Prayer 246

 

Merciful God, let me arise each day with your praise on my lips and your song in my heart. Let each beat of my pulse echo with gratitude for your manifold blessings You have placed at my feet. Let me remain steadfast on your path of love and kindness to each being within your creation, and walk with justice. Let me take up the cause of the poor, the outcast, the broken-hearted; let me be a warrior for peace. Sing out praise and honor to the Holy One, and join hands that all division may cease. Remember now, O Loving One, the prayers and petitions of your children, especially those we now name. Amen.

Prayer 245

Loving One, we hunger for your presence, and praise You for your constancy. Let us walk faithfully in the path You have shown us through your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Send your Spirit among us as a mighty wind to propel us across the seas of our troubles. Regard not our weaknesses but our desire to draw closer to You; forgive us for failing to see your goodness in others. Let us knit ourselves together in gentleness and kindness; hasten your kingdom within us. Lord, we lay our cares and concerns at your feet: send your peace to those whom we now name, especially those we now name. Amen.

Prayer 244

 

On the beach in Barbados

Draw near, O God, and hear our praises and prayers. Our faith in You is never shaken: Your Love endures forever. Let your mercy roll down like waters, a healing stream for those oppressed by anxiety. Your compassion rises for all those who cry out to you: You know our joys and our pain. Give us the will to act for the good of our brothers and sisters, obeying your commandment to love each other. Let us be your hands in the world, Loving One, that all may praise your Name. Watch over those who work, or watch or weep this day, those in joy or those who struggle, especially those we now name. Amen.

Prayer 243

Photo from the Hubble Space Telescope

O Loving, Abundant God, in You we find both rest and strength. All creation sings its praise to You, for your Love burns brighter than a billion suns. You are our ever-present Help in times of trouble; You are our Companion and Friend in times of joy. Your compassion and mercy are a stream that pours out crystal waters that soothes the fevers and cares of our lives. At this moment, let us be still and rest in You, grounded in your beauty. With each breath, let us breathe in strength, and breathe out love. Here, O Lord, are all our burdens and concerns that we place before You, including these concerns. Amen.

Shaped, Loved, and Reconciled: Sermon for Proper 18, Year C

 

Shaped, Loved, and Reconciled

Sermon for the 16^th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18, Year C

Leslie Scoopmire

September 8, 2013

Texts: Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139

If you are a gardener in St. Louis, you know clay as your enemy, the bane of your garden’s existence—hard as stone after a baking Missouri summer; slick as ice, turning that hill in your backyard into a firehose in the rain. In scripture, clay is often used as a symbol. When we find out a hero has fallen into some sort of temptation, we say that we found out that he has “feet of clay,”—an expression from the Book of Daniel. Compared to gold, bronze, steel, or iron, clay is common, cheap, easily shattered. It is no surprise that we human beings are often compared to clay, as we see in our passage from Jeremiah. Jeremiah is sent to watch a potter at work. The clay symbolizes the people of Judah. God is the potter. And Judah is in danger of being destroyed by God for not trusting God to lead and mold them.

But remember that the Book of Jeremiah was written in a time of intense crisis for the people of Judah. So, being a history teacher, let me explain a little history here. Judah was a tiny people surrounded by hostile empires—Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, and Persia, and later on there is going to be Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire. Judah suffers from oppression, droughts, and warfare. The only thing they have going for them is that they are God’s chosen people. The people of Judah believe that they live under a covenant with God. Yet sometimes, terrible things happen. And the Book of Jeremiah is written right after what was undoubtedly the worst event in Judah’s history to that point. In 587 BC, the Babylonians swept in, crushed Jerusalem, carried off its priests and its ruling class, and destroyed the Temple.

How does Jeremiah explain this? God expects faithfulness from Judah and obedience. When Judah scorned God, God allowed its destruction as punishment. Therefore, the only way to escape further punishment is to return to God. Then perhaps God will forgive and rebuild, and restore the special relationship of blessing to the people of Judah. It’s a simple matter of justice, and fits so well with the idea of God’s incredible power.

Lots of faithful people throughout history have read these stories and believed that they’ve now got a grasp on how God works. It’s neat. It’s simple. They then transfer these same ideas to explaining how God works with individuals. It’s a simple calculus: 1. God punishes wrongdoing with tragedy and suffering; 2. We are suffering; 3. Therefore, God must be punishing us for something we have done, and we need to repent so that the suffering will stop. It certainly seems to make sense! When we are really honest with ourselves, we admit that we often are filled with mean, selfish, sinful impulses. We understand that tendency every time something bad happens, and our first thought is straight out of a country song: Why me Lord? What have I ever done to deserve this?

Now, there are some in our society today who look at texts like the one we have in Jeremiah, and see a warning about God’s judgment upon us as a people. You know the kind—the kind who peer out at us through our television screens and claim that airplanes filled flown by madmen into skyscrapers are a direct punishment from God. The kind who picket funerals and claim that God is allowing people to die because God hates us due to our sins.

Yet many of us--I HOPE many of us!-- hear these kinds of claims, and realize that they just do not match up with the loving, generous, merciful God in which we believe. They want to interpret scriptures like this as bad news about punishment rather than good news about forgiveness and redemption.

If we just look at the threats at the end of our reading from Jeremiah, we ignore another huge truth, one that all too often gets forgotten by those who talk about God’s judgment and punishment. Here it is: God also loves Judah and forgives Judah, over and over again. God sends prophets to Judah over and over again to convince them to return! Jeremiah uses these vivid images, but then says that it doesn’t have to happen. God’s will is not set in stone. If those who claim to love God follow three steps, all will be well: to confront the truth of their sin, and then to reconcile with God, a new Israel will be established with a foundation of peace.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann states that what makes Jeremiah different in the Old Testament is the depiction of God as constantly approaching Judah, demanding reconciliation. We get so focused on the punishment part, we forget about the grace part. God sends the prophets to point out the truth of the sin, and call on Judah to acknowledge that truth. But then God calls again and again to the lost. And again and again and again.

But we are not Judah. How do we take the ideas in our readings today and use them as individuals, to shape our relationship with God, and even with each other? How do we take anything from this, given that we are live in a different time and culture? Because we have to take a big step back, here, and remember that we are also people who have been shaped and moved by our understanding of God through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, there is still truth for us in this text. So let’s return to the idea of the potter and the clay.

We take great pride in the fact that we are modern people. In the centuries since Jeremiah was written, we have acquired great knowledge about science, medicine, and technology. We explain human behavior through relatively new fields, like psychology. And for some people, that is enough. They think they’ve got it all figured out, and that we human beings are in charge. Yet the idea that we, like clay, are molded and shaped through life is something that we can still agree upon.

There are many influences that shape us throughout our lives. Yet, one crucial difference remains that separates us from clay. Clay has no voice in choosing who will shape it. It is true that, while we are children, we are most profoundly influenced by our families, and we have very little choice in the matter. As we grow older, however, we begin to push away from our families, and begin to allow ourselves to be shaped by friends and heroes that we admire and mimic, but we have choice in who those people are. Then, when we are adults, we like to trumpet our individualism and independence, imagining that we ourselves are in charge of the people we have become—that we, all by ourselves have shaped ourselves. You know, we love that phrase: “He is a self-made man!”

Yet we know that’s not really true. We are also shaped by others. It is good for us every now and then to remind ourselves of how we are similar to clay. If we do not allow ourselves to be molded by skillful hands, we will never be useful. And indeed, every person who has passed through our lives has a role in shaping the person each of us have become. Sometimes, we are shaped lovingly, kindly, and we become better, stronger, more beautiful. Sometimes, we fall into harsher hands, hands that attempt to squeeze us too tightly, or press upon us too hard, and we have trouble maintaining our balance as we limp away, misshapen, listing to one side.

Some people spend a huge chunk of their lives trying to make up for the injuries inflicted upon them by some of those influences in their lives. Some of us have lived through episodes in our childhoods that haunt us and have threatened to crush us—the shouts of our mothers and fathers that arose in the night and awakened us from childhood sleep night after night, or alcoholic rages that break the dishes. Hands that have touched us in anger, seeking to break us rather than shape us. Hands that have attempted to shape us for their own ends, who have used us and then discarded us.

If we try to heal the scars inflicted upon us, we often do not know where to begin. Sometimes, people who have experienced these kinds of events collapse, much like a misshapen pot upon the wheel. But countless others recover from their lives and move on. How can this be so? Maybe they had a good therapist, or a good doctor. Can’t we heal ourselves? Can’t we look within our own human resources to remake ourselves? Isn’t that what our society celebrates most?

Maybe. Maybe that works for some people. But there’s a reason why we are sitting here in these pews today. Perhaps some of us have tried to heal ourselves, and it hasn’t quite worked. Perhaps we’ve tried to heal ourselves with alcohol or drugs or food, or with bad relationships we thought would support us and make us whole. Maybe we’ve tried to heal ourselves by trying to acquire things until that’s all we hope to see instead of the emptiness within us. There are a lot of us who have tried everything, and yet we still feel misshapen. We are hurting, and sometimes we then hurt others. Sometimes we’ve been those harsh hands in someone else’s life. We’re ALL still searching.

Or some of us may be sitting in these pews today because we have experienced an overwhelming reshaping. Some of us have experienced a profound sense of release, a profound reconciliation, a profound sense of peace—the kind of peace that comes from being in the presence of a love that is so amazing that we are reshaped, and are never the same again. A love that leads us through the truth of our brokenness, through reconciliation with ourselves or those we have hurt, to a peace which not only passes all understanding but enables us to get through the next trial without being misshapen. A peace that comes to us through a God that reaches out to us, again and again, constantly trying to work us and shape us on that wheel, if only we will allow it.

There it is in our psalm today. God has known us and shaped us, the psalmist writes, from before the very beginning of our existence. God knows us and treasures us so much that God knows our thoughts and actions—and loves us anyway. That is the power of love and reconciliation that leads to peace! And it’s a power our world needs more than ever today.

To talk about a God who is waiting to crush us is to show that we do not understand God’s message at all. It just doesn’t fit with the God we have experienced in dark moments in our lives—a God of incredible power, yes, but the power to support us with limitless love, a God whose faith in US forgives us for our sins and foolishness and lack of faith over and over again. The problem with using verses like these to attempt to frighten us into some sort of rigid behavior is that it ignores the overriding thrust of the truth that God has revealed to us over and over again: that God reaches out to us repeatedly, and loves us unconditionally, even when we go our own blind way. God understands our weaknesses and through the gift of unlimited grace calls us again and again to reconcile with God and with each other, to allow ourselves to be shaped, to acknowledge that God can transform and sustain us even in our darkest moments because God made each of us, whether saint or sinner, cares for us, and loves us for all eternity. And that’s actually right there in the same readings that others twist for their own ends.

Are we willing to allow ourselves to be molded and shaped so that we can be the very best version of ourselves both as individuals and as a society, or are we more prone to resist and go our own way? Are we willing to accept that we are forgiven? Are we willing to forgive those who have hurt us, even if sometimes that requires forgiving them anew each new day, as the hurt and pain arises afresh? To forgive them, not necessarily because they deserve it, but because we recognize that they may be misshapen too and they—and we—deserve to live in peace. To forgive because we all deserve to live in peace, and to try to love them anyway as God most certainly loves us?

Sometimes we all get misshapen. But if you have ever watched a potter at the wheel, you know that she never throws the clay away; she just persists in working on it until she gets it right. God presses upon us behind and before, God’s hand is upon us, shaping us, never giving up on us, reconciling who we are with who God intends for us to be – a people forgiven, healed, renewed, shaped! A people empowered to go forth into the world, reconciled and at peace with ourselves, and with our God, and with one another.

Hallelujah!

Prayer 235

O God, we come before You in humble prayer. We know that we allow many hands shape us; let Your hand, O God, rebuild us and strengthen us. We lay before You our wounded hearts, for we trust in You to take them up and mend them. We are fragile vessels; make us strong in love, and help us let go of anger or bitterness that threatens to shatter us. We bless You and praise You as our loving Maker, and thank You for your mercy which never fails. We ask that You rest your hand especially on those beloveds whom we now name. Amen.

Having faith, charity, and hope: thoughts on Luke 12:32-40

Luke 12:32-40

Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

35"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. 37Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. 38If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

39"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

Luke 12 is a collection of sayings about having faith not in earthly things but in God. Last week we heard Jesus remind his listeners not to worry about inheritances but instead to place their attention on God. The lectionary then skips ten verses that are well-known:

“22 He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. ²³For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. ²⁴Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! ²⁵And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁶If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? ²⁷Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ²⁸But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! ²⁹And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. ³⁰For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

As someone who can really relapse into worrying all through my life, these verses have always been very helpful to me. However, ultimately, all of our worrying about earthly matters really does nothing except paralyze us, which is really practical advice for everyone.

So let’s look at the assigned verses for this week. Once again, the topic is priorities and the trust that is required to have them in the right place.

One of my favorite albums for the past ten years is Zero Church, by Suzzy and Maggie Roche. It was collected and recorded after 9/11. One of the songs on it took a poem by Kent Keith, which had been a favorite of Mother Teresa’s. Here is the song, “Anyway.” I thought of it after our discussion last week about Mother Teresa and the attitude of the Teacher in the Ecclesiastes reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83KXqVFaWYk

One of the great cures for worry and despair, I have found, is action. And here Jesus gives three commands to his followers, that makes that point clear to all of us:

1. Do not be afraid.

2. Sell your possessions and give alms.

3. Be ready for action, with lamps lit for a journey even in the dark.

Remember the classic trio of faith, hope, and love (or charity)? Here they are again! Look at the commands again. In other words:

1. Have faith.

2. Have charity.

3. Have hope for God’s kingdom here on earth.

1. Have faith- do not be afraid. (verse 32). Did you know that the command “Do not be afraid” occurs 67 times in the NRSV version of the Bible, 49 times in the Old Testament alone? I bet if you thought for a while you could name several instances when this phrase was used—to Zechariah, Mary, and the shepherds when an angel appeared to them in the gospel of  Luke, chapters1-2. Abram was told not to be afraid in our Old Testament reading today in Genesis 15:1. Jacob (Israel) was told not to be afraid before setting out for Egypt. Moses told the Israelites not to be afraid as the Egyptian army was bearing down upon them as they fled Egypt. Fear prevents us from thinking and seeing reality and instead causes us to react instinctively. Once we are not afraid, we can ACT. Specifically, in this reading, Jesus reminds us of God’s providence and love for us. Following the command not to be afraid, three command verbs are specifically used: sell, give, make. Sell your possessions, give to the poor, make a purse for your REAL treasure—life in God here on earth, which you will have so abundantly you will need a purse for it. We can trust this because God is “our Father” (v. 22), who is pleased to give us the kingdom.

2. Have charity (verses 33-34). The action that flows from conquering our fear is to show our love for neighbor, which the kingdom of God will be grounded upon, by taking care of others. That’s what alms are for. Give to those who can give nothing back. Your reward will be from God for putting your priorities and actions in the right place. Once you have faith, act upon that faith by focusing on others, especially the poor. I have also noticed in my life that being generous is freeing, just as not worrying is freeing. Just as the opposite of fear is faith and trust, the opposite of fear is being openhearted. This involves more than just charity, however, but a total realignment of the values human societies are all-too-often based upon. Some people nowadays claim that government has no function in doing things that should be the province of private charities. But at the bottom of this belief is the idea that government has no function in assuring the basic well-being of its citizens. This idea only works if we conceive of government as something apart from us, an alien institution. But, if one believes in the words of Abraham Lincoln that government is “of the people, by the people, ands for the people,” then government is us, and the gospel here is very clear that this entails obligations to establish a just and equitable society. The foundation of God’s kingdom is justice and generosity. St. Augustine of Hippo said, “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.”

3, Have hope (verses 35-38). Be ready for “the master’s” return—here Jesus is talking about when the kingdom of God will be established here on earth and “he will come to judge the living and the dead.” We do not know when that will happen, but it is clear that we have a part to play in establishing it—we must act to bring it into being. This is another tie to the Hebrews reading, by the way—the audience was despairing that the Parousia—the return of Christ from Heaven discussed in the end of the second section of the Nicene Creed—had not occurred yet. Thus this gospel reading could be addressed to the same audience there, as well.

God is offering us an incredible blessing, but we have to be able to appreciate it as such. We are looking forward to the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth, and we ourselves have a part to play in bringing it about. All we must do is have faith, and then be animated to act, drawing strength from that faith and trust. As mentioned above in the discussion on Hebrews, “Faith is TRUST, which is required because we lack certainty. Yet, if we had certainty, how would we know when we are being blessed, and why would we need to admit our dependence upon God?” As we look at the verse right before this reading, we are reminded of the blessing that is most important—the establishment of God’s kingdom, and the establishment of justice, peace, and ultimately love as the defining values of our lives.

Uncertainty requires faith: thoughts on Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. 12Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."

13All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

The book of Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians to demonstrate the necessity of  faith in Christ as being the sole and complete revelation of and from God. Although some assume Paul was the author, it is more likely not Paul, although some scholars have thought it might have been one of Paul’s helpers, such as Barnabas, or it might have actually had more than one author—the text uses “we” amost exclusively, unlike Acts or other Biblical epistles that flip back and forth between “I” and “we.” The first generation of Christians are passing away, and the second generation seems to be faltering, given that the Messiah has NOT returned as they believed. Early Christians expected Jesus to return within their lifetimes, and yet that expectation was being confounded. Persecution was tempting them back into Judaism, or attempting to Judaize Christianity and expel Gentiles who would not follow Judaic Law. The Church was in danger of foundering and shrinking back into a local mystery cult instead of continuing to spread. This explains the context of todays reading.

Verse one is a wonderful summary of the significance of faith as the lynchpin of our search for God. Faith is the junction of the finite, material world which can be derived through the senses with the eternal world. Faith links us to the eternal and enables us to trust in God’s promises. It is what enables us to know God in response to God’s knowledge of us. Faith depends upon trust—a subject of our verses about Abram in the OT reading. Further, faith is what animates and motivates us to respond to God. Abram demonstrated faith enough to leave the only home he had known in Ur without even knowing what the land he was being given looked like—merely trusting that it was good land, which of course was at a premium.

Verses 4-7 of this 11^th chapter that are omitted name what some scholars refer to as “the Heroes of Faith” from the OT—Abel, Enoch, and Noah. Then our reading returns to the subject of Abram/Abraham. Left unsaid is the fact that Abraham is even willing to sacrifice that long-awaited son as a sign of his faith in God. So then the Promised Land of Canaan is tied to the heavenly promised land, the city of God, which is the true inheritance of those of us who come after Abraham but are willing to act based solely upon our faith and trust in God.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly remarks that faith is what made miracles possible—the faith comes BEFORE the miracle, not after, which is something that is very difficult for our modern, skeptical selves to understand. In Matthew 8:13, Jesus assures the centurion that his faith had led to the healing of the centurion’s servant: ‘Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.’ In Matthew 9:22, Jesus tells the hemorrhaging woman that her faith has made her well after she tells herself that just touching the fringe of his cloak, as well as praising the faith of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:28 who actually argues with Jesus when he first rebuffs her as she asks for healing for her daughter. Other instances include Mark 5:34, Mark 10:52, Luke 7:50, Luke 8:48, Luke 17:19, Luke 18:42 (See attached). Lack of faith could have the reverse effect, as well. In Luke 8:25, he rebukes his disciples for having little faith when a storm besets their boat.

Yet faith is not a magic wish-fulfillment device, regardless of how these anecdotes from the Bible sound. Faith is required because we are uncertain to begin with, because we cannot see. It is a paradox that faith is required BECAUSE we are not certain; people of faith still encounter prayers that are not answered, illnesses that cannot be cured, and so on. But look again at our heroes of faith. Abel certainly did not escape tragedy, by a long shot, yet his faith was still reckoned as righteousness. Noah witnessed the destruction of most of the people he knew. Abraham waited a very long time indeed for some of those promises to be fulfilled, and yet the twentieth century along visited untold horrors upon many of his descendants.

Faith is TRUST, which is required because we lack certainty. Yet, if we had certainty, how would we know when we are being blessed, and why would we need to admit our dependence upon God? We would just check the “faith” box and move on. However, the world is not perfect. Tragedies happen for unexplainable reasons. Faith enables us to move forward and live our lives without certainty.

Sermon at Camp Phoenix, 2013: We are the Body of Christ

 Readings:

Psalm 121

1 Corinthians 13

Matt 28: 16-20

Hymns

Amazing Grace

I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light

Seek Ye First

Take My Life

Here we are at the last full day of camp.

We have tie-dyed shirts. We have swam and solved puzzles and yelled and sang; we have led and we have been led. We have gathered around the campfire. We have learned new games, like GaGa, and Nine Square, and Quidditch. We have enjoyed the new mat out in the lake, and the beach party, and creek walks, and dock to dock swim.

But we could do all of that at any camp.

THIS is Camp Phoenix.

This is a gathering of kids and adults from the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, and their friends. And that makes this camp different, because when we gather together, we are the Body of Christ.

When we talk about the all the Christian Churches-- including the Episcopal Church, and the Baptist Church, and the Lutheran Church, and our hosts here at Camp Dubois, the United Church of Christ—When we talk about all those churches, we often call them “the Body of Christ.”

When we take communion, we talk about “the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.” You’re going to hear those words in just a few minutes.

But we also have to remember that each of you individually ARE the Body of Christ.

Being the Body of Christ means we are called to do, and speak, and be good in the world.
So, then, this week, we have been talking about mission.

Each day we have learned about a different ministry: do you remember what they are?
Lui
Deaconess Anne House
Episcopal City Mission
Hunger Task Force

People in this diocese take part in these missions to carry the love and message of Jesus Christ out into the world. But in doing that, we also bring the message of Jesus Christ, and the love of God, right into our hearts and into our own lives! That’s how the love of God works—by giving, we also receive. By helping, we are helped.

By giving, we also receive. By helping, we are helped.

We’ve heard a lot of stories from the Bible this week. Our gospel reading today is a short but important section of the book of Matthew. In fact, these are the very last words of the gospel of Matthew. This scene took place right after Easter, and includes Jesus’s last words to his followers in that gospel. Often, our last words we say to someone before we go somewhere away from them are our most important words to them.

The disciples realize that they are not going to have Jesus physically present with them any more. However, his work was not finished. So Jesus gives his followers one last set of instructions. These instructions are known as the “Great Commission.” The term “Commission” has a word in it that we have been talking about a lot this week. What word is that?

MISSION.

So in this gospel, Jesus is sending his disciples on one last, very important mission. Jesus gives his disciples power—power to go do three things. Did you hear them? What are they?

The power to go make disciples of all nations,
The power to baptize those new followers to become disciples themselves,
The power to teach the new followers all the commandments Jesus has given them.

The disciples are also promised something—that Jesus will be with them, and all the disciples who will come after them.  Who are those new disciples? We are! And we know then that Jesus is with us, always! So we have been given the power to act into the world. We have this power because we aren’t just the disciples of Jesus—WE ARE the face, and hands and body of Jesus to a world that needs Jesus

desperately.

A wise woman of the Church named St. Teresa of Avila explains it to us in these words:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Where can we get the power to be the Body of Christ? What makes all our actions work for good? The answer is in our reading from 1 Corinthians— what does it say?

Through love.

The love we receive from God,
the love God gives to us, and, just as important,
the love we have for each other—our friends, our families, our neighbors, even if those neighbors are halfway around the world.

WHAT is our mission? To spread the love of God out into the world, to be Christ’s body, right now, spreading out from Camp Phoenix and our homes and our churches like the rays of the sun.

HOW are we empowered to do our mission? Through the willingness to take action, supported by the love we give and receive from God. When we welcome and love the people we meet and care for each other, we are loved and cared for, too.

As you leave Camp Phoenix for this year, we hope that you will act upon this mission, because everyone here can do something. We hope you will look for ways to help others, to continue to support the ministries we have talked about, or even to come up with your own. You can see the hungry and feed them, comfort the sick, support kids served by ECM, offer a hand to those who need it, help rebuild our community.

This is your Mission-- and Mission Is Possible!

Reflection on 1 Kings 17:8-24- The Widow of Zeraphath

1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)      The Widow of Zarephath

The word of the LORD came to Elijah, saying, 9"Go now to Zarephath*, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you." 10So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink." 11As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." 12But she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." 13Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. 14For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth." 15She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

[17After this, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house at Zarephath, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18She then said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" 19But he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. 20He cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?" 21Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again." 22The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, "See, your son is alive." 24So the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."]

*-Zarephath was in modern Lebanon, along the Mediterranean coast, at the location of the modern town of Sarafand.

Background: In 1 Kings 16, machinations over the throne caused all kinds of evil deeds (part of the protest by prophets that Israel didn’t need a king since they were ruled by God as God’s chosen people, and that instituting a king would simply lead to exactly this kind of problem). King Elah was made drunk and killed by his chariot officer Zimri, who named himself king and killed everyone else in the royal house to prevent another claimant competing with him for the throne (and this was supposedly God’s will for the sins of Elah’s father Baasha). Promptly the people of Israel made another military commander, Omri, their king. Omri besieged Zimri, who then set his palace on fire with himself inside rather than to be captured. Another man, Tibni, had some support to be king instead of Omri, and the two sides fought and Omri’s side won, with Tibni “dying.” Omri then ruled but also worshipped idols, and after he died his son Ahab became king. Ahab’s wife was Jezebel, who encouraged him to worship Baal.  And that’s all in just one chapter! In chapter 17, Elijah warns Ahab that because of his abandonment of God, there was to be a great drought. Elijah then fled from the wrath of Ahab and was sent on orders from God to the Wadi Cherith (a wadi is a dry valley or riverbed that fills with rain in the rainy season) east of the Jordan in what is now Jordan. It was even promised that the ravens would bring him meat and bread there. However, due to the drought, eventually even the wadi ran dry. God then told him to go the Zarephath, which is where our pericope begins.

There are two miracles in just this short reading: the flour and the oil lasting many days, and the bringing the widow’s son back to life, and if you count the miracle of the ravens feeding Elijah in the wilderness near the wadi, there are three. 

Once again, we see a Gentile having faith and acting upon that faith in a risky way. This widow takes in Elijah even thought the drought has affected her too, and she and her son are on the verge of starvation, and her lack of a husband and breadwinner only makes her situation more desperate. She has given up hope. Elijah asks the woman to get him a drink (remember Jesus had asked the Samaritan woman to get him a drink in John 4). Can you imagine what he must have looked like after being out in the wilderness for all that time? He’s not just a stranger, he’s probably filthy and unshaven. And the widow still does not turn him away. She takes an enormous leap of faith—and is a model of being willing to trust.

The expectations of hospitality at that time require that she do as he asks, but when he asks for a bit of bread, she has to confess that she has too little to share, and has resigned herself to the death of herself and her child. When Elijah still asks that she feed him (based on Elijah’s faith on a God that is not her own) she DOES it. That’s pretty amazing. A miracle is then given to her: she and her son are saved from starvation. Her meal and her oil do not run out—it feeds Elijah, the widow, and her “household”—which seems to be a pretty grand word to express a woman who is depicted as being by herself with just her child.

But just when it seems that there is nothing but a happy ending here, the additional part of this pericope plunges us back into a tragic situation. The widow’s little boy dies—her only prop for her old age in a patriarchal society in which women were dependent upon fathers, husbands, and/or sons to support them. She reflects an understanding of causation common in the Bible—her son’s deep illness and possibly death (is he dead? It says there is no breath left in his body…) is caused by God, at the very least by indifference to her plight after she has just evinced great, blind trust by taking in this strange man and feeding him at a time of severe deprivation. Her blame challenges Elijah to do something. He takes the boy from the mother, carries him up to a room, and prays to God to intervene. His charge in verse 20 agrees with the woman’s take on the situation: has God brought this calamity as a response to one who has given everything she has? He doesn’t argue against the woman’s charge, but lays it against God himself. He then stretches out over the boy and intercedes with God three times, and God restores the boy to life. I have always wondered what tone of voice Elijah used when he said “See, your son is alive.” Nonetheless, this is the first time in the Bible that someone is brought back to life. This miracle then proves the existence of God and the power of God to the woman, and that Elijah is truly a prophet, although this is not something she had ever doubted—even in her anger she had called Elijah “man of God.” This ties in beautifully with our gospel reading for today.

Notice also that twice in this pericope, the death of the widow's son was countenanced.  The widow was resigned to her child dying when she thought that they both would die, but when only her child is dying, she reacts not with resignation but with anger and grief.  I often tell my students that my generation is the first that did not regularly experience the death of a sibling in childhood. Both of my parents experienced at least one sibling dying. But the death of a child was actually very common throughout the vast majority of human history. This did not make such events any less tragic than they are today-- just less common.

The Gift of Self-Reliance

Now that I have relaxed a bit from the end-of-the-school-year crush, I am spending more time with my own children and it is a very good thing. They are all teenagers now.

Yes, I am crazy.

I am also squeezing in some time to ride my bike as much as I can in the mornings, which has been pretty difficult since the weather has been so very rainy for the past two months. This morning, as I dodged numerous places on the bike path that were flooded by the recent rainfalls, and marveled over all of the downed tree limbs from the three tornadoes that swept through the area last week, I was listening, as I often do, to a Mary Chapin Carpenter song from one of her best albums, Stones in the Road.

The first verse goes like this:

When we were young, we pledged allegiance 
every morning of our lives
The classroom rang with children's voices 
under teacher's watchful eye
We learned about the world around us 
at our desks and at dinnertime
Reminded of the starving children, 
we cleaned our plates with guilty minds
And the stones in the road shone like diamonds in the dust
And then a voice called to us to make our way back home....

And here I was, riding my bike and watching out for stones in the road, since unlike my younger self, if I was to get thrown from my bike today, there would probably be several broken bones. I am only a few years younger than Mary Chapin Carpenter, but I imagine a lot of you remember being outside to play all the summer long and even into the autumn, if you grew up in a relatively warm place like I did.

We would be gone for hours in the morning, playing with the neighborhood kids. We'd come home at lunch, and then back out we would go until suppertime. Those times together with our friends from the neighborhood taught us lots of things. We learned how to organize games by ourselves-- football, baseball, war, HORSE, whatever-- and we called the rules and their infractions ourselves, kind of like in that movie The Sandlot. If anyone disputed a call, we worked it out, or they stopped playing until they could cool off. We sang goofy, disgusting songs about bodily functions. But we were in the ultimate kid-centered world. If someone really got mad at someone, the LAST THING in the WORLD we would have done would be to go to our parents, for a variety of reasons:

1) If you woke my dad up from a nap, or my mother from her housework, for any reason than an approaching wildfire, you would regret it.
2) Adults had other things to do than to listen to our foolishness. And we didn't want to look like babies.
3) We probably wouldn't like the decision that an adult would hand down.
4) If we didn't act independent, we would lose our right to play independently.

There were limits, and we mostly respected them. We couldn't cross 21st Street on our bikes-- it was too dangerous. If we left hearing distance, we would tell our parents the direction we were going. But once we were there, there was no recourse to adults as supervisors. We played outside until we heard that voice calling us home-- and usually at about dark, there would be a chorus of mothers' voices calling various kids home. We went. or that was the end of our freedom.

Yes, we were relatively free. And don't think that there weren't bad things that happened back then. I was almost kidnapped when I was five. There was a group of older boys in the neighborhood who bullied or behaved inappropriately toward us younger kids. There was an old couple at the end of the street who were grumpy and had a grandson who was a peeping tom. But still we had long hours to fill on our own, and we did it. Besides, if we had stayed inside and watched TV, we would have been put to work cleaning or cooking or doing some other task.

None of my students have had experiences like this. When I first showed the Sandlot to a class one time to help them understand the childhood experiences of the later baby boomers, they couldn't understand kids being left alone for untold hours like that. Instead, for most of our kids today, every single minute is filled with some activity supervised by adults. Or, they spend untold hours glued in their rooms which come equipped with cell phones, computers, game consoles, and satellite TV. Ironically, this is the one place where they SHOULD probably be supervised, but they aren't. Earlier this year, a mom in Texas was arrested for letting her kids play in the cul-de-sac on their scooters as she watched them from a lawn chair in her yard. (Now personally, I would not let my kids on a motorized scooter at that age, but-- arrested? in TEXAS? I mean, that's just crazy.)

The gift of this childhood independence was teaching us to be self-reliant. We also understood that our parents had other things to do than to entertain us, and respected the fact that they worked hard throughout the day, month, and year to provide for us. Our parents did not derive their identities from us, but instead we derived our identities from them.

I was once screamed at by a woman who drove by my house for allowing two of my kids to climb a tree in out front yard. She told me what a horrible mother I was for allowing them to do something so dangerous. My kids had worked out their climbing patterns all morning long and then asked me to come watch them-- and they were so proud of their achievement, which, by the way, no adult had to micromanage. Ironically no more than five minutes later the gym teacher down the street stopped and PRAISED me for encouraging my kids to climb trees. 

I myself climbed trees for a large part of my life (later on for necessity rather than for fun, per se, and also to show that I could still do it). We built tree forts. We went to the skating rink and stayed for five hours. My grades were MY GRADES-- although I might get punished if they were low, my parents would never EVER have gone to school to argue that I should not be held accountable for missing work, or some such other gambit. 

I wish more parents would allow their kids to develop their personal senses of competency and self-reliance and not rush to the rescue any time something doesn't go their kids' way (and as a teacher, I second myself wholeheartedly for other reasons which are not just entirely selfish). We learned to be responsible. We learned to take care of ourselves. We thought twice before doing something that would undercut our ability to claim that freedom we enjoyed.

It was a great blessing. And I bet I and many of my friends my age would agree that we are grateful for the trust our parents placed in us.

Reflections on Luke 7:1-10, the Healing of the Centurion's Slave

Luke 7:1-10

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. 3When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. 4When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, "He is worthy of having you do this for him, 5for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us." 6And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; 7therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. 8For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, `Go,' and he goes, and to another, `Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, `Do this,' and the slave does it." 9When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." 10When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

This centurion was truly a remarkable man. He was a powerful man, yet cared for his slaves so much he was willing to appeal to a wandering Jewish healer for help. He cares for those under his power and under his command. He demonstrates a spirit of humility rather than lording it over the Jews as a member of the Roman occupying force. As an officer in the Roman legion based at Capernaum, he commanded 100 men (hence the name “centurion”), yet nonetheless was an admirer of the Jewish God. He had even built the Jews there a synagogue, thus he could even be considered a friend of the Jews. In verses 3-5. knowing the Jewish prohibitions that were rigidly interpreted by the Pharisees as strictly limiting fraternization with Gentiles, he does not presume to approach Jesus himself, but sends some elders, who vouch for his good intentions and his “love” for the Jewish people—high praise indeed!

The centurion’s faith, humility and thoughtfulness are further demonstrated in verses  6-7. He rethinks, and decides he is not worthy to have Jesus actually come under his roof. He sends friends to Jesus while Jesus is approaching the centurion’s home, and reveals a remarkable understanding of Jesus’ power, using analogies of his experience as a commander of troops and master of servants to demonstrate his understanding that Jesus has the power of healing even from a distance—no illness could withstand the command of Jesus. Jesus’ power exceeds the need for proximity. His military analogy implies that his soldiers obey him through both his power and his trustworthiness.

Jesus’s fame has now spread far and wide. There is a crowd following him even on his way to this centurion’s house, and he marvels and commends the faith of this centurion to them. This centurion has never been in Jesus’s presence, and yet he believes that Jesus commands amazing powers. Jesus is received and acknowledged by this Gentile in ways that even the people of Israel have not demonstrated—including his apostles, his disciples, the elders from Capernaum, and the crowd that follows him around. And the centurion is right—Jesus can heal from a distance, for when the centurion’s friends return back to the centurion’s home, the slave is not just cured but is in “good health.” This gives us hope, we who live in another time and another place and culture, because we know that Jesus still lives, and can heal our brokenness in body and spirit as well.

Reflections on 1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43

1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands to heaven. 23He said, "O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all their heart.

41"Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name 42-- for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm-- when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, 43then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built."

In 2 Samuel 7, once David was firmly established as king, he had the impulse to build a Temple for God in place of the tent that had been used since the Exodus, but was told by God that this was not to be his task, but that of his son’s. Now Solomon is king, and he has built God a marvelous Temple. In 1 King 6:11-13, God had promised to live in the Temple so long as the king and the people were faithful to God. In 1 Kings 8, he is dedicating the Temple. The ark of the covenant was brought from the tent and placed in the Temple, and sacrifices were made before the ark until it was set in place. Once this was accomplished a cloud filled the Temple, and Solomon, in his role as both king and priest, blessed the people, and recounted the story of how Solomon has fulfilled the promise made to David and built this Temple. He then turns to the altar and makes the statement found in verses 22-23 of this pericope. The first part of his prayer addresses the people who are gathered to help consecrate the Temple; now Solomon turns to address God by entreaty to hear the prayers with which this Temple will be filled. In verses 24-26, which was omitted in this reading, Solomon reminds God of covenants made between God and David:

²⁴the covenant that you kept for your servant my father David as you declared to him; you promised with your mouth and have this day fulfilled with your hand. ²⁵Therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant my father David that which you promised him, saying, “There shall never fail you a successor before me to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children look to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.” ²⁶Therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you promised to your servant my father David.

In verse 27, Solomon had noted that God could not dwell on earth, but this Temple is a conduit for people to pray and worship, and Solomon asks God to listen especially to the prayers addressed through the Temple as a focal point. Furthermore, the Temple itself was built with the help of Gentiles—King Hiram, the Phoenician king of Tyre, had cut the cedars of Lebanon that was used in the construction and sent workmen to Solomon to help. In verses 28-30, Solomon asks God to hallow the Temple with God’s presence and by giving ear to the prayers prayed there:

27 ‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! ²⁸Have regard to your servant’s prayer and his plea, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today; ²⁹that your eyes may be open night and day towards this house, the place of which you said, “My name shall be there”, that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays towards this place. ³⁰Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray towards this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling-place; heed and forgive.

In verses 31-40 Solomon lists other signs of the singularity of the Temple: it can provide asylum for those who stand accused of crimes; a place the people pray for help if they are attacked by enemies (which would indicate that they have sinned against God and thus need to repent); it can be a place the people can pray for rain. He then continues in verse 41 to ask God to hear the prayers of the people of Israel when addressed toward the Temple. Then we pick up again in verse 41, where Solomon prays that prayers prayed by Gentiles using the Temple as focal point should also be heard by God to help spread the greatness of God’s name beyond Israel to other peoples. As in the Book of Deuteronomy, Solomon is asking God to make a covenantal relationship with humanity through the use of the Temple, and to fulfill the promises of the covenantal relationship.

Thus the Temple is the place where God can be approached and addressed by all people. It is a focal point on the Earth, a “thin place,” as the Irish say, where heaven and earth meet. It is the place where everyone, Gentile and Jew alike, can encounter God. This was very unusual thinking for the time that it was written, where different people had their own national gods. And indeed, the people of Israel were not usually proselytizers: even today, the Jewish faith does not really seek out converts. Yet it is logical for Solomon to anticipate that eventually, the favor God promised to Israel would attract the attention of those in the outside world, and there are examples of non-Jews throughout scripture acknowledging the power of God. One of my personal favorites was Ruth, who gets an entire book in the Bible to tell her story—and yet, she was not born a Jew but was a Moabite from what is now Jordan. Rahab helped the Israelites under Joshua capture Jericho when she herself was from Jericho (Joshua 2.3); she goes on to marry an Israelite, it seems, since she is listed in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1.5).