Simple Gifts: Sermon and Rector's Report for Annual Meeting, January 30, 2022

For the last three Sundays, we have been exploring the question of spiritual gifts, as discussed in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and now 13. The overall theme has been unity of the Church. Paul warns that petty jealousies and hierarchies destroy the unity of the body of Christ. Apparently, some in Corinth had been claiming that their spiritual gifts ennobled them at the expense of others with what were looked down on as “lesser gifts.”

Putting this into context, in the reading before this one last week, Paul talks about spiritual gifts, and then promises to show us a “more excellent way:” the way of love in action. He first lists seven things that are lesser gifts than love: speaking in tongues, prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, faith (!), self-sacrifice through poverty, even self-sacrifice through martyrdom. Looking at Paul’s list, we see that is true in our own lives: prophecies are ignored, knowledge can be outlawed and lies become celebrated, wisdom can be drowned out by fear, faith can be misplaced in those unworthy, self-sacrifice can be an object of mockery. All these gifts, without love, turn to ashes. Love is both the truest expression of the gospel, but also requires the most dedication.

As we take stock of the year past, both in the world around us and in the life of this parish, it is good for us to reflect upon all of our gifts, and to remember all the gifts that being in this community at this time and place gives to each of us. It is also a perfect time, as we face this new year as a blank slate, for us to look for ways to offer new gifts in new ways, to the neighbors we are called to serve.

WORSHIP
Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, we were finally restored to the gift of physical presence. We got to come out of COVID lockdown beginning in Lent, and made it to the end of the year before we had to take a pause out of love for each other in January. We continue to pray for all those affected by this ongoing pandemic, from medical staff to teachers to those isolated out of fear of this contagion. We pray—and we do our part to keep ourselves and others safe. That, too, is a gift of love.

We saw ministries related to worship come into their own. A Regathering Committee to deliberate about how to gather safely once it was possible— and each one of our committee members—Tom Allen, whom we do NOT appreciate enough, Chelsea Brewer, Chris Marsh, and Laura Limbaugh—all brought their expertise and then stepped up in leadership of the policies we have crafted. They deserve our deepest gratitude. God bless you, Tom, Chelsea, Chris, and Laura!

A revitalized Altar Guild led by Ruth Minster and handed over the Barb Hankemeyer. Usher training to involve COVID protocols thanks to Tom Allen’s organizational skills and Mary Jane Drake lending her vast experience. A corps of vaccinated readers who were willing to come and read as we inched toward regathering. New volunteers for the Broadcast team, and ever better broadcasts as we gained more fluency in this technology. The use of an FM transmitter to be able to gather in our cars.

We were finally able to gather for parts of Holy Week services, for the first time since 2019, and to create hybrid services. At Easter, we celebrated out first baptism in over a year; this spring we celebrated our first two weddings in a LONG time; this fall we had our first confirmation and reception in over a year; and throughout the year we held nine funerals bidding farewell to treasured members of our parish. We hosted the ordination of our incoming assistant rector, the Rev. Shug Goodlow, and finally had our Celebration of New Ministry. The return of the choir and bell choir under the brilliant leadership of Denise Marsh continued to create beautiful music.

FORMATION
Sherrie Algren continued her one-woman campaign to keep the youngest members of our parish engaged in learning about God despite being unable to attend in person due to a lack of vaccination for anyone under age 12, and finally 5. Sherrie creates and distributes packets of fun activities to our little ones each and every month, God bless her. The Rev. Shug began putting together a fascinating mix of adult formation opportunities, and even COVID could not stop the discussion as we pivoted to ZOOM when necessary. We also formed a discernment committee in the parish to help our beloved Loretta Go discern a possible call to Holy Orders which concluded with sending her on for further training.

OUTREACH
The big gift here was the start of a Laundry Love ministry passionately here in West County, spearheaded by Anne and Jim Fischer, despite 18 months of delays. This program is as much a gift to those who staff it as to those who avail themselves of the chance to do their laundry. Thank you for your embrace of this ministry-- so many of you who donate quarters, volunteer hours, or laundry detergent. We saw transition in leadership from Larry Cornelius to Mike Kelly for the Peace Meal project that we take turns in staffing at St. John’s Tower Grove. We had another bumper crop in the garden, thanks to John Lange and Scott Pattengill, that was used to feed the hungry. Jeanne King led another spiritually rewarding United Thank Offering campaign. And all this in the midst of a pandemic!

PASTORAL CARE and SPIRITUALITY
So many of you devote enormous energy and effort in caring for each other here at St. Martin’s—calling, sending cards, praying for each other with our three vibrant prayer ministries continuing on through the leadership of Linda Huheey, The Rev. Virginia Noel, and Daryl Norman. We hope to get to a place in this pandemic where we can safely send out our teams of Eucharistic visitors once again very soon. We also have lost both of the people who were doing our broadcasts of online compline twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays: Loretta Go and Gina Slobodzian, who has taken a new position that takes her out of state. I hope we all can wish these two amazing disciples well, and that some of you might feel called to step up to replace them in this beautiful ministry of prayer as night descends.

BUILDING and GROUNDS
Lincoln Drake continued his care of the physical plant, and he and Steve and Maggi Brunkhorst walked through the building when it was unoccupied to make sure that all was well. The capital campaign has saved us untold anxiety just by being there, available for use rather than having to pull money from our investment fund for capital goods, and that is a gift that we gave ourselves that keeps giving back to us.

STAFFING
We added an assistant rector, the Rev. Shug Goodlow, with great joy, in late August, at long last. Janet Theiss continues to give her all to St. Martin’s in ways that too often fly under the radar, and she is a godsend. Kenny Harper continues to keep our building clean with attention to detail. Denise brings out the best in all the musicians who work with her. Volunteer staff include the Broadcast Team of Bill Scoopmire, Becky McCoy Brewer, Jim Fischer, Chris Marsh, and Scott Scoopmire, who is also our webmaster. They put in 15 or more man-hours of work for every broadcast. Scott has also just agreed to be our communications director, for which we are very grateful. Becky McCoy Brewer and Debra Mathews have worked hard to take large chunks of producing the Beacon off my hands, and it has been such a relief. Your staff have been stalwarts throughout this pandemic, and they deserve all the love and support we can give them.

FINANCIAL
St. Martin’s has had nearly a full year of being able to use our capital campaign funds for capital goods, and that helped keep us from running into red ink in our budgeting this year. The Legacy Endowment Fund continues to fund new ministry initiatives in the parish under the leadership of Greg Andersen and the promotion of the tireless Lincoln Drake. Page Andersen has performed her magic with the budget for the second straight year, and due to a second PPP loan and other happy circumstances, we managed to actually not pull any money from St. Martin’s Investment Fund. I am grateful to Mike Kelly for taking on chairmanship of the Annual Giving Campaign with all the complications of running such an endeavor in this time of uncertainty and flux.

However, our annual giving campaign remains half completed for the second year in a row at this point in the financial and calendar year. That just is not healthy nor realistic, not only from a financial standpoint but from a spiritual standpoint. It may be financially prudent to try to pay the least amount that you can for a car or a house, but it is absolutely no way to run a parish or a ministry.

I know we are all exhausted, and we are all distracted. But we absolutely need a bold commitment from each one of you who are able, so that we can anticipate the coming deficit. Because make no mistake, our financial commitments so far are half what our needed revenue must be with expenses cut to below the bone. Even if you have set up automatic payments—and thank you!—we need to have a card from you knowing that we can count on that level of funding throughout the year. As we move to making stewardship a year-round spiritual practice rather than a seasonal “chore,” I encourage each and every one of us to honestly enumerate how much having this community of faith means to each of us, and each of us doing our part to not only squeak by, but to have the funds to flourish as a witness to the abundant love of God in our communities.

It is at this point that I will repeat what I said last year: There is no deficit of fellowship here. There is no deficit of spirituality and faith here. There must be no deficit in our willingness to not just balance our budget but enable it to grow in discipleship areas that have been previously pruned back too far. We are called to do more things with fewer resources, and in a prolonged time of pandemic that takes an emotional and physical toll on all of us. Further, our constant financial constraints handcuff us from being Christ’s bold witness in the world around us.

What we spend money on in our lives is what we most value. It’s that simple, and that stark. Our giving to St. Martin’s —yours and mine—is a statement of the depth of our faith and our acknowledgement of our gratitude and our love. It is meant to be a gift, not a means of division. Our giving must NOT be about using money as a way to settle grievances, or expressing our displeasure or pleasure, a kind of carrot and stick contraption to get our own way. It’s not based on a profit-and loss calculation, on a measurement of how much we first get, a kind of “tip jar” philanthropy. Boldly, we must seek to embody the greatest gift of all—love—in ways that enable our witness to Christ to become ever more visible in a world thirsting for God’s presence made manifest through us.

We can do this. We just have to decide to let love lead us. Love, the greatest of all gifts.

As always, I remain deeply grateful for those of you who work tirelessly to keep this parish engaged in the world. Untold hundreds of hours go into making our worship and ministry possible in this time of COVID. I am so grateful to my husband, Bill Scoopmire, for all he does behind the scenes, programming our broadcasts, making the urns used by those who are interred in our columbarium, and being my pillar of strength who never thinks of sleeping in on a Sunday morning. He supports the long hours I put in by putting in many hours of his own-- and watching bloody action movies while I am hunched over a desk. He has the strength of ten men, due, no doubt, to his pure heart and strong coffee.

It always comes down to love, doesn’t it? Yes—always. Because if love is not the foundation of all we do, we are just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

The ancient Greek philosophers held that only perfect things are eternal. And of the spiritual gifts, only love never ends; therefore, it is the greatest of the spiritual gifts. The most excellent way, then, is to put others first and to truly love them. This is how we love Jesus, by loving each other. This is how we are Christians. Anything else is mere fandom and empty show.

Love is God-made-visible for a world that cannot see God. Love pries open the cynical, selfish, stubbornly-squeezed-shut eyes of the world and makes God manifest. People are willing to do things in the name of love that they are far too self-conscious or terrified to do in the name of God—although that is exactly the same thing. 1 John 4:8 reminds us that God IS love. And thus- wham! That’s how God gets us; even as we try to hide from God or deny God, God sneaks in as love anyway.

As we look with hope toward the year that lies so freshly before us, we remember what we discussed last week. The time to act is always NOW, with each new breath is a new opportunity to do one small thing to change the world. I look forward to our best year yet—because we are joined together in faith, in hope, in charity—but the greatest of these is love.

Readings:

January 1:4-10

Psalm 71:1-6

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Luke 4:21-30

Believing in God's Belief in Us: Speaking to the Soul, January 27, 2022

 Jeremiah 1:4-10

Jeremiah, known sometimes as “the weeping prophet,” is believed to have written both Jeremiah and Lamentations. Jeremiah was twenty years-old when God called him. At first Jeremiah believes that he is not up to the responsibility, but God insists that he is the right person. Jeremiah recounts his call story to bolster the legitimacy of his call in the eyes of those around him—that he did not seek out this position, but God insisted. God planned this for Jeremiah since before his birth (just as with Jesus).

God gives Jeremiah the unpleasant task of warning the people about the destruction of Jerusalem—and worse, to make clear that this destruction will happen because the people turned their backs on God. Jeremiah became quite skilled in doom-forecasting. So much so that the term “jeremiad” refers to a long prophetic work which warns about the imminent destruction of society. Cataclysm, holocaust, the end of the world as we know it–those are heavy subjects for one so young to speak about with authority. No wonder Jeremiah feels the need to establish his bona-fides.

Jeremiah’s self-doubt contrasts with the self-assurance of Jesus that we find in the fourth chapter of Luke, to be read this Sunday. Jesus speaks with authority, unlike Jeremiah with his self-doubt and hiding behind his young age.

Yet even Jeremiah understood that people need a glimmer of hope. That’s why even the book of his prophecies includes the section known as the “Little Book of Consolations,” which makes a decided turn from doom-saying to looking for the hope that shines out even in the darkest night.

This gets back to the idea of God’s purpose for human life: not fear, not dread, but the assurance that God has loved us and known us from before we were even aware of that love and tenderness. That love is the source of the wondrous hymn of hope “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” derived from the third chapter of Lamentations—a reading often chosen at funerals because of the certainty with which Jeremiah lays claim to the mercy upon mercy we receive from God.

Most of us no longer believe that bad things happen to us as a punishment from God. God values us as we are—and too often we find that idea the unbelievable one. How often do we fail to believe in ourselves? How often do we fail to believe that God is calling us? This speaks of a personal relationship with God that so many of us long for. Jesus will be the fulfillment of the prophecies recorded here, just as he claimed last week. Seizing ahold of the reality of God’s love for us, as daunting as that can seem, brings all that we have been promised by God into focus, and allows us to see ourselves as we really are: beloved by God.

How can we apply this lesson to ourselves? There have been plenty of times in most lives when we felt that we just couldn’t do something, or faced an obstacle or a sorrow that was overwhelming. There have been times I have felt this– and in the midst of prayer, I feel a calm descend upon me. God promises us that we will be strengthened for whatever challenges we need to face, even at the end of our lives. God has faith is us—how can we fail to reflect that faith in ourselves, and to be beacons of hope to a world that desperately cries out for hope?

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 27, 2022.

The Power of Today: Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany C

Thich Nhat Hanh, who was known as Thay, the great Vietnamese Buddhist spiritual leader and teacher, died this week at the age of 95. He was very active in interfaith dialogue, like the Dalai Lama, like Thomas Merton, like so many saints and sages throughout the last century in particular. He spent his life promoting practices shared by people of all kinds of faith backgrounds: of the cultivation of joy and real peace; of activism in the face of suffering in order to bring relief freedom and true justice; of celebrating and embracing the underlying humanity that binds all of us together on this planet.

One of the things Buddhism is known for is its attempt to address the problem of suffering. We don’t often frame it that way, but so did Jesus. Listen to the portion of Isaiah he chooses to read in our gospel this morning:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Those words are stirring, hopeful, joyful. But the words after Jesus sits down are our discipleship moment. Here’s what he says: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The fact is, Jesus proclaims the good news of God’s reign by naming specific areas in which human life and human systems fall short of that kingdom—the creation of poverty, oppression, captivity, willful blindness and self-delusion are all named there, having been named by the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years before Jesus. The bad news Jesus names is the necessary foundation to the good news he proclaims. In naming these sources of suffering, he, as God’s son, also then challenges us that these are not simply “the way it is,” but they are barriers to God’s kingdom here on earth. Barriers, but not insurmountable. The good news is that Jesus also show us the way to dismantle those systems of suffering and degradation. Through the Way of Jesus, we are also empowered to confront those systems by working alongside Christ as his witnesses and his disciples to choose to abolish them.

One of the core practices of Buddhism is something called “mindfulness,”—and to be honest, it’s something at its most basic that is good for all people to practice. Mindfulness in Buddhism is built up through meditation, which centers on the breath. So it is both ephemeral, and yet it is filled with repeated grace—the grace to start anew in each moment. And of course, we can act in the moment once we become fully alive to that moment.

The power of God’s kingdom is the power of now, and the opportunity it gives us to be agents of change for good.

Here’s is part of a teaching that Thay shared with an audience a few years ago about being centered in each moment as an empowering practice:

“Anyone who knows the practice of mindfulness knows to go home to the present moment. When you go home to the present moment you can find two kinds of situations. The first kind of situation is there's so many conditions of happiness available in the here and now. When you breathe in and bring your mind home to your body, you're establishing the present moment, and you notice there are so many refreshing and healing elements available in the present moment-- so many conditions of happiness available in the present moment… and you can nourish yourself by being present with those opportunities.

The second situation is that when you go back to the present moment you might encounter a feeling of pain-- a feeling of a painful emotion that is in you. But when that pain begins to manifest, we don't like to be there. So we try to run away, pretending that it’s not there, so no one is there in order to take care of the pain feeling, the painful emotion.

Now, none of us like being in that moment when we feel helpless, when we feel the pain of uncertainty or suffering. Notice now how Thay addresses the solution there within the problem of pain:

So in going back to the present moment here is no longer to recognize the element of joy and happiness, but to have a chance to take care of the pain in ourselves and to transform it. So even if the moment the present moment is unbearable, to go back to that moment is the only chance for us to do something you know that calm it down and to transform it.

Most people don't do that, because they’re afraid that when they come home to themselves and touch their pain inside, they will be overwhelmed by the suffering. And that is why their practice is to run away, to imagine something about the future, to go back to the past to forget. But the past and the future they are like images --not reality. Only the present moment is real.

There is an undeniable biological truth in that observation. We are fully alive in each moment—and only in each moment. The past trails away, the future hangs before us as remote as the full moon that you tried to grab when you were little and laying on the grass in your back yard. In this moment, I take a breath and give thanks for that breath--- and for the opportunity it presents to me to use it for the benefit of myself and others. And we can still be a people of hope and a people of faith while grounding ourselves in the power of that “Today” that Jesus proclaims anew to us, not just 2000 years ago but in every moment.

I think it is a beautiful thing, especially now, to remember how the last two years have sometimes made us shy away from the beauty of breath, to be distracted from the gift and grace of breath. COVID has made us fear breath as a spreader of illness. Yet that perspective allows fear to rule, and to divide us.

It is while we are breathing that we can also choose to claim our agency for love, and to act out of that love. To claim our breath is to claim our power as disciples in God’s kingdom. And God’s kingdom does not hang tantalizingly in the future. No, Jesus reminds us in our gospel today that God’s intended reign of justice begins now. Jesus’s great prophet, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., also noted the great moral imperative of now when those around him complained that those in the civil rights movement were not being patient enough, that they needed to stop stirring up the now by looking to some future time of justice—a time that a century after the abolition of slavery still had not arrived. The Christian promise of salvation, likewise, doesn’t wait for us in the future. It begins now-- when we reclaim the power we hold right now to work as disciples of Jesus to proclaim the good news—and then enact it with each breath we take, in ways both great and small.

Because here’s another secret: the same word Jesus used for breath was also the word for the Spirit of God. Thus each breath is a reminder of how God empowers us as God’s children to care for ourselves and each other. And each breath happens in the now. The Spirit, likewise, meets un in this moment, right now, and challenges us to use the treasure of now to be Christians in deed as well as word. Right now. Then we too can hear Jesus say “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It becomes fulfilled when we decide, right now, to work alongside Jesus as his disciples, as our inheritance as God’s children.

But it is in the now that we act. This is a truth that rings out as true, regardless of our spiritual journey and how we identify ourselves, Buddhist or Jew or Muslim or Christian.

Breathe, believe, and then act. Breathe, believe in the power of God’s love working within you in ways great and small, and then act to bring about God’s kingdom Jesus proclaims THROUGH all of us.

AMEN.

Preached at St. Martin's Episcopal Church on January 23, 2022 at the 10:30 am online worship due to the surge in omicron cases in the COVID pandemic.

Citation:

Thich Nhat Hanh, “ Staying in the Present Moment,” at YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiaxqGsyld8 

READINGS:

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

Prayer 3272: The Ninth Anniversary of the Prayer Circle and 3rd Sunday after Epiphany C

Eternal One,
God of Abundant Grace,
we gather in attentive gratitude:
Speak, Lord, for your serfants are listening.

You have called us
into the service of your gospel of hope and truth,
and made us citizens in your kingdom of mercy and grace:
may we center our hearts within your law
and pledge ourselves anew to your service:
to proclaim good news to the poor,
liberty to the imprisoned,
illumination to those in darkness,
justice to the oppressed,
and jubilee to the alienated and the lost.

May our hands be set to mending
the broken cords of love and faithfulness,
our shoulders aligned to the wheel of mercy
that it may run straight and true.
May we embrace the work of reconciliation
as a sacred offering to You, O Savior,
our Shepherd and our Light.
May our testimony sing out
the truth of your lovingkindness and redemption.

In humility, we lay our lives before You:
bless and hallow them to your glory, O Merciful One.
Spirit of God, rest upon us,
and extend the shade of your blessing over all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 3271: Inspired by Psalm 30 and 32

In peace, we bow before You,
O God, our helper and guide.

You are the Exalted One,
whose thoughts are so high
we cannot attain them;
yet You also extend Your love like a mighty fortress
over all of creation, Your handiwork,
from the honeybee and the humble seeker.
Like a mother
You tenderly soothe our fevered dreams
and remind us of the trust we can place in You.
We wake, and joy returns with dawn's first light
as Your compassion and tenderness illumines our path.

May we exalt You in our times of strength
even as we cry to You in times of trial,
remembeing always that we are Your own
and beloved.
May we confess and own our faults,
seeking not just forgiveness but reformation and restoration,
that our sinful ways may be plucked out cast away,
and our relationships healed and restored
like a well-tended garden.

May we turn away from hubris and pride
and be guided by You into the path of Life and Peace
paved by gentleness, care, and compassion.
May we remember we are embraced by Your mercy,
and acknolwedge your grace with gratitude.

Holy God, our Rock and our redeemer,
extend the shelter of Your tender care
over those whose needs we lift before You,
as we humbly pray

One Body, Many Members: Speaking to the Soul, January 20, 2022

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

 

This is a continuation of last week’s reading dealing with unity and attempting to encourage mutual respect and affection rather than jealousies and petty jockeying for pride of place.

Here we have the use of the metaphor of a “body” in two ways. First, the church in Corinth is together a body, Paul reminds them. Just like in last week’s epistle, God has ordained people to be the part that they play—thus being dissatisfied is attempting to overthrow God’s plan. That means that there should be no dissension, no putting down of one part by another.

All are indispensable for the intended functioning of the body. As we sometimes say, jokingly, “the world needs ditch-diggers, too.” But we do, and it’s actually no joke.

During World War II, the US government realized the manpower drain of mobilization for war would have a devastating impact on agricultural production, especially in California, and so they set up a program to encourage workers from Mexico to come here to the US so that food production—even more key in wartime than it is in peacetime, would not suffer.

It’s become commonplace to scorn farmworkers, as well as to scorn immigrants from south of the border, but the fact is that their labor is necessary for not just our convenience when we go to the grocery story looking for fruit and vegetables—it’s also vital to the function of our economy. The same goes for fast-food workers, and the patently false claim that most of them are teenagers working for pocket money each time they ask for a living wage. The truth is that many of them are adults who have been displaced from better paying jobs in the workforce. Imagine how many of us would be inconvenienced if there weren’t any places in which one could get a meal quickly, too.

As Paul continues with this exhortation to the Corinthian church to live in respect together regardless of class or station, his verbs are very vivid: there should be no ranking, no honoring or dishonoring, respecting or disrespecting. Here again is the magic of scripture—we ourselves stand convicted of the same kind of division and wrangling against each other. Yet the message is clear: we cannot cut ourselves off from each other and still claim Jesus as our Lord, or that we are his disciples. We are all mutually dependent on each other and must love each other as ourselves—see the Great Commandment.

Then Paul adds a significant expansion to his image of the Church as a body—that we are not just any body. No, even more importantly, Paul reminds the Church that it is CHRIST’S body, which places even further stress on the need for unity in recognition of that great responsibility and honor. We are the visible image of Jesus for much of the world, which puts even greater obligation upon us to model Jesus’s message in all our actions, both as individuals and as part of a religious institution that has taken upon itself the identity of Christ in our very name as well as witness.

The world will know Christ—or condemn Christ-- though the actions of Christians in the world. We all have roles to play as Christians besides our station in the world. And the first thing that shows that we have been a taught a “more excellent way” is to put the command to respect each other into action, as a visible, forceful witness to our duty and obligation to each other as mutual children of God.

Remember also, that we celebrate being Christ’s unified body each time we partake of Communion. He states that God distributes gifts as God will, but urges us to “strive” for the “greater gifts.” What are the “greater gifts?” Strangely, this reading leaves off the second half of the last verse, which segues into chapter 13. In the very next sentence, he speaks of “a more excellent way” still part of verse 31. Chapter 13 then launches into the famous discussion of love. So the greater gifts must be love, along with faith and hope.

We are one body, from the humblest to the noblest parts—we are dependent upon each other. From many, we are one. May that realization be a lamp unto our feet as well as our vision.

This was first published at Episcopal cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 20, 2022.

The Heart of a Home: Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany (Observance of MLK Day)

The last few months have seen a variety of challenges in the lives of our family—like everyone, we’ve had illnesses and tension. But one of the blessings we have had has been our son being able to stay with us, perhaps for one of the last times, for a month. He is in his senior year of college; he already has a job lined up after graduation. He’s our youngest, so that empty nest thing is staring us right in the face. We have played numerous games of UNO, he has tried once again to get me to understand how a Playstation controller works so I can play video games with him, and I have introduced him to the joys of 80s video games like Joust and Ms. Pac-Man.

One of the things we have always enjoyed as a family is watching movies together, and one of the ones we got to share was Encanto, the latest Disney movie. It’s even got music by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The basic outline of the story is this: A young family with triplets flees a war in Latin America, Along the way, the father perishes as they are pursued, but the mother, Alma, with only a candle to light her way, manages to save her children when the candle suddenly magically protects them. Not only that, the candle then creates a magical home for the family in a hidden valley and burns continually for the next 50 years. 

The house gives each of the triplets--and their children-- their own special power AND their own special room as a symbol of that power: being able to produce flowers at will, or incredible strength or hearing, or being able to cook dishes that heal others. All of the children and grandchildren of Alma, now known as Abuela, or Grandmother, have powers—except for poor Mirabel. And because she lacks a special power, she is scorned by her grandmother and overlooked, even if unintentionally, by much of the family. She is literally deprived of her own room in the house, as well.

One day the youngest grandchild, Antonio, gets his special power. Abuela takes great pride in these miraculous gifts and in their miraculous house—and there is great rejoicing as Antonio learns he can talk to animals, and his room appears in the house, filled with animals for him to engage with. The family celebrates by taking a picture--- leaving Mirabel out. During the celebration, Mirabel has a vision of the house cracking apart and the candle going out—a vision she alone experiences. Not only is she not believed, her grandmother treats her as a malcontent and a misfit, trying to destroy the celebration because she is jealous at her own lack of miraculous gift..

Yet Mirabel is certain she has seen that the house, and therefore the family, is in grave danger. Mirabel decides to try to prevent this calamity, and sets out on a quest to find out why she is experiencing what she is. In the course of her investigation, she uncovers family secrets and hidden fears. Perhaps these secrets and hidden fears are at the root of the house’s instability.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I will leave it at that. But as we prepare tomorrow to celebrate the impact and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on what would have been the start of his 93rd year, I can’t help but see this charming little cartoon as also giving some insight into MLK’s own life, and into our readings for today.

Mirabel had a prophetic vision. That was her gift. It didn’t require magic. It required courage—the unbelievable courage to tell the truth to those you love, even if—especially if—they don’t want to hear it, even if they FEAR the truth being told. She foresaw a disaster, and tried her best to get her family to focus on what should have been most important to them: not their individual powers, but each other. Abuela takes great pride in these miraculous gifts and in their miraculous house—more pride in these things than she does in seeing the family itself as a miracle. Frankly, the foundation of the house was shaken by the failure to value each person who lived within it equally.

In our hymns today, and in our readings, we see reminders of prophetic voices also urging us to seeing the blessing of true communion with each other in our lives. We hear the prophet Isaiah renouncing silence when he sees calamity besetting God’s people: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn and her salvation like a burning torch!”

You can just hear the prophet thundering in his refusal to accede to staying silent for the sake of comfort. And what calamity was it that Isaiah, and all of the prophets of Israel, named and denounced? 

It was one that was ever-present, then and now. A failure of the Great Commandment: to love God with all of our hearts, strength, and minds, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. A refusal to commit to justice and care for all of those within society, attempts to exclude and marginalize others deliberately—or the softer, more insidious danger of being blind to the existence of division and injustice in the community, a preference for the comfort of the illusion of peace bought at the price of respecting the dignity and full equality of all people.

Isaiah also makes it very clear that salvation is not defined by a personal, individualist focus. Salvation, redemption, and release from the peril of death and destruction isn’t just about whether this person or that person individually goes to heaven or goes to hell. Jesus’s miracle of turning the water into wine similarly isn’t about just saving a wedding host from embarrassment. It’s about reminding us of God’s abundant gifts to all of us, and about God’s abiding call for us to share that abundance with each other and to be animated by that abundance in our dealings with each other. Salvation is about the reclamation of the community, about the strength of the entire body of God’s children. All or nothing.

Our reading from Isaiah is thus a perfect reading as we look back on the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin’s Luther King Jr. In the 54 years since Dr. King’s assassination, we have come to take for granted just how radical his message was, and how his vision of the Beloved Community still is yet to be realized.

Through the mists of time, we forget how much hatred and opposition Dr. King received—and not just from acknowledged segregationists and racists. No, as Dr. King noted in his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” some of the greatest attempts to silence him and the civil rights movement’s prophetic demand for freedom and equality came from within the power structures of faith communities and the Church itself—the very body that as followers of Jesus should be most committed to justice for all. That letter—which every American should re-read at least every year, was written in response to a group of faith leaders, including Episcopal bishops, denouncing what they termed his radicalism, his impatience, his “outside activism” since he was not actually from Birmingham. We have forgotten how much suspicion the civil rights movement received from the federal as well as state governments, even from people of goodwill. 

And it continues. Too many of us have insulated ourselves from the very real injustices that still exist right now. Even from within the Church—the very family which was the source of Dr. King's own hope. A nation, a church, or any institution, is only strong when the people within it are valued more than its edifices. When leaders focus on the institution, rather than the people, injustice flourishes.

Like Mirabel, like Isaiah, like Jesus, like Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King saw the cracks in the house—the house of this nation, in his own particular instance, a house which proclaimed itself dedicated to the notion that all persons were created equal on paper, when its reality was vastly different in practice. This was a truth and unvarnished revelation that those who were powerful, those who were comfortable, refused to acknowledge as an injustice, much less confront. Dr. King not only saw those cracks, and the long-term dangers they posed to African Americans and to all Americans, through his years of activism and his fifty arrests. He sought to have even those whose privilege inured them to the perils of injustice and oppression believe in a possibility and the necessity of a better, stronger, more united house that would include all. The heart of a home-- the heart of a nation-- is the people, not the structures. 

But also, like Mirabel, like Isaiah, like Jesus, like Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King didn’t raise the alarm merely to be a critic and announcer of doom. He raised the alarm because of the great faith he had that we can do better in living into the vision of love and unity to which God calls us as Christians, and to which I believe God calls each and every nation, especially this one. Through the lens of this pandemic, it is patently obvious that this nation is still divided—and that the source of that division is STILL refusing to act out of a desire for the flourishing not only of ourselves and our personal circle, but of everyone.

You cannot repair the cracks in the house until you see them, and then determine to do the work of repair. You can’t repair the cracks in the house until you understand that the value of the house is about the people within it—and making sure all of them are equally protected, equally valued. Dr. King’s vision of a strong, united house, home to a strong, united community, founded on the bedrock of equality and commitment to ever seeking to make ourselves stronger as one people, is a vision we all as people of faith are called to share.

May we continue his prophetic work, rooted in our faithfulness to God, and to God’s desire for all of us to live in a house that is not only undivided but strong and flourishing because the people within it are secure and valued, regardless of their different gifts. Let us be a house united by our dedication to truth, to justice, and to dedication to our God and to each other.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am online Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, on January 16, 2022 during time of COVID.

Readings:

Isaiah 62:1-5

Psalm 36:5-10

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

John 2:1-11

Being Enough: Speaking to the Soul, January 13, 2022

John 2:1-11

The failure of hospitality that Jesus encounters while he and his mother are guests at a wedding jumps out at me every time I read our passage from John for this coming Sunday. I have always found it fascinating that this miracle, which only occurs in John’s gospel, is the first of the seven signs in that gospel. It’s rather a small miracle, after all, performed off the main stage in a tiny backwoods town in a tiny backwoods region that no one gave much thought to.

Hospitality back then was a much bigger deal than it is nowadays. The notions of hospitality in the culture of first century Palestine often required people to take in strangers into their own homes, and to give those same strangers whatever they requested, even if that meant that the host had to do without.

When you read carefully, probably the only people who knew that a miracle had taken place at all were Jesus, his mother Mary, a handful of servants whose arms were probably aching from toting perhaps 180 gallons of water around, and some of his newly-called disciples. The people hosting the wedding apparently had no idea what happened. And yet, if the wine had actually run out, especially in that culture, it would have brought shame down upon the hosts. After all, wine was a symbol of the blessing of God, of the abundance of God’s gifts. It was also a matter of practicality, being safer to drink than water at that time.

And here’s where our gospel speaks to our time today. We live in a time in which cries of “There’s not enough!” pervade nearly every single second of our lives. We live in a consumer society, one that only functions if people are led to believe that the way to happiness is through how much they can accumulate. “He who dies with the most toys, wins” say the bumper stickers. And so people toil away, so that they can spend, so that maybe they cannot feel the emptiness inside that is the foundational cause of our discontent to begin with.

But then it goes deeper. Society tells too many of us that we ourselves are "not enough." Not skinny enough. Not smart enough. Not tech-savvy enough. Not pretty enough. Not young enough. Not old enough. Not talented enough. Not rich enough.

And that extends outward. We are told that there is not enough to go around. We have to ruthlessly, zealously guard what little we have, because the scarcity mindset that runs our culture has convinced us that there is never enough.

But that’s where the miracle is. Jesus comes to us in our common struggles just like he showed up at that small town wedding, and assures us that, no, there IS enough. Every time we gather around God’s table, every time we share what we have with others and don’t worry about running out for ourselves, we participate in the abundant life and love of God, where there is always enough, and more besides. Where the best stuff is just as available at the end as it was in the beginning.

Just as Jesus turns water into wine, Jesus works within ordinary people, like you and me, because he knows we have the potential to be transformed by his gospel into the good stuff- the best- by God’s transforming love and call to each of us. We are enough—and Jesus chooses us to work his miracles in the world today. That’s more than enough.

This essay was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 13, 2022.

The Tenderness of the Creator: Speaking to the Soul, January 6, 2022

Isaiah 43:1-7

It seems like the idea of God as the Creator is too often seen as somehow remote, or bloodless. I don’t know if people have that idea that because God is so powerful that God can just basically snap God’s fingers and – poof!—a new thing is created, but with a certain emotional reserve between Creator and Created. Maybe it’s just hard to imagine, much less accept, the particularity of God’s love for each of us.

The ancient Greeks had a different idea. The offspring of Titans, Prometheus, is often credited, by the poets Sappho, Ovid, the playwright Aeschylus, Aesop, and others, with creating many of the living things on Earth—but especially humans-- as a master craftsman. He is credited with giving humans the fire of creativity as well as literal fire, and being punished by Zeus for it. Singer-songwriter Dar Williams, in her song “This Earth,” describes Prometheus as loving mortals and caring for them protectively—much like we see in this reading from Isaiah 43. She imagines Prometheus musing,

“I love this land of mortal men
They wake to know the fire again
The things we make, the things we feel,
Armored plates and molten steel
All of these inventions of the earth, the earth... this earth.”(1)

Thinking of the relationship between Creator and Created as a sterile transaction, less intimate than calling God “Father,” overlooks passages such as we see here in our reading from what is known to scholars as 2nd Isaiah. The prophet recounts the devotion and tenderness of God most touchingly here at the end of the pericope:

Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, "Give them up,"
and to the south, "Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth--
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."

In Isaiah 64 as well as Jeremiah 18, the prophets make the solicitousness and loving-kindness of God even more explicit in the metaphor of God as a potter, hands intimately shaping human beings. The touch of a hand is an undeniably personal image, and when that hand moves tenderly, like a caress, we know that we are loved, even without words. I wonder what it would do to us in our relationship with each other, especially in the situation we face right now, if we could take that belovedness for both ourselves and each other seriously.

As we remember the events of the past two years, and of a year ago, when a wave of rage was directed at our institutions and our representatives, the idea of love binding the creation to the creator puts into sharp focus how much our estrangement from God and each other costs us.

We are called by our Creator in love, and we are called by our Creator to love. Having faith in that love is our great challenge—to believe that love is that powerful, that foundational.

The Wise Men stepped out in faith searching for what was already theirs. They, like all of us, were seekers after what was already woven into their bones: the love of God.

Faith is not a box on a checklist. The point of faith is not primarily knowledge or mastery. The point of faith is relationship—to be specific, to accept the unimaginable truth that God loves us fiercely, tenderly, protectively, intimately as our Creator. It’s a relationship that burns with warmth, devotion, a longing for closeness from Creator toward the beloved Creation. This Sunday we will be reminded that we are forgiven, as hard as that is to accept at times; and more, that we are beloved, despite all our wayward tendencies. What an Epiphany that would be!

Attributions:

Dar Williams, "This Earth," from the album In the Time of the Gods, 2012.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 6, 2022.

Signs Along the Road: Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas C

It’s often good to see familiar places and sights through the eyes of a stranger. It helps you avoid taking things for granted. When I was in college, I had a friend who was an international student. She would be amazed by the strangest things. For instance: convenience stores, like Quik Trip or 7 Eleven. In Tulsa, even more than here, there was literally a convenience store on every corner (here in Missouri, it’s drug stores, if you haven’t noticed). We took convenience stores for granted—they were just so darn… convenient. Stephanie marveled at the fact that when we wanted a study break, we could just walk down the street at midnight and get an ice cream sandwich. At midnight.

I got a taste of what she had experienced the first time I was in France. I got a headache, and suddenly, the lack of drug stores and convenience stores became glaringly obvious. For what seemed like hours, I tried to find some place that sold analgesics—the clerk at the little market around the corner from our hotel had no idea what I wanted. I finally was down to asking strangers in the street—and I really only know menu French and directional French. But I didn’t want escargots at the moment—I wanted Excedrin.

A couple of people would point and tell me that there was a pharmacy just down the street. I stood there, and just couldn’t see it—the shop where he pointed had swanky rows of beauty products. Finally, a sympathetic man pointed up, and I noticed a green neon sign above my head in the shape of a cross. I slunk in, and voila! Yes, they had aspirin (in tubes the diameter of a roll of quarters, but aspirin nonetheless)! Once I realized this, I suddenly saw those green neon signs EVERYWHERE. They had just been part of the landscape and meaningless to me before. I didn’t know what to look for—but once I saw it, I saw it everywhere.

Being able to read the signs was the stock in trade of the visitors in our gospel today known as the Magi. They have seen signs—and those signs set them off on a quest of discovery. They follow a blaze of light—a star that seems to guide them in hopeful expectation.

Matthew’s story suggests that Joseph and Mary are living in Bethlehem, because we don’t see a stable or manger anywhere in this scene. The Magi know nothing of this, of course, and set out from their land not knowing what exactly will be their ultimate destination. They stop off in Jerusalem assuming that of course everyone would both also know about this miracle in their own midst. But only the Magi have seen and recognized the sign dancing above their heads.

These strangers, with their gaudy outfits and strange accents, haul themselves all the way across the burning desert to bring impractical gifts to a baby king. Well, gold was practical—but perfume and an embalming spice? Expensive, but certainly not immediately as useful as say a case of diapers.

The Magi approach Herod, asking for help in pinpointing where they are going. Strangely, Herod provides that help, even though their news makes him uneasy, even afraid that he could be violently deposed and his throne, his only through Roman backing, could be overthrown. He’s afraid of that because that is exactly the way he has operated to become powerful himself.

In our readings today, we specifically celebrate the Epiphany of Jesus. The word “epiphany” can mean appearance, unveiling, disclosure, or manifestation. The story we hear is about the disclosure of Jesus as an sign of hope for not just his own people, but for the entire world. We see that these travelers see the baby in the care of his mother and father—and their response is worship and offering. After we’ve spent weeks wondering what we are going to get, the Magi present us with a challenge—what are we going to offer?

It’s funny—most of us have just spent weeks finding and purchasing and wrapping all kinds of gifts for the people in our lives. Yet what gifts do we have left to offer to Jesus? He asks us for our attention, our trust, our love. And the best way we offer those things to Christ is often to offer them to each other.

The encounter the Magi had with the Holy Family undoubtedly left them changed. It also led them to find their way home by a different path than the one they had taken before. And that’s the way it is with epiphanies, isn’t it? They change you, and they change your understanding of the path that you are on. Epiphanies point us to another way home.

After all that we have endured and experienced in these last many months, who here isn’t longing for that? A whole ‘nother year of pandemic and here comes a wave with a strain so virulent that last Thursday, the US set a record of 580,000 NEW cases of COVID reported in a single day—and the previous day’s record was 488,000 cases in a single day, which in itself is mind-bogglingly tragic. Given the loss of people we loved and admired, not to forget that we lost both the great spiritual leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the great American treasure and animal rights champion Betty White in a single week’s time. Given that in a few days it will be a year since the January 6 attack on our capitol and our democracy. In so many of our families, mine included, there has been too much sickness, too much uncertainty, too much stress.

The road we have been on for far too many months and years is one of hatred, division, and self-delusion. It’s not enough to disagree with our political opponents—we are told by too many that we have to hate them, and deny their humanity.

The fact of our lives is this: you really only see what you are looking for. If you are looking for things that make you angry, divided, resentful, bitter, or afraid—things that make you doubt the existence of God, in other words--that is exactly what you will see. 

If you are looking for signs of life, hope, community, exemplars of humanity like Desmond Tutu and Betty White who can inspire you in your daily life—THAT is what you will see. You will see signs of God’s love EVERYWHERE.

I don;’t know about you, but that sounds like a better road to me. And it’s a road that will give you the strength and endurance to confront the forces of injustice, rancor, division, ignorance, malevolence, violence, and hatred that has too much power. It seems ascendant, dominant, in part because people of good heart do not challenge it in the name of love that Jesus embodies and calls us to embody as well.

The road too many of us have been on has not served humanity well. Perhaps it’s time to look for a different road—because we know they exist. People like Desmond Tutu and Betty White show us that. The Magi remind us of that.

But the fact of the matter is, if you want to try a different road, you are the one who needs to put on the blinker, turn the steering wheel, and commit to a change in direction and path. The Magi knew that their original road would lead them back to a tyrant and murderer. They instead chose a road illuminated by the miracle they had just witnessed, with the light of that star now lodged firmly in their hearts.

After finding and worshiping the infant Jesus, the Magi become convinced that they must find another way home. And I am convinced we are like that too. After two years in a pandemic, and with another surge on us, what we have been doing is obviously not working. We long to find another way home. And perhaps we can let that star—the star of hope—guide us.

Jesus calls us to enlarge our own horizons, just as the star caused the Magi to enlarge theirs. Specifically, Jesus calls us to worship, and to offering, absolutely—but more importantly, Jesus calls us to be formed and shaped by that worship and that offering to see the world with new eyes. Jesus calls us to renewal, to reconciliation, to discipleship.

Jesus comes as “God with us” to assure us of how very much God seeks relationship with us, fallible humans that we are. And God doesn’t just pull us close—God shows us another way, a better way, home. A way of hope. A way of love. A way of compassion and justice and mercy. Encounters with God are themselves gifts to us. They help us see with new eyes the signs of God’s enduring love and faithfulness all around us. They are doorways into a new understanding of ourselves, and of those around us.

May we worship and lay our offerings before the newborn Prince of Peace, and look with new eyes for the signs of his love all about us and within us so that we too may travel on the road of love and grace. May we be the sign that the hurting world needs.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist, in person and online, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

• Jeremiah 31:7-14
• Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
• Matthew 2:1-12
• Psalm 84 or 84:1-8