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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50965980159986829272014-10-16T21:36:38.848-04:00Sermons - The Episcopal Church of the TrinityChrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-21396567309378216092014-10-05T09:30:00.000-04:002014-10-16T21:36:38.864-04:00A Home Fit For a KingBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
17 Pentecost, Proper 22 – October 5, 2014
Matthew 21:33-46
He was, by all accounts, a successful man. This builder of fine homes in an upscale American suburb was known to all as a creative craftsman, a shrewd businessman, a fair-minded employer, and a generous benefactor. But he was aging now, and before he set out for Florida for the winter, he approached his top superintendent and told him that he was retiring. "I want you to build me a home, the finest home this company has ever built. Spare no expense, use the finest materials, employ the most gifted tradesmen, and build me a masterpiece before I come home next spring."
The next day, the superintendent set out to build that home, but not exactly to orders. If his boss was retiring, that meant he would be losing his job, so he needed to pad his own savings account, lest he be destitute. He ordered inferior concrete blocks for the foundation, but charged the builder for premium blocks, and he pocketed the difference. He hired inexperienced carpenters, plumbers, electricians, roofers and landscapers, but he charged his boss wages that would be paid to master craftsmen, and he put the difference in his own bank account. He installed cheap appliances and lighting, insufficient insulation, inferior carpet, and drafty windows, and he skimmed a tidy sum off the top for himself. In the spring, when the home was finished, it looked spectacular; it was the signature home in the neighborhood, and the only thing that made the superintendent happier than how the project looked was the bottom line in his personal bank account, which had grown by hundreds of thousands of dollars that winter.
When the elderly business owner arrived home from Florida that spring, he toured this home fit for a king, and he was ecstatic. The superintendent handed him the keys and thanked his boss for the privilege of working for him all these years. And then the owner did an unthinkable thing: he said to the superintendent "You have been a trusted friend and a loyal partner in my business for all of these years; you deserve a home like this." And he handed him the keys.
You know that phrase made famous by the cartoon character Pogo – we have met the enemy and he is us.
Greed is what that story is about, and greed is certainly present in our parable of the tenants in the vineyard. The first lesson we learn from the vineyard story related to God's incredible patience. We find that the landowner had invested a lot in the vineyard. The verbs in verse 33 tell us that he planted, set, dug, built, let and went. These strong verbs point to the active, caring, loving attitude of the landowner toward his vineyard. Then he went away entrusting the responsibility to the tenants to till, cultivate, and harvest. He expected his vineyard to produce fruit.
We must notice that the landowner placed a phenomenal amount of trust in the tenants, just as God does in us. When ready to claim his harvest, the master sends representatives, not once, but twice. His patience seems unending. The first group was beaten, stoned, or killed. The second group met the same fate. But the owner was still patient. Finally thinking it inconceivable that his own son would be rejected, he sent him. "They will honor my son," he says.
However, the wicked tenants failed their final opportunity. In the ultimate test, the son was cast out and killed. An ordinary landlord would have sought revenge on these ungrateful tenants. He might bring a legal action against them or even armed forces to claim what is rightfully his. But this landowner is like God, not like us. God sent his Son! The essential character of God is love, and such love is patient.
And a second lesson is here regarding stewardship. The tenants were provided with everything they needed. They were given the freedom to do the task as they wished. This was an opportunity for growth! But they blew it. Instead of showing faith, they resorted to greed and their murderous instincts. The behavior of these tenants was the perfect example of humanity's rebellious response to God's love. The people of God resisting God's love.
The servants in this parable worked the land, but they treated the land as if it was their own. Somehow that they forgot that it never belonged to them, they forgot, or rejected their covenant with the landowner. They owed something to the landowner that they were unwilling to give. The same is true for us. These tenants forgot that they were merely stewards or managers. We sometimes forget too. We are under the delusion of ownership. We think we own things, when in reality God is the owner of all things. All we have belongs to God. We are stewards.
What does "ownership" really mean to us anyway? My friend's father owns forty acres of land back in Arkansas. But what does that really mean? His father is 79 years old. He may have possession of that land for 10 or 20 more years, but one day he will be buried on that land. The land will own him. The same is true to a lesser degree of all that we own. There are no U-Haul trailers behind hearses. We leave everything when we die. So we see that the Bible is accurate when it describes us as stewards. We have possession of things for a little while.
Once we get over the delusion of ownership we can really enjoy the good things that God has placed in the garden for our enjoyment. And we may just share it with the other guests as well.
Christian novelist Flannery O'Connor has written, "You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket .... To have running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life and of God."
Robert Newell was driving along an isolated road one night when his car suddenly stopped running. He was stranded. Then the lights of another car approached, pulled alongside, and stopped. After exchanging pleasantries, the other motorist pulled a rope from his trunk and towed Newell's car several miles to the nearest garage. Newell tried to give money to the man, but he refused it. Newell then said, "Well, I must in some way return your kindness." The stranger replied, "If you really want to show your gratitude, buy a rope and always carry it in your car."
God is like that. He has put us in the vineyard, and invites us to enjoy its fruits--but he wants us pass the blessings on--to live righteously, to care about each other, and to bear witness to our faith. God's emphasis on fruit-bearing is not unlike the motorist saying, "If you really want to show your gratitude, buy a rope and always carry it in your car."
Our God is a patient, loving God. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-37589815708353998732014-09-14T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-15T09:19:50.178-04:00Forgiveness Isn't EasyBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
14 Pentecost, Proper 19 – September 14, 2014
Matthew 18:21-35
You may have heard the story of the woman who spent the first day after her divorce sadly packing her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases.(1) On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things.
On the third day, she sat down on the floor in the dining room by candlelight, put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of Chardonnay. When she had finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimp and caviar into the hollow of the curtain rods. She replaced the end caps on the curtain rods, cleaned up the kitchen, and left. When the ex-husband returned with his new girlfriend, all was bliss for the first few days.
Then slowly, the house began to smell. They tried everything: cleaning, mopping, and airing the place out. Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned. Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which time they had to move out for a few days; and they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting. Nothing worked.
People stopped coming over to visit. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit. Finally, they couldn't take the stench any longer and decided to move. A month later, even though they had cut their price in half, they couldn't find a buyer for their stinky house. Word got out, and eventually, the local Realtors refused to return their calls. Finally, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place.
The ex-wife called the man, and asked how things were going. He told her they were selling the house but didn't tell her the real reason. She listened politely, and said she missed her old home terribly, and would be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for getting the house back.
Thinking his ex-wife had no idea about the smell, he agreed on a price that was about 1/10th of what the house had been worth, but only if she were to sign the papers that very day. She agreed, and within the hour his lawyers delivered the paperwork for her to sign.
A week later, the man and his girlfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home – including the curtain rods.
Most of us enjoy hearing a story like that – especially if we've been wronged by someone. We like to hear about people "getting even."
Our enjoyment, though, points to an underlying reality – the reality that we really are vengeful. We don't want to admit it, perhaps, but we prefer to see people get even rather than to forgive.
And when Jesus invites us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," we fully understand the sentiment of the man who always pretended to forget the words of the Lord's Prayer – because he didn't want to forgive his former partner for swindling him out of his business.
Rare, in our society, is the story of forgiveness. The news media was astounded at the way the Amish community here in Pennsylvania forgave the man who killed their children years ago, in part because the story is so rare.
In Matthew's gospel reading this morning, as we remember the 13th anniversary of the events of 9/11, the question is asked: how many times do we need to forgive?
For many of us forgiveness is very difficult and often leads to questions about who we should forgive and what we should forgive. Should we forgive Osama bin Laden and the bombers he inspired? Jesus seems pretty clear on the subject and that answer would be, Yes, we must forgive.
A pastoral counselor believes that one of the main reasons people don't forgive is because we don't know how, and in particular we confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. Added to the problem is a lack of good working definitions of resentment, forgiveness, and reconciliation. So, telling people to forgive without teaching people how to forgive is not helpful and contributes to misery.
Resentment – a working definition. Resentment involves reliving, in the present moment, something from our past. To experience resentment we need to do one other thing than simply relive a past event. To create resentment, we need to add a demand, in the present moment, that the past event would not have occurred. These demands are often in the form "he or she shouldn't have done, or should have done something."
Regardless of how hard we demand, or how despicable the event was, demanding that something shouldn't have happened doesn't change the fact that the event occurred. Resentment: A demand in the present moment that a past event didn't happen.
Forgiveness: When forgiving, what we let go of is the demand that the past would have been different than it actually was. To release a demand we can convert it into a preference. "I would have preferred that the past event wouldn't have happened." Forgiveness is not about saying "it didn't matter." These past events do matter, we know they matter, especially when our core values have been violated. Converting a demand into a preference means we get to maintain our integrity and our values.
When we convert the demand into a preference we can explore the values contained within the preference. If the values that were violated are important to us and we would like to keep them in the future we can take a moment and imagine personally sharing that value with someone in the future. It doesn't need to be with the person who has hurt us, but we do need to be willing to give to people what we want to receive from them.
To let go of the past and live fully in the present moment we need to go beyond turning the demand into a preference and surrender the other person and ourselves into the Goodness of God that is fully available now.
I like the idea of the Goodness of God, I never define what that goodness is, but I know deeply that it is good, it is good for me and good for others. When I try to define the goodness of God, for myself and others, I find I contaminate it with all my ego wishes and wants. When dealing with people who have hurt me, my ideas of what would be good for the one who has injured me are generally for my benefit and not for the one who has hurt me.
Forgiveness: Letting go of our demands that the past would be different and surrendering ourselves and others into the Goodness of God in this present moment.
Forgiveness is independent of the person who has injured us. It is how we set ourselves free of things that have happened in the past. Forgiveness is a precursor to reconciliation, but it is very different than reconciliation.
Reconciliation is an agreement by two people on how they will live together in the future. Reconciliation requires shared values. It would be stupid to be reconciled with someone who does not share our values.
Jesus forgave those who crucified him, and he was never reconciled to the mission or goals of the Romans or the Pharisees.
Martin Luther King Jr. pursued a non-violent dream of equality and he was never reconciled to injustice or to those who perpetrated injustice. We can forgive Osama Bin Laden and his followers and we do not need to be reconciled to those who create terror.
If we truly want an end to terrorism then you and I must first renounce using fear to motivate anyone, whether they be our spouses, or children, co-workers, parishioners, citizens, politicians, or our enemies. For when we use fear to motivate someone we have become a terrorist in their lives. Only when we give up using fear to motivate people can we lovingly and fiercely challenge those who terrorize us.
Forgiveness isn't easy. Nor does it require the other person to be repentant. Reconciliation, though, requires both. Reconciliation can only be done in the context of a trusting relationship where repentance and forgiveness are both present.
Seventy-seven times Jesus tells Peter to forgive someone – or in some translations, seventy times seven. A large enough number that we will lose count if we try to keep track, large enough that we may also begin to see how many times we need to be forgiven as well.
You see, our debt has been paid in full. Not because we deserved it, but because God decided the possibility of a relationship is more important than allowing sin to prevent it. How we respond is up to us. We can choose to spend our lives obsessed with settling scores with terrorists, with rivals, with noisy neighbors, with line jumpers, with the wise guy in the other lane or even within our own families. Life presents us with infinite opportunities to constantly get even or to forgive "seven times seventy". The choice is ours. We can live in love or we can live in hate. Both are transformative forces. We become what we value and love, or we can risk becoming the evil we obsess upon. Love is better. God's desire is that we use our forgiveness as a beginning point for a new and healthy relationship – with God and with one another. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-19190727515788746102014-09-07T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-15T09:13:04.395-04:00Community and ConnectionsBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
13 Pentecost, Proper 18 – September 7, 2014
Matthew 18:15-20
Community and connections. Today's gospel reading from Matthew has everything to do with community and connections. And community and connections are all about truth-telling and reconciliation. Community and connections demand both accountability and autonomy, both responsibility and individuality, both answerability and self-identity.
We, as human beings, make mistakes. We mess up. We wind up hurting others. Who hasn't been hurt or wound up hurting someone else? That's just life in this world. We screw up. Which means that forgiveness is perhaps the essential ingredient in our relationships at home, work, school, church, and all the rest.
All of which brings us back to the troublesome verses we've heard this week. You see, without keeping the centrality of forgiveness in our relationships firmly in mind, it's easy to hear the verses in this week's reading as a divine recipe for dealing with troublesome Christians. Step one, take the offender aside and show him/her the error of their ways. Step two, bring a group to confront said offender. Step three, shun and/or banish unrepentant offender. Repeat as necessary.
Read all by itself, this counsel is wide open to abuse, as (probably) well-meaning people decide to have Christian con-friend-tation with someone they fear is "backsliding." But read in light of the larger context of forgiveness and relationship, what Matthew's chapter 18 is about, everything changes. The primary goal is no longer to change someone's behavior, or demonstrate how he or she is wrong, or even to invite him or her to repentance. Rather, the goal is to restore a damaged relationship by speaking truthfully about the breach or hurt you are experiencing, taking responsibility for your feelings and your actions and inviting the other person to do the same, and inviting dialogue and conversation that you might find a way forward together.
Read this way, these verses are remarkably counter-cultural. For we live in a culture of digital dehumanization, where we can accuse or complain about someone else at the safe distance of the comments to a post, trash someone's reputation via social media, or share difficult news via an email rather than through face-to-face conversation. In each case, we have failed to take seriously the humanity of the person with whom we are in relationship, hiding ourselves in the digital forest of 24/7 messaging. Jesus, however, invites a different way. He invites us to love each other enough to speak not just to but also with each other, holding each other accountable through vulnerability rather than by force. After all, it takes guts to talk to someone you feel is in the wrong without judging them, putting them down, or taking responsibility for their actions. And it takes guts to listen when someone else tries to do the same thing for you. In this way of relating, the key is to put being in relationship above being right, and to take incredibly seriously how much God wants us all to be in good relationship with each other and with God.
Some people have an amazing ability to remember the slightest offense done to them, the less-than-redemptive remark, the tiniest snub. They let it fester in their souls until it just gnaws away at their hearts and little is left but resentment and anger and a really terrible case of heartburn. But in the end, especially as far as the kingdom of heaven is concerned, the only thing that matters is not what's been said or who got the short end of the stick. The only thing of consequence is relationship.
In his book The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis, draws a stark picture of hell. Hell is like a great, vast city, Lewis says, a city inhabited only at its outer edges, with rows and rows of empty houses in the middle. These houses in the middle are empty because everyone who once lived there has quarreled with the neighbors and moved. Then, they quarreled with the new neighbors and moved again, leaving the streets and the houses of their old neighborhoods empty and barren.
That, Lewis says, is how hell has gotten so large. It is empty at its center and inhabited only at the outer edges, because everyone chose distance instead of honest confrontation when it came to dealing with their relationships.
"Look, she's the one who said that about me. Let her come and apologize!"
"We may go to the same church, but that doesn't mean I've got to share a pew with that so-and-so!"
"It'll be a cold day in July before I accept his apology."
That's all well and good, I suppose... if you don't mind living in hell.

Are we really so willing to give up our relationships with others – relationships that have come about and been forged by our desire to follow Jesus? Nowhere, and I do mean nowhere, in the gospels will you find Jesus saying that the first order of things is always to be right. But he does have a great deal to say about forgiveness, about relationship, about reconciliation, about service and humility and vulnerability.
I read an article by Lillian Daniel, a pastor in the UCC tradition. Her story is about sitting next to someone on a plane who discovered she was a minister and he told her that was spiritual, but not religious. I smiled when I read this, because I've heard that many times – "I'm spiritual, but not religious". Lillian Daniel has, in part, this to say: Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.
Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.
"Where two or three are gathered in my name," he says, "I am there among them." So when it comes right down to it, where do you prefer to be? Father, you've called us to be family. That means, from time-to-time, we're going to hurt one another. Squabbles are going to break out, and we won't exactly be getting along. But help us to see the bigger picture, that relationship is more important than anything else. Dear God, thank you for creating us in your image and not the other way around. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-57728060943658748052014-08-31T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:30:20.587-04:00Pick Up Your Cross and Follow MeBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
12 Pentecost, Proper 17 – August 31, 2014
Matthew 16:21-28
So, this is a tough passage from Matthew for many of us – at least I think so. And the really tough piece of it for me is "take us your cross and follow me". It's tough because, what does that really mean, to 'take up your cross'? How does Jesus' cross have anything to do with life today? Sure, there are necklaces, rings, pendants, bracelets, but when asked "what does the cross, Jesus' cross, mean to you?" how will we respond? Last Sunday I asked you to answer Jesus' question, "Who do you say that I am?" Now today I am asking what does the cross mean to you? Not what you think it should mean because you've been told what it should mean, because you are a Christian, because you go to church, because you are worried about what the pastor will think, or because you fear that you might get kicked out of church altogether. What does the cross mean to you?
Is the phrase "take up your cross" a justification for suffering? Is the cross a symbol for defiance of empire? Is the cross representative of the absolute certainty of the incarnation? Is the cross a model for resistance to the status quo? Is the cross a reflection of our human propensity to eliminate the voices that call for justice, for mercy, for compassion, for love? Just what cross are you willing to take up? And which one are you not?
It's interesting that Jesus says, "take up your cross and follow me." Taking up your cross, then, is not an individual act that validates your faith or demonstrates your willingness to go the distance or a statement of self-sacrifice or self-denial. The cross, then, has everything to do with community. Take up your cross and follow. To follow, by definition, demands something or someone to be followed. Follow me -- how do you answer that? Literally following Jesus to the cross, following the person? Isn't it also following those things that Jesus preached and taught? When Jesus says follow me, what Jesus do you follow? What parts of Jesus' ministry and teachings do you follow?
Edward Stone Gleason tells this story about a man named Sam. [In Carl P. Daw, Jr., ed., "Breaking the Word: Essays on the Liturgical Dimensions of Preaching" (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994), pp. 142-43.]
It seems that for more than a decade Sam had operated a successful counseling business in a mid-sized industrial city in the southeast. His contracts were with major corporations which had brought growth and progress to the area. The counseling center offered a variety of services, but most clients wanted help with a drinking problem. The center's contract with each corporation enabled employees to seek help with a guarantee of remaining anonymous. Each employee's problems and progress were treated as completely confidential, and it was well known that client files were for the eyes of the counseling staff only.
One day the executive vice president of the largest firm under contract made an appointment to meet with Sam. To Sam's shock and amazement, this executive demanded to see the files for his employees. Sam told him politely but firmly that this was impossible. The files were completely confidential. The vice president's face became red, and he spoke loudly and harshly to Sam as he repeatedly insisted that the files about his employees be delivered to him immediately. Sam continued to refuse.
Finally, the vice president stood up and moved toward the door. As he touched the doorknob, he turned around, paused, and stared at Sam. "Very well. Since you insist, tomorrow our legal department will contact you to terminate our contract with you immediately. How many of our employees do you suppose have availed themselves of your services? More than a hundred?"
Sam again reminded him that this was confidential information.
"No matter. You won't be seeing them anymore, unless you give me their files right now, and I mean right now."
Sam had a vision of his counseling practice collapsing like a building demolished by explosives. He pictured his own personal finances also reduced to rubble. Then he addressed the executive in as measured a voice as he could muster.
"Dick, how many times do I have to tell you? It can't be done. It just can't be done. My center's work with your employees is completely confidential. Cancel the contract if you must, but you'll never get those files. Never!"
The vice president walked back and took his seat again. "Okay," he said, in a subdued voice. "If that's the way it is, then I guess it's safe to tell you why I came. I have a drinking problem, and I need your help."
When he uttered his final refusal of the vice president's demand, Sam stepped into a kind of death. It was a death freely chosen, one that followed from all that he was as a professional, a counselor, a Christian, a human being. When he uttered that final refusal, he gave up his life as he knew it, trusting that somehow God would be there on the other side.
Sam had no idea what those next minutes held for him. In the language of today's Gospel, he simply took up his cross, and by his own choice walked behind Jesus down the road to Calvary. All he could see ahead of him was death.
Sam held out against the vice president's insistent demands as a matter of professional and personal integrity. Yet putting it that way makes his decision sound too abstract. He held out, at the cost of his life, because he could not forget the faces of clients who had trusted him and his agency, people in whom he had recognized the face of Christ. He could not fail to do for Jesus what Jesus had done for him.
There are different ways to phrase it:
-- Pick up your cross and follow me. -- Give up your life for my sake. -- Surrender the whole world.
There is the road of our culture that says, "Get more. Be more. Build a bigger enterprise. Be more successful." And there is the road of Christ that says, "Deny yourself, take up a cross, and follow me."
I leave you with the words of the poet Robert Frost who said it so well,

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

Then Frost concludes with these words,
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

So this week, I ask you to take some time and ask yourself, what does Jesus' cross mean to me? What does it mean to "take up your cross and follow Jesus"? Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-46851340451975108652014-08-24T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:27:07.793-04:00Who Do You Say That Jesus Is?By The Rev. Sherry Deets
11 Pentecost, Proper 16 – August 24, 2014
Matthew 16:13-20
"But who do you say that I am?" This question is posed to Jesus' disciples, but it is a powerful question for us today. Who do you say that Jesus is? Gathered in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus wonders aloud what the crowds are saying about him but more importantly what the disciples think. It's another way of saying, "Why are you following me? Why have you left everything you know? Who do you say that I am?" And so it might be worthwhile to ask the question today. Why are you here? Why have you chosen to follow this Galilean peasant? Why are you on this path?
Jesus asks us, he asks you and me, "Who do you say that I am"? This is, at its heart, a question of identity. It is a question of extraordinary vulnerability. Think about it. He's asking on what you will wager your lives, the claim of your being. This is no benign question but has everything to do with who the disciples think Jesus is and more importantly, who they think they are.
Questions like this are risky, so risky. Like our Exodus story. On what will you stake your identity, your life, your future? How do you want to be known?
This really is the question of life, isn't it? Do you know who you are? Who you want to be? What are the demons that make reflecting on that impossible? Because there are many. The demons that tell you that you can't. The demons that tell you that you are not good enough. The demons that insist you aren't enough. Period.
Hear Jesus' question as less about certainty and more about inquiry. About imagination. About exploration. About possibility. I want us to wonder together for a moment or two what we actually mean when we say, with Peter, that Jesus is the Messiah, Son of the Living God. Or that Jesus is Lord. Or, for the theologically inclined, that Jesus is the second member of the Trinity. Or, in the words of the Creed, that Jesus is light from light, very God from very God, begotten but not made.
You see, I think it's really hard to align our lives with our confession when we don't really understand what that confession means. And I'm not sure most of us really do – myself included. (We can take some comfort, I think, that Peter didn't understand what he said either, as we'll learn next week.) Because this whatever-it-is that Jesus was and is…it's really hard to put into words that we can understand. And so we come up with titles and formulations and all the rest, trying to get at the mystery of what God has done in and through Jesus, and that's understandable. But all too often those words only keep the wild and unpredictable God of love and grace at arms distance from us, and Jesus remains inspiring and exemplary, but ultimately rather tame and eminently safe, kind of like the prophets of old seem to us.
So, what do you mean when you confess Jesus as Lord? Can we put it into words? My friend David has this to say: I think Jesus is God's way of showing us how much God loves us and all people. God is so big that I think we have a hard time connecting with God. And so God came to be like one of us, to live like one of us, in order to reveal just how God feels about us. In this sense, Jesus revealed God's heart, a heart that aches with all who suffer depression and think seriously about ending their lives, a heart that is upset and angry when a young black man is shot dead for no explicable reason, a heart that is torn up in grief at the desperate situation and violence that rips apart the land we've named Holy, a heart that loves us like only an adoring parent can and so not only wants the best for us but is always eager to welcome us home in grace, forgiveness, and love.
But it's more than that, too. I think Jesus also came to show us what's possible. And so rather than give into the threat of disease, Jesus healed. Rather than surrender people to demons, Jesus showed compassion. Rather than let people starve because there's not enough to go around, Jesus fed people who were hungry. Jesus refused to be satisfied or limited by the status quo and invites us to do the same, because if Jesus' life and death show us how much God loves us, Jesus' resurrection shows us that that love is more powerful than hate and fear and even death. Jesus shows us, in short, that God's love wins.
So, who do you say that Jesus is? The question is one of identity and our answer says more about who we are, than who Jesus is. The things we do this week -- our actions, decisions, choices -- will, in fact, ripple out with consequences foreseen and unforeseen, for good or for ill, for the health or damage of the world. Andy Andrews wrote a little book called The Butterfly Effect in which he catalogues the extraordinary impact of simple and courageous efforts. Except when you go back, you can never really tell which efforts made the biggest difference. So, for instance, should Norman Borlaug, who developed high yield, disease resistant corn and wheat be credited with saving two billion lives from famine, or should Henry Wallace, the one-term U.S. Vice-President, who created an office in New Mexico to develop hybrid seed for arid climates and hired Borlaug to run it. Or should we credit George Washington Carver, who took a young Henry Wallace for long walks and instilled in him his love of plants. Or should it be Moses and Susan Carver, who adopted the orphaned George as their son. Or should it be... Well, you get the idea. Andrews points out how inter-connected our actions are, creating an unforeseen butterfly effect that can ripple across time and space to affect the lives of millions.
What will we do this week to make a difference in the world. Some of these actions may be big, bold, and courageous. Others may be small, hardly noticeable. And yet they all have the potential to ripple out, affecting countless lives. In today's reading from Exodus it's Shiphrah and Puah, quietly standing up to a bully and tyrant. Who knows whom it will be today, this week, this year. The Apostle Paul, in the second reading, says that we all are members of the body of Christ, each with different gifts, yet all one in faith and with the same potential for God to use us to change the world.
So what would you do if I told you that what you do this week could change the world? Jesus asks us, "Who do you say that I am"?
May we live our lives reflecting that Jesus is the Son of God. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-68833009530193383462014-08-10T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:25:22.759-04:00Storms Are Not Always PredictableBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
9 Pentecost, Proper 14 – August 10, 2014
Matthew 14:22-33 and Genesis 37:1-4,12-28
My friend Karoline took a trip to the Holy Land and she stayed at a kibbutz on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. They could see Tiberius from the shore. From that location she traveled to various places where Jesus "could have" fed the 5,000, the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes; where Jesus "possibly" preached the Sermon on the Mount, the Mount of Beatitudes; where Jesus "could have" hosted breakfast for his disciples, the Church of the Primacy of Peter. These sites were certainly significant. But, she says, the moment during that leg of the trip where a biblical story literally came to life was our last day at the kibbutz. In the morning, the winds started up; trees bending from the force, lawn chairs scattered on the shore, and whitecaps on the sea. Suddenly, there I was, in the boat with the disciples. So this is what it would have been like? Our guide, Johnny, said wind storms like this were sudden and frequent, a characteristic feature of the weather pattern for that region.
In reading today's gospel story, I realized that the disciples don't seem to be too afraid of the storm, and if Johnny is right, and I am sure he was, these fishermen should be used to these kinds of storms. I also noticed that Jesus doesn't actually rebuke the winds in this passage. He just shows up.
Sudden and frequent storms – never quite knowing for sure when the storm may appear. Even with today's technology, storms are not always predictable. When they arrive unexpectedly, they can wreak havoc in our lives. And yet, the greatest storms in life have nothing to do with low pressure systems or cold fronts. The greatest storms come through the sudden twists and turns of our own lives. One day you go to the doctor's office for a routine exam and the next day your life is turned upside down by the results. Or your marriage is humming along just smoothly until one day your spouse tells you he wants a divorce. Or you struggle to keep your head just above water financially, and then the boss announces her downsizing plan. Or a child gets sick, or a parent dies, or there is a fire, or there is a family fight. Suddenly, a storm hits you with a vengeance, and your life takes a dramatic and serious turn. The one common thread in each of these circumstances is that you didn't see the storm coming
And it's not a question of "if the storms come" but rather "when they come." None of us is immune from suffering, or tragedy, or heartache. Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Bad things do happen to good people. So the question is, what do you do when storms come upon your life? I want you to think about it for a moment; what do you do when unexpected storms come upon your life. (SILENCE). What have you done when the storms have happened to you? (SILENCE).
It was late in the day, and Jesus has just performed the miracle of feeding more than 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and two fish, and now it was time to leave. Jesus sends his disciples out into the boat and tells them he will catch up with them later, and he goes up into the hills to pray. Meanwhile, the disciples are trying to row the boat, but the waves were battering their tiny craft, and the wind was against them. I love that phrase, "the wind was against them." I think that describes the reality of some peoples' lives; they feel like the wind is always against them. It's not that you're not trying. You're not lazy, or uncommitted, or whiney, or incompetent; it's just that the wind is against you no matter which direction you row. Life is sometimes difficult.
So that's how it felt that night on the Sea of Galilee; the disciples were going nowhere fast, and the wind was against them. They had been rowing most of the night; it was now the fourth watch, which meant that it was between 3 and 6 AM, and they found themselves caught in a storm. And in their particular circumstance, they think they see a ghost! That's another thing about the storms of our lives; we often imagine the worst when the storms come. We often see barriers and hurdles and problems that aren't really there, but our view of life is clouded, it appears darker than it actually is. The disciples think they see a ghost and they are terrified; "It's a ghost!" they cry out. But then Jesus calls back to them "Take heart, it is I; don't be afraid."
That the same Jesus who drew near to the disciples in that tiny fishing boat also draws near to us when the storms come. Author Robert Capon says that most of us would like to think of Jesus coming to the rescue in some heavenly tow truck, offering us hot chicken soup as he tows us to safety. In reality, Capon writes, Jesus does come to us in the storm, and he sits and suffers with us until the storm has passed. Jesus draws near to those who are hurting; that's the first thing.
The second thing is that Jesus calls out to each of us to step out in faith. Even when faith seems unreasonable, and even when we can't see any possible solution on the horizon, he invites us to not be afraid to trust in him. Peter may have been an impulsive character, but his faith was bold whenever Jesus called to him to follow.
The third thing is this; sooner or later, every storm ends. You may be going through a difficult chapter in your life right now. The wind is against you, and it's been that way for a while, and you are weary, or discouraged, or lonely, or afraid. The storm will not last forever. It will pass, and the sun will shine again, so don't give up.
St. Augustine wrote these words:

Let us sing alleluia here on earth, while we still live in anxiety, so that we may sing it one day in heaven in full security. . . We shall have no enemies in heaven, we shall never lose a friend. God's praises are sung both there and here, but here they are sung in anxiety, there is security; here they are sung by those destined to die, there, by those destined to live forever; here they are sung in hope, there in hope's fulfillment; here, they are sung by wayfarers, there, by those living in their own country. So then . . . let us sing now, not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but in order to lighten our labors. You should sing as wayfarers do—sing, but continue your journey. . . sing then, but keep going.

May all who struggle and all who hurt this day take heart and not be afraid; Jesus has come to share the storms with us. But the Lord who walks on top of the sea in this story not only directs wind and wave but also death and life. This Jesus wants more than to command our attention; he wants to save our lives. And he has promised to do just that. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-15012223344978255562014-08-03T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:22:14.852-04:00Send Them AwayBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
8 Pentecost, Proper 13 – August 3, 2014
Matthew 14:13-21 and Genesis 32:22-31
So, our gospel story today is the feeding of the 5000 – one of Jesus' miracles. Today I want us to look deeper into just what this miracle represents. Notice, before going further into the story, the context of this scene. It begins with the transitional line, "Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself." The thing Jesus just heard about was John the Baptist's murder by King Herod at a feast. The juxtaposition couldn't be more ironic, or powerful. One moment Matthew invites us to focus on one more episode from the "lifestyles of the rich and shameless" and in the next he fastens our attention on a scene portraying poor, sick, and hungry crowds looking for relief. It's like switching channels from the Kardashians to a news report on immigrant children stranded at the border. Matthew is indicating, by these contrasting scenes, just what kind of God Jesus represents.
What do I mean by that? Well, in the first century, gods aren't normally supposed to care about people like the crowds. The gods of the ancient philosophers, for instance, were considered dispassionate and so were regularly referred to by cozy names like "the Unmoved Mover" or "First Cause." At the other end of the spectrum, the gods of the Greek and Roman empires were notorious for using humans as playthings and for ordering the world to their whims. At best, gods were supposed to take the side of the rich and powerful, to stand with people like Herod and his well-fed party guests, sanctioning their exploitation of the poor and even the bloody murder of a truth-teller like John. They were definitely not known for siding with the oppressed, the ordinary, the downtrodden, or the hungry.
And yet that's what happens here, as Jesus renews, embodies, and fulfills the consistent call of the God of Israel to feed the hungry. Make no mistake, that was no minor endeavor, as what we now call "food scarcity" wasn't only known in the ancient world, it was rampant.
So….. take the disciples in the gospel today. Jesus and his friends are in the middle of nowhere. The writer of Matthew calls it a desolate place. Jesus had withdrawn there to get away, but the crowds had found him and followed him to this deserted place.
At some point, the disciples realize that the sun is setting and that there is a crowd of 5,000 men with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. That's 5,000 not even counting the women and the children.
"Send them away," the disciples tell Jesus. "Send them back home, back to their villages so they can find food. We can't handle all this need." The disciples weren't being selfish or unkind, hateful or unloving. In fact, to their minds, sending this hungry multitude away was the most compassionate thing they could do. It kept people from going hungry in the middle of nowhere.
"Send them away," they say. But Jesus replies, "No, you give them something to eat." "But we only have five loaves and two fish," they protest.
When the disciples looked out at the multitude and at their resources, the disciples saw only scarcity — they saw what they lacked — and they responded with the only rational solution they could conceive. And, too often we, you and I, see the world this way, through a lens of scarcity, a lens that fears we might not have enough or might have what is rightfully ours taken from us. Whether that's our food, our security, our stuff; our comfort, our complacency, our critical distance from those hungry people. And we respond with what we assume is compassion. Send them away. Send them away.
All we have here is five loaves and two fish.
It is not enough.
Jesus saw things differently though. He didn't see the scarcity the disciples did. "Give them all the food we have," he says. It wasn't just five loaves and two fish. It was everything. But Jesus, I believe, understood something the disciples couldn't fathom. The loaves and fish they had didn't really belong to them.
You give them something to eat, Jesus says. But all we have here are five loaves and two fish, we say. The disciples that day gave everything away. It wasn't much, really, in the face of such overwhelming need. But Jesus blessed it.
Afterwards, the disciples walked around, picked up the leftovers and realized they had more than they had started with. They had more than they could have ever imagined. Scarcity transformed into generosity. Meager gifts transformed into a feast. A desolate place transformed into a field for harvest celebrations where all can eat.
Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." In that one simple statement, Jesus is saying to his disciples, "Live already. You can't sit back and watch me do all this awesome stuff. Live it. Live life. I am counting on you. I need you."
This past week, Deanna Thompson, shared on her Facebook page a recently published article. Deanna was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer five years ago and yet, here she is, living. And living life fully and extraordinarily, called to new places of teaching and witness and vocation and discipleship because of her illness. She writes, "For too many who live in the aftermath of traumatic events, a tidy, linear cross-to-resurrection narrative simply doesn't map the reality of their undone lives."
This causes us to consider Jesus' directive to his disciples in a different way. I wonder if Jesus is trying to disrupt our tidiness, our penchant for cause and effect. The disciples are thinking linearly. Practically. A deserted place? Where will the food come from? Late? Time to go home. We are done here. What more do you want? And come on, Jesus. These people need to fend for themselves.
This is a major lesson in discipleship. Discipleship is rarely tidy or convenient. What you will be asked to live -- and when -- may just be a miracle itself.
As Deanna writes later in her post, "If communities of faith are to help make it possible to 'live like we're dying' for those of us haunted by the lingering, unpredictable effects of traumatic events, attention must be given to the space between death and resurrection. That space where we might experience healing and redemption, but sometimes only faintly. Where people go on even when they can't."
Surprisingly, unexpectedly, the feeding of the five thousand gives witness to what the space between death and resurrection looks like. For the crowd. For the disciples. Maybe even for Jesus. Where there is the knowing of profound lack, but experience of provision. Where we exist in the meantime of life, but can see, albeit dimly, solutions. Where and why and when we think we can't go on, but then we do.
Because the real wonder of this story is that it continues: God still cares deeply and passionately for those who are most vulnerable – the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the downtrodden – and God continues to use us to care for them. Therein, perhaps, is the miraculous. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-73531550454693433772014-07-27T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:20:14.732-04:00The Kingdom of God May Be Found in the Mundane and OrdinaryBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
7 Pentecost – July 27, 2014
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52
 This week's passage presents us with a series of parables that evoke distinct elements of God's kingdom. The first two parables are about the surprising presence, even invasiveness, of God's reality and reign, while the second set leans more in the direction of the extreme surprise and delight we experience when we discover, even stumble upon, the peace and joy of the kingdom. The promise of the parables about the kingdom of heaven is that even when the kingdom is not seen, it is near.
I have to admit that for much of my life, I've fallen prey to the temptation to read these parables as something like a proverb: "big things sometimes have small beginnings" or "don't judge something based on its size." It makes sense on a superficial level, as each parable talks about something small – a mustard seed or a bit of yeast – blossoming into something much grander. Until you realize, however, that neither mustard seed nor yeast was viewed positively in Jesus' world. Mustard was a weed, dreaded by farmers the way today's gardeners dread kudzu, crabgrass, or bindweed. It starts out small, but before long has taken over your field. Likewise, yeast was a contaminant and almost always represents the pernicious nature of sin when mentioned in the Bible.
Why, then, compare the kingdom of God to a pernicious weed and pollutant? Because both mustard seed and yeast have this way of spreading beyond anything you'd imagined, infiltrating a system and taking over a host. And might God's kingdom be like that – far more potent than we'd imagined and ready to spread to every corner of our lives? How might we regard routine invitations to read the Bible, pray, and come to Sunday worship if we thought these things might lead to our lives being infiltrated, changed, and taken over by God's reality and rule?
We might imagine that these parables will do – and therefore mean – several things. Perhaps to some people they may function as something of an evangelical warning: Be careful. People who have been infected by the gospel have done crazy, counter-cultural things like sharing all they have with others, standing up for their values in school or the workplace, looking out for the underprivileged, and sharing their faith with the people around them. Perhaps to others, though, these parables will serve as a much-needed word of encouragement: Hang in there! God's new reality is closer than you think, already seeping into your life even though you can't always feel it. To others still, these parables will come as a profound promise: No matter what it may look like, God's kingdom will prevail. And so in the face of war, we claim God's peace. When confronted with illness, we look to God's eternal healing. When faced with hate, we proclaim love. Why? Because the kingdom is coming and before you know it will transform everything.
The Kingdom of God is like . . . Jesus taught in parables that are not always so easy to understand. But in each one of these the surprise comes from God. God causes the tiny mustard seed to grow into a huge tree; God uses the little bit of leaven to cause the loaf to rise. God has buried treasure where least expected, worth enough to sell everything for in order to buy that field and the pearl great enough to give all that one has to purchase such a wonderful pearl. God keeps adding fish to the net. Each parable has a surprise.
What I want to suggest is that God has not given us exclusive responsibility for all that is to be done. And it seems like there is a lot to be done, especially if you listened to the news this past few weeks. Wars are escalating. In the first parable, Jesus does not use the illustration of an acorn becoming a giant oak tree or a seed becoming one of the great cedars of Lebanon, with which his audience would have been acquainted. Instead, it is a tiny seed that becomes a common shrub, just a step above a weed. In the second parable the dough is not turned into yeast--but the dough is influenced by the yeast, so that the dough is different from what it was. Our vision is a world without war, but perhaps all we can do is bind up the wounds of one or two victims; our vision is for a world without hunger, but perhaps all we can do is share canned goods through a food distribution center; our vision is a world free from ignorance, but perhaps all we can do is teach one person to read. In all those lesser activities God's Kingdom is present, the mustard seed is planted, and the yeast is changing the situation of one person from hopelessness to hope.
What Jesus seems to be saying here is that the Kingdom of God may be found in the mundane and ordinary as readily as in the spectacular. The famous scientist George Washington Carver called his busy laboratory, "God's Little Workshop." The name was indicative of the humility of this man who prayed for God's guidance in discovering the uses of what was then an unimportant crop, the peanut. He once shared that he had prayed the following prayer: "Dear Mr. Creator, tell me why the universe was made." "Ask something more in keeping with that little mind of yours," the Lord replied. "Dear Mr. Creator, what was mankind made for?" Again the Lord said, "You ask too much. Cut down the extent of your request and improve the intent." So Carver tried again. "Mr. Creator, will you tell me why the peanut was made?" "That's better," the Lord said, and from that day Mr. Carver developed over 300 uses for the peanut. He found treasure in something that was part of his everyday experience.
By age 29, Millard Fuller was a millionaire with an estate-type home, a vacation retreat, two speedboats, a luxury automobile, and shares in three cattle ranches. One day Millard's wife left him, taking their two small children. "I don't feel I have a husband," she said. "You're always working and thinking about making money." In the aftermath of his wife's departure, Millard began to reflect on the meaning of his life. He had his first million at the age of 29; he had already set his next goal--to have ten million by the time he was 39. But when his wife, Linda, left him, he woke up to how much his "success" had cost him. He asked Linda for a chance to reconcile, which she granted. To get away from things for a while, they went to visit a project called "Koinonia Farms" near Americus, Georgia. They stayed there for a month, helping to replace dilapidated shacks and shanties of poor people. They had found a purpose.
The Fullers sold most of their possessions and founded a corporation to help poor people build houses for themselves and others. The Fullers then took their plan to Africa where they oversaw the building of 114 homes. They called their new-found mission "Habitat for Humanity." Included among their carpenters have been Jimmie and Rosalyn Carter. The Fullers' program has now placed houses for the poor in several hundred communities in this country, including ours, and more than 25 nations around the world. Of their new-found purpose Millard says: "I don't believe we're saved by how many houses we put up. I don't believe that we're saved by how many poor people we feed. I know that we're saved by . . . Jesus and by the grace of God . . . What matters is our response to what God has done. We believe that 'Habitat for Humanity' is one response, one manifestation of what God has done for us in Christ."
The Kingdom of God starts out small, but its influence grows; we discover it in ordinary things, but eventually we come to know that it is worth more than anything else. When we decide to become followers of Jesus Christ, we become citizens of a new country. We become residents of the Kingdom of God. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-75104965542837318212014-07-13T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:16:54.114-04:00Let Anyone With Ears ListenBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
5 Pentecost, Proper 10 – July 13, 2014
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
 "Let anyone with ears listen". The verb "to listen" is in present tense. To hear God's Word is not a one-time occurrence but an ongoing characteristic of discipleship. Listening is essential to discipleship. The story line in our gospel today is simple enough. A sower goes out to sow, and casts seed so that it lands in four kinds of places, with four different results. The seed that lands on the hard path is eaten up by birds. The seed that lands in rocky soil grows up only to wither. The seed that lands among thorns grows up, but is choked by the thorns. But some seed ends up in good soil, and brings forth abundant grain.
"Let anyone with ears listen". What did you hear? Where are you in this parable of the sower? Better yet, when and how have you felt all of these responses to God's word? So the story of the sower demands our attention. What are we to make of it? Is it merely a simple story, or does it offer something more?
Robert Farrar Capon [Capon discusses the Parable of the Sower in his Parables of the Kingdom (Eerdmans, 1985), pp. 61-86.] is an Episcopal priest, a theologian, and handy enough in the kitchen that he's published a cookbook.
Capon claims that in this parable the sower is God the Father, and the seed sown is the Word of God, Jesus himself. The parable then supports the belief that Jesus is everywhere in the world already. The task of discipleship, then, is not to take the Word where it is not, but to find that Word in all the places where it is, like an unending treasure hunt.
Capon also proposes that the parables of Jesus, and this one in particular, insist upon four important aspects of God's kingdom. He calls these characteristics catholicity, mystery, actuality, and last but not least, hostility and response. These characteristics are what make the parable of the sower a challenge to the first disciples and to us. They make this treasure hunt something that perplexes and fascinates.
Catholicity refers to what is universal. When Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God, he proclaims its catholicity: that it is at work everywhere, always, and for everybody, rather than simply in some places, at some times, and for some people.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the story of the sower. A sower goes out to sow, and he tosses the seed in every direction so that it lands in every possible place.
The landing places represent every kind of person, every sort of human situation. There's no way for any of us to opt out of this story.
This story is about everybody. It suggests that everybody has at least a chance at the kingdom. This catholicity, this universality, sounds great until we see that seed can land in the places we consider beyond the boundaries. We can feel sideswiped by the outrageous hospitality of God.
The second characteristic of the kingdom is mystery. So often we expect God to come on with Fourth of July fireworks. We want God to be obvious, unmistakable, punishing bad people and rewarding or at least rescuing good people (ourselves included). We want God to behave like any comic book superhero. But the way of God's working to which Jesus points is different from that.
The sower sows the seed. And do you know what? That seed disappears. It literally goes underground where nobody can see it. To all appearances dead and buried, it sprouts, and becomes what its original size and shape would never suggest.
How strange! We want the kingdom to come in a way that's noisy and noticeable, and what do we get? Jesus talks to us about seed. Then he becomes one. Into the earth he disappears. He's dead and buried. Then he comes to life unexpectedly as the bumper crop's first installment.
The third characteristic, actuality, is especially troublesome. The sower doesn't just think about sowing the seed, or imagine it, or worry about it, or anything else. He sows the seed! Through the wide world the sower goes, casting seed every which way.
Whatever happens to a particular seed, it is still good seed. Its operative power remains unimpaired, like those seeds that sprout after spending thousands of years inside an Egyptian tomb. If there's a problem, it's not with the seed. The power of life is present there all along.
Jesus remains Jesus through his passion, death, and resurrection. The seed never becomes less than itself. The word is not unspoken. Our salvation is something actual.
The last characteristic is hostility and response. The point here is that hostility is real: the seed-eating birds, the oppressive sun, the choking thorns are not fantasies. What Jesus dies on the cross is a real death. But all this is turned away from its hostile intention to serve the purpose of God. We call the day of his demise Good Friday.
It is the Word alone, and not the resistance to it, that finally matters. The harvest is sure to happen. Our spot may be barren, but there's a wheat field on the way. The only question is this: Will we obstruct growth on our own spot of soil, or will we stop blocking our life, and let the harvest happen to us?
We do ourselves a favor by letting the harvest happen. It is the kingdom of God. It is not something we do, yet it grows in the soil we are.
There are, then, four characteristics of God's kingdom.
First, catholicity. The seed's been scattered everywhere, and who knows where growth may happen.
Second, mystery. The kingdom doesn't hit us over the head, but creeps into our hearts and our circumstances.
Third, actuality. The redeeming Word is never unspoken, but remains present, come what may.
Finally, there's hostility and response. We're not here to earn gold stars, but to respond to grace by bearing fruit.
If Christian discipleship is indeed a treasure hunt, then here we have clues for the game. The kingdom is hidden, yet everywhere.
It is not a possibility, but a reality. It is not something we earn, but something we welcome.
We can keep our eyes on the bare spots in our lives and other people's. We can fixate on disaster and sorrow. We can focus only on the infuriating birds who eat up seed, or the dead, withered plants, or the ones choked by thorns and weeds.
Or we can open our eyes to the harvest. Not just a little local harvest, but a universal one.
The wondrous growth--thirty, sixty, even a hundred times the return on investment--this happens not just inside the church or among Christian people. It happens here and there, in countless places through the wide world which God loves. It happens wherever anyone acts from a sense of mercy, justice, compassion, love. This wondrous growth happens whenever relationships are mended, wounds healed, hope restored.
Today's gospel celebrates one of the most overwhelming aspects of God's nature -- abundance. The very existence and creation of everything, us included, demonstrates God as the ultimate giver. So awesome is God's ability to do this, that even in the midst of broken lives and broken dreams, we humans can experience this abundance; God's grace, God's mercy, God's forgiveness.
We trust in his promise to be with us to the end of the age. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-9113753862854527822014-07-06T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:13:24.571-04:00The Gift of FriendshipBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
4 Pentecost, Proper 9 – July 6, 2014
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Jesus says to us, "…my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Sometimes we hear this and think, "yea, right, Jesus?" How can you ease my burden?
In Pat Conroy's memoir, My Losing Season, Pat tells the story of his senior year as point guard during the Citadel's basketball season, and what he learned from losing. He also describes the people in his life who smashed him to pieces.
Conroy's father was a master at demeaning, attacking and undermining his son. He did it verbally, emotionally. Conroy writes, "There was nothing my father could not teach me about the architecture of despair. I knew all its shapes and blueprints, the shadows of all its columns and archways. My father could send me reeling down its hallways and screaming into its bat-spliced attics with a curl of his thin-lipped mouth. His cruelty baffled me, shamed me, and I promised myself I would never be anything like him."
Conroy's life is marked by the persistent and severe ways in which his father tore him apart — and ways in which he returned to irritate the most severe wounds so that they never healed. "My father possessed a genius for scab-flicking, for zeroing in on that tenderest spot of the psyche where healing was most difficult, exposing the rawness of the wound again and again.
Conroy's psyche was tested further by his coach, Mel Thompson. His harsh words and loathing attitude beat down Conroy and his teammates. Conroy is haunted by particular phrases: "You're just mediocre." "You might as well not shoot." He and his teammates struggled against a coach who reduced them to pieces: "My teammates had found themselves reduced to a state that was birthplace and hermitage and briar patch to me —a despair with no windows or exits, a futility that made hope vain and future unthinkable."
"Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest." But what is this labor that Jesus talks about, this heavy burden. It is certainly not work, per se. Hard work is central to any productive, contributing life. Jesus worked hard and so have all who have made any contribution to this world. Those who do not give themselves to labor end up soft and shallow and self-indulgent. So what kind of labor does he invite us to flee?
It is the drive to prove ourselves, in order to establish our worth. It is doing in order to be. To be worthy of life, to be acceptable, to be loveable, I must measure up, perform, please, prove myself worthy, acceptable. Continually trying to justify one's existence on the planet. This is the heavy burden that Jesus is talking about, of which Conroy is an extreme example.
Every Jew listening at that time would have known precisely what Jesus meant. The burden, the yoke was the law, that massive body of statutes and commandments found in the books of Moses which every good Jew was bound to worry about and struggle with lest he fall out of favor with God and community. His very existence, happiness, well-being depended upon his performance of these high and heavy demands.
"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." So, what is this soul rest? It is rest in that strange love that affirms just as we are, no matter how the day has gone, no matter how anyone else feels about us, no matter the achievements and failures of life. It is the deep-seated recognition that we don't have to prove a thing to anybody. We have a right to be... who we are and where we are. With all our strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, profile and peculiarities, we are acceptable.
It is rest in the grace of God we see in this Jesus. Salvation is the grace that comes in him, liberating us from the condemnations of the past so that we may live forward with free spirits. Lewis Smedes, who died too young, after a life of inspiration to many of us, wrote a description of the grace that is rest for our souls. It goes like this:

Grace does not make everything right in our world.
Grace's trick is to show us that it is right for us to live;
that it is truly good, wonderful even,
for us to be breathing and feeling,
at the same time that everything clustering around us is wholly wretched.
Grace is not a ticket to Fantasy Island;
Fantasy Island is dreamy fiction.
Grace is not a potion to charm life to our liking:
charms are magic.
Grace does not cure all our cancers,
transform all our kids into winners,
or send us all soaring into the high skies of sex and success.
Grace is rather an amazing power to look earthly reality full in the face,
see its sad and tragic edges,
and yet feel in your deepest being that it is good and right for you to be alive on God's good earth.
Grace is power to see life very clearly,
admit that it is sometimes all wrong,
and still know that somehow, in the center of your life, "It is all right."
This is one reason we call it amazing grace.
Grace is the one word for all that God is for us in the form of Jesus Christ.

That's rest, is it not — rest from the struggle to be somebody, to prove to a father long gone, or mother present, or colleagues and friends or crowd that you are somebody special, rest in the reality that no matter what else you are, you are nothing less than a son, a daughter of a loving God.
Conroy finally found that rest in a friend who became this grace, an English professor who befriended him and encouraged him to become a writer. But it was not the gift of language that brightened the eaves of Conroy's brain: it was also the gift of Doyle's friendship. At a pivotal point the Professor told him, "You're too hard on yourself. For reasons I don't understand, you are deeply unhappy, and it pains me. I think you could be special if you only thought there was anything special about yourself. Someone has taught you to hate yourself. I hope I haven't crossed some line, Mr. Conroy. I value our friendship so much."
With those words and friendship Conroy was able to begin putting the pieces of his life together again. L. Gregory Jones, dean of Duke University Divinity School comments on the story. "All of us emerge in pieces out of complex factors that include our own sinfulness as well as the sins we suffer from others —haunting words, tattered emotions, in all too many cases physical wounds. We search for friends of our mind, people who mediate God's grace in Jesus Christ in ways that give us back the pieces of our lives in the right order.
But then as we reflect on those people who have been the friends of our minds and given thanks for the healing balm of friendship they offer us, the question rebounds: To whom are we called to be holy friends? Who needs us to give them back the pieces of their lives in the right order?
Jesus urges us to take his yoke upon ourselves. A well-made yoke distributes the load evenly, making the task easier. A well-fitted yoke follows the contours of the oxen's neck so that it does not rub or chaff. The yoke that Jesus offers us is not the kind that is burdensome or heavy, that chafes and rubs, but it is a yoke of love.
Here Jesus is offering us a yoke, a partnership, a relationship, fellowship with himself, the opportunity to learn from him the art of gentleness, warmth and assurance. Being yoked to Jesus means to walk with him and do the things he does - to be gentle and lowly, putting the cares and needs of others before his own.
There is a legend that tells us that at first birds had no wings and that they rebelled when wings were fixed to their bodies because they seemed to be such an extra burden to carry around. However, when they stopped seeing their wings as burdens but as a whole new world of opportunities, they were lifted to the sky by what was previously a burden.
"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-1011730370019999702014-06-29T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:08:50.623-04:00God Gives You Life AgainBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
3 Pentecost, Proper 8 – June 29, 2014
Genesis 22:1-14
"It's not about you." Did anyone ever say that to you? Something is going on. Some conflict is being worked out or some decision is being made about something that is going to happen and you are feeling threatened or put upon or involved in some other way. Then someone who is more deeply involved says to you, "This is not about you." At first that may hurt your feelings because most of us operate on the assumption that almost everything is about us. But when the realization soaks in that it really is not about you, at least not primarily, and you discover a new way of looking at things and of relating to them, you may discover that "it's not about you" is one of the most liberating things that was ever said to you.
Do you remember the story of Abraham and Sarah? The story began with Abraham and Sarah living the good life in a great city of one of the highest civilizations in the ancient world. Then Abraham heard the voice of some great invisible other coming from beyond everything he had known. The other called him to take his family and his servants and leave everything that was secure and dependable and to venture out into the unknown. He was to travel to a land that he would be shown. The invisible other promised that the descendants of Abraham and Sarah would become a great nation that would play an important role in human history and they would inherit the land through which he would travel.
Abraham and Sarah accepted the invitation. They ventured out trusting the promise of the unknown other. They lived many years and had many adventures trusting that promise. It was the promise that gave their lives purpose and meaning. But for most of the time, the one thing that would be necessary for the fulfillment of the promise had not happened. They had no children. Toward the end, they certainly began to feel that they had been foolish to trust that nebulous promise of an invisible other.
But finally, when both Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children, God gave them a son, Isaac, the son through whom all of the promises were to be fulfilled. They immediately hung all of their hopes upon him. They sent away the other son, Ishmael, whom Abraham had fathered through Sarah's handmaiden in a desperate effort to keep from dying without an heir. The fulfillment of their whole long life's adventure centered in their beloved son, Isaac.
We can imagine that Abraham had come to think that this whole story centered in himself. After all, he had been the central character in the story as he had experienced it. He must have thought that the story was primarily about his ambition, his faith, his descendants who would make his name great and the land that his descendants would inherit. All of this must have begun to sound to him like Abraham's success story - and it all centered in Isaac, the son that God had given him.
Then the day came when God required Abraham to take his son to the top of a distant mountain and to sacrifice him, to give him back to God. Now, there are lots of things about this story that can get us all churned up. If we thought we heard God calling us to kill one of our children as a sacrifice, we would certainly argue with God about that. We might very well refuse to do it. Of course, that is because we know something about God that Abraham didn't know yet, some things that Abraham's own experience has taught us. We know that God would never ask us to sacrifice our children. But the sacrifice of a child was not unknown in the religious practices of the pagan people among whom Abraham was living. He believed that it was really something God wanted him to do - and so he decided to do it. He had lived trusting God and obeying him all through his life. Now he would do it again this one more time.
Abraham took Isaac to the place of sacrifice to give him back to God. Our hearts hurt for Abraham and for Isaac as we read how Abraham made preparations for the sacrifice while his young son asked him trusting questions. Finally, just as Abraham was about to perform the fatal act, God intervened. God provided an animal for the sacrifice and gave Isaac back to Abraham. Abraham had proven that he would always trust God. God had proven that he would always provide.
But something very basic changed in the relationships between the actors as this drama unfolded. It became apparent to Abraham that this story was not primarily about him. This was not just Abraham's success story. It was about something much bigger, something that God was doing for all humankind. Abraham would play an important role in what was happening and the role he would play would validate his life. But it was not about him. It was about God and God's purpose.
As Abraham and Isaac left the mountain, something fundamental had changed in their relationship, too. Isaac no longer belonged to Abraham. He was no longer the one through whom Abraham's ambition would be realized. Instead, Isaac belonged to God, just as Abraham did. Abraham and Isaac were two separate persons, each of whom existed in a unique relationship with God, each of whom would play an important role in the working out of the purpose of God. Very important relationships existed between them, but they were separate persons, each of whom existed in relationship with God. The promise that Isaac represented was no longer just a promise made to Abraham. It was a promise made by God to all humankind.
That changed lots of things for Abraham. Now that he knew that the story was not really about him, he could let go of it. He could play his role in it faithfully without having to believe that it all depended on him. It was no longer about his son, his ambition, his descendants, his land, or about the promise made to him. But he also discovered that he was a part of something much greater than the story of one man could ever be. He had a new freedom and an even greater meaning in his life.
God has indeed given us everything we have. Imagine yourself alone, naked, and empty--handed; a creature who, only a short time ago, did not exist and who, in a time much shorter than we like to imagine, will not exist again so far as this world is concerned. Our lives are only a minute in the history of the universe, and less than a second in eternity. Yet, there is a greater reality, who has no beginning and no end, who surrounds us and gives our lives meaning by loving us.
When God requires you to give everything back, God gives life to you again, but in an entirely new set of relationships. We will need to discover that there is indeed a story that keeps going on and that it is the story of God and of what God is doing to work out God's great purpose for the whole creation. It really is not quite true to say that the story is not about you. It is very much about you. It is about you in the same way that it is about everyone else in the world. But it doesn't center in you. It centers in God and in what God is doing in the world. It can be your story if you commit yourself to it. That would mean finding a new center for your life in something greater than yourself. And that will give your life a greater meaning and a freedom that you may not expect.
It can be a very liberating thing to learn that everything is not all about you. When we give back to God all that God has given to us, God gives it again so that we can have it all with new freedom and new purpose. What God was trying to show to Abraham on the mountain of sacrifice is the same thing that Jesus was trying to show us all when he said, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 16:24--25).Amen.
Sermon based on one by James L. Killen excerpted from Sermons On The First Readings: Series I, Cycle A (SermonStudio).
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-570604641831347902014-06-22T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:06:42.038-04:00I'm Really AfraidBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
2 Pentecost – June 22, 2014
Matthew 10:24-39
Lucy, the psychiatrist of Peanuts fame, sits waiting in her booth. Frieda comes seeking help. "My problem is that I'm afraid of kindergarten. I don't even know why! I try to reason it out, but I can't ... I'm just afraid ... I think about it all the time ... I'm really afraid...." Lucy responds, as only Lucy does, "You're no different from anyone else. Five cents, please." Sensitivity never was her primary quality. But, you know, Lucy nailed the issue. Frieda is you and I. We all have fears, some real, some imaginary, yet real to us; some healthy, some unhealthy; some known to us, others unknown to us. But have them, we do!
Did you know that the physical, bodily symptoms of fear and excitement are identical. That is, you would not be able to tell the difference between fear and excitement by checking breathing, heart rate, release of sugar into the blood, or any of the other activities of the sympathetic nervous system that prepares us for "fight or flight" responses to threat. There simply is no difference.
Yet we experience a profound difference between these two states. When we are nervous, let's say about the prospect of playing in a soccer match, we would move with less confidence and be more likely to miss-hit passes or shots on goal. But if we were excited, everything seems to come more easily. Think about when John Brooks, making his World Cup debut on the U.S. soccer team, headed in the go-ahead goal with just four minutes left in regulation play. He must have been excited, rather than nervous, about this opportunity.
And yet if there is, physiologically, no difference between these two states, that means that our interpretation of our condition makes all the difference. Reading our sweaty palms and increased heart rate when meeting someone for the first time -- or climbing into the pulpit on Sunday morning! -- as signs of excitement or fear dramatically effects how we approach the situation in question.
All of this bears, I believe, on our gospel reading today, as it is a gospel reading that talks a lot about fear. Jesus has commissioned his twelve disciples and is about to send them out on a mission of their own, a mission during which they exercise both great authority and the need to demonstrate profound trust. For while they will have the power to cast out demons and heal the sick, they are to take no money or extra provisions but rather depend upon the grace of God as shown in the hospitality of others.
As part of what seems almost like a pre-game "pep talk" , Jesus levels with the disciples about some of the challenges they will face, challenges including rejection and slander and persecution and perhaps even death. It's in this context that he says several things about fear that are worth attention.
First, fear is, in many ways, the antithesis of faith. Not surprisingly, in seeking to encourage his disciples Jesus employs the characteristic hallmark of good news throughout Scripture. Anytime, in fact, someone -- whether prophet, priest, or angel -- begins a message with the words "Do not fear" you know that good news is about to come. And so after warning them of coming persecutions -- just as their teacher Jesus faced opposition, so will they -- he encourages them with an injunction not to fear.
Second, courage is rooted in God's promise. As it turns out, this isn't just a pep-talk. Jesus reminds them not to fear because while their opponents may be able to hurt them physically, they can do them no spiritual harm. God, however, is the one who has power over both body and spirit, and God has promised to guard and protect them and bring them to eternal life. The God who created and tends every living thing, values them more than anything.
Third, fear of conflict may be one of the most debilitating of all fears. While I have always struggled with Jesus' somewhat (I hope!) hyperbolic sayings about parents and children being at enmity with each other, it strikes me that this difficult passage gets to the heart of one of the most paralyzing characteristics of many faith communities. We can get so afraid of conflict -- whether within our immediate families or the larger family of faith -- that our witness is muted, our convictions surrendered, and any forward movement greatly limited for fear of upsetting the apple cart. Noting that Matthew's original context likely included people who were rejected by their family and friends because of their faith -- hence the import of these words of encouragement from Jesus -- I think we often allow our hopes, plans, and mission to be held hostage by those who threaten conflict when things don't go their way. In these situations, Jesus invites us to remember that there are worse things than conflict and that, indeed, the call to follow Christ and take up his cross will in fact have costs, including at times conflict.
Recall that much about how we respond to challenges in life depends upon our interpretation. Are the hardships we face things to fear or opportunities to exercise our faith? Is a brewing conflict with a dysfunctional colleague or difficult friend something to be avoided at all costs or an opportunity for setting boundaries, affirming healthier patterns of behavior, and nurturing personal and corporate growth? Challenges are not sent from God, but rather remind us that if God can use something as awful as the cross to work redemption, then God can and will work through our hardships for the sake of life.
So, Jesus says, repeatedly, have no fear, do not fear, do not be afraid. God loves you with an everlasting love. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-39788682281239354352014-06-08T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:05:05.435-04:00Pay Attention To What the Spirit Might Be SayingBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
Pentecost – June 8, 2014
Acts 2:1-21 and John 20:19-23
Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. The day in which we mark and remember the gift of the Holy Spirit. Often called the birthday of the Church. The coming of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, that will never, ever leave us alone, just as Jesus promised. So, if we wanted to encounter the Holy Spirit of God, where would we look? And how would we know that we are in the Spirit's presence?
In scripture, the Holy Spirit is often likened to the power of wind, blowing where it will, sometimes gently and at other times with tremendous force. The Spirit is also described as breath, the life force within each person. If those images are to be trusted, then our search for the Spirit must take us both deep within ourselves and far beyond, outside of ourselves, just as breath moves in and out of our bodies and wind travels freely across the planet.
The Spirit, like breath and wind, is a force to reckon with. As described in the book of Acts, the Spirit cares about the way we communicate with one another. Saint Paul tells us that the Spirit functions within us as a catalyst of sorts, freeing us to exercise our God-given gifts. At a recent confirmation service, the bishop prayed for over 100 people, asking that the Spirit might be released in them so that they might experience the power of God working through them.
It sounds good: "God working in us." But sometimes I wonder if, honestly, we'd prefer that God's Spirit just leave us alone. Life is hard enough. What if, on top of everything, the Spirit's presence is disruptive and unsettling? What if the Spirit's intention is to take us where we aren't ready to go or ask us to do what we don't want to do?
I read a sermon by a preacher who lives in the Deep South. In that part of the country, the Feast of Pentecost almost always coincides with the beginning of hurricane season. Wind, therefore, is not a particularly reassuring image for the Spirit of God. Her descriptions of the hurricane force with which God had rearranged her life one particular summer reminded me of a passage in one of the Narnia tales by C. S. Lewis. You may remember that in the magical land of Narnia, God appears in the form of a great and mysterious lion named Aslan. One of the children who had stumbled into Narnia and encountered the lion wondered, "Is Aslan safe?" "Safe?" a resident of Narnia replied. "No, my dear, Aslan is not safe. But he is good."
Can it be that God's Spirit is at once unsafe, but good? I think so, in the sense that we will often experience the Holy Spirit as disruptive at first, even unwelcome, stirring things up in and around us. But that stirring up may be a necessary step in creating new possibilities. My southern preacher put it this way: "We are often trapped by life, by too many good things or too many bad things. Afraid to leave and afraid to stay, we move into survival mode. Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Spirit of God -- a spirit different from our own. It is the hurricane-like wind that, if we have the courage to conspire with it, will rearrange us into people who can be more than we are and do more than we do -- not just for ourselves, but for others. It is the earth-shaking blast that affords us power to choose love instead of hate, acceptance over judgment."1
One place, then, to consider the Spirit's presence in your life and mine is where things are stirred up, shaken around, and unsettled. It may not feel very good right now, but the shaking and stirring may be exactly what we need for reasons beyond our knowing. Or it may be that what's swirling around us is not of God at all but is the raw material God has to work with, helping us to stretch and grow.
Yet it would be a mistake to stop and assume that the Spirit is only disruptive, its function only to shake us out of complacency. That's the wind part, when it blows with hurricane intensity. But then comes the breath part, that which lives deep within you and me. The breath part says to us, "In the midst of all that's swirling around you, be still. Go to that place inside where you find your core strength and goodness." This is the Spirit's gift when we feel overwhelmed or overcome by what's happening around us, when life conspires to disconnect us from our core truth and keeps us focused on the things that matter least in life rather than on what matters most.
So if you want to encounter the Holy Spirit in whatever ways work for you, find a way to connect with yourself at the deepest level of who you are. The Spirit of God, Jesus told his disciples, lies within you. The writer, Anne Lamott, in the speech she gives whenever asked to speak at commencement services, tells new graduates, "Your spiritual identity is something you feel best when you're not doing much -- when you're in nature, when you're very quiet, or paradoxically, when you're listening to music. I know that you can feel the Spirit and hear it in the music you love, in the bass line, in the harmonies, in the silence between notes."2 Contemplative Christians assure us that we can feel the Spirit if we simply pay attention to our breath -- breathing in and out, allowing our minds to calm down so that we can listen from the core. That's where the Spirit lives and speaks most profoundly, at that core place, even as the winds howl.
How will we be able to recognize the Spirit's presence apart from our own, hear the Spirit's voice as distinctive from our own voice? That's not always easy, but the clues for me are when the Spirit speaks -- if even "speaking" is the right way to describe it -- in ways that get my attention, that counter my own perceptions in a way that points me toward God. It's the presence that counters my internal anxiety, for example, with an assurance that what I'm worried about will turn out all right. The Spirit allows me to listen to the hurricane around me with a bit of detachment and curiosity. What can I learn from this? How is God using this circumstance to teach me something important? The Spirit shifts my perception of another person or a situation, giving me the capacity to be kind when I am hurt, non-defensive when challenged, accepting when I'm disappointed, and forgiving when I would rather rehearse and refine my anger.
That leads me, my friends, to the last and most important place we can encounter the Holy Spirit: in relationship to one another, and in particular, again using the words of Anne Lamott, when we simply push up our sleeves and start helping. "Every spiritual tradition," she tells those graduating, "says that you must take care of the poor, that you can make a difference in the lives of those who are poor in spirit, worried, or who have given up hope. You can do what you can, what good people have always done: You bring thirsty people water, you share your food, you try to help the homeless find shelter, you stand up for the underdog."3
When we're willing to allow others their imperfections and simply offer to help, the Holy Spirit will meet us more than halfway. "We see the Spirit made visible," Lamott writes, "when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. In fact, that's often when we see the Spirit most brightly."4
So let the wind blow gently or fiercely all around you and pay attention for what the Spirit might be saying. Go deep within yourself, however you best get there, breathe and pay attention. Look around and offer whatever olive branch, word of kindness, or gesture of generosity you can to another and pay attention. Look around at all of us who seek the assurance that for all the dangers of the world, for all the ways that even God can be scary, that goodness will prevail. Pay attention to the ways you might be part of the blessing they seek. The Spirit is around, within and between us, a force to reckon with and God's greatest gift to those open to receive it. Amen.
____________
1. "Hurricane Season," by Margaret Austin Smith, in Preaching Through Holy Days and Holidays: Sermons That Work XI, Roger Alling and David Schlafer, eds. (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Morehouse Publishing, 2003), p. 11.
2. Anne Lamott, "Let Us Commence," in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), p. 306.
3. Ibid, p. 307.
4. Ibid, p. 306.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-45486063816007272282014-06-01T09:30:00.000-04:002014-09-04T12:02:14.164-04:00The Fear of Being Left AloneBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
7 Easter – June 1, 2014
Acts 1:6-14 and John 17:1-11
We just heard Jesus say, in John's gospel: "and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent". It's not too often we get a straight forward definition of eternal life and here it is.
Eternal life is to know God and Jesus. So what if it is that simple? How would that change what we imagine in this life? How would it affect our thoughts about and beliefs in our future life with God? How does this alter even our picture of God? Of course, what it means to "know" God is key, and to know God in the Fourth Gospel, in John's gospel, has no connection to cognitive constructions, creedal consents, or specified knowledge about God. Knowing God is synonymous with being in a relationship with God.
Among all the many potential catastrophes that exist within the human condition --- among the tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, divorces, murders, diseases, and car accidents that swirl around us everyday --- there is perhaps no more frightening a possibility than that of being alone. Since the beginning of time, since Adam and Eve were in the Garden, humans have feared being alone. To be alone, to be completely alone, is our greatest fear. Even among a crowd it is possible to be alone. We fear alone-ness, loneliness, all-alone-ness more than anything else within the human condition. It starts early -- it is common for children to have nightmares because they fear abandonment by their parents. People about to be divorced from a spouse often have second thoughts because they fear life alone. Senior citizens fear being left to die alone in a nursing home. And, after all, there is good reason to fear being alone. To be alone can be a living Hell. Maybe that's what Hell actually is, to be left alone, to have the presence of others, to have the presence of God, stripped from our existence. So today, we celebrate the promise of God in Jesus Christ to never, ever leave us alone. Today we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus – several of us went to the Ascension Day service on Thursday at Ascension, Parkesburg, so we continue the celebration!
Unfortunately, many scholars, and others, have long dwelled on the "how" of the Ascension: How did it happen? Did it really happen at all? Just where did Jesus ascend to? Is heaven really "up"?
This is unfortunate because the "how" is not the point at all. We want to know "how" because to know is to claim control. Well guess what, there are some things in life, in the human condition, that we don't know and we never will. That's what Jesus is getting at when he says, "It is not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set up by his own authority"(Acts 1:7).
No, the point of the Ascension is not the how, but why, for what purpose. That's what we're meant to know, and that's what serves us in our human condition. It's enough to say that after being raised from the dead, Jesus ascended to the Father. That is to say, Jesus departed from this worldly existence, but continues to live a real life in the heavenly realm. But the story of the Ascension doesn't end there. If it did it would only be about Jesus. No, the meaning of the Ascension includes all of humanity as well.
Remember that great fear of being left alone that we all harbor within our human condition? When we say we feel like we've lost control we're having to admit that there are circumstances around us that are beyond our control, circumstances that can rob us of our very lives, and throughout human history, this fear of being robbed of life, the fear of death has scared us the most because we've interpreted death to be the ultimate alone-ness.
Jesus knew that the greatest human fear was to be left alone. Jesus not only knew it, he experienced it and he conquered it. At his Ascension, Jesus announces the end of alone-ness. Jesus promises at his Ascension that his disciples will receive the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). And then he ascends, he leaves them, he goes away, and do you know what the disciples do? They rejoice! Even though Jesus has left them they are not afraid of being left alone. Does this make sense?
Remember what the disciples all did after the crucifixion? They all ran away and hid. Eventually they all got together because they thought, "Hey, at least we have one another." But they were all scared and disappointed. They thought it was over and they had been left alone, abandoned by Jesus.
Now, at the Ascension, they realize they will never, ever be alone. They realize that even though Jesus ascends to the Father, the gift of the Holy Spirit will provide them with the power and the presence they need to survive the moment, whatever that moment may come to be in life...or in death.
In a book titled Sabbatical Journeys, Henri Nouwen wrote about the special relationship that trapeze artists have with one another when performing. He had some friends known as the Flying Roudellas and they described to him what goes on between the flyer and the catcher. They told Nouwen that the flyer is the one that lets go, and the catcher is the one that catches. As the flyer swings high above the crowd on the trapeze, the moment comes when he must let go. He arcs out into the air. His job is to remain as still as possible and wait for the strong hands of the catcher to pluck him from the air. One of the Roudellas told Nouwen, "The flyer must never try to catch the catcher." The flyer must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch him, but for the catcher to be able to do that, the flyer must let go and completely trust that he will be caught.
Is it not a comfort to know that, while we may not be in control, God is; and that no matter what catastrophe or chaos comes into our lives we will not be abandoned, we will not be left to face it alone? Like the trapeze artist, we can trust that we will be caught.
In many ways the Ascension of Jesus Christ is an incomprehensible event, but that is no reason to dismiss it, just because we can't fully understand how it could have happened. The meaning of the Ascension we can comprehend, the meaning that gives meaning to our human condition is found in Jesus' promise to never abandon us. The Ascension of Jesus was not the end of Jesus' earthly presence, it was only the beginning. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-33680850674827719382014-05-18T09:30:00.000-04:002014-08-19T23:37:35.657-04:00You Can't Make That Ball Go InBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
5 Easter – May 18, 2014
John 14:1-14
Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life". He says this in response to Thomas' honest questioning – "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" How can we know the way? If we're honest with ourselves, we have the same question. How can we know the way?"
Jesus is speaking of a way of life – in Jewish circles the "way" was another term for a way of living one's life. Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth and the life". Thomas a Kempis, in 15th century language had this to say about Jesus' words: Without the Way there is no going: without the Truth there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living. I am the Way which thou oughtest to follow; the Truth which thou oughtest to believe; the Life, which thou oughtest to hope for. I am the Way inviolable, the Truth infallible, the Life unending. I am the Way that is straightest, the Truth that is true, the Life blessed, the Life uncreated. If thou remain in my way, thou shalt know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free, and thou shalt lay hold on eternal life.
Some of you may remember the book and the movie, "The Legend of Bagger Vance". It is a story that uses golf as a metaphor for one man's spiritual journey. I share a scene from the movie in which Bagger Vance is teaching the young boy, Hardy, about just what an authentic swing is the night before the great match on the golf course.
Bagger Vance says, "Right here is where this game is won. Right here on the green. First you got to see it. Sun gonna be here in the morning. Over there in the afternoon. Funny thing is, the blades of grass gonna follow the sun. The grain is gonna shift. That same putt…gonna go one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon. One way in the morning, the other in the afternoon. You see that? A golf course put folk through quite a punishment. It lives and breathes just like us.
Hardy asks if he thinks Junuh can win. Bagger says yes, if he can find his authentic swing. Inside each and every one of us is one true, authentic swing. Something we was born with, that's ours…and ours alone. Something can't be taught or learned. Something that got to be remembered. Over time, the world can rob us of that swing…and get buried inside us under all our woulda's and coulda's and shoulda's. some folk even forget what their swing was like. You keep swinging… But Hardy has no golf balls. Don't worry about the ball or where it's gonna go. Just swing the club. Close your eyes. You can't make that ball go in. You have to let it. Feel the club. Feel the weight of the club. A deep perfect line. Dropping in, soft as butter. Listen to the sounds of the night. Keep swinging that club. Feel the breeze coming off the sea. Inside every one of us is one true, authentic swing. Keep swinging that club…until you're part of the whole thing. Something we was born with.
And Bagger Vance quietly puts a ball in front of Hardy as he continues swinging, eyes closed, and ball goes into the hole, soft as butter.
Bagger Vance was using golf as a metaphor for living our life. For a way of life. Inside each of us is something of God, that part of us that is true and authentic.
Developing, finding, deepening our relationship with Christ is our way of finding our true, authentic swing. We can't make the ball go in, we have to let it. We can let go of our worries about where the ball will go. We simply need to keep swinging, keep living, keep striving for a deeper relationship with Christ.
Jesus tells us, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places." These are words of comfort. Words of sheer promise. God comforts us when we are most in need by reassuring us that we have a place in God's kingdom. God loves us so much that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to show us what the Father looks like – the embodiment of love, mercy, justice, truth, compassion, forgiveness. And Jesus, through his life, death and resurrection, becomes for us the Road – the path on which we walk every day of our lives, never abandoned, never alone.
"I am the way and the truth and the life." This is also sheer promise. In other words, Jesus is telling Thomas that he already knows the way. Precisely because Thomas knows Jesus, he can't get lost.
The world is a place full of fear, full of lonely, lost, frightened people. It is also the place where God chooses to dwell deeply – with each of us. The world is also the place where we, as Christians, are called to do the work that Jesus is asking us to do. Our job is to make our way in the world by using Jesus Christ as the road – by leaning on Christ to show us where to go and giving us the strength to get there. As we walk these roads, the world begins to look more and more like the Kingdom of God.
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling. Calling for you and for me. Calling us home, home is wherever the love of God is present. "I am the way, the truth and the life". Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-30253776455846258232014-03-23T09:30:00.000-04:002014-08-19T23:34:44.933-04:00Elizabeth Eckford's ExperienceBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
3 Lent – March 23, 2014
John 4:5-42
The story of the woman at the well may surprise you. The way it's commonly told goes like this: Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well and asks her for a drink of water. They talk. In the process, she confesses to have been married five times. He confronts her sinfulness. She recognizes him as the Christ and rushes off to tell the others, shouting, "Come, see a man who told me everything that I did."
That's the literal understanding of the text. There's more though, lying just beneath the surface. It draws on the power of symbolism. It's John's way of proclaiming the gospel to those who have eyes to see Jesus as Lord and Savior.
The verse just before our reading today begins: "He (Jesus) left Judea, and departed into Galilee. He needed to pass through Samaria." (John 4:3-4)
Actually, there are two ways to get from Judea to Galilee. One takes you up the Jordan Valley. It's soft and flat. The other takes you up through Samaria. It's rocky and mountainous. To borrow a line from Frost, Jesus took the road less traveled. He was on a mission. John goes on:
"So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph." Sychar was the site of Jacob's well. In the Old Testament, this was where Jacob met Rachel. It was love at first sight. (Gen. 29)
This is our first clue as to what this story is about. Back when Jacob first met Rachel the Jews and Samaritans were one people. They shared a common faith, a common heritage and a common devotion to Yahweh. That was back before they went their separate ways.
So, Jesus came back to where it all started. Like his forefather, Jacob, he came with a proposal in hand. But not a marriage proposal. His proposal had to do with reconciliation. That was his mission – to reconcile the world to God. And in order to do that, he first had to reconcile the Jews and the Samaritans. That's what this story is about. John continues:
"Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour." Noon is the time of day when the sun is high overhead. It's the brightest part of the day – a perfect moment for God's self-revelation.
It's also the part of the day when you weren't likely to find many women at the well. Women drew their water in the cool of the morning or late afternoon. It took a strong woman to draw her water in the heat of the day – an independent and resolute woman – a woman with a mind of her own – a woman like Rachel – who, if you remember, also came to the well at noon the day she met Jacob. (Genesis 29:7)
Jesus was sitting at the well when the woman arrived. He got right to the point. He said, "Give me a drink." Sure, it was noon. Sure, he was hot and thirsty. But that's beside the point. The point is Jews and Samaritans do not mix. They do not drink from the same cup. They do not commune with each other as brothers and sisters of a common faith. He's pushing the envelope, which explains her question: "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?"
"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.'" He's not talking about water. He's talking about life – real life – life in all its abundance – eternal life – life in the Spirit.
On September 4, 1957, Elizabeth Eckford got ready for her first day of school. She put on the new pleated skirt she'd sewn, along with her white bobby socks and new white buck loafers, gathered her books and boarded the 7:30 a.m. bus for the ride to Little Rock Central High School. There were eight other African American students scheduled to attend Little Rock Central High School that day, but Elizabeth was the first one to arrive. Fifteen years old and painfully shy under normal circumstances, Elizabeth was an unlikely representative of what came to be known as "the Little Rock Nine," the first group of African American students to integrate a major Southern high school.
But Elizabeth Eckford became a symbol of the struggle for racial integration because she happened to be the first to arrive, and because she arrived in the path of photographer Will Counts, who was taking pictures of that morning.
As Elizabeth Eckford slowly made her way through the press and the protestors, Will Counts shot a picture that would be a haunting representation of the hard hearts that resisted integration in Little Rock that day. In that picture, right behind Elizabeth, there is another young woman, a white woman, whose face is contorted in hatred. Her whole body is protesting; she's leaning toward Elizabeth Eckford screaming something . . . and you can tell it's not something nice. That white girl's name was Hazel Bryan, and spectators reported: she was angry. Benjamin Fine, a reporter from the New York Times, was standing there. Shouts of "two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate!" echoed, while Hazel Bryan shouted, "Go back to Africa!" and Will Counts shot a picture that would define the movement for civil rights in Little Rock. Forever.
Elizabeth Eckford's experience, along with the other eight African American students at Little Rock Central High School, was filled with fear. Over and over she and the others were harassed, and records of their experiences remain, containing notes like this one from Elizabeth's principal's records: "[Elizabeth] said that except for some broken glass thrown at her during lunchtime she really had a wonderful day."
As the attempts to integrate the high school continued, Hazel Bryan was adamant that she would never attend an integrated high school. She'd learned those standards at home, with a father who refused to be waited on by anyone of color. After Will Counts' picture ran in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, then all over the world, becoming the visual image of hatred in Little Rock, Hazel was called into the principal's office where the principal asked her to reconsider her position, admonishing, "hatred only hurts the hater." But Hazel remained stalwart and gave interview after interview maintaining her position.
Time marched on. Elizabeth Eckford, along with the other members of the Little Rock Nine quickly made their ways out of the South after graduation. Hazel Bryan dropped out; got married; raised a family in a rural section of Little Rock. Both of them left the moment when that picture was taken with heavy burdens of pain and hearts hardened by their experiences.
So it was a surprise and shock during the summer of 1963, when Elizabeth was home visiting family in Little Rock, that she received a telephone message from someone she'd never heard of before. Someone named Hazel Bryan. When Hazel finally got Elizabeth on the telephone she explained: she was the girl screaming hateful things to Elizabeth in that picture that was all over the papers. She was the one, and she was calling to say she was sorry . . . sorry for all the pain and hatred, sorry for the fear, sorry for all the hardness of heart that that picture illustrated. ("Through a Glass Darkly," Vanity Fair, September 2007) The story of Hazel Bryan and Elizabeth Eckford is a story of redemption, a story of the softening of hearts that was not unlike the invitation Jesus extended to the Samaritan woman at the well, to his disciples, to the people of Samaria, to you . . . and to me. Samaritan, woman, outcast: the appropriate response is to turn away, to build a wall of separation and indifference, to live with a hardness of heart.
But Jesus never lived that way when he walked this earth.
No matter who he encountered, Samaritan, woman, Pharisee, Roman ruler, Jesus always offered the possibility, well, actually, the probability, of the parts of your heart and my heart that are hard in such a way that they cut us off from other people and from the grace and love of God, hard parts of us that can be softened, softened by the powerful solvent of the living water.
Jesus saw the Samaritan woman at the well. He has seen her plight of dependence, not immorality. He has recognized her, spoken with her, offered her something of incomparable worth. He has seen her -- she exists for him, has worth, value, significance, and all of this is treatment to which she is unaccustomed.
And so when he speaks of her past both knowingly and compassionately, she realizes she is in the presence of a prophet. For this reason only does she risk the central question that has divided Samaritans and Jews for centuries: Where is the proper place of worship? This is no awkward dodge or academic diversion. This is a heartfelt question that gets to the core of what separates her from Jesus. And when Jesus surprises her with an answer that is simultaneously more hopeful and penetrating than she'd expected, she leaves her water jar behind to tell her neighbors about this man.
And here, perhaps, is the part of the story that witnesses to her transformation and freedom. For in terms of John's story and the world, this nameless woman has pretty much everything stacked against her: she is a Samaritan in this Jewish story, a woman in a male-dominated world, has lived a challenging and probably tragic life, and is very likely dependent on others. And yet after her encounter with Jesus she leaves her water jar -- perhaps symbolic of all the difficulties of her life -- she leaves it behind to live a new and different life and to share with others what God has done for her.
So what is it, I wonder, that holds us back from living into the future God has prepared for us and sharing the news of what God has done? What, that is, are the jars we would like to leave behind, trading our past tragedies and present challenges for the living water Jesus offers? What holds us back from freedom, transformation and reconciliation?
The living water is freely given and available. Jesus is here and now. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-26614407702553115682014-05-11T09:30:00.000-04:002014-08-19T23:33:59.229-04:00Mister Rogers vs. Joan RiversBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
4 Easter – May 11, 2014
John 10:1-10
Jesus says, "I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved.... I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." We understand a gate as a means of access, or an entryway. Jesus says that he is the gate – the access to salvation and not just life, but abundant life.
Abundant life isn't defined by Jesus, but this piece of scripture comes right after the healing of the man born blind. For the man born blind, abundant life is sight. It is release from dependence. It is freedom and light and new opportunity.
So, I wonder if this invites us to imagine that abundant life -- and perhaps salvation itself -- is highly contextual. For the blind man it is sight. For the single parent it might be companionship and help. For the bullied teen it might be acceptance and an advocate. For the impoverished neighborhood it might be dignity and the chance of self-determination. For the retiree, it might be involvement in a worthwhile cause. You get the picture. Abundant life looks different in different places and to different people, but it always manifests itself as a response to whatever seeks to rob the children of God of their life, their purpose, and joy.
A preacher talked about his life in Africa. He told us how the people of a village knew each other's sheep the way we might know one another's children. As he sat in a group in the village, a person would stop by, "Have you seen my sheep so-and-so," identifying his own sheep by name. Through the dark night he heard villagers calling out names. "They are calling their sheep," one of the locals told him. "They will all find each other."
This feature of village life in a place small enough and close enough where folks know which sheep are theirs and which belong to someone else, where sheep themselves know to whom they belong, was as familiar to Jesus as it is unfamiliar to us. In this portion of John 10, as Jesus tries to describe the connection between himself and his followers, he uses images that would have richly touched the hearts and minds of his original hearers.
Like the folks in the African village, the first century Judeans also highly valued their sheep and knew them intimately. So, this shepherd has the well-being of the sheep at heart, rather than his own well-being. This shepherd is neither thief nor bandit who would steal sheep, a profoundly anti-social act and one in which the sheep would come to no good end. Jesus emphasizes a particular difference between the bandit and shepherd: the shepherd enters rightly, properly, and openly into the sheepfold. It is appropriate for him to come and call his sheep and he does so, through the door consistently. All is open and above board, a cooperative effort with an obliging doorkeeper and sheep who respond to the sound of their name. There is a relationship of trust among all parties here. Notice that the sheep are not presented as totally dumb. They hear, follow, flee false shepherds, and are able to "know" whom to trust.
And their trust is validated and emphasized by another piece of the shepherd's behavior: he brings the sheep out of the fold and then goes before them. The sheep do not simply escape some confinement or hasten out of the fold to brave the larger world on their own. Their shepherd leads them out and then goes before them, in front of them, to lead. The sheep are not abandoned.
When this image didn't click for people, Jesus tried again to contrast himself with thieving leaders. Jesus turns to a clear statement of identity. I am the gate, the door. I am the proper way, the right way, the only way into the sheep fold. Pasture, that is, life, is through me, the door. Those who enter are being saved, that is, being brought into pasture and life rather than being snatched up for their destruction.
He is the good shepherd of Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34, the leader whose work and life are for the sheep and their well-being. He is the right way, the true way to enter into that fullness of life. Both shepherd and gate are participants in a social system whose role is to protect the sheep and provide for them. These are both in contrast with those who prey upon the sheep for their own purposes, diminishing the flock and creating anxiety within it.
That we continue to be divided about who cares best for us, that we continue to live with the anxiety of wondering who seeks to diminish us in any respect ought not surprise us. Division and a struggle to understand are the result and the motivation for Jesus' words here.
Laura Darling has this to say: I love Mister Rogers. I had the good fortune to hear him give a commencement address many years ago at which he told us, "The space between us is holy ground." That's part of what I see in an interview Mister Rogers did with (of all people) Joan Rivers on the Tonight Show.
But the thing I keep coming back to in this video is to ask myself, how does Mister Rogers manage to get past Joan Rivers' defenses – and offenses, come to that. Every time she mocks or deflects he gives no indication of defensiveness in his turn, but only a desire to connect, to share, to respond with love.
Joan Rivers is a woman who has built up an incredibly thick shell, impervious to assault through insult or mockery over years in an industry loaded with hard knocks. Yet in one minute, by telling her he sees "the way down deep inside you," Mister Rogers has her hiding under the sweater he had given her and that she had joked about earlier in the interview.
What this teaches me is that the way to penetrate the heaviest armor is not with even heavier artillery, but with extreme tenderness and gentleness. Mister Rogers knew in a deep and remarkable way that to reach Joan Rivers, and to reach anyone, he didn't need to resort to tricks. Instead, he needed to enter that holy ground between us, palms open and defenseless, seeing beyond the armor to the actual woman, man, child in front of him. And in being defenseless himself, somehow he managed to disarm everyone around him.
Nowhere else does Jesus express the intent of his mission and ministry more clearly than in the verse at the end of this passage: "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." In contrast to all that would rob us of life -- the thieves and bandits he mentions -- Jesus comes to give, not just life, but life in abundance. Not just survival, that is, but flourishing; not just getting by, but thriving; not just existence, but joy. Jesus offers, more life than most of us imagine possible.
Jesus knows us each by name, like the shepherd and the sheep. Jesus is calling your name and my name. The gate is open wide for you and for me. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-81856286829441754062014-05-04T09:30:00.000-04:002014-08-19T23:30:39.168-04:00We Had HopedBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
3 Easter – May 4, 2014
Luke 24:13-35
The most striking words in our gospel story today are these: "We had hoped." "We had hoped." We hear families use that phrase when they are packing up the things they had brought with them to the ICU. "We had hoped … ," they say, and then they go home alone. Families use this phrase when addictions return, or jobs go away. Although theologies of hope focus on a dawning future, the moment that catches attention is that moment of deep disappointment.
"But we had hoped …" So much is said in those four words. They speak of a future that is not to be, a dream that created energy and enthusiasm but did not materialize, a promise that created faith that proved to be false. It speaks of a future that is closed off, now irrelevant, dead. And there are few things more tragic than a dead future. Once challenged to write a short-story in six words, Ernest Hemingway supposedly replied by writing on a napkin: "For Sale: Baby shoes, never used." It's not just the tragedy of what happened that hurts, but the gaping hole of all that could have happened but won't.
Frederick Buechner, in his book, The Magnificent Defeat, said, "Emmaus is where we go when life gets to be too much for us; … the place we go in order to escape – a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, 'Let the whole … thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.' … Emmaus may be buying a new suit or a new car or smoking more cigarettes than you really want, or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. … Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred; that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had – ideas about love and freedom and justice – have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends."
We are, though, people of the resurrection, people of hope. And so when reading this story we often hurry to the burning hearts part of the narrative, celebrating with the disciples their encounter with the Risen Christ.
But before there is a resurrection there is a cross. Before there are burning hearts there are broken ones.
Part and parcel of being human is being broken. And it is to these heartbroken disciples -- in today's reading and in this Sunday's worship -- that the Risen Christ comes, walking along with us on the road, astonished that we don't see as we ought, teaching us the Scriptures that we may understand, sharing his presence through the breaking of the bread, and granting burning hearts that prompt us back into the world.
At one time or another, we all walk the trail of tears, the road to Emmaus, with broken hearts. We want to hide somewhere, lick our wounds, and nurse our cynicism. And there, on the road, a stranger joins us.
But do we see him? And if so, do we welcome him? Answer his questions? Hear his message? Recognize him for who he is? Jesus comes to the travelers on the road to Emmaus. He comes to wounded people on that long, lonely road to Emmaus. He comes to them to give them hope again, to say, no, this is not defeat, this is a new beginning.
In our own brokenness, Jesus also comes. Jesus comes to us on our own road to Emmaus. Jesus works with broken people, with broken dreams, in a broken world. If someone hands him a whole loaf, he will take it, bless it, break it and give it, and he will do the same thing with his own flesh and blood. Because that is the way of life God has shown him to show the rest of us: to take what we have been given, whether we like it or not, and to bless it—to say thank you for it—whether it is the sweet satisfying bread of success or the tear-soaked bread of sorrow. To say thank you, and to break it.
"Walking together"–-not in despair now, but in hope and joy, filled with the presence of Christ! Walking together, as brothers and sisters, to announce good news to the world. Walking together, Christ is present. Walking together, as the late French philosopher Albert Camus–though not a Christian–said so well:
Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me; I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend.
And as we walk together, there is One in the lead–one named Jesus–who is trustworthy and can be followed with confidence and joy. In him, we are made church and invited to walk together–not only as friends, but as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
In his book Open Secrets, Rick Lischer, tells about his experiences as a newly ordained Lutheran pastor in southern Illinois, including Buster Toland's funeral. Buster was a mechanic at the local garage. His wife, Beulah, drank too much and was high on drugs most of the time. They argued loudly and profanely and bitterly and in the middle of a huge shouting match when he came home for lunch -- and there was no lunch -- Buster dropped dead.
"Dead before he hit the floor," Beulah said, at least a hundred times to anyone who would listen. Buster was a rascal, and his death made the whole community feel apprehensive and worried about his utterly dysfunctional family.
Young Pastor Lischer helped Beulah through the local funeral plans and negotiations with the funeral director, which were very difficult. Beulah kept insisting on the most expensive casket and arrangements because she "owed it to Buster," . The idealistic young minister managed to alienate the funeral director and infuriate his Board of Trustees in the process.
Finally the day for the funeral arrived, complete with the open casket in the narthex of the church. The service itself was a disaster. Beulah wailed at the top of her lungs through the service and Lischer's sermon. He concluded quickly by reminding the congregation that Buster had been a good Marine and father and now the church would assume greater responsibility for his family. And then the congregation moved to the little cemetery on the hill behind the church. The casket was lowered into the grave. Lischer said the words of committal and it was over, and the military phase was about to begin.
Four uniformed veterans from the local VFW formed an honor guard and fired their rifles on command three times over the heads of the congregation. There was even a bugler for the occasion, twelve-year-old Moriah Seamanns, standing halfway up the hill in a pink jumper with a thin white sweater draped over her shoulders. Her new cornet caught the sunlight and she was about to give the performance of her life. Her mother stood beside her to hold her music and to steady her child. Then Moriah began to play. She did not play "Taps." She played four stanzas of "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth," arcing each note across the ravine toward the mourners on the hill. It was, Lischer says, "as if her music were a time-delayed message coming to us from a saner and more beautiful world."
Standing in the lumpy mud of the cemetery, Lischer said he "could see Easter." The ordinary is suddenly holy. Everyday experiences can become sacred. At the unlikeliest of moments - remember that the Risen Christ appears...and we meet him again...perhaps for the first time.
So when we are on our own road to Emmaus, we can remember to raise our eyes so that we don't miss the fact that Jesus is walking next to us. Jesus – the risen Lord – is always on the road with us. That's what He promised us – "I will be with you always, even to the end of the age". Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-31842067991425767962014-04-20T09:30:00.000-04:002014-08-19T23:26:35.225-04:00Winston Churchill's Funeral ServiceBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
Easter Sunday – April 20, 2014
Matthew 28:1-10
 Happy Easter! Matthew presents us with one of the most dramatic readings of the resurrection. There was a great earthquake and an angel of the Lord descended, his appearance like lightening. In other words, light has split a crack in the universe and everything we thought we knew has changed. To meet Jesus is for the ground to move beneath you, nothing remains as it was.
The guards were so afraid, that they fell to the ground. The angel speaks words of comfort in telling the women to not be afraid. Go and tell. Jesus is risen. And they left with 'fear and great joy'.
Fear and great joy. It's striking that the announcement of resurrection doesn't take away all their fear. Rather, it enables them to keep faith amid their fears, to do their duty and share their good news in spite of their anxiety. This is the very definition of courage. And, we might argue, courage is precisely what Easter is about. For while some preach that coming to faith in Christ should smooth all the rough places of life and still the tremors of this world, I believe that the gospel gives us the ability to keep our feet amid the tremors and enables us not just to persevere but even to flourish when life is difficult.
"Do not be afraid." This charge -- repeated by Jesus when he encounters the women -- gives us insight into the very nature of our lives in this world. For there is, indeed, much to fear in our mortal lives. And yet the resurrection of Christ creates the possibility for joy and hope and courage and so much more. Why? Because it changes everything. In the resurrection, you see, we have God's promise that life is stronger than death, that love is greater than hate, that mercy overcomes judgment, and that all the sufferings and difficulties of this life are transient -- real and palpable and sometimes painful, for sure, but they do not have the last word and do not represent the final reality.
Fear and joy, despair and hope, doubt and faith, these are the two sides of our lives in this world. But in the end we have heard the resurrection promise that joy, hope, and faith will ultimately prevail.
Perhaps you've heard the story about Winston Churchill's funeral service. At the close of the service that Churchill planned himself, a single trumpeter stood at the west end of St. Paul's Abby and sounded "Taps," the song that signals dusk and the close of another day and is frequently played at the end of a military funeral. But after a moment of stillness that followed the last plaintive note of that song, another trumpeter stood at the east end of St. Paul's, the end that faced the rising sun, and played "Reveille," the song of the morning and the call to a new day.
Churchill perceived, you see, that Christ's resurrection signals above and beyond all else that our God is a God of new life and never-ending possibility. The good news of Christ's resurrection does not take away our fear -- though sometimes we wish desperately that it would -- but it does offer us courage and hope by anchoring us in the sure promise that God will have the last word, and that that word is one of light and life and grace and mercy and love and peace.
Blessed Easter! Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-83019676541109689372014-04-06T09:30:00.000-04:002014-08-19T23:23:40.782-04:00No Bones are Too DryBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
5 Lent – April 6, 2014
John 11:1-45
 The Lenten journey, which has taken us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death last Sunday, now leads us to the dry bones of Ezekiel and the tomb of Lazarus and the gift of life out of death.
This morning's gospel story began a few weeks earlier. The brother, Lazarus, was taken ill. We have no details, but the illness frightened his two sisters so much that they sent word to Jesus - obviously with the thought that Jesus would interrupt his travels to return and heal Lazarus. Jesus, though, seemed almost indifferent to their message. By the time Jesus and his disciples came to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days.
When Jesus arrived, Martha was the first to meet him. She was probably the oldest of the siblings and she seems to have been the head of the household. Her first words to Jesus were these: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." There was no polite greeting, no "Shalom," no "I'm so glad you've come"; just this: "If you had been here, my brother would not have died."
In one sense, Martha's greeting was a stirring testimony of faith. She believed that Jesus would have made a difference, that he who had opened blind eyes and restored withered limbs could surely have taken care of her brother's illness. But her statement was also a complaint; in truth, an accusation. Quite clearly, Martha was saying, "What kept you so long? If you had hurried a bit or had left some of your other pressing business, you could have spared us the loss of our dear brother."
In other words, Martha was telling Jesus, "You're late. It's nice of you to have come, but you're late."
Have you ever heard someone say, "God's timing is not our timing"? An Old Testament writer tells us that for God, a thousand years "are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night."
And this morning we hear in our psalm... my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.-- Psalm 130:6
From the beginning of time all who have watched for the morning have had as their companions a magnificent covering of stars. And, though they may have given different names to the constellations, and told different stories about them, the stars we might look at tonight are largely unchanged across thousands of years. We are looking at basically the same sky that wheeled over the heads of those in biblical times.
Except -- except when a star explodes.
When a star explodes it is called a nova, from the Latin, referring to a "new" start. Such a star would appear in the heavens, shine dimly or brightly; then disappear after a matter of hours or days.
Once in a great while there would be a supernova, when a giant star collapsed in upon itself, creating an explosion so great that such a star could outshine everything in the heavens, except the sun -- and even then, the great supernovas were visible in daylight when all other heavenly bodies disappeared. Supernovas are not just ordinary exploding stars. Most of the star that goes supernova is destroyed in the explosion resulting in a tremendous output of energy.
One of the most interesting stories about those who watch for the night and wait for the morning concerns 14-year-old Caroline Moore of Warwick, New York, who became famous overnight in November 2008 when she became the youngest person ever to discover a supernova. And Caroline's supernova was very special, because it was one of the faintest ever discovered.
One reason she found the supernova was -- because she was looking. For seven months she compared thousands of photographs by computer, until she made her discovery. She would look from one photo taken of a particular point in space to another taken later, with stars, nebulae, galaxies, and other celestial objects all together until she noticed one star had become brighter in the second photograph.
It may seem obvious, but whether one is looking for a star -- or the truth -- it helps to be looking for something if you want to find it. The universe is a complicated place. There are wheels within wheels, objects and items connected in disparate patterns somehow making a coherent whole. Once upon a time a star shouted out the wonderful news that Jesus Christ is born. This should be a matter of delight.
So think about it -- what are you looking for? Are you looking at all? Because if we don't seek, we won't find, if we don't knock, doors won't open, and if we don't wait for the morning, trusting in God's goodness, we'll never know if there is a wonder appearing overhead, or if God's love has dawned at last in lives all around us.
We don't know why Jesus waits, and we don't know why God waits. No amount of theologizing and explaining can satisfy us while we wait. And wait we do. My only conclusion is that something critically important happens to us while we are waiting. Life is lived while we wait. Faith is proved while we wait. Hope is tested while we wait.
When life is ruthlessly constricted, when hope is stifled, there appears no time to come worth considering. What's in front of us looks like sunset and endless night. When we find ourselves in Bethany's house of grief, or down among the bones in death valley, then we must look past the terrible something and ache for God to intervene. The one who acted powerfully in the stories of Ezekiel and Lazarus and above all in the story of Jesus is neither unwilling nor unable to act in our stories as well.
No bones are too dry. No grief is too deep. No stone at a tomb entrance is too heavy. God can resurrect an executed man! God can revive a heartbroken family! God can restore a dry bones community!
Sometimes what we must do is stand back, and wait and watch for God to work.
Love is linked inextricably to death in John's gospel, and that is also true in the story of Lazarus' family. Their relationship with Jesus does not mean that bad things do not happen. He does not prevent Lazarus from dying. But he is ultimately present to them, and God is glorified even in something that feels initially un-redeemably painful, and this beloved family is part of God's glory.
Being in relationship with Jesus means facing death and grief with him and learning that still, in spite of the death and the dryness and the finality of the door at the entrance to the tomb of our hopes, he can still be said to be life. "I am the resurrection and the life", Jesus says. Nothing is ever so dead that it keeps him from being that, for himself, and for us. And in John that life is not only a future hope. Abundant life is always ever now.
As we approach Holy Week, next Sunday is Palm and Passion Sunday, having Jesus at our tombs also means that we must follow him to his. We must endure the silence of his Saturday even as we endure the silences of our own. But we endure them knowing already that Sunday, that Easter, will surely come, that when we are walking in the garden of our grief, we will meet him again.
The God-life is not about believing all the right things about Jesus. It's not about being able to recite the creed without crossing your fingers or believing that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish or having an instant, now-you're-saved, "born again" experience. It is about being willing to let go of everything you think you know and allowing yourself to be drawn into the mystery that is God. "Believing," as John uses this word, does not refer to some intellectual process that happens in your head. To "believe" in something is to give your heart to it. The God-life then is about giving your heart to God. Your broken heart. Your disbelieving heart. Your divided, angry, fearful heart. Your hard heart. You do not, of course, have the power to transform your own heart, but you do have the power to offer it, no matter what condition it is in, to the God who is able to make all things new. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-85210216129350161912014-03-30T09:30:00.000-04:002014-08-19T23:19:25.816-04:00We Have Eyes But Do Not SeeBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
4 Lent – March 30, 2014
John 9:1-41
This is another long gospel story this morning and I can't begin to touch on all that's here. But, sinfulness is a theme that runs through this powerful story. The Pharisees discuss Jesus' sinfulness in several verses. In v. 34, they return to the sinfulness of the man born blind, with another reference to his birth in sin. But the story ends with Jesus' condemnation of the Pharisees, whose sin remains because unlike the blind man, who recognizes the grace of God in Jesus' gift of sight and light in his blindness, the Pharisees insist that they see and know everything already. They are closed to the gift of Jesus, who can only give sight to those who know they are blind.
The story opens with the disciples questioning Jesus about who sinned, the blind man or his parents. Jesus answers, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's work might be revealed in him." Notice that Jesus doesn't try to explain the why's of what is, he simply turns the focus on the "who" of what may become. Stop looking for a scapegoat, he says, what good is assigning blame? Instead, let's make something happen for this man's good and for God's glory. We spend too much time and energy looking over our shoulders. While we are trying to perfect our hindsight, we sacrifice our foresight, and become blind to the possibilities before us.
Leonardo da Vinci saw things that other people could not see. You are most familiar with his paintings, such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, but he did many other things. He was an architect. He was a sculptor. He designed weaponry. He drew sketches of a flying machine that, 500 years later, we recognize as a helicopter. He practically invented the science of anatomy. At one point Leonardo talked about vision. He said that there are three classes of people: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.
Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see. That is what our Gospel text is about today. Jesus was walking with his disciples when they saw a blind man. The disciples asked, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They assumed that it had to be one or the other. If a person was blind or lame or a leper, they must have done something wrong. Their infirmity was a punishment for their sins. Or it might be punishment for the sins of their parents. But Jesus said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him." He went on to say, "I am the light of the world." Then he healed the blind man.
Jesus spat and rubbed and rolled a mud salve. This word salve suggests to us a kind of ointment that creates a soothing or healing effect on a wound and is essentially the Latin root of our word salvation. It denotes a healing, a restored wholeness, wellness. I think of the little mudpacks we used to make as kids to apply to the bee stings we occasionally received. Our kid-style homeopathy functioned on the assumption that this little mud salve, somehow or other, was the best medicine for a bee's sting. Can you see the that the salve-ation God offers us in Jesus Christ is, in fact, a salving, a healing of our whole person, of every dimension of our lives—spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical, everything!—in the hope that all of God's good creation can be healed. (Micheal Lodahl – When Love Bends Down)
Reuben Welch tells the story of being the preacher in a revival where, after one of the services, a woman new to the church began to unload on him about all the horrible things that had happened in her life the previous few years: spousal abuse and abandonment, larger family squabbles, illness and accidents and deaths.
Finally Reuben asked, "Sister, have you ever gone out at night under the starts and just poured all this out to God?"
"Oh, preacher," she answered, "there are some things that you just don't tell God!"
This woman really needed to see Jesus down there on His knees, spitting in the dirt, didn't she? If Jesus really is the Word, "very God of very God," who became flesh—and blood and bones—and lived among us; if this Incarnate Word could bend down to the ground and spit in the dirt, make a mud salve, smear it on those eyes; if Jesus could live that close to the earth, is it really the case that there are some things that you don't tell God? I think not. We can tell all things to God.
And you know, sometimes our eyes are closed but our hearts are open--and sometimes our eyes are open but our hearts are closed. I read a story about a woman who boarded a bus in New York City. She had overslept, and had gotten off on the wrong foot. Then things went badly at work. Then her bus home was late and jam-packed. She says, "I was ready for a triple dose of Mylanta and a six-pack of Tums."
Then she heard a deep voice from the front of the bus: "Beautiful day, isn't it!" She could not see the man to whom the voice belonged, but he maintained a commentary as they drove along. He talked about the spring greenery, the beautiful church windows, the children romping in the park, the stately old firehouse, the lush cemetery lawn.
Something happened as he talked. People began to glance out the windows. They began to sit a little straighter. They began to smile. The woman says, "When we reached my stop, I got a glimpse of our self-appointed 'guide.' He was a plump, bearded man, wearing dark glasses and carrying a white cane. Incredible! I stepped off the bus and, suddenly, all my built-up tensions drained away. God had sent a man who could scarcely see, to help me see that, when all seems dark and dreary, there is still light in the world. God's beautiful world!
How often we walk through life with our eyes open and our hearts closed:
· How often we sit with downcast eyes, seeing only the chewing gum wrapper on the bus floor and missing the beautiful spring day passing by the windows. · How often we miss the blessings that are all around us! That is one of the realities that Emily Gibbs dealt with in Thornton Wilder's, play "Our Town." After having died, Emily was permitted an unseen visit to her home for a day -- a return to her twelfth birthday. There she noticed, for the first time, how people look past each other and talk past each other. She observed, broken-hearted, how people let the important moments of their lives go by unnoticed. She pled with them to notice, but they could not hear her – they were not aware of her presence. Devastated by the realization that we so often go through life without savoring its blessings, she requested to cut her painful visit short and to return to the cemetery.
All too often we have eyes but do not see. We have ears, but do not hear. God is in our midst, but all too often we try to face life by ourselves -- never availing ourselves of God's presence -- God's power.
Christ has come into our world to open our eyes. More especially, Christ has come into our world to open our hearts. Only with open eyes and open hearts will we see God in our midst. We will feel God's presence in our lives.
Christ healed the man born blind, but he could not bring sight to those who would not see. The first chapter of John's gospel, verse 14, says, "And the Word became flesh and lived among us". That is the miracle and the mystery of the Incarnation—there is a balm, a divine healing salve, for each of us and the world—and his name is Jesus. Let us pray this week for the grace to receive Christ's healing touch--that he might open our eyes, our ears and our hearts. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-58820306044962134022014-03-09T09:30:00.000-04:002014-05-13T22:19:32.352-04:00Two Stories of TemptationBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
1 Lent – March 9, 2014
Matthew 4:1-11
At Jesus' baptism, the heavenly voice announces, "This is my Son, the Beloved." And it seems that almost immediately afterwards, Jesus is tempted by the devil, who treats Jesus as if the reality of his identity is the question: "If you are the Son of God…" Are you really? Can you prove it? Jesus' responses show him pondering an entirely different question: What does it mean for me to be God's beloved son? How shall I live out that identity in the world?
I think this idea of identity is key to understanding this week's biblical readings, and particularly those from Genesis and Matthew. Each tells a story of temptation, and while we may be inclined to describe the content of these temptations in terms of status or power, I'd suggest instead that they are actually more about identity.
Let's start with Genesis. Notice that while the serpent offers Adam and Eve the promise of ultimate, God-like knowledge, at the outset of his exchange with the woman the serpent suggests that God is not trustworthy. "Did God really say…?" the serpent begins, sowing the seeds of doubt, and then asserts, "You will not die," contradicting the words of God.
Having undermined Adam and Eve's confidence in God, the serpent then invites them to establish themselves -- that is, craft their own identity -- independent of their relationship with God: "when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Who needs God, after all, when you can be "like God" all on your own? And just insecure enough to fall for the serpent's ploy, they do indeed attempt to define themselves apart from God but end up only defining themselves over and against each other in scene that is as tragic as it is familiar.
Now back to Matthew. Again, while the "content" of the devil's temptations include the capacity to turn stones to bread, call upon angels for safety, and the promise of power and dominion, each again is primarily about identity. Notice that the devil begins by trying to undermine the identity Jesus had just been given at his baptism in the previous scene. "If you are the son of God," functions to call that identity into question. As with his exchange with Adam and Eve, the devil seeks to rob Jesus of his God-given identity and replace it with a false one of his own manufacture. Notice, too, that Jesus resists this temptation not through an act of brute force or sheer will, but rather by taking refuge in an identity founded and secured through his relationship with God, a relationship that implies absolute dependence on God and identification with all others. Jesus will be content to be hungry as others are hungry, dependent on God's Word and grace for all good things. He will be at risk and vulnerable as are all others, finding safety in the promises of God. And he will refuse to define himself or seek power apart from his relationship with God, giving his worship and allegiance only to the Lord God who created and sustains him.
As Presbyterian minister and author Frederick Buechner explains, "After being baptized, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent 40 days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus." Only after those 40 days is Jesus finally tempted by the devil. But this is no ordinary devil. It's not a guy with horns and a pitchfork. It's not a serpent. There's really no indication it's a physical reality at all. The Greek word used here for the devil is diabolos, which means, literally, the Slanderer.
Now, and I'll speak for myself here, but when I am in the wilderness, all alone, the loudest voice slandering me is my own. It was those times I beat myself up and told myself all kinds of lies about how I wasn't good enough, worthy enough, talented enough, loving enough. About how I simply wasn't enough. It seems like when we're out in the wilderness, and there's nothing to rush toward, to distract us, and no other voices save the ones in our heads, we, like Jesus, wind up facing our demons, and in doing so, we come face-to-face with ourselves and the lies we tell ourselves.
It is not just the devil that seeks to steal our identity. Each day we are besieged by countless advertisements that seek to create in us a sense of lack, insecurity, and inadequacy, undermining our God-given gift of identity with the promise that if we buy this car or use that deodorant or make our teeth brighter we will be acceptable. The message of the consumer-consumption culture is simple: you are not enough. Not skinny enough, smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, rich enough to deserve respect, love, and acceptance. That's the great temptation, really. That we will believe those lies — whether they come from us, our peers, or our parents — that we are something other than beloved sons and daughters of God. Jesus offers us a way out, a way to safeguard our identity by lodging it in God's good gift and promise.
But Jesus does more than even that. He also demonstrates just how deeply God loves us by going to the cross. Jesus did not die on the cross in order that we might be acceptable or to make God loving. Jesus died to show us that God already loves us and has declared that we are not just acceptable but also treasured, priceless beyond measure.
It's said that when Martin Luther felt oppressed by his conscience or plagued by doubt, fear, or insecurity, he would sometimes shout out in defiance, echoing Jesus' words today, "Away with you Satan! I am baptized!" A reminder of the promise inscribed on our foreheads at Holy Baptism: that God has declared us worthy of love, dignity, and respect and has pledged to be both with us and for us throughout all of our lives. We are sealed and marked as Christ's own forever.
Each of us has our own unique wilderness exam. Only you know what devils have your number, and what kinds of bribes they use to get you to pick up. All I know for sure is that a voluntary trip to the desert this Lent is a great way to practice getting free of those devils for life--not only because it is where you lose your appetite for things that cannot save you, but also because it is where you learn to trust the Spirit that led you there to lead you out again, ready to worship the Lord your God and serve no other all the days of your life. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-24153816624439574632014-03-02T09:30:00.000-05:002014-03-21T21:32:30.774-04:00Jesus Lit Up Right In Front of HimBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
Last Sunday of Epiphany/Transfiguration – March 2, 2014
Matthew 17:1-9
(As written by Barbara Brown Taylor in TextWeek)
The story that we have just heard defies interpretation, although that has not stopped legions of interpreters from trying. It is the luminous story of a mystical encounter, not only between God and God's Beloved but also between those at the center of the story and those who watch. Those at the center are Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Those who watch are Peter, James and John. And then, of course, there are all of us watching all of them, most of us laboring under the illusion that our job is to figure out what the story means.
I am not sure where we got this idea, but it seems to dominate the way that many of us read the Bible. Give us a passage of scripture and we will put on our thinking caps, doing our best to decipher the symbols, read between the lines and come up with the encoded message that Jesus or Matthew or God has hidden in the passage for us to find. The idea seems to be that the story itself is chiefly a suitcase for conveying the meaning inside of it. Discern the content of the story and you do not have to go rummaging around inside of it every time it comes up. Instead, you can pull the meaning out of it and place it neatly folded in a drawer where you can find it the next time you need it.
In the present case, the most common decoded message is that Moses stands for the Law, Elijah stands for the prophets, and Jesus, of course, is the Messiah. By singling Jesus out as "my Son, the Beloved," God sets the gospel over the law and the prophets. Listen to him, says the voice from the cloud. There are two auxiliary meanings as well--one about how it is better to keep your mouth shut in the presence of the holy than to blurt things out like Peter does and another about how the purpose of such mountaintop experiences is to strengthen us for the climb back down into the valley of the shadow of death, where our real work remains to be done. For all I know, those are exactly the meanings that Jesus or Matthew or God meant for us to get from the story; but it's important to note that the passage itself does not say any of those things. Instead, it describes something so beyond ordinary human experience that most of us are perfectly content to watch it from at least this far away.
It starts with a long climb up a windy mountain in the fading light of day, hunting for a strong place to pray. No talking for once. No wall of words between you and the others.
Sit down. You are here to pray, so get on with it. Pray until you are weighed down with sleep. Pray until it is dark enough to see light through your eyelids where light should not be. You don't really want to open your eyes to see where the light is coming from. But you kind of do. But you don't. Then you look.
And there he is: someone you thought you knew really well, standing there pulsing with light, leaking light everywhere. Face like a flame. Clothes dazzling white. Then, as if that weren't enough, two other people are there with him, all of them standing in that same bright light. Who are they? Can't be. Moses. Elijah. Dead men come back to life. God's own glory, lighting up the night. Now they're leaving. Now Peter's saying something.
Tents, he's saying. We need tents. He thinks we're on Sinai. Someone tell him we're not on Sinai. Now there's a cloud coming in fast that is way more than weather, a terrifying cloud that is also alive. Cutting Peter off. Covering everything up. Smells like a lightning strike. Can't see a thing.
Then a voice from the cloud lifts the hairs on the back of your neck. Fear so fast and primitive, you're bristling like a dog. What's the voice saying? Not "listen to me" but "listen to him." The Son, the Beloved. But listen to what? He's not saying anything. He's shining. Or at least he was. Now he's not. Now it's over. Now what?
If anything even remotely that strange has ever happened to you, then you know why Peter, James and John were relieved when Jesus told them to keep what had happened to themselves. Supernatural light. Famous people come back from the dead. God talking to you from inside a cloud. Things like that may happen in the Bible, but try talking about them now and someone's going to give you the name of a good psychiatrist. If you have to say anything at all, then you're better off sticking with the Bible commentaries. Just say the thing about Jesus surpassing the law and the prophets, poke a little fun at Peter, bury the rest. It might have been God. Then, again, it might have been last night's Thai food.
Most of us are allowed at least one direct experience of God (within bounds)--something that knocks us for a loop, blows our circuits, calls all our old certainties into question. Some churches even require you to produce one as proof of your conversion. But even in congregations that welcome signs and wonders on a regular basis, there seems to be a general consensus that life in Christ means trading in your old certainties for new ones.
Once you emerge from the cloud, you are supposed to be surer than ever what you believe. You are supposed to know who's who, what's what, where you are going in your life and why. You are supposed to have answers to all the important questions, and when you read the Bible you are supposed to know what it means. You have your Christian decoder ring, now use it!
But what if the point is not to decode the cloud but to enter into it? What if the whole Bible is less a book of certainties than it is a book of encounters, in which a staggeringly long parade of people run into God, each other, life--and are never the same again? I mean, what don't people run into in the Bible? Not just terrifying clouds and hair-raising voices but also crazy relatives, persistent infertility, armed enemies, and deep depression, along with life-saving strangers, miraculous children, food in the wilderness, and knee-wobbling love.
Whether such biblical encounters come disguised as "good" or "bad," they have a way of breaking biblical people open, of rearranging what they think they know for sure so that there is room for more divine movement in their lives. Sometimes the movement involves traveling from one place to another. Sometimes it means changing their angle on what is true and why. Sometimes it involves the almost invisible movement of one heart toward another.
Certainties can become casualties in these encounters, or at least those certainties that involve clinging to static notions of who's who and what's what, where you are going in your life and why. Those things can shift pretty dramatically inside the cloud of unknowing, where faith has more to do with staying fully present to what is happening right in front of you than with being certain of what it all means. The meeting--that's the thing.
There is no way to be sure, but I think Peter sensed that. When Jesus lit up right in front of him, Peter knew what he was seeing. The Bible calls it "God's glory"--the shining cloud that is the sure sign of God's capital P Presence. In the Book of Exodus, when Moses climbed Mount Sinai to fetch the tablets of the law, the whole top of the mountain stayed socked in divine cloud cover for six whole days. In 1 Kings, when Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem, a dense cloud filled up that huge place so that the priests could not even see what they were supposed to be doing. When Ezekiel had his vision of the four living creatures, he saw them in the middle of "a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually."
That's what God's glory looks like, apparently: a big bright cloud--dark and dazzling at the same time--an envelope for the Divine Presence that would blow people away if they looked upon it directly--so God in God's mercy placed a cloud buffer around it, which both protected the people and made it difficult for them to see inside.
Before the cloud rolled in, Peter knew what he was seeing. What he did not see was a tent of meeting, a dwelling place, like the one where Moses met with God during the wilderness years. So Peter offered to set one up--one for each of the great ones who appeared in glory before him. "Lord...if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Peter may not have known what he was saying, but his instincts were good. He knew that he was in the presence of The Presence. He knew that God was right there, and that tent or no tent, he was standing as close as he was ever going to get to the only kind of meeting that really matters.
For those of you who keep the Christian calendar along with the one that says this Sunday is March 2, you know it's the swing Sunday between the seasons of Epiphany and Lent--the day those who follow Jesus look down at our maps and say, "Uh-oh," because it is time to turn away from the twinkling stars of Christmas toward the deep wilderness of Lent. As gloomy as that may sound, it is very good news. Most of us are so distracted by our gadgets, so busy with our work, so addicted to our pleasures, and so resistant to our depths that a nice long spell in the wilderness is just what we need.
No one can make you go, after all. But if you've been looking for some excuse to head to your own mountaintop and pray, this is it. If you've been looking for some way to trade in your old certainties for new movement in your life, look no further. This is your chance to enter the cloud of unknowing and listen for whatever it is that God has to say to you. Tent or no tent, this is your chance to encounter God's contagious glory, so that a little of that shining rubs off on you.
Today you have heard a story you can take with you when you go. It tells you that no one has to go up the mountain alone. It tells you that sometimes things get really scary before they get holy. Above all, it tells you that there is someone standing in the center of the cloud with you, shining so brightly that you may never be able to wrap your mind around him, but who is worth listening to all the same--because he is God's beloved, and you are his, and whatever comes next, you are up to it. Amen.
© Barbara Brown Taylor
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-59212284778145166662014-02-23T09:30:00.000-05:002014-03-02T21:21:22.104-05:00A Different Way to Relate to Each OtherBy The Rev. Sherry Deets
7 Epiphany – February 23, 2014
Matthew 5:38-48
Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile and love your enemies. Have we heard these phrases so often that we don't pay much attention to them? Are they simply niceties? Ideals?
So if we are inclined to read over these familiar words too quickly, or if we want to dismiss these commands out of hand as pious idealisms, I'd urge us instead to slow down and take them more seriously. For in these few crazy sentiments Jesus lays before us the plans for the kingdom he proclaims and the revolution he starts. And so before joining either, we should probably know just what it is we're getting ourselves in for!
As we do so, I want to make an observation. The last line of this passage -- "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" -- helps to reframe the whole of this passage. Be perfect. When we hear that command, most of us hear an injunction to a kind of moral perfectionism. But that's not actually what the original language implies. "Perfect," in this case, stems from telos, the Greek word for "goal," "end," or "purpose." The sense of the word is more about becoming what was intended, accomplishing one's God-given purpose in the same way that God constantly reflects God's own nature and purpose. Eugene Peterson's The Message gets closer to the mark, I think, when he translates it, "You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity." Understanding that, might Jesus be not simply commanding something of us but also commending something in us?
Jesus calls the powers of the day into question by describing an entirely different way to relate to each other, inviting us into relationships governed not by power but by vulnerability grounded in love. "'An eye for an eye' makes all people blind," Gandhi would similarly say almost two thousand years later. Here Jesus invites us to overcome the urge to retribution with loving submission and forbearance.
Yet he isn't satisfied with merely overturning this world. For the very essence of his critique -- that we were created not merely for justice but also for love and life -- is simultaneously the only possible hope for those enmeshed in the orders of the world. What do I mean by that? Strength eventually fails. Power corrupts. And survival of the fittest leaves so many bodies on the ground. Love alone transforms, redeems, and creates new life. As Martin Luther King, Jr., a student of both Jesus and Gandhi, once said, "… force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. (You are that person,) and you do that by love."
There's another reason why we should love our enemies and that is, if we don't, we'll become just like them. Dr. King says, "Hate at any point is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life … So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated."
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
So again, I ask, might Jesus be commending something in us? Perhaps Jesus simply knows that we have more to give, that we can be and do more than we have settled for, and that we can absolutely make a difference in the world if we simply believe in ourselves. And so hear in these commands also the invitation to be those people God has created us to be so that we might not just persevere through this challenging life but actually to flourish, making a difference to those around us by sharing the abundant life Jesus has given us. Crazy? Maybe. But Jesus is not only dead serious about what he promises but actually will die -- and rise again! -- to show us that it's true.
I ask you to think about one thing you believe is holding you back from living into your God-given identity. "Believing I am God's beloved child, I know that I am called to share God's love with others. But I find it hard because...." What is one thing -- one fear, one memory, one hurt, one resentment -- that keeps you from embracing and becoming the person God wishes you to be. Keep this in mind as you come up for communion. In a sense we'll be giving God not only some of our treasure but also some of our tragedy, trusting God to receive and redeem both.
Or perhaps we should remember what Augustine said to his congregants while presiding at the Lord's Supper: "Receive who you are. Become what you've received."
We do not serve a distant God, but one who actually cares about how we treat people and how we are treated. People matter. Relationships matter. The diginity of human beings matters. Dr. King insists, "In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something we talk about … love is creative, understanding goodwill for all [people]. It is the refusal to defeat any individual." Jesus says we should love our enemies because of the redemptive power love has to transform the world, and that includes you and me. This is the meaning of the resurrection – by surrendering to God's will and not resisting his enemies, but showing mercy and asking God to forgive those who condemned him, Jesus won the greater victory and ushered in a new way of life based not on retaliation, but on the power of God's redeeming love.
It starts with one. When you go to Giant or Kohl's after church, maybe you'll let someone have that primo parking space, even though you got there first. When your neighbor's dog does a number on your lawn, you don't pick it up and put it on his doorstep; you just pick it up. When your employer tells you that you are no longer needed at the company, you swallow hard and say "Thank you for the privilege of working here." And when your Joey is punched by their Billy, you don't call your lawyer. You call Billy's dad and say "Let's take the boys to a baseball game so we can have them become friends, not enemies."
If we belong to the God of Grace, we become people of grace. And someday, somewhere, someone will be explaining how it is that the neighborhood lives at peace, and they will point to you and say "He started it." Be a people of grace today! Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5096598015998682927.post-6475224683062140122013-10-06T09:30:00.000-04:002014-02-04T21:59:30.018-05:00Increase Our Faith!By The Rev. Sherry Deets
20 Pentecost, Proper 22 – October 6, 2013
Luke 17:5-10
Last week I talked about God logic. That God's logic isn't our logic. God doesn't play by our rules. God said through Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and my ways higher than your ways."
Our Gospel lesson opens with a plea from Jesus' disciples. They cry, "Increase our faith!"
"Increase our faith!" That's a plea that I think we can all understand. We have been there and done that. We have prayed, "Increase our faith!"
That's an especially good prayer when we are faced with adversity: Illness, the death of a loved one, loss of a job. "Lord, increase my faith!"
Jesus' response to this "Increase our faith" prayer is disappointing. We would like for him to respond in the same way that a good mechanic would respond when our car says, "I'm a quart low." A good mechanic can fix that problem in less than five minutes. He or she will raise the hood, get a quart of oil, and put it in the engine. We want Jesus to do something like that when his disciples pray, "Increase our faith." We want Jesus to give us a quart of faith.
I would say that the disciples had it right when they prayed, "Increase our faith!" They were thinking of faith as something that they could get only from God. They were thinking of it as a gift--a God-given gift. That's true. We need God to give us faith. We can't get it on our own.
But we do need to exercise that faith. We need to strengthen that faith. We grow in faith as we act in faith. Every gift of God is strengthened by the exercise of it, and this is true of faith. Just as the ordinary foot soldier sees too little to know how well or badly the battle is going, the ordinary Christian also has limited vision. Faith means believing even when the outcome seems in doubt.
In a sense, then, God partners with us when he gives us a gift--whether a musical gift, an athletic gift, or a faith gift. God gives the gift, but expects us to exercise it. Without the exercise--the practice--nothing good is likely to happen.
The disciples were on the right track when they asked Jesus to increase their faith. But Jesus was also on the right track when he didn't just hand them a quart of faith. Notice what he did. When his disciples prayed, "Increase our faith," Jesus said:
"If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted, and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you."
That sounds as if Jesus was ignoring their request, but that isn't what he was doing--not at all. He had done his part. He had already given them the gift. Then he gave them a vision of what their faith could be--what their faith could do--what a powerhouse their faith could become. If they would simply develop their God-given faith, they could do anything. They could even tell a tree to uproot itself and to plant itself in the ocean, and the tree would do it.
That's hyperbole, of course--exaggeration for effect--a bit of drama to make a point. Jesus was telling his disciples that nothing would be impossible for them if they would just develop the faith-gift that they had already received.
Stepping out in faith helps us to develop our faith gift. We grow in faith as we act in faith.
So pray, "Increase our faith!" But then take the ball and run with it. Use the faith-gift that God has given you. Make the most of your faith. If we will do that, we will receive great power--and great blessings.
In his book The Kingdom of God is a Party!, author and pastor Tony Campolo tells the story of the time he flew to Honolulu for a speaking engagement. Because of the 8 hour time difference, Tony found himself wide awake at 3:00 AM and hungry for a donut. He walked about a block from the hotel and found an all-night diner, and he sat down and ordered a cup of coffee from a waiter named "Gus." He hadn't been there very long when a small group of brightly dressed women entered the diner and sat in the booth directly behind him. He realized instantly that these were "ladies of the night."
Tony couldn't help but eavesdrop on their conversation when he heard one of the women say that tomorrow was her 30th birthday, and her friend caustically said "So, what do you want, a party?" When the women left, Campolo asked Gus about them and he was told that they come in every morning about this time. "What about the one in pink?" Tony asked. "Oh, her name's Rachael." Tony said to Gus "Well, tomorrow Rachael's going to turn 30. What do you say we throw her a party?" Gus thought it was a great idea, and the next evening at midnight, Tony showed up with crepe paper and streamers, and Gus had made a cake, and he had also invited everyone in the neighborhood. And at 3 o'clock, when Rachael arrived, they all jumped up and began singing "Happy Birthday." And Rachael just stood there and wept. Campolo heard her say to one of her friends "I am 30 years old, and this is the first birthday party I have ever had."
As Tony Campolo was leaving that diner, Gus took him aside and asked him "Tony, what do you do for a living?" Tony wasn't quite sure what to say, but finally answered "I'm the pastor of a church…a church that throws birthday parties for hookers at 3 o'clock in the morning." Gus studied Tony's face for the longest time, and then said "No you aren't, because I would go to a church like that,"
I love that story. A church sees its mission to care and be cared for by the members of its congregation. Another church sees its purpose as to reach out to a world in need; to be the hands and lips of Jesus in every age. So which one is it? Are we called to care for one another in our congregation, or are we called to reach out and care for others? Yes. Yes. The Church is called to do both, and the Church becomes unhealthy whenever its focus drifts toward just one or the other.
Jesus calls us to exercise our faith. To use our faith muscle in the world. To do what we ought to have done. Lord, increase our faith. Amen.
Copyright 2008-2012 Episcopal Church of the Trinity. The text of this sermon is the property of the author and may not be duplicated or used without permission.
Chrishttp://email@example.com