Funeral homily for Canter Chase Gerardine

Funeral homily--Canter Chase Gerardine February 21, 2014 There are just no words for the loss of this child—Canter Chase Gerardine. There are no words that can articulate the sudden absence of all that hope, all that joy, all that anticipation, promise, and expectation. There are no words for the sadness, the sorrow, the loss, and the emptiness. There are no words for the unanswered questions. There are just no words. We gather together today, Jordan and Becca, with you, around you, and our presence and our prayers and our music testify to the mystery that is life and death and the love that is woven in and through it all. We gather with you today to hope for you when perhaps you cannot, to carry you along on the wings of our belief, when perhaps you do not. And what is our hope? What is our belief that we are willing to give our lives to and to stand in this sad place along side you for? It is that the single, unique person that is Canter Chase Gerardine is loved and cherished by the God who created him, and it is that he is at home with God, even now. Our hope, our belief is that someday we will feast with Canter at God’s heavenly banquet, a great big party where we will be reunited with all whom we love who have gone before. Our hope, our belief is that because of who Jesus is, how he lived, how he gave his life away in death, we trust that death is not the end but a change, the entry into new and eternal life in the heart of all love and belonging that is God. Our hope, our belief, even on this sad day, is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ; it is in Easter morning; it is in an empty tomb, that all show, once and for all, that God’s love is stronger than broken dreams and unfulfilled expectations. God’s love is stronger than our helplessness and our grief. Our hope is in the resurrection that shows us, once and for all, that God’s love is stronger than anything, even death. Someone once wrote, “Our Lord has written the promise of Resurrection, not in books alone, but in ever leaf in springtime.”i So Becca and Jordan, may you look at the new leaves, at the spring that is coming, and remember how God gives us resurrection. May you know that every morsel of food, every hug, every card and phone call and visit from those who love you are also reminders of God’s resurrection, working in and through us—working in and through our love and our hope. We love you and we are with you. God loves you and God is with you. Even when there are just no words. i. attributed to Martin Luther

6th Sunday after the Epiphany--Year A

The 6th Sunday after the Epiphany- Year A February 16, 2014 I have a vivid memory of the picture that accompanies this story from Deuteronomy in the picture bible that my parents read to us when we were growing up. The story tells of how Moses is told by God that he cannot accompany the children of Israel into the promised land. He has led them for such a long time, all through the wilderness, and now at last they have arrived at the edge, and Moses is telling them goodbye, giving them a few last instructions and teachings before they go forward into their future without him. “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." I was always both enthralled and troubled by the picture that accompanies this story in our picture bible because it shows Moses, with his back to the viewer—huddled in grayish, sepia toned wrappings on the edge of a cliff—beyond which we can see him watching the brightly colored children of Israel headed away from him toward a land that is clearly paradise—lush, green lands with waterfalls. I know now what I didn’t know as a child; this picture of Moses in my picture bible is the picture of heartbreak. Which makes Moses’s words even more powerful, if you think about it. It is generally pretty easy to choose life, love God, love each other, when everything seems to be going our way. But what about when it is not? What does it mean to choose life, choose blessings, when we are well and truly heart-broken? What does it mean to choose life, to choose blessings in the midst of disappointments, broken relationships, and even anger? In the portion from the Sermon on the Mount that is today’s gospel reading, Jesus is continuing to teach his disciples about discipleship, and he has something to say about how we choose life and blessings in the midst of hardship. Jesus tells us that we choose life and blessings when we make relationships with others our utmost priority. He uses hyperbole to show us that God cares about our relationships, and that God’s law is merely a tool that is used to help us deepen the bonds of our human affection and to grow in relationship with each other (and in that with God). Another writer gets to the heart of this by asking, “What if God cares that we keep the law for our sake—not for God’s sake?” Because for Jesus, in this particular passage, it is all about how we treat one another. And he is telling his disciples, he is telling us, that it is not enough to just follow the letter of the commandments. We are called beyond that, to following the spirit of them. It is not enough to refrain from murder, he tells us. We should also treat people with respect and that means not speaking hateful words. It is not enough to avoid physically committing adultery, he tells us. We should also not objectify other persons by seeing them as a means to satisfy our physical desires by lusting after them. It is not enough to follow the letter of the law regarding divorce, he tells us. We should not treat people as disposable and should make sure that the most vulnerable people (in that society—women and children) are provided for. It is not enough to keep ourselves from swearing falsely or lying to others, he tells us. We should speak truthfully in all our dealings so that we don’t need to make oaths at all. For Jesus, this is what it means for us to choose life, to choose blessings. So how might we do this, this very morning? How might we choose life, choose blessings, even in the midst of some very real disappointments and broken relationships and heartbreak? First, I invite you to take a moment and call to mind one relationship in your life right now that is the most important to you, the most healthy and whole and life giving, the relationship that sustains you the most regularly right now. Think about what it is that makes it such a good relationship, why it is important to you, and then give thanks to God for that person (or creature) and that relationship that you share. If you want, jot it down on a scrap piece of paper. Second, I invite you to take another moment and call to mind a relationship that is important to you but that has suffered some damage. You don’t need to try to figure out who’s to blame for the hurt but rather hold that person and relationship in prayer. (It may even be God, and that’s ok too). I invite you to offer to God your heartbreak and your disappointment and that damaged relationship as an invitation to God for God’s help and healing. I invite you to reflect upon what action you might take to move that relationship to greater health. You can jot that down on that same piece of paper also. If you choose to do so, as the table is being set for Eucharist, you may come forward and lay those two relationships and your prayers with them on God’s altar and offer them to God in thanksgiving and petition. No one will read your papers. In this way, we are invited to choose life, to choose blessing. Even in the midst of heartbreak. I follow a blog called the Painted Prayerbook. It is the blog of an artist and poet and United Methodist elder named Jan Richardson. This past fall, Jan’s husband Gary died suddenly after a routine surgery, and she has posted a couple of beautiful and real and heart-breaking posts as she lives in her own heart-break for this season. Just the other day, she posted a blessing that I want to share with you in closing today that gets to the heart of how we choose life, how we choose blessings, how we choose to continue to love, even in the midst of broken relationships, disappointment, and heartbreak. It is called “A blessing for the Broken-hearted.” There is no remedy for love but to love more. – Henry David Thoreau Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love. Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound when every day our waking opens it anew. Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this— as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still as if it trusts that its own stubborn and persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom but will save us nonetheless. The parts of this sermon about the gospel were heavily inspired by David Loses's reflection on his blog: workingpreacher.org

5th Sunday after the Epiphany Year A

5th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year A February 9, 2014 “And God said, ‘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 noon day.’” God’s people have returned from exile. They have come home again to find much is changed. The temple remains in ruins, but they have reverted to some of their old forms of worship (both helpful and not so helpful). Our reading from Isaiah today, which is from the portion that scholars call 3rd Isaiah—written after the return from exile in Babylon, not by Isaiah but in the school of Isaiah—shows God as the main character talking to the people. The people are focused heavily on their worship and especially on their fasting. In that culture, fasting is a way of trying to influence the deity to act on your behalf or to show favor upon a particular people. So Israel is preoccupied with seeking God’s favor through their worship and their fasting. But there is a problem which the prophet is pointing out to them. They are too concerned with the outward trappings, with making things look right, with trying to get God to notice them. The more that Israel has become self-conscious about its improved worship life, the less it has remained open to God’s vision for the community. While they are engaging in pious rituals, they are oppressing their own workers and becoming embroiled in quarrels and fights. God, through the prophet, is reminding the people that works of devotion, fasting, and worship are meaningless if they are divorced from acts of justice and righteousness. True worship should lead a people into enacting God’s compassion. And what are the acts of justice and righteousness and compassion to which God is calling them? “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly….Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” And Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Jesus is talking to his disciples about discipleship. He is articulating the answer to two fundamental questions that each of us wrestles with from time to time: “Who are we? And what are we to do?” My brothers and sisters, we are the light of the world. You are the light of the world. Each of us and all of us together are called to let our lights so shine that others may see our good works and give glory to God for them. We are called to share our bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into our house; when we see the naked to cover them. When we do these things, Isaiah says, it is almost like a prescription. When we focus on helping others, in doing justice instead of focusing on ourselves and our own worship, then God’s light will shine for us and in us and through us in the darkness. This is who we are. This is what we are to do. Just in the last couple of months, we have learned that Feed My Sheep, our feeding program which we support here in downtown Gulfport, is no longer serving food on Saturdays. They feed people Monday through Friday (and we volunteer every other Monday to help serve there. If you’re interested in doing this, see Scott Williams). The downtown churches take turns on Sundays and prepare sack lunches so that these folks will have at least one meal on Sunday; our Sunday is always the 2nd Sunday. Our deacon, Scott Williams, who’s very calling it is to challenge us, to connect us to the needs of the world, to goad us and prod us, to rile us up and to encourage us, has a plan for us to start offering breakfast here one Saturday every month, so that our brothers and sisters who are hungry will have at least one meal on a Saturday. In fact, he and the members of the Outreach committee started doing this yesterday. Will there be some logistical pieces for us to continue to work out? Possibly. Is it going to be a challenge for some of us to open up our beautiful buildings to some of those who are the most lost in our society? Most definitely. Does this work, this calling make us uncomfortable. Absolutely. And yet, my brothers and sisters, this is who we are. This is what we are called to do. Listen to this story. “One year during Holy Week, a few Christians from well-endowed congregations in a major metropolitan area spent the night with homeless friends on the street. They were looking for the suffering Christ in the lives of those who spend their days and nights suffering from hunger, disease, and rejection. It was a chilly night, and rain rolled in close to midnight. Looking for shelter, the handful of travelers felt fortunate to come upon a church holding an all-night prayer vigil. The leader of the group was a pastor of one of the most respected churches in the city. As she stepped through the outer doors of the church, a security guard stopped her. She explained that she and the rest of their group were Christians. They had no place to stay and were wet and miserable, and would like to rest and pray. Enticed by the lighted warmth of the sanctuary, she had forgotten that her wet, matted hair and disheveled clothing left her looking just like another homeless person from the street. The security guard was friendly, but explained in brutal honesty, ‘I was hired to keep homeless people like you out.’ As the dejected group made their way back into the misery of the night, they knew they had found their suffering Christ, locked out of the church.”i After I wrote this sermon, I had a powerful encounter along these lines. I was here on Friday night conducting a wedding rehearsal. As we were winding down, a man who looked to be homeless wandered through our front doors. I walked up to him and introduced myself, and he told me that his name is Tim. He said to me, "As you can probably tell, I'm homeless. I often sleep in the parking garage over there. I've always wanted to see the inside of this church. It looks so beautiful from the outside. But every time I try the doors, it is locked." I told him when services are held and invited him to join us, and then I wrote the information down for him so he could remember. Much to my surprise, he showed up at our 8:00 service this morning, and as we worshiped, I saw him looking around at our beautiful space in wonder and delight. We are those people to whom Isaiah is preaching, those who are very comfortable with our worship of God in our beautiful space. We are those people who want God to show us God’s favor; we are those who get so caught up in the appearance of things that sometimes we forget the call of God to be transformed in worship that we might be the salt and light, that we might work to meet the needs of the world and to promote God’s justice and righteousness. We are called beyond our own worship of God to enact God’s compassion, to be the hands and feet and heart of God in this particular place. And what are the acts of justice and righteousness to which God is calling us? “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly….Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” And Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” May God give us the courage to follow where he has led the way through Jesus Christ, who humbled himself that we might see and know the glory and the light of God’s love and enact God’s compassion in a needy world. i. Feasting on the Word ed. Bartlett and Taylor. Year A Vol 1. Pastoral Perspective by Andrew Foster Connors. Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2010. P 318.

Epiphany 3A--sermon for Annual Parish Meeting

Epiphany 3A—Annual Parish Meeting January 26, 2013 Sometimes, when I sit down to read the lessons for the coming Sunday for the first time the week before, I think that the crafters of the lectionary are having a little joke on me. This week’s lessons about the divisions in the Corinthian church and the calling of the first four disciples by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel have much to offer us as we gather today as one parish, in one service, to do the work of our annual meeting. And strangely enough, these two very different perspectives on discipleship—one of division and one of call—have two major things in common which speak to us where we are right now as a parish. I preached last week about how Paul’s First letter to the Corinthians is a reminder to us that there has always been conflict in the life of the church, in the body of the followers of Jesus ever since we were first called together. Paul highlights that conflict this week in talking about how different factions have popped up in the church in Corinth. He writes, “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” Paul is clearly distressed by the reported conflict, and he urges them to deal with their quarrels and disputes in a meaningful and constructive way, and he reminds them of their unity in their common mission in proclaiming the gospel, pointing them toward the cross. In an unusually similar way, the gospel reading for today, which tells of the calling of Jesus to Peter, Andrew, James and John to leave their posts and their nets where they are fishing and to follow him to become “fishers for people,” points to how following the call of Jesus, being united in proclaiming the gospel can cause disruptions in our lives. This calling of Jesus created an incredible disruption in the lives of those men and in the lives of those families. (It even caused disruption in the life of Jesus, himself.) Just think of poor Zebedee, who is left with the nets and boats, as his sons leave him behind to follow Jesus. My friend, Patrick Skutch who is the rector at Christ Church in the Bay, had an interesting observation about all of this that really spoke to me about where I am in my own life and calling and where we find ourselves in the life of this parish. He writes, “…In the Scriptures, disruption seems to be one of the symptoms of God's call. Think of Moses (who had made quite a comfortable life for himself), or any of the prophets, or of Andrew and John and Simon Peter. The Kingdom of God, which Jesus proclaimed, was itself disruptive, disruptive of world views, religious assumptions, and the special interests of the ruling powers. The disruptions in our own life (some of them bewildering and incredibly painful) are not themselves necessarily God's doing (God does not, in my view, arrange suffering and pain for God's creatures), but they may be sign posts or the raw material through which God's call might emerge. Disruption does not necessarily mean calling, but call is almost always disruptive.” So are we all destined for uncomfortable lives filled with disagreements, conflict and disruptions? How is it we are called to our individual faith and following of Jesus and how is it that we are called as a people to be followers of Jesus and proclaimers of the good news? This past Wednesday, Richard Rohr wrote a daily meditation titled, “Unity, not Uniformity”, which I think gets to the heart of this issue of how we are called to follow Jesus as individuals and as his body the church. He writes, “Many teachers have made the central but oft-missed point that unity is not the same as uniformity. Unity, in fact, is the reconciliation of differences, and those differences must be maintained—and yet overcome! You must actually distinguish things and separate them before you can spiritually unite them, usually at cost to yourself (Ephesians 2:14-16). If only we had made that simple clarification, so many problems—and overemphasized, separate identities—could have moved to a much higher level of love and service. Paul already made this universal principle very clear in several of his letters. For example, ‘There are a variety of gifts, but it is always the same Spirit. There are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord, working in all sorts of different ways in different people. It is the same God working in all of them’” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). My brothers and sisters, Jesus calls John and Andrew and Peter and James to use what they already know, what they are already doing—being fishermen, catching fish---in a new and different way (catching people), in a sacrificial way, that does, in fact, disrupt their lives, but will lead them to see the face of God in the Risen Christ. He calls them to be disrupted for a time that they might be transformed! Paul reminds us that the surest way to proclaim the gospel is to use our different and varied gifts that God has already given us, and to offer them sacrificially, where it may make us a little uncomfortable, may disrupt us a little, but offer them to the glory of God. Now, what does this mean? I recently read a story about a 4 year old boy who gave his whole family Christmas gifts this past Christmas. His mother wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about what they child might be giving, but she was happy to keep him occupied wrapping the presents for a good 30 minutes. When Christmas morning arrived, the little boy handed out his four packages, which were very messily wrapped, and his mother was astonished as she watched her family open the child’s gifts. To his mother, the child gave his pair of scissors because he had heard her say that she had lost her pair and needed to buy another. To his father, the child gave a box with his favorite super hero on it so his father would have a special place to put his wallet where he wouldn’t always be misplacing it. To his younger brother the child gave a book off his own bookshelf with the brother’s favorite TV character. The boy’s mother was amazed that her child had given sacrificially out of what he already had, and that he had given things that were truly needed by the others in his family. This is how Jesus calls the disciples to give in this week’s gospel. It is how he calls us to give. How often do we give out of what’s convenient, what is left-over? When is the last time that you could say that you gave sacrificially? When was the last time that you gave something that was really and truly needed? There are countless examples of people in this parish who are doing just this…Dave Wilson, who is a licensed marriage and family counselor who is offering his new therapy ministry here at St. Peter’s; Suzi Wilson, who makes her living as a web designer and administrator, and who has designed a beautiful new website for St. Peter’s and will administrate it for us as a part of her gift to the church. Trace Cates, who is a professional baker, is going to help bake the bread for our newcomer welcome bags and maybe even make us homemade communion bread. Joy Jennings , who accepted my request and has written the prayers of the people for today and for the rest of this season after the Epiphany (and maybe beyond). For Reedie McCaughan and Judy Owenby who are our like the shoemaker’s elves of St. Peter’s in that they knit beautiful and comforting baby blankets and prayer blankets and shawls that then just appear in the cupboard back there. And so many more, too many to name you all…who freely offer your gifts, who walk into my office and say, “I’d like to do this”…and countless untold others who readily answer the call when asked. This is what unites us—in the midst of our diversity. It is that fact that we have all been called by Jesus to use what God has given us to proclaim the good news of God’s love in this place. This is what we are going to focus on this year. This is the truly the mission of the church. My single goal this year is to say yes to your gifts as often as I can. If enough of us give out of this place of sacrifice, giving what we are already doing, but offering it in a new and different way, then we will continue to flourish and thrive. “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” “And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

2nd Sunday after the Epiphany Year A

The 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany Year A January 19, 2014 If we ever longed to return to the golden days of the early church, when all churches were at peace and in perfect unity, Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth quickly disabuses us of that naïve notion. In fact, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians has much to teach us today about how to deal with conflict in the church. In today’s epistle reading, we see the opening part of the letter where Paul uses the traditional opening format of his time to set the tone and to begin to address the fighting he has learned about in the community at Corinth. He has heard from Chloe’s people that they have divided up into factions; he has received a report of their acceptance of sexual immorality; and he has received a letter detailing problems of communal life. Despite his having spent 18 months with them, teaching the Corinthians about how to form a Christian community of diverse people, even Paul’s own authority is being called into question at this point in the life of the church. So at this point in the letter, the beginning, Paul is getting geared up to roll up his sleeves and let them have it. But this introduction to the letter sets the tone for how he is going to go about addressing the differences that can be most instructive to us. First, he opens with his own credentials: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God….” But then he quickly follows up with their own identity: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” Note that Paul never refers to a saint in the singular. He never talks about a saint as an individual Christian. He always talks about saints plural, saints communal. We are saints in a common vocation, a shared gift; united together in the fact that we all are called by God. And he reminds the church at Corinth that they are not an isolated cell of followers of Jesus. They are connected, in and through their calling, to all followers of Jesus Christ in every place and time. He then goes on to offer thanksgiving for them, and he roots that thanksgiving in the fact that God has already bestowed upon them grace, given them everything that they need. No amount of division or discord or disunity can undermine this work of God that God has already been doing and God continues to work through them. They are a diverse group of people who have been brought together in and through God’s call, and it is God’s call that unifies and unites them-- much like we see happening in the gospel reading for today. We see a sort of magnetism that happens between Jesus and Andrew and the other disciple. And it is so powerful that all Jesus has to say is “Come and see” and a process of discipleship begins that will change the world. Andrew goes to his brother Peter and says, “You have got to come see this,” and their lives are transformed irrevocably from that point on. They become knit together, joined with others who have also been called by Jesus to follow the way of discipleship. So what does all this mean for us? I thought perhaps the best way I could communicate that to you today is to write you an introduction to a letter, much like what we have from Paul today. So here goes: Melanie, called to be a priest of Christ Jesus by the will of God and with support of God’s church and our brother Scott, To the church of God that is found in St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, Gulfport, to those who have been called here by Jesus in a variety of ways, called to be saints together and united with all those around the world and throughout time who also call on the name of God. Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God for you always because of the grace that God has given you in Christ Jesus. You have been given so many gifts to you all together by God, and I see the fruits of these gifts at work every single day in our life together. I am thankful that God has given you a spirit that is reflective of the space in which we worship together: open, light, welcoming to all. I am thankful that God has given you the gift of hospitality—of making things beautiful and inviting. I am thankful that God has given you the gift of creativity, that we might be co-creators with God in creating new ideas, new things. I am thankful that God has given you the gift of generosity of spirit, most especially in the face of an identified need. These gifts have been given by God not to individuals but to us all together as a whole. And the gifts that God has given you are and will always be more than enough to do what God calls you to do. Everything you need to be St. Peter’s has already been given to you by God, and no amount of conflict or discord or individual or small group discontent can diminish the gifts that have been given to this body as a whole by God, nor can it diminish the ministry to which God has called us as a whole. I am also thankful for you because you help me live and grow into my own vocation as a priest—loving people in ways that I would have never imagined, dealing with challenges that I would have never anticipated, dwelling in the holy places and in the ordinary ones and seeing God there with you. We, like the church in Corinth and like any other church that has come since and will come, are not perfect. We have our problems. And yet, as the philosopher Erasmus wrote to Martin Luther about his decision to stay with the Roman Catholic church in the midst of the Reformation: “Therefore, I will put up with this church until I see a better one..and it will have to put up with me, until I become better.”1 My brothers and sisters, above all, I give thanks to God that our unity is found in Jesus Christ and in his common call. Our unity is found in the acceptance of the invitation to “Come and see,” which orients our lives beyond our own self-interests and desires toward God, the body of Christ, and something so much richer and fuller and deeper than our own little lives. A unity that is grounded in that common call will not be undermined by our divisions or conflicts or heartbreaks. May God give us the grace to live more fully into this call together this year—a call to exist not so much for ourselves but for others. May God strengthen us to that end so that we might live more fully into this fellowship with Jesus Christ to which we have been called. 1.as quoted by Dan Clendin in his essay for this Sunday on his blog Journey with Jesus.

1st Sunday after Epiphany--The Baptism of our Lord

1st Sunday after Epiphany Year A—Baptism of our Lord January 12, 2014 This past week, I was privileged to do some of the most challenging and the most rewarding work that I get to do at the diocesan level. I participated in the Commission on Ministry’s discernment committee for people who are discerning a call to the priesthood. The discernment committee, which is a close-knit group with a very high level of trust and relationship, met with the aspirants over the course of 24 hours and spent time listening to their stories and the bits of their lives that they shared with us. I was asked to preach at the opening Eucharist on Tuesday morning, and we used the readings for Epiphany, that we heard here last Sunday. I shared with the group one of my favorite Epiphany-themed poems—T.S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi” which is a poem in which the Magi-narrator talks about the difficulties of the journey they faced in following the star: “A cold coming we had of it, [he begins] Just the worst time of year For a journey, and such a long journey… The Magi-narrator goes on to talk about the difficulties of the journey, the memories—both beautiful and bitter-sweet of all the times they spent at their summer palaces—of the people they have left behind… At the end [he continues] we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches With the voices singing in our ears saying That this was all folly.” He continues by saying that what they actually found at the end of the journey was “(you might say) satisfactory.” But the closing stanza is what really speaks to me. “All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.” Today on this First Sunday after the Epiphany, we celebrate the baptism of our Lord. Matthew is very clear that Jesus’s baptism is the beginning or the birth of his public ministry, but Jesus’s baptism is also the beginning or the birth of his path toward his death. When we baptize people, we lift up this reality that we are baptizing them into Jesus’s death and his resurrection. We say, “We thank you, Father, for the water of baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” In our baptism and over and over again in the renewal of our baptismal vows, we remember the connectedness of birth and death, and we are mindful of how they often look quite similar. In some ways we see this connectedness at work in the life of the parish—in what feels like death of old familiar ways, of expectations and how birth of something completely new is coming out of that. It is true that death is terrifying, a hard and bitter agony, and yet, there is so much more waiting on the other side of it. We see this in our spiritual lives and in our lives in general if we take the time to look and examine—how death often looks like birth and birth often looks like death. My family stands at this cross-roads as my husband prepares to move to Hawaii for a three-four month interim at St. George’s Honolulu. It is the birth of something new and exciting vocationally for him which we all support and give thanks for. But is also the death of something very comfortable and familiar, at least for the time being, as the children and I will continue our lives here. Many of you I have talked to are dealing with this spiritually as well. It is in the restlessness you feel in your souls, a call by God that something may need to die in order for there to be new life, new birth. I invite you all to take some time this week to reflect prayerfully on this. What in your life, in your soul is happening that teeters on the fine line between birth and death? How might God be calling you to let go of that which is dying so that you can embrace the new life that comes with birth? How might it be that the birth of something deeper actually feels like a death? Have you given yourself the time and the space to acknowledge and to grieve that death? This is what happens to us in the waters of our baptism. This is what can happen to us every time we renew our baptism covenant—this surrendering to death so that we may discover birth; this looking for birth which leads us to death. Remember this today as we once again reaffirm the promises we have made. Say them with an invitation to God and an openness that welcomes both death and birth. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.”

Epiphany 2014 sermon for Presbyter's Discernment Committee of the COM and Aspirants

Epiphany—transferred Presbyter’s Discernment Committee Eucharist, Gray Center January 7, 2014 A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of year For a journey, and such a long journey… So begins T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Journey of the Magi,” but the words ring true for us here this morning. The Magi-narrator goes on to talk about the difficulties of the journey, the memories—both beautiful and bitter-sweet of all the times they spent at their summer palaces—of the people they have left behind… “At the end [he continues] we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches With the voices singing in our ears saying That this was all folly.” He then goes on to tell what they finally find—a temperate valley…three threes low on the sky “and arriving at evening , not a moment too soon finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.” He concludes, “All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.” This poem speaks to me of the work of discernment that we do over the course of our lifetimes. We search and we listen for God’s call on our journey, in and through our prayers, in and through our community. Sometimes we hear and know it with such clarity that it is unmistakably a birth. But much of the time it is an uncovering, a gradual revelation, a stripping away of our own expectations. Much of the time, it is difficult to tell the difference between birth and death in God’s call to us. Much of the time—it is both. What do you think that means? I invite you to close your eyes and reflect on your life, your call. How has God’s call seemed to you like a birth? How has it seemed like a death? What is the hard and bitter agony in heeding God’s call? How is it all—birth, death, and call—all one in the same? How is it that the kings go home to an alien people? What has been your experience of that? “All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.”