22 Pentecost

October 20, 2013

2 Timothy 3.14-4.5

+ Last evening our Diocesan Convention delegates limped home from Diocesan Convention. I think that’s an apt image. It was…well…let’s just say, as Cathy McMullen said last night, an “interesting” convention. Quite a bit contentious on some levels.

But I’m a person who has a somewhat love/hate relationship regarding Diocesan Conventions. I have been to too many of them in my life. On one level, for an extrovert like me, I can say that I always have a good time, no matter how contentious the convention might get. And this one was no exception.

But I must say, that  much the real gist of what happens at Convention happens not on the convention floor. Or at the Convention Eucharist.  Oh no. It happens at the meals. And it happens, yes, in the bar.

It just so happened that one of the most interesting conversations for me happened at the bar on Friday night. It seems that out little congregation of St. Stephen’s has been getting some notice in the diocese. Notice as a progressive, dare I say, “upstart” kind of congregation.

One of the conversation I had was with a deacon from another congregation. She and I have been friends for a very long time. We are still very dear friends.

But, during the course of the night, she said to me, “Jamie, I just don’t understand how, in scripture, you can defend being essentially a liberal, progressive congregation that welcomes all people.”

She said “welcoming” in a kind of derisive way, like it’s a bad thing. As in, “are you saying our congregation is ‘unwelcoming?’”

When I asked her why she had such issue with our supposedly progressive/liberal attitudes, she said, “I just believe  Scripture is clear about certain things that you profess in your congregation to welcome and embrace.”

We all know where she was going with this. I certainly did anyway. 

I said to her, in no uncertain terms, “Be careful, my friend, where you go with this. This is slippery slope, using scripture in such a way.”

“As long as I go with Scripture I will never be wrong,” she said. “Scripture cuts through everything. And with scripture as my guide, as the sword in my hand, I have no need to be careful.”

I smiled. And then I said, you are right. I will concede that. Scripture IS a sword. A two-edged sword, especially for those who use it as a weapon.

And then I very gently warned her, If our intention is to cut people with the swords of scripture, just be prepared that we too will in turn be cut. That is what scripture does when we misuse it.  But if we use scripture as it meant to be used—as an object of love—then it is also two-edged.  If we use it as way of open the channels of God’s love to others, then the channels of God’s love will be opened to us as well.

That, let’s just say, essentially ended out conversion. We, of course, parted friends as we always have. But when it comes to people using scripture as the basis for an arguments such as this, I love crack the knuckles.

I hope it doesn’t surprise anyone here this morning that I truly do love the Bible.  I mean, what kind of priest would I be if I didn’t love the Scriptures? After all, one of the vows I made when I was ordained as a Deacon and later reaffirmed when I was ordained a Priest was this (and renewed these vows yesterday at the Convention Eucharist):

“I solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation…”

Now, that might sound like a somewhat fundamentalist view of such things. The scriptures are the Word of God? you might ask.  Even with all the apparent flaws and contradictions? And it contains everything necessary for salvation?  Come on. But I do believe these statements—though not in a fundamentalist way of thinking.

If we look in our Prayer Book, as we do on a very regular basis, back in that place I like to direct us to go sometimes—the Catechism—we find a little expansion on this thinking. On page 853, you will find this question:

“Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God?”

The answer:

“We call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks through the Bible.”

I think that is a wonderfully down-to-earth, practical and rational explanation.

In our “Episcopal 101” classes that we do here on a regular basis and several of you have taken,  we have been having fun exploring what Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church are.  One of those fun ones for me, anyway, is what is called Richard Hooker’s three-legged stool.  Some of you might remember this.

Richard Hooker was a great 16th Century Anglican theologian. He explained that Anglican belief was based not on “The Church Alone” of the Roman Catholic Church nor even on “The Word Alone” of some Protestants, but is in fact based on a more balanced view.

The three legs of the stool of Anglicanism are Scripture, Tradition and Reason.  Take one of those legs away, the stool wobbles and falls.  But use all three and you will have a very a balanced view of religion. For example, if we only have Scripture, without Reason or Tradition, we end up with what I consider the heresy of fundamentalism.

And it is a heresy. Anytime we place anything on par with God—any time we claim anything is perfect and without flaw, except God—we have a created an idol. My view is that fundamentalists have made the Bible into an idol.

But for us Episcopalians, our view of scripture is based on a balance of tradition and reason. We can’t just believe anything we want with regard to Scripture.  There are scriptures that we don’t like hearing. But none of gets to edit the Bible.  We don’t get to cross out those things we don’t like. We have to confront them and meet them face-on. And we have to wrestle them and in wrestling with them we must use a good dose of reason, and a good dose of tradition.  And if we do that, we come away from those difficult scriptures with a new sense of what they say to us.

For example,  I personally might not like what the Apostle  Paul says sometimes—I might not even agree with it—but, good or bad, it isn’t up to me.  Or any of one of us.  It’s up to the Church, of which we, as individuals, are one part and parcel. For us Episcopalians, we don’t have to despair over those things Paul says that might offend our delicate 21st century ears. We just need to remind ourselves that our beliefs about Scripture are based on a rational approach tempered with the tradition of the Church.

In fact, if we continue reading on page 853 in the Catechism, we will find this answer to the question, “How do we understand the meaning of the Bible?”

The answer:

“We understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the true interpretation of Scripture.”

There you see a very solid approach to understanding Scripture.  Reason (in this sense the inspiration of the Spirit), along with the Church (or Tradition) helps us in interpreting Scripture.  Such thinking prevents us from falling into that awful muck of fundamentalism.  Such thinking steers us clear of this misconception that that the Scriptures are without flaw. Such thinking also steers clear of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, with regard to Scripture as well.

Sometimes, if we use too much reason in our approach to Scripture, we find ourselves reasoning it all away and it becomes nothing but a quaint book of myths, morals and legends.

Yes, the Scriptures are not without flaws. As God-inspired as they might be, they were written by human beings. Pre-scientific human beings, writing in a language that has been translated and retranslated over and over again.  And human beings have been notorious—even in Scripture—of not always being able to get everything perfect, no matter how God-inspired they are. Not even Scripture expects us to be perfect.

But, the second part our explanation of the question from the Catechism of why we call Holy Scripture the Word of God is even more important to me.

“God stills peaks to us through scripture.”

I love the idea that God does still speak to us through these God-inspired writings by flawed human beings. And what God speaks to us through Scriptures is, again and again, a message of love, even in the midst of some of the more violent, or fantastic stories we read in Scripture.

Now, one of those flawed human beings in the Bible was of course, the Apostle Paul.  Paul himself would admit, on one of his less grandiose days, that he was a flawed person.  And I love the fact that, this morning, God seems to be speaking loud and clear through Paul in his letter to Timothy.

“All scripture is inspired by God,” Paul instructs, “and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”

I love that. That is some rational, solid thinking, if you ask me. Scripture here is intended not to condemn, not bash, not to hurt, but to build up and equip us for “every good work.”

“Proclaim the message, “ he tells Timothy (and us), “be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorably; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.”

For any of who have been teachers, those words strike home. But, if you notice, nowhere does Paul say we must condemn or pound down, or coerce others using Scripture.

Scripture must build up and encourage and teach us to serve and to love.  And Scripture must be a conduit through which God continues to speak to us.

So, let us embrace this balanced and reasonable very Anglican approach to Scripture. Let us listen to Scripture and hear the Word of God speaking to us through it. Let us continue to place the Scriptures at the center of our lives and let us allow them to guide us into a pathway of love and service.  And, most importantly, let us use it, again and again, as an instrument of love rather than a weapon of war and hatred.  And when we do, we will find that the two-edged sword of that instrument of love, will open the doors of God’s love to us as well.

 

21 Pentecost

October 13, 2013

Luke 17.11-19

 + I was once accused, many, many years ago, of being—if you can believe this—morbid. Morbid? Me? I didn’t even know what morbid really meant when I was first accused of it.  But this friend of mine said I was morbid because, “Well, Jamie, you like to hang out in cemeteries.”

Guilty as charged! I do like cemeteries. I very unapologetically will admit to that. They’re great places. They’re not spooky or morbid to me at all.  For a history buff like me, they are perpetually engaging.

Well, yesterday, I was at a cemetery.  Yesterday, my family gathered at Maple Sheyenne Cemetery to dedicate my brother’s gravestone. For those who might not know, my brother died very suddenly at the end of July in Colorado.  So, we gathered on Saturday to dedicated and bless the stone that covers the place his ashes are buried, using a beautiful liturgy from the Anglican Prayer Book of New Zealand.

After the service, we stood around talking a bit and looking at the nearby stones. As my family was looking at my father’s gravestone, they realized that, on the back of it, there is my inscription.

OK. You know what… Maybe I am a bit morbid. I actually have my gravestone inscribed already. Yeah, that might be a bit morbid.

Actually, no. It’s just practical.  I had the inscription put on it not long after I went through cancer about twelve years ago.

As we were looking at it, I was reminded of an inscription found on several gravestones in the cemetery at my seminary, Nashotah House. In the cemetery there, many of the stones carried a very brief, but beautiful epitaph:

Jesu, Mercy.

And I’ve always wanted that inscription on my stone as well.  Because I love that phrase.

Jesu, Mercy.

I love it because I really love that word, Mercy. It’s an incredible word.

Mercy.

And it’s one that I think sums up so many of the prayers we pray. Certainly, the prayers I pray. In those moments in which I am overwhelmed or exhausted or simply don’t know what to pray, I often find myself just praying, Jesus, have mercy on me.

Today, in our Gospel reading, we find that word, Mercy, in a very prominent place. In fact the prayer the leper prays to Jesus is the pray any of, in our deepest moment of moments, finds ourselves praying.

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on me!”

And he does.  We see, in our Gospel reading today, mercy in action.  And it is wonderful.  These lepers are healed.

But, before we lose track of this story, let’s take a little deeper look.  Now, first of all, we need to be clear about who lepers were in that day. Lepers were unclean according to Jewish Law. But they were worse than that. They were contagiously unclean. And their disease was considered a very severe punishment for something. So, to even engage these lepers was a huge deal.

But, the real interesting aspect of this story is what you might not have noticed. The lepers themselves are interesting. There are, of course, ten of them. Nine lepers who were, it seems, children of Israel. And one Samaritan leper.

Now a Samaritan, for good Jews like Jesus, would have been a double curse. But the nine other lepers, knowing who they are and what they are, do the “right” thing. Again and again, throughout the story they do the right thing. They first of all stand far off from Jesus and the others. That’s what contagious people do. And when they are healed, the nine also do the right thing. They heed Jesus’ words and, like good Jews, they head off to the priest to be declared clean. The only “wrong” thing they do is that, before heading off to the priest, they don’t first thank Jesus.

Only the Samaritan stays.  And the reason he stays is because, as Samaritan, he wouldn’t need to approach the Jewish priest. So, he turns back.  And he engages the One who healed him.  He bows down before Jesus and worships him. Jesus is irritated by the fact the others did not come back.

But, if notice, his mercy remained. They—along with the Samaritan—remain healed.

That is how mercy works. The interesting thing for us is, we are not always so good at mercy. We are good as being vindictive, especially to those who have wronged us. We are very good as seeking to make others lives as miserable as our lives are at times. But we are not so good at mercy, especially mercy to those who have turned away from us and walked away after we have showed mercy to them.

Luckily, none of us are Jesus. Luckily, none of us are God incarnate. Luckily, none of us will be the ultimate Judge of such things. Because the One who is Judge all of things, is a master at mercy.

Still, we, as followers of that One, are challenged. If the One we follows shows mercy, we know it is our job to do it as well. No matter what. No matter if those we show mercy to ignore us and walk away from us. No matter if they show no gratitude to us for that mercy.

Our job is not to concern ourselves with such things. Our job, as followers of Jesus, are simply to show mercy again and again and again. And to seek mercy again and again and again.

Jesus, Master have mercy on me.

Jesu, mercy.

This is or deepest prayer. This is the prayer of our heart. This is prayer we pray when     our voices and minds no longer function perfectly. This is the prayer that keeps on praying with every heartbeat within us.  And by praying this prayer, by living this prayer, by reflecting this prayer to others, we will know. We will know—beyond a shadow of doubt—that we too can get up and go our way. We too can know that, yes, our faith has made us well.

20 Pentecost

October 6, 2013

Luke 17.5-10

+ It happens rarely. Very rarely. Occasionally, in our collective Christian lives, there comes along a person. They change things. They rile things up. They challenge. They step outside the box, a bit.

I know what you’re thinking. That is soooo Father Jamie. Thank you. But no…I’m not talking about myself.

No, I am actually talking about someone who is taking the Christian world—at least here in the United States—by storm. I am talking about Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. She is a Lutheran pastor you have heard me talk about a few times before. I first heard her speak in 2010 in Des Moines, at a Provincial meeting, and was very taken with her style—she wore a band collar on her sleeveless black clerical shirt which showed off the tattoos on her arms.  (You all may remember me talking about how much I secretly wish to have a tattoo, if I wasn’t such a  wimp—so that kind of appealed to me)

I am not alone in my appreciation of her, obviously. Our own Senior Warden, John Baird, a few weeks ago, visited her church plant in Denver, called The House of All Sinners and Saints.  And when Pastor Nadia spoke at the Chester Fritz in Grand Forks this past Thursday, our own Sandy Kenz made the pilgrimage to cheer her on.

Pastor Nadia’s book, Pastrix, is definitely taking the Church by storm. Everybody’s talking about this book. I read it while I was on vacation and liked it very much. It’s full of fresh insight, new ways of thinking about God and the Church, solid theology—and a fair share of cussing (everything I like).  I will probably be quoting from this book again and again, but one thing she addressed in her book was this interesting anecdote.  

One time, while in Clinical pastoral Education, Pastor Nadia visited an elderly woman recovering from shoulder surgery is she would like he to pay for her.

“Oh that’s nonsense, dear. I’m an atheist.”

What I loved, was Pastor Nadia’s response: “Man, good for you. I wish I could pull that off.”

Which is very similar to the response I have when someone tells me they’re an atheist.

I love atheists, as many of you know. And I don’t mean, by saying that, that I love them because of some intent to convert them. No. My love for atheists has simply to do with the fact that “get” them. I understand them. I appreciate them—even if I don’t necessarily believe what they say. And I have lots of atheists in my life!

Agnostics and atheists have always intrigued me. In fact, I was an agnostic, verging on atheism, once a long time ago in my life. Now to be clear, agnosticism and atheism are two similar though different aspects of belief or disbelief.

An agnostic—gnostic meaning knowledge, an “a” in front of it negates that word, so no knowledge of God—is simply someone who doesn’t know if God exists or not.

And atheist—a theist is a person who believes in god, an “a” in front of it negates it, so a person who does not believe God—in someone who simply does not or cannot believe.

You have heard me say often that we are all agnostics, to some extent. There are things about our faith we simply—and honestly—don’t know. That’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a good thing. It keeps us on our toes.  I think agnosticism is an honest response.

But atheism is interesting and certainly honest too, in this sense. Whenever I ask an atheist what kind of God they don’t believe in, and they tell me, I, quite honestly, have to agree. When atheists tell me they don’t believe in some white-bearded man seated on a throne in some far-off, cloud filled kingdom like some Monty Python cut-out, I have to say, “I don’t believe in that God either.”

I am an atheist in regard to that God—that idolatrous god made in our own image. If that’s what an atheist is, then count me in.

But the God I do believe in—the God of mystery, the God of wonder and faith and love—now, that God is a God I can serve and worship. And this God of mystery and love that I serve has, I believe, chosen to come to us, here in the muck of our lives, and become one of us in Jesus. Certainly that is not some distant, strange, human-made God. Rather it is a close, loving, God-made-human.

But there are issues with such a belief. Believing in a God of mystery means we now have work cut out for us in cultivating our faith in that God.

“Increase our faith!” the apostles ask Jesus in today’s Gospel. And two thousand years later, we—Jesus’ disciples now—are still asking him to essentially do that for us as well.  It’s an honest prayer.  We want our faith increased. We want to believe more fully than we do. We want to believe in a way that will eliminate doubt, because doubt is so…uncertain. It is a sometimes frightening place to explore. And we are afraid that with little faith and a lot of doubt, doubt will win out. We are crying out to Jesus—like those first apostles—for more than we have.

But Jesus—in that way that Jesus does—turns it all back on us.  He tells us that we shouldn’t be worrying about increasing our faith.  We should rather be concerned about the mustard seed of faith that we have right now.

Think of that for a moment.  Think of what a mustard seed really is.  It’s one of the smallest things we can see. It’s a minuscule thing. It’s the side of a period at the end of a sentence or a dot on a lower-case i.  It’s just that small.

Jesus tells us that with that little bit of faith—that small amount of real faith—we can tell a mulberry tree, “be uprooted and planted in the sea.”  In other words, those of us who are afraid that a whole lot of doubt can overwhelm that little bit of faith have nothing to worry about.  Because even a little bit of faith—even a mustard seed of faith—is more powerful than an ocean of doubt.  A little seed of faith is the most powerful thing in the world, because that tiny amount of faith will drive us and push us and motivate us to do incredible things.  And doing those things, spurred on and nourished by that little bit of faith, does make a difference in the world. Even if we have 99% of doubt and 1% of faith, that 1% wins out over the rest, again and again.

We are going to doubt. We are going to sometimes gaze into that void and have a hard time seeing, for certain—without any doubt—that God truly is there.  And that’s all right to do.

But if we still go on loving, if we still go on serving, if we still go on trying to bring the sacred and holy into our midst and into this world even in the face of that 99% of doubt, that is our mustard seed of faith at work. That is what it means to be a Christian.  That is what loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves does. It furthers the Kingdom of God in our midst, even when we might be doubting that there is even a Kingdom of God.

Now, yes, I understand that it’s weird to hear a priest get up here and say that atheists and agnostics and other doubters can teach us lessons about faith. But they can. I think God does work in that way sometimes. I have no doubt that God can increase our faith my any means necessary, even despite our doubts. I have no doubt that God can work even in the mustard-sized faith found deep within someone who is an atheist.

And if God can do that in the life and example of an atheist, imagine what God can do in our lives—in us, who are committed Christians who stand up every Sunday in church and profess our faiths in the Creed we are about to recite together.

So, let us cultivate that mustard-sized faith inside us. Let’s not fret over how small it is.  Let’s not worry about weighing it on the scale against the doubt in our lives.  Let’s not despair over how small it is.  Let’s fear doubt. Let us not be scared of our natural agnosticism. Rather, let us realize that even that mustard seed of faith within us can do incredible things in our lives and in the lives of those around us.  And in doing those small things, we all are bringing the Kingdom of God into our midst.

18 Pentecost

September 22, 2013

Amos 8.4-7;1 Timothy 2.1-7; Luke 16.1-13

+ As I’ve shared with some of you, I have been studying Zen Buddhism intensely this summer. he writer I’ve been reading and re-reading intensely is the Vietnamese Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh. If you do not know Thich Nhat Hanh (and I will quiz you after Mass on how to spell his name), I would highly recommend him, especially a book he wrote on the comparison between Christianity and Buddhism, Living Buddha, Living Christ. Thay is currently on tour of the United States and I’ve heard it’s quite the impressive.

As I’ve shared many times here over the years, back, many years ago, when I was doing a lot of spiritual searching after leaving the Roman Catholic Church, I found Zen Buddhism. Now before you bristle at the thought of your priest exploring strange Eastern religions my experience with Zen was a very good one. Zen—like all Buddhism—is not so much a religion, as it is a philosophy—it is a way of seeing things. And back in those days following my leaving the Roman Catholic Church, Zen filled a huge void.

Certainly much of what I learned during that time has stayed with me through the years, and through my faith life as a Christian.  Yes, I am very solid Christian. But I have a kernel of Zen deep inside me.  And I am very thankful for that Zen kernel.

One of the things I have always enjoyed exploring is what in Zen—and all Buddhism—is called  karma. Karma is one of those Buddhist words that is thrown around quite a bit. But Karma is more than just some strange esoteric concept.

Karma is fascinating. Essentially the thinking behind Karma is this: that when you do something, there will be a reaction. If you are cruel to someone, someone else will be cruel to you. If you are kind to someone, someone will be kind to you.  It’s all about balance. A cosmic balance. Anything we do results in a reaction.

Now, for those of you who have known me for any period time, you have heard me use a phrase that captures karma to some extent. I often use the term, “The chickens have come home to roost.”  Essentially it means that what goes around, comes around. We reap what we sow. There are consequences to our actions.

For us followers of Jesus, such concepts of karma might not make as much sense. But today, we get a sense, in our scriptures readings, of a kind of, dare I say, Christian karma. Jesus’ comments in today’s Gospel are very difficult for us to wrap our minds around. But probably the words that speak most clearly o us are those words, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful in much.”

Essentially, Jesus is telling us this simple fact: what you do matters. There are consequences to our actions. There are consequences in this world. And there are consequences in our relation to God.

It often surprises me that Christians think they can “get by” with dishonest things. We read in the news about clergy doing bad things. But not just clergy.  We hear about church treasurers doing bad things. We hear about people who claim to be good Christians doing very unchristian-like things. But Jesus message to us is very clear. For us, our faithfulness involves how we deal with others. It’s not just the big stuff, like sexual impropriety and financial misdealing’s. It is also about how we treat each other. How we treat each other as followers of Jesus and how we treat others who might not be followers of Jesus.

We have few options, as followers of Jesus, when it comes to being faithful. We must be faithful. Faithful yes in a little way brings about great faithfulness. So, logic would tell us, any increase of faithfulness will bring about even greater faithfulness.

Now, faithfulness in this sense means being righteous. Or to use a Zen word, Right-minded. Or even another word used in Zen, mindful.

Thich Nhat Hanh, that Vietnamese Zen master, often writes about mindfulness and, in speaking to Christians, says that mindfulness is the equivalent for us of the Holy Spirit in us. This Zen  writer, I have to admit, is one of the best writers I know on the Holy Spirit. And when I read about his belief that the Zen concept of mindfulness is equivalent to the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives, it made great sense to me. So, if we are faithful—if we are right-minded, if we are mindful in a few things, we are faithful in much.

Jesus is saying to us that the consequences are the same if we choose the right path or the wrong path. A little bit of right, will reap much right. But  a little bit of wrong, reaps much wrong.

I think most of us have found these to be true in our own lives. Doing wrong is a slippery slope. One we step foot on it, we find ourselves sliding farther and farther into more wrongness.  And it’s hard to stop.

That wrong path is not the path intended for us as followers of Jesus. Jesus is not walking that path, and if we are his followers, hen we are not following when we step onto that path.  Wrongfulness is not our purpose as followers of Jesus.  We cannot follow Jesus and willfully—mindfully—practice wrongness. We must strive—again and again—in being faithful. Faithful to God. Faithful to one another. Faithful to those who need us. Faithful to those who need someone.

Being faithful, being mindful, being right-minded, takes work. When we see wrong—and we all do see wrong—we see around us all the time—our job in cultivating faithfulness means counteracting wrongfulness. If there are actions and reactions to things, our reaction to wrongfulness should faithfulness.

Now that seems hard. And it is. But it is not impossible.  We can do something in the face of wrongfulness. We can, when we step foot on that slippery slope of wrongfulness, make a concentrated effort to not slip, to turn around and do the faithful action.  We can cultivate faithfulness in the face of wrongfulness.

One of Thich Nhat Hanh’s students wrote a fun book that I read this summer and really enjoyed. The book is called The Dharma of Star Wars by Matthew Bortolin.  Bortolin likes to make the comparison between Jedi master and students of Zen Buddhism. And he does it pretty well. In the appendix of the book, he includes, in a section called “Zen Contemplations for the Would-Be Jedi,” a series of thoughts that sound very much like Jesus own beatitudes. Bartholin writes that  the “Young Pupil” must always remember this:

Where there is anger, offer kindness.

Where there is selfishness,  offer generosity

Where there is despair, offer hope.

Where there are lies, offer truth.

Where there is injury, offer forgiveness.

Where there is sorrow, offer joy.

Where there is hatred, offer love.

Where there is evil, offer goodness.

Those actions are actions each of us as followers of Jesus are also called to cultivate and live into. As Christians, we are called to not only to ignore or avoid wrongfulness. We are called to confront it and to counter it. We are called to offering faithfulness in the face of wrongness.

So, let us do just that in all aspects of our lives.  Let us offer kindness and generosity and hope and truth and forgiveness and  joy and love and goodness, again and again and again whenever we are confronted with all those forces of wrongfulness. Let us offer light in the face of darkness.  Let us strive, again and again, to do good, even in small ways. For in doing so, we will be faithful in much.

“For surely I will not forget any of their deeds,” God says in our reading from Amos today.

What we do matters. It makes a difference in our lives and in the lives of those around us. So let us, as faithful followers of Jesus, strive, always to truly “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”

17 Pentecost

Sept. 15, 2013

Luke 15.1-10

+ As most of you know, we have a Wednesday night Mass here at St. Stephen’s at 6:00 pm. For most of those service, to chagrin of some—I won’t mention any names (*Thom*)—we usually commemorate a particular saint or event.  Especially the saints of the Episcopal Church. Yes, there are saints in the Episcopal Church.

 Well, this summer, we commemorated both people and events that were occurring 50 years ago. 1963 was a very momentous year. Many, many life-altering events happened in the 1963. In June, we commemorated the 50^th anniversary of the death of Pope John XXIII, who was, of course, very much a pioneer in advocating ecumenical relationships between different Christian denominations. A few weeks ago, we commemorated the “I Have a Dream” speech, made by Martin Luther King Jr. on August 27, 1963.

 This past Wednesday we commemorated an event that actually happened fifty years ago today. In 1963, September 15 was also a Sunday. On that Sunday morning, at 10:22 am, 26 Sunday School students were filing down to the basement assembly room of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, to hear a sermon entitled “The Love That Forgives.” In a dressing of the same basement, four girls-- Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all aged 14 and Denise McNair, aged 11, were changing into their choir robes.

 At that moment—10:22 a.m.— a box of dynamite with a time delay planted  under the steps of the church, near the basement, by four Ku Klux Klan members, exploded. Twenty-two people were injured.  And those four girls in the dressing room were killed when the basement wall fell on them.

 Every window in the church was blown out by the blast except one—a stained glass window of Jesus welcoming the little children.

 I think it also especially appropriate that yesterday we commemorated the Feast of the Holy Cross. On that day we commemorate the  actual Cross on which Jesus died.  As many of you know, it was three years ago yesterday that my father died, very suddenly, very expectantly. Many of you have walked with me and my mother through these three very difficult years.  And I am very thankful for the support and the care during that time.

 Events like these—like the events of 50 years, like the event for me three years ago—  drive home for me the fact that the cross is ultimately a symbol of victory. Yes,  for it to be a symbol of victory, there has to be, sadly, some sense of defeat. There has to be some sense that something was lost. And that in the face of defeat, in the face of loss, in the face of ruin, in the face even of death, a victory can still be won.

 

For us, as followers of Jesus, we are people of the cross. There’s no way around that fact. We are people of the Cross.  We are people who were not promised sweet, burden-free lives. Nowhere in scripture, in our liturgies, in our prayer book, are we promised a life without pain, without trouble, without sorrow. Nowhere are we told we do not have to take up our crosses.  But what we are promised consistently, as followers of Jesus, is ultimate victory. What we are promised again and again is that suffering and pain and death and tears will all one day end.

 But life—life in Christ—will never end.  And that even in the face of what seems like defeat and loss, there is ultimately  victory.

 For those people affected by that bombing fifty years ago this morning, there seemed no victory. Four little girls lost to hatred and fear seemed like ultimate defeat. But fifty years ago, those lives were not lost in vain. Fifty years later, we are here, remembering those girls and we can realize now that those deaths changed things. People who never really thought about what was happening in this country, in the South, starting thinking about those issues. And people started working to change things. The following July—on July 2, 1964—President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ensuring equal rights of African Americans.

 For those who followed Jesus, who betrayed him and saw him killed on that cross, they no doubt saw that death has the ultimate defeat. But here we are, followers of Jesus, today, this morning, giving thanks for the life he has given to all of us on the other side of that cross.

 In our Gospel reading for this morning, we find the Pharisees and the scribes thinking Jesus and his followers were foolish. Drinking and eating with sinners seemed like folly. It seemed demeaning and uncouth. But, by doing so, Jesus showed that sin was not a reason to despair, to beat ourselves up. Even what seems like defeat—a sinner lost to sin—can be a victory when sin is defeated, when wrongs are made right  and relationships are restored.

 Our lives as followers of Jesus are a series of losses and victories. We stumble, we fall, we get up and we go forward. That is what our Christian journey is.  Our lives as Christians are filled with moments when it seems that the darkest night will never give way to the dawn.

 But Jesus shows us that this dawn is the reality. That there can be no ultimate defeats in him. Not even death—probably the thing we all fear the most—not even death has ultimate victory over us. I can tell you that on this morning, when I am still feeling emotionally raw now still three years after my father’s death, this belief, this reality that Jesus promises us of an end to death, is my ultimate joy. It upholds me and keeps me going. And it should for all of us as well.

 Bad things happen.  Horrible, terrible things happen. But they are not defeat. They are not the end. They are not the period to the sentence of our lives.

 As followers of Jesus, we are told, again and again, rejoice.  Rejoice in the face of defeat. To rejoice in the face of defeat is defiant act. It is an act of rebellion against those dark forces. It is an act of rebellion against the power of failure, of loss, of pain.

 So, let us do just that. Let us rejoice.  Let us stand up against those moments in which we have been driven to ground and are left weak and beaten. Let us stand up from them, defiant, confident in the One we follow. Let us stand, when our legs are weak from pain and loss, when are hearts are heavy within us and our eyes are filled with tears.  Let us stand up when the forces of evil and hatred and death seemed to have won out. And when we do, when we rise from those ashes, when we rise above that darkness and stand in that brilliant light, it is then—in that glorious moment—when we will truly and fully live.

 

 

 

16 Pentecost/Dedication Sunday

September 8, 2013

1 Kings 8:22-23,27b-30; Revelation 21:2-7

+ This past week, while reading an amazing biography of the American poet Denise Levertov, I came across this wonderful quote, from another poet, St. John the Cross:

“In the evening of our lives, we will be judged on love alone.”

When I posted that quote on Facebook yesterday, Pastor Paula Mehmel, who has worshipped here many times, commented,

“we will be judged BY love alone.”

I love that!

That quote has been haunting me since I read it. And it certainly has been striking me to my core in these days leading up to our Dedication Sunday celebration.  If this congregation could have a motto for itself, it would be this.

“In the evening of our lives, we will be judged on love alone.”

Because this, throughout all of our 57 year history, is what we are known for at St. Stephen’s.  Love. We are known for the fact that we know, by our words, by our actions, by our faith in God and one another, that it is love that makes the difference. And by love we will, ultimately, be judged.

That’s what the Church—that larger Church—capital “C” Church— should be. But sometimes we forget what the Church should be.  This morning, there are many people here who have been wounded by that Church—the larger Church. I stand before you, having been hurt be the larger Church on more than one occasion. And for those of us who are here, with our wounds still bleeding, it is not an easy thing.

It is not any easy thing to be a part of that Church again. It is not an easy thing to be call one’s self a Christian again. And, speaking for myself, it’s not easy to be a priest—a uniform-wearing representative of that human-run organization that so often forgets about love being its main purpose.

But, we, here at St. Stephen’s, are obviously doing something right, to make better the wrongs that may have been done on a larger scale.  We, at St. Stephen’s, have done a good job I think over these last 57 years of striving to be a positive example of the wider Church and of service to Christ. We have truly become a place of love, of radical acceptance. As God intends the Church to be.

In these last 57 years, this congregation has done some amazing things. It has been first and foremost in the diocese to accepte of women in leadership, when women weren’t in leadership. It was first and foremost in the acceptance of GLBT people, when few churches would acknowledge them, but less than welcome them.

Certainly in the last few years,  certainly St. Stephen’s has done something not many Episcopal Churches are doing. It has grown.  By leaps, and by bounds.

On October 1, I will be commemorating five years as your priest here at St. Stephen’s. I can tell you, they have been the most incredible five years of my life.  Personally, they have been, of course, some very, very hard years. As a priest, they have been years in which I have seen God at work in ways I never have before.  When I first came here, a good Sunday attendance was maybe 25 people. My first Sunday here, there 23 people in this nave. We were averaging about 22 every Sunday. Summers were even more bare bones.  Now, we average about 42 every Sunday (that was throughout this summer—some days were better than others, of course) And that does not include our Wednesday night Mass, in which we average about 8-10 every week.

 In 2008, there were 55 members of this congregation in good standing.  This morning, we will be receiving 11 new members into our family. Earlier this year, in May, we received another 10 new members. And with these new members today, we will have officially surpassed the 150 member mark. (I’m not certain who the 150^th member will be this morning.)

 Now I am wary to throw numbers like this around haphazardly.  The Church, as we all know, is much more than just numbers.  However, on occasion, numbers such as this can help us to recognize not only where we have been, but where we are and where we are going.  And, most importantly of all, numbers like this can help us to give the credit where the credit is truly due:  the Holy Spirit. Here. Among us. Growth of this kind can truly be a cause for us to celebrate that Spirit’s Presence among us.  It can help us to realize that this is truly the place in which God’s dwells.

 In our reading from First Kings today, we hear Solomon echoing God’s words, “My name shall be there.”

And in our reading from Revelation, we find the Apostle John  saying:

"See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;

As we look around, we too realize that this is truly the home of O God.  We too are able to exclaim, God’s name dwells here! And by “the home of God”  I don’t mean just this building. After all—God is truly here, with us, in all that we do together.  The name of God is proclaimed in the ministries we do here. In the outreach we do.

In the witness we make in the community of Farg0-Moorhead and in the wider Church. God is here, with us.  God is working through us and in us. Sometimes, when we are in the midst of it all, when we are doing the work, we sometimes miss that perspective.  We miss that sense of holiness and renewal and life that comes bubbling up from a healthy and vital congregation working together. We miss the fact that God truly is here.

So, it is good to stop and listen for a moment. It is good to reorient ourselves.  It is good to refocus and see what ways we can move forward together. It is good to look around and see how God is working through us.

In a few moments, we will recognize and give thanks for now only our new members but for all our members and the many ministries of this church.  Many of the ministries that happen here at St. Stephen’s go on clandestinely.  They go on behind the scenes, in ways most of us (with exception of God) don’t even see and recognize. But that is how God works as well.  God works oftentimes clandestinely, through us and around us.

This morning, however, we are seeing very clearly the ways in which God works not so clandestinely. We see it in the growth of St. Stephen’s.  We see it in the vitality here. We see it in the love here.  But behind all these incredible things happening now, God has also worked slowly and deliberately and seemingly clandestinely throughout the years. And for all of this—the past, the present and the future—we are truly thankful.

God truly is in this place.  This is truly the house of God.  This is the place in which love is proclaimed and acted out.

So, let us rejoice. Let us rejoice in where we have been. Let us rejoice in where we are. Let us rejoice in where we are going. And, in our rejoicing, let us truly be God’s own people. Let us be God’s people in order that we might proclaim, in love, the mighty and merciful acts of Christ, the living and unmovable stone, on whom we find our security and our foundation.   

15 Pentecost

Luke 14:1, 7-14

+ This past week I preached at a funeral at GethsemaneCathedral in Fargo. The funeral was for a dear friend of mine, Janet Jordheim, the mother of Deacon Mary Gokey, who occasionally attends St. Stephen’s. After the service, I was talking with the new Dean of Gethsemane Cathedral, Father John Witnah, who celebrated the Eucharist for Janet.

 As we talked, he asked me, as clergy are apt to do on occasion, “So, are you preaching on the reading from Hebrews this Sunday?” (You can tell how compelling priest-talk is.)

 I said, “No, as much as I love that reading, I’m actually preaching on the Gospel. I am going to preach about humility.”

 He paused—now remember, he just met me—and gave me kind of strange look that seemed to say, “You are going to preach about humility?”

 Maybe I was reading too much into his reaction.  (The Dean is really a very nice guy).

But, yes, today, we get to hear this morning about humility.  We’re all excited about this. And we’re all excited to be hearing about it from me, of all people.  For those us who were listening closely to this morning’s Gospel—and I hope you were—we might find ourselves struggling a bit with Jesus’ words.  I know I certainly do.  And if we aren’t struggling—if those words don’t make us uncomfortable—then maybe we should be.  They are uncomfortable words, after all.

Jesus is making clear to us that, if we neglect the least among us, if we consistently put ourselves first—if we let our egos win out—we are truly putting ourselves in jeopardy. What we do here on earth—in this life—does make a difference.  It makes a difference here, and it makes a difference in the next world. It makes a difference with those we neglect. And it makes a difference with God. And we should take heed.  We shouldn’t neglect those who are least among us.

But probably the most difficult aspect of our Gospel today is when Jesus summarized everything in that all-too-familiar maxim:

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Jesus is not pulling any punches here. He is as clear as day. Humble yourselves. If you do so, you will be exalted. If you are arrogant and full of yourself, you will be humbled. I know this might come as a completely surprise to those of you who know me, there have been times when I have been a bit arrogant.  There have been times when I have been a bit full of myself.  And I can tell you that each time I have, I have been very quickly put in my place.  I have been humbled in those instances.  As I rightly should have been. Humility and pride are too often huge issues for all of us Christians, whether we are laypeople or clergy.  For those of us who have spent a good part of lives in church, we have known too many arrogant, self-centered, conceited Christians in our lives.  They sometimes are on the Vestry, in the pews, in the kitchen, or in the pulpit.

Pride is an ugly thing.  It doesn’t do anyone any good, especially the prideful one.  But to be fair, it’s easy enough to do.  It’s easy enough to fall in that ugly trap of pride.  I’ve done it. We all have.  When we encounter those prideful Christians, we need to be careful how we deal with them.  Because we need to remind ourselves: “there but for the grace of God, go we.”

Pride is an easy trap to fall into as Christians.  We know we are loved by God.  We know we, as followers of Jesus, through our Baptisms, have a special place in relation to God.  It’s easy sometimes to feel smug and self-assured.  And when we are fully immersed in Church work, it’s easy for us to think that the success or failure of the ministry of the Church depends on us as individuals.

Earlier this summer I preached about lone wolf ministry. Lone wolf ministry doesn’t work. And Jesus certainly never intended his followers to be lone wolves. Discipleship means community.  Still, we do it. I do it more often than I care to admit.  We’ve all heard it, “If I didn’t do it, who would?”

“If I didn’t do it, it’s just not going to get done.”

And sometimes, this might be true.  But, it is a dangerous road to take when we start thinking everything revolves around us. And for clergy, they are in an even more vulnerable place.

 As often as I fall into the pride trap in my life, I am lucky because I have a very clearly defined circle of family and friends who put me in my place very quickly whenever I find my head getting a little too big for its own good.  As clergy, we occasionally find ourselves being praised and treated with a sometimes undeserved respect.  And although I have found my vocation to the priesthood to be a very humbling experience, there are times when we might find ourselves feeling very smug over a job well done. That’s true with all of us, as Christians.  It’s easy to fall into that ugly trap of believing everything is about us as individual. It’s easy to convince ourselves that the world revolves around us and only us.  Life, after all, is a matter of perspective.  And from our perspective, everything else does in fact revolve around us.

But our job as followers and disciples of Jesus is to change that perspective.  Our job as Christians is to, always and everywhere, put Christ first.  It is not all about us.  We are just a breath.  We are just a blink of the eye in the larger scheme of everything.  We are born, we live, we die.  And then we are gone.  And, without Christ, that is all we would be.  There would be no hope, there would be no future, there would be no us, without Christ. Christ gives us our definition.  Christ gives us our identity.  Christ gives us our purpose.  This is what it means to be a Christian.

And this is what Jesus is getting at today, when he talks about the humbled being exalted.  Who knows better than Jesus about humility?  He, who humbled himself by becoming one of us, who humbled himself to the point of actually being betrayed, humiliated and murdered, knew a few things about humility.

 

When dealing with my own pride, I have found a very helpful exercise based on a saying by one of my patron saints, the priest and poet, Blessed George Herbert.  Yes, I know. There goes Father Jamie quoting George Herbert again!  But, I’ve been reading an incredible book about George Herbert lately that I highly recommend: The Music at Midnight.  I love George Herbert he knew humility. You’ve heard me use this image many, many times—and I will use again many, many times, no doubt—but George Herbert would pray, each time he preached, that he would be the window pane through which the Light of God would shine.  Or, as he himself put in the opening stanza to his poem “The Windows”

Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?

He is a brittle crazie glasse:

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford

This glorious and transcendent place,

To be a window, through thy grace.

I love that image. And we can do so much with it.  The idea of being a window through which the light of God shines is wonderful for us. Because we realize that no matter how dirty the pane is, no matter how cracked or warped the glass might be, God’s light can always shine through us.  We don’t have to be the clear, clean window panes.  We only need to be enough of a “brittle crazie glass” that God’s light will get through in some way. And by letting Christ’s light shine through us, we are truly putting Christ first.

So, when we find ourselves falling into the pride trap, we need to stop and remind ourselves to put Christ first.  When we find ourselves seeing the world as revolving around the all-mighty ME, we do need to stop and remind ourselves that Christ is at the center of our lives and, as such, our world revolves around Christ.  After all, as he hear in that beautiful reading from Hebrews, God says to us, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

As long as God is with us—as God’s light is shining through us—we can simply be who we are without trying to be something we are not.

When we find ourselves shining with the glow of self-pride and self-contentment, let us remember that the light shining through us is not my light or your light, but the light of Christ and that any reflection others have of our works is accomplished only through that light.

When we find ourselves becoming prideful, let us stop and listen to the voice of Christ as he says to you, “those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Christ wants you to be exalted. Christ wants to exalt you.  But this can only happen when you come before Christ as his humble servant, as his humble disciple, as his humble friend, serving Christ in those poor and needy people around us. This can only happen when we place Christ at the forefront of our lives

So, let us put Christ first. Let us humble ourselves before Christ.  And let the light of Christ shine through us—brittle, crazie glass that we are—in all that we do. Amen.