24 Pentecost

October 26, 2008 

  Matthew 22:34-46 

One of my biggest problems has always been that I occasionally get myself in trouble with my big mouth. I think this is a common malady among people who go into clergy professions. Sometimes we get riled up, sometimes we see in ways others might not, the unfairness and inconsistencies in the world. Sometimes our egos get in the way and dominate our lives. I think, in many ways, this is simply an extension of following (or not following) the Gospel of Christ. Jesus, as we all know, got himself in deep with some of his comments over the course of his ministry. He did not remain quiet when he saw hypocrisy abound, nor did he think twice about coming to and defending the marginalized. 

 As a result of this view of the Gospels, I have ended up making some comments over the years that are not popular. As almost everyone here can remember, in the Summer of 2003, the Episcopal Church met for General Convention in Minneapolis. Because it was so close to home, I wanted to attend, but because I was loaded with work at the time, I was unable to attend. As if to make up for my non-attendance, I kept close tabs on the proceedings. One of the most controversial, of course, was the approval of the Diocese of New Hampshire’s election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, to be their bishop. At the time, as a good progressive,  I was voicing my support of New Hampshire’s decision, especially after listening to and witnessing much of the not-so-thinly veiled homophobia that seemed to swirl around the decision. 

 Some of my comments that summer were published on the front page of the faith section of the Fargo Forum. Others were recorded for Public Radio and the local radio stations. At the time, I felt my intentions were innocent; certainly it was not my goal to anger or frustrate. I simply spoke my mind on an issue I felt was important. 

 As a result of comments I made on radio—namely, a comment about how, 27 years after the ordination of women, it was my sincere hope that 27 years after the ordination of this Bishop of New Hampshire, his homosexuality would not be an issue in the Church any longer. My comment, overheard on Public Radio, warranted the following email from a fellow priest. He wrote: 

  Jamie, …if I heard you correctly, may I lovingly say to you that I pray to God that your perception is very, very wrong. Women's ordination has nothing to do with sin or calling for the Church to bless and call holy that which God will not bless and does not call holy. In a clear and simple reading of Romans 1 and 1 Cor. 6.9ff, it is so very clear that God calls homosexuals/lesbians/transvestites unrighteous and they will not inherit the kingdom of God. Jamie, the great tragedy of this past General Convention is that it has thrown the authority of Holy Scripture out the window--the very scriptures that identifies us all as Christians and now identifies you as a Priest of God's Church. If we throw out the texts that speak to the sinfulness of same sex sexual relationships then we can throw out the texts that say that you and I are the redeemed people of God; we can throw out the texts that substantiate your ordination to the Priesthood. We cannot and must not be engaged in scissors and past theology and scripture reading. I pray God that in and through your ordination he will bless you with a great and uncompromising love for his most Holy Word Written and its authority for your life and the ministry he has called you to participate with him for his glory, the strengthening of his church, and the spreading of his kingdom. Blessings in the name of Jesus, Signed, “Bernard”+ (not his real name, of course) 

I never did respond directly to this priest’s email and, for some time afterward, I scolded myself for not doing so. What I did do was respond not to him—the person—so much as to the person he became to me in the days following Convention. 

He became, in my mind, a personification of all of those people who throw scriptures around carelessly, using the Word of God as ammunition in a war of so-called holiness. Who I addressed was not so much the priest in out-state North Dakota, but the person I have been battling inside me for years, the person whose voice of condemnation I have heard in the back of my own head, the person whose voice sounds, at times, like my very own voice. The response that I made to him was based squarely on the Gospel reading we hear this morning. 

So, here was the response I wrote and never sent: Father Bernard, 

 As you might know, I was raised a Lutheran. For the first fifteen years of my life, I was raised with a deep and abiding love for Scriptures and it was those fifteen years that have heavily influenced so much of what I believe and hold true in my faith. It was also in those years that I first read the Scriptures and let them permeate into my whole self. There is a wonderful icon of William Stringfellow, the great Episcopalian street lawyer, social activist and commentator, who has long been one of my heroes. The icon was painted by one of the best contemporary icon writers, William Hart McNichols. Entitled “William Stringfellow, Keeper of the Word,” it shows the Word, symbolized by a Bible, open to Deuteronomy 30.14 (“The Word is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it”). In the icon, the scriptures glow in the place where Bill Stringfellow’s heart should be, a luminous circle in the middle of his chest. For me, this is what happened to me in those years among the Lutherans—the words of the scriptures were burned into my heart. 

So, Bernard, to put it simply, your heartfelt and wonderful prayer for me for God to bless me “with a great and uncompromising love for his most holy written Word” was answered years ago. Our response to your petition should be a hearty “Amen!” 

There is no doubt as to my love for Scripture and its authority in my life. Which leads me to respond to your well-intentioned email. 

 As a Lutheran, I was taught many wonderful things about God and the scriptures, but one has come in very handy over the years of scripture study: if we have an issue with any part of scripture, whether it be from the Old Testament (which was the usual place we seemed to have issues—for example, the stoning of disobedient children in the book of Deuteronomy) or from the Epistles or from Revelation, we were taught to always return to the Gospels, for there we would find ultimate authority for whatever question we might have. “The words of Jesus—who is truly the Word of God—will be the answer,” the pastor of the church taught us one Sunday morning when I was about ten. And those words always stayed with me. 

 Your email concerned me greatly, as I believe you knew it would, especially when I read your choice of Scriptures (Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6)—which, despite your belief, can not be read clearly nor simply—and your choice of words (“We cannot and must not be engaged in scissors and past theology and scripture reading” and especially “it is so very clear that God calls homosexuals/lesbians/transvestites unrighteous and they will not inherit the kingdom of God”). To single out these scriptures and to use those self-same scissors you spoke against and to take them from their context to hold up as authoritative flies in the face of what I perceive to be true love of God’s “most holy written Word.” 

 Thw scriptures you quote, as all scriptures, as you very well know, only receive their authority from Christ, who called to Paul on the road to Damascus and who compelled Paul—who drove Paul—to preach the Gospel. Do I at any point disagree with what Paul is writing? Not at all. But I think you—and everyone who uses these scriptures to condemn—knows full well that these scriptures are not to be used as a condemnation of gay and lesbian people. That is not what these scriptures necessarily mean. And I do use the word necessarily because I do think Paul is condemning a practice—a practice incompatible with being a Christian. Namely, he saying that this what pagans do—they cheat on their wives, they have sex indiscriminately, they frequent temple prostates—both male and female. All of which I agree. It is not right, under any circumstances, to do any of those things as a Christian. To put in modern terms, it is not right for Christians to cheat on their spouses. And for gay Christians, it is not right to have multiple sexual partners. When we become Christians, Paul is saying, we need to put away our old ways. We need stop acting like the Pagans do. Why? Because, using my good old tried and true Lutheran method of scripture reading, I simply returned to the Gospels. 

In fact, it was there in the Gospel of Matthew. In Chapter 22, a scripture with which I’m sure you are very familiar, a lawyer comes to Jesus and begins arguing with him. He asks Jesus “which commandment is the greatest of all?” You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” Then Jesus made a wonderfully direct statement—a forthcoming answer to the lawyer’s question: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 

Bernard, how much clearer can Jesus be? 

 Now, for a moment, let’s place this scripture from Matthew alongside the scripture from 1 Corinthians (which, by the way, condemns not only “sodomites” and “male prostitutes”—lesbians and transvestite are simply not mentioned anywhere in the scripture—but also drunkards, the greedy, etc). Which, Bernard, do you see as more liberating? If one loves God and loves his or her neighbor, isn’t that what truly brings us close to the Kingdom of God? Maybe Paul wouldn’t think so. Maybe you wouldn’t either. But certainly Jesus did. Can one be a drunkard and still love God? I can tell you in all honesty, yes. I have known far too many in my life. They have been my friends, they have been family. They have been a very important part of my life. I have been able to see alcoholic behavior up close. I’ve seen narcissistic behavior—not unlike the behavior I find within many people suffering from a disease, whose world has closed in on them, who are, quite simply trapped. I’ve seen destructive behavior. I have seen behavior that is sad and painful. I have known a lot of greedy people as well—people who have placed money or position or fame before everything else. I have known many “workaholics” and have known many people who simply want something better for themselves more than anything else in the world. But is homosexuality quite the same, Bernard? Certainly there are people who are consumed with their sexuality (and certainly not by any means just gay people either). There are people (straight and gay alike) who use and abuse sex. There are many people of all orientations who have messed up views of what sex is. 

 But is that what we’re talking about? I have no doubt that is exactly what Paul is talking about. 

 The question is simple, Bernard: Can one love God with all of one’s heart and still be gay? My answer, in light of the Gospel, is YES. Emphatically, without a doubt—Yes! 

 So, Bernard, can scripture trump scripture? Certainly Jesus was able to trump Old Testament scriptures. We see it when we read his admonition to “turn the other cheek.” Likewise, I have no doubt that the words of Jesus trump scriptures that hadn’t been written yet. And I have no trouble believing that the words of Jesus trump the words of Paul—no matter how inspired Paul might have been. 

 I have found myself praying over both the scripture from Mark and the scripture from 1 Corinthians. As I prayed over the 1 Corinthians reading, for some reason I was not thinking about the homosexuals you say are condemned under that verse. Instead, I thought about my grandfathers, both of whom went to their graves as unrepentant alcoholics. I think of my uncle who died, alone and drunk, when his stomach literally burst from years of heavy drinking. I was thinking of the teenage friend of my niece who died when he drank too much and drove his car into a high line pole. I was not thinking of my gay friends and acquaintances, especially the ones who are either celibate or who are in committed loving relationships, the ones who come to the Episcopal Church because of their love for God and for others, the one who, like you, serve in the church, who hold scripture to be true, who have made the declaration at their ordination that they believe the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary for salvation. 

I have no doubt, in many cases, of those people’s unfailing love for God and for their brothers and sisters. I have no intention of taking scissors to the scriptures. I took the vows I made at my ordination seriously and I continue to do. I do believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the Word of God and as such the idea of taking cutting and pasting them is abhorrent to me. In all honesty, I agree with you to some extent. The scripture from 1 Corinthians 6 is meaningful to all of us. As Christians, we should strive not be drunkards, we should strive not to be greedy. We should not be male (or, for that case, female) prostitutes, nor should we be making use of prostitutes. We should be in committed relationships—relationships based on love for each other and love of God. I don’t want this scripture thrown out. But at the same time, I don’t want this scripture to drown out the words of Jesus who is offering all of us freedom and redemption, not condemnation. 

 God loves us, Bernard—you and me, sinners as we are, as well as the sodomite and the drunkard and the greedy and the prostitute. God loves us, Bernard, and God is commanding us to love one another as you want to be loved. How can one truly love God with all of one’s being, when one condemns and allows condemnation? God loves us, Bernard. It is this love we find in the Gospel reading from Mark. Love—love God, love one another as you would be loved. You can’t do one without the other. It’s God’s love that prevails and trumps condemnation. It’s love—that holy love that comes from God—that ultimately wins out. Bernard, it is this love that I will hope and pray descends upon you like a cool summer shower. 

 In God’s love, 

Jamie+ 

 I regret the fact that I never sent the letter, but I also know that my letter would not have much of a difference to someone like Bernard. I do know that, on occasion, the rest of us, including I myself, need to remind ourselves where we stand with regard to scripture and these big issues. This past weekend I gave a talk for at a Minister’s retreat in Richardton, ND on the issue of divorce and remarriage. Scripture is blatantly clear about this issue; in fact it is much clearer about divorce and remarriage than it is about homosexuality. 

The point for me is this: when did we struggle and somehow find consensus as a Church on the issue of divorce and remarriage? The fact is, we didn’t really. 

At some point, we simply saw it as a pastoral issue that we must deal with in love and understanding. 

My point is that this is exactly how we should deal with other issues, such as homosexuality. 

All that we should do, should always be in the spirit of loving our neighbor as ourselves. 

 In our collect for today, we pray to God to “increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command…”\ 

Let that not only be our prayer, but the basis of our lives of Christians. 

It should be what think and feel and believe with every beat of our heart. 

We should be striving for that wonderful combination of being instilled with the gifts of faith, hope and charity and that we should truly love what we are commanded by God to do: to love God and to love our neighbors as our selves.

Thin

The miles converge here.
The distances you covered
and the ones I traveled
have come together
in this dark place,
hidden in the long shadow
dusk makes when it crawls
toward night.
This is where we’ve come—
in this place
others have come for decades before us.

Near here lies buried a stewardess—
that’s what they were called
then
in 1963
when she and 42 others
fell from the sky
one stormy afternoon
outside Miami.
I think of her who—
let’s face it—
isn’t really here
at all, but somewhere else
we, in those moments of
fevered half-sleep
we ascend to in the night
long for and hope in
like naïve children
wishing for a happy ending.

And you and I also
here, and yet
we might as well
be in our distant places.
for I may sense you, but you—
you refuse to allow yourself
this easy pleasure.
You hope not in happy ending—
in that joy I hunt down
in long dark night like tonight.

I long for you!
just as I long for
the One who stands elusive
as the crescent moon—
thin as a thread of
silver embroidery—
which leans toward us
here
where everything converges.

Renewal of Ministry Service

Photos from the Renewal of Ministry service at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church on October 16, 2008

21 Pentecost

October 5, 2008
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Fargo

Matthew 21.33-46

A few weeks ago, I quoted Cynthia Bourgeault’s wonderful book, Wisdom Jesus. In that book, she said, parables are “supposed to challenge you; [they’re] supposed to make you angry—and [they’re] supposed to make you look at yourself more closely.”

Well, this morning we definitely have one of those parables that challenges us, that makes us a bit angry and that definitely forces us to look more closely at ourselves. Let’s face it, it’s a violent story we hear Jesus tells us today. These bad tenants are so devious they are willing to kill to get what they want. And in the end, their violence is turned back upon them.

It’s not a warm, fuzzy story that we can take with us and hold close to our hearts. The Church over the years has certainly struggled with this parable because it can be so challenging. At face value, the story can probably be pretty easily interpreted in this way: The Vineyard owner of course symbolic of God. The Vineyard owner’s son of Jesus. And the workers in the vineyard who kill the son are symbolic of the religious leaders who will kill Jesus.

From this view, we can see the story as a prediction of Jesus’ murder. But there is another interpretation of this story that isn’t so neat and clean and finely put-together. It is in fact an uncomfortable interpretation of this parable. As we hear it, we do find ourselves shaken a bit. It isn’t a story that we want to emulate. I HOPE none of us want to emulate it. But again, Jesus twists this story around for us. The ones we no doubt find ourselves relating to are not the Vineyard owner or the Vineyard owner’s son, but, in fact, the vineyard workers. We relate to them not because we have murderous intentions n our heart. Not because we inherently bad. But because we sometimes can be just as resolute. We sometimes will stop at nothing to get what we want. We are sometimes so full of zeal for something that we ride roughshod over others. And when we do so, we find ourselves not bringing the Kingdom of God about in our midst.

Zeal can be a good thing. We should be full of zeal for God and God’s Kingdom. We too should stop at nothing to gain the Kingdom of God. But zeal taken too far undoes the good we hoped to bring about.

The most frightening aspect of our Gospel story is the fact that Jesus tells us that the kingdom can be taken away from us. It can be given to others. Our zeal for the kingdom has a lot to do with what we gain and what we lose. Our zeal to make this kingdom a reality in our world is what makes the changes in this world.

At the same time, zeal can be a very slippery slope. It can also make us zealots. It can make us fanatics. And this world is too full of fanatics. This world is too full of people who have taken their religion so seriously that they have actually lost touch with it.

This story we hear from Jesus today tell teaches us a lesson about taking our zeal too far. If we become violent in our zeal, we need to expect violence in return. And certainly this is probably the most difficult part of this parable for most of us. For those of us who consider ourselves peace-loving, nonviolent Christians, we cringe when we hear stories of violence in the scriptures. But violence like the kind we hear in today’s parable, or anywhere else in scriptures should not just be thrown out because we find it uncomfortable. It should not be discarded as useless just because we are made uncomfortable by it. If we look at the kind of violence we find in the Scriptures and use it metaphorically, it could actually be quite useful for us. If we take some of those stories metaphorically, they actually speak to us on a deeper level.

A perfect example of this is the biblical concept of herem. I love preaching about herem, because in so many ways it still speaks to us in our own day. When I speak of herem, I am not talking about the Muslim concept of multiple wives. Herem is actually a Hebrew word for “holy slaughter.” And we find it in the book of Joshua.

In Joshua, we find the Israelites about to cross the Jordan River into the land promised to them by God. There is one huge problem however. The land of milk and honey, the land promised to them and their parents is already occupied. It is occupied by cities full of people. As the Israelites cross the Jordan, God commands them to do something we find frightening and abhorrent. God commands the Israelites to go in the land and to kill everything. God commands them to kill every man, woman, child and animal. In one translation of the story, God commands the Israelites to even drive their swords through the stomachs of pregnant women. It is horrendous and terrible to even think of a God commanding such a thing. But before we judge the story too harshly, we must first put it within its context.

The Israelites lived in a violent time—a time even more violent than our own. Violence was sometimes the only way one could precede. Violence was sometimes the only way one could succeed. Second of all, we need to remember that the Israelites were a spiritually weak people for the most part. Constantly, they strayed from God. Over and over again, despite the miracles, despite the fact that God spoke in a very clear and potent way to them, they strayed constantly into idolatry.

Now they were about to enter into a land full of idolatry. And when comparing the strictness of the God of the Israelites with the lackadaisical and sensual religion of the Canaanites, it was easy to see that the Israelites could very easily have been led astray.

At first the Israelites did as God commanded. They wrought herem upon the Canaanites with zeal. They slaughtered the men, the women, the children and the animals. But eventually, they disobeyed. Some of the men were led astray by the Canaanite women whom they spared and soon idolatry again plagued the Israelites.

On the surface, it is a horrible story. And if we were to take the story literally, then, we could argue that it is acceptable to wreak violence on those that don’t believe the way we do. Or, conversely, we could simply choose to ignore this aspect of Israel’s history and chalk it up as yet another example of what a cruel, vengeful God can do. But we can also do something else with stories such as this. We can use them for our own benefit.

Metaphorically, we can use the concept of herem. We can take the concept of herem and apply it not to people in our lives, but to all those other things that creep into our lives and lead us stray from God. For us, a metaphorical herem means not letting anything get between us and God. It means rooting out and destroying whatever comes between God and us. It means not allowing anything whatsoever to come between God and you.

It doesn’t mean violently killing people for us. But it does mean destroying the idols of our own life. It means even destroying the idols we created of ourselves if need be. And when we look at it from this perspective, herem can actually be a helpful thing in our own spiritual life.

The same can be said of some of the unpopular translation of the parable of the vineyard workers. Our zeal for the kingdom of God should drive us. It should move and motivate us. We should be empowered to bring the Kingdom into our midst. But it should not make us into the bad vineyard workers. It should not make into the chief priests and Pharisees who knew, full well, that they were the bad vineyard workers.

A story like this helps us to keep our zeal centered perfectly on God. It prevents us from becoming mindless zealots. What does it allow and commend is passion. What it does tell us that we should be excited for the Kingdom.

True zeal makes us uncomfortable, yes. It makes us restless. It frustrates us. True zeal energizes us and makes us want to work until we catch a glimpse of that Kingdom in our midst. This is what Jesus is telling us again and again. He is telling us in these parables that make us uncomfortable that the Kingdom of God isn’t just some sweet, cloud-filled place in the next world.

The Kingdom of God is right here, in our midst. And the foundation of that kingdom, the gateway of that Kingdom, the conduit of that Kingdom is always love. Love of God, love of neighbor, healthy love of self. This is what Jesus preached. As Cynthia Bourgeault writes elsewhere in her latest book, “Jesus’ path was…a radically unmanageable simplicity—nothing held back, nothing held onto.”

That is the path Jesus is leading us on. This is the path we walk as we follow after him. And it is a path on which we should be overjoyed to be walking.

So, follow this path of Jesus with true and holy zeal. So, so with love in your heart and in your actions. And as we do, we will echo the words we heard in Psalm 118, quoted in today’s Gospel:

“This is what the Lord’s doing; it is amazing in our eyes.”

20 Pentecost

September 28, 2008

Matthew 21.23-32

Last week in my sermon I quoted the great Reginald Fuller, who said: “[This] is what God is doing in Jesus’ ministry—giving the tax collectors and prostitutes an equal share with the righteous in the kingdom.” That was a shocking statement for many of us. And it should be. It should shake us to our very core.

This week that point is being driven home to us, when, in explaining the parable, Jesus says to us: “Truly I tell you, the tax collector and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

It’s a huge statement for him to make. But I think, like many of his statements, it has lost the full weight of its meaning for us, in this day and age. We can grasp the understanding about prostitutes—after all, prostitutes are still looked down upon by our society today. But tax collectors? Why all this talk about tax collectors not getting into the kingdom of heaven? No doubt, few of us like the prospect of tax collectors. Few of us are overjoyed at the thought of taxes or anyone having to collect them. But certainly they are very rarely if ever classed alongside prostitutes in our day, unless under some scandalous circumstances.

In Jesus’ day however, tax collectors were essentially viewed as traitors. They worked for the occupying Roman government collecting taxes from their own people. From a religious point, they had another strike against them. Because they handled Roman money, on which the image of the Roman Emperor—who was considered a god—was etched, they were considered unclean because of their handling of these pagan images. The tax collector of Jesus’ day was an unclean traitor and as such was the worst of the worst.

Prostitutes were also considered to be unclean of course and were looked down upon by literally every aspect of society. Unlike tax collectors, prostitutes are another segment of our society that we tend to forget about it in today’s culture. But we really should give them concern. And I don’t mean from a judgmental point of view. I mean, we should give them our compassion. We should be praying for them often because we often hear the horrible stories of what prostitutes have to deal with on the streets. The stories of what drove them to the streets are horrendous enough. But the stories of what keeps them on the streets are just as bad. And the dangers they face—day and night—are more mind-boggling than anything we can even imagine in our safe, comfortable lives. Truly prostitutes throughout history have been the real exploited ones. They are the ones who have lived on the fringes of society. They are the ones who have lived in the shadows of our respectable societies. They have lived dangerous, secret lives. And much of what they’ve had to go through in their lives is known only to God. They need our prayers. They need our compassion. Conversely, they don’t need our exploitation and they don’t need our judgment. As uncomfortable as it is for us to confront them and think about them, that is exactly what Jesus is telling us we must do. Because by going there in our thoughts, in our prayers in our ministries, we are going where Jesus went. We are coming alongside those people he tells us will inherit the kingdom before us. And rather than using them, rather than continuing the exploitation they have lived with in their lives, we must see them as God sees them. We must see them as children of God, as fellow humans on this haphazard, uncertain journey we are all on together.

And, more importantly, we must see in them ourselves. There, but for the grace of God go us. Had we been born in different circumstances, had life gone wrong for us in certain areas, who are we to say we wouldn’t have been there? Or who we are to say we wouldn’t be the exploiters?

The point of this morning’s Gospel is this: the Kingdom of God is not what we think it is. It is not made up of just people like us. It’s not going to be like going to the country club or the executive lounge. It is not even going to be like going to the Episcopal Church. It is going to be made up people who never go to church, who may never have gone to church. It is going to be made up of people we would never imagine stepping foot in a country club or an executive lounge. It will be made up of those people we don’t notice. It will be made up of those people who are invisible to us. It will be made up of the people we don’t give a second thought to.

In our society today we have our own version of tax collectors. They are the homosexual, the lesbian, the recluse. They are the AIDS patient, the Alzheimer’s patient, the cancer patient, the mentally ill. They are the welfare cases. They are the homeless. They are the alcoholics and the drug addicts and the drug dealers. They are the depressed among us, they are the lost among us, and they are the ones who are trapped in their own sadness and their own loneliness. They are the gang leaders, they are the rebels. They are the radical Christian, the radical Muslim, the radical Jew. They are the ones we call pagan, or non-believer or atheist. They are the ones we, good Christians that we are, have worked all our lives not to be. This is what the Kingdom of heaven is going to be like.

And when we, in our arrogance, in our self-righteousness, think that we have all the answers, when we think because we do this and do that, that somehow heaven is our inheritance, that is when Jesus stands up to us and says to us, “No.” It is then that he shakes his finger at us and reminds us that the inheritors of heaven are not us at all, but those people we passed on the way to church on Sunday morning. They are the people who look up at us from their marginalized place in this society. They are the ones who peek out at us from the curtains of their isolation and their loneliness. They are the ones who, in their quiet agony, watch as we drive out of sight from them. They are they inheritors of the kingdom of God and if we think they are not, then we are not listening to what Jesus is saying to us. We are plugging our ears and closing our minds and we are turning our backs on the Gospel.

Recently I read a book put out by the Red River Genealogical Society about the Cass County Cemeteries. What few of us know is that, just a few blocks north of this church, there are two cemeteries. Unless you actually get out of your car and walk into the actual cemetery do you see a large boulder. In one cemetery the boulder is inscribed COUNTY CEMETERY #1. This one is located at the end of Elm Street. Where the road forks, one to the Country Club and the other to Trollwood, right there, on the left fork toward Trollwood, is the cemetery. You’ve probably driven by it countless times and never had a clue. County Cemetery #2 is located on the other side of Trollwood, just within sight of the main stage. Back along the bend in the Red River, there is a stretch of grass and another boulder. This one says COUNTY CEMETERY #2. A third County Cemetery was located on north Broadway. In 1985, those graves were moved to Springvale Cemetery because they were falling into the Red River. For the most part, those graves are marked. But in the first two cemeteries, there are no markers at all. No individual gravestones mark the graves of the people buried in the first two cemeteries. In fact, if you walked into the cemeteries, you would have force your mind to even accept the fact that it is a cemetery. But there are hundreds of people buried in those graveyards.

These are the forgotten. These were Fargo’s hidden shame. Beginning in about 1899 and going through the 1940s, this was where the prostitutes, the gamblers, the robbers were buried. This is also where all the unwanted babies were buried. And when we walk in those pauper cemeteries, we must remind ourselves that here lie the true inheritors of the kingdom of God. Here, had Jesus lived in Fargo, had he lived 1900 years later and had died the disgraceful death he died, this is where he would’ve ended up. He would have ended up in an unmarked grave in a back field, on the very physical fringes of our city. In fact, we can say that he is there. He is wherever the inheritors of his kingdom are.

Those cemeteries for me are potent reminders of who inherits. They are potent reminders to me of who receives true glory in the end. It is not just the ones lying in Riverside Cemetery under gigantic granite and marble gravestones. It is not just the ones lying is graves covered with well-tended grass, decorated with flowers and mementos. It is these—the forgotten ones, the ones whom only God knows. They are the ones that, had life turned out just a bit differently, would be us.

I often find myself visiting those graves and thinking of the inheritance those people have gained. And their message to us is very much what Jesus’ message is to us: This world is not our inheritance. This world is not our world. What this world honors is not real honor. Rather, true honor comes to us in God’s Kingdom. We will all pass away from this life and we will leave very little—if anything—behind us when we’re gone. But God, who knows us fully and completely and who loves us fully and completely, will never let us—any of us—disappear without a trace.

So, today, these words of Jesus should not be words of despair for the rest of us. Rather, we should rejoice, as always, at the words of Jesus. The kingdom of God is open even to those who are most despised by society. In fact, they are going ahead of us into the kingdom of heaven. They will be there to greet us on the great day. And together we will sit down and share the beauty and the reward of that place.

19 Pentecost

September 21, 2008
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Fargo

Matthew 20. 1-16

This morning is really one of those wonderful moments. We are beginning a new chapter in our collective life together here at St. Stephen’s. It is a new beginning for all of us. And there is really nothing like beginnings.

The beginning is all about hope for the future. The future, normally, is not always a wonderful prospect. The future is often a time of unknowing. For some of us, it is a time to fear, because we don’t know what it holds. We don’t know what awaits us around the corner. We wander into the future blindly groping at whatever lies ahead.

But today, hopefully, we aren’t feeling quite that way. Today, we are looking forward with hope. And hope makes all the difference in the world. It is about looking ahead and seeing, at least for a moment, that the future is no longer such a frightening place to be venturing into. The future is actually full of great opportunities.

Now I don’t claim to be a visionary or a prophet or a fortune teller. No doubt if I got up here and claimed that I was, you would already start regretting your decision to allow me to be your Priest-in-Charge. But, although I am not a prophet or a fortune teller, nor do I have visions, I do see very clearly that St. Stephen’s is a place of fertile spiritual ground. One doesn’t have to have any special spiritual or metaphysical gifts to see that potential. And the potential at St. Stephen’s is great. The opportunity for ministry here is, in fact, limitless.

As I said at the forum with you after the Eucharist last Sunday, I do not see ministry as top-down management. As a priest, I don’t see ministry at tiered, with us ordained people up here and everyone else down here. If we look at the definition of ministry according to the Book of Common Prayer, it is very clear who comes first in the Episcopal understanding of ministry. In the Catechism, found in the back of the Prayer Book, we find this question:

“Who are the ministers of the Church?”

The answer is: “The ministers of the Church are lay person, bishops, priests and deacons.”

Lay persons are intentionally listed first, then the ordained ministers of the Church. And that’s the healthiest way of looking at ministry in the Church. Just because I wear the dog collar and the robes, it doesn’t mean that the ministry of this church is all about what I do as a priest. We are all called to be ministers in this church. And ministry doesn’t just mean preaching and doing liturgy. Ministry is all about taking our gifts and the things we have been called by God to do and using them for the betterment of all of us as Christians.

For me, I was called to be a priest and, at St. Stephen’s, I will do the things a priest can and should do. For those of you who are gifted to manage finances, you help in the ministry by helping manage the finances of the church. For those of you gifted to be artists, your ministry is to help beautify the church. Others have gifts of music, of outreach, of leadership, of compassion for others. None of us are better than the other. None of us are above the other. Rather what we end up doing together is working side by side, shoulder to shoulder, to bring about the Kingdom of God into our midst. Ministry is about a kind of equality. Yes, we have these gifts, but when we are doing ministry, we are doing it together, on the same level.

As I do so, as I join in the ministry all of you have been doing here for years, I can’t help but feel like the new kid on the block. I feel like I am hitting the ground running. Or to put it in the context of our Gospel reading today, I feel like one of the workers who has joined the work later in the day.

The parable Jesus tells us this morning is, of course, not just a story about vineyard workers. The story really, for us anyway, is all about ministry, even though it might not seem like at first hearing. If you’re anything like me, when you hear today’s Gospel—and you’re honest with yourself—you probably thought: “I agree with the workers who have been working all day: It just isn’t fair that these workers hired later should get the same wages.” It’s not fair that the worker who only works a few hours makes the same wages as one who has worked all day. Few of us, in our own jobs, would stand for it. We too would whine and complain.

But the fact is, as we all know by this time, life is not fair. Each of here this morning has been dealt raw deals in our lives at one point or another. We have all known what it’s like to not get the fair deal. But, as much as we complain about it, as much as make a big deal of it, we are going to find unfairness in this life. What we find in today’s parable is exactly what many of us have had to deal with in the Church.

The story of the parable is that everyone—no matter how long they’ve been laboring—gets an equal share. And in Jesus’ ministry, that’s exactly what happens as well. As one of my personal theological heroes, the great Reginald Fuller, once said of this parable: “[This] is what God is doing in Jesus’ ministry—giving the tax collectors and prostitutes an equal share with the righteous in the kingdom.” The marginalized, the maligned, the social outcast—all of them are granted an equal share.

What does that sound like to you? To me, it sounds like the ministry we have all been doing here at St. Stephen’s, doesn’t it? It sounds very much like the ministry we have all committed ourselves to do right here. It means working toward the Millennium Development Goals so that we can do whatever we can, even in small ways, to eradicate poverty and hunger from out world. It means reminding others of the plight of African Christians and helping them receive better education and medical care. It means reaching out to make sure that gay and lesbian people are given full and equal status in the Church and the Community. It means organizing medical mission trips to places such as Guatamala. It means speaking out against violence, war and injustice in any way we can. It means reminding ourselves of the fact that God has given us animals in this world not just for food, but also as companions to look after and to protect. It means striving to make sure that all of us on this side of the “veil” get an equal share of the Kingdom of God. That is what we do at St. Stephen’s and that is what we will continue to do. That equal share is still here for people now in these days.

It also means not doing some things as well. It means not lamenting the unfairness of what an equal share means for us. Because for some of us, we could very easily do just that.

After all, some of us do the “right thing.” Some of us, although few of us would admit it, some of us are, in fact, the “righteous” ones. We follows the rules, we strive to live our lives as good Christians. We fast, we say our prayers faithfully, we tithe, we do what we are supposed to do as good Christians. Striving for the equal share for people, means not allowing ourselves to get frustrated over the fact that those people who do not do those things—especially those people whom we think don’t follow the rules at all, those people who aren’t “righteous” by our standards—also receive an equal share. It means not crying to ourselves, “It’s not fair.”

Because when we do those things, we must ask ourselves a very important question: why do we do what we do as Christians? Do we do what we do so we can call ourselves “righteous?” Do we do what we do as Christians because we believe we’re going to get some reward in the next life? Do we do what do because we think God is in heaven keeping track of all our good deeds like some celestial Santa Claus? Do we do what do simply because we think we will get something in return? Or do we do what we do because doing so makes this world a better place?

This is the real key to Jesus’ message to us. Constantly, Jesus is pushing us and challenging us to be a conduit. He is trying to convince us that being a Christian means being a conduit for the Kingdom of God. In us, the Kingdom breaks through. Without us, it simply will not. We do what we do as Christians because whatever we do is a way in which the barriers that separate us here from God and God’s world is lifted for a brief moment when we do what Jesus tells us to do. When we live out the Law of loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves, the “veil” is lifted and when it is lifted, the Kingdom comes flooding into our lives. It does not matter in the least how long we labor in allowing this divine flood to happen. The amount of time we put into it doesn’t matter in the least to God, because God’s time is not our time. Rather, we simply must do what we are called to do when we are called to do it.

I’ve been reading a wonderful book by Cynthia Bourgeault. Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest and also one of the “big wigs” in the Centering Prayer movement. She is best known for her wonderful book, Chanting the Psalms. But in her latest book, called Wisdom Jesus, she examines, or rather re-examines, the teachings of Jesus from the Wisdom tradition of Christianity. At first, as I began the book, I had my intellectual filter turned to high. Often books on the Wisdom School in Christianity are in fact complex and mind-boggling with all their strange talk of “special knowledge.” But not so with this book.

Bourgeault examines Jesus’ teachings from the perspective of seeing Jesus as a unique teacher of Wisdom—unique in the sense that few people in his day could quite fathom what he was getting at because it was alien to their usual way of thinking. Bourgeault writes that the parables were especially challenging for those first followers of Jesus, maybe even more challenging than they are for us today.

Bourgeault writes in this wonderful book that the parables are not “sweet little teaching[s] about people doing nice things for other people. [They are] a challenge to the basic structures, assumptions and beliefs about ourselves that keep the…mind firmly in place.” She goes on to say that parables are “supposed to challenge you; [they’re] supposed to make you angry—and [they’re] supposed to make you look at yourself more closely.” In other words, what Jesus does in the parables is turn our world upside down. He comes to bring an equal share to a world that is often—that is more often than not—an unfair place. And his command to us is that we do must strive to bring this equal share to this unequal world.

And that is what we’re doing here at St. Stephen’s. As we begin this new chapter in our lives together, we do so knowing that we are striving to bring about an equal share in a world that is often unfair. We do so, knowing that we are sometimes swimming against the tide. We do so, feeling at times, as though we’re set up to fail. And just when we think the unfairness of this world has won out—in that moment, the Kingdom of God always breaks through to us. And in that moment, we are the ones who are able to be the conduit through which the Kingdom of God comes.

So, continue to do what you are doing here at St. Stephen’s. Strive to do even better. In every thing we do, let us attempt to lift that veil in our lives and by doing so, let us be the conduit through which the Kingdom of God will flood into this unfair world. And let us do together what Jesus is calling us to do in this world Let us love—fully and completely. Let us love our God, let us love our selves and let us neighbors as ourselves. And let us go out and do what we have always been doing. As we all know, it’s important to come here and share the Word and the Eucharist on Sundays. But we also know that what we share here motivates us to go out into the world and actually “do” our faith. As the great Anglican bishop of Zanzibar, Frank Weston, once said: “You have Christ in your tabernacles.”—you have Christ here, present in your Eucharist—“now go out and seek Him in the highways and the hedges...”

The future is full of hope—a hope given to us by a God who knows our future and who wants only good for us. Let us go forth with a hope and with a joy that we are doing what we can to make that future glorious.

New Priest-in-Charge of St. Stephen's, Fargo

September 18, 2008
Bl. Edward Bouverie Pusey

Dear friends,

Last evening, the Vestry of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Fargo offered me a call as Priest-in-Charge. I have gratefully accepted the call and will begin my duties there on October 1. A Renewal of Ministry service will be held at St. Stephen’s on Thursday, Oct. 16 at 7:00 PM.

As some of you might know, St. Stephen’s is the first Episcopal Church I ever attended, so to serve there as Priest has deep personal significance for me.

I will continue to serve the Diocese as Assistant to the Bishop for Communications, as well as various other Diocesan ministries. I will also keep regular hours in the Diocesan office during the week, so you can always contact me there anytime.

I will also continue teaching at the University of Mary's Fargo campus.

As joyful as this news is, it is also bittersweet since I will be ending my ministries at Gethsemane Cathedral after nine years and All Saints, Valley City, after two years. I have been blessed to serve two wonderful congregations and I have been especially enjoyed serving alongside Dean Steve Sellers, the assisting Cathedral clergy and Cathedral Coordinator, Leisha Woltjer and Fr. Chuck Henley and Pat Fearing at All Saints.

St Stephen’s is located at
120 20 Avenue North
Fargo, ND 58102
http://www.ststephens-fargo.org/

I will also be moving into the Rectory of St. Stephen’s by October 1, so I can better serve the congregation. The address of the rectory is:
117 20 Ave. North
Fargo, ND 58102
701-298-3025
(It is located just behind St. Stephen's)

My cell phone will remain the same: 701-793-1953

I now ask your prayers and best wishes as I begin this new venture. I also ask your prayers and best wishes for my family and for St. Stephen’s during this time of transition.

- peace,
Jamie+