11 Pentecost

July 31, 2016

Luke 12:13-21

+ Not long ago, I did something I didn’t really want to do. In fact, I dragged my heels  about it and tried to get out of it as much as I could. But I knew it had to be done. I revised my Will.

Ugh!

At first, it thought it would be simple. Just a simple addendum, I thought. But, oh no.  Not in this day. The whole Will was rewritten to conform to changes in the law since my last Will. It took a lot longer than I thought to get it done. But when it was, I felt a real relief. I felt as though things were in good order. 

Which the whole reason we make Wills.   We make Wills to give us a sense of security about what we have. We like to know where these things we worked hard to get will go.

Still, having said all that, I have never been comfortable talking about Wills and money.  It’s such a personal thing.  Maybe it’s because I kind of fret over these things.  I fret over my possessions and what is going to happen to them when I’m gone.  Which, I know, is pointless. But, still…I do it. I fret.

In this morning’s Gospel reading we find this “someone” in the crowd who is also fretting, it seems.   And this “someone” just hasn’t quite understood what Jesus is saying when he says “do not be afraid,” which is what he was telling them right before this particular incident. But as easy as it is to judge this poor person quarreling with his brother—as much as we want to say—“look at that fool, bringing his financial concerns before Jesus,” the fact is, more often than we probably care to admit, this is the person we no doubt find ourselves relating to.  I certainly do.

In this society that we live in, in this country in which we live in, we naturally think a lot about money and finances.  We spend a lot of time storing our money, investing our money, making more money and depending on money. None of which, in and of its self, is bad.

But, we also worry about money quite a bit.  And that is bad.  For those who don’t have much, they worry about how to survive, how to live, how to make more.  For those with money, they worry about keeping the money they have, making sure their money isn’t stolen or misused or how the stock market is doing.

And we don’t just worry about the money in our lives.  We worry about all our material “treasures.” We worry about protecting our possessions from robbers, or fire or natural disaster. We insure them and store them and we spend time planning how to pass our treasures on after we die. We are concerned about what we have and we might even find ourselves looking for and seeking those things we don’t have.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with any of this either.  It’s good stewardship to take care of that with which God has blessed us and take care of those things.

What Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel is not so much these issues—it’s not money per se, or the “things” in our lives. What Jesus is talking is something worse. He is talking about greed, or as older translations used, covetousness.  Greed and covetousness are not the same thing.  They are actually two different things.  Greed involves us—it involves us wanting more than we need.  Covetousness is wanting what others have.  Covetousness involves envy and jealousy. (And envy and jealousy are two different things as well, but we won’t get into that today). Covetousness involves looking at others and wanting what they have desperately.  And at times, we’ve all been guilty of both of these things.

In our society, we are primed to be a bit greedy and we are primed to covet.  Look at some of the ads we see on TV.  We are shown products in such a way that we actually come to desire them.  And they are shown in the context of some other person enjoying them so much that we should want them too. And, in this society, we are primed to want more than we need.

We’re all guilty of it.  And we should be aware of this fact in our lives.  And in being aware of this, we need to keep Jesus’ words close to heart. Because Jesus is clear here. There are two kinds of treasures.  There are those treasures we have here on earth—the ones we actually own, the ones we might need and the ones others have that we want— and the ones we store up for ourselves in heaven.

And, let’s be honest, those treasures we are expected to store up for ourselves in heaven are not the easiest ones to gain for ourselves.  They are not the ones we probably think about too often in our lives. Jesus isn’t too clear in today’s Gospel exactly what those treasures are, but it won’t take much guessing on our part to figure them out. The treasures we store up for ourselves in the next world are those that come out of loving God and loving each other. But we have to be careful when considering what it is we are storing up for ourselves.  It is not necessarily the idea that good deeds will get us into heaven.

We need to be very clear here.  Jesus is not at any point saying to us that what we do here on earth is going to guarantee us a place in heaven.  But what he is saying is that we don’t get to take any of our possessions with us when we leave this world.  All of it will be left behind. Every last thing we have right now in our lives—every previous thing—will be left behind when we die.

However, Jesus says, if you do these good things in your life, you will be closer to heaven.  You will not “win” heaven by doing them. But…by doing good things for one another, you will be bringing heaven closer into our lives.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to take care of the treasures we have on earth.  We should always be thankful for them.  And we should be willing to share them as are needed.

Our job as Christians is to take care of our possessions here on earth—with whatever God granted to us in our lives.  Even our Book of Common Prayer encourages us to look after our earthly treasures and to share them in a spirit of goodness and forbearance.  I’d like you to take a look at a section of the Prayer Book you probably have never even explored.  On page 445, you will find something very interesting. It says this,

The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.

I always encourage people—no matter where they are financially in their lives—to make out a Will.  Wills are more than just a means of giving away our earthly possessions when we die. They truly can be a practical expression of one’s faith and a positive acknowledgement of our own mortalness and dependence upon God.

 I was inspired by this suggestion from the Prayer Book and had my original Will done thirteen years ago, and then revising it a few years ago.   For me, there was a sense of accomplishment in knowing that what I had will be distributed to those people and those organizations that I know would appreciate them and benefit from them.  It’s also, for that very reason, that I revised my will when one of those organizations became something other than it was originally. And it was also a relief to be able to put in that Will such practical instructions as my funeral arrangements (which again I highly encourage everyone to consider and write down in some way or form).

By arranging for our Wills to be made, by being generous with our gifts and with the instructions we give our loved ones who survive us, we are truly responding to today’s Gospel.  By being generous with our gifts , and by being generous to those who share this earth with us, we are building up treasures in heaven. We are not “buying” our way into heaven. We are just striving to do good on this earth, as faithful followers of Jesus and as beloved children of a loving God. And striving to do good does build up those treasures in heaven.

In all of this, listen in a way the anonymous person in today’s Gospel did not.  Listen to Jesus’ words of “do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid of what will happen to the possessions you have on earth.  Do not let fear reign in your life by letting greed and covetousness rule your lives.  Do not get all caught up in the things you have, or the things your neighbors have.

Instead, let us love our neighbor as we would love ourselves.  And let us love our God who provides for us everything we can possibly need.  And let us know that that same God whom we love and who loves us in return has a special place prepared for us which is full of riches beyond our comprehension.

For, as Jesus makes clear in pointing out, our lives do “not consist in the abundance of our possessions.”   We are more than our possessions.  We are more than what we have. In that place to which are going, we will go empty-handed.  We will go shed of all attachments and possessions.  We will go there shed even of our very bodies.  But we will go there, unafraid. And we will go there gloriously and radiantly clothed with hope and joy and love.

10 Pentecost

July 24, 2016

Luke 11.1-13

+ Tomorrow, July 25—the feast of St. James the Greater—I will be observing the 13^th anniversary of my ordination as a Deacon. When I think about such a thing—13 years—it is very humbling. The other day, I was sharing the fact I would be observing this day with a friend of mine, and she said to me: “So, I’m really curious, as an ordained person, do you really pray when people ask you for prayers, or do you just say you’ll pray and forget?” It was one of the best questions I’ve ever been asked. And it’s an important question. I said this to her:

“I used to say I would and then would often forget and feel guilty for forgetting. So, now, what I do is when anyone asks for prayer from me, I immediately pray for them. Even if it’s a short, interior prayer, I will pray for them, ‘please, Lord, I pray for so-and-so’ and whatever issue they have. And when I do, I usually find that when I pray more fully, usually at Evening Prayer, and in a more focused way, that request is still there.”

And I can say this, prayer is as essential of a part of my ministry at St. Stephen’s as anything I do. And I know it is for many of you as well. 

For me, as an ordained person, I can tell you, I took very seriously the vow I first made 13 years ago tomorrow night, when the Bishop asked me,

Will you be faithful in prayer…?

With that in mind, I can also say that one of the most common questions I have been asked in my 13 years of ordained ministry has been: “how should I pray?” Or “Am I praying correctly?” And I think that is one of the most important questions anyone can ask me.  And I love to answer that question. It is essential. Prayer is essential to us as Christians.  It is in praying, that we not only seek God, but come to know God.

As I’ve shared with you many times, I was, for a period of time in my twenties, a very committed Buddhist. And, I have to say, I still kind of am.  I really am of the opinion that Buddhism is less a religion than a philosophy—a way of perception. I learned an interesting concept in Buddhist about being spiritually imbalanced. If we center ourselves in our brains—if we become intellectual for the sake of anything else—we become spiritually top-heavy. If we center ourselves in our hearts—in our emotions, which I often tend to do—then we are also off balance. But if we center ourselves in the very core of our bodies—in our souls, where intellect and emotions balance out—then we become truly centered. And it is from here that true prayer comes.  And that we get to feel God and know God.

For those of us seeking God and striving after God, and God, in return, coming to us and revealing God’s self to us, we do find the need to respond in some way. That response is, of course, prayer.

In our Gospel for today, we find Jesus talking about this response.  We find him talking about prayer. The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray.   Jesus responds by teaching them the prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father.  Then he goes on to share a parable about a friend asking another friend for a loan.  In the midst of this discourse on prayer, Jesus says those words we find quite familiar:

“For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knows, the door will be opened.”

Now, pay attention to some key words there:

-Asks

-Searches

-Knows.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the complaint from people about unanswered prayers.

“I prayed and I prayed and nothing happened,” I will hear. And I am definitely not going to tell you how many times I have complained about so-called “unanswered” prayer in my own life. But when we talk of such things as unanswered prayers, no doubt we are zeroing in on the first part of what Jesus is saying today:

“For everyone who asks receives.”

And before we move on from this, I just want to make clear—there is no such thing  as unanswered prayer. All prayers are answered, as you’ve heard me say many times. The answer however is just not always what we might want to hear. Our God is not Santa Claus in heaven, granting gifts to good children, nor is our God the god of Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism—a projection of our own parental expectations (to which many of us act like spoiled children).  

God grants our prayers, but sometimes the answer is “Yes,” sometimes is “not yet,” and, sadly—and we have to face this fact as mature people in our lives—sometimes the answer is “No.” And I can tell you from my own experience, the greatest moment of spiritual maturity is accepting that “no” from God.

But, that is, of course, the petitionary aspect of prayer, and very rarely do most of us move beyond asking God for “things,” as though God is some giant gift-dispenser in the sky.   (I am telling you this morning, in no uncertain terms, that God is not a giant gift-dispenser in the sky. Sorry!)

Jesus shows us that prayer also involves seeking and knocking—searching and knowing.  Oftentimes in those moments when a prayer is not answered in the way we think it should, we just give up. We shake our fists at God and say, “God does not exists because my prayers weren’t answered.” And that’s all right. That’s an honest and valid response to God.  I’ve done it in my past.  And I understand people who do it.

But if we seek out the reasons our prayers are not answered in the way we want them to, we may truly find another answer—an answer we might not want to find, but an answer nonetheless.   And if we keep on knocking, if we keep on pushing ourselves in prayer, we will find more than we can even possibly imagine.

The point of all of this, of course, is that when God breaks through to us, sometimes we also have to reach out to God as well.  And somewhere in the middle is where we will find the meeting point in which we find the asking, the seeking and knocking presented before us in a unique and amazing way.  In that place of meeting, we will find that prayer is truly our response to God “by thought and deed, with or without words.” And in that place of meeting, we come to know God.

Jesus is clear that prayer needs to be regular and consistent and heart-felt.  I have found that prayer is essential for all of us as Christians.  If we do not have prayer to sustain us and hold us up and carry us forward, then it is so easy to become aimless and lost.

As some of you know, I lead a very disciplined prayer life.  I’m not saying that to brag or to pat myself on the back. I lead a disciplined prayer because I can be lazy person. I pray the Daily Office every day—the services of Morning and Evening Prayer found in the Book of Common Prayer—because I need to. For myself.  See, kind of selfish.  But I do need it.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who also prays the Daily Office every day, says that when he doesn’t pray the Office, he feels off, like he hasn’t brushed his teeth. That’s what it’s like for me as well.  And I pray it because it is a way for me to pray for everyone at St. Stephen’s by name through the course of the week.   And, in addition to the Offices, I take regular times during the day to just stop and be quiet and simply “be” in the Presence of God, to just consciously open myself to God’s Presence and just “be” there with God.  No petitions. No asking for anything. No fist-shaking or complaints.  Just being there.  That’s essentially what prayer is. It is us opening ourselves to God, responding to God, seeking God and trying to know God.

Roberta Bondi is one of the best contemporary theologians alive today. She is an expert in the so-called Desert Spirituality of the early Christian Church. In her excellent spiritual autobiography, Memories of God, she writes this abut prayer:

“I abandoned the notion that prayer is basically verbal, petition and praise, and came to see that prayer is sharing of the whole self and an entire life with God. With a great wrench I set aside the conviction that the process of moving closer to God in prayer should also be a process by which we discard the damaged parts of ourselves of which we are most ashamed. I learned instead that just the opposite is true, that prayer is a process of gathering in and reclaiming the lost and despised and wounded parts of ourselves…”

So, essentially, prayer is not something formal and precise. It does not have to perfect or “formulaic.” We do not do it only when we are pure and holy and in that right spiritual mind. We pray honestly and openly and when the last thing in the world we feel like is praying.  We pray when life is falling apart and it seems like God is not listening. And we pray when we are angry at God or bitter at life and all the unfair things that have come upon us.

I actually have no problem praying in those situations. You know when I do have a problem praying? When things are going well.  When all is well.  In those moments, I sometimes forget to open myself to God. I sometimes forget just to say “thank you” for those good things.  I forget sometimes just to be grateful for the good things. But even then we need to pray as well.

We pray to know God and to seek God. And if we do so, if we stick with it, there will be a breakthrough. I know, because I’ve experienced it. And many of you know it too because you’ve experienced it.

There will be a breakthrough. Of course, we can’t control when or how it will happen.  All we can do is recognize that it is God breaking through to us, again and again.  We see the breaking through fully in Jesus.  He shows us how God continues to break through into this world.  We see it in our own lives when, after struggling and worrying and despairing over something, suddenly it just “lifts” and we are filled with a strange peace we never thought would ever exists again.

In those moments, God does break through. In response to that breaking through, we can each find a way of meeting God, whenever and however God comes to us, in prayer.  In that place of meeting, we will receive whatever we need, we will find what we’re searching for, and knocking, we will find a door opened to us.  That is how God responds to us.

So, let us go out. Let us go to meet God.  Let us seek God. Let us know God.  God is breaking through to us, wherever we might be in our lives.  Let us go out to meet the God who asks of us first, who seeks us out first, who knocks first for us to open the door.

8 Pentecost

July 10, 2016

Luke 7.36-8.3

+ It has been a long, difficult violent week in the world. But, to lighten things a bit, this past week, our Senior Warden, Cathy McMullen, posted a wonderful little photo on Facebook.

Under the heading “This busy priest doesn’t have time for your long-winded confessions” was a photo of a sign that read:

“Confessions today…will be until exactly 5:30 pm. There is only one priest available for confession today. Make your confession direct to the point and confess only your sins and offenses. No need to explain why you did it. Thank you very much.”

I loved it!  But it did seem a bit legalistic, shall we say. And there was an interesting conversation that ensued, in which people said they were glad we were “Protestant” and didn’t need to make confession.  I won’t get into all that “Protestant” talk this morning, though some of you know where I stand on that.

But, actually, we as Episcopalians do have an opportunity for confession. And, I guess, according to the responses in that Facebook posting, so do Lutherans, though I never ever heard of it in the years I was a Lutheran, nor have any of my immediate Lutheran relatives.

But, for us, yes, we Episcopalians do have confession. And some of you have taken advantage of it over the years. On a regular basis.  If you doubt this fact that Confession is a valid aspect of being Episcopalian—and no doubt some of you are this morning—I invite you to take a quick perusal of your Book of Common Prayer. It’s right there on page 447.  The service for “The Reconciliation of a Penitent” is a service very few of us here this morning has probably ever taken advantage of. And that’s all right. It’s not all that big of a deal.  But it is an important service and it is one that certainly deserves our attention, even if we have no desire to take advantage of that service.  

Confession in the Episcopal Church is often described in this way:

“All can, some should, no one must.”

And it’s nice to take a look at it at a time other than Lent, when we are almost overwhelmed with talk of sin and forgiveness.  The service of Reconciliation is a service in which a person seeking to ask forgiveness of whatever shortcomings they have goes to a priest (and in the Episcopal Church only a priest can grant absolution) and having prayerfully and thoughtfully shared these sins, received words of comfort and counsel and then is given absolution by the priest.  It really is just like Confession is in the Roman Catholic Church, though for us we don’t go into a little cubicle and whisper our sins through a screen to a priest.  So, on those occasions when we describe the Episcopal Church as “Catholic lite,” and we get the inevitable question of whether or not we have “Confession,” we can say yes, we do, but then quickly add that it’s not a requirement.

I think few of us want to take advantage of this service, but, occasionally, we sometimes do find the need. And, as I said, it is not a requirement for any of us, though it is a very vital and, at times, helpful service

Not a lot of people know that I take advantage of it on a fairly regular basis. Actually, I hadn’t for a couple of years, because the clergy person I regularly confessed to had made themselves unavailable.  And then, a few weeks ago, I had a situation arise in which I desperately needed to partake of confession.

Before you start letting your minds race with unsavory thoughts about why I needed confession, it was nothing scandalous. It was simply an unpleasant situation with some members of my family in which I lost my cool and allowed myself to get a bit angry and say a few things I later regretted. This was not to my mother, I also want to make clear as well.  But I ended up finding a new clergy person who is actually a wonderful confessor.  And after the rite, I really felt so much better. There really is something very positive and good about being open and honest about one’s shortcomings, about sharing those shortcomings with someone else, about getting some practical and helpful council and advice and then hearing from that person that I am forgiven for the wrongs I have done.

For us, we find Confession best summarized on page 446 in our Prayer Book:

“The ministry of reconciliation, which has been committed by Christ to his Church, is exercised through the care each Christian has for others, through the common prayer of Christians assembled for public worship, and through the priesthood of Christ and his ministers declaring absolution.”

So, as we’ve just heard, we realize that Confession is not something the Church and bunch of male priests invented.  It was something commended to us by Jesus, who knew full well how important it was for us to confess and to hear –actually hear—the words of forgiveness.

As a priest, one of the most important responsibilities I have has always been to be a confessor. On that night that I was ordained, as part of the ordination service, the Bishop declared to me that among my responsibilities as a priest was “to declare God’s forgiveness to penitent sinners…” Now, that may sound like some “special” power we priests have.  

But, more than anything, what a priest does when she or he declare God’s forgiveness is just that:

We declare God’s forgiveness.

Nothing magical.  We just state a fact.  But, it IS an important fact.  It is important to hear. It is important to hear that we are forgiven. It is important to hear, when we fall short in any way in our lives, to hear those words, “You are forgiven.”

Hearing those words, I can say, is a truly powerful experience.  There is a sense of a weight being lifted.  There is a sense that something which was bound up has been loosened and released. To hear those words of pardon and forgiveness are important to us because we sometimes do need to hear that we are forgiven.  

Without those words of forgiveness, we may continue on in our self-pitying and our self-loathing.  Guilt can weigh heavily on us.  Those words of pardon and absolution restore us.  They help us rise above the wrongs we have done so we can live fully and completely.

When we hear Jesus say to that penitent woman in today’s Gospel, “Your sins are forgiven…Your faith has saved you. Go in peace,” we can almost feel the  weight being lifted from her.  Whatever shortcomings that woman brought with her into that place, we know are gone from her as she leaves.  This is the power of confession.

At the end of “Form Two” of Confession in the Prayer Book, the service is concluded when the priest, echoing this very Gospel reading, says,

“Now there is rejoicing in heaven; for you were lost, and are found; you were dead, and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Go in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins.”

To which the penitent replies, “Thanks be to God.”

Those are words that cause us to continue on, despite whatever we have done.  The forgiveness of our sins transforms us and changes us.  It frees us from whatever might hold us down.

So, let us together strive, when we have done wrong, to seek those words of forgiveness. Some of us might actually wish to seek out the Sacrament of Reconciliation as found in the Book of Common Prayer.  I encourage you to do so.  It is good to have a regular confessor—to take time to confess your faults and failings to some one.  It is good psychologically and it is good spiritually.  Certainly, as your priest, I am always available for this service, but any priest will do. Any priest can grant absolution.

But you do not have to be a priest to remind people of  God’s forgiveness and love.   All of us can  carry those words of forgiveness from Jesus close to our hearts when we do fail and we do fall short in our relationships, and when others wrong us.

Let us humble ourselves, but let’s not despair in those moments.  Let us come before God and seek that forgiveness that lifts us up from our tears.  Let us unloose from within us whatever is holding us captive so that we may be truly free to love God and love others with no regrets, no recriminations, no undue guilt.

Jesus’ words to each of us are “go in peace.”  That peace we find in this forgiveness is truly a liberating peace.  It is a peace that destroys not only what others do to us, but we do to ourselves and to others, which sometimes can be much worse.  That peace we find in reconciliation truly does liberate. So, let us take the peace offered to us by Jesus and go forth in that peace of God.  And doing so, let us rejoice in the freedom that peace gives us. Amen.

7 Pentecost

July 3, 2016

Luke 10.1-11, 16-20

+ As most of you know, we are currently in the process, here at St. Stephen’s, of helping three of our members discern a call to be ordained ministry, two to the ministry of Deacons and one to the ministry of Priest.  And it’s, at times, a difficult one.

Luckily, each of them has already been doing ministry up to this point. Ministry is not a stranger to any of them. They know many of the hardships and pitfalls involved in ministry, which will help them as they proceed to ordained ministry, if God so wills. One of the areas of ministry all of us—and we are all doing ministry here at St. Stephen’s—might find ourselves susceptible to, is what some might call “lone wolf” ministry.

Lone wolf ministry can be very dangerous behavior.  You really can’t do ministry and be a lone wolf. Doing ministry means doing it together.

But…I’m afraid I might sound kinda like a hypocrite here.  For any of you who know me and worked with me for any period of time, you know I’m a bit of a lone wolf about some things. You may call it lone wolf.  I call it being independent.  Or maybe, sometimes, just impatient. Things have to get done after all.  And, when they do, you know, I’ll just do it.

But, being a lone wolf is not a good thing.  In the Church it is never a good thing to be a lone wolf. None of us can do ministry alone.  We all need to admit that we need each other to do effective ministry. And sometimes even the lone wolf admits that simple fact: I can’t do this alone.  The lone wolf sometimes has to seek help from others.

Ultimately, the lone wolf can be a bad thing for the church for another reason though.  Lone wolves can easily be led down that ugly, slippery slope of believing, at some point, that  it’s all about them.

Now, I want to make clear: I never have believed that anything is about just me. Yech.  I despise that kind of thinking in myself.  For all my lone wolf tendencies, I have a pretty good support system around me—people who will very quickly tell me when they think I might be heading down that slippery egocentric slope.

There is, after all, a difference, I have discovered between “lone wolf” behavior and ego-centric, it’s-all-about-me, I-don’t-need-anyone’s-help behavior.  And as you all know, I have no problem asking your advice and your opinions on anything before some of the things I’ve done as a priest.  I might not necessarily heed those suggestions. But I appreciate them, and they are, for the most part, helpful.

But, I have known too many church leaders who have not had a support system like mine.  I have known too many church leaders who have  made it clear to me that it was because of them—because their winning personality, or their knowledge of church growth, or their years of expertise—that a particular parish flourished. It’s an unfortunate trap leaders in the Church fall into when they believe that a parish’s success depends on them as individuals and their own abilities of ministry—and, mind you, I am not just talking about priests here. Lay leaders in the Church have fallen into this trap as well. I have known some of those lay leaders as well, trust me. 

Maybe to some extent it’s true.  Maybe some people do have the personality and the winning combination in themselves to do it.   I can tell you, I don’t.  Nor do I want to.  But for those who may have that kind of natural personality, I still have to admit: it all  makes me wary. It’s just too slippery of a slope for me.

We are dealing with similar personalities in today’s Gospel.  In our reading for today, those seventy that Jesus chose and sent out come back amazed by the gift of blessing God had granted to them and their personality.  They exclaim,

“Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

In and of its self, that’s certainly not a bad thing to say.  It’s a simple expression of amazement.    But Jesus—in that way that Jesus does—puts them very quickly in their place.   He tells them,

“do not rejoice in these gifts, but rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven.”

Or to be more blunt, he is saying rejoice not in yourselves and the things you can do with God’s help, but rejoice rather in God.  The burden of bringing about the Kingdom of God shouldn’t be solely the individual responsibly of any one of us.   Even Jesus made that clear for himself. Just imagine that stress in having to bring that about. 

Bringing the Kingdom of God into our midst is the responsibility of all of us together.  It is the responsibility of those who have the personality to bring people on board and it is the responsibility of those of us who do not have that winning personality. For those of us who do not have that kind of personality, it is our responsibility to bring the Kingdom about in our own ways.  We do so simply by living out our Christian commitment.

As baptized followers of Jesus, we bring the Kingdom into our midst simply: By Love.  We do it by loving God and loving each other as God loves us in whatever ways we can in our lives.  Bringing the Kingdom of God about in our midst involves more than just preaching from a pulpit or attending church on Sunday.  Spreading the Kingdom of God is more than just preaching on street corners or knocking on the doors.   

It means living it out in our actions as well.  It means living out our faith in our everyday life.  It means loving God and each other as completely as we can. But it does not mean loving ourselves to the exclusion of everything of else.

It means using whatever gifts we have received from God to bring the Kingdom a bit closer.   These gifts—of our personality, of our vision of the world around us, of our convictions and beliefs on certain issues—are what we can use.  It means not letting our personalities—no matter how magnetic and appealing they might be—to get in the way of following Jesus.

Our eyes need to be on God.  We can’t be doing that when we’re busy preening in the mirror, praising ourselves for all God does to us and through us.   

The Church does not exist for own our personal use.   If we think the Church is there so we can get some nice little pat on the back for all  the good we’re doing, or as an easy way to get us into heaven when we die, then we’re in the wrong place.  And we’re doing good for the wrong intention.

The Church exists for God, and for us, collectively.   The Church is ideally the conduit through which the Kingdom of God comes into our midst.  And it will come into our midst, with or without me as individual.

But it will comes into our midst through as us. All of us.  Together.   The Church is our way of coming alongside Jesus in his ministry to the world.  In a very real sense, the Church is our way to be the hands, the feet, the voice, the compassion, the love of God to this world and to each other.  But it’s all of us.  Not just me.  Not just you as an individual.  It’s all of us.  Together. Working together. Loving together. Serving together. And giving God the ultimate credit again and again.

Hopefully, in doing that, we do receive some consolation ourselves.   Hopefully in doing that, we in turn receive the compassion and love of God in our own lives as well.  But if we are here purely for our own well-being and not for the well-being of others, than it is does become only about us and not about God.   And in those moments, we are sounding very much like those 70 who come back to Jesus exclaiming, “look at what we have done!”

The message of today’s Gospel is that it must always be about God.  It must always be about helping that Kingdom of God break through into this selfish world of huge egos. It means realizing that when we are not doing it for God, we have lost track of what we’re doing. We have lost sight of who we are following.

So, let us—together—be the hands, the feet, the voice, the compassion and the love of God in the world around us. Like those 70, let us be amazed at what we can do in Jesus’ name.  But more importantly let us rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice this morning! Rejoice in the fact that your name, that my name—that our names are written at this moment in heaven.

6 Pentecost

June 26, 2016

1 Kings 19.15-16,19-21; Galatians 5.1,13-25; .Luke 9:51-62

+ This past Wednesday, we did something here at St. Stephen’s that we just do, as a congregation. We gathered for our regular Wednesday night Eucharist. We shared scripture. We prayed for those who need our prayers.  We blessed Holly and Michael Eklund on the anniversary of their marriage.  We offered incense.  We shared the Body and Blood of Jesus.  And then, at the end of our liturgy, we buried in our memorial garden another abandoned urn.

This one was a bit different than Adolf Scott in November.  We actually knew who this person was.  We knew a name, and dates. We knew where this person lived and of which she died. We know she had a family. And yet, we did what we are called to do here. We buried her with dignity. And just as importantly, we welcomed her into our midst. She became one of us.

Although others might abandon such things, we will always remember her.  She will be included in our prayers on the anniversary of her death and on in our All Saints octave. This is what we do.

We did something—and will no doubt continue to do this—even despite what we heard in our Gospel reading for today.  We hear Jesus say, Let the dead bury their own dead. If we did that, we would not be doing what we did on Wednesday night.  In fact, we probably wouldn’t be doing any funerals. And the funeral industry would be having a bit of trouble.  

It’s  an unusual statement.   It almost boggles the mind when you think about it. And yet….there is beautiful poetry in that phrase. We hear this saying of Jesus referenced occasionally in our secular society.  It conveys a sense of resignation and putting behind oneself insignificant aspects of our lives.

Still, it is a strange image to wrap our minds around. Let the dead bury their own dead. What could Jesus possibly mean by this reference?

Well, actually, Jesus would actually not have any issues with what we did on Wednesday, or with any of our funeral customs. Because, this statement from him, as always, has a deeper meaning—and really only starts to make sense when we put it in the context of his time and who his followers were.  When we find this man talking about having to go and bury his father, and Jesus’ response of “let the dead bury their own dead,” we might instantly think that Jesus is being callous.   It would seem, at least from our modern perspective, that this man is mourning, having just lost his father.

The fact is, his father actually probably died a year or more before.   What happened in that culture is that when a person died, they were anointed, wrapped in a cloth shroud and placed in a tomb. There would have been an actually formal burial rite at that times.  And of course, Jesus himself would later be buried exactly like this.

This initial tomb bury was actually a temporary interment.  They were probably placed on a shelf near the entrance of the tomb.  About a year or so after their death, the family gathered again at which time the tomb was re-opened.  By that time, the body would, of course,  have been reduced to bones.  The bones would then be collected, placed in a small stone box and buried with the other relatives, probably further back in the tomb.  

A remnant of this tradition still exists in Judaism, when, on the first anniversary of the death of a loved one, the family often gathers to unveil the gravestone in the cemetery.  Which I think a very cool tradition personally. 

We actually oftentimes do have a similar tradition. More and more, we find that often, there is a cremation and a memorial service within the week of death, but the burial or disposition of the remains takes place much later. Sort of like the burial we did on Wednesday night.

So, when we encounter this man in today’s Gospel, we are not necessarily finding a man mourning his recently deceased father.  What we are actually finding is a man who is waiting to go to the tomb where his father’s bones now lie so he can bury the bones.  When we see it from this perspective, we can understand why Jesus makes such a seemingly strange comment—and we realize it isn’t quite the callous comment we thought it was.  

As far as Jesus is concerned, the father has been buried.  Whatever this man does is merely an excuse to not go out and proclaim the kingdom of God, as Jesus commands him to do.

Now to be fair to the man, he could just be making an excuse, which really under any other circumstances, would have been a perfectly valid excuse.  Or he could really have felt that his duty as his father’s son took precedence over this calling from Jesus.  It doesn’t seem as though he doesn’t want to follow Jesus or proclaim the Kingdom.  He doesn’t flat-out say no.  He simply says, not now.  In a sense, he is given the choice between the dead and dried bones of his father or the living Jesus who stands before him.

Jesus’ response, which may sound strange to our modern, Western ears, is actually a very clear statement to this man.  He is saying, in a sense: “You are attached to these bones.  Don’t worry about bones.  Break your attachment, follow me, proclaim the goodness and love of God and you will have life.  Follow me TODAY.  NOW”

How many times have we been in the same place in our lives?  How many times have we looked for excuses to get out of following Jesus, at least right now?  We all have our own “bones” that we feel we must bury before we can go and proclaim the Kingdom of God in our midst by following Jesus.  We all have our own attachments that we simply cannot break so we can go forward unhindered to follow and to serve.

And they’re easy to find.  It’s easy to be led astray by attachments—to let these attachments fill our lives and give us a false sense of fulfillment.  It is easy for us to despair when the bad things of life happen to us.

But the fact is, even when awful things happen, even then, we need to realize, it is not the end.   Despite these bad things, the kingdom of God still needs to be proclaimed. Now.  And not later. Not after everything has been restored. Not when everything is good and right in the world.  Not when the elections are over, or the weather is cooler. Not after we have calmed down.

The Kingdom needs to be proclaimed NOW.  Now.  Even in the midst of chaos.  Even when those crappy things happen, we still need to follow Jesus.  Right now.  Right here.

Our faith in God, our following of Jesus and our striving to love and serve others doesn’t change just because we have setbacks.  Rather, when the setbacks arise, we need to deal with them and move on.   But if those setbacks become an excuse not to follow Jesus, then they too become a case for  letting these dead bury their own dead.

So, in a sense, we find ourselves confronted with that very important question: what are we, in our own lives, attached to?  What are the “bones” of our life?  What are the attachments in our life that cause us to look for excuses for not following Jesus and serving others?  For not loving, fully and completely.  What things in our lives prevent us  from proclaiming the Kingdom of God?

Whatever they might be, just let them be.  Let the dead bury their own dead.  Let’s not become attached to the dead objects of our lives that keep us from serving our living God.  Let’s  not allow those dead things to lead us astray and prevent us from living and loving fully.  Let us not become bogged down with all the attachments we have in this life as we are called to follow Jesus.  Let us not let them become the yoke of slavery we hear Paul discussing in his letter to the Galatians. Rather, let us take this yoke, break it and burn it as Elisha did, as an offering to our living God. 

But let us remember that this is not some sweet, nice, gentle suggestion from Jesus.   It is a command from him.

“Let the dead bury their own dead. But as for you, go, and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

We proclaim the kingdom, as we all know, by loving God and loving each other. You can’t proclaim the kingdom—you can’t love—when you are busy obsessing about the dead, loveless things of your life.  

We who are following Jesus have all put our hands to the plow.  We put our hands to that plow when were baptized, when we set out on that path of following Jesus. Now, with our hands on that plow, let us not look back.  Let us not be led astray by the attachments we have in this life that lead us wandering about aimlessly. But, let us focus. Let us look forward.  Let us push on. Let us proclaim by word and example the love we have for God and one another.   And when we do, we are doing exactly what Jesus commands us to do.

Now is the time.   Let us proclaim that Kingdom and making it a reality in our midst. Now. Amen.

Requiem Mass

June 22, 2016

+ Back in November, we gathered here to do exactly what we are doing tonight. We gathered to pray for, to commend to God and to bury someone who we probably will never know, at least on this side of the veil, so to speak.

In November, we prayed for Adolf Scott.  Tonight, we are praying for and commending to God this person, Linda. And much of what I am going to say tonight, I said then.  It rings as true tonight as it did in November. And it will no doubt ring true in the future should we bury others in such a way.

We know very little about Linda. We know when we she was born, we know when she died, we know she had a husband and child. We know how she died and where she died. We know those basic facts about her. But that’s all. We do not know he if she was a good person, or a terrible person. And as I said in November about Adolf Scott, so I say tonight about Linda, none of that matters. What matters tonight  is that we are welcoming her here in our midst and we are providing her with some dignity in her death.

In November, I shared the so called corporal acts of mercy. It’s no surprise to anyone here tonight that I hold those acts of mercy highly in my estimation. The corporal acts of mercy are...

- To feed the hungry;

- To give drink to the thirsty;

-   To clothe the naked;

- To harbor the harborless;

- To visit the sick;

-

 To ransom the captive;

- To bury the dead.

We, as a congregation of St. Stephen’s, as followers of Jesus, have strived to do every single one of these corporate acts of mercy in our collective ministry here. Throughout our 60 years, we have worked hard to do these seemingly basic acts. Because, like visiting the sick, and giving drink to the thirsty, and feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, burying the dead is a very basic act. It is something that is needed.

Every person deserves a proper burial.  We do these acts not because we want or need a pat on the back. We do them not because we think they’ll get us in the good graces of God, or provide us with an easy ticket to heaven.  We do them, because doing them brings about good in this world. And when good comes into this world, we believe God is present.

God is present with us this evening. We are seeing God present in this act of mercy, and even in this person of Linda.  We don’t know if she actually even believed in God, or was a Christian, or anything.

But you know what? None of that matters right now. What matters is that God is, even now, able to work in this situation. God is here, in the act of mercy we are doing, in the fact that Linda’s ashes came to us, in the witness of her presence with us this evening and in the years to come.

Some of the greatest and loudest statements of God’s mercy come not in sermons

or evangelizing on the streets. Sometimes the loudest statements of God’s mercy and our own mercy to others comes in the starkness and  quietness of an abandoned urn of ashes.  

Whoever Linda was, I am grateful for her presence with us.  I am grateful that in years to come, she will be remembered by us. I am grateful that she will have a place here with us.  And I am grateful that she will not be forgotten by any of us.

We commend you tonight, Linda,
to God’s mercy,
to God’s forgiveness and love.

Blessed be God the Creator,
who has caused the light of Christ
to shine upon you.

Go forth from this world:
in the love of God the Father
who created you,

in the mercy of Jesus Christ
who redeemed you,

in the power of the Holy Spirit
who strengthens you.

In communion with all the faithful,
may you dwell this day in peace and light.
Amen.

5 Pentecost

June 19, 2016

Galatians 3.23-29;Luke 8.26-39

+ I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine this past week, specifically about the shootings one week ago this morning at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  This friend of mine is an agnostic. Not an atheist, mind you. An agnostic.

Now, most of you know, I am especially fond of agnostics because, let’s face it, we too are all agnostics, if we are honest with ourselves, if we but scratch our spiritual surfaces. An agnostic is one who says, I simply do not know. Which is one of the most honest ways of looking at spirituality.  None of us, of course, knows. We hope. We long. We step into the unknown and hope and believe we will be held up.

What prompted this conversation was when my friend shared a comment on Facebook that said, essentially: “the devil’s followers don’t shoot people.” His thinking here is that, in the wake of the shootings in Orlando, it was people like Omar Mateen, a believer in God, who do things like this.

I don’t usually enter into these conversations. They go nowhere. No one’s minds are changed. But it was an interesting take on the situation. And I did have to say this to my friend:

evil is evil—and that where evil dwells, that is not the will of God, as I understand it.

I am no agnostic when it comes to such a belief.  This is what I know. A person like Omar Mateen can claim God’s righteousness all he wanted, the Westboro Baptist Church can claim God’s righteousness all they want, but anyone-ANYONE—who murders, who belittles, who limits the inherent rights of others, who are violent in word or action, who HATES in the name of God is deceived. By saying they are doing it in the name of the God, they are committing sacrilege. The highest form of sacrilege.  They are in fact doing the exact opposite of the will of God.  They are doing the will of the so-called “Devil,” the deceiver, the unholy one—that personification of all evil.  

Now, we often deceive ourselves. We convince ourselves that evil does not really exist. But let me tell you. In that nightclub last Sunday morning, evil existed. Evil ran rampant. Evil is what executed those cold-blooded murders.  Not God. Not a follower of God.

I believe God was most definitely there. I have no doubt about that. But God was with those who were fleeing and dying and suffering.

In that moment, Omar Mateen was not God’s agent, was not representing God or anything that came close to God.  He was the devil’s agent.  And he was doing the Devil’s work.  It was evil—plain and simple.

 And evil DOES exist.

Now I’m not saying I believe in actual supernatural devils or demons.  But, the fact remains, whether we believe in actual demons or nor not, whether we believe in Satan as a spiritual reality or not, what we all must believe in is the presence of actual evil in this world. Whether that evil is natural or supernatural, or both, the fact is, there is evil.   Even good rational people know that!

And those of us who are followers of Jesus have promised that we must turn away from evil again and again, in whatever way we encounter it.   Whenever we are confronted with evil, we must resist it. In our Baptismal service, these questions are asked of the person being baptized (or their sponsors):

“Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?”

And…

“Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

And, as our Baptismal Covenant asks us asks us:

“Do you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?”

Evil is something we must stand up against however we encounter it.  Whether we encounter it as a spiritual force, or whether we encounter it in other forms, such as racism, sexism or homophobia, or as a rogue, fanatical gunman systematically shooting innocent people in a nightclub, as followers of Jesus, must stand up against evil and say no to it.

In a sense, what we are being asked to do is what Jesus did in this morning’s Gospel.   We are being compelled, again and again, to cast out the evil in our midst, to send it away from us.  This is not easy thing to do.   It is not easy to look long and hard at the evil that exists in the world, and in our very midst. It is not easy to hear the stories of young gay and lesbian and transgender people huddling in bathroom stalls, pleading for their lives, or texting their mothers with messages of final goodbyes as they await the gunman.  

We must, even as we face these stories, resist the evil that exists in this world.  It too can be cast away. It too can be sent reeling from us.

The story of Jesus is clear: good always defeats evil ultimately.  Again and again. It might not seem like it in the mass shootings and murder.  But it is there.

Christ, as we heard in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians today, breaks down the boundaries evil in its various forms sets up.  In Christ, we hear, there are no distinctions.  In Christ, all those things that divide us and allow the seeds of evil to flower are done away with—those issue of sex, and social status and nationality and race are essentially erased, those things that cause people like Omar Mateen to lash out against.

And we, as followers of Jesus, so prone at times to get nitpicky and self-righteous and hypocritical and divide ourselves into camps of us versus them, are told in no uncertain terms that those boundaries, in Jesus, cannot exist among us.  Those boundaries, those distinctions, only lead to more evil.  To less love.

But even then, even when evil does seem to win out, even when there are moments of despair and fear at the future, there’s no real need to despair.  Even in those moments when evil seems to triumph, we know that those moments of triumph are always, always short-lived.   Good will always defeat evil ultimately.

Yes, we find the premise of good versus evil  in every popular movie and book we encounter. This is the essence of conflict that we find in all popular culture.  We learn that on the first day of Fiction Writing 101.  Good versus evil—and good always wins. But, for us, as followers of Jesus, this is not fiction.  That is not a fairy tale or wishful thinking. It is the basis on which our faith lies.  

When confronted with those spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God, we must renounce them and move on. And what are those spiritual forces of wickedness in our lives?  What are those forces that divide us and cause conflict among us?  What are the legion of demons we find in our midst?  Those spiritual forces of wickedness are those forces that destroy that basic tenant of love of God and love of each other.  Those spiritual forces of wickedness drive us apart from each other and divide us. They harden our hearts and kill love within us.  

When that happens in us, when we allow that to happen, we cannot be followers of Jesus anymore.  We cannot call ourselves children of a loving God.  When that happens our faith in God and our love for each other dies and we are left barren and empty.

We become like the demoniac in today’s Gospel.  We become tormented by God and all the forces of goodness.  We wander about in the tombs and the wastelands of our lives.   And we find ourselves living in fear—fear of the unknown, fear of that dark abyss of hopelessness that lies before us. It would be easy to feel like that in the wake of Orlando and all the violence we experience in this world.  

But when we turn from evil, we are able to carry out what Jesus commands of the demoniac.   We are able to return from those moments to our homes and to proclaim the goodness that God does for us.  That’s what good does.  That’s what God’s goodness does to us and for us.  That is what turning away from evil—in whatever form we experience evil—does for us.

So, let us do just that.  Let us proclaim all that God has done for us.   Let us choose good and resist evil.  Let us love—and love fully and completely, without barriers.  Let us love each other. Let us love peace and nonviolence.  Let us cast off whatever dark forces there are that kills love within us.  And let us sit at the feet of Jesus, “clothed in and in our right mind,” freed of fear and hatred and violence and filled instead with joy and hope and love.