2nd Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7) - June 22, 2014 - Mire and High Water

The psalmist wrote, "Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; / let me be rescued from those who hate me / and out of the deep waters."  What had the psalmist gotten himself into and why?  If we read the psalm from the beginning, we know he claims to have been accused falsely and has become alienated from family members.. He may have been accused of stealing: "What I did not steal / must I now restore?" he says in verse 4. He also claims to care deeply about the temple.  Could the accusation stem from something he intended to offer at the temple—that whatever he offered was not his to offer?

What we can say with certainty is this: the psalmist appears to be isolated from others and hated by them.  He admits to doing some things that were wrong in verse 5.  Now he cries to God for help: "Answer me, O Lord, for your / steadfast love is good; / according to your abundant mercy turn to me . . . Draw near to me, redeem me, / set me free . . . "

In today's gospel reading from Matthew the situation Jesus finds himself in is very similar to that of the psalmist.  He's been falsely accused of being the prince of demons ("Beelzebub").  He knows anyone who follows him will be smeared with the same condemnation as well.  Jesus tries to reassure the disciples by describing God's "abundant mercy:"  "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. . . So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows."

At times our lives may be as desperate as the psalmist's or as desperate as Jesus knows the disciples' lives will become. To be stuck in the mud, to be up to our neck in deep water--we can relate to these colorful choices of images.  They can match our experience when we get into a conflict with someone with whom we disagree or with someone who holds us in contempt unfairly.  Jesus' description of family relationships being broken apart because of his ministry offers us a unblinking look at the cost of discipleship for the folks who followed him.

We, too, may find ourselves having to deal with water that is not only up to our necks, but is also choppy.  Choices we make and those other people make can be the source of conflicts and painful partings of the ways. When we fear a choice we are about to make will lead to pain for us--even though we are almost certain it's the right thing to do--we would do well to remember Jesus' assurance of God's care for us.

"So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows"--who are held securely in God's most loving regard.

I struggle with the reading from Jeremiah recounting his feelings about his persecutors and with Jesus' words about not coming to bring peace but a sword. In their historical contexts they are reasonable. But we must be careful how we apply in our own contexts.  When should we become righteously indignant and take action that may cause a situation to blow up?  Think Jesus' overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple? Or when should we act as a reconciling presence, a non-anxious presence, even if others are losing their cool?  Think Jesus gently redirecting Martha as she complained about her sister's lack of help: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and anxious about many things . . ."

Discernment of when, where and how to act in a conflicted situation often isn't easy.  The cost of being Jesus' disciple in such situations can be high.  Just as acting in an ethical and moral way when the context is corrupt or oppressive can be costly.  Yet we are called to be Christ's heart, hands and feet in the world.  We are called to work and pray for God's reign of peace with justice.

Frank Logue, an Episcopal priest and writer, reflected on the readings we heard today and the cost of discipleship:  "When your faith leads you to make public stands that are not popular, opposition will come. Problems will arise. This is to be expected. But we also know that we do not face these problems alone.

“The anchor has long been a symbol in Christian art for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Though storms may come, we have a sure and certain hope that gives us purchase on the rock. Hold fast to the faith that is in you, knowing that Jesus said, ‘Even the hairs of your head are counted. Do not be afraid.’

“Or to borrow the imagery of the psalmist, when [what’s] all around begins to seem like deep mire, count on your relationship with God to provide the firm ground on which you can stand. Jesus did not promise you a life of no battles, but he did promise the victory."

The Rev. Canon Frank S. Logue, “Facing battles with the promise of victory,” Sermons that Work, Episcopal Digital Network, June 22, 2014.

Trinity Sunday - June 15, 2014 - Three in One and One in Three

How is God for you?  When you think of God, what comes to mind?  How have you experienced God?

David L. Beck* - a Presbyterian pastor – wrote about a conversation with two children.  He called their words “the best help” he received in understanding how we can understand what “Trinity means:

“Rather than insisting that scripture make the doctrine of the Trinity explicit, perhaps we should allow the Trinity to remain implicit and affirm it out of our own experience, our own living with God. The best help I ever received in understanding how the idea of the Trinity may evolve from our Christian development rather than be imposed as an abstract formula came from two four-year-olds (one of them my own) with whom I spent a winter's afternoon18 years ago while their mothers were shopping. Somehow they decided that they were going to explain to me what they knew of the divine. They did it with such sincerity and enthusiasm that I still remember what they said.

“I needed to know they advised me, that first there was God and God loves. Long, long ago God made everything. God is everywhere and sees everything but you can't see God. On the other hand, they said, you can see Jesus or at least pictures of Jesus are because he was down here where we are.. Jesus is simply wonderful and loves us very much, children as much as grown-ups. If you can't see Jesus right now, it is because he is in heaven, but he stays in touch with us so well he might as well still be here. A lot of the time it seems as if he is.

“As they talked, however, they did not talk about God alone or Jesus alone, but of "God and Jesus." Together "God and Jesus" were a wonderful divine partnership who made the world a wonderful and beautiful place to be.

“From their perspective, nothing was missing. They had digested what was taught about God in the creation story and what was taught about Jesus in the Gospels. Had I shared with them the two parts of Paul's benediction, the blessing or prayer with which he ended 2 Corinthians, they would have understood it. After saying "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," I would need to explain the word grace as "a wonderful gift from Jesus that leaves you very happy," and they would have been able to connect with that. I would not have to say a thing about "the love of God" because they already believed that God loved them; that part of the prayer simply repeats something they already knew and believed.

“What they would not understand, however, would be the last part: "the communion of the Holy Spirit. . ."  It takes an adult self-consciousness – the experience of an adult living and trying to believe but knowing doubt, trying to do the right thing but knowing failure, trying to be confident but sensing despair – to also know that there is a part of God that helps us through those obstacles, a part which is different from God's love or Christ's gift of salvation.

“Sharing in that part of God leaves us able to say, with the conviction of Paul, that "nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." God is revealed as a loving Creator, a compassionate Savior and a mysterious presence allowing us to overcome what we could not on our own. This is the Trinity. It is the last thing to be said about God, after we have lived and grown and struggled. Then we discover that it was the Spirit that allowed us to cry, "Abba, Father" in the first place and to perceive God's saving love in Jesus Christ.”

Here are my reflections of Pastor Beck’s story:  It makes wonderful sense to me that we can understand God as trinity of persons, because we experience God that way.  The unity of God's being can be more difficult to deal with once you really focus on those separate persons.  This a prime critique of Christianity by the other two Abrahamic faiths.

As I meditate on the meaning of the Trinity, the three persons of the Trinity represent a community, which we can enter through Jesus' mediation.  In an abstract form the circle called perichoresis can depict that community.  [Point out the stained glass panel showing this.]  Perichoresis derives from the Greek peri, "around" and chorein, which has multiple meanings among them being "to make room for", "go forward" and "contain."

The Rublev icon of three “persons” shows the Trinity in a more “human” way—a better way, perhaps. [Their bodies have equal weight or space; they form a circle, but there is an opening at the front center of the group for someone to join them.] This sort of community we can imitate here during our earthly lives, including here in our parish.  It's a way to understand Jesus’ great commission to us at the end of Matthew’s gospel as well.  Because we have experienced the divine inclusiveness, Jesus tells us to go into the world and lead more and more people into the circle of God's love.  Is this how you have experienced God?

*David L. Beck, ‘Sharing the Holy Spirit,’ Living By the Word in “The Christian Century,” May 19, 1999.

                        

Pentecost - June 8, 2014 - "The Exponent of Breath"

From the Book of Genesis:  "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters."

". . . then the Lord God  formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life."

From Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones:  God said to Ezekiel, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord . . . Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.  (Ezekiel 37)

From the Acts of the Apostles: "And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting."

From John's gospel: Jesus said to the disciples, " 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he has said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the. Holy Spirit.' "

Emily Dickinson wrote a poem called "Love." I believe "love" in this poem is synonymous with "God."   She wrote, "Love is anterior to life / Posterior to death, / Initial of creation, and / The exponent of breath."

Pentecost is a rather lame name for our celebration today.  Pentecost simply referees to the 50th day after Easter. Perhaps it should be called, Fire-Wind-Breath Sunday. For God works through these things to reveal God's self to us and to achieve life for all humanity.

My mind has been returning all week to the word "breath."   How tremendously essential our breathing in oxygen is!  The end of our lives can be marked by our breathing rate slowing and slowing until we are no longer breathing.   When breathing becomes difficult due to illnesses such as pneumonia, emphysema, or lung cancer, we can become anxious--often making it even more difficult to breathe.

So the expectation of wind blowing, resulting in God's breath entering a human, speaks to life and energy.  We call this energizing force, the Holy Spirit, and celebrate her presence among us.

Yet at another level, a very deep level, our breath can become a holy place, for recognizing God’s presence within each one of us.  The Jesus Prayer shows this very clearly.   Said in the rhythm of our breathing in and breathing out, we can quiet ourselves to find God's holy presence within.  It goes like this: "Jesus, son of the living God, have mercy on me."  Some add "a sinner."  In truth, all you really need to say is "Jesus."—or simply think "Jesus" with each breath.

Imagine, for a moment, the room in which the fearful disciples had gathered. Jesus' greeting of "Peace be with you" changed the tenor of disciples mood from one of fear to one of joy. But their joy did not show itself as the babble of languages, which led the disciples being accused of drunkenness.  Rather, they seemed to have held their breath for a moment as Jesus commissions them a way they could not have imagined even an hour before: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."   Then he breathes on them and declares the gift of the Holy Spirit.  He breathes on them not only to energize them for mission, but also to give them the awareness of God's presence within.  For only with God's presence within could they hope to be witnesses to God's forgiving love in a hostile world.

So we have two examples of God revealing God's self in our scripture readings today.  One appears quite lively with rushing wind and fire-like tongues identifying those commissioned to be apostles.  In tension with this is the story in John's gospel of Jesus’ commissioning the disciples with a few words and a simple breath.  If you were you among the disciples at that moment, in which setting would you like to be?  Your responses may break down along extrovert vs. introvert lines.  But the key thing to remember, I believe, is Jesus' breathing on the disciples showed how God's sustaining presence came to them—and comes to us.

May every prayer-filled breath we take show us Jesus!  Yes, God's love for us truly is the "exponent of breath."

The 6th Sunday of Easter - Speaking and Acting on the Hope Within You

From today's epistle reading comes this quote:  "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence."

In seminary when we were preparing preach our extemporaneous sermons with only a half-hour to prepare--and groaning about how hard it was to get something intelligent and meaningful organized in so short a time--our professor paraphrased this quote from the first letter from Peter:  "You must always be ready to speak of the hope that is in you."

How important is the word "hope" in our scripture?  It appears 45 times in the 27 books of the New Testament mostly in the letters written to the early churches.. St. Paul included it as one of the top three enduring facets of our relationship to God (faith, hope and love). 

In the first letter Peter wrote to the Christian communities in Asia Minor, he spoke about "a living hope" given to Christians by "the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."  In the passage we heard this morning Peter claims that our baptism results in our being saved by God.  God wants us to live in such a way that our conscience is clear, and baptism is our path to that goal. Now God can clearly understand our desire for salvation, because the resurrected Jesus has returned to the Godhead and all the powers of heaven are his.

The theme of hope can be discerned in the reading from John’s gospel today as well.  Jesus, in this passage from John's gospel, marks a promise to the disciples not to leave them in an orphaned state.  He promises an Advocate, the Spirit who will encourage them, represent the truth about God and dwell within them.  He speaks to them, as a group, whose hope is for life eternal.  He assures them, ". . . Because I live, you also will live."

So hope—in the sense these readings portray—centers around Jesus—especially his overcoming death.  By his overcoming death, Jesus offers a path through the fear that our lives with their pain and suffering and their transient joys are all that we can expect.  Death isn't the end.  Union with God in the joy that comes from living in eternal presence of God's love becomes our hope.  The popular focus on reports of near death experiences today comes, I believe, from our need to seek the same reassurance Jesus understood the disciples to need.

But the other part of our "living hope" should focus on our lives and our world today.  In two weeks, we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the disciples and, by extension, into our lives as well.  The Feast of Pentecost will highlight the part of hope which focuses on our tasks as believers in the "meantime"--the time between when Jesus returned to the Godhead and when we believe he will come again to establish fully the reign of God with peace and justice and freedom from the oppression of sin--other people's and our own!  Liturgically we call this Ordinary Time (when our “color” in worship becomes green.)

Our "living hope" in Ordinary Time becomes what we pray for and what we work for.  Yes, we long for salvation, but there should be much more to our hope than that.  We may disagree about the means, but our prayers of petition and intercession and our actions that follow from these prayers should reflect our hope for lives in which God's love for us and God's compassion for those in need can be fully seen.  This means holding up to God the concerns from our lives, from the lives of those we love and from the lives of those we only read about in the newspaper or hear about through other media.  This means taking action about these concerns as well.

There’s a litany from “A Wee Worship Book,” created by The Iona Community in Scotland, which encapsulates this “living hope.”  I’d like to close by sharing it with you—and your response is “Christ is coming to make all things new.”

“Among the poor, among the proud,

Among the persecuted,

Among the privileged,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

In the private house, in the public place,

In the wedding feast,

In the judgment hall,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

With a gentle touch, with an angry word,

With a clear conscience,

With burning love,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

That the kingdom might come, that the world might believe,

That the powerful might stumble,

That the hidden might be seen,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

Within us, without us, behind us, before us,

In this place, in every place,

For this time, for all time,

Christ is coming to make all things new.”

So with the “living hope” given to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ may we join with Christ in working to make all things new.  Amen.

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.