Keep Your Books in Their Boxes

Sermon Delivered at Bentley Manning's Deaconal Ordination on June 11, 2014 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Propers for St. Barnabas:

Isaiah 42:5-12 
Acts 11:19-30;13:1-3 Matthew 10:7-16 Psalm 112 

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.

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.  They 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.

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.

Because we know you’ll be in church.  We know that you love 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 more than was required by your seminary, which is owned by the church.

But the wily, wild Holy Spirit that has so recently come upon us in flames of fire has surprise after surprise in store outside 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!”  

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.

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.

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.

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.

How is the Spirit working here, right now, in this time and place?  Perhaps only God knows -- but we, God’s people, can surely feel 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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

Encounter, Story, Curiosity: Going Public in Epiphany

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 “Shrinking Women,” 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.

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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.  

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.  Now these two ex-disciples of John are the wide-eyed ones.  Andrew runs back to the house to grab his brother Simon: “You’ve got to come and see!  We’ve found the Messiah!”  Simon runs to Jesus, and his encounter leaves him utterly changed.  Jesus marks this by changing his name to Peter.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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 stories that allure us, inspire us, and compel us to action.  Stories that mean something, that mean what they say because they come deep from within who we are.  Now 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.

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?

Surprise! Liturgy and Episcopal Evangelism

I first saw her among the group of crisis house residents walking back from a trip to the dollar store.  She stood out startlingly.  Haunted eyes stared hollowly ahead, eyes underlined by dark, sleepy semicircles.  Her facial muscles gave the impression of numbness in their total blankness of expression.  She was not well.

I sat chatting with other members of the house, trying my best as a chaplain to be present to their stories of pain and struggle with addiction, or suicidal thoughts, or family trauma.  Some minutes later, a nurse with the clinic to which I was assigned asked me to find Jan inside the house, so I ducked in.  Jan (a pseudonym), turned out to be the spooked and spooky person whom I'd noticed earlier: a young African-American woman in her 20s.

"Hi Jan.  How are you today?," I asked as we walked over to the clinic together.

Seconds of silence.  Then a mumble.

I turned to her and smiled, but quickly felt uncomfortable.  Her eyes stared at me as helpless castoffs from any landed sign of facial movement.  Something terrible must have happened to her, I thought.  She walked into the exam room.

Back in my chair among the other residents some time later, Jan walked out of the clinic and toward the rest of us.  I waved, meekly and kindly (in moral support perhaps?), or just out of a basic curiosity to see what would happen next.  One, two, three seconds passed as she stared at me and kept walking slowly -- then, a slight wave.

I shifted my focus back to the conversations at hand, but when I left the group to take a phone call, I noticed Jan sitting by herself, stiff backed, as I hung up.  Why not?, I thought.  I approached.

"Hi, Jan!"  I blurted (over) enthusiastically.  "How are you?"

A second passed.  Another.  She stared at me.  Then --

"Not good.  I'm depressed.  But it's getting better since I've been here," her poker face stated mechanically.  If fonts had voices, hers mirrored Courier.

"That's good to hear.  Are you from around here?"

The now conventional pause ensued, like we were talking on the phone across continents.  We exchanged laconically for a few minutes.

Then I asked her what she liked to do.  "Reading," she replied.  My follow up question about her favorite book didn't get anywhere.  Feeling the conversation's juices had been all but squeezed out, I asked, "Would you like me to say a healing prayer for you?"

"What's that?," she returned curiously.

"Let me show you.  There's a book I have from The Episcopal Church with healing prayers.  I think you'll like it."  I ran over and picked up Ministry with the Sick (a volume of selected prayers from The Book of Common Prayer and Enriching Our Worship), wondering what the Spirit had in store.

Sitting next to Jan, I opened the book to page 13, which outlined a service for "Ministry in a Home or Health Care Facility."

"See, we start by reading either this prayer or this one," I said, motioning to the page.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all," she read in brisk monotone.  Okay, I thought.  I guess we're jumping right in!

"Then I read here," I said, pointing again.  "The Lord be with you.  And you say" -- pointing again --

"And also with you."

So we embarked upon an extended, unfurling liturgical surprise.  The book provided a few choices for each of the elements of the healing prayer ritual, and Jan resolutely and seriously read them all to herself before picking the one she liked best and reading it aloud.  During the proclamation of the word, Jan chose the excerpted story of the paralyzed man to whom Jesus said, "Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven," from Matthew's gospel.

After reading the prayer she selected for the laying on of hands, and a concluding prayer she picked out, I closed the book.

"What did you think?"

"I liked it."  She smiled.

I found myself beaming: the Spirit had just touched both of us through the words on a page, traditional and updated prayers relied upon by The Episcopal Church for years.  Liturgical structure proved to be a key to unlocking a smile from within this deeply distressed and depressed young woman's heart.

We prayed and talked together some more.  We smiled and laughed a little, too.  But I left my encounter with Jan heartened by the fact that the tangibility of the page, the clear and neutral choices between beautifully-wrought prayers, became a conduit for, not an obstacle to, the Spirit's work.

Episcopalians hold a more powerful resource for evangelism than we imagine.