18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23A: On Family Feuds

18th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 23A October 12, 2014 Even amidst all the joy and celebration and new life in this place over the last couple of weeks, I have really struggled in one area of my life. That has been in watching, from afar, as my beloved General Seminary holds a very messy, very public fight between the faculty (many of whom taught me and helped form and shape me as a priest) and the dean, who was a friend and classmate of mine and the board (many of whom I also know and respect). A couple of weeks ago, 8 faculty went on strike and refused to continue teaching or worshipping in the chapel until they could have a meeting with certain members of the board. Their letter stated that they were unable to continue to work with the dean. The board interpreted their letter as letters of resignation and has since discontinued their pay and their health insurance. It has been a very public, very nasty fight with articles written about it in Huff Post, NY Times, and countless blog postings in church circles. Everybody and their brother has an opinion about what is going on at General; most are very vocal about picking sides. What is, perhaps, most painful to me, is the very public nature of this family fight. Imagine that kind of public scrutiny if you were to have a fight with your spouse or partner, your child, your best friend! It would be untenable. Our gospel reading for today, yet another challenging parable, is another example of this very public, very nasty family fight. In this part of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is in the temple, and he is very intentionally ruffling the feathers of the religious authorities. His parables are drawing lines in the sand between those who are in and those who are out, and he is telling those who think they are in, that is not the case. In the community to which Matthew is writing, there is also a great deal of family fighting going on. Matthew’s community, which is primarily Jewish, is trying to find its way in and among its Jewish tradition, and we see some of the drama and conflict that is going on in the community at that time coming out as a part of the agenda of this particular series of parables. Also, there is the way that Christians have used this parable over the years to promote anti-semitism—another public family feud that has lasted across the centuries. Then there is yet another family feud going on in the church in Phillippi that Paul addresses in our epistle reading for today. He writes of two women, Euodia and Syntyche, who are embroiled in some conflict, and he asks that they be “of the same mind.” And he asks a particular person, whom he calls his “loyal companion” to help them work out their differences. I will confess that it has been difficult for me to find the good news in the midst of all these stories of conflict this week. But then I ran across an alternate reading of the parable in Matthew’ gospel for today. Some scholars posit that Jesus’s and Matthew’s listeners to this parable would know immediately that the story refers to an actual earthly king, one of the Herods, who attacked Jerusalem in an attempt to seize power from its rightful ruler, so that the original listeners would never equate the king in the parable with God, as some of our modern interpretations are wont to do. These scholars also posit that the comparison with the Kingdom of God comes in the form of the ill-dressed wedding guest (who is a figure similar to the suffering servant figure depicted in Isaiah) who is mistreated terrible by the harsh king/earthly authorities and does not speak once in his own defense. I’m not particularly satisfied with this interpretation of the parable, but because we read it in the context of Philippians today, at whose heart we know dwells that beautiful, ancient hymn to Christ, I think it does give us a glimpse of good news. The hymn to Christ that is found at the heart of Philippians was our epistle reading two weeks ago: “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This ancient hymn to Christ that is the heart of Paul’s letter to the Philippians celebrates and reminds us of Christ’s self-emptying, Christ’s way of humility. And it reminds us that as his disciples, we are called to emulate it, to put on the garb of humility, to walk the way of self-emptying love. Now, we all know good and well that when we are embroiled in family fights (or arguments of any kind), then humility is that last posture that most of us adopt. It is completely self-defeating. And yet, that may very well be what this parable is telling us that the Kingdom of God calls us to. More and more people in the life of the church, in the life of families, in the life of institutions, get mad and leave. My dear ones, that is not the way of Jesus. Bearing with one another, walking the way of Jesus Christ, means putting on the garb of humility, staying at the table with the one with whom we disagree. It means accepting Paul’s invitation to let our gentleness (rather than our righteousness) be shown. I invite you to reflect upon whether there is a conflict in your family, your work, your church or otherwise, in which you are embroiled where God is calling you to walk the way of discipleship by following Jesus’s way of humility? If this question makes you feel a nudge of discomfort, then I urge you to spend some time with the hymn to Christ in Philippians this week—it’s chapter 2 verses 1-13 --and pray that God may help you follow this way set forth by Jesus. Let us pray. Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

15th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 20A

15th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 20A September 21, 2014 “It just isn’t fair!” How many times did I utter those words as a child? Often, it was when I was faced with something that one of my brothers got to do or have that I did not. And every time I would utter my complaint to my parents-- “It just isn’t fair!”--you know what my parents would respond? “Life isn’t fair.” Let me just tell you, there’s no more effective way to shut down that fairness conversation (I know, I’ve used it with my own kids before) because even as children we have witnessed and experienced the unfairness of life. We have two different stories today that give us similar glimpses of the nature of God and God’s kingdom and similar glimpses of the nature of our humanity. In both of these stories, the people complain to God (or the landowner), “It just isn’t fair!” and God’s response is even more shocking to us than the one that we parents usually employ. In the gospel parable for today and in the story from Exodus, we see the contrast between the generosity, the providence of God and the grumbling of God’s people in the face of that generosity. The Children of Israel have just been rescued from slavery in Egypt, and almost immediately, they begin complaining [say in an angry, whiny voice], “"If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." “It’s not fair!” they complain. We could have just stayed in Egypt where we were miserable but at least we knew what to expect. But you know what? God doesn’t say to Moses, “Life isn’t fair; I saved them from slavery and now those whiners are on their own.” Instead God says to Moses, “OK, fine. I’ll give them two square meals a day, which is more than they were able to scrounge when they were slaves in Egypt being forced to make bricks without even straw. And you tell them that they shall have their fill of bread—an abundance of food in the wilderness. And in and through my generosity, you will know my glory.” In the parable, Jesus starts out by saying “the kingdom of God is like a landowner…” He then proceeds to tell the story of a group of day laborers (a really tenuous position in which to be in that world) who are unemployed and who become employed for the day by the landowner. As those laborers work, the landowner keeps going back and hiring other unemployed people to work in his vineyard, until he even finds some near the end of the day and invites them to come work. At the end of the work day, the landowner goes to pay the workers, and he pays everyone the same amount, the amount that he agreed to pay those who worked the entire day. Those workers who labored the entire day complain: “It isn’t fair that those who came late received the same amount that we did!” The landowner answers them, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” And Jesus closes the parable by saying for the third time in Matthew’s gospel, “And the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” Both groups—the children of Israel and the day laborers in the parable—all have so much to be grateful for. The children of Israel are saved by God once again; the day laborers have had meaningful work all day for which they have been paid an honest wage. And yet, they all are stuck in this mentality of fairness and entitlement—because that’s really what we mean when we say, “That’s not fair,” right? We are saying that we think we are entitled to something that we think we aren’t getting… They are so envious of God’s goodness to others that they are unable to be grateful for God’s goodness to them. And most of us can relate to that. Someone once wrote, “This parable lays before each and all of us a choice that is as clear as can be. When we look at our lives, do we count our blessings or our misfortunes? Do we pay attention to the areas of plenty in our lives or what we perceive we lack? Do we live by gratitude or envy? Do we look to others in solidarity and compassion or see them only as competition? The killer thing about this choice is that it really is a choice as unavoidable as it is simple—you just can’t be grateful and envious at the same time. So which is it going to be?” (David Lose workingpreacher.org2011) (Hand out index cards here) So here’s what we’re going to do today. We are going to make our choice for how we want to live this week. Do we choose to be grateful? Or do we choose to be envious or entitled? The ushers are going around, and I want each person to get two index cards. On the first index card, I want you to write something for which you are grateful, in your life or someone else’s. Now I want you to write on the second card some grudge or resentment that you hold in your heart, something that you believe that you lack, something of which you are envious, or something to which you feel that you are entitled that you have not received. Once you are finished, hold each card facedown in each hand. Notice how physically the two cards weigh the same, but spiritually one of the two cards is weighing you down, weighing your heart down with unhappiness and bitterness while the other fills your heart with joy and hope. Today you have a choice as to which of those two cards you will hold onto. We’re going to pass the collection plates now, as I finish the sermon, and you can choose which one of the two cards you keep to carry out of here with you for the rest of the week and which one you will let go of. The one you let go of, no one will see, but I encourage you to put the one you keep someplace so you can see it throughout the week. But you can’t keep both of them at the same time because you can’t really be envious or entitled and grateful at the same time. You have to choose how you’re going to be. Which will you choose to carry with you to God’s altar and out into the world with you today—envy and entitlement or gratitude?

14th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 19A

14th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 19A September 14, 2014 Today’s gospel is the beginning of a long string of challenging parables that we will encounter through our lectionary over the next few weeks. Our parable today begins with Peter’s question to Jesus about how many times he should forgive someone in the church who has sinned against him. When Peter answers his own question by asking if 7 times is enough, 7 being a holy number, he is basically asking, “Must I practice perfect forgiveness?” And Jesus answers that his forgiveness must be beyond perfect, beyond counting. Those who read and preach on this parable find ourselves wrestling with many questions: is God’s forgiveness of us conditional upon our forgiveness of others? What does healthy, unconditional forgiveness look like in Christian community? What does this shocking parable say about the nature of God and about God’s grace? My dear ones, I do not have the answers to those questions. But I do have another parable I’d like to share with you this morning. This story is written by a woman named Naiomi Shihab Nye, who is a poet and storyteller. I encountered this story on Parker Palmer’s blog post titled Five Simple Things to Reweave Our Civic Community which he posted on the onbeing.org blog on September 11th. Gate 4-A from "Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose" “Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been detained four hours, I heard an announcement: "If anyone in the vicinity of Gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately." Well — one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. "Help," said the Flight Service Person. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this." I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke to her haltingly. "Shu dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?" The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, "You’re fine, you’ll get there, who is picking you up? Let’s call him." We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride next to her — Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies — little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts — out of her bag — and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo — we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving us all apple juice and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend — by now we were holding hands — had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate — once the crying of confusion stopped — seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.” The important thing about Jesus’s parable for us today is that it is not addressed to individuals. It is set in the context of Matthew’s gospel, and in the way that Peter, himself, asks the question, in the context of the church—the community of faith. It is as if Jesus is creating a shocking, hyperbolic scenario to set us up. It is address to people who should know the source and reality of forgiveness, and it is almost as if Jesus is saying to Peter, to us, “How could you ask such a stupid question?” Because as Jesus continues to teach, as Nye’s parable shows us, it isn’t so much about forgiveness and about its role in Christian community (and in the community of the world at large). It is about grace. It isn’t about getting hung up on all the little details of our life together; it is about inviting each other (and others beyond our walls) into dwelling more fully into this mystery that is the Grace of God’s love as made present in Jesus Christ and given to us over and over again through the tickling breath of the Holy Spirit. Just a little something to remember—that is to look around at each other and find ourselves smiling and all covered in holy powdered sugar from the sacrament we receive here today; that forgiveness is the plant that keeps us rooted together in God’s grace. May the spirit of God empower us so that we may work together to create this community as one that makes manifest the Grace of God. May we go forth into the world and make it so.

13th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 18A

13th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 18A September 7, 2014 Beginning today and for the next 40 days, you are invited to join with me and the Vestry in the ancient practice of lectio divina. Lectio divina is the reading of scripture in a spirit of prayer, and one modern monastic writes of it: “Lectio divina…is the art of making the transition from a biblical text to our life. Because it helps us make this transition, lectio divina is a precious tool that can help us bridge the gulf we often observe in our churches between faith and life, spirituality and daily existence. It… leads us, first, to turn our gaze toward Christ and search for him through the biblical page, and then to place our own existence in dialogue with the revealed presence of Christ and find our daily life illuminated, filled with new light.”i Your vestry and I spent 40 days this past Lent in a committed rhythm of lectio divina. We all found that it greatly enriched our spiritual lives and helped us to grow in the knowledge and love of God. It was their desire to help make this process available to you, so we have complied 40 days worth of scripture and meditations that the members of the vestry have written, and we invite you to join us in taking up this practice of lectio divina for the next 40 days. For the sermon today, I’m going to walk you through an exercise in lectio divina, so that you may know how to do it. First, open with some silence or a short prayer. One of my favorite prayers is a variation on the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world. Fill my mind with your peace and my heart with your love.” (I’ll give you a moment to do that.) Second, you read the designated piece of scripture aloud for the first time. Then spend a few moments in silence reflecting on the passage. Romans 13:8-14 “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (silence) What word or phrase strikes you? Hold that word or phrase in your mind as you spend a few moments in quiet reflection. Now read the Scripture passage aloud a second time, holding in mind the word or phrase that struck you when you first read it. What might God be saying to you through this word or phrase? Spend a few minutes in quiet reflection. “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (silence) Read the scripture passage aloud a third and final time. How might God be calling you to act through the word or phrase that first struck you? How might you respond to this call? “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (silence) Sit with the Scripture passage for another moment in quiet reflection and thanksgiving. Then you may close with a final prayer. We invite you to join us in walking this way of lectio divina over these next 40 days. The Vestry meditations were emailed out on Friday; they be available on our website at www.stpetersbts.org (and there are a few hard copies in the back for those without internet); and a supplement to this process is found in the Called to Life participant’s guide from the Collegeville Institute that we will be using for small group discussions and support on Wednesdays and Sundays beginning this Wednesday and next Sunday. (There will be a link to that on our website which was also emailed out on Friday and there are also a few hard copies available in the back.) Let us close with a prayer. This is the collect for Proper 28 found in the Prayer Book on page 236. Let us pray. Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. i. Bianchi, Enzo. Echoes of the Word. Parclete: Brewster, 2013. p69

Why I won't do the ALS Icebucket challenge, but I will let my daughter....

I've been watching as more and more of my friends post videos of themselves dumping buckets of ice water over their heads in efforts to raise money and awareness for the disease ALS. I will admit that I have been somewhat disdainful of the phenomenon. Don't get me wrong: ALS is truly a terrible disease, and I'm sure folks with ALS and those researching it are thankful for all the exposure and the money that is being raised. But I personally don't like being peer-pressured into jumping on the ALS bandwagon. My husband David and I have a number of charitable organizations that we already support, and that is something that I enjoy doing--giving money to people to help in their endeavors. In fact, I see it as a part of our own stewardship and the giving of our resources back to God through organizations that seek to do good in the world in a variety of ways. Then I was challenged by three different clergy colleagues to do the ALS ice bucket challenge. Truly, I was just going to ignore you all, but then my 10 year old daughter came home saying that she really wanted to do it. My first thought was "Aha! A proxy for me!" But we began to have a conversation about it. I asked her why she wanted to do it, and she could not really answer that other than "everybody else is doing it." So I made her do research on ALS, which she did. She came back to me and told me what she had learned, and she said she wanted to do it and to give them a donation from her own savings. It was then that we had a real conversation about peer pressure, how it can be used and for ill, and how it's always important to make informed decisions about things rather than just doing them because everyone else is doing them. I felt good about her decision, and so I dumped a bucket of ice water on her head. (That was actually really fun!) But I'm still not joining the ALS icebucket challenge. I'm glad you all are doing it and that you have found some way to give to something beyond yourselves that you think is important. But for me, dumping a bucket of ice water on myself isn't much of a sacrifice, nor does it have much meaning (although I'm sure my children would think it would be fun to watch). Instead, I have signed up to give blood in a blood drive this Friday for the American Red Cross. I understand that there is a blood shortage, and giving blood is a way that I can give of myself, my time (one of the hardest things for me to part with), and to help save lives. In the meantime, you can see the video of my daughter doing the ice bucket challenge posted on my Facebook page, but we won't be tagging anyone to carry on after us.

11th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 16A

11th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 16A August 24, 2014 So many people are deeply unhappy. They walk around under this cloak of quietly burdened misery. Maybe they’re unhappy in their jobs or their lack of a job? Maybe they’re unhappy in their relationship (or lack of a relationship)? Maybe they’re unhappy under the stress of all that they have to do or that they don’t have enough to do? Maybe they’re unhappy because their health is failing? Maybe they’re unhappy because of regrets about the past? Maybe they’re unhappy because their hopes for the future continue to be frustrated? So many of us are deeply unhappy. In the gospel reading for today, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter, always impetuous, jumps out there on his own, and he takes a risk in his faith, in his relationship with Jesus. “You are the Messiah,” he proclaims boldly, even if he doesn’t really know or understand what that means. Peter’s story is an incredible story because it is a story of transformation. And in this moment in this gospel, we see that Peter has been and will continue to be so transformed that Jesus gives him a new name, a new identity. (We saw a similar thing occur several weeks ago when we read the story of Jacob wrestling with God.) And that is really what faith and relationship with God is all about—transformation. God loves us too much to let us stay in our same old worn out and broken lives. But transformation is scary. It’s risky. I don’t think it’s something that most of us naturally seek out. It often comes about in the crucible of hardship. And I think sometimes, we resist the transformation of God’s love into something deeper and fuller and richer in our lives, because we are afraid. We don’t like change. What’s the saying? “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t..” And our playing it safe, resisting the transforming power of God’s love makes us unhappy. When is the last time, do you think, that you risked something in your faith, in your relationship with God? The thing about transformation is that it is not an end unto itself. Paul writes that we become transformed so that we can seek to discern the will of God. That’s the goal of transformation, the object of faith—to seek to discern the will of God. When is the last time that you sought to discern the will of God in your life, in your particular situation or relationship? Take a minute and ask yourself if you spend much of your life these days being unhappy? Might it be because of your answer to my previous question? We do not have to be unhappy. So much of unhappiness in people of faith is because 1.we actively resist transformation and 2. We do not seek to discern the will of God. Now, hear me carefully. Even if we do these things, it does not mean that we will always be happy. But it does mean that we will know and experience both joy and peace. I spent part of this past week at Gray Center with the Commission on Ministry, and one conversation that I had with a friend about happiness stuck with me. My friend was talking about how their family had vacationed at Walt Disney World this summer for the first time. He had resisted it for the much of his child’s life, but finally the whole family went. And he said it was the first time in a long time where he spent five days and was purely, utterly happy. He talked about how people would spontaneously break out into song in the streets ("it was like living in a musical"), and how he and his wife (perhaps jokingly) wanted to come up with some way to make their church services like that—to transport people to a place of happiness, out of the world, out of the cares and concerns of our lives for at least the time that they are at church Sunday morning. Wouldn’t that be awesome?! But what if we didn’t need the church or our Sunday morning worship to escape the cares of our real, everyday lives? What if we allowed ourselves to become so transformed, so in tune with discerning the will of God that Sunday became a time to feed our joy? So where do we start if we recognize that we are stuck, mired down in unhappiness? First, we have to recognize that we are unhappy, and we have to get to the point as they say in 12 steps recovery where we are “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Then we begin to do the difficult work of recognizing how we have become conformed to this world and embracing the process of being transformed to discern the will of God. For most of us, this is work that cannot be done alone. We walk this way with spiritual directors, with conversations with clergy or close friends who are already deeply committed to the spiritual life. We do this work with good therapists. I have watched as Dave Wilson has walked with many of you and helped you in this process of discerning God’s will through seeking health and wholeness in your lives. And when you are willing to do the work, I am amazed at how the results of good therapy seem to border on the miraculous! If you are feeling physically unwell, then go to your doctor and demand that she or he help figure out what is wrong. The most important part, I think, is being willing to risk by listening to your own life, what it is telling you and how God is speaking to you in and through that. As I returned from sabbatical, I realized two very important things. First, judging by the amount that I slept while on sabbatical, I was incredibly sleep deprived. Second, in my unhappiness at my husband’s absence and in other things, I had not been taking care of myself. In fact, I was overusing both food and alcohol—being conformed to this world—in efforts to assuage my loneliness. Back to school time is a time in our culture which is filled with hope. It is a time when we eagerly anticipate fresh starts, a time ripe for making changes and being transformed. You do not have to continue to be unhappy. If you are willing and ready, God will transform you with the help of this community and others. Let us pray. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us, O God, that we may be made uneasy within the comfort of our lives and that we might be emboldened like Peter, to proclaim you as Messiah of our lives and our world. Help us to not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed that we may discern and fulfill your will. Amen.

10th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 15A

10th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 15A August 17, 2014 It’s so good to be back with you! I had a wonderfully refreshing sabbatical, these past 8 weeks. I really enjoyed the gift of time to be with my family in a very intentional way (that I have never experienced before), and I return to you refreshed and energized and hopeful about our life together. While on sabbatical, one of the things that I did was to disconnect from a lot of what has been going on in the world. I didn’t really watch the news and only checked on social media occasionally. I’ve really enjoyed catching up with those of you I have seen and learning what’s been going on in your lives these past two months. But is has been a bit of a shock to my system this past week, in getting reconnected with the world around me—mainly through media and social media. As I’m sure you all know the internet has been abuzz this week with the news of Robin Williams’ suicide. His death was shocking and so deeply tragic. It seems that everyone has something to say (or write) about it. His poor daughter has been under attack, and others are adamant that this is the perfect time to raise awareness about mental illness and depression. Having been disconnected for a bit and then coming back into it all at this particular moment in time, I am struck by the stubbornness that colors much of the writings and postings about Williams’ death. Each person with a position is so very sure he or she is right, and then someone else comes along to argue. I was somewhat dismayed to discover some of this stubbornness in the gospel reading for today. Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman, and she starts shouting at him to heal her daughter. Jesus doesn’t answer her (it reminds me of what I do when my children are asking me for something I don’t want to do—I try to act like I don’t hear them and maybe they’ll get tired and go do something else). But she just keeps yelling at Jesus and his disciples until finally Jesus has a conversation with her. Both of them seem to be stubbornly dug in to their positions—Jesus isn’t going to heal her daughter and she isn’t going away before she gets what she knows he can give --until suddenly something shifts. And Jesus recognizes the woman’s great faith and gives her what she demands—healing for her daughter. We see stubbornness at work in the other readings for today as well. Joseph stubbornly forgives his brothers after they have sold him into slavery in Egypt, and he is able to step back from his own individual circumstances and suffering and to recognize God’s fulfillment of salvation for God’s people—“what you meant for evil God meant for good”. And then Paul gives us a glimpse of the stubbornness of God when he writes, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” God’s people will always be God’s people, no matter what. And it’s comforting and hopeful to say and believe that God is going to redeem it all—our stubbornness, the suffering, the brokenness, the mean-spirited comments, those whom we have loved and lost to mental illness, depression, suicide. But what are we supposed to do in the meantime? What does it mean to have faith like the Canaanite woman? Faith like Joseph? Faith like Paul? What does that actually look like in our lives and in our world? I want to share with you two different things that I read this week that have spoken to me about stubbornness and about faith and about the long arc of salvation—where I have found the good news to be this week in the midst of tumultuous public conversation and a challenging gospel story. First, from SSJE-Brother, give us a word. Faith by Brother Mark Brown. “God’s vision of the new heaven and new earth actually needs the engine of our discontent, our dissatisfaction. We tend to see the individual brush strokes rather than the sweep of the whole canvas. But the eyes of faith begin to see the long arc. The eyes of faith even begin to understand how not only vague discontent but even suffering and anguish are part of this larger process.” This is what Joseph is doing in the Genesis reading for today when he is able to offer generously to his brothers both forgiveness and their place in long of arc of God’s redemption of us all. Second, a blog post by author and sociologist Brene' Brown posted this week. “Choose Courage”. "When confronted with news of a stranger’s unimaginable pain – a suicide, an overdose, a protest for justice and basic dignity – we have two choices: We can choose to respond from fear or we can choose courage. We can choose to believe that we are somehow insulated from the realities of these traumas and that our willpower or our strength of character makes us better than these displays of desperation and woundedness. When we seek shelter in the better than – safer than – different than thinking, we are actually choosing fear and that requires us to self-protect and arm ourselves with judgment and self-righteousness. Our only other option is to choose courage. Rather than deny our vulnerability, we lean into both the beauty and agony of our shared humanity. Choosing courage does not mean that we’re unafraid, it means that we are brave enough to love despite the fear and uncertainty…. The courageous choice also does not mean abandoning accountability – it simply means holding ourselves accountable first. If we are people of faith, we hold ourselves accountable for living that faith by practicing grace and bringing healing. If we consider ourselves to be smart and curious, it means seeking greater understanding. If we consider ourselves to be loving, it means acting with compassion. It’s difficult to respond to the tragedies of strangers – even those we think we know – because we will never have access to the whole truth. In the absence of information, we make up stories, stories that often turn out to be our own biographies, not theirs. Our choices have consequences: They make the world a more dangerous place or they cultivate peace. Fear and judgment deepen our collective wounds. That rare mix of courage and compassion is the balm that brings global healing. We have two choices. Let’s choose courage. Let’s choose to love despite the fear.”i In this world of individual opinions and judgments run rampant in the public, one of the most faithful things that we can do is to examine our own stubbornness when it comes to judging others. When we find ourselves slipping into thinking that we are better than, safer than, different than, someone else and thus arming ourselves with self-righteousness and judgment, we are invited to take a step back and do some self-examination. We can ask ourselves: What is it that makes me afraid in this situation? What are the assumptions that I am making about this person, this group that may be colored by my own story, my own prejudices? What might it be like for me to be vulnerable to this other person’s suffering and brokenness? How am I called to be true to my faith in this relationship? How might I practice grace and bring healing? How might I see greater understanding? How might I practice compassion? How might God be calling me to participate in God’s saving work by choosing courage? i. http://brenebrown.com/2014/08/14/choose-courage/