Lent 2 Year C
Bishop Charles Duvall, retired bishop of our neighbors the Central Gulf Coast spoke at clergy conference one year and he said, “Being made in the image of God is being a partner with God in creation. When the angels ask God if the world was done at creation, God replied: “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask my partner.”
“…The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision…” At this point in the Genesis story, God and Abram go way back… we might even say they are partners of long standing. Back in Chapter 12, the Lord came to Abram, and we see God’s first call to Abram to leave his country, kindred and father’s house to go to the land God will show him, and in return, God promises Abram descendants, land, and blessing. So Abram goes.
When he gets to Cana, God appears to Abram and says “this is it—the land I will give your offspring. Abram and co then have a brief (and bizarre) stint in Egypt because of famine, and he and his kinsman Lot part ways. Then God reiterates the promise of land and descendants to Abram, and God tells Abram to walk through the whole length and breadth of the promised land. (Scripture doesn’t tell us the outcome of this, but I think it is safe to assume that Abram follows God’s command…) Then Abram has to go rescue Lot, and we pick up our story for today. Thrice before in the preceding chapters, Abram has encountered God. God makes God’s initial promise and confirms Abram has found the promised land when he does what God asks of him; God reaffirms the promise made to Abram, and then our reading picks up for today.
But today’s piece of the story is different. First, it is not just the speaking of God to Abram like the instances before. Today’s reading says, “The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.” (It’s a line laced with the Mysterious and not nearly as straightforward as God appearing and/or speaking). And for the first time in Genesis’s story of Abram and God’s ongoing partnership, Abram balks. We actually hear his responses to God when God reiterates the promise of Abram’s reward: Abram says, “Yeah…, about that…..I’ve done what you asked, but still I continue childless. I’m gonna need some proof that your promises are good.” God says, “Ok,” takes him outside and shows him the stars in the heavens, and reiterates the initial promise in more poetic terms: “so shall your descendants be.” And scripture says that “[Abram] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” In believing God’s promise, Abram is true to his obligations and commitments to God (that’s what it means to be righteous).
Then God reminds Abram of their existing relationship, and Abram asks God about God’s promise of land—“how am it to know I shall possess it?”. God instructs Abram to act, and they cut a covenant by which only God is bound (not the usual terms of being in partnership…) And finally Abram seems satisfied that God’s promises can be trusted.
Who knows what makes Abram question God at this point, after all this time? Who knows why he chooses to believe yet another promise of God when asked to number the stars? Did you notice that God still doesn’t offer him the hard, cold proof that he’s asking for? Maybe it was irresistible, being in the presence of God, participating in the vision of God, being invited by God to trust God’s promises and enter into a covenant based on their existing relationship. Maybe there was something especially mysterious and life changing in that deep and dazzling darkness that left Abram with all his doubts resolved, all his questions answered?
Episcopal priest (now actually a bishop) Porter Taylor writes about this incident in the life of our faith story in his book of sermons titled To Dream as God Dreams. Taylor explains Abram’s resolution and writes, “[Abram] believed in the Lord, not in some carefully laid out strategy. [Abram] fell in love with God; [Abram] wanted to align his life with God’s activity in the world.”
Abram experienced the reality of a God who continued to draw near to him, a God who continued to pursue him, to woo him, a God who longed to be in relationship with him. Abram experienced the reality of Jesus’ words about God and God’s deep longing to be a mother to us, even when we are most headstrong and wayward.
Taylor continues, “Like you and me, [Abram] lived in a time when the world seemed to say ‘no’ to all he desired: no kids-no lands-no dreams, and God came and said what God always says, ‘In a time of No I am asking you to say Yes…Faith is saying yes in a world of no.”
Today we gather as one congregation to hear our Vestry’s vision for the ministry of St. Peter’s in the next 3 to 5 years. The Vestry has worked together over the course of many hours with our facilitator, Aletha Burge, to articulate the strengths of St. Peter’s, to give voice to our vision for the church, and to shape a budget that would reflect that vision.
I cannot speak for the members of the vestry, but I know that in that process, I have felt the Word of God drawing near to us again and again. Our work has been done in a spirit of enthusiasm, a spirit of creativity, and a spirit of hope that I believe are evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I believe that each vestry person has been deeply aware of the sacred trust that you have placed in them by electing them to that position of leadership in this church, and all of our work has been done in a spirit of gratitude for the importance of the people and ministries of St. Peter’s in each of our faith journeys.
Our world today is not so different from Abram’s world. All around us people are talking about budget cutbacks, layoffs, challenging economic times. It would seem that the world around us is saying No. Even in the face of what might seem to be an unsurmountable “No” St. Peter’s not only survives but we are thriving! And we believe that is because God has given us so many gifts and has invited us to be God's partners, to participate in the vision of God for St. Peter’s, a vision that compels us to share the spirit of generosity and the sense of warmth and welcome that are the essence of this faith community. We as a Vestry are taking a step forward in faith and saying yes to God in a world of no. And we ask you to say yes too. Search your hearts. Remember the creative partnership to which God has called each of us in our baptism. There is much work still to be done. Dream big dreams with us, and join us in saying yes to God in a world of no.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Ash Wednesday 2010
Ash Wednesday 2010 sermon
“Now quit your care and anxious fear and worry; for schemes are vain and fretting brings no gain. Lent calls to prayer, to trust, and dedication; God brings new beauty nigh; reply, reply, reply with love to love most high.” (Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936).
These words by a man named Percy Dearmer, an English priest and liturgist, were written on a friend’s Facebook page this morning, and they are an interesting testament to what we are about this day.
Our primary work this day is to remember: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. We are called to remember that God is God and we are not. That our mortal lives have a definite beginning and they will have a definite end. We are called to remember all the ways that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the times that we have forsaken God and God’s call to love God and love each other and we will confess that sin before God and each other.
Today we are called to remember Jesus’s call: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also.”
We are called to look ourselves in the mirror this day and acknowledge that we have spent our lives in pursuit of the treasures of this world, which will fade, and that the deepest treasures of our hearts are the gifts offered to us by God through Jesus Christ which can be received and renewed through prayer, trust, and dedication. Today we are called to recognize that so much of our lives and our energies are spent in care, anxious fear, and worry; in making schedules and lists, in trying to hold the chaos at bay, in trying to prevent the unpreventable: old age and illness, loss, and death.
And the good news is that today we are joyfully stripped of all that. Today we are reminded that it is not up to us, what will happen in our lives, how they will turn out. “All of us go down to the dust”. None of us will escape that, but in that is a freedom. We can be free of the need to try to control, and focus on how we will live, what and who and how we love. We can once again discern, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, what are the truest, deepest treasures of our hearts and how we will go about pursuing those in the ways that we live our lives.
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember, as you are marked by your ashes this day, that you have also been marked in the waters of your baptism… “marked as Christ’s own forever.” Remember what has been given to you as you feast at God’s table. Remember the work that you are called to do as you go out those doors and into the world. And remember you gratitude and its source, and give thanks.
“Now quit your care and anxious fear and worry; for schemes are vain and fretting brings no gain. Lent calls to prayer, to trust, and dedication; God brings new beauty nigh; reply, reply, reply with love to love most high.” (Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936).
“Now quit your care and anxious fear and worry; for schemes are vain and fretting brings no gain. Lent calls to prayer, to trust, and dedication; God brings new beauty nigh; reply, reply, reply with love to love most high.” (Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936).
These words by a man named Percy Dearmer, an English priest and liturgist, were written on a friend’s Facebook page this morning, and they are an interesting testament to what we are about this day.
Our primary work this day is to remember: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. We are called to remember that God is God and we are not. That our mortal lives have a definite beginning and they will have a definite end. We are called to remember all the ways that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the times that we have forsaken God and God’s call to love God and love each other and we will confess that sin before God and each other.
Today we are called to remember Jesus’s call: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also.”
We are called to look ourselves in the mirror this day and acknowledge that we have spent our lives in pursuit of the treasures of this world, which will fade, and that the deepest treasures of our hearts are the gifts offered to us by God through Jesus Christ which can be received and renewed through prayer, trust, and dedication. Today we are called to recognize that so much of our lives and our energies are spent in care, anxious fear, and worry; in making schedules and lists, in trying to hold the chaos at bay, in trying to prevent the unpreventable: old age and illness, loss, and death.
And the good news is that today we are joyfully stripped of all that. Today we are reminded that it is not up to us, what will happen in our lives, how they will turn out. “All of us go down to the dust”. None of us will escape that, but in that is a freedom. We can be free of the need to try to control, and focus on how we will live, what and who and how we love. We can once again discern, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, what are the truest, deepest treasures of our hearts and how we will go about pursuing those in the ways that we live our lives.
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember, as you are marked by your ashes this day, that you have also been marked in the waters of your baptism… “marked as Christ’s own forever.” Remember what has been given to you as you feast at God’s table. Remember the work that you are called to do as you go out those doors and into the world. And remember you gratitude and its source, and give thanks.
“Now quit your care and anxious fear and worry; for schemes are vain and fretting brings no gain. Lent calls to prayer, to trust, and dedication; God brings new beauty nigh; reply, reply, reply with love to love most high.” (Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936).
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C
The Reverend Melanie Dickson Lemburg
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany—Year C
February 14, 2010
Today is the Last Sunday in our season after Epiphany, a season of light in which we celebrate the revelation of God’s glory to all people. And so today, we stand in the dazzling light of Jesus, transfigured on the mountain, even as we join him in setting our faces toward Jerusalem, setting our faces toward the cross as we prepare to journey into the shadow-land of the season of Lent.
Transfiguration. What exactly is it? What does it mean for us as a church and as individual followers of Jesus Christ? People have written so much about transfiguration that it’s hard to know where to even begin. The Christian theologian Frederick Buechner writes about Christ’s transfiguration and how it relates to us saying, “It was Jesus of Nazareth all right, the man they’d tramped many a dusty mile with, whose mother and brothers they knew, the one they’d seen as hungry, tired, footsore as the rest of them. But it was also the Messiah, the Christ, in his glory. It was the holiness of the man shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it they were almost blinded. Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it’s almost beyond bearing”[1]
“The holiness of the man shining through his humanness…”
Another writer writes of Transfiguration as “living by vision: standing foursquare in the midst of a broken, tortured, oppressed, starving, dehumanizing reality, yet seeing the invisible, calling to it to come, behaving as if it is on the way, sustained by elements of it that have come already, within and among us…”[2]
Transfiguration is showing up when we don’t feel like it, staying awake when our eyes and our hearts are so weary and heavy, but still being there to bear witness to God’s glory when it does appear. Transfiguration is standing with one foot in the shadow and one foot in the light; it is understanding that when the cloud comes and overshadows us that we are not alone and it will not keep us in darkness forever. It encompasses a willingness to dwell within the love of God for a few moments so that we are strengthened and emboldened to carry out what God asks us to do, to be willing to set our faces toward the cross and looking into the face of all the worst of humanity and see it transformed by the power of God’s love into new life that overcomes even the shadow of death. Transfiguration involves a willingness to give ourselves over to where God is calling us to grow and to deepen in our faith in God, in what may seem to be the impossible but in what we will eventually find to be new life, new hope, and a deep source of joy.
So what are the results when people are confronted with Transfiguration?
For those of us who pray the words of our collect today, it is the reminder that if we look upon the shining face of our Lord, then we will be changed into his likeness…from glory to glory. From glory to glory….listen to what that says both about what we already are and what we hope to become.
For Paul it is to remember that: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit…”
For Peter and John and James it is to taste the glory and the terror, the confusion and the silence.
For the man and his son in Luke (and for the writer of Luke): the immediate results of the Transfiguration or the revelation of God’s glory in Jesus Christ is healing of the child possessed of the unclean spirit. Jesus restores the outcast to his father and to his community. (which then becomes part of the call of the church in Acts). The glory of God comes down from the mountain and shines the light on the darkness of human suffering and displacement and heals and restores.
For those of us who will begin our Lenten pilgrimage this week with Ash Wednesday, it is the reminder that there is glory even in the dust of our human existence.
In each of these places, we are reminded that the glory of God shines most brightly into the places of darkness, places most wounded by sin, by sickness, by misunderstanding, and confusion.
In his transfiguration, our Lord looks into the face of his own suffering; he looks into the face of his own death and still his face is shining with light and, even more importantly, with hope. That is transfiguration. To stand with one foot in shadow and one foot in light and to let our faces and our hearts shine with pure, unbridled hope….hope that one day, the glory of God will shine fully upon us all, and the darkness will be transformed from glory to glory.
[1] Frederick Buechner, Transfiguration. From Imaging the Word. Volume I. Kenneth Lawrence, ed. United Church Press: Cleveland, 1994, p 141.
[2] Walter Wink, Interpretation. From Imaging the Word. Volume I. Kenneth Lawrence, ed. United Church Press: Cleveland, 1994, p 142.
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany—Year C
February 14, 2010
Today is the Last Sunday in our season after Epiphany, a season of light in which we celebrate the revelation of God’s glory to all people. And so today, we stand in the dazzling light of Jesus, transfigured on the mountain, even as we join him in setting our faces toward Jerusalem, setting our faces toward the cross as we prepare to journey into the shadow-land of the season of Lent.
Transfiguration. What exactly is it? What does it mean for us as a church and as individual followers of Jesus Christ? People have written so much about transfiguration that it’s hard to know where to even begin. The Christian theologian Frederick Buechner writes about Christ’s transfiguration and how it relates to us saying, “It was Jesus of Nazareth all right, the man they’d tramped many a dusty mile with, whose mother and brothers they knew, the one they’d seen as hungry, tired, footsore as the rest of them. But it was also the Messiah, the Christ, in his glory. It was the holiness of the man shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it they were almost blinded. Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it’s almost beyond bearing”[1]
“The holiness of the man shining through his humanness…”
Another writer writes of Transfiguration as “living by vision: standing foursquare in the midst of a broken, tortured, oppressed, starving, dehumanizing reality, yet seeing the invisible, calling to it to come, behaving as if it is on the way, sustained by elements of it that have come already, within and among us…”[2]
Transfiguration is showing up when we don’t feel like it, staying awake when our eyes and our hearts are so weary and heavy, but still being there to bear witness to God’s glory when it does appear. Transfiguration is standing with one foot in the shadow and one foot in the light; it is understanding that when the cloud comes and overshadows us that we are not alone and it will not keep us in darkness forever. It encompasses a willingness to dwell within the love of God for a few moments so that we are strengthened and emboldened to carry out what God asks us to do, to be willing to set our faces toward the cross and looking into the face of all the worst of humanity and see it transformed by the power of God’s love into new life that overcomes even the shadow of death. Transfiguration involves a willingness to give ourselves over to where God is calling us to grow and to deepen in our faith in God, in what may seem to be the impossible but in what we will eventually find to be new life, new hope, and a deep source of joy.
So what are the results when people are confronted with Transfiguration?
For those of us who pray the words of our collect today, it is the reminder that if we look upon the shining face of our Lord, then we will be changed into his likeness…from glory to glory. From glory to glory….listen to what that says both about what we already are and what we hope to become.
For Paul it is to remember that: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit…”
For Peter and John and James it is to taste the glory and the terror, the confusion and the silence.
For the man and his son in Luke (and for the writer of Luke): the immediate results of the Transfiguration or the revelation of God’s glory in Jesus Christ is healing of the child possessed of the unclean spirit. Jesus restores the outcast to his father and to his community. (which then becomes part of the call of the church in Acts). The glory of God comes down from the mountain and shines the light on the darkness of human suffering and displacement and heals and restores.
For those of us who will begin our Lenten pilgrimage this week with Ash Wednesday, it is the reminder that there is glory even in the dust of our human existence.
In each of these places, we are reminded that the glory of God shines most brightly into the places of darkness, places most wounded by sin, by sickness, by misunderstanding, and confusion.
In his transfiguration, our Lord looks into the face of his own suffering; he looks into the face of his own death and still his face is shining with light and, even more importantly, with hope. That is transfiguration. To stand with one foot in shadow and one foot in light and to let our faces and our hearts shine with pure, unbridled hope….hope that one day, the glory of God will shine fully upon us all, and the darkness will be transformed from glory to glory.
[1] Frederick Buechner, Transfiguration. From Imaging the Word. Volume I. Kenneth Lawrence, ed. United Church Press: Cleveland, 1994, p 141.
[2] Walter Wink, Interpretation. From Imaging the Word. Volume I. Kenneth Lawrence, ed. United Church Press: Cleveland, 1994, p 142.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany Year C sermon
4th Sunday after the Epiphany Year C
January 31, 2010
The Christian writer, Ann Lamott, has a line in one of her writings that beautifully captures the spirit of today’s readings which are actually a series of confrontations. She writes, “God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay like this.[1]”
First, in Jeremiah, we hear the story of God’s call to the prophet. It is a call that God made when Jeremiah was in his mother’s womb, and even when Jeremiah resists the call, protesting that he does not have the gifts needed to fulfill God’s call, God confronts Jeremiah and explodes his understanding of his own limitations. God promises to be with him and to give him the words that he will need.
In the epistle reading, Paul is confronting the people in the church in Corinth. It’s especially important to remember the context of this most familiar part of this letter (which is often associated with the love between husband and wife because of its frequent reading at weddings), so that its true meaning does not become hidden or over-sentimentalized. The church in Corinth to which Paul is writing is a church in conflict. They are doing real and potentially destructive harm to one another in their in-fighting. Out of this specific context comes Paul’s famous hymn to love. One critic has even suggested that Paul is deliberately attacking as worthless the gifts that the church in Corinth prides themselves on: speaking in tongues, prophetic powers, strong faith, knowledge and the giving away of possessions, and he is confronting their unloving behavior to each other by offering them his definition of what love really is (in contrast to their own actions).
In Luke’s gospel, we see Jesus confronting the people from his own hometown. Our story goes back to the reading from last week, where Jesus has come straight from his baptism and temptation in the wilderness and returned to his home town of Nazareth in Galilee. He began to teach in their synagogues and is spoken well of, and then he returns to Galilee and things seem to be proceeding along the same path. Jesus gets up in synagogue and reads from the scroll that is given to him from 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. Then he rolls up the scroll, gives it back and says to them, “ Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Where our reading for today picks up.)
Even then, the people were amazed and spoke well of him. They were proud of him and ready to claim him as their own, home-town hero. It is Jesus who deliberately changes the tone and offers a challenge and a confrontation to the crowd in Galilee, in what must have seemed to them like a tongue lashing out of left-field. He confronts and challenges the people’s most basic understanding of who they are and what their relationship is with God. To the people who have survived so much—exile in a foreign land, oppression under foreign rulers, persecution—a people whose only resource has been the security of their status as God’s chosen people and the promise that their relationship with God is unique and special, to those people, Jesus points out that God respects no boundaries among people. God respects no nationality, and he points to scriptural examples of when God has acted through God’s representative and has interceded for and saved a non-Israelite. Jesus fully embraces his role as prophet and is pointing to the radical inclusivity of God, and the people seem to feel that somehow devalues their national and cultural identity and their own special relationship with God. Or, as theologian Peter Gomes writes, “The people take offense not so much with what Jesus claims about himself, as with the claims that he makes about a God who is more than their own tribal identity.” The congregation has certain reasonable expectations of God that have been learned over generations, and in one instant, Jesus takes those expectations and turns them on their head.
Even our collect today has the potential to issue a confrontation. The words seem simple: Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace…” Much has happened to people in this parish and in our greater community these last few weeks. Many people are dealing with the reality of aging parents, debilitating infirmity and end of life issues. People have experienced the sudden and unexpected deaths of friends and prominent members of the greater community. People are dealing with their own personal illnesses and difficulties. In the midst of all of this, do we really believe that God is “Almighty”. What does that mean for us, when we are in the midst of suffering and loss? One of my dearest friends suffered a miscarriage this week. That is not the way that she hoped her life would turn out, and it is not the way I would have hoped her life would turn out. Why do all sorts of horrible things happen if God is, as we say in this prayer, almighty?
In times of difficulty, our faith and our understanding of God are confronted, and we are invited to enter into dialogue with God, our sacred texts, and our tradition. We are invited to dwell with the God who gives his Son up to death in the last chapters of all our gospels, and even if we are not given answers there, at least, the mystery of suffering will be named. In all different events of our lives, God confronts us…life confronts us, and we realize that we are called to question and to mourn the loss of our expectations; we are called to self-examination and to search for meaning beyond our own lives and our selves. It is especially in times of conflict and distress that our beliefs and understanding and faith are challenged and confronted and it is often when we grow the most.
So, how are you being confronted by God this morning? Are you, like Jeremiah, being confronted by God and challenged to take up God’s call to you, even though God’s call does not seem to fit into your vision of how your life should turn out and what your gifts are? Are you being challenged by God to do more than you think you can do? Our Deacon Scott issued this challenge for us last week, to do more than we think we can do to help feed the hungry in our community.
Are we, like the Church in Corinth, being challenged and confronted about those areas of ministry that we cherish in our congregation, being challenged to investigate whether those ministries are really being offered in the true spirit of love? Are we being challenged and confronted to further discern our purpose and identity? I believe we are. Are you being challenged to examine which areas of your life that you pride yourself on may or may not be rooted in the love that is from God?
Are we, like the people in Galilee, being challenged by God to expand our understanding of who God is beyond an idea of our own tribal God and to not limit God and God’s radical abundance and inclusivity by our own expectations and understandings of God?
Are we, along with all who suffer, being challenged and confronted this morning about our expectations of God and of how our lives and the lives of those we love are supposed to end up?
In his book, In the Name of Jesus, RC priest Henri Nouwen writes about the challenged that Jesus issues to Peter in John 2:18: “When you were young you put on your belt and walked where you liked, but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go.” This is Christian maturity, says Nouwen, the ability to relinquish power and control and even expectations and to be led where we’d rather not go—to “the unknown, the undesirable, the painful places.”
“God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay like this.”
How are you being challenged and confronted this morning? Where are you being called to go?
[1] As quoted in the article Critical and Faithful in The Christian Century January 9, 2007 p.5.
January 31, 2010
The Christian writer, Ann Lamott, has a line in one of her writings that beautifully captures the spirit of today’s readings which are actually a series of confrontations. She writes, “God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay like this.[1]”
First, in Jeremiah, we hear the story of God’s call to the prophet. It is a call that God made when Jeremiah was in his mother’s womb, and even when Jeremiah resists the call, protesting that he does not have the gifts needed to fulfill God’s call, God confronts Jeremiah and explodes his understanding of his own limitations. God promises to be with him and to give him the words that he will need.
In the epistle reading, Paul is confronting the people in the church in Corinth. It’s especially important to remember the context of this most familiar part of this letter (which is often associated with the love between husband and wife because of its frequent reading at weddings), so that its true meaning does not become hidden or over-sentimentalized. The church in Corinth to which Paul is writing is a church in conflict. They are doing real and potentially destructive harm to one another in their in-fighting. Out of this specific context comes Paul’s famous hymn to love. One critic has even suggested that Paul is deliberately attacking as worthless the gifts that the church in Corinth prides themselves on: speaking in tongues, prophetic powers, strong faith, knowledge and the giving away of possessions, and he is confronting their unloving behavior to each other by offering them his definition of what love really is (in contrast to their own actions).
In Luke’s gospel, we see Jesus confronting the people from his own hometown. Our story goes back to the reading from last week, where Jesus has come straight from his baptism and temptation in the wilderness and returned to his home town of Nazareth in Galilee. He began to teach in their synagogues and is spoken well of, and then he returns to Galilee and things seem to be proceeding along the same path. Jesus gets up in synagogue and reads from the scroll that is given to him from 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. Then he rolls up the scroll, gives it back and says to them, “ Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Where our reading for today picks up.)
Even then, the people were amazed and spoke well of him. They were proud of him and ready to claim him as their own, home-town hero. It is Jesus who deliberately changes the tone and offers a challenge and a confrontation to the crowd in Galilee, in what must have seemed to them like a tongue lashing out of left-field. He confronts and challenges the people’s most basic understanding of who they are and what their relationship is with God. To the people who have survived so much—exile in a foreign land, oppression under foreign rulers, persecution—a people whose only resource has been the security of their status as God’s chosen people and the promise that their relationship with God is unique and special, to those people, Jesus points out that God respects no boundaries among people. God respects no nationality, and he points to scriptural examples of when God has acted through God’s representative and has interceded for and saved a non-Israelite. Jesus fully embraces his role as prophet and is pointing to the radical inclusivity of God, and the people seem to feel that somehow devalues their national and cultural identity and their own special relationship with God. Or, as theologian Peter Gomes writes, “The people take offense not so much with what Jesus claims about himself, as with the claims that he makes about a God who is more than their own tribal identity.” The congregation has certain reasonable expectations of God that have been learned over generations, and in one instant, Jesus takes those expectations and turns them on their head.
Even our collect today has the potential to issue a confrontation. The words seem simple: Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace…” Much has happened to people in this parish and in our greater community these last few weeks. Many people are dealing with the reality of aging parents, debilitating infirmity and end of life issues. People have experienced the sudden and unexpected deaths of friends and prominent members of the greater community. People are dealing with their own personal illnesses and difficulties. In the midst of all of this, do we really believe that God is “Almighty”. What does that mean for us, when we are in the midst of suffering and loss? One of my dearest friends suffered a miscarriage this week. That is not the way that she hoped her life would turn out, and it is not the way I would have hoped her life would turn out. Why do all sorts of horrible things happen if God is, as we say in this prayer, almighty?
In times of difficulty, our faith and our understanding of God are confronted, and we are invited to enter into dialogue with God, our sacred texts, and our tradition. We are invited to dwell with the God who gives his Son up to death in the last chapters of all our gospels, and even if we are not given answers there, at least, the mystery of suffering will be named. In all different events of our lives, God confronts us…life confronts us, and we realize that we are called to question and to mourn the loss of our expectations; we are called to self-examination and to search for meaning beyond our own lives and our selves. It is especially in times of conflict and distress that our beliefs and understanding and faith are challenged and confronted and it is often when we grow the most.
So, how are you being confronted by God this morning? Are you, like Jeremiah, being confronted by God and challenged to take up God’s call to you, even though God’s call does not seem to fit into your vision of how your life should turn out and what your gifts are? Are you being challenged by God to do more than you think you can do? Our Deacon Scott issued this challenge for us last week, to do more than we think we can do to help feed the hungry in our community.
Are we, like the Church in Corinth, being challenged and confronted about those areas of ministry that we cherish in our congregation, being challenged to investigate whether those ministries are really being offered in the true spirit of love? Are we being challenged and confronted to further discern our purpose and identity? I believe we are. Are you being challenged to examine which areas of your life that you pride yourself on may or may not be rooted in the love that is from God?
Are we, like the people in Galilee, being challenged by God to expand our understanding of who God is beyond an idea of our own tribal God and to not limit God and God’s radical abundance and inclusivity by our own expectations and understandings of God?
Are we, along with all who suffer, being challenged and confronted this morning about our expectations of God and of how our lives and the lives of those we love are supposed to end up?
In his book, In the Name of Jesus, RC priest Henri Nouwen writes about the challenged that Jesus issues to Peter in John 2:18: “When you were young you put on your belt and walked where you liked, but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go.” This is Christian maturity, says Nouwen, the ability to relinquish power and control and even expectations and to be led where we’d rather not go—to “the unknown, the undesirable, the painful places.”
“God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay like this.”
How are you being challenged and confronted this morning? Where are you being called to go?
[1] As quoted in the article Critical and Faithful in The Christian Century January 9, 2007 p.5.
Oh when the Saints....go marchin in
Many have requested a posting of the original collect that I wrote and prayed in church last week when the New Orleans Saints were playing in the NFC championship. I've yet to get my hands on a pic of me in my stole, so if you've got one, send it my way.
Here's the prayer.
O Almighty God, who hast promised thy grace and mercy to all those who BELIEVE: Send thy Holy Spirit to enliven the hearts of all thy saints, that they, and we with them, may join in that glorious company of the saints in light and find the fulfillment of all our many hopes in thy kingdom where there is no sighing nor suffering nor sorrow but rejoicing, an NFC title and even a Super Bowl victory to the glory of thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Here's the prayer.
O Almighty God, who hast promised thy grace and mercy to all those who BELIEVE: Send thy Holy Spirit to enliven the hearts of all thy saints, that they, and we with them, may join in that glorious company of the saints in light and find the fulfillment of all our many hopes in thy kingdom where there is no sighing nor suffering nor sorrow but rejoicing, an NFC title and even a Super Bowl victory to the glory of thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Epiphany IIC sermon
The Second Sunday after Epiphany-Year C
January 17, 2010
A letter to MaryHelen Smith/Miriam Ozerden upon the occasion of her baptism.
Dear MaryHelen/Miriam,
I am writing you this letter because you will probably not remember this very important day in your life, the day of your baptism. This day is the beginning of a journey for you that you will follow into and through your own death. You will journey through valleys and over mountains; your way will be both smooth and rocky. Sometimes you will dance and rejoice along the way and at other times you will feel so weary and heartbroken that you don’t know how you can go on.
As your community of faith, your parents and godparents, your family and all the people of St. Peter’s by-the-Sea will soon pledge to do all in our power to support you in your life in Christ beginning this day and every day into your future. What that means is that, on the days when you cannot remember some very important things about yourself and your relationship with Christ, we will remember them for you and we will remind you of their truth.
We will remember that you are God’s beloved, chosen by God and called by name before you were even born. In your baptism, your parents and godparents and all of us are embracing that for you; on your behalf, we are saying back to God, “yes, she is your chosen and beloved, and we thank you for choosing her,” and we will help you discover your own grateful response as you grow.
We will remember that God’s promises for Israel are also true for you; that “the Lord delights in you.” Even when times seem to be difficult, God will not forsake you. And if there are times in your life when you cannot believe it, then trust us, and we will believe it for you.
We will remember God’s promise for you, of God’s steadfast love and the promise of refuge in God, and we will remind you when you forget.
We will remind you that God gives each person different gifts through the Holy Spirit for the purpose of building up the common good, and we will try to help you discover your gifts that you may share them with us and with all the world.
We will teach you about Jesus and about the stories of the faith, how his glory was revealed to be a glory of ridiculous abundance in his first miracle at the wedding of Cana, and about how his ridiculous abundance continued even into dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world and then in three days, destroying the power of death with the power of God’s love in the resurrection. And you will have much to teach us of these things as well.
We will walk beside you as your brothers and sisters in Christ as we all seek to follow Jesus and as we seek to be his agents of healing and reconciliation in this needy and broken world.
During those times in your life, when darkness weighs upon you like a tomb, we will hold up the mirror before you that you may once again see that the light of Christ, our Savior who is the light of the world, shines within you and will light your path into the dark.
We will help you remember that every time that you lift your shining face to God with your hands outstretched to receive the bread and the wine, that you are being fed the body and blood of Jesus who loves you, so you may go out into the world to share that love with others.
We will remember this for you, and for ourselves, and for all the beloved of Christ, because it is who God calls us to be, it is what it means to be Christ’s body, the Church…those who remember and proclaim the good news of God’s transforming love to others and to the whole world.
And you will do this for us and for others as well.
And so the Epiphany blessing is appropriate for you, MaryHelen/Miriam, this day as well as for all of us: May Christ the Son of God be manifest in you, that your light may be a light to the world. May it be true this day, and every day into your future.
Peace, Melanie+
January 17, 2010
A letter to MaryHelen Smith/Miriam Ozerden upon the occasion of her baptism.
Dear MaryHelen/Miriam,
I am writing you this letter because you will probably not remember this very important day in your life, the day of your baptism. This day is the beginning of a journey for you that you will follow into and through your own death. You will journey through valleys and over mountains; your way will be both smooth and rocky. Sometimes you will dance and rejoice along the way and at other times you will feel so weary and heartbroken that you don’t know how you can go on.
As your community of faith, your parents and godparents, your family and all the people of St. Peter’s by-the-Sea will soon pledge to do all in our power to support you in your life in Christ beginning this day and every day into your future. What that means is that, on the days when you cannot remember some very important things about yourself and your relationship with Christ, we will remember them for you and we will remind you of their truth.
We will remember that you are God’s beloved, chosen by God and called by name before you were even born. In your baptism, your parents and godparents and all of us are embracing that for you; on your behalf, we are saying back to God, “yes, she is your chosen and beloved, and we thank you for choosing her,” and we will help you discover your own grateful response as you grow.
We will remember that God’s promises for Israel are also true for you; that “the Lord delights in you.” Even when times seem to be difficult, God will not forsake you. And if there are times in your life when you cannot believe it, then trust us, and we will believe it for you.
We will remember God’s promise for you, of God’s steadfast love and the promise of refuge in God, and we will remind you when you forget.
We will remind you that God gives each person different gifts through the Holy Spirit for the purpose of building up the common good, and we will try to help you discover your gifts that you may share them with us and with all the world.
We will teach you about Jesus and about the stories of the faith, how his glory was revealed to be a glory of ridiculous abundance in his first miracle at the wedding of Cana, and about how his ridiculous abundance continued even into dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world and then in three days, destroying the power of death with the power of God’s love in the resurrection. And you will have much to teach us of these things as well.
We will walk beside you as your brothers and sisters in Christ as we all seek to follow Jesus and as we seek to be his agents of healing and reconciliation in this needy and broken world.
During those times in your life, when darkness weighs upon you like a tomb, we will hold up the mirror before you that you may once again see that the light of Christ, our Savior who is the light of the world, shines within you and will light your path into the dark.
We will help you remember that every time that you lift your shining face to God with your hands outstretched to receive the bread and the wine, that you are being fed the body and blood of Jesus who loves you, so you may go out into the world to share that love with others.
We will remember this for you, and for ourselves, and for all the beloved of Christ, because it is who God calls us to be, it is what it means to be Christ’s body, the Church…those who remember and proclaim the good news of God’s transforming love to others and to the whole world.
And you will do this for us and for others as well.
And so the Epiphany blessing is appropriate for you, MaryHelen/Miriam, this day as well as for all of us: May Christ the Son of God be manifest in you, that your light may be a light to the world. May it be true this day, and every day into your future.
Peace, Melanie+
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Rector's Report for St. Peter's by-the-Sea Annual Parish meeting
Rector’s report 2010
2009 was the year that you chose me, and I chose you. Last summer, the Diocesan Canon to the Ordinary, David Johnson, told me he was sending me the search packet from St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, and he asked me to give St. Peter’s some serious consideration. “It’s a great church”, he told me, “and I think y’all would be a good match.” And he was right.
But even beyond that, it’s nice to be chosen. It makes one feel loved and appreciated. And these last few months, I believe that we have all basked in that glow of being chosen by the other. The bishop has made it official: we belong to one another. You all have offered such a warm welcome and full inclusion to me and my whole family, and for that I offer you my deepest gratitude.
I’m excited about all that is already going on at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, and I have some dreams and some goals for our work together in 2010.
1. Increased involvement in outreach. With our new deacon’s appointment official, I hope that he will begin to challenge us to become more aware and responsive to the needs in our community. Starting today, we begin a commitment to help make and give out sandwiches to homeless and hungry people through Feed My Sheep. A few months ago, the Rev. Kurt Burge, who is currently serving as the interim at the First Christian Church down the road from us, approached us with a need. He said that Feed My Sheep does not currently feed people on the weekend. One church has started making lunches for people on Saturdays, but there is no food available on Sundays. So Kurt asked if we’d be willing to partner with the other downtown churches which include his church, First United Methodist church, and Grace Memorial Baptist church and each take one Sunday a month to make 30 bag lunches which are comprised of 2 sandwiches, chips, fruit, and a drink, and to take them down to Feed My Sheep to hand out to people who show up on Sundays looking for food. We will be responsible for every second Sunday of the month, beginning today. Gini Fellows and the outreach committee are providing the sandwiches today, and in February, the young people in confirmation class will be doing it. After that, we are asking that the different groups of the parish be responsible for one month each, and Scott will be putting that schedule together soon.
2. I hope that we will be able to buy a new playground for the church during this next year. After our last playground equipment was damaged and partially removed, I asked the Sunday school committee to make a recommendation to the Vestry for a new play system, and I hope that will come to fruition in the coming months.
3. I have already begun work to appoint a stewardship committee that will meet and function year-round. Stewardship is not something that we need to be focused on once a year as we plan our budget for the next year. Instead, how we use the gifts that God has given us is of vital importance in our discipleship, and I hope that this committee will help us learn more about that and incorporate it more into the common life of our church.
4. We have one of the best-kept secrets in Gulfport in the Aidan Sullivan community children’s choir. Through the gifts of JT and Debbie Anglin and Donna Hutchins, the few children we have participating are learning so much and have an enormous amount of fun while doing it. I cannot begin to tell you the enormous potential that I believe lies in this group! But one thing that I can say is that it needs full support from the people in the church, especially the people with children in those age groups (K-6). It needs for parents to see it for the amazing gift that it is, and it needs for the parents and children to make it a priority and a commitment—to put it on the calendar as you would a sports practice or a scouts meeting and then to show up for it, every week, like you would do with other organizations that you value. Everyone says that formation and offerings for children in the church is important, and here is our chance. But we have to make it a priority among competing claims.
5. Increased visibility in the community through special programs. We’ve already got one concert scheduled for March that will be a presentation by the Spirit of Southern choir from USM. I hope that we will have other offerings for the community such as more concerts, lectures, even an idea that is surfaced called Red Bean Mondays which would be lunch for members and down-town business professionals coupled with a brief presentation. I want us to be visible, and even more importantly, I want our doors to be open so that people who aren’t normally in St. Peter’s will have the opportunity and the invitation to discover what a wonderful, vibrant community of faith we have.
6. In 2010, I want us to pray more, both corporately and individually. As people of faith, prayer is possibly the most important activity that we engage in. I hope to have some different types of services available for us to pray together in worship, such as the festive choral evensong with which we will mark the feast day of our patron saint, Peter, next Sunday at 7pm. If you’ve never been to an Evensong, then you must make plans to attend. It is one of the rarest gifts of our Anglican heritage. Also, I hope to explore Taize style worship during Wednesday nights in Lent, and we will have a full component of Holy Week services including the return of the biggest and best service our prayer book has to offer: The Great Vigil of Easter. Also during Lent, we will be having a Centering Prayer group on Monday mornings before work followed by a light breakfast.
7. Last, but certainly not least, I hope and plan that 2010 will be the year that we as a parish articulate a vision for who St. Peter’s will be in the future. We’ve already begun discussing this at our small group gatherings this fall. Our Vestry will consider if further at our annual retreat in February, and we will implement a plan to pray and vision about who we are being called to be in this next year, in the next five years, even into the next fifty years.
It’s exciting stuff, and our work together has only just begun. We have each chosen the other for our gifts and talents. May God be with us and we seek to live more fully into who God is calling us to be.
2009 was the year that you chose me, and I chose you. Last summer, the Diocesan Canon to the Ordinary, David Johnson, told me he was sending me the search packet from St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, and he asked me to give St. Peter’s some serious consideration. “It’s a great church”, he told me, “and I think y’all would be a good match.” And he was right.
But even beyond that, it’s nice to be chosen. It makes one feel loved and appreciated. And these last few months, I believe that we have all basked in that glow of being chosen by the other. The bishop has made it official: we belong to one another. You all have offered such a warm welcome and full inclusion to me and my whole family, and for that I offer you my deepest gratitude.
I’m excited about all that is already going on at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, and I have some dreams and some goals for our work together in 2010.
1. Increased involvement in outreach. With our new deacon’s appointment official, I hope that he will begin to challenge us to become more aware and responsive to the needs in our community. Starting today, we begin a commitment to help make and give out sandwiches to homeless and hungry people through Feed My Sheep. A few months ago, the Rev. Kurt Burge, who is currently serving as the interim at the First Christian Church down the road from us, approached us with a need. He said that Feed My Sheep does not currently feed people on the weekend. One church has started making lunches for people on Saturdays, but there is no food available on Sundays. So Kurt asked if we’d be willing to partner with the other downtown churches which include his church, First United Methodist church, and Grace Memorial Baptist church and each take one Sunday a month to make 30 bag lunches which are comprised of 2 sandwiches, chips, fruit, and a drink, and to take them down to Feed My Sheep to hand out to people who show up on Sundays looking for food. We will be responsible for every second Sunday of the month, beginning today. Gini Fellows and the outreach committee are providing the sandwiches today, and in February, the young people in confirmation class will be doing it. After that, we are asking that the different groups of the parish be responsible for one month each, and Scott will be putting that schedule together soon.
2. I hope that we will be able to buy a new playground for the church during this next year. After our last playground equipment was damaged and partially removed, I asked the Sunday school committee to make a recommendation to the Vestry for a new play system, and I hope that will come to fruition in the coming months.
3. I have already begun work to appoint a stewardship committee that will meet and function year-round. Stewardship is not something that we need to be focused on once a year as we plan our budget for the next year. Instead, how we use the gifts that God has given us is of vital importance in our discipleship, and I hope that this committee will help us learn more about that and incorporate it more into the common life of our church.
4. We have one of the best-kept secrets in Gulfport in the Aidan Sullivan community children’s choir. Through the gifts of JT and Debbie Anglin and Donna Hutchins, the few children we have participating are learning so much and have an enormous amount of fun while doing it. I cannot begin to tell you the enormous potential that I believe lies in this group! But one thing that I can say is that it needs full support from the people in the church, especially the people with children in those age groups (K-6). It needs for parents to see it for the amazing gift that it is, and it needs for the parents and children to make it a priority and a commitment—to put it on the calendar as you would a sports practice or a scouts meeting and then to show up for it, every week, like you would do with other organizations that you value. Everyone says that formation and offerings for children in the church is important, and here is our chance. But we have to make it a priority among competing claims.
5. Increased visibility in the community through special programs. We’ve already got one concert scheduled for March that will be a presentation by the Spirit of Southern choir from USM. I hope that we will have other offerings for the community such as more concerts, lectures, even an idea that is surfaced called Red Bean Mondays which would be lunch for members and down-town business professionals coupled with a brief presentation. I want us to be visible, and even more importantly, I want our doors to be open so that people who aren’t normally in St. Peter’s will have the opportunity and the invitation to discover what a wonderful, vibrant community of faith we have.
6. In 2010, I want us to pray more, both corporately and individually. As people of faith, prayer is possibly the most important activity that we engage in. I hope to have some different types of services available for us to pray together in worship, such as the festive choral evensong with which we will mark the feast day of our patron saint, Peter, next Sunday at 7pm. If you’ve never been to an Evensong, then you must make plans to attend. It is one of the rarest gifts of our Anglican heritage. Also, I hope to explore Taize style worship during Wednesday nights in Lent, and we will have a full component of Holy Week services including the return of the biggest and best service our prayer book has to offer: The Great Vigil of Easter. Also during Lent, we will be having a Centering Prayer group on Monday mornings before work followed by a light breakfast.
7. Last, but certainly not least, I hope and plan that 2010 will be the year that we as a parish articulate a vision for who St. Peter’s will be in the future. We’ve already begun discussing this at our small group gatherings this fall. Our Vestry will consider if further at our annual retreat in February, and we will implement a plan to pray and vision about who we are being called to be in this next year, in the next five years, even into the next fifty years.
It’s exciting stuff, and our work together has only just begun. We have each chosen the other for our gifts and talents. May God be with us and we seek to live more fully into who God is calling us to be.
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