Thanksgiving Eve

November 21, 2012
St. Mark's Lutheran Church
Fargo

Matthew 6.25-33


+ For those of you who know me, it’s probably not hard for you to guess I was not your typical little boy when I was eight or nine or ten years. For various reasons, I was not your typical little boy. We won’t get into too many of those various reasons.

But I was not typical for one big reason. From about the age of seven or eight, I was a chronic worrier. I worried about everything. You name it, I worried about it. Every rational and irrational thing you can think of, I worried about it.

Around the time of my eighth birthday, there was a huge hotel fire during a blizzard in Breckenridge, Minnesota. About twenty or so people died in that fire. For years afterward, that fire worried me. Every time my family and I went on a trip and stayed at a hotel, I couldn’t sleep, afraid that a fire was going to break out. Whenever my father was gone on a trip, I worried that the hotel he was staying in was going to catch on fire.

That was just one of many things I worried about at the time in my life. I worried about getting on the school bus (I worried it was going to crash—there were no seat belts on the stupid thing!), or swimming in the swimming pool, or whatever.

Well, eventually, all that worrying began to wreak havoc on my body and I started developing very severe stomach problems. At first, it was thought that I was having some kind of problem with my appendix. Then the doctors and my parents starting being concerned it was something more serious. Finally, one very insightful doctor figured it out. He realized I had an ulcer. There I was, nine years old, and I had an ulcer. And it was believed at that time that it was a result of all that stupid worrying.

And worrying is a stupid, stupid thing. In tonight’s Gospel, we find Jesus addressing the issue of worrying. Obviously, there were some in his immediate circle of followers and friends who were worried. And he addresses their worries. But he addresses their worries in a way that leaves little doubt. There’s no sugar-coating here. There are no parables about worrying here. He’s quite blunt. He’s to-the-point.

“Therefore I tell you,” he says, “do not worry about what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”

And then, as though to drive it all home, we repeats that command, “Do not worry” two more times in this passage.

For us, as followers of Jesus, he is essentially telling us that there is no room in our lives as Christians for worrying. Worrying is not an option for us, who believe, as followers of Jesus, that God is ultimately in control.

For me, as a child, my worrying became almost a kind of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Worrying was my way of controlling what seemed to me to be uncontrollable in my life. Bad things happened, and I didn’t understand why. Bad things happened and I couldn’t control those bad things from happening. Worrying about my fears was a way for me to control my fears in some way. If I worried enough, I rationalized, maybe what I feared would not happen.

But the fact is, by worrying about our fears, we give our fears ultimate control. When we worry about our fears, we make idols of our fears. When we worry, we have not put God in that place God deserves in our lives. Worrying goes hand-in-hand with fear. And fear is not an option for us as followers of Jesus.

This presidential election earlier this month was a prime example for me of how fear is still an issue in many adult’s lives. A very dear friend on mine—a man who is very intelligent and a faithful church-goer—became almost irrational in the days leading up the election. He was certain by the day the election rolled around that if one particular candidate won (or was re-elected), every terrible, horrible fear that could be imagined would be brought on this nation. And, he further feared, he would eventually lose his job, his benefits, essentially his future. I don’t think the two presidential candidates went into the election worrying as much as my friend did. He’s over it for the most part now, but it was shocking for me to see how much fear a person can live under in their lives.

For us as Christians, the fact we don’t need to worry about our fears is that we know—no matter what life may throw at us, no matter what bad things happen to us in this life (and they WILL happen to us)—ultimately God is in control and it will all, somehow, work out in the end. Don’t ask me now how, or in what way. But it will all somehow work out in the end.

When we take a good, long, hard look at the things that are worrying us on this Thanksgiving Eve, we simply need to change our perspective. We need to look at the big picture. The things we are worrying about tonight will probably not be worries for us a year from now. Or five years from now. Or ten years from now. And, let me assure you, fifty or seventy-five years from now, they will definitely not be worrying you.

But a year from now, or five years from now, or ten years from now, or fifty or seventy-five years from now, God will still be in control. And good will always triumph. That is the consolation we have. That is why Jesus is saying to us, again and again, do not worry.

Do not worry.

Let us, on this Thanksgiving Eve, not only hear, but heed those all-powerful words of Jesus to us.

“Do not worry.”

As we gather to consider all that we are thankful for, all the gifts we have been given in this life, all the love that has been given to us and those whom we have been fortunate to love—when we think about all that God has granted to us in this life—why would we worry? See, how God has truly provided for us. See how God has provided for us exactly what we have needed at this time and in this place. See how God has provided us with all the goods we didn’t even have the frame of mind to ask for.

Or to put it in the words of Jesus, “strive first for the kingdom of God, and [God’s] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you…”

God knows our needs before we ask. Our job, as followers of Jesus and lovers of God, is to trust in that goodness of God in our lives. And when we do, we will see that goodness in our midst. That goodness will be evident all around us in all that we have. And when we recognition it as such, we will know what true thankfulness is.

25 Pentecost

Stewardship Sunday

November 18, 2012

Mark 13:1-8


+ Today, of course, is Stewardship Sunday. I personally sometimes get a little tense about this time of the year. I am a priest who does not like asking people for anything if I don’t have to. I think that’s a good thing to have in your priest.

And luckily, here at St. Stephen’s, we only make appeals like this once a year. And what’s doubly great about St. Stephen’s is that this appeal to consider giving, not only from our financial gifts but also of our time-and-talent, is truly heeded. We don’t have to make appeals throughout the year.

But what I’ve come to enjoy about Stewardship time is the fact that it is a time to celebrate St. Stephen’s. Now, one of my duties as Priest-in-Charge of St. Stephen’s is to be a kind of cheerleader for the congregation. And I love doing it. So, as most of you know, I sent out a letter a few weeks ago doing just that. Most of your received that letter.

For those of you who didn’t get the letter, I simply mentioned this fact that five years ago, the membership of St. Stephen’s was 55 members. The Average Sunday Attendance at that time was 24. Our current membership is 121. Our ASA is now about 45.

As I was writing the letter, I happened to post a Facebook update with those same statistics. Between the Facebook update and the letter (which I should mention, I sent to a few people who are not members of St. Stephen’s), I received many responses. Most were overwhelmingly positive. Numbers like these are very good, and people know the good numbers mean healthy congregation.

But…there were a few grumbling responses, mostly from clergy, who wanted to stress to me that the church is more than just numbers and that unless we are stepping outside the walls of the actual church building, we’re not really doing any ministry at all. And one response was from a person who felt that “bragging” about St. Stephen’s accomplishments while other churches struggle and decline is not being very gracious or Christian.

The fact is, these numbers reflect more than just growth. These numbers reflect life and vitality. And anyone who thinks we don’t do ministry outside these walls, just doesn’t know anything about St. Stephen’s.

I don’t think any of us—myself included—can fully appreciate what is happening here at St. Stephen’s. In a world in which we hear stories of churches losing membership, losing direction, in a world in which we hear of churches alienating people, of ostracizing people, of churches that deny Holy Communion and other sacraments (like Confirmation) to people for their stances on social or political or personal issues, we are a church who is, this morning, celebrating.

We are celebrating our growth. We are celebrating a bright future. We are celebrating who we are as a fully-inclusive, fully-welcoming church. And we are celebrating what God is doing through us.

As I wrote in my letter, when anyone asks me what the “secret” of our success is, I say, two things. First, the Holy Spirit. We do need to give credit where credit is due. And second, it is that we welcome radically and we love radically.

Now, people—people in the CHURCH—are shocked by that. And I, in turn, am shocked that people in the Church are shocked be that. This is not rocket science. This is not quantum physics. This is basic Christianity.

Basic Christianity, as we live it out here at St. Stephen’s, is nothing more than following Jesus in his commandment to love God and love one another as we love ourselves. It’s just that. And what shocks me even more is the Church—the larger Church—just doesn’t get that.

I recently overheard, first hand, at a church gathering, some parishioners at another church sharing with me an almost-snobby attitude about some people who had visited their church recently. What shocked me was the attitude that these church people felt those visitors weren’t good enough for that church. They weren’t liberal enough or conservative enough, they weren’t members of the right political party, they weren’t dressed the right way, or talked the right way or acted the right way. And not long after these responses, they actually wondered aloud why their church wasn’t growing.

I said nothing, and, I’ll be honest with you, I’m happy I didn’t. Because I know that if I had, it wouldn’t have made any difference. They aren’t ready to do at that congregation what Jesus is asking of all of us who follow him.

To love—fully and completely. To love—radically and inclusively.

Here, at the St. Stephen’s it is not a matter of politics (we don’t care what party you belong to), or how you dress (the only one who is expected to dress up here is me—and that’s my own expectation more than anything), or the way you talk (or don’t talk), or what your sexual orientation is, or whatever. Here, it’s just a matter of coming here. Of being here. And of being with us here. And being here as one of us. I don’t see that as all that radical. I see that as fairly basic.

In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus saying, “you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.” These words of Jesus are especially poignant for us on Stewardship Sunday as we look at our own future as a congregation in a larger Church that is often at war—at war with its own parishioners and at war with itself to some extent. But Jesus uses a very interesting description of these fears and pains—images of war and their rumors. He calls them “birth pangs.”

And I think “Pang” is the right word to be using here, for us and for the larger Church. Those of us who are here—who have experienced pain inflicted on us by the Church, who have been on the receiving end of those church people who believe we don’t belong, we who have a love-hate relationship with this human organization called the Church, we know what pangs are.

So…what is a pang? Well, a pang is more than an ache. It is a pain. It a deep down, excruciating pang.

When else do we hear that word, “pang” used? It is used to describe hunger. When we’re hungry we have hunger pangs. But Jesus uses it appropriately here. He talks of birth pangs.

I have heard many women tell me that there is nothing quite as painful as the pangs of giving birth. I remember my mother saying that, when she went through it for the first time at age eighteen, with little or no preparation for what she was going through, she said, she thought she was going to die. She said that the words that went through her mind as she experienced those birth pangs were, “I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” But the question I used to always have for her was this: “If it was so terrible, why did you go through it three more times?” She said to me, “Well, when the baby arrives and you’re holding this little precious being in your arms, you just sort of forget it. You forget the pain you went through…until the next time.”

Jesus uses the right image here to describe what we are going through now and in the future. Yes, there will be wars and rumors of wars. Yes, there will be moments when church leaders and church attendees will say and do hurtful, war-like things.

But the words we cling to—that we hold on to and find our strength in to bear those pangs—is in the words “do not be alarmed.” Jesus is being honest with us. We will suffer pangs. But there is a calmness to his words.

“Do not be alarmed,” he says. This is all part of our birth into new life.

As you have heard me say many, many times from this pulpit: The Church is changing. This Church is just going through major birth pangs. But that is not something to despair over. Rather, be assured. Take comfort. Yes, we are going through the pangs, but once we have weathered these pains, once we have gone through them, we will have something precious in our midst.

We will have a Church more along the lines of what Jesus intended the Church to be—a place in which everyone, no matter who they or what they are is not only welcomed, but loved. Loved, fully and completely. And this is why we do not have to be alarmed.

If we allow these fears to reign in our lives, if we allow the pain to triumph, then we all lose. If we live with our pangs and do not outlive them, then the words of Jesus to us—those words of “do not be alarmed”—are in vain.

In the face of these things, do not be alarmed, he is saying to us. Why? Because in the end, God will triumph. If we place our trust—our confidence—in God, we will be all right.

Yes, we will suffer birth pangs, but look what comes after them. It is a loving and gracious God who calms our fears amidst calamity and rumors of calamity. Our job is simply to live as fully as we can. Our job is to simply do what we’ve always been doing here at St. Stephen’s. To welcome, to accept, to love.

We have this moment. This moment was given to us by our loving and gracious God. We must live it without fear or malice. We must live it fully and completely.

So, let us do just that. Let us live this moment fully. Let us LOVE boldly. People are going to say: St. Stephen’s is just that rebellious church that keeps pushing the boundaries. So be it. We are. We ARE pushing the boundaries. We are pushing the boundaries of love and acceptance. We are pushing the boundaries of what the Church should be and could be. And we are all doing it together—not just here in church on Sundays or Wednesdays, but in the very lives we are living in the world throughout the rest of our week.

So, let us, on this Stewardship Sunday, continue to do what we’ve been doing. Let us welcome radically and love radically. Let us, in our following of Jesus, continue to strive to be a powerful and visible conduit of the Kingdom of God in our midst.

It’s already happening. Right now. Right here. In our midst. It is truly a time in which to be grateful and joyous.

Stewardship Letter

November 8, 2012
St. Wilibrord

Dear St. Stephen’s family,

Five years ago, the membership of St. Stephen’s was 55 members. The Average Sunday Attendance at that time was 24.

How things have changed! Our current membership is 121. This past Sunday, as we celebrated the Baptism of our own Leah Elliott, there were over 50 people in church. At no point during this past year (even during the summer) did our attendance slip below 30. And almost every Sunday brings new visitors.

This not just good news; this is incredible news! Whenever I share information like this with colleagues and others in the wider Church, they are as shocked and amazed as I am often am. In the wider Church, numbers reflect growth and vitality.

But, for us, it is more than a matter of numbers. It is a matter of a congregation that has come together and is doing wonderful and transformative things in the name of God. As we look around us, we see a congregation of changing faces, of a church building that is being updated, of ministry that is reaching beyond these walls to the farthest stretches of the world.

Of course, a common question I am asked is: what’s the secret of our success? My first answer is always, of course, the Holy Spirit. This Spirit is most definitely at work in our congregation. God’s Spirit, as we all know, is a Spirit of renewal and life. And it is this Spirit feel in our midst when we gather together and it is this Spirit that empowers us when we go out and do ministry in the world.

My second answer is this: we are simply living out the Gospel. This is a congregation that has been committed to following Jesus’ message of loving God and loving one another, and, in doing so, being radically welcoming to every single person that comes through our doors. This is what makes the difference, and this is what makes us who we are.

We have so much to be thankful for at St. Stephen’s. It is an exciting time for us. New people are finding a home and a family at St. Stephen’s. Those of us who have been here for years are finding ourselves renewed and recharged, as well as confronted with all the changes and challenges of a growing congregation. And all of us, together, are doing ministry in whatever ways we can.

All that is happening here at St. Stephen’s is something to celebrate. This is a time in which we should be giving thanks to God for this church home, this church family and these opportunities to do the ministry of loving God and one another in worship and service.

On Sunday, November 18, we will all have an opportunity to celebrate these blessings God has granted to us. On November 18, we celebrate Pledge Sunday. Pledge time is the time in which we take a good, long look at our selves as a congregation and what we are doing in our own lives to help St. Stephen’s live even further into this growth and life we are celebrating.

That Sunday, the Vestry of St. Stephen’s will host a dinner after the 11:00 am celebration of Holy Eucharist. That dinner is a way for your Priest-in-Charge and your Vestry to thank you for all you have done for St. Stephen’s this year. At that meal, you will be given a packet that will contain your pledge card and your Time and Talent sheet. Your pledge card is an opportunity for your consider what kind of monetary pledge you would like to make to St. Stephen’s. As you know, ministry and the practical upkeep of our physical building is not done without finances.

The Time and Talent sheet is a way for you to consider pledging from your time and talent. What ways can you pledge from the gifts God has granted you in areas such as personal expertise? Are you an artist? Are you good at social care? Are you mechanically inclined? These are ways in which you have been blessed by God and, recognizing them as blessings, they are ways in which you can give back.

More than anything, know how grateful and humbled I am to be serving you. I am truly blessed by God to be serving a congregation that is excited about what it is doing, that is renewed by its energy and committed to its following of Jesus. Thank you for all you have given to me.

-peace,
Fr. Jamie+

All Saints Sunday

The Baptism of Leah Elliott

November 4, 2012

Revelation 7.9-17


+ As some of you know—and some of you might be shocked to hear—but I am “off the hooch.” Due to some intestinal issues I’ve been experiencing, I am not drinking alcohol (except for the wine at Holy Communion). And haven’t for about two weeks. It’s been a very good thing, of course. It’s good to take a break and sort of purify one’s system.

I have a fairly active social life, so I of course still go out on a regular basis to some of the finer drinking establishments around town. I have an active social life and, let’s face it, I do a lot of ministry at those places. And I have been exploring the wonderful world of “mocktails.” Lord!

But I realized that one thing I have an issue with now is some of the behavior in those drinking establishments. I’m not saying that from a judgmental perspective. I’m simply saying it from the perspective of a kind of tired frustration. Or maybe it’s envy.

This past week, I went out with a good friend of mine and at the next table there were a group of young men who were being a bit loud, shall we say. Nothing obnoxious or ridiculous. Just loud. But for some reason, it just of grated on me and I kind of grumbled about it.

My friend, who is not a regular church-goer, said to me: “I hope now that you’re sober, you don’t start getting all judgmental.”

It was a good wake-up call for me. As we sat there, and I realized we were a nearing the Feast of All Saints, I looked at these young men and saw, in our midst, saints. These are what the saints are, in our midst sometimes. And I quickly got over my grumpiness.

Today, of course, we are celebrating All Saints Sunday. This is Sunday in which we celebrate the saints. By saints, I don’t mean only our loved ones and others who have passed on to the “nearer presence of God.” I am talking about all the saints—past, present and future.

First of all, lets’ talk a bit about the saints. As most of you know, we do a very good job of commemorating the saints here at St. Stephen’s. Every Wednesday night, at our Mass, we celebrate and commemorate a different saint. And I have found that, oftentimes at the supper afterward, or the days after the mass, the discussion about these saints continues.

Most of us probably think veneration of saints is almost an exclusively Roman Catholic practice. Certainly, Romans Catholics seem, in some ways, to have the market cornered when it comes to saints. But we Episcopalians do have our saints too, which we often commemorate on Wednesday nights. We name many of our churches after saints—like our own, after St. Stephen the Martyr. We commemorate their feast days. And we recognize our contemporaries as saints.

We find most of our saints in the supplemental book we called Holy Women, Holy Men. I have issues with some of the people who are included in this particular book (I don’t understand why we commemorate some of these people—but that’s my issue) For the most part thought, it’s helpful book and one I always encourage Episcopalians to purchase a copy for themselves and read through it daily. Here we find a wide variety of saints, reflecting in many ways the wide variety of people in the Episcopal Church.

Now, unlike the Roman Catholics, we don’t invoke our saints—we don’t pray to them. We do, however, look to them as examples of how to live out our Christian lives. Saints like St. Stephen of the German Abbess and newly minted Doctor of the Church, Hildegard of Bingen or the newly canonized Kateri Takakwitha or the Episcopal priest and missionary James Lloyd Breck, or the first woman ordained in the Anglican Communion, Florence Li-Tim Oi help us to see that even ordinary Christians can sometimes do extraordinary things.

We do, though, have to ask ourselves: Why? Why commemorate saints? And are there still saints? If so, who are these saints who live and work beside us?

More often than not, you’ll think of some exceptional person you knew who truly lived a “Christian life.” Some of us might think of our mothers, or our fathers or some priest or a missionary we knew at some time or some social worker. Certainly, I think is many of my paternal grandmother or even my own father as down-to-earth examples of regular people who just quietly lived their faith.

But I have to ask: do any of us think of ourselves as saints? Can any of us look in the mirror and, with all honesty, see a saint looking back at us? The fact is this: you should. Because, we too are the saints of God. We don’t necessarily have to do extraordinary things. We don’t need to perform miracles, or die for our faith, or be nice and sweet all the time.

To be a saint, we simply need to live out our faith as followers of Jesus to its fullest. And we need to hope in the fact that this life is not all there is. Yes, we need to live this life to the fullest and make the most of it—that’s what the saints teach us again and again. This life is an opportunity to do good, to serve God and one another, and to bring about goodness. It is an opportunity to work toward holiness in our lives and to participate in the mystery of God. But, in this life, we also hope for the life that comes after this—the life of absolute wholeness. The life that will never end.

That’s the wonderful thing about All Saints Day. Today is a day we get to reflect on where we’re going as Christian saints. We are a part of a much larger Church than we can even imagine. The Church is so much more than this church on earth. It extends far beyond our imaginations and our conceptions. The larger church exists in that place we, as Christians, strive toward. The larger Church is the one that dwells in that so-called “nearer presence of God.” I think we very rarely ever give heaven a real serious consideration.

In today’s collect, we prayed to God to “give us grace to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you…”

In the original version of this collect the word “unspeakable” was used instead of Ineffable.

“May we come to those unspeakable joys”

Either way, that, I think, is the key to what we are longing for in our lives as followers of Jesus. We have no clear picture of where we are going as we follow him. Scripture does not paint any crystal clear pictures for us of what heaven will be like. Yes, there’s a good amount of poetic language, written by people who imagined only the most beautiful place for heaven—with streets paved in gold and crystal buildings all about.

In today’s reading from Revelation, for example, we find some gorgeous images of heaven—of multitudes of saints standing before the throne of the Lamb of God with palm branches in their hands and their robes washed white by the blood of the Lamb. It’s a beautiful image and one we can cherish and hold close when we think about heaven. But ultimately these are vague symbol-heavy images for most of us and ones that are hard to wrap our minds around.

But in our collect today, we hear words given to our hopes. That idea of ineffable joys—of joys that leave us speechless, joys that are beyond our understanding, awaiting us—that is what we are hoping in. And that is the place to which Jesus I leading us who follow him. That is where the larger church is participating at this very moment in its unending worship of God.

We know that this goal—that place of heaven—is the place to which we are headed. To some extent—and I am not talking about predestination here—we, in a very real sense, as followers of Jesus, as people who profess, and in professing, believe, know the end of our story. We know that heaven awaits us, with its unspeakable joys, and we know that if we keep our eyes on that goal, then that goal will be our reward. Certainly, we also know the beginning of own individual stories. We know what we have done up to this point in our lives as saints. We are fully aware of the joys and the hardships we have experienced up to this point in our lives. It’s the middle part of the story—the part of our lives that we are living now, as we speak—that is for the most part unwritten. And this is where the mystery of our lives lie.

The mystery doesn’t lie in our ultimate goal. We know it’s there. We know we are slowly—day by day, moment by moment—headed toward that place. The mystery of our lives is in the right here and now.

It is in that foggy, gray area between this moment and that moment we arrive in our True Home. It’s sometimes a very difficult story. We have no idea what awaits us tomorrow. We have no idea of the hardships that lie ahead for us around the next corner. But we do know that beyond those unseen hardships, lie joys beyond words for us. And with that goal in sight, we know one other thing: we know that we are taken care of. Through it all, God is here with us, taking care of us. This journey we are on is a journey, following Jesus, toward that place. And Jesus, as we follow him, lifts the “veil” to give us a glimpse of that place. This is our heritage. This is where our stories will find their completion. We know this because we have been promised this in our baptism. By our baptism, we have been told that this heritage of saints is our heritage as well.

Today, Leah is going to be reminded to reminded of that heritage as she is washed in those waters of life. This is what it means to be a saint—to be washed in those waters of a life that will not end.

So, who are the saints in our lives? They are the ones who know that they are “taken care of.” Or to use the language we hear today in the book of Revelation:

“the one who is seated on
the throne will shelter them.
They will hunger no more, and
thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the center of the
throne will be their
shepherd,
and he will guide them to
springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every
tear from their eyes.”

They are the ones who know that both the beginning and the end of the story are already finished. They know how their story is going to end. And that the ending will be glorious and beautiful. It’s what they do with the middle of the story that makes all the difference.

But there’s one more hitch to the story. The message of All Saints Day is that the end isn’t really the end of the story at all, but actually a whole new beginning. Our journey doesn’t end simply because we die. Our journey goes on, but now on a whole different level. We continue to grow.

In the Book of Common Prayer, there is a wonderful prayer from the Burial Service that describes death as growing from “strength to strength.” With it comes a sense that our growth in that place will continue. This is our story and it really is a wonderful one, isn’t it?

Who are the saints among us? We are the saints among us. Today—All Saints Sunday—is a celebration of ourselves just as much as it is a celebration of those who have gone on before us.

So, let us celebrate our loved ones who are no longer with us. Let us celebrate those saints who have paved the way for us on our path toward that goal of heaven. They are celebrating today, in that place of joy and light and beauty, before the throne of the Lamb.

But also, let us celebrate ourselves today, because those ineffable joys—those unspeakable joys—await each and every one of us as well.

22 Pentecost

October 28, 2012

Mark 10.46-52

+ A long time ago, when I was ordained first a deacon, then a priest, I made this promise, which can be found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 538. I promised at my ordinations,

“…I solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New testaments to the be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation, and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.”

That last part especially—the part about promising to conform to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church”—has very important to me.

As most of you know, as far as loyalty is concerned, my first loyalty is always to the Episcopal Church, as far as churches are concerned. Now I shouldn’t continue to tease them about this, but I have to. I think that the majority of the Vestry at St. Stephen’s thinks I am a secret Roman Catholic.

At our last vestry meeting, I heard a near-unanimous outcry from them expressing their dislike of the use of the term “Smells and Bells” in our Wednesday night Mass. Now, I understand where they’re coming from. And no, they don’t really think I’m a secret Roman Catholic. At least, I hope not.

Despite the fact that some of you might think I am a secret Roman Catholic, all I am is a former Roman Catholic.

But if I was to say I was anything other than Episcopalian, I don’t think I would be able to say that the Roman Catholic Church would be the place I would lean toward. I would say that much of my deepest interest, as you have heard me say many times, outside of the Episcopal Church, is actually with the Eastern Orthodox Church. I love the Orthodox Church. Well, I’m not all that fond of some of their social and political views. But I do love the majority of their theological and spiritual outlook on life. I love their liturgy. I love their down-to-earth, balanced approach everything. And I love the tradition they strive to uphold. And I really love their views of prayer.

I have been reading a wonderful book by a contemporary American Orthodox writer by the name of Frederica Mathewes Green. If you do not know Mathewes-Green, I would recommend you read her. She is a good spiritual writer. The book of hers that I’ve read and love is called, very simply, The Jesus Prayer. And I love it.

The Jesus Prayer, for those of you who might not know, is a prayer very popular in the Eastern Orthodox Chrurch. In fact, it is kind of the “Gem” of the Eastern Church. We’ll talk about the actual Jesus prayer in just a moment. First, let’s take a look at where the Jesus Prayer came from.

This morning, in our Gospel, we find the kernel from which the Jesus Prayer arises. And I really enjoy our Gospel reading this morning. It is a story that at first seems to be leading us in one direction.

We find Jesus at Jericho, which reminds us, of course, of the story from Joshua and the crumbling walls. We then find this strangely detailed story of Barthemaeus. It’s detailed in the sense that we not only have his name, but also the fact that he was the son of Timaeus. That’s an interesting little tidbit. And we find that he is blind.

Now, it’s not a big mystery what’s going to happen. We know where this story is going. We know Bartemaeus is going to be healed. We know he is going to see.

But the real gem of this story doesn’t have to do with Jericho, or the fact that we will never again hear about Bartimeus son of Timaeus. The real gem of this story is that little prayer Bartimaeus prays. There it is, huddled down within the Gospel like a wonderful little treasure.

“Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”

This prayer is essentially the basis for the popular Jesus Prayer of the Orthodox Church. At first, it doesn’t seem like much. It’s so deceptively simple. But, obviously, according to the story, the prayer is important. Jesus does what he is asked. He has mercy on this man and heals him.

So why is this prayer so important? Well, for one thing, we get a glimpse of how to pray in this wonderfully simple little prayer.

Jesus occasionally gives us advice in the gospels on how we should pray. The first one that probably comes to mind probably is the Lord’s prayer. But here we find a prayer very different than the Lord’s prayer. The Lord’s prayer is very structured. It covers all the bases. We acknowledge and adore God, we acknowledge and ask forgiveness not only for our sins, but for the sins committed against us by others. And so on. You know the prayer.

The prayer we hear this morning cuts right to very heart not only of the Lord’s prayer but to every prayer we pray. It is a prayer that rises from within—from our very core. From our heart of hearts. It is truly the Prayer of the Heart.

The words of this prayer are the words of all those nameless, formless prayers we pray all the time—those prayers that we find ourselves longing to pray. Here it is, summed up for us. Here are the words we long to use in those prayers without words.

“Jesus, have mercy on me!”

Now the actual Jesus Prayer is a only slightly more expanded. The Jesus Prayer is:

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God [or Son of the living God], have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Or slight variations of those words. The prayer we heard this morning is essentially the same.

In the Eastern Church, the “Jesus Prayer” it is also called “the prayer of the heart.” That’s a perfect description of the prayer we heard in today’s Gospel. It is, as I said before, a prayer of the heart. If our lips could no longer pray, our heart would go on and this prayer would be the words of our heart. The fact that it is so simple is what makes the Jesus prayer so popular. Anyone can memorize it and anyone pray it with true meaning. It is a prayer we can repeat to ourselves over and over again. In fact, it is a prayer that demands to be repeated. It’s almost impossible not to repeat it.

What I find so interesting about that statement is that, limitless as this prayer might be, infinite in its use as it might be, it comes from and addresses our very own limitations. It is the prayer of absolute humility.

“Have mercy on me.”

We are humans, with all the limitations and shortcomings that entails. But rather than groaning about it and bewailing our misfortune, in this prayer we are able to acknowledge it and to simply offer it up. Like Bartimeaus, we can simply bring it before Jesus, release it, and then walk away healed.

There is no room for haughtiness when praying this prayer. The person we are when we pray it is who we really are. When all our masks and all our defenses are gone, that is when this prayer comes in and takes over for us. This is the prayer we pray when, echoing Thomas Merton, we “present ourselves naked before our God.” That’s what makes the prayer of the heart—the Jesus prayer—such a popular prayer for so many.

And this prayer does not even have to be about us. We can use this prayer when praying for others. How easy it is to simply pray:

Jesus, have mercy on her, or him, or them.

It’s wonderful isn’t it? how those simple words can pack such a wallop. We don’t have to be profound or eloquent in the words we address to God. We don’t need to go on and on beseeching and petitioning God. We simply need to open our hearts to God and the words will come. No doubt those words will be very similar to the words of the Jesus prayer.

“Lord Jesus, have mercy on me.”

So, like Bartemeaus, let us pray what is in our heart. Let us open ourselves completely and humbly to Jesus, whom follow and serve. And when we do we will find the blindness’s of our own lives healed. We will find taken from us that spiritual blindness that causes us to grope about aimlessly, to ignore those in need around us, to not see the beauty of this world that God shows us all the time.

Like Bartemaeus, we too will be healed of whatever blinds us to the Light of God breaking through into our lives. And when that blindness is taken from us, with a clear spiritual vision granted to us, we too will focus our eyes, square our shoulders and follow him on the way.

21 Pentecost

October 21, 2012
Baptism of Julia Lisbeth Gelinske

Isaiah 53:4-12; Mark 10:35-45


+ Yesterday, our St. Stephen’s delegation to Diocesan Convention returned home. I do have to say, it was a good Convention. Maybe I should definite “good” It was good in the sense that it was not a contentious convention. No one seemed to be jockeying for position, as we often seen at such gatherings. And, trust me, I have seen jockeying at these conventions. And so have many of you.

In our Gospel reading for today, we also see some jockeying for position. I think we can all somewhat relate to this story. We have all had our own Jameses and Johns. We’ve all had them as co-workers, or fellow students, or simply fellow parishioners. They are the ones who—while we quietly labor, quietly do our duties—they sort of weasel their way up the ladder. They jockey for position.

They are the ones who try to get a better place in line by butting in from of everyone else. They are the ones who drive us—who work and sacrifice and try to do the good thing—they drive us crazy. Or maybe…and maybe none of us want to admit it …maybe, they are the ones that we relate to the most in this morning’s Gospel.

Maybe we are ourselves at times are the James and the Johns. Maybe we ourselves are the Sons or Daughters of Thunder.

Whatever the case may be, the fact is James and John are really missing out. Like some of the other apostles, they just don’t get it. They don’t quite understand what Jesus is getting at when he is talking about the last being first. They don’t understand him when he says that we are called to serve and not be served. They just don’t understand that simple virtue of humility. Their view of Christianity—their view of where they stand in relation to Jesus—is a constant jockeying for position. And many of us to this day feel the same way in our own lives, in our work and in our faith lives.

One of my dear friends this past week (not a parishioner here), admitted to me and a group of other friends how much he loves the Ayn Rand novel, The Fountainhead—a book that has now become somewhat popular again due to our current political debate sin this country. Now, to be clear. He never actually read it. But his view of it—as it’s been summarized for him—is that it is not our duty to help anyone, unless we help ourselves first. And even then, it is not our duty to help anyone who refuses to help themselves.

Now this friend of mine is a faithful Christian and a faithful Church-goer. But when I tried to explain that Jesus is very clear on this issue and that Jesus and Ayn Rand hold completely different views about things, he said sort of rolled his eyes and poo-pooed me for being too soft.

What today’s Gospel shows us is that Jesus is calling us to something much bigger than we—or my friend, or Ayn Rand for that matter—probably fully understand. I think a lot of us—even those of us who come to church every Sunday—sometimes look at Christianity as a somewhat quaint, peace-loving religion. We dress up, we come to church on Sunday, we sing hymns, we hear about God’s love, we receive Jesus in the Bread and Wine, and then we go home and…and we don’t think about it again until the next week.

But the Christianity of Jesus is not soft. It is not just a whitewashed, quaint religion. The Christianity of Jesus, as we hopefully have all figured out here at St. Stephen’s, is a radical faith. It is a faith that challenges—that makes us uncomfortable when we get comfortable, that riles us when we have become complacent. It is a faith that works well here in church, on Sunday morning, but also should motivate us to get up from these pews and go out into the world and live out the faith we have learned here by serving others. And it is this fact that many of us might find a bit frightening.

Like James and John, we all want to gain heaven. We want a nice place beside Jesus in that world-to-come. But few of us want to live out our faith in all that do and say right now. And even fewer of us are ready to be servants—to be slaves for others.

We don’t always want to serve the lowliest among us. We don’t want to suffer like Jesus suffered. We don’t want to taste from the same cup of anguish that Jesus drank from on the night before he was murdered. And we sure don’t want to be humble sometimes.

I will admit, I am in that boat sometimes. I sometimes don’t want to be a servant or slave to others. I don’t want to suffer like Jesus suffered. And although I might try—and not always that hard—I am not so good at being humble sometimes.

But we all, I think, at least here at St. Stephen’s, are trying. We all making the effort in some way. As followers of Jesus, we are reminded that we are called truly to be servants to each other and especially to those who need to be served. We are asked as followers to do something uncomfortable. We are to asked to take a long, hard look at the world around us and to recognize the fact that there are people living in need in our midst. And we are called to serve them.

What we cannot do is ignore them. When I ignore those in need, when I don’t serve, when I don’t stand up against injustice—I am made very aware that in that moment, I am not following Jesus. If I don’t do those things, but I still stand up here and call myself a Christian, then I have truly become a “Son of Thunder.”

And, for most of us, that is exactly what it sounds like when we want the benefits of our faith, without making the sacrifices of our faith. In those instances, we truly do sound like a low, distant thunder. We cannot bulldoze our way into heaven by riding roughshod over those we should be serving along the way.

For us, as followers of Jesus, our job is simply to love God and love our neighbor as yourselves—and when we do, in our lives, in our work, in the way we perceive the world around us, then a natural humility will come over us. In those moments, we will recognize that God is in control. Not us. What is more humbling than that realization in our lives?

Again, here is another example of this radical Christianity. It carries through in how we serve each other. Christians are not expected to bring anyone to Jesus through an arrogant attitude. We are not expected to come charging into people’s lives, making them tremble before us in fear. We are not expected to thump our Bibles and wave the Words of Jesus before people in a desperate attempt to win souls for Jesus. We aren’t forcing Jesus on anyone, nor should we. In doing so, we dominate people. We coerce them into believing. But if we simply serve those Jesus calls us to serve, with love and charity and humility, sometimes that says more than any Sunday sermon or curbside rant.

Think of the words Jesus could use. He could use, “power” to mean “dominance,” or “oppression” or “force.” But he doesn’t. Rather, Jesus uses the words “serve” and “servant”

Certainly we are given plenty of “power” as Christians. In our baptism, in which baby Julia will soon participate, we are given power—but this power we are given is the power to die in Christ and to be raised into a new life with Christ. That is what we celebrate every time we celebrate a Baptism and renew our baptismal vows. That is what we celebrate when we think back to what happened at our own baptisms. We celebrate and we live out in our lives this power—this power that we are dead to our former selves and alive—alive in a powerful and amazing way—with Christ.

Baptism empowers us—it makes us something more than we were before—but not in the way we think of as empowering. It empowers us by making us true servants to each other. It not a strength that overpowers others. It is rather a strength rather that empowers us to serve each other and God. It strengthens us to bear the anguish and despair of this life. It strengthens us to persevere and to live our lives fully in Christ.

In all of this, Jesus is telling us that we are to be servants—servants not only to God, but to each other as well. I, as a priest, who stands here at this altar at each celebration of the Eucharist —I am not the only one called to be a minister of God. We are all called to be ministers of God. By our very baptism, by the Eucharist we share at this altar each Sunday, we are called by God to serve each other.

We are not here on Sunday morning to be served—to be waited upon, to be lavished with gifts. We are here to serve. And it is this sense of service that we must take with us out of here into the world.

James and John eventually figured this out. They went on from that day and served Jesus in the world. Eventually , they would both die for Jesus as martyrs—as very witnesses to Christ by their deaths.

So, for those of us who get angry at the sons of thunder in our lives—be patient. For those of who recognize ourselves as a son or daughter of thunder—relax. Jesus always finds a way to break through our barriers—if we let him. It is this breaking through, after all, that makes our Christianity so radical. So, let us serve God. Let us serve each other in whatever ways God leads us to serve.

In a few very short moments, we will be reminded again what it means to serve when we renew our baptismal vows. In doing so, remember that we are empowered in ways in which we might not even have been fully aware. By the very fact that we are baptized and fed with Jesus’ Body and Blood, we live out our service in the world. And when we do, we just may find that the thunder we hear is the thunder not of arrogance or pride, but rather the thunder of the kingdom of God breaking through into our midst.

19 Pentecost

October 7, 2012

Mark 10.2-16


+ Most of us, of course, who gather here on Sunday mornings, don’t realize that we actually have a somewhat separate congregation on Wednesday nights, at our “Smells and Bells” Mass. There are some of our new members—as well as some of our so-called “proxy” members—who only going to that service And one of the things some of those people like are the fact that, on Wednesday, we always commemorate a saint. I always preach on Wednesday nights, about a different saint and I, in fact, use a couple of resources from the lives of the saints.

Now I don’t mean to toot my own horn here, but usually those stories are very interesting. At least to most of the people on Wednesday nights. Poor Thom Marubbio might not share that opinion. The poor man! On more than one occasion, I’ve seen him quietly rolling his eyes at some of these strange saints we encounter on Wednesday nights. But I give him credit, he does keep coming to the service each week.

The saint we commemorated this past week was not, as you might think, St. Francis, who we will be honoring later today when we do the blessing of the Animals. The saint we commemorated this past week was a French saint—and a fairly contemporary one too—contemporary in this case being someone who lived just over a hundred years ago. She was a Carmelite nun who died on September 30, 1897 by the name of St. Therese of Liseux.

St. Therese led a very sheltered life by most our modern standards no doubt. She joined this very cloistered convent in Normandy in France when she was 14 years old and died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 years. She did not lead what we would consider an exciting, adventure-filled life by any sense of the word.

But, in her short life, she did do one thing that was pretty extraordinary. She developed a theology that is still very useful to all of us today. Her theology was a simple one. It was called “The Little Way.” And she used this “Little Way” to show that anyone, even in very ordinary, normal circumstances, could truly know God in a very intimate way.

The key to her “Little Way” was to truly become child-like in our relationship with God. For Therese, we needed to truly become like little children in our trust and appreciation of God. And this way of following Jesus is still reaping rewards in our own day.

Certainly, the basis for St. Therese’s “Little Way” was our Gospel reading for today. As people were bringing children to Jesus, he says,

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

So, what does Jesus mean when he talks about the Kingdom of heaven and children? Well, he is talking quite bluntly, I believe. He is making it clear that we need to simplify. We need to simplify our faith. We need to clear away all the muck, all the distractions, all those negative things we have accumulated over the years regarding our relationship with God.

Now, to be fair, the Church and Religion in general have piled many of this negative things on us. And that is unfortunate. Too often, as believers, we tend to complicate our faith life and our theology. We get caught up in things like Dogma and Canon laws and rules and Rubrics and following the letter of the law. We get so caught up in doing what we are told is the “right thing,” that we lose sight of this pure and holy relationship with God. We forget why we are doing the right thing.

For Jesus, he saw what happened when people got too caught up in doing the right thing. The scribes and Pharisees were very caught up in doing the right thing, in following the letter of the Law. But in doing so, they lost sight of God. They lost sight of the meaning behind the Law.

Jesus is telling them—and us—that we need to simplify. We need to refocus. We need to become like children in our faith-life. Now that isn’t demeaning. It isn’t sweet and sentimental. Becoming children means taking a good, honest look at what we believe.

As followers of Jesus, it does not have to be complicated. We just need to remind ourselves that, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, he will show us God. Following Jesus means knowing that God is a loving, accepting and always-present Parent. Our job as followers is to connect with this loving Parent, to worship and pray to God. Our job is to be an imitator, like Jesus, of this loving, all-accepting God in our relationship with others.

When we do that—when we become imitators of our loving God, when we love as God loves us—the Kingdom of God becomes present. But the fact is, the Kingdom of God is not for people who complicate it. The Kingdom is one of those things that is very elusive. If we quantify it and examine it too closely, it just sort of wiggles away from us. If we try to define what the Kingdom is, or try to explain it in any kind of detail, it loses meaning. It disappears and become mirage-like.

But if we simply do what we are called to do as followers of Jesus—if we simply follow Jesus, imitate our God and love one another—the Kingdom becomes real. It becomes a reality in our very midst. And whatever separations we imagine between ourselves and God and one another, simply disappear.

This is what I love about being a follower of Jesus. I love the fact that despite all the dogmas and structures and rules the Church might bring us, following Jesus is simply that—following Jesus. It is very simple.

But it can also be very difficult, especially when we still get caught up in all the rules and complications of organized religion. And we do get caught up in those things.

Because following Jesus can be so simple, we find ourselves often frustrated. We want order. We want rules. We want systematic ways of understanding God and religion.

Simplicity sometimes scares us. Becoming childlike means depending on God instead of ourselves. Becoming childlike means shedding our independence sometimes, and we don’t like doing that.

Sometimes complication means busywork. And sometimes it simply is easier to get caught up in busywork, then to actually go out there and follow Jesus and be imitators of God and love others. . Sometimes it is easier to sit and debate the fine points of religion, then it is to go out and actually live out our faith in our lives and to worship God.

But, as Jesus shows us, when we do such things, when we become cantankerous grown-ups, that’s when the system starts breaking down. That’s when we get distracted. That’s when we get led astray from following Jesus. That is when we “grow up” and become cranky, bitter grown-ups rather than loving, wonder-filled children.

It is good to be wonder-filled children. It is good to look around us at the world and see a place in which God still breaks through to us. It is good to see that God lives and works through others.

So, let us be wonder-filled children. Let us truly be awed and amazed at what it means to follow Jesus. Let God be a source of joy in our lives. And let us love each other simply, as children love. Let us love in that wonderfully child-like way, in which our hearts simply fill up to the brim with love. Let us burn with that love in a young and vibrant way.

Being a Christian—following Jesus—means staying young and child-like always. Following Jesus is our fountain of youth, so to speak.

So let us become children for the sake of the Kingdom. And when we do, that Kingdom will flower in us like eternal youth.