Advent 2A
December 5, 2010
The season of Advent is my favorite season of the church, and it is also the most counter cultural. While the world around us rushes to decorate, to cook, to shop with a frantic and frenetic energy, we are called to wait, to be still, to be silent, to listen. The other day I was listening to an Advent cd in my car—hymns like what we are singing in church today—hymns that give voice to our longing and our expectation; and I went into a department store and encountered a riot of Christmas decorations, a long line with grumpy shoppers, and the sounds of Jingle Bells playing too loudly and at a tempo that was 5 times faster than normal and which made it quite frazzled and frantic.
This Advent, if you find a space for silence and for waiting, for hope and for longing nowhere else, I promise that you will find it here.
For the rest of this season, I want us to consider one question: “For what do you long?” What is the deepest hunger of the deepest part of your heart?
Take a moment of silence now, breath, listen, and dwell with your longing. For what do you long this day?
This Advent we will dwell with our own longing and we will listen to our scriptures as they give voice to our deepest longing.
Today’s scriptures name two of our deepest longings. We as God’s people long for hope, and we long for harmony.
Hope is a gift from the God of steadfastness and encouragement, and it flows freely through our relationship with God and the scriptures. I’ll never forget the time that I was teaching an Inquirer’s class, and I quoted, almost off-handedly, a passage from a book to them that said the scriptures are “the love story between God and humanity. They tell us where we have been, who we are, and where we’re going.” When I looked up at the people I was teaching, I saw that they each looked like they’d been hit in the head with something, and I realized what a profound concept this is. The scriptures tell us what we already know: that we are people who spend a lot of our days wandering in the wilderness, longing for someone to love us and help us. And when we pay attention, we see that God is with us, loving us, helping us, and offering us the gift of God’s hope, which is the fruit of our trust in God.
The other longing that our scriptures name today is the longing for harmony. We see in Isaiah God’s ancient promise of harmony for all God’s creation and the vision of God in which we are invited to participate. Harmony means our willingness to encounter God’s welcome to each one of us, encountering God’s wide embrace which means that all belong in the heart of God. When we know this and believe it, then we act accordingly to others, and we take our place in the vision of God, even as we give others the invitation to join us there.
Another way that we find the fulfillment for our longing for harmony and participation in the vision of God is to remember that we human beings exist not for the fulfillment of ourselves but for the glory of God. When we are all working for the glory of God, then we are more likely to dwell within the vision of God’s peace.
Thomas Merton once said that life is a perpetual advent. This Advent season, may you not be afraid to dwell a bit with your longing, may you make peace with it, and “may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Monday, December 6, 2010
Thanksgiving Sermon
Thanksgiving sermon
November 21, 2010
I don’t know about y’all but we at St. Peter’s have been talking a lot about first fruits lately. I would imagine that we are not unique in this utilizing of October and November as a time for the annual stewardship drive. And in that time of stewardship, we have spent some time talking about first fruits, how it is important to give to God off the top of our lives rather than out of what happens to be left-over. This is emphasized in our passage from Deuteronomy this evening, how God has saved the people of Israel and brought them out of slavery and exile in Egypt and has brought them into the land of promise that is their inheritance as God’s people. Because of this special relationship with God, the people are instructed to give the first fruits of the ground to God. It is an act of thanksgiving, an act of relationship, an act of remembering all that God has done for them and responding.
I would imagine that it was pretty easy to do this, that first year. After all, we know that it is not a hard task to be thankful to God when the milk and honey of the land is flowing freely. It is easy to be thankful when all is going well, and my heart is practically overflowing with thanksgiving to God for the glory of creation, when the skies are brilliant blue and the sunlight sparkles on the sound. It is easy to be thankful when my household is running smoothly, kids and husband are happy and healthy, and the kids are acting sweetly. (In fact, my moment of deepest thanksgiving every day is inevitably when I am putting each child to bed.)
It is easy to feel thankful when all is going well. But what about when it is not? How do we give God the first fruit that is thanksgiving when our hearts are heavy or burdened, when we don’t really feel that we have anything for which to be thankful?
There’s a great scene in the lovely book the Life of Pi by Yann Martel, that gets to the heart of thanksgiving. Pi Patel, the hero of the novel, is a 16 year old boy from India, who practices Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam and who has the gift of seeking out and holding up the kernel of what is best in all of them. Through a strange series of circumstances, Pi finds himself stranded in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a 450 pound Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. Pi is forced to use every ounce of his reason and skill to survive, and he often relies on his faith to provide meaning and comfort in his bleak situation.
In the following passage, Pi speaks of his reliance on his faith over the course of his journey, and it is a faith that is strengthened and upheld by a spirit of thanksgiving:
“I practiced religious rituals that I adapted to the circumstances—solitary Masses without priests or consecrated hosts…They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love—but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation, and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.
At such moments, I tried to elevate myself. I would touch the turban I had made with the remnants of my shirt and I would say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S HAT!’
I would pat my pants and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S ATTIRE!’
I would point to Richard Parker and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S CAT!’
I would point to the lifeboat and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S ARK!’
I would space my hands wide and say aloud ‘THESE ARE GOD’S WIDE ACRES!’
I would point at the sky and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S EAR!’
And in this way I would remind myself of creation and of my place in it.
But God’s hat was always unraveling. God’s pants were falling apart. God’s cat was a constant danger. God’s ark was a jail. God’s wide acres were slowly killing me. God’s ear didn’t seem to be listening.
Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out… I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shrinking point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.”
Just as love is a choice, an action, so may we also choose thanksgiving, even when our hearts are not feeling particularly thankful.
One of the most powerful things I have ever experienced was my first time attending the noon-day chapel service at Stewpot Soup Kitchen in Jackson. I had just started working there, fresh out of college, and the leadership of Stewpot had decided a while before that people needed to be fed spiritually as well as physically. And so they started holding an ecumenical worship service 30 minutes before the noon meal, and people were invited but not required to attend. Well, the service was usually packed full, as it was on this first day I attended. At one point in the service, the leader went around the room asking each and every person to name one thing he or she was thankful for on that particular day. He asked the homeless people, the mothers struggling to raise their children without enough money to buy food or clothing—name one thing for which you are thankful. He asked the mentally disabled who aimlessly wandered the streets of Jackson in an attempt to escape their abysmal group homes, and he asked the senior citizens who had to choose whether they could buy food or medications with their limited incomes—name one thing for which you are thankful. As I sat there, curious about what these worn-down people could possibly be thankful for, I was overwhelmed by the sincerity and simplicity of their responses. Every person found at least one thing to be grateful for that day, and many of them responded simply, “I am grateful that God woke me up this morning and gave me this new day.” It quickly became evident to me that they understood and believed that everything, every day is a new creation with new possibilities and new ways to love, that all that is has been given by God. And they were grateful. I will never forget the lesson that those beautiful, broken people taught me that day: at any point in our lives, any person can choose to find at least one reason to be thankful for God.
I think that too often we think that thanksgiving is an emotion that must well up out of our over-full hearts. And friends, that just isn’t the case. Thanksgiving is love in action. It is a choice that we make to live our lives a certain way. Pi Patel recognized this even as he was stuck in abysmal circumstances, he remembered that all that he had been given was really God’s and even though bad things were happening to him, he chose to carry on with his life and to carry on trying to love God. My friends at Stewpot had made the choice to be thankful as well; in the midst of their own oppressive situations, they recognized that all that they had, including their very lives, was a gift from God, and so they chose to respond to God and their neighbors with love.
And so this night we gather to break bread together, and to help each other remember that Thanksgiving is choosing a path, a way of living our lives, recognizing that all that we are and all that we have comes from God, and offering love as our first fruits, our thankful response.
November 21, 2010
I don’t know about y’all but we at St. Peter’s have been talking a lot about first fruits lately. I would imagine that we are not unique in this utilizing of October and November as a time for the annual stewardship drive. And in that time of stewardship, we have spent some time talking about first fruits, how it is important to give to God off the top of our lives rather than out of what happens to be left-over. This is emphasized in our passage from Deuteronomy this evening, how God has saved the people of Israel and brought them out of slavery and exile in Egypt and has brought them into the land of promise that is their inheritance as God’s people. Because of this special relationship with God, the people are instructed to give the first fruits of the ground to God. It is an act of thanksgiving, an act of relationship, an act of remembering all that God has done for them and responding.
I would imagine that it was pretty easy to do this, that first year. After all, we know that it is not a hard task to be thankful to God when the milk and honey of the land is flowing freely. It is easy to be thankful when all is going well, and my heart is practically overflowing with thanksgiving to God for the glory of creation, when the skies are brilliant blue and the sunlight sparkles on the sound. It is easy to be thankful when my household is running smoothly, kids and husband are happy and healthy, and the kids are acting sweetly. (In fact, my moment of deepest thanksgiving every day is inevitably when I am putting each child to bed.)
It is easy to feel thankful when all is going well. But what about when it is not? How do we give God the first fruit that is thanksgiving when our hearts are heavy or burdened, when we don’t really feel that we have anything for which to be thankful?
There’s a great scene in the lovely book the Life of Pi by Yann Martel, that gets to the heart of thanksgiving. Pi Patel, the hero of the novel, is a 16 year old boy from India, who practices Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam and who has the gift of seeking out and holding up the kernel of what is best in all of them. Through a strange series of circumstances, Pi finds himself stranded in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a 450 pound Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. Pi is forced to use every ounce of his reason and skill to survive, and he often relies on his faith to provide meaning and comfort in his bleak situation.
In the following passage, Pi speaks of his reliance on his faith over the course of his journey, and it is a faith that is strengthened and upheld by a spirit of thanksgiving:
“I practiced religious rituals that I adapted to the circumstances—solitary Masses without priests or consecrated hosts…They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love—but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation, and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.
At such moments, I tried to elevate myself. I would touch the turban I had made with the remnants of my shirt and I would say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S HAT!’
I would pat my pants and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S ATTIRE!’
I would point to Richard Parker and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S CAT!’
I would point to the lifeboat and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S ARK!’
I would space my hands wide and say aloud ‘THESE ARE GOD’S WIDE ACRES!’
I would point at the sky and say aloud ‘THIS IS GOD’S EAR!’
And in this way I would remind myself of creation and of my place in it.
But God’s hat was always unraveling. God’s pants were falling apart. God’s cat was a constant danger. God’s ark was a jail. God’s wide acres were slowly killing me. God’s ear didn’t seem to be listening.
Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out… I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shrinking point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.”
Just as love is a choice, an action, so may we also choose thanksgiving, even when our hearts are not feeling particularly thankful.
One of the most powerful things I have ever experienced was my first time attending the noon-day chapel service at Stewpot Soup Kitchen in Jackson. I had just started working there, fresh out of college, and the leadership of Stewpot had decided a while before that people needed to be fed spiritually as well as physically. And so they started holding an ecumenical worship service 30 minutes before the noon meal, and people were invited but not required to attend. Well, the service was usually packed full, as it was on this first day I attended. At one point in the service, the leader went around the room asking each and every person to name one thing he or she was thankful for on that particular day. He asked the homeless people, the mothers struggling to raise their children without enough money to buy food or clothing—name one thing for which you are thankful. He asked the mentally disabled who aimlessly wandered the streets of Jackson in an attempt to escape their abysmal group homes, and he asked the senior citizens who had to choose whether they could buy food or medications with their limited incomes—name one thing for which you are thankful. As I sat there, curious about what these worn-down people could possibly be thankful for, I was overwhelmed by the sincerity and simplicity of their responses. Every person found at least one thing to be grateful for that day, and many of them responded simply, “I am grateful that God woke me up this morning and gave me this new day.” It quickly became evident to me that they understood and believed that everything, every day is a new creation with new possibilities and new ways to love, that all that is has been given by God. And they were grateful. I will never forget the lesson that those beautiful, broken people taught me that day: at any point in our lives, any person can choose to find at least one reason to be thankful for God.
I think that too often we think that thanksgiving is an emotion that must well up out of our over-full hearts. And friends, that just isn’t the case. Thanksgiving is love in action. It is a choice that we make to live our lives a certain way. Pi Patel recognized this even as he was stuck in abysmal circumstances, he remembered that all that he had been given was really God’s and even though bad things were happening to him, he chose to carry on with his life and to carry on trying to love God. My friends at Stewpot had made the choice to be thankful as well; in the midst of their own oppressive situations, they recognized that all that they had, including their very lives, was a gift from God, and so they chose to respond to God and their neighbors with love.
And so this night we gather to break bread together, and to help each other remember that Thanksgiving is choosing a path, a way of living our lives, recognizing that all that we are and all that we have comes from God, and offering love as our first fruits, our thankful response.
Last Sunday after Pentecost--Christ the King
Christ the King Sunday—Proper 29C
November 21, 2010
Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost, last Sunday in our season of ordinary time, and the last Sunday of the church year. In our church, this Sunday is designed to lift up the theme of Christ as King, and then we move next Sunday into the season of Advent with its themes of waiting and hope, of expectation and longing.
So what does it mean to say that Christ is King on this day?
Our readings give us three depictions of kingship that are startling in their differences. For Jeremiah, a true king is one who is responsible for the people and should not allow them to be scattered through ruin and disaster. True kingship is the promise of one who will not only gather those who are scattered but he will also fulfill the kingly task of bringing all people together and be present with all people.
In the hymn to Christ, the writer of Colossians gives us a poetic smattering of images of Christ’s kingship: his glorious power, his inheritance of light, the image of the invisible God, first born of all creation; “he is before all things and in him all things hold together;” in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him God reconciled all things to God. It is a high and lofty expression of what it means to see Christ as King.
Then suddenly we find ourselves right in the middle of Jesus’s crucifixion from Luke’s gospel, and we see him being mocked by his tormenters and ridiculed in his kingship. We witness his humiliation, and his sublime power as he forgives again and again and again. And we see him honor the thief’s request and his confession of faith as he grants him a place in his kingdom.
So how do these three different pictures of Christ’s kingship come together for us to inform us and help us in our relationship with God?
I think it’s important to remember this day that in the earthly realm, the function of a king is symbolic. A king rules over a particular place or a particular ethnic group. For someone to be a king, he needs to have a people. And what we celebrate this Sunday of the year is that Christ has made of us his people.
As most of you know, I grew up here in Mississippi. David, on the other hand, grew up in Northwest Arkansas, and so he was not familiar with a lot of our Southern culture as it is lived out here. When we first moved to Mississippi, he was baffled by the Southern ritual of “who are your people.” You know the one I’m talking about. You get a couple of people together who are just meeting for the first time, and they want to know who your people are—that means a family name and a location. Here in the South, your “people” is a biological unit. When we first moved here, David didn’t much care for this exercise. His people weren’t in or from Mississippi, and so he didn’t see the point in it. But for those of us who live here, it’s a way of connecting to people, of understanding who they are, where they come from and seeing how their life patterns may be interconnected with ours by knowing the same people. This is what Christ does for us, and we lift that up today. He gives us that common relative, that connection through which we can relate to one another.
We are scattered and fragmented, and we are called back into wholeness, back into God by Christ who brings all together. And we remember this day and give thanks that we are all made Christ’s people and united to each other in and through his forgiveness. We become related through his kingship, and we are bound together through our forgiven-ness.
November 21, 2010
Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost, last Sunday in our season of ordinary time, and the last Sunday of the church year. In our church, this Sunday is designed to lift up the theme of Christ as King, and then we move next Sunday into the season of Advent with its themes of waiting and hope, of expectation and longing.
So what does it mean to say that Christ is King on this day?
Our readings give us three depictions of kingship that are startling in their differences. For Jeremiah, a true king is one who is responsible for the people and should not allow them to be scattered through ruin and disaster. True kingship is the promise of one who will not only gather those who are scattered but he will also fulfill the kingly task of bringing all people together and be present with all people.
In the hymn to Christ, the writer of Colossians gives us a poetic smattering of images of Christ’s kingship: his glorious power, his inheritance of light, the image of the invisible God, first born of all creation; “he is before all things and in him all things hold together;” in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him God reconciled all things to God. It is a high and lofty expression of what it means to see Christ as King.
Then suddenly we find ourselves right in the middle of Jesus’s crucifixion from Luke’s gospel, and we see him being mocked by his tormenters and ridiculed in his kingship. We witness his humiliation, and his sublime power as he forgives again and again and again. And we see him honor the thief’s request and his confession of faith as he grants him a place in his kingdom.
So how do these three different pictures of Christ’s kingship come together for us to inform us and help us in our relationship with God?
I think it’s important to remember this day that in the earthly realm, the function of a king is symbolic. A king rules over a particular place or a particular ethnic group. For someone to be a king, he needs to have a people. And what we celebrate this Sunday of the year is that Christ has made of us his people.
As most of you know, I grew up here in Mississippi. David, on the other hand, grew up in Northwest Arkansas, and so he was not familiar with a lot of our Southern culture as it is lived out here. When we first moved to Mississippi, he was baffled by the Southern ritual of “who are your people.” You know the one I’m talking about. You get a couple of people together who are just meeting for the first time, and they want to know who your people are—that means a family name and a location. Here in the South, your “people” is a biological unit. When we first moved here, David didn’t much care for this exercise. His people weren’t in or from Mississippi, and so he didn’t see the point in it. But for those of us who live here, it’s a way of connecting to people, of understanding who they are, where they come from and seeing how their life patterns may be interconnected with ours by knowing the same people. This is what Christ does for us, and we lift that up today. He gives us that common relative, that connection through which we can relate to one another.
We are scattered and fragmented, and we are called back into wholeness, back into God by Christ who brings all together. And we remember this day and give thanks that we are all made Christ’s people and united to each other in and through his forgiveness. We become related through his kingship, and we are bound together through our forgiven-ness.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sunday after All Saints'
Sunday after All Saints’
Baptismal letter
November 7, 2010
A letter for those about to be baptized (and for those renewing their own baptismal covenant).
Dear Mason, Alejandro, and Amelia,
This day we do something very strange. We take you three, beautiful children, and we drown you in the waters of baptism and bury you in the death of Christ. We do this so that you may no longer belong to yourselves, or even to your parents. We baptize you so that all may remember that no matter what happens to you over the course of your life, you are blessed, and you belong to God.
On this day of your baptism, as your parents and godparents make promises on your behalf, we make one all encompassing promise to you. We promise to support you; we promise to help you remember that no matter what happens, you belong to God, to help you remember that you are blessed.
People are haunted and lost, but in our baptism, we are claimed as Christ’s own. We may feel that we have fallen out of belonging over the course of our lives, but when we renew the covenant, we remember that we are marked as Christ’s own forever and that he calls us to proclaim that good news to all whom we encounter.
The Wisdom of God who dwells within us is so often quiet and subtle, especially amidst the clamor of the world and of our own selfish desires. But we promise to remind you that she is there and to help you listen to her, that she may nurture and embrace, teach and guide you on the way and even overflow from your own heart to anoint others in the light of belonging.
We will help you remember that you belong to the communion of saints, which means that all those who have gone before us in the faith and who continue to grow in the love and service to God in eternity are also bound to us in faith and support us in prayer. Those whose lives of faith have shaped and influenced you in the past continue to be active in our present and future and we are held in their faith and in their prayers when we most need it. They have illumined for us the path of belonging, what it means to be God’s people. For we all belong to God.
We promise that when you suffer, for unfortunately ,you sweet, innocent dear ones, you will suffer, we promise to help you find meaning and hope in your suffering even as we remind you that in Christ’s wounded body, we are bound in solidarity with all who suffer and we are called to do all in our power to prevent suffering and injustice in the future.
We promise that when you are most poor, we will help you find the treasure of the Kingdom of God which is already yours. When you are hungry, we will feed you and remind you that you dwell in the fullness that is God. When you are weeping, we will weep with you, and we will hold onto one another in the promise of God’s laughter. When you are hated or excluded, reviled or defamed because you belong to God, we will stand with you in that, and hold and uphold you in the peace of that belonging.
We promise to help you remember the hope to which you are called, to hold you to the standards of compassion and reconciliation and selflessness into which you are baptized this day, and we ask that you do the same for us.
We promise to help you remember the truth of your baptism, the truth of the resurrection: that God’s love is stronger than anything…even death; and that for those who belong to God, death is nothing to fear but is yet another passage on the way to deeper belonging to God.
And we promise to walk that way with you as your brothers and sisters, as your friends and companions, in this life and in the next.
Your sister in Christ, Melanie
Baptismal letter
November 7, 2010
A letter for those about to be baptized (and for those renewing their own baptismal covenant).
Dear Mason, Alejandro, and Amelia,
This day we do something very strange. We take you three, beautiful children, and we drown you in the waters of baptism and bury you in the death of Christ. We do this so that you may no longer belong to yourselves, or even to your parents. We baptize you so that all may remember that no matter what happens to you over the course of your life, you are blessed, and you belong to God.
On this day of your baptism, as your parents and godparents make promises on your behalf, we make one all encompassing promise to you. We promise to support you; we promise to help you remember that no matter what happens, you belong to God, to help you remember that you are blessed.
People are haunted and lost, but in our baptism, we are claimed as Christ’s own. We may feel that we have fallen out of belonging over the course of our lives, but when we renew the covenant, we remember that we are marked as Christ’s own forever and that he calls us to proclaim that good news to all whom we encounter.
The Wisdom of God who dwells within us is so often quiet and subtle, especially amidst the clamor of the world and of our own selfish desires. But we promise to remind you that she is there and to help you listen to her, that she may nurture and embrace, teach and guide you on the way and even overflow from your own heart to anoint others in the light of belonging.
We will help you remember that you belong to the communion of saints, which means that all those who have gone before us in the faith and who continue to grow in the love and service to God in eternity are also bound to us in faith and support us in prayer. Those whose lives of faith have shaped and influenced you in the past continue to be active in our present and future and we are held in their faith and in their prayers when we most need it. They have illumined for us the path of belonging, what it means to be God’s people. For we all belong to God.
We promise that when you suffer, for unfortunately ,you sweet, innocent dear ones, you will suffer, we promise to help you find meaning and hope in your suffering even as we remind you that in Christ’s wounded body, we are bound in solidarity with all who suffer and we are called to do all in our power to prevent suffering and injustice in the future.
We promise that when you are most poor, we will help you find the treasure of the Kingdom of God which is already yours. When you are hungry, we will feed you and remind you that you dwell in the fullness that is God. When you are weeping, we will weep with you, and we will hold onto one another in the promise of God’s laughter. When you are hated or excluded, reviled or defamed because you belong to God, we will stand with you in that, and hold and uphold you in the peace of that belonging.
We promise to help you remember the hope to which you are called, to hold you to the standards of compassion and reconciliation and selflessness into which you are baptized this day, and we ask that you do the same for us.
We promise to help you remember the truth of your baptism, the truth of the resurrection: that God’s love is stronger than anything…even death; and that for those who belong to God, death is nothing to fear but is yet another passage on the way to deeper belonging to God.
And we promise to walk that way with you as your brothers and sisters, as your friends and companions, in this life and in the next.
Your sister in Christ, Melanie
Monday, October 11, 2010
20th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 23C sermon
This sermon references the texts of Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 and Luke 17:11-19.
20th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 23C
October 10, 2010
In thinking about gratitude this week, I was reminded of the scene from that old movie, Shenandoah. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart is a pacifist farmer in the midst of the civil war. He’s trying to raise 7 children without his wife’s presence, but with her strict instructions that they be raised as good Christians, so he prays dutifully over their bountiful dinner, “Lord, we cleared this land; we plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here; we wouldn’t be eating it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone for every crumb all ourselves, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for this food we are about to eat. Amen.” And I wonder, when compared with this week’s gospel story, is this gratitude?
I think that there is a certain part of gratitude that has to do with duty. I wish I had a dollar for every time I do something for one of my children and then I always say, “Now what do you say to me???” (And what are they supposed to say?) Thank you! In the South, we know that saying “thank you” is just what you do; and so we do it because we are supposed to.
But our gospel lesson for today gives us another piece of the picture of what gratitude is. 10 lepers are walking by Jesus out in the middle of nowhere. They all cry out to him, “Jesus, Master, Have mercy on us.” He tells them to go show themselves to the priests and on the way, they discovered that they have been healed of their skin affliction. One person, upon realizing that he had been healed, turns back and falls at Jesus’s feet and tells him thank you. Jesus tells the man to get up and go on his way, for his faith has saved him. It’s important to note that the writer of the gospel of Luke situates this story of the healing of the 10 lepers and the one grateful one who returned, right in the middle of a chapter on discipleship. It is discipleship that moves gratitude from being about duty into being about our relationship with God.
Does God need our gratitude? No. But we need to be grateful. It is the natural state of the creature toward the creator, and every Sunday, we are reminded that it is a part of DNA as people of faith: “lift up your hearts!” We lift them up to the Lord!” Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give God thanks and praise. It is right, and a good, and joyful thing, always and everywhere” to praise and give thanks to God. Our sacred meal of remembrance is called Eucharist which means Thanksgiving. It is not just what we do, but it is also who we are. We are people of gratitude.
Sometimes it is so easy to lift up grateful hearts before God. When the weather is like it has been, I am so much more mindful of being grateful to God than in the dog days of summer. Several years ago, it was beautiful weather (like today) and Mary Margaret and I were going to go on a walk. She was very excited about the prospect and was buzzing around while I got us ready and finally got her into her stroller. Then she said to me, “Wait, Mommy. I need to do something.” So I waited; and she prayed: “God is great, God is good. Let us thank God for this walk. Amen.”
But there are other times in our lives, when the weather is not so nice, when the diagnosis isn’t what we had hoped, when the old wounds refuse to heal, when the news is not good or when life is just plain hard. And as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to be grateful to God, even then. How are we grateful then, when it feels that we have very little for which to be grateful?
You have heard the words of the false prophet, Hannaniah, Jeremiah writes to the children of Israel who have been taken away from their home in Israel into captivity in Babylon. Hannaniah is telling you that you will be coming home soon, but I am the true prophet of the Lord, and I am telling you that you will not be coming home soon. So here’s what God wants you to do. Even though you are homesick and grieving, even though you long to return to the land of your ancestors and heritage, God is calling you to get on with your lives, there in Babylon. Build houses and live in them. Plant a garden, marry off your children, make friends with the Babylonians. Get on with your life. And even if you are not grateful, you say thank you anyway; because you are still God’s people, even after everything. You practice gratitude, and as you practice, the Holy Spirit will transform your burden of duty into joyful gratitude. And you will be healed (but maybe not in the way you expect).
Like faith, gratitude is not about feeling. It is about practice. If you do not feel that you can be grateful, then live gratefully. Let us pray. God is great. God is good. Let us thank God for this day. Amen.
20th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 23C
October 10, 2010
In thinking about gratitude this week, I was reminded of the scene from that old movie, Shenandoah. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart is a pacifist farmer in the midst of the civil war. He’s trying to raise 7 children without his wife’s presence, but with her strict instructions that they be raised as good Christians, so he prays dutifully over their bountiful dinner, “Lord, we cleared this land; we plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here; we wouldn’t be eating it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone for every crumb all ourselves, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for this food we are about to eat. Amen.” And I wonder, when compared with this week’s gospel story, is this gratitude?
I think that there is a certain part of gratitude that has to do with duty. I wish I had a dollar for every time I do something for one of my children and then I always say, “Now what do you say to me???” (And what are they supposed to say?) Thank you! In the South, we know that saying “thank you” is just what you do; and so we do it because we are supposed to.
But our gospel lesson for today gives us another piece of the picture of what gratitude is. 10 lepers are walking by Jesus out in the middle of nowhere. They all cry out to him, “Jesus, Master, Have mercy on us.” He tells them to go show themselves to the priests and on the way, they discovered that they have been healed of their skin affliction. One person, upon realizing that he had been healed, turns back and falls at Jesus’s feet and tells him thank you. Jesus tells the man to get up and go on his way, for his faith has saved him. It’s important to note that the writer of the gospel of Luke situates this story of the healing of the 10 lepers and the one grateful one who returned, right in the middle of a chapter on discipleship. It is discipleship that moves gratitude from being about duty into being about our relationship with God.
Does God need our gratitude? No. But we need to be grateful. It is the natural state of the creature toward the creator, and every Sunday, we are reminded that it is a part of DNA as people of faith: “lift up your hearts!” We lift them up to the Lord!” Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give God thanks and praise. It is right, and a good, and joyful thing, always and everywhere” to praise and give thanks to God. Our sacred meal of remembrance is called Eucharist which means Thanksgiving. It is not just what we do, but it is also who we are. We are people of gratitude.
Sometimes it is so easy to lift up grateful hearts before God. When the weather is like it has been, I am so much more mindful of being grateful to God than in the dog days of summer. Several years ago, it was beautiful weather (like today) and Mary Margaret and I were going to go on a walk. She was very excited about the prospect and was buzzing around while I got us ready and finally got her into her stroller. Then she said to me, “Wait, Mommy. I need to do something.” So I waited; and she prayed: “God is great, God is good. Let us thank God for this walk. Amen.”
But there are other times in our lives, when the weather is not so nice, when the diagnosis isn’t what we had hoped, when the old wounds refuse to heal, when the news is not good or when life is just plain hard. And as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to be grateful to God, even then. How are we grateful then, when it feels that we have very little for which to be grateful?
You have heard the words of the false prophet, Hannaniah, Jeremiah writes to the children of Israel who have been taken away from their home in Israel into captivity in Babylon. Hannaniah is telling you that you will be coming home soon, but I am the true prophet of the Lord, and I am telling you that you will not be coming home soon. So here’s what God wants you to do. Even though you are homesick and grieving, even though you long to return to the land of your ancestors and heritage, God is calling you to get on with your lives, there in Babylon. Build houses and live in them. Plant a garden, marry off your children, make friends with the Babylonians. Get on with your life. And even if you are not grateful, you say thank you anyway; because you are still God’s people, even after everything. You practice gratitude, and as you practice, the Holy Spirit will transform your burden of duty into joyful gratitude. And you will be healed (but maybe not in the way you expect).
Like faith, gratitude is not about feeling. It is about practice. If you do not feel that you can be grateful, then live gratefully. Let us pray. God is great. God is good. Let us thank God for this day. Amen.
Monday, October 4, 2010
19th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 22C sermon
19th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 22C
October 3, 2010
Luke 17:5-10
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"
I will never forget the day in CPE-the chaplaincy training program that most clergy have to complete before ordination—when one of my colleagues was kicked out of our program by our supervisor. His name was Miles, and he was from a more fundamentalist tradition. He had been serving as chaplain in the ICU floor of our hospital, and the head nurse reported him to our supervisor because he told the daughter of a man who was dying in the ICU that if she only had more faith, then her father would get better.
This is one of our worst nightmares, one of our most shadowy, dark, secret fears. If only I had more faith then the bad things wouldn’t happen to me; if only I had more faith, then maybe a miracle would occur. If only I had more faith, then I would know what to say when faced with such tragedy and sorrow.
Even the disciples, when faced with Jesus’s description of the demands and challenges of discipleship, whisper in their hearts, “Oh, if only I had more faith, then maybe I could accomplish this.” And then, overcome by their fears and terrors, they cry out to Jesus: “Increase our faith!”
So often we read Jesus’s response like my former colleague Miles: “if only you had the smallest seed of faith, then you’d be able to accomplish miracles.” But these are not the words of Jesus to his friends, friends that he is preparing to give his life for. And these are not his words for us, we who are needy, discouraged, disheartened, and grieving.
“Why, you don’t need more faith,” Jesus tells us. “All you need is this teeniest, tiniest little bit. You already have what you need. God has already given you what you need. Do not worry about how much faith you have. Instead, live faithfully. Do your duty, what you are called by God to be and to do. Even the tiniest bit of faith is enough to do extraordinary things, but it must be put into practice.”
Faith is not just saying “I believe.” It is living as if “I believe that…” I believe that God is still at work in the world; I believe that all the suffering will one day be redeemed; I believe that love is stronger than anything, even death. Faith is so much more than just showing up and going through the motions. Practicing our faith means picking a spot to be rooted in and to grow in that spot, in giving, in prayer, in good works.
Faith is looking unflinchingly into the face of suffering, in our own lives, in our relationships, in the world, and it is saying that this suffering is the way of the cross and that even this darkness can and will be redeemed in and through Christ’s resurrection, no matter what happens.
Faith is holding onto the faith that has been passed on to us, by our mothers and our grandmothers and all the saints who have come before us, and it is trusting them and their faith when we feel we cannot trust our own.
And it is clinging to the faith and the hope of the people of God, who cry out to God in their suffering across the ages in echoes of loneliness, despair, grief, utter bereavement, spiritual and physical homelessness, and suffering, and who cling to the steadfast love and mercy of God who is fully present in and with our loneliness, despair, grief, utter bereavement, spiritual and physical homelessness, and suffering.
“In my heart there is no faith—no love—no trust—there is so much pain—the pain of longing, the pain of not being wanted. I want God with all the powers of my soul—and yet there between us—there is terrible separation.” These words were written by a famous person of faith in the 20th century, and they may sounds hauntingly familiar to many of us. They were published a few years ago in the book Come My Light, which is composed of excerpts of letters written by Mother Teresa in letters to spiritual advisers over a period of 45 years in which she directed the Missionaries of Charity, the order of Roman Catholic nuns she founded. Though she longed for joy in her faith, she knew that her feelings were not the point. What is importance is the practice.
You already have what you need. God has already given you what you need. Do not worry about how much faith you have. Instead, live faithfully. Do your duty, what you are called by God to be and to do. Even the tiniest bit of faith is enough to do extraordinary things, but it must be put into practice.
October 3, 2010
Luke 17:5-10
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"
I will never forget the day in CPE-the chaplaincy training program that most clergy have to complete before ordination—when one of my colleagues was kicked out of our program by our supervisor. His name was Miles, and he was from a more fundamentalist tradition. He had been serving as chaplain in the ICU floor of our hospital, and the head nurse reported him to our supervisor because he told the daughter of a man who was dying in the ICU that if she only had more faith, then her father would get better.
This is one of our worst nightmares, one of our most shadowy, dark, secret fears. If only I had more faith then the bad things wouldn’t happen to me; if only I had more faith, then maybe a miracle would occur. If only I had more faith, then I would know what to say when faced with such tragedy and sorrow.
Even the disciples, when faced with Jesus’s description of the demands and challenges of discipleship, whisper in their hearts, “Oh, if only I had more faith, then maybe I could accomplish this.” And then, overcome by their fears and terrors, they cry out to Jesus: “Increase our faith!”
So often we read Jesus’s response like my former colleague Miles: “if only you had the smallest seed of faith, then you’d be able to accomplish miracles.” But these are not the words of Jesus to his friends, friends that he is preparing to give his life for. And these are not his words for us, we who are needy, discouraged, disheartened, and grieving.
“Why, you don’t need more faith,” Jesus tells us. “All you need is this teeniest, tiniest little bit. You already have what you need. God has already given you what you need. Do not worry about how much faith you have. Instead, live faithfully. Do your duty, what you are called by God to be and to do. Even the tiniest bit of faith is enough to do extraordinary things, but it must be put into practice.”
Faith is not just saying “I believe.” It is living as if “I believe that…” I believe that God is still at work in the world; I believe that all the suffering will one day be redeemed; I believe that love is stronger than anything, even death. Faith is so much more than just showing up and going through the motions. Practicing our faith means picking a spot to be rooted in and to grow in that spot, in giving, in prayer, in good works.
Faith is looking unflinchingly into the face of suffering, in our own lives, in our relationships, in the world, and it is saying that this suffering is the way of the cross and that even this darkness can and will be redeemed in and through Christ’s resurrection, no matter what happens.
Faith is holding onto the faith that has been passed on to us, by our mothers and our grandmothers and all the saints who have come before us, and it is trusting them and their faith when we feel we cannot trust our own.
And it is clinging to the faith and the hope of the people of God, who cry out to God in their suffering across the ages in echoes of loneliness, despair, grief, utter bereavement, spiritual and physical homelessness, and suffering, and who cling to the steadfast love and mercy of God who is fully present in and with our loneliness, despair, grief, utter bereavement, spiritual and physical homelessness, and suffering.
“In my heart there is no faith—no love—no trust—there is so much pain—the pain of longing, the pain of not being wanted. I want God with all the powers of my soul—and yet there between us—there is terrible separation.” These words were written by a famous person of faith in the 20th century, and they may sounds hauntingly familiar to many of us. They were published a few years ago in the book Come My Light, which is composed of excerpts of letters written by Mother Teresa in letters to spiritual advisers over a period of 45 years in which she directed the Missionaries of Charity, the order of Roman Catholic nuns she founded. Though she longed for joy in her faith, she knew that her feelings were not the point. What is importance is the practice.
You already have what you need. God has already given you what you need. Do not worry about how much faith you have. Instead, live faithfully. Do your duty, what you are called by God to be and to do. Even the tiniest bit of faith is enough to do extraordinary things, but it must be put into practice.
Monday, September 20, 2010
17th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 20C
The 17th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 20C
September 19, 2010
Today's gospel reading includes one of Jesus's most challenging parables. It is both challenging to read and challening to preach. Why would Jesus make an example for godly living so unsavory as it is in the person of the dishonest manager? Also, the ending is completely unsatisfactory. We want to see the scoundrel get justice in the end. But that’s not what happens.
So beyond being completely confusing and unsatisfactory, what does this parable have to offer us today? After Jesus tells the story of the dishonest manager, how he tried to repair his swindling by reducing the debts of those indebted to the rich man, he makes a comparison between the “children of this age” who are represented by the dishonest manager and the “children of light” who are presumably the followers of Jesus, his disciples that he is telling the story to (and us). He commends the dishonest steward because he uses all the resources that he has at his disposal, all the things that have been entrusted to him, all his master’s treasures, to bring about a particular vision, that is to save his own skin. The dishonest manager has an understanding of his master, as well as of the people he is working with, and he uses all of that awareness to try to get himself out of trouble.
So one of the questions this parable raises for me is what does it mean to be the children of light? What are the treasures of God that are entrusted to us? How are we called to live into God’s vision for the kingdom?
I think being children of the light means being bearers of the good news. It means that we live within the world but do not live our lives according to the values of the world. It means that we live our lives centered in Christ and his teachings, not putting ourselves at the center but rather putting Jesus and other people at the center. It means using our resources and our energy to work with God to bring all of creation into God’s kingdom. The treasures of the children of light are those things that Jesus has taught us to hold dear. At the heart of it all is God’s love which is freely given to us and which we are called to share with others, above anything that we may gain for ourselves, above even our own lives. The vision of the kingdom of God which we are called to bear witness to is a kingdom where love and relationship with God and others is of greatest importance, where everything else works toward this vision. And the deepest treasure of this vision, the deepest treasure of both love and relationship is forgiveness. That’s what the dishonest manager understood and used to his advantage. How much more are we, the children of light, called to understand and to use this treasure in doing the work of God’s kingdom?
So I had made my peace with this difficult parable, and then God sprung another one on me. I was drinking my coffee and reading the paper on Friday morning, when I saw a picture of the man who I had met at the church a mere few days before the angel statue was stolen from the church grounds back in March. He had introduced himself as Joe, and he was the one I always suspected of being the perpetrator of the theft, and there he was pictured in the paper along with a story about a copper-theft ring that has just been busted in Jackson County. Well, I was quite excited and set the wheels of justice in motion, contacting our wardens, who then contacted the local authorities. Well, the wheels of justice are slowly turning, and nothing further has happened in this at this time, except that this story from real life then started bumping up against Jesus’s parable for me, and it started causing me some real discomfort, and it made me start asking questions.
What is the call of the children of light in this particular situation? Here we have a person who has hurt us tremendously, probably for his own selfish gain. He stole a piece of our history that was precious to us, precious because of who it represents and also because it symbolizes a piece of our church, a piece of our past that weathered the storm and was restored. And he made a complete fool of us and our hospitality, showing up in broad daylight and asking questions about the angel statue, even getting a tour of the church. Personally, I’m really angry at Joe, and I’d like to see them lock him away and throw away the key. But that is the way of the world, and it is the concern of our justice system. I fully support our justice system and trust that process, and I will do all in my power to support it. But, to borrow a phrase from our more Protestant brothers and sisters, I find myself, in this situation, to be “convicted by the gospel.” If we really believe that we are the children of light and we are called to live our lives according to the priorities of God and God’s kingdom, then how are we called to lift up the priorities of love and relationship in this particular situation with this particular individual ? What would forgiveness for this individual look like for us? How might we even begin to go about it?
Let me share with you something that happened to my family when I was growing up, because it is part of my challenge with this Joe situation. When I was a teenager, my family was the victim of multiple house burglaries. At first, they took money and all of our jewelry, mostly sentimental pieces like the gold locket that had been my great-aunt/godmother’s and my leather-bound, gold embossed Bible with my name on it. When they came back, they took the tv and VCR and other larger items, anything they could carry with them. We got the bigger items back after finding them at a local pawn shop, but we never recovered the sentimental items. Eventually, my dad was called down to the Canton Police department, and he looked into the faces of two teenage boys who were responsible for causing my family such hurt and fear. The boys were dealt with according to the law, and we went on with our lives.
Years later, my dad participated in a Kairos event. For those of you who don’t know, Karios is a weekend of spiritual renewal similar to Happening, or Cursillio, but it is held in prison, and the pilgrims are convicts. My dad and the others on the team had spent a lot of time praying before they put on the weekend, praying for themselves and for those they were going to encounter and when dad was there at the prison doing the Kairos weekend, he met one of those two teenage boys who had robbed our house. The young man remembered my dad, and he told my dad about how he had felt when he was handcuffed to the chair in the Canton Police Department and he had to look into the face of the man whose family he had robbed repeatedly. And then, in that prison, where he was doing time for a completely different crime, that man asked my father for forgiveness for what he had done to our family, and my dad, by the grace of God, was able to grant it.
So I don’t know where God is calling us in this thing with Joe, but I know that we need to begin somewhere.
And that somewhere is that we begin by praying. Paul’s first letter to Timothy says, “First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayer, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for everyone”. Don’t just pray for those you like, Paul says, or those who are sick. Pray for everyone, even those who hurt you. And then he challenges us to remember that Christ Jesus “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” and who, therefore, did not just give himself for the children of light but “as a ransom for all,” even someone so self-centered as would steal from a church. So we pray for Joe; and we pray for ourselves, that God may give us the grace and the power to act, not as children of this world, but as children of the light, who are working to help fulfill God’s vision for God’s kingdom.
Let us pray. Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
September 19, 2010
Today's gospel reading includes one of Jesus's most challenging parables. It is both challenging to read and challening to preach. Why would Jesus make an example for godly living so unsavory as it is in the person of the dishonest manager? Also, the ending is completely unsatisfactory. We want to see the scoundrel get justice in the end. But that’s not what happens.
So beyond being completely confusing and unsatisfactory, what does this parable have to offer us today? After Jesus tells the story of the dishonest manager, how he tried to repair his swindling by reducing the debts of those indebted to the rich man, he makes a comparison between the “children of this age” who are represented by the dishonest manager and the “children of light” who are presumably the followers of Jesus, his disciples that he is telling the story to (and us). He commends the dishonest steward because he uses all the resources that he has at his disposal, all the things that have been entrusted to him, all his master’s treasures, to bring about a particular vision, that is to save his own skin. The dishonest manager has an understanding of his master, as well as of the people he is working with, and he uses all of that awareness to try to get himself out of trouble.
So one of the questions this parable raises for me is what does it mean to be the children of light? What are the treasures of God that are entrusted to us? How are we called to live into God’s vision for the kingdom?
I think being children of the light means being bearers of the good news. It means that we live within the world but do not live our lives according to the values of the world. It means that we live our lives centered in Christ and his teachings, not putting ourselves at the center but rather putting Jesus and other people at the center. It means using our resources and our energy to work with God to bring all of creation into God’s kingdom. The treasures of the children of light are those things that Jesus has taught us to hold dear. At the heart of it all is God’s love which is freely given to us and which we are called to share with others, above anything that we may gain for ourselves, above even our own lives. The vision of the kingdom of God which we are called to bear witness to is a kingdom where love and relationship with God and others is of greatest importance, where everything else works toward this vision. And the deepest treasure of this vision, the deepest treasure of both love and relationship is forgiveness. That’s what the dishonest manager understood and used to his advantage. How much more are we, the children of light, called to understand and to use this treasure in doing the work of God’s kingdom?
So I had made my peace with this difficult parable, and then God sprung another one on me. I was drinking my coffee and reading the paper on Friday morning, when I saw a picture of the man who I had met at the church a mere few days before the angel statue was stolen from the church grounds back in March. He had introduced himself as Joe, and he was the one I always suspected of being the perpetrator of the theft, and there he was pictured in the paper along with a story about a copper-theft ring that has just been busted in Jackson County. Well, I was quite excited and set the wheels of justice in motion, contacting our wardens, who then contacted the local authorities. Well, the wheels of justice are slowly turning, and nothing further has happened in this at this time, except that this story from real life then started bumping up against Jesus’s parable for me, and it started causing me some real discomfort, and it made me start asking questions.
What is the call of the children of light in this particular situation? Here we have a person who has hurt us tremendously, probably for his own selfish gain. He stole a piece of our history that was precious to us, precious because of who it represents and also because it symbolizes a piece of our church, a piece of our past that weathered the storm and was restored. And he made a complete fool of us and our hospitality, showing up in broad daylight and asking questions about the angel statue, even getting a tour of the church. Personally, I’m really angry at Joe, and I’d like to see them lock him away and throw away the key. But that is the way of the world, and it is the concern of our justice system. I fully support our justice system and trust that process, and I will do all in my power to support it. But, to borrow a phrase from our more Protestant brothers and sisters, I find myself, in this situation, to be “convicted by the gospel.” If we really believe that we are the children of light and we are called to live our lives according to the priorities of God and God’s kingdom, then how are we called to lift up the priorities of love and relationship in this particular situation with this particular individual ? What would forgiveness for this individual look like for us? How might we even begin to go about it?
Let me share with you something that happened to my family when I was growing up, because it is part of my challenge with this Joe situation. When I was a teenager, my family was the victim of multiple house burglaries. At first, they took money and all of our jewelry, mostly sentimental pieces like the gold locket that had been my great-aunt/godmother’s and my leather-bound, gold embossed Bible with my name on it. When they came back, they took the tv and VCR and other larger items, anything they could carry with them. We got the bigger items back after finding them at a local pawn shop, but we never recovered the sentimental items. Eventually, my dad was called down to the Canton Police department, and he looked into the faces of two teenage boys who were responsible for causing my family such hurt and fear. The boys were dealt with according to the law, and we went on with our lives.
Years later, my dad participated in a Kairos event. For those of you who don’t know, Karios is a weekend of spiritual renewal similar to Happening, or Cursillio, but it is held in prison, and the pilgrims are convicts. My dad and the others on the team had spent a lot of time praying before they put on the weekend, praying for themselves and for those they were going to encounter and when dad was there at the prison doing the Kairos weekend, he met one of those two teenage boys who had robbed our house. The young man remembered my dad, and he told my dad about how he had felt when he was handcuffed to the chair in the Canton Police Department and he had to look into the face of the man whose family he had robbed repeatedly. And then, in that prison, where he was doing time for a completely different crime, that man asked my father for forgiveness for what he had done to our family, and my dad, by the grace of God, was able to grant it.
So I don’t know where God is calling us in this thing with Joe, but I know that we need to begin somewhere.
And that somewhere is that we begin by praying. Paul’s first letter to Timothy says, “First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayer, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for everyone”. Don’t just pray for those you like, Paul says, or those who are sick. Pray for everyone, even those who hurt you. And then he challenges us to remember that Christ Jesus “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” and who, therefore, did not just give himself for the children of light but “as a ransom for all,” even someone so self-centered as would steal from a church. So we pray for Joe; and we pray for ourselves, that God may give us the grace and the power to act, not as children of this world, but as children of the light, who are working to help fulfill God’s vision for God’s kingdom.
Let us pray. Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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