya Kids, to Kenya this summer, to visit Hannah and the 18 children we sponsor. Joy will likely be going in August and I know much fruit will come of this special mission trip. I also know we’ll want to send a whole suitcase full of donations to the kids along with her and I’m already feeling excited to see the photos and hear the stories she will bring back.

It is incredible to stand back for just a moment and realize what our little church is doing to change the world, with God’s help. This year has been a testament to God’s faithfulness in answering prayers here at St. Alban’s, and all of you, who have each been called to be here, are a part of that. Thank you so much, every one of you. It takes us all. What you give and what you do now will last far beyond your lifetime and into generations to come. While praying daily is as essential to us as breathing as Christians, we are a community who can witness to the power of God among us because of prayer and your response to the still small voice of God.

I give thanks to God for each of you, and I give thanks to God for so many wonderful, answered prayers. Pray every day my friends, in big and little ways, in breath prayers and in long heartfelt prayers, in any way that connects you to God and God’s presence, because prayer still has the power to change you and it has the power to change the world. Thanks be to God!

The Christian Practices #3: Embrace Forgiveness

2011-01-24T09:06:00.000-08:00

The word “repent” can make our skin crawl. Whenever I hear it I think of the various people who have shouted this word at me on street corners and how frustrating that feels. And I envision a man with a sandwich board on the sidewalk that reads, “REPENT” along with an odd rant based on conspiracy theories scribbled underneath it. To say that this word does not carry a positive connotation for most of us would probably be an understatement. And yet, that word is right here in our text, staring at us, coming from Jesus himself no less. Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And when we hear this, we may think it is some kind of angry, dire warning. And then we are missing the point.

I really like the way The Message (the very contemporary translation of the Bible that we’re using in our new Sunday evening service) translates and interprets this verse. In the Message Jesus’ words are: “Change your life. God's kingdom is here." That’s better because the word “repent” here is a Greek word, “metanoia,” that means literally “to change one’s mind for the better” and carries the idea of simply turning around, like making a U-Turn.

That visual is a helpful one because when I lived in Ohio, U-Turns were illegal. Being a California native, I didn’t know this at first until a very nervous passenger pointed it out to me one day right after I had made one. I was aghast and said, “How could people possibly live without U-Turns!?” Not only are they helpful in getting around those center dividers, but they are absolutely essential when one is lost. Repentance to me is like this: You head out to go some place new, and at some point along the way, you realize that your GPS or Google maps has given you bad directions and that you’ve passed your location and are going the wrong way. Instead of continuing to head in the wrong direction, you find the nearest intersection and make a U-Turn and get yourself headed back in the right direction.

And really, our lives are a lot like car rides. At times we are headed in the right direction and are well on our way to reaching our destination, which is in God and God’s will for our lives. But at other times we get bad directions from somewhere…either from what someone else has told us or due to our own poor choices and we either pass God by or get headed in the wrong direction entirely (away from God and God’s will for us). But usually, and hopefully, we realize the mistake before it’s too late. And once we realize it, we simply need to change our direction…in other words, we need to make a U-Turn. That’s “repentance.”

Our theme today is Practice #3 in our Guide to Christian Practices called “Embrace Forgiveness.” The key to forgiveness is connected to practices #1 & 2: Follow Jesus and search our hearts. Once we have done that, we discover whether or not we’re heading the right direction and whether we need to adjust our course. ..and we ALL need to adjust our course throughout our lives in big and little ways. Repenting is saying, “Okay God, I see the direction I need to go in now, help me get turned around and get there.” It is NOT brow beating and shaming and guilting and all the other ugliness that has so frequently been put on to this concept. We may feel contrition or sorry for going the wrong way for a time, but any repentance should be immediately followed by the grace and knowledge that we are forgiven. As the guide says, “in doing so, God is faithful and just to forgive us and wipe away our sins, restoring us to new life.”

And here is where we can read Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew in a broader context and hear the light and liberation attached to them. Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." The Kingdom of heaven has truly come near in Jesus, who is God with us, and this is no less than the fantastic and joyful fulfillment of our reading from Isaiah: “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned." You see, repentance can never be understood in a vacuum by itself, it is always connected to the Kingdom of heaven, where we are lead out of our darkness and into God’s great light and where we move out of the shadow of death and into the dawn of loving forgiveness. This is the Gospel, the “Good News” of Jesus’ presence among us. It’s good all the way through.

So contrary to repentance being a two by four hitting us over the head (although sometimes we need that), this is actually a joyful and wonderful part of being a Christian. We are no longer constrained by our bad choices, we have a way “out” of the traps we get ourselves into and there is always the possibility of a U-Turn in Christ (unlike in Ohio). So…let’s say we have put our Christian faith into practice and have decided to follow Jesus, search our hearts, and found the repentance that leads to forgiveness for every stupid or wrong-headed thing we have done. Know that those past deeds are completely gone to God’s mind. We are totally forgiven 100%...there’s no “hangers on” when it comes to forgiveness from God.

But now, just as we have been forgiven, we must forgive others. Remember, as the guide says, forgiveness does not mean excusing or forgetting though. Forgiveness simply means letting go of our bitterness, resentment and the need to seek revenge and giving that person and their actions over to God to handle. I know we think we can or should handle them ourselves, but it’s simply not true, nor is it good or helpful to us to try. For some reason we can be stubborn and believe that holding on to unforgiveness is going to somehow “right” the wrong. But it can’t and it won’t and it only hurts us. I know this from experience!

And here’s a key point: we must forgive not because the OTHER person deserves it (heck, they don’t), we must forgive because God has forgiven us (and we didn’t deserve it either). The Kingdom of Heaven has come near, and we can no longer continue down that old road in the wrong direction, because the light has shined upon us and brought us out of the shadow of death. Now we are FREE to forgive, when before, we could not. Unforgiveness towards ourselves or towards others is no more than a self-made spiritual prison. But Jesus has given us the key to get out. As Christians, we are called to forgive as we have been forgiven every day. Practice the embrace of forgiveness and you will find deep liberation and freedom in your heart, mind, and soul.

And perhaps the next time somebody yells at you to “repent!” on the street corner and your ire begins to surface, you can think, “I have and I’ve already been forgiven and I forgive you too!”

The Christian Practices: "Search Our Hearts”

2011-01-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

As a young adult in my early twenties I became interested in what is known as the “Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.” These weren’t exercises like physical fitness, but exercises, meditations for one’s soul. St. Ignatius was a Spanish knight who was seriously injured n battle and during recovery had a spiritual conversion experience and then became a priest and founded the Jesuit religious order in the early 1500’s. At the monastery he developed a 4 week program of meditations that the monks and later visitors from all around would undertake. Even today you can go to programs that focus on these exercises, or you can buy a book about them and do them yourself. But central to these exercises is what is called “self-examination.” For those who practice the Ignatian spiritual exercises every day, many follow a shortened version of simply spending some time, morning and evening, doing a recollection of the day, inviting God to reveal anything to you that you need to see, confess, celebrate, or pray about.

This particular exercise has stayed with me throughout the years and most mornings I spend several minutes of prayer with this question: “Is there anything I need to see God? Please show me.” Sometimes nothing comes to mind, most of the time a few minor things come to mind, and then every once in awhile, something huge is brought to my mind, something that totally changes me. (I think God has to work quickly with me though because I’m so impatient and don’t spend too much time if nothing surfaces rather soon.) A few months ago something big hit me during this time, something I think I had been resisting to really see or admit to for awhile. God showed me that I had built a wall, a wall of pain and anger, and that it was keeping me from loving fully in my closest relationships including my relationship with God. Once I saw that wall in my mind’s eye, I began to weep, not only because I realized how much it had distanced me from those I loved, but because I realized God was going to help me tear down that wall and bring me freedom and liberation. I asked God to do that for me right then and the wall came crashing down and I felt better and closer to God than I had in many, many months. I was so grateful for this practice and honesty between God and I and grateful for the forgiveness and healing that came as a result of it. It would have taken me a lot longer for me to see this if I hadn’t made room for God to show me. It’s the same for all of us.

Today we are continuing our sermon series on the “Christian Practices” based on the pamphlet the Vestry and I have offered to all our members and to our future newcomers (please get a copy if you don’t have one yet on the table in the foyer). Today’s practice is “Search Our Hearts.” It speaks of self examination and describes the wording for this used by those in recovery programs in the 12 Steps as "making a searching and fearless moral inventory.” In this practice, we do make a searching and, God willing, fearless inventory of ourselves before God. As Christians we are called to do this regularly, if not daily, and again in preparation of our hearts before worship, which is always good time to ask God if there’s anything you need to see. Sometimes we will see ways in which God’s grace is working in our lives or around us and we are drawn to celebrate. Other times we will see the ways we have hurt others or failed and will be brought to confession and the reception of forgiveness. And sometimes we just see simply see something in a new way. Regardless, this practice is basic to our continuing growth as Christians and it is assumed we will engage in it regularly.

John Wesley, the Anglican priest who founded the Methodist tradition, and his wife Susanna, used to sit down with their children (of which they had 19!!) every week and ask each one a question: “How is it with your soul?” That question is really the basis on which we are called to search our hearts. “How is it with my soul?” We can do this privately with God, at church, with a friend, or with a spiritual director or clergy person. But we should do it regularly in different ways.

One reason we resist this practice is that we are actually fearful of what God might reveal to us. And while sometimes what we learn is painful, I promise that if it is from God, if we can accept it, it is always for our best and will ultimately bring healing, release, and joy. The reason we don’t have to fear it, is because in Jesus we have, as John the Baptist proclaimed in our Gospel lesson today, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” You and I are included in that ‘world’ part. Nothing that we’ve done or that may be revealed is outside of God’s mercy, everything is covered in the mercy and compassion we find in Christ, the Lamb of God. This practice empowers us to fulfill our first practice as well, which is to follow Jesus.

Notice in the Gospel it states, “The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" (Aha! Getting them to search their hearts!) They said to him, "Rabbi" …"where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.”

Jesus already knows us intimately, just as he knew those disciples, Andrew and Simon Peter, and Jesus invites us over to his house to “come and see” too and there remain with him. Searching and looking into our hearts in prayer is an important way that “come and see” and then remain with Jesus. We are not called to remain the same though, we are called to be transformed into the image of Christ. You would not imagine the plans God has for you! But come and see…search your hearts fearlessly in prayer, and then see what God will do!

Saying "Yes" to Jesus: "Baptism of our Lord"

2011-01-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

In the early church, from the time of the apostles up through the fifth century, anyone new to the Christian faith, be they young or old, were given a comprehensive education related to the Christian faith and life. This period was called the “catechumenate” which means “one who is being instructed” and comes from the word “catechesis” which means to teach or instruct. As baptism became more common at younger ages, and for infants, and as the church began to dominate the culture, the church lost this practice. For centuries, and even as we look back to the middle of the last century, we, as a church and certainly the Anglican Church, have become very comfortable because the cultures in which our church flourished were basically “Christian.” It was assumed that, for the most part, if you were born in England and even throughout Europe or here in the United States that were you born into a Christian home and church-going family. Instruction was given both at home and at church and the basics of the Christian life and faith were learned at a very early age. Of course, the western world has changed dramatically in the last century, and here in our own nation we cannot assume for a moment that this is still happening. Not only are people born in the United States born into many different religions or into no faith at all, but even those who are born into a (quote) “Christian home” are often not taught the basics of the faith. While our culture and world has changed, our church, and here I refer specifically to most mainline churches like the Episcopal Church, has not changed. We wonder why we are shrinking as a church in the US, as if we’re blind to the changes in our nation and the wider world. We keep functioning as if we’re living in the last several centuries instead of realizing that our world looks more like the religiously diverse world of the first several centuries after Christ. We need to learn again form the early church and their practices.

This may sound obvious when we put it into words, but it is not obvious because little, if any discussion or education around this was given to me and my fellow seminarians during our training and most churches are continuing to do what they have always done, expecting a different result, even while their numbers diminish. In fact, I have been functioning in parish ministry, both as a lay person and ordained, for over a decade, but it is only the last few years that I really feel this point has been driven home clearly. The fact is, if the Episcopal Church, including St. Alban’s, is going to really grow, we have to wake up and realize that the only new members we’re going to get are those completely new, either to the Episcopal Church, or even more likely, to Christianity as a whole. And God keeps sending us newcomers who fall into that category. Additionally, many, if not most adult Episcopalians, have received very little training related to the basics of the Christian faith and life. And so I believe the Holy Spirit has been at work in the church, bringing us a new conviction to return to the basics. We should no longer “assume” anything about a person’s education and understanding of the Christian life, whether they are brand new to our church or have been attending on a regular basis for years.

Last week I recommended a very simple new year’s resolution to the people of St. Alban’s: cling to Jesus this year like never before. This resolution is in some sense, the basic starting place of a Christian, but it is one that needs to be renewed, and renewed regularly. In your bulletin today is a pamphlet entitled, “A Guide to Christian Practices.” This pamphlet is the completion of a 2010 goal of our Vestry and is the culmination of work done this last year to create a simple document outlining the most basic practices of the Christian faith, recognizing the need for teaching the basics and to stop assuming people know them. These practices define the basics of living a Christian life and are appropriate for any Christian and to all of us here at St. Alban’s. I am going to structure my sermons for the next several weeks around this guide and will be using it in our new worship service, in our newcomer classes, and it will be given to all newcomers. I commend it to all our members however. Our Vestry approved its’ use last month and today we are introducing it to the wider congregation. If you will take a look at it you will see the 10 practices outlined. Please take a look at #1: “Follow Jesus.” It reads: “The first step of a Christian is to simply decide to follow Jesus. This means saying “yes” to Jesus, who is “God with us” and whose life, death, and resurrection reveal God’s love for the world.” It goes on and then towards the end reads, “We may have made this decision in the past, but need to renew it from time to time.” In this new year, each one of us is invited to renew our commitment to Jesus or to start today on a new path towards becoming a Christian.

We do this by first saying “yes” to Jesus: yes, I will follow you. We don’t usually know where this will lead us, just as the first disciples and followers of Jesus did not know. But the first step is to make a conscious decision to follow Jesus, to become a disciple (which means “one who follows”). And who is Jesus exactly? In our Gospel lesson today we learn that Jesus is the Son of God. The Bible, throughout the New Testament, reveals Jesus to be the one who reveals God to us. Jesus is “God with us” in human flesh. As our Guide reads, Christ is the “one who saves, heals, forgives, empowers, and loves us.” Jesus’ entire life was lived to show us what God is like, and, most importantly, to show us that God loves us. God’s love is revealed in Jesus through action however, not merely words: in healing the sick and broken, forgiving sins, empowering others, and saving us through his death and resurrection. All of that is done to show God’s will for us, to show us that we are loved beyond our imagination. Saying yes to Jesus is saying yes to love…to accept love from your Creator and to love others. We live out the Christian life in action as well, not merely in words, just like Jesus.

When we first say “yes” to Jesus, if we have not already, our first outward sign of that acceptance is baptism, as the last sentence of point 1 in the Guide points out. In doing so we follow Jesus’ own example of being baptized and obey Jesus’ call to us in the Great Commission to go and baptize in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Notice that in the story of Jesus’ baptism in our Gospel, all three persons of the Godhead are present: Jesus, as God the Son, and God the Father in the voice that comes from the heavens that says, “This is my Son, the beloved,” and the Holy Spirit that descends and alights upon Jesus in the form of a dove. At your own baptism, we invoke these three Names of the Holy Trinity, and the same thing happens to you: you agree to follow Jesus and so Christ is present to you, we bid the Holy Spirit to descend upon the water and then we pour that water on your head and the Holy Spirit descends upon you and fills you, and then you are declared to be a child, a Son or daughter of God, beloved of God.

You are loved by God and God has come to you, in one way or another. And you have been invited to follow Jesus. Today, in this new year, on the day we celebrate our Lord’s Baptism, I invite you again to follow Jesus and to say “yes” to Jesus, whether for the first time or the ten thousandth. I’m going to read three questions from our baptismal promises in the Prayer Book. Your response, if you desire, is to say, either silently or aloud, “I do.” First question: Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? I do. Second, do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? I do. And finally, do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? I do. If you have responded affirmatively today, then I would like to pray over you the petition we pray at every baptism: Deliver them, O Lord, from the way of sin and death. Open their hearts to your grace and truth. Fill them with your holy and life‑giving Spirit. Keep them in the faith and communion of your holy Church. Teach them to love others in the power of the Spirit. Send them into the world in witness to your love. And bring them to the fullness of your peace and glory. Amen!

A New Year Resolution

2011-01-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

It’s a new year and we made it through 2010! Although we as a church begin our new year on Advent I, we also mark time along with our wider culture and I was reminded of this explicitly when I tried to explain what the “new year” meant to Charlotte this weekend, because the concept made no sense to her. She asked, “What is a new year mommy?” I explained we were leaving one year and entering another, and that we are counting the years going back to the time of Jesus’ birth, which was nearly 2,011 years ago, putting us in the year 2011. (She gasped at that huge number.) I was impressed too as I thought about it, explaining that nearly the whole world is celebrating a new year and that it all goes back to Jesus and his birthday. Of course, the date of his birth was not correctly calculated at the time the calendar was created in Rome in the 6th century, but it’s close enough. So today is January 2nd, 2011 AD (AD is from the Latin term “anno domini” which means the “year of our Lord,” although many now say “CE” which means the Common Era since “AD” is such an explicitly Christian term). Jesus stands at the center of history in this way.

And at this time of year there is a lot going on in our liturgical calendar as well. January 1st is not only New Year’s Day but also the Feast of the Holy Name, or the day we commemorate Jesus’ naming. Mary and Joseph were faithful and devout Jewish followers who brought their son to the Temple eight days after his birth, as required by Jewish law, to have him circumcised and named. In this important ceremony, still celebrated by Jewish people around the world, the significance is clear: the baby is blessed and is welcomed into the holy Covenant between God and God’s people through the rite of circumcision and naming, which is similar in many ways to our practice of baptism. The baby is given a name with a religious significance attached to it. In this case, a name had already been picked out for Jesus and announced by the angel of God. Mary’s son was to be named “Jesus” which means “God saves,” or in the Hebrew and Aramaic version of the name, “Yeshua,” it means, “he saves,” “he saves them from their sins” or simply, “salvation.” The English version of Yeshua is a transmigration of the Greek “Iesous” into the Latin name we use, “Jesus.”

And so, January 1st is the day we proclaim Jesus’ sacred and holy name, just as we remember his birth over 2,000 years ago. Today is also the 9th day of Christmas and the second Sunday of Christmas, but our readings are those of the Epiphany, which we celebrate on January 6th. So we are also celebrating the season of Christmas and the visit of the Magi, which happened some time after Jesus’ birth. Epiphany is a very significant holy day for Christians. Looking back to the time of Jesus, the Hebrew Scriptures-what we refer to as the Old Testament- had dealt nearly exclusively with God’s relationship with the Jewish people, as God’s chosen people. But after Jesus’ birth, and specifically at the point of the visit of the Magi, there is a dramatic shift. The story suddenly opens up to include God’s relationship with all people on earth, even these eastern Gentile astrologers from the Middle East, who, surprisingly, are the very first to recognize Jesus’ significance.

The term Epiphany literally means “appearing” or “shining forth.” So on Epiphany, we recognize that God has appeared to all people in Jesus Christ and we have been “grafted into” God’s family and the tree of salvation.

So what does all this have to do with us today, right now? As we enter the new year, I’m sure many of us enter it with hope, but also with fear. We bring with us many hopes and perhaps resolutions for 2011, and yet, we fear what may happen as we continue to witness political gridlock, devastated economies and shrinking budgets, the crisis of the destruction of our planet without much change from those in power to make a real difference, the continuing high rates of unemployment and poverty, ongoing war and unrest around the world, and of course, our own personal fears for ourselves, friends and family members.

We are invited however at this time of year, a very holy time, to step back, and to put our fears into a wider and deeper perspective: our world was forever changed when Jesus was born close to 2,011 years ago, and consciously or not, we are celebrating a new beginning at New Year’s related to that birth, by a God who makes all things new. And Jesus is for all of us: not just a select few or any sort of “in group,” but for all people, shining the light of God’s truth on to anyone and everyone who desires it. We do well to remember the words of the angels, “Do not be afraid” because we have been, as our Collect says, “invited to share the Divine life.” No matter what happens in 2011, God is with us and is doing amazing things in our world, in our church, and in our own lives and is in the business of salvation. Come health or sickness, wealth or scarcity, life or death: we are in God’s hands and Jesus is at the center of all that happens to us: we are safe in Christ’s presence.

I visited my best friend this past week in Santa Barbara and she talked a lot about her church where she is an active member. This week her whole church is called to a time of prayer, as is their tradition, and they will be fasting and meeting for worship, seeking God’s will together for the new year, for three nights straight. It’s inspiring and while I would not copy that exact model, I do think there is great merit in a church community coming together to seek God in a unified way.

So in 2011, along with your own resolutions, I want to invite each of us here at St. Alban’s to a church-wide resolution. It’s very simple: Cling to Jesus like never before this year. Cling to Jesus the way Mary Magdalene did at the tomb, holding his legs, never wanting to let go. Seek Jesus the way the Magi did and every chance you get, gaze upon him just as they did when they found Jesus in Mary’s arms. Speak, think, and pray Jesus’ name frequently because the name of Jesus has power unlike any other to comfort, heal, sanctify, and save. Our hope for the coming year is not based on our own abilities and successes, nor does it rest on the whims of political leaders or economics: our hope is based in Jesus and Jesus alone, who is at the center of world history literally and figuratively, and whose presence at the center of our lives will carry and save us, just as he has done for people for nearly 2,011 years.

Do Miracles Still Happen?

2010-12-20T10:12:00.000-08:00

Recently I read someone’s signature at the bottom of their online profile and it said, “Remember: this is the season for miracles!” It gave me pause. I wondered, “Do people really still think of this season as a season of miracles?” And further, “Do people still believe in miracles at all?” At the heart of this season, of course, is a miracle. It’s a miracle that is, frankly, difficult to believe and even more challenging to comprehend: God came to earth and became one of us, a human, in the guise of a little baby, in order to rescue us. This is the news that Joseph was challenged to believe: his fiancé Mary was pregnant before they were married and he knew he wasn’t the father. He, no doubt, was struggling with questions about her faithfulness to him and whether he could trust her, in addition to the potential ridicule of her pregnancy from his family, friends, and community. No wonder he had planned to dismiss her quietly. But this was too important, so God sent a messenger, the angel Gabriel who said to him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

I don’t know about you, but if I were Joseph, I think it would have taken nothing less than angel from heaven to convince me that this whole story about Mary’s pregnancy was true. But Joseph is a hero, a true saint, because not only did he believe the angel, but he obeyed the angel’s command, married Mary, and raised that little boy as his very own. What Joseph did was a miracle too.

But what about miracles now, today? Are they only a thing of the past?

On Monday I went to visit Lee again at the hospital. Lee is one of our oldest members who had fallen and had to have hip surgery just three weeks ago. She was doing excellently; rising and sitting on her own, walking around, and feeling, as she said, “real good.” Her family and I agreed she actually looked better than she did before the fall and surgery. And she was scheduled to come home this weekend, in time for Christmas. Her healing and speedy recovery at her age is a big prayer answered…and a Christmas miracle.

On Thursday I had a staff person from our Headstart Preschool come into my office. She told me about a husband and wife who had just been to her office, in tears because they had no money this year for Christmas gifts for their children: their tree was empty. She wondered, was there anything the church could do to help? I told I would see what I could do. It so happens that one of our parishioners gave a little extra money to the pastoral account this month, so I was able to get some extra gift cards for those in need. Additionally, someone had dropped off a few donated toys and they were sitting in our closet. So when I handed the toys and 2 gift cards to the staff person over at the preschool, she teared up and gave me a hug, saying, “this will really help them.” I walked away, a little choked up myself, but feeling that a little Christmas miracle had just happened, thanks to the generosity of our parishioners.

Last Monday our Refugee Tutoring group had a Christmas party for the refugee kids and children from a school in Chula Vista had heard about the Christmas collection being taken for the refugee children. The response at the school by the students and their families was overwhelming: they donated all kinds of money, clothing, gift cards, and toys…many of the school children took money out of their own piggy banks to pay for the gifts. Those Chula Vista students arrived at our church with multiple laundry baskets full of presents, toys, shoes, and jackets on Monday, so much so that there was enough for every refugee child here to take home a big Hefty bag full of presents. No doubt their hearts were full too. This was an instance of children caring for other children whom they had never met; and it was a Christmas miracle.

Our theme this week, the fourth week of Advent, just days before Christmas, is “faith.” It took such faith for Mary to yes to God and bear God’s Son, it took such faith for Joseph to make Mary his wife and raise Jesus. It takes faith for us today to believe this ancient story and trust that what the angel said is true: that “God is with us.” I dare say, in a world so filled with doubt and suffering, having faith itself is a miracle. But our world is full of miracles, they happen all around us, reminding us that God is present in the men, women, and children around us, that God hears our prayers, that God still performs works of healing and reconciliation, and that God is with us in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

Have faith my friends: miracles do happen, and this is the season for miracles.

Rose Sunday: Jesus is our Rose!

2010-12-13T08:47:00.000-08:00

Today, this third Sunday of Advent is called “Rose Sunday” or “Gaudete Sunday” from the Latin word “gaudere” which means “rejoice.” The ancient antiphon for today is, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice; let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything.” The liturgical color is rose, the color of the stole I have on, and we light the pink or “rose” colored candle on the Advent wreath. This pinkish-rose color is related to blue, purple and violet, but rose is used today because it is lighter, brighter, and signifies a sense of joy…a lightening of the color and a lightening of the mood of Advent. We pause from what can be the “heavy” and intense season of Advent to simply revel in joy because Christmas is almost here and the Christ child will soon be with us. One way to think of it, is to recall that lovely pinkish rose hue that emerges in the sky right before the dawn…lit’s saying, we’re almost there, the light has almost come! On this day we join our hearts with Mary’s, in her joy and hope at the very near birth of her son.

In our passage from Isaiah today, we read:
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing. “

When we look back on this passage with a Christian lens, we see the hope of God’s restoration of the world through Jesus. No matter the dryness of our lives, the bleakness that may surround us, even in the desert God can make a flower bloom, like a crocus, which is the first to bloom at the end of winter, sometimes right through the snow, in bright colors. Where one there was nothing but despair, now there is hope: a flower is blooming and with it, joy and singing.

Yesterday at our Advent Quiet Day, we listened to the German carol “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” and reflected on Jesus as the flower of Jesse, the Christmas rose. As the carol goes:

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung,of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.It came, a flow’ret bright, amid the cold of winter,when half-spent was the night.

We normally think of Jesus as a full grown man during his ministry or as the resurrected Christ, but Advent invites us to meditate on our Lord in his most vulnerable and fragile state: just before his birth and then as a newborn baby. Like a flower, God in Jesus takes on human weakness and frailty and becomes totally helpless- a babe in Mary’s womb, a little newborn infant born into a dangerous world, prone to all the ailments and challenges humans face, totally dependent on the care and love of his parents. Like a flower, he is easily bruised and killed and his life is under threat due to Herod’s jealousy.

Anything could have happened to Jesus. That God entrusted, in the incarnation, God’s Son into the hands of humanity, totally at our mercy, is mind boggling. And yet it was just a young girl, Mary, who was chosen and humbly, meekly, but courageously accepted to carry, care, love, feed and raise God in human form, a flower in the desert of the human race.

One of the most moving aspects of the story we reflect on during Advent is that God chooses the weak things and the weak people of this world to do great things. God could have chosen the powerful, the great, and the mighty, but God chooses the small and fragile, those of little or no account. God still does so today and Advent reminds us that we, we who are weak and not “great” by the world’s standards, if we are simply willing, can be used by God in amazing and powerful ways. This truth leads to great joy…we can be “great” in God’s Kingdom no matter who we are! “Even the least in the Kingdom of heaven” can be greater than the prophets, Jesus says. That’s you and me and the people sitting in the pews next to you.

Seeing a rose blooming in the winter snow is a miracle. Watching a flower bloom in the driest desert is a miracle: and that’s what Jesus is. A miracle come to earth for our sake, a rose that blooms mysteriously….reminding us that anything is possible with God on this Rose Sunday. Rejoice!

Advent II: The Peaceable Kingdom

2010-12-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

Text: Isaiah 11:1-10

Our Bishop’s Advent letter opens with these words, “This season of Advent comes in a time when the air is filled with tension and anxiety. In addition to explosions in Afghanistan, we now have artillery shells flying in Korea. European economies teeter again. Our own markets wobble with each tweak of global angst.” In other words, we are experiencing anything but a peaceful time in our world this Advent. And yet, the theme for today on this second Sunday in Advent is indeed “peace.” In reading the Gospel lesson and hearing John the Baptist yell about repentance, winnowing forks, and the unquenchable fire, it may be difficult to find a sense of peace. At the same time, most of us have probably experienced the peace that follows on the heels of repentance, when something has been eating away at you and you finally say, “I’m sorry, I screwed up” and you find that you are forgiven; it is indeed a peaceful and comforting moment.

On the other hand, Isaiah’s vision of peace is incredibly inspiring. In this passage of Hebrew Scripture, written around 745 BC when Assyria was at war and attempting to conquer Israel shortly after Israel’s own terrible war with Syria, the prophet Isaiah is given a vision of what we call “the Peaceable Kingdom.” In this Kingdom, the king is righteous, just, and merciful and the result is peace. This vision is one that restores God’s original intention and purpose for the world, just as it once was in Genesis, before sin and death entered the world. It is one where no one is in danger, there is no war, there is harmony between animals and humans, and no one hurts and destroys one another.

There is a famous painting that many of you have probably seen by the Quaker Edward Hicks called, “The Peaceable Kingdom” (pictured above) and it is based on this text from Isaiah. In the foreground of the painting are little children, babies really, playing and petting wild animals: a lion, tiger, leopard, wolf, and bear, right along with the sheep and an ox. These predatory animals are no threat to the other animals or to the children, there is peace and safety between them. And then in the background you can see European settlers talking to and signing a peace treaty with a group of Native Americans. This is Hicks’ portrayal of Isaiah’s prophetic vision where the wolf lies down with the lamb, the leopard with kid, the calf and the lion are lead by a little child, a cow and a bear are together grazing, the lion is eating straw like an ox, and an infant is playing over the den of an asp and an adder: poisonous snakes. As a mother, I recoil at this image, so deeply fearful I am of my child being anywhere near a poisonous snake, finding it hard to imagine this peaceable kingdom because the world is anything but safe.

I love to hike with Charlotte, but we have encountered rattle snakes and those moments continue to haunt me. Charlotte herself has been struggling with fears of the wildlife near our home along the Mission Trails where we know we have mountain lions and we hear howling coyotes and even great horned owls that will hoot eerily outside her window. Recently our cat, named Franz, had his own scare when he got out one night and was nowhere to be found in the morning. Later we heard his meows and found him several stories up in the air atop a palm tree, precariously balanced on a branch and totally stuck. We finally rescued him after many hours, and we later figured out that he had clearly run up there to escape from some other, larger critter, because since then he refuses to go near the door or anywhere outside, too afraid of whatever lurks beyond. Nature is not peaceable and harmony does not exist between us. The animals are more often afraid of us, as they well should be, just as we are afraid of them.
Of course, we humans are no better with one another, and I don’t think the two are unrelated. Neither did Isaiah or Edward Hicks. We continue to rage war, commit genocide, and exert all kinds of violence and destruction on one another. It’s to the point that we are no longer surprised to hear that someone in our own neighborhood was murdered, as someone casually told me this past week of a neighbor being stabbed. “Isn’t this just the world we live in?” we say. “Shouldn’t we just accept it?” It’s not a nice or peaceful place. “Isn’t that just reality?”

And that’s where faith steps in and we hear the prophets and John the Baptist and Jesus say, “No!” No, because the Kingdom of Heaven has come near and is already in our midst. We don’t have to wait for the end of the world in order to start establishing peace here and now. Peace is possible today, because of Jesus. And peace begins with us. We can make peace with God and with ourselves in our own hearts now, and then we can make peace with those closest to us. From there peace can extend into our neighborhood and the wider world. And we can start to make the Peaceable Kingdom a reality in our portion of the world, as much as it is up to us. We cannot control others, but we can control ourselves and our own actions, with God’s help. And then , as we anchor ourselves to Jesus, we find that he is our calm in the storm and our stability in the chaos.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, has come to earth, God has come near, and is near to you and I right now, today. This promise of peace is not only for the future: while it will not be completely and fully realized until later, we can know peace despite the world we live in. Peace is a gift of the Holy Spirit and we are called to extend that peace beyond ourselves.

What can you and I do this Advent to bring peace? What can we do to establish peace in our hearts and our homes? To make the Peaceable Kingdom a reality where we live? And to proclaim by our lives and examples that the Kingdom of God really has come near?

Thanksgiving Sermon 2010

2010-11-29T10:51:00.000-08:00

The history of Thanksgiving is an interesting one. For starters, having a celebration of giving thanks to God is not an American invention. The ancient Jewish festival of Succot, a Biblical day of celebration in the Fall, also known as the “Feast of Ingathering,” was a day of giving thanks to God at the completion of the fruit harvest and was a regarded as a general thanksgiving for the bounty of nature in the preceding year. The ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks also had a day of thanksgiving following the harvest that was similar. The Pilgrims, being of English descent, celebrated the English Harvest Festival known as “Harvest Home” back in England, when people would bring offerings of bread, fruit, and vegetables to their local church and offered food to those in need. The many Native American tribes here in America had their own harvest festivals of giving thanks in the Fall as well. Such celebrations are found in nearly every culture in history. And so in that sense, our celebration of Thanksgiving is truly part of a great, international, and ancient tradition.

In America however, we have linked our celebration of Thanksgiving to the three day meal shared by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag in 1621 in Plymouth. It is an intriguing story even though it is usually lifted out of context when it is retold. The Pilgrims, a group of 102 men, women, and children, were a group of Separatists, Puritans who broke with the Church of England in order to practice what they considered to be a “purer form” of Christianity. The word “pilgrim” actually refers to the pilgrimage they made from England and then to the Netherlands and finally to New World. The Puritans later became Congregationalists, Calvinists, and Presbyterians. And while we may not agree with all the particularities of their religious practice, we share the American belief they held of freedom of religion.

The Pilgrim’s voyage on the Mayflower to America was a harrowing one with sickness, cold, and a terrible storm that sent them far off course to the North, lasting 3 months. They debated whether to turn back more than once. After they arrived, their situation did not improve. They had to remain on the Mayflower while they tried to gather food and build shelter, but they were totally unprepared for the winter and over half of them died from disease, malnutrition, and exposure to the cold.

When things seemed the bleakest, their prayers were answered when they were helped by a very unlikely individual: a man from the Pawtuxet tribe who had been captured and intended as a slave by John Smith and his Englishmen, but Squanto had escaped to England, learned English and returned to America, only to discover that his tribe had been wiped out by a plague. His name was Squanto and he was, as William Bradford, the first governor of the colony wrote,” a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation." He taught the Pilgrims how to fish, harvest sap from Maple trees, plant corn, avoid poisonous plants, and survive in the cold. He and the Natives peoples had been living in America for 10,000 years before the arrival of the Pilgrims, and so they knew how to thrive in the environment. Squanto also mediated between the Pilgrims and the Native American chiefs, bringing peace and forging an alliance between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag. (Tragically, this is one of the only historical moments of true cooperation between the European settlers and the Native Americans.)

It should be noted however, that Squanto eventually converted to Christianity and it is believed that if Squanto had not assisted the Pilgrims, none of them would have survived. When the first harvest came, the Pilgrims had much to be thankful for because of their Native American friends, and they came together in a rare moment of harmony, to celebrate and offer prayers of thanksgiving to the Creator.

It’s so tragic that this harmony did not last. And I have so many questions about these events: Why did Squanto, after having been so terribly mistreated by the Europeans, decide to help and even save the Pilgrims? And how did the Pilgrims, after losing half of their community in such misery, continue to trust and thank God despite their tragic losses?

I believe they all serve as examples to us today, despite whatever flaws and mistakes they made, of the power of God in the lives of simple human beings. We come together today to offer our thanks as well, despite lacking all we could want or hope for, despite our losses and tragedies, despite whatever setbacks we may have experienced. Somehow we see that through it all, God is faithful, God is with us, and that we are blessed.

What are you thankful for this year? What has God done in your life to bless you? While this has been a very difficult and pain filled year, I find as we approach Thanksgiving that my heart is full. I am thankful for our home and the surrounding beauty we enjoy of the Mission Trails and all the wildlife we see routinely: rabbits, deer, spiders, and birds. I’m thankful that even when things get tight, we never lack for food or basic necessities; we never go to bed hungry. I’m thankful for good health and for the excellent healthcare we receive. I’m thankful for my loving husband and daughter and our wider family. I’m thankful for the people of St. Alban’s and the many ministries and accomplishments of the past year that we can all share and enjoy together with gratitude. I’m thankful for the Episcopal Church and the way it sustains my faith with regular helpings of Scripture, the Sacraments, and the Book of Common Prayer, which never fail to uphold me in times of sadness and joy. I’m thankful for my good friends, both human and animal, and for the support and encouragement that comes when I need it. What about you?

To guide your own thoughts of thanksgiving, I want to share and challenge you with a meditation in Forward Day by Day from November 17th, written by a psychologist. It reads: “I realize that the cornerstone of mental health is a thank-you attitude toward life, even in the midst of pain and less…To find a thank-you in your heart toward the Author of life is true worship.” He then invites us: “Reflect on the area of your life which is causing you pain right now. Can you stay with the pain for a moment and sincerely say, “Thank you” for something you have discovered within it? In doing so, you have just celebrated eucharist in your own heart.”

Christ the King

2010-11-22T14:38:00.000-08:00

As outdated as the concept of “king” may be to us as Americans in the year 2010, I found myself finding it a very helpful reference suddenly while teaching the Children’s Communion Class last weekend. We were discussing some of the manual actions done in church during Communion and someone asked about reverencing the altar as they exit the pew. I’ve noticed this is not a common practice here at St. Alban’s, but in some Episcopal and Anglican Churches, nearly every member does this: right as they leave their pew to receive Holy Communion, they bend their right knee down to the ground. This is called a genuflection. Well, the children wanted to know “why” they would genuflect and I immediately responded, “We genuflect to Jesus on the altar because Jesus is our King.” Genuflection is an action of humility which was reserved for one’s king in ancient times and somehow that concept has remained alive for us in our worship. As CS Lewis said, we are not souls trapped in bodies. We are incarnate spirits. What we with our body we do with our soul. The children immediately understood this explanation and image and said, “Yeah, Jesus IS our king!” and began practicing their genuflections with enthusiasm. I believe there is something in our human nature that desires, as if we were made this way, to have a hero or king to honor. The Israelites begged God for a king to rule them. We as Americans, while we do not want a king per se, still deeply desire to have leaders (or a leader) that will bring order and inspire us to follow. We want someone we can all look up to in awe, someone who is “above” it all, who we willingly honor and respect. Yet, the humans who end up in those positions always disappoint us, because in fact, they are flawed and only human like the rest of us. Still our hearts yearn for a king, a leader, a hero in the flesh.

God understood this about us and so God sent us Jesus. But is Jesus the King we want? Maybe yes and maybe no. Notice in our text from Luke the words shouted at Jesus while he hung on the cross:

“ Let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!”
“If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.”
“Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

Although the sign above Jesus’ head read, “King of the Jews” those looking on were convinced that if he truly was the king, he would be able to save himself from the cross and in turn save them.

Maybe we are not that different today. While we may pride ourselves in thinking we are comfortable with Jesus’ suffering and the cross (especially since we have the advantage of knowing the rest of the story and we know it ends well), we are still essentially feeling and even saying many of the same things to Jesus today, only the wording has slightly changed. Now we say, “If you really are the King, save me from my suffering and from my cross!”

We want Jesus to prove himself again today to us by saving us from pain, loss, suffering, and our many crosses. We don’t know the end of our own story and so our faith may waiver when times are tough, when disaster befalls us, when pain cuts through us, and when devastating losses occur. “Jesus,” we wonder, “are you really the king? Can’t you do something about all of this? Please take me off of this cross if you really are the king, the Son of God!”

But why didn’t Jesus shun the cross? We did he accept all that suffering upon himself when he could have escaped it? And why does he allow his followers to experience suffering as well? Remember, Jesus told the disciples that they too would suffer, yet we are surprised when it happens. The thing is, true love does not run away from pain. Love dives right into the heart of suffering…when our parents or our children or friends are sick or dying, our love compels us to be with them in every way we can. We don’t avoid their tragedy when love rules, we come closer to it: we stay with our loved ones in their suffering, we hold them, we fly across the country to watch our loved ones die, and we put ourselves in a place of immeasurable pain because of love, even though we could shield ourselves from it.

God is with us in our pain in the same way. This was demonstrated on the cross and is demonstrated in our lives when we find ourselves being held and comforted by God in the worst of times. God doesn’t always rescue us from pain, but God comes to us in the pain, walks with us, and, like the cross, transforms that pain and suffering into new life and resurrection.

Is this the kind of King we want? That is a decision we all have to make, the choice to follow Jesus as Savoir, Lord and King. At baptism, we take vows to follow him as such and we recognize the symbolism of what baptism means for us and for our children: it is a death, a dying to sin and self, in order that we may rise and have new life in Christ. In baptism we are joining Jesus in this difficult road to salvation which has been paved by grace. We don’t do it alone, we do it with God’s help. Soon we will baptize Colette, Andrew, and Conner and proclaim them to be children of God. We will charge them with these words: “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”

If we want a share in God’s Kingdom, in this eternal priesthood of believers, we must give it all to God; die to ourselves in order that we may be raised up. Because something was accomplished on the cross…as the letter to the Colossians states, Jesus, “has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

We no longer have to dance with injustice and evil in the darkness, because our king has rescued us! Redemption is ours! Forgiveness is ours! We have been transferred from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son! We have been, as our Collect says, “brought together under his most gracious rule.”

Our King is a King who suffers, dies, and rises again and invites us to do the same. Jesus is the only King worth following and he deserves all the awe, humility, and honor we can muster. So when we say “Jesus, if you really are the king, save yourself and us!” remember that Jesus did. He didn’t do it by avoiding or climbing down from the cross, he did it by suffering, dying and rising. We are called to follow his footsteps. This isn’t the easy road. But this is the King we worship today, this is the King we proclaim and call Lord, this is the King we meet in baptism, in Communion, and in Scripture. We are called to bow down and offer our hearts and lives to this King. Our souls are safe in this King’s hands, who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Reflections on Holy Communion

2010-11-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

Children’s Communion Sunday 2010

This morning I’m going to depart from our Scripture lessons and do something different in honor of Children’s Communion Sunday today. So first I’d like to invite you to go back in your mind and recall the very first time you ever received Holy Communion. If you were too young to remember the event, think back to a time when you received Communion that was very meaningful for you. What was the experience like? I would hazard to guess that most of us have had a least one moving experience of Holy Communion in our lives and as Anglicans or Episcopalians, Communion is of central importance to our faith, worship, and relationship to Jesus Christ.

I began receiving Communion around age 5 or 6 in a large Southern Baptist Church in Los Angeles, oddly, before my baptism. On the few Sundays that the Communion plate would be passed around with little bits of saltine crackers and shot looking glasses of grape juice, I would look longingly at my parents, wanting to participate, but was denied for several years. But finally I had my big moment: my dad looked at me before church and said, “Are you ready to take Communion? I nodded. Do you know what the bread and juice represent?” “Yes” I said. I had heard that they represented Jesus’ body and blood, and I repeated that back to him. My dad then asked, “Do you believe in Jesus as you Savior?” “Yes” I said. “You’re ready then” he replied without fanfare. I remember the event well: I was so excited and so nervous as we waited, I wanted to do this right but most of all, I knew that this was a very important moment, a way to connect to God, my first touch of holiness, and I was thrilled beyond words. The little cracker and the grape juice tasted heavenly to me. I remember wanting more. And for years after that, I would get excited at every Communion Sundays, looking forward to this special moment between Jesus and I. And I would play and pretend to take Communion every time we had crackers or grape juice at home…and just pretending would fill me with joy.

Communion continued to have meaning to me throughout childhood, but it wasn’t until college that I had my first somewhat mystical experience of Communion. It came about when I was serving as a peer chaplain at my Presbyterian University and the College Chaplain had hastily asked that we try something different that day in worship: instead of the shot glasses with juice, he wanted everyone to dip real bread into a porcelain chalice, and I was to be the chalice bearer. When he handed me the chalice, I began to tremble and shake. As fellow students, friends, and professors came forward one by one and I repeated the words like a mantra, “the Blood of Christ” to each one, I began to cry. And then my cries turned, much to my embarrassment, to small sobs, such that it was difficult to continue except in a faint whisper. In that moment I was overcome with a very powerful and significant feeling and knowledge: the gift I had the honor of offering in Communion was a sacred and holy gift that was far more powerful than anything I had ever given anyone ever before: somehow, in some way, I was facilitating the connection of these fellow humans beings to the Jesus Christ. And I knew then that I wanted to do this again and again and again, if God would let me.

A third moving memory of Communion came while I was a Presbyterian seminarian while visiting an Episcopal Church on Ash Wednesday in Batesville, Arkansas while on an internship. Something beckoned me into that little old stone church that cold night. As I fumbled through the Book of Common Prayer during the Eucharistic Prayer for the first time, I again found myself trembling again, this time with a sense of holiness and awe in the words and moment. Communion had always been so special to me but I felt like this was something far beyond anything I had experienced before…as if the “ante” had been upped. I thought, “These people take this way seriously.” I nervously found my way up to the altar rail and realized I was supposed to kneel like the others. It struck me that kneeling was, of course, something I had always wanted to do at Communion, it was so natural I nearly fell to my knees. I knelt and waited with as much reverence as I could, focusing on the altar, ready to meet Jesus. I imitated everyone else and stretched out my hands. Receiving the bread in my palm like a gift, directly from the priest, was so intimate and powerful, so far beyond the passing of the old Communion plate…it was like Jesus was coming to me personally. And then there was my shock when I realized I was going to drink directly from a beautiful silver chalice along with everyone else present. My fears about germs dissolved immediately as I held that precious chalice and glanced inside, realizing this was not grape juice, but sparkling, deep, rich, potent wine…just like the Last Supper. The words, “The Blood of Christ” had never been so visceral to me as when the alcohol in the wine filled and warmed my mouth and then, seemingly, my whole body in one sip. I stumbled back to my seat to kneel again, still shaking: realizing by this shared action with these strangers who were still my brothers and sisters in Christ, that this was truly a Sacrament. I still remember going home and telling my roommate excitedly all about how those “Episcopalians take Communion…can you believe it!??! It’s so cool.”

I have many other moving memories related to Communion and it still features centrally in my own faith life, but those three experiences reveal something of the history of Communion and the differing views held about Communion in the Church today. There are a few things all Christians agree on when it comes to Communion: we agree that it was Jesus who instituted Communion, whether we call it the Lord’s Supper, Eucharist, or the Mass: it all started with Jesus and his followers at the Last Supper on the night before Jesus died. We all agree on what Jesus basically said, as told in the Gospels. We know Jesus broke bread, gave it to his disciples and told them, “Eat. This is my Body, do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus lifted up a cup of wine, gave thanks, gave it to them and said, “This is my blood, as often as you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.” Christians have been taking bread and wine and communing with God and one another in this act of Communion, giving thanks to God, and remembering Jesus’ words, life, death, and resurrection ever since. Beyond that, we have some disagreements, but I think they matter less than what we do agree on.

Within more Protestant traditions (like Presbyterians and Baptists), it said that the bread and wine merely symbolize or represent, as a memorial, Jesus’ body and blood. For all other Christians, the bread and wine are more than symbols, they somehow, in some way, bring us into contact, mystically, with Christ himself. The Roman Catholic Church describes this as transubstantiation, which means that the bread and wine literally transform into the substance of Jesus’ flesh and blood, only appearing to be bread and wine. Lutherans disagree and use the word “consubstantiation.” They say that the bread and the wine co-exist with the body and blood of Jesus…spiritually it is his body and blood but physically, it is bread and wine. We Anglicans have tended to avoid using such terms and definitions, but simply declare that yes, the bread and wine are Jesus’ body and blood, but how that is so, is a wonderful mystery. We affirm the “real presence” of Jesus in the sacrament, but avoid descriptions that inevitably fall short of reality and are truly beyond human comprehension and words. Most importantly, however, we affirm that in receiving the Eucharist, a believer is receiving Jesus in a grace filled way, being blessed and sanctified… so we ought to receive as frequently as possible.

In the early and ancient church, baptism was the only requirement to receive Holy Communion and infants received it immediately after baptism, usually by the priest dipping a finger into the wine and applying it to their lips. Children continued to receive Communion for hundreds of years until the 16th century, when it was declared by the Council of Trent that children should not receive because they do have the rational capacity to understand the meaning of Holy Communion. Many of us would argue, however, that none of us have that capacity, at any age, so mysterious is Communion. In the last century, we Anglicans have returned to the ancient practice of the church and give Communion to infants and young children, at the discretion of their parents. I believe this the right thing, but we do lose the wonderful milestone and celebration of First Communion for children. Some clergy have begun a practice, which we are doing here today, in having a formal day of recognition, after instruction, for our children. A few of our children today will be receiving Communion for the very first time. Others have received Communion before, but have never been formally instructed, or recognized and celebrated. Those children are receiving their First Solemn Communions. My prayer for them, as it is for all of us, is that we will discover or re-discover the power of Jesus’ presence in Communion, remembering with awe, that Jesus gave us his life, his body and blood, in order to show us how much God loves us, and how far God will go to find, restore, and save us from the grip of evil and death. God desires an intimate relationship with each of us, and wants to live within our hearts and to be one with us. Jesus calls each of us today, to eat, drink, and remember him, who comes to us in the humble guise of bread and wine: the Holy Eucharist, God’s great and holy gift for God’s people. Come, Christ’s banquet table has been made ready for you.

Suffering? You May be a Saint!

2010-11-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

Let me begin today by describing the lives of two very different people, listing some important details without giving away their identities:

The first person is a young woman who was:

-born a sickly infant to an uneducated, simple family
-her mother lost four children in their infancy
-when she was 4 ½ years old her mother, whom she loved and adored, died at the age of 45 from breast cancer
-her grief and depression from her mother’s death lasted nine years and she became known as a young girl who was overly sensitive and prone to crying all the time
-she suffered many strange illnesses in life including tremors throughout her childhood
-at the age of 16 her father died of a stroke and her older sisters moved away, creating another wave of depression and grief for her
-she ultimately choose to live a life of extreme poverty and never married or had children
-after several years of good health, she became ill again and suffered excruciating and debilitating pain for a few years before dying at the young age of 24 from tuberculosis

The second person is a man who:

-rose quickly to political power and leadership and was eventually elected president of his country, which he helped rebuild
-Time Magazine named him “Man of the Year” at the height of his popularity
-he was an accomplished writer and his books made him millions of dollars
-he was a powerful public speaker and became a millionaire at a young age, living a life of tremendous luxury with far reaching power
-he married a beautiful woman and died a wealthy man at the age 56

Knowing only these facts, which of these two individuals, who would you call “blessed”? Whose life sounds preferable? Whose life would most people hope for? The first person I described, the young woman that died young is Saint Therese of Liseux, arguably the most influential saint of the last century and whose autobiography has changed millions of lives, inspiring holiness in ordinary people around the world. The second person I described, if you didn’t guess, is Adolph Hitler…and his tragic and horrific legacy doesn’t even need retelling.

With these two people in mind, let’s look again at the lesson from Luke, at the Beatitudes (which means blessings) from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are you who are poor, who are hungry, who weep, who are hated and excluded. Blessed are you who love your enemies and pray for those who hurt you.

But woe to you who are rich, full, laughing, and popular…you’re received your consolation.

It is the way of the world to value, strive for and honor, even call “blessed” wealth, luxury, happiness, money, and popularity. But clearly one can have these things and be anything but blessed. It is also the way of the world to declare poverty, hunger, sorrow, and being excluded and ignored “cursed.” But Jesus forces us to look differently at the world and ourselves.

We often, when things are going very badly for us, when we’re suffering, struggling, or grieving, feel abandoned or cursed by God. We don’t feel blessed at all then, we may wonder what is wrong with us or why God is punishing us when we’re trying so hard. But the Beatitudes shake us out of that deceptive mentality. The saints suffered, Jesus himself suffered, do we really think that we won’t suffer too, we who follow Jesus? This suffering is not a curse, it is and can be a blessing, especially when we know in faith that we are blessed and loved. And if you have ever tracked your life, with all its’ peaks and valleys, you will find that is almost always in the valleys we find that we are closest to the Lord. When things are going well, when we’re comfortable and things are easy, when everyone likes us and praises us, we tend to forget about God, because we are so “filled” with the things of the world…there is little room for God because we are so satisfied. We live off of the good opinions of others, not needing God’s opinion and love of us. Those things are our consolations. But it is when we are stripped of these things that we discover our true nakedness and neediness before God and seek God most fully. And it is in those moments God can bless us immeasurably in our hearts and souls.

Having served in very wealthy parishes and in very poor areas and with prisoners, the homeless, and refugees, I can now tell you that it is absolutely much easier to minister and share the incredible power of God and the Gospel with those in need than with those who have much. And when I counsel people, I have seen over and over again the openness people have for God and God’s blessings in their darkest hours. People don’t come to my office to tell me when things are going great, they come and ask for prayer when things are going terribly. I know those are the important moments, the pivotal moments in their lives for God to work spiritually and deeply.

On this All Saints Sunday, if we want to be counted among the saints, and I hope we all do, we must look to the Beatitudes to guide our way. We will see it is not the easy or even desirable path, it is not the path most of us would willingly choose, and yet it is the path that ultimately leads to the Kingdom of God, it is the path to being filled, it is the path to joy and laughter, and it is the path to ultimate reward, far beyond any consolation this world can give us. And any of us can be a saint: it is Christ’s holiness that makes us so, if we and when we are open and willing to receive it. And we’re most open in the valleys: so rejoice you who suffer, who lack, who struggle: God is with you and you ARE BLESSED. You are among and with and are the saints of God!

The Wee Little Man

2010-11-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

Text: Luke 19:1-10

In Paul Harvey style, I’d like to open with the rest of the story this morning. We know a little about the life of an important first century man from the “Stromata,” the writings of St. Clement of Alexandria. According to St. Clement, this man was a ministry companion to none other than the holy Apostle, St. Peter himself. And perhaps more importantly, this man was chosen by the apostles to replace Judas of Iscariot after Judas betrayed Jesus. They renamed this man Matthias, later known as St. Matthias, and he went with St. Peter to preach the Gospel in Rome and throughout Ethiopia and Macedonia, suffering terrible persecutions of many kinds. Tradition holds that during Nero’s reign this man finally accepted a martyr’s death for Christ. His was a life lived without compromise for Jesus and for the love and sake of the Gospel. And I suppose he would want us to mention his name, the name most of us know him by from the Gospels…Zaccheaus.

Zaccheaus did not start out as a saint seemingly destined for martyrdom however. Zacchaeus was a very little man, a “wee little man,” not only in height, but in life. The criticism, “he is a little man” would have applied to him in more ways than one. Beyond being “vertically challenged,” he was a chief tax collector, a publican. As mentioned last week, many of us know that tax collectors were not well liked back then, and they’re not too well liked today either, but let’s take a moment to recall just how hated publicans were and why. To become a tax collector in Jewish society was understood as a serious moral failing. It was tied not only to national betrayal but religious betrayal, because a tax collector worked for pagan Rome, had to swear a pagan oath of fidelity to the emperor, and offer pagan sacrifices to his spirit. But publicans not only served Rome's interests, levying taxes upon their own people, but as a matter of course they pursued their own greedy ends and collected money for themselves on top of the taxes, often becoming very wealthy in the process. The hatred towards them was justifiable…this was very corrupt. And note that Zaccheaus was not just any tax collector either, he was a “chief” tax collector: a wealthy fat cat, the corrupt of the corrupt. He was despised and, as all tax collectors, was understood to be an outsider, having abandoned their place as part of the chosen people of God.

When Zaccheaus hears about Jesus, he would have known that people were excited and claiming Jesus was the Messiah. It was understood at the time that the Messiah would overthrow Roman rule and thus, was viewed as a direct threat to the way of life and livelihood of any tax collector. Yet despite this, Zaccheaus wants to see Jesus. When Jesus passes through Jericho, Zaccheaus tries to catch a glimpse of Jesus but he is pushed aside, likely because he is despised by the people, in addition to being too small and short to see above the crowd. Just think for a moment what combination of humility and excitement must have been present within Zaccheaus to, fancy clothes and all, hike up into a Sycamore tree like a little child in order to see Jesus. It was an unlikely, if not impossible, scenario. But he does it anyway.

And then something even more unlikely happens: Jesus sees him and stops. I wonder if Zaccheaus became exceedingly self-conscious in that moment, perhaps expecting to be chastised. Instead, Jesus says, I suspect with a big smile, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." Zaccheaus quickly scrambles out of the tree and is filled with joy! But right away the grumbling begins: the crowd is shocked, horrified, indignant that Jesus would deign dine with a sinner like Zaccheaus. It was not lawful for a “clean” Jew like Jesus to accept a dinner invitation from a sinner, to have table fellowship with them, but Jesus breaks this regulation and goes around it by inviting himself to Zacchaes’ house. No doubt Jesus lost some followers that day for this behavior. I don’t know if things have changed all that much today though.

The story is told by Brennan Manning in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel about a man who commits a big sin, is excommunicated from his church and is told never to return. Later the man repents and wants to be restored. He prays, “Lord, they won’t let me in because I am a sinner.” To which the Lord replies, “What are you complaining about, they won’t let me in either.”

Another story is told about a woman who said to the pastor of a new church plant that she planned to bring a friend to his brand new church. “Great” the pastor said. The woman responded, “Well, no, she is an atheist.” “”Great” the pastor replied again. “No, I don’t think you understand” she said “…she is not a nice woman at all.” “Great!” the pastor said enthusiastically. The woman stared at him for a moment and then said, “Wow, I’ve been looking for a church like this my entire life!”

Churches and Christian and religious communities can be places that keep the very people out who most need to be there…and this sorry behavior flies directly in the face of so much of what Jesus did during his earthly ministry. The story of Zaccheaus is a wonderful example of the expansive wideness of God’s Kingdom where Jesus reaches out to those on the margins, those who were despised, those considered the worst of the worst. Jesus doesn’t merely tolerate their presence, he enters into the intimacy of table fellowship with them. Today he invites him to his table at the Eucharist.

And notice what happens when Jesus is at Zaccheaus’ home: Zaccheaus does what the rich young ruler could not do: he gives up his wealth vowing to give half of all that he has to the poor and to repay anyone he has defrauded four-fold. This is genuine conversion. Jesus responds by saying, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."

If we turn our back on the lost, we turn our back on Jesus, because they too are children of God. And if we know ourselves to be lost, then this is great news for us. If you feel that you are not worthy of Christ, Jesus is looking at you today and asking you to climb down off of that lie, because Jesus wants to come home with you, to your house, to be with you, to embrace you, sins and shortcomings and all. It doesn’t matter what other people think, it matters what Jesus thinks, and you are loved and saved by grace and grace alone.

If you truly want to see Jesus, not only WILL you see Jesus, but Jesus will see YOU. We are not beyond our merciful Savior’s loving glance and attention like Zacchaeus. We can say, like the Gospel song, “Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch him and say that I love him.” Jesus sees you, he loves you, and his touch can save you, whoever you are, small as you are, and make you great in the Kingdom of God.

Press Release: St. Alban's New Prayer Garden

2010-10-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

St. Alban's to Dedicate Community Prayer Garden

El Cajon, CA - October 20, 2010 - On Sunday October 24th at 10:45am, St. Alban's Episcopal Church will dedicate its' new Prayer Garden in El Cajon. The Prayer Garden is a gift to the people and community of El Cajon and will be open around the clock to all people for prayer and meditation on the church grounds. It was created by the members of the church who gave generously towards its' construction and features a rock water fountain with a Celtic cross, stone benches and path, memorial plaques, and Palm Trees and Crape Myrtles among its' plants. Howard Findley of Pioneer Landscaping worked with the church to design and build it. The pastor, the Rev. D. Rebecca Dinovo, states, "Our hope is that everyone will feel welcome and know they have a sacred space to pray and use any time right here in the city."

The Rev. Canon Suzi Holding of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego will officiate the Blessing and Dedication this Sunday. All are welcome to attend. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church is part of the world wide Anglican Communion and one of the oldest churches in the East County, founded in 1889 and is located at 490 Farragut Circle in El Cajon.

Information: http://elcajonepiscopal.org/

Stewardship Outside the Box

2010-10-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

Today our very hard working Sr. Warden Dick Walter, who is heading up our Stewardship Drive this year, has invited me to give a message about stewardship. When I read the Gospel lesson this past week however, I realized it did not easily lend itself to a traditional stewardship message. However, that’s probably a good thing because we all need to be challenged to think about stewardship outside the box.

The word stewardship is defined this way in the dictionary: “the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care.” We may be lead to ask, “what has been entrusted to my care”?

And in response, I would like to challenge our view of what exactly each one of us has responsibility or care over as stewards today, because I believe our Baptismal Covenant brings us into a very different kind of relationship with others and with our world than we might have otherwise. In it we promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” This comes straight out of the Bible and Jesus’ call in the Gospels to all who would follow him. Scripture is filled with stories and the call to justice for all people throughout it. In our text from Luke’s Gospel today we read about a widow who keeps begging a judge for justice. The judge finally gives in to her request purely to prevent her from continuing to bother him. Jesus then relates this action to prayer saying, “Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?” The answer is, of course, “No.”

Striving for justice for all people is a part of our basic calling as Christians and it is also very much a part of what is means to be a good steward.

In recent months there have been a number of teen suicides in our nation that have been publicized. In each instance, the teens that took their lives were victims of harassment and bullying, whether through in-person bullying or what has been termed “cyber bullying” or bullying online.

A blogger named Dan Pierce recently spoke out about the bullying he experienced as a teenager when bullies would taunt him continually in school calling him fat and ugly. Eventually he grew to hate himself and hate his life. Thanks be to God that he did not take his own life, but he is scarred and is haunted by it, in large part because no one ever, ever stepped in to help him, not parents, teachers, or fellow peers.

He writes about this subject:

“If you haven't noticed, it's not generally the bullies that are killing themselves, slaughtering their schoolmates, or building bombs in their bedrooms. It's the bullied that are doing that….I know just how easy it would have been to prevent most of these incidents. I also know all too well, the consuming thoughts that constantly go through the minds of the bullied.Please. So many kids would still be alive right now, if somebody, anybody, would have done something. So many beautiful, incredible, wonderful souls would still be walking among us if somebody, anybody, would have done something. …The answer is as simple as you having the courage to find the kid who just got bullied and telling her, "don't listen to those guys. My friends and I are always talking about how awesome you are.

"The answer is as simple as you having the courage to then invite her to sit with you at lunch. And it will take courage.The answer is as simple as you having the courage to find the bully, and in private telling him that you don't understand why he's doing that, because you always thought he was a bigger person than that.

The answer is as simple as you having the courage to find the bully, and in private ask her if she's had a rough day. Care about her. Tell her you were wondering because of the way she was treating your classmate, and you feel she may be misunderstood. You will be amazed what you will learn.

The answer is as simple as you having the courage to find the boy who just got shoved or tripped and asking him if there is anything you can do to help him. You see, just knowing that you care will plant seeds for his own courage to blossom.The answer is as simple as you. The answer is as simple as you having the courage.

Do you have courage like that? I hope so. I don't want to see any more kids die.”

(Read the whole article at: http://www.danoah.com/2010/10/memoirs-of-bullied-kid.html)

The reason that injustice, cruelty, and tragedy are allowed to go on is usually that no one, or very few, are willing to stand up and say something, do something, or intervene. It’s why something has horrific as the Jewish Holocaust could go on and on and why we have refugees from places like Burma and the Sudan among us: we, the world, have allowed slaughter and atrocities to be committed against our fellow human beings due to our inaction and apathy. This is one reason our Presiding Bishop has called the Episcopal Church to a season of prayer, study, and action, in solidarity with the people of Sudan.

And this apathy, this lack of a sense of responsibility for others flies in the face of the justice we are called to seek and strive for. We so frequently shove responsibility off of our plates and justify it by saying, “That’s not my problem. Someone else will attend to it. Someone else is responsible.” As the Prayer Book expresses in our Confession: “Forgive us for the things we have done and those things which we have left undone.”

So here it is: stewardship is not an isolated thing, it’s not something we do at a certain time of year that is relegated to one area of our lives. It’s about a whole way of living and relating to God and the world, understanding that, like it or not, we are stewards of all that we have and we have a responsibility to those around us and even those far away. The question is not whether we will be stewards, the question is whether will we be good stewards or bad stewards in the limited time we have in our “portion” of the world.

With that in mind, let me offer some examples of really good stewardship that I’ve seen lately:

Did you know the reason the miners in Chile have now been rescued boils down to the fact that Brandon Fisher, the owner of a tiny company in Berlin, PA named “Center Rock” offered to help by loaning a drill his company produced here in America? That drill made the hole that made the rescue possible. If Fisher had seen the tragedy in Chile and decided that this tragedy was outside of his concern or care, the miners would still be in the mine. But he didn’t, he paid for the drill to be brought to Chile and then flew to Chile to assist in the rescue efforts. That is good stewardship of what we have, isn’t it?

Another example of good stewardship occurred recently when our secretary, Cora Osgood, heard the screams of a little child outside her front door right here on Camden. She left what she was doing to take a look and saw a child being handled more roughly than he should by an adult. Rather than relegate this situation as “someone else’s responsibility” she did something: she and her husband called the police and the police were able to intervene before the abuse became more severe. That is good stewardship.

Another example: we have a retired parishioner here at St. Alban’s who heard a sermon I preached months ago about the tremendous need to help the refugees and other impoverished people that come to our office every week needing assistance. Rather than relegate this pastoral need to someone else, she made a personal commitment immediately to, in addition to her monthly giving to St. Alban’s, start giving every month to our Pastoral Account so that we can help more peole with their basic needs when they cannot afford it. That is good stewardship.

Another example that comes from our parish of good stewardship is each and every one of you who donated towards our prayer garden, our capital campaign, or who made a pledge to St. Alban’s and gives regularly to our church. It doesn’t matter how much or how little the amount, every penny given enables our church to continue its’ ministry to our members and to those in our community and beyond. This is good stewardship.

It is absolutely imperative that we seek justice in our world and that we see our responsibility to those God puts in our path and awareness, whether near or far. As we enter into stewardship season it is time to ask ourselves again: What can we do? What can I do? And as we ponder that question, I pray we will all come to better understand our connectedness to one another and find new ways, challenging ourselves, to be good stewards.

The Tenth Leper: Offering Thanks

2010-10-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

Have you also noticed how very little people offer their thanks any more in our society? This happens all the time to me on the road: when I wait or make room for someone to get into my lane in traffic, they almost never so much as give me a little wave of thanks nowadays. Frankly, it annoys me. And I spend a significant amount of time every month responding to people who come to my “All Things Anglican” website with their theological and liturgical questions. Sometimes, in order to answer a complicated question, I have to do time consuming research or spend quite awhile explaining a complicated concept to accurately answer their question. 99% of the time, the inquirers never respond or say thank after I’ve hit “send.” I guess they got what they wanted and feel no need to pause and say thank you. I don’t want to rant too much, but I could site countless examples and I’m sure you can too. The bottom line is that it simply irks me that we’ve become such a thankless culture, even though I know I too can get too busy and forget to thank people when I should.

The human response to this issue is annoyance, and I think it makes for a less considerate culture in general. But what does God think about all this? Does God get annoyed when we so frequently fail to give thanksgiving for all God has done for us?

Martin Luther was once asked “What is the true nature of worship?” His response was simple: “the tenth leper turning back.”

Luke tells of this unique healing story in which 10 ten lepers, all of whom demonstrate some level of faith in Jesus, are healed. They all cry out to Jesus for healing, calling him “Master,” and Jesus gives them a command, just as in our story about Naaman the leper who is told to go and wash in the Jordan. In this instance, Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests. They may have wondered why, but they didn’t ask or argue or ignore Jesus’ words, they just got up and started walking. Miraculously, as they go, it says they are made “clean” and the leprosy leaves them. Clearly obedience precedes healing, as it usually does in the healing stories of the Bible. All ten of them showed some level of faith and even obedience initially and received physical healing but only one pauses, turns back praising God in a loud voice and goes to Jesus to offer his thanks. Luke is quick to point out that this man is a Samaritan and not a Jew; he is an outsider and foreigner, someone despised, which is surprising. But then Jesus then asks a rhetorical question, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" We may be tempted to think that, like us, Jesus is annoyed here because he has done something for these people and only one out of ten stopped to thank him. But Jesus’ concern goes far beyond what we humans find annoying about the lack of gratitude that prevails.

We think we should thank others and thank God because they deserve it. That’s only half true, or maybe only a quarter true. What is really at issue is that we NEED to offer thanks much more than God or anyone else needs to hear it. The clue is in Jesus’ final words to the healed leper: “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well." The Greek word for “well” means “made whole” and “saved” or “rescued” you. While all 10 were healed physically, only one was healed completely, down to his very soul. In stopping and giving thanks, the leper was changed even more deeply.

We go through life and constantly ask God for things. Our list of requests is always so much longer than our list of thanksgivings. Just look at the Prayers of the People. Every church always has long lists of prayer requests, but rarely are there prayers of thanksgiving and rarely are reports of good news when prayers are answered or people find healing given. When I worked at St. John’s in Ohio with the long time Rector of the parish, he used to insist that people say something in the thanksgiving section of the Prayers of the People. In fact, he was so insistent about it that there would sometimes be painfully long pauses of silence while he waited for the congregation to verbalize some prayers of thanksgiving. We all started thinking of things we could say in that spot just to avoid the embarrassing silence!

But why are we so quick to ask for things and so slow to give thanks? Why is gratitude such an afterthought? And how does that impact us and our world?

Jesus has given us at least one remedy for this in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, or the Eucharist. Eucharist simply means “thanksgiving” and our Prayer Book calls it “The Great Thanksgiving.” In the Eucharist, we recall all that God has done throughout history to save and restore us…it really is primarily one long prayer of thanksgiving to God if you pay attention. If you ever find yourself getting bored during it, think about each word and statement and the power behind what God really has done in the world and in your life. The weekly habit of giving thanks in the Eucharist reminds us of what God has done and helps change our perspective. Like the leper, we need to stop what we are doing, turn back, and come worship as frequently as possible, to give thanks to God. Again, it’s not that God needs it, it’s that we need it: in giving thanks, genuine thanks, we find ourselves changed and we are made whole. Only then, can we, like the leper, go on our way fully healed and restored.

So what are some ways we can incorporate more gratitude into our lives? A few ideas….Take time in prayer to give thanks to God and not just ask for things. Take inventory of all the blessings in your life regularly and especially when you start to feel discouraged. When you hear or get good news, immediately thank God silently or aloud for it. Say thank you to others every chance you get, catch people doing something good and notice it. Come to worship frequently and let your heart be turned in gratitude throughout the service, during the Prayers of the People, and especially at the Great Thanksgiving, the Eucharist and when you receive the Lord’s Body and Blood. Show thanks in your actions: by giving of your time, talent, and money in service and gratitude to God, remembering that all we have is God’s. As we do these things, we will find that our attitude about life changed, we will become different people filled with joy and gratitude.

Don’t let the ingratitude of others stop you from doing what you are called to do, and don’t stop giving thanks just because you aren’t receiving thanks. The fact is, we have more to give thanks for than we could ever possibly verbalize, it’s just that we fail to notice it. As John Newton wrote in the last line of his famous hymn “Amazing Grace” : “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise then when we first begun.” We could sing of God’s love and mercy forever and never run out of things to thank God for…thanks be to God!

St. Francis: The Little Mustard Seed

2010-10-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

"’If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.”

Do you believe that? Do you believe if you had just a tiny drop of true sincere faith, you could change the world? Does it sound too foolish? There was a man, a small man, himself like a little mustard seed, who had that kind of faith. His faith was full of abandon and foolishness. He was even foolish enough to truly believe that with God all things were possible. And he moved mountains throughout his life, by being simple, humble, and caring nothing about what others thought of him, save God alone. His faith, foolish as it may be, was also his joy. His name was Francis of Assisi and he was born in 1182 in Italy. He founded the Franciscan Order, and we celebrate his feast on October 4th. To catch the sense of the incredible and foolish faith of this little man, listen to a story from the Little Flowers of St. Francis:

One day near St. Mary of the Angels, the blessed Francis called Friar Leo and said, ‘Friar Leo.’ ‘Here I am,’ replied the other. ‘Write down what is perfect joy. If a messenger should arrive from Paris announcing that all the teachers from Paris had come into the Order, write down: true joy is not therein. If all the prelates, archbishops and even the King of France and the King of England should join the Order, write down: true joy is not therein. Further if all my friars should go among the infidels and convert them all to the faith, or if I should have so much grace from God that I heal the sick and work miracles, write down: true joy is not therein. But what is perfect joy? I return from Perugia in the black of night and I come here and it is winter, muddy and so cold that icicles form on the hem of my tunic and strike against my legs without cease and draw blood from my wounds. Thus covered with mud, soaked and frozen I come to the door and after I call out and knock for a long time, a friar comes and asks: ‘Who are you?’ I answer, ‘Friar Francis,’ and he says: ‘Begone! This is not an hour to be wandering around!’ And since I insist and knock further, he answers: ‘Begone! You are a worthless fellow, a simpleton. Don’t come here anymore. We are just so many and have no need of you!’ I still knock on the door, and I say: ‘For the love of God give me shelter for this night.’ And he answers, ‘I will not. Go to the hospital of the Cruciferi and ask there.’
And if I endure all this patiently and without dismay, I say to you, therefore, that therein lies perfect joy, true virtue and the salvation of the soul.”

If nothing else, Francis will grab your attention. I believe he trod in Jesus’ footsteps more closely than anyone has before or since, at least that we know of from history. On Wednesday nights we talk about the saint of the day, and the reason for recounting the lives of the saints is very simple: their lives and example strengthens and inpires our faith. If our faith is to have the quality of the mustard seed that uproots mulberry trees and replants them into the sea, we could stand to learn a thing or two from Francis, the little man from Assisi.

Francis was the son of a wealthy linen merchant and as a young man, was a soldier in the military. He wanted to be a knight but it was a short career. He was captured, imprisoned, and became ill. During his long recovery, watching birds come to his window and pondering their simplicity, a growing sense of disillusionment with wealth, materialism, and the corruption of the Church began to take root. His conversion really began however, when he encountered a leper one day and noticed his gut reaction was one of disgust. Despising this feeling, he overcame it by immediately by holding out his arms to hug and then embrace the leper. He was never the same. Not long after this, while at a church in Assisi at the Crucifix of San Damiano he heard God say, “Francis, rebuild my church.” He immediately felt lead to flee from the trappings of materialism and began giving away his family’s money and possessions to the needy. This didn’t please his father and his is angry father took him to the Bishop’s court and demanded repayment. On the spot, in the site of all, Francis stripped himself of all his clothes and walked naked out of the city, never to return as the son of the wealthy merchant. Instead, from then on he wore only the clothing that beggars and lepers wore: a gray (undied) tunic. He lived outside the city walls and became a wanderer, homeless by choice. He nursed the lepers and worked on physically repairing churches that had crumbled due to neglect. He sensed a strong call to preach and to start a community of brothers who would travel, preach the Gospel, serve the poor, and own nothing, embracing Lady Poverty as he called it, completely. And remember it was Francis who said, ““Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” Francis was ridiculed, laughed at, and had stones thrown at him constantly during his ministry. It didn’t dampen his joy. He would often break out in song and dance, being what he called a “fool for Christ.” He loved nature, all of creation, and even preached to animals, whom he frequently found to be better listeners than people. Francis’ love of animals as respected fellow creatures of God went far beyond sentimentality however. He once wrote, “If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.” Francis saw that our actions towards the weakest, the “least of these” in our world, from lepers to animals, was indicative of our ability to show Christ-like mercy. And so he embraced them.

It didn’t take long for Francis to garner 8 brothers and they wrote a Rule of Life, one based on poverty and simplicity, in stark contrast to the lucrative and wealthy Religious Orders of the day. The brothers traveled to Rome to receive recognition from the Pope as a Religious Order, which surprisingly, they received. The Order continued to grow and within a few years, the first woman wanted to join: Clare of Assisi and a women’s community began. They too embraced poverty and became known as the Poor Clares. As Francis’ faith grew, so did his deepening mysticism. In prayer, he would often be found lost in his visions of God. One of his visions was of the Christ child at his birth in the manger and this inspired him to re-create the scene. St. Francis made the first “Manger Scene” with live people and animals and the whole town came to see it one Christmas. Every manger scene or Christmas Creche since then finds its’ roots in St. Francis’ vision.

The Order grew and grew and everyone wanted to join, so he created Franciscan Third Order for secular, married people called the “Third Order” so that anyone could live out this way of life, dedicated to Jesus’ words. As Francis aged he had many physical struggles including a “dark night of the soul” which lasted for 2 years while he was ill with malaria and glaucoma, becoming bline. Still, he rewrote his Order’s Rule in 1221 (which is still used today). And then in 1224 he was the first person since St. Paul to receive the stigmata (the wounds of Christ) while in prayer and meditation. By the time Francis died in 1226, he had totally reformed the Church merely by living out his simple faith, and he had won followers and people wholeheartedly dedicated to the Gospel too numerous to count from of all ages and position in life, including the devotion of the Pope himself. The world was never same.

Francis’ mustard seed of faith uprooted the mulberry tree of the entire Church and replanted it into the fertile soil of renewal centered squarely in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So who will be the next St. Francis? We are in dire need of another Francis in the Church and world today, to bring us back to the heart of the Gospel. Remember that St. Francis said, ““If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.” Maybe that anyone is you: and all it takes is faith the size of a tiny mustard seed.

Interest and Debt: God Cares

2010-09-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

Text: Luke 16:1-13

When I graduated with my second Master’s degree in Theology, I had accrued $39,000 in debt in student loans from college and seminary combined. I have been paying on that debt for 10 years now and I send the loan company $300 every month because I’ve never had enough money to make more than the minimum payments. So, over these 10 years, if you do the math, I have sent in $36,000 worth of payments, nearly the entire amount I owe. But the sickening reality is, all my payments have been put towards the interest on the loan, and I have paid essentially nothing towards the principle, and so, I still owe the same $39,000 as when I graduated 10 years ago. To say this upsets me would be an understatement, but it is the reality of living in a world like ours, where companies are allowed to charge high interest on money loaned, even to impoverished and unsuspecting college students who simply want an education. I am sure many of you can relate to this frustration in some form or another.

The Bible calls the practice of charging interest on a loan “usury” and it is a serious sin, forbidden by Mosaic law. It is discussed frequently in the Bible. Exodus 22:25 states, “If you lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with you, you shall not be to them as a creditor; neither shall you lay upon them interest.”

This practice became acceptable in society many hundreds of years ago and it has a deep impact today on the global economy. We see it surface in a variety of ways in the business in everything from payday loans to sub-prime mortgages.

Now keep this image in mind as we look at our Gospel lesson in Luke. In it we read of a manager who is called “dishonest.” The Greek term here really means “unjust.” We have an unjust manager, a steward who manages the wealth of his master and acts on his behalf, but has in some way squandered his master’s wealth. Now the Master is ready to dismiss him from his job after an accounting is given. But the manager has thought ahead and is prepared, he decides to do something that will ensure his future: he goes to all those who owed his Master debt and reduces the debt. Scholars tell us that what is likely being described here is that the manager is actually cancelling all the interest on the debts owed. So, the man who owed 100 jugs of oil likely borrowed only 50, but in time, with interest, he now owes 100. The manager totally cancels that debt.

This would be like getting a call from your bank manager who tells you that the bank is going to cancel all the debt that has accrued on your loan or credit card from interest. If you owed a lot of money, this could be a life saver. In my case, my student loan would be nearly paid off…it would be fabulous.

After the manager has done this, we expect that the Master is going to find out and be furious. But pay attention, because the next sentence is the key to the meaning behind the parable. Instead of being furious, the Master is entirely pleased and actually praises the manager for acting “shrewdly.” Again, the Greek word here really means wisely or pragmatically, which is a better translation. But we are told that the manager, in canceling the debts, has done something wise and his actions please the Master. How perplexing. Why would this please the Master? It could only please the Master if: 1.) the Master was not greedy and didn’t care about his wealth; and 2.) the Master had wanted to the manager to act in this way all along. But what kind of earthly Master or rich businessman is like that? I don’t know too many. To be consistent with Jesus’ teaching and parables, I think we have to see that this rich master is actually represents God. The statements that come after the parable are commentary, but the parable itself ends with the Master’s praise. This gives the parable a whole new twist.

If God is the master then we are the manager: stewards of all that is God’s. Everything we have is a gift from God and God expects us to act with mercy at all times. The Master praises the manager for canceling the debts, for putting an end to the usury, and he praises him regardless of the manager’s actual motives for doing so. Perhaps the manager only did this to benefit himself, but in the end, it was not only pragmatic, it was merciful and better represented the way the Master wanted his wealth handled.

Now let’s take it one step further. While Jesus is certainly talking about money here, which he calls “dishonest wealth,” he is also talking about spiritual wealth and treasure. Remember that Jesus often tied the idea of debt with the idea of sin. I remember in the Presbyterian Church we always recited the Lord’s Prayer differently. Instead of talking about forgiveness of trespasses, we said, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This is key in Luke’s Gospel as well.

Even if we do not charge interest on loans, we may be practicing spiritual usury: by holding someone’s sins against them, by holding back forgiveness. We hold their wrongs over their heads and amass grudges and bitterness, eg interest. Jesus is calling us to cancel these debts, to forgive them completely and to act in mercy, whether the person deserves it or not. Maybe our motives for forgiving someone are not even totally pure, and like the manager, we may simply do it for our own benefit or to let go of the poison that unforgiveness brings, but nevertheless, in forgiving others, in canceling debts, we are becoming imitators of our Master, who acts mercifully towards all, unlike the loan companies charging interest and enslaving their debtors.

In order to be faithful in much, we must first be faithful in little Jesus says. This concept applies to our finances and it applies to our spiritual lives. We have to learn to forgive small the slights in order to learn to forgive the really big, awful, painful ones. As we live our lives, the goal is to find ways to show mercy, not to hoard and greedily get all that we can. All that we have is God’s, and we are called, as God’s stewards, to walk around this planet forgiving debts and sins and showing mercy, just as God has done for us in Jesus Christ. As we learn to do this, we please our Master and will eventually come to inherit our eternal home, which nothing on earth can ever destroy. We have a kindly Master: we are forgiven, God has canceled all our debts and we can now go and do the same, freely and joyfully. Thanks be to God.

Come Home

2010-09-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

Sermon September 12, 2010
Text: Luke 15:1-10

So…who do you identify with in today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke? I see at least three types of people represented in the text. Are you one of “the righteous” who thinks you have no need of repentance, distancing yourself from “sinners”? (Those “sinners,” by the way, are simply the people we most disdain…it’s the group of people we want to keep at a distance and that we look down on, most of us can identify some such group or individual.) Or are you a lost sheep? Are you wandering away from your loving Shepherd? Are you hiding away like a lost coin? Or, finally, are you the one who knows you’re a sinner, but you believe you have no worth, that you’re beyond saving grace and not a recipient of God’s love? Which one are you? Which role or attitude might God calling you out from?

Maybe you’re all three in different ways. I think we take on different roles at different times in our lives, depending on our circumstances. I can certainly identify with all three of these roles at different moments in my life. But whoever you are and wherever you are, God is calling you.
So first let’s deal with those of us who identify with the Pharisees. We find ourselves in that role when we start making judgments and assumptions about people, be they specific people or just groups of people. We have thoughts like, “Oh, those terrible or stupid or evil or ignorant (fill in the blank).” We think we are somehow more righteous than “those” people. And, truth be told, if we saw Jesus hanging out with them, going to their parties and welcoming them, we’d be miffed. We would grumble: what is Jesus doing with that crowd? They’re so obviously the wrong people. And let’s be honest. We don’t really want God to like and welcome the people we most dislike or disagree with. Author Anne Lamott once wrote, “You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” So to all of us righteous Pharisees, the message is that we need to get over ourselves. We are not “all that.” We too are sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness just as much as “them,” and we too need to repent. God loves you AND the guys you don’t like and is hoping that all of us will come to repentance and be a part of God’s family. I’m not saying I like it or that it’s easy, there are plenty of people I’d rather not hang out with, but Jesus shows me another way, and he shows all of us who are trying to follow him, another way to live.

Now what about those of us who identify with the lost sheep. Perhaps you don’t see yourself as being in the “in-crowd” at all. Or you feel alienated from the so-called flock, and maybe you even like being on your own, going it all alone, wandering off, hiding away from God. Jesus wants those of us who are the lost sheep to hear that he’s not going to leave us alone: he’s going to keep searching for us, and keep calling our name, relentlessly, and wants us to know that we’re never going to find what we’re looking for until we find God. As St. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." God is the Hound of Heaven and is calling you back home in love, home to God’s open arms. God is waiting for you today, right now and right here. It’s time to come home.

But maybe you identify most with the sinners in the story, the ones who knows they’ve sinned and screwed up and have royally made a mess of things, maybe you’ve even made a mess of your whole life. You may think you’re not worth God’s time, not worthy of God’s love, that you’re even beyond saving…why would anyone care about you, let alone God? That’s a hard place to be.

This past week, the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was celebrated in our calendar and I found myself caught up reading some his writings, having studied him in college in my Philosophy classes years ago. I came across something he wrote that I think all of us, sinner types included, need to hear.

He writes,
“There is so much said now about people being offended at Christianity because it is so dark and gloomy. But the real reason why man is offended at Christianity is that it would make of a man something so extraordinary that he is unable to get it into his head.

Imagine the mightiest Emperor that ever lived; and imagine some poor peasant, who would think himself fortunate if he could but once catch a glimpse of the Emperor, and would tell his children and grandchildren of this as the most important event of his life. Suppose that the Emperor were to send for this man, who had not supposed that the Emperor knew of his existence, and informed him that he wished to have him as a son-in-law. In all probability, the peasant, instead of being delighted, would be offended, since he would suppose that this could mean only that the Emperor wanted to make a fool of him! And now for Christianity! Christianity teaches that every man, say an ordinary man who would be quite proud of having once in his life talked with the King of Denmark, can talk with God any moment he wishes, and is sure to be heard by Him, that for this man's sake God came into the world to suffer and die. If anything would stun a man, surely it is this. Whoever has not the humble courage to believe it, must surely be offended by it.” (abridged from Sickness Unto Death)

I think Kierkegaard was on to something: I don’t think most of us can really get our heads around the Gospel and what Jesus is saying here: we simply cannot believe that the God of the universe has sent for us, personally, to join God’s family as a son or daughter, like an Emperor sending for a peasant to become a family member. Not even the Pharisees, who thought themselves righteous, really understood this, they didn’t understand that God, the King and Lord of the entire universe was actually interested in each person, however lowly or “unimportant” or even as “sinful” as they may be. They too were caught up in trying to earn a way in, to prove themselves worthy by distancing themselves from those in the “wrong.”
To those of us who think we’re not worthy, Jesus has a message too: God welcomes you fully. And doesn’t just welcome you, God welcomes you with open arms, not from afar, but by coming to you, because you are worth searching for. You are so valuable and so worth it that God and all the angels in heaven rejoice over you when you’ve been found. Like a lost coin, you are not merely tolerable, you are a precious in God’s sight. You have great value, a treasure in God’s heart. Like I said, whoever you are and wherever you are, God is calling you. God has sent for you personally and is calling you back home today, at this very moment.

Counting the Cost of Discipleship

2010-09-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

Text: Luke 14:25-33

In my early days as a priest and preacher, I would often read the lection texts while preparing for my sermons, and skip anything that seemed too difficult or hard to preach on. Sometimes it was the lesson from the Old Testament, but most frequently it was the Gospel. I didn’t feel, as a new priest, quite qualified to explain what Jesus meant in some of his hard sayings and frankly, I found it very intimidating. But soon I felt convicted by the Holy Spirit to stop avoiding the hard sayings of Jesus, and now, it is practically a policy of mine, that unless there’s an extremely good reason, I should always preach on the hardest lesson in the lectionary and never skip the hard sayings of Jesus because they are often the most fruitful in Scripture. In this season of Ordinary Time and throughout summer, we hit many of these hard sayings of Jesus and today is no exception. We read in the Gospel of Luke and hear Jesus say, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Before jumping in, I want us to notice that in this passage, Jesus didn’t just say this to the 12 or to an inner circle of followers, he is addressing large crowds here, so these words were meant for everyone to hear and to heed.

So is Jesus really preaching hatred here? We are startled by the word by the word “hate,” and well we should be, it’s meant to startle us. But recall that Jesus often uses the technique of hyperbole or exaggeration to make his point. And not only Jesus did this: exaggeration was a common linguistic technique in Hebrew. Jesus wants to wake us up, to rouse us and get our attention and it works! And again, we have to let Scripture interpret Scripture and we know Jesus forbids us to hate anyone, and in fact continually calls us to love others, exhorting us to love our neighbors as ourselves and even calls us to love our enemies. Jesus is not preaching hate. In this context the word means to “love less than” or to be “less attached to than.”

Of course, understanding that Jesus is telling us to love our family members and even our own lives less than we love Christ doesn’t make this text any easier. Maybe it sounds softer to the ear, but we still ought to be startled by it and hear just how hard this saying of Jesus really is. Jesus wants us all to be very clear about the cost of discipleship: to follow Jesus we need to recognize that it can cost us everything, everything, even life itself. Following Jesus leads us straight to the foot of the cross.

And Jesus uses an image about counting the cost of a building project before laying the foundation to help us understand his meaning. Then Jesus uses a military image in which he describes a king or a commander counting the cost and considering the outcome before entering into a war. Right now in our nation we are welcoming men and women back home from the war in Iraq and my hope and prayer is that we will be extremely supportive of our military and their families. And think for a moment, what it looks like to count the cost when one enlists in the armed forces. That individual, on a very personal level, must know the cost, and know that they may be called upon to give up everything for their country: where they live, what they do, being near to their family, and ultimately, their very lives. They know that they may need to die for the sake of their nation. And they do it anyway, willingly. And many have given their lives.

Do we think that followers, true disciples of Jesus, are asked for something less? To enlist as a follower of Jesus, to be a disciple, we need to know that we may be called upon to give up everything for the sake of Christ. We may be called to faraway places, we may have to give up all kinds of things we love and are attached to, we may be separated from our families, and we may even have to give up our lives. But to die for the sake of God is the highest honor out there. Jesus and all the first disciples gave up their lives, many of the early Christians did as well, and throughout history we have seen the testimony of the martyrs. Before you can really become a disciple, you have to count the cost and be willing to give up everything. Christianity goes way beyond coming to church on Sundays and tossing up a few prayers.

In the Celtic Christian tradition, there were three types of martyrdom. They understood that there was more than one way to “die” to the self for the sake of Christ. First there was red martyrdom: that was dying a physical death for God. But there was also white martyrdom: which was forsaking one’s home- and leaving one’s homeland and/or family for a mission that God had called one to, often as a missionary. Finally there was green martyrdom: forsaking one’s daily habits or “creature comforts” as we often refer to them by simply sacrificing things in one’s daily life (as through fasting or giving away one’s money and possessions) for the sake of drawing closer to God. Today I think fasting from TV or the internet in order to pray more would be a good example of green martyrdom.

And so the fact is, we’re all invited and called to by martyrs in that sense: most of us will never be called to be red martyrs, some of us may be called to be white martyrs, but all disciples are called to be green martyrs. Still, we ever know, and we may be called upon to give up everything at a moment’s notice, when we follow Jesus. Now this doesn’t mean we that we view ourselves or live our lives as victims, but that we actively choose habits and patterns of sacrifice in our lives that draw us closer to God, that honor God, demonstrating that God comes first. The amazing irony here is that when we do this, when we die to ourselves in this way, we actually bring more life, more abundant life into our hearts and souls, because admittedly so much of what we do, what we own, what we are attached to, and what we put our hopes in, does far more to harm us than nourish us.

And so Jesus gives us a formula to order our affections: God first, people, including our lives and our families, second. When and if we put our family and our children before God, then they have become idols. This is one of the most common forms of idolatry out there. And when we put our things first, our possessions, then they too have become idols, which is why Jesus says, “therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." When we love God first, then we are able to love our families and ourselves most fully.

Do you want to be a disciple of Jesus? Have you counted the cost? If you’re still unsure, let me offer some encouragement. While it is not easy to be a disciple, while it is in fact the hardest thing you will ever do and while it may very well cost you everything: in losing all, in giving up all, you will find your life and it will be the most rewarding, liberating, fulfilling, joyful life you could ever imagine because you will have God in Christ. And having God is better than having anything and everything else. There is no better and no higher calling than giving all to God: in being disciple. When we take the step of faith and give our lives to God, when we follow Jesus, we don’t do it alone. We do it with God’s help and by sheer grace, we walk this most glorious path from the cross to the tomb to the resurrection. There is no higher joy, honor, or glory than living for God. We take up our cross and die, so that we may truly live. Thanks be to God.

Which Chair Will you Sit In?

2010-08-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Sermon based on Luke 14:1, 7-14

It’s easy at first glance to think that in our lesson from Luke, Jesus is giving us some kind of Miss Manners lesson or some kind of etiquette “how-to” about dinner parties. We’re told not to sit in the place of honor but to sit in the lowest place. Jesus also tells us that when we throw a luncheon or dinner, to invite, not our friends, relatives and rich neighbors, but the poor, the blind, the lame, and the crippled, those on the margins who are despised. And while I don’t want to sidestep the powerful social implications of these statements, I think Jesus is speaking to us on two different levels here. There is the obvious surface meaning which hardly needs unpacking: it is about showing humility in our actions and inviting those on the margins of society into our homes, our lives, and churches. If we really lived out these words of Jesus in a literal way, it would be a powerful witness and would change us and our society from the inside out. Jesus is certainly challenging the current power structures, the class systems of society and he’s turning them upside down. This is a common theme in Jesus’ teachings.

But on the other hand, we know that Jesus is often saying much more than what is on the surface. Scripture in general frequently has this impact of saying one thing at the more obvious level while simultaneously making a much deeper point. So I’d like to unpack that deeper point with you by way of a few illustrations.

Think back to when you were a young child (or if you are a child, simply recall your life as it is now). How did you know when whether you were a “good” or “bad” kid? How did you know whether you were “worthy” or “valuable”? Our parents hopefully taught us right from wrong and good behavior generally rewarded while bad behavior gets punished. Unfortunately, as humans, we often confuse behavior, with our very being, which is why it’s so important that parents distinguish this for their children: your bad behavior is bad behavior, it does not mean you’re a bad person. I remember reading a child psychologist advise that when disciplining parents never say, “You are bad for having done that” but rather, “That action was bad.” Still, despite even the best of efforts, we make mistakes and children still easily believe that they are good or bad, and valuable or not, based on the rewards and punishments they receive growing up from their parents and teachers. Does this end at childhood? Of course not. Peers do this to one another throughout adolescence and the teen years can be excruciatingly painful for many of us as a real social pecking order begins to emerge: there are always classes of kids, the cool kids and the not-cool-kids. In my high school, the athletes, the surfers, and the cheerleaders (and their circle of friends) were honored and had value. The others, those who were shy or bookish, disabled, or sad and wore too much black, they were dishonored and despised. In high school, people were constantly volleying for the place of honor, to the detriment of others. But does it end in high school? By no means. College and graduate school continues this tradition, only the rules change slightly. At least at the schools I went to, the intelligent and hard working students were the ones who were honored. There is even a Dean’s list and an “Honor Roll” that one can be on, and of course, we all wanted to be on that role and to have some kind of honorable title tagged on to the end of our degree. “Bachelor or Master of Arts”: “Summa Cum Laude” or “Magna Cum Laude,” or simply “Cum Laude” which comes from the Latin term “with praise.” You can graduate with the “highest praise” or with “great praise” or simply “with praise.” And does this whole system end with our studies? No. In the business world in companies, corporations, and even in the church, there are levels of honor and rewards given. Maybe we do not have seats of honor at our dinner tables anymore, but we have “the corner office.” Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention the fancy Bishop’s chair that so many churches have in the sanctuaries. The word “cathedral” itself refers to a chair because cathedra means chair. The cathedral is a cathedral because it is the one place in a Diocese that hosts the official chair or throne of the Bishop. (Which is why I find the use of the word “cathedral” by non-denominational Protestants so funny…I guess they just think it’s a fancy word for church.) Of course, the places of honor go beyond the church or working world: we see clearly established places of honor in the wider world, in nations, states, counties, cities, and even small towns and neighborhoods. Think of the difference in perspective or reaction one gets if, when asked where you live, you say “El Cajon” versus “La Jolla.” “Kensington” versus “Chula Vista.” This kind of ranking, of bad, good, better, and best is with us our entire lives. And as humans, we buy into it, often wholesale, we even become enslaved to it. Of course we strive for the “seat of honor” we are looking to be among the honored because we think that gives us value, importance, and meaning. Maybe we even think it will make God think more highly of us. It’s a sad and unfortunate way of living our lives.

But there is good news, because this is NOT the way God works. In Jesus’ description, Jesus is not only talking about us as hosts or guests at our own dinner parties, but about God, the host of God’s grand dinner party. The Kingdom of God is often described as a banquet and a feast at a table. There are clear Eucharistic undertones to Jesus’ words. While we humans are caught up in always ranking others and ranking ourselves, fighting to be honored in some way in order to feel valuable, Jesus tells us that God’s party looks nothing like that. Your value and honor has nothing to do with way we people judge honor and value. You can be a terrible student, be the weird kid that wears black, have the lowest of jobs, be unemployed, live in the poorest region of the county, have major disabilities, be illiterate or mentally challenged and never receive honor from your peers or your society. But guess what: God loves you and invites you to the best banquet: you are invited to God’s Table and there is NO OTHER table that is more honorable in this universe. Who cares if you’re not invited to the best parties in town, you’re invited to God’s party.

And this isn’t just good news for the have-nots. It’s good news for those who have much and have received honor in this world because it means you can finally rest. You don’t have to impress God with all that stuff! You can go sit on the floor in the lowest place at God’s house and God will honor you for nothing more than having the humility to call Jesus your Lord and Savior. That’s it: you don’t have to earn your value in God’s eyes, you are valued because you are a child of God, baptized into Jeus Christ by the Holy Spirit and worth is so immense that God paid for your soul, not with money, gold, or jewels, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

In college a professor asked the class to share the one thing in life they’d most like to change about themselves. My answer was, “to care less, in fact, to care nothing about what other people thought about me….to care only what God thought about me.” I guess even then I knew there was a deep, wide, enormous freedom in letting go of all the trappings that society is convinced gives us honor and value. God loves you for you, whoever you are and whatever you are. All we have to do is accept that love, trust it, and revel in it, knowing we are saved by grace through faith. It is the best party imaginable and you are already the honored guest, and you don’t have to prove it. Come to God’s Table today and eat with Jesus the Lord in Holy Communion. The Eucharist is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, and you are invited. Thanks be to God.

The Burdens We Bear

2010-08-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

There are a group of young girls, teenagers, and women of varying ages that live in the mountains surrounding the capital of Ethiopia who are known as “firewood carriers.” They walk, barefoot and bent over at the waist, carrying seventy-five pound bundles, spanning seven feet long, of eucalyptus saplings tied to their backs. They go from the mountain tops down to the city center of Adis Ababa, about ten miles distance, all for a few pennies a trip. The pictures of these women and young girls, which tourists often capture on film, are almost impossible to believe: how can anyone so small and frail looking could carry something so huge and heavy on their backs along such a treacherous path. It is painful and causes them many physical problems. It’s a disturbing site to all those who see it: such a terrible burden, a heavy yoke to bear in order to survive.

The woman in our Gospel lesson in Luke is permanently bent over, much like the fire carrying women in Ethiopia. We don’t know exactly what has caused this disfigurement but she has been afflicted in this way for 18 years according the Biblical account. In fact, she was so bent over, that she could not stand up straight or look anyone in the eye. Jesus equates her affliction with bondage: saying she has been tied up, enslaved, to Satan. Such a terrible burden, a heavy yoke to bear.

But there is someone else in our story is who bent over and carrying a very heavy yoke and burden: it is the religious leader who opposes Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. His burden is of a different sort however: while not visible to the eye, he carries a burden of a spiritual nature: he is bound up by his religion, by the black and white rules and regulations of what is and is not permissible, caring less about his fellow humans than the rules he wants to see followed. Jesus identifies his burden as hypocrisy. It is a torturous burden to bear, but unlike the woman, he is totally unaware of his terrible burden and heavy yoke. His burden may in fact be ultimately far more crippling than the ailment the woman suffered these many years, because he doesn’t identify it and it keeps him from God.

Our tendency, when we hear this story, is to distance ourselves from these 2 characters, but in doing so, we fail to see that we too are carrying terrible burdens and heavy yokes. We too are bent over and weighed down by many things, and while our yoke may not be not visible and we are not bent over in physical pain, you and I still struggle with burdens of our own. What are the heavy burdens you’re carrying around in your life today? What is weighing you down? Worries, fears, financial struggles, spiritual troubles, poor health, stress, debt, anger, unforgiveness?

So many of us walk around this lifetime with such heavy loads, that they crush our spirits. And we mistakenly think that these heavy burdens must be born alone, that it is somehow our responsibility to take on all that weigh us down. Maybe we think God gave them to us or maybe we think no one can help us or maybe we have a strong sense of obligation and hyper-responsibility or maybe we even enjoy strapping those burdens on to our backs every day like martyrs. We believe we must carry them in order to survive. Whatever the reason and however the burdens got there, hear this: if your burden feels too heavy or has become too burdensome and is weighing you down, then it is not of God. Jesus tells us in Matthew 11 that Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is light. And Jesus shows us in our story today in Luke that God, in Jesus, desires freedom and liberation for God’s people, the sons and daughters of Abraham, and that it is evil and Satan that binds people with heavy burdens that weigh them down to the ground. Jesus, our Savior and our salvation, calls us, you and I, out of bondage, Jesus comes to heal us, and desires that our yokes be removed, as our passage in Isaiah states so clearly. God’s vision and desire for you and I is expressed so beautifully in that passage. Listen to the prophets words about removing the yoke from among us:

“then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.”

As I read this passage this past week I could not help but recall the words from the hymn written by Joseph Scriven in 1855: “Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer. … Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear. May we ever, Lord, be bringing all to Thee in earnest prayer.”Today I invite you to allow Christ to loosen the yoke about you. Lay down your burdens at the feet of Jesus, call out to him and let Jesus heal you and liberate your heart and soul fully. You are not alone and need no longer bear your burdens by yourself. Hear Jesus say to you as he did to the woman in our lesson: child of Abraham, “you are set free.”

Jesus: Bringer of Peace or Division?

2010-08-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

I hope today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke caused you to stop and think and wonder about its’ meaning. In it Jesus asks his listeners, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” I hope you are asking: what is Jesus talking about? Where in the world is the Good News in this passage? Isn’t Jesus the Prince of Peace?

And before we dive in to this difficult text, I’d like us to take a little step back and first think about what is required for change to occur…for change to occur in big or little ways. And I’d like to start with something really small: a messy hall closet. If you’re like me and my hall closet, over time, it always gets jam packed, disorganized, over full- to the point of spilling over, and soon I can’t find anything I want in my hall closet. My hall closet becomes a source of fear and dread: I know the dust buster is back in there somewhere, but in order to get to it, it’s going to cost me a lot of time and effort. It’s easier to just leave it be, to keep the “peace” by ignoring the mess. Maybe I don’t really need the dust buster that much.

But when it gets bad enough, I finally resolve to clean the hall closet. But the process of change, of cleaning a closet, is a big investment of time and it involves making an even bigger mess than is currently in place. I want order and unity but to have that, I have to pull everything out, spread it all over the floor and work my way through piece by piece, box by box, and item by item. For awhile the mess of organizing the closet far outweighs the original mess. But out of chaos comes order. And in time, the mess gets organized and things get put back in proper, better places than before. Trash is thrown away, things are re-boxed with like items, and eventually I have a hall closet that I can actually use and I know right where to find the dust buster. It’s wonderful…for at least several months. So that’s a small change…and an example of how positive change works: messier at first, but better afterward.

Now let’s contemplate a much more complex, bigger change: how about the changing of an entire culture out of legalized habits and patterns that promote racial discrimination. For example: here in the US racism flourished under the Jim Crow laws, segregating public facilities between blacks and whites in the first half of the last century. The injustice of it doesn’t even need recounting for most of us, it was so blatantly wrong. When Martin Luther King Jr. began to combat racism in America, part of his calling as a Christian pastor, was the goal of equality, unity, and ultimately peace, but the initial stages of that change in our nation were anything but calm, peaceful, and harmonious. It was messy, painful, and even chaotic.

If you think about it, our society had been functioning with a type of “peace” in place before the Civil Rights movement: those in power kept minorities in place by simply oppressing them. It was indeed some sort of peace, but it was a peace that comes when a superior power or force is used to cause others to submit. People like MLK Jr. and the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement upset that “peace” in order to bring about change. Division within society and even among families preceded that cultural shift before we could come closer to being of one mind about the evils racial discrimination. It was a lot messier before it was better.

Now let’s look at Jesus. Jesus’ vision and calling as the Messiah, the Son of God, was much broader and deeper and bigger. Jesus’ mission was (and still is) nothing less than the full transformation of the heart and soul of every human being, changing the entire world, to a place where God’s peaceful kingdom reigns. You better believe that level of change causes waves and the “peaceful” balance is disturbed.

It is often said that the best way to interpret Scripture is to let Scripture interpret itself. And I believe that is absolutely key in understanding this passage from Luke. The key to Luke 12:49-56 is found in John 14:27 when Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” So there are least two types of peace: the world’s peace and Jesus’ peace. The world gives and seeks peace by ignoring problems, by resisting a change of heart or behavior because it is so difficult, by being content with the status quo no matter how oppressive it is to someone else, or by forcing others to submit through superior force and power. That is not the peace Jesus came to bring. Many people hoped, including the disciples themselves, that the Messiah was going to overthrow Rome and bring freedom and peace to the Jewish people by force. Jesus would do no such thing. “Do you think I came to bring peace? No.” No, because the path to real peace is much messier, requires much more of us, and is much, much better.

In order to make real substantial change, the mess has to get messier first. Jesus brings division first because disunity and disruption precedes true and lasting change, whether in a hall closet, a society, a world, or one person’s heart. If we want true peace, the peace that Jesus gives, we’re going to have to be willing to suffer messiness and discomfort to get there. It can even be downright painful. Just look at our list of faithful servants in the reading from Hebrews.” It says, “they were tortured… suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented-- of whom the world was not worthy.” Why did they go through that? How could they go through that? By valuing God’s peace more than the world’s peace, which sustained them.

So Jesus is not a Messiah by force, he is no Rambo. He makes peace by suffering and giving everything up, including his very life. As Ephesians says, “For in his own person he killed the hostility by restoring peace through the cross.” (Eph. 2:15-16)

Jesus’ peace is costly and takes us beyond our comfort zones. It’s messy getting there and there will be division among us and even within our own hearts. But we’re not here simply to be happy, to enjoy the “peace” of sipping a cool drink on a nice day on the patio: we’re here to be holy, living at one with God. Jesus prays in John: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.” The peace that Jesus gives does not fluctuate and is not dependent on our circumstances, it is with us wherever we go, and we can find contentment in any situation, because we are at one with God. Don’t settle for “peace,” enter the fray, be transformed, and know God’s peace.

Teach Us to Pray

2010-07-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

Prayer is downright hard. In fact, I think consistent, honest, heartfelt prayer is one of the most difficult things for us humans to do. There are times when I have no words of my own for prayer, and that’s when I am so grateful for the Psalms and the written Collects and prayers of the Church. At other times, I need to pour out my heart to God spontaneously in lament or complaint, in grief and pain. Other times I am caught up in joy and the wonder of being alive and praise comes pouring out and I can hardly contain singing out loud to God and saying “thank you.” But praying every day, even or especially when I don’t feel like it, or, even worse, praying for something that I’ve prayed for over and over again with no answer…that is when prayer gets really tough. At times I’m afraid to pray, afraid to ask God for anything, because I’ve been disappointed, and what I wanted for my life has not come to fruition.

So when I come to this text in Luke’s Gospel about prayer, I wiggle and struggle with it. I do relate to the disciple’s request: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” Certainly prayer is something we all need to learn to do better, especially the type of prayer that leads us into silence and basking in God’s presence, without us always yammering away.
But Jesus’ response to their request is interesting because he gives them a thoroughly Jewish form of prayer and the prayer itself has its’ origins in Jewish prayers. It was common for Rabbis at that time to give their disciples a specific prayer to help form and steep them in prayer. As Christians we refer to this particular prayer as the “Our Father” or “Pater Noster” or Lord’s Prayer, but as I read it, I notice immediately that the focus is very different from what my frequently self-focused prayers are. The focus first and above all is on God. Left to our own devices, our prayers can become all about us and our little inner circle. That’s why we need help to pray in the first place: to remind us that all prayer begins, ends, and is centered on God….not me and my needs/wants. Our starting place in this prayer then, is one of reverent submission to the God of the universe, whose name ought to be hallowed, held holy and sacred by all, so that all may see and know God’s love. But Jesus shows us that this very holy God can be approached as our “Father,” “Abba” which means “daddy,” so God is not unapproachable, but very approachable and we are to come to God as if we are children coming to a loving parent.

The second petition in the prayer, “Your kingdom come” is about God’s will for our world being accomplished, looking ahead to when all barriers between people are broken down and where peace, justice, and mercy reign for all, where suffering and violence have ceased and the Prince of Peace reigns in every heart. It is only after we have prayed these things that we move into a petition related to our needs. But notice how very small and humble the petition for our needs really is, simply “give us our daily bread.” It doesn’t say anything about a good job, a home, material goods, a fulfilling family life, or a secure future…all those things we prayer for and feel are necessary. Instead, all that is asked for our needs in Jesus’ model of prayer, is that we have enough food to eat today. What if I was able to be content and trusting enough to live in this moment: today…Lord, just give me the food I need to sustain my life today, and the rest I’ll leave to you. It’s so different from how we ordinarily think, we want so much more. But this is how Jesus lived his life and ministry: one day at a time, trusting God, often wandering and depending on the hospitality of strangers, getting just enough bread for the day. This is how the Israelites were invited to live in the desert when God fed them manna from heaven: there was always just enough bread for the day, and when they tried to save and hoard it, it spoiled. It’s a question of faith: do we have what we need for today? Can we be content and trust God, not even knowing what tomorrow will bring? Today we will all be fed by God, in the bread from heaven at Communion, the Eucharist, Christ’s Body and Blood, which sustains and feeds us spiritually. God answers this request we make every Sunday and at every celebration of the Eucharist.

The next petition is about forgiveness, and I notice that not only do I need to ask for forgiveness of my sins, but that it is entirely connected to my responsibility to forgive others. This petition is a reminder that we have a role in forgiveness: if we don’t want God to hold our sins against us, we cannot hold back forgiveness from anyone else: anyone else. My professor said he would insert someone’s name in this petition, someone he needed to forgive, every time he prayed the Lord ’s Prayer and I’ve made that a habit of my own in recent years. “Forgive me just as I forgive X.”

The last petition in Luke’s version of the Lord ’s Prayer is “do not bring us to the time of trial.” We use the phrase, “lead us not into temptation” in the Book of Common Prayer. This phrase often confuses people, assuming that God actually leads us or sends us into trial or temptation, but the meaning behind it is “don’t let us be lead, by ourselves or by others, etc., into temptation or trial.” In other words, “Keep us from trial and temptation.”

In Luke’s Gospel the prayer ends right there. In Matthew’s Gospel we have a slightly longer version of the prayer, closer to what we say here in church, but the doxology that we are so familiar with praying at the end, “For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever” is not in the Gospels. It was added by the early church and it too is a Jewish doxology and is likely based on David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29 when he says: “Yours, O LORD, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all.”

When we really look at the Lord’s Prayer we learn a lot about prayer. Something love about the Lord’s Prayer is that it unites all Christians. Whether or not we believe it should be prayed exactly as Jesus taught us or used simply as a model (and I personally think we should utilize it both ways), all Christians are familiar and can agree on this prayer and it is a powerful moment when Christians from all over the denominational spectrum come together and say this prayer in one voice, in total unity.

Our Gospel lesson concludes with Jesus urging us to persevere in prayer. This is hard too. The story he tells of the neighbor at midnight who will have his request for bread answered merely due to his insistence, reminds me of our cat, Franz. That cat will always get his way when he wants in or out, or wants more food, because he is relentless in his whining and scratching, and if for no other reason than to quiet him down, he gets what he needs from us. We often do things out of convenience or for selfish reasons for others, but God isn’t like us, God does everything out of love and we are told not to give up in our prayers and wait for God’s timing. We may think we know how to give good gifts, but God gives the best gifts. The best gift according to Jesus is the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, “if you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask!" I think it worth noting that Jesus doesn’t say God will give us just anything: God gives only good gifts and specifically, God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Asking for the Holy Spirit in your life is one prayer that will always be answered in the affirmative. If you want and ask for more of God in your heart and life, you will get more of God. And the irony is that if we really have God and hold on to God, then nothing else much matters in an ultimate sense. We think we need all these things to be fulfilled, but there really is only need of one thing. The “good gift” we will never be denied when we ask for it, is for the filling of the Holy Spirit.

In just a moment we are going to ask God to send the Holy Spirit in a special way upon Jaylon at his baptism. While much of what we want or think is important is not, one thing is: God’s Holy Spirit in our lives. We can all be assured that God is going to answer our prayer for Jaylon. And you can be sure that God will answer this prayer for you when you ask…because God gives very, very good gifts, only the best for God’s children.

Sermon: Worry and the Whatifs, July 18, 2010

2010-07-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow taller?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

This is a poem called “Whatif” by Shel Silverstein, one of my favorite children’s poets. Some of the whatifs in his poem cause us to laugh because they’re so silly, childlike, or unlikely to happen…like green hair and torn pants. On the other hand, some of the whatifs are completely serious: getting sick, dying, divorce, war, and suffering. Like in the poem, if we allow the whatifs to have much room in our minds, we’ll find plenty to worry about, especially at midnight. Yet the world is undoubtedly a crazy place and there’s actually more to worry about than our minds can handle. We easily become worriers and find ourselves trapped by whatifs.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus identifies a worrier that many of us can relate to. ..Martha. I can easily hear Jesus saying to me what he did to her, “Rebecca, Rebecca, you are worried and distracted by many things.”

Elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus addresses worry in Matthew 6 when he says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” I find this to be one of the hardest of Jesus’ sayings to actually put into practice…not worrying. Ever since the oil spill…well, it’s not exactly a spill, more of a flooding of oil, hit the gulf, I’ve been worrying about what it’s doing to our oceans, the wildlife, and all the people whose livelihood are in jeopardy. I worry about our soldiers and all those impacted by the war. I worry about our economy and what it will mean long term for all of us in this nation, including those already impacted by unemployment and poverty. I worry about the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church and how we continue to fight and divide and are unable to find common ground. I worry about St. Alban’s and our ability to pay our bills given our deficit and our aging buildings and campus. I worry about my family members who are struggling, and for all of you…for those who are sick, undergoing surgery, or suffering. These are legitimate worries. In truth, we all have A LOT we can or could be worried about every single day. There’s a lot of bad stuff happening in the world and perhaps in our lives. And worry can be crippling.

The English word “worry” comes from an old German word, “wurgen” which originally meant to “strangle” or constrict. It has come to mean to have mental distress about something impending. But I think worry can still have the effect of constricting and strangling us in our daily lives. With so many legitimate things to worry about, we have to wonder, what is the antidote to our worries? Certainly we can try to fix those things we have control over, we can help and contribute in positive ways, and we should, but so little is actually within our control in this world.

Jesus gives us an important clue to the solution when he says, “there is need of only one thing.” That one thing is what Mary was doing: sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to Jesus words. To sit at one’s feet at that time equaled discipleship. Mary was practicing discipleship by simply being present. and I think Jesus sounds a little like some kind of Zen Buddhist master when he uses that phrase: “there is need of only one thing.” The practice of being present to the here and now, of having a mindfulness that is not distracted or busied or hurried but focused on the present is a teaching we find in eastern religions and in all forms of meditation including Christian Centering Prayer. Mary chose to sit still at the feet of her Master-Jesus. We too are called to stop, to put aside our many tasks and all that distracts us, each and every worry, even if only for awhile. And then, going beyond the Eastern practice of meditation, as Christians, we have a very specific focus: Jesus and his words.

As Christians, we are called to spend time with God every day, and if we can’t manage that, we should start by doing it at least once or twice a week and work our way up. Pray to God, read the Scriptures or devotional and holy books regularly, come to worship, commune with Christ in the Eucharist: be present to God and God’s presence. Jesus is still here, in our midst, in the bread and wine, in our church, in our homes, in our places of work, in our yards, just waiting for us to stop what we’re doing like busy “Marthas,” and sit down at his feet and listen to him.

On the last day of Vacation Bible School I placed the large Jesus doll that I was given charge of temporarily by the Diocese, on the corner of the baptismal font. When the children came in for worship I asked them if they noticed anything different. One boy, Cesar, raised his hand and said, “Jesus is here” and pointed. I then asked the kids, “Is this the first time Jesus has been with us this week?” There was a pause and then suddenly they burst out loud, “No, Jesus has been with us all week!” (Out of the mouths of babes.) And we talked about the fact that Jesus is always here, we just don’t always see him or remember.

It has been said that when Joan of Arc was questioned about how she knew whether the voice of God she claimed to hear was merely a voice in her head, that she responded by saying, “How else do you think God talks to us?” God’s voice can be a very still, small voice, like that voice Elijah experienced. But we aren’t going to hear that voice if we don’t stop, sit, and listen.
The world is now and always has been a dangerous, painful, and difficult place. I wish it were different. Dwelling on the whatifs and worrying will not get us far. While we must do what we can, plan ahead and be responsible, we can do so in faith, trusting that no matter what happens, Jesus is with us and will help us get through it. This is why the Psalmist can dare to say, “we do not fear when the earth shakes, and the mountains tumble into the depths of the sea…God is our strong refuge.” The more time we sit at Jesus’ feet, the more we realize his presence in our lives and the more we know we are never, never alone. We are worried and distracted by many things, but there really is need of only one thing….the one thing that really matters. God is here: are we with God?

Independence Day Sermon 2010

2010-07-06T15:17:00.000-07:00

I remember growing up as a girl in the 1970’s and watching the Miss America pageants with my parents, long before the pageants became politically incorrect. Even as a young girl watching the interviews with the beauty contestants, I noticed a preponderance of canned responses to the question about what they most hoped for. I’m sure many of you could tell me their answer: “World Peace.” It was by far the most frequent response and pretty soon my family and I would be rolling our eyes at their unoriginal answers.

Thinking about that response, I realize now it was always a safe answer, not controversial and not likely to get you in trouble with the judges, because sincerely, every human being on the planet desires peace in their own lives, nation, and the world. And so, despite the fact that this response has been so overused, the reason for its’ popularity is actually deep. The hope for peace expresses a universal desire that lies in the heart of every person: we all desire to know and experience true and abiding peace. And the hope for peace does not belong to one side of the political spectrum over the other: we all want peace in our world, and we want peace as soon as is humanly possible, even if we sometimes disagree on exactly how to achieve it.

I have been enjoying reading a book of quotes and meditations that one of our parishioners gave me by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I pick out just 2 or 3 quotes every morning to ponder. In the book she speaks frequently on the topic of peace but always in very tangible ways…things we can do here and now, the small things that really make a difference.

One of my favorites on this topic is when she writes, “Peace begins with a smile.” Elsewhere she says, “All works of love are works of peace.”

We may think that peace is beyond us or somewhere outside of us, but our Gospel reminds us that’s not the case. We, like the 70 missionaries that Jesus sent out, already have the peace of Christ in our hearts, from the moment we accepted Christ, and it is ours to give to others.

Let’s try it: “The peace of the Lord be always with you!” (Congregation: And also with you!)

You see, we enact this belief every single Sunday because at this point in the liturgy we would then go on to greet one another with the peace of Christ (and we’ll do this in a few minutes). Certainly, as in the Gospel lesson, people are free to accept or reject that peace, but regardless, this peace is part of what it means when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” Peace is evidence of the Kingdom of God in our midst and the Kingdom of God really is in our midst: here and now.

But here’s the problem: the peace that Jesus has placed in our hearts the moment we became his disciple, can get buried and hidden underneath a great deal of fear, impatience, and bitterness. I don’t think it’s just coincidence that one of the results of the missionaries’ experience in our lesson was discovering that they had the power and authority of exorcism, the ability to exorcise evil. Jesus responds, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” In Jewish tradition, snakes and scorpions referred to terms of known sources of evil, not the literal reptiles and insects we think of (so those churches who think this text is authorizing us to get into snake handling are totally misunderstanding the text..thanks be to God).

But as Christians who have accepted the peace of Christ already (because that’s all that’s necessary), we have the power and authority to exorcise evil, and the responsibility to exorcise it from our own hearts is primary. Where fear and hostility reign and threaten to control us, we are called to declare the peace of the Lord and announce the presence of the Kingdom of God in our midst. This declaration dispels evil. And this peace really may even begin with something as simple and small as a smile. You may remember the account of Arthur Bremer, the serial killer, who had made a decision to commit mass murder followed by suicide and at his last meal at a diner, he decided not to go through it for the time being because the waitress was friendly and smiled at him.

A parishioner sent me an email this weekend with nothing more than a picture of an adorable kitten who is grinning from ear to ear. The subject line was: “God always has a smile on his face for us.” Do we believe that God is smiling upon us? Are we willing to smile upon ourselves? To bring peace in a such a small way? If so, then we can begin to sincerely smile upon others and so enact tangibly the peace that Christ has given us! The peace of the Lord is already in you and I and we have the ability to pass it on: we are simply reminding one another of that fact every Sunday at the Peace. We need to take that reality and live it out after we leave the walls of this building and go into the world…which is our mission field, and be the Church.

And so the big harry audacious goal that is being proposed by Jesus, by Christians around the world like Mother Teresa, is that world peace really does start with us, with the peace in our own hearts given to us by Jesus himself. This peace can carry us out of our fear and bitterness and into the blessed calm of God’s love and presence…God’s smile upon us. And from there it can spread and change you, your family, your neighbors, the nation, and the world. God’s peace is given and creates a peaceful heart, and from there anything is possible.

In closing, as we observe Independence Day today, I’d like to offer this prayer from our Prayer Book for our nation.

Let us pray: Guide the people of this land, and of all the nations, in the ways of justice and peace; that we may honor one another and serve the common good. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Why Don't Miracles Always Happen?

2010-06-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

In Luke 7:11-17, we read about a woman’s child being brought back from the dead. Miracles don’t get more amazing than that, do they? However, as I read this particular story this week, the only thing I could come away with was a question: What about all the miracles that don’t happen? What about all the children who aren’t healed or raised from the dead? What do we make of the lack of miracles in our lives in the presence of these miraculous Biblical accounts? Sometimes, hearing a story about a miracle that happened to someone else is that last thing you want to hear. And the fact is, many times we pray for healing or for a miracle and nothing happens. Why is that?

Just this past Wednesday a plane went down at Gillespie Field. No one was killed on the ground and even the pilot’s life was spared despite being entangled in electrical wires. We jump to say, “It was a miracle!” But then, what about last year’s plane crash when a military jet went down in a suburban area, crashing into the home of a Christian family, killing an innocent wife and baby? Where was the “miracle” then?

There is a story about a Holocaust survivor named Ruth who was angry and bitter about religion following her experience in the Concentration Camps. One night she raised her glass for a toast and said, “Here's to God Almighty, the laziest man in town." Quite an indictment, but it’s hard to blame her for her sentiments given what she had experienced. And Jewish and Christian theologians have struggled ever since WWII to try and understand and explain why God didn’t prevent or stop the Holocaust. Horrible things still happen today, including genocide and devastating natural disasters like the oil spill in the gulf. This is not exactly easy theological territory to navigate.

So why don’t miracles, healings, or divine interventions always happen, despite our fervent prayers?

Let’s talk about some possible explanations:

1. The first thing we might start to believe or think is that God doesn’t really care all that much about us personally or listen to our prayers. Miracles may happen for other people, but not for us… we must not be as special or loved quite as much as others. This is nonsense…just as a good parent would not love their children more or less than the others, God does not love us more or less than one another. Scripture confirms this in John 3 when it says that God loves the entire world with agape / unconditional love….this includes the whole cosmos…and no one is excluded. In Acts 10:34 we read St. Peter state, “God is no respecter of persons.” In other words, “God does not show favoritism.” So, that explanation is simply wrong.

2. Let’s try another explanation: maybe it’s that miracles don’t happen anymore and God doesn’t intervene today. This one is tempting but if you have been around long enough, you know it’s not the case. There are actually plenty of miraculous healings that no doctors can explain and of people who can testify to coming back to life after fatal near death experiences when all was lost. I’m sure many of you have stories you could share of miracles in your own life or in someone else’s that you know and love.

I experienced a miracle while living in Thailand as a missionary. The family I was living with had 3 children and the oldest was 8 years old named Jeffrey. While walking through the streets one night he grabbed a hold of an electric pole. The electrical wiring in Thailand was always questionable and dodgy. And suddenly his whole body started shaking and convulsing as he held on to the pole. We knew something was wrong: in fact, it was, he was beginning to be electrocuted in front of our eyes. Suddenly, out of nowhere, we saw his body fly backwards, finally freed from the electric pole. He began to sob hysterically as we held him. When he was calm, he explained through his tears with total sincerity that he had been stuck to the pole and could feel the painful electricity surging through his arms but an angel had come to him and helped free him, helping him push backwards from the pole. The next day when Jeffrey woke up, we could see deep, dark burn streaks under the skin from the electrical shock: the streaks traveled from his hands, up his arms, and shoulders and stopped just short of his heart. His life had been saved without a second to spare, miraculously. There are just too many accounts of miracles happening today around the world to give this explanation complete credence.

3. Another explanation I’ve heard is this one: “You just didn’t have enough faith.” A related explanation is, “You didn’t ask hard enough.” Well first of all, I know many Christians of immense faith who have suffered major disappointments in prayer, despite their gift of faith and the fervency of their prayers. One pastor tells the story of being called into a hospital to pray for a dying newborn baby with a fatal condition. That baby was miraculously healed after he said healing prayers for her. A short time later he was called again to pray for another newborn baby with the exact same fatal condition. This time he felt even more filled with faith, having just experienced such a great miracle the week before. However, despite his sincere prayers for healing, that baby was not healed and died shortly afterwards. While faith can be a powerful force and people can be blessed for their faith, citing a lack of faith as the reason for unanswered prayer is not ultimately Scriptural. In many of the miraculous healing stories in the Gospels, Jesus heals people that exhibit little to no faith at all. Take our story from today’s Gospel in Luke. In this account, the woman of the dead son does not seek Jesus out, does not approach Jesus at all, and never asks him for help. No one in this story demonstrated the least amount of faith. Rather, it is Jesus who approaches them as they walk through the city crying, and out of Jesus’ compassion he goes to them and heals the son, raising him from the dead. The family is shocked.

Now, can you imagine if it had been someone else…another woman or family crying over their dead child, do you think Jesus would have acted any differently in that instance? No. But then again, there were probably many other families that day in around Jerusalem who had suffered a loss and they did not get a miracle. Why not?

Miracles are definitely the exception and not the rule in this life. We also have no “right” to a miracle. As one pastor said, many people ask “Why me” when tragedy hits, but they don’t ask, “Why not me?” That may be the more logical question.

Now I’m not going to claim that I can give a definitive answer on why miracles don’t happen for everyone in every instance. Why here but not there. But the explanations I just cited should at least be eliminated from our list. For me, I think it’s a bit more complicated than we know. There is an incredible amount of mystery that shrouds miracles or the lack thereof. At times I believe it is simply not a part of God’s plan or will to intervene in the way that we are praying for, but not always. I also think there are circumstances and events that can prevent a miracle from happening, things that we don’t and can’t comprehend or know about at the moment. And then there is that difficult, but important concept that sometimes in not doing a miracle, something else has the opportunity to come about. Jesus wasn’t saved from his agony and death on the cross. At times loss and tragedy, like the cross itself, can lead to something much more. This can easily sound trite, the way people flippantly say “something good will come from your misery.” That remark only diminishes a person’s pain and suffering at the time. So this is really a conclusion that we can only come to in retrospect about our own personal tragedies, after healing has taken place, or sometimes after a terrible event, when history has shown us the power behind it, like the lives of the martyrs. But I do believe that God is in the business of redeeming the unjust, the terrible, and the painful things that happen into something radically new and life giving when we let God…and that itself is a tremendous miracle.

Here is an example of what I’m talking about: A letter was discovered in the clothing of a dead child at Ravensbruck concentration camp, a camp built exclusively by the Nazis for women and children. 90,000 people died at that camp and tens of thousands more suffered terribly there during WWII. The letter, a prayer, was written by this child. It read:

"O Lord, remember not only the men and woman of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all of the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Instead, remember the fruits we have borne because of this suffering-our fellowship, our loyalty to one another, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown from this trouble. When our persecutors come to be judged by you, let all of these fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness."

Now…tell me THAT is not a miracle. This child died, but a miracle of love, the miracle of the most boundless mercy and forgiveness imaginable bears testimony to something so much bigger than death and the surrounding tragedy. This is redemption and salvation writ large. So what of those miracles that never happened for you or for me? I like to think upon my former professor’s words, the Rev. Dr. Gerald Sittser, a man who lost his daughter, wife, and mother in one car accident. He said, "It is not what happens to us that matters as much as what happens in us." We can be the miracle and the change the world is waiting for, with God’s help.

Mother's Day Prayer

2010-05-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

I came across this prayer and think it is not only beautiful, but so fitting, and I commend it to you:

God our Creator, we pray:for new mothers, coming to terms with new responsibility ;for expectant mothers, wondering and waiting;for those who are tired, stressed or depressed;for those who struggle to balance the tasks of work and family;for those who are unable to feed their children due to poverty;for those whose children have physical, mental or emotional disabilities;for those who have children they do not want;for those who raise children on their own;for those who have lost a child;for those who care for the children of others;for those whose children have left home; and for those whose desire to be a mother has not been fulfilled.Bless all mothers, that their love may be deep and tender,and that they may lead their children to know and do what is good,living not for themselves alone, but for God and for others. Amen.

Do you do the Triduum?

2010-03-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

One of the side benefits of being an Anglican is the fact that we have such a wonderful (if strange) vocabulary, often composed of obscure Latin titles. Of course, this can get us into trouble when we get too “church speaky” with newcomers, but understanding and then educating ourselves and others about these words and phrases can be an entertaining spiritual discipline in itself.

As Lent nears its’ end, we begin Holy Week with Palm/Passion Sunday on March 28th. Since the 4th century, St. John of Chrysostom, one of the doctors of the Church, referred to this week as “the Great week” saying, "Not that it has more days in it than other weeks, or that its days are made up of more hours than other days; but we call it great, because of the great mysteries which are then celebrated." Following Palm Sunday we have Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, and Holy Wednesday. But then there is this wonderful period of 3 days known as the “Triduum” (pronounced tri-doo-um), which begins on the evening of Maundy Thursday and goes through the evening of Easter Sunday. It is sometimes referred to as the Paschal Triduum or Easter Triduum. The word itself simply means “three days,” but doesn’t it sound more interesting in Latin? These three days were traditionally punctuated with silence, and they are still considered the holiest in the Church year.

Contained in the celebrations surrounding the Triduum are the most dramatic and richest symbolic expressions of the Christ faith…the Paschal mystery itself. In this time we commemorate so many significant events: Jesus reveals his role as the humble servant, institutes the Last Supper, gives us the new commandment to “love one another.” He prays and is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, is tried, tortured, and unjustly crucified. He dies and is buried. There is silence and grief. Yet on Sunday morning, he rises again to life and the celebration of resurrection rings out its’ joyful praise that in Christ, life has triumphed over death!

And so, I invite you to observe the Triduum in its’ entirety this year, to take in the full meaning of our Christian faith in the span of these three holy days and join with Christians ancient and living in this wonderful practice. If you’ve never done the Triduum before, here is what you can expect:

Maundy Thursday: We commemorate the Last Supper, the washing of feet, the prayer in the Garden and the arrest of Jesus as we strip our altar and then “wait and pray” with Jesus.
Good Friday: We honor and remember the great sacrifice of love that Jesus made on the cross, the act that turned this tragic Friday into Good Friday.

Holy Saturday: This is a day of silence and waiting, commemorating Jesus’ laying in the tomb.

Easter Eve and the Saturday Vigil: At sunset we gather for the holiest and most ancient of celebrations in the Christian year as we light the new Easter fire and retell the story of salvation by candle light. We recall our baptism and finally make the great and joyful Easter announcement as we partake in Communion. The service is followed by a celebratory communal meal in the Parish Hall.

Easter Sunday: This is a day of continuous celebration and festivity as we worship and praise God in the great proclamation of the Resurrection: He is risen!

So…do the Triduum!

Being A Servant Minister

2010-02-22T11:24:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to our very own Lou Toth for recieving the Bishop's Servant Ministry Award! The East County Magazine covered the story and featured Lou. The full article is online here:

http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/2781

During this season of Lent, we are reminded to walk in Jesus' footsteps as one who served God faithfully in every way. May we all become servant ministers. And thank you Lou, for your ministry among us.

Ash Wednesday

2010-02-18T11:18:00.001-08:00

A short excerpt on Ash Wednesday from my sermon this week:

Ashes have been a sign of repentance, mourning, and renewal throughout ancient times. Penitents would often wear ashes on their faces in the ancient world…and to be a penitent simply means to be one who desires forgiveness. In the Hebrew Scriptures, including Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Samuel, Ezekiel, and Daniel, we read about people wearing ashes as a sign of penitence. Jesus himself mentions ashes as a sign of repentance in Matthew chapter 11. In the church, we can trace the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday all the way back to at least the 8th century, and so we stand in a long line of tradition in having ashes imposed on our foreheads.

While the imposition of ashes is not a sacrament, it is sacramental in that it symbolize on the outside what we mean to say from the inside, and the message is one of humility: we have sinned, we are broken, we are mortal, but we desire God and trust God enough to seek healing, wholeness, and forgiveness. The ashes themselves are meaningless if we don’t align our hearts with the message behind them. Historically, those who were estranged from the Church for whatever reason, would come back to the church on Ash Wednesday and be restored. And in that sense, Ash Wednesday is like a home coming.

Today is a homecoming to ourselves, to our senses, to reality, to our deepest hopes and desires, and to God. In coming home, much like a prodigal son or daughter, we discover that God is already standing at the door, waiting for us with open arms to bless, embrace, and forgive us, even before we ask. Ash Wednesday is ultimately a day of grace.

Holding on to Advent

2009-12-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

With Christmas just over a week away, even those of us who are die-hards about observing Advent and holding off on Christmas can get caught up in the chaos that surrounds us with all the last minute shopping, planning, travel, parties, etc. So...I urge you (and myself!) to stay in "Advent mode"even as we hit Advent IV: take it slow, look for the Holy Spirit in your life and in this holy season, pray, worship, and make room for God. Don't let the pressures get to you because none of that "stuff" is the reason for Christmas. The grace of this time is that it was all done for us by the loving hand of God in sending God's Son Jesus into our world to reveal what God is like, to reconcile us to God, and to show us how incredibly, unbelievably MUCH God loves us. If we can stay focused on this wonderful love story, we will have celebrated Christmas to the full.

It has been wonderful to do the "Advent Conspiracy" program this year with St. Alban's and I know it has certainly helped me to stay centered in the meaning of Christmas. Our goals are: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, and Love All. Indeed, I think it's happening and I see that our donations are way up from what they were just 8 weeks ago for our Kenya Kids ministry. So my friends, we ARE making a difference in the world this Christmas. Thanks be to God!

For All the Saints

2009-11-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

I receive a lot of questions via email from people who happen upon my website "All Things Anglican" and recently I had some questions about the saints. Since we just celebrated All Saints Day, I thought I'd share some of my responses.

How would you describe the Saints to someone who had not heard of them before?

In the Bible, the “saints” include all those who love, serve, and believe in God, but we often recognize a special holiness about particular men and women who the Church formally recognizes with the title of “saint.” For those who live as heroic examples of the faith, the Church sets aside a day in our liturgical calendar in order to remember, honor, and celebrate their lives and their witness. The saints serve as examples to us and offer us encouragement and hope in our own faith journeys, showing us that ordinary people can do extraordinary things for God. We can also ask the saints for their prayers since they are now in God’s presence, just as we would ask a living friend for their prayers.

Do you personally feel a connection to any particular Saint?

Yes, absolutely…I feel a connection to too many saints to recount. But there are a few that stand out and with whom I feel that I have special relationship. I feel a personal connection to St. Francis of Assisi, one of the older saints that was canonized by the Church prior to the split in the Church during the Reformation (therefore one of those saints that “belong” to the whole Church, not just to one denomination). I feel a connection to St. Therese of Lisieux, a young Roman Catholic nun who died in 1897 and whose autobiography changed my life. And I feel a connection to a holy man from the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar named James Lloyd Breck, a priest and missionary who founded and was later buried at my former seminary.

Praise God for Christ's presence in and among the saints!

The Blessing of the Animals

2009-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, October 4th, we had such a fun (truly fun!) St. Francis Day Blessing of the Animals. Last year we had seven people present with 5 animals, so I really wasn't sure what to expect. This year however, we had nearly 20 people and 14 animals including some wonderful farm animals from one of our families. The kids brought in their rabbits, sheep, and goats in addition to the bouncy dogs and cats one normally sees. I got such a kick out of watching these varying species try and figure each other out.

Before the liturgy started there was a lot of chaos but I noticed that as soon as the liturgy was under way, the animals quieted down to the point of total silence! I was in awe. It reminded me of Fr. Tim's dog in the Mitford series who can only be calmed by reciting Scripture. I think the animals had a feeling that we were doing something special, perhaps even holy, and so they instinctively settled down once we started praying. Not a peep was heard during the liturgy itself. As soon as it was over however, the chaos started back up. ;)

One of my favorite moments was the wide eyed looks on the faces of the Spanish speaking children who meet at our church for services when they saw all the animals in our courtyard. I am certain they thought we were nuts, but they enjoyed it every bit as much as we did!

I am so grateful for God's creatures and the joy they bring to us. These moments remind me of God's promised Peaceable Kingdom when the lion will lay down with the lamb, and a little child shall lead them.

St. Alban's Prayer Garden

2009-08-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

We have been constructing a Prayer Garden at St. Alban's and yesterday during the heat wave, our builder/landscaper, Howard Findley, was awarded the "Hardest Working Person in El Cajon" by the Channel 8 News team here in San Diego. There are some great shots of the Prayer Garden and of our church in this news clip, it was fun to see the church on TV! And way to go Howard!

VBS 2009

2009-08-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

We had a blast with 33 kids who registered to become "friends of Jesus" as we learned about the adventures of St. Paul on his missionary journies for this summer's VBS. Our Parish Hall was transformed into a "Harbour" with a boat and ocean shore complete with sea shells and fishing nets. The church became the "Light House" with a flickering "campfire" in the middle of the worship space. I am so grateful to everyone who helped us manage the "chaos" as we faced, for the first time, the challenge of a tri-lingual group of children (English, Spanish and Karen).

What is glorious about these kinds of events is that even though it is impossible to totally plan or even manage all that will happen in the week and things can get more than a little crazy at times, the Holy Spirit still shows up and does some amazing things. I know the leaders and I, as well as the kids, all found ourselves caught up in the power of what God was doing among us more than once. We learned a lot of new music but my favorite had to be "God Knows My Name" which kind of summarized the experience. We sang this song for the parents who attended our final day celebration.

God knows my name

God is calling today:

"Come follow me I will show you the way."

God knows my name

God is waiting to say:

"Come be with me, I will meet you this day."

We did indeed, meet God, in the laughter, song, words, and joy of these children, these fellow friends of Jesus. Thanks be to God!

At General Convention 2009

2009-07-08T20:48:00.001-07:00

It has been a whirlwind since I arrived in Anaheim 3 days ago. I am staffing the Episcopal Network for Animal Welfare booth, serving as an alternate delegate and simply trying to soak in the whole experience. One of the wonders of this triannual gathering is the chance to see old friends from all around the country.

Tonight I had the opportunity to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury speak about the global economic crisis. He challenged us to recognize the fact that our current crisis is not just a financial crisis but a crisis of truthfulness. We are in this mess in large part because we have lied to ourselves. The only way out is to face the truth...the truth about our world and our addictions to materialism. As Jesus said, "The truth shall set you free."

A Beautiful St. Alban's Day

2009-06-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday was so full of joy as we celebrated with our Bishop on our patronal feast day, confirmed 8 new members (pictured above), and had a wonderful picnic afterward. For me it was special because I was recieved formally as an Associate of the Sisters of the Holy Nativity and the cross of the Order, the Bethlehem cross was blessed and placed around my neck, where it is to stay.

It has me thinking: today we commemorate the birth of St. John the Baptist who "prepared the way of the Lord" prior to Jesus' public ministry. So much of what we know about Jesus was through his public life and ministry, but the Sisters of the Holy Nativity are dedicated to meditating on Jesus' interior life...the deep mysteries of the Incarnation. I find myself drawn to these holy mysteries and wonder how a greater focus on Jesus' interior life will impact my own life, ministry, and those with whom I minister. I pray we will all be drawn ever closer to Jesus and rise above our challenges and trials as our Lord did, until every last pain, sin, sadness, mistake, and tragedy will be redeemed. Make us whole in you Lord!

Scripture and the Three Legged Stool

2009-06-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful gathering yesterday with all the clergy at St. Dunstan's for our monthly Clericus. The speaker, the Rev. Frank Wade was fantastic and gave us some wonderful things to chew on. One thing I particularly appreciated was his re-working of the classic Anglican "three legged stool." He said that Richard Hooker would have probably preferred the three legs of the stool to be tradition, reason, and experience, with the seat of the stool to be Scripture (as opposed to all streams being equal). These four streams are all in conversation with one another, but ultimately Scripture informs the others as the pinnacle. Perhaps we would move out of the much too common problem of Biblical illiteracy if we held that view more boldly.

And I am again grateful that we are blessed with such a great group of servants in our Vestry. Our meeting last night was productive and the collective wisdom of the group is obvious. The Holy Spirit continues to lead us on and provide. Thanks be to God.

The Blogging Attempt

2009-06-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

I'm hopeful that our church will be launching its' new website soon and one goal of mine is to blog regularly as part of that process in order to create a more interactive web page. I love to write but finding the time or inspiration can be a wee bit more challenging. This blog will be a work in progress indeed.

At any rate, today we commemorate the First Book of Common Prayer in our church calendar. I know there has been a lot of fighting about our Prayer Book over the centuries, but I am confident that it has fed so many people spiritually and so deeply over the years that it is among the best spiritual resources of all time, which very few books can top, outside of the Bible itself. Powerful stuff in there...everyone should have a personal copy for prayer and devotion. What a wonderful tool to draw us nearer to God. It's readily available to all Anglicans...and all Christians for that matter. Go get one and use it!