"Treed," a Sermon/Poem on Zaccheus

Here's a morning prayer sermon I preached at the Chapel of the Apostles in Sewanee, TN on November 28, 2012.  Click here for the video.

Luke 19: 1-10

Treed

Orange-leafed trees are blown wholly free, 

their trunks exposed. All gnarls can be seen. 

Nakedness is our cold call in this season ahead 

as we wait for Christ’s coming—king and baby.

Why did Zaccheus climb the tree?
His curiosity proved costly:
Giving money to the poor was just the half
of what a dinner with the Son of Man would mean.

Did Zaccheus know that his gift could
never be enough? His holiness fell short.
And yet salvation, impossibly, came:
though he was no young and rich ruler,
who, striving for perfection, left (un)spent. 

Christ’s loving storm removes the leaves from 

even our most secreted branches.

The wind picks up. A hum of voices nears. 

Do we know who is coming? Really?
And still we hide above the hushed crowd 

hoping that our status quo will hold.

But we cannot evade his recognition 

or his terrible warm call to serve. 

There is nothing to say but yes
to set a table and feast on forgiveness.

The Lord’s presence clothes our bare weakness 

with His reckless generosity. We
respond only to learn a holy lesson:
that the giving of half our store to the poor 

must always fail some crucial test.

And yet we commit to giving more.
Sated, Zaccheus too would serve more still.

Changed, we resist Jesus’ departure
for a final ascent up the mount before
his descent into waiting Jerusalem.
Quiet, full, and with Advent’s space ahead 

we climb that sycamore again for a new view 

not to hide, but now to see need waiting 

as the generous invitation that it always is.
We need a graceful tree so we may see.

Philip's Wild Baptism: Sermon delivered at Chapel of the Apostles

[Click here for the video.]

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 preaches, 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 priest to preside), they both plunge into a nearby waterhole for a bath.  (I’m not sure there was a Trinitarian formula in there, either.)


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.


What prevents me from being baptized?  None of us wants to answer, “The church.”  Yet sometimes that seems to be how we respond.

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.

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.”

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 before 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.

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.  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.


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 indissoluble bond that God is establishing.  This is serious stuff, which is why it’s a great idea to run a 9-month catechumenate program.

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 we don’t wait another minute 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?

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 right now 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.)


All of us, not just future priests, are called by Jesus Christ to get out there, I mean out there 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 you.  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.

Sandy Cove

At ten I faced its rolling waves
mesmerized by the promise of
days spent bodyboarding, eating
cheez whiz on crackers, tracking sand
into the trailer, simple meals at night.

The sand shifted mightily from year to
year: the steps to the beach at times
dangled precariously above ground.
Other trips it seemed the whole shore
swelled wave-like through the back door.
Many similar waters did that.

My friend’s beach trailer sold, but by then
high school had swirled us away.

More time still: my wife and I
overnighting in a beach cottage. Walking
the slick shore we happen upon
—as if I’d walked into my past—
that same cliff, those curls, lonesome now
with the trailers gone. The sand is down,
I can tell, even without the stair marker.

I remain fixed there
uncomprehending the loss
unsettled by the sand swells.

That hidden cove haunts:
cleaving pitifully to its sandy trove
protected by a gnarled cliff that spun off
days’ worth of tight left-breaking curls, the
morning waves fish-filled aquariums,
so quickly drained.

Being Wronged by 9/11

I gave this sermon today in Spanish at the Chapel of the Apostles in Sewanee, TN (video and full text here, English text below).



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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

How Can We Get More People to Come to Church?

How can we get more people to come to church?  Hispanic ministry leaders from across the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego recently participated in a training addressing that enticing question.  The answer, shared Kaleidoscope Institute trainer Patricia Millard, is bible study: with a twist.

Rev. Millard, a priest in the Diocese of Oregon, visited San Diego July 27-28 for two trainings on leadership for evangelism in Hispanic ministry.  Eleven attended the first training, held at St. Andrew's in Lake Elsinore, including members of St. Stephen's in Menifee and St. John's in Indio.  Fifteen attended the second training, held at St. Phillip's in Lemon Grove, including the rector of Good Shepherd in Bonita, Suzi Holding (Canon to the Ordinary), and Anthony Guillen (missioner for Latino/Hispanic ministries for the national Episcopal church).

The Bible study begins with a conversation around respectful communication guidelines that ask participants to listen with and speak from their hearts as well as their minds.  Using the coming Sunday's gospel reading, a volunteer reads the passage once aloud.  Then each participant is offered space to share a word or image from the text that comes to mind before inviting the next person to share.  The passage is read again, and then the sharing/inviting process begins again, this time answering the question: "How does the presence of Jesus shape our ministry?"  The text is read a final time and participants respond to the question, "What is this text inviting me to do, be, or change?"  The study is concluded with a group prayer.

What's different about this approach?  And how can it build the church?  First, it's intentionally grounded in mutual respect for one another.  Participants agree to listen carefully, trust ambiguity, and examine their own assumptions as others share.  The process is also guided by mutual invitation, which grants each person the opportunity to share or pass and also the privilege of inviting the next person to speak.  Each round of questions encourages more personal and practical applications of the reading in the participant's life.  Prayer rounds out and blesses the exercise.

Increasingly, those who enter our churches -- especially those of younger generations -- expect to "belong" before they either "believe" or "behave."  This can be frustrating to the BCP-wielding veterans in our pews.  Through mutual invitation, this Bible study allows for such full participation while keeping the conversation closely tied to scripture and its impact on our own lives.  This safe space where one's own person can encounter the biblical text often leads to authentic and powerful spiritual experiences.  And relationships are formed.

Relational, authentic, and power sharing ministries are critical to future church growth, asserts the Rev. Eric Law, founder of the Kaleidoscope Institute.  But they must take place within a context that is sensitive and responsive to a variety of cultural expectations.  This issue came up often in San Diego's recent trainings.

Take the leadership self-assessment, for example.  Most of the English speakers felt comfortable diving into this sort of personally-directed listing of spiritual gifts.  The Spanish speakers, however, appreciated Rev. Millard's invitation to work in groups so that one's partner could help identify the gifts of another.

This steeper involvement of the community in one's personal understanding leads to another frequent challenge in cross-cultural communication.  Spanish speakers often feel more hesitant to respond to an invitation with a clear "no" for fear of hurting another's feelings, or worse, embarrassing him or her.  While many English speakers have been taught to use "I statements" when sharing feelings and to take responsibility for one's own emotions, Spanish speakers tend to take more responsibility for the well being of others.  This can lead to a situation in which both parties intend to be respectful but end up coming across as either offensively direct or frustratingly duplicitous. 

The key, claims Rev. Millard, is not to expect someone else to change their culturally familiar words and activities for us.  Instead, listen carefully and ask for help when we don't understand something.

A most fascinating example of such intercultural communication occurs within bilingual and bicultural individuals and groups.  Language is the primary medium through which we live out our particular culture.  Those who speak more than one language most often still depend on a single language for certain emotions or activities.  Prayer feels more comfortable in one language.  Business may be more comfortably conducted in another.  By conducting the two trainings in both English and Spanish, Rev. Millard allowed her bilingual participants to bring their full beings to the table and learn more about themselves in the process.

Rev. Millard preaches in a similar manner.  She'll begin a homily in one language and continue for about a third of the sermon before starting over in the other language.  She'll alternate several more times before ending both.  Even more impressive and intriguing, these no-notes sermons often carry substantially different messages.  This type of preaching or workshop facilitation challenges our legalistic understandings of how language interpretation ought to be done.  Instead of a word-for-word translation that often misses the larger cultural worlds that these words inhabit, she recognizes that each language community has different spiritual challenges and gifts and speaks directly and specifically to each in the appropriate language.

This means, however, that there will be times with monolingual speakers won't understand what's going on.  Rev. Millard asks her congregation and workshop participants to offer up these moments of incomprehension as prayers to God in thanksgiving that by their gracious patience all can be included in these moments' sacred time and space.

Laurel's Sermon at St. Paul's on July 15

Laurel's sermon delivered at St. Paul's Cathedral in San Diego on July 15.  Here's the text.

Four Mothers of KIA Soldiers on the Fourth

At the Coronado Fourth of July parade today a line of four somber women walked the route holding signs with the picture of their sons who had been killed in action.  Some veterans group had passed ahead of them, so folks were on their feet clapping, but when the mothers approached silence grew.  There was an awkwardness and confusion, too.  And respect.  But when wounded veterans next limped by, the crowd raised up a relieved cheer, again certain that acclamation was the appropriate response.

Then, breathtakingly, a squadron of high school students in army fatigues marched into view without any explanation for their military affiliation.  Did they know whom they followed?  Their mothers, our mothers, the world's mothers, with a message for all of us: war tears apart and does not remend.  A sobering note amid a sea of patriotic revelry.

Thinning

Today I thinned my carrot and lettuce seedlings.  This is a kind of pruning that leaves the leafy survivors more room to thrive.  What can I uproot from my life that will give air to that which God hopes will grow?

Sermon at All Souls': Still(ing) Suffering

Here's the text of the sermon I preached today at All Souls' Episcopal Church in San Diego.  I've pasted it below.

Colin Mathewson

All Souls’ Episcopal Church, San Diego

June 24, 2012

Year B, Proper 7

Job 38:1-11; Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41

Still(ing) Suffering

The trouble began with a hammer.  Rick had volunteered to take on a weekend remodel  job for his boss to earn some extra cash on the side.  Things had been tight lately at home: His wife Gail had lost her job as a school district admin in the latest round of budget cuts.  Their two girls were both in college and living at home.  Tuition sure had risen since he was in school.  Then that blasted hammer slipped out of his hands at the wrong moment, smashing his customer’s Italian vase into more pieces than seemed possible.  His first feeling was confusion: the vase’s explosion seemed disproportionate somehow.  Like it had been cracked already.

Things went downhill fast after that.  “One too many mistakes, Rick.  Sorry to have to do this to you, but I’ve got to let you go.”  Unemployment checks insufficient to sustain the precariously balanced household financial deck of cards.  COBRA was too expensive, so Rick and Gail opted out and put the kids on the school’s health plan instead.  Then Gail discovered her tumor.

Yea, it had been a rough ride.  So when his friend offered his fishing boat to Rick for a solo overnight trip, he accepted gratefully, relieved to have a moment free from the anxiety that had blanketed the house these past months.  The weather was fine as he pulled out of the bay, the early morning quiet interrupted only by the occasional sea lion bark and gull cry.  But as the coast faded from view the wind picked up, the swells began to roll.  It was time to return, it had to be, his gut told him.  But Rick felt frustrated that even this small gift of time had been taken away from him.  It couldn’t hurt to keep going a while longer.  He turned parallel to the coast as a precaution, he rationalized.

The sunset was blindingly spectacular, and the waves seemed to calm a bit: or was that just what he wanted to see?  As dusk eased into night, the storm reengaged forcefully.  Soon water was splashing over the side.  Now it was time to go home.  But then a too-big wave, a wave from nowhere, an inexplicable wave, tossed the boat nearly on its side.  The engine gave out, swamped.  The boat’s radio crackled with static: Had his friend mentioned something about that, he wondered?

Adrift, Rick had lost his way.  Dangerously.  Panic set in quickly, but not before his anger bloomed fresh and raw.  This was not fair.  None of this was.  “What do you want from me, God?,” he screamed.  Then chuckled in spite of himself, knowing that he hadn’t spent much time with God lately.  His choice.  But really: his life has exploded too loudly, too brashly---like that cursed Italian vase.

Does God cause us to suffer?  Job lost his livestock and children and health.  True, God didn’t lay a finger on Job, but God let Satan loose on him with precious few caveats.  In our reading from Job today, God bellows a litany of omnipotence.  So what was God doing, then, while Job suffered?  The psalmist continues this idea: the LORD speaks and the waves rise high by stormy wind.  And doesn’t Paul through his list of trials suggest that God was behind them as some sort of masochistic power play?  We feel forsaken at times by those we love, by nature, by God.  These times call for silence while grief rocks and roils.

But God did restore Job’s fortunes.  Two-fold, in fact.  God’s action was life-giving, redemptive, saving.  

Paul is a maniac for the gospel.  He’s asking the Corinthians to collect a generous contribution for the Jerusalem church, so he’s pulling out all the stops, including a list of his persecutions.  He is persuading, not complaining.  Paul leads with the power of God’s loving grace, not judgemental punishment.

My brothers and sisters, here is the good news:  But God is not behind our suffering, but rather beside us, calming the storms that will be calmed and sitting next to us when they will not.  God responds to our suffering.

Job’s fortunes were restored two-fold, but his children were not brought back to life.  Job spent the rest of his life grieving those dark, dark days, even as his newly blessed life blossomed around him.  How can we know why we suffer?  We stand before the sheer mystery of God and realize all our words contain a radical contingency.  God is with us on the cross in Jesus and at the foot of the cross in Mary.  Silent in the face of pain.  Suffering is a mystery that is our lot in this blessedly difficult life.  God is not behind our suffering, but beside us in it, loving us and holding us and crying with us.  And that is good news indeed.

The rain fell thickly.  Water sloshed on the deck, drenching his shoes, wetting his heels, now slowing his shins as he shuffled through it.  Rick couldn’t tell whether it was fresh or saltwater, just that his time may be up.  Maybe it would be better to end it all.  No one would know he jumped overboard.  They’d know about the storm.  He mulled over what he had to lose.

Gail.  The kids.  Something flickered inside of him.  An image splashed across his mind: the four of them riding together down a waterslide a few years back, before the troubles had started.  The look on Gail’s face: I can’t believe you got me to do this.  Rick’s wily smile in response.  The crash into the pool at the bottom.  Pure child-like delight.  As he gripped white-knuckled to the wheel he gingerly peeked deeper into himself.  Past the shame.  Past the guilt.  Past that crust of numbness.  Past the despair.  Past these . . . and then in his mind’s eye a door came into view, revealing a man sleeping soundly on a cushion.  “Wake up!,” he cried, all pride gone.  “Help!  Where have you been?  Don’t you care that I’m about to die?!”  The man rose and smiled, embraced him, and said, “I’ve missed you.  Be still.  Be still.  Be still.”  Rick dropped to his knees and cried.

The coast guard cutter’s horn sliced through this reverie; Gail had called Rick’s friend, concerned, earlier that night.  Rick found himself home more quickly than he could have hoped, safe.  A calm warmth radiated from within.  “Weren’t you worried, dad?,” his daugher asked.  “I was, until I cried for help.”  He fell asleep then, surrounded in slumber by those whom he loved.  He was loved even more greatly, inexplicably, still.

Revision

I'm coming off an exchange with a blog editor about a recent piece I wrote, and appreciate what came of the process.  I wish there were more opportunities for similar feedback in our daily lives (although this could quickly become very annoying!)  I found that my writing really improved as I was encouraged to iron our the wrinkles in the text I knew were there but hoped no one would notice.  Perhaps this is an invitation to begin some form of the daily examen, a fixture of the Ignatian spiritual exercises.

Vigorous Vocab

I could write about Robin every day, especially given the current theme I'm working with: growth.  But I'll try my best to hold back!  Today she said her Aunt Kayti's name for the first time, and also "lamb" and "rabbit." What I loved most though were the deep, almost hysterical belly laughs she belted out while I gave her some bedtime strawberry kisses.  Those bell-like rings will stay with me the rest of the night.

Patient relationships

Growth has a lot to do with patience.  I noticed this in myself today while getting to know a church member: in the past I think I would have been interested in moving the conversation faster to the "punch line," the "important" part where we get stuff planned so we could get stuff done.  But I've been learning just how critical relationships are, so I'm slowing down.

Ordinary Time and Growth

The months between the liturgical seasons of Pentecost and Advent are often referred to as "ordinary time."  Green vestments and linen are used, perhaps to signify the slow and steady growth encouraged within this bounded space.  Which reminds me: time to water the garden!