4th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 10A
There once was a man who ran a large charity, and one day he noticed that the banker who lived in town had never given any money to the charity. He called up the banker and said, ‘According to our records, you make $500,000 a year. And yet you’ve never given one penny to our charity.’ The banker replied, ‘Do your records also show that I have a very sick mother with very expensive medical bills?’ The man replied: ‘Oh! Sorry! I didn’t know.’ The banker continued, ‘Or do they show that my brother is unemployed or that my sister’s husband died leaving her a widow with three small children?’ ‘I…I…I’ the charity representative stammered in embarrassment. The banker continued, ‘If I don’t give them any money, what makes you think I’ll give any to your charity?”
“And Jesus told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had not depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had not root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!’”
Jesus’s parables are designed to challenge us and our understanding of reality. The challenge of today’s parable, even a bit of the shock of it, really, is found in its radical conclusion. There may be some times in our live when we need to focus on the different types of soil Jesus talks about in this parable, and we certainly know that we’ve all been all of those different types of soil when our souls our inhospitable to God’s word and to faith, we understand that there are times a areas of our lives in which God’s word, and faith do not, for whatever reasons, take root and yield; and it’s all too easy for us to judge ourselves and others according to the parable and the different types of soil and their harvest (or seeming lack thereof).
But the challenge of this parable today is the shocking, wasteful, indiscriminate character of God’s abundance. And this parable challenges us to believe in that, and to give our hearts to that abundance.
The actual parable ends with a miracle. Even after the sower sows seed so indiscriminately, the yield is not just sevenfold, which would be a really good year for a farmer. The harvest is not just tenfold, which would mean true abundance. It is not even just thirty-fold, which would feed an entire village for a whole year, but it is a harvest of a hundred-fold—which would allow the farmer to retire to a villa by the sea for the rest of his life. A hundredfold harvest is miraculous, radical abundance.
If the parable ended with the sevenfold harvest from good soil, then it would be sufficient and a good story of encouragement and hope. However, this parable is not simply cautiously optimistic; it is a promise of a radical kind of hope and the assurance of miraculous generosity, of true abundance.
In the book, Singing with the Comeback Choir, novelist Bebe Moore Campbell writes, “Some of us have that empty-barrel faith. Walking around expecting things to run out. Expecting that there isn’t enough air, enough water. Expecting that someone is going to do you wrong. The God I serve told me to expect the best, that there is enough for everybody.”
Do we live out of abundance, or do we live out scarcity?
Do we live our lives as if we have that empty-barrel faith, or do we live our lives as if we believe in God’s miraculous, radical, outrageous abundance?
Do we worship with a belief in abundance or a belief in scarcity. Do we give—our time, our attention, our money—according to a trust in God’s abundance or according to what the world teaches us about scarcity?
If we ask ourselves about stewardship in our lives—mindful that the definition of stewardship can be “all that you do with all that you have after you say ‘I believe,’ then we have to acknowledge that how we live (either out of scarcity or out of abundance) is directly related to how we believe (or as Ted Dawson says—what you give you heart to. Do you give your heart to this God of miraculous, reckless abundance or do you give your heart to empty barrel faith, that there will not be enough. Do you give your heart to abundance or to scarcity?
It is so easy to give our hearts to scarcity in this life, as the anxiety in our country steadily rises and the conflict and drama around our economic woes continues. It is easy to give our hearts to scarcity as here on the Coast, we cinch our belts up a little tighter every day.
The call of our Lord and our challenge this day, and every day, is to give our hearts, again and again, to abundance.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
3rd Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 9A
Proper 9A
July 3, 2011
There’s a portion of today’s gospel reading from Matthew that is a part of our DNA as Episcopalians and Anglicans. This scripture is actually printed somewhere in our Book of Common Prayer. Who knows where it is? “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” Matthew 11:28 It’s in our Rite One Eucharist on page 332 in between the confession of sin and absolution and the peace. What do you think that might be saying about the Anglican/Episcopal understanding of who God is? We believe that God doesn’t want us to feel badly about ourselves or our relationship with God. We believe that after we confess our sins and receive the assurance of God’s pardon, then we are invited by God to lay down the burdens that we might be carrying and to greet one another in peace and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is offering an invitation about how to deepen our relationship with him and thus with God, and he is offering us a new way of being in the world, a new way of being his disciples. Jesus is offering us a way to be healthier, more whole, more fully who God has created us to be.
Let’s look at this image of the yoke; for most of us, it is an image out of the past to which we have little reason to relate. A yoke is a wooden beam that links two animals (oxen, mules, horses, water buffalo) together so that they may pull together on a load while working in pairs. It has connotations of subservience. In some ancient cultures, the defeated army was forced to walk under a yoke created by the spears and swords of the victor; so it can by a symbol of something oppressive or burdensome, or it can also be a symbol for people who are working together, like in a marriage or partnership. (Did any of you military folk walk under the arch of swords at your wedding? That’s actually a practice that combines both of these historical understandings of the yoke—the conquering army piece and the yoking through marriage.)
A yoke can be something that can potentially make a really heavy load bearable by sharing the weight and the work between two workers.
In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus is inviting his followers (us) to willingly take his yoke upon us. If we do this, he promises us a contradiction. His yoke, he says, does not mean back-breaking labor. His yoke, he says is easy and the burden is light and by sharing it with him, he promises us that we will find rest for our souls. Doesn’t that sound just lovely?! So why on earth do we still feel so restless, so burdened, so anxious, so stressed, so very heart-broken?
There are two questions I’m going to ask you this morning, that I think will help us understand the gap between Jesus’s life-giving offer to us this morning and the way that we experience the world and our lives truly to be. The first question I ask you is “to what and to whom are you really and truly yoked?” To what and to whom are you really and truly yoked?
What are you attaching yourself to these days? We all know that we always bind ourselves, however subtly, to something: people, places, habits, possessions, beliefs, ways of being in the world, groups, resentments, old hurts, ideas, schedules, expectations…Some of these yokings can be healthy and life-giving for us, but some of them can be toxic, poisonous, burdens that are just too heavy for us to bear. As you sit there in your pew this morning, take a minute and ask yourself: “to whom and to what am I yoked right now? (significant pause)
“Have you sought these connections or do you allow them to be placed upon you by others? Do these connections deepen or deaden you? Do they draw you closer to Christ or farther away from him? Do they connect you with the power, freedom, and choice that God gives you, or do they diminish your power, freedom, and choice?” (Jan Richardson The Painted Prayerbook).
What am I attaching myself to these days? It’s a question worth revisiting again and again over the course of our lives.
Here’s my second question for you this morning. When you do accept Jesus’s invitation to take up his yoke and walk with him, what do you really think, believe, understand about the nature of your yoke-mate?
A former spiritual director of mine used to tell me all the time, “Pray to the God you long for, not the God you have received.” Think for a minute which one of these is the Jesus that you really find yourself yoked with?
Often times the God that we have received demands that each of us individuals be good enough, do more, be more loving to every person, be more righteous and working toward perfection. Often the God that we have received demands that we never rest (from anything, especially doing the work of Christ), that we live up to others expectations for us, that we be successful—whatever that means. And sometimes the God that we have received inhabits the primary position of judge.
I don’t know about you, but that is most certainly not the God that I long for in my deepest heart! The God that I long for tells me that I am already enough, no matter what I may do or become. The God I long for whispers to me that I don’t have to do anything more for God to love me more than I can ask or imagine. The God I long for loves me, forgives me, invites me to find my rest in gentle Jesus and offers to me (and all of God’s people) the gift of God’s peace. The God I long for is a God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8).
Which one of these Gods do you pray to? The God you have received or the God you long for? Which one of these Gods do you find yourself yoked to? And how might that affect not only your relationship with God but also how you experience God’s creation—the world and the people in it?
This morning, we are all invited to come forward to God’s table, to lay down all of our burdens at the foot of the cross of the Resurrected Christ, and to be fed and loved by the God for whom each of us desperately longs. And then we will go out into the world to love and serve and walk with the Lord.
July 3, 2011
There’s a portion of today’s gospel reading from Matthew that is a part of our DNA as Episcopalians and Anglicans. This scripture is actually printed somewhere in our Book of Common Prayer. Who knows where it is? “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” Matthew 11:28 It’s in our Rite One Eucharist on page 332 in between the confession of sin and absolution and the peace. What do you think that might be saying about the Anglican/Episcopal understanding of who God is? We believe that God doesn’t want us to feel badly about ourselves or our relationship with God. We believe that after we confess our sins and receive the assurance of God’s pardon, then we are invited by God to lay down the burdens that we might be carrying and to greet one another in peace and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is offering an invitation about how to deepen our relationship with him and thus with God, and he is offering us a new way of being in the world, a new way of being his disciples. Jesus is offering us a way to be healthier, more whole, more fully who God has created us to be.
Let’s look at this image of the yoke; for most of us, it is an image out of the past to which we have little reason to relate. A yoke is a wooden beam that links two animals (oxen, mules, horses, water buffalo) together so that they may pull together on a load while working in pairs. It has connotations of subservience. In some ancient cultures, the defeated army was forced to walk under a yoke created by the spears and swords of the victor; so it can by a symbol of something oppressive or burdensome, or it can also be a symbol for people who are working together, like in a marriage or partnership. (Did any of you military folk walk under the arch of swords at your wedding? That’s actually a practice that combines both of these historical understandings of the yoke—the conquering army piece and the yoking through marriage.)
A yoke can be something that can potentially make a really heavy load bearable by sharing the weight and the work between two workers.
In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus is inviting his followers (us) to willingly take his yoke upon us. If we do this, he promises us a contradiction. His yoke, he says, does not mean back-breaking labor. His yoke, he says is easy and the burden is light and by sharing it with him, he promises us that we will find rest for our souls. Doesn’t that sound just lovely?! So why on earth do we still feel so restless, so burdened, so anxious, so stressed, so very heart-broken?
There are two questions I’m going to ask you this morning, that I think will help us understand the gap between Jesus’s life-giving offer to us this morning and the way that we experience the world and our lives truly to be. The first question I ask you is “to what and to whom are you really and truly yoked?” To what and to whom are you really and truly yoked?
What are you attaching yourself to these days? We all know that we always bind ourselves, however subtly, to something: people, places, habits, possessions, beliefs, ways of being in the world, groups, resentments, old hurts, ideas, schedules, expectations…Some of these yokings can be healthy and life-giving for us, but some of them can be toxic, poisonous, burdens that are just too heavy for us to bear. As you sit there in your pew this morning, take a minute and ask yourself: “to whom and to what am I yoked right now? (significant pause)
“Have you sought these connections or do you allow them to be placed upon you by others? Do these connections deepen or deaden you? Do they draw you closer to Christ or farther away from him? Do they connect you with the power, freedom, and choice that God gives you, or do they diminish your power, freedom, and choice?” (Jan Richardson The Painted Prayerbook).
What am I attaching myself to these days? It’s a question worth revisiting again and again over the course of our lives.
Here’s my second question for you this morning. When you do accept Jesus’s invitation to take up his yoke and walk with him, what do you really think, believe, understand about the nature of your yoke-mate?
A former spiritual director of mine used to tell me all the time, “Pray to the God you long for, not the God you have received.” Think for a minute which one of these is the Jesus that you really find yourself yoked with?
Often times the God that we have received demands that each of us individuals be good enough, do more, be more loving to every person, be more righteous and working toward perfection. Often the God that we have received demands that we never rest (from anything, especially doing the work of Christ), that we live up to others expectations for us, that we be successful—whatever that means. And sometimes the God that we have received inhabits the primary position of judge.
I don’t know about you, but that is most certainly not the God that I long for in my deepest heart! The God that I long for tells me that I am already enough, no matter what I may do or become. The God I long for whispers to me that I don’t have to do anything more for God to love me more than I can ask or imagine. The God I long for loves me, forgives me, invites me to find my rest in gentle Jesus and offers to me (and all of God’s people) the gift of God’s peace. The God I long for is a God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8).
Which one of these Gods do you pray to? The God you have received or the God you long for? Which one of these Gods do you find yourself yoked to? And how might that affect not only your relationship with God but also how you experience God’s creation—the world and the people in it?
This morning, we are all invited to come forward to God’s table, to lay down all of our burdens at the foot of the cross of the Resurrected Christ, and to be fed and loved by the God for whom each of us desperately longs. And then we will go out into the world to love and serve and walk with the Lord.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Pentecost Year A
Pentecost-Year A—VBS closing
June 12, 2011
In VBS this week, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the marvelous and wondrous works of the Lord.
We focused on 4 bible stories throughout the week, that had to do with our space themed VBS: God’s Galaxy Quest.
1. We talked about Creation—about how God created all that is—“the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth our island home.”
2. We talked about Moses and the children of Israel, how they followed God into the promised land out of slavery in Egypt and how God went before them in a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud.
3. We talked about how the wise men, the 3 kings followed a star to meet and worship the baby Jesus.
4. And we talked about the story of Pentecost—the reading from Acts that we just heard.
In each of these stories, God is actively present—present at creation as the one creating and as the Spirit-wind blowing over the face of the waters. God is present in fire—the pillar of fire for Moses and the children of Israel: present and actively leading them from slavery and fear into joy and freedom. God is present and active in the fiery star that the wise men followed, and God is present and active in the wind and fire at Pentecost.
In our sacred stories, fire signals the presence and the action of God.
But we often don’t know what to do with this fire, what to make of it. When we were talking about the story of Moses on night at VBS, JT was telling the children about how God spoke to Moses out of a bush that was on fire. He said to them, “Now, what do you think you would do if God spoke to you out of a bush that was on fire?” And a tiny little girl raised her hand high and then answered, “I would call 911!” Out of the mouths of babes!
Today, this day of Pentecost is a day when we celebrate the presence and work of God in wind and fire, and it is also a day when we try to remember what our baptism in fire at Pentecost means and, even more importantly, what to do with it.
In the fire of Pentecost, God’s spirit is loose and at work in the world, and through the baptism in fire at Pentecost God’s spirit continues to create.
Through baptism, God makes of each of us a new creation, people who no longer live for ourselves alone but who live to love and serve God and to love and serve others.
In baptism, we are saying yes to God, this God who has created all that is has created us and named each of us as God’s own beloved. In baptism, we accept that we are God’s beloved; we accept that we, as individuals, are also examples of God’s marvelous works.
Each one of you is a little universe created by God and you are just as breathtaking, just as lovely, just as marvelous a part of God’s creation as the sun or all the stars in the night sky.
We affirm and accept this truth in our baptism (or our parents affirm and accept this for us), and then we reaffirm it again and again throughout our lives because sometimes it’s hard to remember—when we hear voices around us or inside us telling us over and over again—you’re not good enough, you’re not attractive enough, you’re not smart enough, or rich enough…Then we have to remember our baptism and what God is saying to us at that moment and then over and over again if we will but listen: (God is saying) “You are amazing! You are a part of my marvelous works, and I love you, just as you are, just as I have created you; I love you more than you can ever imagine!”
In baptism, God isn’t just reminding us that each of us is a part of God’s marvelous works. God is making a marvelous work of all of us together. In our baptism in the Spirit, God is making of us the Church, the body of Christ; together we are the hands and feet, the eyes and ears, even the mouth of Jesus.
As a part of our baptism, we are called to give voice to the marvelous works of God; we are called to tell about God’s deeds of power; and we are called to remember that each person whom we encounter in this marvelous world that God has created is a little universe, a marvelous and unique and wondrous work of God; and we are called to treat each other accordingly. We are called to treat one another with grace, gentleness, and even reverence, and when we do that, God’s Spirit refreshes us and creates in us new hope, new faith, new life.
June 12, 2011
In VBS this week, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the marvelous and wondrous works of the Lord.
We focused on 4 bible stories throughout the week, that had to do with our space themed VBS: God’s Galaxy Quest.
1. We talked about Creation—about how God created all that is—“the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth our island home.”
2. We talked about Moses and the children of Israel, how they followed God into the promised land out of slavery in Egypt and how God went before them in a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud.
3. We talked about how the wise men, the 3 kings followed a star to meet and worship the baby Jesus.
4. And we talked about the story of Pentecost—the reading from Acts that we just heard.
In each of these stories, God is actively present—present at creation as the one creating and as the Spirit-wind blowing over the face of the waters. God is present in fire—the pillar of fire for Moses and the children of Israel: present and actively leading them from slavery and fear into joy and freedom. God is present and active in the fiery star that the wise men followed, and God is present and active in the wind and fire at Pentecost.
In our sacred stories, fire signals the presence and the action of God.
But we often don’t know what to do with this fire, what to make of it. When we were talking about the story of Moses on night at VBS, JT was telling the children about how God spoke to Moses out of a bush that was on fire. He said to them, “Now, what do you think you would do if God spoke to you out of a bush that was on fire?” And a tiny little girl raised her hand high and then answered, “I would call 911!” Out of the mouths of babes!
Today, this day of Pentecost is a day when we celebrate the presence and work of God in wind and fire, and it is also a day when we try to remember what our baptism in fire at Pentecost means and, even more importantly, what to do with it.
In the fire of Pentecost, God’s spirit is loose and at work in the world, and through the baptism in fire at Pentecost God’s spirit continues to create.
Through baptism, God makes of each of us a new creation, people who no longer live for ourselves alone but who live to love and serve God and to love and serve others.
In baptism, we are saying yes to God, this God who has created all that is has created us and named each of us as God’s own beloved. In baptism, we accept that we are God’s beloved; we accept that we, as individuals, are also examples of God’s marvelous works.
Each one of you is a little universe created by God and you are just as breathtaking, just as lovely, just as marvelous a part of God’s creation as the sun or all the stars in the night sky.
We affirm and accept this truth in our baptism (or our parents affirm and accept this for us), and then we reaffirm it again and again throughout our lives because sometimes it’s hard to remember—when we hear voices around us or inside us telling us over and over again—you’re not good enough, you’re not attractive enough, you’re not smart enough, or rich enough…Then we have to remember our baptism and what God is saying to us at that moment and then over and over again if we will but listen: (God is saying) “You are amazing! You are a part of my marvelous works, and I love you, just as you are, just as I have created you; I love you more than you can ever imagine!”
In baptism, God isn’t just reminding us that each of us is a part of God’s marvelous works. God is making a marvelous work of all of us together. In our baptism in the Spirit, God is making of us the Church, the body of Christ; together we are the hands and feet, the eyes and ears, even the mouth of Jesus.
As a part of our baptism, we are called to give voice to the marvelous works of God; we are called to tell about God’s deeds of power; and we are called to remember that each person whom we encounter in this marvelous world that God has created is a little universe, a marvelous and unique and wondrous work of God; and we are called to treat each other accordingly. We are called to treat one another with grace, gentleness, and even reverence, and when we do that, God’s Spirit refreshes us and creates in us new hope, new faith, new life.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The Sunday after the Ascension--Year A
Easter 7A—Sunday after Ascension
June 5, 2011
You would think that after the resurrection, nothing would surprise them, these disciples who had walked with him, who had seen him heal so many and work so many wonders. But that day, outside on the mount called Olivet, they were most surprised to see their friend and master lifted up in a cloud toward heaven until he was taken out of their sight. They were so surprised that all they could do was stand there, with their mouths open, watching and wondering, until two men in white approach them and seem to break their spell.
We know something about that, don’t we? Sometimes life surprises us, catches us off guard, throws us a curve ball, and we are so surprised that we cannot know or remember how to proceed. Sometimes this surprise comes through a blessing, but sometimes it comes through a loss. Sometimes it is even God who surprises us.
So, when the disciples finally come to their senses, what do they do? They remember what Jesus has told them, to wait in Jerusalem, and so they do just that. They go back to Jerusalem, and they wait; they’re not even really sure what they’re waiting for. But still they wait.
For us, waiting is a lost art. In our high-speed, technologically advanced culture, we chafe at any waiting we are forced to do. We fidget and fuss, we fret and we grow anxious. We as a people have lost the art of waiting gracefully. So when we must do it, we often do it badly.
This part of the Easter season in which we find ourselves today has much to teach us about waiting gracefully. It is an in-between time, after Jesus has ascended to heaven and before the gift of the Holy Spirit, the comforter given at Pentecost. We long for the gift of the Spirit, for some solid definition of who and where we are and what we are supposed to be doing. But for today, at least, we are called to follow the example of the disciples. Today we are called to wait.
We see in the story from Acts, that waiting gracefully, waiting faithfully is also a part of Christian discipleship. It is as much a part of Christian action as service, stewardship, charity…For the disciples didn’t go back to that room and twiddle their thumbs. They went back and they waited in an intentional way. Two notable actions characterize the disciples’ waiting. They stay together; and they pray.
As they wait together, they physically manifest the reality that, even though Jesus is gone, they are all still in this together. And even before they are given the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and are made the Church, they are already acting like how the church is supposed to act. For that is what the church really is: a body of people who are in this thing together, people who no longer have to “go it alone,” who do not have to wait and agonize and battle anxiety alone but who have a whole host of others to wait with.
And as they wait, they pray. They turn their focus away from the work of waiting and they turn it toward God, the source of all good gifts. They pray because in their waiting they are reminded that they are truly powerless, but that in God, all things are held in God’s care and in God’s power and in God’s time.
So much of our lives are made up of the in-between times. Already we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit at our baptism, but God’s kingdom is not yet fulfilled.
In our baptism, we are called to be people who wait well and also who wait with one another. Take a moment and remember when the last time was that you waited well? When was the last time you waited with another? What characterized that time? Was it the support, the community? Was it prayer?
In this in-between time between Ascension and Pentecost, and in all the in-between times in our lives, may we hold together, wait with and bear with one another, and may we turn our eyes to God, the giver of all good things and the creator of hope; may God grant us the spirit cast all of our anxiety upon God, to remain steadfast in our faith that Christ himself will “restore, support, strengthen and establish us;” may God give us the grace to hold together and to wait gracefully, through prayer and in hope.
June 5, 2011
You would think that after the resurrection, nothing would surprise them, these disciples who had walked with him, who had seen him heal so many and work so many wonders. But that day, outside on the mount called Olivet, they were most surprised to see their friend and master lifted up in a cloud toward heaven until he was taken out of their sight. They were so surprised that all they could do was stand there, with their mouths open, watching and wondering, until two men in white approach them and seem to break their spell.
We know something about that, don’t we? Sometimes life surprises us, catches us off guard, throws us a curve ball, and we are so surprised that we cannot know or remember how to proceed. Sometimes this surprise comes through a blessing, but sometimes it comes through a loss. Sometimes it is even God who surprises us.
So, when the disciples finally come to their senses, what do they do? They remember what Jesus has told them, to wait in Jerusalem, and so they do just that. They go back to Jerusalem, and they wait; they’re not even really sure what they’re waiting for. But still they wait.
For us, waiting is a lost art. In our high-speed, technologically advanced culture, we chafe at any waiting we are forced to do. We fidget and fuss, we fret and we grow anxious. We as a people have lost the art of waiting gracefully. So when we must do it, we often do it badly.
This part of the Easter season in which we find ourselves today has much to teach us about waiting gracefully. It is an in-between time, after Jesus has ascended to heaven and before the gift of the Holy Spirit, the comforter given at Pentecost. We long for the gift of the Spirit, for some solid definition of who and where we are and what we are supposed to be doing. But for today, at least, we are called to follow the example of the disciples. Today we are called to wait.
We see in the story from Acts, that waiting gracefully, waiting faithfully is also a part of Christian discipleship. It is as much a part of Christian action as service, stewardship, charity…For the disciples didn’t go back to that room and twiddle their thumbs. They went back and they waited in an intentional way. Two notable actions characterize the disciples’ waiting. They stay together; and they pray.
As they wait together, they physically manifest the reality that, even though Jesus is gone, they are all still in this together. And even before they are given the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and are made the Church, they are already acting like how the church is supposed to act. For that is what the church really is: a body of people who are in this thing together, people who no longer have to “go it alone,” who do not have to wait and agonize and battle anxiety alone but who have a whole host of others to wait with.
And as they wait, they pray. They turn their focus away from the work of waiting and they turn it toward God, the source of all good gifts. They pray because in their waiting they are reminded that they are truly powerless, but that in God, all things are held in God’s care and in God’s power and in God’s time.
So much of our lives are made up of the in-between times. Already we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit at our baptism, but God’s kingdom is not yet fulfilled.
In our baptism, we are called to be people who wait well and also who wait with one another. Take a moment and remember when the last time was that you waited well? When was the last time you waited with another? What characterized that time? Was it the support, the community? Was it prayer?
In this in-between time between Ascension and Pentecost, and in all the in-between times in our lives, may we hold together, wait with and bear with one another, and may we turn our eyes to God, the giver of all good things and the creator of hope; may God grant us the spirit cast all of our anxiety upon God, to remain steadfast in our faith that Christ himself will “restore, support, strengthen and establish us;” may God give us the grace to hold together and to wait gracefully, through prayer and in hope.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Easter 6A sermon
Easter 6A
May 29, 2011
Sometimes in a week, a homily creeps up on me. It started this week with a seemingly random song going round in my head:
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child/ sometimes I feel like a motherless child/. Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child/a long ways from home/ a long, long ways from home.”
In our gospel reading today, we see Jesus and his disciples right in the middle of the Last Supper. I can just imagine the looks on the faces of the disciples as Jesus tells them that he will not be with them much longer. They are the expressions of people who have known in the past what it is to feel like be a motherless child. And so he says to them, “I will not leave you orphaned.” You may feel like motherless children now, but this will not always be so. I will send you a comforter, and advocate, and you will belong to me and to each other through what has always bound us: love.
Some of us also know what it means to feel like a motherless child, to be left alone, abandoned, to feel we have become orphaned with no kin or care to be found. We can be surrounded by people at all times and in all places and still feel alone, orphaned, like motherless children. So where is the good news in today’s gospel for us? Where is this fulfillment of Jesus’s promise to not leave us as orphans?
The 12th century Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux writes about the four degrees of love. “There is the infantile stage of ‘love of self for the sake of self.’ ‘Give me that bottle!’ We may progress to the next stage of ‘love of the other for the sake of self.’ ‘Oh, you gave me that bottle.’ And so on to the more or less selfless stage of ‘love of the other for the sake of the other.’ This is the place of genuine human love, a reflection of the love of God, the place of altruism. But, says Bernard, there is a final stage which is heaven’s healing. This is the ‘love of self only for the sake of the Other.’ Knowing this love is to arrive at a true image of myself, a measure of the view God has of me, to see myself to some degree in the way the One who loves me into being sees me.”
The gift of today’s gospel is a reminder of Jesus’s commandment to us. As followers of Jesus’s way, we are called to give love freely, called to love God and to love others. But we are also called to receive love. We are called to receive the love of God that is freely offered to us, and we are called to receive love from other people.
This past week, I read an article by the Episcopal priest Sam Portaro called “Practicing a Life of Prayer.” In this article, Portaro writes about two spiritual practices that we can do in our everyday lives, to help us grow more deeply in our knowledge and love of God and each other. The first, he says, is to “pay attention.” This is not as easy as it sounds. We all know how much is competing for our attention, and Portaro challenges us to be more intentional about where we give our attention; being intentional about being a steward of the gift of attention that God has given me.” He writes that we have to ask ourselves the difficult questions about where and how we give our attention: “Am I paying attention to the people and concerns that have the greatest value for me that represent love for God, neighbor, and self? Am I giving the 1st fruits of my attention, the best of my attention to God? Or am I squandering it, throwing my precious attention away…” “When I pay attention, I don’t have to remind myself of God’s presence in my life; God is nearly always present and manifest, recognizable in the other, the one in whom and to whom I have paid my attention.”
The poet Marge Piercy wrote “Attention is love.” And I think she is right.
The second spiritual discipline that Portaro articulates is to “take care.” This phrase, which is often used as a casual farewell, is of profound weight in our spiritual practice. We are called to “receive, reach out, and seize hold of care” that is offered to us. This is hard for us. We don’t want to seem weak or needy or dependent. We do not want to have to rely on the care of another, and so often we resist care and concern and love when it is offered to us. But Portaro insists that this care is a gift from God through others, and that we are called by God to accept it. “Take the care that God holds out, offers in the hands of those who reach out to help. Take the care proffered in those friends God gives us who manifest God’s love in the flesh, the companions whoare there for us and with us in the inevitable dark night, those who believe in us, love us even when we find it hard to believe in or love ourselves. Take the care that comes running to the door and leaps into your arms, happy that you’re home, whether it’s the love of your child, or the love of your dog. Take the care that comes your way and receive it as the gift of God that it is…”
This morning, may you hear and believe the words of our Risen Lord: I do not leave you orphaned, as motherless children. God is with you, loving you more than you can ask or imagine. And God has given you brothers and sisters to love you and walk with you along the way, to give you encouragement and hope; to give and receive love, and to help you remember that you are not alone.
References:
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Chile” hymn 169 from Lift Every Voice II .
From the Rt. Rev Jeffrey Lee’s article “On the Theology of Wellness” in Credo’s All Shall Be Well compilation.
From The Very Rev. Sam Portaro’s article “Pracitcing a Life of Prayer” in Credo’s All Shall Be Well compilation.
May 29, 2011
Sometimes in a week, a homily creeps up on me. It started this week with a seemingly random song going round in my head:
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child/ sometimes I feel like a motherless child/. Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child/a long ways from home/ a long, long ways from home.”
In our gospel reading today, we see Jesus and his disciples right in the middle of the Last Supper. I can just imagine the looks on the faces of the disciples as Jesus tells them that he will not be with them much longer. They are the expressions of people who have known in the past what it is to feel like be a motherless child. And so he says to them, “I will not leave you orphaned.” You may feel like motherless children now, but this will not always be so. I will send you a comforter, and advocate, and you will belong to me and to each other through what has always bound us: love.
Some of us also know what it means to feel like a motherless child, to be left alone, abandoned, to feel we have become orphaned with no kin or care to be found. We can be surrounded by people at all times and in all places and still feel alone, orphaned, like motherless children. So where is the good news in today’s gospel for us? Where is this fulfillment of Jesus’s promise to not leave us as orphans?
The 12th century Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux writes about the four degrees of love. “There is the infantile stage of ‘love of self for the sake of self.’ ‘Give me that bottle!’ We may progress to the next stage of ‘love of the other for the sake of self.’ ‘Oh, you gave me that bottle.’ And so on to the more or less selfless stage of ‘love of the other for the sake of the other.’ This is the place of genuine human love, a reflection of the love of God, the place of altruism. But, says Bernard, there is a final stage which is heaven’s healing. This is the ‘love of self only for the sake of the Other.’ Knowing this love is to arrive at a true image of myself, a measure of the view God has of me, to see myself to some degree in the way the One who loves me into being sees me.”
The gift of today’s gospel is a reminder of Jesus’s commandment to us. As followers of Jesus’s way, we are called to give love freely, called to love God and to love others. But we are also called to receive love. We are called to receive the love of God that is freely offered to us, and we are called to receive love from other people.
This past week, I read an article by the Episcopal priest Sam Portaro called “Practicing a Life of Prayer.” In this article, Portaro writes about two spiritual practices that we can do in our everyday lives, to help us grow more deeply in our knowledge and love of God and each other. The first, he says, is to “pay attention.” This is not as easy as it sounds. We all know how much is competing for our attention, and Portaro challenges us to be more intentional about where we give our attention; being intentional about being a steward of the gift of attention that God has given me.” He writes that we have to ask ourselves the difficult questions about where and how we give our attention: “Am I paying attention to the people and concerns that have the greatest value for me that represent love for God, neighbor, and self? Am I giving the 1st fruits of my attention, the best of my attention to God? Or am I squandering it, throwing my precious attention away…” “When I pay attention, I don’t have to remind myself of God’s presence in my life; God is nearly always present and manifest, recognizable in the other, the one in whom and to whom I have paid my attention.”
The poet Marge Piercy wrote “Attention is love.” And I think she is right.
The second spiritual discipline that Portaro articulates is to “take care.” This phrase, which is often used as a casual farewell, is of profound weight in our spiritual practice. We are called to “receive, reach out, and seize hold of care” that is offered to us. This is hard for us. We don’t want to seem weak or needy or dependent. We do not want to have to rely on the care of another, and so often we resist care and concern and love when it is offered to us. But Portaro insists that this care is a gift from God through others, and that we are called by God to accept it. “Take the care that God holds out, offers in the hands of those who reach out to help. Take the care proffered in those friends God gives us who manifest God’s love in the flesh, the companions whoare there for us and with us in the inevitable dark night, those who believe in us, love us even when we find it hard to believe in or love ourselves. Take the care that comes running to the door and leaps into your arms, happy that you’re home, whether it’s the love of your child, or the love of your dog. Take the care that comes your way and receive it as the gift of God that it is…”
This morning, may you hear and believe the words of our Risen Lord: I do not leave you orphaned, as motherless children. God is with you, loving you more than you can ask or imagine. And God has given you brothers and sisters to love you and walk with you along the way, to give you encouragement and hope; to give and receive love, and to help you remember that you are not alone.
References:
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Chile” hymn 169 from Lift Every Voice II .
From the Rt. Rev Jeffrey Lee’s article “On the Theology of Wellness” in Credo’s All Shall Be Well compilation.
From The Very Rev. Sam Portaro’s article “Pracitcing a Life of Prayer” in Credo’s All Shall Be Well compilation.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Easter 4A sermon
Easter 4A
May 15, 2011
I want to begin my homily today with a little show and tell. This is my Mother’s day present that I got last week from my daughter MM (who’s six). My gift was made up of three different parts. First, a card made by Mary Margaret at school with a lovely, hand-written note inside. Second, a book, Just Mom and Me, which is made up of activities for mothers and daughters to do together. And finally, a dollar bill—just kind of thrown into the bag. So here’s what’s the coolest part of MM’s gift to me. It is made up of things that we both value: a book that honors our relationship, an expression of her artistic talent, and a dollar; and it is a true offering of her stewardship, made up of the three classic components: time (together doing the activities in the book), talent (in her art and writing), and treasure in the gift of a dollar that was given to her by the tooth fairy.
Senior Warden, Marie Porter, and I spent the weekend at the very first Bishop’s Annual Stewardship Summit (BASS), and we learned a wonderfully succinct definition of what stewardship is. Stewardship is “what you do with all that you have after you say ‘I believe.’”
Our passage in Acts is a beautiful snapshot of stewardship at its best in the life of faith, and it resonates with us because it is about people like us. It starts with the disciples, who had abandoned Jesus at his crucifixion, who are so scared of what might happen to them that they huddle together in one single room behind locked doors. But then, they encounter the Risen Lord, and he transforms their fear into hope, joy, and a passion to spread the good news of Jesus’ life and ministry, his death and resurrection. So these formerly scared disciples are given the gift of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and then Peter, who had been the most afraid of all of them, preaches to the crowd and 3,000 people are converted to the new faith and baptized into the body of Christ. These three thousand people then give themselves over to The Way of following Christ, “devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” They give of their possessions and hold things in common, and they even sell their possessions and distribute the money to the common good, to help those who have need. What is most amazing about this picture of life in the early church is that these people, who are no better or stronger or smarter or richer or poorer or more faithful or less fearful than any of us give themselves to what they all have in common, not what distinguishes them from one another. And the people who knew them before and see how they have become transformed are amazed and give glory to God through the power of the resurrection to new life. And even more begin to join them.
Stewardship is what we do with all that we have after we have said that we believe; it’s how we spend and make our money; it is what we do with our time, our attention; it is how we make a difference in this world; it is how we give our heart, and how we trust God. There is nothing stopping us from being that community of faith in Acts, in giving ourselves to what we have in common not what distinguishes us. We know how it’s done—through a commitment that we all make in our baptism and in the renewal of our baptismal covenant. It is a commitment to devoting ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, a commitment to giving our hearts to the Way of Jesus Christ above all else. Nothing stands in our way except our fear that there will not be enough, our fear that we will not be able to do it, that it will be too hard, that our friends will make fun of us, that it will infringe upon our own will for the way we live our lives. Nothing stands in our way except our fear. And my friends, if there is anything that was proven by Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, it is that in the Kingdom of God there is and always will be enough; that we have absolutely nothing to fear and absolutely everything to gain.
Think about the difference that we will make in this community, when we give of our love and attention and our money without fear, without scarcity; think of the difference we will make when we give ourselves and our hearts to what we have in common. And let us give thanks for those little ones among us who teach us about the abundance of God and how we might also give generously.
May 15, 2011
I want to begin my homily today with a little show and tell. This is my Mother’s day present that I got last week from my daughter MM (who’s six). My gift was made up of three different parts. First, a card made by Mary Margaret at school with a lovely, hand-written note inside. Second, a book, Just Mom and Me, which is made up of activities for mothers and daughters to do together. And finally, a dollar bill—just kind of thrown into the bag. So here’s what’s the coolest part of MM’s gift to me. It is made up of things that we both value: a book that honors our relationship, an expression of her artistic talent, and a dollar; and it is a true offering of her stewardship, made up of the three classic components: time (together doing the activities in the book), talent (in her art and writing), and treasure in the gift of a dollar that was given to her by the tooth fairy.
Senior Warden, Marie Porter, and I spent the weekend at the very first Bishop’s Annual Stewardship Summit (BASS), and we learned a wonderfully succinct definition of what stewardship is. Stewardship is “what you do with all that you have after you say ‘I believe.’”
Our passage in Acts is a beautiful snapshot of stewardship at its best in the life of faith, and it resonates with us because it is about people like us. It starts with the disciples, who had abandoned Jesus at his crucifixion, who are so scared of what might happen to them that they huddle together in one single room behind locked doors. But then, they encounter the Risen Lord, and he transforms their fear into hope, joy, and a passion to spread the good news of Jesus’ life and ministry, his death and resurrection. So these formerly scared disciples are given the gift of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and then Peter, who had been the most afraid of all of them, preaches to the crowd and 3,000 people are converted to the new faith and baptized into the body of Christ. These three thousand people then give themselves over to The Way of following Christ, “devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” They give of their possessions and hold things in common, and they even sell their possessions and distribute the money to the common good, to help those who have need. What is most amazing about this picture of life in the early church is that these people, who are no better or stronger or smarter or richer or poorer or more faithful or less fearful than any of us give themselves to what they all have in common, not what distinguishes them from one another. And the people who knew them before and see how they have become transformed are amazed and give glory to God through the power of the resurrection to new life. And even more begin to join them.
Stewardship is what we do with all that we have after we have said that we believe; it’s how we spend and make our money; it is what we do with our time, our attention; it is how we make a difference in this world; it is how we give our heart, and how we trust God. There is nothing stopping us from being that community of faith in Acts, in giving ourselves to what we have in common not what distinguishes us. We know how it’s done—through a commitment that we all make in our baptism and in the renewal of our baptismal covenant. It is a commitment to devoting ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, a commitment to giving our hearts to the Way of Jesus Christ above all else. Nothing stands in our way except our fear that there will not be enough, our fear that we will not be able to do it, that it will be too hard, that our friends will make fun of us, that it will infringe upon our own will for the way we live our lives. Nothing stands in our way except our fear. And my friends, if there is anything that was proven by Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, it is that in the Kingdom of God there is and always will be enough; that we have absolutely nothing to fear and absolutely everything to gain.
Think about the difference that we will make in this community, when we give of our love and attention and our money without fear, without scarcity; think of the difference we will make when we give ourselves and our hearts to what we have in common. And let us give thanks for those little ones among us who teach us about the abundance of God and how we might also give generously.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Easter 3A/Mother's Day
The Reverend Melanie Dickson Lemburg
Easter 3A
May 8, 2011
I’d like to share with you today, some parts of one of my favorite poems: “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” by Wendell Berry. It’s an interesting poem that starts out by talking about the way of the world, and then it urges us to follow a different path.
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed…
…Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head.
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
There is much in that poem that captivates me, but during this Easter season, I am most especially drawn to that last line: “Practice resurrection”. Many of the ideas of the poem lead up to that notion of practicing resurrection, but my question for us is, how can we, in our daily lives this Easter season, practice resurrection?
In our gospel for today, we see one instance of practicing resurrection. Cleopas and his companion are leaving Jerusalem. They are, in effect, getting the heck out of dodge, trying to leave the events of the weekend far behind them. Their hearts are heavy and sad, and they encounter a stranger on the road. Even though their leader is dead and gone, his way of welcoming the stranger is ingrained upon them, and we see their reflection of it, in how they welcome the unrecognized risen Christ. So, before these two even know of the resurrection, we see them practicing resurrection in the way that they extend the hospitality of Christ, welcoming the stranger, offering food to the hungry and shelter to the traveler. It is because they, even in their sadness and preoccupation, are willing to open themselves to the other that they are able to walk with the Risen Christ to Emmaus; and at their invitation, he joins them for a meal, where he makes himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. For a moment, just think of what this story would look like if those two men hadn’t offered hospitality to the stranger….They would have never received the revelation that this man they had traveled 7 miles with was in fact the Risen Christ. Even the most cursory offer of hospitality opens the door to the gift of the revelation of the presence of God.
So what is hospitality? It took me preaching this sermon on Mother’s Day to begin to realize what motherhood in its various forms has taught me about hospitality. Now I’m not talking about how to set a nice table or make a big, elaborate, welcoming meal for a dinner party or giving hostess gifts when someone throws you a party. I’m talking about the essence of what it means to be a mother and to be mothered by another. That is what hospitality is all about. In motherhood, a person allows a stranger, a completely other person to take up residence in our bodies, our hearts, our souls, our imaginations. It means spending the rest of our lives nurturing and shaping them, not possession them or expecting certain things from them but spending time with them, appreciating them for their own gifts and inviting out of them the person that God has created and called them to be. That is true motherhood, and it is also true hospitality, and you don’t have to be a mother, biologically, to know it and to practice it. I’d be willing to bet it is what you appreciate the most of the people who have mothered you over the course of your life.
Why would we offer hospitality? It’s not because we have a beautiful building, great music. It’s not because we need or want more people, more bodies in the pews, more pledges to support the budget. We offer hospitality because we believe that the Risen Christ is among us and that he continues to reveal the truth of life, death, and resurrection in our own lives, in our own stories. Once we have tasted the power and the gift of this truth, we know that there are people out there who are dying of hunger for this taste of truth and hope that we have to offer. Yes, bad stuff happens. People get sick and die. But our lives are not without meaning. Our lives are not without purpose. When we look into the eyes of the stranger, Jesus helps us to see that truth in their face and to offer them a place among us in the story. We offer hospitality because the truth of today’s gospel story and the truth of our own experience teach us that in welcoming the stranger we find ourselves, again and again, surprised to suddenly recognize the face of the Risen Christ. And we offer hospitality because each of us knows, deep in our hearts, what it means to be the stranger, the one on the outside, longing for a place and a people to belong to.
How do we offer hospitality? In the terms of Berry’s poem, hospitality is not just about “practicing resurrection”; hospitality is also about “doing something that won’t compute…” The two disciples have walked with a stranger for 7 miles and when he begins to move on and continue his journey, they stop him and invite him with the simple words: “Stay with us.” It’s hard to imagine that these days-- meeting a fellow traveler and then inviting them home for supper and to spend the night…But what would that radical hospitality look like for us? We do it every Sunday—when a stranger enters our doors, we invite them into our home, this place that is sacred, so very holy to us; this place that has been built and rebuilt through blood, sweat, and tears. We feed them, and we invite them to stay with us because in and through them we may encounter the risen Christ. We open up a place for them in our hearts and in our imaginations, and we appreciate them for the place that God has offered us all together in this story of life, death, and resurrection.
So in this Easter season, do “something that doesn’t compute.” Welcome the stranger; embrace the outcast, the child, the one whom the world says has no value; feast with God’s children at God’s table; look for the Lord where you least expect him; gladly live into your place in the story; practice resurrection.
Easter 3A
May 8, 2011
I’d like to share with you today, some parts of one of my favorite poems: “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” by Wendell Berry. It’s an interesting poem that starts out by talking about the way of the world, and then it urges us to follow a different path.
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed…
…Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head.
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
There is much in that poem that captivates me, but during this Easter season, I am most especially drawn to that last line: “Practice resurrection”. Many of the ideas of the poem lead up to that notion of practicing resurrection, but my question for us is, how can we, in our daily lives this Easter season, practice resurrection?
In our gospel for today, we see one instance of practicing resurrection. Cleopas and his companion are leaving Jerusalem. They are, in effect, getting the heck out of dodge, trying to leave the events of the weekend far behind them. Their hearts are heavy and sad, and they encounter a stranger on the road. Even though their leader is dead and gone, his way of welcoming the stranger is ingrained upon them, and we see their reflection of it, in how they welcome the unrecognized risen Christ. So, before these two even know of the resurrection, we see them practicing resurrection in the way that they extend the hospitality of Christ, welcoming the stranger, offering food to the hungry and shelter to the traveler. It is because they, even in their sadness and preoccupation, are willing to open themselves to the other that they are able to walk with the Risen Christ to Emmaus; and at their invitation, he joins them for a meal, where he makes himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. For a moment, just think of what this story would look like if those two men hadn’t offered hospitality to the stranger….They would have never received the revelation that this man they had traveled 7 miles with was in fact the Risen Christ. Even the most cursory offer of hospitality opens the door to the gift of the revelation of the presence of God.
So what is hospitality? It took me preaching this sermon on Mother’s Day to begin to realize what motherhood in its various forms has taught me about hospitality. Now I’m not talking about how to set a nice table or make a big, elaborate, welcoming meal for a dinner party or giving hostess gifts when someone throws you a party. I’m talking about the essence of what it means to be a mother and to be mothered by another. That is what hospitality is all about. In motherhood, a person allows a stranger, a completely other person to take up residence in our bodies, our hearts, our souls, our imaginations. It means spending the rest of our lives nurturing and shaping them, not possession them or expecting certain things from them but spending time with them, appreciating them for their own gifts and inviting out of them the person that God has created and called them to be. That is true motherhood, and it is also true hospitality, and you don’t have to be a mother, biologically, to know it and to practice it. I’d be willing to bet it is what you appreciate the most of the people who have mothered you over the course of your life.
Why would we offer hospitality? It’s not because we have a beautiful building, great music. It’s not because we need or want more people, more bodies in the pews, more pledges to support the budget. We offer hospitality because we believe that the Risen Christ is among us and that he continues to reveal the truth of life, death, and resurrection in our own lives, in our own stories. Once we have tasted the power and the gift of this truth, we know that there are people out there who are dying of hunger for this taste of truth and hope that we have to offer. Yes, bad stuff happens. People get sick and die. But our lives are not without meaning. Our lives are not without purpose. When we look into the eyes of the stranger, Jesus helps us to see that truth in their face and to offer them a place among us in the story. We offer hospitality because the truth of today’s gospel story and the truth of our own experience teach us that in welcoming the stranger we find ourselves, again and again, surprised to suddenly recognize the face of the Risen Christ. And we offer hospitality because each of us knows, deep in our hearts, what it means to be the stranger, the one on the outside, longing for a place and a people to belong to.
How do we offer hospitality? In the terms of Berry’s poem, hospitality is not just about “practicing resurrection”; hospitality is also about “doing something that won’t compute…” The two disciples have walked with a stranger for 7 miles and when he begins to move on and continue his journey, they stop him and invite him with the simple words: “Stay with us.” It’s hard to imagine that these days-- meeting a fellow traveler and then inviting them home for supper and to spend the night…But what would that radical hospitality look like for us? We do it every Sunday—when a stranger enters our doors, we invite them into our home, this place that is sacred, so very holy to us; this place that has been built and rebuilt through blood, sweat, and tears. We feed them, and we invite them to stay with us because in and through them we may encounter the risen Christ. We open up a place for them in our hearts and in our imaginations, and we appreciate them for the place that God has offered us all together in this story of life, death, and resurrection.
So in this Easter season, do “something that doesn’t compute.” Welcome the stranger; embrace the outcast, the child, the one whom the world says has no value; feast with God’s children at God’s table; look for the Lord where you least expect him; gladly live into your place in the story; practice resurrection.
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