14th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16B

14th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16B August 26, 2018 The other day, I was walking back from a service in our chapel, and I listened to the people walking ahead of me talk about difficult topics of faith, like why does God allow sickness. They each talked about ways they had wrestled with this hard topic, and the ways that they had made their peace with it, as a part of engaging their faith. In our gospel reading for today, we have the culmination of the five weeks we have spent in Chapter 6 of John’s gospel. The chapter starts with the feeding of the 5,000, and the people are so impressed with Jesus’s miracle, that they follow him, asking for more. This inspires from Jesus a long chapter’s worth of teachings on how he is the bread of life, much like the manna that was given to their ancestors in the wilderness. And like their ancestors, the people begin to grumble and complain at Jesus’s teachings. As a result, Jesus seems to get more and more graphic in the language he uses, and it is more and more offensive to his hearers. First, it is “the Jews” or the leaders of the religious establishment who take issue with the teachings. And in today’s reading, we see that even Jesus’s disciples are not immune. “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” many of his disciples begin saying, and Jesus says to them: “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” The writer of John’s gospel tells us that “because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” Now, these aren’t just members of the crowd who followed Jesus after they witnessed the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. These are disciples, who had seen something in Jesus and had already given up much to follow him. They come to a cross roads in their faith, in the face of this hard teaching, and they choose to turn back rather than to go forward. This provokes Jesus to say to the 12, who still remain: “‘Do you also wish to go away?’” And John tells us that “Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’” It is a beautiful sentiment on Peter’s part, and there almost seems to be some sort of redemption in it, that even though Jesus has gone from being so popular and followed by so many to being deserted because of his radical teachings that are hard for people to stomach, at least he still has his 12 most faithful followers. But listen to the last two verses of chapter 6, which our lectionary cuts off for today: “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’ He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.” And we know that not only does Judas, one of the 12 betray him, but also, just about everyone else deserts him, too. This teaching is difficult; who can accept it? In the life of faith, sometimes the way forward is smooth and easy, but at other times, things get difficult. Our lives bump up against the hard teachings of Jesus, and we, like the disciples, find ourselves standing at a crossroads. Do we continue on the way forward and continue to follow Jesus, or do we turn back and seek an easier path? In the gospel of John, the Greek word that our passage for today translates as belief (pisteuo) is used almost 100 times. And this word doesn’t just mean an intellectual sort of belief or thinking. It means placing confidence in, entrusting oneself to, even choosing a path and following it through. C. S. Lewis hints at this in his book Mere Christianity when he writes, “There will come a moment when there is bad news, or he is in trouble, or is living among a lot of other people who do not believe it, and all at once his emotions will rise up and carry out a sort of blitz on his belief… Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience.” Our lives of faith are all made up of times when we felt that the teachings were too difficult, and so we turned away, turned back and of times when we stayed true to the course of belief that we had set to follow. As I look back over my life of following Jesus, I am struck by the fact that it is the difficult times that I remember most, and it is because I followed the path before me, even though I could have turned back. Even though that way led to heartbreak and failure, much like Jesus’s way led to the cross, even in those difficult times, I was sustained by God in ways that were uncommon from other easier times in my life. I invite you this week, to reflect upon the difficult times in the life of your faith, when you chose to follow the path of belief forward rather than turning back. Think about the ways that the Spirit gave you life in those times, or is giving you life now, if you find yourself in a difficult season. Ask yourself, “When, in the life of my faith, have I felt really alive? When have I felt the Spirit giving life to me?

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15B

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15B August 19, 2018 When I was visiting my parents earlier this summer, my mom recommended a book to me. Its sensational title is How Not To Die, and it is written by Michael Greger who is an M.D. Greger starts off by telling the story of his grandmother, who at the age of 65 had been diagnosed with heart disease, suffered multiple heart surgeries until there was no more they could do, was wheel-chair bound in constant excruciating pain and was told that she had about 3 weeks to live. The grandmother managed to get herself across the country to California, where she participated in a new study where the patients were all fed whole-food, plant-based diets and started exercising, and as a result, Greger’s grandmother went on to live 31 more years and die at the age of 96 after living a full and active life. Greger uses a large amount of scientific studies and data to write about how a whole-food, plant-based diet can not only prevent and treat the 15 leading causes of death in our country, but it can also reverse conditions such as heart-disease, cancer, diabetes, strokes, and Alzheimer’s. He also references research that supports the premise that this kind of way of eating can prolong life by repairing parts of our DNA that wear down naturally as we age. In some ways, it’s not exactly revolutionary. Since childhood, many of us have been taught “you are what you eat.” Jesus is essentially telling us the same thing in our gospel reading for today. He’s telling us both “you are what you eat” and “how not to die” spiritually. This is our fourth week in a row (out of 5 total) that our lectionary has given us passages from this particular section of John’s gospel, where Jesus says, again and again, “I am the bread of life.” As we have walked through Chapter 6 over the last few weeks, we have seen Jesus moving to more and more graphic language, culminating in our lesson for today where he says such shocking things as: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” One thing that is important to remember is that John’s gospel is the latest written gospel of our 4. It is written to a particular Christian community who are struggling with persecution in ways that the earlier gospel writers’ communities were not. And John’s community is also unique in its particular frustration in their expectation that Jesus was coming back sooner rather than later. Finally, John’s gospel is unique in that it does not include the story of the institution of the Last Supper. (We see in Chapter 13 the story of Jesus’s last night, in which he washes his disciples’ feet, but there is no story of the Last Supper.) So, this chapter of John’s gospel, Chapter 6, is essentially John’s way of connecting this struggling, worn-down, and persecuted community and pointing them to the Eucharist. These words would have been as familiar to them of the echoes of their weekly table liturgy as they are to us. John’s Jesus is telling the struggling, suffering community “how not to die,” but instead of talking about physical nourishment, he is talking about spiritual nourishment. I have to confess to you all that I was wonderfully and painfully convicted by a line in Rev. Aimee’s sermon last week. She was talking about the connection between the Jews who were listening to Jesus and the Children of Israel who received manna in the wilderness and how both groups were united in their complaining. And she said, “Complaining wins out over believing.” Ouch! Just before we started the first service, I was talking about how I didn’t think our house sale that was set for that week was going to go through, and boy, was I complaining. But in the midst of that same week, David was called to be the new priest at St. George’s--a huge, exciting thing for him and for our family. But the first thing I did was to complain. How many times in a given week do we choose complaining over faith, consternation over hope? It is a symptom of our heart disease, that only the bread of life can repair. One of my earliest memories of church is being a very young girl, kneeling at the altar rail with my hands outstretched and preparing to receive the bread from the woman priest who was coming down the line of the altar rail. As I watched her approach and looked at the people on either side of me, I became very excited because I was getting something special that was also the exact same thing everyone else around me was getting. I was excited to be both holy-set apart and belonging-exactly like everyone else. I also knew a little girl, who would sneak a piece of her communion wafer back to her pew and nibble on it throughout the rest of the service. When her mother learned what she had done, she would fuss at her, and tell her that she needed to consume it all at the altar rail, but it does seem natural to want to take time and savor the mystery and the gift, even taking it with us when we leave this place. What if, today, you approach the altar with the wonder of those two children, knowing that Jesus is giving you himself, the gift to begin to reverse your spiritual heart disease? What if as you stretched out your hands, you invited faith over complaining, hope over consternation in whatever part of your life feels the most dead or dying to you right now? And then, take a little piece of that life out with you into the world this week, so that everyone you see or encounter, even the ones who make you angry or persecute you, becomes the person kneeling next to you at the altar rail, also offered the gift and the mystery of God’s love in and through Jesus the bread of life. How not to die. It’s actually Jesus’s invitation to us this week and every week.

Funeral Homily for Dick Wilson

Dick Wilson’s funeral homily August 5, 2018 Every week as he was leaving church, Dick Wilson, who would usually be close to the end of what I like to call “the holy handshake line”, would come up to me. He’d take my hand, and I’d lean in and give him a kiss on his cheek. And he’d look at my face with that sweet smile of his and say, “How’s my favorite priest?” And I would smile back and answer, and after a brief conversation, we would both go on our way. My story is hardly unique. Over the last week, I’ve heard so many stories from you all about your friendships with Dick—his special nicknames for you, the many times you played golf or went fishing with him, the times he taught you or your children or grandchildren Sunday School, the times he came to watch you at your swim meet, the times you were touched by one of his impromptu speeches either in church or in social gatherings, the times you spent with him as his family at his and Mary’s home. So, it will come as no surprise to any of you, that Dick’s gift was one that is best articulated in a sort of old-fashioned word, and it’s not accident, I think, that this word is also found in the marriage vows. Dick’s gift was to cherish people. He had a gift not just for loving people, but for also letting them know that they were loved. It will also come as no surprise to you, I think, to learn that Dick planned this service in a very thorough and detailed way. He picked the hymns and the readings, and it is important to note that in his choice of the Lamentations reading, Dick has given us all one last gift. Listen to the beginning of it again: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” Dick was able to love others, to cherish us, because he had already known love. He knew the steadfast love of the Lord which never ceases. He abided in that, basked in, even, all of his days for 96 years. Dick was able to share God’s love for us because he knew it, tasted its joy afresh every day And so today, even as we mourn the loss of this lovely man in our lives, in our community of faith, we give thanks for Dick’s life and witness. And we remember and hold fast to the faith that Dick Wilson lived: that God’s love is stronger than anything, even death, and that in and through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, through that gift of God’s love, at death our lives are changed, not ended, and we will all feast together once again at the table for the family of God. We will be reunited once again, all together, in God’s steadfast love which never ceases. So today, let us mourn. Let us give thanks. Let us love and cherish one another. And let us commend Dick to the care and keeping of the Lord he knew and loved.

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13B

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13B August 5th, 2018 There are many things about parish ministry that surprised me in the early days of my ordained life, and there are many things that continue to surprise me, even after 14 years. But one of the ones that fits into both of those categories is the holiness of funerals in the life of a parish. Before I was ordained, I knew intellectually that funerals would be hard for everyone involved, parishioners and preacher alike; but I didn’t understand how hard they would be—burying someone who we all loved and who had been an integral part of the body of Christ in that particular place. But I had no idea about the gift that funerals could give a community. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are still very difficult. I have never had what I would call an “easy” funeral. But there is a certain rightness I feel in being the preacher at the funeral of someone who lived life well in our particular community of faith, someone who contributed his or her gifts to the building up of the kingdom of God in a particular place. I have the privilege of getting to name the gifts of that particular person in the funeral homily and to lift them up on behalf of the gathered church, their faith community, in thanksgiving. It is a huge responsibility and also a huge gift for which I am most grateful. Later today, we will join together for the funeral of Dick Wilson, a faithful member of our church. In that homily, I will talk about Dick’s particular gift. You don’t need me to articulate it; if you knew Dick well, (and even if you didn’t), you probably had the opportunity to see his gift at work in this community. And I’ll give you a spoiler alert for the funeral homily later today: Dick’s gift is that he cherished people. And even if you wouldn’t necessarily articulate it in that way, I suspect that’s what you were thinking as you sat there in your pew, Dick loved well, and in the way that he loved, he made all of us feel loved. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few days thinking about gifts. I got to participate in a pilot group of a spiritual gifts workshop yesterday with a handful of our parishioners. We learned about a sampling of the variety of gifts that God bestows on people. We uncovered or unwrapped which of those gifts had been bestowed on each of us, and we have been challenged to grow in the ways that we both nurture and offer our gifts to this community and the world. Our epistle reading for today, the portion of the letter to the Ephesians which has echoes of the beginning of our baptism liturgy, is a reminder that, as another writer has put it “our Creator has embedded gifts in each person…and that every person is called to participate in God’s ongoing and creative and healing work on earth…Our deepening relationship with God, both as individuals and as entire communities, is a gradual process of becoming aware of the great gifts we have been given and the tremendous trust that our Creator has placed in us by calling us to be partners in this wondrous work of God.”i The Ephesians passage articulates a list of gifts as a starting point for discernment. (But this list is not, by any means, exhaustive.) It reminds us that all these gifts are a part of Christ’s own onetime and also ongoing gift to the church and to individuals, and that the purpose of these gifts is that they be used “for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” We are called to use our individual gifts and the gifts of our whole church, so that we all may grow more and more into the image and likeness of Christ. The medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “Every creature is a word of God and is a book about God.” What does the book of your life say about God? What are the gifts God has given you specifically, and how have you been using them? Uncovering or unwrapping our spiritual gifts is a lot of work. One member of our group yesterday shared with us this image: imagine that you open your front door to discover a beautifully-wrapped, gigantic present on your door step. Do you think “boy, that’s just too big for me to deal with” and then close the door? Or do you start to unwrap it to see what’s inside, maybe asking for help to drag it inside the house? If you are interested in starting that process as you ask yourself “what does the book of your life say about God?” then I encourage you to talk to one of the participants from this pilot workshop. Rick Lantz was the leader, and those who participated were Margaret Minis, Sandy Champion, Steve Calver, and Charlie Barrow. My prayer for all of us this day is that we may live and use our gifts as fully as Dick Wilson lived and used his, so that everyone in our church may know the taste of our own unique gifts when we, too, pass on into the eternal life that God has waiting for us. i. Trumbauer, Jean Morris. Created and Called: Discovering Our Gifts For Abundant Living. Augsburg: Minneapolis, 1998, p 18.