Saturday, June 29, 2019

3rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8C

3rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8C June 30, 2019 The writer Anne Lamott once wrote, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem and on the way, he and his disciples pass through a Samaritan village that refuses to receive them. When Jesus’s disciples James and John are made aware of this outrage, they ask Jesus if he would like them to “command fire to come down from heaven and consume the whole village, men, women, and children,” but Jesus rebukes them, and they continue on their way. This is a difficult passage to engage with because the reaction of James and John is so disappointing. They’ve been with Jesus the whole time, and still, they just don’t get it. He’s headed to the cross where he will give himself up to death for the salvation of all people, and James and John want to call down fire upon a Samaritan village, men, women, and children, who are foreigners and the enemies of the Jews and who have insulted them. We are made uncomfortable by James and John because they are a mirror into our own hearts. How many times in just this past week, would I have called down fire upon my perceived enemies if I had been able to? (Probably too many to number! Y’all remember that we’ve been moving this past week?) People who disagree with me politically. People who cut me off in traffic. People who are “different.” People who do things differently from the way I think they should be done. People who I perceive to be judging me. It is so easy to believe that just because I dislike them that God does, too. But Jesus proves, through his death on the cross, that this is not truth, and this is not the way of God’s love. As one of our collects for mission in Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer puts it, “[Jesus] stretched out [his] arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, so that everyone might come within the reach of [his] saving embrace…” Jesus died for you, me, my family, your family, and every single person that we fear or dislike. And that is the message of the gospel that we are called to live and proclaim. I am currently reading a book titled Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential-and Endangered. The book looks at the science of empathy and defines empathy as “the ability to stand in another’s shoes, to feel what it’s like there and to care about making it better if it hurts….The word itself… is a translation of [a German word] which means ‘feeling into.’” According to the authors of the book, one of whom is a Dr. and a Scientist, it is very difficult to use our higher brain functions—too be creative, nurturing, empathetic, and to think about the future—when we are threatened or under stress. The authors share stories of people who are helping to cultivate empathy in children and communities, and they share stories about people whose empathetic development has been thwarted. One of the major premises of the book is that Americans have become less trusting of others in the last 50 years, that our social networks through which we cultivate empathy have shrunken, and that empathy and kindness have been devalued in our public discourse. But our gospel reading for today reminds us that we are not unique in our inability to be empathetic. Luke records this moment when Jesus’s closest disciples have an extreme failure of empathy. So, what, then are we to do? We have to recognize how important empathy is and how much it matters to everyone—men and women and children. We as Christians are well suited to practice empathy when we are connected with God in prayer and when we are acknowledging the heart of our faith. Paul reminds us of this heart in our Galatians reading for today: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This week, your invitation is to practice empathy that is rooted in Jesus’s love that he gave himself up to on the cross for everybody. When you find yourself wanting to rain fire down upon your enemies or even when you encounter suffering, in life or in the news, practice empathy: that is, stand in the other’s person’s shoes, feel what it’s like there, imagine where it hurts, and care about making it better for them. And then offer that person to God in prayer, asking God to give them what God knows that they need. Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

2nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7C

The Second Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 7C June 23, 2019 Elijah stands on the side of Mount Horeb, with his face wrapped in his mantle to meet the Lord who comes in the sound of sheer silence. And the Lord asks him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” As with all defining moments in life, so much has happened to bring Elijah to this point. “King Ahab of Israel did more to provoke the anger of the Lord the God of Israel than had all the kings of Israel who went before him.” And his wife Jezebel? Well, really her name says it all. Ahab and Jezebel have led the people astray from following God. They have promoted the worship of Baal in Israel, and they have defied Israel’s covenant with her God. So Elijah goes to Ahab and tells him that God will send a drought on the land for 3 years, because Ahab is so bad, so corrupt. Well, Ahab doesn’t like that and he sets out to kill Elijah, but God takes care of Elijah. God finds Elijah a safe place to be and provides him food and water in the midst of a drought. God sends Elijah to a widow and provides them all with a never-ending supply of meal and oil to make bread; God heeds Elijah’s prayer when he prays that God might spare the widow’s son who has died, and God restores the son to life. In the third year of the drought, God sends Elijah back to Ahab. Elijah encounters Ahab’s servant Obadiah, who is a faithful worshipper of God and who tells Elijah that he has worked to save 100 prophets of God when Jezebel went on a recent killing spree and was murdering all the prophets. Elijah asks Obadiah to tell Ahab he wants to see him, but at first Obadiah refuses to do it. He tells Elijah that Ahab has been searching hi and low for him, and because Elijah has been so elusive, Obadiah fears that when he goes to tell Ahab that Elijah is there to see him, when he returns with Ahab, God will have whisked Elijah away to safety and Ahab will kill Obadiah. Elijah assures Obadiah that he wants to speak to Ahab, and when Elijah and Ahab are face to face, Elijah issues a challenge to Ahab. He invites him to assemble all Israel on the top of Mt Carmel along with 450 prophets of Baal. Once they are all assembled, Elijah speaks to the people of Israel and challenges them to choose which god they will worship and serve: Baal or Yahweh. He then brings two bulls for sacrifice, one for the 450 prophets of Baal and one for himself; they prepare the bulls for offering and lay them on the wood, but they put no fire to it. Then each set of prophets is to pray to their god to answer by fire, and that god will prove to be the god of Israel. The people agree to this plan, because Elijah speaks it well and because it promises to be a good show. Elijah lets the prophets of Baal go first, and from morning until noon, they cry out “O Baal, answer us!” But there is no voice, no answer. At noon, Elijah starts to mock them: “Maybe you should yell louder! Surely he’s a god; either he’s meditating, or he’s wandered away or he is on a journey, or perhaps he’s asleep and must be awakened!” They keep going until the time of the oblation, but there is no voice, no answer and no response. Then Elijah takes the stage. He invites the people to come closer to him, repairs the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down, and he makes a trench around it. He puts the wood in order, cuts the bull into pieces and pours water 3 times on the offering so that the water overflows and runs into the trench. Then Elijah calls upon God, the God who has never yet failed him; the God who has repeatedly saved him from assassination from drought and from hunger, and he says, “ O Lord, God of Abraham Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord falls from heaven and consumes the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and even the water that was in the trench, and the people fall on their faces and proclaim that God is their only God. Then Elijah commands them to seize the 450 prophets of Baal and has them all killed. After that amazing feat, Elijah tells Ahab to go eat and drink because God is about to end the 3 year drought with some rain, and Elijah goes back up on the mountain and bows himself down upon the earth and puts his face between his knees (from exhaustion or in prayer for rain?). When he comes down, it rains and both Ahab and Elijah head to Jezreel where Ahab has a palace. Elijah has won; the people have proclaimed that God is their God, and Ahab is no longer trying to kill Elijah. But when they get to Jezreel, Ahab tells Jezebel all that has happened, and Jezebel vows that she will see Elijah dead within the next 24 hours. At this point, Elijah’s nerve fails, and he flees into the wilderness, running as far south in the promised land as he possibly can. It should be his finest hour. He has done what God asked him to do, turning the hearts of the people back to God, and he has accomplished it through some pretty decent showmanship on his part and some really cool pyrotechnics on God’s part. At this point, he should be feeling like the superhero of all prophets, but something in him fails, and he goes out into the wilderness and prays to die. Even then, even there, God sends angels with food and water, and they take care of Elijah, and they send him to Mount Horeb (which is the Mount Sinai where Moses received the 10 commandments from God) so that Elijah can meet with God. Elijah spends the night in a cave on Mt Horeb, and then God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And Elijah, like many prophets before and after him, speaks his peace to God saying: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it away.” So God tells Elijah to go stand outside the cave on the side of the mountain before the Lord. First comes the wind, but God is not in the wind. Then comes the earthquake, but God is not in the earthquake. Then comes the fire (which God had just used to defeat the 450 prophets of Baal), but God is not in the fire, and then a sound of sheer silence. That’s when Elijah knows God is there, and he wraps his face in his mantle and goes out to stand before the God of Israel. And God says again to Elijah, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (Why does God ask him again? Is God giving him a chance to change his story or rethink his answer? I know sometimes when I don’t like the way my children answer a question the first time, sometimes I’ll ask it again to see if they’ll give me a different answer…) And Elijah says again: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it away.” (Which is a bit of an exaggeration, because remember Obadiah and the 100 prophets of Yahweh he saved…) As God has always done in this relationship, God listens to Elijah and tells him, “Get back to work.” Here’s our new plan: no more pyrotechnics. You are going to anoint your successor and anoint new kings for Israel and Aram, these two whom I have named. And God will continue God’s work of salvation for Israel in a new and different way. In Elijah’s story is good news for us as well. Elijah, the superhero prophet, who escapes death on multiple occasions and orchestrates a marvelous and show-stopping defeat of God’s enemies, has a crisis of faith in Jezreel right on the heels of his most marvelous victory. First, he is erroneously focused on being the only prophet of God left in the whole world, and he overestimates his importance in the overall scheme of God’s salvation of Israel. Second, he loses faith in God’s providence. God has taken care of him every step of the way; God has done everything that Elijah has asked of God, but in Jezreel, Elijah loses his nerve, he loses his faith. In spite of all this, God still takes care of Elijah. God still listens to Elijah and answers Elijah. God even issues a new call to Elijah for how Elijah can continue to be a part of God’s new plan for the salvation of Israel. God promises Elijah that there is a future for Elijah after the cave, when Elijah has said, It is enough. I can’t do this anymore. And God promises that there is a future for Israel through the abundance of God’s grace which makes the impossible possible and which is unceasing, untiring, unrelenting. This is good news for us, who are not super-hero prophets. We too feel the effects of life beating us down. We too grow weary of following God’s call for us. We too are tempted to believe that we are all alone in facing whatever we are dealing with, we are the only ones who can do a certain thing; we are the only ones who are left. We too lose our nerve and run for it. We too come to a point in our lives when we say, “It is enough, God! I don’t want to do this anymore!” And God who is always faithful, always providing, always listening and willing to answer, reminds us that we are not the center of the universe and only a small piece of God’s plan of salvation, and then God issues a new call to us, a new way to participate in salvation and in God’s work in the world. Your invitation this week is to listen for God in the silence. The rest and be still and be renewed in the presence of the God who loves you and who is always faithful.

Sunday, June 16, 2019

The 1st Sunday after Pentecost-Trinity Sunday Year C

The First Sunday after Pentecost-Trinity Sunday Year C June 16, 2019 This past week, I read an article on NPR in their series American Anthem, “a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action.” I don’t normally follow this series, but I was caught by a headline above the link on social media. The featured song is called “Dancing on my Own” by an artist named Robyn, and the headline that caught my eye read: “The magic of Robyn’s millennial anthem is its bait and switch: It’s a fun, energetic dance song about being lonely and heartbroken. And yet, the minute you hear it, you instantly feel less alone.” Interesting. So I read the article, and it was chock full of stories of people who loved this song. “There were the DJs who spin it at wedding receptions, knowing it will get everyone on the floor. People who have played it for hours in one sitting, or kept it on repeat for a road trip hundreds of miles long, or made it the last dance at every house party they've ever thrown… The ones who have used it to get through not just breakups, but cancer, or death, or a lot more, who love that decadent drum fill toward the end more than life.”i The writer continues: “All stories of juxtaposition. People finding community in a song all about being solo.” After I finished reading the article, I listened to the song, and I thought, “meh.” “Doesn’t really do it for me (but then again, I’m not a millennial!).” But, an hour later, I caught myself singing the chorus, and I thought about the paradox of all those people mentioned in the article who have felt in community with others over a song about dancing alone! On this first Sunday after Pentecost, our tradition and our readings point us to the remembrance of the Trinity. The whole notion of the Trinity is one of paradox—the three in one and the one in three; one substance and three persons. It’s about God who is both alone in eminence but also in relationship. The early church even had an understanding of the relationship of Trinity that they called in Greek “perichoresis.” This means “to dance,” and it implies an intimate relationship. Our reading from Romans today is also made up of paradox. In the portion of Romans for today, Paul is writing to the Christian community in Rome about justification. And he talks about how we as Christians boast in the hope of sharing the glory of God, but he doesn’t stop there. He continues “that we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us…” There are actually two paradoxes here. The first paradox is that in Paul’s world, a good Jew would never boast about suffering because they believed that suffering was proof of one’s unrighteousness; that suffering was actually punishment for one’s sins from God. Paul is actually debunking this theology, and he is embracing a new theology of the cross of Christ (which ultimately represents suffering unto death) as the way of life. The second paradox is the obvious one: that bad things which produce suffering in us, through a chain reaction of producing endurance and then character ultimately produce hope. Sometimes in our suffering, we actually draw closer to, more dependent upon God, and through this process, hope grows out of suffering. There’s also a hope that can grow out of our vulnerability (which can also be a product of suffering if done well). I read an article about vulnerability this past week also. I was reminded of what sociologist Brene Brown has to say about vulnerability: [that] “Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experience.” Also in this article, the Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr, talks about how engaging vulnerability can require deliberate practice. This is yet another paradox: most of us, even though we come into this world as acutely vulnerable beings spend our lives trying to become less vulnerable instead of more vulnerable. In the article, Rohr talks about how he practices vulnerability “praying for ‘one good humiliation a day’ to challenge his ego. It might come in the form of not getting his way, or having someone disagree with him. Then, he carefully watches how his mind and body respond. [He says,] ‘My inner reaction — I’m not proud to tell you — is defensive; is, ‘That’s not true. You don’t understand me.’ I can just see how well-defended my ego is,” he says. “And of course, even your critics — and I have plenty of them — at least 10 to 20 percent of what they’re saying is usually true’.” The article continues, “Rohr’s practice of opening himself to humiliation is difficult, but the alternative may close us off to what’s at the heart of being human. As [poet] David Whyte writes, “To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to become something we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others.”ii And so we’ve come full circle. Suffering and vulnerability are actually what help increase true and authentic relationships. This same vulnerability is at the heart of the Trinity, which is above everything, about relationships. So, for your invitation this week. It would be really easy to invite you to take on Richard Rohr’s practice to “pray for ‘one good humiliation a day,’ but I try not to invite you to do anything that I am unwilling to do myself, and I’ll confess that I think this is beyond my level of spiritual maturity. For those of you who are ready to dive into a PhD level class on vulnerability, then you are certainly welcome to try to take on his practice. For the rest of us, your invitation is to pay attention to how you act or react in times when you are vulnerable, in times when you are suffering. Pay attention to times when you see other people vulnerable or suffering as well and lean into those moments as opposed to leaning away from them. “As Rohr says, ‘Vulnerability transforms you. You can’t be in the presence of a truly vulnerable, honestly vulnerable person and not be affected. I think that’s the way we are meant to be in the presence of one another’.” i.https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/730641583/robyn-dancing-on-my-own-alone-together-american-anthem?utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr ii.The Pause Newsletter from the On Being project June 15, 2019. https://onbeing.org/

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Pentecost Year C

Pentecost—Year C June 9, 2019 Years ago, I read somewhere that there is a Jewish story about creation that says that God breathed out and created all that there is, and then God breathed in and retreated from creation, removing Godself from what God had created. When I first heard this, I was very disturbed to think about God retreating from creation, but since then, I’ve come to understand that perhaps the crafters of the story were trying to show that God poured out God’s being, God’s abundance, God’s creativity, God’s joy upon creation and then God stepped back so that we could do with it what we would will. God breathes out and creates; God breathes in and grants freedom. Today is the feast day of Pentecost, when we celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. In Acts we see the gift of the Spirit, the breath of God, which comes upon the gathered community in a most ordinary moment in the extraordinary force of something like both wind and flame. God breathes out God’s Spirit upon them and that inspires in them unity despite ethnic differences when all testify to the power of God and the good news of the resurrected Christ. In our story in Acts, God breathes out God’s Spirit upon the gathered believers, and Peter testifies to the crowd that gathers and looks upon them in both derision and wonder. After Peter shares with them the good news of God’s presence in the world through Jesus, the onlookers ask: “What then should we do?” Peter tells them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call." God breathes out and creates; God breathes in and grants them freedom. About three thousand respond to the gift of the breath of God that day and join the ranks of the believers. Once captivated by the breath of God in God’s great exhalation at Pentecost, the followers of Jesus Christ live their lives within the rhythm of God’s breath: God exhales and creates meaning and purpose; God inhales and grants them space and freedom to respond how they will. The story of Pentecost concludes with the following choice made by the believers in the freedom of God’s Spirit: “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” God breathed out and created their community; God breathed in and granted them freedom to respond in how they chose to live together. And they chose communion, gratitude, and generosity. So it is with us. In so many ways, God breathes creativity out into our lives, and then God breathes in so that we may have the freedom to respond to the breath of God in our lives and in our world. God breathes out and it is a gentle, cooling breeze to our beleaguered souls and bodies. How will we respond? God breathes out and it is fire and wind that purge and refine us, making our impurities pure. How will we respond? God breathes out and it is a brush of air that tickles us and plays with us, stealing something and making us chase it, and inviting us to laugh at our folly. How will we respond? God breathes out, and we discover that God is breathing for us, filling our hearts and lungs with life when we have lost our own breath. How will we respond? God breathes out, and it is the stillness of the wilderness with no whisper of wind stirring, when we are desperate for a brush of wind or breath to give us respite and relief from the sun beating down upon us in the wilderness. How will we respond? God breathes out and it is the sweet breath of a new baby, the cool brush of a mother’s lips on a feverish forehead, the sweetness of a lover’s mouth poised for a kiss. How will we respond? God breathes out, and it is the violent wind of a storm that can fell mighty oaks, and it is a light breeze that allows a bumblebee to drift lazily along. How will we respond? God breathes out and it is a bunch of red balloons tied to the wrists of children and sent out into the world as our model and our witness. How will we respond? The breath of God has brought us, through various ways, to this place, to this community, and then it blows us back out into the world to share the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that continues to mean for our lives. How will we respond?