16 Pentecost

September 28, 2014

Ezekiel 18.1-4;25-32; Matthew 21.23-32

+ This past week, of course, the plaque for the memorial garden we dedicated in

May was finally finished. It will hang on the wall near the circular window on the stairs leading down to the Undercroft. I am proud of our memorial garden and what it will, hopefully, one day be. A resting place.

But I am especially proud of our memorial garden because of something that we, at St. Stephen’s, make sure will happen with it. In our policies for the memorial garden, we make no disctinction about who can be buried there. Some churches state that only members and their families can be buried in their resting places. Nowhere does it say that only St. Stephen’s members can be buried in our memorial garden. And, a clear policy is this one:

 Under no circumstance will anyone be denied burial in the memorial garden due to financial reasons.

This, of course, ties in perfectly to the ministry we have been doing here at St. Stephen’s for years. Something as simple as this policy really does hit home for us.  There are not many places in the Fargo-Moorhead area that allow such an open policy regarding burial.  

Now what few of us know is that, just a few blocks north of this church, there are two cemeteries.  Unless you actually get out of your car and walk into the actual cemeteries you wouldn’t even know they’re there.  And I do invite you to go and visit theses cemeteries.  If you do, you’ll see, in each, a large boulder.

In one cemetery the boulder is inscribed COUNTY CEMETERY #1.  This one is located at the end of Elm Street.  Where the road forks, one to the Country Club and the other to the former Trollwood, right there, on the left fork toward Trollwood, is the cemetery.  You’ve probably driven by it countless times and never had a clue.

County Cemetery #2 is located on the other side of the old Trollwood, just within sight of where the old main stage stood.  Back along the bend in the Red River, there is a stretch of grass and another boulder. This one says COUNTY CEMETERY #2.

A third County Cemetery was located on north Broadway.  In 1984, those graves were moved to Springvale Cemetery, over by Holy Cross Cemetery, near the airport, because they were falling into the Red River through erosion. One of my great-uncles, who died in 1948, is actually buried in that cemetery.

For the most part, many of the graves in Springvale are marked.  But in the first two cemeteries, there are no markers at all.  No individual gravestones mark the graves of the people buried in the first two cemeteries. In fact, if you walked into them, you would have to force your mind to even accept the fact that it is a cemetery.  But there are hundreds of people buried in those graveyards. Hundreds.

These are the forgotten.  These were Fargo’s hidden shame.  Beginning 1899 and going through the 1940s, this where the prostitutes, the gamblers, the robbers were buried.  This is also where all the unwanted babies were buried.  There are lots of stories of unwanted babies being fished out of the Red River in those days.  This is where the bodies of those unnamed babies were buried.

And when one walks in those pauper cemeteries, one must remind themselves of those words we hear from Jesus this morning in our Gospel reading.

“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you.”

There, in those cemeteries, lie the true inheritors of the Kingdom of God.  Last week in my sermon I quoted the great Reginald Fuller, who said:

“[This] is what God is doing in Jesus’ ministry—giving the tax collectors and prostitutes an equal share with the righteous in the kingdom.”

That—and those words of Jesus we heard in this morning’s Gospel reading—are shocking statements for most of us.  And they should be.  It should shock us and shake us to our core.  It’s a huge statement for him to make. Partly it does because, things haven’t changed all that much: we can grasp the understanding about prostitutes—after all, prostitutes are still looked down upon by our society in our day.

After all, we do still view prostitutes with contempt.  They are another segment of our society that we tend to forget about.  But we really should give them concern.  And I don’t meant from a judgmental point of view.  I mean, we should give them our compassion.  We should be praying for them often.  Because we often hear the horrible stories of what people have to deal with on the streets, not to mention what drove them to the streets.

. But the stories of what keeps them on the streets are just as bad.  And the dangers they face—day and night—are more mind-boggling than anything we can even imagine in our safe, comfortable lives.

Truly prostitutes throughout history have been the real exploited ones.  They are the ones who have lived on the fringes of society.  They are the ones who have lived in the shadows of our respectable societies.  They have lived dangerous, secret lives.  And much of what they’ve had to go through in their lives is known only to God.  They need our prayers.  They need our compassion. They definitely don’t need our exploitation.  They certainly don’t need our judgment.

As uncomfortable as it is for us to confront them and think about them, that is exactly what Jesus is telling us we must do.  Because by going there in our thoughts, in our prayers, in our ministries, we are going where Jesus went.  We are coming alongside people who need our thoughts, our prayers, our ministries.  And rather than using them, rather than continuing the exploitation they have lived with their lives, we need to see them as God sees them.  We see them as children of God, as fellow humans on this haphazard, uncertain journey we are all on together.

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

So we can understand why prostitutes (and tax collectors, who were just as ritually unclean as prostitutes in Jesus’ day) were viewed with such contempt in Jesus’ day.

The point of this morning’s Gospel is this: the Kingdom of God is not what we think it is.  It is not made up of just people like us.  It is, in fact, going to be made up people who maybe never go to church, who may never have gone to church.  It will be made up of those people we might not even notice. It will be made up of those people who are invisible to us. It will be made up of the people we don’t give a second thought to. In our society today we have our own tax collectors.  They are the welfare cases.  They are the homeless.  They are alcoholics and the drug addicts and the drug dealers. They are the lost among us, they are the ones who are trapped in their own sadness and their own loneliness.  They are the gang leaders, they are the rebels.  They are the transgendered.  They are the cross dressers.  They are the ones we call pagan, or non-believer or heretic.  They are the ones we, good Christians that we are, have worked all our lives not to be.

This is what the Kingdom of heaven is going to be like.  It will filled with the people who look up at us from their marginalized place in this society.  It is the ones who today are peeking out at us from the curtains of their isolation and their loneliness.  They are the ones who, in their quiet agony, watch as we drive out of sight from them. They are they inheritors of the kingdom of God and if we think they are not, then we are not listening to what Jesus is saying to us.

When we think about those county cemeteries just a few blocks north of here, we need to realize that had Jesus lived in Fargo, had he lived 1900 years later and had died the disgraceful death he died, that is where he would’ve ended up.  He would have ended up in an unmarked grave in a back field, on the very physical fringes of our city. In fact, he is there.  And in our policy for the memorial garden, we are guaranteeing he will be here among us as well in our memorial garden.  He is wherever the inheritors of his kingdom are.

Those cemeteries and that policy in our memorial garden for me are potent reminders of who inherits.  They are potent reminders to me of who receives true glory in the end. It is these—the forgotten ones, the ones whom only God knows—who are in glory at this moment.   They are the ones that, had life turned out just a bit different for us, would be us.

Of course, we too are the inheritors of the Kingdom, especially when we love fully and completely.  We too are the inheritors when we follow those words of Jesus and strive to live out and do what he commands.  We too are the inheritors when we open our eyes and our minds and our hearts to those around us, whom no one else sees or loves.

So, let us also be inheritors of the Kingdom of God.  Let us love fully and completely as Jesus commands. Let us love our God.  Let us love all those people who come into our lives. Let us look around at those people who share this world with us.  And let us never cast a blind eye on anyone. Let us do as God speaks to us this morning through the prophet Ezekiel: Let us “turn, then, and live.”

15 Pentecost

September 21, 2014

Matthew 20. 1-16

+ If you’re anything like me—and I hope you’re not like me—who would want to be like me?—one of the biggest complaints, maybe rages is a better word, that I sometimes make at God is this one:

“This is all so unfair!”

Usually I’m raising a fist to the sky when I say it. And yes, I do rage at God sometimes. It’s a spiritually healthy thing to do. And, trust me—God can take our little rages.

But I would say that my most common rage at God is about the unfairness of it all. The unfairness of life. The unfairness of the way things seem to work out sometimes.

After all, we’ve been conditioned, to some extent. Things should be fair. A perfect world would be a fair world.

So, when it seems that God is not fair, we rage. We get angry. God should be on our side on this one. But, it seems, not always is God on our side on some things.  The scale of fairness is not always tipped in our favor.

To put it in the context of our Gospel reading today, I often feel like one of the workers who has been working from the beginning of the work day.  The parable Jesus tells us this morning is, of course, not just a story about vineyard workers.  The story really, for us anyway, is all about that sense of unfairness.

 If you’re anything like me, when you hear today’s Gospel—and you’re honest with yourself—you probably think: “I agree with the workers who have been working all day: It just isn’t fair that these workers hired later should get the same wages.”

It’s not fair that the worker who only works a few hours makes the same wages as one who has worked all day.  Few of us, in our own jobs, would stand for it.  We too would whine and complain. We would strike.  

But the fact is, as we all know by this time, life is not fair.  Each of here this morning has been dealt raw deals in our lives at one point or another.

We have all known what it’s like to not get the fair deal.  We all have felt a sense of unfairness over the raw deals of this life. But, as much as we complain about it, as much as make a big deal of it, we are going to find unfairness in this life.

Of course, our personal lives are one thing.  But the Church—that’s a different thing.  What we find in today’s parable is exactly what many of us have had to deal with in the Church. The story of the parable is that everyone—no matter how long they’ve been laboring—gets an equal share.  And in Jesus’ ministry, that’s exactly what happens as well.

As one of my personal theological heroes, the great Reginald Fuller, once said of this parable: “[This] is what God is doing in Jesus’ ministry—giving the tax collectors and prostitutes an equal share with the righteous in the kingdom.”

The marginalized, the maligned, the social outcast—all of them are granted an equal share.  To me, that sounds like the ministry we are all called to do as followers of Jesus. To be a follower of Jesus is strive to make sure that everyone gets a fair deal, even when we ourselves might not be getting the fair deal.  

And there’s the rub. There’s the key. Being a follower of Jesus means striving to make sure that all of us on this side of the “veil” get an equal share of the Kingdom of God, even if we ourselves might not sometimes.  That is what we do as followers of Jesus and that is what we need to strive to continue to do.

But…it’s more than just striving for an equal share for others.  It also means not doing some things as well.  It means not letting jealousy and bitterness win out.  And that’s probably what we’re going to feel when others get a good deal and we don’t.

Jealousy and envy are horribly corrosive emotions.  They eat and eat away at us until they makes us bitter and angry.  And jealousy is simply not something followers of Jesus should be harboring in their hearts.

Because jealousy can also lead us into a place in which we are not striving for the Kingdom. Those of us who are followers of Jesus are striving, always, again and again, to do the “right thing.”

But when we do, and when we realize that others are not and yet they are still reaping the rewards, we no doubt are going to feel a bit jealous.  We, although few of us would admit it, are often, let’s face it, the “righteous” ones.  We the ones following the rules, we are the ones striving to live our lives as good Christians.

We fast, we say our prayers faithfully, we tithe, we do what we are supposed to do as good Christians.  Striving for the equal share for people, means not allowing ourselves to get frustrated over the fact that those people who do not do those things—especially those people whom we think don’t follow the rules at all, those people who aren’t “righteous” by our standards—also receive an equal share.  It means not obsessing over the fact that, “It’s not fair.” Even when it is unfair.

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

This is the real key to Jesus’ message to us.  Constantly, Jesus is pushing us and challenging us to be a conduit.  He is trying to convince us that being a Christian means being a conduit for the Kingdom of God. In us, the Kingdom breaks through.  Without us, it simply will not.

We do what we do as Christians because whatever we do is a way in which the barriers that separate us here from God and God’s world is lifted for a brief moment when we do what Jesus tells us to do.  When we live out the Law of loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves, the “veil” is lifted and when it is lifted, the Kingdom comes flooding into our lives.  It does not matter in the least how long we labor in allowing this divine flood to happen.  The amount of time we put into it doesn’t matter in the least to God, because God’s time is not our time.  Rather, we simply must do what we are called to do when we are called to do it.

Jesus came to bring an equal share to a world that is often a horribly unfair place.  And his command to us is that we also must strive to bring an equal share to this unequal world.  And that is what we’re doing as followers of Jesus.  As we follow Jesus, we do so knowing that we are striving to bring about an equal share in a world that is often unfair.

We do so, knowing that we are sometimes swimming against the tide.  We do so, feeling at times, as though we’re set up to fail. We do so feeling, at times, overwhelmed with the unfairness of it all.  And just when we think the unfairness of this world has won out—in that moment, the Kingdom of God always breaks through to us.  And in that moment, we are the ones who are able to be the conduit through which the God comes.

So, let us continue to do what we are doing as followers of Jesus.  Let us strive to do even better. In everything we do, let us attempt to lift that veil in our lives and by doing so, let us be the conduit through which the Kingdom of God will flood into this unfair world.  And let us do together what Jesus is calling us to do in this world Let us love—fully and completely.  Let us love our God, let us love our selves and let us neighbors as ourselves.

As we all know, it’s important to come here and share the Word and the Eucharist on Sundays.  But we also know that what we share here motivates us to go out into the world and actually “do” our faith.

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

14 Pentecost

HOLY CROSS

September 14, 2014

+ A few weeks ago in my sermon I started my sermon on a, shall we say, dire note. I don’t normally like starting my sermons on a such a note. Dire sermons are not always helpful sermons. But, I said, on that Sunday, that if you come into church and see red paraments—the red altar frontal, the red hangings, the red chasuble—be prepared. We are commemorating something not so pleasant. In that case, I was talking about martyrs.

This morning, we have the red on. No, we’re not commemorating a martyr. But, sadly, we are commemorating something not that pleasant either. This morning we are commemorating probably the one most important symbols of who we are as Christians. We are commemorating the Holy Cross.

My good friend, Father John-Julian of the Episcopal religious order, the Order of Julian or Norwich, writes about this very important feast in his wonderful book, Stars in a Dark World. He writes:

“It is noteworthy, I think, to see that the Church celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross not with the penitential purple of Lent or the mortal black of Good Friday, but with the brilliant passion red of celebration and honor! And the propers of this feast do not dwell on the bloody death of Christ but on rather upon the wonder of the utterly holy [instrument], because the executioner’s instrument has been exalted as the means of the salvation of the world. The salvic resurrection of Christ transformed the gross and ugly Cross of death into the most enduring symbol of life and hope.”

Now, we probably really think about the Cross as an object too often. We find of take it for granted.  We see it every Sunday. We see them on the churches we pass every day.  We probably wear the around our necks or hang them on the walls of our homes.

For us, of course, the Cross is more than just two pieces of wood bound together. For us the Cross is our symbol. And more than that.

We have essentially been branded with the cross.  Each of us were marked by the Cross in our baptism. And as a result, it is ingrained into our very souls.

And we have been told by the One we follow that to truly follow him, we must take up our own cross. Again, not pleasant to do. But it is essential. This symbol of death and degradation has been given to us and we are told to bear it with all the strength and dignity we can muster, just as he did.

I’ve shared this quote with you before, but I love this saying by Blessed Charles Grafton, the former Bishop of Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. He said that our job as Christians is to “preach the Cross from the Cross.”

It is not enough for us just to tell others about the Cross. It is not enough to just acknowledge this piece of wood as our symbol. Essentially in bearing the cross, we must realize that we are also bound to the cross, and there we die to our former selves—our egoistical selves, our self-centered selves. And while there, while we hang there with the One we follow, to preach—by example if nothing else. This is what the Cross is to us.

Look at how deceptively simple it is.  It’s simply two pieces, bound together.  For someone who knows nothing about Christianity, for someone who knows nothing about the story, it’s a symbol they might not think much about.  

And yet the Cross is more than just another symbol in our lives. The Cross is what truly defines as Christians. Without it, we would be utterly lost. Without it, our faith as Christians would be essentially powerless. Our hope, our longing, for eternal life, for the destruction of death by Jesus, would never have been accomplished without it. Without it, we would still be digging in our heels in fear over death.

So, yes, the Cross is essential to us as Christians. It is what gives our faith its very essence.  The Cross, as much as it defines us, as much as it is symbol of our faith, is also, sadly, an instrument of torture and death.

To take up a cross means to take up a burden that we must bear, even though we don’t really want it.  To take it up is torturous.  It hurts to take up the Cross. When we think of that last journey Jesus took to the place of the skull, carrying that heavy tree on which he is going to be murdered, it must’ve been more horrible than we can even begin to imagine.  And, without the resurrection, it would have been.

But the fact is, what Jesus is saying to us is: carry your cross now. Carry it with dignity and inner strength.  Because if you carry cross, then you are truly following Me. By carrying our cross, we are following Jesus to the place he leads.  That place, is of course, the joy of Resurrection and Life.

But the road there leads first through the place of the skull.  To face this reality, we find ourselves facing our fear of pain and death.  We sometimes allow ourselves to slip deeply into fear and despair in our lives.

As we all know, fear can be crippling. It can devastate us and drive us to despair.  But, as Father John-Julian says,

“In a sense, the Cross underwent the first transformation of the Resurrection; and that same transformation has been part of the salvation offered by the Crucified and Resurrected One. Pain and death became resurrection and exaltation—and that has never changed. The sign of the Christian’s salvation is not some giddy, mindless, low-cost bliss, but rather an entry into the deeper parts of the reality of pain and death [and I would add, fear], soaked, as was the Holy Cross, with the blood of sacrifice and finally emerged, brought by God on the other side, resurrected, exalted whole, and in heaven.”

If we take the crosses we’ve been given to bear and embrace them, rather than running away from them, we find that fear has no control over us.  

The Cross destroys fear and pain and death.  The Cross shatters pain and death into a million pieces.  And when we do fear, we know we have a place to go to for shelter. When fear encroaches into our lives—when fear comes riding roughshod through our lives—all we have to do is go to the Cross and embrace it.  And there, we will find our fears destroyed.

As Anthony of Padua said: "Extending his arms on the cross like wings, Christ embraces all who come to him sheltering then in his wounds.”

Because of the Cross, we are taken care of.  Because of the Cross, we know, all will be well. The cross Jesus asks us to bear is not a frightening and terrible thing.  It was, at one time.  It was a symbol of defeat and death and pain and torture. It was, for the people of Jesus’s day, what the electric chair or the hangman’s noose or even the lethal injection table is to us this day.  It was, for the people of Jesus’s day, a symbol of ultimate defeat. On it, hung criminals. On it, hung those who, by society’s standards, deserved to hang there. On it hung the blasphemer, the heretic, the agitator.

But now, for us, it is a symbol of strength and joy and unending eternal life.  Through it, we know, we must pass to find true and unending life.  Through the Cross, we must pass to find ourselves, once and for all time, face-to-face with God. 

So, let us notice of this great symbol in our lives. As we drive along, let us notice the crosses on the churches we pass. Let us notice all the crosses that surround us.  When you see the Cross, remember what it means to you.

Look to it for what it is: a symbol of terror and death, but also a symbol of the power of God to overcome terror and death. Let us look at the Cross and, when we see it, let us see it for what it truly is: a triumph over every single fear in our lives.  When we see the crosses in our life, we can look at it and realize it is destroying the fear in our own life.

And more importantly, let us continue to bear those crosses of our life patiently and without fear.  If we do, we too will be following the way of Jesus, and that Way doesn’t end at the Cross. Rather the Way of Jesus—that Way of Life unending, Life Everlasting,--really and truly begins at the Cross.

Dedication Sunday

September 7, 2014

Genesis 28.10-17; 1 Peter 2.1-5,9-11

+ We’ve been doing this a lot lately in our sermons. We have been traveling around a lot through time. We went back a few months ago to 1974, to 1964. Well, today, we need to go back too. We’re going back to a bit more stable time—a more innocent time.  Our trip is taking us back 58 years.

It is Sunday morning, September 9, 1956.  On this particular Sunday in 1956, it was truly a different American. The country was caught up in Elvis-mania.  In fact, that very night Elvis would appear on the Ed Sullivan Show—“coast to coast with your favorite host.” The number one song in the country was “Que Sera Sera” by Doris Day.  The number one book in the country that morning was Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. One of the top movies was The Bad Seed withNancy Kelly and Patty McCormack. It was based on a play by Maxwell Anderson, who was from Jamestown, ND.

1956 was an election year.  The current president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would be going up against the Democratic hopeful, Adlai Stevenson, who would lose that November.

But on this morning, the congregation of St. Stephen’s was officially dedicated.  According to the records, there were 51 people at that service. It we think hard enough, we can almost imagine how people looked in church that morning.  The women in hats and skirts, the men in suits and ties. And no doubt it felt like something was truly beginning.

By the end of that year, there would be 51 communicants (39 of whom came from the Cathedral) and a total of 94 baptized members listed.  By 1958, there were 144 baptized members and 45 families and by Jan. 1, 1960, there were a whopping 214 members with 60 families.

Over the years, those numbers just kept going up.  Within ten years, in 1968, the membership reached its number of 243 members.

Now, the story of St. Stephen’s is fascinating.  In these almost 60 years, there have been ebbs and there have been flows.  And throughout those 58 years this seemingly small congregation has been the first do many wonderful things.

+ The first woman Senior Warden in the Diocese.

+ The first woman priest to serve a congregation in the diocese.

+ The first congregation in the diocese to openly and unabashedly welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

+ The first to establish a chapter of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

+ The first to have a labyrinth.

Of course, there were hard time too.  I have heard with great sadness the stories of what is called the “Exodus out” in the 1980s.  It is sad to look through the parish records and see those numbers drop and dribble away for various reason throughout the 1980s.

But, here are, back in our own day.  Here we are on this glorious morning in September of 2014.  Here we are, 58 years into our ministry to the Church and the world.  And we have a lot of celebrate this morning. I’ve had to catch myself a few times over these last few years so I do not fall into the trap of taking for granted what God has given us here at St. Stephen’s.

Just six years ago, in 2008, our membership was 55 members, which had remained pretty steady for about ten years previously. But this year, we can rejoice in the fact that we have more members here than we did in 1958.  But we are more than just any of those things.  We are more than just membership numbers.  We are more than just an Average Sunday Attendance (which really has been good, by the way).  We are a congregation that makes a difference.

Now, I know some people have joked about my so-called “cheerleading” of St. Stephen’s.  But I take my job as cheerleader seriously.  I have no problems with boasting about what God has done here.  I have no qualms about boasting about what all of us are doing here at St. Stephen’s.

In our wonderful reading this morning from St. Peter, we find him saying,

“Once you were not a people,

but now you are God’s people;

once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.”

When we look around us this morning, as we celebrate 58 years of ebb and flow in our congregation, we realize that truly we are on the receiving end of a good amount of mercy.  We realize that mercy from God has descended upon us in this moment.  And it is a glorious thing. And, as unbelievable as it might seem at times, we cannot take it for granted.  We must use this opportunity we have been given.  We realize that it is not enough to receive mercy.  We must, in turn, give mercy. And we have done that here.

Now, I know some of us get a little uncomfortable when words like “liberal” or “progressive” are used to describe us. But, I think we should embrace our “progressive” title. Progressive for us means embodying mercy. When we look around us at other congregations, we realize we have something special here.

I hear stories again and again (and all of you have too) of churches that judge, that alienate, that become so caught up in rules and dogmas and following the smallest interpretation of the word of scripture, that they ride rough shod over others.  Many of us were members of those churches before we came to St. Stephen’s. Many of us came here with our bruises, with our scars from those churches. Many of us came from those churches in which they forgot that the Church is not an exclusive country club for the elite few who all look alike, but rather a glorious and wonderful meal at which everyone—no matter who they are or what they or what they’ve done—are welcome.

I think we have done that very well here at St. Stephen’s. To those other churches, we might look like some ship of fools. But to God we are what the Kingdom will be like one day. If you want a glimpse of what awaits us, just look around as this morning. This is that place.

Here, mercy dwells.  Mercy, as we all know, is elusive.  We can’t pin it down.  But we know it when it comes to us.  And we know how to be merciful to others.

The way we properly and truly celebrate 58 years of St. Stephen’s ministry to the Church and the world is by giving thanks for the mercy we have received and are receiving at this moment.  And we turn around and share that mercy with others.  That’s what we’ve been doing here at St. Stephen’s from that very beginning way back in 1956.

We, this morning, are being called to echo what St. Peter said to us in our reading this morning. We, God’s own people, are being called to “proclaim

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

darkness into [that] marvelous light.”

We proclaim these mighty acts by our own acts.  We proclaim God’s acts through mercy, through ministry, through service to others, through the worship we give here and the outreach we do from here.

I love being the cheerleader for St. Stephen’s.  Because it’s so easy to do.  God is doing wonderful things here through each of us.  Each of us is the conduit through which God’s mercy and love is being manifested.

In our collect for this morning, we prayed to God that “all who seek you here [may] find you, and be filled with your joy and peace…” That prayer is being answered in our very midst today.  And although it may seem unbelievable at times, this is truly how God works in our midst.  God works in our midst by allowing us to be that place in which God is found, a place in which joy and peace and mercy dwell.

So, let us continue to receive God’s mercy and, in turn, give God’s mercy to others.  Let us be a place in which mercy dwells.  Because when we do we will find ourselves, along with those who come to us, echoing the words from our reading from St. Peter this morning,

“once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.”

12 Pentecost

August 31, 2014

Matthew 16.21-28

+ Invariably, if you happen to come to a Wednesday night Eucharist here at St. Stephen’s, you’ll find that we will have the red paraments up. There will be a red frontal on the altar, red hangings on the ambo and kneelers, and I’ll be wearing the red chasuble.  On those occasions, take note:

That red symbolizes something not so pleasant.  It symbolizes blood. More specifically blood that was shed for Jesus.

In other words, the saint we are commemorating that night probably died a violent death as a follower of Jesus. A martyr.  

Martyrs are truly a unique lot among us Christians now days. In the early Church they were viewed as heroes, similar in many ways to sports stars or movie stars in our own day.  The word martyr actually means “witness” and they really were true witnesses to Christ, witnessing to Christ by their very deaths, by the actual blood they shed for Christ.

Martyrs also challenge the rest of us Christians, as well.  They challenge us, by their deaths, to ask ourselves that very important question: would we, under similar circumstances, be willing to give up our lives for our Christian faith?  Would we be willing to die for Christ?  If, for some reason, we were forced to either give up our faith in Christ and live or profess our faith in the face of danger and certain death, would we?  Or, just as importantly, would we be able to stand up to the forces in the world that are in such direct opposition to our Christian faith, even if standing up in such a way would mean death?  Would we be able to take to heart the words of today’s Gospel, when Jesus says, “those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.”

It might be easier to answer if we are talking only about our own deaths.  But would we be so ready if the deaths involved our children or other loved ones?

I think it’s occasionally a good thing to ask ourselves these questions, because the fact is martyrs are not just fabled personages from the far past. There are martyrs even in our own day and age.  In fact just this past week, Pope Francis called the murder of American journalist, James Foley, by ISIS a martyrdom.  Among Anglicans and Episcopalians we have lost some great modern people to martyrdom, people such as Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who in August of 1965, was shot and killed in Mississippi by a white shop owner for defending a young black girl during the darkest days of Integration. Or Archbishop Junani Luwum, the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, who was brutally murdered by dictator Idi Amin in 1977 for standing up against oppression.

And some of us no doubt see martyrs even in someone who didn’t necessarily die for sake their faith, but simply died for being who they are, such as Matthew Shepeherd, a young, gay Episcopalian. There are people dying for their faith, even right now, this morning, in places like Iraq and Syria and in Africa.  So, there are, no doubt, people dying for Christ and Christ’s message of love in our world even as we gather together this morning.  There are people today in this world who are dying for Christ or are watching their loved ones die for Christ.

And suffering for Christ doesn’t just mean dying for Christ either.  There are many people who are living with persecution and other forms of abuse for their faith.

So, it is important to remember the martyrs of our faith.  It is important to heed their witness to us. Our Church has truly found its identity and spirit with those who, throughout two thousand years of Christianity, have suffered and died for their faith.

Hopefully, though, few of us here this morning are being called to die as martyrs.  For us who are maybe not led to die for Christ, we still have our own burdens to bear.  And that burden, of course, is the Cross.

In today’s Gospel, we find Jesus saying

“If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me.”

While we might understand losing our lives for Jesus’ sake might be easier for us to grasp, picking up our cross might seem like a vague idea for us.  In all of this, Jesus is saying to us is that, being a Christian, as wonderful as it is, isn’t a rose garden.  

Being a Christian means facing bravely the ugly things that life sometimes throws at us.  I don’t think I have to tell anyone here what those ugly things in life are.  Each of us has had to deal with our own personal forms of the world’s ugliness.  As we look around at those who are with us this morning, most of us here this morning have carried our share of crosses in this life.  Most of us have shouldered the difficult and ugly things of this life—whether it be illness, death, loss, despair, disappointment, frustration—you name it.

The fact is: these things are going to happen to us whether we are Christians or not. Though I do have to wonder if I would still have these issues if I wasn’t a priest.  It’s simply our lot as human beings that life is going to be difficult at times.  It is a simple fact of life that we are going to have feasts in this life, as well as famines.  There will be gloriously wonderful days and horribly, nightmarish days.  We, as human beings, cannot escape this fact.

 But, we, as Christians, are being told this morning by Jesus that we cannot deal with those things like everyone else does.  When the bad things of this life happen, our first reaction is often to run away from them.  Our first reaction is numb our emotions, to curl up into a defensive ball and protect ourselves and our emotions. But Jesus is telling us that, as Christians, what we must do in those moments is to embrace those things—to embrace the crosses of this life—to shoulder them and to continue on in our following of Jesus.  By facing our crosses, by bearing them, by taking them and following Jesus, we was able to realize that what wins out in the end is Jesus, not the cross.  What triumphs in the end is not any of the other ugly things this life throws at us. Rather, what triumphs is the integrity and the strength we gain from being a Christian.  What triumphs is Jesus’ promise that a life unending awaits us.  What triumphs is Jesus’ triumph over death and the ugly things of this life.

What we judge to be the way we think it should be is sometimes judged differently by God.  We don’t see this world from the same perspective God does.  And as a result, we are often disappointed.

Yes, our burdens are just another form of martyrdom—another albeit bloodless form of witnessing to Christ.  And, like a martyr, in the midst of our toil, in the midst of shouldering our burden and plodding along toward Jesus, we are able to say, “Blessed be the name of God!”

That is what it means to be a martyr.  That is what it means to deny one’s self, to take up one’s cross and to follow Jesus. That is what it means to find one’s life, even when everyone else in the world thinks you’ve lost your life.

So, let us take up whatever cross we’re bearing and carry it with strength and purpose.  Let us take it up and follow Jesus.  And, in doing so, we will gain for ourselves the glory of God that Jesus promises to those who do so.

11 Pentecost

August 24, 2014

Matthew 16.13-20

+ A dear pastor friend of mine recently shared some distressing news with me. He announced to me that he is leaving ordained ministry. Hearing this, I have to admit, struck me to my core.  Now, I know he, like me, has had some issues with the Church. We’ve both been kind of mavericks in the Church—sometimes flying above the radar. And, like me, he has had had his wrists slapped a few times for doing so.  So, maybe I wasn’t all that surprised, when I asked him why he was leaving the ministry, he was blunt.

“I can’t work in the Church anymore,” he said. “I don’t think the Church, with all its rules and canons and its severe punishments for trying to do the work of God, is what Jesus intended the Church be. Besides,” he went on, “Christians can be horrible to serve sometimes.”

He finally summarized his decision in this way.

“I asked myself, what would Jesus do in this situation. And the answer was clear: he would leave the Church.”

I’m not certain if I believe that last comment, but probably most of us here would say we have felt the somewhat same way about the Church at times.  There are days when we all groan when we see or hear other Christians get up and speak on behalf of the rest of us.  There are days when we are embarrassed by what some Christians say or do on behalf of Christianity.  There are days when we get frustrated when we hear clergy or other authorities pronounce decrees that, in no way, reflect our own particular views or beliefs.  And there are times when we get downright mad at the hypocrisy, the homophobia, the misogyny, the ambivalence, the silence in the face of oppression and evil and war, the downright meanness we sometimes experience from the Church.

Most of us—idealistically, naively maybe—wonder, like my pastor friend: wait a minute.  The Church isn’t supposed to be like this.  The Church is supposed to be a place of Love and Compassion.  It is supposed to be a place where everyone is welcomed and loved.  

Knowing that and comparing the ideal view of the Church with its shortcomings only make us feel more helpless, listless, angry, and disgruntled.  And sometimes we might even find ourselves admiring those people who aren’t Christian, who aren’t a part of the Church or those Christians who have simply fled the Church.

I don’t admire my friend for leaving ordained ministry. I love ordained ministry. But there are days… Let me tell you: there are definitely days.  And if I am envious of anything he is doing, I am envious of the fact that he doesn’t have to deal with all those church politics and rules anymore. There have been times when we’ve all wanted to just run away from Church and everything we find in it, especially when church politics get heated.  

And that’s all right. I personally think that’s a somewhat healthy way of looking at the Church.  Because we have to remind ourselves of one thing: What my friend is turning away from and what we are often tempted to run away from is not God.  What we are running away from is a human-run, human-led organization.  We are running away from a celestially planned treasure that has been run (and very often mis-run) throughout two thousand years of history by fallible human beings.

In today’s Gospel, we find this wonderful interchange between Jesus and Peter.  Peter, when asked who he thinks Jesus is, replies, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”

That’s a good answer.

But, Jesus responds to this confession of faith with surprise.  He responds by saying, “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

Of course, as you might know, Jesus is playing a little word game here with the words

“Peter” and “rock.”  In Jesus’ own language of Aramaic he would have said, “You are Kepha (Peter is also called Cephas at times in the Gospels) and on this kepha (or rock) I will build my church.”  Now, depending on who you are, depending on your own personal spiritual leanings, this reading could take on many meanings.

If you’re more Catholic minded—and especially if you’re more Roman Catholic minded—it certainly does seem that Jesus is establishing the Church on the Rock of Peter—and of course in that tradition Peter at this moment becomes essentially the first Pope.  I don’t hold to that view, personally.

On this one, I’m a bit more Protestant or Reformed minded. For people like me, it could be said that the Church is being established not on Peter himself, but on the rock of Peter’s confession of faith.

Either way, Jesus is commending the Church to Peter and to his other followers.  And this is important, especially when we examine who Peter is.  Jesus commends his Church to one of the most impetuous, impulsive, stubborn, cowardly human beings he could find.  Peter, as we all know, is not, on first glance, a wonderful example for us of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  He is the one who walks on water and then loses heart, grows frightened and ends up sinking into that water.  He’s the one who, when Jesus needs him the most, runs off and denies him not just once, not twice, but three times, and even then cannot bring himself to come near Jesus as he hangs dying on the cross.

But Peter is maybe a better example of what followers of Jesus truly are than we maybe care to admit.  Yes, he is a weak, impetuous, cowardly, impulsive human.  But who among us isn’t?  Who among us isn’t finding someone very much like Peter staring back at us from our own mirrors?  And the thing we always have to remember is that, for all the bad things the Church has been blamed for—and there are a lot of them—there are also so many wonderful and beautiful things about the Church that always, always, always outweigh the bad.

Obviously most everyone here this morning must feel that same way as well to some extent.  If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here this morning.  Most of us are able to recognize that the Church is not perfect.

And I think that, when Jesus commended his Church to people like Peter, he knew that, as long as we are here, struggling on this “side of the veil,” so to speak, it would never be perfect.  But that, even despite its imperfection, we still all struggle on. Together.

I love the Church and I love the people who are in the Church with me, even the ones who drive me crazy.  And I even love the ones with whom I do not agree.  Why? Because that’s what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  That is what it means to be the Church.

I am here in the Church because I really want to be in the Church.  I am here because the Church is my home.  It is my family.  It is made up of my friends and Jesus’ friends.  I am here because I—imperfect, impetuous human being that I am—am part of the Church because I love my fellow Christians, and I don’t just mean that I love Desmond Tutu and all those Christians who are easy to love.  I am here because I love even those many outspoken Christians who bombard us on a regular basis with their rhetoric and views that fly in the face of everything many of us hold sacred and dear, even though they drive me crazy and frustrate me and sometimes make me want to leave the Church at times.  I am here because I also love the hypocrites and the backbiters and gossipers.  

I love them because, let’s face it, sometimes we are those same people too. Sometimes we are the ones who drive people from the Church as well.  And sometimes we ourselves drive our own selves away from the Church.

But as long as we’re here, as long as we believe in the renewal that comes again and again in recognizing and confessing our shortcomings and in professing and believing in and what it means to be a baptized Christian, then we know it’s not all a loss.  As long as I know that I am struggling and working not to be the hypocrite or the backbiter or the gossiper (and often failing and starting over again), then it’s going to be all right. As long as I struggle to not be the person who drives people from the Church, but works again and again in my life to be the person who welcomes everyone—no matter who they are and where they stand on the issues—into this Church, then I’m doing all right.

Because the Church Jesus founded was a Church founded solidly on the rock of love.  The Church’s foundation is the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God and the message to us as followers of this Son of the Living God, the Messiah—the bringer of freedom and peace—is that we must love God and love each other as we love ourselves. But the Church that is firmly founded on the Messiah, the Son of the Living God—when it founded deeply on that balanced love of God, of each other and of ourselves—then it truly becomes the Church Jesus founded and left to us.  If we are the Church truly built on a love like that then, without doubt, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

And as long as I’m here, and you’re here, we are going to make the Church a better place.  It will be a place where people like my pastor friend will be forced to reconsider his view of the Church.  He will be forced to realize the Church does not have to be this way. We need to be the Church from which no one wants to leave.

So, let us be the Church we want the Church to be—because that is the Church that Jesus founded.  Let us be the Church that Jesus commended to that imperfect human being, Peter.  In those moments when we find ourselves hating the Church, let’s not  hatred win out. Let love—that perfect, flawless love that Jesus preached and practiced—eventually win out.

We are the Church.  We are the Church to those people in our lives.  We are the Church to everyone we encounter.  We are the reflection of the Church to the people we serve along side.  So let us be the Church, and if we are, we will find ourselves in the midst of that wonderful vision Jesus imagined for his Church.  And it will truly be an incredible place. It will truly be the Kingdom of God in our midst.

10 Pentecost

August 17, 2014

Matthew 15.10-28

+ Recently I have been reading an incredible writer by the name of Pema Chodron. Some of you might know who she is. She is an American Buddhist nun, who currently lives at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia.  The book I’ve been reading, Living Beautifully, is one of those books I find myself having to read slowly. Every few pages there are nuggets of wisdom that makes one gasp. When I come across them, I have to set the book aside and ponder it.

One these nuggets certainly has been speaking to me lately. I have been, in my own life, dealing with a broken relationship—with a relative. In this case, this particular person sent me a mean-spirited letter recently. And, for a long time, I debated how to respond. My first reaction to send a mean-spirited letter right back. But, then, I came across this from Chodron,

“Once you speak or act, there’s a chain reaction, and other people’s emotions become involved. Every time you speak or act out of aggression or craving or jealousy or envy or pride, it’s like dropping a pebble into a pool of water and watching the ripples fan out: everyone around you is affected.”

I realize very clearly that the words spoken then really do have ripple effects. If we think, when we say something either on the offense or defense, that those words will not have consequences in the long-run, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  

Jesus tells his followers—and us—in this morning in our Gospel reading—

“it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles; it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles. ”

These are words that hit home for me, and no doubt, for many of us. We were all raised reciting that little verse:

Sticks and stone may break my bones

But words will never hurt me.

The reality of the matter is that words DO hurt.  In fact words do more than hurt. They do more than just create a ripple effect. Words can destroy.  Words can tear down. And sometimes the words don’t even have to be directed at someone or something. Words spoken behind people’s backs, that we think won’t hurt them if they never hear them, hurt and destroy too.  Words are oftentimes much more painful and hurtful than sticks and stones.  And when it comes to our relationship with God, the words we say carry much weight.

In today’s Gospel we find Jesus making very clear statements:

“…what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this is what defiles. For out of the mouth comes” all kind of evil intentions.

“These are what defile a person…” he says.

Jesus is clear here about what makes one unclean.  The words that come out of our mouth are really only the end result of what’s in our hearts.  The words that come out of our mouths are really only little mirrors of what is dwelling within us.  When we say dumb things, we harboring dumb things in our hearts.  When we say hurtful, mean things, we are carrying hurt and meanness in our hearts. And what’s in our hearts truly does make all the difference.  If our hearts are dark—if our hearts are over-run with negative things—then our words are going to reflect that.

When we talk about something like “sin,” we find ourselves thinking instantly of the things we do.  We think immediately of all those uncharitable, unsavory things we’ve done in our lives.  And when we realize that sin, essentially, is anything we chose to do that separates us from God and from each other, it is always easy to instantly take stock of all the bad things we’ve done.

But the fact is, we can truly “sin” by what we say as well.  The words that come out of our mouths can separate us from God and from each other because they are really coming from our hearts—from that place in which there should really only be love for God and for each other. We have all known Christians who are quick to profess their faith with their mouths, but who certainly do not believe that faith in their hearts.  And, I think, we have also known people who have kept quiet about their faith, who have not professed much with their mouths, but who have quietly been consistent in their faith.  If we profess our faith with our mouths, but not in our hearts, we really are guilty to some extent.

Probably few things drive us away faster from church than those self-righteous people who shake their fingers at us and spout their faith at us, but who, in turn, don’t show love, compassion and acceptance to others. The name we encounter in the Gospels for those people who do not practice what they preach is “hypocrite.”  And throughout the Gospels, we find that Jesus isn’t ever condemning the ones we think he would condemn.  He doesn’t condemn the prostitute, the tax collector, any of those people who have been ostracized and condemned by society and the religious organizations of their times.  The ones Jesus, over and over again, condemns, are the hypocrites—those supposedly religious people who are quick to speak their faith with words, who are quick to strut around and act religiously, but who do not hold any real faith in their hearts.

The Pharisees that Jesus is having trouble with in today’s Gospel, are not at all concerned about what is in their hearts.  Their faith has nothing to do with their hearts. They are more concerned about purification rites.  They are more concerned about making sure that the food one eats is clean and pure—that it hasn’t been touched by those who are unclean.  They are concerned that they are the clean ones and they are concerned that there is a separation from those that are unclean.  They are more concerned with the words of the Law, rather than the heart of the Law.  They are more concerned with the letter of the Law, rather than the spirit of the Law.

We, as followers of Jesus, must avoid being those hypocrites.  With everything in us, we must avoid being those people.  Yes, I know: it’s just easier to stick the letter of the Law. It’s easy to follow the religious rules without bothering to think about why we are following them.  It’s just so much easier to go through the motions without having to feel anything.

Because to feel means to actually make one’s self vulnerable.  To feel means one has to love—and, as we know, love is dangerous.  Love makes us step out into uncomfortable areas and do uncomfortable things.  

But the message of Jesus is all about the fact that to be a follower of Jesus means not being a hypocrite.  The message of Jesus is that to be a follower of Jesus means believing fully with one’s heart.

This weekend, of course, we are celebrating Pride Weekend. We are saying, not just by our words, but by our actions, that we are a people of a God who is love—we are a people here at St. Stephen’s who believe all people are loved and accepted, fully and completely by that God. And how do we do that? How do we show that and preach that?  We do that by loving and accepting all people.  We do that by knowing in our hearts that God loves and accepts us all, no matter who or what we are.

To proclaim the Good News, we need to do so by both word and example.  It is to truly practice what we preach.  It is to go out into the world beyond these walls and say, “this is a place—and we are a people—wherein love dwells. That radical, all-encompassing love of a God of love.

So, let us take to heart what Jesus is saying to us in today’s Gospel.  Let us take his words and plant them deeply in our hearts.  Let the words of his mouth be the words of our mouth. Let the Word—capital W—by our word.  And let that word find its home, its source, its basis in our hearts.

When it does, our words will truly speak the Word that is in our hearts.  Let us allow no darkness, no negativity to exist within our hearts.

Let us not be hypocritical Pharisees to those around us. But let us true followers of Jesus, with love burning within and overflowing us.  As followers of Jesus, let love be the word that speaks to others.  Let our hearts be the source of our faith in everything we do in faith.  Let our hearts be so filled with love that nothing else can exist in it but love.  Let us strive to live out our Baptismal Promises with God by proclaiming “by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.”

And if we do, we will find that Good News pouring forth from our mouth and bringing joy and gladness and love and full acceptance to others—and even to ourselves.