So, what do you want to be anyway? Sermon for The Sunday after All Saints

The Sunday after All Saints November 2, 2014 I don’t usually title my sermons, but today is a special day, this Sunday after All Saints—one of the 7 major feasts days in our Episcopal Church calendar. Today, you actually get a title: “So, what do you want to be, anyway?” I want to share with you a story. It is written by Thomas Merton in his book The Seven Story Mountain, and interestingly enough, while not considered to be a saint in his own Roman Catholic tradition, Merton is commemorated in our new calendar for lesser feasts called Holy Women Holy Men. We remember Thomas Merton as a saint on December 10th. Merton writes, I forget what we were arguing about, but in the end Lax suddenly turned around and asked me the question: “What do you want to be, anyway?” I could not say, “I want to be Thomas Merton the well-known writer of all those book reviews in the back pages of the Times Book Review,” or “Thomas Merton the assistant instructor of Freshman English at the New Life Social Institute for Progress and Culture,” so I put the thing on the spiritual plane, where I knew it belonged and said: “I don’t know; I guess what I want is to be a good Catholic.” “What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic?” The explanation I gave was lame enough, and expressed my confusion, and betrayed how little I had really thought about it at all. Lax did not accept it. “What you should say” – he told me – “what you should say is that you want to be a saint.” A saint! The thought struck me as a little weird. I said: “How do you expect me to become a saint?” “By wanting to,” said Lax simply. “I can’t be a saint,” I said, “I can’t be a saint.” And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility which makes men say that they cannot do the things that they must do, cannot reach the level that they must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin,” but which means, by those words: “I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments.” So, what do you want to be, anyway? On this Sunday after All Saints, we have a relatively new tradition that we uphold. (It’s now a tradition because we did it this way last year…) After the homily today, you will be invited to come forward, if you desire, to light a candle. While you light this candle, I ask that you remember by name, either silently before God or as a whisper, the people who have been the saints in your life—all those who have come before you in the faith, those who showed us how to walk the way of Jesus in deliberately giving up our sins and attachments. As we do this, we will quietly sing many peoples’ favorite All Saints’ song—I sing a song of the saints of God(293), and we are mindful that at the end of each stanza, each of us will proclaim our intent that “I mean to be one too.” So let’s just say that’s what we want: we want to be a saint. How on earth do we do that? What does it mean or look like to follow what Merton says that in being a saint, we must live our lives in a way that means we are intentionally trying to give up our sins and attachments? The life of a saint is actually a life of paradox. That’s what Jesus is hinting at in the gospel reading for today as we listen to the Beatitudes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Did you know that the word that is translated as “blessed” can also be translated as happy? “Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted….” The life of faith that Jesus proclaims is a paradox. And here’s the thing about paradox. Truly giving up our sins and attachments doesn’t happen when we try harder, (much to the dismay of this first-born, over-achiever who secretly believes anything can be attained if I just work a little harder—even sainthood). The life of the saint is actually achieved in and through surrender to God. Only then do we relinquish our sins and our attachments. So, how do we do that? How do we more fully live into that paradox? This past week, a friend told me about a sociological study that she had encountered. The report of the study is called The Paradox of Generosity. I didn’t have time to read the results of the whole study, but I did read the executive summary which hits the high points. This book is interesting because it looks at the science of generosity. It is written about the findings of a national study of two thousand Americans in 2010. The researchers examining the data then analyzed it through four-hour interview sessions with forty carefully chosen households. The book begins by defining generosity as “the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.” They continue that generosity is “a learned trait that involves attitudes and actions…[and ] is ultimately an expression of love.” I was struck by that because it is the overwhelming impression that I have of the lives of all those I consider to be saints—this attitude of giving generously as an expression of love. The study uses five measures of well-being to answer the main question: Is greater generosity, measured in various ways, positively associated with well-being? The five measures of well-being are happiness, bodily health, purpose in living, avoidance of depression, and interest in personal growth. The study also looks at various areas for generosity: voluntary financial giving, volunteering, relational generosity, and neighborly generosity. The study found that those who would self-identify as very happy people are also people who are very generous (according to the criteria set by the study); the study pointed out that the happiest people are those who give away 10% of their income; and conversely those who consider themselves to be somewhat or very unhappy do not have regular practices of generosity. It’s an interesting study and you can read much more about it and the findings, but in the essence of time, I’m going to share with you one of the concluding paragraphs: “‘The message of this book is simple, but we think also profound and important. Generosity is paradoxical. Those who give their resources away, receive back in turn. In offering our time, money, and energy in service of others’ well-being, we enhance our own being as well.’ This paradox, wisdom of the ages [which echoes much of Jesus’s essential teachings—in giving away our lives, we find them…], is now supported by quantitative and qualitative evidence. Practicing generosity leads to a general sense of well-being, while a tight grip on things and resources diminishes this sense of well-being.” So, what do you want to be, anyway? The beginning step on the journey toward living into your calling as the saints of God is a close as walking forward and giving thanks for those who have been shining lights of generosity in your own lives and in this world. It is as close as filling out a pledge card today for the first time or increasing your giving just enough so that you feel it. So what do you want to be, anyway? May God give us each the courage to live into the beloved words that we sing this day: “I sing a song of the saints of God….and I mean to be one too.”

19th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 24A: The One About Money

19th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 24A October 19, 2014 Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." It sounds so simple doesn’t it! Jesus is once again embroiled in debate with the religious authorities of the day. They send some disciples to try to trap him asking him about paying taxes. But note that this discussion isn’t about just paying any old taxes. This issue is about the fact that in addition to all the other taxes the Jews had to pay, they also were required to pay a tax to their Roman occupiers in order to support the occupation. This was an ongoing debate in that time—did faithful Jews pay their taxes with a coin with a false god upon it or did they defy the Roman government and break the law. Jesus’s answer stuns his interrogators: "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." We know it is not that simple, don’t we? Every single day of our adult lives we are challenge to wrestle with this question as people of faith and followers of Jesus. What belongs to whom? If we dig a little deeper, we might go so far as to ask in the context of this piece of scripture, what of our currency bears God’s image and should be given to God? In scripture, Jesus talks about money more than any other subject except the kingdom of God and there is a reason for that. That reason is just as true for us today as it was 2,000 years ago. It is because “your view of money is the chief spiritual issue in your life.”i (silence) Today I invite you to embark with me on a journey examining this chief spiritual issue in your life, your relationship with money. I have a series of 7 questions that I’m going to ask you today. These questions were originally posed by the late Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Carson, who then served as the Executive for Stewardship of the Episcopal Church, and they are written about in the article "Spirituality and Money: 7 Questions that Saved my Spiritual Life" by Bruce Rockwell. 1. “Do you ever worry about money? … about having enough? … about keeping what you have?” 2. “Do you sometimes envy what others have earned, have inherited, or have been able to do because of money they have and you don’t?” 3. “Do you ever get anxious about what inflation has done to depreciate your savings and your preparation for retirement?” 4. “Do you ever equate your value as a person with what you earn?” 5. “Is bill-paying stressful for you?” 6. “Has money ever been the source of an argument or misunderstanding with a loved one?” 7. “Do you ever spend more time thinking about money in any one day than you do in prayer?” Rockwell writes, “After posing these questions, Dr. Carson said the following: ‘If you have answered ‘yes’ to some of these questions, you may be having an affair with money. And this affair is buying your soul, taking away your freedom, paralyzing your creativity, debilitating your peace of mind, destroying friendships, breaking up your marriage, destroying your freedom in Christ, and threatening your very salvation.’”i I would be very surprised if there is a single person in this room who did not answer yes to at least one of those questions. (I know in my heart of hearts, I answer yes to many of them.) So what do we do? How do we better navigate the ongoing discernment of what belongs to God in our daily lives? I invite you to join me in an exercise this week. As Episcopalians, we pray what we believe and we believe what we pray. We have two different statements that we say or sing every week when the offering plate is brought forward. At the early service it is “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” At the late service, we sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” Both of these statements are our statements about what belongs to God. We say or sing them every Sunday, and yet, how often do we think of them after we leave this place? As we pray and reflect upon how we might begin to ask God to heal this unhealthy affair that each of us has with money that serves as an impediment in our relationship to God, the exercise that I challenge you to take on this week is simple. Every time you encounter money in your daily life (in the checkout line at the grocery store, when you pay a bill online, when you take a couple of dollars out of your wallet to pay for a cup of coffee, when you are standing in a department store deciding whether or not to purchase something), then say (or sing) your statement of belief to yourself: “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” Is your choice of how you are spending your money something that you are proud to offer to God? Or is it something of which you are ashamed? That’s a pretty good indication of how you might choose. This exercise also works for the time that you spend in prayer about how much to pledge to the church for the coming year. Is your choice of what you are giving to the church something that you are proud to offer God? Or are you doing it out of different motives—guilt, blackmail, or even inattention, giving whatever you happen to have left in your pocket…Give until it feels good is advice that someone once gave me. If it doesn’t feel good or joyous or life giving, then go back and go through the questions at the beginning of this sermon again. Your view of money is the chief spiritual issue in your life. All that we have been given comes from God, and how we use it, how we spend it is detrimental in our relationship with God. In closing, let us pray the collect for the Right Use of God's Gifts (BCP p 827). Almighty God, whose loving hand hath given us all that we possess: Grant us grace that we may honor thee with our substance, and, remembering the account which we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of thy bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. i. Spirituality and Money: Seven Questions that Saved My Spiritual Life By Bruce Rockwell. http://www.tens.org/resources/blog/spirituality-and-money-seven-questions-that-saved-my-spiritual-l

The Story about Jack and Humility

Last Sunday, I was preaching about the way of humility, and I included an extemporaneous story about my 6 year old son Jack. At the 8:00 service, I became very emotional in the telling. As one man was walking out of church, he looked at me kindly and said, "I suspect there is more to that story about Jack. I think you should write it, and I would very much like to see it when you do." I was taken aback by his insight, and I agreed to try. Sometimes, I have a nice, tidy sermon written and God intervenes in my life in ways that make the gospel very real, very challenging, both wonderfully and painfully revealing and convicting. In those moments, I may feel called/compelled to take the leap of faith and include my messy faith moment in my nice tidy sermon. Last Sunday was one of those moments. Saturday night was a horrid time for Jack and me. He was acting terribly defiant at the Saturday night service. I had to call him out during the sermon, and I had to physically remove him from the service during the Creed. At home, I threatened to "take away everything he loved" iff he ever acted that way at chuch again (not one of my finer parenting moments, I admit). I was certainly feeling the stress of months of single parenting, of taking a kid to church when he really didn't want to go, of living into my own expectations (and some of others?) that the priest's family is/must be beyond reproach. I put Jack to bed that night after a long snuggle, and I slept with all these issues still simmering. The morning started off, with another snuggle, but it quickly dissolved as we were rushing to leave and Jack refused to wear the clothes I had put out for him. In fact, he had on his most casual shorts, a t-shirt, and his nasty, old yellow crocs. We proceeded to fight and negotiate until I had him in khaki pants, a polo shirt, and his church shoes. But it was not easy nor pleasant. We continued to argue all the way to church--about how he was stuck in his brand new video game and about how he wanted to buy a new one (rather than try harder and get through the part where he was stuck). Our arguing intensified as I fussed that he couldn't go through life walking away from difficult things, and as we puled into the church parking lot, I was so angry and frustrated. He was too. We both made it angrily into the church, and I went angrily on my way to prepare for the service. I was being the altar after a few minutes had passed, checking that everything was there, and Jack approached me. He wrapped his little arms around my legs as I was standing there, so I knelt down in front of him, on his level, right there behind the altar. He transferred his arms to hug around my neck, leaned in and whispered, "I'm sorry." I was stunned! I replied with a hug of my own and the words, "I'm sorry, too." He then went on his merry little way. As I stood in the pulpit preaching about humility, I knew that I had to share this story about how one little boy's humility taught me more about the way of humility that I was trying to preach than any other experience or thing that I had read or learned. And I fought back the tears int he pulpit as I told about how my 6 year old taught me how humility can truly bring about reconciliation, even in the most conflicted situations. Over and over again, I am thankful for the ways that God speaks to me through the little ones, the vulnerable, the children, the pets, and the poor.

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