Epiphany sermon

Feast of the Epiphany—Year C January 6, 2013 It is a rare occasion today that we get to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, one of seven major feasts in the life of the church—on an actual Sunday. Because it is a fixed day on the calendar, always falling on January 6th or 12 days after Christmas, Epiphany moves around the week. Epiphany, which literally means “manifestation,” is the day upon which we celebrate the visit of the Gentile wise men to pay homage to Jesus upon his birth, and it represents the inclusion of non-Jewish people into God’s kingdom. In some parts of the world, Epiphany is celebrated as a bigger holiday than Christmas, with gift giving being tied directly to the gift giving wise men from the East who are making their way to Bethlehem. Children leave shoes filled with hay outside their homes. The wise men take the hay for their camels and leave gifts behind in the shoes as thanks, as they continue on their way to Bethlehem. Another interesting item of note is to look closely at the gospel story which talks about the wise men. Note the wise men are found in Matthew’s gospel, while the traditional Christmas eve story of the shepherds and angels is found in Luke. In Matthew’s story, there is no mention of how many wise men there are; the number three has been assigned to them by tradition over the years due to the number of gifts listed in the story. Also, later writers gave the wise men names and attributed characteristics to them: Melchior is described as an old man with white hair and a long beard. Gaspar is young and beardless and ruddy complexioned, and Balthasar is black-skinned and heavily bearded. In the season of Epiphany, we celebrate the light of Christ as represented by the star that guides the wise men on their way. In Epiphany, we celebrate the guiding stars in our lives, and we remember and celebrate the lights by which we see God. It is not clear from the story if the shining of the star is steadfast on the wise men’s journey. In fact, it seems that they observed the star at its rising, and then travel to Jerusalem to learn more about the possible whereabouts of Jesus. While in Jerusalem, the Jewish council tell the wise men that Bethlehem is where they should look, according to the prophesies. And it seems that they rediscover the star once they are headed in the right direction to Bethlehem. Our journey to pay homage to Christ the King is always easier when we have companions on the way. There are times when the light of Christ shines brilliantly before us, clearly marking our path. There are other times when we must stop and seek assistance, ask for directions. But in the midst of this, on this day of light, we are invited to ask the Holy Spirit to help us reflect upon the question “by what light we have seen God most recently?”i You are invited to reflect upon the ordinary and the extraordinary ways that the light of Christ has been revealed to you on your way. We received a gift in the mail this week that was for me one of those pure gifts, one of those revelations of the light of Christ through companions on the way. I was sitting at my desk going through all the mail that accrued over my time away, and I opened a rather fat package that had a note and some fabric inside it. This is what I discovered. The note in the package reads, “Dear St. Peter’s by-the-Sea Episcopal church, At the Northeastern Minnesota Synod Middle school gathering in November, participants prayed for your congregation and members as you continue to recover from Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac. Enclosed is a prayer banner to remind you that your brothers and sisters in Christ continue to hold you in prayer, thankful for your presence and witness of Christ’s love to those who are recovering. May God’s strength and compassion fill you as you continue to serve your community. In Christ, The Northeastern Minnesota Synod Lutheran Youth Organization Board.” And here is the banner, with lovely words of encouragement written on it by some of the same youth who worshiped with us this past summer. They are all simple messages: “God is with you.” “We are praying for you.” “Stay strong.” “Keep faith.” “We won’t forget.” And over and over again, “God loves you.” For me this was a brilliant beacon of the light of Christ, shining upon me this week, and a brilliant reminder of the many companions we have on this way as we seek to pay homage to Jesus the King. This week, I invite you to reflect upon the light by which you see God, and I invite you to give thanks for both the ordinary and the extraordinary ways that the light of Christ has been revealed to you on your way. i.This question was posed by Barbara Brown Taylor in her essay A Homiletic Perspective on Feasting on the Word for Epiphany Year C.

The Eve of the Nativity 2012

The Eve of the Nativity 2012 “Suppose someone in hiding stirs, showing their whereabouts there. God does the same. No one could have found God-God gave Himself away.” This is a quote from Meister Ekhart who was a medieval mystic, and I can think of no better way of talking about why we are gathered here together on this holy night. Tonight, we give thanks for the many ways that “God gives himself away” and for the many ways that God reveals God’s self to us. In the beginning, God gives himself away in creation, putting part of God in all that there is and then breathing God’s breath into man and woman, creating us in the image of God. But we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. And so God reveals God’s self to Abraham, and God promises that God would be our God, and we would be God’s people. But we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. We become enslaved, and God brings about our liberation. But we quickly forget our liberation, and we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. So God reveals God’s self to righteous people, to matriarchs, patriarchs, judges, heroes, kings, and prophets, but we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. And we become enslaved again, people who walk in darkness, until God liberates us again with God’s great light, but again we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. Again and again, God gives us glimpses of God’s self as God calls us back to God. Again and again, God invites us to follow God’s way and not our own. Until, in the fullness of time, God gives himself fully to us and becomes Emmanuel—God with us. God reveals God’s self fully to us in the person of Jesus, who is always on the side of the weak and the powerless, who shows us that the way to God is found in truly giving up ourselves, our way and our will. He shows us that we find God when we live lives of mercy and kindness. He shows us that we find God when we live lives of forgiveness and reconciliation. He shows us that we find God when we give and we find God when we love. And by giving himself up to death, Jesus shows us in the resurrection that God’s love, God’s self, God’s desire to be reconciled with us is stronger than everything. Stronger than our own will and the ways that we turn away from God. God’s love is stronger than the mistakes that we make. It is stronger than sickness; it is stronger than evil that we can never hope to understand. God’s love is stronger, even than death. It is what we call “the mystery of the Incarnation”—that the fullness of God is made present in our lives and in our world. But the story doesn’t end here. God continues to call us. God continues to choose us. When we realize that God is calling us and choosing us, not for a task or a role but to be the revelation of God’s self in this world each in your own unique situation, then we are living the truth of God with us, and we become a part of God’s revelation of God’s self. We become a part of the way that God gives God’s self away in this needy and dark world. We become the people who have walked in darkness who have seen a great light, and through the grace of God, we reflect that light through the way that we live our lives. “Suppose someone in hiding stirs, showing their whereabouts there. God does the same. No one could have found God-God gave Himself away.” Thanks be to God.

3rd Sunday of Advent Year C

3rd Sunday of Advent Year C December 16, 2012 It’s the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Rejoice Sunday, when we lighten our penitence somewhat with our lovely rose and these themes of rejoicing echo throughout our readings. And then we have John the Baptist, who would most certainly have failed a modern day homiletics class with his opening line, “You brood of vipers!!!!” As another writer put it, “Nobody wants to get fussed at by John the Baptist two weeks before Christmas!” And of course, we have the shadow of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School hanging over our whole nation. So what are we supposed to make of John and his message of repentance this week and these horrible deeds when all around us seems to be geared toward rejoicing? Last week, my husband David preached at the 8:00 service, and I was struck by something he said in that sermon. He said that salvation is when all the barriers between us and God are wiped away. I’ve been pondering that all week, as I ask myself what are the barriers that I place between myself and God, and what would the removal of those look like? And when we look back at John the Baptist’s preaching in today’s lesson, that’s exactly what he is talking about. He starts off by lambasting his listeners for their hypocrisy, but when they approach him for instruction, he answers honestly and even gently in his own wild and wooly way. “Ok, you call us to repent”, the people say. “What then should we do?” And John says to them, if you have two coats, then share one of them with someone who doesn’t have a coat.” And then the tax collectors ask him, “What should we do?” And he says, “Don’t cheat people.” And then the soldiers ask him, “What should we do?” and he answers, “Be just.” It’s really not that radical, once you get past the name calling. So what is the good news for us in this call to repentance in the midst of the call to rejoicing this morning? Instead of hearing him call us all a brood of vipers who are in need of repentance, what if we thought about him saying to us, “you are already good enough to be loved by God.” The kingdom of God is already come near, and yet you choose to put up barriers between yourself and God. So the repentance, the action required on our part has to do with the intentional work toward removing some of those barriers that we erect between God and ourselves (and between ourselves and others). What if we heard him saying, “You who are a part of a country and a society who spend $450 billion a year on Christmas, what if you gave a little extra to someone who doesn’t have it”? In looking around at the media and at peoples’ commentaries on Facebook over the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, I see outrage; I see deep grief; I see an eagerness to analyze and to understand and to label. I see people clamoring for better gun control. I hear people try to start a witch hunt against folks with mental illness. I watch as people say that this is the result of not having God in our schools. Our question to God is much like what his hearers asked John the Baptist. We feel helpless, and we ask, “What then should we do?” Maybe part of the barrier between us and God is found in our attempt to know and to understand. Sometimes there are deep mysteries that cannot be know, cannot be understood; we rush to act because that is how we feel we are doing something. But sometimes, we are called to stand in the face of this dark mystery and not lose hope, not lose hope in God, who is always with us, and not lose hope in our fellow children of God. Sometimes we are called to stand in the darkness of mystery and continue to be faithful. That is what John the Baptist is talking about when he tells his hearers to “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” In no other time of the year are we as eager and as willing to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” than during this season. And one of the challenges of the faithful is to discern when we are called to stand still in the face of mystery and when we are called to act. This week, I read a meditation by Richard Rohr adapted from his little book Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr. He writes, “The Scriptures very clearly teach what we call today a ‘bias toward action.’ It is not just belief systems or dogmas and doctrines, as we have often made it. The Word of God is telling us very clearly that if you do not do it, you, in fact, do not believe it and have not heard it. The only way that we become convinced of our own sense of power, dignity, and the power of God is by actually doing it—by crossing a line, a line that has a certain degree of nonsensicalness and unprovability to it—and that’s why we call it faith. In the crossing of that line, and acting in a new way, then and only then, can we really believe what we say we believe in the first place. We do not think ourselves into a new way of living as much as we live ourselves into new ways of thinking. Lifestyle issues ask much more of us than mere belief systems” (48-49). What then should we do? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Pay attention to the needs of others and treat them with mercy and kindness. Over the course of this week, I came upon several startling and hopeful facts. First, you will receive a letter from the treasurer this week letting you know that we expect to be about $15,000 in the hole when we finish this year. Now, that’s actually less than we’ve been in the hole for the last five years or so (that’s been around $22,000), so that’s actually good news. And the better news is that the year is not yet over. We still can make a dent in that number by giving to the church as we look for ways to bear “fruits worthy of repentance.” The second fact I came upon is that through all of our generosity, we made Christmas possible for 34 children this year. And we’ve collected a record number of new clothes for the Harrison County Children’s Shelter. I wish you all could have seen the toys and the clothes all lined up in the hallway outside Susan’s’ and my offices. It was truly a sight to see! And the third fact is that since January, we have collected and distributed over $17,000 through discretionary giving to help people in need, and most of that has gone to people in this parish to help meet basic necessities. That’s 17,000 dollars worth of people sharing out of their abundance to help others have enough. That is bearing fruit worthy of repentance! Here’s another way of thinking about this “bearing fruit worthy of repentance”. Desmond Tutu once said, “Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” Rejoice! For the Kingdom of God has come near. Examine the barriers that you have placed between you and God and you and your neighbor, and bear fruit worthy of repentance. How are we all being called to “live ourselves into a new way of thinking?” In that lies God’s salvation. In that lies God’s hope.

First Sunday of Advent--Year C

1st Sunday of Advent—Year C December 2, 2012 Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and it is also the beginning of the church year. Today we enter a season of preparation and expectancy, not just for the coming of the baby Jesus at Christmas but also we remember the importance of preparation and expectancy for Jesus’s promised second coming. But this expectation comes with its own difficulties. First, most talk of Jesus’s second coming in our day and age has been hijacked by people who read the bible much more literally than we Episcopalians, and they try to speculate upon a timeline and to identify specific current events as being the signs and portents of the end times. (In fact, there has apparently been more talk of late of the Mayan calendar and the prediction of the end of the world this moth…) But again and again, these doomsday predictors prove to be wrong, and as a result of this, some folks have ceased to believe and to hope in Jesus’s return altogether. I had a New Testament professor my first year in seminary who stunned our entire class by saying, in a rather off-hand way, “Of course, no right thinking Christian believes in the eschaton (or the end of the world.) So in the light of all that, what are we supposed to make of today’s gospel reading, and how might we make our peace with this second part of Advent, this waiting expectantly for Jesus’s return? The passage from Luke’s gospel this morning, along with its counterparts in Matthew and Mark, is referred to as the “little apocalypse.” Jesus is teaching his disciples about the end times, warning them not to be afraid when the whole world seems to be falling apart around them, but rather to keep alert, to not get worn down by life and daily concerns. And we can certainly relate to this, can’t we? I’ve met and visited with so many of you, of late, who have this sense that the world is falling apart around you, whether it is because of politics and the state of the economy or whether it is because of things going on in your personal life. But even in the midst of all these goings on, there is good news here that is at the heart of this season of Advent. As one writer put it, an important part of Advent is waiting, anticipating, longing for and trusting in “a promised future that seems very removed from our current circumstances.” So how do we do that? How might we cultivate that expectancy? The word apocalypse means “revelation.” And the artist and writer Jan Richardson reminds us that “God is in every time and season, about the work of revealing God’s presence.” She goes on to say that we cultivate this expectancy of Advent in our lives by “practicing apocalypse.” She writes, “In the rhythm of our daily lives here on earth, Christ bids us to practice the apocalypse. He calls us in each day and each moment to do the things that will stir up our courage and keep us grounded in God, not only that we might perceive Christ when he comes but that we may recognize him even now. There is a sense, after all, in which we as Christians live the apocalypse on a daily basis. Amid the destruction and devastation that are taking place in the world, Christ beckons us to perceive and to participate in the ways that he is already seeking to bring redemption and healing for the whole creation.”i We cultivate this expectancy of Advent in our lives when we actively expect Jesus to show up in our lives, in our days, in our moments. We cultivate this expectancy when we actively look for the ways that God continues to reveal God’s self in our lives, in our church, and in our world. In an excerpt from her memoir Prague Winter, Madeleine Albright puts it this way, “This is because the goal we seek, and the good we hope for, comes not as some final reward but as the hidden companion to our quest.”ii Here’s another way of looking at it. I had a conversation with someone earlier this week, and we were talking about the readings this coming Sunday and about the end of the world. And she asked me, “If you knew that the world was ending in 12 days, would you live any differently?” It’s a question I’ve been thinking about all week. During this Advent season, this season of expectation, how is Jesus calling you to “practice the apocalypse?” What things does God call you to that “stir up your courage and keep you grounded in God?” How is God already showing up in your life and in your journey, as the “hidden companion to your quest?” How would you live differently if you knew the world were about to end? i. http://adventdoor.com/2009/11/23/advent-1-practicing-the-apocalypse/ ii. As quoted in BibleWorkbench Issue 20.1 December 2, 2012 p 11.

25th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 28B

25th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 28B November 18, 2012 As Christians, we live in an in between time and space, that difficult no-man’s land of both “already” and “not yet.” Already Jesus has come—God is with us, offering himself, once and for all, as the single offering which has restored all creation which is groaning with longing. Already, Jesus has forgiven us, “placing his perfect life on the altar of heaven, offering ‘for all time a single sacrifice for sins’ thereby breaking the back of evil, sin, and suffering. In the resurrection, God proves that evil and death and suffering cannot withstand the force of God’s love and God’s longing to be reconciled with all creation. And yet—we look at the world around us and see the “not yet” of it all. All around us evil and sin and suffering and sadness seem to rock along unchanged, and the people of God groan along with all of creation, “How long, O Lord, must we bear it all?” God’s Kingdom has not yet come into its fullest fulfillment. We see this tension at work in the gospel of Mark today, as we remember that the writer of Mark was writing these words around the time when the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem as a result of the Jewish uprising. Already Jesus has come and restored and redeemed, the writer of Mark reminds his broken-hearted community, but all is not yet as it should be. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. We see it at work in the sermon that is known as the Letter of the Hebrews. The preacher is addressing a congregation that is suffering from decline; he is addressing a flock who is “tired and discouraged about the way evil seems to persist in the world. As a result the congregation has begun to question the value of being followers of Christ. Attendance at worship has begun to falter, zeal for mission has waned, and the kind of congregational life that is rich with love and compassion has begun to dissipate.” He is addressing a people who are weary and longing for the not yet to be realized and fulfilled. “How long, O Lord, must we bear it all,” they cry. We see it all around us—this tension between the already and the not yet. We come to church week after week, and we say the words together: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Week after week, we offer thanks to God and “we celebrate the memorial of our redemption” through Jesus’s death and resurrection. We ask God to “send us out into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve [God] with gladness and singleness of heart…” We celebrate and try to live into the already, and yet…. We learn of another person whom we love who is diagnosed with cancer. We watch as those we love age and are not able to do those things they once were able to do. We suffer financial hardship and distress, people losing their homes and scarcely able to survive. We participate in, witness, and sometimes fall victim to the ruthlessness that is rampant in our society that becomes the vehicle for our culture’s most prized asset—accomplishment—and the enforcing of our own agendas. We live lives that are forever changed in the wake of natural disasters that throw life into chaos and turmoil. We ourselves may even grow tired and discouraged about the way evil seems to persist in the world, and we cry out to God, “How long, O Lord, must we bear it?” Yes, it is true that all is not yet fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. And yet, the writer of Hebrews reminds his flock and us that “we are not just spectators; we are active participants in the saving work of God.” But how do we do that? “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” Yes, it may seem that nothing is changed, that evil is still running rampant in the world, but God has been with us in the person of Jesus, and God continues with us even still. God calls us to be active participants in the saving work of God by “provoking one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together but encouraging one another…”i First, it is important to show up for worship. I realize I’m “preaching to the choir” here, but it is in and through worship, in and through the prayers of our tradition that the hope of Christ is nurtured and strengthened in this community and within each of our hearts. And one of the beautiful things about the Episcopal liturgy, where we pray what we believe and we believe what we pray, is that during those times when we may not be able to give our hearts fully to God in belief, then the belief and the prayers of the community carry us through. Second, we need to actively work to provoke one another to love and good deeds and to encourage one another. What does that look like? The late Peter Gomes wrote an essay on this portion of the letter to Hebrews, and he wrote, “Perhaps in our public prayers we ought to make room for yet another category: ‘prayers of encouragement.’ We would think of ways in which we can encourage our fellow believers to love and good works. We would think of ways in which we can be of assistance to the people we know and with whom we share the faith and the pew. This means making an assessment of people’s strengths and opportunities rather than of their weaknesses and needs. We would also be praying that they may be encouraged to do something for themselves, something which God enables them to perform to the mutual benefit of the faith and the community. The second benefit of a word of encouragement [he writes] is that it strengthens both the believer and the fellowship by supplying that positive, affirming force that is so often missing in the routine of life. To live for rewards is always to live for success, and when success eludes us, as it often does, so too does the reward. We may live "for" reward, but we live "by" encouragement, which is what we need when things go well, and especially when things don’t go well. The trick is that we cannot encourage ourselves: even in this self-help culture of ours, we cannot yet do that. We must be encouraged by someone else, and it is our spiritual obligation to encourage one another. This definition of an effective New Testament church [he concludes] is short on doctrine and rules and long on fellowship and encouragement. It may be just what we need to hear as we see ‘the Day drawing near’."ii “Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” i.All the quotes up to this point, I know that I quoted from someone, but I didn’t note it at the time, and now I can’t find it…I think it was from one (or multiple) of the essays on Feasting on the Word for the Hebrews reading. ii.Peter J. Gomes [was] a professor at Harvard Divinity School and minister in Harvard’s Memorial Church. This article appeared in the Christian Century, Nov. 5, 1997, p. 1001, copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org.

24th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 27B

November 11, 2012 At first glance, this reading from the gospel appears to be a slam-dunk for a preacher who is called to preach on the morning of the fall stewardship in-gathering. Mark gives us the story of Jesus teaching in the temple, where he takes some time to “people watch.” He observes a poor widow who drops into the temple offering two small copper coins which are worth a penny. Then he calls his disciples over to teach them saying, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” Sounds like a pretty good text for a stewardship sermon, right? But there’s a problem here. It’s not clear if Jesus is holding up the poor widow as a positive example, or if he is using her as a critique for an unjust and broken system. He may very well be using her to teach his disciples about how the religious system of the day was so corrupt that it was taking food out of the mouths of those whom God called it to protect and care for. And my brothers and sisters, if that is the case, then we at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea are certainly not immune from Jesus’ critique. We give our money to support our programs, pay our staff, and maintain our beautiful building, and we have people sitting in our very own pews who are struggling as the poor widow was struggling, not to mention all those outside our doors. We can always do better to take care of those most vulnerable whom God calls us all to protect and care for. It is a hard line to walk, and so you can see my dilemma this morning. I have two stories I want to share with you this morning, that have to do with this gospel and giving. The first happened right here at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea a few weeks ago. I preached a couple of weeks ago about the homeless man who joined us for worship and gave us two blankets to give away to people who needed it more than him. That same Sunday, I watched that man dig in his pocket as the collection bowl came by him at the offertory. I was momentarily curious but soon forgot about it as we moved into Eucharist. After church, one of the ushers came up to me, and he had in his palm this small, perfect pink shell that had been placed in the collection by our homeless man. He had already given to God probably most of what he had in the form of those two extra blankets, and still he dropped this one perfect, precious thing of beauty into the collection. His generosity still takes my breath away! The second story is one I read about in an article. The person writing the article went to Mass at a struggling Roman Catholic parish in the heart of Mexico City. She was struck by what took place during the offering in the middle of the Mass. She writes, “People got in line, many carrying what appeared to be small, plastic bags filled with a whitish substance. As the guitar band played, each person stepped forward and poured the contents of their bag into coffee cans placed on the altar. It was rice. Each person was pouring a small quantity of raw rice into cans that were soon filled to the brim. We prayed an offertory prayer and continued on with the mass. Afterward the priest explained that every day, every family takes at least one spoonful of rice and puts it aside. This does not add to anyone’s hunger, he noted, but it makes a difference to those who receive one of the cans, usually someone in a home where a person has become ill or died. The practice of setting aside spoonfuls of rice wove giving into everyone’s daily routine. Your neighbors’ daily bread was part of your own, something you remembered each time you cooked or even picked up a spoon. It made a difference because it was a pattern embraced by the whole community, connecting their communion around the altar to the tables in their neighbors’ homes.”i So here is what I think is at the heart of the gospel this morning. “Some of the greatest acts of faith occur simply, selflessly, and unobtrusively. Jesus helps his followers distinguish the reality of faithfulness from all counterfeits.”ii And he teaches us about these quiet acts of giving and authentic acts of faithfulness, not so that we can judge others in their giving or in their faithfulness, but so that we can judge ourselves. God asks for our whole hearts, our whole lives, to be freely offered to God in service of God’s priorities. Does our giving live into that or are we only offering to God a tiny portion of our time, our energy, our money, our attention? Are we offering God our leftovers? Or are we offering God our all? Throughout these last few weeks, I have invited you to consider three questions: What are the gifts God has given you? What is God’s hope for their use? How are you blessed to be a blessing to others? You have heard other members of this church courageously share with you how they have been blessed by being a part of this parish, and how they have grown in their relationship with God and in their connection to this church and her people by stepping out a little more in faith in their annual pledge to God in support of the ministry of this place and her people. They shared with us how they have grown in their relationships with God when they deliberately choose to offer God more of their lives, more of themselves, more of their money. In just a few moments, as you come forward for the Eucharist, you will be invited to make your pledge, and I invite you to remember the stories of Derrick, Tabitha, Neely, and Marvin, and how each made a deliberate choice to depend more on God, to offer God more of themselves. I invite you to remember the perfect, pink seashell given by our homeless visitor, an offering of a thing of beauty from a life where there are probably very few beautiful things. I invite you to remember the individual bags of rice in Mexico City that started as only one spoonful a day but, when added together, became overflowing coffee cans of rice to feed hungry people. We are given those opportunities to make that kind of difference in our own life with God and in this world this day and beyond. May God grant us the courage and the will to do so! i.From Living by the Word by Heidi Neumark. The Christian Century. P 21. 10/31/12. ii.Exegetical Perspective by Robert A. Bryant. Feasting on the Word. ed.Bartlett and Brown Taylor. WJK: Lousiville, 2009. p285

Sunday after All Saints' Year B

Sunday after All Saints’ Year B November 4, 2012 A letter to Lindsey Victoria Ann Strickland upon the occasion of her baptism. Dear Lindsey, This is an interesting time in the life of the church year. It is the half-way point between Easter of one year and Easter of the next, and it is one of those Christian holidays that has become something entirely different in the culture around us. We see it most prominently in the contrast between Halloween and All Saints’. We trick-or-treated together this past Wednesday, and I was astonished (and somewhat dismayed) at the bacchanalia that took place around us, as people worked themselves up into a frenzy over costumes and candy. At the root of this, I recognized what Christian theologians wiser than I have named as being our culture’s fear and denial of death. But today, here in this church, we are going to do the exact opposite. Today, Lindsey, we celebrate your death, and we will take with you this first step into a long journey of not only not being afraid of death, but seeing it as a peaceful companion throughout your life. Today we all will relearn and remember with you, that even though the world around us will scramble to deny death, we, as Christians, recognize that death is an important part of faithful living. “…We as Christians know at a deeper level that our society has it all backwards. It is not that life ends and death goes on forever. Death is but a single event that is not itself the last word. At the heart of the Christian faith is the Easter story of the Resurrection revealing that God does not abandon us at death, but raises us to new life.”i So, Lindsey, when we baptize you today, we are baptizing you into Jesus’s death, and we are baptizing you into Jesus’s resurrection. From this day forward, you are claiming your place as the beloved of God, who created you good, and you are becoming a part of God’s resurrection people-the body of Christ. As Christians, we also recognize that the awareness of death and mortality is a gift to us, because it then spurs faithful living, and not for the reasons you might think. Awareness of our death does not spur faithful living because we are afraid God is going to send us to hell if we’re not good enough, if we don’t “do right” or if we don’t earn our salvation. The truth is, none of us could ever be good enough to earn our salvation. That is a gift that has been already freely given to us by the God who loves us. Rather, we long to live faithfully because we are grateful to God; we recognize this mortal life as a beautiful, finite gift, and we long to cherish it and live it to the fullest. We are all here today because in some deep part of our souls, we have realized that our struggle is not to remain alive forever at any cost, but to live and to die faithfully; and we are here today because we have discovered that this living and dying faithfully is work that is more easily and better done when we have companions along the way. We are here today because we have discovered that following the way of Jesus, the way that is articulated in our baptismal covenant, the way of peace, forgiveness, healing, sacrifice, and reconciliation, following the way of Jesus gives our lives meaning; it makes life and our relationships infinitely richer than it would be otherwise, and we are all so much better for having companions to walk with us on this way. That is what we will promise to do for you this day and forward, Lindsey, and you will promise to do it for us as well. And that is where the Saints come into the picture, why we remember them today on this Sunday after All Saints’ Day, and why it makes today especially appropriate for baptism. The New Testament talks about “saints” 20 times, and it’s not talking about stained-glass people living perfect lives of faithfulness that we could only dream about. Saints, in the New Testament, refer to “God-lovers.” One of our old, beloved hymns puts it, “they loved their Lord so dear, so dear, and his love made them strong.” Brother James Koester of the Society of St. John the Evangelist writes about Saints: “The promise of triumph which we celebrate today in the Feast of All Saints’ is for all of us, not some collection of stained glass perfect people but rather those who have lived lives of hope, or even just attempted to do so. It is for all of us who have lived lives of faith, or even just attempted to.” ii It is the attempting to live lives of faith and attempting to live lives of hope that we do together that makes us, and all those God-lovers who have gone before us-into Resurrection people through the weaving and working, inspiring and initiating of God’s Holy Spirit. We give thanks to God for your presence among us, and we look forward to walking this way with you. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i.From the book Faithful Living Faithful Dying. ii. From the daily email meditation for November 1, 2012 from ssje.org