19 Pentecost

October 7, 2012

Mark 10.2-16


+ Most of us, of course, who gather here on Sunday mornings, don’t realize that we actually have a somewhat separate congregation on Wednesday nights, at our “Smells and Bells” Mass. There are some of our new members—as well as some of our so-called “proxy” members—who only going to that service And one of the things some of those people like are the fact that, on Wednesday, we always commemorate a saint. I always preach on Wednesday nights, about a different saint and I, in fact, use a couple of resources from the lives of the saints.

Now I don’t mean to toot my own horn here, but usually those stories are very interesting. At least to most of the people on Wednesday nights. Poor Thom Marubbio might not share that opinion. The poor man! On more than one occasion, I’ve seen him quietly rolling his eyes at some of these strange saints we encounter on Wednesday nights. But I give him credit, he does keep coming to the service each week.

The saint we commemorated this past week was not, as you might think, St. Francis, who we will be honoring later today when we do the blessing of the Animals. The saint we commemorated this past week was a French saint—and a fairly contemporary one too—contemporary in this case being someone who lived just over a hundred years ago. She was a Carmelite nun who died on September 30, 1897 by the name of St. Therese of Liseux.

St. Therese led a very sheltered life by most our modern standards no doubt. She joined this very cloistered convent in Normandy in France when she was 14 years old and died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 years. She did not lead what we would consider an exciting, adventure-filled life by any sense of the word.

But, in her short life, she did do one thing that was pretty extraordinary. She developed a theology that is still very useful to all of us today. Her theology was a simple one. It was called “The Little Way.” And she used this “Little Way” to show that anyone, even in very ordinary, normal circumstances, could truly know God in a very intimate way.

The key to her “Little Way” was to truly become child-like in our relationship with God. For Therese, we needed to truly become like little children in our trust and appreciation of God. And this way of following Jesus is still reaping rewards in our own day.

Certainly, the basis for St. Therese’s “Little Way” was our Gospel reading for today. As people were bringing children to Jesus, he says,

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

So, what does Jesus mean when he talks about the Kingdom of heaven and children? Well, he is talking quite bluntly, I believe. He is making it clear that we need to simplify. We need to simplify our faith. We need to clear away all the muck, all the distractions, all those negative things we have accumulated over the years regarding our relationship with God.

Now, to be fair, the Church and Religion in general have piled many of this negative things on us. And that is unfortunate. Too often, as believers, we tend to complicate our faith life and our theology. We get caught up in things like Dogma and Canon laws and rules and Rubrics and following the letter of the law. We get so caught up in doing what we are told is the “right thing,” that we lose sight of this pure and holy relationship with God. We forget why we are doing the right thing.

For Jesus, he saw what happened when people got too caught up in doing the right thing. The scribes and Pharisees were very caught up in doing the right thing, in following the letter of the Law. But in doing so, they lost sight of God. They lost sight of the meaning behind the Law.

Jesus is telling them—and us—that we need to simplify. We need to refocus. We need to become like children in our faith-life. Now that isn’t demeaning. It isn’t sweet and sentimental. Becoming children means taking a good, honest look at what we believe.

As followers of Jesus, it does not have to be complicated. We just need to remind ourselves that, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, he will show us God. Following Jesus means knowing that God is a loving, accepting and always-present Parent. Our job as followers is to connect with this loving Parent, to worship and pray to God. Our job is to be an imitator, like Jesus, of this loving, all-accepting God in our relationship with others.

When we do that—when we become imitators of our loving God, when we love as God loves us—the Kingdom of God becomes present. But the fact is, the Kingdom of God is not for people who complicate it. The Kingdom is one of those things that is very elusive. If we quantify it and examine it too closely, it just sort of wiggles away from us. If we try to define what the Kingdom is, or try to explain it in any kind of detail, it loses meaning. It disappears and become mirage-like.

But if we simply do what we are called to do as followers of Jesus—if we simply follow Jesus, imitate our God and love one another—the Kingdom becomes real. It becomes a reality in our very midst. And whatever separations we imagine between ourselves and God and one another, simply disappear.

This is what I love about being a follower of Jesus. I love the fact that despite all the dogmas and structures and rules the Church might bring us, following Jesus is simply that—following Jesus. It is very simple.

But it can also be very difficult, especially when we still get caught up in all the rules and complications of organized religion. And we do get caught up in those things.

Because following Jesus can be so simple, we find ourselves often frustrated. We want order. We want rules. We want systematic ways of understanding God and religion.

Simplicity sometimes scares us. Becoming childlike means depending on God instead of ourselves. Becoming childlike means shedding our independence sometimes, and we don’t like doing that.

Sometimes complication means busywork. And sometimes it simply is easier to get caught up in busywork, then to actually go out there and follow Jesus and be imitators of God and love others. . Sometimes it is easier to sit and debate the fine points of religion, then it is to go out and actually live out our faith in our lives and to worship God.

But, as Jesus shows us, when we do such things, when we become cantankerous grown-ups, that’s when the system starts breaking down. That’s when we get distracted. That’s when we get led astray from following Jesus. That is when we “grow up” and become cranky, bitter grown-ups rather than loving, wonder-filled children.

It is good to be wonder-filled children. It is good to look around us at the world and see a place in which God still breaks through to us. It is good to see that God lives and works through others.

So, let us be wonder-filled children. Let us truly be awed and amazed at what it means to follow Jesus. Let God be a source of joy in our lives. And let us love each other simply, as children love. Let us love in that wonderfully child-like way, in which our hearts simply fill up to the brim with love. Let us burn with that love in a young and vibrant way.

Being a Christian—following Jesus—means staying young and child-like always. Following Jesus is our fountain of youth, so to speak.

So let us become children for the sake of the Kingdom. And when we do, that Kingdom will flower in us like eternal youth.

18 Pentecost

September 30, 2012

Mark 9:38-50


+ Unless you’re living under a rock, you know that we are living in a very politically charged season at this moment. The elections are upon us and people are being very vocal about their political stances. And it has actually gotten quite ugly on both sides of the political spectrum, if Facebook is any kind of microcosm of the larger arguments. But, for me, my issue, more than anything else—I’m a priest after all—has been how the Church has been involved in some of these political issues.

One of our new members at St. Stephen’s, Sandy Krenz (who is not here this morning), shared this little tidbit on her Facebook page a few days ago:

“The [Roman Catholic] Archbishop of Newark just sent a pastoral letter, addressed to over 1 million Catholics in his archdiocese, demanding that Catholics who support marriage equality refrain from receiving Holy Communion."

Sigh.

I don’t even know here to begin to express my frustration and anger over this kind of thinking. People who support marriage equality should refrain from Holy Communion…l. Essentially what is being said in a comment like this is that, if you support something like marriage equality, you should refrain from receiving Christ’s loving Presence in the Eucharist.

To even begin to unpack and disassemble this thinking is more than I am capable of at this time. I just can’t do it.

But I can say this: there are moments, in my life as a Christian and a priest, when behavior such as this hits me like a ton of bricks.

In this morning’s Gospel, we find the followers of Jesus coming to him and complaining about someone—an outsider, not one of the inner circle of Jesus’ followers—who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. We don’t know who this person was—we never hear anything more about him. Possibly it was one of those many multitudes of people who were simply following Jesus around, observing all that he had done. It was probably a genuine follower of Jesus who simply had not—for whatever reasons—made it into the inner circle of Jesus’ followers.

However, the disciples do not like it. They are threatened by this person—this outsider. And because he is an outsider, they want it stopped. So, thinking he will put an end to it, they go to Jesus. You can almost hear them as they whine and complain to him about this supposedly pretentious person.

But Jesus—once again—does not do what they—or we, in that same situation—think he will do. Jesus tells them:

“Whoever is not against us is for us.”

You would think that we—the Church—would have learned from this story. You think we would have been able to hear this story and realize that, if we are all working together for the same goal—for the welcoming of all people into the Church, into that holy meal in which Jesus feeds us with his very self—then, we are all working together in Jesus’ name. But the fact is, we have not quite “got it.” When the Church acts like the Archbishop of Newark, we have seen it acting like the disciples in today’s Gospel. And we do not see it acting as Jesus wishes it to be acting.

Now, again, I need to stress that I’m talking about the Church—capital C—and I am talking the capital-C Church, I am talking about the human-run organization of the Church. As such, let’s face it, it is an imperfect structure. It has the same faults and failings of all human-run organizations—no matter how blessed it claims to be by God.

As I’ve shared with you on many occasions, I have always had this weird love-hate relationship with the organized Church. On one hand, I truly love the Church. I love serving God’s people within the structure of the Episcopal Church, in the Anglican Communion, and I love serving here at St. Stephen’s (I’ve been priest in charge here four years tomorrow). I love the Church’s traditions. I love its liturgy. My greatest love in the Church, as you all know, is the Holy Eucharist As I’ve mentioned many times here before you, I love being a priest.

And, on really good days, I am so keenly aware that the Church truly is a family. We are a family that might not always get along with each other, but when it comes right down to it, we do love each other in the end.

But I will be just as honest that, when I hear things like this news report of the Catholic Archdiocese of New Jersey, I find being a member of the Church a burden. The Church—as most of us know—can be a fickle place to be at times. It can be a place where people are more interested in rules and dogmas—in ostracizing and alienating—than a place of acceptance and love that furthers that radical Kingdom of God in our very midst. It can be a place where people are so caught up in doing what they feel is right, that they run rough-shod over people who truly need the Church and who truly long for God—for a people who crave Jesus in the food of the altar.

When I was ordained, I remember a colleague of mine—someone who knew about my love-hate relationship with the Church—saying to me that they found it amazing that I—of all people—was putting on the “uniform” of the organized Church. I remember being shocked by that statement.

For some reason I hadn’t even considered the fact that I would now be a representative of something that I wasn’t certain I wanted to represent. In the years since my ordinations, I have found that, yes, I am a representative of the Church in ways others might not be. The collar I wear instantly identifies me, and there have been many people who have come up to me, because of the collar I wear, and have made assumptions about where I must stand on certain issues in the Church. Sometimes, they are shocked to find that I don’t hold the opinions they think I should. And sometimes, people are downright offended that I don’t. Sometimes people are especially shocked to hear that I—an ordained priest—would even dare profess the hate side of my love-hate relationship with the Church.

But not being honest about it only helps perpetuate the hypocrisy the Church so often is accused of. So many people share with me how they have been hurt by the Church. No wonder, when Bishops and Archbishops and priests and lay people of many denominations say that Holy Communion should be denied to certain people for their convictions, their political beliefs, or simply for being who they are.

But, as that uniform-representative representative of the Church, I am proud to say I serve a congregation that does not do that. Here at St. Stephen’s, Holy Communion is what Holy Communion should be—a radical meal in which Jesus gives himself to us fully and completely to EVERYONE.

Now, I DO love the Church. I see the Church, at times, as making a real solid effort to be what Jesus wanted it to be. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here in the Church.

One aspect of the Church that I have always loved is the belief—and the fact— that there is room here for everyone in the Church—no matter who they are. I feel there is room for people who have differing views in the Church. Not everyone has to agree. But we all do have to make room for each other here. We cannot ignore Jesus’ words, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

All of us—no matter who we are and what we are—as long as we are struggling together for the same goal—as long as we are casting out the demons of this world from our midst in Jesus’ name, have the right to be called disciples of Jesus and have the right to feed on Jesus in Holy Communion. .

This Church that I love is a wonderful place. And I think it is a place from which everyone can benefit. Like those disciples, none of us are perfect. All of us are fractured, stupid people at times. I am a fractured, stupid person sometimes! Because we are fractured stupid people, isn’t it wonderful that we have a place to come to even when we’re fractured and stupid, a place where we are not judged, a place where we are welcomed for who and what we are.

Isn’t it incredible that, in our fractured, imperfect state, we are able to come to this altar, to feed on the Body of Jesus and to drink his Blood and to be renewed. Isn’t it great that Jesus is able to embody himself in us—us, these imperfect vessels we are?

This is the ideal of the Church. This is the place Jesus intended it be. The Jesus we encounter in Holy Communion puts all of us on common ground. The Jesus we encounter in Holy Communion makes us all equal. The Jesus we encounter in Holy Communion eliminates those fringes of society, those marginalized places and makes us all part of the inner circle.

We—all of us—are the inner circle of Jesus’ followers, no matter who we are. So let us remember, the Church is not exclusive club. The Eucharist is not an $5,000-a-plate political dinner that is meant only for those with certain views.

Following Jesus means making room for the person we might not agree with. Following Jesus means walking alongside someone whom no one else loves or cares for. Following Jesus means, as he tells us this morning, being at peace with each other. Following Jesus means loving each other—no matter who or what we are. Following Jesus means embodying his love and acceptance in all we do.

When we do that, we are the Church. When we do that, we are doing more good, than all the harm bishops and archbishops and priests and lay people can ever do. When we do that, we are embodying Jesus to those around us. And we are bearing the very Name of Christ by our very presence.

So, let us bear that holy Name. Let us embody Jesus. Let us welcome all—no matter who they are or what they are. Let us reach out in love and acceptance to all those who need, and even to those who defy us. And when we do, the Kingdom of God will come crashing into our lives and into the lives of those around us like an overwhelming flood.

Amen.

17 Pentecost

September 23, 2012 

Psalm 54

+ A few weeks ago I preached about my being an Oblate of St. Benedict. An oblate, just to refresh ourselves, is a person who promises to follow the Rule of St. Benedict in their daily lives and to pray the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer every day. For twenty years last August, I was an Oblate of Blue Cloud Abbey in Marvin, South Dakota—a Roman Catholic Benedictine Monastery. But, of course, they closed in August and I lamented the fact a couple of weeks ago in my sermon that I felt a bit aimless—I was an Oblate without a monastery.

Well, not so anymore. This past week I officially transferred my Oblation to St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, just outside St. Cloud. I feel very good about transferring my oblation there. It has been an important place to me for over twenty-five years of my life. So, life is feeling a little more like normal for me today.

As I have mentioned many times, my life as on Oblate is very important to me—both as a Christian and as a priest. And so a move like this is a momentous one in my personal life—it wasn’t an easy decision to make. Probably the hallmark of my life as an Oblate and a priest, as I mentioned last week, is my praying every day of the Daily Office—the services of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer.

Which led me last week to preach about the psalms. Now, I was a little apprehensive about preaching about the psalms. Poetry—which of course the psalms are, they’re poems—is such a fickle thing. I can say that: I’m a poet. And poetry is one of those things that people either get or don’t get. I know: I’ve heard some of your comments about my own poems, when you’ve read my books. But, I actually heard some really nice comments about last week’s sermon, and about poetry in general.

See what happens when you do things like that? You get another sermon on the psalms.

Now, today, I am going to preach on our psalm. But this isn’t one of those nice psalms we had like last week. The psalm we encounter today is one of those psalms that makes us stop and take notice. There’s a line in it that makes us stop short.

Occasionally, in the Psalms, we do come across language that we might find a bit—how shall we say—uncomfortable. Often in the Lectionary of the Church—the assigned readings from the Bible that we share each Sunday morning—some of those phrases that some people might find offensive are found bracketed. In those cases, we have the option to not use such language. The language, after all, is violent often. It is not the language good Christian people should use.

We get a peek at this language in today’s Psalm This verse is not bracketed—it’s actually fairly minor in tone compared to some of the bracketed verses in other Psalms. But for many us, as we sing it, it might give us pause.

The verse I’m speaking of is this one,

render evil to those who spy on me;
in your faithfulness destroy them.

This is not the kind of prayer we have been taught to pray as followers of Jesus. After all, as followers of Jesus, we’re taught to love and love fully and completely. We certainly weren’t taught to pray for God to destroy our enemies. We have been taught to pray for our enemies, not pray against them. None of us would ever even think of praying to God to destroy anyone.

But the fact is, although we find it hard to admit at times, we do actually think and feel this way. Even if we might not actually say it, we sometimes secretly wish the worse for those people who have wronged us in whatever way.

I like to think that, rather than this being negative or wrong, that we should, in fact, be honest about it. We sometimes get angry at people. We sometimes don’t like people. And sometimes we might just hate people. It’s a fact of life—not one we want to readily admit to, but it is there. Sometimes it is very, very hard to love our enemies. Sometimes it is probably the hardest thing in the world to pray for people who have hurt us or wronged us.

So, what do we do in those moments when we can’t pray for our enemies—when we can’t forgive? Well, most of us just simply close up. We put up a wall and we swallow that anger and we let it fester inside us. Especially those of us who come from good Scandinavian stock.

We simply aren’t the kind of people who wail and complain about our anger or our losses. I think we may tend to deny it.

But what about that anger in our relationship to God? What about that anger when it comes to following Jesus? Well, again, we probably don’t recognize our anger before God nor do we bring it before God. We, I think, look at our anger as something outside our following of Jesus.

And that is where Psalms of this sort come in. It is in those moments when we don’t bring our anger and our frustration before God, that we need those verses like the one we encounter in today’s Psalm. When we look at those poets who wrote this Psalm—when we recognize her or him as a Jew in a time of war or famine—we realize that for the poet—for the Psalmist—it was natural to bring everything before God. Everything. Not just the good stuff. Not just the nice stuff. But that bad stuff too.

And I think this is the best lesson we can learn from the Psalmist than anything else. We all have a “shadow side,” shall we say. We all have a dark side. And we need to remember that we can not hide that “shadow side” of ourselves from God. This is the self maybe no one else has ever seen—not even our spouse or partner. Maybe it is a side of ourselves we might have not even acknowledged to ourselves. It is this part of ourselves that fosters anger and pride and lust. It is this side of ourselves that may be secretly violent or mean or gossipy. Sometimes it will never make an appearance. It stays in the shadows and lingers there. Sometimes it actually does make itself known. Sometimes it comes plowing into our lives when we neither expect it nor want it. But as much we try to deny it or ignore it or hide it, the fact is; we can’t hide this dark side from God.

It’s incredible really when you think about it: that God, who knows even that shadow side of us—that side of us we might not even fully know ourselves—God who knows us even that completely still loves us and is with us. Few of us lay that shadow self before God. But the Psalmist does, in fact bring it out before God. The Psalmist wails and complains to God and lays bare that shadow side of him or herself. The Psalmist is blatantly honest before God.

The fact is: sometimes we do secretly wish bad things on our enemies. Sometimes we do wish God would render evil on those who are evil to us. Sometimes we do hope that God will completely wipe away those people who hurt us from our lives.

It is in those moments, that it is all right to pray to God in such a way. Because the fact is—as I hope we’ve all learned by now—just because we pray for it doesn’t mean God is going to grant it. God knows what to grant in prayer. And why. The important thing here is not what we are praying for. It is not important that in this Psalm we are praying for God to destroy our enemies.

It is important that, even in our anger, even in our frustration and our pain, we have come to God. We have come before God as this imperfect person. We have come to God with a long dark shadow trailing us.

I have heard people say that we shouldn’t pray these difficult passages of the Psalms because they are “bad theology” or “bad psychology.” They are neither. They are actually good theology and good psychology. Take what it is hurting you and bothering you and release it. Let it out before God. Be honest with God about these bad things. Even if your anger is directed at God for whatever reason, be honest with God. Rail and rant and rave at God in your anger. Trust me, God can take it.

But, the Psalms teach us as well that once we have done that—once we have opened ourselves completely to God—once we have revealed our shadows to God—then we must turn to God and turn away from that shadow self. See what we find in today’s Psalm after that little verse that may have caught us?

I will offer you a freewill sacrifice
and praise your name, O LORD, for it is good.

See, it is good theology and it’s good psychology. It’s good theology because we are being open and honest in our relationship with God. And it is good psychology because we not carrying around that psychological baggage that can hurt us and eventually destroy us.

Hatred and anger and pain are things that, in the long run, hurt us and destroy us. At some point, as we all know, we must grow beyond whatever anger we might have. We must not get caught in that self-destructive cycle anger can cause. We must not allow those negative feelings to make us bitter.

So, when we pray these psalms together and we come across those verses that might take by alarm, let us recognize in them what they truly are—honest prayers before God

The Anglican theologian Simon Jones, who also happens to be an Oblate of the Anglican Benedictine monastery of Elmore Abbey, writes,

“[The psalms]…give the community which prays them permission to be itself before God, a voice to express itself before God and, not least, an ear to hear the voice of God.”

Let these psalms—these lamenting, angry psalms, as well as the joyful, exultant psalms—be our voice expressing itself before God. And in the echo of those words, let us hear God speaking to us in turn. When we do, we will find ourselves in conversation with God. And, in that conversation, we will find that, even despite that shadow side of ourselves, God accepts us fully and completely for who we are.

16 Pentecost

September 16, 2012

Psalm 116.1-8; Mark 8.27-38

+ As I’ve shared with some of you, I have been lamenting—lamenting’s a nice word for what I’ve been doing—over the fact that I am revising my Will. It’s been an ordeal, let me tell you. Ten years ago when I first made out my will, life seemed so much simpler. Now, it’s so complicated. I have more to get rid of now when I die. It’s just awful!

One of the things I had to be forced to think about is the distribution of my collection of poetry manuscripts. Lord! You’d think it wouldn’t be so hard, but sorting through 25 years of manuscripts, putting them in some sort of order and getting them ready to donate to the Institute for Regional Studies has been even more difficulty than anyone would imagine. But, it has been interesting, and has been enlightening going through old manuscripts.

You may recall a few weeks ago when I shared you with my apprehension regarding a friend's view that my first poetic influences were those Lutheran hymns I heard in Maple Sheyenne Lutheran Church as a child. Of course—I hate to say it—he was right. But….what I discovered from my manuscripts was another influence from Maple Sheyenne Lutheran Church. Who’d ‘a thought!

One of the few sermons I remember hearing as a little boy was on poetry, of all things—and it influenced me greatly, although I didn’t know it at the time. I found document in which I shared how I had once heard a sermon preached when I was about five or six years old, on Psalm 56 (verse 8), the one about how every tear we cry is collected by God into a bottle. The actual verse is:

“You have noted my lamentation;
you have put my tears into your bottle.”

Now, of course, at that age I would never have known if he was preaching on a psalm or a Gospel or whatever, but what I do remember, even to this day, is the Pastor holding up a bottle of water that he said was filled with tears. It was a powerful image for me at that age. And it was, I think, the beginning of my love for poetry and, especially the Psalms. Over the years since, as I’ve come across verse 8 in Psalm 56, I remember for a moment how I felt that Sunday morning all those years ago when that Pastor held up that bottle.

Now, outside of that, I don’t remember any priest or pastor ever preaching on the psalms—or certainly never preaching an entire sermon on just the psalms. And I realize that, by not preaching on the psalms on occasion, preachers really are missing out on some beautiful images that can help all of us in our relationship with God—and certainly help us as followers of Jesus.

I’m sure it’s not a surprise to you that your priest, who’s also a poet, has been drawn to the psalms all of his life. In fact, the psalms are a very important part of my daily prayer life.

As you all know, I have pray the Daily Office—the services of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, every day, without fail—and have at least since I was ordained, but much earlier than that These services revolve around the daily reciting of Psalms. The Psalms, in the Daily Office, are used very much as prayer. And my whole prayer life is enriched by this practice.

Now we all know Psalms can be read, but Psalms are most effective when they are actually prayed—when we use them as prayer. After praying the psalms in such a way, one finds that they, in a way somewhat different than other scriptures, really do seep into one’s very spiritual core. To use language from the psalms themselves, they “seep into our bones like oil.” They speak to us in a way few other scriptures do.

And as a poet and priest, I love to preached on some of the poetic language we find in the scriptures and how sometimes it is good to have a poet in the pulpit (sometimes it’s bad to have a poet in the pulpit, especially when he or she gets a little too fancy in).

What so many people seem to forget about the psalms is that they are poems. Yes, originally they were written to be sung—and I am very happy that we sing our psalms here at St. Stephen’s But as we all know, the words to songs are poems. Poems were originally written to be sung. When we look at the psalms as poems—when we recognize the poetic language contained within them and within much of scripture— most of us find ourselves coming away from the psalms with a deeper understanding of them.

The language and the imagery of these poems has spoken to people for thousands of years, in much the same way the words to our favorite songs have. Look back over your own lives. How many times—at how many funerals—have we found ourselves comforted by the words of the traditional King James Version of the 23rd Psalm? Think of how many times you may have prayed these Psalms in church on Sunday over the course of your lifetime.

The reasons the Psalms are so important to us is because they are so universal. They cover the whole gamut of emotions and feelings. It’s the one part of the Bible we all know we can turn to and find just what we need when we need it. When we are angry or frustrated, it’s not hard to find a psalm that addresses that feeling. If we are joyful and happy, there are psalms for that as well. When we feel as though we’ve been betrayed and slighted, there are psalms there for us at that moment as well.

Today we the beginning section of Psalm 116. At first, as we read it, we might think that it has a kind of tone of self-centeredness. The psalm is not a collective—it is not “us” collectively, who are praying here—it very much singular.

“I” love the LORD who has heard “my” voice.

We’re not talking about common prayer here. We are talking about individual prayer. Another reason why the psalms are so vital is that they are very much the prayers of each of us as individuals. The psalms involve God and you. As we continue on in the psalm, we find the poet giving us a bit of background. Obviously he or she is emerging from a life-altering experience.

“The cords of death entangled me,”

“The anguish of the grave came upon me.”

This is not light and airy verse. These are the words of the Cross. These are words that could easily have been sung while someone hung on the cross of their death. Psalm 116 isn’t a poem of roses and clouds. This is heavy language and heavy imagery. And language we don’t often use for ourselves.

But we need to remember here, that it is a poet writing these words. Poetic language is sometimes not as literal as we might think it is. And that is why we need to be careful when it comes to a literal interpretation of scripture. Poetry should not be interpreted literally.

Oftentimes in our lives—when we have been so filled with despair, with depression, with fear—we might often feel as though death has, in fact, entangled us. Certainly in those moments when we are feeling desolate and down, life seems far away from us, while death seems too close for comfort—event though it really isn’t. And if we are looking at it from a spiritual point of view, spiritual death is always lurking closer to us than we might want to admit. It is easy to fall into the snares of despair. Often God does feel far from us and a spiritual darkness and death come over us. In those moments, we do truly come to “grief and sorrow.”

However, in the psalms—even the laments and the dirges—those psalms that deal with the depressions and despairs of this life—those moments when one cries out to God and complains to God—even in those psalms there is always a moment, when everything turns for the better.

This psalm started out on a dark note, but there comes the moment, when the poet turns from despair and illness and looks to God—to the Life and Light God grants. The poet at this point calls out to God, “Save my life.”

And here is the paradox we are dealing with as believers. The poet is vindicated in calling out to God in the midst of despair. The poet is innocent—of what we’re not certain, possibly innocent of whatever sins he or she feels punished for by depression or illness. And God, who is gracious and righteous and full of compassion, hears the prayer and grants it. God saves the poet.

So, in a matter of moments, we have gone from complete despair—from a place near death—to a place of absolute joy. The restless soul of the poet finds its rest in the peace and calm of God’s Presence. The eyes that were once filled with tears have been rescued from their crying, the feet that stumbled in their weakness are now steady and full of strength, because of God’s life-giving presence. And this section of the psalm ends on a note exactly opposite of how it began. Those images of being entangled by death in the beginning of this section are replace by this incredible image of walking with God among the living.

Here we have a prime reason of why the psalms are so powerful and important to us still. Most of us gathered here this morning can no doubt relate in many varying ways to this psalm. We know what this feeling is like—to be able to have our unhappiness turned to joy. Or if we don’t—and we haven’t experienced it—then we certainly long for it.

Here, in the words of this psalm, are what we long for in our relationship with God. See how powerful and wonderful these psalms are. See what a storehouse of spiritual help these psalms contain.

So, let us take to heart the words of the psalms we pray each week. Don’t just take them for granted. Let them become your prayer as well. Take the psalm that we pray each week with you as you leave here and return to that psalm again and again during the week. Read it over again.

And more importantly, pray it. Use it as your prayer as you take up your cross and follow Jesus where he goes. Like him pray it even from the crosses of your life. Even in those dark moments, let it be your voice that rises to God in joy and happiness in the face of the encroaching darkness. That is the true power of the psalms.

And before we know it, we will find ourselves being the poet of these psalms. We will find that these words are our words. We will find that these words are not just words on a page, but a voice that comes from deep within our hearts. Before we know it, we will hear something very strange. We will hear our own voice in these psalms, saying to us,

“I love the LORD, who has heard my voice,
and listened to supplication.”

15 Pentecost

DEDICATION SUNDAY
September 9, 2012

Isaiah 35.4-7a

+ I had a moment of realization this past week. Sometimes those moments are wonderful things. Sometimes they’re quite sobering. But this one was a good one, though it was also sobering, as well.

I realized that, on October 1st, I will have been priest-in-charge of St. Stephen’s for four years. Four years. That’s a good amount of time to ask one’s self is one is doing all right or not. For me, it has been a great four years. I feel very blessed to be here at St. Stephen’s. I realized the other day that not many priests are as fortunate as I am. I serve a congregation that, for the most part, is committed to the same things I am.

But the other issues in my life are issues that we celebrate and strive to spread with others as a congregation. Issues such as radical hospitality to those who come to us. An amazing sense of welcoming all people as children of God within this congregation—no matter who they are or what they are. A commitment to service beyond these walls. A commitment to the sacraments and to the Word. A strong sense that our collective lives as followers of Jesus are centered on the celebration each week of the Holy Eucharist and the hearing of the Word of God in scripture.

These are all things that make us who we are as a congregation here at St. Stephen’s. And they are things that, together, are, sadly, rare in many churches. That is why people are finding us. That is why people are seeking us out.

On this Dedication Sunday—this Sunday in which we celebrate and remind ourselves who we are and where we’ve been—it’s important for us to be reminded of those things that make us a bit different than other congregations. I don’t mean that in a smug, self-congratulatory way. I mean that in a humble way, a way in which we all find ourselves grateful to God and to each other for bringing us here, to this place, in this time and in this moment.

As followers of Jesus, we have found something in this congregation that we haven’t necessarily found elsewhere—at least in this particular way. For us, who call ourselves members of St. Stephen’s, we know that something unique and wonderful is happening here and has been happening for some time. And all we can do in the face of that happening is give thanks God and to continue to do what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

As we all know—as we all strive and continue to work to make the Kingdom of God a reality in our midst—it is not easy. It has not been easy to get to this point in our collective lives here at St. Stephen’s. There have been set-backs. There have been trip-ups. There have been frustration. And there has been fear over the future. And if I was to name what our greatest enemy is for our future here at St. Stephen’s, I would say it is this fear.

“Do not fear,” God tells us through the prophet Isaiah in our reading today from the Hebrew scriptures.

And you have heard me preach on these words before and, trust me, I will preach on it again and again. Just try to stop me! The reason I preach about it so often is simple: I think these three words are among the most important words we find in Scripture.

Do not fear.

Coming from God, these are not empty words. Coming from God, they are a command. They are a charge for us to stand up and to face fear. They are a command from God to stand up to fear and to conquer it.

Do not fear.

Those are soothing words to most of us, because, let’s face it: we all feel fear at times. We face fear when we allow uncertainly to rule, when we allow our nay-sayers to win out over us. There are people out there who claim to be followers of Jesus who say we, in our commitment to welcoming all people, are not really followers of Jesus.

We at St. Stephen’s deal with a lot of people who resist what we are doing, who protest what we are doing, who criticize and undervalue what we are doing, who say we should not be doing what we are doing. But we are armed with our commitment to follow Jesus wherever he leads—without fear And we are strengthened with that command from God to “not fear.”

However, it is more than just a matter of saying it. We need to believe it and we need to live out in our lives and in our ministries. Those words—Fear not—need to be the “call words” for us throughout our entire lives and ministries. No matter how much we claim our own braveness, we do feel real fear. And we’re not the only ones.

Isaiah and the people he was prophesying to in our scripture reading from today knew a few things about fear. Isaiah’s message for today came in the midst of a message few people wanted to hear. He was in the midst of telling those people that the world they knew and cherished was about to come to an end. Armies were amassing, ready to overtake the lands of Judea and Israel and send its people off into exile. Most people who heard Isaiah, of course, didn’t believe him. How could we—God’s chosen people—be driven out of this land that God led our ancestors to?

As you can imagine, prophets were not always popular people. They were popular when the prophecies foretold good times that were to come. But those prophets of joy and happiness were few and far between.

We too are called to be prophets. Certainly, we at St. Stephen’s are prophets to some extent. We are, by our very existence, showing that something is about to change. The Church—capital C—the larger Church—is changing. The Church, as it used to be, is—I hate to be one to say it—dying.

That Church that was a close-minded ivory tower of repressive views regarding such issues as misogyny and homophobia and special privilege, is dying rapidly. And I think we know it. We are sensing it. God is letting us know that a Church built on anything other than love and acceptance is not the Church of Christ.

Essentially that dying Church turned away from the Gospel of Jesus, That Church turned away from Jesus, who commanded his followers to love and love radically and to accept and accept radically.

We are the prophets to the larger Church. We are the ones who are saying, THIS is the future of the Church. This is the Church in which love and acceptance prevail. This is the Church in which Jesus’ message of love and acceptance is held up and lived out. This is the Church that is striving pave the way for that Kingdom of God in which love and acceptance reigns, to break through into our midst

It is not easy to do. It is daunting. And it is frightening at times. But those words of Isaiah are ringing in our ears.

Do not fear.

"Fear not,” God is saying to us still.

Nothing you suffer from this time forward will be hidden from your God, who loves you. Nothing you have suffered so far can be hidden from God. God knows what you’ve been through and what you will go through. God is not turning a blind eye to you in the face of these hardships. Why? Because you—all of us—are valuable. Just as we hear throughout scripture that we should not fear, we also hear that we are valuable. We are precious in the eyes of God. Each and every one of us is important to God.

We so precious that God came to us as one of us in the Person of Jesus. We are so precious that God, who knew we feared—who knew that we are at times crippled by our fears and act violently and ridiculously and repressively out of our fear—came to us in Jesus and, in Jesus, showed us that fear cannot win out in the end.

In Jesus, God came to us as one of us and in our own words, with a mouth like our mouths, told us “Fear not.” In Jesus, God came to us as one of us and said to us in our uncertainty those words we long to hear.

“Fear not.”

So, let us be those prophets to those around. Let us proclaim that message of no fear. Let us, on this Dedication Sunday, do what we have been doing for 56 years. Let us embody that Jesus whom we follow. Let us continue to spread that Gospel of love and acceptance in all we do here.

And let us not fear.

The future for us is bright. It is unlimited. But we have to make it a reality. We have to strive forward. We have to labor on. We have to break down those barriers of hatred, and fear and isolation and marginalization so that Christ’s Kingdom can bloom in our midst.

We see it happening, here at St. Stephen’s. We see what the future of St. Stephen’s and the larger Church really is. When we live into that calling of Jesus, when we cease to fear, we see that, in fact, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf unstopped,
The lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

That is the future. And it is glorious.

13 Pentecost

August 26, 2012

Ephesians 43.15-22; John 6.56-69

+ Every since I was about fourteen years old, I have a strange fascination. And it is a strange one. Back then, people thought it was pretty weird. No, it’s not a fascination with science fiction or even poetry or, God forbid, sports. No, my fascination back when I was fourteen was with and still is with monasticism. I love anything to do with monasteries and monks and nuns and all that interesting things. I find it fascinating that people are called by God to devote their entire lives—their day-in and day-out lives, to God. My interested in monasticism has led me to visit many monasteries in my life. And it lead me to actually be a kind of non-monastic associate at one.

This past August 13 was a momentous day in my life. On August 13, I celebrated the twentieth anniversary of my oblation as an Oblate of St. Benedict. This, of course, is one of the most important things I have ever done in my life—right up there with my baptism and my ordinations to the Diaconate and Priesthood.

An Oblate, for those of you who might not know what one is, is a person who makes promises at a particular Benedictine monastery, promising to follow the Rule of St. Benedict while associating with a monastery. Sadly enough, I am an Oblate without a monastery at the moment, because the monastery at which I was an Oblate—Blue Cloud Abbey—closed earlier this month.

But, when I made oblation on that day in 1992, I promised to “offer myself to Almighty God as a Benedictine Oblate and I promised to serve God and all people according to the Rule of St. Benedict.”

As I said, that day in 1992 was a very important day to me. In some many ways my identity as a Christian was formed, hand-in-hand, with my identity as a Benedictine. And I think this was St. Benedict’s intention all along.

The Rule of St. Benedict, that all Benedictines strive to follow, whether professed members of religious communities or those of us “out here” in the world, is essentially a down-to-earth, structured way of living out the Gospel. I have been amazed many times over these last twenty years by how many times the Rule of Benedict has surprised me and delighted me in new and innovative ways—even after I thought I knew for sure everything there was to know about the Rule and how to apply it in my own life. And I have found it especially very effective in my pastoral ministry as well.

Certainly for all of us here at St. Stephen’s who practice our sort of “rule” of “Radical Hospitality,” we find that hospitality rooted very solidly in the Rule of St. Benedict, wherein St. Benedict admonishes Benedictines to receive everyone as Christ himself. Very radical, even now. And that is, very much, what we do here at St. Stephen’s.

Another very important aspect of Benedictine spirituality is one that has been very beneficially spiritually to me. It’s called Lectio Divina. Lectio is nothing more than a prayerful reading of Scripture. As one monk I heard once described it, “Lectio is the prayerful reading of Scripture, meditating on the message, and asking how it can be applied to my own life at this time.”

In other words, Lectio allows God to speak to us, though the Word. It allows the Word to guide us and direct us where we are at this moment in our journey. It is a powerful prayer experience and once that has yielded countless joys and surprises in my own spiritual life.

For Jesus’ followers, as they lived with him, they had their own form of lectio to some extent. They too lived and mediated on his Word. And in doing so, they recognized what that Word meant to them. These were words not of just any teacher, any wise counselor. These words carried something more, something substantial to them. This Word they heard coming from Jesus’ mouth was not the voice of an ordinary man, but of God.

In our Gospel reading for today, we find Simon Peter answering that question of Jesus, “Do you wish to go away?” with strangely poetic and vibrant words.

Peter asks, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

For all of us as followers of Jesus, the Word (which we find contained in scripture) is essential. It not only directs our lives, it sustains us, and feeds us and keeps us buoyant in the floods and tempests that rage about us. The Word is the place to which go when we need direction, when we need comfort, when we need hope. The Word is essential to us because, through it, God speaks to us. The Word is essential to us because it is there that we hear Jesus directing us and leading us forward.

The irony for me, however, is most poignant when I listen to those detractors who use the Word in such cutting ways. We of course hear them all the time. People who use scripture to support their homophobia or their political beliefs or their condemnation of others.

I have always warned parishioners and students to be careful of using Scripture as a sword, because, I say: remember. It is a two-edged sword. If you use the Word to cut others, trust me: it will come back and it cut you as well. However, if we use the Word to affirm, to build up the Kingdom of God, if we allow the Word to be, in our lives, the voice of Christ, then we in turn are affirmed.

As Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we heard this morning: “take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

That sword of the Spirit is an amazing weapon. It is a powerful device that carries more strength and influence than any of us probably fully realize. And because it is so powerful, we need to use carefully.

We need to use not in anger, not in hatred, not in oppression, but in love. When we wield this sword in love, we find love being sown. When we wield this sword in compassion, we spread compassion. When we wield this sword to shatter injustice and oppression, we find justice and freedom. When we wield this sword as a way to clear the way for the Kingdom of God, we find that we too become a part of that building up of the Kingdom.

We too are able to clearly hear Jesus’ voice in our lives. Those words of eternal life that Jesus speaks to us again and again in scripture truly do break down barriers, build up those marginalized and shunned and, in doing so, we find the Kingdom of God in our midst.

When a Benedictine monk or nun makes a profession of vows they pray a wonderful prayer. Their prayer is: “Accept me, Lord, according to your word, and I shall live. Do not disappoint me in my expectation.”

I love that.

“Do not disappoint me in my expectation.”

This is our prayer as well.

“Accept me, Lord, according to your word, and I shall live. Do not disappoint me in my expectation.”

We too have prayed to be accepted according to God’s Word. The sword of the Spirit has swiped the veil of separation from us and has made us one. And none of us, in this oneness, in this kingdom of God in our midst, is disappointed in our expectation.

When all are seen as one, when all are accepted, then our expectation will be fulfilled. But we need to keep listening, to keep straining our ears for Jesus’ words to us. We need to keep listening so God can speak to us—so the Word can speak to us and through us. When God speaks to us, we respond. When the Word comes to us, we then need to engage it. This is what prayer is—holy conversation.

And as the Word is spoken to us, as we hear it and feel it, our response is the same as those who heard the Word spoken to them by Jesus.

“Yes, Lord, you have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

So let us hear those words of eternal life. Let us embody that Word in our lives. Let is share that Word through the good we do in this world. And when we do, people will know. People will know who we follow. People will know that the Word we embody in our very lives is the Word that the Holy One of God.

12 Pentecost

August 19, 2012

Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6.51-58

+ Every so often people will ask me two questions, invariably. First, as a poet, people often ask me who or what my influences are. Second, because most everyone who knows me knows I LOVE films, they ask me what film is currently on my top ten list. To the second question (the second question will lead us back to the first question—trust me), I usually have to reword it. If a film has made it to the top of my top ten list, then that means it is the film that is currently obsessing me. And that film that obsesses me the most often changes. The past few films that have obsessed me have been films like Punch-Drunk Love or No Country for Old Men or Rosemary’ Baby.

But the film that has been at the top of my top ten list recently has been a film that is like nothing else I have ever seen. And it is a film that affected me in ways that I wasn’t expecting the first time I saw it. This film is True Grit, directed by the Cohen Brothers.

Now, I know you might be surprised. The last film you would think Father Jamie would like is a Western. Ah…but True Grit is different than a Western. If you’re thinking True Grit is like that John Wayne movie, you’re far off the target on this one. This film was different. Yes, it takes place in the West. Yes, it could qualify as a Western. But it’s much, much more.

When I first saw this film, not long after my father died, I found myself sitting in the theatre after heaving with tears. I mean, I was bawling like a baby. It was that powerful for me.

I’m not going to go into detail about the film itself. You need to see it, if you haven’t already. But, the movie is filled with theological underpinning. And the issue that permeates the film the most is the issue of grace, if you look closely for it.

As I said, I’m not going to say much about the film. I want each of you to see it and to tell me what you got from it. But, I will say this. The one aspect of the film that caught completely off-guard was the one I least expected. And it was the final piece of music. I should refine that. It was the final Hymn.

The film closes with a heart-rending rendition of the popular hymn, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” And when that hymn started playing at the end of the film, I felt as though I had been grabbed by the shoulders and shaken. It was, to say the least, powerful. Of course, for me personally, it was difficult, because “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” was one of my father’s favorite hymns.

Hymns are something else—I don’t think I need to tell anyone here this morning that fact. And here’s where that first question I mentioned at the beginning gets answered.

What are my poetic influences?

I once took issue with a friend of mine when he made an observation about my poems. He said to me one day, “You know, all those Lutheran hymns you grew up with were your first poetic influences.”

“Oh no they weren’t,” I protested.

But, you know, as much as I hate to admit it, he was very right. Those hymns I grew up listening to were my first and certainly my longest lasting influences.

The American poet Elizabeth Bishop, who was brought up being heavily influenced by the Baptist and Presbyterian hymns of her childhood, once claimed that hymns were her first influence as well. In fact, she once said, “I am full of hymns.” Which is a strange comment from a woman who consistently claimed to be non-religious. But I have noticed that with a lot of people who are non-religious—who are agnostic or atheist. Oftentimes, they love sacred music and hymns.

Now, for me, I find that surprising. I guess, I have always taken to heart that old adage that, I believe, Martin Luther once used: “Those who sing hymns, pray twice.” Or something like that. And I think it’s true.

In our Epistle reading for today, we find St. Paul telling us to avoid drunkenness and debauchery (he’s always going off about such things!) . Rather, he writes, “be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalm and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts…”

For me, at this point in my life as a priest and as an Episcopalian, everything we do on Sunday morning in our liturgy is all bound up together. The hymns we sing are as essential to me—and I hope to all of us—in worship and liturgy as the reading of Scripture and sharing in the Holy Eucharist. It all leads our minds upward and God-ward. It truly is a kind of “second prayer.”

And on those mornings when we sing one particular hymn, like today, here at St. Stephen’s, when we sing “Praise to the Lord,” or on other Sundays when we sing “Jerusalem, my happy home” or “Jesus Christ is risen today,” I feel like the whole worship services has come together like puzzle pieces. I don’t know if I can articulate in any clear way how hymns simply everything fit together in our Mass.

I think one of the best Anglican summaries of how it all works was written by Charles Price and Louis Weil in their classic book on Anglican liturgy, Liturgy for Living:

“‘The whole service consecrates,’ is a customary expression among us. No one part of the Eucharistic prayer, no one part of the Eucharistic liturgy, is considered more effective or more sacred than another. When the Christian community meets to do the whole eucharistic action in obedience to the risen Lord, he comes. He gives himself to us, again and again. It is part of the mystery of time.”

For me, that Eucharistic action extends to our singing of hymns. I’m sure James—and hopefully most of us this morning—would agree. Oftentimes as we sing this sacred poetry and the words speak deep in our hearts, we find it is like prayer.

Jesus is present in a specially clear and distinct way, in much the same way we experience Jesus speaking to us in Scripture or feeding us with his Body and Blood in Holy Communion. And like the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, we don’t want to push the issue too far. As Price and Weil add, a statement which summarizes perfectly the Anglican stance on Anglican Eucharistic theology:

“To say anything more than this in the name of the church would, we believe, transgress Anglican restraint.”

And Anglican restraint means everything for me.

This time in which we gather together here in this church is a sacred time. The Christ that we celebrate in song and scripture and whose very Presence in the Bread and Wine is what sustains us and feeds us and binds us together. In this service all the elements come together. When we sing, when we share the food of the Eucharist together, divisions are broken down. Old wrongs are made right. Whatever problems we might have with each other out there have vanished when we are caught up in the words of this music we sing. And those differences vanish at this altar at which we share this meal and partake, in a very real way, of Christ.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel. “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

What we eat here at this altar is the living Bread of heaven that has come down to us. And in this bread and in this wine we have found life. How do we truly celebrate that miracle? We do it in song. We do it by singing out our joy and saying with poetry and music what we ourselves are not able to say by ourselves.

What we do here in this service is not some private devotion. It is a liturgy in which we use all our senses to worship God. We have music. We hear the words of scripture. We stand. We kneel. We cross ourselves. We eat. We drink. We hear music and bells. And on Wednesdays, we get to even use the sense of smell in the incense we offer to God. We use all the senses and gifts God has given us to send up our worship and to share what we have been given.

This Mass is about us as a whole. What we do here, we do together. We come together, we celebrate, we listen, we affirm, we consent, we sing, we eat, we drink, we offer up ourselves. We come forward of to feed and then we go out, fed, to feed. We might not be able to define perfectly what happens here. But we do know that the holy is happening in our midst. The sacred is happening here when we gather together. God is present here—in the music, in the scriptures, in this bread and wine.

So let us take part in this living Presence that comes to us in a very basic and beautifully vital way—in food and drink, in music, in the very words of the Word. But let’s not let this sacredness be something we confine to this building. Let us embody this sacredness in our very lives. Let us carry this sacredness with us as we leave this building and go out into the world.

Just as we embody the Body and Blood of Jesus, as we speak his Word to the world, so let us also sing his music by our very lives. Let that music that touches us and affects us and shakes us at our cores be the music we take with us into the world that we can also share with others. This is what means to embody God’s Presence in our very lives.

So, let us be that living Presence to others. And let us together share this living presence with all those whom we are called to serve.