22nd Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 25B

October 28, 2012 I want to tell you two stories today that both have to do with a blanket or a cloak. Each story, in its own way, embodies faith, courage, and a generosity of spirit that can instruct us as we try to live more fully into our own discipleship of Jesus Christ. The first story is about a homeless man who showed up at St. Peter’s one Sunday not too long ago. I only spoke with this man briefly, but his presence and his actions had a profound impact on me. (In fact, I’ll share another story about him with you in a couple of weeks.) Our deacon Scott was speaking with this man, and the man said to Scott, “I have these two blankets here. Would you please keep them and give them to someone else who may need them more than me?” As someone who worked with homeless people for a season, I was struck by the power of that statement. Blankets are a hot commodity among those who are homeless and impoverished. They can mean the difference between survival and not. Now, I don’t know how many blankets this man had, but it is striking to me that he must have felt that he had an abundance of blankets, and so he chose to give away two to try to help someone else in need. What a wonderful example of someone who was living out the answers to those questions that Scott and I continue to pose to you during this season of gratitude in which we consider our own stewardship. What are the gifts that God have given you? What is God’s hope for their use? How are you blessed to be a blessing to others? The second story that is also about a blanket or a cloak is the gospel story for today. In it, we see a blind beggar named Bartimaeus who is at work in Jericho. When Jesus and his followers come by, Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” First, this is unusual, because this is the first time the writer of Mark introduces Jesus’s connection with David into this gospel, although if we continued on with the story, we would see it again shortly in Jesus’s triumphant entry in Jerusalem. Second, it is important to note that translators tell us that there is no good translation for the Greek words into English for what is translated as “have mercy on me.” It is a much more active demand in the Greek, and would be more like us saying, “Do something!” Bartimaeus encounters resistance from the crowd, but he just calls out louder. And then Jesus tells the crowd to tell Bartimaeus to come here, which they do. “Take heart,” they say. “Courage!” “Get up, he is calling you.” And this is the part that really strikes me in this story. Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, and he jumps up, and he goes to Jesus. Think about that for a minute. The man is a beggar. His cloak is most likely his most valuable possession (much like our homeless visitor’s blankets). Bartimaeus would have used his cloak as a shelter from the elements; he would have laid it on the ground as a place to gather and collect any alms he received as people passed by. And the man is blind, so when he throws off his cloak and leaves it behind, he most likely will not be able to find it after his encounter with Jesus. What tremendous faith and courage to cast off the one most valuable thing that helped him eke by an existence as a beggar to go to Jesus and seek out a whole new and better life, a new way of being and a new way of seeing! And that is what he did. Bartimaeus is unique in all of Mark’s healing stories (of which this is the last) because Jesus tells him to go, his faith has made him well, but Bartimaeus doesn’t go. He follows Jesus on the way, which means for Mark that Bartimaeus follows Jesus into Jerusalem, where he will witness others throwing their cloaks down and proclaiming Jesus to be the “Son of David”. I have recently signed up to receive a daily meditation from the brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. These monks have started a new twist on an ancient practice. In the early days of monasticism, pilgrims would come to the monasteries, and they would say to the monks, “Brother, give us a word.” And then they would meditate upon that word. These modern day monastics have started a daily email meditation called, “Brother, give us a word” that they email out to people who sign up for it. Earlier this week, the word was “Savior” and here is the meditation: “I would be willing to bet that nearly everyone here this morning has some inconvenient truth in his or her life that may well seem beyond the pale of redemption—a failed relationship, a debilitating illness, a financial or professional setback, some loathsome habit or compulsion or addition. Take heart. You are not alone. King Jesus saves us and is with us and is for us, always, no matter what. That’s the good news—and the truth.”i Each of us has an inconvenient truth--something for which we cry out to Jesus, “Have mercy! Do something!” And I’d be willing to bet that each of us also has some sort of cloak, a way of coping, a way of getting by that seems essential to life as we know it, but may be encumbering our progress in following Jesus. What is your inconvenient truth? What is your cloak? Do you have the faith and the courage to throw it off, to leave it behind so that you may be given the gift of new life, new sight, and a new way of being? What are the gifts that God have given you? What is God’s hope for their use? How are you blessed to be a blessing to others? What extra blanket are you being called to share? What old cloak are you being called to leave behind to receive the new, abundant life that Jesus is offering you? i. From “Brother, Give Us A Word” on 10/24/12 by Br. Kevin Hackett www.ssje.org.

20th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 23B sermon

20th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 23B October 14, 2012 I want to invite you into this gospel story this morning, for the young man who encounters Jesus could easily be any one of us. (If closing your eyes helps you, then you are welcome to do so; hopefully, your neighbor will give you a gentle nudge if they start to hear snoring…) Imagine that you have just heard that Jesus is in your town. You have been following news of his works, his teachings, and his travels, and you are eager to meet him. You are a good, faithful person who follows the teachings of the law. You run up to Jesus and you kneel before him and you ask, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says to you, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.” You say to Jesus, “Of course, Jesus; I have done all this since I was a child. I go to church (almost every Sunday); I do what is right; I try to be a good person.” And then Jesus looks at you and you see his love for you shining out of his eyes. You know before he even speaks that he cherishes you, and he sees you as you really and truly are. And then he says to you, “You lack one thing. You are too attached. And he names that which, in your deepest heart of hearts you are so attached that it keeps you from really and truly belonging to God; and he tells you to give up that one attachment that keeps you from following him. (silence) Maybe it is money; maybe it is your possessions; maybe it’s your status; maybe it is your family; maybe it is your vision for how your life should be; maybe it is your dreams for a better future. Jesus loves you, and he wants your whole heart. And so he is asking you to give up that which keeps you from giving your whole heart to him. And you walk away in sorrow, not because you think you can’t give it up, whatever it is, but because you know you must, and you mourn the loss of this that you have cherished for so long. Notice that from the very beginning of this encounter, the young man thinks that eternal life, God’s love, life in the heart of God, is something that he can earn. He asks, “Teacher, what must I DO to inherit eternal life.” And we get that, don’t we? We think that we can be good enough to earn God’s love and our place in God’s kingdom. But all his good works and faithfulness are irrelevant to Jesus’s love for him. Jesus knows that the young man’s possessions and his status that comes with his wealth and possessions have become a central part of his identity. And so he invites the young man to give up those things, to give up that identity, and to rediscover his primary identity as a beloved child of God and one who is cherished by Jesus, not for anything he has ever done, but just because… Jesus perceives that the young man is so attached to the riches, the status, the privileges, and as long as he is clinging to those, he isn’t free to respond to God. The young man believes that all of this is his core identity, and it blocks his gratitude to God, who loves him and calls him. I had a realization this week in a conversation with one of my colleagues about this gospel. It is that the opposite of gratefulness isn’t un-gratefulness; the opposite of gratefulness is entitlement. We are not really grateful for that which we think we can earn or that which we think we deserve.i True gratefulness is the response to the awareness that we have been given a gift. A gift is not something that we have earned through our own merits, but it is a good thing freely given. All that we have is a gift from God. Our lives, our talents, our initiative, our ability to make money, our ability to create, our families, our friends, our vocations—all that we have and all that we are is a gift from God. Gratitude often steals up on us as a surprise, but it can also be cultivated as an awareness of our many gifts, and this cultivation of gratitude for God’s love for us and for all of God’s good gifts to us is one of the ways that we can have and experience eternal life, here and now. Gratitude recognizes that a gift has been given, and gratitude recognizes the giver behind the gift.ii The late Terry Parsons, longtime stewardship officer for the Episcopal Church, had just written a sermon on this gospel lesson before her death recently. In this sermon, she reminds us that wealth, possessions, and the other things to which we have attachment, in themselves, are not bad. In fact, they are gifts from God. She writes, “Too often, we fail to recognize that every Godly gift carries with it God’s hope for how it might be used. Joy for us is when we align our use of the gifts God gives with what we discern to be God’s hope.”iii Parsons also tells a story about how our attachments get in the way of following Jesus. She writes, “Consider this lesson on how to trap a monkey. The story goes that African hunters wanting to capture monkeys unharmed would use as a trap a bottle with a long narrow neck, just large enough so a monkey could put its hand in it. In the evening the bottle would be tied to a tree, and in the bottom of the bottle they would place several good-smelling nuts. In the morning they would find a monkey with its hand clutching the nuts, held securely in the bottle. At any time, the monkey could have released itself simply by opening its hand and letting go of the nuts.”iii In this stewardship season, consider four questions. (write these down, because I want you to consider them throughout this week). What are the gifts God has given you? What is God’s hope for their use? How are you blessed to be a blessing to others? Are you willing to let go of whatever it is that keeps you from following Jesus? (repeat questions) i. These ideas came from a conversation with my friend, the Rev. Chris Colby. ii.These thoughts were cultivated by a presentations from Brother David Vryhof, SSJE, and Brother Kevin Hackett, SSJE, at the Diocese of Mississippi’s clergy conference. iii.From the series Sermons that Work. Sermon by the Rev. Terry Parsons. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2012/09/18/20-pentecost-proper-23-b-october-14-2012/

19th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 22B

19th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 22B October 7, 2012 Divorce is a present and painful reality for most people in our world today. I would be willing to bet that there is not a single person in this church today who has not, in some way, been impacted by divorce. Whether it is your own parents who divorced, good friends, or even yourself, none of us is a stranger to the broken relationships that result with any divorce. Therefore, today’s reading may be especially difficult for us to hear, especially difficult for us to find the good news in it. But do not fear; there is good news here! Note that it is the Pharisees who raise this issue of divorce with Jesus: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” This is a common debate in rabbinic circles of the time. Jesus, like a good rabbi, answers their question with a question, “What does the law say?” They answer that it is, in fact, legal, and here is where Jesus turns the table on them. He says, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote the commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation ‘God made them male and female.’”… Yes, divorce is legal, Jesus is telling them, but it is not what God intended. There are some things that are more important than the law. Jesus goes even further back than Moses, back to creation, to emphasize what is most important in God’s kingdom. He quotes Genesis 1: 27: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” We have been created in the image and likeness of God. United Methodist Bishop William Willimon writes about this gospel passage, “What is God like? God brings people together. God desires that people who, having once been brought together, ought to stay together. God is the one who refuses to send these little ones away. Instead God is the one who receives and embraces the little ones. We read this passage as applying to us: that is, we ought not to divorce; we ought to welcome little children. [Willimon concludes] But maybe we are seeing here the great difference between God and ourselves. Maybe this scripture is about God.” And as an extension of that, Maybe it explains more about God’s kingdom and what it means for us to be created in God’s image? God never gives up on us. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” He is the fullest incarnation of what it means to live into being created in the image and likeness of God, and at this point in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is on his way to his death—showing that the love of God knows no limits. We are made to be like God, made to be in relationship with God, with each other, and with all of creation. But because of our hardness of heart, we do not live up to our fullest potential. And that’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? Jesus teaches us and shows us, again and again and again, that fullness of life, eternal life in the here and now, the Kingdom of God is to be found when we open our hearts, when we are willing to love and be loved by others, when we receive others as who they really are and not who we want them to be. The image and likeness of God the creator is a heart that is easily offered and given freely. It is who we are called and created to be, and it is what we are received into when we fall short of that calling. Today, we are kicking off our fall commitment campaign at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, and you are invited into this season to consider how you live into your own stewardship, which is an aspect of being created in God’s image. One definition of stewardship is “all that I do with all that I have after I say, ‘I believe.’” And this gets to the essence of this gospel passage this morning. You have been made in the image and likeness of God, whose heart is always open, inviting, giving. When we know this, experience this, live this, then our hearts become grateful, and we want to be more like God—with open, inviting, and giving hearts ourselves. In a letter in 1950, Albert Einstein wrote, “A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.” (from a letter by Albert Einstein, 1950). How has your heart been lately? Has it been hardened and self-centered, focusing on personal desire for affection and a few persons nearest to you? Has it been open and eager to give itself away, connecting with God, with others, and with all of creation? For most of us, it is a mix of both; and the good news is that we are made in the image of God, whose steadfast love never ceases, and whose mercy endures forever. Jesus shows us the way, if we are courageous enough to follow, courageous enough to give our hearts away with abundance and abandon. Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

18th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 21B sermon

18th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 21B Baptism of Bradley Black and 50th anniversary of James Meredith’s enrollment in Ole Miss A letter to Bradley Michael Black upon the occasion of his baptism. Dear Bradley, Today is an important and auspicious day in your young life. Today is the day upon which you are baptized into Christ’s body. Today is the day when you will be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Today, your parents and godparents and family are accepting, on your behalf, that you already belong to God. They are offering God thanks for your belonging, and we are all making promises that we will walk with you, teach you and learn from you about what it means to live as those who belong to God, no matter what. In our gospel reading for today, this day of your baptism, we see Jesus in an extended conversation with his disciples. These disciples have been fighting about who is the greatest among them, and Jesus has taught them a new definition of greatness—that greatness isn’t found where the world places it but rather greatness is found in service and care for others. In our reading for today, John reports to Jesus about an outsider, one who is not a part of their group, who has been casting out demons in Jesus’ name. John reports that he and the other disciples tried to stop him, but Jesus tells them not to. He tells the disciples, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Think about that for a minute, and the difference in what Jesus is saying: “Whoever is not against us is for us,” as opposed to how we normally hear it: “Whoever is not for us is against us.” The first, makes people into allies and opens up the way of belonging. The later makes people enemies, outsiders. And that’s really what today is all about, young Bradley. It is about remembering that God calls all of us to belong; God calls all of us to be insiders in the kingdom of God. Today, your family and friends are saying “yes” to God on your behalf. We are saying, “Yes he does belong to you God, and we are so very grateful!” But Jesus warns us of the flip side of that, even as he warns his disciples. The temptation is, once we have accepted our own belonging, to say to others, “Sorry, but you don’t belong like we do. We are in, but you are out!” Jesus says that is putting a stumbling block in front of “these little ones,” and he offers the disciples a stark, shocking warning against doing that. Another person put it this way: “every time you draw a line between who's in and who's out, you'll find Jesus on the other side."i In addition to your baptism today, little Bradley, we have something else going on in the life of our diocese. Our bishop has asked us to commemorate this 50th anniversary of James Meredith’s enrollment in Ole Miss and to also remember solemnly the resulting riots that took place. All across the diocese (and in the Methodist and Roman Catholic churches in Mississippi as well), we will be offering prayers for “racial healing, understanding and renewed commitment to reconciliation.” We will be remembering a time in the life of our state when some people were so focused on their own belonging that they put a stumbling block before others who were equal inhabitants in the kingdom of God. We will renew our own baptismal covenant, where we promise God that we will “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves” and that we will “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being”. Today we will also “repent and return to the Lord”, confessing to God the times when we have not paid attention to our own and others’ belonging to God; we will confess the times when we have, in fact, put a stumbling block before one of God’s little ones. And so today we remember; we renew our own baptismal covenant; we pray that our own belonging may never be a stumbling block to another who also belongs to God; and we give thanks to God for you, sweet Bradley, who belongs to God and who helps us to remember Jesus’s call to care for all the little ones in God’s kingdom. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i. Duane Priebe, Professor Emeritus at Wartburg Seminary quoted on the blog workingpreacher.org

17th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 20B sermon

17th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 20B September 23, 2012 I can certainly relate to the disciples this week, as I’ve been wrestling with my own thirst for greatness. This week I got to perform on stage at the Hard Rock with some of our fabulous people dancing along side me, and for 4 glorious minutes, I got to be a rock star. People were screaming and cheering us on. (Of course, it was mostly all the St. Peter’s people in the audience…) But still, it was AWESOME! And really, we can all see where they’re coming from. They’ve seen a lot of things happen in their relatively brief time following Jesus. Peter and James and John have just come down the mountain with Jesus after witnessing his transfiguration where they encounter the rest of the disciples arguing because they have not been able to cast out a demon in Jesus’s absence. They have, once again, failed miserably, while Peter and James and John got to go off on a special errand with Jesus. Then Jesus drops the bombshell on them about how he’s going to be killed and then three days later rise again. But the disciples don’t understand and they keep silent because they are afraid to ask him. Then they all go into a house, and Jesus asks them what they had been arguing about on the way, and again, they are silent because they do not want to tell him that they have been arguing about who is the greatest. And notice that Jesus does not rebuke them for wanting to be great. Instead, he teaches them a new definition for greatness. It’s not the rock stars, those who can cast out demons, those who speak eloquently, those who have money or political clout, those….fill in the blank with your own definition of greatness here…That’s not what it means to be great, he tells them. The greatest are the ones who give themselves away in service to others. Then he brings forward a little child, an example of the complete opposite of greatness in that time, one who is completely powerless, and he tells them that whoever welcomes the powerless are also welcoming him. So much for my dreams of pursuing my career as a rock star… Our lesson from the Epistle of James is an interesting companion to this week’s gospel lesson. The writer of James is writing to remind his listeners of who they are, what are the central characteristics for the individuals and for the whole community as followers of Jesus Christ and, even more importantly for James, as people who are in right relationship with God. And what characteristics does he say should be at the heart of their community? He encourages them to be peaceable, and he praises the characteristic of gentleness. The writer of James also writes that when there is conflict, when something is going on inter-personally or even in a church community, it is because of the cravings that are at war within us. There’s an old Native American proverb that speaks to this. You may have heard it before. “An old Cherokee told his grandson: ‘My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness and truth. The boy thought about it and asked, ‘Grandfather, which one wins?” The old man replied quietly, ‘The one you feed.’” Which wolf have you been feeding lately? Has it been the one that is consumed with your own desire for power, greatness, building up your own ego? Or is it the one that is focused on peaceability, gentleness, and service to God and others? All of us have a good mix of both in our hearts and in our lives. And yet, we are called, as we gather here week after week after week together, to ask for forgiveness from God for how we have fallen short, and to get out there in that world and try again this next week, to be more of the people God is calling us to be. One way of doing this is to intentionally cultivate gentleness in our lives. So how do we do that? First of all, we pay attention to the models of gentleness that we have in God, who again and again proves to be “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”, and we look to the model of Jesus, who gives himself over to God and to others again and again and again. Second, we pay attention to those around us who remind us of the value of gentleness. Maybe it is little children? Maybe it is your pet? Maybe it the still, quiet sound on a mild, sunny day? This week, I was reminded of this call to gentleness in a most mundane little way by my child and our dog. We have an old Golden Retriever named Izzy, and Izzy has trouble getting around on our wood floors. She often gets stuck wherever she lies down, and then she barks at me to come pick up her rear end, so she can then come lie down wherever I happen to be in the house. The other day, I was moving around a lot, and Izzy kept getting stuck and barking at me to come get her, and I just stopped doing it, because I was tired of having to stop what I was doing and go pick her up. Finally, after Izzy has been barking for a while, Jack, while still playing with his toys, said to me, “Aren’t we supposed to be nice to Izzy?” And I looked at my 4 year old child, and I remembered who I am supposed to be, and I went and picked the dog up again. Find what feeds your gentleness and pay attention to it! The calls to gentleness will not be great signs, flashing lights in the sky. That’s not how gentleness works. So we have to really pay attention to our lives. And when you forget and resume your focus on your own ambition or ego or desires, let it gently remind you of how you are called to be in this world, how we are all called to be together as the body of Christ. May we each remember this day and this week that the way of gentleness and peaceability is the way of belonging to God and in the kingdom of God and the beginnings of eternal life and something so much greater than ourselves.

15th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 18B sermon

15th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 18B September 9, 2012 I ran across a quote this week that I found to be especially pertinent. It is a quote attributed to Richard Hooker, who was one of the most influential theologians in the development of the Church of England, our parent church. This quote says, “I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.”i. (read it again). This quote is quite striking in the contrast between what Hooker is saying, and what is happening in today’s gospel reading between Jesus and the Syrophonecian woman. Our gospel story is a somewhat confusing and even somewhat embarrassing snapshot of Jesus. It is a story in which we see his fully human side, and we see that, even in his divinity, he is capable of change, especially when it comes to how he understands his own ministry on earth. Let’s look at the story. Jesus is trying to catch a break. He’s gone inside a house out in the middle of nowhere to try to recover from the demands of his ministry, and even there, he is pursued. He’s tired, perhaps a little irritable, and then he has to deal with this impertinent woman who is demanding healing for her daughter and yet who does not even belong to his people, the people to whom he is sent to proclaim the gospel. And so he calls her a dog and refuses to heal her daughter. But then something fascinating happens. The woman doesn’t retaliate with other name-calling or fancy rhetoric or statistics. She absorbs the insult, and then she reflects the good news of Jesus’s own ministry right back to him. With a deeply rooted humility, she claims her place of belonging in the heart of God and in the good news of God’s kingdom. There is such deep good news in today’s gospel, despite the uncomfortable parts! Each of us, I believe, longs for belonging. We were all created to be lonely for God, longing for God, longing to make our home in God. Often times we run around and try to fill that longing with other things—money, achievements, things, good works. But ultimately, only God can fulfill our longing for God. When we spend time with God (in prayer, in worship, in silence), we discover our true belonging in God. (I believe that this is what Jesus was searching for in the beginning of our gospel story.) When we spend time with God, then God whispers back in our hearts, “You are enough; you belong because I have created you; nothing you can do or not do, be or not be, buy or not buy can change that you belong; but you must put your trust in me and not in yourself—in what you can do or not do, be or not be, buy or not buy. You are enough and you belong.” When we regularly spend time with God and we dwell within that awareness of (and gratitude for) our belonging, then we are free to invite others into that belonging as well. It becomes our great delight to share that belonging with others. We recognize that belonging in God is not limited to whom we think should belong; we all dwell within the Good news of God’s kingdom where all may find belonging and home. But when we are out of touch with God, we are also out of touch with our own belonging, and then we are more inclined to try to keep others (especially OTHERS—those who are different than us) from belonging as well. If you look around this church this morning and think in your secret heart that there is someone who does not belong here, belong to God, then that is a first sign that God is calling you back, to spend more time with God and to get reconnected with your own belonging within God. My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, has written a poem that articulates all this beautifully. It is called Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. [Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.] Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.ii God loves you just as you are. You are enough. You belong to God, and we all belong here together. May we all give our hearts fully to that this morning, and be grateful. “I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.” Thanks be to God! i. I found this quote in a picture posted on the Facebook page for Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN. ii.from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press © Mary Oliver.

14th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 17B

14th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 17B September 2, 2012 Wow! What a week! We’ve had much anxiety and a pretty decent sized mess, and we have much to be thankful for. I like the way that the reading from James says it today: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change…” It reminds me of something we sing every Sunday, in which we remember that all good things are from God “from whom ALL blessings flow.” As we give thanks in this moment for who we are and where we are, let’s sing together now: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” We give thanks today that God cares for each and every one of us and for the whole world, more than we could ever ask or imagine. And it is in the context of God’s abundance, God’s generosity, that we hear the words of letter of James, urging us to be “doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like…” It is in the context of God’s abundance, God’s generosity (and our gratitude) that we hear the words of Jesus this morning as he talks about the difference of what is inside and what is outside, how it is not what is outside which is impure but what is inside. Jesus is once again talking about the difference between choosing religion over choosing God. But in this passage, he makes it intensely personal. The last two Sundays I have preached, I have felt called to preach about some difficult subjects: gossip in the church and the times when we choose religion or rules over God or loving God and loving other people. Both times I have preached these two sermons, I’ve had people come up to me and talk about their neighbor, and so today I want to be perfectly clear. This week, Jesus is talking about each and every one of us. This week, Jesus is talking about you. He is talking to you. And he is inviting you to grow in your faith and in your relationship with him by examining the sins that are to be found, not in your neighbor’s actions. He is inviting you to examine the sins that are to be found in your own heart. Take a moment and remember us all singing together about God—from whom all blessings flow. Take a moment and think about the abundance and generosity of God. And now take a moment and think about some scarcity that has come out of your own heart, maybe this very morning, about someone else. That is what James is talking about when he urges us to be doers of the word and not just hearers. It is what Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel. Only Jesus knows exactly what is in a person’s heart, and he is inviting you to walk with him in a thorough examination of what is impure in your very own heart. I read a series of questions this week that gets to the very heart of this issue, and I will share them with you now, and then we will spend some time with them in silence. “‘For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’…As you judge the world around you where do you find blame for all the darkness that seems to engulf us? How might the anger and disappointment you feel about the darkness and disappointment around what is happening be an evasion of looking at what is within your own heart? What would you have to give up in order to search out the evil intentions in your own heart? What might be the first question you pose to yourself?”i What parts of your heart need to have the Light of God, the giver of every perfect gift and the Father of lights, shined upon them? Where do you fall short of loving God with your whole heart and mind and soul and loving your neighbor as yourself? God loves and redeems even that, if you are brave enough to uncover and examine it, if you are brave enough to offer it. i. By Bill Dols written in Bible Workbench Issue 19.5 September 2, 2012 p 55.