tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15594398759946903332024-03-05T10:38:17.706-08:00The MathewsonsWe're married, parents, and Episcopal priests.Laurel Mathewsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03230311743028552007noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-31592411003906741182015-08-24T15:31:00.001-07:002015-08-24T15:32:11.581-07:00My General Convention Sermon: "For a Single, Beautiful Word"<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The general remembers the tiny green sprigs/ men of his village wore in their capes/ to honor the birth of a son. He will/ order many, this time, to be killed/ for a single, beautiful word.” Thus concludes the poem “Parsley” by Rita Dove, a piece remembering the so-called Parsley Massacre of 1937. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was a year of economic struggle for the Dominican Republic as sugar prices plummeted. Neighboring Haitians struggled too, and thousands crossed the porous border to work the cane fields for American conglomerates. In response, the Dominican Republic’s dictator, Rafael Trujillo, instituted harsh deportation policies that didn’t seem to be working -- for the demand for cheap labor on the fields remained. In the face of growing unrest, scapegoats were needed to maintain control. In September of that year </span><a href="http://windowsonhaiti.com/windowsonhaiti/wucker1.shtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trujillo welcomed a Nazi delegation</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and publicly accepted the gift of Hitler’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mein Kampf</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Trujillo’s dream of whitening the skin of Dominicans to bolster national pride at the expense of their darker-skinned Haitian neighbors had found its justification.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just weeks later, while drunk at a party, Trujillo ordered the deaths of thousands of Haitian immigrants along the border. When it wasn’t clear by skin color alone who was of Haitian descent and who was not, Trujillo’s men would ask the terrified detainee to pronounce the word “parsley” in Spanish: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">perejil.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Haitians could not roll their “r”s, and thus spoke “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pelejil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” And so they were destroyed, their bodies dumped into the aptly-named Massacre River. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be killed for a single word: a shibboleth, a word designed to distinguish </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">them</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, first employed by the Gileadites at the fords of the Jordan River to murder 42,000 Ephraimites in the </span><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=301648071" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book of Judges</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To be killed -- and remembered -- for a single, beautiful word.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Rev. Charles Barnes arrived in the Dominican Republic at the age of 42, five years into the reign of Trujillo. Charles’ church in the capital, Santo Domingo, had been rebuilt in the poor part of town, and his congregation included many struggling West Indian immigrants. As he came to know their plight, which was related to the blackness of their skin and the fact that they only spoke English, his eyes began to open to the racialized world in which he lived. This searing realization enabled him to believe and investigate the rumors of the Parsley massacre, and make the decision to write to his American contacts about Trujillo’s crime. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wonder what making that terrible decision was like. How long after Charles had heard of the massacre did it take him to write his first letter? Did he know that he was scratching out his own death sentence? Did he agonize over the sealing of the envelope? It was a Gethsemane moment, I imagine, for Charles Barnes. He had been invited into Christ’s sacrifice for us, and, picking up his cross, he gave himself up and into its deep love.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To be killed -- and remembered -- for a single, beautiful string of words, words that stood courageously in the face of the powers of this world. These words were struck down, and the Church resurrects them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a single, eternal, and glorious Word whom we worship here today: the Word of God made flesh who dwelt among us, died on the cross of shame, and rose victorious. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection form the basis of a story that has changed each of us in this room. God is the author of this Christian story, and we are its bearers and its witnesses and its tellers. We take up its well-worn pages in awe and gratitude as the saints and martyrs have for centuries before us. Even as we tell this saving tale to the world we are shaped by its grammar of grace and its language of love. And as its words settle into our bones it can inspire us to act, like Father Barnes, in quite beautiful ways.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the announcements the Sunday before I left for Salt Lake, I asked the Latino congregation with whom I serve to bless my travels. The guest preacher said a blessing after everyone gathered around me in the center of the sanctuary. Then he marked the sign of the cross on my forehead, and, surprisingly, invited everyone to do the same. One parishioner after another, beginning with the kids, came up to me as I knelt down and they looked into my eyes and blessed me with their hands and with their words. I have never felt so loved by a community. There is no us and them in God’s gracious story.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wonder how well Charles Barnes spoke Spanish. I’m not sure it really matters. His actions, as did the tender blessings offered by my congregation, drew from a deeper language at the heart of the great Christian story to which we owe our lives. This is the wellspring of mission.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To be killed for a single, beautiful word, a string of words that comprise the story that has captivated us so -- reminds us that the powers of this world have little patience for truth and scarce use for history that cannot be molded to meet the immediate needs of kings on their thrones. In the Dominican Republic, nearly 80 years after the Parsley Massacre, the government has begun a new program of Haitian deportations, including even those who have lived their entire lives on Dominican soil. Once again, language is used to separate and destroy. And the Dominican Episcopal Church, strong and growing stronger each year, stands as a truth teller in the gap between racial justice and political expediency. Our memory of the saints and martyrs show us this way. Indeed, every Sunday the congregants of the Episcopal Cathedral of the Epiphany in Santo Domingo take communion above the tomb of Charles Barnes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In such moments of remembrance history cannot help but be pulled into the present, where God’s Spirit of truth and love can minister to the still-weeping wounds of violence, and send us out as bearers of the story to tell again and again the singular, beautiful, and loving words of God.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With grateful thanks to: Richard Bonacci, The Rev. Dr. William Brosend, The Rev. Brooks Cato, The Very Rev. Thomas Chesterman, The Rev. Dr. Julia Gatta, The Rev. John Koenig, The Rev. David Marshall, The Rt. Rev. James Mathes, The Rev. Laurel Mathewson, Penny Mathewson, Gary Owen, The Rev. Remington Rose-Crossley, and Hannah Wilder</span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-45975636858992940832015-01-26T13:15:00.000-08:002015-01-26T13:16:55.439-08:00Glorifying God in My Body<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Second Sunday after Epiphany</b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">January 18, 2014</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#OLDTEST" style="background-color: white;">1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20) </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#PSALM" style="background-color: white;">Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17 </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#EPISTLE" style="background-color: white;">1 Corinthians 6:12-20</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#EPISTLE" style="background-color: white;"> </a><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#GOSPEL" style="background-color: white;">John 1:43-51 </a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">I’m conducting an informal poll this morning and am wondering if anyone has recently woken up, rubbed their eyes, and looked into the mirror and thought, “Wow, I am marvelously made!” Hmm. Not many. There probably will be more folks at the 10:30 service… </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">Today’s psalm does push the bounds of hyperbole for our 21st-century ears unused to such flattering compliments about these bodies our minds happen to be lugging around. What do you think about your body? Do you think about your body? I think about my body in chiefly two ways: when will my body be ready to eat next -- because I really love to eat -- and how can my body avoid brain damage by ducking in a timely fashion as I walk through doorways. But what about you? As more of our occupations require less and less physical movement, our bodies can be dismissed and largely ignored as irrelevant to daily life For some, bodies are annoying animals we’re forced to sustain that always seem to be hungry or need to go to the bathroom or receive medical treatment; indeed, bodies can be sources of discomfort, pain, and suffering -- reminders of our limits, of times gone by, of aging and death. Or bodies can be triggers of feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment; they can be punished and controlled, pressed up and down and in and prodded and enhanced and starved. Alternatively, bodies themselves can be worshipped and sexualized and objectified and thus become temptations for vanity, addiction, self-obsession, and sexual impropriety. Then, of course, there is all that our bodies may be delightfully fit to do: to dance and to dive, to run and to crab crawl, to reach and to give, to fight and to love. Certainly the usefulness and worth of our bodies are interpreted by ourselves and others in a variety of ways.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">Science tells us that our bodies are spectacularly complex systems enlivened by chemical interactions we still struggle to comprehend, made up of organs made up of cells made up of protein polymers made up of amino acid molecules made up of atoms made up of protons and neutrons and electrons made up of quarks made up of . . . well, stardust. Hmmm. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, or . . . ? </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">But what does God think about our bodies? What does God think of our bodies? God thinks we’re marvelously made. We have been blessed by a marvelous Creator, an artist who knew us before our mothers did, who handcrafted our 37 trillion cells with attention and grace, and who had the humor and audacity to toss in personality quirks and bodily imperfections that would shape us into who we are today. Our bodies are good enough and worthy just the way they have been created, and they are as tightly tied to our identities as our political views and family trees. Our bodies, our stardust, are tied inextricably with God’s loving and skilled and artistic hands. Our bodies not only consist of material, but also of loving relationship. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">St. Paul explains in today’s reading: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit! Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, not just any spirit, not a shared piece of a larger spirit, no -- the Holy Spirit. Are we hearing what St. Paul is telling us?! Our bodies are lovingly crafted gifts to us that speak of God’s love for us, gifts which house God’s wild presence here on earth. The idea of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit is deep, deep mystery; wonderfully encouraging; and quite terrifying. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">Because what if we’re not sure we’re up for the responsibility of housing the Holy Spirit in our embodied abodes? What if our bodies don’t work the way they’re supposed to, or the way they used to -- can the Holy Spirit still reside within, or would She even want to? (It’s helpful to remember that St. Paul himself had a debilitating bodily infirmity, a “thorn in the flesh,” that caused him great suffering but still could not hinder his enthusiasm for these bodies of ours that aren’t really ours, but God’s.) Our bodies’ purpose, like a temple, is to glorify God. So what does it mean to glorify God in our bodies? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">It means employing our vocal cords to sing with joy and energy alongside our magnificent choir; it means holding out our hands to receive Christ’s body sacrificed for us; it means kneeling in humility and thanksgiving; it means showing a sign of peace to a stranger. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">It means looking in the mirror and seeing God’s grace and gift; it means allowing ourselves not to be perfect and knowing that the Holy Spirit is with us all the same; it means taking care of our bodies because we’re already loved by God, not so that we’ll be loved by God or anyone else. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">Glorifying God in our bodies means picking up the phone to call a lonely neighbor, driving the kids to soccer practice, massaging our partner’s feet at the end of a long day, and taking the dog for a walk while we pray. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">Glorifying God in our bodies means participating in an Arts Committee gathering, attending the Cathedral’s annual meeting (get your free lunch at noon today!), bringing communion to a congregant in a nursing home, ironing the linens in the sacristy. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">Glorifying God in our bodies means marching our way down the streets of Paris along with a million others to demonstrate that violence cannot rule the day. It means serving alongside dozens of others to clean up Balboa Park this Monday as our nation celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. (The Cathedral, led by our Simpler Living ministry, will participate in this interfaith day of service, and you’re invited! Check out the bulletin announcements for details.) </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">Glorifying God in our bodies means heading south out of Selma, Alabama on Highway 80 on March 7, 1965 with 600 members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Southern Christian Leadership Conference; it means crowning the Edmund Pettus bridge that spans the Alabama River and taking in the mass of mounted state troopers and just-deputized white males waiting for them on the other side with clubs and tear gas; it means a world shocked by the televised images of nonviolent resistance in the face of unthinking brutality; it means hospitalization; it means presenting our bodies as living sacrifices for a cause greater than ourselves, the cause of equality before the law, the cause of human dignity, the cause of justice. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.6319999694824px;">I wonder if those marchers knew what they were getting into before they crowned that bridge that day, before they took in the menacing threat before them? I wonder if we know what we’re getting into when we get out of bed each morning as we profess to follow this peasant teacher, this rabble rouser, on his dusty, meandering march to Jerusalem? I can’t help thinking that we enjoy the same human bodies as those Selma marchers -- there wasn’t anything different about their flesh and blood and bones -- and we profess to follow the same Jesus, the same Christ, whose body was broken by the powers of his day, and whose body was glorified in that rock-hewn tomb. Jesus has invited us to follow him. Follow where? Toward justice. Toward brokenness. Toward glory.</span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-64717178100929620022014-11-19T15:53:00.001-08:002014-11-19T15:56:41.367-08:00Looking for Answers: A Sewanee Sermon<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good morning! Thank you for inviting me to be with you today. My name is Colin Mathewson, and my wife and I graduated from The School of Theology some 18 months ago. We’ve been priests just 13 months now. We’re serving at St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego, where one of my roles is to pastor our small Latino congregation. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you for this Spanish language Eucharist, because I believe deeply in the importance and possibilities of Latino </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">ministry, and I am grateful that The School of Theology continues investing in and growing its Spanish language and Latino ministry program. I know my time at Sewanee did much to inspire and prepare me for this current work of mine. I hope many of you are having a similar experience here, too. Know this -- for those called to serve among Latinos, the harvest is plentiful! Keep working on your Spanish, venture out of your comfort zone, laugh at yourself when you sound silly, but keep at it. The Church needs you. And Latinos, as do all of us, need the Church.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Except when we don’t need the Church -- or we think we don’t. One of the favorite parts of my job is having coffee with folks in their 20s and 30s who declare to me that they are spiritual but not religious. (That phrase makes me smile.) I listen to their stories, which often involve baggage with some form of the institutional -- and often nondenominational -- church. They’re not quite sure why they’re sitting down with a priest in a public place (I think the collar is unnerving to some of them). Yet they yearn for greater purpose and meaning in their lives. They wear quizzical expressions on their faces while holding a thread in their hands and trailing behind them a pile of unraveled fabric — the fabric of a culture that promised their bodies alluring and comforting answers to life’s biggest questions but left their souls cold. I loved these conversations as a lay person before seminary, and I love them even more now -- seminary pointed me to a rich wardrobe of Scripture and tradition to share. Indeed, there is much good news to tell, and so I wonder where to begin. Evangelism can be dicey with millennials -- their B.S. monitors are sensitive -- pat answers make them suspicious.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The stories of the saints are often a good place to start. Take <a href="http://holywomenholymen.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/elizabeth-of-hungary/">Elizabeth, princess of Hungary</a>, whom we celebrate today. A member of the royalty, she married at the age of 14, was widowed at 20, and at age 24 died an entirely preventable premature death. She died from an illness contracted from those for whom she cared for in a hospital she didn’t have to build and certainly didn’t have to enter into day after day. I wonder what could have possibly turned blessed Elizabeth’s gaze slowly, slowly around until all she could see was the poor, and Christ among them? She had plenty to live for: three kids, an income from her family, many chances to remarry. But she chose to give her life away for a very real purpose instead. She gave her life to God. “Why would someone do that?,” I ask my coffee shop companion. Why would someone do that?, I ask you. Why would someone do that?, I ask myself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One coffee shop companion of mine, a woman in her 30s named Selina, recently renewed her participation in our Latino congregation’s communal life. She is the single mother of elementary school-aged daughters, and she struggles to find a job while she and her family live on welfare. On a Saturday night a few months ago, Selina received a call that her father in Mexico City had died suddenly from a heart attack. Undone and unsure what to do, she came with her daughters to church the next day. As she wept before and during worship, members of our family-sized congregation comforted her and cried beside her, for Selina’s grief had reminded them of their beloved family members and friends living on the other side of a border that many were not authorized to recross again. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During coffee hour, prompted by a leader in the congregation, I invited those present to offer what they could to help cover the costs of the almost $700 plane ticket that would allow Selina to bury her father. I issued this invitation obediently, but not hopefully: this Latino congregation was comprised of the working poor: carpenters, carpet layers, truck drivers, house cleaners, landscapers, nannies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But, thanks be to God, I’m here to tell you that my parishioners gave twenty, forty, fifty dollars each -- and among a couple dozen folks we’d raised enough to fly Selina home. The church’s pastoral needs fund covered the rest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why did my parishioners, these saints of the Church, do that? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Some sense of purpose most certainly lay behind it. Was it their own devotion to family that compelled them to give so sacrificially? Was it their devotion to a God of love and abundance that prompted them to take the risk of sharing the few loaves and fishes they had with one another? There was a hidden richness from which they drew on this extraordinary collective wealth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I expect our parishioners’ generosity did affect those family members who depended on them in the days to follow. But as I reflect on this miracle I can’t help but think that their giving </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">preserved and strengthened </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">their devotion to family and to God </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">than if they had kept their wallets in their pockets. The invitation to give, issued not by their priest but by the tears of a suffering fellow church member and friend, transformed any sense of scarcity they might have felt in that moment into a sense of abundance. From this present abundance they gave to meet a real need, and it was the Church, it was Christ, that bound together and made possible this moment. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I share this not to romanticize poverty or to overgeneralize the generosity (or poverty!) of a particular cultural group. I share this because I watched Christ sweep away fear and the Spirit usher in Love before my eyes. I witnessed a grieving daughter who needed the Church and saw the Church come through for her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A month after her trip, I invited Selina to serve as the Latino congregation’s representative for the Cathedral’s newly minted Evangelism Committee, organized to proclaim joyfully the good news of Christ in our community’s life. Committee members plan to do this at street fairs, in parks, and yes, even in coffee shops. I’m certain this single mother of two struggling to find a job is the right person for this ministry, for she has tasted and seen this good news in the spontaneous offering of monetized love from her friends at church. She can point to it. It is fresh in her gaze. She had crossed path with saints who had themselves discovered a deeper purpose and joy in Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look, most of us are not called to almsgiving heroics. Most of us have real financial constraints in our lives, real responsibilities to our families and our dependents (older and younger). And few of us have access to the precious gems and royal granaries that Elizabeth had at her disposal to care for the needy. That said, each of us is included in Christ’s call to submit ourselves and our lives fully at the feet of our Lord and Savior — not merely represented by giving ten percent of our income, or twenty percent of our talent, or thirty percent of our time to the church, or any other calculation that constricts our response to Christ’s invitation to present </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ourselves in our entirety</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to God, one hundred percent. (Thank you, Mother Julia, for helping me to see this.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Giving all of ourselves to God: this is a challenge, this is a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">purpose</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, that is at once intimidating and liberating — and compelling. Sure, it’s easiest to feel how giving ourselves entirely to God is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">intimidating</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, for who in this life can boast such a feat? Our confessions remind us of the ways we withhold our love from God and others.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet it is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">liberating </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because this call to giving 100% of ourselves means that our financial resources are but one offering God invites us to place on the altar. Providing for our families in such eminently practical ways as buying school supplies for our kids or helping with cost of elder care for our parents take on a sacredness revealed in all we do that affirms life and life’s intimate relationship to our Creator.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And truly, this call to give our all is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">compelling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It is compelling because we humans from an early age have suspected that there is more to living than what our mainstream culture entices us to buy and sell. There is more to who we are than our net worth, our assets, the number of our Facebook friends, our image. Indeed, it is Christ who offers us our deepest purpose, answering our dearest held questions: Who am I? Toward what end shall I labor? What will my time alive be like? Christ calls to each of us, inviting us to turn our gaze toward the poor, toward the lonely, toward the sick, toward </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- so that we might fashion answers to the existential questions that hound us. And Christ gives us the means to do so: the strength, the courage, the joy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why did my parishioners do what they did? Why did blessed Elizabeth do what she did? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unsurprisingly, Christ continues to attract the younger generations — that coffee shop-going crowd. As I sip my tea I reveal to them, and in so doing remind myself, of a precious gift within our church tradition:</span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the saints</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, who have grappled with great questions of purpose and found Christ in that struggle, and he became their all, and they gave their all to Him. My conversation partner looks away, holding her latte in her hands, silent. I wonder if she is thinking what I am: </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Could I do the same some day too?</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-34818849565103555792014-10-04T13:39:00.001-07:002014-10-04T13:39:41.738-07:00A Wedding Sermon for Peter and Fei<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peter and Fei, thank you for inviting us here today to witness and bless your marriage. Too rarely</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> these days do we have the chance to celebrate love, to celebrate its power to transform we tiny humans into something greater and more real. But look! Look at what you’ve done to each other! Look at what love has done to you. We, your family and friends, have witnessed the good that your love has brought both of you, and we affirm <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and bless </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> this day.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s easy on the surface to celebrate love between two people. But real life love goes deeper than that, or it must if it is to weather the challenges and stresses of any marriage. I tell you this because I care so much about what you are to embark upon, as we all do, as we all commit to support the two of you however we can. And so I submit to you a precious truth that our poet, <a href="http://www.katsandogz.com/onmarriage.html">Kahlil Gibran, revealed</a>: it is the truth that this good, good love that you share is not your love, not really. It is contained by an even greater Love, an even greater Life, it is contained by God -- and it springs forth in your lives because you are loved by this greater Love. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are loved by God. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">loved by God. All of us. Always.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what does God’s love have to do with your marriage? This truth about God’s love matters </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">most</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> precisely when you feel like you’ve got this marriage thing figured out all by yourselves. Because marriage can be a squirrelly thing, full of surprises and joys and its share of sadness. Ah, but you’ll never need to go it alone. You’ve got us here, and more importantly, you’ve got a greater Love beside you that never fails. Trust it, lean into it, and it will carry you places unexpected and filling and new.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Peter, I’ve known you for 21 years. Fei, it’s crystal clear you are just what Peter needs, thanks be to God. And Peter, never forget that Fei needs you, too. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so we today celebrate this love you share, this glorious Love, this always Love, together by your side.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-19116697833654796772014-09-30T16:55:00.000-07:002015-09-29T12:53:21.397-07:00Gabriel Arregui, our new Assistant Organist at St. Paul's Cathedral (and Logo)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-38587389381732124922014-08-27T20:51:00.000-07:002014-08-27T20:51:01.556-07:00A Quinceañera Sermon for Kinsey<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today we are here to celebrate the childhood of Kinsey Garcia and her journey to adulthood. It is no simple task to get to this point with health and a good head on your shoulders and with faith. For this we applaud you, Kinsey, and your parents and we thank God! And now we’re here, looking ahead with you at the exciting and at times daunting road ahead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kinsey, one of the greatest blessings about a moment like this is the chance to look around and see the family and friends who have gathered to support you. So look around. Take them in. Never forget that life is not lived alone -- it can’t be -- we’re not built for it. God made us for each other, and you have been blessed with an abundance of love. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We care about you -- that’s why we’re here. But we’re also here because we care about how our kids become adults. As parents it’s so easy to ignore the telltale signs amid the hustle of daily life that our children are growing up: they need us less and less for their physical health, their emotional wellbeing, their mental acuity, their spiritual lives. It can be easy for us to hold on to our kids more tightly because it can be painful to recognize that we’re not needed like we used to be. So part of what we’re about today is to help Carlos, Ruben, Shannon, and Brittany let go of Kinsey a bit -- let her go, not out on her own, but into a community of support, a community of peers, a community of faith, a world community that still fights for the value of human life, even amid the more harrowing reminders of late of what happens when we forget just how much each of us is worth in the eyes of God.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kinsey, you’re growing up! You know that. You’ve known that. It’s fun! We’re excited for you. But there’s a loss involved as well: you’re losing the special status of childhood that Jesus mentions today in our Gospel reading. “The least among all of you is the greatest” -- the children of every age are our basic and necessary hope for the future, so we do all we can as a society -- though at times it may not seem like much -- to protect kids and raise them well. There are some great things about childhood, and maybe the best is the ability to shirk responsibility when things go awry. When I was 14 I goaded my dad into driving over 80 through the desert highway rises and falls and had a great time until he was pulled over by a cop. As the officer walked up to the car, my dad turned to me as if to say, “Well?”, and I said, “You’re the responsible adult.” Ah, the teenage years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can try to keep pulling that off, that shirking of responsibility as long as you’d like, but you’ll notice that the person most harmed by irresponsible actions will increasingly be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Even more disturbing, as you become more powerful -- as you drive the roads, as you vote, as you buy food and clothes, as you gain fans and followers, as you perhaps even become a mother some day -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">others</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> will also be affected by your choices. Those are the heart-quickening and energizing facts of adulthood. The world grants you more and more power.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That can be a heady proposition. And sometimes, a disappointing one. Remember through it all that what you do, for better or worse, does not change one undeniable, unbelievable fact that if you can trust it will change your life: God loves you and won’t stop loving you for no other reason than who you are, a beloved child of God. God doesn’t care how much you weigh, how many friends you have, what college you go to -- God just cares about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know, it’s nuts. But you, and every person in this church, every person in this world, is worthy of God’s love.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-13989398435111007472014-08-01T20:34:00.000-07:002014-11-30T20:42:05.797-08:00Robin Taylor is our New Director for Children, Youth, and Family Ministry!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span id="goog_656595570"></span><span id="goog_656595571"></span><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-924818090111035792014-06-12T17:26:00.002-07:002014-06-12T17:27:09.993-07:00Keep Your Books in Their Boxes <span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Sermon Delivered at Bentley Manning's Deaconal Ordination on June 11, 2014 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Propers for St. Barnabas:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/Barnabas.html#OLDTEST" style="background-color: white;">Isaiah 42:5-12 </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/Barnabas.html#SECOND" style="background-color: white;">Acts 11:19-30;13:1-3 </a><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/Barnabas.html#GOSPEL" style="background-color: white;">Matthew 10:7-16 </a><a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/Barnabas.html#PSALM" style="background-color: white;">Psalm 112 </a><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bentley, you’ve just packed up your study carrel at Sewanee. For three years you’ve pored over the inhabitants of its bookshelves, searching for insight into the length, and breadth, and width, and height of God. You have taken in the sacred story of God’s people and made it in many ways your own. You have been a good and faithful student. Well done.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now your books are in their boxes, still to be unpacked. That’s fine. I’d keep them in the attic for a while. Because you’ve got a new study carrel, a new place to struggle and come to grips with the mysteries and glories of God: your new study carrel is Birmingham. The neighborhoods are your bookshelves. The people whom you befriend and minister to and with are your beloved texts. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> will share with you unimaginable tales of grief and glory, of God’s powerful presence in their lives. Welcome to the margin between the church and the world. Welcome home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A deacon’s jobs are many, but the one that may be the most compelling and the most challenging is this: to interpret to the Church the needs of the world. And there’s only one way to do that: to be in the world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because we know you’ll be in church. We know that you </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">love</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> church. You’ve been nerding out on church for years. You met Leslie in church. You read about 19th century English clerics for fun. You even spend your time off in church, having just returned from the ancient sanctuaries of the Holy Land. Heck, you spent last summer doing extra field education so you could be in church </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more than was required by your seminary</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">owned</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by the church.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the wily, wild Holy Spirit that has so recently come upon us in flames of fire has surprise after surprise in store </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">outside</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of church walls. As we understand from St. Luke’s account in the Book of Acts, in the time after the Day of Pentecost, the Spirit led “some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also” -- spoke to the Gentiles, not just the Jews! And what were they saying? They were “proclaiming the Lord Jesus!” </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But this wasn’t supposed to happen. Sure, the tongues of fire that preached the good news through the apostles on that pentecostal day did speak not just to Jews but to all people. But Jews were God’s chosen people. And Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Something wasn’t right, and the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas -- a Levite who had had a conversion experience, sold his field and distributed the profits to the faithful -- the elders sent Barnabas to investigate the Spirit’s troublemaking in the world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Who knows what Barnabas expected to find on arrival, but what he did see was the grace of God at work among those who were not Jewish. Apparently, there was a need among the Gentiles, not just the Jews, to know God’s remarkable love. Barnabas’ eyes were opened. This harvest would be plentiful. He rushed to Tarsus to find a man named Saul, formerly a persecutor of the church, and brought him to Antioch. And a great many people came to the Lord.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This story is the beginning of a lifetime of missionary adventures for St. Barnabas and St. Paul, many of which they would share together. But this story also marks the beginning of change in the church. Barnabas and Paul brought back stories of the Spirit’s work among the Gentiles, and the church has not been the same since. We have come to understand that all people are chosen by God to be loved; we Christians have come to know this blessed Jewish Messiah to be the savior of us all. God’s people thus are called to and formed for God’s mission in the world. And we are called to follow the Spirit’s lead in her curious and powerful troublings among the comfortable, and her comforting ministrations to the afflicted.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The task of the deacon among us is this: to lead the work of God’s people in the world alongside the Spirit, proclaiming the good news, watching for and naming the Spirit’s many movements, and bringing this news of the Spirit back to the church, so that it too might be refreshed, refocused, rejuvenated. The church needs this, for it can be all too easy to keep our red doors closed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How is the Spirit working here, right now, in this time and place? Perhaps only God </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">knows</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -- but we, God’s people, can surely </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feel</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the Spirit among us. Bentley, we are here as the church to set you apart, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that you might help answer that question of the Spirit’s movements among us, and help us to figure out what to do about it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is no easy task. Your deaconal ministry demands self-effacement. Don’t worry -- that will happen naturally, as the stories told by those whom you meet in these neighborhoods sink in. You will hear stories of such need, such heartache, such loss, such suffering that only prayer, communal and personal, will keep your own hope aflame -- for it is risky and difficult to be alive today. Only God’s every breath into the world sustains us. Take comfort in God’s abiding love, study the sacred Scripture of God’s people, and delight in Leslie and Mary Bentley, in your family and friends, in the beauty of this earth. There is grace and power in your ordination -- and it will provide as you struggle to understand and serve and love those whom you meet and minister to outside church walls. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the needs of the world are many. But the imaginative Spirit inspires our responses. In the Diocese of San Diego, Deacon Bob Nelson recently raised funds for a mobile shower unit so that those living on the street might know the blessed peace of a warm shower and the elation of cleanliness. Who knew the good news could be communicated through a shower head? The Spirit’s languages are countless.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bentley, when you return to God’s sanctuaries, when you proclaim the Gospel and bid the confession and the prayers, when you prepare the table and send forth God’s people, you will find your own story richer and more complicated than it was before. For you are set apart today to be a bearer of the pain and joy of the world, the bearer of the world’s stories, stories of the world’s needs that the church must hear for its own good. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thanks be to God, you are home now. You are a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Now leave your books in their boxes for a while. These neighborhoods are your bookshelves, and Birmingham’s residents -- especially the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely -- have stories to tell. Hear them so that you might challenge us, Bentley -- speak to us the truths of the world -- tell us where the Spirit is working, where we are needed as the Body of Christ, and take us there, so that we may see the grace of God at work, and participate alongside, so that we too may be healed.</span></span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-68474790552372789142014-04-23T09:54:00.003-07:002014-04-23T09:54:47.425-07:00Joy is the Power<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">The thing gardeners do during winter in most everywhere in the United States is wait. Tulip and daffodil bulbs lay under snow and ice, dead to the world. Berries and asparagus become dried sticks, barren. In that season Advent prepares us for the hope of Christmas, the hope that light conquers darkness, that the sun will once again return to warm newly fertile earth. There is a magical quality to the contrast between light and dark, warmth and cold, that adds to the cheeriness of that season. The comforting promise is repeated: all will be made well. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">But spring is different. Seeds planted around Ash Wednesday have silently, slowly stretched roots deeper while reaching toward the well-lit surface. Stems have grown taller, widened into stout stalks. Leaves now extend to soak up the sun. Gardeners in the spring aren’t waiting anymore . . . no, they’re smiling and laughing and enjoying the unmistakable signs of life sprouting around them. The work of Lent has borne another season of growth, thanks be to God, but that is not why we are celebrating this morning. And we are not celebrating a comforting promise of hope either. No. We are celebrating something else entirely, something beyond the expressible, something radically unexpected, something defying the first and concretely steadfast natural law that every one of us learned as a kid, the law that every living thing must die. And stay dead. No exceptions. Even sons of God. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">Almost everything about the Christian story can be explained away somehow. There is nothing particularly unique about a poor first-century Palestinian Jew with an inspiring message and a knack for healing. And this man, Jesus, was clear that he wasn’t trying to begin a new church, much less a new religion. But something happened that propelled us to these pews today. Quite a force, apparently, that still resonates across two thousand years. Resurrection. Resurrection. Jesus was raised from the dead. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">He lived. He died. He lives. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">If you have trouble believing this, so do I. There’s no way to believe it with your head. Because the job of your twenty-first century’s head is to separate out the important stuff from the fluff, the agenda-riddled commercial and political ads that bedevil us. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">But help me with this. What was the agenda of a bunch of faithful Jews in Jerusalem confronted with the empty tomb that first Easter morning? I know if I were one of them my first response would not be appropriate to share from this pulpit. Because nothing good was going to come from telling the Roman authorities, or the religious authorities, that this man Jesus who was dead, was, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">according to him,</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> alive. Yes,</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> according to him</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">, because </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">we’ve just been</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">talking to him.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> Yep, that wasn’t going to be a great message to tell the folks who just put a lot of effort into killing him. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">There was only one power that propelled those first women and men to tell their friends about what happened: joy. Just joy. Joy! Nothing else. What else could it have been? And do you know when you experience something and tell a friend about the story and it can be quite striking, but when they tell their friends it’s a little less compelling, and the energy and enthusiasm and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">accuracy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> of the tale fades away in the retelling? </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">That didn’t happen.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> How can that be? How can that be? The story sustained its persuasiveness. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">I’ll tell you how the Church understood this to have happened, and I can’t think of a better reason myself. Somehow the risen Jesus was making </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">himself</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> known to more and more people. Sure, there were some good storytellers out there who could tell quite a compelling tale about it all, but there was something else at work, there is something else at work, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">God’s very Spirit,</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> making Jesus himself known to the hearers of this unbelievably good news. What other explanation could there be? I mean, the four Gospels are good, but between you and me, they’re not that good. Not good enough to sustain two thousand years of this movement’s growth. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">But you know this already, because you’re here this morning. You’re not here because someone told you that two thousand years ago a wise and plucky Jewish teacher died and rose again. No, you’re here because Jesus has made himself real to you in some way. Or because resurrection has made itself real to you in some way.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">Because resurrection is something we’ve seen. We’ll witness it tomorrow as 36,000 Boston Marathon runners safely cross the finish line. We’ve seen it in the lives of sobered alcoholics, healed victims, the re-housed homeless. We’ve seen it in our own lives, how the inexplicable has come to pass anyway, and for our own good, however we understood it at the time. We’ve watched how our mistakes, our fears, our sins do not have the last word, that somehow lightning hasn’t struck and we are still living and breathing, thanks be to God. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">So if I may let me tell you what I know -- that God raised Jesus from the dead. Not in some metaphorical, hazy, figurative or poetical way. No. God raised Jesus from the dead. I trust this with all that I am. I know of no other explanation for the behavior of millions of thoughtful people over millennia, starting with those first flabbergasted disciples faced with an empty tomb. I know of no other way to explain my sense of Jesus’ loving presence in my life, reminding me again and again that I am not my fears, I am not my sins, but I am alive and loved and live in Christ, the Risen One. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">No, Easter is not like Christmas. Easter is unlike any other day, any other season, any other event recorded in the history of our people. My friends, the waiting is over. The hoping is over. The living has begun. Living our lives out from under the shadow of death. Living our lives free from the fear that enslaves. Beginning to live our lives in love, like the love we feel for those dearest to us, that kind of love, living our lives with that kind of love for everyone. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.859999656677246px;">The miracle of life, the miracle of the seed that dies deep in the earth so that it might grow, this miracle is what will feed us in the days, and weeks, and months ahead. The harvest is so plentiful. Be filled by it. Be filled by its joy. There is enough for all and then some. Even death cannot rob us, finally, of life in God, the One who loves us as much as Life itself. </span></span><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-14320931432085565302014-04-06T20:49:00.002-07:002014-04-06T20:50:03.649-07:00A Lenten Meditation on Resurrection<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What does the resurrection have to do with Lent? it’s jumping out at us with <a href="http://lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Lent/ALent5_RCL.html">the story of the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel and in the raising of Lazarus</a>. In Lent, resurrection is about suffering and hope. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resurrection begins with suffering -- it begins with those very many, very dry bones lying in the valley. The valley was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">full</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of them. Resurrection begins with a beloved friend who becomes unexpectedly ill and dies while we are away so that we cannot be near his side for his final breaths. It begins with a teenager addicted to meth who can’t seem to shake the pull for another hit. It begins with a Savior who teaches and heals but is still misunderstood so that he is tortured and crucified for his trouble. Resurrection reaches down to the depths of our suffering and sits with us there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resurrection invites hope. Ezekiel is shown the wasteland so that he might comprehend the sorrow buried there, and then is offered the chance to address the bony devastation with a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">powerful</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, prophetic word. Could that word revive God’s people? Family and friends of Lazarus gather to weep over a life ended too soon, and hear that Jesus is on his way. He couldn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">still</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> do something to help, could he? The drug-addicted teen, now in college, finally admits to a friend her inability to control herself and agrees to enter rehab. Is this the beginning of her road to recovery? Disciples huddle in hidden chambers and remember together what Jesus said about rising again. What did he mean? Resurrection troubles our sense of certainty about what comes next. It plants a seed of hope that cannot help but grow toward the light. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resurrection also tells us about God. It tells us that God does not give up on us when we fail, when we let God and others down. It tells us that there is much that we don’t understand about how the world works, that there is mystery here among us with real power. It tells us that Love is no flimsy Hollywood concoction, but rather a tough-as-nails companion on life’s stony roads. And </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> tells </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about resurrection. “I am the resurrection and the life,” declared Jesus. What do we do with resurrection during Lent? We pay attention to suffering, and we search for hope.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As some of us heard from Father Benedict at last Sunday’s forum, Lent is not a time to cause ourselves suffering -- there is enough already in the world! Instead, Lent is a time to pay more attention to suffering that already exists -- perhaps suffering we have yet to acknowledge in our own lives. What in our own life causes us great pain? And surely Lent challenges us also to notice anew the suffering around us. What do we see in our family, in our community, in our country and across the globe that cuts us to the core? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Church</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> can help cultivate a fresh sensitivity to the pain of others: Holy Week is fast approaching -- Our Lord’s suffering is soon upon us -- and our full participation in worship will help us cultivate new eyes to see the very many dry bones that surround us. I invite you to clear your schedule as best you can for the evening of Maundy Thursday, all day on Good Friday, and all day on Holy Saturday. Then join us at the Great Vigil of Easter that Saturday night. These three days pack the whole Christian story into a strikingly moving drama.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now God doesn’t want us to be only suffering spotters -- God calls us to search out the tiny seeds of hope buried deep within the earth of that dried-bone valley and deep within the tomb in that cave. And here is why there is reason to hope: God is never the cause of suffering. And here is another reason: God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the resurrection, Jesus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the life. Which means that our search for hope in life’s saddest, darkest places is really our search for Jesus among us.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That college student who ended up in rehab? She didn’t have an easy go of it -- for the next twelve years she struggled to maintain her sobriety, falling and getting up again, praying even and sometimes often, winding her way into and out of church. Addiction was no easy burden to bear. When she ended up in jail overnight on an overdose, she prayed like she hadn’t before. And she noticed Jesus beside her like she hadn’t before. She discovered a new reason to hope that with God’s help, and with the help of a 12-step group, she could indeed remain sober. She has, and last year a nearby church baptized her at the Easter Vigil.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no easier road ahead for her; baptism is no magic bullet; but she has new eyes now to see the world around her anew -- a world filled with great pain, and underneath, a thousand seeds struggling to the light.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-22980972586036975892014-03-20T13:55:00.001-07:002014-03-20T13:55:00.951-07:00Misa en Español a Catedral San Pablo, San Diego, Domingos a la UnaI never thought church could be so cool! Check us out!<br /><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Apev-D3zpNc" width="480"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-52476351903008032522014-01-23T14:46:00.000-08:002014-01-23T14:46:07.848-08:00Encounter, Story, Curiosity: Going Public in Epiphany<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5; white-space: pre-wrap;">The process had started innocently enough. Lily Myers, a 20-year old sophomore at Wesleyan College in Connecticut, wrote a quite personal poem about her family. Then that poem, entitled “</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQucWXWXp3k" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shrinking Women</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.5; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” won the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational last April. The three-minute video of her winning performance was posted on YouTube. Over the summer, more people steadily watched the video. Then a friend sent it to an alum who worked at the Huffington Post, one of the most popular online sources for news and cultural commentary. The Post recommended it in October. Then Upworthy, another popular online page, recommended it. The video went viral and now has 3.5 million views. Another hundred thousand this week alone. For a poem. By a college student. A serious poem about gender stereotypes and body image. On Monday, Robin Young of NPR’s Here and Now interviewed the poet, who’s still in shock. She wrote a poem about an encounter with the truth that resonated deeply with her, and as she shared it, her story resonated deeply with others. Lots and lots of others.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">*********</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now John the Baptist had been sent by God to baptize folks with water to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. He’d know who this was by a sign: when you see the Holy Spirit descend and remain on someone, that’s your man. How much time passed between this divine insight and Jesus’ arrival? Who knows? But Jesus does arrive, and the Spirit does descend on him like a dove, and the public encounters with the Christ begin. John, wide-eyed, becomes Christ’s first evangelist. “Behold! The Lamb of God!” John would cry out, pointing. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Jesus came back the next day, and when John blurted out his incredulous proclamation yet again, two of his disciples heard. And followed Jesus out of the curiosity John’s story had kindled in them. Who was this man?! Seeking an encounter themselves with the Holy One, the Anointed One, the Christ, they scuffle slowly along the dusty path some distance behind Jesus until he turns around and says, “What are you looking for?” And when Jesus invites them into his life, they remain the rest of the day. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now these two ex-disciples of John are the wide-eyed ones.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Andrew runs back to the house to grab his brother Simon: “You’ve got to come and see! We’ve found the Messiah!” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Simon</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> runs to Jesus, and his encounter leaves </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">him</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> utterly changed. Jesus marks this by changing his name to Peter.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so it went: every encounter with Jesus, the Son of God, the eternal Word, God’s Truth incarnate, sent each person out to his or her friends and neighbors, coworkers and cousins with a new story. These new stories kindled fresh curiosity that drew more and more people into an encounter with our Savior. Encounter, story, curiosity -- encounter, story, curiosity -- encounter, story, curiosity: for two thousand years. And here we are today.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why are you here? Did someone in your past tell you a story that kindled the curiosity that drew you near to God? You sought then God in prayer, or in Scripture, or in an inspired conversation or in a startling act of compassion. Do you now have a new story to tell?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Or are you here out of curiosity? Have you heard a story of healing or forgiveness or love that seemed too good to be true? Did someone tell you in all seriousness that God loves you no matter what? If you’re curious, you’ve come to the right place: like John the Baptist, the Church has helped point people toward encounters with God for a long, long time. It does this through its members and its Holy Scripture and through its sacraments. So take that first step and introduce yourself to one of our members at the welcome table outside. Join us at the rail for communion and taste holiness. Walk to the healing station and receive a prayer for wholeness and health.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Or maybe you’ve done these things and you’re wondering what’s next. Have you ever read a Bible story a few times and then imagined yourself as part of the story, perhaps observing from the back of the room as Jesus heals the paralyzed man or turns the wedding water into wine? Scripture’s stories can also generate new curiosity that will lead us back into bright encounters with God.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And some of us here have already had an encounter or two with the holy, and we have stories to share, but we cannot tell them for they do not make sense to us and we’re sure they won’t make sense to others. If that’s true for you, I’d like to invite you to participate in a wonderful experience of group discernment that we call our Listening Hearts ministry. Over a few hours of your time on a Saturday God is present with you and a few trained and caring parishioners who are praying that the Spirit help you understand and articulate more clearly a truth already inside of you. In the silences and questions and even confusion, epiphanies emerge. I wonder what you might discover about yourself and about your encounters with the holy if you participated in a Listening Hearts session?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid--940c7e6-c147-e185-2f39-08d8ab72b31e" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And such self-awareness can be very, very powerful. Look at what some honest reflection by the college poet Lily Myers led to! Indeed, it is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stories</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that allure us, inspire us, and compel us to action. Stories that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mean</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> something, that mean what they say because they come deep from within who we are. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the time, during this season of Epiphany, the season of the Church that invites us to make known Christ to the world, that we might revisit our own story of faith, to remember and retell anew our treasured experiences of God-with-us. God calls us to share these stories with those around us. Curiosity will follow.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this age of social media, sharing our stories is easier and more influential than ever. As Christians, we represent Christ and the Church to the world. How will we share, like, tweet, and otherwise send out our treasured stories into the world to God’s greater glory?</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-35855915754525386022014-01-01T16:44:00.001-08:002014-01-01T16:45:20.272-08:00Remembering the Familiar<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://stpaulcathedral.blogspot.com/2013/12/christmas-eve-sermon-remembering.html">Text from a sermon</a> delivered during the Christmas Eve family service</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">Welcome. Welcome to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We are </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">delighted</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;"> you are here with us on this holy night. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">But you’ve been here before. Well, maybe not this place, or if you have been to the Cathedral, maybe it’s been a while. Or maybe you’ve sat on another church’s wooden pews (or folding chairs, as the case may be), and smelled the piney wreaths, or stared at the stained glass. And even if you’ve never stepped foot into a church until now, you’ve still been here before. Because as a child you knew that something great was happening on this night. Something you couldn’t explain but felt with great certainty. Then you waited expectantly beside brothers and sisters or cousins for your parents to finish dinner or get out of bed the next morning so you could open a present; then you let the music of the season write its melodies deep within you; then you wondered on a cold, clear night just what that wild star over Bethlehem would have looked like. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11t8yKioR9-LxSWclDUEVXl0-0ExBZVOJ_wLauLohjJl6J355wEDJGKjenwHVCIl2_3HEkMjqrJzg4rRguHfnUeT9-Jw4V8xrXEYHy0d8m1YW34LSeydTDmkf8jdE3xwQP9-1JZchyEo/s1600/shepherds-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11t8yKioR9-LxSWclDUEVXl0-0ExBZVOJ_wLauLohjJl6J355wEDJGKjenwHVCIl2_3HEkMjqrJzg4rRguHfnUeT9-Jw4V8xrXEYHy0d8m1YW34LSeydTDmkf8jdE3xwQP9-1JZchyEo/s320/shepherds-1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">But you grew up, and like a shepherd you’ve roamed untamed hillsides and managed dangerous valleys trying your best to keep your flock and yourself together. It wasn’t easy, it isn’t easy. Some nights you awoke and only the great questions sat beside your bed. Other nights, you were surprised by the sense that God’s great Love wouldn’t let you go. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">And when the angels came dazzling white and powerful and pointing toward a small stable on the outskirts of town, you drew near to that place, relenting, and put down your pack and gazed on the face of the Christ Child, quiet and vulnerable and unspeakably holy, and you were undone. There, there, you have been there before. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">We have been here before, year after year, century after century, a people overcome by curiosity with the Child born two millennia ago. Come! Come closer and see! See his fingers tiny and perfect, his just-opened eyes. Hear a cow lowing, a sheep bleating, a donkey stomping. Take in the starlight radiating from this simple shelter, the relief on the face of the father, the calm love pouring forth from the mother. Warm your hands, wait for a nod from his parents, and place your fingers gently on his chest. Touch him. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">It is unsteadying this memory that is not just another story in a book, or even another reading from the Bible, this memory that already resides inside each of us, housed deep and waiting for us to return and be made strong yet again by its blessed food. Now it is time to feast together. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">In minutes we will invite the children to join us at the altar while we prepare the feast for God’s people. This is the feast of more than enough, the feast of plenty and then some, the feast that celebrates the day when God’s Son, God’s only Son, whom God loves, came to be among us. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">Our elders once said that a little child would lead us. Here he is, where we have been before, this place where a memory will not fade but will only grow, inviting us again and again into the mystery of God-with-us, into the dear truth that God loves us more than we could ever ask or imagine. It is the truth that rings out in golden, glorious song on this cold, clear night when we search, and find, a wild star within the cosmos, a hopeful Light within the darkness, the Christ Child in a bed of straw. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 13.333333015441895px;">We are never alone. God has been here before. To be with us. So come, young and old, and let us adore Him. </span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-47624351380207716112013-07-01T13:57:00.000-07:002014-03-20T13:58:01.321-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-23036801300723575512013-05-08T11:53:00.000-07:002013-05-08T17:07:36.651-07:00People's Prayers for Sunday, the Seventh Week of Easter<a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Easter/CEaster7_RCL.html">Readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year C)</a><br />
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Prayers of the People<br />
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O Holy One, we pray for your Church universal;<br />
<i>that its members may be strengthened to carry out your mission in the world.</i><br />
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Give the leaders of all nations wisdom, patience, and wide hearts;<br />
<i>that peace and justice may reign, and all peoples flourish.</i><br />
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Grant safety, stability, and sufficiency to every home, neighborhood, region, and country, especially in Syria, Israel, Palestine, and Nigeria;<br />
<i>that every person may seek after you and find you.</i><br />
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We pray that your good creation may be honored and conserved;<br />
<i>that our children's children may enjoy the riches of nature's blessings.</i><br />
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We pray for all in distress, and particularly for the victims of sexual violence, the incarcerated, the abducted, the hungry, and those without access to adequate health care;<br />
<i>that all needs may be met through the power of your Holy Spirit and the generosity and courage of your people.</i><br />
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Grant the departed rest eternal;<br />
<i>let your never ending peace be with them, now and always.</i><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-18231208597382773802013-05-01T11:18:00.000-07:002013-08-01T11:19:51.265-07:00Bjorn MarcussenI'm looking forward to working with Bjorn Marcussen, the priest-in-charge of the Misa congregation at St. Paul's Cathedral in San Diego. <a href="http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/the_living_church/TLCarticle.pl?volume=223&issue=1&article_id=23">Here's an article</a> he wrote a while back.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-4422857148498173022013-03-05T14:12:00.000-08:002013-12-21T14:26:20.544-08:00Our bio photos!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-27792037169621376572013-02-23T18:19:00.001-08:002013-02-23T18:19:24.412-08:00Relationship<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“To ask whether God exists is really to ask about what the relations are that you can recognize yourself as involved in—because God is irreducibly a living complex of relation, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rowan Williams, “Foreword,” in John Zizioulas,</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(New York: T&T Clark, 2006), xi.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In other words, to Whom do we relate and how? Does it matter if we don't know, as long as we know (<i>and can feel</i>) that we are loved finally and wholly?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-79841948221536315022013-02-04T12:22:00.001-08:002013-02-04T12:22:21.286-08:00Glory Goes Forth<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's <a href="http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2013-02/glory-goes-forth">Laurel's reflection for the Christian Century blog's lectionary page</a>, Blogging Toward Sunday, on the Last Sunday of Epiphany:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Exodus 34:29–35; Luke 9:28–43</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For this Transfiguration Sunday, the preacher faces at least two temptations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The first is to move too quickly to the pastoral and personal dimensions of these texts, to consider how we, too, are transfigured by God’s love, glory and grace. And the epistle lesson does <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Corinthians+3:18&vnum=yes&version=nrsv" style="color: #702233; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">bring this theme up</a>. But Exodus and Luke invite us to explore the nature<i style="line-height: inherit;"> </i>of God’s glory itself, and it’s rewarding to focus first on these rich texts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai, he doesn’t just have a frighteningly shiny face. He also carries the two tablets of the covenant, a second-chance way for his people to live gracefully with God. In the wake of an intimate dialogue with the almighty, Moses comes bearing God’s fearsome radiance—and a gift.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Hebrew word that we translate as “shining” implies beams of light coming forth from Moses’s face. Jerome translated it as “horn,” leading Michelangelo and others to depict Moses with devil-like protrusions. This is an unfortunate distortion in more than one way, for it implies a glory that extends—but only slightly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Israelites beholding Moses know otherwise, for they are keenly affected by his transformation. This is no mere glow that surrounds only him. God’s glory moves outward into the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Among the synoptic writers, Luke alone depicts a frank and intimate conversation among Jesus, Moses and Elijah that is clearly about Jesus’ own “exodus” or “departure.” What do they mean? Are they talking only about his journey toward Jerusalem—with its horrifying and hallowed end—or also about the resurrection and ascension?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Scholars debate the details, but what’s clear is that Jesus is discussing how next he will move in the world. It’s often said that contemplation and action cannot be separated. Here Jesus focuses on action even in the midst of intense, transfiguring communion with the divine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then Jesus comes down from the mountaintop rather quickly—“on the next day.” Luke makes very clear that the three sleepy-eyed disciples are dumbfounded by what they have seen and heard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And then come the parenthetical verses the lectionary lists for Luke (9:37–43). Neglecting or omitting this passage is the preacher’s second temptation: between the shining of Moses and the dazzling of Jesus, it’s easy to decide that there’s already enough to talk about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But Luke concludes these additional verses—in which Jesus expresses unbecoming frustration and then heals a boy whom the disciples apparently could not—with a big statement. Back on the mountain, the three disciples were amazed. Now at the healing, “<i style="line-height: inherit;">all </i>were astounded at the greatness of God.” God’s glory goes forth into the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In her memoir <i style="line-height: inherit;">Breathing Space</i>—about ministry at a church named after the transfiguration—Heidi Neumark writes this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Living high up in the rarefied air isn’t the point of transfiguration ... [It was] never meant as a private experience of spirituality removed from the public square. It was a vision to carry us down, a glimpse of unimagined possibility at ground level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At this hinge between Epiphany and Lent, Moses and Jesus ask us to reflect on the nature of the dazzling divine glory that illuminates them. In Epiphany, we contemplate the ways that Jesus manifests God’s light to the ends of an earth blanketed in darkness. This week’s stories might be seen as a culmination of this theme of God made manifest, of holy light on the move.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-69768229301402451232013-01-22T19:53:00.002-08:002013-01-22T19:53:39.155-08:00What I Learned from Watching The Hobbit<br />
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(<i>This piece was <a href="http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2013-01/what-i-learned-watchingnbspthe-hobbit">first published on the Christian Century blog </a>January 18, 2013).</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the band of weary travelers leapt, ran, and tumbled away in dazzling fashion from a caveful of goblins in<i style="line-height: inherit;">The Hobbit</i>, I was convicted. I’m a late Gen-Xer, and I’ve seen plenty of impressive cinematic special effects in his life, from <i style="line-height: inherit;">Forrest Gump</i> to <i style="line-height: inherit;">Independence Day</i> to <i style="line-height: inherit;">The Matrix. </i>But <i style="line-height: inherit;">The Hobbit</i>’s multilayered motion of monster-laden ladders crisscrossing over a dark abyss, its wildly imaginative fight scenes and the depth lent by my 3D glasses convinced me that we humans have crossed a significant line: we now have the creative capacity to fashion new worlds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was certainly entertained. And it cost a lot to entertain me. Warner Brothers budgeted $530 million to produce the new trilogy. New Zealand granted the studio $25 million in tax rebates and changed the nation’s labor laws to secure the magnificent setting. And the first film has already raked in more than $800 million across the globe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We humans love this kind of immersive entertainment. We love to enter into Middle-earth, the center of the earth or the far reaches of the galaxy. Why? And what do we forget back home while our imaginations take us elsewhere? Our too-long unemployed neighbors? Our shot-through set of gun regulations? Our swiftly heating planet?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve often assumed that humanity just can’t solve problems like poverty, gun violence and climate change. It seems reasonable to conclude that we just don’t have the money, intelligence or creativity. Watching that goblin chase scene troubled this assumption. Humans made <i style="line-height: inherit;">The Hobbit</i>! Maybe we just lack the <i style="line-height: inherit;">will </i>to apply our considerable resources and ingenuity to toward social problems instead of entertainment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m no pop-culture-hater. My partner and I recently switched our allegiance from <i style="line-height: inherit;">Glee</i> to <i style="line-height: inherit;">Downtown Abbey</i>, and our two-year old is already falling in love with Elmo. There’s a place for a good thriller or tear jerker when we need a break.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But what does it mean when we use our wildly capable imaginations to entertain (or protect!) ourselves rather than take care of those in need?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It means our politics suffers. Not the name-calling and sound-byte jousting we see on the news, which is its own form of entertainment. I mean the politics that forms the moral backbone of our society: our will to work together to ensure that all lives thrive. Churches have a role to play here. As Christians we are called to a clear-eyed view of the world and its daily suffering so that we may, with God’s help, serve the least and lost among us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We need church to be a place of respite from our media-saturated lives, a place to recenter and reground ourselves in the astonishing Christian story, to relish its implications and allow them to move us to action. Through our worship we develop the eyes to see our entertainment for what it often is: distraction from the work we have been given to do. For where our stories take us, there our hearts will be also.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, as creatures with limits we need our rest as well. But as we settle in to enjoy the next big blockbuster, may our special effects-produced awe be cause for not only fascination but inspiration. If we humans can craft a Gollum, we can figure out how to feed the world’s hungry, teach our young and care for the sick, too.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-19606336237723091292012-12-19T19:59:00.002-08:002012-12-19T19:59:39.111-08:00"The Next Big Thing": A "No-Notes" Sermon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I delivered this sermon at the Chapel of the Apostles in Sewanee, TN on December 19, 2012. </div>
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It was a satisfying challenge to preach without notes!</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-52912445603723815782012-11-28T19:57:00.000-08:002012-11-28T19:57:06.259-08:00"Treed," a Sermon/Poem on ZaccheusHere's a morning prayer sermon I preached at the Chapel of the Apostles in Sewanee, TN on November 28, 2012. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f59rrvGIXtM&feature=youtu.be">Click here</a> for the video.<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><i>Luke 19: 1-10
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<span class="s1">Orange-leafed trees are blown wholly free, </span></div>
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<span class="s1">their trunks exposed. All gnarls can be seen. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Nakedness is our cold call in this season ahead </span></div>
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<span class="s1">as we wait for Christ’s coming—king and baby.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Why did Zaccheus climb the tree?<br />
His curiosity proved costly:<br />
Giving money to the poor was just the half<br />
of what a dinner with the Son of Man would mean.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Did Zaccheus know that his gift could<br />
never be enough? His holiness fell short.<br />
And yet salvation, impossibly, came:<br />
though he was no young and rich ruler,<br />
who, striving for perfection, left (un)spent. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Christ’s loving storm removes the leaves from </span></div>
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<span class="s1">even our most secreted branches.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The wind picks up. A hum of voices nears. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Do we know who is coming? Really?<br />
And still we hide above the hushed crowd </span></div>
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<span class="s1">hoping that our status quo will hold.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But we cannot evade his recognition </span></div>
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<span class="s1">or his terrible warm call to serve. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">There is nothing to say but yes<br />
to set a table and feast on forgiveness.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Lord’s presence clothes our bare weakness </span></div>
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<span class="s1">with His reckless generosity. We<br />
respond only to learn a holy lesson:<br />
that the giving of half our store to the poor </span></div>
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<span class="s1">And yet we commit to giving more.<br />
Sated, Zaccheus too would serve more still.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Changed, we resist Jesus’ departure<br />
for a final ascent up the mount before<br />
his descent into waiting Jerusalem.<br />
Quiet, full, and with Advent’s space ahead </span></div>
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<span class="s1">we climb that sycamore again for a new view </span></div>
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<span class="s1">not to hide, but now to see need waiting </span></div>
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<span class="s1">as the generous invitation that it always is.<br />
We need a graceful tree so we may see.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-28244473606242334852012-10-12T07:56:00.002-07:002012-10-12T11:14:30.720-07:00Philip's Wild Baptism: Sermon delivered at Chapel of the Apostles<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[<a href="http://youtu.be/cF6RBXtvyjg">Click here</a> for the video.]</span></span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.4453649530187249" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today we celebrate Philip, a deacon and evangelist of the early church. His actions issue an uncomfortable challenge to us liturgy-loving Episcopalians. In fact, Philip is rather strange to us. He takes off into the wilderness after a word from an angel, jumps into the chariot of an Ethiopian eunuch and preaches, I mean </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">preaches</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the good news. Then, apparently ignoring the eunuch’s perfectly valid question about what’s preventing him from being baptized (oh, I don’t know -- a nine-month catechumenate class, a sponsor, an alb, the examination and baptismal covenant, a blessing of the water, some chrism, the Paschal candle, definitely a </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">priest</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to preside), they both plunge into a nearby waterhole for a bath. (I’m not sure there was a Trinitarian formula in there, either.)</span><br /><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure, sure. That was the early church. They did crazy stuff back then. We can’t just go around baptizing whomever at whichever body of water we happen across, making disciples of all nations, teaching them about Jesus’ commandments . . . Oh yeah: the Great Commission. That pesky Great Commission.</span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What prevents me from being baptized? None of us wants to answer, “The church.” Yet sometimes that seems to be how we respond.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gabi and Jorge are Mexican immigrants living outside Portland, Oregon. They didn’t carry their marriage certificate north, which means they couldn’t prove that they were married to the local Roman Catholic priest when it came time to baptize their daughter Ana. This was a problem without a solution for all involved, and so Gabi and Jorge knocked on the nearby Episcopal church’s door instead, distraught. All seemed to be going well until it became obvious that the couple expected a private baptism on a Saturday a couple weeks away, on Ana’s first birthday. The prayer book expects all baptisms to be public and ideally to be performed on five particular Sundays a year. The next date fell some months away. What would you do? What would Philip do? Philip’s fearless evangelism serves an active, even uncontrollable Spirit at work in the world around us.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A master teacher was nearing death. Her students were very concerned. One finally asked her, “What will we do once you’re gone? To whom will we turn?” The teacher looked about her, taking in the anxious stares of her pupils. Behind them she could see the far bank and hear the coursing current of their valley’s river. “All I’ve been doing these many years was sitting on the riverbank handing you river water. When I die, I hope you will notice the river.”</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wonder if as a priest some day I’ll ever feel like I’m sitting beside a river of God’s grace handing out the sacraments to a polite line of Episcopalians but we’re all forgetting to notice the river? I think at times I’ll feel, probably because some of my parishioners will feel, that my primary job is to service the church’s liturgy </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">before</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I serve God and the Trinity’s unpredictable Spirit. I’m going to pass by some baptisms if I fall into that sort of thinking, because I’ll be forgetting to notice the source of love from which we all, as a church, quench our thirst.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, God’s grace is all around us, not tied up in a lonely river coursing through the spiritual landscape of our lives. But if that’s the case, we people of God ought not be tied up in our churches alone. </span><span style="font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s plenty of gas-guzzling chariots full of confused passengers out there. We just need more of us out in the wilderness pointing out to folks the refreshing, saving waters around them. Noticing font after font and after font that God provides for us inside and outside church doors.</span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Episcopal Church offers candidates a beautiful, powerful baptismal ceremony filled with covenantal words to live by. We have structured our very Christian identity around the sacrament of Holy Baptism. We’re talking about an </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">indissoluble</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> bond that God is establishing. This is serious stuff, which is why it’s a great idea to run a 9-month catechumenate program.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But a funny thing happens when we consider more closely what a high view of baptism entails: two opposing approaches emerge. One makes us comfortable: it involves careful preparation of the candidate and attention to detail while planning the liturgy. But a high view of baptism also suggests </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we don’t wait another minute</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to baptize someone who asks for it and understands its meaning, at least as much as any of us can understand the mystery of God’s impossible grace. What prevents me from being baptized? Heck if I know! Let’s do this! Who am I, Lord, to do otherwise?</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s say you’ve spent weeks planning a baptismal service. You finish baptizing the folks who have been preparing months for this moment, and then you ask the congregation: Who else feels called to be baptized </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">right now</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the cool waters of God’s grace? When in return you hear a Spirit-filled “Baptize me!,” and you start getting worried about the propriety of your question, lean on the promise of an indissoluble bond established by God and let the Spirit do the rest. (Then tell your bishop.)</span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of us, not just future priests, are called by Jesus Christ to get out there, I mean </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">out there </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in the wilderness bringing the stranger to baptism, pointing out the wonders of God’s love like there’s no tomorrow. This is the good news: God’s love is a ridiculous, all-in, always surprising kind of love, and God loves everybody, including </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. What is your salvation to you? Where is its joy? Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded you. And remember, Jesus is with you always. His river is ever-flowing, and it will cleanse us, every one.</span></b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-29201219402839336102012-09-21T12:04:00.000-07:002012-09-21T12:04:06.216-07:00Sandy Cove<br />
At ten I faced its rolling waves<br />
mesmerized by the promise of<br />
days spent bodyboarding, eating<br />
cheez whiz on crackers, tracking sand<br />
into the trailer, simple meals at night.<br />
<br />
The sand shifted mightily from year to<br />
year: the steps to the beach at times<br />
dangled precariously above ground.<br />
Other trips it seemed the whole shore<br />
swelled wave-like through the back door.<br />
Many similar waters did that.<br />
<br />
My friend’s beach trailer sold, but by then<br />
high school had swirled us away.<br />
<br />
More time still: my wife and I<br />
overnighting in a beach cottage. Walking<br />
the slick shore we happen upon<br />
—as if I’d walked into my past—<br />
that same cliff, those curls, lonesome now<br />
with the trailers gone. The sand is down,<br />
I can tell, even without the stair marker. <br />
<br />
I remain fixed there<br />
uncomprehending the loss<br />
unsettled by the sand swells.<br />
<br />
That hidden cove haunts:<br />
cleaving pitifully to its sandy trove<br />
protected by a gnarled cliff that spun off<br />
days’ worth of tight left-breaking curls, the<br />
morning waves fish-filled aquariums,<br />
so quickly drained.<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559439875994690333.post-54376046017590717892012-09-11T11:49:00.002-07:002012-09-11T11:53:30.903-07:00Being Wronged by 9/11I gave this sermon today in Spanish at the Chapel of the Apostles in Sewanee, TN (<a href="http://youtu.be/JYyb0p1lUZ0">video</a> and <a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_x9Rw8R8nCHdzJhM2V3NnVqa2M/edit">full text</a> here, English text below).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
We saints are going to judge the world? Judge angels?! That’s what Paul claims, and it’s pretty intimidating. Good judgement comes only with God’s help. It requires time, prayer, listening and discerning God’s Spirit as She wends her way through the texts of our lives. Most of all, good judgement requires practice, and our churches can offer a space to learn and grow in our wisdom as we seek to live in this world as God would have us live.<br />
<br />
So let’s practice our judgement on a tragedy that took place 11 years ago today. Where were you when the Twin Towers crashed down? How might God judge this crushing blow: the deaths of almost 3,000 people, the destruction of dozens of buildings, the lasting devastation to the economy? How might God judge the American response? The outpouring of compassion for victims, but also the flags flying from windowsills, anti-Muslim hate crimes, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?<br />
<br />
Hindsight provides clarity here, but also complication. Are we safer now? What could we have done better? I hear God’s Spirit speaking in Paul’s biting challenge for us: Why not rather be wronged? Really?! Why not turn the other cheek, if you may? September 11 presented us with a problem that could not be solved. The lives were lost forever, the buildings crumbled. Our sense of immunity done in. What if we had but mourn the fallen, swept away the wreckage, began rebuilding, learned what we could from the fruits of hatred and violence, and renewed our nation’s efforts toward justice and peace? THAT is truly a new song that God has given us to sing from the rooftops and from the rubble.<br />
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Christians have something to teach American society, if only we’d first live it out in our own lives: God is the ultimate arbiter and granter of righteous judgement. Not humans. As Christians, our help comes from the Lord. And in the face of suffering and violence, we find our rightful place and role at Jesus’s side, whether as a disciple on dusty roads or a grieving mother at the foot of the cross.<br />
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Why not rather be wronged? To be wronged is to be made helpless, to be brought low, to be made weak. Like Christ on the cross. God gave us the capacity to judge, to discern right living. Might we hold this gift lightly in one hand, and in the other, the terrible choice to be wronged.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08475755305690421863noreply@blogger.com0