Prayer 4035: Inspired by Psalm 42:1-2, 8

(Inspired by Psalm 42:1-2, 8)

As the deer longs for the water brooks,
and searches for her food within the woods,
so too we hunger and thirst for you, O God our Sustainer.

Your life-giving word
nourishes our souls:
sweeter than honey on the tongue
are your steadfast lovingkindness and mercy,
O Shepherd of Our Souls.

Trusting in your faithfulness and care,
may we release all the hurts and weights
that draw us from you and each other,
and lift up a prayer always to the God of Our Life.

Shine the light of your countenance
upon all whose spirits or strength is faltering, O Holy One,
and give your angels charge
over those for whom we pray.

Amen.

(Image: A herd of New Zealand deer on a farm on the South Island, December, 2023)

Worthy Weeds: Speaking to the Soul, July 20, 2023

Sometimes, the worthiness of a weed is in the eye of the beholder. In the lat few years, some farmers, alive to the extreme stress that many pollinating creatures are under, have begun planting the margins of their fields with clover, ox-eye daisies, sorrel—even vetch on the verge! Queen Anne’s lace, which sounds fancy but is actually wild carrot. Taking up valuable farmland! Sixty years ago, this would have been akin to heresy of the hippy-dippiest sort.

But these “weeds” attract pollinators—which in turn, helps the crop to grow, not just in one particular field, but all around. Maybe this is a modern admonition to do as Jesus advises us, to let the weeds grow up among the wheat in Matthew 13:24-30,36-43.

As conditions in our environment get more and more extreme climatologically, weeds are experiencing a rehabilitation of sorts, which makes the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew’s gospel shine with new possibility. What if this isn’t a story about judgment and flames, but a story of redemption, of allowing time and grace to sort things out where we rush in to condemn?

I remember I was sitting in my car one morning, about ten years ago, reading. In between pages I would watch my daughter's field hockey practice. They played in a desiccated brown field full of crispy grass and weeds—even though every boys’ team was gallivanting on crisply tended fields, the girls were shunted a half mile away, not even on school property, and yet the school claimed equivalency under Title IX. Every time I sat near this field watching these girls practice, I felt a sprout of annoyance break through the drought-fired clay of my heart.

The day before, a man half-heartedly, like a somnambulist, mowed this alleged field, even though the grass had remained in a state of stasis due to the extremely dry conditions of that summer. This field seemed to be in suspended animation, but instead of Sleeping Beauty, it was Sleeping Ugly.

There were tiny oases of green visible here and there across the burnt-ochre and sienna expanse, but those were weeds. It's always that way. When the *stuff* goes down, it's the weeds that thrive. It often seems like that with people, too. I don't know about you, but sometimes that just drives me crazy, especially if I have forgotten the weediness of my own natur, and put on airs that I might be more of a hothouse flower.

As I mused, desultorily, my eyes scanned the thatch patches that prickled, sea-urchin-like, over the ground-- and saw one small, shocking flash of color jump out from the landscape. There was a tiny yelp of purple hanging low among the clumps of fescue and thatch. A fluted flower-- belonging, yes, to some weed.

What could be more unlikely than beauty in such sere surroundings? What could be more stubborn than this small flower determined to bloom just here regardless of its improbability? What else could remind me that even in the most drab and dingy places there is grace and beauty if only we open our eyes?

And suddenly the weed was transformed into a bit of grace, a call for second chances.

In other words, a miracle.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul for July 20, 2023.

Sowing Hope: Speaking to the Soul, July 13, 2023

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-25

In the woods a woodpecker has discovered a pine
filled with insects like a pinata,
and has already worked a pattern of holes
like the brogues on a pair of wingtip shoes, hammering
a spiraling, pointillist tale of his search for sustenance,
his drumroll also warning me
that this tree may not be long for this world.
But still, this is the way of things,
and this is where I go to feel
the peace
and the industry
of wild things.

This is where things grow
mostly despite me
rather than because of me.

To be a gardener or a farmer
is to trade in hope,
to refuse to give up
even when the odds for abundant growth seem long.

Nonetheless here’s growth,
and anticipation,
and hope
in each new sprout from the ground.

Sow in hope; reap in care:
the instruction manual
for farming and ministry.

There is more than simply science
or even art
in how hearts, sometimes scarred from abuse or neglect,
can nonetheless be transformed
into the soil for new growth in love.

Sure, some seed may feed the birds--
but doesn’t God provide there as well?
Plant anyway, yes—
open to receive the gospel in faithfulness,
in response to the promise
that the gospel will bear fruit
even in the clayest soil of the healing human heart.

God famously works in clay, too.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on July 13, 2023.

Home Among the Weeds: Speaking to the Soul May 25, 2023

At our former home

my beloved disliked
our Rose of Sharon trees—
he likened them to weeds.

Yet I am convinced
that it is always the “weeds”
that provide the most refuge
without asking anything in return.

In five minutes,
I watched six hummingbirds
zoom around the blossoms
as they jockeyed for a chance
at each unfurling blossom.

I watched cardinals
and Carolina wrens fight
over the ripening grape clusters
from the vine
that is supported by not one but two trees
along our fence.

I watched butterflies—
humble little skippers,
but also hairstreaks, fritillaries,
swallowtails,
and oh my God, even a monarch,
once so ubiquitous
but now almost as surprising to see
as a Bengal tiger.

Even on my deck I could hear
the thrum of probably thirty bumble bees
hovering like tugboats from blossom to bloom,
staying aloft
only God knows how.

We owe our lives
to the “weeds” of this world,
to their humble welcome
and hospitality,
anchoring the chain of life.

Is that not beautiful?

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on May 25, 2023.

Jesus the Gardener- Sermon for Easter A, April 9, 2023

You know, Easter is one of the few religious holidays that has crossed over into the secular calendar, even for folks that are not religious. Maybe that’s thanks to the candy companies, who’ve got tons of chocolate bunnies to sell and Cadbury Crème Eggs and let us, my friends never forget the visceral response those marshmallow-and-sugar-armored neon things called Peeps evoke in just about everyone. Seriously, love them or find them revolting. No middle ground there. Easter in many people’s minds is all about the pastel colors, tulips and lilies, the Easter Bunny, and maybe a new outfit or a new hat, and about gathering family around Easter dinner.

Speaking of food, around which ALL great American holidays orbit, if you try to go out to eat today, good luck, by the way—Easter brunch smorgasbords are a huge money-maker for restaurants. As long as you already have reservations, that is. I’m too wiped out for that kind of death match at the prime rib station, myself. I would probably fall asleep in my twice-whipped potatoes.

We’ve been seeing plastic Easter eggs and Easter candy in the candy aisle in the drug store for 7 weeks now—it came out just as soon as the Valentine’s candy was reduced to half off on February 15. And tomorrow, it will all be gone. The candy makers will have to wait until Labor Day to put up their Halloween displays. People will resume their lives as if Easter is over.

But it is not. For Christians in liturgical traditions such as ours know that Easter is a season—lasting during the Great 50 Days until Pentecost. But there’s a secret: when you examine what we really believe in the Episcopal Church, Easter is not just a season. It is an ongoing, ever-present reality.

Following in the teaching of the great scholar St. Augustine, we are an Easter people in the Episcopal Church. One Easter Sunday long ago, he preached “We are an Easter people, and Alleluia is our hymn of praise!”

Being an Easter People means, first of all, being a people of resurrection. We are a people who know that eternal life begins right here, right now, in living a life of faith and discipleship. We do not simply await the resurrection of the dead that some people fixate on. We are called to resurrection because resurrection is about LIFE, not what happens to us when we die. Contrary to what some goateed, head-bobbing TV preachers say, Jesus did not simply die for us to take away our sins. Jesus rose victorious from the grave to remind us that we are a new creation in Christ. Being an Easter people means LIVING out our faith in Jesus as our Savior by imitating him. That’s why we are ever hearing scripture through new ears and seeing it through new lenses. Jesus’s redeeming work in the world is not confined to the stories and verses in the Bible. Jesus is alive and asks to reign in our hearts and lives right now. God is still speaking to us right now. The Holy Spirit is still moving right now.

And we need that presence more than ever, regardless of what newspapers say about the death of the Church. Because we are an Easter people—living in a Good Friday world, as the writer Anne Lamott famously noted, quoting Barbara Johnson(1). She wrote those words at a time of the Iraq War, and she was despairing over all the crises that loomed over us just like crises that loom over us now. And so she sought comfort in simple things.

She wrote: “I am going to try to pay attention to the spring, and look up at the hectic trees. Amid the smashing and crashing and terrible silences, the trees are in blossom, and it’s soft and warm and bright. I am going to close my eyes and listen. During the children’s sermon last Sunday, the pastor asked the kids to close their eyes for a moment—to give themselves a time-out—and then asked them what they had heard. They heard birds, and radios, dogs barking, cars, and one boy said, “I hear the water at the edge of things.” I am going to listen for the water at the edge of things today”(2).

Those words resonated with me, tree-hugger that I am. And they resonate with the Easter message we Easter people just heard a few moments ago.

Anglican biblical scholar, and bishop N. T. Wright is clear: Easter Day is not the happy ending to the long dreary Lenten slog of Jesus’s rejection, trial, lingering execution and death. No, he says, “Easter is the start of something. It isn’t the ending. It is the beginning of the new creation which has been made possible by the overcoming of the forces of corruption and decay in the death of Jesus…. In the New Testament we find a very different picture. We do not find a ‘life after death’ in heaven, but a ‘life after “life after death”’, a newly embodied life in a newly reconstituted creation. And we see Jesus’ resurrection, not as the ‘happy ending’ after the crucifixion – though to be sure it functions like that at a fairly trivial level – but as the launching of nothing less than new creation itself (3)."

Perhaps that is why I want to direct your attention back to a detail in our gospel passage we just heard. Mary Magdalene approaches the tomb early that morning. She is still in that Good Friday world—the main reason you approach a tomb is to remember the person who is gone. But when she gets there, she finds the tomb empty. Hoe much more must that have devastated her—she has lost her beloved friend and teacher, and now she doesn’t even have the closure of knowing where his body is. She runs to tell the male apostles, and then she returns, weeping. It is there that she is confronted by two angels, who ask her why she is crying. As she is answering, she turns around and sees Jesus. But she doesn’t recognize him. Instead, she thinks he is the gardener.

Lavinia Kunstdruck, Noli Me Tangere, 1581

People throughout the ages have wondered WHY her mind immediately jumped to the category “gardener” when she saw Jesus. I mean, there’s a little bit of comic relief provided here in what is otherwise a heart-breaking scene, even if you know how it’s going to turn to joy in about two minutes, as we do.

Mary Magdalene’s confusion has been a rich source for artists and poets throughout the ages. Seriously-- type “Jesus as gardener” into google images, and you will probably be stunned at all the ways this scene is represented. Some just show Jesus and Mary Magdalene in a lush landscape. Other artists go all in, and depict Jesus holding a spade or a hoe, and some, like Rembrandt, even show him wearing a floppy hat. 

Michael Cook, Noli Me Tangere, from A Derbyshire Passion Stations of the Cross, Derby Cathedral, 2016

Janpeter Muilwijk, New Gardener, 2017

Some have tried to find a practical explanation for Mary’s confusion. After all, Jesus has shed his burial clothes and his other clothes were stripped from him and divvied up when people gambled for them, so maybe he borrowed the gardeners spare pare of gardening clothes so he wouldn’t be strolling around in his altogether. Modern versions even sometimes show him in overalls.

The painting on our bulletin cover is one of the most recent versions I could find, painted in the midst of the pandemic in 2021 by Joel Briggs. In his version, we don’t see Mary Magdalene, but we see Jesus with a shiny shovel over his right shoulder, standing in a denuded swamp, trees stripped bare and snapped off as if an F5 tornado had just barreled through. And yet, look over Jesus’s shoulder and there in the cerulean sky is a rainbow. A dove perches on the shovel handle, with an olive branch in its mouth. And Jesus holds a seedling in his left hand, where a king holds the orb that is a sign of his power over the entire earth. The wounds of his crucifixion are visible on his wrist and his side. Off in the distance at his elbow there is rain from the thunderheads on the horizon.

As observers standing in front of Jesus in the midst of a wrecked landscape, both physical and spiritual, wrecked by our own actions and inactions, we hear echoes not just of the destruction of Good Friday but also of the story of the loss of the Garden of Eden, of Noah’s ark coming to rest on the sodden earth after the flood waters have receded. We would be fools if we do not also see a warning about rising sea levels and our changing climate, of polar ice thinning and disappearing and weather becoming ever more extreme with each passing month that we do nothing.

Yet, this gardener Jesus looks forward confidently, ready to start anew—and expecting US to help him. This is not the false version of God, the Santa-Claus-God, The Wish-Fulfilling-Genie -God that waves a magic wand and fixes things for us that we don’t want to do ourselves. This is the God who rolls up their sleeves and reminds us that we were created in God’s image to share in God’s work of healing and compassion, most of all.

Perhaps, Mary Magdalene sees Jesus as a gardener because that is exactly what he is. The Risen Jesus is, and always has been, the messenger and inaugurator of a new creation, a return to the garden. And the first garden he asks to tend and care for is right inside of us—right here in our own hearts. The love of God that Jesus teaches us is the fertile soil in our hearts that Christ can bring to bloom—if we welcome him in. And then we can begin the work of reconciliation and healing of this world. Rather than Jesus’s death and resurrection leading us as his followers to a rejection of this world in favor of simply waiting it out until we go to heaven, the risen Christ reminds us that eternal life is NOW, not later.

Wlodzimierz Kohut, Jesus the Good Gardener, 2015

The poet Andrew Hudgins imagines this scene in his poem “Christ as a Gardener:”

The boxwoods planted in the park spell LIVE.
I never noticed it until they died.
Before, the entwined green had smudged the word
unreadable. And when they take their own advice
again – come spring, come Easter – no one will know
a word is buried in the leaves. I love the way
that Mary thought her resurrected Lord
a gardener. It wasn’t just the broad-brimmed hat
and muddy robe that fooled her: he was that changed.
He looks across the unturned field, the riot
Of unscythed grass, the smattering of wildflowers.
Before he can stop himself, he’s on his knees.
He roots up stubborn weeds, pinches the suckers,
deciding order here – what lives, what dies,
and how. But it goes deeper even than that.
His hands burn and his bare feet smolder. He longs
To lie down inside the long, dew-moist furrows
and press his pierced side and his broken forehead
into the dirt. But he’s already done it –
passed through one death and out the other side.
He laughs. He kicks his bright spade in the earth
and turns it over. Spring flashes by, then harvest.
Beneath his feet, seeds dance into the air.
They rise, and he, not noticing, ascends
on midair steppingstones of dandelion,
of milkweed, thistle, cattail, and goldenrod.(4)

A garden is a place of care, of craft, of ongoing cycles of life and greening and renewal. It is a place where resurrection is practiced daily, a collaboration between human and earth that reminds us of the blessing of life and abundance that is the heart of God’s dream for us. Resurrection is not an event, it is a way of true life. In the garden, we remember the words of Henry David Thoreau, heaven is beneath our feet. Heaven is not “God’s space” and the Earth “our space.”(5) Jesus told us repeatedly that the kingdom of God—heaven—is right here, right now, among those who are an Easter people, a people who believe in the power of resurrection against the powers that tell us we are helpless to keep us from rising up and demanding true justice, grace, and mercy to reign instead.

The Romans treated Jesus and all those whom it executed and oppressed as disposable, and such is the way of all tyrants even in our own time. The world we inhabit right now has a tendency to do the same to both people and this planet and everything on it. The heart of Jesus’s message is exactly the opposite-- that no one and no thing are disposable. God has renewed creation in Christ—and ever calls us to be partners in God’s holy work of restoration, reconciliation, and healing. That is the heart of Jesus’s good news from the time of his birth through his passion and resurrection, through his calling to us today.

Jesus’s resurrection is ours too. We have been placed in a garden—the only place in the entire universe that we are sure can support us and our children and all the other living things that are so gloriously and wondrously made. Jesus calls us to die to short-term thinking and instead embrace the power of resurrection in our relationship with God, with each other, and with this beautiful planet which God ever calls “good.” All these relationships call out for us to commit to a not just a season but a lifetime committed to revival, to living out the power of resurrection. For now. For good.

Our loving gardener, Jesus Christ, has planted us, tended us, and cares for us with tenderness. Let us renew our commitment to be an Easter people, resurrected, blooming and beautifying the places we are planted, and alive with new growth. Alleluia! Christ is risen! Let us rise with him, and get to work restoring the garden.


Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist on the Day of Resurrection, April 9, 2023, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Acts 10:34-43

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 

Colossians 3:1-4

John 20:1-18

Citations:

1) Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, 140. Kindle edition.

2) Lamott, Plan B, 144.

3) N. T. Wright, “Resurrection and the Renewal of Creation,” lecture at Baylor University, Nov. 16, 2018), available here as a pdf or also available on YouTube here.

4) Andrew Hudgins, from The Never-Ending, 1991.

5) Wright, "Resurrection," see above.

The Gardener Asks for Wonder: Speaking to the Soul, August 18, 2022

 

“Never once in my life did I ask God 
for success or wisdom or power or fame.
I asked for wonder, 

and he gave it to me.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

Knee-deep in a prie-dieu of compost,
I asked for wonder,
and pledged my attention,
hoping to lose
thought of myself
in the prayer of planting (for
both are acts of hope)—

seedlings sliding like prayer beads
through my hands what was once
a ditch-side rogue’s gallery elevated
to rockstar status in repair of the Earth:
Joe Pye weed, bergamot, Indian
blanket, rue, aster, true blue
wild indigo, lead plant, blazing star,
columbine, Queen Anne’s lace, 
even lowly clover and thistle.
Turn, turn, turn; the time to pluck up is gone;
the time to plant our purpose under heaven.

To feel the thrum of life beneath my feet,
human rooted in humus
as in the beginning--
almost like stumbling across
God perambulating in an evening garden
leaving behind dewy footprints fresh from bestriding
the sea, pacing off its measure in refutation of Job;

To hear the ethereal
music of hillside pine needle overhead
propelled by wind, the choir 
of hummingbird and song sparrow bobbing
on risers of redbud to the overture of offstage thunder.

But now it has
come down to this:

God answers through
a single brave
monarch butterfly
fluttering by, the first
of the season (enticed by
suburban crewcut

lawns surrendered
and sacrificed as altars 
to milkweed), and by the once-
quotidian honeybee delicately
and now heroically paying homage,
sending salvations of salvia and soybeans nodding, merely
feeding a planet…

and we rejoice at the sight, remembering
when we fools thought them 
common
as a comma.

Here is our hope on the wing.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 18, 2022.

Forest Sonnet, Whidbey Island: Speaking to the Soul for August 11, 2022

(For a friend in grief,
for the assurance of resurrection )

 

 

Now, no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
No mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for."
     --from “Spring and Fall,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins



Here Sorrow springs and newborn Spring sorrows;
Their grief resolves in fiddleheads tomorrow.
The mournful poet sees the greening leaf
and vaults ahead to autumn's parting grief....

An anticipatory grief, so-called.
Here last year's leaves lie trodden, branch scraped-bald
From winter's remnant grip. But see, as Spring
Flushes first rosy throat, as thrushes sing

God's glory! Still, larks chirruping, skimming
The winds arise from southern vales, brimming
Their blessings upon the restive, waking Earth.
The forest floor will testify that birth

Sings from subsidence, converting death
God's gravid Spirit-- resurrection's breath.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 11, 2022.

Prayer 3334: On the First Full Day of Spring

O God,
as Earth turns in wakefulness
from the slumber of winter
to the rising dawn of spring,
as geese arrow southward overhead,
we too turn our thoughts to home,
the sunlit home we offer us in your kingdom.

Help us gather
beneath your shining countenance.

Help us sing out your love;
let halting harmonies
become intricate tapestries of grateful praise,
for your love is steadfast and true.

May we release the stones of our cares
in the deep well of your abundant grace,
casting all our burdens
upon the promise of your mercy and care.
Teach us to walk in paths of compassion
to share from the bounty we have received
of charity, forgiveness, and holy wisdom.

O God,
cast your finest net beneath our seeking hearts
that we may be gathered when our way turns to wandering
as we long to be drawn
within the sheltering wing of your loving-kindness,
and extend your sheltering hand
beneath those for whom we pray.

Amen.

The Best Seed: Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 6B

In the week that I have spent here on the Mountain at Sewanee, I've only had a few moments to walk among the trails that surround the domain. I’ve yet to get to their working farm, complete with chickens and goats, but that is on my list. But the forests here surround the School of Theology, which is on the periphery of campus.

These forests did not get here through human intervention (although they could certainly disappear that way). They got here through the processes of nature working as God created them. The seed falls to the ground, or even gets scattered by birds or deer. Those that fall where the conditions are right sprout. Some of those sprouts will get eaten, or fail to thrive, but that’s a pessimistic way to look at it.

Instead, we look at the forest, and we see the signs of God’s bounty and care for creation everywhere. And here’s a miracle: Each one of these trees started out as just a small seed! Some of them were here before we were born, and some of them will be here long after we are gone. 

Their growth is automatic—especially if we humans get out of the way. If we don’t try to “manage” the forest, or drive off the full range of creatures that keep a forest healthy, or pull out the herbicides and start blasting away at the plants that we term “weeds.” And our gospel today reminds us, that what one being sneers at as a weed, like the mustard seed, can be another being’s precious home, like those birds that gather in the branches after that mustard seed surprises everyone by becoming not just a bush, but a habitat.

Working in gardens all my life taught me one thing, though: If you like control, growing plants is NOT for you. There is way too much that can go wrong, even if you start from potted plants rather than from seed. The smallest thing can spell disaster as a plant moves from seed to maturity: too much rain. Too little rain. A late freeze. A marauding squirrel or grazing deer. Grubs. Mites. Moles, Gophers. Fungus. black rot. Drought. Hail. Even tornadoes.

That's why I admire the farmer in the first parable at the beginning of our gospel today. She tends to the parts that she can control, and she relaxes about the parts that she can't. She sows the seed, trusting that some of it at least will produce. And then she goes to sleep. That right there is a great big bit of wisdom: after you've done your work, take a nap.

But more importantly, she trusts God enough to let God do God’s miraculous magic that we can especially see all around us in creation. God makes the seeds sprout—not us. The fully grown wheat or the tree or the apple—it’s all hidden there, sleeping, waiting in potentiality in every seed that falls to the ground. Think of how miraculous—how gracious—that is!

Jesus tells us that the reign of God, and our role in it, is like this: God gives us the seed. Unless we scatter it, nothing will happen. So do it. Share the word of God in your words, yes, but especially in your actions—the hardest thing of all actually, because that requires that we LIVE by God’s values of love and faithfulness, and that means that it’s not just a matter of saying you’re a Christian—it’s a matter of living like Jesus, which is much harder.

Jesus gives us that seed to scatter. So that IS an important part of our role, and it often happens best when we are unaware that we are doing it—when people are watching us out in our daily lives.

But then, trust in the goodness and fertility of that seed and soil. Trust that God has the power to make that seed sprout and grow, and don’t worry too much about how it’s going to actually happen. You can’t manage the time, you can’t manage the season. No matter what, it’s not OUR timeline—we don’t have control over when the sprouting or the growing or the harvest time will come. As we’ve been through this time of pandemic, that’s an especially precious and important reminder, as we all grow impatient. We’ve learned to scatter seed in new ways here at St. Martin’s. Some of the best ways have been just by doing little things to show our love for others. Of course, there has been loss as well as growth. Some members have moved on. Some new people have come. So the seed keeps on growing wherever it will.

Yes, it’s important to do our part in scattering that seed. But Jesus tells this story of a bountiful harvest to a hungry people, and that is ABSOLUTELY good news. We know that the world around us is tired of the hothouse tomatoes that too much of modern Christianity offers them. They look so red and ripe—but they taste like cardboard. They don’t really nourish the longing within for the TASTE of goodness that comes from the Earth at God’s design.

But when the time of harvest comes, the people will be fed, and fed abundantly. For those who listened to Jesus’s story shouted from the boat on the sea, who KNEW what hunger was, who knew how unpredictable and marginal working the poor soil of Judea could be, Jesus’s words spun out a vision of hope and abundance that welled up joyously. For the struggling community for whom Mark’s gospel was written—small, persecuted, marginalized—they LONGED for the harvest that would signify God’s grace and abundance. And in our own time, right now, after months and months of fear and loss, aren’t we just as hungry for hope as they were?

God promises us the very best seed, asks us to scatter it, and then have faith and trust in the sprouting.

As I thought about this, I remembered, a charming little comedy that came out when I was a kid. It was called “Oh, God!” In the story, a supermarket manager named Larry, played by the musician John Denver, gets chosen by God, played by comedian George Burns, to spread a message of hope.

Larry is not a religious man, but God keeps gently appearing to him in various guises. And finally, although reluctant, he eventually does begin to share that God has spoken to him. Larry becomes the butt of jokes nationwide. The rush is on to disprove the story Larry tells. Theologians lock him in a room with a stack of questions in Aramaic—but God appears as room service and gives him the answers. Then, at God’s urging, Larry denounces a popular preacher as a fraud, and gets sued. In court, Larry attempts to prove the existence of God. Larry calls God to the witness stand, but nothing happens. Accused of pulling some kind of trick, Larry defends himself by arguing that, since everyone in court actually felt a bit of hope at the idea of God making an appearance, whether they could prove he appeared or not, that God deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Then God appears and takes the witness stand. He performs miracles—even disappearing right before everyone’s startled eyes. His voice delivers a final message: “It can work. If you find it hard to believe in Me, maybe it will help to know that I believe in you”

Later no proof of remains afterward of God’s being there.

Larry loses his job, and wonders what it all was for?

A few days later, he is driving down the street when he hears a pay phone ringing. He stops and gets out to answer it, and it’s God, suddenly standing right behind him dressed for a safari.

God models his safari outfit and does a turn. “How do you like it? I'm going on a trip to spend a little time with animals. I like animals, and sometimes I don't spend enough time with them.”

Larry sighs. “We failed, didn’t we?”

God acts shocked. “What are you talking? We did terrific! I gave a message of encouragement-- you passed it along. Now, we’ll see. You did good. We both did good. We’re covered!

Larry is still unsure. “Do you think anybody got the message?”

“You think we have enough apples in the world?” God asks

Larry is confused. “Apples?”

God nods. “We got all the apples we need. You’re Johnny Appleseed-- you drop a few seeds, and you move along. If the seeds are good, they take root. I gave you great seeds—the best!”

And then God reassures Larry once more, and disappears. Larry is left standing, smiling.

God has given us the best seed—we just have to trust enough in God to welcome that seed into our hearts and into our lives, and let it grow—to change us and make us bountiful in grace, in forgiveness, in love. Trust in the seed, and let the growing come naturally, but with hope and faith. Trust in God, knowing that God believes in us. And let the abundance sprout up within us.

Amen.

Preached for the 10:30 am online Eucharist from St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, recorded and broadcast from the Chapel of the Apostles and forests of Sewanee, Tennessee.

Readings:

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-10,[11-13],14-17
Mark 4:26-34

Prayer 3009

The sun rises
and Earth rings out its joy and praise:
come, let us join in the song to our Creator.
We rise from our beds
with a prayer in our hearts:
that this day be holy,
and that we live in amity with each other. 

Bless and keep us, Lord Christ,
secure in your embrace
and strengthened by your gospel of compassion.
Blessed Jesus,
you know the worries and cares
we bear in our hearts:
we thank You for walking beside us,
your arm around us. 

Ease our fears,
that we may be generous to strangers
and compassionate to those in need or distress.
Pour out thy healing and comfort
to all who suffer any grief, pain, or anxiety,
O Eternal One,
especially those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer, Day 3007: For Earth Day

Creator of the Universe,
who is making Heaven and Earth,
let all that lives tell out your glory.

Rocks and hills,
ocean depths and craggy peaks,
the wind that caresses them,
all join to sing out your Holy Name.

You planted your holy song, O Lord,
in laughing brook and rambling river
fed by rain before time.

Murmuring grass and field of wheat
whisper “Alleluia!”
as the beauty of the Lord passes by.

Thunder and rain, summer sun and shadow
work together with soil and seed
to prepare a table in the wilderness by your will.

The works of your Hand, O Mighty One,
testify to your steadfast kindness and mercy:
You crown all you see as good.

Forgive us for our trespasses against each other,
and against the Earth, our mother,
for seeking to hoard her riches
and denying her integrity.

May we walk gently upon this Earth,
that bears us like a chariot through space,
upheld by your wondrous Love.

May we care for all creation,
being dedicated and blessed by You,
called to serve its renewal and guard its unity.

By the power of the Holy Spirit,
she that moved over the waters of creation,
the waters of birth and life,
renew and recreate in us
a reverence for the Earth and all her inhabitants.

Lord Christ, center us in your wisdom,
and pour out your healing
over all we remember before You.

Amen.

Prayer 2840: Like a high-flying bird

Like a high-flying bird,
like a hawk upon a current,
let my soul arise on wings of hope
to You, my God and Savior.

Like a dawn sparrow
let me sing out my praise
for all the blessings and opportunities
of the coming day,
O Holy One.

Like the flash of a cardinal

as it hops among branches,

let me give joy and bring wonder

to someone today, O Savior.

Bring us within the bounds of your mercy,
Lord Jesus, we pray,
and gather us to you,
as a mother hen guard her nest:
hold us within your hands,
and nurture us in wisdom
that we may grow stronger in faith.

Give us courage
in the face of our trials and uncertainties,
O Rock and Redeemer,
and let your Spirit brood over us
and create within us clean hearts
to strengthen us to work and praise this day.

Draw within the bounds of your mercy, O God,
all those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2762

 

Most Merciful God,

who is creating the heavens and earth,
I sing a song of praise and gratitude
for all the wonders of your hand.

For the electric flash of a bluebird
racing from redbud to hackberry,
the swoop of the martin over a pond at dusk,
and the mockingbird standing sentinel on the rooftop,
Creating God, I give You praise.

For the rasp of cicada,
the swooping trill of the wood thrush,
and the hammering percussion of the woodpecker,
Creating God, I give You praise.

For the tumble of black swallowtails on summer phlox,
the sparkle of dragonfly wings,
and the industry of the bee on Queen Anne's lace,
Creating God, I give You praise.

For the spiced scent of fallen leaves
subsiding into earth,
and the greening tang of hedge-apple,
Creating God, I give You praise.

For the sinuous branches of this bur oak,
and the curling bark of the river birch,
Creating God, I give You praise.

Holy One, Ground and Source of All Being,
You adorn the Earth with beauty
and sustain us by your abundant grace and tender love.
Bear us within your embrace this day,
that we remember our kinship within creation,
and dependence upon this good Earth,
that even now is bearing us through space.

Plant your peace and compassion within our hearts,
O Lord of Life,
and make your face to shine upon all for whom we pray

Prayer 2739: In Gratitude for the Earth

O Creating, Sustaining God,
your mercy gently drops upon us like a cooling rain,
and your grace spreads before us in beauty,
like the flower-dappled resplendence of a summer field.
We lay our hearts before You,
and give you thanks and praise.

Awaken us to a deeper devotion to You,
an abiding commitment
o the care and love of each other
in your Name and for your glory.
Teach us to walk gently and mindfully upon this Earth
which You have placed as a foundation
for all we do,
to delight in wonder at its beauty,
and to protect it as your handiwork and gift.

May our voices join with the sparrow and thrush
to sing out our joy in your goodness and love,
in the harmony and mutuality
You have woven into the fabric of creation,
in the warp and weft of the web of life that supports us.

For the sake of our Savior and Redeemer,
accept these prayers and prayers,
O God Most High,
and pour out the oil of blessing
upon all those for whom we pray.


Amen.

The Essential Church: Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension, year A

One of the things I do to prepare for worship each week is spend the week in conversation with our texts for the following Sunday. Early in the week, I normally begin to look at artwork, listen to music, and read poetry that touches upon the upcoming readings. Over the years I have gathered quite a collection of these items.

One of my favorite, strangest images I have for the Feast of the Ascension is one a friend of mine shared from a shrine on the east coast of England in Norfolk. The backstory to the image is this. In 1061, a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a local nobleman, and a shrine was soon built there, and became a major pilgrimage site in all of Europe. After Henry VIII’s break from Rome, the shrine was demolished, but was later restored when the Anglo-Catholic movement was launched within the Church of England in the 19th century, Anglican veneration of Mary became popular again. In the 1920s, the Anglican priest who oversaw the Anglican parish in the town built an Anglican shrine to Mary and included a chapel devoted to the Ascension of our Lord.

Rather than depict the scene with a painting or a statue, on the ceiling over the altar there is a gilded piece of art that depicts two pierces feet and the hem of a golden robe ascending into the clouds overhead. This depiction is certainly unique. For as often as it makes me laugh, this sculpture also comforts me. It’s a reminder of the fact that Jesus is still with us, even after the Ascension, just not always in a way we might expect. 

It’s a funny thing that the ascension of Jesus gets little descriptive mention in the gospels—and in fact the best description we have is in the Acts of the Apostles, believed to have been written by the same person who wrote Luke’s gospel. As you recall, Luke and Acts work together as a whole, and they are both believed to have been written by the same author, whom we will call Luke. Although Easter lasts 50 days, there is a notable event at day 40—the Ascension of the Lord. It is traditionally observed on a Thursday; this year, that was May 21, even though the celebration of this event is usually moved to the following Sunday as we are doing. Then ten days after that Thursday, next Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, which has two overlapping events associated with it as we see in Acts: first, it is the Jewish Festival of Weeks, or Shavuot, a harvest festival, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples as foretold in our reading today.

After 40 days of explaining to the disciples, of them hearing Jesus constantly reminding them that he is leaving them but comforting them with the promise of the Holy Spirit, the disciples still have questions—kind of like an audience that keeps calling for encores to keep the concert going just a little longer. Jesus has spent an additional 40 days after his resurrection explaining to the disciples what is essential. And once again, the disciples miss, spectacularly, understanding what that means. Just like we do all these years later.

The thing they ask him-- again-- is whether he is going to finally re-establish the independent monarchy to this tiny country groaning under the burden of yet another occupying army. They try to turn Jesus into a partisan hack. Even after all this time, they cannot resist trying to get Jesus to be the warrior king they had been waiting for, asking him to restore the monarchy to Israel. The oppression that Israel has endured throughout most of its history—save for the brief moment of the reigns of David and his son Solomon, frankly—is something they always believed would be ended with the coming of the Messiah.

Yet forgotten within the request for a king is the particularity of the request. When Israel first asked for a king, their prophet warned them that the only king and allegiance they needed was God, and that in choosing a human king, they were choosing to be oppressed by a strong man rather than be led by God into true freedom and equality. Yet they insisted—and it didn’t turn out too well. If you read between the lines, you see that even by Solomon’s reign, for all his supposed glory and wisdom, the people were being deprived of the right to their own labor as the king sought ever grander wars and palaces to showcase his own vanity.

The other problem with making Jesus a national king is that they are still passively waiting for Jesus to do things rather than understand that Jesus is calling them to their work as disciples. Once again, Jesus has to remind them that there is something more important that they will be empowered to do: to be “baptized with the Holy Spirit” and then BUILD the kingdom of God by “being my witnesses… to the ends of the earth”. They are not to wait for God to transform the world. THEY are God’s hands to transform the world. The disciples are given the power. The disciples will have the ability to utilize that power and will need to be willing to take risks to fulfill that commission.

And we are the disciples today, as member of Christ’s body in the world- the Church. As the Church, Christ is with us and we are in Christ, as we were reminded last week in our gospel reading. They are reminded by two angelic figures not to stand around all day gawking but to get to it (a literal paraphrase of v.11). This is our essential nature as the Church. It is our charge and reason for existence. Not worship for our own sakes. But discipleship and action for the sake of the world. 

Jesus’s response to them reminds them that he is the Savior of the entire world, not just for Israel. Disciples of Jesus are called to let go of trying to make a God a tiny, nationalistic God. Instead, they—and we—are called to our own work, making disciples of every nation not through force of arms but through force of faith, hope, charity, and love, bearing witness through the power of being a Spirit-filled people. When Jesus ascends, he breaks free of nationalist expectations. When he ascends, the disciples are then empowered to carry his message to Israel and beyond.

Jesus doesn’t sit at the right hand of God as the representative of one nation. The incarnation is meant to remind us that these human-made boundaries only serve to divide us. It is an important reminder to us, especially on this Memorial Day weekend that aggressions against these human-made boundaries, and the jealousies, oppressions, and tyrannies they encourage, and especially the wars they foster, unfortunately lead to death and destruction.

The Lord of Life is not the property of any one nation or people, but is a universal Savior one who gathers all the nations of the world not through force of arms or conquest but through love, compassion, and wisdom—to an ethos of sharing rather than hoarding. The reign of Israel is restored through Jesus via their gift of the Messiah to the world, but not as a conquering king riding at the head of armies or empires. The kingdom of God is never directed at granting an advantage to any one people or nation. Attempting to make God a national symbol—or worse, setting God lower in our hearts than divisions we make for ourselves in terms of our devotion. As Calvin noted, Jesus reigns over all creation, to overcome both the distance between us and God and between each other.

As the disciples watch Jesus ascending, we see a parallel scene from Easter morning. Then too, in Luke’s retelling, two angels in dazzling white appeared, and asked the disciples gathered why they are looking in the wrong direction for the wrong thing. Jesus is not simply to be gazed at and adored. They are not to stand there dreading his absence, but look amongst each other and see Jesus in each and every face they see—to see Jesus everywhere. Not just among the “good” or the “righteous,” but among the lost, the forsaken, and the fallen as well.

The repeating of this symbolism reminds us of the hope of Easter enduring. Even after Jesus’ embodied time on earth ends, his embodiment continues, uniting us with God as much as we are united with each other, loving as God calls us to love, without barriers of the heart. And in this time of pandemic, the only barriers God calls us to maintain are those of the masks we wear to protect those around us, to the barrier of self-control and love of other that puts limits on our own selfishness and use of others as tools for our own petty wants and desires.

The early disciples had no desire to start an institution like the Church. They wouldn’t have started one, either, if they had continued to stand around, mouths agape, staring up into the glory of heaven revealed as Jesus ascends. And indeed, the early disciples after the ascension were certain that Jesus was going to be back within their lifetimes—you see that hope reflected in the earliest Christian writing we do have from St. Paul. That’s probably why they didn’t bother writing down any of their first-hand accounts of Jesus in any formal way. The four gospel accounts that were selected for the biblical canon, plus the book of Acts written by the same person who wrote what we call Luke’s gospel, were written by necessity as the generation of witnesses passed away.

And even today, we get people who believe that there are things that THEY can do to cause the second coming of Jesus. And yet, the reign of God was inaugurated by Jesus’s coming to earth and taking on human flesh calls for us to cast aside our support for anyone who calls us to do things that would hurt others, even as accidental casualties.

Jesus is not a possession or a talisman. We who claim Jesus as our Savior cannot clasp him only to ourselves as a personal possession any more than we can hold water in our hands. Just like love, we only get more Jesus by sharing his good news and his invitation to wholeness with others.

There’s been a lot of talk about “the Church” in the news, especially this week, as some of our political leaders have been weighing in on whether worship services in person should resume immediately. And so, it got me to thinking about how we were going to conduct worship this week, while I am down here in Tulsa with my family caring for my mom after her stroke last week. I haven’t been able to be outside much, and so I thought this would be a good opportunity to remind ourselves that worship doesn’t only take place in buildings.

And what a blessing that is—even in this time of COVID-19, we are forcefully reminded that we can worship across distances and that without walls, our worship but more importantly our witness is seen by hundreds of people who would not have come through our doors previously.

I steadfastly agree that churches are essential. The most essential way for the church to exist is as people devoted to action, not to see ourselves as walled away in buildings. What’s essential is using the reason and science and wisdom God has implanted within us to have faith enough in God to know that God is wherever we are gathered in love and charity, no matter how we do that.

But this is also a good time to remind ourselves that worship is not the be-all and end-all of the Christian life. I am convinced it is impossible to “close” the Church. We are not called to just stand around looking up to heaven. It’s so alluring, I know, to want to look to heaven to solve all of our problems. Jesus’ ascension is NOT about Jesus abandoning us to go back to heaven. Our readings remind us that God is right here, within us, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The story told in Acts is meant to build up our courage so that we may joyfully take up the mission he loves us enough to entrust to us: to take up our call not as observers but as disciples; to actively proclaim Jesus’s gospel of love and reconciliation in the world.

It’s about hearing that question directed at us: "Why are you standing there, looking up at heaven?" This is a question posed in love and in encouragement. With Jesus’s ascension, WE are Christ’s Body in the world. It is up to us to literally embody Jesus’s gospel in our lives, our attitudes, our words, and our actions. And that means not endangering each other—and the untold people with whom we come in contact with—by ending our fast from in person worship at this time.

Faith that discounts love and concern for others is no faith at all, as we discussed last week. Being a Christian is NOT a spectator sport. Being a Christian calls us to not only transform OUR own lives, but to make visible to the world the possibility of its transformation and restoration. Now more than ever this is so needed. Being a faithful disciple is a social and political act, and act of hope, bravery, and enduring willingness to see the potential and the beauty within this Earth and within every inhabitant of it. That’s the work of the Church. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, it cannot be contained within four walls.

Amen.

Preached from The Gathering Place in Tulsa for the 10:30 am worship from DSt. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, on May 24, 2020.

Readings:
Acts 1:1-11 
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53