Pentecost 3
June 13th, 2010
In this week’s Gospel Jesus comes to town a stranger.
Many of you know how that is: finding yourself in a new place, wondering if you’ll meet anyone, if anyone will invite you into their lives.
The Gospel shows two wildly different reactions:
The exuberance of the woman, her outrageous gift to Jesus, cracking open the alabaster jar of nard, the most expensive perfume in the store, breaking the elegant designer jar and pouring the oil extravagantly out on his feet
Jesus contrasts her over-the-top generosity with the respectable Pharisee’s lack of hospitality.
She gave Jesus the best she had, the Pharisee gave him second best.. She trusted that he wouldn’t reject her; the Pharisee hedged his bets.
Just one month shy of nine years ago I came to you as a stranger in your midst. You didn’t know me or my family, except the superficial facts the vestry and search committee had told you.
You welcomed us like the woman with the precious oil. You broke open your lives to me.
You entrusted me with precious parts of your lives: I baptized you and your children; I prepared many of you younger people for confirmation, and a number of you for reception in the Episcopal Church. You have confided in me, you’ve told me your stories—the happy ones but also the sad, scary, awful ones maybe you haven’t told anyone else. You shared with me your worries and joys in the present, your fears and your hopes for the future. I have heard your confessions formal and otherwise, and we’ve grieved together as we’ve buried your loved ones.
You haven’t held back.
My dears, do you have any idea what a great church this is? I hope you do—if not, I’m about to tell you!
I have never had to worry whether we’d be ready for action when I came in on Sunday morning. You routinely display competent, confident lay leadership in worship, outreach, finances, stewardship, facilities, and education. All this is normal for CHS, but let me assure you it’s rare! My colleagues got tired of hearing me brag about you!
You listened to me—for a preacher that’s a great gift in a congregation—and sometimes you disagreed, sometimes you agreed, and often you were willing to entertain some new ways of looking at things. In turn, you brought me your ideas—here are just some of them: the Farmers’ Market, Al Anon, our relationship with Salem Children’s Trust which generated our Thanksgiving and Easter dinners; the Bike ‘n Barbecue, our amazingly prolific Quilting group. It was easy—all I had to do was listen and say “What a great idea!”
You were so brave, stepping forward in 2003 to buy the land and buildings on Highland Street—that was a pretty wild leap of faith! Throughout the years you’ve been solid. You’ve stuck together through some hard and painful times.
There’s one gift that might be easy to downplay, but I think is essential to how this congregation works—your ability to laugh together. I remember (I mentioned this in our last vestry meeting) in a budgetary hard time, sitting downstairs in the CLC doing a book study while the budget committee met upstairs. They were facing a daunting prospect. But suddenly what we heard from upstairs was—laughter, not mean or cynical, but faith-filled. It was “we’ll get through this with God’s help but boy do we need God’s help” kind of laughter.
As I stand on the brink of leaving this ministry, I know that being your priest has changed me. You have taught me, stretched me, consoled me, demanded things of me I thought I couldn’t do. I will carry all this with me through the rest of my life.
I want to say two last things:
First, I know that inevitably over the past nine years I’ve done and said (or not done and not said) things that need forgiveness. In the words of the Act of Contrition I learned as a child, I “am heartily sorry for having offended you.” Please forgive me.
Second, I want to leave you with a “charge”: Dearest people of Church of the Holy Spirit, dear friends---during this transition, please guard yourselves against the temptation to pull inwards, to circle the wagons, to play it safe.
Instead, let yourselves be challenged. Keep your eyes peeled for those folks within the congregation and outside it who need a touch of God’s love. Then, with the wonderful entrepreneurial spirit that lies deep in this church’s DNA, figure out what to do about it. Remind each other to take risks for the sake of the Gospel.
You young people, help them out! Claim your place in the church! Share your ideas and talents with Bob Cochran and the vestry, Gwynna and the worship committee, with Paula and the outreach committee—you are smart and you know things the old folks do not know---be willing to teach them.
And now I leave you confidently under the tender care of the Holy Spirit, whose constant loving presence is at the heart of this church, prodding you here, comforting you there, and sustaining you always.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Pentecost May 23, 2010
Pentecost
May 23, 2010
The Feast of Pentecost means so many things:
--the end of “Eastertide”
--the celebration of the birthday of the church, the capital ‘C’ church, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples and pushed them out and into the world with Christ’s healing message—birthday cake for coffee hour!
--our special (official word ‘patronal’) feast here at Church of the Holy Spirit
I love Pentecost because it is a passionate feast—see all this red?
The description of the first Pentecost in the Book of Acts could hardly be more passionate: the mini-hurricane of wind filling that rented room in Jerusalem, then fire—fire!—above the heads of the astonished men and women, and finally the passionate rush of words, words, words that poured out of their mouths, words—where were they coming from?, words they had no control over, words that translated themselves in midair into all the languages of earth.
They were in the grip of something—Someone—a Spirit—bigger, deeper, way more articulate than themselves. This Someone, this Spirit, was taking control, changing them and their world carrying them along with it.
Have you felt that Spirit? I have, every once in a while. No “sound as if of a great wind,” no tongues of flame above my head (although sometimes it does feel as if my hair is standing on end), but—this is it, for me—a sense of pure wonder at something much bigger than I am moving me where I never expected to be going.
In this church, about eight years ago, a committee headed by Bill Batchelder was charged with looking at how the church might expand its physical space. We met with an architect for about a year. At the end of the year, he gave his report. He showed us that it would be cheaper to buy new land and build or retrofit other buildings, than to try and expand this church building. He was surprised at the outcome.
I remember it so clearly: We all walked out of the Undercroft. I don’t remember what season it was but it was chilly. We looked at one another and we knew, knew!, that the Spirit was pushing us where we’d never expected to go. It was scary and exhilarating all at once.
Pentecost keeps on happening. Recently I was roaming about online and came upon a blog whose headline read: “How the Holy Spirit Moves Today . . . in 100 Words or Less.”
I’d like to read some of the responses and after each, to pause and consider how the words resonate in us.
So . . . “How does the Holy Spirit move us today?”
Here’s Byron Wade, an African-American Presbyterian pastor in North Carolia:
“Many people question if the Holy Spirit is at work in the world today. Put on some different eyes and see—
The claiming of an infant in baptism
The faith of a spouse in the loss of a loved one
The building of a Habitat for Humanity home
Strangers assisting in areas of a natural disaster
The grace exhibited to one another after a difficult discussion
And the ability to awaken to see a new day . ..
Then you can say the Holy Spirit is at work.”
Reflection: Putting on your “different eyes,” look for one place in your life and the world around you where you see the Holy Spirit at work, in your family, the church, the world around us.
Here’s quite a different take on “how the Holy Spirit moves today.” Listen to the words of Sam Hamilton-Poore, Professor of Spirituality at San Francisco Theological Seminary:
“Closer to us than our own breath and breathing, the Risen Christ fills us with his own Spirit—quietly, intimately. With this breath, this power, we then go about the everyday, unspectacular, grubby work of forgiveness. Breath, forgive; breathe, forgive; breathe, forgive. Although we often long for the dazzling or spectacular, we live in a time, a world, in need of people who breathe in, regularly, the quiet power and grace of Christ’s Spirit—and people who, likewise, breathe out, regularly, the power and grace of forgiveness. Our world—so spectacularly broken and burning—needs people for whom reconciliation is as normal and natural as breathing.”
Reflection: Name or imagine someone you need to forgive (building on our Lenten work together on forgiveness). For just a few minutes, breathe in the Spirit, breathe out forgiveness.
In the briefest comment on the blog, a woman named Cas Mata offered: “The Holy Spirit works within the darkest corners of your life, where no one else dares to go.”
Reflection: Take a look at one of these dark corners of your life—a place, maybe of fear, or shame, or deep discouragement—and let the cleansing wind of the Holy Spirit blow through it.
Coda: Pentecost with its rush of wind and fire gives us the Holy Spirit, the mover and changer, who can sweep us off our feet.
But the Holy Spirit comes also as Refresher and Comforter, and I want to end with this image. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins captures the Spirit who never ceases to care for us in his poem “God’s Grandeur.” Here are the last lines I’ll read them slowly so we can savor them):
. . . And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights from the black west went,
Oh, morning at the brown brink eastwards springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with, ah, bright wings.
May 23, 2010
The Feast of Pentecost means so many things:
--the end of “Eastertide”
--the celebration of the birthday of the church, the capital ‘C’ church, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples and pushed them out and into the world with Christ’s healing message—birthday cake for coffee hour!
--our special (official word ‘patronal’) feast here at Church of the Holy Spirit
I love Pentecost because it is a passionate feast—see all this red?
The description of the first Pentecost in the Book of Acts could hardly be more passionate: the mini-hurricane of wind filling that rented room in Jerusalem, then fire—fire!—above the heads of the astonished men and women, and finally the passionate rush of words, words, words that poured out of their mouths, words—where were they coming from?, words they had no control over, words that translated themselves in midair into all the languages of earth.
They were in the grip of something—Someone—a Spirit—bigger, deeper, way more articulate than themselves. This Someone, this Spirit, was taking control, changing them and their world carrying them along with it.
Have you felt that Spirit? I have, every once in a while. No “sound as if of a great wind,” no tongues of flame above my head (although sometimes it does feel as if my hair is standing on end), but—this is it, for me—a sense of pure wonder at something much bigger than I am moving me where I never expected to be going.
In this church, about eight years ago, a committee headed by Bill Batchelder was charged with looking at how the church might expand its physical space. We met with an architect for about a year. At the end of the year, he gave his report. He showed us that it would be cheaper to buy new land and build or retrofit other buildings, than to try and expand this church building. He was surprised at the outcome.
I remember it so clearly: We all walked out of the Undercroft. I don’t remember what season it was but it was chilly. We looked at one another and we knew, knew!, that the Spirit was pushing us where we’d never expected to go. It was scary and exhilarating all at once.
Pentecost keeps on happening. Recently I was roaming about online and came upon a blog whose headline read: “How the Holy Spirit Moves Today . . . in 100 Words or Less.”
I’d like to read some of the responses and after each, to pause and consider how the words resonate in us.
So . . . “How does the Holy Spirit move us today?”
Here’s Byron Wade, an African-American Presbyterian pastor in North Carolia:
“Many people question if the Holy Spirit is at work in the world today. Put on some different eyes and see—
The claiming of an infant in baptism
The faith of a spouse in the loss of a loved one
The building of a Habitat for Humanity home
Strangers assisting in areas of a natural disaster
The grace exhibited to one another after a difficult discussion
And the ability to awaken to see a new day . ..
Then you can say the Holy Spirit is at work.”
Reflection: Putting on your “different eyes,” look for one place in your life and the world around you where you see the Holy Spirit at work, in your family, the church, the world around us.
Here’s quite a different take on “how the Holy Spirit moves today.” Listen to the words of Sam Hamilton-Poore, Professor of Spirituality at San Francisco Theological Seminary:
“Closer to us than our own breath and breathing, the Risen Christ fills us with his own Spirit—quietly, intimately. With this breath, this power, we then go about the everyday, unspectacular, grubby work of forgiveness. Breath, forgive; breathe, forgive; breathe, forgive. Although we often long for the dazzling or spectacular, we live in a time, a world, in need of people who breathe in, regularly, the quiet power and grace of Christ’s Spirit—and people who, likewise, breathe out, regularly, the power and grace of forgiveness. Our world—so spectacularly broken and burning—needs people for whom reconciliation is as normal and natural as breathing.”
Reflection: Name or imagine someone you need to forgive (building on our Lenten work together on forgiveness). For just a few minutes, breathe in the Spirit, breathe out forgiveness.
In the briefest comment on the blog, a woman named Cas Mata offered: “The Holy Spirit works within the darkest corners of your life, where no one else dares to go.”
Reflection: Take a look at one of these dark corners of your life—a place, maybe of fear, or shame, or deep discouragement—and let the cleansing wind of the Holy Spirit blow through it.
Coda: Pentecost with its rush of wind and fire gives us the Holy Spirit, the mover and changer, who can sweep us off our feet.
But the Holy Spirit comes also as Refresher and Comforter, and I want to end with this image. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins captures the Spirit who never ceases to care for us in his poem “God’s Grandeur.” Here are the last lines I’ll read them slowly so we can savor them):
. . . And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights from the black west went,
Oh, morning at the brown brink eastwards springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with, ah, bright wings.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Easter 7 May 16, 2010
Easter 7
May 16, 2010
Last week, as most of you know, one of the men from the Mentally Handicapped Offenders’ Program was confirmed by Bishop Robinson.
The Bishop was late getting to the church because of road construction on 93, so we had time for conversation as Perry, Michael (who’d been confirmed out of the same program two years ago), and I waited.
Michael leaned over to me and asked, “So what’s next?” “What?,” I said. Perry chimed in, “Well, first we were baptized, then we’re confirmed—what’s next?” Michael said, “Being ordained a priest is next, isn’t it?”
And I realized that they were seeing the Christian life as a sort of ladder, with baptism as the bottom rung. To be a good, faithful Christian you had to climb the ladder. A definite sense that each rung up made you a better Christian. Sort of like academic degrees—AA, BA, MA, PhD. Being an academic means climbing up the ladder.
Being a Christian for them meant climbing from basic baptism to exotic bishophood.
I tried to explain that the image of a ladder is dead wrong.
Baptism is not the bottom rung. Baptism is IT.
Confirmation, I told Perry and Michael, strengthens our awareness of what it means to be a baptized person. It reminds us who we are—but it doesn’t make us any more or any better Christians.
They weren’t convinced. “What about priests?”, they said, “aren’t priests more important than regular baptized people? Aren’t you more important than us?”
I was burbling something about priesthood being just a sort of specialization among all the possible ministries of baptized peoples, when the bishop walked in.
If I’d had a few more minutes I would have told Perry and Michael a story: the story in today’s first lesson, about the baptisms in Philippi.
Philippi—a Manchester-sized city in northeastern Greece—was a wild place.
Fortune-telling spirits, temples to every god and goddess in the Roman pantheon and a few others besides, plus a pretty rough idea of justice.
All Paul and Silas did was cast out a slave girl’s demon, and they wound up being beaten and thrown into jail.
That night an earthquake struck, serious enough to knock down the walls of the jail and somehow unfasten the prisoners’ chains.
Things happened quickly: the jailer woke up, saw the wreckage of the jail, and grabbed a sword to kill himself before Paul’s god, who was obviously more powerful than his gods, Jupiter and Mars, could get to him.
But just in time he hears a voice call calmly out of the wreckage, “Don’t be afraid, we are still here,”
The jailer can’t believe it. He can’t believe that his prisoners hadn’t escaped, that they had actually put his welfare before their own safety.
He can’t understand it. What kind of God could inspire that kind of foolhardy courage? More importantly, that kind of compassion. Not Jupiter, not Mars. Only, as Paul explained to them, Jesus Christ, who became human not to gain power and victory, but so that God’s justice and mercy could live on earth.
That was enough for the jailer. What did he need to do to turn himself over to Paul’s God. That very night he was baptized, and his whole household with him.
They were baptized and then Paul and Silas left them, the only Christians in this pagan town, except for a few others. How many?—20? The number of worshipers at 8:00. At the outside 30.
What was that like, for that tiny group of just-baptizeds to be left there in Philippi? Isolated, all alone, amidst all those temples to Jupiter. No preachers, no priests, no bishops, no support or encouragement except what they gave to one another.
How likely was it that such a small group would survive? Yet the fact is that survive they did, and more—That little group grew to such an extent that not too many years later Paul wrote to them sending greetings to “the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons”?
How could that happen?
Baptism. Simply—baptism.
The jailer and his friends in Philippi knew that they were different after they were baptized, and they knew the difference didn’t come from them. They knew that as that water poured upon them, God was right there working in them, the Holy Spirit was right there changing them, turning them into a new and mysterious thing—a Christian.
And here’s the amazing thing: it worked. No bishops, no priests, no teachers, with only the occasional letter from Paul, the community grew and grew through each person living out his or her Spirit-given, baptismal gifts—-for compassion, teaching, counseling, leadership, prayer .
If I’d had a chance to tell the story of the jailer and his friends in Philippi to Perry and Michael, here’s what I hope: that they’d understand what it takes to make a church: baptized people, each one with the gifts they have been given by the Holy Spirit—gifts to be embraced and exercised in the church and in the world.
In Baptism, God the Creator welcomes you; Jesus Christ becomes your brother and master and guide; God the Holy Spirit blows into you the particular and unique gifts you, YOU, need to do God’s work as part of the church, gives you POWER to do that work.
And despite the fact that priests and especially bishops!—get to wear fancy clothes and have special titles—here’s the bottom line theologically: the gift, the calling of each baptized person is of equal worth-------yours, and yours, and mine, and Gene Robinson’s. It’s not ordination that makes a church, it’s baptism that makes a church.
We’re about then to witness not just a joyful event for Graham’s family and the congregation—we’re about to witness a miracle.
You probably won’t be able to perceive it—probably we won’t see angels around us or feel the strong wind of the Holy Spirit—but God will be acting here in the next few minutes in a very specific way, and when we greet Graham at the Peace he will be different, a full, gifted, and equal member of the People of God, our brother and future coworker in God’s work of compassion and mercy.nkj
May 16, 2010
Last week, as most of you know, one of the men from the Mentally Handicapped Offenders’ Program was confirmed by Bishop Robinson.
The Bishop was late getting to the church because of road construction on 93, so we had time for conversation as Perry, Michael (who’d been confirmed out of the same program two years ago), and I waited.
Michael leaned over to me and asked, “So what’s next?” “What?,” I said. Perry chimed in, “Well, first we were baptized, then we’re confirmed—what’s next?” Michael said, “Being ordained a priest is next, isn’t it?”
And I realized that they were seeing the Christian life as a sort of ladder, with baptism as the bottom rung. To be a good, faithful Christian you had to climb the ladder. A definite sense that each rung up made you a better Christian. Sort of like academic degrees—AA, BA, MA, PhD. Being an academic means climbing up the ladder.
Being a Christian for them meant climbing from basic baptism to exotic bishophood.
I tried to explain that the image of a ladder is dead wrong.
Baptism is not the bottom rung. Baptism is IT.
Confirmation, I told Perry and Michael, strengthens our awareness of what it means to be a baptized person. It reminds us who we are—but it doesn’t make us any more or any better Christians.
They weren’t convinced. “What about priests?”, they said, “aren’t priests more important than regular baptized people? Aren’t you more important than us?”
I was burbling something about priesthood being just a sort of specialization among all the possible ministries of baptized peoples, when the bishop walked in.
If I’d had a few more minutes I would have told Perry and Michael a story: the story in today’s first lesson, about the baptisms in Philippi.
Philippi—a Manchester-sized city in northeastern Greece—was a wild place.
Fortune-telling spirits, temples to every god and goddess in the Roman pantheon and a few others besides, plus a pretty rough idea of justice.
All Paul and Silas did was cast out a slave girl’s demon, and they wound up being beaten and thrown into jail.
That night an earthquake struck, serious enough to knock down the walls of the jail and somehow unfasten the prisoners’ chains.
Things happened quickly: the jailer woke up, saw the wreckage of the jail, and grabbed a sword to kill himself before Paul’s god, who was obviously more powerful than his gods, Jupiter and Mars, could get to him.
But just in time he hears a voice call calmly out of the wreckage, “Don’t be afraid, we are still here,”
The jailer can’t believe it. He can’t believe that his prisoners hadn’t escaped, that they had actually put his welfare before their own safety.
He can’t understand it. What kind of God could inspire that kind of foolhardy courage? More importantly, that kind of compassion. Not Jupiter, not Mars. Only, as Paul explained to them, Jesus Christ, who became human not to gain power and victory, but so that God’s justice and mercy could live on earth.
That was enough for the jailer. What did he need to do to turn himself over to Paul’s God. That very night he was baptized, and his whole household with him.
They were baptized and then Paul and Silas left them, the only Christians in this pagan town, except for a few others. How many?—20? The number of worshipers at 8:00. At the outside 30.
What was that like, for that tiny group of just-baptizeds to be left there in Philippi? Isolated, all alone, amidst all those temples to Jupiter. No preachers, no priests, no bishops, no support or encouragement except what they gave to one another.
How likely was it that such a small group would survive? Yet the fact is that survive they did, and more—That little group grew to such an extent that not too many years later Paul wrote to them sending greetings to “the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons”?
How could that happen?
Baptism. Simply—baptism.
The jailer and his friends in Philippi knew that they were different after they were baptized, and they knew the difference didn’t come from them. They knew that as that water poured upon them, God was right there working in them, the Holy Spirit was right there changing them, turning them into a new and mysterious thing—a Christian.
And here’s the amazing thing: it worked. No bishops, no priests, no teachers, with only the occasional letter from Paul, the community grew and grew through each person living out his or her Spirit-given, baptismal gifts—-for compassion, teaching, counseling, leadership, prayer .
If I’d had a chance to tell the story of the jailer and his friends in Philippi to Perry and Michael, here’s what I hope: that they’d understand what it takes to make a church: baptized people, each one with the gifts they have been given by the Holy Spirit—gifts to be embraced and exercised in the church and in the world.
In Baptism, God the Creator welcomes you; Jesus Christ becomes your brother and master and guide; God the Holy Spirit blows into you the particular and unique gifts you, YOU, need to do God’s work as part of the church, gives you POWER to do that work.
And despite the fact that priests and especially bishops!—get to wear fancy clothes and have special titles—here’s the bottom line theologically: the gift, the calling of each baptized person is of equal worth-------yours, and yours, and mine, and Gene Robinson’s. It’s not ordination that makes a church, it’s baptism that makes a church.
We’re about then to witness not just a joyful event for Graham’s family and the congregation—we’re about to witness a miracle.
You probably won’t be able to perceive it—probably we won’t see angels around us or feel the strong wind of the Holy Spirit—but God will be acting here in the next few minutes in a very specific way, and when we greet Graham at the Peace he will be different, a full, gifted, and equal member of the People of God, our brother and future coworker in God’s work of compassion and mercy.nkj
May 9, 2010
Gwynna, May 9
Raising a temple in three days. Rebuilding Jericho. Burning bushes and parted seas and loaves and fishes. The Bible is filled with these crazy whiz-bang big-impact moments. Fortunately, neither God nor my father called to ask me to do anything like that.
I want to first thank Susan for reading my letter last week. I hope my exhausted, sun-drenched brain adequately conveyed the wonder I experienced. I have to apologize right off, though – while I have meditated long and hard on St. Francis of Assisi’s quote to “Preach the Gospel; if necessary, use words,” I’m going to use a LOT of words today.
Next, I want to try to thank every one of you. You sent me forth on a mission I was eager to accept, but nervous to undertake. I didn’t know anything about Mississippi except that I’d never wanted to go to the Deep South, I wasn’t too sure about spending a week in some God-forsaken town with a bunch of backwater hangers-on who didn’t have the good sense to leave when their community was destroyed, and I wasn’t at all sure what I was going to eat for five days.
Well let me tell you, I figured out what to eat – boy, did I! The ten of us did our utmost to prop up the seafood industry before it goes under, and I have plenty of recipes for next year’s Mardi Gras, oil slick or no.
But, while God did not lead me down there to create some amazing miracle, I also didn’t go just for the food. As for some God-forsaken town, I was sorely mistaken. God is in every crack and crevice, on the wind in the smell of new-sawn lumber, in the eyes of the driven locals determined to put their all and everything into rebuilding, come heck or, yes, high water. As one crew member said, “You may look at us and see a little underdeveloped city. That isn’t what we are, and that isn’t how we are going to stay. We are alive, and we thank you for helping us show it.”
The little underdeveloped city he was talking about is actually a collection of communities on the Gulf coast of Mississippi. We stayed in Waveland and worked in Bay St. Louis; the two are virtually seamless. As we drove in Sunday night from New Orleans, I was struck by the sight of completely normal, everyday America-small-town businesses not twenty yards from abandoned, storm-battered buildings, with more functioning buildings on the other side. The flip-flopping of new and destroyed, light and dark, past and present made my stomach lurch. Throughout the week, I sensed that the storm is never far from the minds of locals. It drives everything. It is more than just a reference point, it defines them.
In that definition, though, is immense pride, stubbornness, and thanks. Wherever we went, we were thanked. This was no mere, “Hey y’all, thanks for coming, come back now y’hear.” This was thanks from the gut, from deep within; thanks that has been pouring out for years and will continue to pour out as long as the help pours in. The members of these communities know they would be lost without the generosity of people like you who send people like me to sweat, shiver, burn, freeze, and pound nails and thumbs. Within that thanks, though, is also a nervousness. The torrent of out-of-town volunteers has become a stream, and is dwindling to a trickle. As the head of Mission on the Bay put it, “We are no longer the disaster du jour.” Slowly the locals are starting to volunteer. Five years on, their lives are finally stable enough that they can give to others. Like the airline instructions to put on your own oxygen mask first, they had to build their own homes, rebuild their own businesses, take care of their own families before they could reach out. They are getting there, and both Habitat and Mission on the Bay are seeing more locals at their worksites.
The excitement at those worksites is palpable. There is more work than time, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to do everything. Ours was something of a lonely group, coming just after the spring break rush and in the middle of two tornado systems and an oil spill that will surpass the Exxon Valdez. The Americorps groups that would have worked with us were whisked off to Yazoo City to help with disaster relief there. We spent our time preparing the sites for a big week, with almost 100 women raising walls and roofs after we left. Our humble progress was difficult to see, but in a way that made it even more rewarding. Our work was not glamorous, it wasn’t flashy, but it needed to be done, and we got it done.
We worked on two sites, one with just the pilings sunk and the other, the cop’s house, with just a bit of exterior work to finish before attacking the interior. I call the nearly-finished one the cop’s house primarily to make it easier to reference, but also because the homeowner, a police officer in Bay St. Louis where we were working, was on site almost every day with a paint brush, staple gun, sander, doing whatever needed to be done. I didn’t get much of a chance to chat with him, but seeing him pour his own sweat equity into the home was a powerful reminder that we were piecing together more than blocks of wood and soffits. Unfortunately, we never got to learn about the family whose home we built from the pilings to the subfloor and deck, but they, too, will put their sweat equity into their house when the time comes, swelling the ranks of local volunteers as they work off their commitment that comes with owning a Habitat house.
The Bay-Waveland chapter of Habitat is like the little engine that could. It didn’t even exist four years ago, a testament to the stability and vibrancy of the region before Katrina. It was under the wing of the Jackson chapter for several years as they got through the first massive rush of need and help. Now operating on its own, it buys up any non-flood-plain land it can afford in order to build single-family homes. In addition to these homes scattered throughout the community, the chapter has started the first of two eighty-home subdivisions. Complete with open space, playground, walkable streets, and proximity to local businesses and commuting routes, these houses will transform Bay St. Louis in a palpable, visible way. Several members of my group are already planning return trips next fall and spring, and one has declared he intends to help “finish the city.” I hope to match him nail for nail whenever I can.
The week was magical, in the sense that we were removed from life and placed in a world where everything we did was out of the ordinary. I’ve often wondered what it must have been like for Jesus’ disciples to leave their homes and their work and set off into a different world, and I think I got a taste of that. I very seriously considered quitting my job and staying down there, and would have if Susan hadn’t told me I had to preach this week. The fact that we did nothing miraculous, we got dirty and sweaty and we got annoyed with each other and we did things wrong and we were away from our friends and family made the whole thing stronger and more powerful. We weren’t some white knights riding in to save the distant princess, we were humble workers in a long line of humble workers just doing what we had to do. I felt then, and still feel strongly, the quietness of God working through me. I was preaching the Gospel with my sledgehammer, and by God I hope to never stop talking, even if sometimes, I have to use words.
Raising a temple in three days. Rebuilding Jericho. Burning bushes and parted seas and loaves and fishes. The Bible is filled with these crazy whiz-bang big-impact moments. Fortunately, neither God nor my father called to ask me to do anything like that.
I want to first thank Susan for reading my letter last week. I hope my exhausted, sun-drenched brain adequately conveyed the wonder I experienced. I have to apologize right off, though – while I have meditated long and hard on St. Francis of Assisi’s quote to “Preach the Gospel; if necessary, use words,” I’m going to use a LOT of words today.
Next, I want to try to thank every one of you. You sent me forth on a mission I was eager to accept, but nervous to undertake. I didn’t know anything about Mississippi except that I’d never wanted to go to the Deep South, I wasn’t too sure about spending a week in some God-forsaken town with a bunch of backwater hangers-on who didn’t have the good sense to leave when their community was destroyed, and I wasn’t at all sure what I was going to eat for five days.
Well let me tell you, I figured out what to eat – boy, did I! The ten of us did our utmost to prop up the seafood industry before it goes under, and I have plenty of recipes for next year’s Mardi Gras, oil slick or no.
But, while God did not lead me down there to create some amazing miracle, I also didn’t go just for the food. As for some God-forsaken town, I was sorely mistaken. God is in every crack and crevice, on the wind in the smell of new-sawn lumber, in the eyes of the driven locals determined to put their all and everything into rebuilding, come heck or, yes, high water. As one crew member said, “You may look at us and see a little underdeveloped city. That isn’t what we are, and that isn’t how we are going to stay. We are alive, and we thank you for helping us show it.”
The little underdeveloped city he was talking about is actually a collection of communities on the Gulf coast of Mississippi. We stayed in Waveland and worked in Bay St. Louis; the two are virtually seamless. As we drove in Sunday night from New Orleans, I was struck by the sight of completely normal, everyday America-small-town businesses not twenty yards from abandoned, storm-battered buildings, with more functioning buildings on the other side. The flip-flopping of new and destroyed, light and dark, past and present made my stomach lurch. Throughout the week, I sensed that the storm is never far from the minds of locals. It drives everything. It is more than just a reference point, it defines them.
In that definition, though, is immense pride, stubbornness, and thanks. Wherever we went, we were thanked. This was no mere, “Hey y’all, thanks for coming, come back now y’hear.” This was thanks from the gut, from deep within; thanks that has been pouring out for years and will continue to pour out as long as the help pours in. The members of these communities know they would be lost without the generosity of people like you who send people like me to sweat, shiver, burn, freeze, and pound nails and thumbs. Within that thanks, though, is also a nervousness. The torrent of out-of-town volunteers has become a stream, and is dwindling to a trickle. As the head of Mission on the Bay put it, “We are no longer the disaster du jour.” Slowly the locals are starting to volunteer. Five years on, their lives are finally stable enough that they can give to others. Like the airline instructions to put on your own oxygen mask first, they had to build their own homes, rebuild their own businesses, take care of their own families before they could reach out. They are getting there, and both Habitat and Mission on the Bay are seeing more locals at their worksites.
The excitement at those worksites is palpable. There is more work than time, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to do everything. Ours was something of a lonely group, coming just after the spring break rush and in the middle of two tornado systems and an oil spill that will surpass the Exxon Valdez. The Americorps groups that would have worked with us were whisked off to Yazoo City to help with disaster relief there. We spent our time preparing the sites for a big week, with almost 100 women raising walls and roofs after we left. Our humble progress was difficult to see, but in a way that made it even more rewarding. Our work was not glamorous, it wasn’t flashy, but it needed to be done, and we got it done.
We worked on two sites, one with just the pilings sunk and the other, the cop’s house, with just a bit of exterior work to finish before attacking the interior. I call the nearly-finished one the cop’s house primarily to make it easier to reference, but also because the homeowner, a police officer in Bay St. Louis where we were working, was on site almost every day with a paint brush, staple gun, sander, doing whatever needed to be done. I didn’t get much of a chance to chat with him, but seeing him pour his own sweat equity into the home was a powerful reminder that we were piecing together more than blocks of wood and soffits. Unfortunately, we never got to learn about the family whose home we built from the pilings to the subfloor and deck, but they, too, will put their sweat equity into their house when the time comes, swelling the ranks of local volunteers as they work off their commitment that comes with owning a Habitat house.
The Bay-Waveland chapter of Habitat is like the little engine that could. It didn’t even exist four years ago, a testament to the stability and vibrancy of the region before Katrina. It was under the wing of the Jackson chapter for several years as they got through the first massive rush of need and help. Now operating on its own, it buys up any non-flood-plain land it can afford in order to build single-family homes. In addition to these homes scattered throughout the community, the chapter has started the first of two eighty-home subdivisions. Complete with open space, playground, walkable streets, and proximity to local businesses and commuting routes, these houses will transform Bay St. Louis in a palpable, visible way. Several members of my group are already planning return trips next fall and spring, and one has declared he intends to help “finish the city.” I hope to match him nail for nail whenever I can.
The week was magical, in the sense that we were removed from life and placed in a world where everything we did was out of the ordinary. I’ve often wondered what it must have been like for Jesus’ disciples to leave their homes and their work and set off into a different world, and I think I got a taste of that. I very seriously considered quitting my job and staying down there, and would have if Susan hadn’t told me I had to preach this week. The fact that we did nothing miraculous, we got dirty and sweaty and we got annoyed with each other and we did things wrong and we were away from our friends and family made the whole thing stronger and more powerful. We weren’t some white knights riding in to save the distant princess, we were humble workers in a long line of humble workers just doing what we had to do. I felt then, and still feel strongly, the quietness of God working through me. I was preaching the Gospel with my sledgehammer, and by God I hope to never stop talking, even if sometimes, I have to use words.
Easter 5 May 2nd, 2010
Easter 5
May 2nd, 2010
When I was traveling in India 15 years ago or so, I frequently went out into the villages with professors or staff from the seminaries I was staying in. They would take care to prepare food for me and any other western guests to eat when we were invited into people’s home for a meal.
Every time it happened, it felt awful. I felt we were embarrassing, even belittling the our hosts in the villages, en though I appreciated the health risks this arrangement was designed to avoid.
One evening, late in my trip, on my own in far south India, I was traveling not with professors but with a local acting group to whom it didn’t even occur that there might be a problem.
After the performance, we were as usual invited into a tiny hut for a meal. No electricity—oil lamps on the floor, a cow lowing in the next room). A spotlessly cleanly swept dirt floor.
The hostess spread out banana leaves as plates and ladled a bit of stew out on each one. In South India, you don’t use forks—you dip in with your right hand.
So I did. In that circumstance, how could I, a white western woman, a visitor to their village, say no to these kind people who were expressing their welcome in food.
It was delicious and my digestive system survived. But when I got back home, a friend said, “You could have been sick for months! What were you thinking?!”
At the beginning of the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles this week, Peter is facing a tribunal of his fellow disciples and they are saying, in effect, exactly the same thing—“what were you thinking?!”
To backtrack a bit: It has been a few months or even a year since Jesus’ death and resurrection. The disciples still worship in the temple, but they are also vigorously preaching that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and that believing in him, following his “way,” led men and women to a radically new life.
Thousands of Jews in and around Jerusalem have listened to them and been baptized. That was the good news. All preachers like to know that their preaching has made a difference!
The bad—or at least confusing— news was that something else was going on. Their fellow Jews were not the only people listening to the disciples. Non-Jews, Gentiles (that’s what ‘Gentile’ means—simply a non-Jew), were also drawn to this story of Jesus Christ.
Because no one had expected this to happen, nobody had made any decisions about whether this would even be allowed. They were Jews and Jesus had been a Jew—the Jews were God’s chosen people. Enough said, right? And yet Gentiles were flocking to Peter and others to ask about Jesus.
As in my experience in Tamil Nadu, the flashpoint for the tribunal’s “what were you thinking?” question to Peter was about food.
Word has reached Jerusalem that Peter has not only been preaching to Gentiles, but also eating with them. Worse--at these meals he has been consuming “unclean” food, food by Jewish law, what in later Judaism is called “kosher” food.
The disciples didn’t know about germs and food poisoning, the things which worried my friend, but they did know that their Scriptures taught that some food was “clean” and other food was “defiled” or “dirty.”
So they have called Peter on the carpet to say, “God can’t want you to do that! You risked spiritual death by eating forbidden food. What were you thinking?!”
Peter could only defend himself by what he had seen and what he had heard. By a vision and a voice.
A tablecloth lowered from heaven filled with live animals hissing, roaring, chirping—every one of the animals a provocation since they were commonly eaten by Gentiles and forbidden to Jews. (A friend once referred to this passage as the “story about the pigs in a blanket.”)
As usual, at first Peter misses the point and self-righteously refuses them as unclean. But the voice, that so familiar voice of Jesus Christ, with, probably, that so familiar tinge of “just be quiet and listen to me, Peter!,” won’t let Peter off the hook. Instead he utters these game-changing words: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
“Game-changing” because suddenly the old rules don’t hold anymore. Suddenly God, the God Peter thought he knew, is doing a new thing.
With Peter’s vision, Christ declared that God was opening things up. New things, new people, were being given by God to nurture the body of the church.
Interesting, I hope, but can this story possibly say to us? Sure, as Gentiles, as non Jews, we are the beneficiaries of Peter’s vision and the disciples’ acceptance of it, but . . . ?
Yet I believe that Peter’s vision is highly relevant to you all right now.
At this time of transition, you might be tempted to close ranks and resist new energy and new ideas. The power of “we’ve always done it this way,” which has historically not been particularly powerful in this congregation, might begin to grow stronger. You might be tempted to reject new menu items in favor of the old tried and true.
There’s no way for us to predict what God will offer Church of the Holy Spirit during the next year or so.
Already we’re seeing change: What seems to be a strong cohort of new members? There’s God’s creative energy at work!
During the next months and years: New ideas about liturgy and outreach? God’s creative energy at work.
New leadership? God’s creative energy at work.
Who knows what else? All we know is that our God is the God of surprises who will set the table of your future with unforeseen delicacies,, then smile and say: “What did you expect, my dears—the same old thing? What were you thinking?”
May 2nd, 2010
When I was traveling in India 15 years ago or so, I frequently went out into the villages with professors or staff from the seminaries I was staying in. They would take care to prepare food for me and any other western guests to eat when we were invited into people’s home for a meal.
Every time it happened, it felt awful. I felt we were embarrassing, even belittling the our hosts in the villages, en though I appreciated the health risks this arrangement was designed to avoid.
One evening, late in my trip, on my own in far south India, I was traveling not with professors but with a local acting group to whom it didn’t even occur that there might be a problem.
After the performance, we were as usual invited into a tiny hut for a meal. No electricity—oil lamps on the floor, a cow lowing in the next room). A spotlessly cleanly swept dirt floor.
The hostess spread out banana leaves as plates and ladled a bit of stew out on each one. In South India, you don’t use forks—you dip in with your right hand.
So I did. In that circumstance, how could I, a white western woman, a visitor to their village, say no to these kind people who were expressing their welcome in food.
It was delicious and my digestive system survived. But when I got back home, a friend said, “You could have been sick for months! What were you thinking?!”
At the beginning of the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles this week, Peter is facing a tribunal of his fellow disciples and they are saying, in effect, exactly the same thing—“what were you thinking?!”
To backtrack a bit: It has been a few months or even a year since Jesus’ death and resurrection. The disciples still worship in the temple, but they are also vigorously preaching that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and that believing in him, following his “way,” led men and women to a radically new life.
Thousands of Jews in and around Jerusalem have listened to them and been baptized. That was the good news. All preachers like to know that their preaching has made a difference!
The bad—or at least confusing— news was that something else was going on. Their fellow Jews were not the only people listening to the disciples. Non-Jews, Gentiles (that’s what ‘Gentile’ means—simply a non-Jew), were also drawn to this story of Jesus Christ.
Because no one had expected this to happen, nobody had made any decisions about whether this would even be allowed. They were Jews and Jesus had been a Jew—the Jews were God’s chosen people. Enough said, right? And yet Gentiles were flocking to Peter and others to ask about Jesus.
As in my experience in Tamil Nadu, the flashpoint for the tribunal’s “what were you thinking?” question to Peter was about food.
Word has reached Jerusalem that Peter has not only been preaching to Gentiles, but also eating with them. Worse--at these meals he has been consuming “unclean” food, food by Jewish law, what in later Judaism is called “kosher” food.
The disciples didn’t know about germs and food poisoning, the things which worried my friend, but they did know that their Scriptures taught that some food was “clean” and other food was “defiled” or “dirty.”
So they have called Peter on the carpet to say, “God can’t want you to do that! You risked spiritual death by eating forbidden food. What were you thinking?!”
Peter could only defend himself by what he had seen and what he had heard. By a vision and a voice.
A tablecloth lowered from heaven filled with live animals hissing, roaring, chirping—every one of the animals a provocation since they were commonly eaten by Gentiles and forbidden to Jews. (A friend once referred to this passage as the “story about the pigs in a blanket.”)
As usual, at first Peter misses the point and self-righteously refuses them as unclean. But the voice, that so familiar voice of Jesus Christ, with, probably, that so familiar tinge of “just be quiet and listen to me, Peter!,” won’t let Peter off the hook. Instead he utters these game-changing words: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
“Game-changing” because suddenly the old rules don’t hold anymore. Suddenly God, the God Peter thought he knew, is doing a new thing.
With Peter’s vision, Christ declared that God was opening things up. New things, new people, were being given by God to nurture the body of the church.
Interesting, I hope, but can this story possibly say to us? Sure, as Gentiles, as non Jews, we are the beneficiaries of Peter’s vision and the disciples’ acceptance of it, but . . . ?
Yet I believe that Peter’s vision is highly relevant to you all right now.
At this time of transition, you might be tempted to close ranks and resist new energy and new ideas. The power of “we’ve always done it this way,” which has historically not been particularly powerful in this congregation, might begin to grow stronger. You might be tempted to reject new menu items in favor of the old tried and true.
There’s no way for us to predict what God will offer Church of the Holy Spirit during the next year or so.
Already we’re seeing change: What seems to be a strong cohort of new members? There’s God’s creative energy at work!
During the next months and years: New ideas about liturgy and outreach? God’s creative energy at work.
New leadership? God’s creative energy at work.
Who knows what else? All we know is that our God is the God of surprises who will set the table of your future with unforeseen delicacies,, then smile and say: “What did you expect, my dears—the same old thing? What were you thinking?”
Easter 4 April 25, 2010
Easter 4
April 25, 2010
“Lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because you are with me.”
I’ve spent this weekend so far literally in the valley of the shadow of death.
Yesterday I presided at the funeral service for Conna Fitzpatrick after spending Saturday morning talking with her family. She and her husband Jim had effective not been apart at all ever since they met in the early 40’s in wartime England. Almost sixty years of marriage—Jim is wondering how he can walk the next months and years of his life without her.
Thursday, Friday, and yesterday were my monthly volunteer three days as chaplain at Speare Hospital. One woman was coming to terms with the fact that she could no longer care for herself and needed to move permanently to a place where she could receive more intensive help. A group of neighbors had accompanied the ambulance carrying a neighbor who lived alone to the hospital, not knowing what was wrong, just knowing that she was gravely ill and that she had no one else to care for her. They’d settled themselves into the waiting room, prepared to stay as long as needed, to pray for their friend, to be there when, or if, she woke up.
All of these people, for different reasons, are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
What a powerful image that is!
The word “valley”—valleys are low, closed in—in emotional valleys we can feel dejected and depressed, as if there is no way out.
And what do shadows do? They throw a haze over things, darken them, dim the colors. In the shadows, it’s hard if not impossible to see things clearly. In a shadowy landscape we have to grope our way forward, squint our eyes to catch even a glimpse of light.
I’m sure you are all familiar with the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on death and dying.
In her writings she identified “stages of grief.” She said that when someone is grieving they experience denial, bargaining, anger, guilt, and acceptance (I would add fear).
These “stages” don’t occur (she tried to make this clear in her later writings) in any particular order, and they don’t happen just once. You might think you’re done with denial—you’ve worked hard and faced up to whatever it is—and then a few weeks later—wham!—you find yourself thinking—“it’s not really happening, they made a mistake, I don’t have to go through this.”
These stages of grief provide a map for walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
That map is not just helpful when we’re clearly in grief.
Have you ever taken one of those “how much stress are you in?” tests in Readers’ Digest or whatever? The first time I did I was amazed that events that sound pretty good like “moving to a new home” or “starting a new job” are just as stressful as clearly awful events like “losing a job” and, of course, the death of someone close to you.
That’s because change itself, even good change or change for good reasons, always takes us on a journey through the valley of the shadow of death.
It makes sense, because all change involves some sort of death. In any change, something familiar passes away, something new takes its place.
And in that journey from familiar to new, we inevitably find ourselves jumping back and forth from one of Kubler-Ross’ stages to another. Denial to bargaining, guilt to anger and back again, acceptance one day only to find yourself in denial the next. And sometimes, in the midst of it, flashes of excitement or joy.
It’s pretty obvious where I’m going with this.
This is the first time I’ve seen most of you since you received my letter announcing my intention to retire in June.
Tim came and a good number of you stayed after church last Sunday to talk with him. I know you’re talking and e-mailing one another, and that’s good.
But now, here I am and here you are. And for just a few minutes right now I’d like to switch this sermon from my talking to you to all of us talking to one another. I’m hoping that what I’ve just said about the stages of grief (and, more broadly, the stages that occur in all big changes), might help us all realize what’s going on in our hearts and our minds.
Are there questions or comments?: ………………..
Yearning
Active listening
…………………………………..
Thank you. I won’t use the sermon time for this again—we need to keep on pondering the relationship between God’s word and our lives re together as we’ve done for these past nine years.
But I do suggest that we all continue to be attentive to our emotions, our “stages” of grieving this change, and help one another with them.
And I’d love to meet with each of you personally during the next two months. Those of you who were here when I came know that many of us met over tea or coffee to get acquainted in those first few weeks and months. I would love to do that again for everyone willing to take the time.
To close, I want to remind you of something both Psalm 23 and today’s Gospel shout out: You are not lost sheep, you parishioners of Church of the Holy Spirit. You are found sheep!
Even walking through this shadowy valley, remember what the psalmist says, “I will fear no evil because you are with me.”
In the Gospel, Jesus says it even more strongly: “No one will snatch you out of my hand.” When I read that, early in the week, I cried because it seemed to be speaking directly to me and to us—“No one will snatch us out of Christ’s hand.”
April 25, 2010
“Lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because you are with me.”
I’ve spent this weekend so far literally in the valley of the shadow of death.
Yesterday I presided at the funeral service for Conna Fitzpatrick after spending Saturday morning talking with her family. She and her husband Jim had effective not been apart at all ever since they met in the early 40’s in wartime England. Almost sixty years of marriage—Jim is wondering how he can walk the next months and years of his life without her.
Thursday, Friday, and yesterday were my monthly volunteer three days as chaplain at Speare Hospital. One woman was coming to terms with the fact that she could no longer care for herself and needed to move permanently to a place where she could receive more intensive help. A group of neighbors had accompanied the ambulance carrying a neighbor who lived alone to the hospital, not knowing what was wrong, just knowing that she was gravely ill and that she had no one else to care for her. They’d settled themselves into the waiting room, prepared to stay as long as needed, to pray for their friend, to be there when, or if, she woke up.
All of these people, for different reasons, are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
What a powerful image that is!
The word “valley”—valleys are low, closed in—in emotional valleys we can feel dejected and depressed, as if there is no way out.
And what do shadows do? They throw a haze over things, darken them, dim the colors. In the shadows, it’s hard if not impossible to see things clearly. In a shadowy landscape we have to grope our way forward, squint our eyes to catch even a glimpse of light.
I’m sure you are all familiar with the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on death and dying.
In her writings she identified “stages of grief.” She said that when someone is grieving they experience denial, bargaining, anger, guilt, and acceptance (I would add fear).
These “stages” don’t occur (she tried to make this clear in her later writings) in any particular order, and they don’t happen just once. You might think you’re done with denial—you’ve worked hard and faced up to whatever it is—and then a few weeks later—wham!—you find yourself thinking—“it’s not really happening, they made a mistake, I don’t have to go through this.”
These stages of grief provide a map for walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
That map is not just helpful when we’re clearly in grief.
Have you ever taken one of those “how much stress are you in?” tests in Readers’ Digest or whatever? The first time I did I was amazed that events that sound pretty good like “moving to a new home” or “starting a new job” are just as stressful as clearly awful events like “losing a job” and, of course, the death of someone close to you.
That’s because change itself, even good change or change for good reasons, always takes us on a journey through the valley of the shadow of death.
It makes sense, because all change involves some sort of death. In any change, something familiar passes away, something new takes its place.
And in that journey from familiar to new, we inevitably find ourselves jumping back and forth from one of Kubler-Ross’ stages to another. Denial to bargaining, guilt to anger and back again, acceptance one day only to find yourself in denial the next. And sometimes, in the midst of it, flashes of excitement or joy.
It’s pretty obvious where I’m going with this.
This is the first time I’ve seen most of you since you received my letter announcing my intention to retire in June.
Tim came and a good number of you stayed after church last Sunday to talk with him. I know you’re talking and e-mailing one another, and that’s good.
But now, here I am and here you are. And for just a few minutes right now I’d like to switch this sermon from my talking to you to all of us talking to one another. I’m hoping that what I’ve just said about the stages of grief (and, more broadly, the stages that occur in all big changes), might help us all realize what’s going on in our hearts and our minds.
Are there questions or comments?: ………………..
Yearning
Active listening
…………………………………..
Thank you. I won’t use the sermon time for this again—we need to keep on pondering the relationship between God’s word and our lives re together as we’ve done for these past nine years.
But I do suggest that we all continue to be attentive to our emotions, our “stages” of grieving this change, and help one another with them.
And I’d love to meet with each of you personally during the next two months. Those of you who were here when I came know that many of us met over tea or coffee to get acquainted in those first few weeks and months. I would love to do that again for everyone willing to take the time.
To close, I want to remind you of something both Psalm 23 and today’s Gospel shout out: You are not lost sheep, you parishioners of Church of the Holy Spirit. You are found sheep!
Even walking through this shadowy valley, remember what the psalmist says, “I will fear no evil because you are with me.”
In the Gospel, Jesus says it even more strongly: “No one will snatch you out of my hand.” When I read that, early in the week, I cried because it seemed to be speaking directly to me and to us—“No one will snatch us out of Christ’s hand.”
Monday, May 10, 2010
Easter 2, Year C April 11, 2007
Easter 2, Year C
April 11, 2007
We’re just past Easter and the glow of Easter remains but it’s so easy for it to fade away. Easter alleluias get swamped by the noise of the world outside the church walls or the clamor inside our own heads.
I’ve been told that people who have experienced being “born again” or being “baptized in the spirit” sometimes have this experience. After moments or days or months of ecstatic experience of God, the “stuff” of life wears them down and they wonder, was that experience true? Questions and doubts creep in: Wasn’t it supposed to last forever?
For those of us afflicted with moments—or more than moments—of questioning and doubt, today’s Gospel gives us a patron saint, Thomas.
Thomas’ story this morning actually begins before the text of this Gospel. He and other disciples—men and women who had followed Christ and were still reeling from the crucifixion two days before—were hiding out for fear of both Jewish and Roman authorities who may be planning a mop up operation to get rid of Jesus’ followers as well as their teacher, their master, their friend.
On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene came knocking on the door. See them—Thomas with the others, squinting through the peep hole, unbolting the door, sliding it open just a crack and finally just wide enough to let her slip through.
“I have seen the Lord,” she cried. “Oh sure,” they say, and make sure the bolts are shot fast when she leaves.
Thomas can’t stand it, and takes off. It’s just too much pressure. Better run the risk with the crowds outside than stay in the emotional pressure cooker of that locked room.
His friend is dead—brutally executed in the most degrading death possible—leaving them stranded in Jerusalem far away from their homes in the small towns of Galilee.
What is he feeling? He can’t sort it out. Sorrow and fury that Jesus had let himself get in such a position—why couldn’t he save himself? Mad at himself and everyone else—except the women—for running away, envy of the women for staying, disgust at Peter for denying Jesus—and Judas, Judas with whom he’d walked along every day of the past three years, how could he have betrayed their friend, their master, to the enemy? And now Mary Magdalene walzing in and tries to raise their hopes with this incredible story, “I have seen the Lord!”
Who wouldn’t be furious, who wouldn’t be cynical, who wouldn’t lock up his heart against being hurt again, and slam out of that room?!
Poor Thomas.
For the past three years he’s been faithful, even when he couldn’t understand what Jesus was talking about, because something in him had so longed for what Jesus gave him. Food for his spirit. A sense of wonder at God’s love active, here and now. Hope.
Jesus’ presence and teaching have answered his longings for meaning in his life. Given him a purpose beyond himself. Swept him up in the pure joy of seeing people healed. For the time he walked with Jesus, he felt himself to be a true child of God, a coworker with Jesus to bring in the kingdom of God on earth.
As he walks the streets on Jerusalem he laments in his heart, What now? What now?
Reluctantly he goes back to the room to be greeted by his friends—“We have seen the Lord!” He explodes, “No! I’ll NEVER let myself believe again. Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” NO more second hand reports for me, thanks. No more gullible Thomas.
A week later (he’s not making it easy) Jesus comes back. He graciously offers to Thomas just what he has demanded.
Does Thomas actually touch the wounds? The Gospel doesn’t say. But whether he physically touches them or not, in that moment of encounter Thomas experiences the risen Christ, and all the bonds of fear and anger and cynicism and doubt break loose and he utters a cry of faith so powerful it could shatter the windows: “My Lord and my God!”
The extraordinary thing about this moment is that it is Thomas, the doubter, who blurts out this exclamation of faith, recognizes Jesus as God.
Could it be that it was just because he was honest with his doubt that Thomas saw the risen Christ so clearly?
This story assures us that we don’t need to feel guilty about our moments (or more than moments) of doubt. This story assures us that we can still approach the risen Christ, following confidently in the footsteps of our patron saint Thomas.
This story assures us that we can approach Christ as ourselves in all our wondering, doubting, and questioning.. We don’t have to leave our doubts outside the door when we come into this place.
Thomas didn’t pretend to believe when he couldn’t. He cried out “what is the point of believing?” in a crazy, violent world.
Christ came and met him precisely in that emotional woundedness. Christ reached out his wounded hands and raised him up.
Thomas’ story then is a story of hope for most of us. It promises that, doubters though we be, Christ will encounter us where we are.
Where do those encounters occur? Here, perhaps, I hope, in church during common worship. And certainly beyond the walls of the church, in love, friendship, acts of justice and love, and all the unnamable, unpredictable graces of daily living.
Thomas’ story promises that even if we are weak, if we doubt, if we grieve, Resurrection love, ultimately stronger than death, will go on and on and on.
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
April 11, 2007
We’re just past Easter and the glow of Easter remains but it’s so easy for it to fade away. Easter alleluias get swamped by the noise of the world outside the church walls or the clamor inside our own heads.
I’ve been told that people who have experienced being “born again” or being “baptized in the spirit” sometimes have this experience. After moments or days or months of ecstatic experience of God, the “stuff” of life wears them down and they wonder, was that experience true? Questions and doubts creep in: Wasn’t it supposed to last forever?
For those of us afflicted with moments—or more than moments—of questioning and doubt, today’s Gospel gives us a patron saint, Thomas.
Thomas’ story this morning actually begins before the text of this Gospel. He and other disciples—men and women who had followed Christ and were still reeling from the crucifixion two days before—were hiding out for fear of both Jewish and Roman authorities who may be planning a mop up operation to get rid of Jesus’ followers as well as their teacher, their master, their friend.
On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene came knocking on the door. See them—Thomas with the others, squinting through the peep hole, unbolting the door, sliding it open just a crack and finally just wide enough to let her slip through.
“I have seen the Lord,” she cried. “Oh sure,” they say, and make sure the bolts are shot fast when she leaves.
Thomas can’t stand it, and takes off. It’s just too much pressure. Better run the risk with the crowds outside than stay in the emotional pressure cooker of that locked room.
His friend is dead—brutally executed in the most degrading death possible—leaving them stranded in Jerusalem far away from their homes in the small towns of Galilee.
What is he feeling? He can’t sort it out. Sorrow and fury that Jesus had let himself get in such a position—why couldn’t he save himself? Mad at himself and everyone else—except the women—for running away, envy of the women for staying, disgust at Peter for denying Jesus—and Judas, Judas with whom he’d walked along every day of the past three years, how could he have betrayed their friend, their master, to the enemy? And now Mary Magdalene walzing in and tries to raise their hopes with this incredible story, “I have seen the Lord!”
Who wouldn’t be furious, who wouldn’t be cynical, who wouldn’t lock up his heart against being hurt again, and slam out of that room?!
Poor Thomas.
For the past three years he’s been faithful, even when he couldn’t understand what Jesus was talking about, because something in him had so longed for what Jesus gave him. Food for his spirit. A sense of wonder at God’s love active, here and now. Hope.
Jesus’ presence and teaching have answered his longings for meaning in his life. Given him a purpose beyond himself. Swept him up in the pure joy of seeing people healed. For the time he walked with Jesus, he felt himself to be a true child of God, a coworker with Jesus to bring in the kingdom of God on earth.
As he walks the streets on Jerusalem he laments in his heart, What now? What now?
Reluctantly he goes back to the room to be greeted by his friends—“We have seen the Lord!” He explodes, “No! I’ll NEVER let myself believe again. Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” NO more second hand reports for me, thanks. No more gullible Thomas.
A week later (he’s not making it easy) Jesus comes back. He graciously offers to Thomas just what he has demanded.
Does Thomas actually touch the wounds? The Gospel doesn’t say. But whether he physically touches them or not, in that moment of encounter Thomas experiences the risen Christ, and all the bonds of fear and anger and cynicism and doubt break loose and he utters a cry of faith so powerful it could shatter the windows: “My Lord and my God!”
The extraordinary thing about this moment is that it is Thomas, the doubter, who blurts out this exclamation of faith, recognizes Jesus as God.
Could it be that it was just because he was honest with his doubt that Thomas saw the risen Christ so clearly?
This story assures us that we don’t need to feel guilty about our moments (or more than moments) of doubt. This story assures us that we can still approach the risen Christ, following confidently in the footsteps of our patron saint Thomas.
This story assures us that we can approach Christ as ourselves in all our wondering, doubting, and questioning.. We don’t have to leave our doubts outside the door when we come into this place.
Thomas didn’t pretend to believe when he couldn’t. He cried out “what is the point of believing?” in a crazy, violent world.
Christ came and met him precisely in that emotional woundedness. Christ reached out his wounded hands and raised him up.
Thomas’ story then is a story of hope for most of us. It promises that, doubters though we be, Christ will encounter us where we are.
Where do those encounters occur? Here, perhaps, I hope, in church during common worship. And certainly beyond the walls of the church, in love, friendship, acts of justice and love, and all the unnamable, unpredictable graces of daily living.
Thomas’ story promises that even if we are weak, if we doubt, if we grieve, Resurrection love, ultimately stronger than death, will go on and on and on.
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
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