The 5th Sunday of Easter - Sunday Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of our Founding - May 18, 2014

In today's gospel reading two important questions get thrown out by the intrepid disciples, Thomas and Phillip. First, Thomas asks, "How can we know the way?"   Then Phillip chimes in with a question phrased as a demand, "Show us . . . and we shall be satisfied."   As human beings, we realize that knowing something gives us confidence.  We can be certain that we won't look foolish if what we believe is true.

Why couldn't these disciples get it?  Spending lots of time with Jesus still hasn't convinced them that Jesus is the one they were hoping for--the Messiah who would liberate them from oppression and restore Israel.  The gospel reading today from the section of John’s gospel called Jesus' farewell address. It takes place after he had washed the disciples’ feet.  In it he urges the disciples to love one another.  He tries to explain how he will have to leave them.  But after he has gone, he will send the Holy Spirit to be their companion and sustain them in the trials they will face.  He defines himself using the phrase from the Hebrew scripture that indicates the divine: "I am . . . " -  "I am the way, the truth and the life," in today's gospel.  "I am the true vine," in the following chapter.

Finally at the end of his address tells his disciples that he will tell them plainly--without using "figures of speech"--about God.  Here's what he says at the end of the 16th chapter of John: "The Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and believed that I came from God.  I left the Father and came into the world.  I tell you again: I am leaving the world and returning to the Father."   Then Jesus' disciples claim they finally understand because of his plain speaking.  Jesus skeptically replies that they may believe now, but soon they will abandon him.

As I think about this story, I believe this interaction between Jesus and his disciples reflects our own struggles to understand who Jesus is and to live as he taught.  When we arrive for worship each Sunday, are we hoping for a revelation from God that prove the truth of our beliefs, proof that explains everything about God and the way to a relationship with God?

In the 50 years that St. Nicholas' folks have met for worship, we have hoped for answers; we have struggled with our questions.  At times much seems clear--at other times it all appears quite cloudy. We have found, as the disciples eventually did, that God manifests God's self best when together we ask the questions and together we wait for God's answers.

Private prayer should be an important part of our Christian practice.  But we will surely encounter Christ as we belong to and worship in a Christian community like St. Nicholas and when we work with each other in service to others.  As the disciples' encounters with Jesus and with each other were not always easy or smooth sailing, our encounters with one another in this St. Nicholas' community can be fraught at times.  But by placing the Christ we have encountered at the center of our life together--as we have done for 50 years--we will be enabled to understand God's love for us more clearly and follow Christ's command to love each other more nearly every day we are given.

[I asked any members of the congregation who would like to speak to respond to my remarks by saying in a few sentences how being part of the St. Nicholas' community helped them in their faith journey.  A number of people spoke very movingly.]

Homily for the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of St. Nicholas - May 17, 2014

        Today we give thanks for 50 years of God's blessing on this community, this assembly that began to meet in the living room of Fr. Sheehan's home, then in the bowling alley, then in Kirk School and finally in the building where we sit today.  In preparing for today, when I looked at the pictures gathered over the years, I gained a sense of the decades of prayer and service and fellowship that comprised 85% of your life together before I joined you on this journey.

As I thought about our life together during the last almost eight years and the readings today from the first letter of Peter and from Matthew's gospel, the children's story of "Stone Soup" came to mind.  You know the story of hungry travelers who convinced villagers to part with a little of this vegetable and a little of that spice to put in the water, along with the stone, to make the soup better.  What began as a stone and some water in a soup pot turned into a amazingly delicious meal.  This story speaks of generosity--yes, a story of the sharing of blessings, given by nature, to make something more wonderful than any of the villagers could have made on their own.

It seems entirely appropriate that our readings for this anniversary celebration contain references to stones, an important resource for building a structure that will last. Stones can make up a strong foundation for a building; stones can be laid on top of one another to make the walls of a structure.  If they are properly engineered, stone buildings will last for centuries. We hear from Jesus that the foundation of our faith and how we live out our faith needs to finds its base in his words.  Jesus becomes the rock upon which we as wise people build the houses of our lives.

At St. Nicholas' we find our foundation in our weekly hearing of God’s Word and in our weekly receiving Christ within us as bread and wine.  We also find our foundation in our service to others in the name of Jesus Christ who are hungry and may be homeless.

Jesus might also be called the stone at the center of our St. Nicholas' "soup."  He draws us into relationship by his presence in our midst, mediated by the Holy Spirit.  Each of us brings with us something to add to this “soup”: something we do well, an enthusiastic attitude, problem solving skills, compassion, clear thinking, a willingness to work, an encouraging spirit, leadership talents, and many more gifts of God to enrich our life together.

Yes, transformed into being more in the "soup" than we could ever manage to be on our own, we become living stones--components of a very special stone soup, you could say, with Christ at the center.  Let us reflect with gratitude on the 50 years of God's “soup making” here. May each of us continue to respond to God's presence in our midst by adding something unique and wonderful to our common life.  May the "soup" we will become over the next 50 years provide nourishment and sustenance not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors—and even for the whole world.

Easter Sunday - The Icon of the Two Marys

On the order of the Roman governor, Pilate, Jesus had been taken down from the cross for burial.  Joseph from Arimethea had secured the body, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and rolled a stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and left.  Matthew's gospels records two witnesses to this: Mary Magdalene and another Mary.

The two Marys keep a vigil for the man who has changed their lives.  Perhaps they sit in sorrow, grieving that they will never see him again see him again.  Yet their vigil might be interpreted another way.  Could their presence at the tomb be a sign of expectancy?  Is something about to happen?

The gospel writers had to deal with the fact that Jesus' inner circle of followers had abandoned him.  The women keeping vigil as mourners became a bridge for Matthew's gospel--a bridge from Jesus' absence to his resurrected presence. They became the first witnesses and the first apostles, being instructed by an angel to take the good news of Jesus' resurrection to the disciples.  They were also a bridge of reconciliation between a forgiving Christ and the men who had deserted him—whom he now calls his brothers.

Can you put yourself in their place? To find yourself being confronted by some rather scary divine power—in the earthquake and the angel appearing like lightning.  We come to church on Sunday morning with certain expectations for how the service should go, what the music should sound like, and how compelling the sermon should be.

The two Marys must have had expectations of how their morning would go.  As they walked towards the tomb, they might have expected to sit quietly in front of the closed tomb to continue grieving.  If they had heard about the Roman guards, they might have been determined to show their courage in the face of oppression. But were they expecting the power of God to act in such a scary and dramatic fashion?  Probably not one bit more than we would expect such a demonstration of divine power as we prepare to receive Holy Communion!

Matthew's account of how Christ's resurrection is discovered with an empty tomb and an angelic messenger makes certain theological points about the mystery of this moment when death was defeated and Christ's plan to reconnect with the disciples in a place--Galilee--which points beyond the confines of Jerusalem and first century Judaism.

Yet the way Matthew tells this story speaks to the intimacy, which these women felt about their relationship with Jesus.  They may not have understood what he had taught about his rising after three days, but they were not giving up on this important relationship.  Knowing Jesus, listening to him teach, seeing the miracles he wrought--all these things changed them in a way that could not be changed back.  They were not ready to "move on."

Our relationship with Jesus through our faith in him could not be just like the Marys, because we were not his first century companions.  Still they provide an example of loving faithfulness in the context of great tragedy that we might well emulate.  We have come to know Jesus in a variety of ways--through our mentors in the faith, through studying scripture, through prayer, and through receiving the sacrament of Eucharist.  Our faith can be challenged, just as theirs was, by difficult, sad, unfair, perhaps even horrific circumstances in our lives. Would the day after such a tragedy find us quietly attentive to what God chooses to reveal to us?  The steadfastness of the Marys shows an ideal of discipleship--patience in waiting on God.

Even with their steadfastness, this experience had so unsettled them with both fear and joy that they RAN to tell what they had seen--the absence of the body of Jesus and a promise that he would reconnect with the disciples.  Then an even more amazing moment happened—Jesus was no longer absent, but he was present! He had come to them to reassure them.  His love for them and theirs for him caused them to reach out to touch him and to worship him. The intimacy of their relationship defines what loving God with all your heart truly looks like.. Perhaps it also shows us what salvation means: patiently waiting for God to reveal God's self and withholding nothing of yourself, responding with love and worship.

I believe the reason most of us came to St. Nicholas' this morning was our hope of encountering the risen Lord.  Using the eyes of our hearts, let us hold onto this image--this icon even--of the Marys encountering the risen Christ.  Let it inspire us to steadfastness.  Let it inspire us to love God with all of who we are--not only for today, but for all the days we are given on this earth.

Palm Sunday - What Jesus Taught Us

Under most circumstances no one looks forward to dying--no one looks forward to suffering--no looks forward to being abandoned by one's friends.  Yet all this happened to Jesus in the week we now call "holy."  In the account we just heard from Matthew's gospel Jesus endured all these things and taught us by his example.

And what, you might ask, did he teach us?  In Matthew's view:

Jesus refused to be drawn into the politics of power being played out between the Roman authorities and the Jewish religious authorities.  He refused to be swayed by the crowd's desire for a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans.  He chose not to use his divine power to retaliate against the soldiers who mocked him, spit on him, hit him and finally crucified him. He understood he had come into our world for a purpose--to teach us how God wants us to live and to accept whatever the evil in the world would do to him because of what he taught.  He did this trusting in God's love to redeem the horror the world would do. For us it may not be the evil of the world we must accept, but the ravages of a disease.  It may be the loss of someone we love or the loss of something that gives us security, which we must accept, trusting in God's love.

Yet while trusting in God's redemptive love to surround us to strengthen us and to defeat evil in the end, like Jesus, we must open our fearful hearts to God.  We must name our fears and anxieties:  Why me?  Can't this happen some other way?  My God, why do I feel so forsaken?  Jesus cried out from the cross in desperate need for assurance that this pain he was enduring wasn't all there was.  His cry to God about being abandoned sounds much like our cries when we see no end to our suffering.  Jesus' cry and our cries are honest.  We make them hoping against hope that our suffering and our dying will not be the end.

Then Jesus breathed his last.  When one breathes a last breath one surrenders to whatever, in the end, one no longer can control.  Scholars tell us that Jesus died much more quickly than many who were crucified.  Perhaps that reveals an active choice on his part.  Active surrender does not mean that we have given up trusting.  It means, I think, that redemption of all that we have endured seems possible, even probable.

So we see a three-part movement in Jesus’ response to his passion:  trust in God's love, expression of his deepest agony, and final active surrender to what will be next.  Is this how we should respond to the pain--even the pain unto death--that we encounter in our lives?

There can be no more important task for this week we call "holy" than to consider our answer to these questions.  To live as a follower of Christ should we trust in God's love, but not fail to cry out our fears?  And then in the end, should we accept what cannot be avoided, all the while believing that God's love will redeem our pain and greet us as we emerge from our ordeal?  Ponder these questions this Holy Week . . . offer them in prayer to God.

The 2nd Sunday of Lent: Our Journeys

         Years ago I went on a guided retreat at the Convent of the [Episcopal] Order of St. Helena.  The nun leading the retreat used the following prayer by Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations from 1954 - 1961 and a man of deep faith: 

“Creator of the world's joy

Bearer of the world's pain:

At the center of all our distress

Let unconquerable gladness dwell.

To see you is the end and the beginning;

You follow me and you go before;

You are the journey and the journey's end.”

This week, with these readings [Genesis 12: 1-4a; Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17; John 3: 1-17] and with what has happened in my life, this prayer seems remarkably apt.  For Fred [my husband] and I have embarked on an unplanned journey—many of you have experienced this journey yourselves or accompanied a loved one or a friend on it.  As most of you know, we have begun a journey into an illness marked by hard choices and difficult treatments with no guarantee of what the outcome will be.

Journeys can be through physical space, psychological space or spiritual space--or some combination of these.  As people of faith--as was Hammarskjold, as was Abram, and as was Nicodemus--we see our journeys as taken in hope and grounded in our faith that God can be trusted to accompany us from beginning to end.

“Creator of the world's joy

Bearer of the world's pain:

At the center of all our distress

Let unconquerable gladness dwell.

To see you is the end and the beginning;

You follow me and you go before;

You are the journey and the journey's end.”

Abram's journey from Haran came about because he understood God was calling him away from much of his family and familiar surroundings.  Scripture doesn't tell us why God chose Abram to undertake this journey.  Tradition suggests that he had come to know God in a way unlike the people in Haran and elsewhere.  God could not be seen and could not be shaped into a statue to worship.  But Abram had faith in God who could be trusted to keep God's promises. So Abram left the safety of all he knew to follow God's leading.  He could not know what God's promise meant for sure.  He had no idea about his final destination. But he believed; he had faith.  In his letter to the Christian community in Rome, Paul quotes Genesis 15: 6: "And he [Abram] believed the Lord [that his descendants would be as great in number as the stars]; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness."

“To see you is the end and the beginning;

You follow me and you go before;

You are the journey and the journey's end.”

Nicodemus's journey was mainly a spiritual one. This Pharisee had seen God more clearly in Jesus' ministry and teaching than most of his fellow religious leaders did.  His journey was inward for he used the word "know."  He said to Jesus, "We know you are a teacher who has come from God. . ."

Hammarskjold wrote this about this sort of inward journey:

“The way to insight does not pass through faith. First through the insight we gain by pursuing the fleeting light in the depth of our being do we reach the point where we can grasp what faith is. How many have not been driven out into the darkness by empty talk about faith as holding something to be true.”  (1941-42: Waymark 24)

To say it less poetically:  We gain understanding by searching the depth of our being for God's light.  Eventually we reach the point of understanding what faith is.  Declaring some statement must be accepted as truth drives out faith.

Nicodemus came to Jesus searching for truth and Jesus pushed him to look deeper within himself.  What Jesus said can be translated as "born again," "born anew," or "born from above."  Jesus is telling him that he must be willing to be transformed by water and Spirit—in other words—he must experience the power of God in his very being.  Nicodemus know the truth external to himself—the Law—but he appears not to understand the power of God to reveal God's self in the movement of the Spirit within him and within other seekers.  God's love for Nicodemus--and for us--caused Jesus to come to us, to live as one of us.  Understanding God's love for us as a deep truth within ourselves will lead us to eternal life.  This is faith!

So have we come this morning ready to allow the Spirit to blow where it will?  Even in the quiet moments of our liturgy, the Spirit may blow through us to transform us. It may blow away the dust and grime of our sins and allow us to see deep within ourselves, to see there the light of God. And seeing this light we come to understand what faith means, to trust in God's goodness and God's steady, loving and supporting presence for our journeys.

“Creator of the world's joy

Bearer of the world's pain:

At the center of all our distress

Let unconquerable gladness dwell.

To see you is the end and the beginning;

You follow me and you go before;

You are the journey and the journey's end.”

Ash Wednesday

As we stand before an open grave, saying the final prayers, these are the words we use: "In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother (or our sister) and we commit his (or her) body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

This holy season of preparation by alms giving, fasting and prayer we call Lent has bookends: Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.  Our prayer at the graveside shows the theological tie between them. We should not fear death--becoming dust--because we are filled with hope.  Our hope in the resurrection to eternal life should be unshakeable--"sure and certain hope" the prayer says.

Easter Sunday shines gloriously--even if the day is rainy--and lots and lots of folks come to worship.  What is your favorite part of the Easter worship service?  Music, flowers, preaching?? What I wonder is why many folks who worship on Easter don't show up on Ash Wednesday?  But all of you came to worship today for a reason.  Where are the others?

Is that celebrating resurrection, Christ's overcoming death, much more comfortable than facing our mortality?  Of course, it is! We understand death's sting, the pain of our grief when a friend or loved one dies.  Yet we usually live expecting to have tomorrow as a time to correct our mistakes and to do whatever is truly important to us, but which we have postponed for one reason or another.

Besides asking us to own up to our mortality, the ashes of this day remind us of our shortcomings, our sins, if you will. We intend to live as Jesus taught us, but we fail, we miss the mark and we find ourselves covered in the grime of the messes we have made. When today's ashes were blessed, they are called a "sign of our mortality and [our] penitence."

Perhaps truly admitting our shortcomings--even in the midst of everyone else admitting theirs--is just more than we want to do. Do our minds wander during the general confession on Sunday to our grocery lists?  Perhaps we don't even recognize our sins for what they are.  And if we have an inkling of how we might be hurting someone else or injuring ourselves, we can justify all that we have done.  I sometimes wonder in today’s world if true confession of sin has lost its relevance?

The practice in recent years of "Ashes-to-Go" calls into question the need to make a connection between recognizing our mortality and our sinfulness and confirming our sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life.  When we impose ashes on someone's forehead, should we check to see whether they have heard about the grace of God and the overcoming of death's power through Christ's resurrection? Are we cheating them or even harming them by this disconnection? 

The imposition of ashes and the words, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return," has real spiritual power.  A priest who participated in an Ashes-to-Go event reported that he was asked to impose ashes on some folks who weren't familiar with Christian ritual.  He noted: "I think they sort of realize it's an invitation to acknowledge limits. To bow down in public and say, 'I'm not in charge; I'm not going to live forever. [Even if they don't go to church they are] "really, really interested in doing that."

Yes, that would be a beginning, but this should not be where our witness to the world stops.  We always must share our Easter hope!

Walter Brueggemann, a contemporary theologian, has written a poem called, "Marked by Ashes" that shows the clear link between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.  I want to close by reading a portion of that poem:

" . . .but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes—

we begin this day with the bitter taste of ash in our mouth:

 of failed hope and broken promises,

 of forgotten children and frightened women,

     we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

     we can taste our own mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with

  some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes

  anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you—

   you Easter parade of newness.

  Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,

    Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;

    Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth. 

  Come here and Easter our Wednesday with mercy

     and justice and peace and generosity."

Last Sunday after Epiphany - Revelation and Transformation

In the 19th chapter of Exodus we find that Moses and God have been conversing on Mount Sinai.  Now God tells Moses to prepare the people for a great revelation of God's self "on the third day."  How did the writer of Exodus describe that revelation?  "Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended up on it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln while the whole mountain shook violently . . "  God consented to have Aaron join Moses in ascending to the top of the mountain and entering the cloud.  To them God spoke words of commandment.  The last verses of chapter 20 give a slightly different view of the context where the author says the people were afraid of having God speak to them directly--rather than God telling Moses to keep the people away--and asked Moses to be the go-between.  So Moses alone "drew near to the thick darkness where God was."

If we compare the story of the giving of the Law from Exodus with the story of the Transfiguration from Matthew's gospel, we will be struck by the similarities: it takes place on a mountain, the vision of God is in a cloud and the observers show fear at God's revelation.  Another similarity also strikes us: the people who know what has happened are expected to listen to the one through whom the words of God are conveyed.  What's happening then?  As a seminary professor said of this passage, "This is God being God."

Christians over the centuries have interpreted this passage as Jesus' being identified as the one whose message will supersede the Hebrew Scriptures containing the Law and the prophetic writing (Moses and Elijah).  But it may be more fruitful to see the Transfiguration--called "a luminous story of a mystical encounter" by Barbara Brown Taylor--as God's continuing revelation in which all parts of this revelation are important for us.  Jesus came to live in the context of God's continuing revelation. He said he did not come to change the Law of the Hebrew Scriptures in any way, but to fulfill it.

We have three different versions of this mystical encounter.  Matthew, Mark and Luke  describe it in slightly different ways--so we hear each version once in the three year cycle of readings.  One detail that distinguishes Matthew from the other two versions is the cloud.  Mark and Luke refer to a cloud as overshadowing Peter, James and John.  Going even further, Luke describes the overshadowing cloud as engulfing the disciples: "and they were terrified as they entered the cloud." But Matthew calls it a bright cloud.  So it appears that scripture offers these two visions of God's revealing God's self: dark cloud and bright cloud. 

For an anonymous English writer in the Middle Ages, this dark cloud was the "Cloud of Unknowing."  This cloud was what keeps us from experiencing God.  This writer, usually just called The Cloud, describes three stages of Christian living.   In the first stage our love of God can be seen in "corporal works of mercy."  In the second will be characterized by our meditating on our "own sinfulness, the Passion of Christ, and the joys of eternity."  This may happen during our time of corporate worship, meditative reading of scripture and in our private prayers for others and for ourselves.

The final stage is described by The Cloud this way: "a person enters the dark cloud of unknowing where in secret and alone he [or she] centers all his [or her] love on God."  The Cloud says our prayer without words send arrows of love for God into the cloud and--on occasion--God shows God's self as the cloud separates momentarily.  He described this "unoccupied" prayer, this prayer without words, this contemplative prayer as the highest form of spiritual practice.  Yet he also says God may or may not respond with revelation.  God chooses when to reveal God's self--we do not earn this grace.

Yet Matthew describes the cloud from which God speaks as bright, not concealing.  The brightness causes just as much consternation and fear as the enveloping cloud did.  The disciples fall to the ground overcome by their vision of glory and by the voice from the cloud.  For me, and perhaps for you as well, this bright cloud explains how I understand God.  God's glory is apparent; the light of God will illuminate the dark corners of my world. It could very well frighten me, but I also find comfort in the clarity of such a revelation.

Barbara Brown Taylor describes it this way: "Most of us are allowed at least one direct experience of God (within bounds)--something that knocks us for a loop, blows our circuits, calls all our old certainties into question."

Calling "all our old certainties into question"--that could describe God's purpose in the Transfiguration and the words from the cloud--dark or bright as it may be. Peter's certainty appears to have been this: if you encounter God and no place for God to dwell, build one so God will hang around. Peter's new understanding: God will not be contained or kept just for us.

What certainties do we cling to?  In ways less dramatic than the Transfiguration vision, is God calling us to see things with new eyes?  Might God be calling us to a deeper understanding of God's will?  Might God be calling us to be less fixed in our beliefs and more open to what others have to say?  Might God be calling us "to respect the dignity of every human being" in ways which we are just now beginning to understand?

The Transfiguration vision continues a long tradition of "God being God."  Let us be aware of such moments in our lives-- transformative moments when we discover a new way of seeing, a new understanding, a new openness.  I believe God creates these moments for us.  Then God uses them to help us become more faithful followers of Jesus. Look out for these moments--be ready to be changed!

Barbara Brown Taylor quotes from "The Bright Cloud of Unknowing," a sermon published on Day1.org - for March 2, 2014 on Matthew 17: 1-9.