7 Pentecost

July 31, 2011

Matthew 14.13-21


+ Last weekend, as most of you know, I was in the Cities. On Friday night, I had supper with my good friend, Justin and his girlfriend, Johanna at her apartment in St. Paul. Now, I had never actually had one of Justin’s famous meals before. I had heard about his culinary abilities (which, I was told, were quite something), but I had no idea what I was in for.

Sure enough, Justin did not disappoint. The meal he served was something else. And that is an understatement. He served, that evening, an incredible poached salmon with braised leeks and red wine butter sauce (beurre rouge). He also served an au gratin with three different potatoes including purple potatoes. For dessert he served several different kinds of fresh berries with ice cream. It was like nothing else I had ever eaten before.

Now, I hate to tempt all of you with these food images, especially those of you who very loyally have been keeping your Eucharistic fast this morning. But it was one of those truly magical meals. I have found myself thinking about that meal often this week—sometimes at very inopportune moments. But what is great about such an experience is that meals like that truly do make us appreciative of special times. Such a meal isn’t just about the food we share. It is also about the friendship we have and the celebration of friendship that meal entails.

We encounter another one of those magical culinary experiences in our Gospel reading for this morning. Here also we have an incredible meal. We have a miracle involving food. But we realize that like any truly magical culinary experience that there is more involved here than just the sharing of food. There is something deeper, something more meaningful. What we find happening today is something very familiar to us who follow Jesus. This so-called feeding of the multitudes appears frequently in the Gospel readings. Six times, actually. You know, then, that it is an important event in the lives of those early followers of Jesus if they are going to write about it six times.

I probably will also preach and write about Justin’s meal six times.

For us, this feeding of the multitude also has much meaning. Yes, it is a great miracle in the life of Jesus. But it also has meaning in our lives as well. If you listen closely to what is happening in the reading you’ll notice that, in many ways, we reenact what happens in today’s Gospel in our own lives as Christians. If you look closely, Jesus doesn’t just perform some outstanding miracle just to “wow” the crowds. He also performs a very practical act. And, as often happens in the life of Jesus, the practical and the spiritual get bound up with each other.

In our reading we find Jesus saying of the bits of bread and fish, “Bring them here to me.” Then he proceeds to do four things. He takes the bread and fish, he blesses it, he breaks the bread and he gives it to them. He takes, blesses, breaks and gives. That’s important to remember.

When else do we hear and do these things? Well, at every Eucharist we celebrate together. Every time we gather at this altar, we take, we bless, we break and we give. Of course, we commemorate the Last Supper when we do these things, but certainly, in the early Church, those early followers of Jesus remembered all those moments when Jesus shared food with them as kinds of Eucharistic events, since essentially the same actions took place at each. They also saw these meals—these moments when Jesus fed people—as glimpses to what awaited us. And we do too.

You have heard me say many, many times that when I talk of the Kingdom of God, I imagine a meal. The Kingdom of God is truly a meal—a wonderfully meal with friends. The Kingdom is no doubt much like the meal my friend Justin made. It is a meal in which the finest foods are served, the best wines are uncorked and everyone—everyone, no matter who they are—is treated as an honored guest. And everyone IS invited. Of course, some don’t have to come, but everyone is invited to this meal. In a sense, that is the very reason I hold the Eucharist to be so important to my own personal and spiritual life. What we celebrate at this altar is a glimpse of what awaits us all. What we do here is a moment in which we get to see what the Kingdom of God is really like. But what all of this—the feeding of the multitude, the Eucharist, the Kingdom as a meal—shows us as well is the way forward to doing ministry.

How do we bring the Kingdom of God into our midst, as we are told to do as followers of Jesus? We do it by taking, blessing, breaking and giving. In our case, we do this with the ministry we have been given to do. We take what is given us to share. We bless it, by asking God’s blessing on it. We break it, because only by breaking it can we share it. And we give it. This is what each of us is called to do in our ministries, in our service to those around us.

The Eucharist is the basis—the ground work or the blueprints—on what we should be doing as followers of Jesus. Our ministries call us to feed those who are hungry. Yes, to feed the physically hungry, but also to feed the spiritually hungry, the emotionally hungry, the socially hungry, as well. We are called to take of our very selves, to bless ourselves, to break ourselves to share and to give of ourselves. Just as Jesus did.

It’s not easy. It’s not fun. In fact, oftentimes, it’s painful and tiring and exhausting. But this is what it means to follow Jesus. And when we do these things, the Kingdom comes forth in our midst.

Our job as Christian is to let people know this one simple fact—there is a meal awaiting us and everyone, EVERYONE, is invited. Our job as followers of Jesus is to do what Jesus does. We are to be the invitation to the meal. And we do this best by showing people what the meal will be like. We take, we bless, we break and we give of ourselves, freely and without limit or qualm. We give freely without prejudice or distinction.

Yes, I know—it is a radical thought to think of such things. But, so is feeding a multitude of people in abundance from just a bit of bread and two fish.

So, let us do as Jesus does. Let us embody that meal to which we are all invited. Let us take with us what we gain from the meal we share here at this altar. And let us, in turn, bless, break and give to all those around us in need. There is an incredible meal awaiting us. We are catching a glimpse of it here this morning. We who feed here this morning on what may appear to some to be little, will be filled. And those whom we feed in turn will also be filled.

"Give them something to eat,” Jesus is saying to us.

How can we not do just that?

5 Pentecost

July 17, 2011

Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

+ This past Friday I met with a wonderful young couple over whose wedding I will preside in September. We met at the HoDo, appropriately enough because they will be getting married on the rooftop there. We had a wonderful evening. I really enjoy meeting with wedding couples in such environments. The days of meeting with the priest in the priest’s office are, I think, starting to be a thing of the past. And I can tell you I get to know a couple much better over cocktails than sitting across from each other in my office. This will be my fifth wedding of the year. I was going to say that I still have three more after that—not a record by any sense of the word. Then, yesterday morning, I received a Facebook message about doing another wedding on the same day as this one in September, only later in the evening.

On Friday, in the midst of our conversation, as we got to know each other better, the future husband shared with me an interesting scenario in their family. His fourteen year son (from a previous relationship) has a nasty little habit of using the words “Gay” and “retarded” to describe things he hates. I think we all know situations like this. This couple suddenly got very passionate about this.

They said, “This is one of those things that drive us crazy. We have to jump on him immediately about how using those words is not only disrespectful, but downright slanderous.”

After a while, the boy got it. And now he doesn’t use those words anymore because he realizes that they are hurtful and disrepectful.

As we discussed this, I, of course, was thinking about our Gospel reading for this morning. And I realized that, in a very real sense, this is what means to sow good seed in the Kingdom. Now this parable we hear today in the Gospel is traditionally referred to as the Parable of Tares. T-a-r-e-s. We find this word “Tares” in the King James Version of the Bible. I personally like that word very much. This word is thought to mean darnel, which is a kind of ryegrass which actually looks very much like wheat does in its early stages of growth. To put it in a bit of perspective to Jesus’ own time, Roman law prohibited the sowing of darnel among the wheat of an enemy. To take it all a step further, we need to realize that sometimes planting darnel within an enemy’s wheat might actually be an issue of life or death. Less of a harvest, means less food. Less food means more illness, more death. So, this whole concept of planting weeds in an enemy’s wheat has much more meaning than we may initially thought when we heard this parable.

For us, it’s a bit different. For us, sowing weeds among wheat is something very different, especially when we look at Jesus’ explanaition of this parable. As I pondered this these last few days, I realized that for us, we sow darnel among wheat in very different ways. In the situation with that son of that young couple, we would sow tares, sow weeds, when we do not speak up when deragatory words are used. Yes, we know that standing up and saying “this is not right” is hard to do. Yes, it may cause us to be on the receiving end of ridicule and possibly even violence. But the fact remains that when we don’t stand up—when we are complascent—we are sowing tares. We are sowing weeds in the Kingdom. We are showing that we do not love our neighbor as ourselves and that we are not truly followers of Jesus, who would stand up and speak out against the injustices of such comments.

And we’ve all been guilty of complascency like this. We’ve all done it. We’ve all rolled our eyes and bit our tongues—or maybe even chuckled a bit—when someone has made a sexist or homophobic or racist joke or comment around us. And we have all tried to ignore when institutions like our very Church or our government on have denied certain rights to people in various ways.

And sometimes even we ourselves have been malicious. Sometimes we have endevoured to plant seeds that prevent growth. We sometimes don’t do it purposefully. But we do it.

When it comes to church, for example. We show weeds among the wheat when we are afraid. Fear is a great tare among the wheat. Fear of the future. Fear of change. These can be crippling. We sow the weeds when we are afraid that everything we once knew and found so comfortable is now being viewed as out-of-date or somewhat archaic.

One of the greatest “tares” we all experience in parish ministry is when people say things like: “We can’t do that. We have never done that before.” Saying things like that and being stuck in that mentality is a kind of sowing of weeds in the midst of the field. Yes, we need to have a healthy respect for our history and our past. We can never forget where we have came from and what has been done in the past.

As you know I occasionally love to do a traditional Rite I Mass on Wednesday nights, esepcially in the summer. It’s good for us to hear that traditional language. It might not be our “thing,” but it certainly puts into perspective where we have come from. It gives some of us a certain level of comfort. And I love doing it. I was trained in celebrating Mass with those traditional words and with those traditional actions. They have meaning and they have contributed in real and purposeful ways in what we do now in our current liturgy.

But we can never be stuck in that past. And we can’t step back in time. We cannot let what we’ve done in the past prevent us from doing the work that needs to be done now and in the future. When we get stuck, that is when the crop begins to die. It prevents the harvest from happening. It prevents growth from happening. It makes the church not into a vital, living place proclaiming God’s loving and living Presence, but it preserves it as a musty museum for our own personal comfort.

The flourishing of the kingdom can be frightening. It can be overwhelming. Because when the Kingdom flourishes, it flourishes beyond our control. We can’t control that flourishing. All we can do is plant the seeds and tend the growth as best we can.

Allowing the Kingdom to flourish also means that there also needs to be some pruning of the weeds. In the Rule of the Episcopal monastic order of the Society of St. John the Eveanglist, we find this wonderful statement in the chapter titled “The Spirit of Mission and Service”:

“Christ has promised that if we abide in him and consent to his skillful pruning, we shall bear fruit that abides. If the result of our labors are to last we need to root our endeavors in Christ and draw on our intimacy with him.”

Rooting our endeavors in Christ is a sure guarentee that what is planted will flourish. Because rooting our endeavors in Christ means we are rooted our endeavors in a living, vital Presence. We are rooting them in a wild Christ who knows no bounds, who knows no limits and who cannot be controlled by us. Rooting our endevors in Christ means that our job is simply to go with Christ and the growth that Christ brings about wherever and however that growth may happen. Even when that growth may seem to happening in the midst of weeds and thorns.

Last week, in my sermon on sowing seeds among thorns and weeds, I said that sometimes God even uses the thorns and weeds and that, even then, crops flourish. I believe the same happens even when tares have been planted by the enem—whoever that enemy may be. God sometimes is able to even to bring about a fruitfull harvest even when vindicitive tares have been planted in our midst. Sometimes when we encounter weeds maliciously planted in our midst, our frustration, our anger, our impatience drives us to not only root out those weeds, but to make sure another like it never happens again. And hopefully in those instances when we ourselves have planted weeeds that have stunted the Kingdom from growning, the recgonition of our actions sometimes causes us to stop and take notice of our actions and to change.

So, you with ears, listen! To be righteous does not mean being be good and sweet and nice all the time. The be righteous one simply needs to further the harvest of the Kingdom by doing what those of us who follow Jesus do. It means to plant the good seeds. And in those instances when we fail, we must allow the harvest to happen even when we have planted weeds among the good seeds.

And when we do strive to do good and to further the kingdom of God, then will we being doing what Jesus cooamnds us to do. The harvest will flourish and we can take some joy in knowing that we helped, working with God, to make it flourish. And, in that moment, we know the fruits of our efforts. And we—the righteous—we the ones who do the work of God in this world, who further the kingdom in our midst—we will shine like the sun in that kingdom of our God.

4 Pentecost

July 10, 2011

Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23

+ I think I am going through one of those moments most people go through at my age. One of the signs that we are maturing as adults (and especially for those of us heading into middle age), happens when, one day, a strange feeling comes upon us when we least expect it. For some people, when this feeling rears its ugly head, it is a time to despair. Some people call it a mid-life crisis. Others just say it’s a restlessness that comes with age.

It is a feeling we fight, we try to avoid, we do anything in our power to get around. But sometimes, there’s no escaping it. This feeling I’m talking about is the feeling of frustration.

I’m not talking about the frustration one feels when its rains on a day you’ve planned some big outdoor event. I am talking about the frustration that comes on us when we realize that all those dreams, all those plans we had have simply come to naught. It’s the frustration we feel when we simply face the facts of our life and see our present life for what it really is. And when we compare that present life with what we imagined our life would be like at this point, we definitely find ourselves frustrated.

We ask ourselves: what happened to me? How did I end up becoming this person—this person who looks and acts just like what I disliked the most when I was younger.

Certainly most of us have felt this frustration in our jobs, or as parents. For those of us in ordained ministry, we deal with this all the time. When many people go into the ministry, they imagine all the good they’re going to do in their lives. They imagine all the people whose lives they are going to positively affect. They imagine all the souls they will save. They imagine all the parishes they will one day fill with believers and how they, single-handedly, will change the sometimes all-too-accurate reputation the Church has of being a close-minded, human-driven organization with all its faults.

To use the images from today’s Gospel, they imagine all the seeds they sow will be in good soil and will flourish a hundred times what was sown. They come out of seminary and rise up from having hands laid on them at their ordination with a starry-eyed idealism.

Now I don’t think I did have much starry-eyed idealism when I was ordained. I had already been through the ringer a couple of time by that time. But trust me, there are a lot of newly ordained clergy who do.

And then, they hit the five-year mark. For some clergy, the five-year mark is that mark when they realize the honeymoon’s over. They’ve, hopefully, been through the wringer once or twice by this time. Their wrists have been slapped, their egos have been deflated, their sermons critiqued to the point they are much more careful what they are going to say when they enter the pulpit. And, more importantly, they face reality.

By five years, one knows if the seed one has sown is producing a crop. And by five years, every clergy person knows that what they are producing is not anywhere near one hundred times what was sown. And it is then that frustration settles in.

Now, I say this as I approach the eight anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate on July 25. These eight years have been a strange rollercoaster ride for me. And as I approach this ordination anniversary, I find myself reflecting back to what my goals were in that hot summer of 2003 and what, if any of them, have been met. I reflect back on what I sowed in those early days of ministry.

Now, I am very fortunate and very grateful to God and to the people I have served with in those eight long years, that the crop hasn’t been too bad. There have been many successes. And I have had many more joyful moments as an ordained deacon and priest than I have had disappointments. You have heard me say it before and you will hear me say it again: I am very happy and thankful to be a priest. It truly is one of the greatest joys in my life.

Still, I’ve had plenty of set-backs and disappointments. Yes, I have stumbled and fallen and failed miserably. I have preached my share of clinker sermons. I have lost my professional cool with parishioners and other clergy and, yes, maybe a bishop or two. And I have failed people I have been called to serve—not purposely, but certainly I have fallen short of the expectations made of me by some people. I have done my share of very stupid things as a priest. And when I think about those things—those dumb things I have done in my ministry— then I face it. I find it right there, staring me in the face—frustration.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us a glimpse of what this frustration is like. 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 ultimately seems like a failure. He is surrounded by twelve men—people he himself chose—who just don’t get what he’s saying. 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 person 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.

It would be even worse if even his mother has deserted him. Can you imagine, in that awful lonely moment, to look down and realize not even your mother—of all people—had stayed with you. So, it could have been worse.

Still, 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 Christianity—one of the things that has baffled people for thousands of years. 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. Ands 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.

In my own life I have found strange moments when God has broken through my own failures, my own shortcomings to work, when God has taken the seed I thought I had sown on land unsuitable for growth and somehow made it grow. In those moments when I have failed, I have found that I learned a few lessons about myself.

First, my failures have taught me that I had to stop being selfish and self-centered. What God does in ministry has very little to do with me personally. Let me tell you, it’s a hard realization for me to make but it isn’t all about me all the time. It is always truly about God using even me in those situations.

Second, those failures taught me that, even in those moments in which I, myself, was, if in no one else’s eyes but my own, a failure, still, somehow, God works. 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 God will produce the crop.

What I have realized in these eight years of ordained ministry is that I simply need to let God do what God is going to do. Our job, as Christians, 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 simply cannot allow frustration to triumph. Frustration and despair are the thorns and rocky soil of our lives. We must be the rich soil in which that seed flourishes. And when we do, the crops God brings forth in us and through us will truly be one hundred times more than what we sowed. Amen.

3 Pentecost

July 3, 2011

Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30

+ Sometimes, I honestly feel sorry for you. You truly do have to suffer sometimes under my strange eccentricities, especially my strange appreciation of strange catholic beliefs and practices.

This past Wednesday, at Mass, we commemorated Sts Peter and Paul, but I also threw in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Feast of the Sacred Heart fell this past Friday. And because I have always held a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart, I couldn’t let the day go by without some kind of commemoration.

The fact is, we Episcopalians do not officially observe the feast of the Sacred Heart. But that, of course, has never prevented me from doing anything and this is one of those feasts that I just can’t let by without making some reference to it.

And although we seem to see this particular devotion to the Sacred Heart as only a Roman Catholic devotion, I beg to differ. I learned my devotion to the Sacred Heart not from any Roman Catholic, or even from an Episcopalian. I learned devotion to the Sacred Heart from my very Lutheran grandmother.

My Grandma Minnie had a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart. I don’t know if she ever called it the “Sacred Heart,” but her favorite representation of Jesus was always ones in which he was revealing his heart. In fact, the two representations I remember most clearly were a very cheap picture in a black plastic frame and a large statue of the Sacred Heart that she keep in the corner of her living room. She received that statue from a Hispanic Roman Catholic friend of her’s and it was one of her most prized possessions.

The other day, as my mother and I were cleaning the basement of my mother’s house, getting ready for her move, I found that statue in a large cardboard box. No, I will not set it up here in the church, but I am going to put it in a place of honor in the rectory.

For my grandmother, this devotion wasn’t some strange Catholic devotion. For her, it truly represented the love Jesus had for us and, although she wasn’t a big preacher, she made it clear that Jesus did truly love each of us.

I have to agree with her.

Why the Sacred Heart is important to me is not because it is some quaint catholic devotion. It is important to me because it is such a wonderful representation of that love Jesus has for each of us and all of us. That Sacred Heart is a beautiful symbol that Jesus loves fully and completely and wholly. Jesus loves in a way we strive to love, but cannot love. Our love has limits. Our love fails at times. But not Jesus’. His love is always without limits.

And that love knows no bounds. Jesus loves everyone fully and completely, no matter who or what they are. I say it all the time and I will always say it—Jesus love for us knows no bounds. He loves us fully and completely. And we see this most clearly in that devotion to the Sacred Heart.

But it’s not enough that we are simply the recipients of this love. The fact is: we are followers of Jesus. As followers of Jesus we are essentially called to imitate Jesus. And that means that our hearts should be like his Heart. Our hearts should be filled to the brim with a burning love. For everyone.

Everyone—no matter who they are—can be found within that Heart. No one is excluded from that place of burning love which is never extinguished.

When we see devotion to Christ’s loving heart in this way, we see that it IS very timely for our church at this point. We see that this reminder to love as Jesus loved is at the core of the Gospel and at the core of what it means to follow Jesus.

When we see the Sacred Heart we should see it as a mirror in which our own hearts are reflected. His heart is the ideal. It is the goal in our own love. We too should love just as like the Sacred Heart of Jesus loves.

This love is not an easy love. It truly is the yoke that Jesus talks about in today’s Gospel. When he says to us:

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for you souls. For my yoke I easy, and my burden light.”

We truly find that he is setting the standard. Learn from him. He is gentle and humble in heart. In this love that he feels for each of us and in the love that we, in turn give to others, we will find rest for our souls.

So find refuge in this love. Let his love be the guide for your love. Let your heart be a reflection of that Sacred Heart of Jesus, which contains within it the vastness of Christ’s love for each of us.

2 Pentecost

June 26, 2011

Matthew 10.40-42


+ This past Wednesday evening, at our Wednesday night Mass, we commemorated, very quietly anyway, the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi. Corpus Christ is of course Latin for the Body of Christ and it is a feast in which we celebrate the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, in the Bread and Wine of Holy Communion. And today is traditionally Corpus Christi Sunday. Of course the Episcopal Church doesn’t officially recognize this day, though Anglicans elsewhere do, as do Roman Catholics everywhere.

Traditionally on Corpus Christi, in Roman and Anglo-Catholic parishes, the Host is placed in a monstrance—which is a tall, very ornate stand, with a little glass circular container in its center, in which the Host goes. The monstrance, with the Host in it, is then processed. It can processed through the church, or around the outside of the church or on the street outside the church.

You have often heard me mention the Episcopal church of St. Mary the Virgin—so called “Smoky Mary’s” because of all the incense they use—on Time’s Square in Manhattan. They process Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament right through Times Square on the feast of Corpus Christi amidst clouds and clouds of incense and bewildered onlookers.

We, however, did not nor will we do any of that, here at St. Stephen’s. Now considering that, on Wednesday, we had Thom Marubbio, Joanne Droppers, Gin Templeton and Betty Spur in the congregation, there seemed to be little chance of us actually processing  the Blessed Sacrament around the church. I don’t know who of them would have held baldachin (which is the fancy canopy that is carried by four acolytes) Though I’m sure we could’ve out on a good show for the college kids who live across the street on the corner. And I could’ve imagine maybe one or two of our Wednesday night congregants just sort of disappearing right before the procession started. I won’t say who…

Actually, such displays may be a bit too much, even for me… Still, I never shy away from my very solid belief that the Eucharist is the center of our lives as Christians. Even Lutherans believe that!

And with that in mind, it is good for us to be reminded about how and why the Eucharist is central to our lives. And it IS central to our spiritual lives and ministries here at St. Stephen’s. On our website you’ll find this wonderful kind of Mission Statement:

St. Stephen’s is a community called by Christ through the Holy Spirit


+ to live a life of common worship centered around grateful thanksgiving to God in the weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist


+ to be faithful stewards of the gifts and resources entrusted to us


+ to be bearers of God’s healing and reconciling love.


As ambassadors for Christ, we are dedicated to share the Good News of God in Christ through the Sacraments, Liturgy, , Word, Music and by attending to the needs of all people in the name of Jesus.

I really like that mission statement. I think it really says it all, as far as I’m concerned. To a large extend all of this—being bearers of God’s healing and reconciling love, being faithful stewards—all of it stems from our celebration of the Eucharist. Because everything we do is simply a reflection of that.

What do we do when we come to this table? We are feed. And what we are called to do after we have been fed? We are called then to feed others.

What does it mean that we have the Eucharist as the center of our ministries here at St. Stephen’s? It means that, for us to do ministry, for us to actually go out and do the work we have been called to do, we need to be fed.

We need to be fed physically, but we need to be fed spiritually too. If we are famished, we do not feel motivated to work. If we are empty and having nothing to sustain us, our lacking will show in our ministry. The fact is, God wants us to be fed. God wants us to be sustained. And I’m not just saying us, gathered here today. I am saying God wants ALL of us to be fed and sustained. Every last one of us. And, in the Eucharist, we experience true nourishment. It is a reminder to us that what we do when we come at this altar is not just for ourselves. It is not some quaint private archaic devotion we do here. It is a radical experience of God And it is the “shot in the arm,” so to speak, for us to turn around and share this love and nourishment we receive here with others. We, who leave here, carrying Christ within us, are then to share this Presence of Christ with others through our actions and our words.

There is a reason the bread of the Eucharist is called a Host. The bread truly does become the Host to Christ, who is present. I love that idea of the bread being the host of Christ. But what I love even more is that we, in turn, become hosts ourselves. But we too are host to Christ when we take Holy Communion. And being host, we are all called to be host to those around us.

In our Gospel reading for today we find Jesus saying to us,

“Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

In the Eucharist we find this incredible welcome. And nourished by the Eucharist, changed by the experience with God and with each other in this Eucharist, we are able to extend this welcome to all those we meet as well. The Eucharist empowers us and charges and, yes, challenges us to be hosts, to welcome everyone we meet as though they are Christ. It empowers us to give even a cup of cold water to the “little ones”—the least ones—in our midst. In the Eucharist we experience a hospitality like none we have never known before. It is a truly powerful experience. And you can tell it is a powerful experience because, some churches, for example, deny people from participating in the Eucharist simply because they don’t believe a certain way about it. Such thinking baffles my mind.

What we experience in the Eucharist is radical hospitality—the same kind of hospitality we practice here at St. Stephen’s again and again. At the Eucharist, each of us is welcomed for who we are. No one should be turned away from this altar and this meal. At this Eucharist, we are accepted for who we are. And, at this Eucharist, we are loved fully and completely just for who we are. And knowing this and experiencing this, we then can turn around and welcome others, accept others and fully and completely love others because we too have experienced all of this in this incredible meal.

I am amazed when I hear stories of people who have been turned away from Holy Communion. I get downright angry when I hear of people being denied the Eucharist because of something they did—whatever it might be. That is not what the Eucharist is about.

The Eucharist is a foretaste of what awaits us. The Eucharist is a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God is truly like—where all people are welcomed and received. The Eucharist is a peek into what awaits all of us. It is the ideal place.

As you often hear me say about the Kingdom of God—“It’s party and everyone’s invited.” We don’t have to go, but the invitation is always open. That is what Eucharist is. Our job as the hosts is to make sure that everyone knows they’re invited. Our job is to make that everyone knows they are welcomed and loved and accepted at that party. And we do it by who we are and what we are.

So, as you come forward this morning, come forward knowing that what we experience here is truly an amazing and radical experience with the Kingdom Jesus proclaims again and again. As you come forward this morning to this altar to receive Jesus’ Body and to drink his Blood, do so knowing that this radical welcoming of Jesus is also an invitation for you to welcome others just as radically.

“Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me,” Jesus says. “And whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

Those are not just words spoken to us. They are spoken also to all those we encounter in our lives. As Brother Curtis Almquist of the Episcopal Society of St. John the Evangelist shared once in a sermon:

“We meet Jesus in our baptism [and, I would, add, in the Eucharist] where, we believe, Jesus comes to live in our hearts, to make his home in us, to abide with us. But this is also true for others. They, too, are a dwelling place for Jesus. We, individually and corporately, embody Jesus. Yes, Jesus lives in me, but Jesus also lives in you.”

Jesus lives in each of us. He is living his radical and amazing life and love through us. So, let us each be the host of that loving presence to those around us. And, with Jesus present in us, let us his speak his welcoming words of invitation to all those we encounter. All are invited. All are welcome. No one will be turned away.

Trinity

June 19, 2011

Matthew 28.16-20

+ Most of you know that I am a pretty compassionate priest. I really do feel sorry for people and try to soothe people’s pains—at least as much as I am able to do. But one thing I have very little pity for is whiny preachers. And, let me tell you, I have never heard preacher’s whine more than they do when they have to preach on this Sunday—Trinity Sunday.

Last night on Facebook, I heard many of my clergy friends lamenting the fact that they were still struggling over their Trinity Sunday sermons.

“Boo hoo,” these preachers whine. “I have to preach on an obscure theological doctrine that has almost no scriptural basis.”

Boo hoo indeed!

I actually LOVE to preach about the Trinity. Now, I don’t claim to know anything more about the Trinity than any other preacher. I am no more profound than anyone else on trying to describe what the Trinity is or how it works. But I also don’t find it to be such a stumbling block. Yes, I know the word “Trinity” never appears in scripture. But I do enjoy exploring the different aspects of how the Trinity is made known to us. And…I very unashamedly believe that God does manifest God’s self in Trinitarian terms.

But that doesn’t mean I am not confused but it some times. And doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally doubt it all sometimes.

In our Gospel reading for today, we find that some worshipped Jesus when they saw him resurrected. And we find that “some doubted.” I think that is a normal reaction for those people, who were still struggling to understand who Jesus was, especially this resurrected Jesus. And the fact that we too doubt things like the Trinity is normal as well.It IS difficult to wrap our minds around such a thing. It’s complicated and it’s complex. And, speaking for myself, sometimes the more I think about it, the more complicated it seems to get. Especially when we try to think in the so-called correct (or orthodox) way about it all.

But the doubts, the complications and intricacies of the concept of the Trinity are all part of belief. Belief is not meant to be easy. It is meant to be something we struggle with and carry around with us. And doubt isn’t always a bad thing. We all doubt at times. Without doubt we would be nothing but mindless robots.

Still, I do find some headstrong Episcopalians among us. Of course, I am not headstrong in any way shape or form. I am very humble and complacent kind of guy. (I don’t know why you don’t believe that!!!!) I occasionally will encounter one of these headstrong Episcopalians, especially when it comes to the Creed.

“I have issues with the Creed,” I hear people say every so often. “I don’t believe some of it.”

I usually shrug when I hear that. Like those whiny preachers, I really sort of nod and smile politely. I certainly understand when people have issues with certain aspects of the Creed. Depending on the day, or the phase I am in in my life, I sometimes struggle with some aspects of the Creed myself.

But…the fact remains: it not my own personal Creed. If it were, it might be somewhat different. The Creed we stand up and profess every Sunday—a Creed that lays out belief in the Trinity very clearly—is not the private, personal creed of any one of us. It is OUR Creed. It is our collective Creed. It what WE believe, not necessarily what I personally believe. And while I may doubt and struggle with belief personally, together, we do find strength and purpose in professing a creed we, together, believe in. Sometimes that collective faith upholds us when we doubt or downright disbelieve.

Still, there are moments when the Trinity does confuse me and I am filled with doubts. I am one of those people who occasionally just wants something simple in my faith life. I just want to believe in God—the mystery of God, the fact that God is God and any complexity about God is more than I can fathom. I sometimes don’t want to solve the mystery of God. I don’t want God defined for me. I sometimes don’t want theology. I sometimes just want spirituality. I sometimes just want God.

But, as a Christian, I can’t get around the Trinity. And so I struggle on, just like the rest of us.

One of the best things that has helped me in my faith in God as Trinity is the famous icon of the Trinity, written (that’s the proper way to say an icon is painted or drawn) by the great Russian iconographer, Andrei Rubelev. You will see a version of Rublev’s icon on the cover of your bulletin this morning. I have placed a modernized, even clearer version of the icon on the votive stand in the narthex. After Mass today, I encourage you to go and take a look at it and see how truly beautiful it is. Many scholars consider Rublev's Trinity the most perfect of all Russian icons and perhaps the most perfect of all the icons ever painted.

One description of the icon goes like this: “Rublev's Trinity icon is considered to be void of any noticeable energy of earthly life, of corporeality of forms and external manifestations of love, equally absent from it is that cold soaring of the spirit, so remote from humans.

“The image determines the subtle struck balance between soul and spirit, the corporeal and the imponderable, endless and immortal sojourn in the heavens. When speaking of Rublev's work, different authors describe the Trinity's Angels as quiet, gentle, anxious, sorrowful, and the mood permeating the icon as detached, meditative, contemplative, intimate.”

The subject of this icon is the story in Genesis about the visit by three Angels to the Prophet Abraham and his wife Sarah. According to some theological interpretations, these three Angels represent the three Persons of the Trinity.

In the icon we can see that all the three Angels shown as equals to each other. In a sense, this icon is able to show in a very clear and straightforward way what all our weighty, intellectual theologies don’t. What I especially love about the image is that, in showing the three angels seated around the table, you’ll notice that there is one space at the table left open. That is the space for us. In a sense, we are, in this icon, being invited to the table with the Trinity. We are being invited to join into the work of the Trinity. And I think that is why this icon is so important to me.

Yes, I have my doubts. Yes, my rational, intellectual mind prevents me to understand fully what this Trinity could possibly be and, as a result, doubts creep in. But the icon does what nothing else can. It simply allows me to come to the table and BE with God as Trinity. It allows me to sit there with them and be one with them.
Last week, on the Feast of Pentecost, I shared some thoughts from Scot McKnight from his wonderful book One.Life, which I have read lately. Well, McKnight actually has a few thing to say about the Trinity as well in One.Life, that I’d like to share.

McKnight writes: “There are very few ideas that move me so deeply they create silence, and this may be because I think I’ve landed on one of the deep secrets of life. The one silencing idea is the Trinity, the Christian belief that God is One and Three, Three and One, at the same time, always and forever. My soul goes silent when I meander in thought to pre-creation, when all that existed was this Three-in-One God, and I ask this question: Before it all begin, before the stars and sun and sky and earth, before what Genesis 1 calls the…’formless void,” what was God doing?’”

The answer, according to McKnight is found in one Greek word, perichoresis, (which derive from the Greek words Peri or “Around” or “chorein” which means “contain).

McKnight defines perichoresis as the “interpenetrating and mutual indwelling of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

Don’t worry if you don’t quite get it.

He goes on: “The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were in an endless dance of endless love and surging joy and delightful play as they enjoyed the depth of their love for One Another. They were doing this forever and are doing this now and will do this for eternity. At the core of life, in God’s own life, is this throbbing joy of mutual indwelling.”

I am really taken with this concept of perichrosis, especially with it being a kind of dance. And what I like most about this is the fact that we are being invited to be a part of this dance as well. We are being invited into this dance, much as we are being invited to sit at that table in Rublev’s icon. We are invited to join in this dance that has gone on form before time and will go on long after time has ceased.

This dance of the Trinity is what we do here. This table that we sit at is this table here—this altar. This dance we do with the Trinity is the ministries we are all called to do. We don’t need to rationalize everything out about our faith in God. We don’t need to sit around and make it a personal issue. It’s not all about me. Or you. Or any one of us.

No matter how much we might doubt the Trinity, the Trinity still exists. It still goes on, in its eternal dance. And no matter how much we might doubt in our rational minds, we are still being called to the dance. No matter how much we might doubt, we are still being called to sit down at the table.

So, let us do just that. Let us sit down at that table. Let us bring our doubts and uncertainties with us. And let us leave them there. Let us let God be God. And let us go out form this table to do the work each of us has been called to do.

Jesus today, in our Gospel reading, commands us to go and make disciples of all the nations. By doing so, we are joining in that dance of the Trinity. And by doing so, we know, despite our doubts, despite our uncertainties, that the Trinity will be with us always, even to the end of the age.

Dancing.

Pentecost

June 12, 2011

Acts 2.1-21

+ It has become a Pentecost Day tradition for me to tell this story. Yes, I know you’ve heard it before, so don’t think too quickly that I am recycling an old sermon just because this story sounds familiar. I just love to tell the story.

Several years ago, in a Bible study, we were discussing the Holy Spirit. Now, as we all know, the Holy Spirit is not something most of us think about very often. The Holy Spirit is mysterious and ephemeral. Well, in this discussion, someone point-blank asked: “So, what is the Holy Spirit?”

The priest who was heading the discussion thought for a moment and then said, in all seriousness, “Well, when you think of the Holy Spirit, just think of Casper the Friendly Ghost.”

I was telling this story to my friend, Justin Schwartz this past week and also mentioned (and this is a complete aside mind you) that I once considered getting a tattoo. And one of the subjects I considered was Casper the Friendly Ghost. As a little boy, I loved Casper. The problem with me getting Casper as a tattoo was that with my Irish-pale skin, no one would be able to actually see Casper. He would just sort of look like a white scar against my white skin.

Anyway, I do have an issue with seeing the Holy Spirit as “something like Casper the Friendly Ghost.” And I don’t think I have shared with you before my vehement response to this priest and her analogy of Casper in describing the Holy Spirit.

Nothing that we read about in our reading from Acts today conveys an image of the Spirit looking anything like Casper. The Spirit that we find in today’s reading is not some nice sweet little ghost floating around and looking gentle and cute. The Spirit we encounter is truly a firestorm. The Spirit comes blasting in and flip-flops everything. Nothing is ever quite the same again in the lives of those followers of Jesus gathered in the Upper Room—or, we can say, in our own lives as Christians either.

And THAT is how the Spirit works.

I have been reading a wonderful book recently by Scot McKnight called One.Life. McKnight talks quite a bit about Pentecost and the Spirit of Christ that came upon those people. For McKnight, that event in the life of the Church and in our lives as followers of Jesus was one of the most radical events to happen. It was not some personal religious experience. It was not some individual spiritual experience that made everyone feel all warm and cuddly. What happened in that room was a swift kick. It was a kick from God to God’s people. The Spirit’s outpouring on t hose people was the motivation for them to get up and get out and do what they were called to do.

Now, we’ve all heard of this phenomenon of “speaking in tongues” that we are introduced to in the book of Acts. I find it amazing that in the more Pentecostal churches these speaking in tongues is viewed as a special gift that is almost always done INSIDE the church.

I remember seeing it for the first time in my Aunt Shirley’s First Assemblies of God Church. People would get up and speak in some strange language that no one understood and people would rejoice in it, but no one really seemed to know what was being said. It was celebrated because it was seen as a special gift from God granted to certain people.

But, what we find in the Book of Acts, when the gift of tongues comes upon those followers of Jesus, is not quite what the people in the Assemblies were doing. What happens to the first followers of Jesus is actually quite practical. It was more than some mystical, secret language of the Spirit. It was, instead, a sign from the Spirit. It was sign that what happened at the Tower of Babel, when the nations were confused by multiple languages, has been reversed. Now, empowered by the Spirit, the followers of Jesus were compelled to go out and preach this Kingdom of God to all people and that different languages would no longer be a barrier to them. The Spirit’s movement in their lives meant that all the barriers were knocked down. The Wind of that Spirit came in and destroyed every barrier in ministering and serving others.

For us, it’s similar. Maybe our barriers are not languages in the ministries each of us are called to do here and outside these walls. But the ministries we have been empowered by the Spirit of Christ to do in our lives truly should be breaking barriers as well. We are all called to ministries that break down barriers. Our ministries to proclaim by word and example the radical love of God and the Kingdom of God in our midst will break down barriers.

As McKnight writes in One.Life:

“…when Pentecost happens, the Spirit of God…
transforms human abilities
and Transcends human inabilities
so Transformed people can participate
In God’s Kingdom
In the here and now.”

In other words, no longer are we confined by inabilities. No longer are we held prisoner by what we are not able to do. Because the Spirit again and again breaks down those barriers—whatever they may be—and compels us to serve whenever and where we are.

McKnight also gives a wonderful description of what exactly this Kingdom or Reign of God is like. He writes:

“[The Kingdom is] Life lived with others, regardless of who they are
Life shaped by the teachings of Jesus through his apostles
Life experience by eating with one another.
Life swarmed by prayer.
Life carried away in awe of what God was [and I would add, IS] doing
Life shared economically and materially
Life welcomed by outsiders
Life expanded.
Life unleashed.”

This Spirit that we are celebrating today on this Pentecost Day is truly that Life unleashed. The Spirit is life at its best, life at its greatest potential. This Spirit is motivating all of us, like those first followers, as well. It is motivating us to get up and to move outside these walls and to proclaim justice and mercy and peace to those around us.

When the Spirit moves in our lives, we are not only recognize the injustices going on around us, but we are also motivated to stand up and to proclaim them wrong. When the Spirit moves in our lives, we not only are able to see the sufferings of those who are marginalized and oppressed and driven down, but we are empowered to get up and help them and strive to create a better place.

This is what it means to be a Christian. This is what it means to do ministry. This is what it means to live a life in which the Spirit moves and compels and drives us forward. This is what it means to follow Jesus.

McKnight in his book answers that all-important question of “What is a Christian?” with this wonderfully insightful answer:

“A Christian is one who follows Jesus by devoting his or her life to the kingdom of God, fired by Jesus’ own imagination, to a life of loving God and loving others, and to a society shaped by justice, especially for those who have been marginalized, to peace, and to a life devoted to acquiring wisdom in the context of a local church. This life can only be discovered by being empowered by God’s Spirit.”

This is what the Spirit does. It empowers us. When we think we are weak and hobbled by life, the Spirit comes in and gives us strength. When we think we are good enough to do ministry, to proclaim by example or word that love of God that we have been shown and can show others, the Spirit comes in and corrects. When we think we are too old or too young or not enough or too smart or limited by a lack of financial resources or physical limitations or mental illness or grief, the Spirit comes in and fills us once again with life.

The Spirit unleashes life within us so, through us, life can be unleashed. That is what ministry is. And it is incredible.

So, let us receive the Holy Spirit. Let that Spirit’s incredible, overwhelming life be unleashed through us. Let us, as McKnight tells us, devote our lives to the Kingdom of God…to a life of loving God and loving others, and to a society shaped by justice for all people, no matter who they are.

The Spirit knows no limits. Empowered by this same incredible, firestorm of a Spirit, neither do we. So, let us break down those limits in our lives and let us live a full and completely unleashed life to its very fullest. Only when we do that, will we truly be living a life in that Spirit of life.