We feasted St. John the Evangelist first with Morning Prayer that Robin led and then with a well-attended breakfast. A few of the guys were waiting in and around the parish hall even before I got over there.
Tony has been joining us just about every morning, and he’s very much at ease in this environment. A former Roman Catholic (can you ever really be “former” Catholic?) he spent years in Washington and Baltimore working with the poor, living in a monastic community and discerning a call to become a Franciscan. He’s got a great spirit and it's fun having him around.
We went through a pot and a half of coffee right away (which always makes me happy for some reason). As we all settled into our raisin bran, grits-chicken-cheese-egg casserole thing or regular scrambled eggs, Glenn, who lives in a tent nearby and begs at the freeway exit ramp, asked me if I watched any good football yesterday. “Nope, did anything interesting happen?” “I dunno,” he replied, “my TV in the woods doesn’t work so well.”
Skeet proceeded as usual to construct his scrambled egg sandwich. I’ve seen him eat two of those things plus cereal. We have this brand new toaster that actually beeps when the toast is done like a washing machine or something. It’s a good idea except that nobody ever realizes what the noise is until the toast is cold. Toasters popping are supposed to sound like “ching ching”, someone commented, not like a truck backing up. When Skeet realized that Sammie’s chin wasn’t perched on his lap looking cute in the hopes of a handout he looked around asking “Where’s my girl? You aren’t mad at me is you?”
--Colin
Note to readers who may wonder: Sammie is a Golden Retriever.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Lessons, Carols, and Fellowship
Last evening Gail and I attended the annual Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols at The Episcopal Center at Duke University. A bit early for carols? Of course, but this regular event is held early as it's the last chance the students get to sing carols and enjoy Christmas fellowship before the festive break.
We have attended this event for the past three years and enjoy it immensely. After the service, we tucked in to wonderful food, hot cider, mulled wine. Sharing food is a crucial part of hospitality and hospitality is a crucial part of Christianity.
After dinner, we settled down, with the huge log fire roaring, to sing carols by request. I'm pleased to say that members from St. Joseph's were there in force, probably sang the loudest, and, as usual, were the last to leave. St. Joe's also provided three of the four musicians, with Lyn seemingly never tiring on the organ, Alison contributed with her wonderful flute playing (and voice) whilst David was our great guitarist.
Thank you Karen (interim Chaplain), the vestry and board at ECD for continuing this wonderful tradition.
--Mick
We have attended this event for the past three years and enjoy it immensely. After the service, we tucked in to wonderful food, hot cider, mulled wine. Sharing food is a crucial part of hospitality and hospitality is a crucial part of Christianity.
After dinner, we settled down, with the huge log fire roaring, to sing carols by request. I'm pleased to say that members from St. Joseph's were there in force, probably sang the loudest, and, as usual, were the last to leave. St. Joe's also provided three of the four musicians, with Lyn seemingly never tiring on the organ, Alison contributed with her wonderful flute playing (and voice) whilst David was our great guitarist.
Thank you Karen (interim Chaplain), the vestry and board at ECD for continuing this wonderful tradition.
--Mick
Journeying home: right here, right now
The following is a sermon preached by Fr. Chris Tessone at St. Joseph's on the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2009. The texts are Baruch 5:1-9, Philippians 1:3-11, and Luke 3:1-6.
I grew up in a part of Illinois called “Little Egypt” that is famous for growing one thing very well: corn. Our region in Southern Illinois got the name in the 1830s, when there were several years of bad harvests in a row in other parts of the state. People traveled to Southern Illinois to buy corn, just as Joseph’s family traveled to Egypt in the Hebrew Bible during the years of famine in Canaan. Growing up, there was corn everywhere—corn out back behind the church I went to as a child, corn along the interstates leading up to Chicago and St. Louis when we traveled, even fields of corn next to the Wal-Mart we shopped at. I think you’re getting the theme—if there’s corn there, I feel at home!
When I first went away to high school, I worried about how much I would miss home. School was hours away in the suburbs of Chicago, far away from my friends and family. I wasn’t sure whether I would feel comfortable in a big city. But as we drove through the city limits into Aurora, I saw a sign that read “population 140,000,” and then…fields of corn leading up to the school. Despite being hundreds of miles away from Little Egypt, right away this new place did feel a little like home.
Although the homecoming Baruch writes about involves far more pomp and circumstance, the home God welcomes the people of Israel back to is no less foreign to them than Aurora, Illinois was to me nearly fifteen years ago. Baruch, who was the prophet Jeremiah’s secretary, is writing during the exile of the Israelites to Babylon. From where they sit in exile, the land God promises to them is not just someplace where the work is a little easier, someplace warmer and a little sunnier. It is the home every one of God’s children dreams about. It’s a universal hope. It’s the “salvation of God” proclaimed by John the Baptist in today’s Gospel.
The problem for us is that this promised land has no concrete existence. It seems to us, just as it must have seemed to the Israelites hearing Baruch’s vision, that in the world we live in, there is no place where, in the prophet’s words, “the woods and every fragrant tree have shaded” us, where the very mountains and hills are made flat so we have level ground to walk on. This fantastical destination may seem to have no concrete existence in our experience—so how can we have faith that when we arrive at our destination, it will indeed be home?
The lectionary forces us to confront these questions now because we are in Advent again, at the symbolic beginning of our journey to the Kingdom we celebrate on Christ the King Sunday. We need to ask ourselves about the path that connects the life we lead right now, on the Second Sunday of Advent in 2009, to the universal homecoming that Baruch describes in today’s reading.
In the Epistle reading, Paul gives us an answer. The concrete path to the universal home of all of humanity is the local Church. He writes to the Philippians that the bonds of love and fellowship he has with them give him confidence that God will bring the work of the Gospel to completion in them and their community. He points to concrete practices of care for neighbor—in both good times and in bad—as a path to knowledge of God and blamelessness before God. This is the charge we receive from Paul and all the early Mothers and Fathers of the Church—incarnate the universal Church precisely where you are by practicing the Christian faith as you’ve received it. As St. Luke tells us in Acts, we do this through teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
What this means is that the Catholic Church we confess each Sunday in the Nicene Creed springs up out of local dioceses—out of gatherings of Christians around the world, advancing the work of the Gospel and loving their neighbors whether they are friends or enemies. The universal Church appears out of thin air in the church buildings of those dioceses—and in hospitals, prisons, and schools—first and foremost because God makes the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ present in them in the Eucharist, but also because that Body and Blood make other miracles happen. The Eucharist and the proclamation of the Gospel lead us to feed and clothe each other. They help us pray for each other when we are sick and wounded. They teach us to rejoice with one another when we are happy, as we do countless times each year in celebrating marriages, anniversaries, and births, and they make us console one another when we hit life’s low points.
Every such encounter with the living God in these concrete little places lights the path to the home we are all looking for. In doing these practices, we take away each other’s doubt about what lies at the end of the road. Just as importantly, if we do the work of the Gospel here in our own time and place, when someone else stumbles across the way of Jesus Christ, they can see what lies at the end of the road more clearly, too. That is why the Church is not merely a collection of sinners looking for their own individual salvation—the Church helps us receive the saving power of Jesus Christ because in the Church we strive to minister God’s grace to one another in everything we do. Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes, but many hearts working together are absolutely crucial for the Church to do its mission in the world.
So the Church year is beginning again, and in our readings at the Eucharist and in the Daily Office we are meditating on what the coming Messiah promises. But while it may be tempting to meditate too long on just where the path we’re taking may lead, today’s Gospel reading reminds us of the urgency of our journey. “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,”…but not after all of us have passed on from the earth, or in ten years, or even just after Christmas. Now. The vision of a new world that connects Isaiah to Baruch to John the Baptist is an urgent one. It’s the vision of a world that is coming to life right this very moment. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to see that new world and to journey home to the new life we’ll find there…and the first step begins here, now, in this Church of Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God.
I grew up in a part of Illinois called “Little Egypt” that is famous for growing one thing very well: corn. Our region in Southern Illinois got the name in the 1830s, when there were several years of bad harvests in a row in other parts of the state. People traveled to Southern Illinois to buy corn, just as Joseph’s family traveled to Egypt in the Hebrew Bible during the years of famine in Canaan. Growing up, there was corn everywhere—corn out back behind the church I went to as a child, corn along the interstates leading up to Chicago and St. Louis when we traveled, even fields of corn next to the Wal-Mart we shopped at. I think you’re getting the theme—if there’s corn there, I feel at home!
When I first went away to high school, I worried about how much I would miss home. School was hours away in the suburbs of Chicago, far away from my friends and family. I wasn’t sure whether I would feel comfortable in a big city. But as we drove through the city limits into Aurora, I saw a sign that read “population 140,000,” and then…fields of corn leading up to the school. Despite being hundreds of miles away from Little Egypt, right away this new place did feel a little like home.
Although the homecoming Baruch writes about involves far more pomp and circumstance, the home God welcomes the people of Israel back to is no less foreign to them than Aurora, Illinois was to me nearly fifteen years ago. Baruch, who was the prophet Jeremiah’s secretary, is writing during the exile of the Israelites to Babylon. From where they sit in exile, the land God promises to them is not just someplace where the work is a little easier, someplace warmer and a little sunnier. It is the home every one of God’s children dreams about. It’s a universal hope. It’s the “salvation of God” proclaimed by John the Baptist in today’s Gospel.
The problem for us is that this promised land has no concrete existence. It seems to us, just as it must have seemed to the Israelites hearing Baruch’s vision, that in the world we live in, there is no place where, in the prophet’s words, “the woods and every fragrant tree have shaded” us, where the very mountains and hills are made flat so we have level ground to walk on. This fantastical destination may seem to have no concrete existence in our experience—so how can we have faith that when we arrive at our destination, it will indeed be home?
The lectionary forces us to confront these questions now because we are in Advent again, at the symbolic beginning of our journey to the Kingdom we celebrate on Christ the King Sunday. We need to ask ourselves about the path that connects the life we lead right now, on the Second Sunday of Advent in 2009, to the universal homecoming that Baruch describes in today’s reading.
In the Epistle reading, Paul gives us an answer. The concrete path to the universal home of all of humanity is the local Church. He writes to the Philippians that the bonds of love and fellowship he has with them give him confidence that God will bring the work of the Gospel to completion in them and their community. He points to concrete practices of care for neighbor—in both good times and in bad—as a path to knowledge of God and blamelessness before God. This is the charge we receive from Paul and all the early Mothers and Fathers of the Church—incarnate the universal Church precisely where you are by practicing the Christian faith as you’ve received it. As St. Luke tells us in Acts, we do this through teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
What this means is that the Catholic Church we confess each Sunday in the Nicene Creed springs up out of local dioceses—out of gatherings of Christians around the world, advancing the work of the Gospel and loving their neighbors whether they are friends or enemies. The universal Church appears out of thin air in the church buildings of those dioceses—and in hospitals, prisons, and schools—first and foremost because God makes the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ present in them in the Eucharist, but also because that Body and Blood make other miracles happen. The Eucharist and the proclamation of the Gospel lead us to feed and clothe each other. They help us pray for each other when we are sick and wounded. They teach us to rejoice with one another when we are happy, as we do countless times each year in celebrating marriages, anniversaries, and births, and they make us console one another when we hit life’s low points.
Every such encounter with the living God in these concrete little places lights the path to the home we are all looking for. In doing these practices, we take away each other’s doubt about what lies at the end of the road. Just as importantly, if we do the work of the Gospel here in our own time and place, when someone else stumbles across the way of Jesus Christ, they can see what lies at the end of the road more clearly, too. That is why the Church is not merely a collection of sinners looking for their own individual salvation—the Church helps us receive the saving power of Jesus Christ because in the Church we strive to minister God’s grace to one another in everything we do. Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes, but many hearts working together are absolutely crucial for the Church to do its mission in the world.
So the Church year is beginning again, and in our readings at the Eucharist and in the Daily Office we are meditating on what the coming Messiah promises. But while it may be tempting to meditate too long on just where the path we’re taking may lead, today’s Gospel reading reminds us of the urgency of our journey. “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,”…but not after all of us have passed on from the earth, or in ten years, or even just after Christmas. Now. The vision of a new world that connects Isaiah to Baruch to John the Baptist is an urgent one. It’s the vision of a world that is coming to life right this very moment. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to see that new world and to journey home to the new life we’ll find there…and the first step begins here, now, in this Church of Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Breakfast Club
“Oh, John-boy, you’d be running! You’d run so fast! You’d be chasing Emily in her car!” A friend of mine was telling me how to get John-boy off the couch and out to exercise. The secret is to drop him off in Walltown around dusk.
Only a few blocks off East Campus, Walltown, as my friend describes it, is not somewhere my fellow female first-year should ever run—she just moved to Trinity Park—and somewhere that “John-boy” should only venture if he has a car full of friends he’s chasing.
Durham can be a scary place. It’s a place that can really use our help, though. We can tutor kids for an hour a week at the community center and we can volunteer once a month at the soup kitchen. In my time here, I’ve even helped clean up a not-for-profit consignment shop. Durham is really lucky that it has a major research university that provides lots of jobs and lots of money—we really sustain the local economy. We have a lot of gifts to offer Durham.
Pop quiz: Do you have any idea where Walltown is? Did you know there is a name for the neighborhoods beyond the walls of East Campus and the Gothic spires of West? Of course you know, but that doesn’t mean you have to go there. The Duke administration has sanctioned your isolation, requiring on-campus residence three out of four years. Not that you become more part of the Durham community when you move to Duke 2.0—The Belmont or Partners Place—for your senior year (your humble columnist points the finger at herself too, former resident of A22 that she is).
A few seniors boldly branch out to the neighborhoods off East Campus where there is a long tradition of uneasy relations with neighbors. In these cases, at least there is enough interaction to prove that students venture outside the Duke bubble and try to live life alongside our fellow Durhamites. These sometimes strife-filled relationships have more potential for the rewards of community than do meager attempts to “cure” or “improve” Durham by quick spurts of volunteerism.
I’ve never lived near East Campus, nor have I ever been particularly friendly with those who live in the myriad apartment buildings I’ve inhabited during my tenure in Durham. The convenience of the Trinity Park and Walltown communities, among others close to East, is not lost on me, though. Walking to class, walking to the grocery store, walking to restaurants—one can save gas and root yourself in a not-quite-so-transient neighborhood community.
About a year ago, I started to stumble around what community meant and looked like in Durham. The church I was preparing to join required “service to the poor” once a week. I had visions of driving to the soup kitchen every Saturday for the months it would take to finish my training. Instead, I joined fellow church members in eating breakfast with the homeless guys who live on the church property and anyone else who showed up. There was very little “service” involved—no lining up as the givers and the needy, assuming the positions of the server and the served. Because we all need to feed our bodies breakfast, whoever shows up first starts coffee and we sit around one table and eat the same scrambled eggs. I’ve found that I am just as needy as anyone else around that table.
Just because I have a degree from Duke (and in a few years, two) doesn’t mean that I have no needs to be fulfilled by others. We’re trained to be self-reliant, but we really aren’t. By thinking that we are all independent beings, we’re robbing ourselves of the rich experience of learning how to sit with others in awkward breakfast circles, or laughing around that same table about the best way for John-boy to jump start his fitness training. The way to build community—the way to reap the rewards of investing in others and them in you—is not to put yourself in a place of strength, but to allow yourself to be served and taught by those you think need your help.
It doesn’t take living near East Campus to experience life with our fellow Durhamites, but it does make it easier. Students spend all day together in classes—wouldn’t it be instructive, even invaluable, to experience the rest of our time outside the Duke bubble, in the real Durham community? Many graduate students have the opportunity to do just that.
Since when do the graduate students have all the fun?
Your present abundance and their need
The following is a message from Mick Capon, our senior warden, to St. Joseph's on the First Sunday of Advent.
At a recent Vestry meeting, Rhonda mentioned that we needed to plan our 2010 Stewardship campaign. She asked members if they wanted to volunteer to make presentations at our Sunday morning Eucharists during Advent.
The following day, Gail and I were reading the Scriptures as part of our “Bible reading plan”. As often occurs we felt the Holy Spirit was guiding us. Our New Testament reading for the day just happened to be 2 Corinthians 8. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, wanting them to know that the grace of God had been granted to the churches of Macedonia, and told them that their “abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part”.
Like most Episcopal churches we spend most of our money on salaries, property and outreach. Okay, we do get help from the Diocese on the first of these, but an increasing cost is our property upkeep, and our outreach ministries are expanding, more than ever in the current economic climate. St. Joseph’s buildings are old and need constant care. Even with our small band of volunteers we still occasionally need to call in the professionals. For example this summer we installed a new heating unit in the parish hall – insuring no more cold meetings during the winter. We are extremely fortunate that our housekeeping and administration is staffed entirely by volunteers. However, the more important reason for talking openly and extensively about money is theological, not practical. Jesus talked about money. In fact, next to the Kingdom of God, money was Jesus’ most frequent sermon topic.
The Biblical tithe (10% of one’s pre-tax earnings) is traditionally the starting point for giving. This is not a requirement for membership or to get a front seat at Sunday Eucharist (nearer to God perhaps?), but is meant to help us be who we, and God, want us to be: generous people who are known for our charity and desire to give.
To return to Paul: “For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there be a fair balance.”
Amen.
At a recent Vestry meeting, Rhonda mentioned that we needed to plan our 2010 Stewardship campaign. She asked members if they wanted to volunteer to make presentations at our Sunday morning Eucharists during Advent.
The following day, Gail and I were reading the Scriptures as part of our “Bible reading plan”. As often occurs we felt the Holy Spirit was guiding us. Our New Testament reading for the day just happened to be 2 Corinthians 8. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, wanting them to know that the grace of God had been granted to the churches of Macedonia, and told them that their “abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part”.
Like most Episcopal churches we spend most of our money on salaries, property and outreach. Okay, we do get help from the Diocese on the first of these, but an increasing cost is our property upkeep, and our outreach ministries are expanding, more than ever in the current economic climate. St. Joseph’s buildings are old and need constant care. Even with our small band of volunteers we still occasionally need to call in the professionals. For example this summer we installed a new heating unit in the parish hall – insuring no more cold meetings during the winter. We are extremely fortunate that our housekeeping and administration is staffed entirely by volunteers. However, the more important reason for talking openly and extensively about money is theological, not practical. Jesus talked about money. In fact, next to the Kingdom of God, money was Jesus’ most frequent sermon topic.
The Biblical tithe (10% of one’s pre-tax earnings) is traditionally the starting point for giving. This is not a requirement for membership or to get a front seat at Sunday Eucharist (nearer to God perhaps?), but is meant to help us be who we, and God, want us to be: generous people who are known for our charity and desire to give.
To return to Paul: “For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there be a fair balance.”
Amen.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Stand up and raise your heads
The following is a sermon preached by Vicar Rhonda Lee on the first Sunday in Advent, 29 November 2009.
Luke 21:25-36
As a transplanted Canadian, I have a long history of complaining to anyone who will listen—admittedly, not very many people—about the timing of American Thanksgiving. For me, it’s clear that Thanksgiving should fall on the second Monday in October—what Americans call Columbus Day, or in some parts of the country, El Día de la Raza. Celebrating Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November, only a month before Christmas, creates far too long a wait for a holiday after the Labor Day long weekend.
Now that I’m ordained, my grudge against U.S. Thanksgiving has intensified. Too often, like this year, the holiday falls just before the first Sunday in Advent. Clergy expect smaller congregations than usual on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, as people straggle—and struggle—back to town after visiting family across the country.
Those who do make it to church may be surprised not only by the news that it’s already Advent, but by the urgency of Jesus’ tone: “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness…Be alert at all times…”
Be alert? Hasn’t our Lord heard about tryptophan?
Avoid dissipation and drunkenness? Does he make exceptions for crucial football games?
If we needed further evidence that the church calendar is out of step with secular festivals, this year’s juxtaposition of Thanksgiving and Advent is it.
While the secular year drags—or rushes, depending on your perspective—to a close, the first Sunday in Advent ushers in a new church year. While advertisers clamor for our attention and our money, urging us to buy things that provide at best a fleeting sense of satisfaction, the Advent season draws our eyes and our hearts toward eternity. We’re all looking forward to welcoming the Christ child on Christmas Eve, but that night’s still four weeks away, and this morning’s Gospel reading contains a sobering reminder about him.
In it, the baby is all grown up, and he’s headed for the cross.
Jesus is in Jerusalem, teaching and gathering larger and larger crowds around him as the feast of Passover, and his arrest, draw closer. His teaching is becoming increasingly urgent until, in today’s passage, he echoes the biblical prophets to turn his listeners’ attention to the only things that endure. Sounding like Isaiah, Joel, and Zephaniah, Jesus speaks, not of the end of his own life, but of the end of the age and the dawning of the reign of God. His language is terrifying: “There will be…on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.”
Immediately, however, Jesus offers comfort in the form of a strange command: “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
How can Jesus ask these things of us? Daring to stand, heads held high, before God, who’s coming among us “with power and great glory”? Living without fear in a world that seems to be teetering on the brink of apocalypse?
His words make sense only when we interpret them through the cross: the life that led him to it, the death he died there, and the resurrection that transformed it from a symbol of death to a sign of unquenchable life.
His life makes sense only in light of salvation history. He’s the One who fed, healed, and loved everyone as God does, telling them the truth that would make them whole and set them free. The One who gave up everything he had for the sake of everyone but himself. Who wandered homeless as his ancestors the Israelites did, in order to lead us all into the promised land.
His death is inseparable from his life—a final act of self-giving in the face of the world’s brutality. And his resurrection is inseparable from his death—witness to the immeasurable power of God’s love, and the first sign that the new age of God’s reign had begun. That sign was far more dramatic on a cosmic scale than an eclipse, meteor shower, tidal wave, or any of the other signs human beings take as evidence that an era of history is coming to its end, and another preparing to be born.
For most people, the signs of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection went unnoticed, their import not understood. But his disciples saw, heard, and slowly realized that the new age had begun, and they shared that conviction with anyone who would listen—and many who wouldn’t. The resurrected Christ gave them grace to speak and to write the record of his life, and those are the words that will not pass away.
The words of Scripture point to the living Word that is Jesus Christ, and he is the lens through which we look at everything that is, and see it transformed. When we see the world through that lens, we become alert to signs that the old—the order that put Jesus to death on the cross—is passing away, and the new—fresh life—is coming into being.
Here at St. Joseph’s, we see that new life in the fellowship meals that follow prayer services and Eucharists.
In toilet paper and diapers offered at the altar along with the bread, wine, and money, to be blessed and taken back out into the world as a sign of God’s compassionate love.
In a house that’s a home for friends, supported by a larger network of friends.
In a church economy based on gift-giving and mutual sharing, rather than commerce and calculation; where people are welcomed for their inherent worth as children of God, and offered what they need, not judged by how deserving, or grateful, they—we—appear to be.
The value of the relationships that the Holy Spirit weaves among us can’t be measured. They can only be marveled at, for their incarnation of generous, even reckless love. That love is the reality that will endure, and deepen endlessly, after everything else has faded away.
Relationships grounded in God’s love are the place where we stand, heads raised and hands outstretched, in the expectation of Jesus Christ’s return; and when we stand in them, he has already returned. Amen.
Luke 21:25-36
As a transplanted Canadian, I have a long history of complaining to anyone who will listen—admittedly, not very many people—about the timing of American Thanksgiving. For me, it’s clear that Thanksgiving should fall on the second Monday in October—what Americans call Columbus Day, or in some parts of the country, El Día de la Raza. Celebrating Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November, only a month before Christmas, creates far too long a wait for a holiday after the Labor Day long weekend.
Now that I’m ordained, my grudge against U.S. Thanksgiving has intensified. Too often, like this year, the holiday falls just before the first Sunday in Advent. Clergy expect smaller congregations than usual on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, as people straggle—and struggle—back to town after visiting family across the country.
Those who do make it to church may be surprised not only by the news that it’s already Advent, but by the urgency of Jesus’ tone: “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness…Be alert at all times…”
Be alert? Hasn’t our Lord heard about tryptophan?
Avoid dissipation and drunkenness? Does he make exceptions for crucial football games?
If we needed further evidence that the church calendar is out of step with secular festivals, this year’s juxtaposition of Thanksgiving and Advent is it.
While the secular year drags—or rushes, depending on your perspective—to a close, the first Sunday in Advent ushers in a new church year. While advertisers clamor for our attention and our money, urging us to buy things that provide at best a fleeting sense of satisfaction, the Advent season draws our eyes and our hearts toward eternity. We’re all looking forward to welcoming the Christ child on Christmas Eve, but that night’s still four weeks away, and this morning’s Gospel reading contains a sobering reminder about him.
In it, the baby is all grown up, and he’s headed for the cross.
Jesus is in Jerusalem, teaching and gathering larger and larger crowds around him as the feast of Passover, and his arrest, draw closer. His teaching is becoming increasingly urgent until, in today’s passage, he echoes the biblical prophets to turn his listeners’ attention to the only things that endure. Sounding like Isaiah, Joel, and Zephaniah, Jesus speaks, not of the end of his own life, but of the end of the age and the dawning of the reign of God. His language is terrifying: “There will be…on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.”
Immediately, however, Jesus offers comfort in the form of a strange command: “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
How can Jesus ask these things of us? Daring to stand, heads held high, before God, who’s coming among us “with power and great glory”? Living without fear in a world that seems to be teetering on the brink of apocalypse?
His words make sense only when we interpret them through the cross: the life that led him to it, the death he died there, and the resurrection that transformed it from a symbol of death to a sign of unquenchable life.
His life makes sense only in light of salvation history. He’s the One who fed, healed, and loved everyone as God does, telling them the truth that would make them whole and set them free. The One who gave up everything he had for the sake of everyone but himself. Who wandered homeless as his ancestors the Israelites did, in order to lead us all into the promised land.
His death is inseparable from his life—a final act of self-giving in the face of the world’s brutality. And his resurrection is inseparable from his death—witness to the immeasurable power of God’s love, and the first sign that the new age of God’s reign had begun. That sign was far more dramatic on a cosmic scale than an eclipse, meteor shower, tidal wave, or any of the other signs human beings take as evidence that an era of history is coming to its end, and another preparing to be born.
For most people, the signs of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection went unnoticed, their import not understood. But his disciples saw, heard, and slowly realized that the new age had begun, and they shared that conviction with anyone who would listen—and many who wouldn’t. The resurrected Christ gave them grace to speak and to write the record of his life, and those are the words that will not pass away.
The words of Scripture point to the living Word that is Jesus Christ, and he is the lens through which we look at everything that is, and see it transformed. When we see the world through that lens, we become alert to signs that the old—the order that put Jesus to death on the cross—is passing away, and the new—fresh life—is coming into being.
Here at St. Joseph’s, we see that new life in the fellowship meals that follow prayer services and Eucharists.
In toilet paper and diapers offered at the altar along with the bread, wine, and money, to be blessed and taken back out into the world as a sign of God’s compassionate love.
In a house that’s a home for friends, supported by a larger network of friends.
In a church economy based on gift-giving and mutual sharing, rather than commerce and calculation; where people are welcomed for their inherent worth as children of God, and offered what they need, not judged by how deserving, or grateful, they—we—appear to be.
The value of the relationships that the Holy Spirit weaves among us can’t be measured. They can only be marveled at, for their incarnation of generous, even reckless love. That love is the reality that will endure, and deepen endlessly, after everything else has faded away.
Relationships grounded in God’s love are the place where we stand, heads raised and hands outstretched, in the expectation of Jesus Christ’s return; and when we stand in them, he has already returned. Amen.
I am not generally a big fan of Martin Luther, but this week the German Reformer’s definition of sin struck me as perceptive. Sin, he said, is “a person turned in on oneself” (homo incurvatus in se). And lately I’m impressed with just how much of my life I spend protecting and pampering me.
I think about me. What’s the next step in my life? How can I get the most out of my opportunities? I hope that person likes me. I can’t believe what that person said to me. Am I happy? Do I think about myself too much?
I decorate myself. I worry about being over-dressed, or under-dressed. Or wearing the right colors, or the right things for the season. And certainly I can’t wear the same outfit twice in one week!
I talk about me. I hate it when people just want to talk about themselves!
I am self-centered, and so I avoid dependence on others: independence gives me the time to do what I need to do for me.
So I secure myself. I spend most of my time running far away from anything that might control me, that might limit my freedom and self-expression. But perhaps most of all, I am running away from anything that might make me dependent upon others. For utter dependence is humiliating.
Worst of all, I separate myself from other members of the church and from God, assuring myself that I don’t really need those other messed up people. Surely these are not the people Jesus prayed for me to be one with!
But I am also self-centered because I avoid dependence. After all, I rationalize, its only the responsible thing to do to spend all my time making sure I am maximizing the potential God has given me.
I spend my time making sure that I am self-sustaining so that I need charity from neither others nor from God nor, heaven forbid, from others in the name of God. I will not be a charity case! I will be a self-made man.
So I avoid dependence because I am self-centered, and I am self-centered because I avoid dependence.
Locked in a cage of narcissism and unable to get free, I realize that I am obsessed with myself!
But then the Gospel is read: Do not worry. Look at the birds and the lilies. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you.
Jesus paints for us here one moment in his stunning vision of a life of mutual, worry free, dependence for those who seek God’s kingdom before all things. While we do this Jesus promises that God will clothe us, feed us and give us to drink. I don’t think we should hear Jesus saying that, if the - for us - unthinkable happens and we run out of food, God will deliver food from the sky. Rather, Jesus hits much closer to home. As we seek the Kingdom, he says, God will feed us with all that we need by means of one another. This mutual dependence is confirmed by what Jesus says in the immediate context of our passage:
Give to him who begs. Don’t refuse one who wants to borrow.
Ask and it will be given to you; knock and the door will be opened; seek and you shall find.
If a child begs bread or fish he will not be given a stone or snake.
So don’t worry, if God knows how to take care of the lilies and the birds, he surely knows how to take care of us.
And he will feed us, clothe us, and give us to drink, I dare say, both literally and metaphorically.
For God takes care of us not just by people’s gifts, but by the gifts of people. God makes us dependent upon others and others upon us in order to redeem us, in order to shape within us the virtues of his Son. For how can we learn to go the second mile, if we’ve run far from anyone who might ask us to bear her burden in the first place? And how will we learn to turn the other cheek, if we are never in danger of being struck?
As Mother Rhonda said to me this week, "we are each other’s spiritual disciplines." We are each other’s hope of becoming Christ-like.
Only if we realize and live into our deep dependence on one another, will we give thanks the way we should – now, and each time bread is broken and wine poured out.
--Colin
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Breakfast 9.21.09
Morning Prayer on the Feast of St. Matthew was well attended, including our Sr. Warden and Treasurer, B, a homeless man, Betty of Blacknall Presbyterian, who had brought her usual casserole for breakfast fellowship, and a few other regulars. I talked to B after the service about the room he has been trying to rent. I’ve been trying to make a partial payment on his security deposit but things keep getting in the way. “Tuesday,” he told me, “’cause its gonna start gettin’ cold out here.”
B and I walked over to the Parish Hall for breakfast, though he said he didn’t want any. Slowly a few others gathered, a couple inside and a couple on the picnic tables. We warmed up some of the casserole Betty had by this time brought in and we had a few takers. One of the guys said he was looking for a cheap room and that he had money but wanted us to help find him a place. So B offered the list of rentals he had in his pocket.
It dawned on me to check email and I found that, after some negotiation, the place we wanted to be the new locale of our hospitality house for our two guys was being offered to us. This was good news. It’s at 920 9th Street and hardly a half-mile from St. Joseph’s. It’s a little more rent than we might have preferred to pay but all discernment pointed in this direction. I’m learning that such (relatively trivial!) insecurity is surely part of the evangelical poverty to which Christ directs us, however trained I have become to take refuge in a sort of worldly prudence. Isaiah told us this morning not to call conspiracy everything that the culture does and not to fear what they fear (Isa 8:12). The same must be true of what the world calls “responsible.”
--Colin
B and I walked over to the Parish Hall for breakfast, though he said he didn’t want any. Slowly a few others gathered, a couple inside and a couple on the picnic tables. We warmed up some of the casserole Betty had by this time brought in and we had a few takers. One of the guys said he was looking for a cheap room and that he had money but wanted us to help find him a place. So B offered the list of rentals he had in his pocket.
It dawned on me to check email and I found that, after some negotiation, the place we wanted to be the new locale of our hospitality house for our two guys was being offered to us. This was good news. It’s at 920 9th Street and hardly a half-mile from St. Joseph’s. It’s a little more rent than we might have preferred to pay but all discernment pointed in this direction. I’m learning that such (relatively trivial!) insecurity is surely part of the evangelical poverty to which Christ directs us, however trained I have become to take refuge in a sort of worldly prudence. Isaiah told us this morning not to call conspiracy everything that the culture does and not to fear what they fear (Isa 8:12). The same must be true of what the world calls “responsible.”
--Colin
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Celebration for a Home
Almighty and everlasting God, grant to this home the grace of your presence, that you may be known to be the inhabitant of this dwelling, and the defender of this household; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(“Celebration for a Home,” Book of Occasional Services, Church Publishing, 2004)
Yesterday evening, 24 of us gathered to bless the new home of Lisa and Colin, which they share with Concrete, and with other guests from time to time. The blessing was a joyful event, culminating in a celebration of the Eucharist, and followed by supper provided by our hosts.
Everyone there knew that Colin and Lisa have asked for their church family's help to discern what form God wants their ministry of hospitality to take. This is appropriate: we all need each other’s prayers, listening ears, thoughtful questions, and love as we seek to live out our vocations. I’ve accompanied Lisa and Colin in this phase of their discernment for several months now, and I believe they are called to offer hospitality in their home. What form that hospitality will take over time, none of us knows, but we trust that will be revealed.
This ministry is one of the ways our sister and brother are called to live out Jesus Christ’s command to each of us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength….and your neighbor as yourself.” This ministry is deeply personal, affecting Colin and Lisa’s marriage and daily life, but it isn’t individual, or private. It’s an outgrowth of the ministries of fellowship and hospitality which I found at the heart of St. Joseph’s when I arrived in 2006, and which have grown since then. And so it involves all of us.
Our involvement may take a variety of forms. I hope you will all include Lisa and Colin’s process of discernment in your prayers for our parish family. Pray that they, and all of us, may answer God’s call faithfully, whatever form that call may take—and then let Colin and Lisa know what you hear in response to your prayers.
You may be moved to support this ministry in other ways: lending DVDs for guests to watch, dropping off a container of soup when you’re making some for your own household, or stopping by to check on the household while Colin and Lisa are away next month.
Wayne and I provide a modest amount of material support for the house, as a way of affirming its beauty as a sign of God’s in-breaking reign. That support doesn’t reduce our contributions to the St. Joseph’s budget, the poor plate, the flower fund, or any other collection through which our ministries are funded. It’s our response to a call, in a conversation that will continue. Thanks be to God.
--Rhonda
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Musings on a week lived in faith
Looking back over the past week I am reminded of "the curate's egg" - good in parts.
Ups and downs, peaks and troughs or whatever you want to call them, are part of life. It's how we cope with not only the low points, but even the highs, that can make all the difference to others. Both Gail and I experienced unrelated frustrations towards the end of last week. Talking to friends not only helped both of us get past these difficulties (as minor as they were, in hindsight), but hopefully gave those friends a sense of helping and of being "wanted". It's a reminder that we all not only need, but rely on, one another. Seeking help is not always easy, but is generally rewarding for both the seeker and helper. Thank God for the family of friends we have and love.
As this wonderful world continues to turn, a dear friend's younger brother died on Saturday and yesterday another friend gave birth to a beautiful girl, Macy. Lows and highs, mourning and rejoicing, they are an integral part of life . . . and death.
As Gail says every morning "Good morning life . . . how can I make a difference today?"
--Mick Capon
Ups and downs, peaks and troughs or whatever you want to call them, are part of life. It's how we cope with not only the low points, but even the highs, that can make all the difference to others. Both Gail and I experienced unrelated frustrations towards the end of last week. Talking to friends not only helped both of us get past these difficulties (as minor as they were, in hindsight), but hopefully gave those friends a sense of helping and of being "wanted". It's a reminder that we all not only need, but rely on, one another. Seeking help is not always easy, but is generally rewarding for both the seeker and helper. Thank God for the family of friends we have and love.
As this wonderful world continues to turn, a dear friend's younger brother died on Saturday and yesterday another friend gave birth to a beautiful girl, Macy. Lows and highs, mourning and rejoicing, they are an integral part of life . . . and death.
As Gail says every morning "Good morning life . . . how can I make a difference today?"
--Mick Capon
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Patient Kingdom
The following is a sermon preached by Leigh Edwards, a parishioner of St. Joseph's, at Oriental United Methodist Church, on 14 June 2009. The text is Mark 4:26-34. We pray for Leigh as she serves her internship at Oriental UMC.
I lived last year in a neighborhood known by people outside of the community, and even by some inside, for its drugs, gangs, poverty, and violence. In fact, the house that we resided in used to be a boarding house – which was a veiled way of talking about a transitory location for those looking for some kind of comfort in drugs, sex, or just a roof over their heads. There is a lot next to our house that is long, skinny and weed covered – the neighborhood association is not sure what to do with it – and it is exactly the kind of lot that you would tell your kids to stay away from and that would necessarily bring down adjacent property value. People used it as a thoroughfare from further back in the neighborhood to the bus stop, and often probably for other sorts of business. Once in a while TROSA would come by and clean the lot, though its general state was weed and trash covered. A friend of ours from the neighborhood buried a dead cat that was found on our sidewalk there. In the process he discovered, or was reminded, that even feet down in the dirt it was filled with broken glass, cigarette butts, old tires, bottles, candy wrappers, and even the occasional appliance. The lot had seen the passing of years, and had a lot of stories to tell from the neighborhood. The lot was a mess.
One of my roommates, probably the most contrarian of them all, decided to build a garden, and to build one right there on that lot that we did not own. He spent a week filtering the dirt through the wires of an abandoned shopping cart, just to make it safe to grow seeds in. The plot was maybe 3 feet by 2 feet and framed by discarded white boards. Old bottles were used to help support the raised bed. Thanks to the labor of our housemate, near the end of spring our house was able to enjoy salad greens that were grown in the polluted dirty lot next to our house. It was an unlikely little ray of hope in the midst of abused and trashed land.
I see what my roommate did with that tiny garden plot as embodying the aspects of the kingdom that Jesus describes in the two parables of our gospel lesson today. In the first parable a farmer scattered seed on the ground. The parable says “he does not know how” the seed grows. However, what I suspect the parable is saying is what the farmer actually does know: that he can do only so much in the growth of the seed. It is the work of the earth, sun and rain to produce and bear the fruit of good wheat. The second parable of the mustard seed is meant to be read right in line with the first. In it a tiny seed, contrary to our notions of relative input and output, produces one of the most lush and helpful plants in the garden. The wheat is not so different for, like the mustard shrub and most other plants, it comes from a relatively small beginning. The mustard seed is the same as the wheat because, like the wheat, it grows not on its own but because of reasons not completely understood even by the most learned farmer: the richness of the earth, the heat of the sun, the work of the animals, and the biological inner workings of the seed. There are three aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven illustrated by these parables: faith, hope, and patience. The last one, patience, is probably the hardest one for us to get, as it rests upon hope and faith. It is also one of the most vital and one of the most reflective of who God is. At the end I will return to why I see a tiny garden in the middle of an abandoned lot may be such a patience filled endeavor towards the kingdom of God.
The farmer in the first parable does a completely unremarkable thing. He sows some seeds. It is a normal task for a large, though decreasing, part of the population. It is something that we take for granted as consumers of agricultural products. The farmer plants the seeds, knowing he is not responsible for yielding the whole product and with the knowledge that there are things that he simply cannot control. This is faith. Faith is to know that ultimately someone or something else is in control of the outcome, or in theological language, is omnipotent. We have a part to play – to plant the seeds. The farmer should plant the seeds well, deeply, with sufficient room to grow and in soil that has been properly rotated, lain fallow for a year perhaps, and is respectful of the many systems around it that sustain it. Still, ultimately, no matter what the farmer does the seeds will grow or not grow. There is something bigger.
Faith is a large burden off of our shoulders. Faith in God means that we believe that God’s plans have already been accomplished through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are not in charge of saving the world. Faith means that, guided well in how to plant our seeds, take care of the land we are given, and graciously care for our plots we are not burdened with the tasks of causing the inner workings of the seed to grow. If we live well, work well and play well we do our parts.
However, as the saying goes, even Satan believes in God. So what makes us so different as Christians? I would suggest that the mustard seed provides us with a pretty great response to that – hope. Hope seems to be a dangerous word these days, especially with so many people losing jobs. What, really do we have to hope in? When we daily see women who feel they cannot purchase milk for home, one quarter of this county in poverty, women and men scouring want ads for work, and violence ravaging many nations across the globe, we have to ask: is hope naïve?
It depends on what kind of hope you are talking about. One type of hope will tell us, given an apparently “bad” situation, that those particular bad things will magically get better. This type of hope tends to offer shallow words of comfort to victims of suffering, to downplay hardship, and to insist that there is some solution in grasp if only we can see it. I like to call this type of hope “optimism.” God is not optimistic, God is sure. God has a different type of hope, a theological hope. This is the hope of sitting with people who are broken hearted even if we cannot do a single thing for them. This is the hope that gives when asked, not knowing what really may come of it. This is the hope that befriends those in poverty if only because Jesus told us that is where he would find them. This hope is the planting of a mustard seed. It is a hope of certainty, a hope that when we act faithfully a shrub will emerge. Not any shrub, either, but a beautiful, lush, sheltering shrub that we, (remember the wheat?), may not know how it will grow. Hope is to not only know that you do not have control over the outcome but to delight in it! The outcome belongs to the most gracious, loving and just being that exists: God. This is good news!
Sadly, however, these words – hope and faith – easily become trite words cross-stitched on pillows and thrown around to shallowly try to assuage pain, justify inflicting undue harm, or suppose that being a Christian is only embodied in donating money to the far off hungry while ignoring how our way of life contributes to this poverty. This is what makes the latter portion of the first parable so important. Faith and hope are, in Jesus’ parables, different foundations of patience. Faith and hope tell us why we must be patient and humbles us into remembering that our plans are not God’s plans. Human success is not God’s success and our rewards are not God’s rewards. Patience is ultimately about trusting God to take charge of what God does best.
In the first parable the farmer waits as stalk, head and grain are produced out of the tiny seed that was planted. This is so important. The wheat, and by association the mustard seed, continues to bloom in different ways. The plant is not harvested immediately, nor is it expected to be harvested immediately. The stalk looks little like that the final grain will be! More so, ultimately, the stalk will be discarded, though it was a necessary part of the plant’s growth. What, in the end may seem extra or unneeded was actually fundamental to the product. What is more important to remember is that God is the harvester. We may not know exactly what the final product will look like or when it will arrive, but we know it will be good. Like the farmer, we are asked to wait in patience before the harvest, tilling and caring for the crops.
A young couple a few years ago felt a call to go do mission work in the Middle East in a place that saw regular armed conflict. The couple was traveling in a convoy when they saw the truck behind them blow up. Searching for their friends they came into a village called Rutba that was inhabited by native people. The doctors nursed and cared for the injured people, free of charge. Full of gratitude the young man asked what they could pay the doctor. “Nothing,” the doctor replied, “just tell people about Rutba.” Overwhelmed, the couple returned to the United States and opened a house of hospitality in a racially divided town in North Carolina, encountering the messiness of reconciliation there. The house, now called Rutba house, houses many without homes, facilitates friendship across racial boundaries, offers two free community meals a week to whomever wishes to come, and helped begin a network of these sorts of places all across the country. The doctor in Rutba planted a mustard seed. He was not trying to create peace between the two sides in the war, and he did not kid himself to think that this action did not meant that more of his friends would not be killed later. More of his friends were probably killed by American soldiers. The doctor never saw, and never expected to see, any reward or fruit of his labor. He never saw the Rutba House. What’s more, the Rutba House may not even be the full fruit.
So hope and faith do not necessarily mean searching for quantifiable results, striving for product or improving standard of living - though these things may be important at some point be a part of what we do. Rather, being faithful may just mean getting to know the people around us who are different from us, using the small seeds we have and rejoicing in what God makes of them. Like the five loaves and two fish, or the mustard seed, what comes of what seems like impossibly small resources used in faith can be miraculous. We tend to speak today of ideas of efficiency, size, the best for the most amount of people. In other words, we presume to predict the future based on what we think we may have observed before. This is what science has taught us. We try to do the best, and “best” is defined by our own ideas of what is good at some finite time in the future.
So it may be difficult to justify spending time with people, being with others without a particular task at hand. We have an inclination to only do things that see immediate results. We want to give five dollars to the girl in the grocery line instead of befriending her to wonder why she is struggling financially. We form committees with those “less fortunate” in order to empower and help them, or send the homeless off to shelters. Rarely do we simply sit with and befriend our neighbors simply because they are our neighbors – it goes against every inclination of efficiency and success that our world runs out. But the church, in the words of Mother Theresa, is not called to be successful, but to be faithful. Success will come at some point as a result of being faithful, but it is not that for which we ought to strive. To choose to be with others instead of doing for them plants mustard seeds that are solely based on strong hope and sure faith. They allow us to witness in the most important way: to live so that, were there not a God, our lives would not make sense at all.
This can be overwhelming still – some people forever question whether or not they are being faithful enough without having some sort of graspable result. But we’re not saving the world, and we don’t have to do it all. We should not want to do it all. God calls us to plant just one mustard seed with the confident hope of the coming kingdom – regularly inviting one man to dinner who lives and eats routinely by himself, befriending a man you often see on the street and later finding he has come to live with you and your wife, or planting a minuscule garden in a seemingly barren and wasted plot of dirt.
This is why I see my roommate’s garden as a pretty good in-breaking of the kingdom. The garden was not planted to feed the entire community, or give teenagers something to do in the afternoon – both very good things – but instead did something beautiful, time consuming and good. He transformed a small part of a dirty lot, in some sense against the rules of the neighborhood association, but with the hope that it would be used for good. He had faith that it would grow something, hope that it would come into something good and is still sitting with the patience of what will come of that tiny garden plot, in a week, a year or ten years. One of our Latino brothers uses the phrase “Paciencia Ardiente,” or “ardent patience. This is an eager patience that realizes our integral and loving part in the kingdom, but a kingdom that is ultimately brought about not through our work but through the infinite love, patience, healing and justice of a relational God. This means planting your garden now and loving the garden, the earth, and the people who surround it instead of holding your own expectations. God is not optimistic, God is sure, and God’s wisdom is not human wisdom.
You may be used to hearing faith and hope used with the word love. Love is supreme, but often misunderstood. God loves us with a love that does not expect specific outcomes, but enjoys imagining fruit of goodness. It endures things that do not make sense, and lives with hope even when hope seems completely undeserved. That is why I leave love out, not because it is unimportant but because if you embody faith the size of a mustard seed, patience that humbly endures while still hoping a hope that refuses to shut off the possibility of good, you may be pretty darn close to love. You may be pretty close to the kingdom of God.
I lived last year in a neighborhood known by people outside of the community, and even by some inside, for its drugs, gangs, poverty, and violence. In fact, the house that we resided in used to be a boarding house – which was a veiled way of talking about a transitory location for those looking for some kind of comfort in drugs, sex, or just a roof over their heads. There is a lot next to our house that is long, skinny and weed covered – the neighborhood association is not sure what to do with it – and it is exactly the kind of lot that you would tell your kids to stay away from and that would necessarily bring down adjacent property value. People used it as a thoroughfare from further back in the neighborhood to the bus stop, and often probably for other sorts of business. Once in a while TROSA would come by and clean the lot, though its general state was weed and trash covered. A friend of ours from the neighborhood buried a dead cat that was found on our sidewalk there. In the process he discovered, or was reminded, that even feet down in the dirt it was filled with broken glass, cigarette butts, old tires, bottles, candy wrappers, and even the occasional appliance. The lot had seen the passing of years, and had a lot of stories to tell from the neighborhood. The lot was a mess.
One of my roommates, probably the most contrarian of them all, decided to build a garden, and to build one right there on that lot that we did not own. He spent a week filtering the dirt through the wires of an abandoned shopping cart, just to make it safe to grow seeds in. The plot was maybe 3 feet by 2 feet and framed by discarded white boards. Old bottles were used to help support the raised bed. Thanks to the labor of our housemate, near the end of spring our house was able to enjoy salad greens that were grown in the polluted dirty lot next to our house. It was an unlikely little ray of hope in the midst of abused and trashed land.
I see what my roommate did with that tiny garden plot as embodying the aspects of the kingdom that Jesus describes in the two parables of our gospel lesson today. In the first parable a farmer scattered seed on the ground. The parable says “he does not know how” the seed grows. However, what I suspect the parable is saying is what the farmer actually does know: that he can do only so much in the growth of the seed. It is the work of the earth, sun and rain to produce and bear the fruit of good wheat. The second parable of the mustard seed is meant to be read right in line with the first. In it a tiny seed, contrary to our notions of relative input and output, produces one of the most lush and helpful plants in the garden. The wheat is not so different for, like the mustard shrub and most other plants, it comes from a relatively small beginning. The mustard seed is the same as the wheat because, like the wheat, it grows not on its own but because of reasons not completely understood even by the most learned farmer: the richness of the earth, the heat of the sun, the work of the animals, and the biological inner workings of the seed. There are three aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven illustrated by these parables: faith, hope, and patience. The last one, patience, is probably the hardest one for us to get, as it rests upon hope and faith. It is also one of the most vital and one of the most reflective of who God is. At the end I will return to why I see a tiny garden in the middle of an abandoned lot may be such a patience filled endeavor towards the kingdom of God.
The farmer in the first parable does a completely unremarkable thing. He sows some seeds. It is a normal task for a large, though decreasing, part of the population. It is something that we take for granted as consumers of agricultural products. The farmer plants the seeds, knowing he is not responsible for yielding the whole product and with the knowledge that there are things that he simply cannot control. This is faith. Faith is to know that ultimately someone or something else is in control of the outcome, or in theological language, is omnipotent. We have a part to play – to plant the seeds. The farmer should plant the seeds well, deeply, with sufficient room to grow and in soil that has been properly rotated, lain fallow for a year perhaps, and is respectful of the many systems around it that sustain it. Still, ultimately, no matter what the farmer does the seeds will grow or not grow. There is something bigger.
Faith is a large burden off of our shoulders. Faith in God means that we believe that God’s plans have already been accomplished through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are not in charge of saving the world. Faith means that, guided well in how to plant our seeds, take care of the land we are given, and graciously care for our plots we are not burdened with the tasks of causing the inner workings of the seed to grow. If we live well, work well and play well we do our parts.
However, as the saying goes, even Satan believes in God. So what makes us so different as Christians? I would suggest that the mustard seed provides us with a pretty great response to that – hope. Hope seems to be a dangerous word these days, especially with so many people losing jobs. What, really do we have to hope in? When we daily see women who feel they cannot purchase milk for home, one quarter of this county in poverty, women and men scouring want ads for work, and violence ravaging many nations across the globe, we have to ask: is hope naïve?
It depends on what kind of hope you are talking about. One type of hope will tell us, given an apparently “bad” situation, that those particular bad things will magically get better. This type of hope tends to offer shallow words of comfort to victims of suffering, to downplay hardship, and to insist that there is some solution in grasp if only we can see it. I like to call this type of hope “optimism.” God is not optimistic, God is sure. God has a different type of hope, a theological hope. This is the hope of sitting with people who are broken hearted even if we cannot do a single thing for them. This is the hope that gives when asked, not knowing what really may come of it. This is the hope that befriends those in poverty if only because Jesus told us that is where he would find them. This hope is the planting of a mustard seed. It is a hope of certainty, a hope that when we act faithfully a shrub will emerge. Not any shrub, either, but a beautiful, lush, sheltering shrub that we, (remember the wheat?), may not know how it will grow. Hope is to not only know that you do not have control over the outcome but to delight in it! The outcome belongs to the most gracious, loving and just being that exists: God. This is good news!
Sadly, however, these words – hope and faith – easily become trite words cross-stitched on pillows and thrown around to shallowly try to assuage pain, justify inflicting undue harm, or suppose that being a Christian is only embodied in donating money to the far off hungry while ignoring how our way of life contributes to this poverty. This is what makes the latter portion of the first parable so important. Faith and hope are, in Jesus’ parables, different foundations of patience. Faith and hope tell us why we must be patient and humbles us into remembering that our plans are not God’s plans. Human success is not God’s success and our rewards are not God’s rewards. Patience is ultimately about trusting God to take charge of what God does best.
In the first parable the farmer waits as stalk, head and grain are produced out of the tiny seed that was planted. This is so important. The wheat, and by association the mustard seed, continues to bloom in different ways. The plant is not harvested immediately, nor is it expected to be harvested immediately. The stalk looks little like that the final grain will be! More so, ultimately, the stalk will be discarded, though it was a necessary part of the plant’s growth. What, in the end may seem extra or unneeded was actually fundamental to the product. What is more important to remember is that God is the harvester. We may not know exactly what the final product will look like or when it will arrive, but we know it will be good. Like the farmer, we are asked to wait in patience before the harvest, tilling and caring for the crops.
A young couple a few years ago felt a call to go do mission work in the Middle East in a place that saw regular armed conflict. The couple was traveling in a convoy when they saw the truck behind them blow up. Searching for their friends they came into a village called Rutba that was inhabited by native people. The doctors nursed and cared for the injured people, free of charge. Full of gratitude the young man asked what they could pay the doctor. “Nothing,” the doctor replied, “just tell people about Rutba.” Overwhelmed, the couple returned to the United States and opened a house of hospitality in a racially divided town in North Carolina, encountering the messiness of reconciliation there. The house, now called Rutba house, houses many without homes, facilitates friendship across racial boundaries, offers two free community meals a week to whomever wishes to come, and helped begin a network of these sorts of places all across the country. The doctor in Rutba planted a mustard seed. He was not trying to create peace between the two sides in the war, and he did not kid himself to think that this action did not meant that more of his friends would not be killed later. More of his friends were probably killed by American soldiers. The doctor never saw, and never expected to see, any reward or fruit of his labor. He never saw the Rutba House. What’s more, the Rutba House may not even be the full fruit.
So hope and faith do not necessarily mean searching for quantifiable results, striving for product or improving standard of living - though these things may be important at some point be a part of what we do. Rather, being faithful may just mean getting to know the people around us who are different from us, using the small seeds we have and rejoicing in what God makes of them. Like the five loaves and two fish, or the mustard seed, what comes of what seems like impossibly small resources used in faith can be miraculous. We tend to speak today of ideas of efficiency, size, the best for the most amount of people. In other words, we presume to predict the future based on what we think we may have observed before. This is what science has taught us. We try to do the best, and “best” is defined by our own ideas of what is good at some finite time in the future.
So it may be difficult to justify spending time with people, being with others without a particular task at hand. We have an inclination to only do things that see immediate results. We want to give five dollars to the girl in the grocery line instead of befriending her to wonder why she is struggling financially. We form committees with those “less fortunate” in order to empower and help them, or send the homeless off to shelters. Rarely do we simply sit with and befriend our neighbors simply because they are our neighbors – it goes against every inclination of efficiency and success that our world runs out. But the church, in the words of Mother Theresa, is not called to be successful, but to be faithful. Success will come at some point as a result of being faithful, but it is not that for which we ought to strive. To choose to be with others instead of doing for them plants mustard seeds that are solely based on strong hope and sure faith. They allow us to witness in the most important way: to live so that, were there not a God, our lives would not make sense at all.
This can be overwhelming still – some people forever question whether or not they are being faithful enough without having some sort of graspable result. But we’re not saving the world, and we don’t have to do it all. We should not want to do it all. God calls us to plant just one mustard seed with the confident hope of the coming kingdom – regularly inviting one man to dinner who lives and eats routinely by himself, befriending a man you often see on the street and later finding he has come to live with you and your wife, or planting a minuscule garden in a seemingly barren and wasted plot of dirt.
This is why I see my roommate’s garden as a pretty good in-breaking of the kingdom. The garden was not planted to feed the entire community, or give teenagers something to do in the afternoon – both very good things – but instead did something beautiful, time consuming and good. He transformed a small part of a dirty lot, in some sense against the rules of the neighborhood association, but with the hope that it would be used for good. He had faith that it would grow something, hope that it would come into something good and is still sitting with the patience of what will come of that tiny garden plot, in a week, a year or ten years. One of our Latino brothers uses the phrase “Paciencia Ardiente,” or “ardent patience. This is an eager patience that realizes our integral and loving part in the kingdom, but a kingdom that is ultimately brought about not through our work but through the infinite love, patience, healing and justice of a relational God. This means planting your garden now and loving the garden, the earth, and the people who surround it instead of holding your own expectations. God is not optimistic, God is sure, and God’s wisdom is not human wisdom.
You may be used to hearing faith and hope used with the word love. Love is supreme, but often misunderstood. God loves us with a love that does not expect specific outcomes, but enjoys imagining fruit of goodness. It endures things that do not make sense, and lives with hope even when hope seems completely undeserved. That is why I leave love out, not because it is unimportant but because if you embody faith the size of a mustard seed, patience that humbly endures while still hoping a hope that refuses to shut off the possibility of good, you may be pretty darn close to love. You may be pretty close to the kingdom of God.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Celebrating Pauli Murray
On Wed., July 1, at 7 PM at St. Titus' Episcopal Church in Durham there will be a service to commemorate the life of The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray.
This will be a service of Holy Eucharist, with Bishop Michael Curry as the celebrant and Sarah Woodard as the deacon. The preacher will be Courtney Reid-Eaton, parishioner of St. Joseph's and Director of Exhibits at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke; she will compile and read selections from the sermons & writings of Pauli Murray.
Courtney testifies: “Pauli Murray has been a significant character in my life over the past few years. She was a Renaissance woman; a courageous person of action, intellect, and spirit, who used her gifts to further social justice and who strove to live as a fully integrated human being. She spoke her truths persistently. I am humbled to be invited to share her words and ideas with our community. Please hold me in your prayers over the next few weeks as I prepare.”
Please join in this celebration!
The following week, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church will consider a proposal to add The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray's feast day to the church calendar. The following biographical sketch was included in that resolution:
The Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray was a leader in the struggle for equal rights for women and African-Americans in the United States and throughout the world. She was also a lawyer, writer, poet, teacher, co-founder of the National Organization for Women, and the first African-American woman to be ordained priest by The Episcopal Church. Dr. Murray grew up in Durham, North Carolina, and on February 7, 1977, celebrated her first Eucharist in the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her grandmother, Cornelia, had been baptized as a slave child. Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Shori celebrated the Holy Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross on February 7, 2007, in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of that ordination.
This will be a service of Holy Eucharist, with Bishop Michael Curry as the celebrant and Sarah Woodard as the deacon. The preacher will be Courtney Reid-Eaton, parishioner of St. Joseph's and Director of Exhibits at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke; she will compile and read selections from the sermons & writings of Pauli Murray.
Courtney testifies: “Pauli Murray has been a significant character in my life over the past few years. She was a Renaissance woman; a courageous person of action, intellect, and spirit, who used her gifts to further social justice and who strove to live as a fully integrated human being. She spoke her truths persistently. I am humbled to be invited to share her words and ideas with our community. Please hold me in your prayers over the next few weeks as I prepare.”
Please join in this celebration!
The following week, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church will consider a proposal to add The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray's feast day to the church calendar. The following biographical sketch was included in that resolution:
The Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray was a leader in the struggle for equal rights for women and African-Americans in the United States and throughout the world. She was also a lawyer, writer, poet, teacher, co-founder of the National Organization for Women, and the first African-American woman to be ordained priest by The Episcopal Church. Dr. Murray grew up in Durham, North Carolina, and on February 7, 1977, celebrated her first Eucharist in the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her grandmother, Cornelia, had been baptized as a slave child. Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Shori celebrated the Holy Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross on February 7, 2007, in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of that ordination.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Space at the Table: Trinitarian Hospitality and Rublev’s Icon
Colin Miller
Trinity Sunday 2009
Isaiah 6:1-8, Canticle 13, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17
Today is Trinity Sunday. And “Trinity” is a word we use to describe God. So today is about God.
So my sermon will be about God. And I’m sure I will be exhaustive in my treatment.
We have already said and done lots of things today about God. We have blessed God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Perhaps you crossed yourself while you said that with three fingers held together to signify the one God who is three persons. In the Collect Rhonda proclaimed that we confessed God as eternal glorious Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit who lives and reigns forever and ever. The Gloria we often sing extols the Father and the Son and ends with a solemn bow at the praise of “Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father.” We will of course go on in the Creed to be most explicit about all of this. And then in the very heart of the Mass we will once again beg the Father to send his Holy Spirit upon bread and wine to make them the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist itself is Trinitarian.
During the week we start each service of Morning and Evening Prayer by giving glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever. We say the Apostle’s Creed: I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, and I believe in the Holy Spirit. We often close by asking that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. The officiant then bows and blows out the candles on the kneeler in front of a Trinitarian icon.
All this means that when we worship “God” we name thereby a very specific Divinity and therefore exclude many others. I give you three.
First, by “God” we do not name a perfect, all-powerful being who made everything, perhaps set it in good, scientific working order and sent it on its way to carry out its fated course, and whom it makes good sense to venerate in case he cares about things like that. Our God is not the biggest, abstract thing you can imagine, taking occasional interest in the world at really big events like wars and national elections, Duke-Carolina games. God is no more an old white man with a beard man than God is Morgan Freeman. That God is detached form the world, perhaps interested in strictly enforcing a moral code, or in meting out karma, or in condemning mean people or murderers or Hitler types.
And sometimes, even in churches that should know better, there is a variant on this which can look like the God we proclaim but is not. This is the second false god. For it rightly sets Jesus in some relation to God, but one which ends up simply making him a really good guy, or maybe even a special prophet God sent to give us an example of what it is to be moral, or loving, or who shows us once and for all that God love us, or who had a great social vision, or who really wanted to reform Judaism, or who just wanted to say that everyone is welcome, or that God’s nature is love after all. If this is all there is to Jesus, then we do not worship the Trinity.
Thirdly, but equally, to participate in Trinitarian worship is to deny that we all have a little spark of God within us which just needs the right care in order for us to reach our full potential. God is not a personal spirit or guardian angel that each one of us experiences differently, not the life-force which unites us all in a big bond of love and just wants us to tolerate each other. Oprah’s spirituality is not Trinitarian Orthodoxy.
You and I know that these gods and many others are on offer. But by coming to the Eucharist we proclaim that we belong to another.
Specifically, our God is one with a history of continuous and ongoing interaction with his creation. And to worship the Trinity is to claim that this interaction happened in a very specific, if peculiar, story that we tell, for instance, in the Eucharistic Prayer. Prayer B says that, as the culmination of his calling people of Israel and preaching through her prophets God the Father sent his Eternal Word, his Son Jesus, to be borne incarnate and to be the Savior of the world who delivered us from error, sin and death.
But just think for a moment about how strange that story is. God calls the tiny tiny people of Israel – a bunch of Egyptian serfs, preaches to them by his very strange prophets (we read a while back about Ezekiel laying on that brick for a year; you know –camel hair, wild locust, etc). The Father then sends something called his “Eternal Word.” First of all, why should God have an Eternal Word at all? What’s that? And this Word becomes human, without a biological father, by some poor 12 or 15 year old Jewish girl, and so thereafter is ever suspected of being a bastard. This Jesus guy was executed by the state, oh and by the way was also the savior of the world. The same prayer goes on to remind us that in this story the third actor, the Spirit, continually makes this same Jewish beggar present to us when we eat his flesh and drink his blood (no wonder the early Christians were accused of cannibalism). Moreover we hear that by such eating and drinking the Spirit makes the church into that same Jewish guy’s body: “living members of the body of the Son.”
This is the God we celebrate today.
What’s more, this God has this crazy story in spite of being in perfect harmonious communion of love among the Three Persons from all eternity. And what this takes us back to, actually, is that Trinitarian icon I mentioned earlier that seeks to display something of that eternal nature.
The Three Persons are gathered around a table. Table fellowship is at the very heart of God. The very divine nature has something to do with eating together. The eternal dynamism of that infinite power and love is displayed in nothing grander than a shared meal.
But then, if we draw our eyes back, and look at the gathering as a whole, we are struck by the fact that there appears to be space at the table for another. And this is where it is important that this icon actually portrays two moments at once. The name of the icon is the “Hospitality of Abraham”. At one and the same time it displays the Trinity and the story from Gen 18 of Abraham offering three strangers food, shelter and rest. And of course that this one image portrays these two things is anything but accidental. For to worship the Trinity is to worship a God who has provided hospitality for us and who even has left room at the table for us to commune with the divine nature.
And God does this by emptying himself and taking our nature. God has invited us in by assuming our very poverty, and by dying for us. The Trinity provides us hospitality by paying a high price. And of course, because God offers us such hospitality, St. Peter says that we become partakers of the divine nature.
And this means that we too will provide costly hospitality, for that is what the divine nature does. God has saved a place for us to commune with that divine nature that God is. But thereby God makes us hospitable. The Trinity takes on pain, poverty, sin, filth, and even death in order to fill an opening at the table. And we will do this because in it we will find the fulfillment of our deepest longing. In it we will find joy.
This means that St Rublev was right when he painted that icon that human nature most approaches the divine when it says with Abraham from Gen 18 “let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I shall bring a little food that you may refresh yourself.”
Thanks be to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Trinity Sunday 2009
Isaiah 6:1-8, Canticle 13, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17
Today is Trinity Sunday. And “Trinity” is a word we use to describe God. So today is about God.
So my sermon will be about God. And I’m sure I will be exhaustive in my treatment.
We have already said and done lots of things today about God. We have blessed God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Perhaps you crossed yourself while you said that with three fingers held together to signify the one God who is three persons. In the Collect Rhonda proclaimed that we confessed God as eternal glorious Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit who lives and reigns forever and ever. The Gloria we often sing extols the Father and the Son and ends with a solemn bow at the praise of “Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father.” We will of course go on in the Creed to be most explicit about all of this. And then in the very heart of the Mass we will once again beg the Father to send his Holy Spirit upon bread and wine to make them the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist itself is Trinitarian.
During the week we start each service of Morning and Evening Prayer by giving glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever. We say the Apostle’s Creed: I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, and I believe in the Holy Spirit. We often close by asking that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. The officiant then bows and blows out the candles on the kneeler in front of a Trinitarian icon.
All this means that when we worship “God” we name thereby a very specific Divinity and therefore exclude many others. I give you three.
First, by “God” we do not name a perfect, all-powerful being who made everything, perhaps set it in good, scientific working order and sent it on its way to carry out its fated course, and whom it makes good sense to venerate in case he cares about things like that. Our God is not the biggest, abstract thing you can imagine, taking occasional interest in the world at really big events like wars and national elections, Duke-Carolina games. God is no more an old white man with a beard man than God is Morgan Freeman. That God is detached form the world, perhaps interested in strictly enforcing a moral code, or in meting out karma, or in condemning mean people or murderers or Hitler types.
And sometimes, even in churches that should know better, there is a variant on this which can look like the God we proclaim but is not. This is the second false god. For it rightly sets Jesus in some relation to God, but one which ends up simply making him a really good guy, or maybe even a special prophet God sent to give us an example of what it is to be moral, or loving, or who shows us once and for all that God love us, or who had a great social vision, or who really wanted to reform Judaism, or who just wanted to say that everyone is welcome, or that God’s nature is love after all. If this is all there is to Jesus, then we do not worship the Trinity.
Thirdly, but equally, to participate in Trinitarian worship is to deny that we all have a little spark of God within us which just needs the right care in order for us to reach our full potential. God is not a personal spirit or guardian angel that each one of us experiences differently, not the life-force which unites us all in a big bond of love and just wants us to tolerate each other. Oprah’s spirituality is not Trinitarian Orthodoxy.
You and I know that these gods and many others are on offer. But by coming to the Eucharist we proclaim that we belong to another.
Specifically, our God is one with a history of continuous and ongoing interaction with his creation. And to worship the Trinity is to claim that this interaction happened in a very specific, if peculiar, story that we tell, for instance, in the Eucharistic Prayer. Prayer B says that, as the culmination of his calling people of Israel and preaching through her prophets God the Father sent his Eternal Word, his Son Jesus, to be borne incarnate and to be the Savior of the world who delivered us from error, sin and death.
But just think for a moment about how strange that story is. God calls the tiny tiny people of Israel – a bunch of Egyptian serfs, preaches to them by his very strange prophets (we read a while back about Ezekiel laying on that brick for a year; you know –camel hair, wild locust, etc). The Father then sends something called his “Eternal Word.” First of all, why should God have an Eternal Word at all? What’s that? And this Word becomes human, without a biological father, by some poor 12 or 15 year old Jewish girl, and so thereafter is ever suspected of being a bastard. This Jesus guy was executed by the state, oh and by the way was also the savior of the world. The same prayer goes on to remind us that in this story the third actor, the Spirit, continually makes this same Jewish beggar present to us when we eat his flesh and drink his blood (no wonder the early Christians were accused of cannibalism). Moreover we hear that by such eating and drinking the Spirit makes the church into that same Jewish guy’s body: “living members of the body of the Son.”
This is the God we celebrate today.
What’s more, this God has this crazy story in spite of being in perfect harmonious communion of love among the Three Persons from all eternity. And what this takes us back to, actually, is that Trinitarian icon I mentioned earlier that seeks to display something of that eternal nature.
The Three Persons are gathered around a table. Table fellowship is at the very heart of God. The very divine nature has something to do with eating together. The eternal dynamism of that infinite power and love is displayed in nothing grander than a shared meal.
But then, if we draw our eyes back, and look at the gathering as a whole, we are struck by the fact that there appears to be space at the table for another. And this is where it is important that this icon actually portrays two moments at once. The name of the icon is the “Hospitality of Abraham”. At one and the same time it displays the Trinity and the story from Gen 18 of Abraham offering three strangers food, shelter and rest. And of course that this one image portrays these two things is anything but accidental. For to worship the Trinity is to worship a God who has provided hospitality for us and who even has left room at the table for us to commune with the divine nature.
And God does this by emptying himself and taking our nature. God has invited us in by assuming our very poverty, and by dying for us. The Trinity provides us hospitality by paying a high price. And of course, because God offers us such hospitality, St. Peter says that we become partakers of the divine nature.
And this means that we too will provide costly hospitality, for that is what the divine nature does. God has saved a place for us to commune with that divine nature that God is. But thereby God makes us hospitable. The Trinity takes on pain, poverty, sin, filth, and even death in order to fill an opening at the table. And we will do this because in it we will find the fulfillment of our deepest longing. In it we will find joy.
This means that St Rublev was right when he painted that icon that human nature most approaches the divine when it says with Abraham from Gen 18 “let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I shall bring a little food that you may refresh yourself.”
Thanks be to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts!
A few months ago, I asked a member of our community what had drawn her to visit St. Joseph’s, and to keep coming back. I expected she might answer that the location was convenient, or that she liked the small, intimate feel of the church. Her immediate answer, however, was something I wasn’t expecting. “It was the cardboard.” The cardboard? “Yes. When I saw sheets of cardboard leaning against the pillars of the walkway between the church and the parish hall, I knew immediately that this was a church that welcomed homeless people to sleep on its premises. That meant it was a church that was trying to be faithful. And that made it beautiful to me.”
This sister’s Gospel-trained eyes found beauty, not just in the stone façade of our church, or its stained glass windows, but above all in the flattened cardboard boxes leaning against its pillars. She found faithfulness in the most basic welcome the church can offer to people who have nowhere to call home. Her affirmation reminds us of our call to receive with open arms everyone who comes our way, as God has welcomed all of us, and it urges us to continue to practice the joyful, Spirit-filled discipline of loving one another as Jesus Christ loves us.
That way of life is a journey, not a destination, and the church is our starting point and the oasis to which we return again and again along the way. As we travel, we sing with the psalmist:
How dear to me is your dwelling, O LORD of hosts!
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of
the LORD;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.
The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young;
by the side of your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.
Happy are they who dwell in your house!
they will always be praising you.
Happy are the people whose strength is in you!
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.
--Rhonda
This sister’s Gospel-trained eyes found beauty, not just in the stone façade of our church, or its stained glass windows, but above all in the flattened cardboard boxes leaning against its pillars. She found faithfulness in the most basic welcome the church can offer to people who have nowhere to call home. Her affirmation reminds us of our call to receive with open arms everyone who comes our way, as God has welcomed all of us, and it urges us to continue to practice the joyful, Spirit-filled discipline of loving one another as Jesus Christ loves us.
That way of life is a journey, not a destination, and the church is our starting point and the oasis to which we return again and again along the way. As we travel, we sing with the psalmist:
How dear to me is your dwelling, O LORD of hosts!
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of
the LORD;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.
The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young;
by the side of your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.
Happy are they who dwell in your house!
they will always be praising you.
Happy are the people whose strength is in you!
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.
--Rhonda
Breakfast 6.2.09
A large breakfast this morning, taking up both picnic tables. The day promises to be the first really hot one of the summer, with 95 degree temperature predicted. I could feel that insufferable heat beginning to build on my back as I walked over to Whole Foods after MP to get some cereal and juice.
G, who used to stay on the Hill, but who has found steady job at Arby’s and a decent room to stay in across town, came by early on his way to work for a bite to eat. (“The Hill” is what everybody calls the back parking lot at the church where everybody hangs out or sleeps. I guess specifically it refers to the sloped bank of the property that runs down west to the shops below, but I think any part of the grounds can be so called.) G was in particularly good spirits. He loves Sammie and talked to her as he helped us carry the breakfast supplies out into the courtyard. As we settled in we shook hands with a young newcomer who had stopped in recently. “Welcome to the Hill”, G said.
In no time there were 6 or 8 of us sitting around the table. Of course we went through the OJ immediately and had to switch to water. I told one guy that I had finally gotten my hands upon the clothing and boots that I “owed” him (he had stored some things in the church and someone else had taken them). I told them this time I’d keep them locked up tight in the Vicar’s office until he wanted to use them. Without places to shower or wash clothes, new, or at least clean used clothes from the Salvation Army or wherever, are one way to keep up some semblance of hygiene.
Everybody wondered where C was, and most of them know that he stays with me and so they asked me if I had any idea. I had to suppose he was still sleeping in his room and I hadn’t noticed. Yesterday I was tiptoeing around the house all afternoon thinking that he was taking an extended nap, only to find him sitting up on the Hill when I came to EP. “I thought you were in that room,” I said. He just laughed. I smiled joyfully.
Most of us finishing up our cereal and cheese grits that we get donated from a couple ladies at Blacknall Presbyterian, I started clearing things off and back into the Parish Hall. Most people helped, rinsing off dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. Afterward JR stood outside with one of the regulars talking about life. He’ll confide things to JR I don’t think anyone else knows, and JR will gently nudge him towards the path of wisdom. T, our Parish hall live-in sexton, always does an amazing job of keeping things in there spic and span, and humbly does any dishes that are left. These are the small works of mercy that constitute sanctity.
--Colin
G, who used to stay on the Hill, but who has found steady job at Arby’s and a decent room to stay in across town, came by early on his way to work for a bite to eat. (“The Hill” is what everybody calls the back parking lot at the church where everybody hangs out or sleeps. I guess specifically it refers to the sloped bank of the property that runs down west to the shops below, but I think any part of the grounds can be so called.) G was in particularly good spirits. He loves Sammie and talked to her as he helped us carry the breakfast supplies out into the courtyard. As we settled in we shook hands with a young newcomer who had stopped in recently. “Welcome to the Hill”, G said.
In no time there were 6 or 8 of us sitting around the table. Of course we went through the OJ immediately and had to switch to water. I told one guy that I had finally gotten my hands upon the clothing and boots that I “owed” him (he had stored some things in the church and someone else had taken them). I told them this time I’d keep them locked up tight in the Vicar’s office until he wanted to use them. Without places to shower or wash clothes, new, or at least clean used clothes from the Salvation Army or wherever, are one way to keep up some semblance of hygiene.
Everybody wondered where C was, and most of them know that he stays with me and so they asked me if I had any idea. I had to suppose he was still sleeping in his room and I hadn’t noticed. Yesterday I was tiptoeing around the house all afternoon thinking that he was taking an extended nap, only to find him sitting up on the Hill when I came to EP. “I thought you were in that room,” I said. He just laughed. I smiled joyfully.
Most of us finishing up our cereal and cheese grits that we get donated from a couple ladies at Blacknall Presbyterian, I started clearing things off and back into the Parish Hall. Most people helped, rinsing off dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. Afterward JR stood outside with one of the regulars talking about life. He’ll confide things to JR I don’t think anyone else knows, and JR will gently nudge him towards the path of wisdom. T, our Parish hall live-in sexton, always does an amazing job of keeping things in there spic and span, and humbly does any dishes that are left. These are the small works of mercy that constitute sanctity.
--Colin
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Economy and the Church
I keep hearing about how bad the economy is. Unemployment is around 10%. Not quite as bad as the 25% of the Great Depression, but significant nonetheless. I’ve heard lots of people talk about the way that it is affecting them. I’ve heard Christians say that God can use this terrible situation for something good. I’ve heard people pray for the economy.
But I’m not convinced that Christians should be worried about the economy. I’m not convinced that the church has a stake in “fixing” it. And I’m not convinced that fixing it is in the interest of the common good of man either.
If anything, I suspect that what is happening is an opportunity God is giving to church to renew is practices of mercy and to be holy.
Unemployment is up, homelessness is up, evictions are climbing. But we ought not despair, for its not that there is not enough to go around. We still have plenty of food and plenty of beds for all these people. That is not the issue. The problem is not scarcity. The problem is the way that people act, the way that people decide to allocate resources in their control. Fixing a mechanism will not fix the problem. Let me say that again. We have all the goods we need.
The problem is greed, fear, selfishness, pride. The problem is sin. What else can explain that we have more than enough and yet so many go without?
And what this means is that everyone crying about the terrible state of things is really crying about themselves. The rich are crying about taking huge losses to their portfolios - losses will never really threaten their immediate needs. The middle class is crying because that house they thought would make them secure has been taken away from them.
Many are indignant that the economy is taking a toll on the poor. But why be indignant? We have everything we need. If there is crying to do, it is crying because our economy was so good to us. It let us believe that the best way to help everybody, the best way to serve the poor, was to be greedy. There is crying because it is looking less and less like that is going to work. It is looking less and less like any kind of system is going to work. For we have more than enough.
But there is no way to give it to the poor, except to give it to the poor. We are crying because we can no longer be indignant about the poor without being hypocritical. For we can no longer support the system, since the system is broken. If we cry about the plight of the poor we are struck by the fact that we have some of that everything needed to help the poor, so not to give is tantamount to stealing. At the very least, it is hard to be indignant and well-off without being hypocritical.
Is your goal to end poverty? The simplest and quickest way to do that, requiring basically zero changes in infrastructure, would be to take a poor person into your home and feed them. One less homeless person. If everyone with the means to do so did that, we would wipe out poverty and homelessness. Period. And you don’t even have to take in complete strangers. Some might be strong enough or brave enough to do that. I am not yet. The homeless man living with me is my friend. I got to know him for two years before he moved in. And you’d be wrong to think that was because I didn’t trust him before then. It was more that he didn’t trust me. The rich are scared of the poor (why?) and the poor are scared of the rich (why?).
This simple solution gets down to the heart about arguments about performing the works of mercy. It is often objected that they are simply impractical for solving our society’s problems. They are a palliative, a bandaid. The real way to change the world is to get involved in politics, to write letters to congressmen, to vote the right candidates into office. To this the church should rightly reply in the first instance that it is not a club or a government whose job is to work on solving society’s problems. I joined the church whose mission is to follow Jesus, and he told me to perform the works of mercy and give up my possessions and so I do it. He told me to. That’s it. Even if its not efficient.
But then slowly it begins to dawn on me just how deeply practical and efficient the works of mercy are. They provide the remedy for societal ills not by reforming a bureaucratic system but by transforming people. They offer, right now, the most efficient way to end poverty. They say that the way that you help people is, well, by helping them. What we need is a revolution of the heart.
And this shows that it is not the works of mercy that are the palliative. The state and its institutions are the palliative. They, no matter how reformed, are the morphine for the cancer. They, no matter how just, strike at the weed but leave the root. They, no matter how large or small, are inefficient.
And so I don’t think that I have a stake in the economy. It is, after all, really the state’s economy, and the economy’s state. But this is not because I just want to “let it burn” – although that might not be a bad idea. Rather, I don’t think that the state of the economy is a bad thing for the church because I don’t think the economy is the problem in the first place. The way that the changed economy shifts around materials in a different way just gives us a different view of the effects of sin.
The state of the economy gives the church a chance to be the church. To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to house the homeless.
--Colin Miller
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Beloved, let us love one another
The following is a sermon preached by Vicar Rhonda Lee, on the 5th Sunday of Easter, the 10th of May 2009. The text is 1 John 4:7-21.
God is love.
If John, the author of this morning’s epistle, were writing an academic paper, that would be his thesis statement.
John wants to be sure we understand his claim about God, so he states it twice: once negatively and once positively. “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love”; then, later on, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
In case we’re tempted to define love—and God—according to our own sentimental preconceptions, John makes it clear that his definition is rooted in divine revelation. “Love is from God,” he tells us, and he goes on to remind us of the bedrock Christian belief about divine love: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”
Love that heals, nourishes, liberates; love that breathes new life into dead bodies and despairing souls; love that has nothing at all to do with the merits or charms of the beloved; love that never ends. That’s the kind of love God shows toward you and me, on the days when we feel lovable, and on the days we can hardly stand to look in the mirror.
“God is love” is good news, a nurturing message for those who need to know they’re valued, just to get through another day. It’s a direct challenge to the worldly powers that see only some people as worthy of love: the strong, the beautiful, those on the inside of whatever dividing lines they’ve drawn.
John’s words challenge the church too. “Beloved,” he reminds us gently, “since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” If we had any illusions that living in Christian community was easier two thousand years ago than it is today, John’s warning shatters them: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”
If we’re honest, most of us can’t help wondering, “John, have you met my sister? My brother? Let me introduce you; once you see what I’m dealing with, you’ll cut me some theological slack.” But again, if we’re honest, we acknowledge that John lists no exceptions. He doesn’t say love your brother or sister except when they don’t, or won’t, listen to you; except when they bite their nails or snap their gum in public; except when they play that song we can not stand for the thousandth time; except when they’re just plain wrong. There are no loopholes.
Loving all our brothers and sisters, all the time, is a tall, in fact, impossible, order, if we think love is a matter of how we feel about someone, and if we think it’s something that happens by our own effort.
That’s not how love works. Love is a holy mystery, evidence of God moving among us, revealed in the way we treat each other. In John’s words, “if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” We know God does live in us, because, as John says, “he has given us of his Spirit.” We are temples of the Holy Spirit, through whom God’s love can work, transforming us into a beloved community over time, as we pray and share the sacraments, study the Scriptures together, and accompany each other through the joys and sorrows of our lives.
Many things can get in the way of love, but John singles out one force as love’s enemy, its polar opposite: fear. Love is the essence of God, and the highest virtue any Christian can practice; fear is a universal animal instinct that causes us to run away or lash out in self-protection. “There is no fear in love,” John states unequivocally, “but perfect love casts out fear….whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”
As people who base our lives on the two great commandments to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, we don’t like to think we live in fear. But John, a wise elder who addresses his readers as “little children,” knows that all of us have fears, many of which we don’t want to admit even to ourselves. None is more serious than our fear of God’s judgment. John knows that fear, and he reassures us. God has shown us his love in Jesus Christ so that, as John says, “we may have boldness on the day of judgment,” not fearing punishment. Since we know God loves us beyond anything we could have imagined, we can live as free people, in communities bound together by love.
To anyone who’s spent more than a day or two in the church, however, it’s all too obvious that love has not yet been perfected in us—in any of us. Each of us struggles with some fear: of being hurt, or hurting someone else; of not being heard, seen, valued; of being misunderstood, or being wrong; of not knowing the right answer when we’re supposed to be the expert; of letting others down, or being betrayed by those we’ve trusted.
Our fears can loom so large in our mind’s eye that they keep us from even picturing perfect love, much less embodying it. So what can we do?
John’s letter gives us the answer. Remember who God is—pure love—and who we are: children of God, and brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, who still lives through our beloved community. Pray for the grace to serve as vessels of divine love, and to pour it out upon each other, and upon the world outside our church walls. With God’s help, we will be emboldened to take the risks that come with truly opening ourselves to one another. As we draw closer to each other in love, it will become clearer and clearer that our endlessly compassionate God is alive among us, and our love will be this church’s testimony to the world about our faith.
God is love.
If John, the author of this morning’s epistle, were writing an academic paper, that would be his thesis statement.
John wants to be sure we understand his claim about God, so he states it twice: once negatively and once positively. “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love”; then, later on, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
In case we’re tempted to define love—and God—according to our own sentimental preconceptions, John makes it clear that his definition is rooted in divine revelation. “Love is from God,” he tells us, and he goes on to remind us of the bedrock Christian belief about divine love: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”
Love that heals, nourishes, liberates; love that breathes new life into dead bodies and despairing souls; love that has nothing at all to do with the merits or charms of the beloved; love that never ends. That’s the kind of love God shows toward you and me, on the days when we feel lovable, and on the days we can hardly stand to look in the mirror.
“God is love” is good news, a nurturing message for those who need to know they’re valued, just to get through another day. It’s a direct challenge to the worldly powers that see only some people as worthy of love: the strong, the beautiful, those on the inside of whatever dividing lines they’ve drawn.
John’s words challenge the church too. “Beloved,” he reminds us gently, “since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” If we had any illusions that living in Christian community was easier two thousand years ago than it is today, John’s warning shatters them: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”
If we’re honest, most of us can’t help wondering, “John, have you met my sister? My brother? Let me introduce you; once you see what I’m dealing with, you’ll cut me some theological slack.” But again, if we’re honest, we acknowledge that John lists no exceptions. He doesn’t say love your brother or sister except when they don’t, or won’t, listen to you; except when they bite their nails or snap their gum in public; except when they play that song we can not stand for the thousandth time; except when they’re just plain wrong. There are no loopholes.
Loving all our brothers and sisters, all the time, is a tall, in fact, impossible, order, if we think love is a matter of how we feel about someone, and if we think it’s something that happens by our own effort.
That’s not how love works. Love is a holy mystery, evidence of God moving among us, revealed in the way we treat each other. In John’s words, “if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” We know God does live in us, because, as John says, “he has given us of his Spirit.” We are temples of the Holy Spirit, through whom God’s love can work, transforming us into a beloved community over time, as we pray and share the sacraments, study the Scriptures together, and accompany each other through the joys and sorrows of our lives.
Many things can get in the way of love, but John singles out one force as love’s enemy, its polar opposite: fear. Love is the essence of God, and the highest virtue any Christian can practice; fear is a universal animal instinct that causes us to run away or lash out in self-protection. “There is no fear in love,” John states unequivocally, “but perfect love casts out fear….whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”
As people who base our lives on the two great commandments to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, we don’t like to think we live in fear. But John, a wise elder who addresses his readers as “little children,” knows that all of us have fears, many of which we don’t want to admit even to ourselves. None is more serious than our fear of God’s judgment. John knows that fear, and he reassures us. God has shown us his love in Jesus Christ so that, as John says, “we may have boldness on the day of judgment,” not fearing punishment. Since we know God loves us beyond anything we could have imagined, we can live as free people, in communities bound together by love.
To anyone who’s spent more than a day or two in the church, however, it’s all too obvious that love has not yet been perfected in us—in any of us. Each of us struggles with some fear: of being hurt, or hurting someone else; of not being heard, seen, valued; of being misunderstood, or being wrong; of not knowing the right answer when we’re supposed to be the expert; of letting others down, or being betrayed by those we’ve trusted.
Our fears can loom so large in our mind’s eye that they keep us from even picturing perfect love, much less embodying it. So what can we do?
John’s letter gives us the answer. Remember who God is—pure love—and who we are: children of God, and brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, who still lives through our beloved community. Pray for the grace to serve as vessels of divine love, and to pour it out upon each other, and upon the world outside our church walls. With God’s help, we will be emboldened to take the risks that come with truly opening ourselves to one another. As we draw closer to each other in love, it will become clearer and clearer that our endlessly compassionate God is alive among us, and our love will be this church’s testimony to the world about our faith.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Concrete's home
You may see Concrete around town today, as he's been released from the hospital. Thanks to everyone for your prayers. Please keep them up, for Concrete and for everyone who wants to be a loving friend and/or family member to him. It's good to have this beloved member of our community back among us.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The following is a homily preached by JR Rigby at Church of the Holy Family, Chapel Hill, on Wednesday of Easter Week, 2009. Propers: Luke 24:13-35, Acts 3:1-10
In the short passage from Acts 3:1-10 we are immersed in the ordinary and the routine. Peter and John are going up to the temple at the hour of prayer. Indeed, at the end of chapter 2 we are told that the believers “day by day, spent much time at the temple”. Peter and John are just going about the daily routine; it is probably not even the first time they have been to the temple that day.
At the gate of the temple lay a beggar, lame from birth, now in his fortieth year. He is laid there daily. His routine is well known. Luke even notes that the people of Jerusalem recognize him as the beggar at the Beautiful Gate. For this man the routine may have become a source of despair – a lifetime of begging, no longer even looking up at the almsgivers as they pass by.
So, we must imagine that Peter and John have seen this man before, probably many times. Yet this time when the beggar asks Peter and John for alms, Luke tells us that Peter looked at him intently, as did John.
The story continues, almost without missing a beat. It would be easy to pass over this detail. Still, Luke tells us that Peter did not just glance down at the beggar, but that he looked at him intently.
Just what went through Peter’s mind at that moment – Peter, who had been at Jesus’ side through his ministry?
Did Peter perhaps see Lazarus lying at the gate of the rich man’s house? As the beggar asked for alms, did Peter hear Lazarus hungry and pleading for the falling crumbs?
So much has happened since Jesus told that parable: the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection. It is a new time.
Then perhaps Peter looked up for a moment through the gate toward the temple and saw now the temple as the house of the rich man, and Peter the servant of that rich man, nourished at the sumptuous table of the Lord of that house in the breaking of bread - Peter who has nothing of his own because the church holds all things in common, says with honesty, “I have no silver or gold,” and then with gentleness, “but what I have I give you” – and what crumbs from the table of the Lord can he possibly offer to this beggar at the gate? Nothing less than,
“In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”
Then Peter took the beggar by the right hand and, Luke says, “raised him up” – for this is a story about healing, certainly, but only to point to the Resurrection; Peter “raised him up”. As Paul writes, Christ “will transform the body of our humiliation (the body of a lame beggar lying outside God’s house) that it may be conformed to the body of his glory (the healed man running and jumping into the temple, a figure of the new man in Christ) by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself (instantly this man believed and praised God).” Phil 3:21
Peter lives in a community of faithful obedience to ordinary practices, devoted to the prayers, and to the breaking of bread. It is in devotion to these ordinary things that Peter’s eyes are opened to the beggar at the gate – much as Cleopas’ eyes are opened to Jesus in the breaking of bread - and it is through faithfulness to holding all things in common that we find Peter with no silver and gold.
Let us not miss the irony: Through faithfulness Peter’s eyes are opened to notice the beggar, but through faithfulness he also has no silver or gold to give. From the beggar’s vantage it’s a bit of a Catch 22!
But it is a new time - a time not of defeat, nor of despair, but of victory. For, Christ is risen!
Thus in Peter’s faithfulness to the risen Christ, we find that having nothing he yet possesses everything, being poor he yet makes this man rich, and this beggar, whom everyone recognized but no one knew, is yet well-known as he is raised up with Christ.
Peter’s faithfulness turns an ordinary, and potentially awkward, encounter into a mirror of the Resurrection.
We must be faithful in small things, if we are to participate in the glory of God that is the resurrection of his Son. Let us go therefore and devote ourselves to Christ in every small act. Let our daily routines be set by the worship of God. Let our eyes be opened in the breaking of bread.
And may every mundane encounter be transformed by the resurrection of our Lord.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his
disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith,
that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives
and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and for ever. Amen.
In the short passage from Acts 3:1-10 we are immersed in the ordinary and the routine. Peter and John are going up to the temple at the hour of prayer. Indeed, at the end of chapter 2 we are told that the believers “day by day, spent much time at the temple”. Peter and John are just going about the daily routine; it is probably not even the first time they have been to the temple that day.
At the gate of the temple lay a beggar, lame from birth, now in his fortieth year. He is laid there daily. His routine is well known. Luke even notes that the people of Jerusalem recognize him as the beggar at the Beautiful Gate. For this man the routine may have become a source of despair – a lifetime of begging, no longer even looking up at the almsgivers as they pass by.
So, we must imagine that Peter and John have seen this man before, probably many times. Yet this time when the beggar asks Peter and John for alms, Luke tells us that Peter looked at him intently, as did John.
The story continues, almost without missing a beat. It would be easy to pass over this detail. Still, Luke tells us that Peter did not just glance down at the beggar, but that he looked at him intently.
Just what went through Peter’s mind at that moment – Peter, who had been at Jesus’ side through his ministry?
Did Peter perhaps see Lazarus lying at the gate of the rich man’s house? As the beggar asked for alms, did Peter hear Lazarus hungry and pleading for the falling crumbs?
So much has happened since Jesus told that parable: the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection. It is a new time.
Then perhaps Peter looked up for a moment through the gate toward the temple and saw now the temple as the house of the rich man, and Peter the servant of that rich man, nourished at the sumptuous table of the Lord of that house in the breaking of bread - Peter who has nothing of his own because the church holds all things in common, says with honesty, “I have no silver or gold,” and then with gentleness, “but what I have I give you” – and what crumbs from the table of the Lord can he possibly offer to this beggar at the gate? Nothing less than,
“In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”
Then Peter took the beggar by the right hand and, Luke says, “raised him up” – for this is a story about healing, certainly, but only to point to the Resurrection; Peter “raised him up”. As Paul writes, Christ “will transform the body of our humiliation (the body of a lame beggar lying outside God’s house) that it may be conformed to the body of his glory (the healed man running and jumping into the temple, a figure of the new man in Christ) by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself (instantly this man believed and praised God).” Phil 3:21
Peter lives in a community of faithful obedience to ordinary practices, devoted to the prayers, and to the breaking of bread. It is in devotion to these ordinary things that Peter’s eyes are opened to the beggar at the gate – much as Cleopas’ eyes are opened to Jesus in the breaking of bread - and it is through faithfulness to holding all things in common that we find Peter with no silver and gold.
Let us not miss the irony: Through faithfulness Peter’s eyes are opened to notice the beggar, but through faithfulness he also has no silver or gold to give. From the beggar’s vantage it’s a bit of a Catch 22!
But it is a new time - a time not of defeat, nor of despair, but of victory. For, Christ is risen!
Thus in Peter’s faithfulness to the risen Christ, we find that having nothing he yet possesses everything, being poor he yet makes this man rich, and this beggar, whom everyone recognized but no one knew, is yet well-known as he is raised up with Christ.
Peter’s faithfulness turns an ordinary, and potentially awkward, encounter into a mirror of the Resurrection.
We must be faithful in small things, if we are to participate in the glory of God that is the resurrection of his Son. Let us go therefore and devote ourselves to Christ in every small act. Let our daily routines be set by the worship of God. Let our eyes be opened in the breaking of bread.
And may every mundane encounter be transformed by the resurrection of our Lord.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his
disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith,
that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives
and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and for ever. Amen.
Concrete at Central Regional Psychiatric Hospital
After spending seven days in the Duke ER, Crete was transferred to Central Regional Psychiatric Hospital in Butner yesterday morning.
Sent to the loonie bin - that's the bad news. The good news is that now we can visit him. So Lisa and I went up last night after supper.
The facility is brand new, replacing the older one in that same town. This probably helped to relieve a bit of the awkward nervousness I felt approaching my first mental health ward. They led us through a series of four electrically locking doors. The hallways were white and sterile but bigger than your average hospital types. This would have been comforting, but medical hospitals are usually bustling with doctors, nurses and patients, carts and machinery here and there. Here there was nothing. No other people, bare, slightly curving, medium-light corridors smelling of antiseptic soap.
They led us into an austere little room with two chairs, a table and a bench. "Shut the door behind you," the nurse said. She then opened the other door into the common area of Crete's wing. "Mr. Graham?!" she yelled.
Sent to the loonie bin - that's the bad news. The good news is that now we can visit him. So Lisa and I went up last night after supper.
The facility is brand new, replacing the older one in that same town. This probably helped to relieve a bit of the awkward nervousness I felt approaching my first mental health ward. They led us through a series of four electrically locking doors. The hallways were white and sterile but bigger than your average hospital types. This would have been comforting, but medical hospitals are usually bustling with doctors, nurses and patients, carts and machinery here and there. Here there was nothing. No other people, bare, slightly curving, medium-light corridors smelling of antiseptic soap.
They led us into an austere little room with two chairs, a table and a bench. "Shut the door behind you," the nurse said. She then opened the other door into the common area of Crete's wing. "Mr. Graham?!" she yelled.
Crete walked in, staring at the floor. He was dressed in his normal street clothes, which had clearly had a recent run through the wash. He looked good.
We all sat down and Crete started talking. He said that he had just been transferred there today and that they hadn't given him any drugs yet. He said he didn't know what had set "that lady they call my sister" to commit him at that time. He ran through various things that had happened in the few days before the police nabbed him, and wasn't sure what it had been. "They just kept telling me that it was because I'm not showering...but that doesn't seem right." To that charge was later added, he said, that he was a danger to himself and others. The former might, by an almost infinite stretch of the imagination, in the state's definition, be entailed in long periods without a shower (which, by the way, is itself highly questionable). The latter is simply laughable.
Crete talked a lot about how his present predicament is caused by the state's inability to put up with or even comprehend his chosen way of life. "They got all their people out on this one...police, FBI, CIA, Army, Navy, Marines, ROTC. They are killing each other all day trying to kill me because I love God. But they really are destroying themselves...they say they are helping me but I know that they gotta do this to function a profit [benefit] for the rest of the world. So they' really just blessin' themselves."
As always, though, he takes this with patience and understanding and never blames anyone personally. Quite in the New Testament sense, he blames "the world." "I talk to folks all day who are trying to help me, and I'm trying to help them, cause I know they're not even intending to do what they are doin'. But whatever I say they just make me look stupid."
He refuses even to speak badly of his sister, who had him committed and whom he has not seen or heard from through this whole process. Responding to something I said hinting of a negative vibe toward his sister he said, "People are gonna think I should make war against her, but I'm not gonna do that."
Lisa and I told him that the Guys were worried about him and that JR and Adam would be up to visit soon. I said that we've been able to talk to his social worker and doctors and that hopefully our testimonies of our normal life with him, along with Adam's ability to speak intelligently about things psychiatric would convince them that the facilities' over-crowed beds need not be taken up by Crete. He looked intently and hopefully when I told him we'd do everything we can.
Probably the biggest obstacle to his release right now is the way he talks. His speach sounds strange, incomprehensible and, well, crazy - to someone who doesn't know him. But it is eminently intelligible and rational - it is simply a different idiom, laden with metaphors and rather apocalyptic in tone, spoken from the underbelly of the world. The problem is that psychiatrists don't know him or live with him, so when he says that he's "gettin' hit" or that "the world is trying to kill him" or that he's "not getting any women" he can only be classed as delusional, paranoid, or perverted.
The ER psychiatrist told us the other day that three weeks is a long stay at Central Regional. Let's pray its shorter than that.
--Colin Miller
We all sat down and Crete started talking. He said that he had just been transferred there today and that they hadn't given him any drugs yet. He said he didn't know what had set "that lady they call my sister" to commit him at that time. He ran through various things that had happened in the few days before the police nabbed him, and wasn't sure what it had been. "They just kept telling me that it was because I'm not showering...but that doesn't seem right." To that charge was later added, he said, that he was a danger to himself and others. The former might, by an almost infinite stretch of the imagination, in the state's definition, be entailed in long periods without a shower (which, by the way, is itself highly questionable). The latter is simply laughable.
Crete talked a lot about how his present predicament is caused by the state's inability to put up with or even comprehend his chosen way of life. "They got all their people out on this one...police, FBI, CIA, Army, Navy, Marines, ROTC. They are killing each other all day trying to kill me because I love God. But they really are destroying themselves...they say they are helping me but I know that they gotta do this to function a profit [benefit] for the rest of the world. So they' really just blessin' themselves."
As always, though, he takes this with patience and understanding and never blames anyone personally. Quite in the New Testament sense, he blames "the world." "I talk to folks all day who are trying to help me, and I'm trying to help them, cause I know they're not even intending to do what they are doin'. But whatever I say they just make me look stupid."
He refuses even to speak badly of his sister, who had him committed and whom he has not seen or heard from through this whole process. Responding to something I said hinting of a negative vibe toward his sister he said, "People are gonna think I should make war against her, but I'm not gonna do that."
Lisa and I told him that the Guys were worried about him and that JR and Adam would be up to visit soon. I said that we've been able to talk to his social worker and doctors and that hopefully our testimonies of our normal life with him, along with Adam's ability to speak intelligently about things psychiatric would convince them that the facilities' over-crowed beds need not be taken up by Crete. He looked intently and hopefully when I told him we'd do everything we can.
Probably the biggest obstacle to his release right now is the way he talks. His speach sounds strange, incomprehensible and, well, crazy - to someone who doesn't know him. But it is eminently intelligible and rational - it is simply a different idiom, laden with metaphors and rather apocalyptic in tone, spoken from the underbelly of the world. The problem is that psychiatrists don't know him or live with him, so when he says that he's "gettin' hit" or that "the world is trying to kill him" or that he's "not getting any women" he can only be classed as delusional, paranoid, or perverted.
The ER psychiatrist told us the other day that three weeks is a long stay at Central Regional. Let's pray its shorter than that.
--Colin Miller
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
This is the sermon preached by Vicar Rhonda Lee at the Great Vigil at St. Joseph's on Easter Eve 2009. The text is Isaiah 55: 1-11.
“Everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters,
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without
price.”
By human standards, this passage from Isaiah is a very strange invitation.
It’s addressed to “everyone,” answering the ubiquitous questions about who else will be there, and whether children are included. And not just “everyone” is invited, but, more specifically, “everyone who thirsts,” and those “that have no money.” An open bar and all-you-can-eat buffet for people who don’t eat out: the host is either extremely wealthy, unusually generous, or both.
There are a couple of things the invitation doesn’t mention. There’s nothing about gifts: no indication of where the host is registered. Not even a discreet line of small type stating “no gifts please,” or suggesting a donation to your favorite charity instead. Perhaps because those who can’t afford food and drink are specifically invited, this invitation doesn’t specify the type of attire guests are expected to wear.
This really is a very strange invitation.
It sounds strange to us, and it would have sounded strange twenty-five hundred years ago when God issued it through the prophet Isaiah. Back then, God said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” and that’s still true.
The invitation to God’s banquet isn’t just strange. It’s threatening to anyone who would rather keep their guest lists exclusive—and all of us, if we’re honest, fall into that category at some time or another. If everyone’s invited, that includes not only Democrats and Republicans, but ex-wives and former lovers too. Debutantes and street people. Foreigners and fellow citizens: God specifically says that the heralds of the banquet “shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you…” Notorious sinners, and those who have simply offended us. Everyone’s invited. All our host asks is that guests heed this call, “let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts,” and trust in God’s generous promise that, as Isaiah says, “he will abundantly pardon.” That pardon is good news to everyone who knows herself to be a sinner, but it feels like bad news at those moments when we can’t imagine sharing a table with him—whoever he may be.
If the breadth of the invitation to this banquet challenges us personally, it’s also a political threat. Crowds of people gathering in one place for no commercial purpose, without a permit? That’s called loitering in most places, and sedition in many; depending on how the offense is defined, it may be punishable by a fine, jail term, or death. Giving away wine, milk, and food to any and all who show up? Add public drunkenness, contributing to the delinquency of minors, and undermining the moral fiber of the poor to the list of charges. Call the Health Department while you’re at it, because that banquet’s a hazard. And by the way, who’s going to do the dishes afterward?
It’s true: God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and our ways are not God’s ways.
That’s the lesson of the resurrection. That’s the lesson of baptism. By the standards of the world, God’s ways don’t make sense; they’re not rational, reasonable, or profitable. But for us as a Christian community, those paradoxical ways are the wellspring of joy and compassionate love.
That’s why we believe that our sister Kenetta was drowned in water and the Holy Spirit tonight, even though most of her body stayed dry. That’s why we’ve been looking forward to her death for months, and why we now proclaim that this adult woman has just been born.
Our ways are not God’s ways. But, by divine grace God’s thoughts have been revealed to us in Scripture; God’s love has been shown to us in the law and the prophets, and made incarnate in Jesus Christ. God’s ways can become our ways, when we accept the mysterious invitation to his banquet.
Tonight Kenetta has accepted that invitation. She has been baptized, and she will take Communion. Kenetta has already participated in, and even hosted, fellowship meals here at St. Joseph’s. Tonight, she has said she wants to be a part of all the Holy Spirit’s banquets. She has said yes, she wants to feast at the table where seats are never sold, and where’s there’s always room for everyone. She wants to share in the meal hosted by the man who never raised a hand to hurt, only to heal, and yet was executed by a brutal empire whose governors believed, accurately, that he posed a threat to their way of doing business.
Kenetta is proclaiming with all the baptized, here at St. Joseph’s, around the world, and through the ages, that death can be the gateway to life, that bread and wine can become the very body and blood of God, and that by sharing holy food and drink, we can become holy people. She knows that together, we can turn away from empty foods—in Isaiah’s words, from “that which is not bread…that which does not satisfy”—and accept the nourishment God offers, as hungrily as a baby accepts the milk that is the only food it has ever known. We can resist the temptation to measure our worth by whether or not we appear on some exclusive guest list, and instead relax into the joy of knowing we’re loved, and we’re free to love others.
“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” That’s God’s simple, profound recipe for transformation: accept the invitation to his banquets. If you’re baptized, feast often. Take a seat at the Lord’s table wherever you find it, and make room there for everyone who hungers and thirsts. If you’re wondering whether the Holy Spirit might be calling you to baptism, know that the sacraments and fellowship are God’s gifts to everyone who will accept them, and that his invitation has your name on it. As we share food and drink—bread and wine here at the altar, and rice and beans, sausage and eggs in the parish hall—we will become God’s people. We will be one body in Jesus Christ, and he will teach us to walk in his ways together. Amen.
“Everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters,
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without
price.”
By human standards, this passage from Isaiah is a very strange invitation.
It’s addressed to “everyone,” answering the ubiquitous questions about who else will be there, and whether children are included. And not just “everyone” is invited, but, more specifically, “everyone who thirsts,” and those “that have no money.” An open bar and all-you-can-eat buffet for people who don’t eat out: the host is either extremely wealthy, unusually generous, or both.
There are a couple of things the invitation doesn’t mention. There’s nothing about gifts: no indication of where the host is registered. Not even a discreet line of small type stating “no gifts please,” or suggesting a donation to your favorite charity instead. Perhaps because those who can’t afford food and drink are specifically invited, this invitation doesn’t specify the type of attire guests are expected to wear.
This really is a very strange invitation.
It sounds strange to us, and it would have sounded strange twenty-five hundred years ago when God issued it through the prophet Isaiah. Back then, God said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” and that’s still true.
The invitation to God’s banquet isn’t just strange. It’s threatening to anyone who would rather keep their guest lists exclusive—and all of us, if we’re honest, fall into that category at some time or another. If everyone’s invited, that includes not only Democrats and Republicans, but ex-wives and former lovers too. Debutantes and street people. Foreigners and fellow citizens: God specifically says that the heralds of the banquet “shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you…” Notorious sinners, and those who have simply offended us. Everyone’s invited. All our host asks is that guests heed this call, “let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts,” and trust in God’s generous promise that, as Isaiah says, “he will abundantly pardon.” That pardon is good news to everyone who knows herself to be a sinner, but it feels like bad news at those moments when we can’t imagine sharing a table with him—whoever he may be.
If the breadth of the invitation to this banquet challenges us personally, it’s also a political threat. Crowds of people gathering in one place for no commercial purpose, without a permit? That’s called loitering in most places, and sedition in many; depending on how the offense is defined, it may be punishable by a fine, jail term, or death. Giving away wine, milk, and food to any and all who show up? Add public drunkenness, contributing to the delinquency of minors, and undermining the moral fiber of the poor to the list of charges. Call the Health Department while you’re at it, because that banquet’s a hazard. And by the way, who’s going to do the dishes afterward?
It’s true: God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and our ways are not God’s ways.
That’s the lesson of the resurrection. That’s the lesson of baptism. By the standards of the world, God’s ways don’t make sense; they’re not rational, reasonable, or profitable. But for us as a Christian community, those paradoxical ways are the wellspring of joy and compassionate love.
That’s why we believe that our sister Kenetta was drowned in water and the Holy Spirit tonight, even though most of her body stayed dry. That’s why we’ve been looking forward to her death for months, and why we now proclaim that this adult woman has just been born.
Our ways are not God’s ways. But, by divine grace God’s thoughts have been revealed to us in Scripture; God’s love has been shown to us in the law and the prophets, and made incarnate in Jesus Christ. God’s ways can become our ways, when we accept the mysterious invitation to his banquet.
Tonight Kenetta has accepted that invitation. She has been baptized, and she will take Communion. Kenetta has already participated in, and even hosted, fellowship meals here at St. Joseph’s. Tonight, she has said she wants to be a part of all the Holy Spirit’s banquets. She has said yes, she wants to feast at the table where seats are never sold, and where’s there’s always room for everyone. She wants to share in the meal hosted by the man who never raised a hand to hurt, only to heal, and yet was executed by a brutal empire whose governors believed, accurately, that he posed a threat to their way of doing business.
Kenetta is proclaiming with all the baptized, here at St. Joseph’s, around the world, and through the ages, that death can be the gateway to life, that bread and wine can become the very body and blood of God, and that by sharing holy food and drink, we can become holy people. She knows that together, we can turn away from empty foods—in Isaiah’s words, from “that which is not bread…that which does not satisfy”—and accept the nourishment God offers, as hungrily as a baby accepts the milk that is the only food it has ever known. We can resist the temptation to measure our worth by whether or not we appear on some exclusive guest list, and instead relax into the joy of knowing we’re loved, and we’re free to love others.
“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” That’s God’s simple, profound recipe for transformation: accept the invitation to his banquets. If you’re baptized, feast often. Take a seat at the Lord’s table wherever you find it, and make room there for everyone who hungers and thirsts. If you’re wondering whether the Holy Spirit might be calling you to baptism, know that the sacraments and fellowship are God’s gifts to everyone who will accept them, and that his invitation has your name on it. As we share food and drink—bread and wine here at the altar, and rice and beans, sausage and eggs in the parish hall—we will become God’s people. We will be one body in Jesus Christ, and he will teach us to walk in his ways together. Amen.
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