Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 37

11 Pentecost

August 25, 2019
Isaiah 58.9b-14; Hebrews 12.18-29
+ As we prepare for our new bell tower, which we hope will be coming in the next week or so, it’s kind of fun to look back at some of the things we have that we now don’t even realize are still new. No, I’m not talking about the windows are the altar.  
I was thinking of our baptismal font the other day. It has been six years since we dedicated and blessed our new font. And I am so happy we did it. It is a beautiful addition to our church. And I hear so many compliments on it from people who visit.
In these six years, we’ve had a lot of people baptized already in that font.  The baptismal font is a very important symbol for all of us  who live out our baptismal covenant on a daily basis.
As you all know, no doubt, one my personal heroes in the Church is one of the greatest  (no, I would say the GREATEST) Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey.  One of my favorite stories about Ramsey is how, when, after he had become a Bishop in the Church, visited St. Andrew’s church in Horbling in England in which we was baptized in 1904. There, he asked to see the baptismal font. Standing there, he began to cry and was heard to murmur:

“O font, font, font, in which I was baptized!”

As Geoffrey Rowell wrote of that incident: “[Ramsey’s] deep sacramental sense and understanding of baptism as being plunged into the death and Resurrection of Christ, which was [and is] at the heart of the Church’s life, comes out in that moment of time.”

As you know, baptisms are one of those events in my life as a priest that I particularly rejoice in.
Last week in our Gospel reading, we heard Jesus talking about a baptism by fire.  In my sermon last week, I mentioned that when were baptized in those waters, we were also baptized in the fire of God’s spirit.
Today, in the Letter to the Hebrews, we hear another fire reference to God. We hear,
“indeed our God is a consuming fire.”
In baptism, we realize how much of a consuming fire God is. We realize that in those waters, a fire was kindled in us. God’s fire was kindled in us. And, to be a Christian, to be follower of Jesus, means being aflame with the fires of our baptism.
But if we left it there, we might still not understand the true ramifications of our baptism.
One thing you all know I enjoy doing here at St. Stephan’s is inviting people to explore other areas of the Book of Common Prayer, other than just our section concerning Holy Communion.  So, let’s do so again today. Let’s take a look at the Catechism again.  There we get the answer to the question:
“What is Holy Baptism?”
If you look on page 858—there you will find the somewhat definitive answer.  On page 858, we find this answer:

“Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and make us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.”

It’s a really great definition.
Holy Baptism is not then just a sweet little service of sprinkling water on a baby’s head and dedicating them as we would a boat.  It is a service in which we are essentially re-born.  It is the service in which we recognize that we are children of a loving God. We have been washed in those waters and made alive in the fire of God’s love and made new—specifically we have become Christians in being baptized.

But, the one point I really want to drive home this morning is that last part of the definition from the Catechism. In baptism we become “inheritors of the kingdom of God.”
We are given a glimpse of this Kingdom of which we, the baptized, are inheritors in our readings from both Isaiah and Hebrews today. In Isaiah, we hear the prophet saying to us:
“If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”

Now, that’s some beautiful poetry, if you ask me.

“…your gloom [shall] be like the noonday.”

But more than that, it’s just so wonderfully practical. When we follow Jesus—when we love God and love our neighbors—we are truly saying, “Yes, we are inheritors of the Kingdom of God.”

But, what does it mean to be an “inheritor of the kingdom of God?” Being an inheritor of God’s kingdom means living out those promises we make in our baptismal covenant. It means proclaiming by word and example the Good News of Christ. It means seeking and serving Christ in all persons and loving everyone as we desire to be loved. And it means striving for justice and peace, and respecting the dignity of the every human being. And by doing those things, we are truly being the inheritors of that kingdom. This is what it means to be a Christian.

It is not just saying, “I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior” It is not just saying, “I belong to the one true Church, and that there is no salvation outside of this Church.”
It does not mean just being nice and thinking good thoughts all the time.

Being a Christian means both believing and then acting like one. Being a follower of Jesus means that we understand fully that something truly wonderful and amazing happened to us when we were baptized.
In that baptismal font in which we were baptized we were truly “buried with Christ in his death.”  In those waters, we shared “in his resurrection.” And through those waters—and that fire of God’s love that was kindled in us in those waters—we were “reborn by the Holy Spirit.”

This is not light and fluffy stuff we’re dealing with here in baptism. It is not all about clouds and flowers and sweet little lambs romping in the meadow. It is not just “feel good” spirituality.
It is the greatest event in our lives. It was a life-changing moment in our lives. And this God we encounter today and throughout all our lives as Christians, as inheritors of the God’s Kingdom is truly, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews tells us today, “a consuming fire.”
God doesn’t let us sit back and be complacent.  God is like a gnawing fire, kindled in that holy moment, deep within us. God shakes us up and pushes us out into the world to serve others and to be the conduits through which God’s kingdom—God’s very fire of love—comes into this world.
Baptism is a radical thing.  It changes us and transforms us.  And it doesn’t just end when the water is dried and we leave the church. It is something we live with forever.
In Baptism, we are marked as Christ’s own forever.
Forever.
For all eternity.
And nothing we can do can undo that.
That’s why I love doing baptism so much. That’s why it’s so important to remember our baptism.
My hope is that when we look at the font here at St. Stephen’s (whether we were baptized in it or not) we will see it  with special appreciation and will be able to recognize, in some way, the beauty of the event that happens here on a regular basis. My hope is that, when we dip our fingers into that bowl of water and bless ourselves with that blessed water, it will remind us of that incredible day in which we too were baptized.
I hope we can all look at that place in which baptism happens here at St. Stephen’s with a deep appreciation of how, we too, on the day of our baptism, were changed, how God’s consuming fire was kindled in us  and how we  became children of a loving, inclusive God and “inheritors of the kingdom of God.”

We are inheritors of that unshakable Kingdom of God.  For that fact let us, as the author of Hebrews says to us today, “give thanks, by which we offer to God, an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.”

10 Pentecost

August 18, 2019
Jeremiah 23.23-29; Hebrews 11:29-12.2; Luke 12.49-56
+ There has been a meme going around Facebook recently. It shows a young kid with his face in his hands, looking as though he were despairing. The caption to the meme was, “When I was young, I thought everyone in the Church got along with each other.”
Uh-huh. So did I, Kid.
Any of us who have been in the church for any period of time, know that is not quite the reality of the Church.
I hate to break this news to you, but… Every day in the Church is definitely not a love feast. We don’t all sit around agreeing with each other on this and that. In fact, it’s almost never like that.
I remember the first time I realized the Church can be fickle place. I sort of knew about it before, but the first time it happened was shortly after I had returned to Church and was intent on pursuing my calling to be a priest. Every time the doors of the church opened, I was there. I volunteered for everything, from Altar Guild to Wedding Coordinator.  As I stepped up to the plate, trying to do what I thought needed to be done, I found I was stepping on the toes of none other than a formidable woman by the name of Emma Ness.
Emma was a force to be reckoned with in her congregation for several years.  And, sadly, she had some major control issues…
I am not speaking negatively about her and if she were alive and with us this morning, I would remind her of this story. Of course, as happens times in my ministry, I believe without a doubt that Emma is, in fact, with us this morning. 
 And many other mornings.
Anyway, back then, I realized very quickly that there were certain responsibilities Emma had in the Church that she was not content in letting me, the young upstart—or anyone else,  for that matter—ado. At first, she defended what she did with an iron will. And I was on the receiving end of that iron will. Not a pleasant place to be.
Later, when I realized I had crossed the boundaries with her, I found the way to soften those iron boundaries. I became her friend and confidant and supporter, and later, her priest.  She needed love in her life and, I can say, I loved Emma.  We ended up being very close and dear friends. I was with her when she died and I preached at her funeral.
But Emma taught me a lesson about those divisions in the Church. They exist and they can be difficult to deal with. Difficult, but not impossible.  And, in her way,  Emma was like a fire. (I think she’d love to be compared to fire) A fire that burned away some of that innocence and naivety of what it means to work in this human-run (though divine-inspired) organization called the Church.
Yes, there are divisions in the Church. There are divisions among us, even in this congregation. Those divisions, at least here at St. Stephen’s, are, for the most part, little ones. Minor ones.
In the larger Church, they are much bigger ones. Issues of biblical interpretation and personal convictions continue to divine the Church.
I get pretty firm about such things, as many of you know. Although I am patient when it comes to people telling me there are certain things about the Church they might not like personally—trust me there are many things I too personally don’t like about the Church and the way things are—even then, you have no doubt heard me say, “this is not an issue of any one of us.”
We, as the Church, are a collective. And when one of us stiffens and crosses our arms and stands aloof off to the side, the divisions begin, and the breeches within the Church widen, and the love of God is not proclaimed. And the rest of us, in those moments, must simply go on. We must proclaim what needs to be proclaimed. We love what needs to be loved. We move forward.  And when it happens to me—and it happens to me quite a lot—I will occasionally speak out.But for the most part, I realize: this is the Church. And we must plow forward together because that is what Jesus intends us to do as his followers. He makes this quite  clear.
Jesus tells us today in our Gospel reading that he did not come to bring peace, but rather he came to bring division.
What?
What did he say?
He didn’t come to bring peace?
The Price of Peace didn’t bring peace??
Not a nice thing to hear from Jesus.
We want Jesus to bring peace, right?
Let’s be honest: his message, of loving God and loving one another, is a message that does divide. We, who rebel against it, who inwardly stiffen at it, we rebel.
We say, “no.”
We freeze up.
But, Jesus makes this very clear to us. It is not our job, as his followers, to freeze up. It not an option for us to let our blood harden into ice. For, he came to bring fire to the earth. To us, his followers.
When we were baptized, we were baptized with water, yes. But we were also baptized with fire! With the fire of God’s Holy Spirit that came to us as we came out of those waters. And that fire burned away the ice within us that slows us down, that hardens us, that prevents us from loving fully.
That fire that Jesus tells  us he is bringing to this earth, is the fire of his love. And it will burn.
Now, for most of us, when we think of fire in relation to God, think of the fires of hell. In fact, if I believed in an eternal hell, which I do not, I think it would be a place of ice, far removed from the fire of God’s love.
Ah, but not so. Again and again in scripture, certainly for our scriptures for today,  fire in relation to God is seen as a purifying fire, a fire that burns away the chaff of our complacent selves. Fire from God is ultimately a good thing, although maybe not always a pleasant thing. The fire of God burns away our peripheral nature and presents us pure and spiritually naked before God. And that is how we are to go before God.
But this fire, as we’ve made clear, is not a fire of anger or wrath. It is a fire of God’s love. It the fire that burns within God’s heart for each of us. And that fire is an all-consuming fire. When that consuming fire burns away our flimsy exteriors, when we stand pure and spiritually exposed before God, we realize who we really are.The fact remains, we are not, for the most part, completely at that point yet. That fire has not yet done its complete job in us. While we still have divisions, while we allow ourselves to stiffen in rebellion, when we allow our own persona tastes and beliefs to get in the way of the larger beliefs of the Church, we realize the fire has not completely done its job in us.
The divisions will continue. The Church remains divided.
For us, as followers of Jesus, we are not to be fire retardant, at least to the fire of love that blazes from our God. As unpleasant and uncomfortable it might seem at times, we need to let that fire burn away the chaff from us. And when we do, when we allow ourselves to be humbled by that fire of God’s love, then, we will see those divisions dying. We will see them slowly dying off.
And will see that the Church is more than just us, who struggle on, here on this side of the veil. We will see that we are only a part of a much larger Church. We will see that we are a part of a Church that also makes up that “great cloud of witnesses” Paul speaks of in today’s Epistle. We will see, once our divisions are gone and we have been purified in that fire of God’s love, that that cloud of witnesses truly does surround us.
And we will see that we truly are running a race as the Church. Paul is clear here too: that the only way to win the race is with perseverance. And perseverance of this sort if only tried and perfected in the fire of God’s love.
Yes, this is the Church. This is what we are called to be here, and now, as followers of Jesus. This is what we, baptized in the fire of God’s love, are compelled to be in this world.
So, let us be just that.  Let us be the Church, on fire with the love of God, fighting to erase the divisions that separate us. Let us be the prophets in whom God’s Word is like a fire, or a hammer that breaks a rock—or ice—in pieces. And when we are, finally and completely, those divisions will end, and we will be what the Church is on the other side of the veil.
We will—in that glorious moment—be the home of God among God’s people.

9 Pentecost

August 11, 2019

Luke 12:32-40

+ I don’t know if you can feel it, but it already feels like summer is nearing the end. Yes, I know it’s still hot, but it feels like summer is on the down-turn. And that makes me sad.
It’s been a good summer for us here at St. Stephen’s It’s been a very busy summer, with weddings, funerals, and parishioners’ (especially musicians’) health issues, the bell tower and all the other issues that normally don’t seem to happen during summer.
I remember when I first came to St. Stephen’s. Summers were very quiet. Nothing much happened, it seemed.Not so anymore.  
And let’s not even get started on what this summer was on a larger scale. It has been a very violent summer—a summer of shootings and domestic violence. We are still reeling from those massacres in Dayton and El Paso last weekend. We are still shaking with pain and, I hope, righteous anger, over those murders. 
Socially, racially, and politically, we are all dealing with so much anger and division raging around us this summer. In fact, I don’t remember seeing so much division in this country as we have right now.  It is enough to make one almost despair.
As I was thinking about all of this, I found myself this past week really hearing our Gospel reading for this morning anew.   I really let the Gospel reading sink in and I realized that, in it, Jesus was telling us me—and all of us—two things that strike us at our very core:
First, he tells us something that is essential. It is, by far, the most important thing we can hear.  He begins with those essential words:
“Do not be afraid.”
With all the violence and uncertainty going on in this nation, with our collectively uncertain future, those words never sounded sweeter in my ears, and hopefully in yours as well.  Those are the words we want Jesus to say to us and those are the words he tells us again and again in the Gospels. 
 And those are words I love to preach about.  If I could peach on nothing else but Jesus’ commandment of “Do not be afraid” I would be a very happy priest.  (Actually, I am a pretty happy priest anyway)

Do not be afraid.

Second, he tells us something else that is so vital. He says,
“where your treasure is, there you heart will be also.”  
Now, at first, we might find ourselves nodding in agreement with this.  But let’s not nod too quickly here.  Let’s listen very closely to what he is saying.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

When we hear him talking today of where your heart is there is your treasure, he isn’t talking so much of our material treasure.  He is saying that where your heart is, that is where your passion will be.  There is where your attention and your fulfillment will be found.
So that poses a very hard question in all of our lives this morning, that really does cut through all the violence and political uncertainty in this world.
Where is your heart this morning?
Where is your treasure?
Where is your passion?
Now, for me, I will tell you where mine are. I have two passions in this life.  They are not secrets.  
The first, of course, is my vocation to the Priesthood.  
And, of course, my other passion is poetry.  
And…yes, there’s a third…midcentury century furniture.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
So, where is your treasure?
This might not be as easy for us to answer.   And few of us can say with all honesty that our treasures are built up enough in heaven that there too is our heart.   Our treasures, for the most part, are here on earth.
But I’m not going to let you off the hook this morning. I really want you to carry this with you. I want you to truly ask yourself these questions.
Where is your treasure?  
Or maybe the questions should be: what is your treasure? What is your passion?  
What is it that drives you and motivates you?
Is it money?
Is it fame?
Is it your job?
Or is it family or spouse?
It’s important to be honest with ourselves in regard to this question and to embrace and accept the answer.  They are hard questions to ask and they are hard questions to answer.

Jesus is clear here that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up about what our treasure is.  Rather, he says, we should simply shift our attention, shift our focus, and center ourselves once again on the treasure that will never disappoint, that will never be taken away.  
And what is that, for Jesus?
God.
And all that God stands for.  
Now, either that sounds really good to you or really bad to you.  But bear with me for a moment.  When we find our treasure in God, we find that that treasure is more than just  some sweet, pious, God-and-me kind of relationship.
Recognizing God as our treasure means making all that God loves and holds dear our treasure as well—
I’m going to repeat that:
Recognizing God as our treasure means making all that God loves and holds dear our treasure as well
To love God means to love what God loves as well.
And striving to see that and do that is where our real treasures lie.
It seems that when do that—when we love as God loves—it all does truly fall into place.   I don’t mean that it falls into place in a simple, orderly way, like Tetras or a puzzle.   It definitely does not ever seem to do that.  God does not work in that way.  (Sometimes I wish God did!)
More often than not, when we recognize all that God loves, it only frustrates us and makes our lives more difficult.
You mean, God loves that person I can’t stand?
You mean God loves that person I think is vile and despicable?
God loves even those people we think God shouldn’t love?
See, it’s a lot harder than we thought.
Because that’s what it’s all about. Loving God means loving all that God loves. And God loves fully and completely and wholly.  And realizing this is truly the greatest treasure we will ever find.
“Where our treasures are , there our hearts will be also.”
For us here at St. Stephen’s, we know how to build up that treasure in heaven.  We do it by following Jesus, and in following Jesus, we love God and strive—honestly—to love all that God loves.  We try to make that our goal. Sometimes we fail, but we always keep on trying.
We build up our treasures by doing what we do best.  We do it by being a radical presence of love and peace and hospitality in a violent world or in an uncertain political environment or in a Church—capital C— that sometimes truly does ostracize. We do it even when it’s really hard. We do it even when we don’t feel like it. We do it even when we would rather be doing our own thing, sitting by ourselves over here, all by ourselves.
For us a St. Stephen’s, especially during this Pride weekend, we are a place of radical love and acceptance, because Jesus, the One we follow, was the personification of radical love and acceptance.   And because the God he represents and loved and stood for is our treasure, we know we are heading in the right direction in what we do.
God and God’s radical, all-encompassing love is where we should find our treasure—our heart.  
And not just a private treasure, we hoard and keep to ourselves. No. But a treasure we share. A treasure we freely give and share to others.
But even if we are not there yet spiritually, it’s all right.  We should simply cling to that command that God continues to make to us again and again, when the world around us rages, when violence flares, when racism and white supremacy makes its ugly come-back, and our futures seem uncertain and frightening:
“Do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid!
Do not be afraid of where our passions lead us and where our treasures lie.   Do not get all caught up in the things of this earth.  
Do not think that we can do nothing at all in the face of evil and violence and white supremacy and Nazism and homophobia and sexism and all those horrible things in this world.
Do not think you or I are completely helpless.
Because we are not.
We are powerful because it is God’s love within us—this treasure we share with others—that we have as our secret weapon in the face of all those dark, vile things in this world.
In the face of darkness and violence and fear, love as God loves.
Love your neighbor as you would love yourself.
Love your enemy, even when that enemy is the most disgusting thing you can even imagine.
And love your God who loves you in return.
By doing so, we defeat fear.
We drive out hatred.
We outshine the darkness.
 So, let us build up our treasure.  
Let us embrace our passions.
Let us move forward so we can build up our treasures, even when we’re tired, even when we are weary, even we are wounded and bleeding and beaten by this world.
Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms,  
“It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
The Kingdom is here, in our midst.
Right here.
Right now.
We are bringing it forth, increment by increment.
Step by step.
Loving act after loving act.
Truly, the Kingdom is just that close.
And within it, all our real treasures lie.

8 Pentecost

Senior Warden Steve Bolduc's fabulous 1950s aqua blue couch
August 4, 2019
Luke 12:13-21
+ I’d like you to take a look at a section of the Prayer Book that I’ve showed you before, but I’d like to draw your attention to once again.  On page 445, you will find something very interesting.  It says this,
The Minister of the Congregation [that’s me] is directed to instruct the people [that’s you], from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.
I always encourage people—no matter where they are financially in their lives—to make out a Will.  Wills are more than just a means of giving away our earthly possessions when we die. They truly can be a practical expression of one’s faith and a positive acknowledgement of our own mortality and dependence upon God.
 I was inspired by this suggestion from the Prayer Book and had my original Will way back in 2003, not long after I was diagnosed with cancer.  I then revised that will about six years ago or so.   
For me in having a will, there was a sense of accomplishment in knowing that what I have will be distributed to those people and those organizations that I know would appreciate them and benefit from them.  And it was also a relief to be able to put in that Will such practical instructions as my funeral arrangements (which, as you me say time and again, I highly encourage everyone to consider and write down in some way or form).
But the real reason we make out a will is because of this one simple fact: we cannot, whether we like it or not, take what have with us when we shed this mortal coil.
I hate to break that news to you. None of the money we have made and saved and invested will go with us when we pass from this life. Our cars, our houses, our books, our art, our stocks and bonds, our fabulous 1950s furniture will not go with us as we pass through the veil.  OK, maybe that part about the fabulous 1950s furniture only applies to me and Senior Warden Steve Bolduc.
But you see where I am going with this.  Which the whole reason we make Wills.   We make Wills to give us a sense of security about what we have and where it will go when it is no longer ours.  We like to know where these things we worked so hard to get will go.
Still, having said all that, I have never been comfortable talking about Wills and money.  It’s such a personal thing.
Maybe it’s because I kind of fret over these things.  I fret over my possessions and what is going to happen to them when I’m gone.  Which, I know, is completely pointless. But, still…I do it.
I fret.
In this morning’s Gospel is the fact that this “someone” in the crowd is also fretting, it seems.   And this “someone” just hasn’t quite understood what Jesus is saying when he says “do not be afraid,” which is what he was telling them right before this particular incident.  But as easy as it is to judge this poor person quarreling with his brother—as much as we want to say—“look at that fool, bringing his financial concerns before Jesus,” the fact is, more often than we probably care to admit, this is the person we no doubt find ourselves relating to.
I certainly do.

In this society that we live in, in this country in which we live in, we naturally think a lot about money and finances.  We spend a lot of time storing our money, investing our money, making more money and depending on money.  None of which, in and of its self, is bad.
But, we also worry about money quite a bit.  And that is bad.  For those who don’t have much, they worry about how to survive, how to live, how to make more.  For those with money, they worry about keeping the money they have, making sure their money isn’t stolen or misused.
And we don’t just worry about the money in our lives.  We worry about all our material “treasures.”  We worry about protecting our possessions from robbers, or fire or natural disaster.  We insure them and store them and we spend time planning how to pass our treasures on after we die.  We are concerned about what we have and we might even find ourselves looking for and seeking those things we don’t have.  
And there is nothing inherently wrong with any of this either.  It’s good stewardship to take care of that with which God has blessed us and take care of those things.
What Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel is not so much these issues—it’s not money per se, or the “things” in our lives. What Jesus is talking is something worse. He is talking about greed, or as older translations used, covetousness.
Greed and covetousness are not the same thing.  They are actually two different things.
Greed involves us—it involves us wanting more than we need.
Covetousness is wanting what others have.  Covetousness involves envy and jealousy. (And envy and jealousy are two different things as well, but we won’t get into that today) Covetousness involves looking at others and wanting what they have desperately.
And at times, we’ve all been guilty of both of these things.
I’m certainly guilty of covetousness. I want to covet Senior Warden Steve Bolduc’s very cool 1950s aqua blue couch that he found in his basement.
In our society, we are primed to be a bit greedy and we are primed to covet.  Look at some of the ads we see on TV.  We are shown products in such a way that we actually come to desire them.  And they are shown in the context of some other person enjoying them so much that we should want them too.
And, in this society, we are primed to want more than we need.  We’re all guilty of it.  And we should be aware of this fact in our lives.  
And in being aware of this, we need to keep Jesus’ words close to heart. Because Jesus is clear here.  There are two kinds of treasures.  There are those treasures we have here on earth—the ones we actually own, the ones we might need and the ones others have that we want (like 1950s aqua blue couches)— and the ones we store up for ourselves in heaven.  And, let’s be honest, those treasures we are expected to store up for ourselves in heaven are not the easiest ones to gain for ourselves.  They are not the ones we probably think about too often in our lives.
Jesus isn’t too clear in today’s Gospel exactly what those treasures are, but it won’t take much guessing on our part to figure them out.  The treasures we store up for ourselves in the next world are those that come out of loving God and loving each other.  But we have to be careful when considering what it is we are storing up for ourselves.
It is not the idea that good deeds will get us into heaven. We need to be very clear here.
Jesus is not at any point saying to us that what we do here on earth is going to guarantee us a place in heaven.  But what he is saying is that we don’t get to take any of our possessions with us when we leave this world.  All of it will be left behind.
Every last thing we have right now in our lives—every previous thing—will be left behind when we die.
However, Jesus says, if you do these good things in your life, you will be closer to heaven.  You will not “win” heaven by doing them. But…by doing good things for one another, you will be bringing heaven closer into our lives.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to take care of the treasures we have on earth.  We should always be thankful for them.  And we should be willing to share them as are needed.
Our job as Christians is to take care of our possessions here on earth—with whatever God granted to us in our lives.
Considering what we heard from our Book of Common Prayer earlier we know that we are encouraged to look after our earthly treasures and to share them in a spirit of goodness and forbearance.  By arranging for our Wills to be made, by being generous with our gifts and with the instructions we give our loved ones who survive us, we are truly responding to today’s Gospel.  By being generous with our gifts , and by being generous to those who share this earth with us, we are building up treasures in heaven.
We are not “buying” our way into heaven. We are just striving to do good on this earth, as faithful followers of Jesus and as beloved children of a loving God.  And striving to do good does build up those treasures in heaven.
In all of this, let us listen in a way the anonymous person in today’s Gospel did not.  Let us listen to Jesus’ words of “do not be afraid.”
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid of what will happen to the possessions you have on earth.
Do not let fear reign in your life by letting greed and covetousness rule your lives.
Do not get all caught up in the things you have, or the things your neighbors have.
Instead, let us love our neighbor as we would love ourselves.  And let us love our God who provides for us everything we can possibly need.  And let us know that that same God whom we love and who loves us in return has a special place prepared for us which is full of riches beyond our comprehension.
For, as Jesus makes clear in pointing out, our lives do “not consist in the abundance of our possessions.”
We are more than our possessions.  We are more than what we have.
In that place to which are going, we will go naked and empty-handed.  We will go shed of all attachments and possessions.  We will go there shed even of our very bodies.  But we will go there, unafraid. And we will go there gloriously and radiantly clothed with hope and joy and love.

7 Pentecost

July 28, 2019
Luke 11.1-13
+ Every so often, as a clergy person, I get a question like this,
 “Do you really pray when people ask you for prayers, or do you just say you’ll pray and forget?”
It was one of the best questions I’ve ever been asked.
And it’s an important question.
I say this to that question:
“I used to say I would and then would often forget and feel guilty for forgetting. So, now, what I do is when anyone asks for prayer from me, I immediately pray for them. Even if it’s a short, interior prayer, I will pray for them, ‘please, God, I pray for so-and-so’ and whatever issue they have. And when I do, I usually find that when I pray more fully, usually at Evening Prayer, and in a more focused way, that request is still there.”
And I can say this, prayer is as essential of a part of my ministry at St. Stephen’s as anything I do.
And I know it is for many of you as well.
For me, as an ordained person, I can tell you, I too very seriously the vow I first made I was ordained a deacon, when the Bishop asked me,
“Will you be faithful in prayer…?”
With that in mind, I can also say that one of the most common questions I have been asked in my 16 years of ordained ministry has been: “how should I pray?” Or “Am I praying correctly?”
And I think that is one of the most important questions anyone can ask me.
And I love to answer that question.
It is essential.
After all, prayer is essential to us as Christians.
It is in partying, that we not only seek God, but come to know God.
For those of us seeking God and striving after God, and God, in return, coming to us and revealing God’s self to us, we do find the need to respond in some way.

That response is, of course, prayer.
In our Gospel for today, we find Jesus talking about this response.
We find him talking about prayer.
The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray.  
Jesus responds by teaching them the prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father.
First of all, let’s just think about the Lord’s Prayer.
Certainly it is the most famous prayer in our human history.
It is a prayer that is prayed over and over again, every single day by millions of people.
I was thinking the other day about how many times a day I pray the Lord’s Prayer.
And, on Friday, as I officiated as a Committal of Ashes service, as we prayed the Lord’s Prayer at the graveside, I thought about all those funerals, burial services, weddings and others services we’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer.
It is THE single most important prayer for us, certainly, as Christians, as followers of Jesus.
And in it, we have the pattern for prayer for us.
So, Jesus teaches us this essential prayer today in our Gospel.
Then he goes on to share a parable about a friend asking another friend for a loan.
In the midst of this discourse on prayer, Jesus says those words we find quite familiar:

“For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knows, the door will be opened.”

Now, pay attention to some key words there:
-Asks
-Searches
-Knows.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the complaint from people about unanswered prayers.

“I prayed and I prayed and nothing happened,” I will hear.

And I am definitely not going to tell you how many times I have complained about so-called “unanswered” prayer in my own life.
But when we talk of such things as unanswered prayers, no doubt we are zeroing in on the first part of what Jesus is saying today:

“For everyone who asks receives.”

And before we move on from this, I just want to make clear—there is no such thing  as unanswered prayer.
All prayers are answered, as you’ve heard me say many times.
The answer however is just not always what we might want to hear.
Our God is not Santa Claus in heaven, granting gifts to good children, nor is our God the god of Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism—a projection of our own parental expectations (to which many of us act like spoiled children).
God grants our prayers, but sometimes the answer is “Yes,” sometimes is “not yet,” and, sadly—and we have to face this fact as mature people in our lives—sometimes the answer is “No.”
And I can tell you from my own experience, the greatest moment of spiritual maturity is accepting that “no” from God.
But, that is, of course, the petitionary aspect of prayer, and very rarely do most of us move beyond asking God for “things,” as though God is some giant gift-dispenser in the sky. 
(I am telling you this morning, in no uncertain terms, that God is not a giant gift-dispenser in the sky. Sorry!)
Jesus shows us that prayer also involves seeking and knocking—searching and knowing.
Oftentimes in those moments when a prayer is not answered in the way we think it should, we just give up.
We shake our fists at God and say, “God does not exists because my prayers weren’t answered.”
And that’s all right.
That’s an honest and valid response to God.
I’ve done it in my past.
And I understand people who do it.
But if we seek out the reasons our prayers are not answered in the way we want them to, we may truly find another answer—an answer we might not want to find, but an answer nonetheless.  
And if we keep on knocking, if we keep on pushing ourselves in prayer, we will find more than we can even possibly imagine.
The point of all of this, of course, is that when God breaks through to us, sometimes we also have to reach out to God as well.
And somewhere in the middle is where we will find the meeting point in which we find the asking, the seeking and knocking presented before us in a unique and amazing way.
In that place of meeting, we will find that prayer is truly our response to God “by thought and deed, with or without words.”

And in that place of meeting, we come to “know” God.
Jesus is clear that prayer needs to be regular and consistent and heart-felt.
I have found that prayer is essential for all of us as Christians.
If we do not have prayer to sustain us and hold us up and carry us forward, then it is so easy to become aimless and lost.

As some of you know, I lead a very disciplined prayer life.
I’m not saying that to brag or to pat myself on the back.
I try to lead a disciplined prayer because I can be lazy person.
I pray the Daily Office every day—the services of Morning and Evening Prayer found in the Book of Common Prayer—because I need to.
For myself.
See, kind of selfish.
But I do need it.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who also prays the Daily Office every day, says that when he doesn’t pray the Office, he feels off, like he hasn’t brushed his teeth.
That’s what it’s like for me as well.
And I pray it because it is a way for me to pray for everyone at St. Stephen’s by name through the course of the week.  
And, in addition to the Offices, I take regular times during the day to just stop and be quiet and simply “be” in the Presence of God, to just consciously open myself to God’s Presence and just “be” there with God.
No petitions.
No asking for anything.
No fist-shaking or complaints.
Just being there.
That’s essentially what prayer is.
It is us opening ourselves to God, responding to God, seeking God and trying to know God.
So, essentially, prayer is not just something formal and precise.
It does not have to perfect or “formulaic.”
We do not do it only when we are pure and holy and in that right spiritual mind.
We pray honestly and openly and when the last thing in the world we feel like is praying.
We pray when life is falling apart and it seems like God is not listening.
And we pray when we are angry at God or bitter at life and all the unfair things that have come upon us.
I actually have no problem praying in those situations.
You know when I do have a problem praying?
When things are going well.
When all is well.
In those moments, I sometimes forget to open myself to God.
I sometimes forget just to say “thank you” for those good things.
I forget sometimes just to be grateful for the good things.
But even then we need to pray as well.
We pray to know God and to seek God.
And if we do so, if we stick with it, there will be a breakthrough.
I know, because I’ve experienced it.
And many of you know it too because you’ve experienced it.
There will be a breakthrough.
Of course, we can’t control when or how it will happen.
All we can do is recognize that it is God breaking through to us, again and again.
We see the breaking through fully in Jesus.
He shows us how God continues to break through into this world.
We see it in our own lives when, after struggling and worrying and despairing over something, suddenly it just “lifts” and we are filled with a strange peace we never thought would ever exists again.
In those moments, God does break through.
In response to that breaking through, we can each find a way of meeting God, whenever and however God comes to us, in prayer.
In that place of meeting, we will receive whatever we need, we will find what we’re searching for, and knocking, we will find a door opened to us.
That is how God responds to us.

So, let us go out.
Let us go to meet God.
Let us seek God.
Let us know God.
God is breaking through to us, wherever we might be in our lives.
Let us go out to meet the God who asks of us first, who seeks us out first, who knocks first for us to open the door.

The Requiem Mass for Tom Stickney 1919-2019

Tom & Ruth
July 21, 2019
+ I am very honored to be here, to help commemorate and give thanks for the life of  Tom Stickney and to commend this wonderful man to God.
I am very fortunate to say that I was Tom’s priest, and I would also say a friend.
This was a man who lived a good and long life.
As some of you might not know, tomorrow would have been Tom’s 100thbirthday.
So, today, we are truly celebrating Tom and that century-long life.
Few of us can truly comprehend the full magnitude of 100 years.
100 years is something few of us here today will ever achieve.
But as we ponder it, as we ponder 100 years, we have it admit: it’s truly amazing.
All the minutes, and hours and days and weeks and months that make up 100 years is almost overwhelming.
And the experience—the life—that was lived in all of that time is something we should celebrate. 
There will be many stories told about Tom Stickney and his long life.
Many wonderful stories.
And his presence will certainly stay with us as long as we share those stories.
I have no doubt that Tom is with us here this afternoon, celebrating this long and wonderful life with us.  
He is celebrating his 100 years of life with us.
I am of the firm belief that what separates us who are alive and breathing here on earth from those who are now in the so-called “nearer presence of God” is actually a very thin division.
So, yes, right now, I think we can feel that that separation between us here and those who have passed on is, in this moment, a very thin one.
And because of that belief, I take a certain comfort in the fact Tom is close to us this afternoon. 
He is here, in our midst, celebrating his life with us.
And we should truly celebrate his life.
It was a good life.
It was a life full of meaning and purpose.
And many of us were touched by it in wonderful ways.
I certainly was.
I knew Tom and Ruth for many years as their priest.
I remember their strong and gentle presence.
I remember their kindness and their goodness.
I remember their care and their concern for others.
St. Stephen’s was an important place in their lives.
This was their church home.
And so it is appropriate that the new bell tower that we will be getting within the next few months will be dedicated in memory of Toma dn Ruth.
At the end of this service, in fact, we will toll our new bell 10 times.
That tolling with be for each decade of Tom’s life.
When someone has been around for 100 years, and then they are no longer with us, we are going to feel that loss.
There will be a huge gap in the world and in our lives.
After all, they have been a part of this world, when the world was very different than it is right now.
And, although it is no doubt hard to face the fact that we are distanced from him, we can take some consolation in the fact that although Tom has shed this so-called “mortal coil,” he has now entered into that loving presence of God.
There is a great image we find in the book of Revelation.
We find in the book of Revelation God saying this,
“It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”
As difficult as it is in this moment, as difficult as it is to say goodbye to Tom, we are able to find strength in these words.
We are able to cling to the fact that, although life is unpredictable, life is beyond our control, as Tom would no doubt tell us,  life is not beyond God’s control.
God knew us and loved us at our beginning and will know and love us at our end.
For 100 years, God knew and loved Tom.
And, in this moment, that love is fulfilled.
As the poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning.”
As we mourn this ending, we also take great comfort in the fact that we are also celebrating a new beginning for Tom today.
This is what we believe as Christians.
Tom, of course, was a devout Episcopalian.
What I love about being an Episcopalian is that sometimes we can’t clearly define what it is we believe.
Nor should we.
We can’t pin it down and examine it too closely.
When we do, we find it loses its meaning. 
But when I am asked, “what do Episcopalians believe?” I say, “we believe what we pray.”
We’re not big on dogma and rules.
We’re not caught up in the letter of the law or preaching a literal interpretation of the Bible.
But we are big on liturgy—on the our worship services.  
Our Book of Common Prayer in many ways defines what we believe.
And so when I’m asked “What do Episcopalians believe about life after death?” I say, “look at our Book of Common Prayer.”
Look at what it says.
And that is what we believe.
This service is a testament to what we Episcopalians believe about what happens.
This service is a testimony to what Tom no doubt believed.
Later in this service, we will all pray the same words together.
As we commend Tom to God’s loving and merciful arms, we will pray,
May he go forth from this world in the love of God who created him, in the mercy of Jesus who died for him, in the power of the Holy Spirit who receives and protects him.  May we, like Tom, come to enjoy the blessed rest of everlasting peace and the glorious company of all the saints

It is easy for us to say those words without really thinking about them.
But those are not light words.
Those are words that take on deeper meaning for us now than maybe at any other time.
For Tom, in this ending, he has a new beginning—a new and wonderful beginning that awaits all of us as well.
Where Tom is right now—in those loving, caring and able hands of his God—there is no pain or sorrow.  
There is only life there. Eternal life.
At this time of new beginning, even here at the grave, we—who are left behind—can make our song of alleluia.
Because we know that Tom and all our loved ones have been received into God’s arms of mercy, into the “blessed rest of everlasting peace.”
This is what we cling to on a day like today.
This is where we find our strength.
This what gets us through this temporary—and I do stress that it is temporary—this temporary separation from Tom.
We know that—despite the pain and the frustration, despite the sorrow we all feel—somehow, in the end, God is with us and Tom is with God and that makes all the difference.
We know that in God, what seems like an ending, is actually a wonderful and new beginning.
For Tom, sorrow and pain are no more.
In those 100 years, Tom knew much love and wonder and beauty.
He also knew pain.
He knew sorrow.
He cried probably more tears in that century than any of us can even imagine.
But in this moment, the pain, the sorrow, the tears are all over.
In our reading from Revelation we hear God’s promise that all our tears will one be wiped away for good.
For Tom, his tears have been wiped away.
Tom, in this holy moment, has gained life eternal.
And that is what awaits us as well.
We might not be able to say “Alleluia” with any real enthusiasm today.
But we can find a glimmer of light in the darkness of this day.
It is a glorious Light we find here.
Even if it is just a glimmer, it is a bright and wonderful Light.
And for that we can rejoice and be grateful. And we can celebrate.   

6 Pentecost

July 21, 2019

Colossian 1.15-28, Luke 10.38-42
+ We should be grateful here at St. Stephen’s for many things.But one of the things we can be truly grateful for is our artists. And especially the artists who help make this church a beautiful church.I know some people might appreciate a bare, white –walled church.But most of us here at St. Stephen’s, I know, appreciate that fact that we worship with all our senses here.  We worship with our ears—with music and bells.
We worship with sight, with the beauty of the art on our walls and in our altar and in the hangings here.
And in our icons and religious art. And in this way, we are paying specially homage to the Eastern Orthodox roots within our church.
In Eastern Orthodoxy, icons take special place in the worship service. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, ikons are pictures which are sacred because they portray something sacred. They are a “window,” in a sense, to the sacred, to the otherwise, “unseen.”They often depict Jesus or Mary or the saints. But they are seen as something much more than art.
They are seen as something much more than pictures on the wall. They are also “mirrors.”And that is important to remember
That term Ikon is important to us this morning because we encounter it in our reading from Pauls’ Letter to the Colossians, that we also heard this morning. In that letter, in the original Greek,  Paul uses the word “eikon” used to describe the “image” of Christ Jesus.
Our reading this morning opens with those wonderful words,“Jesus is the image of the invisible God…”Image in Greek, as I said, is eikon.
But eikon is more than just an “image”.Ikons also capture the substance of its subject.It captures the very essence of what it represents.
For Paul, to say that Jesus is the ikon of God, for him, he is saying that Jesus is the window into the unseen God.

In fact, the way ikons are “written” (which is the word used to described how they’re made), God is very clearly represented.But not in the most obvious way.
God is represented in the gold background of the ikon, which is the one thing you might not notice when you look at an ikon. That gold background represents the Light of God. And that light, if you notice permeates through the faces of the subjects in the ikon.
So, when we look at any ikon, it our job to see God in that ikon.God shining through the subject whose face we gaze upon.God, who dwells always around us and in us.
For me personally, I do need things like icons in my own spiritual life. I need help more often than not in my prayer life.I need images. I need to use the senses God gave me to worship God.All of my senses.  I need them just the way I need incense and vestments and bells and good music and the bread and wine of the Eucharist. These things feed me spiritually. In them, I am actually sustained. My vision is sustained. My sense of smell is sustained. My sense of touch is sustained. My sense of taste is sustained. My sense of hearing is sustained. And when it all comes together, I truly feel the holy Presence of God, here in our midst.
I have shared with you many times in the past how I have truly felt the living presence of God while I have stood at this altar, celebrating Holy Communion. I have been made aware in that holy moment that this truly is God is truly present and dwelling with us.  The Sacred and Holy Presence of God is sometimes so very present here in our midst.

I can’t tell you how many times I have gazed deeply into an icon and truly felt God’s Presence there with me, present with a familiarity that simply blows me away. And for those of us who are followers of Jesus, who are called to love others as we love our God, when we gaze deeply into the eyes of those we serve, there too we see this incredible Presence of God in our midst. In other words, sometimes the ikons of God in our lives are those who live with us, those we serve, those we are called to love.  
This, I think, is what Paul is getting at in his letter. We truly do meet the invisible God in this physical world—whether we experience that presence in the Eucharist, in the hearing of God’s Word, in ikons or the art of the church or in incense or in bells or in those we are called to serve.

For years, I used to complain—and it really was a complaint—about the fact that I was “searching for God.” I used to love to quote the writer Carson McCullers, who once said, “writing, for me, is a search for God.”
But I have now come to the realization—and it was quite a huge realization—that I have actually found God. I am not searching and questing after God, aimlessly or blindly searching for God in the darkness anymore. I am not searching for God because I have truly found God.I found God in very tangible and real ways right here. I found God in these sensory things around me.
Certainly in our Gospel reading for today, Mary  also sees Jesus as the eikon of God. Martha is the busybody—the lone wolf.And Mary is the ikon-gazer. And I think many of us have been there as well.
It’s seems most of us are sometimes are either Marthas and Marys, But, the reality is simply that most of us are a little bit of both at times.Yes, we are busybodies. We are lone wolves. But we are also contemplatives, like Mary.

There is a balance between the two. I understand that there are times we need to be a busybodies and there are times in which we simply must slow down and quietly contemplate God. When we recognize that Jesus is truly the image of God, we find ourselves at times longingly gazing at Jesus or quietly sitting in his Presence. But sometimes that recognition of who Jesus is stirs us. It lights a fire within us and compels us to go out and do the work that needs to be done.
But unlike Martha, we need to do that work without worry or distraction.When we are in God’ presence—when we recognize that in God we have truly found what we are questing for, what we are searching for, what we are longing for—we find that worry and distraction have fallen away from us. We don’t want anything to come between us and this marvelous revelation of God we find before us. In that way, Mary truly has chosen the better part.
But, this all doesn’t end there.The really important aspect of all of this is that we, too, in turn must become, like Jesus, ikons of God to this world.In that way, the ikons truly become our mirrors.When we gaze at an ikon we should see ourselves there, reflected there.We should see ourselves surrounded by the Light of God.We should see the light of God permeating us and shining through us. We should become living, breathing ikons in this world.Because if we don’t, we are not living into our full potential as followers of Jesus.
So, let us also, like Mary,  choose the better part. Let us be Marys in this way.Let us balance our lives in such a way that, yes, we work, but we do so without distraction, without worry, with being the lone wolf, without letting work be our god, getting in the way of that time to serve Jesus and be with Jesus and those Jesus sends our way.
Let us also take time to sit quietly in that Presence of God.
Let us sit quietly in the presence of God, surrounded by the beauty of our senses.
Let us be embodied ikons in our lives.
Let us open ourselves to the Light of God in our lives so that that Light will surrounded us and live within us and shine through us.
And, in that holy moment, we will know: we have chosen the better part, which will never be taken away from us.

5 Pentecost

Good Samaritan Sunday
July 14, 2019
Luke 10.25-37
+ For those of you who listen or read my sermons week in and week out, you know that my “themes” are pretty basic and consistent.  Yes, there might be variations on those “themes,” but, in their core, there is really only one main “theme” to everything I preach.
Love God. Love others. That’s pretty much it.
Which is why our Gospel reading this morning is an important reading.
No, I’m not being emphatic enough. It’s not just an important reading. It is, in my opinion, the single most important reading for us as Christians.
And, for those of you who have known for me for any period, you know how I feel about what is being said in today’s Gospel. For me, this is IT. This is the heart of our Christian faith. This is where the “rubber meets the road.”
When anyone has asked me, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” it is this scripture I direct them to.
When anyone asks me, must I do this or that to be “saved,” I direct them to this reading. This is what it is all about.
So, why do I feel this way? Well, let’s take a look this all-important reading.
We have two things going on.  First, we have this young lawyer. He comes, in all earnestness, to seek from Jesus THE answer.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
What must I do to be saved?
This, after all, is the question we are ALL asking, isn’t it?
And, guess what? He—and all of us too—gets an answer. But, as always, Jesus flips it all around and gives it all a spin.  Jesus answers a question with a question. He asks the lawyer,
“what does the law say?”
The answer is a simple one.  And, in Jewish tradition, it is called the Shema. The Shema is heart of Jewish faith. It is so important that it is prayed twice a day, once in the morning, once at night.  Jesus himself would have prayed the Shema each morning upon awakening and again before he went to sleep at night.  It is important, because it is the heart of all faith in God.
So, what is the answer? The answer is,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, , and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and [love] your neighbor as yourself.”
Then, Jesus says this:
“do this, and you will live.”
I repeat it.
Do this—Love God, love your neighbor—and you will live .
This is what we must do to be saved.
Now that sounds easy. But Jesus then complicates it all with a parable.  And it’s a great story.  Everyone likes this story of the Good Samaritan.  We even commemorated it in our very first stained glass window.  After all, what isn’t there to like in this story?
Well…actually…in Jesus’ day, there were people who would not have liked this story.   In Jesus’s day, this story would have been RADICAL. The part of this story that most of us miss is the fact that when Jesus told this parable to his audience, he did so with a particular scheme in mind.
The term “Good Samaritan” would have been an oxymoron for those Jews listening to Jesus that day. Samaritans were, in fact,  quite hated.  They were viewed as heretics, as defilers, as unclean.  They were seen as betrayers of the Jewish faith.
So, when Jesus tells this tale of a Good Samaritan, it no doubt rankled a few nerves in the midst of that company.
With this in mind, we do need to ask ourselves some very hard questions. Hard questions we did not think we would be asked on this Good Samaritan Sunday.   You, of course, know where I am going with this. So, here goes: Who are the Samaritans in our understanding of this story?

For us, the story only really hits home when we replace that term “Samaritan” with the name of someone we don’t like at all. Just think about who it is in your life, in your political understanding, in your own orbit of people who you absolutely despise. Think of that person or persons or movements that simply makes you writhe with anger. Those are your Samaritans! It’s not hard to find the names.Now, try to put the word “good” in front of those names.  It’s hard for a good many of us to find anything “good” in any of these people. For us, to face the fact that these people we see as morally or inherently evil could be “good.” We—good socially-conscious Christians that we are—are also guilty sometimes of being complacent. We too find ourselves sometimes feeling quite smug about our “advanced” or “educated” ways of thinking about society and God and the Church.  And we too demonize those we don’t agree with sometimes.I, for one, am very guilty of this It is easy for me to imagine God living in me personally, despite all the shortcomings and negative things I know about myself.  I know that, sometimes, I am a despicable person and yet, I know that God is alive in me, and that God loves me. So, why is it so hard for me to see that God is present even in those whom I dislike, despite those things that make them so dislikeable to me? For me, this is the hard part.  The Gospel story today shows us that we must love and serve and see God alive in even those whom we demonize—even if those same people demonize us as well.  Being a follower of Jesus means loving even those we, under any other circumstance, simply can’t stand.   And this story is all about being jarred out of our complacent way of seeing things.

It’s also easy for some of us to immediately identify ourselves with the Good Samaritan.  We, of course, would help someone stranded on the road, even when it means making ourselves vulnerable to the robbers who might be lurking nearby.   Right?  But I can tell you that as I hear and read this parable, I—quite uncomfortably—find myself sometimes identifying with the priest and the Levite.  I am the one, as much as I hate to admit it, who could very easily, out of fear or because of the social structure in which I live, find myself crossing over to the other side of the road and avoiding this person. And I hate the fact that my thoughts even go there. See, this parable of Jesus is challenging and difficult.  But… Something changes this whole story. Something disrupts this story completely. Love changes this whole story.  When we truly live out that commandment of Jesus to us that we must love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, we know full-well that those social and political and personal boundaries fall to the ground. Love always defeats our dislike of someone.  Love always defeats the political boundaries that divide us.  Love always softens our hearts and our stubborn wills and allows us see the goodness and love that exists in others, even when doing so is uncomfortable and painful for us. Now I say that hoping I don’t come across as naïve.  I know that my love of the racist will not necessarily change the racist. I know that loving the homophobe will not necessarily change the homophone.  I know that loving the Nazi and the Fascist are definitely not going to change the Nazi and the Fascist.  Trust me, I know that loving certain politicians (whose names I will not mention) is not going to change those politicians! But you know what?  It does change me.   It does cause me to look—as much as I hate to do so—into the eyes of that person and see something more.   It does cause me to look at the person and realize that God does love this person despite their failings and their faults—just as God loves me despite my failings and my faults. These are the boundaries Jesus came to break down in us.   And these are the boundaries Jesus commands us to break down within ourselves. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” the lawyer asks Jesus.  And what’s the answer? Love is the answer.   We must love—fully and completely.

“Do this,” Jesus says, “ and you will live .” It not only about our personal relationship with Jesus.  It not about accepting Jesus as our “personalLord and Savior.”  That’s not what saves us.  He nowhere says that is what will save us. What will save us?  Love will save us.  Love of God.  Love of one another.  Loving ourselves. Loving what God loves.  Love will save us.  Love will liberate us.  Love will free us.  Jesus doesn’t get much clearer than that. Because let’s face it. We are the Samaritan in this story. We are—each of us—probably despised by someone in our lives. We, to someone, represent everything they hate. The fact is, God is not expecting us to be perfect. God worked through the Samaritan—the person who represented so much of what everyone who was hearing that story represents as wrong. If God can work through him, let me tell God can work through you and me. We do not have to be perfect. Trust me, we’re not perfect. And we will never be perfect.  But even despite this, God’s light and love can show through us.  So let us reflect God’s love and light. Let us live out the Shema of God—this commandment of God to love—in all aspects of our lives.  Let us love. Let us love fully and radically and completely. Let us love God.   Let us love each other. Let us love ourselves.  Let us love all that God loves.  Let us love our neighbor.  Who is our neighbor?   Our neighbor is not just the one who is easy to love.  Our neighbor is also the one who is hardest to love. Love them—God, our neighbor—and yes, even ourselves.  And you and I—we too will live, as Jesus says.  And we will live a life full of the light we have reflected in our own lives.   And that light that will never be taken from us. 

4 Pentecost

July 7, 2019

Luke 10.1-11, 16-20
+ Since I had a few days off this week, I was driving quite a bit. And, like many of you, when I drive, I think. I think a lot. And I was thinking about the fact that, for most of my entire career as a priest, I have always felt like an outsider. Outside the norm in the larger Church.
It seems my entire ministry, for the most part, has been a ministry under rebellion of some sort.
I know that might sound romantic and all. But it really isn’t.
I can say this: things are changing.  I can say that I am legitimately hopeful for our future here in the Diocese of North Dakota. I feel in my bones that a new age is about to dawn.  It’s a new era.
But…I still have to say this. I don’t really know how to be a priest in a new era. I have been THAT priest for so long—that rebel priest, that upstart priest, that priest who swam consistently against the stream.  That lone wolf priest.
It’s going to be strange and different to not be THAT priest anymore.  I’ll confess—and I am somewhat ashamed to do so—but I have gotten used to being the lone wolf. And not just me. All of us who do ministry here—all of you. All of us who do ministry here—and we are all doing ministry here at St. Stephen’s—might find ourselves susceptible to this “lone wolf” ministry.
Lone wolf ministry can be very dangerous behavior.  We really shouldn’t do ministry and be a lone wolf.  Doing ministry means doing it together.  And I know: my saying just that I am sounding kinda like a hypocrite here.
For any of you who know me and worked with me for any period of time, you know I’ve just done lone wolf behavior about many things.
Some may call it lone wolf.  I guess I always called it being independent.   Or maybe, sometimes, just impatient. Things have to get done after all.  And, when they do, you know, I’ll just do it. But, being a lone wolf is not a good thing.
In the Church it is never a good thing to be a lone wolf.  None of us can do ministry alone.  We all need to admit that we need each other to do effective ministry. And sometimes even the lone wolf admits that simple fact: I can’t do this alone.  The lone wolf sometimes has to seek help from others.
Ultimately, the lone wolf can be a bad thing for the church for another reason though.  Lone wolves can easily be led down that ugly, slippery slope of believing, at some point, that  it’s all about them. Now, I want to make clear: I never have believed that anything is about just me.  I despise that kind of thinking in myself.
For all my lone wolf tendencies, I have a pretty good support system around me—people who will very quickly tell me when they think I might be heading down that slippery egocentric slope.  And I have done the same with some of you who have done just that as well.
There is, after all, a difference, I have discovered between “lone wolf” behavior and ego-centric, it’s-all-about-me, I-don’t-need-anyone’s-help behavior.  And as you all know, I have no problem asking your advice and your opinions on anything before some of the things I’ve done as the priest of St. Stephen’s.  I might not necessarily heed those suggestions. But I appreciate them, and they are, for the most part, helpful.
But, I have known too many church leaders who have not had a support system like mine.  I have known too many church leaders who have  made it clear to me that it was because of them—because their winning personality, or their knowledge of church growth, or their years of expertise—that a particular congregation flourished.
It’s an unfortunate trap leaders in the Church fall into when they believe that a congregation’s success depends on them as individuals and their own abilities of ministry—and, mind you, I am not just talking about priests here. Lay leaders in the Church have fallen into this trap as well. I have known some of those lay leaders as well, trust me.   Maybe to some extent it’s true.  Maybe some people do have the personality and the winning combination in themselves to do it.  
But for those who may have that kind of natural personality, I still have to admit: it all  makes me wary.  It’s just too slippery of a slope. We are dealing with similar personalities in today’s Gospel.
In our Gospel reading for today, those seventy that Jesus chose and sent out come back amazed by the gift of blessing God had granted to them and their personalities.  They exclaim, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” In and of its self, that’s certainly not a bad thing to say.  It’s a simple expression of amazement.   
But Jesus—in that way that Jesus does—puts them very quickly in their place.   He tells them,
“do not rejoice in these gifts, but rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven.”
Or to be more blunt, he is saying rejoice not in yourselves and the things you can do with God’s help, but rejoice rather in God.  The burden of bringing about the Kingdom of God shouldn’t be solely the individual responsibly of any one of us.  
Even Jesus made that clear for himself.  Just imagine that stress in having to bring that about.  
Bringing the Kingdom of God into our midst is the responsibility of all of us together.   It is the responsibility of those who have the personality to bring people on board and it is the responsibility of those of us who do not have that winning personality.

For those of us who do not have that kind of personality, it is our responsibility to bring the Kingdom about in our own ways.  We do so simply by living out our Christian commitment.
As baptized followers of Jesus, we bring the Kingdom into our midst simply: By Love.  We do it by loving God and loving each other as God loves us in whatever ways we can in our lives.  Bringing the Kingdom of God about in our midst involves more than just preaching from a pulpit or attending church on Sunday.  Spreading the Kingdom of God is more than just preaching on street corners or knocking on the doors. 
It means living it out in our actions as well.  It means living out our faith in our every day life.  It means loving God and each other as completely as we can.
But it does not mean loving ourselves to the exclusion of everything of else.  It means using whatever gifts we have received from God to bring the Kingdom a bit closer.  
These gifts—of our personality, of our vision of the world around us, of our convictions and beliefs on certain issues—are what we can use.  It means not letting our personalities—no matter how magnetic and appealing they might be—to get in the way of following Jesus.
Our eyes need to be on God.
We can’t be doing that when we’re busy preening in the mirror, praising ourselves for all God does to us and through us.    The Church does not exist for own our personal use.   If we think the Church is there so we can get some nice little pat on the back for all  the good we’re doing, or as an easy way to get us into heaven when we die, then we’re in the wrong place.  And we’re doing good for the wrong intention. The Church exists for God AND us.   
The Church is ideally-at its very best—the conduit through which the Kingdom of God comes into our midst. And it will come into our midst, with or without me as individual.
But it will comes into our midst through as us.
All of us.
Together.  
The Church is our way of coming alongside Jesus in his ministry to the world.
In a very real sense, the Church is our way to be the hands, the feet, the voice, the compassion, the love of God to this world and to each other.  But it’s all of us.
Not just me.
Not just you as an individual.
It’s all of us.
Together.
Working together.
Loving together.
Serving together.
And giving God the ultimate credit again and again.
Hopefully, in doing that, we do receive some consolation ourselves.   Hopefully in doing that, we in turn receive the compassion and love of God in our own lives as well.
But if we are here purely for our own well-being and not for the well-being of others, than it is does become only about us and not about God.   And in those moments, we are sounding very much like those 70 who come back to Jesus exclaiming, “look at what we have done!”

The message of today’s Gospel is that it must always be about God.  It must always be about helping that Kingdom of God break through into this selfish world of huge egos. It means realizing that when we are not doing it for God, we have lost track of what we’re doing. We have lost sight of who we are following.
So, let us—together—be the hands, the feet, the voice, the compassion and the love of God in the world around us. Like those 70, let us be amazed at what we can do in Jesus’ name.
But more importantly let us rejoice!
Rejoice!
Rejoice this morning!
Rejoice in the fact that your name, that my name—that our names are written at this moment in heaven.

3 Pentecost

June 30, 2019
1 Kings 19.15-16,19-21; Galatians 5.1,13-25; .Luke 9:51-62

+ As you know, this past Friday, we got our tower for our bell. When I first saw that tower at the NDSU Newman Center, I wasn’t certain how this would all come to be. But, here we are. And it, weirdly, all fell into place in a very nice way. At least, so far.
Dinah Stephens, who donated the bell in memory of her children, Jada and Scott,  and I were discussing it on Friday, and she wrote me this note:
“Without your persistence the Newman Tower would not be St. Stephens. And of course you drove by it every day. The light went off in your head....hey!!! We could use this!”
Well, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but for any of you who have 
worked with me, at least on the Vestry level, I am not one to let grass grow under my feet. When I focus on something, I will work on it until either I succeed at it, or I have admit failure on it. And even, in those times when I have to admit failure, I still kind of find myself gnawing on the failure. Because it’s hard for me to give something up I’ve forced on. 
That’s not always a good thing, let me you. It’s actually weirdly obsessive.
But being at kind of person means I really have issues with what Jesus is telling the young man in our Gospel reading for today.  
We hear Jesus say, Let the dead bury their own dead.
It’s  an unusual statement.   It almost boggles the mind when you think about it. And yet….there is beautiful poetry in that phrase.
We hear this saying of Jesus referenced occasionally in our secular society.  It conveys a sense of resignation and putting behind oneself insignificant aspects of our lives.
Still, it is a strange image to wrap our minds around.

Let the dead bury their own dead.

What could Jesus possibly mean by this reference? Does it means we shouldn’t bury our loved ones?  Not at all.
This statement from him, as always, has a deeper meaning—and really only starts to make sense when we put it in the context of his time and who his followers were.  When we find this man talking about having to go and bury his father, and Jesus’ response of “let the dead bury their own dead,” we might instantly think that Jesus is being callous.   It would seem, at least from our modern perspective, that this man is mourning, having just lost his father.
The fact is, his father actually probably died a year or more before.   What happened in the Jewish culture at that time is that when a person died, they were anointed, wrapped in a cloth shroud and placed in a tomb. There would have been an actually formal burial rite at that times. And of course, Jesus himself would later be buried exactly like this.
This initial tomb burial was actually a temporary interment.  They were probably placed on a stone shelf near the entrance of the tomb.
About a year or so after their death, the family gathered again at which time the tomb was re-opened.  By that time, the body would, of course,  have been reduced to bones.  The bones would then be collected, placed in a small stone box and buried with the other relatives, probably further back in the tomb.
A remnant of this tradition still exists in Judaism, when, on the first anniversary of the death of a loved one, the family often gathers to unveil the gravestone in the cemetery.
There’s a wonderful liturgy in the New Zealand Prayer Book that I’ve used many times for the blessing and unveiling of a gravestone.
Which I think a very cool tradition personally. 

We actually oftentimes do a similar tradition in our own culture.  More and more, we find that often, there is a cremation and a memorial service within the week of death, but the burial or disposition of the remains takes place much later.
When my mother died, that’s exactly what happened. It was over four months between the time of her death and time we buried her ashes.
So, when we encounter this man in today’s Gospel, we are not necessarily finding a man mourning his recently deceased father.  What we are actually finding is a man who is waiting to go to the tomb where his father’s bones now lie so he can bury the bones.  When we see it from this perspective, we can understand why Jesus makes such a seemingly strange comment—and we realize it isn’t quite the callous comment we thought it was.  
As far as Jesus is concerned, the father has been buried.  Whatever this man does is merely an excuse to not go out and proclaim the kingdom of God, as Jesus commands him to do.

Now to be fair to the man, he could just be making an excuse, which really under any other circumstances, would have been a perfectly valid excuse.  Or he could really have felt that his duty as his father’s son took precedence over this calling from Jesus.  Certainly, in Jewish culture, this would be an acceptable way of living out the commandment of respecting one’s parents.
It doesn’t seem as though he doesn’t want to follow Jesus or proclaim the Kingdom.  He doesn’t flat-out say no.  He simply says, not now.  In a sense, he is given the choice between the dead and dried bones of his father or the living Jesus who stands before him.

Jesus’ response, which may sound strange to our modern, Western ears, is actually a very clear statement to this man.  He is saying, in a sense: “You are attached to these bones.  Don’t worry about bones.  Break your attachment, follow me, proclaim the goodness and love of God and you will have life.
Follow me
TODAY.
NOW.”
How many times have we been in the same place in our lives?  How many times have we looked for excuses to get out of following Jesus, at least right now?
We all have our own “bones” that we feel we must bury before we can go and proclaim the Kingdom of God in our midst by following Jesus.  We all have our own attachments that we simply cannot break so we can go forward unhindered to follow and to serve. And they’re easy to find.  It’s easy to be led astray by attachments—to let these attachments fill our lives and give us a false sense of fulfillment.  It is easy for us to despair when the bad things of life happen to us.
But the fact is, even when awful things happen, even then, we need to realize, it is not the end.   Despite these bad things, the kingdom of God still needs to be proclaimed.
Now.  And not later. Not after everything has been restored. Not when everything is good and right in the world.  Not after we have calmed down.
The Kingdom needs to be proclaimed NOW.
Now.
Even in the midst of chaos.  
Even when those crappy things happen, we still need to follow Jesus.
Right now.
Right here.
Our faith in God, our following of Jesus and our striving to love and serve others doesn’t change just because we have setbacks.
Rather, when the setbacks arise, we need to deal with them and move on.   But if those setbacks become an excuse not to follow Jesus, then they too become a case for  letting these dead bury their own dead.

So, in a sense, we find ourselves confronted with that very important question: what are we, in our own lives, attached to?
What are the “bones” of our life?  What are the attachments in our life that cause us to look for excuses for not following Jesus and serving others?
For not loving, fully and completely.
What things in our lives prevent us  from proclaiming the Kingdom of God?
Whatever they might be, just let them be.
Let the dead bury their own dead.
Let’s not become attached to the dead objects of our lives that keep us from serving our living God.  Let’s  not allow those dead things lead us astray and prevent us from living and loving fully.  Let us not become bogged down with all the attachments we have in this life as we are called to follow Jesus. Let us not let them become the yoke of slavery we hear Paul discussing in his letter to the Galatians.
Rather, let us take this yoke, break it and burn it as Elisha did, as an offering to our living God.  But let us remember that this is not some sweet, nice, gentle suggestion from Jesus.   It is a command from him.

“Let the dead bury their own dead. But as for you, go, and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

We proclaim the kingdom, as we all know, by loving God and loving each other. You can’t proclaim the kingdom—you can’t love—when you are busy obsessing about the dead, loveless things of your life.  
We who are following Jesus have all put our hands to the plow.  We put our hands to that plow when were baptized, when we set out on that path of following Jesus.
Now, with our hands on that plow, let us not look back.
Let us not be led astray by the attachments we have in this life that lead us wandering about aimlessly.
But, let us focus.
Let us look forward.  
Let us push on.
Let us proclaim by word and example the love we have for God and one another.  
And when we do, we are doing exactly what Jesus commands us to do.
Now is the time.  
Let us proclaim that Kingdom and making it a reality in our midst. Amen.