The Beauty of Worship, and Service

I hope you find the Instructed Eucharist this Sunday to be helpful and enlightening. It really is an awesome thing that our God does in The Holy Eucharist. I can testify to how the spiritual food of Christ’s Body and Blood has been my “Blessed Assurance” that “Jesus is mine” ever since I first stepped into an Episcopal Church with Laura on Easter Sunday in 1984. My heart could have become hardened by personal grief, anger at the world’s injustice, and political calculation. But the Holy Communion of bread and wine, shared with so many brothers and sisters, has soothed my heart all these years.

Nothing is more important to my sense of priestly ministry as the liturgical worship of this church. I would never call Rick Warren a liturgical Christian. But it is his Purpose Driven Church, published before the better-known Purpose Driven Life, from which Christ Church draws its mission statement. “Christ Church exists to respond to God by becoming an outward and visible sign of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit through worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and ministry thus fulfilling the Great Commission.”

Worship, Evangelism, Discipleship, Fellowship and Ministry. Those are the five basic purposes of a Christian church, according to Warren. And during John Carlisto’s time as Rector, Christ Church adopted those purposes. The order of those purposes, however, was our choice. Worship comes first. It is the source from which all the other purposes are fulfilled. Without worship that nourishes the heart and soul, we don’t have a chance of making any headway on the other purposes.

But if worship is the beginning and the source of the church’s strength, it is not the final purpose. Worship is the first purpose of the church. “Ministry” is the final purpose. And by “ministry” in the New Testament, is meant “service.” To minister to someone is to serve them. To be a minister is to be a servant.

So as a church, we begin by serving God in our worship, and conclude by serving our fellow human beings. If we focus all our service on God, but fail to extend that service outside the walls of the church, then we are getting spiritually fat. If we undertake service of others without forgetting who really has the power, and who we’re ultimately serving, we will inevitably burn out. Our strength for service will fail if we forget the source of our strength.

I hope and pray that the new church will be a beautiful offering to God, and that our worship will nourish us, and inspire us for service. The beauty of Episcopal worship, in our architecture, our music, our time-tested words, and in the taste of bread and wine, is unique among the communities that call themselves “Christian.” There is also beauty in the diversity of faces whom we serve. Through every face, we see the face of God who made them and loves them.

There is beauty in our worship, where we glimpse the mystery of Almighty God with whom all things are possible, even the changing of bread and wine. There is beauty in the faces of a community (or communion) of smiling faces, different yet one in Jesus Christ. Worship and Service are both the purpose, the reason why we get together and call ourselves a church. Let us embrace them both.

Defeating Death: 16th Week of Ordinary Time

"On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18)

Exodus means "departure." To make one's exodus is to leave, to begin a journey. The narrator of our story in Exodus calls the descendants of Jacob "Israelites." But here, and throughout the Old Testament, others call them "Hebrews"--"those from beyond"--outsiders, wanderers, nomads, people without a place to call their own. The people of Israel did not call themselves Hebrews. They did not want to think of themselves as homeless wanderers, even though, in one sense, that's what they were. How had their story begun? "Leave your land," God had told Abraham beside the Euphrates River in modern day Iraq. "Leave your family and your father's household for the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1).

And so Abraham and Sarah had made their way west to Canaan, where they had lived out their lives as "Hebrews," wandering outsiders with no land to call their own, save the burial ground that Abraham had insisted on buying from the local Canaanites when Sarah died. And so his son Isaac and grandson Jacob had remained outsiders in the eyes of the Canaanites, and the Egyptians to whom Jacob and his sons had fled during the famine.

So here they are, slaves in Egypt, who will be led out by Moses in their Exodus, or departure, from Egypt toward the promised land of Canaan. No one wants to be a Hebrew, a wandering outsider with no place to call their own. And even when you know that you're on the way to a better place, the old place can look mighty tempting when you're in between, not knowing what the new home will be like, or how much longer it will take to get there. As we follow the Israelites, more than once will we see them complain that never had it so good as when they were slaves in Egypt. But still, it's not easy to be a Hebrew, a wandering outsider, looking back in nostalgia on a place that only exists in your memories, then looking ahead of you to try and make out just one tree in the desert as a sign of water, an oasis. As "liturgical" Christians, we may feel at times like outsiders.

But we are also an oasis. We are a place of refreshment for those outsiders who need to know that they are welcomed by God in this holy place wherever they are in their spiritual wandering. We are an oasis, a place of refreshment where Jesus Christ is as close to us as the taste of bread and wine on our tongues. I give thanks for all those who have wandered in to this oasis, found refreshment and renewal, then continued on their journey. I give thanks for those who have stayed. And I give thanks for those who may yet to find their way here by God's grace.

Jesus and his disciples are wandering too. They haven't been in the Promised Land which the Israelites eventually conquered for awhile. Last week in Matthew's Gospel, they were in Tyre, on the Mediterranean coast. Today they have moved inland, but are still far away from Jerusalem. Jesus is preparing his church for life without him in the flesh. It won't be easy for his church as they wander, set down roots in one place, then be forced to uproot themselves. And the forces that will harass them are as strong as Hades.

"On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it," Jesus promises Peter, and the church that he and the rest of the Twelve have handed down to us. Hades was the Greek god of the dead, and his kingdom in the underworld was named for him. So, death is the great enemy that struggles against the church but will not overpower or stand against it. This promise of Jesus could mean that we as a church will be able to resist the assaults of death. Or it could mean that we as a church are to storm the gates of death and defeat it. Or, perhaps, it means both, depending on where we are. Either way, death is the enemy against which we struggle and prevail. Death will neither overpower us or stand against us.

When we take bread and wine, bless it, break it and share it, while proclaiming Jesus' Resurrection, we defeat the forces of death that would sap our faith in the power of his death and rising. When we teach our children and watch them take the promises of Christ for themselves, we defeat the forces of death that would sap our hope for the future. When we commit ourselves to feeding the needy children of our schools, we defeat the forces of death that would make us complacent about the sufferings of the present. When we distribute beans and rice to those who come with whatever need they have, we defeat the forces of death who would deny the power of grace to soften their hearts, and ours as well.

This is the journey we Hebrews are on; to worship our God in the beauty of holiness and to taste and see that God is good. This is the journey we are on; to provide a place of hospitality where other seekers may ask their questions and find their answers in God's good time. This is the journey we are on; to let the kingdom of heaven be seen here and now in this world, and not be some pie in the sky that we only get when we die. That is not what Jesus means by prevailing against death. That is not the hope that kept the children of Israel from wasting away in a foreign land. Wherever we wander, God in Jesus Christ shares our setbacks, so that we are not alone in them. And wherever we wander, God in Jesus Christ is prevailing with us.

Worship, Effortless and Non-Optional

I decided to canvass the Parish because I had heard some parishioners lobbying for changing the time. They would appreciate an extra hour to get ready on Sunday morning. Others thought it might be easier to get visitors to come at a later time. Sometimes, the people lobbying for a change end up making more noise than those who are happy with the status quo. So, everybody has had the opportunity have their voice be heard.

As of today, it’s 36 in favor of 9am, 22 in favor of 10am. That’s 63 percent to 37 percent. If this was an election, we’d call that a landslide. But this isn’t an election, with winners and losers. And in a small parish like ours, 22 voices can’t be ignored.

That said, I suspect that a clear majority appreciates being able to come to church early, and have the rest of their Sunday to relax. And if we did switch to a 10am time for starting worship, that would raise the question of Sunday School: before worship or after. If we had Sunday School at 9, would anyone come? If we had it after, would anybody stay?

So, what are the options? Given that the majority of parishioners don’t want to move the time to 10, that would not seem to be an option. Could we split the difference, and start at 9:30? I notice that someone has written “summer” beside 9am, and “winter” beside 10am. I assume that a later start in the cold season would also feel like a warmer start, and an earlier start in the heat would feel a little cooler.

In that case, I could envision going to a 10 am start on the first Sunday of Advent, then switching to 9am on the first Sunday of June. But would people be able to get used to making that shift in their schedules twice a year?

Why does all this matter? Our mission at Christ Church is to be “an outward and visible sign of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit through worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and ministry.” Worship comes first, as it must. None of the other purposes can be achieved without taking the time to make ourselves present to God, together as one church. Sunday is not “optional.”

But I appreciate that the “world” is making it harder to fit church into our already too busy schedule. So, while it’s important for us to make the effort to come together as one body, one communion in Christ, I also want it to be as effortless as possible. So, what do you think? What do you need on Sunday morning to be refreshed, renewed, and strengthened to be that outward and visible sign of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?

Breaking the Cycle: 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here.” Joseph told his brothers. “Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” (Genesis 45:5)

To truly rejoice with this beautiful reconciliation between brothers, we need to go to the bottom with them. We need to go to the depth of the sin and dysfunction that went back generations. This is a dysfunctional family in ways that all of us can recognize at least parts of in our own families. To be in a dysfunctional relationship is to be alienated from that person with who we still find ourselves in relationship with. And to be alienated, from God and each other, is sin. We can trace the alienation that was handed down from the grandfather, Isaac, to the father, Jacob, to these brothers who were so alienated from each other that were ready to kill. But today’s conclusion to this family drama offers the hope of reconciliation.

It began with Isaac, to whom Abraham’s servant brought Rebekah to comfort him after the death of his mother, Sarah. But in the end, neither of them really found comfort with each other. Instead, as they distanced themselves from each other, they attached themselves to the hips of their two sons, Isaac to Esau, Rebekah to Jacob. Why? Perhaps it was because Esau was a “man’s man,” hairy, muscular, an outdoors man and hunter. But Jacob was a “quiet man who stayed at home,” presumably closer to his mother. And when Rebekah disguised Jacob in goat hide to con the father’s intended blessing for Esau, The family is split in two as Jacob is forced to go east to escape his brother’s anger.

Jacob makes his way to the ancestral homeland, which his grandfather Abraham had left. He finds his way to his relatives. And missing his mother, what does he do? He falls in love with the first girl he sees, Rachel. But then his uncle Laban tricks him into marrying Rachel’s sister Leah before he is allowed to marry Rachel. And so we are told, “Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.” But Leah wins the battle of who bears the most children, six to Rachel’s two. But those two are Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel died as she gave birth to Benjamin. So as Jacob was overly attached to his mother, Rebekah, and his second wife, Rachel; so he fuses his heart and soul to the two sons that Rachel gave him. And as the two brothers Jacob and Easu, struggled for dominance, so does the favored Joseph struggle with his brothers.

The rest of the story leading up to today’s reading is familiar to most of us. Either you know it from the Bible, or also from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Joseph with his amazing Technicolor dreamcoat boasts about his dreams of his brothers bowing down to him. They throw him in a well, then sell him into slavery in Egypt. But because of his ability to interpret dreams, Joseph is able to warn the Egyptian Pharaoh of the coming famine, and becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt. He marries, and has a son whom he names Manasseh because, he said, “God has helped me forget all of my troubles and everyone in my father’s household.” Now that would be nice, if it were true.

And then, who should appear before him but his brothers in need of food, and bowing before him just as Joseph dreamed. But was that really the point of the vision God had given him all those years earlier? Perhaps there is a chance that the cycle of over-attachment and alienation, handed down through three generations, can be broken. But to do that, Joseph and his brothers must replay the painful events that led them here. The brothers must face up to the wrong they did and change their hearts and lives. And Joseph must replay the pain he suffered, and how he contributed to the bad feelings between himself and his brothers. Then he has to choose to forgive.

So first; Joseph verbally abuses them, and takes one of the brothers as a hostage. He sends the rest back with food, but demands that they return with Benjamin, the youngest son of Rachel, whom Jacob clings to for fear that he will be killed as he was led to believe that Joseph was. And so the brothers say to themselves, “We are clearly guilty for what we did to our brother...So now this is payback for his death.” Basically, Joseph’s brothers seem to think that the world is run by karma: what goes around comes around. Eventually, with the famine continuing and the food running out, Jacob lets the brothers return to Egypt, with Benjamin. Joseph arranges to have a silver cup placed in Benjamin's sack, and then accuses him and is ready to make him a slave. But then, just before today’s reading from Genesis, Judah, whose idea it was to sell Joseph, replays that moment. But this time he offers himself as a slave in place of Benjamin.

Some might think that Joseph has been cruel in the way he manipulated them. And as he sees the change in the hearts and lives of his brothers, Joseph changes his heart as well. “Don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here,” Joseph pleads with them. “Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” Through the years of bitter struggle, shame, and guilt, God has watched, and opened the doors for Joseph and his brothers to walk through, if they were brave enough to replay the pain and evil of the past, trusting that instead of leading to alienation, this time it would lead to reconciliation.

And so the generational cycle of attachment and alienation is broken in this family. And just in time. The people of Jacob, also known as Israel, will need to stick together. Eventually, a new Pharaoh will forget how Joseph saved the Egyptians from starvation. And for 400 years, the Israelites will suffer the toil of slavery, until Moses comes. But that's a story for another time. This day, there is reconciliation, and softened hearts. Where are you in this story? What attachments do you need to loosen? What alienation and bitterness do you need to stop avoiding? What reconciliation do you hope and pray for? I pray that we may hear this story of attachment, alienation, and reconciliation, and make it our own.

The Boat and the Church: 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Be encouraged! It’s me. Don’t be afraid. Come.” (Matthew 14:27)

When did you first begin to think about God for yourself, as someone other than whatever your parents told you about him? For me, I think it was the age of seven. I was on the beach in my hometown of Vero Beach, Florida, with my parents, looking out at the Atlantic Ocean before me. And for the first time, I really looked at that vast expanse of water. And I saw a ship just coming into view over the horizon. For the first time in my seven-year-old life, I got a glimpse of just how vast was this world I had been placed in, and how small I really was. And I realized that whoever made that ocean, and the ground on which I stood had to be even more vast.

When I was eight, my mother moved me and my older brother to Knoxville for a year while she studied for a Master’s degree in Public Administration, so that she could go from being a schoolteacher to a school administrator. In that year, this Florida boy discovered snow, and the Great Smoky Mountains. Later, my college geology professor would tell me that the region called Appalachia, from Northwestern Georgia all the way to southern Maine, is probably the oldest land mass on Earth. When we left to go back to Florida, I cried much of the way. My mother dismissed my tears, saying that I was just going to miss the pool at our apartment complex. But I remembered the mountains. They touched something in my eight-year-old soul, a desire for permanence?

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in the world, “beach people” and “mountain people.” There is something in the vastness of the ocean, and the constant motion of the waves that speaks to some of their spiritual need to be on the move, to flow with the changes of life and world. Others need a high rock to stand on. They need permanence. They need that which endures and survives.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples know what it is to have to trust God amid the stormy waters. And they know what it is to beg for firm ground underneath them. They don’t want to go out into the water. Jesus “made” them get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side of the lake. It would be accurate to say that Jesus “forced” his disciples to leave without him. They were forced to venture out into the water, symbol of all the chaos and unpredictable disasters that haunt this world. And their only rock, their only protection against the violent wind and crashing waves, was their boat. And that boat was getting “battered” by the waves and the wind. The Greek word translated “battered” literally means, “to torment,” “to torture.” So here is this little church. All the disciples that Jesus has fitting into this boat. And here is this church being tortured by the physical forces of the water and wind. Here is this church of terrified disciples, afraid for their lives, and their hopes for the future.

Look around us, and see the angled roof above us. Imagine all the churches with those angled roofs. Then imagine those buildings turned upside down, and understand that we all are the church in a boat, tormented by unpredictable winds and crashing waves which we fear will swamp us. But then, look outside the boat, and see our Lord and Savior, walking on the very water we fear will drown us, and saying, “Be encouraged! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

And then Peter, in his mix of sincerity and recklessness, says, “Lord, if it’s you, order me to come to you on the water.” You know, Peter, that Satan said something pretty similar to Jesus from the top of the Temple: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” Maybe you might want to trust that Jesus will come to you in the boat that is the church. And yet, Jesus responds, not with a rebuke, but a simple word, “Come.” And so Peter takes a risk in faith. He steps out onto that vast expanse of water, heaving to and from as the waves crest and crash. And yet he makes it, for at least a little bit. Then, when his trust fails him and he cries out, “Rescue me!” there is Jesus right beside him. He would have come to the disciples in the boat. But he is also there on the restless and unpredictable sea.

For much of my adult life, my love of the mountains went with my search for the rock, a search for certainty. But as I’ve gotten older, and hopefully wiser, I’ve rediscovered that seven-year-old child who saw the ship coming over the horizon and realized how small he was. But I’m not scared of that smallness. I’m not afraid of the water. I know that there is a God who made the ocean, and who made you and made me. And the God that made us sees us. And God’s Son walks toward us and our small battered boat wherever we are. God’s purpose for each of us, and for this boat, will be achieved regardless of the storms that torment us. And if we hear Jesus calling us to come to him on the water, then we can do so, knowing that even if we fail, he will be there to take our hand.

When I was in seminary, a spiritual director led me in a guided meditation to meet “my Jesus.” In my mind, I went to a special place, which for me turned out to be the beach. Since imagination is one of God’s gifts to us, then God can guide that imagination. I visualized a candle on the horizon that came closer to me on the water, and then took shape as a man, who was very happy to see me. We sat on that beach and talked. And then he got up. I said, don’t go. And he offered his hand and said, come with me. What is it like walking on water? As God gave me the spirit to imagine it, it felt like a very hard sponge. It gave ground beneath my steps, but it remained firm.

Whether in this fellowship hall, or in the new church that is coming, Jesus is making us go out into the water, where we will be battered by the waves. But whatever comes, he is also coming with us. And if we dare to walk with him, he will always be close enough to us to reach out and grab us. So be encouraged! It’s him. Don’t be afraid. Come.

Respecting Borders While Hoping For None

In case you have not already heard, I should let you know that this past week; the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama joined with the Roman Catholic dioceses of Birmingham and Mobile, and the Methodist North Alabama Conference, in a lawsuit against the new immigration law in Alabama. I have a copy of the legal complaint filed in federal court, and will share it with anyone who wishes to read it.

In the lawsuit, the churches argue that the recently passed law violates the rights of their members under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This Amendment, like the rest of the first ten Amendments, originally applied only to the U.S. Congress. But under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the protections of the Bill of Rights are now understood as applying to the states as well as the federal government.

According to the churches filing the lawsuit: “Biblical teachings to extend hospitality to all people without reservation are obligatory to all members of Alabama’s Episcopal, Methodist and Roman Catholic religions.” And these “Bible-based instructions to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and clothe the naked are in direct conflict with the Law’s restrictions against assisting” those immigrants who don’t have legal status.

Having studied the law, the four bishops filing the lawsuit have concluded that in order to avoid violating the law, members of their churches will have to verify the immigration status of anyone they assist with food, shelter, transportation, education, or other services. They will also be prohibited from helping any illegal immigrants attend worship services.

Among other things, the new law makes it a crime to “conceal, harbor or shield” immigrants without legal status; and to “encourage or induce an alien” without legal status “to come to or reside in this state.” There are many ministries in our diocese which provide food, shelter and education to the needy. If the new law goes into effect, those who serve in those ministries will have to choose between practicing their religion and complying with the law.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I share the frustration of those who believe that a sovereign nation should be able to control its borders and regulate who comes to this country. The Federal government has failed to do that for years now. And it has created a class of people who live in a legal No-Man’s Land. They are unable to become citizens; but the obstacles to a mass-deportation are too many to overcome. But the new law has created a climate of uncertainty for many who fear becoming criminals by simply serving the needy. And in that respect, the Alabama Legislature and Governor Bentley overreached in their understandable desire to enforce the law.

As Americans, we live within national borders that should be respected. As Christians, we live in another kingdom that has no borders. And as Christians we cannot turn away those in need simply because they do not share our nationality.

I understand that at least some of you are disappointed by Bishop Parsley’s action. I understand that you have seen changes in this city that you did not ask for. Clearly, this town that we all love is struggling with many things: the loss of business, cultural changes, the lack of opportunities for young people, and natural disasters. But there are also reasons for hope: a state-of-the-art school and fine arts center, a passion for artistic excellence typified by our marching band, a renewed commitment to attracting new businesses; and last but not least, a new church and fellowship hall that will be more able to bridge Christ and community.

Can we see a kingdom without borders within the borders of our community? I hope so. In the meantime; my door is open to any of you who wish to express your frustration, and your hope.

The Blessings of Wrestling: 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

It’s quite a story that we’ve been following the past few weeks from the Book of Genesis—Jacob and Esau. It began even before they were born. “Rebekah became pregnant. But the boys pushed against each other inside of her, and she said, ‘If this is what it’s like, why did it happen to me?’ So she went to ask the LORD. And the LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb; two different peoples will emerge from your body. One people will be stronger than the other; the older will serve the younger.’ When she reached the end of her pregnancy, she discovered that she had twins. The first came out red all over, clothed with hair, and she named him Esau (meaning "hairy"). Immediately afterward, his brother came out gripping Esau’s heel, and she named him Jacob” (meaning he who cheats. Genesis 25:21-26, Common English Bible).

Two sons destined to be rivals, a rivalry that would be inherited by the descendants, the nations of Israel, and to Israel’s south, Edom. One, physically stronger, rough and hairy all over. The other, more clever, grasping for the advantage, and not above cheating to get his way. If you were to make a TV series of this story, you could call it, “Hairy and the Heel.” We’ve heard different parts of the story these past few weeks. We heard how Jacob wrestled the birthright of the older son from Esau with a bowl of stew. We missed the episode in which Rebekah helped disguise Jacob in Esau’s clothing and goat hide. So, when the blind father, Isaac, wishes to bless his oldest son, he gives that blessing to Jacob instead. Not surprisingly, the “Heel” then has to high-tail it out of Canaan in order to escape being killed by “Hairy.”

Then, we heard God enter this story for the first time. There is the Heel, on his way to an unfamiliar place, unsure of his fate. But it is to this man, whose name means, “cheater,” that God shows a ladder to heaven, with angels ascending and descending, and then repeats the promises he made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham, “Your descendants will become like the dust of the earth; you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants. I am with you now, I will protect you everywhere you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done everything that I have promised you” (Gen. 28:14-15).

What a God of unmerited grace this is. And yet, responding to this promise, our hero the Heel keeps putting conditions on his own submission to God: “If God is with me and protects me on this trip I’m taking, and gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God” (Gen. 28:20-21). Jacob is still wrestling for the advantages of wealth and security. Well, our hero makes it to his ancestral homeland of Haran, east of Canaan. He falls in love with Rachel. But his Uncle Laban tricks him into marrying the older sister Leah, and then getting Jacob to agree to work for him for seven years in order to marry Rachel as well.

Well, our hero the Heel finally gets out of Haran, with both wives, and a whole lot of livestock that he basically swindled from Uncle Laban. And he makes his back to Canaan, and his brother “Hairy.” Maybe the years apart have softened up Esau, made him ready to let bygones be bygones, not. The messengers returned to Jacob and said, “We went out to your brother Esau, and he’s coming to meet you with four hundred men.” (Gen. 32:6). What will our hero do now? He splits his camp in two, and begins sending messengers with gifts of livestock to his brother coming to meet him with four hundred men.

And then he spends the night alone by the river. Except that suddenly, he’s not so alone. “But Jacob stayed apart by himself, and a man wrestled with him until dawn broke” (Gen. 32:24). Who is this “man”? At first perhaps, Jacob thinks it might be Esau, who wants to kill Jacob himself with his own cold hands. As the night struggle wears on, perhaps Jacob wonders if all the demons in his life have come together on this night: the insecurities that drove him to steal all his older brother’s advantages, to hoodwink his father, and his uncle. Maybe all those pressures have built up in his heart and have burst out, so that Jacob is literally wrestling himself.

But as the night turns to dawn, and Jacob continues to struggle with this “man” who has faithfully struggled with him, he begins to sense that this is more than a man, and that the man he is wrestling with is the one man who might be able to help him. “The man said, ‘Let me go because the dawn is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I won’t let you go until you bless me.’ And so God asks, “What is your name?” And Jacob speaks his name that is also a confession: “I am the Heel, the cheater.” And this faithful God says, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won.” (Gen. 32:28).

God wrestles with us on our terms, for as long as it takes. We’re all victims of someone, or something, that has left its scars on our hearts, and God knows that. So when those scars leave us feeling insecure, God will wrestle with us, for years if necessary. This God of amazing grace will wrestle with us until we are ready to face the demons within ourselves, those insecurities that have led us to grasp for wealth and possessions, power and control, being “right” about the issue of the day, emotional comfort in whatever friends of the moment were willing to feed us. God wrestles with our complaints until those complaints become our confession.

And as God blessed the wrestler, “Israel,” so God blesses us, with what exactly? As Jacob limps toward his brother, he doesn’t know if Esau will accept his offerings of livestock. What blessing has God given Jacob? It’s not certainty about the future. It’s not a pat on the head that everything will be alright; although in the end Esau embraces his brother and the two are reconciled. Perhaps, the blessing is understanding of himself, the good and the bad within him, and the peace that comes from knowing that God has loved him and accepted him, warts and all. Perhaps the blessing is to be free from anxiety; to know that he can change his life; and if he falls, God will wrestle with him again as he picks Jacob up, dusts him off, and sends him on his way.

Through Jesus Christ, we have inherited the promise God made to Jacob: “Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants.” We all are Israel, struggling with God and men, and by God's grace winning. God’s hand is always there, either to wrestle with or to embrace. Take it.

Asking the Right Questions--The Parables: 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked (Matthew 13:51).

Perhaps you'll consider it good news that this is the last Sunday for us to consider the parables in Matthew 13. I wonder if you feel like we're on parable overload today: mustard seeds, yeast, buried treasure, the finest pearl, nets and fish. How do you make sense of any one of these, much less all of them? What unites them is how Jesus begins each parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like...” In each parable, Jesus uses the present tense, and he uses recognizable images from this world to describe what the kingdom of heaven is like. So, the kingdom of heaven is not just a future reward. The kingdom of heaven is right here, today. God already reigns as Lord of this world, and we are called to recognize it in the world around us, and to value it above all else.

But recognizing God’s authority in this world isn’t always easy. That is something else that all these parables have in common. The kingdom and the power and the glory, which these parables point to, are hidden. The kingdom is hidden because it is dangerous. C.S. Lewis referred to this world as “enemy-occupied territory.” And according to Lewis, “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” We who are called disciples of this Christ the King have the eyes and ears to recognize his kingdom, and to stake our energy, our treasure, our life and our death, on this kingdom.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable. The parables are not a “how-to” set of precise rules for getting out of God's dog house. The parables are not a cheat sheet for getting the right answers to the test. The parables are not meant to give us the right answers so much as to help us ask the right questions.

The first two parables, about the mustard seed and the yeast, are spoken to the “crowds,” and not just to Jesus's students the disciples. Jesus is speaking to anybody listening, friends and enemies. And so he speaks in code, through these parables. And in both cases, the kingdom, to which these images of mustard seed and yeast point, is hidden. The mustard seed is hidden by nature of it's being so small. And yet it becomes a tree. Trees were symbols of imperial kingdoms. And so this tree represents an imperial kingdom. But it does not seize power by military conquest or political propaganda and clever slogans. The kingdom of heaven begins in humility and service. Can the crowds recognize this servant-led kingdom?

We then hear Jesus tell of a woman who “mixed in” yeast with three measures of flour. But the word translated as “mixed” actually means, “to hide.” The woman hid the yeast of the kingdom within the three measures of flour of this world. To use Lewis's words, this is the sabotage we're called to do. There is opposition to this kingdom of servanthood over power. We have to recognize that opposition for what it is. It may be fear and resentment within us, or fear and resentment that is acted out around us. But we also need to recall how just a little sabotage from just one of us can make enough bread to feed hundreds with hope, and love.

Then, Jesus speaks only to us his students, his disciples, about how much value we are prepared to place on this kingdom of servanthood. Roman law actually dealt with the question of finding buried treasure on someone else's property. And the law basically said, “Finders, keepers.” Understandably, we still flinch a little bit at the underhand way in which this man lays claim to his hidden treasure. But we know that the “lesson” here is not to attain the kingdom of heaven by any means necessary. Both these parables leave us with the question: How valuable is this kingdom of servanthood to us? What are we willing to give up to attain this everlasting treasure? How much opposition are we willing to endure?

So, “Have you understood all these things,” Jesus asks his disciples; to which they respond in unison, “Yes.” Personally, I think they answered a little too quickly. I won't ask you that. But as we leave the parables behind, for now, I pray that if I haven't given you a neat and tidy set of answers, that at least I have left you with the right questions. How will the seeds being sown right outside this door produce a yield of thirty to one, sixty to one, or even a hundred to one? What weeds do we need to let Jesus pull out of our hearts so that the sun can shine on the wheat? Who are we called to serve in the kingdom of heaven? Where is the opposition? And what will we give up for the only treasure we can take with us?

We who have been trained as disciples in the kingdom of heaven don’t need to come up with all the answers to these questions today. Being a student of Jesus the Christ doesn’t mean we have to get 100 on the test just to pass. We just need to ask those questions, and wait for Jesus to answer them.

More On Reverence: Making Holy Things

At my old home church, Grace in Alexandria, the smell of incense always lingers in that sanctuary, whenever you’re in there. One parishioner here has told me that they could detect the scent of candles in the original sanctuary. And it was more than the two lit candles on the altar. These recollections remind me of what a friend said about old churches, that by their prayers and presence, human beings can make a place “hallowed,” or a holy place set apart for God’s presence among his people.

There is truth to that observation, so long as one doesn’t make the leap to saying that by our prayers and presence, we have the power ourselves to conjure God to be with us. If we fall into that temptation, then we’re no different than a fortune teller, and our worship would become no different than a séance.

To be reverent before God is to be respectful of God’s will. And while I trust that God responds to our prayers and other acts of reverence, we must accept that it is entirely up to God to respond to us. It is God who ultimately makes us holy, who sets us apart for the service we give to God in our worship.

I’ve asked the question, What is reverence and how should it be expressed in our worship? Some have honestly responded that they just don’t feel very reverent in Founders Hall, compared to the original church. Do you feel the same way? I can understand wanting to get back into a space built for worship, as opposed to fellowship. I hope each Sunday, as you see the progress being made on the new sanctuary, that you are filled with hope, and that hope helps you feel more blessed in the space we currently worship in.

In the meantime, I think it might help to remind ourselves of that Sunday, more than year ago, when we “Set Apart” Founders Hall “for Sacred Use,” using the liturgy from the Episcopal Book of Occasional Services.

“You will bring them in and plant them, O Lord, in the sanctuary you have established…Blessed are you, O God, ruler of the universe. Your gifts are many, and in wisdom you have made all things to give you glory. Be with us now and bless us as we dedicate our use of this space to your praise and honor. As often as we worship you here, precede us and abide with us. Be known to us in the Word spoken and heard, in fellowship with one another, and in the breaking of bread. Give us joy in all your works, and grant that this space may be a place where your will is done and your name is glorified, through Jesus Christ our Savior, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.

We have prayed thus. We trust that God has heard our prayer, and will respond with truth and grace.

Our Patient Master: 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Let both, weeds and wheat, grow side by side until the harvest.” (Matthew 13:30).

Yesterday, as Bishop Parsley announced the election of our suffragan bishop, Kee Sloan, to be the next diocesan bishop of Alabama, I thought of today's parable. Aside from his gentle and positive spirit, I think that so many of us at the convention voted for him because, having served in this diocese as long as he has, Kee knows where the wheat and the weeds are in this diocese. I also suspect that when Kee is “invested” as our diocesan bishop, and the buck stops with him, he will discover a few more weeds. It's not the weeds we know about that trip us up, but the ones we don't see until, like the landowner in our parable, it seems to be “too late.” But it's never too late for the landowner of this world.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature of common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable.

In fact, this parable might have meant one thing to those who first heard Jesus tell it, and something at least slightly different to Matthew. I'm struck by the differences between the telling of the parable and its interpretation. In Jesus' telling of this parable, what I hear most of all is the patience and mercy of the Landowner. In the interpretation of this parable, the emphasis is on this Master’s judgment and vindication. I believe that Jesus intended for his parables to be “strange” enough, and doubtful enough about its precise application, to inspire each generation to find in these stories the truth they need to hear.

Speaking to “the crowds,” Jesus tells his story of a landowner who plants good seeds of whole grain wheat in his field. But that night, with the ground feshly plowed, an enemy comes and scatters the seeds of darnel. Darnel was a weed. It didn't bear fruitful grain. But you wouldn't know that right away. The darnel weed looked like the wheat when it sprouted and grew. You wouldn't know the difference between the wheat and the weeds until the end, when the grain came forth, and the poor landowner sees all those weeds among his wheat. His servants are clearly irritated at the extra work they have to do. But they’re ready to defend their master and root out those evil weeds. But their Master says, “No, because if you gather the weeds, you’ll pull up the wheat along with them. Let both grow side by side until the harvest.”

Now taken literally, the story doesn't entirely make sense. If the wheat has borne its grain, then it shouldn't be that hard to tell the difference between the wheat and weeds, and to pull the weeds while leaving the wheat alone. So why wait? One interpretation might be that it's for God to decide when it is time to pull up the weeds, not us, and that we need to be patient with God when it seems to us that he is taking too long. Another way to see this story might be to remember how hard it is to tell the difference between the darnel and the wheat while they're still growing. As the landowner is patient enough to wait for the weeds and wheat to reveal themselves, we who certainly know less than the landowner should also be patient with the weeds.

When we come to the “interpretation” of this parable, a half of one verse about the burning of the weeds has become three verses in the interpretation. Most biblical scholars who aren’t fundamentalists agree that the Gospels were written some 30 years after the events they reported, when it became clear that Jesus wasn’t returning right away, and it became necessary to preserve Jesus’s message. Perhaps Matthew got a little impatient, and wanted to reassure his fellow Christians suffering persecution that they would be vindicated, that there would be a harvest of the wheat and justice for the weeds.

But we need the parable and its “interpretation.” Sometimes we see only the bad; in ourselves, in our community, in our church. It is then that we need to be reminded of the patient landowner. And perhaps we also need to be reminded that what look like weeds to us may, in God’s good and patient time, turn into wheat by God’s amazing grace. Other times we may be too complacent, or too afraid, to face the weeds within us and around us. It is then that we need to hear the voice of our Master, begging us to face those weeds, to change our hearts and lives.

That is never easy, and we might fear the Master’s judgment. But we must always come back to the Master who is also the patient landowner, who doesn’t care how overgrown the weeds might have gotten in our hearts and our lives. He will always see the wheat. If we let our Master and our Owner work with us. If we let him gently and patiently pull up those weeds, only the wheat will be left, to shine like the sun in our Father’s kingdom.

Reverence and Intimacy

Last week, I introduced the theme of reverence. In the Bible, “reverence” before God is usually equated with “the fear of the Lord.” But to be reverent is really to be in awe of this God who is so far beyond our power and comprehension, and yet was humble enough to become a human being and die for us.

On the one hand, we worship a God whose power and wisdom make us want to be very careful about the ways in which we worship him. That leads to a more formal style of worship, with certain actions that must be done in a certain way. This isn’t “stuffy.” It reflects the awe that people should have when they come to meet the Lord of the universe in worship.

On the other hand, as Christians, we believe that God meets us in our worship. In the bread and wine, we see, smell, touch, and taste Jesus the Christ, who is God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit is as close to us as our very breath (The Greek word for “spirit” is the same as “wind”). All this happens because God loves us so much. And so in the bread, the wine, and our breath, God is so intimate with us that he is within us. The desire to celebrate this relationship leads others to want a worship that is more familiar, less formal.

There is one place in our worship space where God’s awesomeness and God’s intimacy come together more than any other. The next time you’re in Founders Hall, look at the cabinet to the left corner of the room, between the front pew and credence table next to the altar. You’ll see a white linen with a small box, glass vessel, and candle. In the old sanctuary, the box and cruet were enclosed in an aumbry that was attached to the wall on the right side of the altar facing you.

Inside the box, or ciborium (pronounced “siboreum”) are wafers of bread. Inside the cruet is wine. But it is not ordinary bread and wine. It is bread and wine that has been taken, blessed, broken and shared with the people of God. It is, in a way that Episcopalians believe but don’t dare to explain, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

When I see a parishioner who is shut-in, I take a wafer from the ciborium and some wine with me in a home communion kit (which looks like a little lunch box so that sometimes I lovingly call it the Jesus Lunch Box). I remind the parishioner that they are being fed with Jesus Christ from the same bread and wine that was set apart at the Sunday Eucharist. In this way, they are reminded that though physically separated, they are still a part of us because we are all part of Christ’s body.

On the one hand, Jesus Christ is very familiar to us. He is always present in our church on that white linen. On the other, what an awesome thing that the Son of God should make himself so vulnerable to us that we can pick him up whenever we choose. That’s why, whenever I approach the “Reserved Sacrament,” I bow down on one knee. That’s my way of showing reverence before this awesome and humble God.

In our holy worship space, let us be reverent, not in fear but in awe, joy, and thanksgiving.

The Parables of Matthew Part 1: 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Other seed fell on good soil and bore fruit, in one case a yield of one hundred to one...Everyone who has ears should pay attention.” (Matt. 13:8-9)

“Just give it to me straight preacher.” Well after hearing today's Gospel reading, would anyone like to go to Jesus and say, “Jesus, just give it to me straight.” The parables aren't straight. They're not meant to give those hearing Jesus a blueprint, or a well marked map, or the pleasant voice of your GPS navigator telling you step by step the road to the kingdom of heaven. In between his telling of today's parable and his “explanation,” Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah: “You will hear, to be sure, but never understand; and you will certainly see but never recognize what you are seeing.”

So what good are parables? Well let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable. This parable of the farmer and the seeds spoke to me in a particularly strong way this week. And as we see the beginnings of our new sanctuary, I think it speaks to all of us in a powerful way. This word of the kingdom that Jesus first scattered 2,000 years ago has been scattered in the minds and hearts of all those who have heard it since, and so it shall be to the end of the ages. And precisely because these parables sound so strange, and don't have an obvious meaning, they will always have a fresh meaning to those who pay attention.

I wonder if hearing this parable is more scary than reassuring. There are four categories of seeds, and three-fourths of them become useless, withered and dead. Are you afraid of being in one of those categories. Is there someone you love, who seems to have never had the chance to receive the word because of circumstances that, like the birds, just swooped down and ate the word up before it had a chance to take root? Are there people you’ve known who were raised in such rocky soil that the word of the kingdom could never get deep enough in their hearts to pull them out of the hole they were in? Are you afraid that you that as sincere as you are in your faith, that there are just too many distractions and worries choking you for you to become the faithful disciple of Jesus Christ that you want to be?

Hear the words of hope that Jesus has for those hearing him in that section of the Gospel between the parable and its explanation: “Happy are your eyes because they see. Happy are your ears because they hear. I assure you that many prophets and righteous people wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.” Jesus’s disciples struggled to understand his parables. They asked him to explain them. But Jesus didn’t say to them as he said about the crowds, “You will hear but never understand; see but never recognize.”

You are here this morning, or perhaps you are reading this online, and you see and hear what prophets and righteous people before you wanted to see and hear, but didn’t. The seeds have been planted. And I have been privileged to see shoots coming up from each of you, in spite of predatory birds, rocky soil, and choking thorns. And where the seeds and shoots are, so will come the yield of a hundred to one, sixty to one, thirty to one.
And here’s the best news in today’s parable. It’s not even up to you to produce that much of a fruitful yield. A good yield in the Holy Land of Jesus’s time would have been ten to one. What Jesus promises would have astounded those who first heard him. Such a yield would have been impossible for them to produce. And that’s the point. It’s not they, or we, who will produce such an astounding return on the investment of the word of the kingdom placed in our hearts.

In the past, I confess, I’ve read this parable as a symbol of the preacher, and wondered how much of the seed I’ve scattered would really produce any fruit. Are my words not “straight” enough for my hearers to even understand, much less apply to their lives? Will my words lack sufficient credibility with some? Those are just some of the questions I’ve asked myself about my preaching over the years. But reading through this 13th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, I read all of the parables that Matthew placed in this chapter, and I came to this verse later in the chapter: “The one who plants the good seed is the Son of Man.” Jesus says this about another parable using seeds as a metaphor. But looking at today’s parable, I finally realized what an idiot I’ve been. I’m not the farmer scattering seed. Jesus is!

Jesus is scattering the seed all around us. I am an imperfect vessel through which that seed can be scattered. But thanks be to God, I’m not the only one. You can already see the preparations for the scattering of the seed right outside our windows. The orange lines have been drawn on the ground to mark where our new sanctuary will be. This week, the ground will be plowed. After that, the bricks of the foundation will be laid. Those bricks are the seeds of the kingdom of heaven, where we will meet our God, and be nourished by our Savior, and be blown back out into the world by the Spirit, so that through us, Jesus will scatter the seeds of compassion and truth.

In the weeks ahead, we will hear the other parables that Matthew collected and placed in this 13th chapter of his Gospel. We will hear strange stories about the kingdom of heaven. We will have the gift and the opportunity to put ourselves in these stories, and to imagine what new thing Jesus Christ might be doing through us, in this community, at this time of anxiety. Let us imagine what a yield of a hundred to one might look like in this community, in this time. And let us trust that what we imagine, Jesus is revealing to us.

"Reverence", Silence and Joy

A few years ago, I read the results of an extensive survey of Episcopal parishes that looked for connections between their various characteristics and their growth (or lack of). I was struck that the researcher actually found a negative correlation between parishes that described their worship as “reverent” and membership growth. The researcher, Kirk Hadaway, noted that worship described as “reverent” seemed to be perceived as the opposite of such descriptions as “joyful” and “exciting.”

“Reverence” appears to be another “church” word that needs to be saved, or at least translated so as the remove its unpleasant connotations. To me, reverent worship is joyful and exciting, if we understand just what an awesome thing we’re doing on Sunday morning. That said, I can understand how “reverence” can end up alienating us from God.

A search for the word, “reverence” in the King James Version, and the Greek words translated into the English “reverence,” makes that clear enough. In scripture, reverence is associated with fear, even shame, before God. I’ve heard plenty of stories in this area from disaffected people who were basically taught to be terrified of God. In other cases, some people may have come to associate “reverent” worship with what they considered somber or boring worship.

On the one hand, as Rich Mullins sang, “Our God is an awesome God.” How awesome? As Mullins also sang: And when the sky was starless in the void of the night (Our God is an awesome God), He spoke into the darkness and created the light (Our God is an awesome God).” Should we not be at least a little thoughtful of that when we enter the sanctuary on Sunday morning? The God we worship is truly transcendent. God is beyond all categories of human thought and comprehension. God’s power is infinite, God’s understanding is infinite, but God’s love is also infinite.

Before all this, we should, at the very least, be most respectful of the reality of this awesome God. And even more, we owe God our respect, or reverence, precisely because this transcendent, awesome God, humbled himself to become like us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The very fact of the Incarnation, that God took shape in a human body, brings this awesome God into close contact with us. And I believe that there are tangible ways in which this incarnate God continues to touch us in our worship. Understood in this way, reverence before God should fill us with excitement and joy.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll talk about some of the ways that we come into contact with God in our holy place. But for now, I suggest that the first point of contact is very simple, and very anxious: silence. We are so busy, with our work, our hobbies, our vacations that leave us needing a vacation; that we end up defining ourselves by our activity. It’s not easy to be silent and still when we’re so used to doing things. It leaves a hole that we’re anxious to fill. But God can’t fill us if we keep trying to fill ourselves.

There’s now a sign on the doors to Founders Hall. Before the service, talk to God: During the service, listen to God: After the service, talk to each other. Outside those doors, be in fellowship with each other. At those doors, and inside the hall, let’s practice that discipline of stillness and silence as we stand, bow and kneel before our Awesome God.

The Light Yoke: 9th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, Common English Bible)

What beautiful words Jesus speaks to us today. But how exactly is taking on one more burden on top of all our other burdens going to make those loads feel lighter? And what yoke could Jesus be talking about other than the yoke he would later carry to Calvary? What could possibly be easy to bear about the cross of Jesus?

And O the heavy loads, the pains physical, mental and spiritual we carry every day. There are the emotional scars of having been hurt by those we loved and to whom we were the most vulnerable. There are the griefs we carry in our hearts, that however lightened by the passage of years, will not go away. There is the aching we feel for those we love and are powerless to help. There is the aching in our own bodies, which we know will only grow worse the older we get, however much we protest against it. There is the heavy load of anxiety over the future wealth and security of this country that we all love. And there is the heavy load of anger at the ways in which our homes have been changed, in ways that we never agreed to.

And also there is the pain of those who are personally acquainted with every one of these heavy loads; who have been called to listen, and to speak whatever words of comfort they can hear from God. They pray for all those heavy loads surrounding them. And yet, they know that at some time, they will disappoint every single person who entrusts their heavy loads to those who have been called to listen and speak whatever words of comfort they can hear from God.

So again, how will taking the yoke of Jesus make any of our heavy loads any lighter? Are we supposed to see our burdens as a cross, which we must bear as Jesus bore his cross. Are we supposed to die as Jesus did? Well, sometimes we have burdens which are inescapable. And at those points, we need to know that Jesus has made our yoke his yoke: that he has come along beside us and will accompany us to wherever we are heading. Sometimes, there are burdens which we have no choice but to bear in the hope of Resurrection.

But of the many things I learned at the Cooperative College for Congregational Development, this one statement stood out for me: Jesus already died for you. Too often, we think of the Christian life as just one more good work, one more sacrifice, one more load to carry. But Jesus has carried the only loads that matter; those loads of guilt and anger and alienation from other people. Those loads were buried with him, never to be carried again. Be careful of those loads which other human beings would place on your back and tell you it’s for your own good. Once again, Jesus promises that his yoke is easy and light and gives you rest.

But how do we recognize that light, easy and restful yoke? I recognized it on a Thursday evening when a man named Oscar knocked on the door of our church at 6 in the evening. He is from Cuba. A “labor services” company recruited him to work in one of the industrial plants here in Albertville. They got him his green card. And so he worked here, until he got tendinitis and filed for workers’ compensation. Whereupon the people running the plant fired him. The “labor services” company that had put him up in an apartment served him with an eviction notice and had his power cut off.

So there he was at our church’s doorstep, on a Thursday evening when I was trying to talk to Mark about his sermon, and hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But there was Oscar, barely able to speak English, not having showered in days, with no money. And he was the light yoke. It suddenly didn’t matter to me that it had been a long day, and that I wanted dinner. Nothing mattered more to Mark and me at that moment than making sure that Oscar at least had a place to sleep for that night, could take a bath and eat. We did what we could. I put him up at the King’s Inn for the night. I drove him by the Downtown Rescue Mission, so that he could check with them the next day about getting a ride to their shelter in Huntsville.

That was as much as I could do for him that night. I couldn’t take his heavy load away from him. But for that one night, I could give him a hand and then hand him along with a prayer that Jesus would come alongside him and share his yoke. For a short time, I took that light yoke and found rest from my heavy loads.

So the light yoke is that moment when you have the opportunity to ease someone else’s burden. You don’t have to take it all from them. You don’t have to transfer their burden to you. You just have to do what you can, and feel the ease and the rest within yourself. And as we try to help carry each others’ loads, there will be times when we drop them, when we fail to ease their burdens of hurt, and grief, and aching, and anxiety and anger. But Jesus will be there, to pick up the pieces. Where we are wrong, Jesus will make it right. What we cannot complete, Jesus will fulfill.

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.”

Respecting the Law, Loving the Stranger

There are strongly held beliefs about the new state law targeting illegal immigration, on both sides, within the Parish. I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself. I suspect that both sides will find something in this post with which to disagree. But my position is based on my love of country, and my love of God. That is a base I hope we can all stand on.

The United States of America is the first nation not to have been based on a common ethnic heritage. The first immigrants may have been from England. But the foundation of our country is not English blood but this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That’s not all Englishmen, but all men.

Countless people of all ethnic backgrounds, skin color and languages have come to this country because they believed that they too could be Americans. We have been enriched by their gifts. But earlier immigrants had to cross an ocean to get here. In the last 30-something years, millions of people have crossed the porous land border between Mexico and the U.S. They have come for the same reasons that other immigrants have come to this country: to improve themselves, and the lives of their descendants. It is the ideals that make us a nation, not race.

Anyone wishing to affirm those ideals can become an American citizen. But “We the People of the United States” are right to expect those who would be one of us to accept, not only the rights, but the responsibilities, of American citizenship. Illegal immigrants have put themselves in an unsustainable position. Their economic services are in demand, but they cannot be assimilated as American citizens. They are neither resident aliens, with the understanding that their residence here is temporary. Nor are they able to make a permanent home in this country.

It is reasonable for Americans to want to see their laws enforced, and their borders made secure. Measures to enforce the immigration laws are also reasonable. My personal opinion is that such enforcement should be coupled with a path to legalization for those immigrants who come forward, pay a penalty, and can prove that they are not a threat to society. The new law in Alabama is all stick, and no carrot.

I’ve been speaking as an American citizen. But we are also citizens of another kingdom. “In Jesus Christ our Lord you have received us as sons and daughters [and] made us citizens of your kingdom.” (Book of Common Prayer, p.381). What are our responsibilities as citizens of God’s kingdom? At least one is to accept the guidance of the Word of God spoken through Holy Scripture. This is what God spoke to the people of Israel through Moses: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God. (Leviticus 19:34).

There is one difference between the U.S. and Israel. To be a citizen of Israel was to be descended from the 12 sons of Jacob. Immigrants from other lands could never become Israelites. Israelites were to treat their immigrants as citizens because they could never be citizens. But the Israelites themselves were descended from immigrants, Abraham and Sarah, who were strangers in the land of Canaan. And the Israelites were commanded to love and respect the immigrants among them in the former land of Canaan, which God had allowed them to conquer.

As Americans, we are citizens in a land which we were allowed to take from its natives. As Christians, we are citizens of a kingdom which knows no boundaries between nations. To be a citizen of the kingdom of God is to be part of a kingdom in which all races and languages are being restored to unity with God and each other. (BCP, p.855). As Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Christ is our peace. He made both Jews and Gentiles [or Anglos and Hispanics] into one group. With his body, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided us…So now you are no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household.” (Ephesians 2:14-19).

As Americans, it is proper to enforce our immigration laws in an effective way. As Christians, we are called to love the “stranger” before us, however they got here. We are not exempt from the requirements of Leviticus 19:34, or Ephesians. As Americans, let us enforce our laws, while making it possible for those who wish to become responsible residents or citizens to do so. As Christians, let us love the stranger in need.

Trinity Sunday

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us’… [And so] God created humanity in God’s own image.”

Before cars and trains and planes, most human beings never traveled more than five miles from where they were born. Today, most of us travel at least five miles every single day of our lives. More than anything, what separates us from all the people who have come before us is movement. People used to stay in the same place all their lives. And so did their children, and their children, and their children, and so on and so on, generation after generation after generation.

That kind of life is certainly stable. It can also be static, frozen and unable to change. I heard this week that the difference between a European and an American is that if a European tells you this great idea they've just thought of, and if you ask what they're going to do about it, the European will answer, "Do?" We Americans may move more and do more but as Alexis DeTocqueville warned, all our movement away from people and communities threatens to “make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.”

What does all this have to do with the Trinity? We hear today that God created us in his image. Incredible as it sounds, we actually resemble God. So it's right for us to look at our lives and see a reflection of the life of the one God who is also three distinct persons. Previous generations of Christians saw a trinity that was stable, seated on a throne somewhere high in the sky which they took to be the heavens. From this throne they looked out over a world that seemed as stable as the heavenly throne. But today, we who are always on the move find that the one God is always moving with us. And the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit move with each other, like dancers who move so well together, with such perfect choreography, that their individual movements just flow into each other, so that in their one dance they are one perfect dancer.

The Old Testament is pretty much about the confrontation between this one small nation clinging to its faith in one God and the rest of the world which assumed that the diversity of creation meant that there had to be a diversity of gods. So no one quite knows what to make of God saying, "Let us make humanity in our image." Certainly the faithful Israelites who were inspired to write Genesis didn't intend to give us a justification for the Trinity. But perhaps there was a truth hidden in this verse, which could only be revealed over a long period of time, like a flower that becomes more beautiful hour by hour, day by day, as its blooming petals slowly but surtely unfold. It took centuries for people to come to by know God, not just as the Father of all creation, but as the Son who became a part of creation and died for it.

It took the revelation of Jesus the Christ for people to understand that the same God who created human beings in the divine image loved us so much that in the person of the Son, he was willing to die for human beings. In the revelation of a God who made us, and also died for us, was the clue that when God said, "Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us," it meant that the God who is love is one, but is never alone. This one God is also three loving persons who are completely open to each other; nothing hidden or held back from each other, acting in such complete agreement that they act as one being.

Christians have struggled over the centuries to express this truth. That particular terminology -- three persons, one substance, or being -- has been accepted by the church since the mid-400s. When he was evangelizing the Irish, St. Patrick used the three leaf clover to represent how the three leaves flowed from one source. The problem with that metaphor is that the one God is not the source from which the three persons proceed. The one trinitarian God is no less a person than the three persons that make up the Trinity.

And like the stable, static age from which these metaphors came, this Trinitarian God is removed from our experience. What difference does it make in this world that our God is three in one? In an age of movement, where human beings are constantly on the move, it has become clearer that the God who made us to resemble him moves with us. Theologians have begun to see this Trinitarian God as one dancer, who consists of three dancers who move so well together, whose moves are so flawlessly coordinated that free of missteps they are one dancer.

And as Father, Son and Spirit dance with each other, so they dance with us. Of course we flawed and sinful human beings misstep all the time. Sometimes we don’t want to dance with God, or with each other. Sometimes in our lives, life seems to be as Paul McCartney described it: “It’s a Tug of War. Though I know I musn’t grumble, it’s a Tug of War. But I can’t let go. If I do you’ll take a tumble, and the whole thing is going to crumble. It’s a Tug of War.” We’ve all known those times. I have tugged with God. And this three-personed God, who is love, has tugged with me.

Even when we're trying to dance together, we step on God's toes and each others' all the time. And sometimes, we decide that we would rather just go off and dance on our own. Sometimes, we dance for awhile in the same place, with God and with each other, and our practice makes us better, if not perfect. But comes a time when the God we dance with calls us to go and learn a new dance. It doesn't mean that the old dance, at which we've become so proficient, is to be discarded as old-fashioned. It just means that the one God wants us to learn a new way of dancing with them, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Wherever we move, the Trinity dances around us, and invites us into their dance. When someone moves away from their familiar dancing partners, those old partners must let them go to whatever new dance God is calling them to join. Sometimes, a partner insists on staying in the old dance and teaching some new steps. That learning of new steps will lead to some toes getting stepped on. But patiently dancing with us, wherever we move, is that one three-personed God who never missteps, and will always keep pace with us as we learn to dance as they dance.

Commemoration: First Book of Common Prayer

It was on Pentecost Sunday, June 9th, 1549, that the first Book of Common Prayer was used for worship in the churches of England. English men and women were able to pray in their own language. The first BCP was largely prepared by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He drew from the Latin services that had been used for centuries in the Catholic Church. But he also added from the worship liturgies of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the German services prepared by Martin Luther.

So the first Book of Common Prayer maintained continuity with the ways in which Christians had always prayed, while adapting those timeless prayers to the current spiritual needs of the people. As the British Empire spread throughout the world, so have other churches formed in many lands, all sharing the Anglican legacy. Each national church has adapted the Book of Common Prayer to its own needs. In the latest version of the American prayer book (1979), you can still hear the first 1549 Book of Common Prayer in our Rite I Eucharist during Advent before Christmas, and during Lent before Easter. Elsewhere, of course, the language is more contemporary.

The words, and our understanding of those words may change. But it is the same Spirit that has inspired those common prayers, from 1549 to 2011. Some might argue that saying set prayers from a book is contrary to what Jesus said: “true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). In other words, the Spirit of God is not present when we say prepared prayers, rather than praying “from the heart.” That is wrong. In truth, it is the Holy Spirit that has guided all those who have prepared all the Books of Common Prayer. Our set prayers are far too rich in truth and meaning for the Spirit to have been absent when they were written.

It is the Holy Spirit that breathes through us as we hear and say these prayers, which teach us how to pray to God. Every time we pray these familiar prayers, the words of those prayers seep deeper and deeper into our minds, hearts and souls. Then, with those words deeply rooted in us, we go out into the world. And wherever we go, rooted in those set prayers, our lives will be walking prayers for everything we touch. And as people of common prayer, our lives will be a blessing to all we meet. So with the Book of Common Prayer in our pews and in our hearts, let us always “pray in the Spirit and with the understanding.”

Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your Church: Make us always thankful for this heritage; and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with the understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Pentecost: June 12, 2011

At the Albertville Ministers Fellowship meeting this week, we began an honest, unsettling conversation. For all the many churches in this small town, participation in the Fellowship isn’t what it used to be. Some at the meeting bemoaned the Fellowship’s loss of influence. There was concern that not enough people attended the Holy Week luncheons with Bible Study at Mt. Calvary. At the first Palm Sunday community service in which I participated, back in 2009, the preacher spent most of his time complaining about all the people who weren’t coming to church in Sundays. Clearly, the pastors are worried.

And if you look at the news, they probably have reason. For years, there has been much news about the membership decline in the “mainline” denominations: Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian. But now even the Southern Baptists are having that problem. Just this week, it was announced that for the 8th time in 10 years, the number of people baptized declined in 2010.

The Albertville Ministers’ Fellowship is worried about the future. And it’s impossible to stay informed about goings-on in our own Episcopal Church -- declining attendance, declining budgets, program cuts, continuing conflict over church property in the courts – and not be concerned about our future. Do we even have a future? Will our church survive? Will our children have faith? Will our faith have children? And inside the walls of our churches are all those challenges I just mentioned. There’s not enough money. There seem to be so many divisions about right doctrine. So many arguments in which anxious people lash out in blame and scapegoating and pining for an easy answer. So many people on the outside, and here we few are on the inside. Won’t someone come and help us?

But there’s a story just like that in the Bible: a few men and women who believed that a man who had been executed only a few weeks earlier was in fact the Messiah and the Son of God. But how much more successful could they hope to be than he was? Sure he had been raised from the dead. Of that they were witnesses. But there were so few of them. And there were still thousands on the outside who had arranged and supported his execution. And when they had asked him, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” Jesus’ non-answer, just before he was taken away from them was “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Only a few were left. They were inside a room where the doors were locked, for fear of the Jews, while everybody else was on the outside. And then it happened: rushing wind, flames all around them, roaring, and then, silence. Now it was their turn. No one came to take away their problems. Instead the Spirit came and gave them a new problem. They couldn’t stay inside. Something drove them outside. All that wind, fire and roaring was inside them, and it would have burst inside them if they didn’t rush outside and start preaching, serving, caring, teaching, witnessing, praying, inviting, and loving. They had to tell their story, or it would burst inside them.

We have strength, courage, compassion. And most of all, we have a story to tell. Our problem isn’t money, divisions or arguments. Our problem is that each of us has a story to tell and we can’t help but tell it. I’ve tried to tell my story in bits and pieces over the past two years. It’s a life story in which I learned that the love of God is far bigger than my, or anyone else’s piece of the truth. It’s a life story in which the loving Spirit of God has broken through every wall I’ve ever erected to protect myself. In my youth, it was a wall of grief and anger which God’s love broke through. In my early adulthood, it was a wall of ideological and religious certitude that God’s love broke through: my ideology had nothing on the love of God.

What walls of sin and alienation have you hidden behind, only to see them broken through by the love of God in Christ Jesus crucified? What is your story which you have to tell or else it will burst? I trust that all our stories are simply parts of one great story. It started with God and one man and woman, Abraham and Sarah. That story grew to include one nation. And now it includes all people, those inside this church, and those outside. We have a story to tell, and a story to listen to. We need to hear the stories of those on the outside. Listening to those unfamiliar stories, we may hear learn something new about our own story, as hopefully they learn something new about their stories. And then we will understand that there aren’t stories, but one great story of God’s love for all.

Jesus Christ told this story, and his failure was nailed to the cross. But that failure was not the last word. On this day of Pentecost, as on that first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit invites us to tell our story of what God is doing inside these walls. The Holy Spirit is inviting us to go outside and do our best to tell that story. Might we fail? If we follow the crucified Christ, at least some of the time we will. Read enough of the New Testament, and you will see their failures in black and white: persecution, lack of money, divisions, arguments. But the successes that followed those failures are there to see as well.

So, let us dream of what we might do here on Sand Mountain. Let us plan as best we can. Let us tell the story of God’s love. Let us learn from our successes and failures. And when we fail, let us rejoice that the Holy Spirit has blown us that much closer to success. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

This sermon was largely inspired by this video

Saint Barnabas (transferred)

The Feast of St. Barnabas is on June 11th. For Christ Church in Albertville, I'm transferring it to today for our midweek Eucharist.

“Barnabas” is the name given by the first Christian apostles to Joseph, a Israelite priest who accepted Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. “Barnabas” means, “son of encouragement." And the Book of Acts contains much evidence of his encouragement. When Saul, the former persecutor of Christians, couldn’t meet the Church in Jerusalem because no one trusted him, it was Barnabas who put his life on the line, trusted Saul and brought him to his fellow Christians. When Jewish Christians in Antioch began bringing Gentiles to faith in Christ; it was Barnabas who brought Saul (now known as Paul) to Antioch where the two of them could encourage these new Christians together. Then Barnabas and Paul travelled together on the first mission trip of Paul.

Though a priest of the House of Israel, Barnabas valued all people as children of God and worked tirelessly to show them the eternal value they had in God’s eyes. His valuing of all people led him to support a compromise in which male Gentile Christians were not required to be circumcised, as male Jews were, but were asked not to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols out of respect for their fellow Christians of Jewish descent. Paul, however, valued truth above all, in this case the truth that God had brought all people together in Jesus Christ. Thus, there should be no barriers that would make it harder for Gentiles to embrace Christianity.

Paul challenged Barnabas over the issue of food laws in Antioch. They argued so violently over this that on their next mission trip, they had to separate. And so it always seems to be in the Church, which is called to both encourage and challenge. When should one encourage people by meeting them where they are? When is it time to issue a challenge based on Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life? The debates continue, sometimes in a more civil manner than others.

We also know this. Late in his life, long after their violent argument, Paul and Barnabas apparently reconciled. Barnabas’s cousin, Mark, whom Paul had refused to take with him on the second mission trip, was with Paul when he wrote to the Colossians. “If he comes to you, welcome him,” Paul wrote of Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. Eventually, the Encourager who valued people, and the Challenger who valued truth, were reconciled and were friends once again.

Let the encouragers work for unity. Let the challengers work for truth. Do not fear the disagreements, and don’t let that fear silence you. Be assured and at peace; because in the end, God will win the argument, and all will be in agreement in God’s good time.

Christ Under Our Skin: The Ascension of our Lord

“After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven?” (Acts 1:9-11a)

Today is the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some communities are still able to observe this holy day with the attention and reverence it deserves. We are told in Acts of the Apostles that the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples at various times for 40 days, and then he was taken from this earth, which begs the question: where did he go?

In the Gospel of Mark, we are told that Jesus was “lifted up into heaven and sat down on the right side of God.” Luke describes the Ascension twice, in his Gospel and at the beginning of Acts. And in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to hold on to him in her joy, because he must still ascend to his Father and our Father. Interestingly, Matthew doesn’t mention the Ascension at all.

Luke and Mark both pain the picture of Jesus being lifted up into the sky. And I don’t doubt that the Ascension appeared that way to the disciples, at least until “a cloud took him out of their sight.” Without telescopes and the knowledge they give us today of the space above us, people reasonably assumed that Jesus ascended to a place somewhere in the sky, or perhaps among the many lights in the night sky.

Today, however, we can reasonably assume that “Heaven” is not located in a particular place between the planets of Mars and Jupiter. Indeed, we really don’t want it that way. If Heaven is only in a particular place, and if God the Father and the Son are located in that particular place, then they are not in any other place. They look upon us from some distant place. They can see us, but we can’t see them. And if they’re in that distant place, then how can they touch us, or help us?

At some point, Jesus passed from the world of place and time, where he could be seen by our eyes, to a “place” that really isn’t a “place” in the way that we understand “place.” God, the creator of all things, is beyond all things, and cannot be contained within our limited powers of observation. But that does not mean that Jesus is now so far beyond us that he is at an infinite distance from us.

In fact, he is as close to us as the trillions of cells in our body. Look at Salvador Dali’s painting of the Ascension. What is that yellow thing with the bumps that Jesus seems to be ascending into? It’s Dali’s conception of an atom, one of the smallest things in all creation. Jesus Christ the incarnate God ascends away from this created world so that the same Jesus Christ may come back and be with us in all things.

In the words of the collect for the Ascension, “our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things.” There is no place where Jesus “is” today, because he is everywhere. He is not far away from us. He is with us in every cell of our bodies, and he is with us in the depths of our soul. And his Spirit is coming. Don’t keep staring up into the sky. Get ready.