7 Pentecost

July 16, 2023

 

Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23

 

+ Any of you who know me well know I have a deep interest in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

 

Well, one of my favorite traditions tradition in the Russian Orthodox Church is one that has both fascinated and perplexed me.

 

Many years ago I read a wonderful book on the subject, God’s Fools by Bishop Varlaam Novakshonoff

 

That book really struck me on a deep level.

 

The tradition is that of the so-called “Holy Fool.”

 

So, what is a “Holy Fool?”

 

This is a pretty good summary from Wikipedia of what Holy Fools were.

 

Foolishness for Christ refers to behavior such as … deliberate flouting society's conventions to serve a religious purpose–particularly of Christianity. Such individuals were known as both "holy fools" and "blessed fools". The term "fool" connotes what is perceived as feeblemindedness, and "blessed" or "holy" refers to innocence in the eyes of God.

The term fools for Christ derives from the writings of Saint Paul. 

In the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:10, he famously says:

"We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised." (KJV).

Fools for Christ often employ shocking and unconventional behavior to challenge accepted norms, deliver prophecies, or to mask their piety.

 

A Holy Fool is one who acts intentionally foolish in the eyes of [all]. The

term implies behaviour "which is caused neither by mistake nor by feeble-mindedness, but is deliberate, irritating, even provocative."

The "holy fool" is a term for a person who "feigns insanity, pretends to be silly, or who provokes shock or outrage by his deliberate unruliness."  Such conduct qualifies as holy foolery only if the audience believes that the individual is sane, moral, and pious. The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that holy fools voluntarily take up the guise of insanity in order to conceal their perfection from the world, and thus avoid praise.

Some characteristics that were commonly seen in holy fools were going around half-naked, being homeless, speaking in riddles, being believed to be clairvoyant and a prophet, and occasionally being disruptive and challenging to the point of seeming immoral (though always to make a point).

 

 

There is a very good modern Russian film which sort of deals with Holy Fools called The Island, which takes place on an isolated Orthodox monastery in Russia during the 1980s.

 

In other words, the Holy Fool is one who challenges, who disrupts one’s previously held views.

 

It’s a topsy-turvy ministry.

 

It is a ministry that, in a very shocking way, jars one out of their complacency.

 

The Holy Fools challenge again and again everything we thought we knew about our faith.

 

They challenge us on an intellectual and social level.

 

And they challenge all out preconceived notions of what it means to be a Christian.

 

I’ve always loved the tradition of the Holy Fool.

 

Because they remind us that Jesus is not calling any of us to perfection.

 

There are so many Christians who strive for some kind of weird perfection in Christianity.

 

We must do this or do that so that we may be “right.”

 

There are people who feel: I figured this out.

 

I know how the Church runs. Why shouldn’t I have been going to church all of my life, right?

 

I have read all the right books and taken all the right classes and I know all the right people and so I know what it all means.

 

With such thinking comes a kind of moral and intellectual superiority.

 

You have often heard me caution against “intellectual snobbery.”

 

But there is also a kind of “ecclesiastical snobbery” as well.

 

We have all seen done or done it ourselves.

 

We think we know more than others on these subjects because we read all the right books,  or took all the right classes and have attained the right degrees from the right institutions.

 

If any of us come from a more Evangelical background, we may have heard this version of “Biblical snobbery:”

 

“I don’t need to study Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic. All I need is the Bible.”

 

And to some extent, that is very true.

 

You don’t need to study to Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic to study the Bible.

 

But, you do need others who HAVE studied those languages.

 

Without them, you wouldn’t even have a Bible.

 

 

 

The Holy Fools challenge all of that.

 

For them, our job as Christians is not to be perfect Christians or even “successful” Christians.

 

And let me tell you, nowhere does the “intellectual or ecclesiastical snob” fit into Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of GOd!

 

Our job as followers of Jesus is to follow—to follow in our imperfection, as fractured, imperfect human beings. Not the best, but the least.

 

Now, I know that even hearing that creates frustration in many of us.

 

We like the idea of working toward the goal of perfection.

 

And often we maybe even feel we have gained a kind of “success” as a Christian.

 

We’ve got it figured out.

 

And I’ve heard people say it, even.

 

I’ve heard people say to me, “Well, that’s not a very Christian thing to do, Father.”

 

And I’ve done it too.

 

I’ve said that.

 

So, the Holy Fools, in the face of that exalted view, challenge us, and frustrate us.

 

But, the fact is, nowhere in scriptures does God or Jesus expect us to be successful in our faith, nor are we expected to be perfect.

 

Now, today’s Gospel, at first glance you would think would not be a reminder to us of this fact.

 

But…but…it actually is.

 

Deep down inside this Gospel reading, we find exactly what those Holy Fools were getting at in their bizarre and eccentric ministry.

 

If you notice at the beginning of our Gospel reading, as Jesus sits in the boat from which he preaches sort of like from a pulpit, we are told that there is a large crowd coming forward to listen to him.

 

To this large crowd, Jesus then proceeds to preach about seed that fails and seed that flourishes.

 

And for this moment, it seems as though the seed of the Gospel as it comes from Jesus’ mouth is truly falling on the good soil.

 

But…. when we look at it from the wider perspective of the story of Jesus, what we realize is that what he is preaching is, in fact, falling on rocky ground and among thorns.

 

Let’s face it: on the surface, from a completely objective viewpoint, Jesus’ ministry is ultimately a failure (or seems to be anyway).

 

Let’s look very hard at just this instant in Jesus’ ministry.

 

On this particular day, he is surrounded by twelve men—people he himself chose—who just, let’s face it, just don’t get what he’s saying.

 

And they won’t for a very long time.

 

In fact, they won’t get it until after he’s dead—after he’s abandoned by them and murdered on a cross.

 

These men will, eventually, turn away from him and abandon him when he needed them the most.

 

One of them, will betray him in a particularly cruel way: one of them will betray him to people he knows will murder Jesus.

 

By the time Jesus is nailed to the cross, it’s as though everything Jesus said or did up to that point had been for nothing.

 

Not one of the people Jesus helped, not one of the people he gave sight to, helped to walk, healed of illness, came forward to defend him.

 

Not even one person he raised from the dead came forward to help him in his time of need.

 

And certainly, not one person from this large crowd of people that we encounter in today’s Gospel, comes forth to defend him, to vouch for him or even to comfort him as he is tortured and murdered.

 

Everyone left him except his mother and a few of his female friends.

 

And maybe his dear apostle John.

 

As far as his life of ministry was concerned, it seemed very much like a failure.

 

It seems, in that moment, as though the seed he sowed had all been sown on rocky ground and among thorns.

 

It seemed as though the seed he sowed had died.

 

For any of us, frustration would be an understatement for what we would be feeling at that moment.

 

And if this was the end of the story, if it ended there, on that cross, on that Friday afternoon, then it would be truly one of the greatest failures.

 

But this is one of the cunning, remarkable things about God and Christianity as a whole—one of the things that has baffled people for thousands of years.

 

And this is what the Holy Fools embody in their lives and ministries. 

 

In the midst of this failure, in the midst of this frustration, God somehow works.

 

In that place of broken dreams, of shattered ambitions, God somehow uses them and turns them toward good.

 

Somehow, in a moment of abject loneliness, of excruciating physical pain, of an agonizing murder upon a cross, God somehow brings forth hope and joy and life unending.

 

And what seems to be sown on rocky ground and among thorns does, in fact, flourish and produces a crop that we are still reaping this morning.

 

God truly can use our flawed and fractured selves for good and turn our failures and our frustrations into something meaningful.

 

What we can take away from our Gospel reading today is that our job is not always to worry about where or how we are sowing the seed.

 

Our job is to simply do the sowing.

 

And to let God produce the crop.

 

It is not our job to produce the crop.

 

What I have realized in my 20 years of ordained ministry is that I simply need to let God do what God is going to do.

 

Our job, as followers of Jesus, is simply to sow.

 

And God will bring forth the yield.

 

And when God does, then we will find crops flourishing even in rocky soil and amidst thorns.

 

So, all you who have ears, listen.

 

We will all feel moments of frustration in this life, but for those of us who hope in God and who sow the seed of God’s Word in this world, we  simply cannot allow frustration to triumph.

 

Frustration and despair are the thorns and rocky soil of our lives.

 

Rather, let us heed the message of the Holy Fools for Christ.

 

Let us be Holy Fools for Christ.

 

God loves us our weirdness, our eccentricity.

 

God loves us when we are the misfits, the fools.

 

God uses and works through our imperfections.

 

And in our weirdness, in our imperfection, we become the rich soil in which that seed flourishes.

 

When we do that, the crops God brings forth in us and through us will truly be one hundred times more than whatever we sowed.

 

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, in your goodness, you somehow are able to bring abundant fruit even in the midst of thorns; help us to sow the seeds of your Kingdom so that your Word may flourish and you may triumph. We ask this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

 

6 Pentecost

July 9, 2023

 Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30

 + A lot of people seem to think there are secrets to the Priesthood.

 I think people think it’s a secret society, like the Masons or something.

 They think there are secrets prayers and rituals, etc.

 I am occasionally asked what those “secrets” are.

 And I guess I don’t help the situation, because my usual response is: “they’re between God and me.”

 Actually, there aren’t many secrets to a priests’ life.

 But there are things you might not know about.

 For example, what most of you might not know is that all these vestments…well, each one is put on with a prayer.

 Each of these vestments a priest wears has a prayer that goes along with it.

 As the priest puts on each articles of clothing, she or he can say a prayer to remind them that each article of clothing has symbolic meaning.

 If you go into the undercroft, you’ll see on the wall there by the vestments the vesting prayers on the wall.

 And I don’t know if  Deacon Suzanne or Deacon John pray some of these prayers when their vesting as well when they vest in their Deacon’s vestments.

 The prayers are actually good things for someone like me.

 I need such things in my life to help me get centered.

 I like the fact that I am essentially being clothed in prayer when I pray those prayers while vesting.

 And I really do love the symbolism of them.

 The prayers are interesting in and of themselves.

 For example, when I put on the alb, which is the white robe under these vestments, I pray,

 “Make me clean as snow, O Lord, and cleanse my heart; that being made clean in the blood of the Lamb I may deserve an eternal reward.”

 When I put on the stole, the scarf-like vestment I wear around my neck, I pray:

 “Restore unto me, O Lord, the stole of immortality which I lost through the sins of my first parents and, although, unworthy to approach Thy sacred Mystery, may I nevertheless attain to joy eternal.”

 And when I put on this chasuble, this green vestment I wear over it all, I pray a prayer that directly quotes our Gospel reading for today.

 The prayer I pray when I put on the chasuble is,

 “O Lord, who hast said, ‘My yoke is sweet and my burden light,’ grant that I may carry it to merit Thy grace.”

 The chasuble, in this sense, really is symbolic of the yoke.

 Now the word of the day today is a strange one.

 Yoke.

 It’s one we  really don’t want to have to ponder, because, let’s face it, no one wants a yoke.

 When we think of a yoke, we no doubt think of something that weighs heavily upon us.

 We think of something a beast of burden carries on their backs.

 We can’t imagine anything worse for us.

 Why would we want an extra burden in our lives?

 We have enough burdens as it is.

 We are all truly “weary and carrying heavy burdens.”

 And sometimes these heavy burdens truly affect our bodies.

 As some of you know, I have very terrible back issues.

 These came from fractured bones I received in car accidents over the years.

 I can’t stand for long periods.

 Or sit on a hard surface for prolonged periods.

 Every time I go to my chiropractor about these issues, they say things to me like, “Father, you’ve been carrying some heavy burdens on your back, haven’t you?”

 Well, we all do, don’t we?

 We are all carrying around things we probably should have allowed ourselves to get rid of some time ago.

 So, the last thing we want at this time in our lives is to take on another burden.

 And not just a burden.

 But a burden that is put on us to essentially control us.

 I think, most of us, even us Christians, still bristle when we describe our faith and many of those standards that go along with our faith as a yoke.

 A yoke on our backs confines us.

 It does not allow us freedom.

 And we, as humans, and especially as Americans, love our freedom.

 (Remember what holiday we just observed last Tuesday?)

 We love “elbow room.”

 We don’t like anyone telling us what to do and forcing us to go places we don’t want to go.

 But the fact is, when we take our yoke from Jesus, we find all our notions of personal freedom and independence gone from us.

 No longer do we have our own personal freedom

 No longer do we have our own personal independence.

 What we have is independence as a follower of Jesus.

 What we have is freedom as a follower of Jesus.

 Our lives are not our own.

 Our job as followers of Jesus is to go to the places Jesus leads us to  and do the things a follower of Jesus is expected to do.

 It is to live in certain ways that show we are not like everyone else in the world.  

 It is our duty to be a “beast of burden” as followers of Jesus.

 Now I say all of this to you as though I am fine with all of this.

 I say this to you as though I have completely surrendered myself as his beast of burden.

 But, I’ll be brutally honest with you.

 I find much of this very difficult to bear as well.

 I have always been one of those independently-minded people myself. I know that’s not a surprise to any of you.  

 I have never liked being told what to do or what to say by anyone.

 I have always preferred doing things on my own.

 And for years I struggled with this scripture in my own life.

 I did not want to surrender my personal independence and my personal sense of freedom.

 Which is why that prayer I pray when I put on my chasuble is not always a prayer I want to pray.

 Certainly, in many ways this prayer defines for me what ministry is all about.

 When I put on this garment, symbolic of my ministry as a priest, I am reminded of the yoke, of the burden, I carry every day.

 In a sense, as a priest, my life is not my own.

 I’m not complaining about that.

 I knew the rules of the game when I entered the priesthood.

 But the reality is that my life is fully and completely God’s.

 As a priest, I don’t always get to do what I want, or go where I always want to go.

 There are standards.

 There are boundaries.

 It’s not a free-for-all. 

 And for those clergy who think it is—well, they’re the ones, we all know, who get in trouble.

 I strive to do what God wants and I strive to go where God leads me as a follower of Jesus.

 The key word there is “strive.”

 I try to do what God wants and try to go where God leads.

 More often than not, my own arrogance gets in the way, my own fears and anxieties cause me to shrug off this yoke, and my own selfishness leads me to do only what I want to do.

 All ministry is a yoke.

 And ministry, as we all know, doesn’t just happen out of the blue.

  Our ministry that we do stems directly from our baptism.

 It is a response to the promises that were made for us when we were baptized and which we re-affirm on a regular basis.

 So, when I talk about my life not being my own, it is not confined to just me as an ordained priest in the Church.

 Rather, through baptism, we are all called to ministry.

 We have all, through our baptism, taken on this yoke.

 Because, through baptism, we realize we are God’s beloved child, and we have been given a yoke that we cannot shrug off.

 Our lives are not our own.

 Through baptism, we are children of God—and our lives belong completely and fully to God.

 Now all of this might seem difficult to accept, but Jesus says, in no uncertain terms, that his yoke is not quite like the yoke put on a beast.

 While that yoke is heavy and unwieldy—it is a tedious weight to bear for the animal—for us, he tells us, his yoke is light and the burden easy.

 It is a burden that we should gladly take on because it leads us to a place of joy and gladness.

 It is a yoke that directs us to a place to which we, without it, would not be able to find on our own.

 We, in our arrogance, in our self-centeredness, in our selfishness, cannot find the Kingdom of God on our own.

 Only in following Jesus can we be truly led there.

 The yoke is, in an outward sense, a simple one to bear.

 The yoke consists of loving God and loving our neighbor as our selves.

 It is these two commandments that have been laid on our backs and by allowing ourselves to be led by  them, they are what will bring us and those whom we encounter in this life to that place of joy.

 So, let us gladly embrace the yoke laid upon us at baptism.

 For taking on these burdens will not be just another burden to bear.

 It won’t cause us any real pain.

 It won’t give us aches and pains that will settle in our backs and necks, like the others burdens we carry around with us in this life.

 But rather, the yoke is what frees us in a way we cannot even begin to understand.

 It is a freedom that we find in following Jesus.

 “Take my yoke upon you,” Jesus says to us, “and you will find rest for your souls.”

 Let us take this yoke upon ourselves with graciousness, and, when we do, we too will find that rest for our souls as well.

 Let us pray.

 Holy and loving God, give us strength to bear what we must bear, and to go where we must go, so that in doing so, we may follow your Son, Jesus; in whose name we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Nuptial Mass for Amy Morrow and Josh Stalboerger

 July 8, 2023

+ There are two things we Episcopalians do well.

(Well, we do lots of things well, but we do two things exceptionally well)

We do funerals  well, and we do weddings well.

Well, there’s no funerals today.

Today, we are pulling out all the stops for Amy and Josh.

Way back in January when we first started talking about this service, Amy was very enthusiastic about the fact we were pulling out the stops.

And Josh’s reaction to all of this?

It was: “sure. Whatever.”

And so, today we have this glorious day.

 And it is a glorious day!

 I am so happy and grateful that we are celebrating  Amy and Josh and the love they have for each today.

 I am also very grateful for their presence in my life and in the life of St. Stephen’s—that radical, crazy, liberal, “Island of Misfit Toys” parish in North Fargo.

 As you might know, I have known Amy for many, many years.

 At least 15 years.

 She and her family have been very active members at St. Stephen’s—a fact of which we are all so grateful.

 And when Amy first brought Josh to church, everyone at St. Stephen’s immediately loved Josh.

 Amy and Josh are such integral parts of our parish, for which we are all so grateful.

 Today, we celebrate them and their love with this beautiful service, with the stops pulled out.

 Now both Amy and Josh know that one of my standard themes in wedding sermons is my view of grace.

 I always say that weddings and marriages are wonderful examples of grace in our midst.

 Now, my definition of grace is this: it is a gift from God we receive that we did not ask for.

 It is a gift we cannot give ourselves.

 We cannot control grace.

 We cannot manipulate it or make it do what we want it to do.

 Grace happens.

 God grants grace in its own time.

 In its own place.

 And we must simply be open to it, and be thankful for it, and just… let it happen in our lives.

 And be very, very thankful to God when it does.

Amy. Josh. What we celebrate today is truly a grace.

  I am so thankful for this grace you have been given by God.

 And here you are today!

 And it’s all good.

 And it’s all beautiful.

 You both deserve today.

 You both deserve this love, this surrounding by people who love you, this grace in your life.

 You deserve the very best in your lives.

 In a few moments, after the hymn, Josh and Amy will stand before me and I am going to take my stole—this scarf-like vestment, and wrap it around their hands.

 That wrapping of the stole is a wonderful action in the Anglican tradition.

 And it is literally where the term “tying the knot” comes from.

 But it’s more than that.

 A knot is beautiful symbol.

 It is a reminder that things can truly be bound up so tightly that they cannot be unbound.

 That two things can become one solid, strong thing.

 All of that is what we celebrate today.

 Amy and Josh, that is what we give joy for today.

 Now, I’m not promising that the future is going to be hunky dory and sweet all the time.

 If any priest every promises you that, sue them!

 And you both know that it isn’t always going to be like that.

 I’m not promising that all the dark clouds have passed away for good.

 But right now, right here, none of that matters.

 I am so happy, Josh and Amy, for this day.

 I am so thankful to God that you have found each other again.

 I am so happy for you and for all that you have and will have.

 It really is wonderful!

 So, with that…after the hymn, I think it’s time to get you both married.