20 Pentecost

October 2, 2016

Luke 17.5-10

+ Yesterday I commemorated a fun anniversary. On October 1, 2008, I began my duties as the Priest here at St. Stephen’s. I posted this little comment on Facebook yesterday (for those of you who might not have seen it):

On October 1st, 2008, I began my duties as the Priest of St. Stephen’s. It is an understatement to say that it has been an amazing 8 years for me. I am so humbled and amazed to have been called to such a spiritual powerhouse of a congregation that has blossomed and flourished right before my eyes!

Those words are definitely true. We really are a spiritual powerhouse. An eclectic spiritual powerhouse.  

And, as I was thinking about it, I realized that when we say we are truly welcoming, we really are a welcoming congregation.  We welcome everyone, even people who might not believe the same things about certain issues.  People who have different political views. People who have different spiritual views.

There truly is a wide spectrum of belief here at St. Stephen’s. We encompass many people and beliefs here. And I love that!  And, as I’ve said, even people who don’t believe, or don’t know what they believe, are always welcome here.  And included. That includes even atheists.  

I love atheists, as many of you know.  And I don’t mean in that some condescending way, 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 I “get” them.  I understand them.  I appreciate them.  And I have lots of atheists in my life!

Agnostics and atheists have always intrigued me.  In fact, as many of you know, 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 very good thing. Our agnosticism 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, some magic man living in the sky, then, 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.  Certainly that is not some distant, strange, human-made God.  Rather it is a close, loving, God, a God who is with us.

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 of mystery.

“Increase our faith!” the apostles petition 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.

Doubt 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—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 (10 point font).  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% doubt and 1% 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.  We all doubt. 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 loving God even a little and loving our neighbor as ourselves even a little 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.  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 miniscule it is.  Let’s not 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.

The memorial service of Mercille Moen

The Memorial Service for

Mercille Moen

(June 24, 1915– Sept. 26, 2016)

Hanson Runsvold Funeral Home,  Fargo, ND

 October 1, 2016

I am very honored to speak this afternoon as we commemorate the long and wonderful life of my great aunt Mercille Moen and as we commend this wonderful woman to her loving God. I thank Pastor Bill for asking me to share a few words.

I am going to be honest this afternoon. It is hard to even begin to imagine life without Mercille. She was always there. Even when she celebrated first 100^th birthday and then her 101^st birthday, even when we knew that her passing was inevitable, I have to say, it has been difficult. It’s been difficult to adjust to a world without Mercille.   After all she was a part of this world for longer than any of us can even imagine.  And it will take some time for us to get used to life without her.

She was a remarkable woman—and I don’t say that lightly. She was a woman of great strength and of contagious warmth.  There was no doubt about that.  Whenever I would come and visit her (which I always enjoyed doing)  she would look at me with that brilliant spark in her eyes and would welcome me as though she had known me all her life.  I liked that.

It is in a moment like this that I am very, very thankful that God brought Mercille into our family. I am thankful she was my aunt. I am thankful for the witness of her long life. And I am thankful, simply, for her.  We will all miss her and will feel her loss for a long time to come. But, on this day in which we bid her this temporary goodbye, let us also be thankful.

Let us be thankful for this woman whom God has been gracious to let us know and to love.  Let us be thankful for her example to us. And let us be grateful for all she has given us in our own lives.

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Aunt Mercille. At your coming may the martyrs receive you. And may they bring you into that holy city Jerusalem.  Amen.

19 Pentecost

September 25, 2016

Luke 16.19-31

+ I know this might reveal my bizarre side. (We all have a bizarre side, after all) But…I love the parable we heard today. I think I might be one of the very few people who do actually love it. For some, it’s just so weird and…well, bizarre. And it is. But…there’s just so much good stuff, right under the surface of it.

In it, we find Lazarus.  Now, if you notice,  it’s the only time in Jesus’ parables that we find someone given a name—and the name, nonetheless, of one of Jesus’ dearest friends. In most of Jesus’ parables, the main character is simply referred to as the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son.

But here we have Lazarus.  And the name actually carries some meaning.  It means “God has helped me.”

Now the “rich man” in this story is not given a name by Jesus, but tradition has given him the name Dives, or “Rich Man”

Between these two characters we see such a juxtaposition.  We have the worldly man who loves his possessions and is defined by what we owns.  And we have Lazarus, who seems to get sicker and is hungry all the time.  In fact, his name almost seems like a cruel joke.  It doesn’t seem like God has helped Lazarus at all.  The Rich Man sees Lazarus, is aware of Lazarus, but despite his wealth, despite all he has, despite, even his apparent happiness in his life, we can not even deign to give to poor Lazarus a scrap of food from all that he has.

Traditionally of course, we have seen them as a very fat Rich Man, in fine clothing and a haughty look and a skinny, wasted Lazarus, covered in sores, which I think must be fairly accurate to what Jesus hoped to convey. They are opposite, mirror images of each other.

But there are some subtle undercurrents to this story.  Lazarus is not without friends or mercy in his life.  In fact, is seems that maybe God is helping him.  He is not quite the destitute person we think he is.

First of all, we find him laid out by the Rich Man’s gate.  Someone must’ve put him there, in hopes that Rich Man would help him. Someone cared for Lazarus, and that’s important to remember.

Second of all, we find these dogs who came to lick his sores.  The presence of dogs is an interesting one. Are they just wild dogs that roam the streets, or are they the Rich Man’s watch dogs?  New Testament theologian Kenneth Bailey has mentioned that dog saliva was believed by people at this time to have curative powers.  So, even the dogs are not necessarily a curse upon Lazarus but a possible blessing in disguise.

Finally, when Lazarus dies, God receives him into paradise. In fact, as we hear, “angels carried him to be with Abraham.”

The Rich Man dies and goes to Hades—or the underworld.  Lazarus goes up, Dives goes down.

While in paradise, while the Rich Man, in the throes of his torment, cries out to him, Lazarus, if you notice, doesn’t ignore him or turn his back on him, despite the fact that the Rich Man did just that to Lazarus.  Lazarus does not even scold him.  It almost seems that Lazarus might almost be willing to go back and tell the Rich Man’s friends if only the gulf between them was not so wide.

There really is a beauty to this story and a lesson for us that is more than just the bad man gets punished the good man gets rewarded.  But even more so, what we find is that, by the world’s standards, by the standards of those who are defined by the material aspects of this life, Lazarus was the loser before he died and the Rich Man was the winner, even despite his callousness.

And the same could be said of us as well.  It might seem, at moments, as though we are being punished by the things that happen to us.  It is too easy to pound our chests and throw dirt and ashes in the air and to cry out in despair and curse God when bad things happen. It is much harder to recognize that while we are there, at the gate outside the Rich Man’s house, lying in the dirt, covered in sores, that there are people who care, that there are gentle, soothing signs of affection, even from dogs.  And it is hard sometimes to see that God too cares.

And for us, at St. Stephen’s, we’ve been through our share of hard times in our past, but even then, we have found glimmers of hope and joy in the midst of the darkness.  We find those glimmers in the joy we celebrate here at this altar.  We find joy in the marriages and baptism we celebrate. We find joy in welcoming new members into our midst, and the sounds of children in our building.  We find joy in each other, as we gather here.  See, we do find glimmers of light in the darkness.

To return for a moment to the beginning of our sermon and my bizarreness. Recently a person I only very slightly knew commented to me:

“I know this might sound strange, but I was visiting a cemetery north of Fargo and what did I behold? But a gravestone with your name on it.”

Yes, as many of you know, I do have my gravestone made up. It’s actually the backside of my parents’ gravestone at Maple Sheyenne Lutheran Cemetery near Harwood. And it even has a Celtic cross on it. I’m kind of proud of the fact that among all those Swedish Lutherans, there is a Celtic cross on my stone.

But what this particular person took note of was the epitaph I chose for myself.  It’s actually the final line of a poem I wrote toward the end of my “cancer experience” which felt to me very much like a Lazarus experience. The poem was written as my father and I were driving to Minot on a particularly cold night in October shortly after the first snow fall of the year.

We were driving up there for my final interview with the Commission on Ministry before I was ordained to the Diaconate.  As we neared the city and came up over a hill, I could see the city laid out below us.  Above us, the sky had cleared after a particularly gray and gloomy day.  When the clouds had cleared, we could see the stars, which, on that cold night, looked especially crisp and clear.  And in that moment, after all that I had went through with my cancer, I suddenly knew for the first time, that, somehow, everything was going to be fine.

At the end of that poem, I wrote what would become the epitaph on my stone: I wrote in that poem, “Dusk” (I’m not going to inflict the whole poem on you, but it’s in my book, Just Once, which I’m giving away for free):

“…I look up into the sky

and see it—a transformation

so subtle I almost didn’t notice it

as I sit there trembling

behind the tinted windshield.

I say to myself

‘Look! Just look!

Look how the dusk—

full of clouds and gloom—

has dissolved into

multitudes of stars!’”

To some extent, that’s what it’s like to be a Christian. To some extent, that’s what its like: when we think the darkness and the gloom has encroached and has won out, we can look up and see those bright sparks of light and know, somehow, that it’s all going to be all right.

Paradise awaits us.  It is there, just beyond those stars.  That place to which Lazarus was taken by angels awaits us and, for those of us striving and struggling through this life, we can truly cling to that hope. For those of us still struggling, we can set our eyes on the prize, so to speak and move forward.  We can work toward that place, rather than “diving” like Dives himself, into the pit of destruction he essentially created for himself.

In a real sense, the Rich Man was weighed down by his wealth, especially when he refused to share it, and he ended up wallowing in the mire of his own close-mindedness and self-centeredness.  

But for those of us who, in the midst of our struggles, can still find those glimmers of light in the midst of the gloom, we are not weighed down. We are freed in ways we never knew we could be.  We are lifted up and given true freedom.

We are Lazarus.

God truly has helped us.  And we see it most when we recognize those multitudes of light shining brightly in the occasional gloom of our lives.

18 Pentecost

September 18, 2016

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

+ I’m going to share a story this morning that I don’t normally share. I’m not in the habit of sharing kind of horrible stories in my sermons. But this is one of those horrible stories.

Several years ago, when I was a board member for the Episcopal newspaper, Episcopal Life, I was in Atlanta for a board meeting. During a break in the meeting, I happened to wander around the very large church at which we were meeting in downtown Atlanta, and I noticed, as I wandered, a large number of brass memorial plates around the church for people who had died in 1962. Now, by this, I mean not just one or two. But memorials to Mr and Mrs So-and-So both of whom died in 1962

Well, you know me. I’m fascinated by a mystery. And when I am, I try to get to the bottom of it. So, I started asking around. And it didn’t take me long to get an answer.

One of the assisting priests at that church said, “Oh, yes. That was the Orly crash.”

The Orly Crash! When I got home I did some research into this so-called Orly crash. And here it is:

In late May 1962, a group of wealthy art-lovers in Atlanta decided to take a tour of Europe, visiting all the great art galleries.  These 106 art-lovers from Atlanta decided to charter a plane. In this case, their chartered plane was an Air France 707. That’s a jet plane. Passenger jet travel in 1962 was VERY new.   

They flew to Paris and began their tour of Europe.  However, in Italy, many of the group ended up becoming ill with a cold and decided to cut the trip short, so they made their way back to Paris.

On June 4, 1962, the plane began to take off from Orly International Airport. It had reached its maximum speed, but because of a mechanical failure, the plane didn’t lift off  The flight crew, with only 3,000 feet of runway left, decided to abort the flight, and using air breaks and reverse thrust attempted to stop the plane. The plane ended up going over the end of the runway and crashed and exploded with its tanks full of fuel for the flight to Atlanta. All 106 people from Atlanta, plus most of the flight crew were killed in the crash. Two stewardesses at the rear of the plane survived.

On a side note, one of Andy Warhol’s most famous early paintings was of the New York 

Daily Mirror cover story, entitled “129 Die in Jet”

Now, that alone is pretty horrible. But there was one more interesting aspect to the story that fascinated me.  The plane crashed during much of the unrest in the Civil Rights movements.  And the priest who told me this story in Atlanta said that it was famous for another reason.  He told the story about how Malcom X, on hearing of the crash, was quoted as saying “Well, the chickens come home to roost.”

I had never heard that phrase before. And, in this context, it was jarring.  Later, I found out, that Malcolm X never said that about the Orly Crash. He actually said about John F. Kennedy’s assassination the next year.

But the phrase stuck with me.  Although it’s terrible in the context of that plane crash, it is a phrase that has much weight. It works on many other levels.

Now, for those of you who have known me for any period time, you have heard me use this phrase many, many times. One of the things so many of us have had to deal with in our lives are people who have not treated us well, who have been horrible to us, who have betrayed us and turned against us.  It’s happened to me, and I know it’s happened to many of you. It is one of the hardest things to have to deal with, especially when it is someone we cared for or loved or respected.

In those instances, let’s face it, sometimes it’s very true.

“The chickens do come home to roost.” 

Or at least, we hope they do. Essentially what this means is that what goes around, comes around. We reap what we sow. There are consequences to our actions. And I believe that to be very true.

And not just for others, who do those things to us. But for us, as well. When we do something bad, when we treat others badly, when gossip about people, or trash people behind their backs, who disrespect people in any way, we think those things don’t hurt them. And maybe that’s true. Maybe it will never hurt them. Maybe it will never get back to them.  But, we realize, it always, always hurts us. And when we throw negative things out there, we often have to deal with the unpleasant consequences of those actions. I know because I’ve been there. I’ve done it.

But there is also a flip side to that. And there is a kind of weird, cosmic justice at work.  Now, 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 to 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 all the time.  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 misdealings.  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 that brings about great faithfulness.  So, logic would tell us, any increase of faithfulness will bring about even greater faithfulness. Faithfulness in this sense means being righteous.  

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. Once we step foot on it, we find ourselves sliding farther and farther into more wrongness.   And it’s hard to stop. Often times, it’s because it feels so good. Doing good is often hard. But doing bad, oh, it’s often soooo easy.

However, as easy as it might be, 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, then 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.  If we do, let me tell you, the chickens come home to roost.  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 takes work.

When we see wrong—and we all do see wrong—we see it 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.

We can remind ourselves that doing wrong does no good for us or for anyone else, ultimately. And what we do, does matter. It matters to us. And it matters to God. We do good.  We must strive to be good.  

Those good 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 offer 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.  God does not forget the good we do in this world. We should rejoice in that fact. God does not forget the good we do.   What we do 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.”

On the 6th Anniversary of my Father's Death

My father always jokingly confessed that he never understood me or the decisions I made in my life. While he was a meat-and-potatoes, crude-oil-under-his-fingernails, devout Lutheran, Nixon-supporter kind of guy, I was a vegetarian, a poet, a fairly High Church Episcopal priest with a love for liturgy and incense, a committed pacifist, an unapologetic liberal. Although he never once said a word against my lifestyle, he was often perplexed by almost every aspect of my life. And still, despite it all, he showed me nothing but unconditional, unwavering love and support. Throughout my life, even despite our differences, I was consistently amazed at how he always seemed to have it all together. Nothing seemed to faze him or upset him. He walked through life with an inner strength and an outward calm and kindness that I both admired and envied. Everyone who knew him said the same thing about him: he was, quite simply, a good man.

I miss him almost every day and often find myself wishing I could ask his advice for some “thing” in my life. His death six years ago today transformed me in ways I still can’t quite fully process. But I sure am grateful he was my father. I just wish I had had a chance to tell him that.

Here is one of the poems about his death. It was included in my collection, That Word, published in 2014 by North Star Press.

COMMENDATION

Take from him

whatever stains

even Communion

and devotion

can’t undo.

And let him

rise up—

if not today

one day soon—

from the ashes

we placed

so carefully into

the dark recess

of the earth

and left there

where the rain’s soaking

and the snow’s run-off

and the heat of high noon

cannot reach him

anymore.

Let him rise up

from here

more beautiful

than he is

in those dreams

from which I myself

rise and stumble

toward a

slightly overcast

dawn.

Dedication Sunday/ St. Stephen's 60th anniversary

September 11, 2016

1 Peter 2.1-5,9-11

+ I am going to do something this morning that is a bit hypocritical of me. I once knew a preacher who loved to preach with a Bible in his hand. He would walk around as he preached, holding that Bible, maybe occasionally raising it up, or waving it at people. But…never once during his sermon did he ever actually  open it. At one event at which this preacher was preaching, a fellow clergy person leaned over and motioned to the unopened Bible this preacher waved at us, and whispered, “Prop! That Bible's a prop!”

Well, I hate to admit this but…I am going to use a prop this morning in my sermon. And I apologize in advance for my hypocrisy in doing so. But, this is a photo of the dedication of St. Stephen’s way back, 60 years ago, on September 9, 1956. This was the day congregation first gathered to break ground. They would go from here to celebrate Holy Communion at the El Zagel Clubhouse earlier in the year, before the building was built. The church building that we are in would be completed by Christmas Eve, 1956.

But, it’s a great photo. After Mass today, I am going to invite you to look closely at

this photo. I want to look in the faces of those people who are gathered there.  And when you do, I would like to see-truly see—the hope. See that hope they had in their eyes on that day. It’s really wonderful.

Now, the names of these people are on the back on the photo and I looked them all up the other day. It seems, from the information I was able to find, everyone in this photo, except for the little boy in front, is no longer with us. They have all passed on to the nearer presence of God. In the case of Bishop Emery, some of them died in particularly unpleasant circumstances (his vehicle was struck by a train in Grand Forks in February 1964).

But in this photo, in this one instance, in this one frozen moment in time, as they stood there in an open field north of Fargo, with the VA Hospital in the background, all that was to come, all that was to be, this moment we are gathered here today right now, is all in their hopeful future.  

In many ways, those people in that photo were kind of like prophets. They trusted in God enough to know that what they were doing that day would gain fruition. God would somehow work through their actions, even if they would never live to see that fruit.

And we, today, 60 years later, are thankful for those people who gathered together to look into the future, and to hope. The future that was laid out before those people in 1956 would be very different than anything they could have imagined.

Now, I’ve done this before, but I’ll do it again. Let’s go back to that first Sunday in September 1956.  Let’s go back to Sunday morning, September 9, 1956.  On this particular Sunday in 1956, it was truly a different America. The number one song in the country that Sunday morning was “Don’t Be Cruel” by Elvis Presley.  In fact, that very night Elvis would appear on the Ed Sullivan Show—“coast to coast with your favorite host.” The number one book in the country that morning was Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. 1956 was an election year—a very different election year than this one, let me tell you.  The current president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would be going up against the Democratic hopeful, Adlai Stevenson, who would lose that November. What I wouldn’t do to have an election like that one!

According to the records, there were 51 people at that service.  By the end of that year, there would be 51 communicants (39 of whom came from Gethsemane Cathedral) and a total of 94 baptized members listed. By 1958, there were 144 baptized members and 45 families and by Jan. 1, 1960, there were a whopping 214 members with 60 families. Over the years, those numbers just kept going up.  Within ten years, in 1968, the membership reached its number of 243 members.

Those are things those people in 1956 no doubt expected and hoped for. But there were things in the future they could never have expected. Now, if you look closely at the photo, you’ll see that almost half of the people were women. Women who, in 1956, were not allowed to hold any official governing position in the Church. But women were instrumental in making sure this congregation was formed.

Within 15 years, life and society would change drastically. And within twenty years, St. Stephen’s would be the first congregation in this diocese to have a woman lay reader, a woman Senior Warden and a woman acolyte.

That lay reader and Senior Warden were the same person, Elthea Thacker, who died on November 29, 2002 (I actually assisted at her Requiem Mass at the Cathedral when I was there—her ashes actually showed up “fashionably late” for that service). That first female acolyte was Susan Frear, who is here with us this morning, along with her mother, Clotine, who also was a very instrumental parishioner in this congregation.   And by 1985, St. Stephen’s would be the first congregation in this diocese to call a woman priest as their rector. And she is here as well this morning, Sandi Holmberg.

Now for us, here and now, in this time, it seems amazing that these were issues at all. For me, as a priest who has only known an Episcopal Church in which women always had equal leadership with men, it still baffles me to think of a time when this was not the case.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever shared this tory with Sandi, but the first time I ever attended any Episcopal church was way back in January 1995.  And it was here in this congregation of St. Stephen’s. And one of the reasons I was so drawn to the Episcopal Church that morning was because Sandi was the priest. A woman was celebrating Holy Eucharist. It was amazing and wonderful to me, as former Roman Catholic.  A woman could be a priest in the Church and no one seemed, at least to me on that cold morning in 1995, to even think otherwise about it.

But as Sandi, and Susan and Elthea would tell you, what they did was a BIG deal. And it wasn’t easy, at times. To be the first to do anything is hard. It involves breaking ground that has never been broken before.

We are grateful this morning for them and for their vision, for their foresight, for prophetic witness and for the fact that each heeded that call from God to move forward and to do what needed to be done. Even if it meant facing the unfairness and the inequality that existed (and, sadly, still exists in some places). It meant exposing themselves to criticism and scrutiny that was, no doubt, extremely difficult.

15 years ago today, on September 11, 2001, among the many brave and amazing people who died that day, one very great man died in the attacks on the Twin Towers. He too was a pioneer and prophet in the Church. Father Mychal Judge, a Roman Catholic Franciscan priest and Fire Department Chaplain, also was a maverick to some extent, as an openly gay (though celibate) priest in the Roman Catholic Church.

The day before the attacks, he preached a sermon in the Bronx.  In that sermon, he said this (and it’s really amazing when you think about it):

“You do what God has called you to do. You show up, you put one foot in front of the other, and you do your job, which is a mystery and surprise. You have no idea…what God is calling you to. But [God] needs you…so keep going.”

This sounds so very much like the quote from St. Catherine of Siena that we find on our newly dedicated window this morning:

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire!”

Those first women who bravely did what they were called to do did just that. And we too are called in just that way.

We, this congregation of St. Stephen’s, we too are prophets. We too are mavericks. We too are looking forward into our future with bright and hopeful eyes, just like those people back in 1956.  We do what God calls us to do, even when it is not popular, even when it is difficult, even when people and the organized Church and society opposes us and snubs us and turns their backs on us and tells us, “You can’t do that.”

We know God has called us.  We know that because God has called us, we have to show up, we have to put one foot in front of another, and we have to do our job as Christians, as lovers of God and followers of Jesus. And it all is a mystery and a surprise. But, on wonderfully good days, it is also a joy.

God needs us.  So we must keep going.

Those who have gone before—those who stood in that open field on that day in 1956 and heeded God’s call, who knew God was planning something wonderful for that space of ground in the middle of that field—they are still with us. They are here today with us as we gather to celebrate God’s mystery, to share this Body and Blood of Jesus. They are here, just on other side of that very thin veil that separates us from them. We are thankful this morning for them and for their vision. And we are thankful for those who are on this side of the veil who also led the way. We are thankful to Susan and Sandi and all those people who listened to God as God called them.

This morning, we are God’s own people who, according to our reading from First Peter this morning, are being called to “proclaim

the mighty acts of [God] who called [us] out of

darkness into [that] marvelous light.”

That was the same call made to Elthea and Susan and Sandi and Bishop Emery and those people who smile back at us from that black and white photo from 1956.  We are each being called to continue to their vision, to continue to do what God calls us to do.

So, let us show up. Let us put one foot in front of the other. Let us do the job God has called each of us to do.  What we are doing is a mystery. And every day is certainly a surprise. But God needs us. So…let’s keep going.  And if we do, if we keep going, if we keep being who God meant us to be, we—all of us—will set the world on fire.