3rd Sunday in Lent-Year C

The Third Sunday in Lent Year C March 24, 2019 Why do bad things happen to us and to those we love? This is a question that people of faith have been wrestling with as far back as our recorded scripture. There are things that we tell ourselves while in the midst of suffering that may help us cope with understanding this deep theological problem about the nature of God and suffering. One of these is to say, “Well, God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” I say to that, “We shall see.” Our gospel reading for today is a confusing mash up of two seemingly incompatible teachings. First, we have Jesus’ response to some who he is teaching and then we have Jesus’ further teaching in a parable about a fig tree that won’t produce. At first glance, it is hard to see how these two parts are connected. So, let’s back up and look at the whole passage. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. Now, our lectionary is jumping around all over Luke at this point, and we are no longer following Jesus’ teachings on the road to Jerusalem in chronological order. This means that we haven’t heard what has happened just prior to this exchange for today. The previous chapter, chapter 12 of Luke’s gospel, is full of parables about “money, foolishness, and always being prepared.”i “[Jesus] concludes this chapter by suggesting that those listening are not just missing the point of the stories, but missing the boat altogether.”ii This may very well precipitate the exchange for today, when some of Jesus’s listeners refer to a recent event in which some Gailieans who were sacrificing in the temple were slain by Pilate’s direct order, and they ask Jesus, in essence “Why do bad things happen to people? Is their suffering their fault?” They are asking if suffering is a direct result of a person’s sinfulness. Jesus’s response is both good news and bad news: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you;” [So that sounds like good news, right? But wait.] He continues: “…but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” [Definitely bad news.] And he continues, “Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." So, the good news is that tragedy is not a punishment for sin. But the bad news is that sometimes tragedy is a result of sin—sometimes our sin, sometimes the sins of others. Therefore, we all need to repent because all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us have, at one point or another, “followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” But I also want you to notice what Jesus does not say to them. Jesus does not say to them, “God does not give you more than you can handle.” In fact, nowhere in the New Testament or Old Testament does scripture say that “God does not give you more than you can handle.” And I’m going to digress just a bit because I love you too much to let you keep saying that because it is really bad theology, and it is not true to our understanding of God. Here is the problem with that statement. It states that it is God who is giving you whatever calamity or misfortune in your life that you are having to handle right now—whether it is illness or death of a loved one or another catastrophic event or just lots of bad things happening to you all at once. And that is not in keeping with who Jesus reveals God to be. God isn’t there doling out misfortunes to us with a scale weighing how much is just enough for us to handle and how much is going to put us over the edge. Now Jesus is clear in our gospel reading for today that the misfortune or junk that we often have to handle in our lives sometimes is the result of our own sinfulness or even the result of the sinfulness of others. (As those of us who are reading and discussing Just Mercy for Lent have seen, this even includes whole systems of sinfulness such as the oppression of poor people, the denial of justice, and systemic racism.) Jesus shows us that God is present with us—even in the worst of our sinfulness, in the worst of our misfortunes and tragedies—all the stuff that we have to bear. And Jesus shows us that God does not abandon us to that mess. Which leads us to the second part of the gospel reading for today, when Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree which is not producing, a land-owner who threatens to cut it down, and a gardener who pleads for more time so he can help the fig tree grow into its fullness and bear fruit. In our conversation about this gospel this week, our Wednesday group spoke a great deal about plants and how to help them bear fruit or bloom. Sometimes, the plants can’t flourish when left to their own devices. They need to be re-potted to have more space to grow; they need to have the soil around them dug up, turned over, to let in air and water. Sometimes they need some fertilizer. While we are more complicated than plants, we can relate to this that sometimes when something bad happens to us, that becomes the impetus for us to tend to our souls, to repent and return to the Lord. I have a number of plants in my office. One of these, I have managed to keep alive for a number of years, but the others, you all have given me since I arrived here. I’ve tried to warn these well intentioned souls that I’m not very good at keeping plants alive, but so far, I’ve done ok for the most part. Except for this one plant. (If you are plant lover, you may want to cover your ears, because this next part might disturb you.) The plant was doing very well for a while. I remembered to water it. I noticed that it had produced a couple of off-shoots and was thriving. And then one day it wasn’t. Its leaves started dying, and it was looking poorly. I would notice it occasionally and think to myself that I probably needed to re-pot it to give it more space, but then I would forget about it again. The other day, I realized that I hadn’t watered the plant in a long time, and it was looking really bad, so I took it to the sink, and I was horrified! As I started to water it, the whole big, main part of the plant (what was actually the original plant) just broke off in my hand. Now, it seems like that would be really bad for a plant, but there is a part of my plant-ignorant soul that can’t help but wonder if maybe this seeming disaster couldn’t be a good, helpful thing because it will give the new growth more space to grow and thrive. What does all this have to do with Jesus’s parable of the fig tree, you may wonder? I think it all gets to the heart of the question of where is God in our suffering? Another preacher points out that it is a mistake to hear Jesus’s parable and read that God is the harsh land-owner. All portrayals of God in Luke’s gospel suggest that it is more likely that God is the gardener, lovingly tending and willing to work to help the tree thrive and bear fruit.iii Our collect for this week reminds us that we know that “we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves” and as a result, we ask God to “keep us.” Keep us, like a plant in need of tending. This past Wednesday night, our whole health study group was given the assignment to practice non-judgment this week. Here is a portion of that teaching: “When we begin practicing paying attention to the activity of our own mind, it is common to discover and to be surprised by the fact that we are constantly generating judgments about our experience. These judgments tend to dominate our minds, making it difficult for us ever to find any peace within ourselves…” One thing we can do “is to be aware of the automatic judgments so that we can see through our own prejudices and fears and liberate ourselves from their tyranny.” Your invitation for this week is to pay attention to the judgements that your mind generates about yourself and about others people and situations. When you encounter something that disturbs you, pay attention to those dead or languishing plants this unearths in your soul. (As I have become more aware and attentive in the last few days of times when I am making a judgement about myself or someone else, I have imagined the top of that plant coming off in my hand.) So, pay attention to those dead and languishing plants this practice unearths in your soul, and then offer those to God’s care and keeping as a part of the discipline of Lenten repentance. i. David Lose’s blog post When Bad Things Happen. Feb 27, 2013: http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2461 ii. ibid iii. Ibid

2nd Sunday in Lent Year C

2nd Sunday in Lent Year C March 17, 2019 I was taking an advanced English class my Junior year in college—a seminar class titled Medieval Visionary Women Mystics. It was a fascinating part of the Christian tradition that I had very little experience with and the women were inspiring to me, even though some of them were quite weird. But then I found Dame Julian of Norwich. And after I read her work Revelations of Divine Love from the 14th century, my understanding of God and my relationship with Jesus would be completely changed. Julian revealed to me a part of our tradition which looks at the feminine nature of both God and Jesus which I had little experience with. I can remember being electrified as I read Julian’s words where she wrote about Jesus as mother and how he cares for us daily: “In our spiritual birthing, he shows tenderness and care beyond any other mother in so much as our soul is of more value in his eyes. He kindles our understanding, he directs our ways, he eases our consciences, he comforts our soul, he lightens our heart and gives us, in part, knowledge and love of his blessed Godhead… If we fall, hastily he picks us up in his lovely embrace and touches us graciously… A mother may allow her child to fall sometimes and feel distress in various ways to be a lesson, but she will never, out of love, allow any kind of danger to come to her child. And though it is possible for our earthly mother to allow her child to perish, our heavenly mother Jesus will not allow us who are his children to die” (Revelations of Divine Love, chapter 61). In our gospel reading for today, Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem, and on the way, he receives this strange warning from some Pharisees saying that Herod is out to get him. Jesus is unafraid, undeterred, and even defiant, telling them to go back to Herod with a message: “Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' But then Jesus’s tone immediately changes from one of defiance toward Herod to lament toward Jerusalem and his people: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jesus confesses his longing to care for Jerusalem in a way that is visceral and maternal—like a mother hen gathering her brood under her wings. It’s an amazing image, and at our Wednesday service, we started discussing what this image evokes in us, what it could possibly mean. Think about it for a minute. What does the image of Jesus as a mother hen gathering you under his wings evoke in you? Does it make you uncomfortable? Does it fill you with hope or comfort or surprise? For me, it reminds me of a time when my mother was fiercely protective of me. I have a wonderful mother who is nurturing and loving and also spunky, and fierce, and independent. I never doubted her love for me, but it wasn’t until I was a senior in high school when I witnessed and understood the protectiveness of her love. We were having a lovely family dinner in the dining room celebrating my dad’s birthday, and the phone rang. I went to answer it, and it was the mother of a classmate. She was calling to chew me out because I had scheduled a club meeting at the same time as her girl scout troup’s regular meeting. And she was absolutely horrible to me. I’d never had an adult act so ugly to me, and I responded that I had asked the other people in the group if they had a conflict and no one responded (including her daughter), so I had set the meeting. She was unappeased and continued to berate me, until I managed to get off the phone with her. When I came back to the table clearly distraught, my parents drew the story out of me. We finished our dinner, and my mother slipped out of the room, and as I was helping to clear the table, I discovered her on the phone absolutely eviscerating the woman who had called me. She told her she had interrupted our family dinner. She told her that I had never experience an adult acting so ugly to me and that she should be positively ashamed of herself. I was stunned and felt surrounded and upheld in her protective, fierce, maternal love. (A footnote to the story is that the next day, the woman showed up at our house with a loaf of homemade bread and a sincere apology, extremely chastened.) Episcopal priest and writer Barbara Brown Taylor wrote an article for the magazine The Christian Century years ago where she reflected on this gospel passage. She wrote: “If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus' lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world --wings spread, breast exposed --but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand. ...” She continues, “… Jesus won't be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first; which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her -- wings spread, breast exposed -- without a single chick beneath her feathers. It breaks her heart . . . but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.”i This week, I invite you to sit with these images of Jesus as mother. What would it mean for you to think about Jesus as one who would and does fiercely protect you? What implications does that image of Jesus have on how you follow him as his disciple? i. -Barbara Brown Taylor The Christian Century 2/25/86

First Sunday in Lent-Year C

First Sunday in Lent-Year C March 10, 2019 I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but we have lots of Deuteronomy in our readings for today. Deuteronomy is an interesting book that I have really never paid much attention to. It is presented as one long sermon from Moses to the people, his valedictory address, if you will. But it is actually three different sermons with some action interspersed in between. Deuteronomy is a re-visioning of the covenant laws that are presented in Exodus, and one of the constant themes throughout the book is for the people to remember—Remember the covenant. Remember God’s provision for you in the wilderness. The laws and rituals in Deuteronomy become a way for the people to have a living, daily reminder of their relationship with God and a reminder of God’s consistent care and provision for them. Our reading for today is actually a depiction of a ritual that landowners were supposed to do with the first fruits of the harvest. The ritual consists of three parts: 1. Experience and express gratitude toward God. 2. Remember your ancestors. And 3. Remember the past-how God has provided for you and brought you to this land of milk and honey. Then in the gospel reading for today, we have three different uses of Deuteronomy. Jesus has just come from his baptism—where Luke tells us that he has been baptized with others; the Holy Spirit has “descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” “and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” Then Luke tells us that Jesus, still “full of the Holy Spirit” is led by the same Spirit into the wilderness where for forty days he is tempted by the devil. Here’s what’s interesting to me in this. In each of the three temptations, Jesus’s response to the devil is to quote a different passage from Deuteronomy. 'One does not live by bread alone.'" is Deuteronomy 8:3; “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" is Deuteronomy 6:13; and “'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" is Deuteronomy 6:16. Over and over again, Jesus’s response to the temptations is to reiterate God’s care and God’s providence for God’s people. For our Wednesday night Lenten series, we will be reading Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen. The premise of this book is that Nouwen is trying to convince a non-religious friend of his that each of us has been claimed as God’s beloved and we are called to live out our lives in the light of that belovedness. This is a central teaching of our baptism, too, that in baptism we are saying yes to God’s naming of us as God’s beloved and promising to live our lives as beloved of God. The temptations of Jesus in the wilderness are all seeking to undermine his understanding of his status as God’s beloved, and Jesus’s response is to continually reiterate God’ promise of provision and care for God’s beloved, for God’s people. As I was reading Nouwen’s book this past week, I was struck by the following passage: how it speaks to our gospel reading for today and how it speaks to our lives and our Lenten journey. Nouwen writes, “Yes, there is that voice, the voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly or declares loudly: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.” It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody—unless you can demonstrate the opposite.” He continues, “These negative voices are so loud and so persistent that it is easy to believe them. That’s the great trap. It is the trap of self-rejection. Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity and power can, indeed, present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. I am constantly surprised at how quickly I give in to this temptation. As soon as someone accuses me or critics me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone or abandoned, I find myself thinking: ‘Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.’ Instead of taking a critical look at the circumstances or trying to undermine my own and others’ limitations, I tend to blame myself—not just for what I did, but for who I am. My dark side says, ‘I am no good…I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected and abandoned.’”i So, how might we take a critical look at the circumstances that cause us to fall into self-rejection and question our status of belovedness? One of my friends and colleagues shared with me recently about a practice that he uses for this sort of examination. It is called an Ignatian examen, and it comes out of the Roman Catholic Jesuit order that was founded by Ignatius of Loyola. It is comprised of 5 easy steps that each of us can do at the end of the day to review and to examine how we have lived that day (or how we have not) out of our belovedness. It helps us to see the places where God has been especially present in that particular day and the times when we have acted more out of a place of self-rejection than out of belovedness. The steps are 1. Ask God for light. I want to look at my day with God’s eyes, not merely my own. 2. Give thanks. The day I have just lived is a gift from God. Be grateful for it. 3. Review the day. I carefully look back on the day just completed, being guided by the Holy Spirit. 4. Acknowledge the moments of grace, and also face your shortcomings. I notice where God has been especially present in my life this day, and I face up to what is wrong—in my life and in me. 5. Look toward the day to come. I ask where I need God in the day to come.ii (You don’t have to remember all of these. I have some cards for you today with the steps printed on them that you can take with you. They’re in the narthex and on the bench by the side door.) This self-examen is something that you can do in about 15 to 20 minutes and could be a type of Lenten discipline to help you live more fully into your life as God’s beloved during this season and beyond. i. Nouwen, Henri. Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World. Crossroad: New York, 1999, pp26-27. ii. https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/17

Ash Wednesday-March 6, 2019

Ash Wednesday- March 6, 2019 Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return… Ashes to ashes and dust to dust… All of us go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song…. We who have buried so many loved ones here these past few months cannot help but hear the echoes of our burial liturgy in the words of Ash Wednesday today. Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. This whole season just past we have cavorted; we have celebrated; we have eaten a lot and danced to the love train; we have, at times perhaps, felt like we could live forever. Today, we take off our masks; we stare at our own reflections in the mirror of our prayers and liturgy, and we see the shadow of death reflected in our eyes. Ash Wednesday and Lent are a time when we dwell with our mortality for a season. They are also a time when we are called to repentance. Now please note that repentance is not the same thing as penance, which is a popular practice during Lent. It is what folks do when they give up something for Lent. (This practice of penance can have a place in a healthy Lenten discipline, as long as it helps to focus one toward a re-orienting of our relationship with God, focusing on that which has become an impediment in our relationship with God, as opposed to mere self-improvement.) Repentance, which is God’s call to us during this season of Lent, means re-turning to God, reconnecting with God, reorienting our lives toward God. And it also means as the Biblical scholar Marcus Borg puts it “‘to go beyond the mind that we have’—a mind shaped by our socialization and enculturation” (Marcus Borg Patheos article March 4, 2014). When we begin this season of repentance today, we are turning away from not loving God with our whole heart, and mind, and strength and not loving our neighbors as ourselves; we are turning away from not forgiving others, as we have been forgiven and turning back toward God who loves and forgives us all infinitely. We are turning away from being deaf to God’s call to serve, as Christ served us and not being true to the mind of Christ, and we are turning back toward listening to God’s call in our lives and in our world. We are turning away from our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives; our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people; our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves; our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work, and we are turning back toward God, who dwells in each and every one of us and cherishes and loves all of God’s creation in a way that we cannot and do not. We are turning away from our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us; we are turning away from our fear to be changed and our laziness and self-indulgence, and we turn toward God who kindles in our hearts the desire to be in relationship with God that is nurtured through prayer and worship and community. We are turning away from our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty; turning away from all false judgments, for all our uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors; turning away from our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us; turning away from our waste and pollution of God’s creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, and we are turning toward God, the creator and redeemer of all that is. Today and over the course of these 40 days, we are invited to be focused on repenting of all that separates us from God and from each other. But it’s not so much about wallowing in guilt for all our sins for 40 days and nights, it’s about turning away from death, from all that separates us from God and turning toward life—turning toward God, walking through this death that we so often choose for ourselves into the resurrection that God invites us to participate in. So I invite you to consider--how might you do Lent differently this year? How might this Lent be an invitation from God for you to go beyond the mind that you have and be transformed by God’s Holy Spirit to dwell more deeply in the mind of Christ? How might you let go of some of the guilt, the empty rituals, and invite God to help you turn away from what is death in your life—turning toward God, life, and resurrection? Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return… All of us go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song… (Note, this sermon is a re-worked version of a sermon I originally preached in 2014.)

Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C March 3, 2019 Throughout this whole season after the Epiphany, Rev Aimee and I have been intentional about weaving a consistent theme through our sermons. For 8 weeks, we have shared personal stories in connection with the scripture readings for the day to illustrate the ways that each of us have been transformed by the manifestation of God in our lives and in our world. In doing this, it has been our hope that we would be modeling this for you, helping you to look at your own lives to be aware of the points in your faith and in your life when you, also, have been transformed by encounters with God, so that you can articulate those moments of transformation—for that is the true call of a disciple of Jesus. We are called to be open to encounters with God, to keep our eyes open; we are called to continue to be transformed by the grace of God more and more into the image and likeness of Christ. And we are called to share that story of good news, of our good news with the world (or at least with the people we come into contact with). Today, in our gospel reading, we have the culmination of the revelation of God’s glory through the person of Jesus Christ in Luke’s account of the transfiguration. Jesus has taken his three most trusted disciples up the mountain. Notice that in Luke’s gospel, the purpose of this special excursion is for them to pray. And Luke tells us that while Jesus is praying, he becomes transfigured. (Now, I haven’t had much time to research this this week, so don’t quote me on this. But I believe the Greek word that is translated as transfigured here can also be translated as transformed. So what’s the difference? We use “transfigure” in this instance to show that Jesus is transformed or changed in outward appearance but still recognizable. We see this at work in all of Jesus’s appearances after his resurrection. Those who see him initially don’t recognize him but then they do.) Luke then points out that although the disciples have been “weighed down with sleep” since they stayed awake, they are able to see Jesus’s glory and to witness this incredible event. As Peter offers to help build shelter for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, a cloud overtakes them all and God’s voice says (presumably to the disciples): “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Here’s what strikes me in this. This whole event only happens because Jesus and the disciples are engaged together in prayer. Prayer is the catalyst for transformation/transfiguration. Even though the disciples are “weighed down with sleep” they stay awake, and they persist in their prayer and because of that God not only allows them to be witnesses but God also speaks directly to them words of direction and affirmation for the coming days of hardship as Jesus will head down the mountain and set his face toward Jerusalem where he will be crucified. We cannot ever underestimate the importance of prayer in our faith lives—it is what creates space within us for God to transform us. And that might seem like a lot of pressure for us until we remember that the apostle Paul reminds us that we pray as a response to the prayer of the Holy Spirit already at work within us. In Romans 8:26-27 he writes: “ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” Think about what he is saying here! Prayer is already happening in us through the Holy Spirit’s power and initiative. We just have to make space to respond. When I was a Junior in college, I studied abroad, and I decided that I was going to come back from my semester with the answer to the question of whether or not God was calling me to be a priest. (I think I’ve shared this with y’all before.) So I prayed the same prayer-“Lord, if you are calling me to be a priest, please, let me know”-all throughout England and Europe until I’m not sure I was even expecting an answer any more. I kept praying out of sheer habit and doggedness because I needed an answer. And one day, out of the blue when I was least expecting it, God answered me, and in that moment, I was transformed not just in my own understanding of my vocation but in my whole understanding of my relationship with God. So now, we’re going to do something different. I want you to break up into pairs of two. You can get up and move around or you can stay with the person you are sitting closest to. In these pairs, you’re going to do two things. First you’re going to talk about a time when you have been transformed by prayer. It can be private prayer. It can be corporate prayer—like a church service, encountering God in the sacraments, like Eucharist. But I want you to share with one person a time when you have been transformed by prayer. And if you can’t share that, that’s ok too. Acknowledge that and speculate on why that is and what ways you might be more intentionally awake or open to how the Holy Spirit is already praying in and through you. And then the second thing (and don’t freak out about this) is for each of you in the pair to pray for the other out loud. Now really, don’t freak out—I can look at you and tell you’re freaking out, because I’m about to tell you how to do this, and I promise it won’t be hard. Go ahead and move to where you are going, and I’ll give you further instruction. So, first thing is to talk about how you have been transformed (or not) through prayer. I’m only going to give you 7 minutes to do this, so make sure that you allow enough time for both of you to share and pray.i. Then second, you’re going to pray for each other. You can do this however you want to do this, but if you are freaking out, here’s a really easy way to do this. First, ask one another what you want the person to have you pray for. Pay attention to the words they use and what they are asking for. Then as you pray, address God. It can be as simple as saying: “Dear God…” Then ask God for what the person has asked you to pray for. And say amen. If you have extra time, reflect with your conversation partner on how that felt to be the one praying for someone in their hearing and how that felt to be the one prayed for. When your time is up, I’ll invite us to proceed with the Nicene Creed. You’ve got this. i. The idea to break into pairs and pray for each other came from David Lose's post for this Sunday on Working Preacher in 2013. I have adapted it somewhat for my local context.

7th Sunday after Epiphany Year C

7th Sunday after Epiphany Year C February 24, 2019 I’m so happy to be back with y’all after a lightning-fast 8 day trip through the Holy Land last week. It was an incredibly rich and full experience that I am still processing and savoring. I had thought I might share with you about when we visited the supposed sight of where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, but alas, the lectionary has pulled a fast one and given us, instead, Luke’s version of the Beatitudes which is known as the Sermon on the Plain. Our gospel reading for today picks up immediately where we left off last week. The crowds have gathered around Jesus on a level place; they have come from all over to hear him, and they have brought their sick and their demon possessed for him to heal. Luke tells us that Jesus “lifts up his eyes” or looks up at his disciples and tells them this list of blessings and woes that is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Our reading for today is a continuation of that as Jesus says, “But I say to you that listen” and then he proceeds to tell his disciples (and the crowds who are listing in to his teaching of his disciples) how his disciples should deal with their enemies. And it is almost preposterous in its difficulty: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” We’ve been talking about the upcoming Sunday readings at the Wednesday healing service every week, and what struck the group this week is how Jesus’s instructions to his disciples on how to deal with those who persecute them is counter to how we human beings seem to be hard-wired. So how can we possibly accomplish it? Thankfully, the lectionary has also given us a snippet of the story of Joseph and his brothers from Genesis as our Old Testament reading for today. This is toward the end of Joseph’s story. You will recall that Joseph was most beloved by Jacob his father of all his brothers, and he had the gift of interpreting dreams which had been given to him by God. What Joseph did not have, at that point in the story, was wisdom or humility, and he proceeded to tell his already jealous brothers that he had a dream which showed him that he would be raised up higher than all of them and that they would eventually worship him. So the brothers did what most jealous siblings would do. The sold him into slavery in Egypt. While serving as a slave there, Joseph was falsely accused by his master’s wife and thrown into jail. And that could have been the end of it all right there. But while Joseph was in jail, it came to Pharaoh’s attention that Joseph could interpret dreams, and since Pharaoh had been experiencing a rash of troubling dreams, he called upon Joseph to interpret them. Joseph divined that Pharaoh’s dreams meant that Egypt was about to have 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine, and he instructed Pharaoh to start collecting the food and resources from the years of plenty to see them through the years of famine. Our reading for today picks up two years into the 7 years of famine, when Jacob’s sons have come to Egypt to seek assistance because they are all starving in Canna. Joseph revels himself to his brothers in our passage for today, and rather than offering them some well- deserved retribution, Joseph humbly forgives them and tells them how their actions, though meant for evil, have been a part of God’s plan to bring about good for all of them. It’s an astonishing moment when we think about all that has happened to Joseph and how he had been so haughty in relationship with his brothers before. And there is only one explanation for how Joseph could have reacted the way that he did. That is that he had been transformed by God’s grace. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus offers a refrain that our New Revised Standard Version translates as “what credit is that to you?” "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” The Greek word that the NRSV translates as “credit” is charis which actually means grace. So what Jesus is actually saying is “what grace have you?” or “what grace is there in that?” This three-fold mention of charis or grace points us back to the nature of God revealed in the person of Jesus; it reminds us of God’s characteristic of grace that we, as followers of Jesus are called to model. It reminds us that it is only through the grace of God (and not through any power of our own) that we become transformed.i I shared with you before of a difficult time I had in the life of my last church. During that difficult season, the vestry had a service of reconciliation when we were invited to share one thing that we regretted during that season of conflict. We sat in a circle and went around, each person being vulnerable and expressing regret over things that each of us had done. When it got to be my turn, I shared a regret of something that I had done. And then came the turn of the woman next to me, who had been my biggest adversary in all the conflict. Her response to me of her regret was, “I regret that you did that, too.” And then she looked to the next person to go, her turn clearly being over. Rather than becoming vulnerable as the rest of us had and naming her own regret, she weaponized my regret against me. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach, and I opened my mouth to verbally eviscerate her, the words already forming there in my mouth and in my heart. But then I closed my mouth and sat in silence. For months after that, I wondered at her sheer audacity to use my regret as a weapon against me. But then later, I began to wonder on a deeper level, why I had not spoken those harsh words already bubbling forth from my heart into my mouth. I believe it is because I had been praying for that woman and her husband every day for months, not because I was holy or good but because I was desperate and didn’t know what else to do, how else to survive. And what I learned in that is that you cannot pray for an enemy daily, remembering them before God as a fellow child of God day after day after day without being transformed. I didn’t respond in anger (the way that really I wanted to) that day, because God was working to transform me through God’s grace, and God was, already, bringing about good from an evil situation. Your invitation this week is to pray daily for someone who has hurt you, someone you might consider your enemy. It won’t be easy. If you find yourself struggling with how to pray for them then you can do a couple of things. First, ask God to give them all that you would most desire in your life. Or second, you can just imagine placing that person in the hands of God and surrounding them with warm light. As we were talking about the readings this past Wednesday, Reverend Aimee shared with the group that she had listened to a podcast on conflict recently. She said the message of the podcast boiled down to two options that each of us have during times of conflict. We can be right, or we can be at peace. Which will you choose? i. The translation of the Greek and other inspiration of this paragraph are taken from http://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/2/19/grace-in-action-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-epiphany-week-7

4th Sunday after the Epiphany Year C 2019

The 4th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 3, 2019 Last weekend, I got to make a quick trip to Jacksonville to see the musical Les Miserables. This was probably my 5th time to see Les Miserables because it is truly my favorite, and I discover new ideas and emotions every time I see it. One of the most intriguing characters for me in Les Mis is Inspector Javert, a policeman who spends years pursuing the main character Jean Valjean trying to bring him to justice. Javert is cold and relentless in his pursuit of Valjean, who served 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s family and then broke parole. But what the audience knows from the very prelude of the show is that Valjean has had a conversion experience and becomes transformed in the way that he is in the world. Because of mercy that is shown him by someone else, Valjean becomes someone who embodies mercy and forgiveness—both asking and giving it, and he gives his life to taking care of an orphan child in the attempt to fulfill his vow and his debt to her mother. Valjean also has become transformed in his very person, changing his name and becoming the town mayor and a successful businessman. It isn’t until Valjean has the opportunity to kill Javert, but Valjean lets Javert go that Javert falters in his understanding of Valjean and the way of the world. Javert’s highest pursuit has always been bringing Valjean to justice, but when Valjean shows him mercy, Javert cannot reconcile this transformation in his worldview and he actually commits suicide. Last week, I preached about how the purpose of the church is to provide space within which people can be transformed. And I heard several stories over the course of the week (from you and from random people I encountered out in the world) about transformation. This week’s gospel, which is a continuation of last week’s gospel, has invited me to shift the focus somewhat and to ask the question “what happens when we don’t allow space for transformation—in our lives, in our church, in our world?” Jesus has returned to his hometown; he has gone to synagogue where he has read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,/ because he has anointed me/ to bring good news to the poor./ He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives/ and recovery of sight to the blind,/ to let the oppressed go free,/ to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Which is where our reading picks up for today. At first the people marvel, but then things quickly turn ugly when Jesus starts speaking some hard truths to the people who have known him the best, the longest. And they rise up as an angry mob and prepare to throw him over the cliff in the anger. I don’t know about y’all, but I get it. I have been both the victim and the perpetrator of unwillingness to allow space for others to be transformed. When I was in discernment about becoming a priest, my rector put together a committee of people who had known me most of my life: our family physician, my high school guidance counselor, my long-time Sunday school teacher. It was mostly a good experience, but one of the women kept getting frustrated with me that I didn’t or wouldn’t answer the questions the way that she thought I should. She was unable to be with me in the space where I was, after having been transformed by time away at college and working with people in poverty in the inner city. The committee submitted their report, and it wasn’t until I met with the bishop that I learned that while the rest of the committee approved my moving forward in the process, that one woman had refused to recommend me for the priesthood. I was shocked and dismayed, and the kindly bishop smiled and said to me, “Oh, don’t worry. I dated her in college, and I know all about her. She won’t hold you back from becoming a priest.” Not too long ago, I was complaining to my husband that someone we had known in seminary, who had not been a very nice person in seminary, had moved up in the hierarchy of the church. And I was saying all sorts of nasty snide comments about this person. David looked at me lovingly and said, “You know, I’ve changed a lot since seminary. Maybe this person has too.” This week’s gospel reading reminds us of the inclusive nature of God’s embrace and how God often uses the unexpected, the outsider, the outcast to bring about the fulfillment of God’s purposes, to bring about transformation. Your invitation this week is to consider in what ways you are unwilling to encounter transformation—in your life, in particular relationships, in this church, in the world. [We see this unwillingness to encounter transformation in the other running rampant in our political parties and our national discourse right now.] I invite you to ask yourself in your time with God this week and as you are going about your days—do I allow space to be transformed by God? Do I allow space in this relationship for this other person to be transformed by God? What opportunities might I be losing or squandering by not allowing space for transformation? And when the opportunities present themselves, as they will, may you be open and undefended and curious.