20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 25C

20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 25C October 27, 2019 It feels to me that it has been a season of comparisons. We are fresh off the walkabout for the next bishop of this diocese, where we heard each of the 5 candidates answer questions. We also have election day coming up soon, so some of us are comparing candidates to determine who we want to vote for. And then we have this next parable in Luke’s gospel, where Jesus tells a story of a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee is doing all good things, actually doing more than he is supposed to be doing (fasting twice a week when he only has to fast once a week and giving 10% of his income), but when he lifts all that up before God, compares himself to the tax collector he sees praying in the temple near him; and the tax collector, who is quite a scoundrel, but who is aware of his sinfulness, prays for forgiveness from God. Amy-Jill Levine tells us that this parable would have been unexpected for Jesus’s original hearers because they would have expected to hear the story of a saint who was revealed to be a sinner and a sinner who was revealed to be a saint, and this does not happen. The other thing A-J Levine says about this parable that struck me is that the context of the Jewish community in this parable is actually like those horrible middle school group projects—you know, when you have one of two strong students grouped together with some not as strong or diligent students, and the more diligent students end up carrying the group. She says that righteousness in a community can be accomplished by a handful of righteous people, with the unrighteous being brought along with them. Or the converse is also true: that a handful of unrighteous people in a community can tip the balance for the whole community toward unrighteousness. And interestingly enough, this parable falls in our lectionary on this week—week two in our Consecration Sunday Stewardship program, where Jamie McCurry is going to get up here in a minute and take us through the big picture of giving in this parish and invite us to see where we fall in comparison to that. So the question I have been wrestling with is “Can there be any grace in comparison?” And here’s what I’ve come up with: that comparison just for the sake of comparison or trying to make ourselves feel better at the expense of others is what Jesus is condemning in the Pharisee of the parable. But there are ways that we can examine ourselves within the context of the community through which we can become more self-aware, and that increased self-awareness will bear all sorts of different fruit. I’ve started reading a book about the Enneagram; the Enneagram is theory which says that there are 9 different personality types and when we learn about the gifts and challenges of our particular type, then that can enrich one’s self-awareness and relationship with God through greater spiritual development. In this book titled The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron (an Episcopal priest) and Suzanne Stabile (a long-time teacher of the Enneagram), I read two different quotes that get at the heart of this that I’ll share with you today. The first is “To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility.”i (I’ll read that again.) That’s from Flannery O’Connor. The second is a quote from the monk Thomas Merton: “Sooner or later we must distinguish between what we are not and what we are. We must accept the fact that we are not what we would like to be. We must cast off our false, exterior self like the cheap and showy garment it is…We must find our real self, in all its elemental poverty, but also in its great and very simple dignity: created to be the child of God, and capable of loving with something of God’s own sincerity and his unselfishness.”ii So, this morning, we are going to do an exercise where we will measure ourselves against Truth and not the other way around, not for the sake of comparison but for the sake of self-awareness which will help us deepen in our relationship with the God who knows us and loves us. [Jamie McCurry] Your invitation this week is to spend time in prayer reflecting on your need to give, what you are currently giving and how you feel about that, and what a change in giving might look like in your life and in the life of your family. “To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility.” Cron, Ian Morgan and Suzanne Stabile. The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery. IVP Books: Downers Grove: 2016, p 17. Ibid. p 18

19th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24C

19th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24C October 20, 2019 I was a brand-new, baby priest, and I was sitting in my annual appointment with the bishop, a time that I later began calling my “well-baby check-up.” We had dispensed with the small talk, and he sat there with his blank yellow legal pad, and his face kindly, he asked me, “So, how’s your prayer life?” I remember thinking, “Wait, I didn’t know this question would be on the test!” Every year I would go back and I would squirm uncomfortably, knowing the inevitable question was coming, and not knowing how to answer it. “So, how’s you prayer life?” “Fine?” “It could be better?” “I have two small children and scarcely the opportunity to go to the bathroom by myself, so I think it’s safe to say it’s almost non-existent.” Year after year, I would sit in his office, and he would persistently ask me that same question, “so, how’s your prayer life?” And I found that over the years, my understanding of prayer shifted, and I began to look forward to that question, to see what surprises my answer might reveal to myself in any given year. Our passage from Luke’s gospel today is yet another parable. In this reading, the writer of Luke sets the stage saying, “Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Starts off good enough. But then the actual parable is a very short story about two people with very ambiguous motives. There is a widow who continues to nag a judge to “grant [her] justice against her opponent.” (We learned in our study of this parable this past week that the word translated for justice can also be translated as “vengeance.” It kind of changes how you look at this poor, helpless widow who is demanding of the judge that he grant her vengeance against her opponent.) And then there is the judge himself, who is a strange mix of self-interested and self-aware. He continues to refuse the widow’s request until finally he says to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" (The Greek word that is translated here as “wear me out” is actually a boxing term which literally means “give me a black eye,” perhaps showing some quirky humor on Jesus’ part.) Then the passage picks back up again with Luke’s commentary, which further complicates this short, quirky and morally ambiguous parable by bringing in issues not just of prayer but of justice and of faith. Are we supposed to understand that a part of faith includes tenacious, almost nagging prayer? That through our persistence we can affect God, change God’s mind, and that this is what we are to aspire to? So, how’s your prayer life? Years ago, I got to hear the newly retired Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold speak, and his words did more for me and my understanding of prayer than anything else I have ever encountered. He quoted Paul in Romans 8:26-27: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” And then Bishop Griswold went on to say of this that the Spirit is always at work, praying within us, below our consciousness. He said our very urge to pray comes when this ongoing prayer of the Spirit within us bubbles up, like a well-spring of life-giving water, into our consciousness, encouraging us, then to pray, to be in relationship with God.i So, how’s your prayer life? What I found was that the bishop’s annual question invited me to pay more attention to the ways that prayer was already bubbling up in me, to pay attention to the times when I actually paid attention to the Spirit’s prayers at work within me. Another way of considering this in light of this gospel passage is to ask myself, “am I giving as much attention to the Holy Spirit’s prayer that is already at work within me as I would to a grievance I wanted righted or vengeance that I sought?” Prayer is about creating time and space for listening. It is already happening, already at work deep within you. You do not have to do anything but pay attention and to be aware that this ongoing prayer often reveals itself in unexpected ways. In that same season of my life, I read a book titled Natural Spirituality by a woman named Joyce Rockwood Hudson. (She’s an Episcopalian who founded the Natural Spirituality Center in Athens, GA.) In this book, she writes about the different ways that the Holy Spirit tries to get our attention in this work of her ongoing prayer within us. Hudson writes about how sometimes when a song is stuck in our head, that can actually be a way the Spirit is trying to get our attention. Right after I read this, I was working in the church office and in a horrible mood, and suddenly I realized that I had the song, “The itsy-bitsy spider” stuck in my head. I became curious as to what on earth the Holy Spirit might be trying to get me to pay attention to with that particular song, and as I reviewed my morning, I remembered that MM and I had been singing that song with new and creative lyrics and motions as I had been driving her to pre-school that day. That memory transported me back to an earlier part of my day where I was fully present and taking pure delight in what I was doing in that moment, and it helped me get out of my funk and get back on the track of being attentive to the workings of God in my life and in the world around me. So, how’s your prayer life? Your invitation this week is to consider this question; to examine the ways that you make space in your life to listen to the prayer that is already being prayed in your soul by the Holy Spirit. Pay attention to what songs are stuck in your head this week, both literally and figuratively, and follow the path to return your attention to the workings of God in your life and in the world around you. i. From my sermon preached at Mediator-Redeemer, McComb-Magnolia on the 21st Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 24C) on October 21, 2007

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23C

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23C-2019 October 13, 2019 I don’t think I tell y’all enough how grateful I am for you. I was the guest preacher in Tifton last week, and the people of St. Anne’s were lovely. And I missed y’all. We seem to have energy just bursting out every-which-a-way here. And I’ve been thinking about that this week in light of our gospel reading. Our reading from Luke for this week follows right on the heels of last week’s reading—Jesus has just told his disciples about the demands of discipleship. They cry out in despair, “Lord, increase our faith!” And he answers them that they already have everything they need. They just need to show up and do what they know that they need to do. Then we pick up with our reading for today, where Jesus and his disciples find themselves in an in-between time and in an in-between place on the road to Jerusalem where Jesus is going to die. They encounter from a distance 10 lepers who cry out asking Jesus to have mercy on them. He heals them from a distance and sends them to be purified by the priest so that they can be reinstated into the community from which they have had to live apart because of their disease. But on the way, one realizes that he has been healed, and so he disobeys Jesus and turns back to thank him. Then Luke continues with a portion that we did not hear today: “Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For in fact, the Kingdom of God is among you.” All 10 lepers were given new life. They had been living their lives separated from their communities because of their disease, and Jesus healed them, restoring their flesh to its fullness of life and enabling them to go back to their homes, families, and communities to resume their lives. It’s a huge gift that I am sure they all enjoyed. But when the 10th leper returns, Jesus makes a point of showing how expressing gratitude is an important aspect of our faith. The kingdom of God is already right here with us, and it is often through the lens of gratitude that it is revealed to us. And just like in practicing our faith, there are some seasons of our lives in which it easier to practice gratitude. That is why it is important to cultivate that practice, so that we can rely on it more when times are not as sunny and it is not as easy to be grateful. Because gratitude connects us—to God, to each other. Gratitude is a gift to both the one who receives the gratitude and also to the one who extends it. Several years ago, I heard an interview with the Quaker poet and songwriter Carrie Newcomer, and she talked about how she ends every day by naming 3 thing for which she is grateful. Through the voicing of these three things for which she is grateful, she said, she sends herself off to sleep from a place of wholeness and thanksgiving. So I started doing this practice with each of the children when they would go to bed. We would each name 3 things for which we were grateful about that day. Jack and I continue to do it. (MM usually stays up later than I do these days.) Some days it is easier to name three things than on others. Some season it is easier to name three things than in others. But part of the discipline is doing it every single day, no matter if we feel grateful or not. One of the things that I tell people when they ask me about y’all, about this church, is that we needed each other when we were first called together. Y’all eagerly received my gifts that I brought with me, and I recognized in y’all your gifts of hospitality and your joy in fun, the high energy that had been dormant under the surface and your willingness to embrace creativity. Together, I think the Holy Spirit has healed in us parts that needed new life and love, and for that I continue to be grateful. I believe that there is still room for healing here in all of us; healing that Jesus will continue to work through the gift of the Holy Spirit. This week, I have been especially noticing the times that we complain, because complaint is really the opposite of gratitude. In most instances, complaint is not the way that we build each other up. Instead, it is a way that we try to relieve some of our own anxiety, often at great cost to the receiver of the complaint. While gratitude unites us in the light of thanksgiving, complaint divides us, often setting us at odds with the one receiving our complaint or at odds with the one who we are complaining about. Now, hear me clearly. I am not saying that all complaints are bad; sometimes we need to speak our truth to what we perceive is injustice in a way that others can hear it to build up the community of faith. But most of the time, I think, our complaints reveal issues in our own souls that we have not yet dealt with, and rather than deal with them, we voice them in the form of complaint in an effort to make ourselves feel better and at the expense of others. So I am saying that we need to practice discernment before we complain. And that often the antidote to complaining is actually practicing gratitude. So, my invitation to you this week is two-fold. First, work on practicing gratitude. Set yourself to acknowledging three things you are grateful for at set times during the day—maybe first thing in the morning and at bedtime, maybe before each meal. Commend to God three things you are grateful for in the ordinary things of your life on that day, for in that you will find the kingdom of God. And second, work on censoring your complaints. When you find yourself about to complain, stop, and examine your soul before you say anything to anybody. Is this complaint an expression of your own anxiety that will not be helpful in strengthening relationships or community and which may actually be harmful? If you find yourself about to complain about someone else, then instead, list three things for which you are grateful about that person. Gratitude is an essential part of our faith, and it is also an essential part of a healthy community. This is why Jesus tells the leper that his faith, through the expression of his gratitude, has saved him. The medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart said: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you’ that would suffice.” Thank you. Amen.

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 22C (for St. Anne's Tifton)

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 22C October 6, 2019 What a delight it is to be with you today here at St. Anne’s! I have heard so many wonderful things about you from my friend Lonnie Lacy. His love for you and your love for him clearly shine through in the way that he talks about y’all. I have also heard that St. Anne’s is a special place here in the diocese of Georgia. Your mutual love and affection for each other is unique and well-known, and I appreciate how y’all have fun together. You can often tell the health of a congregation by how they play together, how they have fun, and y’all are certainly a healthy, and fun-loving bunch—people after my own heart! I’m here today, as I’m sure you well know, as your guest preacher for Consecration Sunday. You have been hearing talks these last few weeks about the importance of giving in the life of St. Anne’s. You have been reminded that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God; that it is God’s very nature to give and to give joyfully with abundance and abandon. And you have heard that as those who are made in the image and likeness of God, we also need to give-as a part of our relationship with God and each other and as a practice of gratitude for all the good gifts God has given us. Y’all know this; you remember this. So today, instead of talking about giving, I’m going to talk about faith. Because I know all of you find yourselves in a curious and uncertain position in this season of life at St. Anne’s. Your beloved rector is on the slate for the next bishop of Georgia (and that is both exciting and terrifying for all of us that know and love him!), and none of us knows what is going to happen in the future. I would imagine that there is some anxiety in all your hearts over this around the uncertainty for your future together, and I would imagine that it is tempting to wait and see what happens, to live your lives in a sort of holding pattern until after November 15th and 16th. Many years ago, when I was in my early 20’s, I was riding in my friend’s car on a rainy January 1st crossing Lake Ponchatrain—that huge lake that borders New Orleans—and I was wretchedly miserable. My friends and I had celebrated New Year’s with another friend in New Orleans, and we were headed back home; for my friends that meant returning to their apartment in Memphis, but for me that meant returning to my childhood bedroom at my parents’ home. I had come home from college with the certainty that I was called to be a priest. But often the church moves much more slowly than we would like it to, and I was left waiting for an extra year to learn whether or not I could go to seminary. So, I got a pretty good job at a local non-profit, and I came up with the very sensible plan that I would live at my parents’ house and save all my money to go to seminary sometime in the future. On New Year’s Day, as I was headed home to that reality, I realized that I was miserable, and as I looked out at the gray day and watched the rain droplets blur together on the outside of the car window, I had an epiphany, a realization, a manifestation of the wisdom of God in my life. I realized that the reason I was so wretchedly miserable wasn’t because I was living in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house. It was because I was living my life as if it was on hold, as if the present did not really matter. I was basing all the choices of my life on some unpromised future, and I realized, in that moment, that that wasn’t really faith or a faithful life. It was not really discipleship. So I went to work on Monday determined to ask some of the other 20 somethings if they knew of anyone looking for a roommate. The first person I encountered was the Executive Director’s daughter, who was volunteering as receptionist and who I didn’t know very well. When I asked her if she knew anyone who was looking for a roommate, she looked stunned, and then she told me that she needed a roommate. So began our friendship, and while I did not go to seminary with as much money as I could have saved if I had stayed in my childhood bedroom, the three years between college and seminary for me that would have seemed like an interminable sentence passed with many adventures and mis-adventures, life-learnings and companionship. Those years and those experiences became an essential part of the priest and person I am today. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus’s disciples are feeling overwhelmed by what they think are the demands of discipleship. And so they cry out to Jesus and say, “Increase our faith.” Now it’s easy to read Jesus’s response to them as rather harsh, but what if, instead, we hear him saying it, as one who loves them and knowns them, as one who knows what they are fully capable of and is actually cheering them on? You have everything that you need, he is telling them. And now is the needy time. You just need to show up and do what you know you are supposed to do, what you need to do in order to live fuller lives of faith and discipleship. Because faith is not just saying “I believe.” It is living as if “I believe that…” I believe that God is still at work in the world; I believe that all the suffering will one day be redeemed; I believe that love is stronger than anything, even death; I believe that God is with us in our hope and in our fear, in our comfortable times and in our anxious and uncertain times. Faith is so much more than just showing up and going through the motions. Practicing our faith means choosing a spot to be rooted in and to grow in that spot, in giving, in prayer, in good works. You have chosen this unique community of St. Anne’s to be rooted in; God is with you and you have absolutely everything you need, no matter what happens. You just need to show up and do what you know you need to do. May you live your life in the light of that and give in gratitude for God’s good gifts. One of the things that my friends know about me is that life often reminds me of words to a song, and when that happens, I am known to break out in song to share the lyrics. (I know I’m not the only one to do this.) Your life here together in this present moment reminds me of a song, and so today, I want to teach you this song, so we can sing it together as you dwell in this unique season in this unique place. It’s a really simple song—the words are “Jesus, won’t you come by here. Oh, Jesus, won’t you come by here. Jesus won’t you come by here. And then you repeat it. It goes like this. Ok, let’s try it. The second verse is “Now, it is the needy time. Now, it is the needy time. Jesus won’t you come by here.” And you repeat that. Let’s try it. Ok, let’s put it all together. Today is the day in the life of St. Anne’s when you will practice your faith and make your commitment in your discipleship of Jesus Christ to be rooted and to continue to grow in this place, specifically in the area of giving. After communion is over, we’re going to end the service slightly differently today. I’ll just say a couple of more words, and then (the ushers?) will pass out the Consecration Sunday commitment cards to each individual or family here. I may start singing that little song we just sang, and you’ll be filling out the cards, prayerfully considering all that you have heard leading up to this day and the work you have done on your own—remembering the need of each of us to give, the importance of this community of faith in your life and in your own faith, considering what percentage of your income you currently give to God and if that is reflective of your gratitude, of the practice of your faith. Then, when you are finished filling out your card, you will bring it up to and place it on the altar as an offering to God of your gratitude and as a symbol of your faith, and then you can go on out to the Consecration Sunday lunch. God has already given you absolutely everything you need. And now is the needy time. Amen. Addendum for Consecration Sunday: I remember someone once saying, “Give until it feels good.” Now that can’t always be accomplished in one year for everyone, but for some people it can. Do what you can today to make feeling good about your giving a reality. As the ushers begin to pass out the Consecration Sunday commitment cards, I invite you to pray with your card, to think of this special place and the commitment that you can make to your common life here--to the work that y’all, the people of God, are already doing here to build up the kingdom of God in Tift County Georgia and beyond. Think about the ways this place has blessed you, and fill out your card as an expression of your faith.