Preached November 14, 2010 at St. David of Wales
Malachi 4:1-2a
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19
Dear Jesus
Let us be living witnesses to love, beautiful and dedicated to God, -
Amen
in the reading this morning Jesus is already in Jerusalem
in the next chapter he is breaking bread with his disciples at the last supper.
this is the very end of Luke’s telling of Jesus’ life.
and some were admiring the temple with
beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.
but God is Right there with them
even after all this time with Jesus – after the blind have seen, the lame have walked, the bread has multiplied, the hungry have been fed:
and they are staring at the stones of the temple and we do that ALL the time. look right past God at some construct of human hands and say that is nice.
Jesus says
ALL THIS WILL BE THROWN DOWN
I love it, the question they ask-
what will be the sign?
they are a couple of days away at most from Jesus’ crucifixion, and they want to know what the signs will be?
do they want to make sure they can keep enjoying everything until its time to clear out?
why do we want to know that the end is coming?
When I was 8-9 years old I loved books about children on their own. orphans or victims of war. Making their way across entire countries with a little bag of their possessions.
so far from the bamboo grove, Anne Frank to a little princess
stories of the trail of tears and Japanese internment camps.
I wanted to know : who were you when you had lost everything and everyone?
I would wonder to myself –
if they came for us right now what would I grab?
what would I have left if one by one everything I hold onto was taken from me?
But I was different from those guys with Jesus.
I didn’t want to know, not really.
I didn’t want to see it coming.
I wanted to live my life with friends and just be a kid.
Then when I was in the third grade my elementary school became a magnet for Cambodian and Laotian refugee kids.
my best friend that year was a 13 year old named Kadek. she was smart and funny she had long black hair like silk, and a snarky mischievous sense of humor. We got along great at school and eventually arranged to get together one Saturday, it took countless notes going back and forth between our mothers, by way of the school translator. finally one day my Mom dropped me off at the Archer Street housing projects.
If you can, imagine a small Cambodian village in the middle of Nashville TN. Women hung laundry up to dry outside while older girls watched the babies and the little boys sitting in the dirt started throwing rocks at me and yelling.
Kadek chased them off. I asked if I had done something to make the little boys angry and she just looked at me in this intense and slightly confused way. as if trying to understand what the question was on the planet I was coming from.
the way I frequently imagine Jesus looking at the disciples.
Kadek and her four sisters lived with their mother in a two bedroom apartment. they dressed me up in traditional Cambodian dress and fed me a lunch of a whole fish with one milky eye staring blindly at the ceiling while we scooped out his meat out with lettuce leaves.
that afternoon we walked around her neighborhood, I asked Kadek where her father was-
She stopped and looked at me as if trying to see though a thick fog. Trying to see all the way to a life not steeped in violence.
“he was shot” she said. the soldiers came and took him into the street and shot him in the head. My brothers they just took away and we never saw them again.
The end has already come.
it has come so many times, to so many people that it is sick and wrong to ask Jesus
“how will we know”?
By the time this gospel had been written the temple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed. the followers of Jesus already dragged in front of governors and kings, some of the followers of Jesus had already been killed.
the Roman army was in the process of destroying Jerusalem when this was written.
Nation had already risen against nation, kingdom had already risen against kingdom.
so if anyone thought that this got them off the hook or somehow changed the nature of Jesus’ call to live all the way into the mystery of sacrificial love.
Too bad!
this is it.
this is the world we get to be followers in.
This is the call of Jesus:
we get to witness and proclaim the kingdom of God in a world in which a five year old girl could sit by the window in Cambodia and watch her father's execution.
We get to follow Jesus in a world where Hurricane Tomas just hit Haiti, making the efforts to stem the Cholera outbreak even more impossible.
We get to follow Jesus in a world in which war spending goes unchecked, and people debate with straight faces whether sick children should get medical care.
There will be earthquakes, famines, and plagues.
how will we know?!
we will know because we are awake.
we will know because we have ears to hear and hearts to break
And we better walk right past those temple stones, because there is nothing we can build with our human hands that can’t be torn down by someone.
We cannot prepare our defense for the end.
we cannot prepare for the “time of trial” except by getting so full of love, that it will spill out of us when we are wounded.
We can practice looking at everyone we meet and knowing that they are Jesus.
We can practice forgiveness and compassion, and generosity now, so that should the time come we will have treasures that do not need to be buried in the yard, and riches that cannot be taken from us.
Jesus is going to build a new temple.
Jesus is already building the new temple in the new Jerusalem with our lives, and hearts.
he is the cornerstone that the builders rejected who has become the chief cornerstone and we are the beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, lined up and oriented to that beginning.
the old temple will fall and not one stone will be left on another. All will be thrown down.
but this new temple, built of living witnesses to love will not perish.
Amen
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
your faith has made you well
Preached October 10th, 2010 at St. David of Wales
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
Psalm 111
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19
Jesus grant us the gift of pain that we may feel the brokenness of your beautiful world.
-amen
nobody Wants to be in pain.
nobody Wants to feel how dark and hard the world can be.
We have lost too many beautiful children this past month. living as outcasts in a cruel world, the pain was too much for them. it can hurt to live in this world.
but the other options are worse.
leaving, or going numb.
very few of us leave the way Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas and Raymond Chase did. I think most of us just get a little or a lot numb.
Leprosy is a disease of the nervous system that keeps you from feeling pain.
Both the old and new testament readings this morning are stories of people suffering the devastating effects of numbness. –
Namaan travels all the way to see Elisha and Elisha won’t even come see him, he sends a messenger out. And Namaan doesn’t want to listen to the messenger. he has such strong expectations of what God’s healing love is going to look like that he almost walks away from chance to be whole again.
thankfully, none of us are like that.
the lepers in the gospel are sitting across the street and they call to Jesus and he calls back.
the nine are made clean through obedience but the tenth is saved though gratitude.
All through Luke’s gospel this late summer we have been hearing stories about how we have to turn our backs on everything we thought we wanted.
Family, security, safety, inclusion all those things can’t come between us and Jesus.
and then this morning we have this gorgeous image of an amazing reunion, that doesn’t happen.
this is the hardest one for me to wrap my mind around- this is worse than hate your mother, or let the dead bury their own dead.
according to Leviticus- (45-46)
“The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt,d cover the lower part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp."
Who knows how long this morning’s leper has been living like this.
can you imagine?
He must have had a family. he had a life before this, but after contracting leprosy he has lost everything. no more contact no more worship.
totally cut off.
so he finds these nine friends. fellow lepers. and they sit by the side of the road all day talking about the lives they used to have, and occasionally calling out to passers by “unclean!”
this is like the untouchable caste in India except you can get flung into it without warning. and the reason for much of your isolation is that the priests are convinced that since you have leprosy God has judged you and your sins are beyond forgiveness.
so there he sits. Alone abandoned cut off from everyone and everything he ever loved, in the depths of inadequacy.
then here comes Jesus.
Have mercy on us they all cry.
no really Have Mercy!!
and he does.
“Go”, says Jesus, “to the priests. show your selves.”
be part of community again.
“go”
and they do.
as they are on their way, Maybe one notices first , then another, “my hand is whole again”, looking at his friend whose face has become whole and beautiful –
“as they walked they were made whole” they were cleansed.
can you imagine? now their whole world is countable footsteps away from being restored. everything they had lost will soon be found.
they can worship again they can hug their children again. they can come back into community life. they must have started running on their now strong legs
--and then .
one of them stops. the others turn and look at him. “what is it?”
his feet feel heavy.
they are on their way back to the most amazing reunion of their lives and he is turning back.
there it is, the life he has dreamed of night after lonely night waiting for him. the world of friends and family. the world that was ripped away from him by a cruel and devastating disease.
he must have wept a little turning his back on the city, deciding to leave voluntarily what had just been returned to him before he even had a chance to taste it again.
but as he starts walking back, it must be a new man. this is wholeness this is cleanness.
it is not for the old life. this is a life so transformed by gratitude that it becomes unrecognizable.
Jesus says as much to him
your faith has made you well.
the nine that don’t came back are fine, they are the nine unlost coins, the ninety nine unlost sheep, the older brother. their bodies were returned to a state of health. And they very well may have lived long and comfortable lives.
Oh, but that one who came back.
What a life he must have led.
healed and free in a way most of us can only dream of. he had turned his back and walked away from everything he though he wanted and ran straight into the arms of love.
he flings himself at the feet of Love.
“Get up.” says Jesus.
“your faith has made you well. “
We get to rejoice in the one who comes back. over and over, and its not always fair and it doesn’t always make sense especially when the nine did what they were supposed to do.
“go to the priest” says Jesus and they went.
Jesus is lord of special cases.
“your faith has made you well”
this is not a faith of intellectual assent.
this is not a faith that needed ecumenical councils to clarify it.
or books of theology to understand it-
this is a faith strong enough to turn your feet away from home and head back out. back away from your safety.
this is the kind of faith that can make you well.
he is now well enough to be hurt again.
this is the kind of faith that can make us well.
this is a faith that lets us feel pain again.
this is a faith that will restore our ability to weep for Tyler, Asher, Seth, Billy, Raymond and all who cannot weep for themselves.
this is a faith that will make us tender and vulnerable
thank you.
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
Psalm 111
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19
Jesus grant us the gift of pain that we may feel the brokenness of your beautiful world.
-amen
nobody Wants to be in pain.
nobody Wants to feel how dark and hard the world can be.
We have lost too many beautiful children this past month. living as outcasts in a cruel world, the pain was too much for them. it can hurt to live in this world.
but the other options are worse.
leaving, or going numb.
very few of us leave the way Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas and Raymond Chase did. I think most of us just get a little or a lot numb.
Leprosy is a disease of the nervous system that keeps you from feeling pain.
Both the old and new testament readings this morning are stories of people suffering the devastating effects of numbness. –
Namaan travels all the way to see Elisha and Elisha won’t even come see him, he sends a messenger out. And Namaan doesn’t want to listen to the messenger. he has such strong expectations of what God’s healing love is going to look like that he almost walks away from chance to be whole again.
thankfully, none of us are like that.
the lepers in the gospel are sitting across the street and they call to Jesus and he calls back.
the nine are made clean through obedience but the tenth is saved though gratitude.
All through Luke’s gospel this late summer we have been hearing stories about how we have to turn our backs on everything we thought we wanted.
Family, security, safety, inclusion all those things can’t come between us and Jesus.
and then this morning we have this gorgeous image of an amazing reunion, that doesn’t happen.
this is the hardest one for me to wrap my mind around- this is worse than hate your mother, or let the dead bury their own dead.
according to Leviticus- (45-46)
“The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt,d cover the lower part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp."
Who knows how long this morning’s leper has been living like this.
can you imagine?
He must have had a family. he had a life before this, but after contracting leprosy he has lost everything. no more contact no more worship.
totally cut off.
so he finds these nine friends. fellow lepers. and they sit by the side of the road all day talking about the lives they used to have, and occasionally calling out to passers by “unclean!”
this is like the untouchable caste in India except you can get flung into it without warning. and the reason for much of your isolation is that the priests are convinced that since you have leprosy God has judged you and your sins are beyond forgiveness.
so there he sits. Alone abandoned cut off from everyone and everything he ever loved, in the depths of inadequacy.
then here comes Jesus.
Have mercy on us they all cry.
no really Have Mercy!!
and he does.
“Go”, says Jesus, “to the priests. show your selves.”
be part of community again.
“go”
and they do.
as they are on their way, Maybe one notices first , then another, “my hand is whole again”, looking at his friend whose face has become whole and beautiful –
“as they walked they were made whole” they were cleansed.
can you imagine? now their whole world is countable footsteps away from being restored. everything they had lost will soon be found.
they can worship again they can hug their children again. they can come back into community life. they must have started running on their now strong legs
--and then .
one of them stops. the others turn and look at him. “what is it?”
his feet feel heavy.
they are on their way back to the most amazing reunion of their lives and he is turning back.
there it is, the life he has dreamed of night after lonely night waiting for him. the world of friends and family. the world that was ripped away from him by a cruel and devastating disease.
he must have wept a little turning his back on the city, deciding to leave voluntarily what had just been returned to him before he even had a chance to taste it again.
but as he starts walking back, it must be a new man. this is wholeness this is cleanness.
it is not for the old life. this is a life so transformed by gratitude that it becomes unrecognizable.
Jesus says as much to him
your faith has made you well.
the nine that don’t came back are fine, they are the nine unlost coins, the ninety nine unlost sheep, the older brother. their bodies were returned to a state of health. And they very well may have lived long and comfortable lives.
Oh, but that one who came back.
What a life he must have led.
healed and free in a way most of us can only dream of. he had turned his back and walked away from everything he though he wanted and ran straight into the arms of love.
he flings himself at the feet of Love.
“Get up.” says Jesus.
“your faith has made you well. “
We get to rejoice in the one who comes back. over and over, and its not always fair and it doesn’t always make sense especially when the nine did what they were supposed to do.
“go to the priest” says Jesus and they went.
Jesus is lord of special cases.
“your faith has made you well”
this is not a faith of intellectual assent.
this is not a faith that needed ecumenical councils to clarify it.
or books of theology to understand it-
this is a faith strong enough to turn your feet away from home and head back out. back away from your safety.
this is the kind of faith that can make you well.
he is now well enough to be hurt again.
this is the kind of faith that can make us well.
this is a faith that lets us feel pain again.
this is a faith that will restore our ability to weep for Tyler, Asher, Seth, Billy, Raymond and all who cannot weep for themselves.
this is a faith that will make us tender and vulnerable
thank you.
Little boats
Preached October 9th at the Academy for Formation and Mission
Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
Mark 6:45-56
God, give us courage to get into our little boats and head out into the windy wild waters, where we may meet your son our savior, Jesus.
Amen
Our dear friend in Christ and holy man for today is Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. An English doctor he became a medical missionary to north sea fishermen, and when he saw the poverty and horrid conditions in Labrador, devoted himself to the people there.
He was inspired by the notion of Muscular Christianity, in which sports and athleticism were supposed to have a masculine remedy for the protestant faith that had gotten to girly for the real men of the 1920’s.
While there is plenty to bristle at in these sorts of icky gender stereotypes, it is hard not to be impressed with the results of such a theological attitude on Wilfred. It led him into a harsh and challenging world where he spent the majority of his life doing as much as he could, to improve the lives of the hurting and neglected people he met.
We are not God’s Sunday best or Gods fine china, we are not being kept in God’s cupboard waiting to be taken out at holidays and fancy occasions. We are not God’s party dress, we are God’s grubbiest. We are the jeans she will wear to garden in. We will get torn up and worn out and beat up on this journey, but it will only make us softer. I pray to be something strong and useful for Jesus.
If the only effect of going to church is to love the church we have all failed. we need the courage to throw it all to the wind and go out in our boats fight against the high waves and strong waters that threaten to knock us off course. it will take everything we have. and then hopefully when we have gone too far, when we have sailed past our comfort zone, Jesus will walk across that rough sea, and meet us where our competencies fail us. But that also means the stronger we get the further out we can go.
Let our formation be forming us into something useful. let us be tools of God that over times have all the rough edges worn away and from years of hard use let us fit smoothly into the hand of our God. Let us take on the shape of his hand as we do his work in the world.
sometimes it is useful to imagine explaining your plans to Jesus to see how they sound.
“Jesus, I was thinking, I would like to stay here in my boat where it is safe and on shore. I am waiting for a better day, better weather, my boat isn’t quite good enough yet. I‘ve noticed that those guys over there have a much nicer boat, and I was thinking my boat should be a little more like theirs. I’m going to spend the next three years getting it really nice and then maybe you and me and some of our nice friends can all go sailing. I just need to be sure I’m ready.
What do you think of that Jesus?
Cant you just picture Jesus saying
“Oh, Honey. just GO-
get in the dang boat. Don’t you know it will never be good enough, you will never be good enough, there will never be better weather, there will never be a better time than right now. You will always be vulnerable, you will always be weak and you will always need me.
go now.
get in the boat you are in with these people already around you.
this is it
if it gets too bad if you go too far I will walk across the water to you, I will still the waves, but I can’t do that unless you strike out.
I can’t come to you until you leave.
I think most of us have made it beyond the question of how can the church serve me? but our examination of ministry should not end with how can I serve the church? but how can the church serve the world?
We should not worship the boat but simply see where it can take us.
There is no where we can go that Jesus can’t reach us.
We can head off in the darkest night in a boat miles from nowhere.
we can go off to Newfoundland
we can run into the cities or into the suburbs
and Jesus will find us, and calm us, and give us strength to do our work.
There is nothing we can devote our lives to that can’t be illuminated by the love of Jesus.
there is no water too rough for God.
because you see God and water go way back-
all the way to the beginning-
God has moved over it, rained it down, dried it up, parted it, brought it out of rocks, made it good to drink, and then walked right across it to people he loved, who were scared and confused whose hearts did not comprehend what bounty and love and plenty and safety looked like.
In the midst of their journey with Jesus they are still afraid. They don’t know what it is not be suspicious. they are straining at the oars. fighting the wind, sure of going their own way.
and Jesus walks across the water to them.
like its no big deal.
cheer comfort courage-
all the same thing.
to be brave is to be of good cheer. -
instead of constantly questioning our work, in stead of fighting the wind we should keep an eye out for Jesus.
let the church be a boat ramp where we can launch ourselves out into the world and see what’s out there.
Let’s be careful not to make idols of ourselves. We are never going to be good enough, or ready enough to serve Jesus, so waiting until we are to start is ridiculous
there is a wild hungry windy world out there and we have been invited to sail out into it.
Go.
Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
Mark 6:45-56
God, give us courage to get into our little boats and head out into the windy wild waters, where we may meet your son our savior, Jesus.
Amen
Our dear friend in Christ and holy man for today is Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. An English doctor he became a medical missionary to north sea fishermen, and when he saw the poverty and horrid conditions in Labrador, devoted himself to the people there.
He was inspired by the notion of Muscular Christianity, in which sports and athleticism were supposed to have a masculine remedy for the protestant faith that had gotten to girly for the real men of the 1920’s.
While there is plenty to bristle at in these sorts of icky gender stereotypes, it is hard not to be impressed with the results of such a theological attitude on Wilfred. It led him into a harsh and challenging world where he spent the majority of his life doing as much as he could, to improve the lives of the hurting and neglected people he met.
We are not God’s Sunday best or Gods fine china, we are not being kept in God’s cupboard waiting to be taken out at holidays and fancy occasions. We are not God’s party dress, we are God’s grubbiest. We are the jeans she will wear to garden in. We will get torn up and worn out and beat up on this journey, but it will only make us softer. I pray to be something strong and useful for Jesus.
If the only effect of going to church is to love the church we have all failed. we need the courage to throw it all to the wind and go out in our boats fight against the high waves and strong waters that threaten to knock us off course. it will take everything we have. and then hopefully when we have gone too far, when we have sailed past our comfort zone, Jesus will walk across that rough sea, and meet us where our competencies fail us. But that also means the stronger we get the further out we can go.
Let our formation be forming us into something useful. let us be tools of God that over times have all the rough edges worn away and from years of hard use let us fit smoothly into the hand of our God. Let us take on the shape of his hand as we do his work in the world.
sometimes it is useful to imagine explaining your plans to Jesus to see how they sound.
“Jesus, I was thinking, I would like to stay here in my boat where it is safe and on shore. I am waiting for a better day, better weather, my boat isn’t quite good enough yet. I‘ve noticed that those guys over there have a much nicer boat, and I was thinking my boat should be a little more like theirs. I’m going to spend the next three years getting it really nice and then maybe you and me and some of our nice friends can all go sailing. I just need to be sure I’m ready.
What do you think of that Jesus?
Cant you just picture Jesus saying
“Oh, Honey. just GO-
get in the dang boat. Don’t you know it will never be good enough, you will never be good enough, there will never be better weather, there will never be a better time than right now. You will always be vulnerable, you will always be weak and you will always need me.
go now.
get in the boat you are in with these people already around you.
this is it
if it gets too bad if you go too far I will walk across the water to you, I will still the waves, but I can’t do that unless you strike out.
I can’t come to you until you leave.
I think most of us have made it beyond the question of how can the church serve me? but our examination of ministry should not end with how can I serve the church? but how can the church serve the world?
We should not worship the boat but simply see where it can take us.
There is no where we can go that Jesus can’t reach us.
We can head off in the darkest night in a boat miles from nowhere.
we can go off to Newfoundland
we can run into the cities or into the suburbs
and Jesus will find us, and calm us, and give us strength to do our work.
There is nothing we can devote our lives to that can’t be illuminated by the love of Jesus.
there is no water too rough for God.
because you see God and water go way back-
all the way to the beginning-
God has moved over it, rained it down, dried it up, parted it, brought it out of rocks, made it good to drink, and then walked right across it to people he loved, who were scared and confused whose hearts did not comprehend what bounty and love and plenty and safety looked like.
In the midst of their journey with Jesus they are still afraid. They don’t know what it is not be suspicious. they are straining at the oars. fighting the wind, sure of going their own way.
and Jesus walks across the water to them.
like its no big deal.
cheer comfort courage-
all the same thing.
to be brave is to be of good cheer. -
instead of constantly questioning our work, in stead of fighting the wind we should keep an eye out for Jesus.
let the church be a boat ramp where we can launch ourselves out into the world and see what’s out there.
Let’s be careful not to make idols of ourselves. We are never going to be good enough, or ready enough to serve Jesus, so waiting until we are to start is ridiculous
there is a wild hungry windy world out there and we have been invited to sail out into it.
Go.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Choose Life
Preached September 5th 2010 at St. Michael and All Angels Portland
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live
~Amen
Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; and he turned and said to them, a number of fairly disturbing things.
let’s start with:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?
I might disagree with Jesus a little bit here.
Can we ever truly know the cost of something before we start?
It is like a woman who wants to remodel a bathroom. and so she prices out everything gets multiple bids, and budgets out the whole project. Then halfway through when her house is a disaster and plumbing is sticking out of the floor, the contractor tucks his thumbs into his belt loops, looks at the ground and says “we found some problems in the wall behind the sink.”
Who can know when they begin a tentative walk with Jesus what the final cost will be and who could set out on a journey like this if they knew?
When I accepted that first piece of bread and sip of wine in the outstretched hand of Jesus, I was so lost and so broken, that I did not count the cost at all.
I did not stop to check the balances I was carrying. I very well may run out in this crazy following. I surely do not have enough to pay my own way.
I will end this course red faced and bankrupt.
I am sorry Jesus but do not ask me if I have what it takes because the answer is no.
I do not have what it takes to follow you.
We are stumbling along on the path panting, behind Jesus, up to our eyes in spiritual debt, with no real plan for the final cost. And I am terrified of what this tower, of what this war will cost me.
So the best we can do is send out a delegation of Peace.
We will ask the one to whom we owe everything if we can come to some kind of deal.
And now you are asking even for my family, these human treasures where I am safe and know who I am, and that I am also loved here on earth, and you want me to put even that on the line?
you are asking too much.
How do I lay down my love for the people of this world and take up the cross?
This past week Jordan and I watched as two brothers we have been friends with for some time channeled all of their family anger and dysfunction and tore down something they had both worked long and hard to build. There had been tensions for a while, but then on Thursday the dam broke and all of their fears and insecurities and resentments overflowed. Neither of them is even close to being in the right, and they are both victims of patterns that neither of them started.
In Luke Jesus has been dealing with some pretty messed up families himself. A few weeks ago we had the story of the brother who wants to make sure that he gets his fair share of the inheritance. and a few weeks before that we had the story of Mary and Martha where Martha is wanting Jesus to take sides, and get her sister to do her fair share of the work.
In both of these stories, Jesus refuses to get enmeshed in family dynamics, and fails to satisfy anyone’s sense of earthy justice.
Then we have the lovely passage this morning:
Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple
It is hard to work out a warm fuzzy family values type spin on this.
As a mother, texts like this can feel like they are written in Greek. Actually they are. So I was really hoping that this was a case of bad translation and my sweet Jesus would never say such a thing.
Unfortunately, that’s pretty much what he is saying. The softest translation I found was to discount or not to prefer, but really its not that much better.
We are all formed and shaped by our families and there is no such thing as a family done perfect. But I think what Jesus may be getting at is that we are all to often defined by our families.
I learned many lessons in my upbringing about who I am and what people like us do, and do not do.
My family of origin helped shape the boundaries of what I consider possible, and impossible; what I believe I am capable of and what I ought to do.
For our friends the brothers, those family limits are still choking them.
For the world to which Jesus was speaking your family defined nearly everything about you. To disregard your family in life was to abandon your identity.
Loving your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself isn’t just about family this is your whole identity. This is what we must lay down this is what is being asked of us.
Who would you be if you didn’t know who you were?
What would you be able to do, if you had no idea where you came from?
Would you be more or less likely to follow a mad-beautiful rabbi with the eyes of God all the way to Jerusalem?
What is in the way of our following Jesus?
What excuses will we use to sidestep this radical call?
What can we use to anchor ourselves in the shallow water of merely agreeing with Jesus and keep ourselves safe from being swept out to the rough sea of true discipleship?
Jesus is saying whoever is keeping their feet on the ground; whoever is keeping land in sight; whoever is saying “but Jesus, you don’t understand how it is for me and my family.”
We may long to plunge in over our heads and strike out after this God who is calling us.
but we have to let go to swim.
We have to plunge into water deeper than feels comfortable.
Paul speaks quite eloquently of family in the letter we hear this morning.
Fellow captives and a slave have become his brothers and his son. He has forged a new family in the midst of building his tower. He knows with an odd certainty what the cost is. He is in the midst of paying it as he writes to call for freedom for the slave he considers a son, and forgiveness of all his debts.
We are in God’s family now, and this family brings with it a completely new identity. In this family, we are called to become translucent so that the light of God may shine through us and illuminate the world.
Who but a fool would set out to follow this Jesus, even if we did not count the full cost before we started we should be trembling in our socks.
What will this cost us, this life of following our brother Jesus, in which nothing that appears to be ours really is.
give up the tower
give up the war
give up where you came from
give up who you are
give up being known
give up being important
give up being loved
pick up the cross and choose life
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live
~Amen
Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; and he turned and said to them, a number of fairly disturbing things.
let’s start with:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?
I might disagree with Jesus a little bit here.
Can we ever truly know the cost of something before we start?
It is like a woman who wants to remodel a bathroom. and so she prices out everything gets multiple bids, and budgets out the whole project. Then halfway through when her house is a disaster and plumbing is sticking out of the floor, the contractor tucks his thumbs into his belt loops, looks at the ground and says “we found some problems in the wall behind the sink.”
Who can know when they begin a tentative walk with Jesus what the final cost will be and who could set out on a journey like this if they knew?
When I accepted that first piece of bread and sip of wine in the outstretched hand of Jesus, I was so lost and so broken, that I did not count the cost at all.
I did not stop to check the balances I was carrying. I very well may run out in this crazy following. I surely do not have enough to pay my own way.
I will end this course red faced and bankrupt.
I am sorry Jesus but do not ask me if I have what it takes because the answer is no.
I do not have what it takes to follow you.
We are stumbling along on the path panting, behind Jesus, up to our eyes in spiritual debt, with no real plan for the final cost. And I am terrified of what this tower, of what this war will cost me.
So the best we can do is send out a delegation of Peace.
We will ask the one to whom we owe everything if we can come to some kind of deal.
And now you are asking even for my family, these human treasures where I am safe and know who I am, and that I am also loved here on earth, and you want me to put even that on the line?
you are asking too much.
How do I lay down my love for the people of this world and take up the cross?
This past week Jordan and I watched as two brothers we have been friends with for some time channeled all of their family anger and dysfunction and tore down something they had both worked long and hard to build. There had been tensions for a while, but then on Thursday the dam broke and all of their fears and insecurities and resentments overflowed. Neither of them is even close to being in the right, and they are both victims of patterns that neither of them started.
In Luke Jesus has been dealing with some pretty messed up families himself. A few weeks ago we had the story of the brother who wants to make sure that he gets his fair share of the inheritance. and a few weeks before that we had the story of Mary and Martha where Martha is wanting Jesus to take sides, and get her sister to do her fair share of the work.
In both of these stories, Jesus refuses to get enmeshed in family dynamics, and fails to satisfy anyone’s sense of earthy justice.
Then we have the lovely passage this morning:
Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple
It is hard to work out a warm fuzzy family values type spin on this.
As a mother, texts like this can feel like they are written in Greek. Actually they are. So I was really hoping that this was a case of bad translation and my sweet Jesus would never say such a thing.
Unfortunately, that’s pretty much what he is saying. The softest translation I found was to discount or not to prefer, but really its not that much better.
We are all formed and shaped by our families and there is no such thing as a family done perfect. But I think what Jesus may be getting at is that we are all to often defined by our families.
I learned many lessons in my upbringing about who I am and what people like us do, and do not do.
My family of origin helped shape the boundaries of what I consider possible, and impossible; what I believe I am capable of and what I ought to do.
For our friends the brothers, those family limits are still choking them.
For the world to which Jesus was speaking your family defined nearly everything about you. To disregard your family in life was to abandon your identity.
Loving your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself isn’t just about family this is your whole identity. This is what we must lay down this is what is being asked of us.
Who would you be if you didn’t know who you were?
What would you be able to do, if you had no idea where you came from?
Would you be more or less likely to follow a mad-beautiful rabbi with the eyes of God all the way to Jerusalem?
What is in the way of our following Jesus?
What excuses will we use to sidestep this radical call?
What can we use to anchor ourselves in the shallow water of merely agreeing with Jesus and keep ourselves safe from being swept out to the rough sea of true discipleship?
Jesus is saying whoever is keeping their feet on the ground; whoever is keeping land in sight; whoever is saying “but Jesus, you don’t understand how it is for me and my family.”
We may long to plunge in over our heads and strike out after this God who is calling us.
but we have to let go to swim.
We have to plunge into water deeper than feels comfortable.
Paul speaks quite eloquently of family in the letter we hear this morning.
Fellow captives and a slave have become his brothers and his son. He has forged a new family in the midst of building his tower. He knows with an odd certainty what the cost is. He is in the midst of paying it as he writes to call for freedom for the slave he considers a son, and forgiveness of all his debts.
We are in God’s family now, and this family brings with it a completely new identity. In this family, we are called to become translucent so that the light of God may shine through us and illuminate the world.
Who but a fool would set out to follow this Jesus, even if we did not count the full cost before we started we should be trembling in our socks.
What will this cost us, this life of following our brother Jesus, in which nothing that appears to be ours really is.
give up the tower
give up the war
give up where you came from
give up who you are
give up being known
give up being important
give up being loved
pick up the cross and choose life
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Better Part
Preched at St. David of Wales, July 18th 2010
Genesis 18:1-10a
Psalm 15
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42
So, yesterday afternoon I was really wanting to finish this sermon and was getting all stressed out about how little time I had left, and the house was trashed. So there I was folding laundry in that kind of angry way and thinking about how I should just give up on everything I do because I am such a complete failure. And I was irritated with Adin because he kept interrupting me. and I said a little prayer --“Jesus I don’t know what to do. How can you want me to follow you? Surely you don’t want me going around saying your name. me? I was horrid to Adin this afternoon. and really Jesus? do you want somebody who gets frustrated with her kid, and is always doing everything at the last minute? and spins out? really?
So there I am I’ve just loaded the dishwasher, AGAIN. I am folding all this laundry, AGAIN. and I’m grumbling to myself and finally it was like Oh Jesus. I’m Martha.
dang it.
right before I was supposed to get up here in front of all of you, who are probably doing way better than I am right now.
See, I was going to write this really awesome sermon that was going to illuminate the biblical text in a really fresh way, and instead I feel like I am still at the very beginning. I really want to be further along on my spiritual journey but sometimes its really hard.
because sometimes that better part is so far away.
Its hard because we know there is a better part. we can feel it. We long for that better part with every ounce of our being. We hunger and thirst for the better part.
Both the Old Testament lesson this morning and the Gospel are stories of hospitality.
Mary, Martha, and Abraham all engage the question “how do we be gracious hosts of God?”
of the three I think Abraham may get closest. Give all we can, sit down and listen.
I don’t think the goal of this gospel story is to pick the right sister and then you get a gold star. Martha is judgmental and snippy and Mary is shirking her work. We do both things all the time. we neglect to help our sisters in their time of need and we burn with the injustice of doing more than our fair share. We avoid our responsibilities and we harbor grudges. The tricky piece is that Martha is doing pretty much what we think of Jesus as wanting the rest of us to do. Offer hospitality, feed people, all that good stuff.
If we hear the lesson from Genesis this morning there can be no doubt that God loves hospitality, the angel does not say Abraham, Abraham, Abraham, you are worried about many things, and he does even more running around getting ready than Martha. The whole lesson is nothing BUT Abraham in a rush making ready for his guests. and there is no problem whatsoever. Because he starts with seeing the guests and ends with him listening.
But, Martha doesn’t see Jesus. She thinks she is being hospitable, but all she can see is the word in relation to herself. The Bad news here is that this is all of us. Every time we think Jesus is the way for us to our things with the added bonus of being “spiritual.”
I think we do it honestly enough. We see a need and respond, but that response becomes our posture. We confuse our offering with the world’s need. and that can make us mean.
guess what? Jesus didn’t come so that we could make people do what we want them to do.
Jesus, you tell that lazy sister of mine to help.
Jesus, take my side.
Jesus, don’t you care?
that’s what this is all about Mary is willing to hear what Jesus has to say and Martha wants to bring Jesus around to her way of seeing things.
Do we want to shape or be shaped by the gospel?
What we need to do is admit that life is overwhelming and complex and we (by we, here I mean I) are so deeply sucked into the illusion that getting it all done is the goal.
That somehow on a painfully deep level I really think I can be perfect. And guess what I can’t. I cant even get close enough to start pretending.
why did we come to church this morning?
because if was out of obligation I suspect that we just might be wasting our time.
“Martha –
you are distracted by many things, like worrying more about what other people are doing than yourself, like judging your sister, like picking fights, like keeping score and having a sense of justice and fairness with you at the center.”
We are more than willing to bicker among ourselves about the details, from what kind of music is acceptable on a Sunday morning to whose turn is it to make the coffee. But where really is Jesus in our discussions of church polity, worship styles and change? Where is Jesus when we talk about church, where is Jesus when we are anxious about Sunday mornings.
Is he still sitting quietly teaching in the corner as we rush around trying to get everything right?
Martha tries to get Jesus to take her side.
Jesus has already taken all of our sides.
that’s the whole point of incarnation.
Jesus doesn’t have any problem with doing work and feeding people. he loves it.
what Jesus doesn’t seem to like is trying to make him take sides to satisfy our need for self righteous satisfaction.
the better part is not judging, the better part is welcoming your guest not only with your home but with your heart. to make space for those God sends your way. and if they do things differently than you, or they do things wrong, remember with relief this is not your house this is not your party.
This is God’s house and this is God’s party and we are all guests.
and every week we are invited back to this table.
Jesus good news his gospel is that the kingdom of God Is at hand. In so many ways this seems absurd to everyone he meets. The whole Journey of his ministry is full of Jesus sharing the good news that a new reality of radical love has dawned. And the time is now. And that is why we are here, that is why we do this.
That is why we came to church this morning.
Because we believe it. We believe it deeply, because it is true.
and on the days when I am at my worst, I believe it most of all.
that better part?
its one thing-
love
The good news is that love is stronger than death.
God is love, and we are beings created by love, with the purpose to love.
I believe that darkness and despair and loneliness and inadequacy are real,
but they are not the ultimate reality.
And I don’t know anywhere other than church where we say that, sing that, preach and pray that.
What I want for myself is to start really living as if the kingdom of God is at hand.
I want to throw myself at the feet of Jesus and spend the rest of my life listening to what he has to say.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Brace Yourselves
Preached at St. Michael and all Angels on May 16th, 2010
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come to know him, so that, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we may know what is the hope to which he has called us. Amen
So, Easter is almost over and Pentecost is just around the corner.
What do we do with this week where we say goodbye to the resurrected Jesus and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit? We are about to celebrate the birth of the Church almost 2000 years ago and kick off the celebration of 100 years worshipping as this gathered community of St. Michael’s. Four years ago this Sunday I first stepped through those red doors with my family as recent pilgrims to the west coast.
Four years ago we were – amazed at the way this community celebrates Pentecost. Balloons, fancy outfits, cake. It is indeed a wonderful celebration here and I am looking forward to next Sunday, but we must not forget that the Spirit comes to us to send us out into the world. We should be ready to be like bottle rockets with our fuses burning, not lit candles stuck in our pews. These tongues of flame will empower the community to speak our truth boldly and proclaim repentance, forgiveness, resurrection, life, love, and the deep transformative peace of God in languages our neighbors can understand.
This is also a week to say goodbye to the resurrected Jesus.
The disciples’ first goodbye on Good Friday was by all accounts a disaster.
They kept falling asleep as Jesus begged them to stay awake and watch with him. Judas who had traveled with them and eaten with them turned out to be a betrayer. Soldiers came and dragged away their beloved rabbi, their friend and teacher in whom they had placed all of their hopes for a liberated future of peace and justice. The man for whom they had left their families and livelihood. An ear was cut off, there was panic. then they scattered. They hid and denied the very one they had named as Messiah.
It was a bad night.
there are some kinds of goodbyes we play over and over again in our minds. wishing for different outcomes. it gets mixed in with grief and loss.
its not hard at all to empathize with the post crucifixion heartbreak.
Not only the sorrow of never seeing Jesus again, but wishing to rewrite the last few days completely. Did they accuse each other, or merely turn it in on themselves? Oh if only I had…, If you had just…., Why didn’t we…
is that what they were doing when Mary Magdalene comes bursting in with the most crazy news ever?
oh joy of joys, the resurrection!!
Every hope we ever hoped for pales in comparison with the conquering of Death itself. This messiah who we loved has broken through every boundary and come back to us.
Can you imagine?
To have all of your regrets and shame face straight into the face of love that defied death and all the constraints of this world.
this Jesus is all new- some of us don’t even recognize him at first. And its not just because they aren’t expecting him. I mean it had only been three days.
the stories differ. About how long Jesus was with the disciples. what all happened in that time.
In the gospel of Luke it all happens in one crazy whirlwind day, On Easter he eats some fish with them and then opens up their minds to understand all of scriptures which I think was really nice of him. Then he tells them that they are to be witnesses to him and proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations.
In Acts he has forty days with the disciples. One assumes a lot more fish gets eaten in that time and he speaks more about the kingdom of God. but then on the 40th day he tells them to wait in Jerusalem for the holy spirit. and then the disciples ask him in one last desperate attempt to fit everything that has happened so far into a context that they can understand:
"Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?"
I want to believe at this point that our friend and Lord and savior Jesus Christ did not roll his eyes here, but I’m not sure.
have you heard anything I have said about the kingdom of God! and how it is here now present and among you?
“and now Lord will you fulfill our human understanding of justice. will you do what we have been hoping for in Israel now? will you restore us?"
poor Jesus-
its official
We really don't get it.
We can look into the face of resurrected LOVE and we are still going to want for you to enact our understanding of peace and freedom not yours.
We are still going to want this kingdom of God to happen for people a little more like ourselves and a little less like the other.
we are still going to on some level hope that being chosen, that being faithful, that being disciples means being on the right side of things. That we will be favored with rewards and not assignments.
These disciples, are the chosen ones, right? and what do they get? to go share this good news with the other - out of Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
that would be a no, then to the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel on earth as you were understanding it.
What the disciples are told to do is wait. Wait for the Holy Spirit.
So what if this week we wait for the Holy Spirit and try to open our hearts and minds to new understandings of things we have long assumed we knew.
lets try to wait for the spirit of God and not rush in too quickly with our Old Kingdom dreams.
What if the Holy Spirit for real comes upon us next week and transforms everything about how we are here at St. Michael’s and we are called into completely new and uncomfortable relationships. What if what God has in mind for the next 100 years for us is nothing like what we have in mind? Would we be okay with that or do we already know what we want from Jesus?
So Jesus drops a final blow on our expectations
And then Jesus leaves. And I don’t want to spend much time being anxious about the exact details of the Ascension; there are lots of great paintings with little Jesus toes at the top, and the crowd craning their necks at the bottom. But I think what we can say is that Jesus was with them for a time. This was a community that spent time with the resurrected Jesus. And he did not stay that way with them forever. Whatever it was exactly, that happened on Easter was not a permanent thing. it was a unique experience They got to see him again, but they had to say goodbye again. and I think that their second goodbye goes better.
In Acts they are left staring up into the sky and the guys in white come and say
" why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go."
which if he had really flown up skyward would only keep me craning my neck longer to see him come flying back the same way.
the end of Luke is the total opposite of Good Friday.
While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
No one is suffering, no one is ashamed. Everyone is there to wave goodbye to Jesus.
Why does Jesus have to go?
Couldn’t he have just stayed here with us for ever?
Maybe because there is no other way this part of the story can end, so the next part can begin.
Maybe he missed his dad.
Maybe we need to hold onto him in a way he couldn’t let us before he ascended.
but we aren’t left alone.
the Holy Spirit is coming.
Brace yourselves.
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come to know him, so that, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we may know what is the hope to which he has called us. Amen
So, Easter is almost over and Pentecost is just around the corner.
What do we do with this week where we say goodbye to the resurrected Jesus and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit? We are about to celebrate the birth of the Church almost 2000 years ago and kick off the celebration of 100 years worshipping as this gathered community of St. Michael’s. Four years ago this Sunday I first stepped through those red doors with my family as recent pilgrims to the west coast.
Four years ago we were – amazed at the way this community celebrates Pentecost. Balloons, fancy outfits, cake. It is indeed a wonderful celebration here and I am looking forward to next Sunday, but we must not forget that the Spirit comes to us to send us out into the world. We should be ready to be like bottle rockets with our fuses burning, not lit candles stuck in our pews. These tongues of flame will empower the community to speak our truth boldly and proclaim repentance, forgiveness, resurrection, life, love, and the deep transformative peace of God in languages our neighbors can understand.
This is also a week to say goodbye to the resurrected Jesus.
The disciples’ first goodbye on Good Friday was by all accounts a disaster.
They kept falling asleep as Jesus begged them to stay awake and watch with him. Judas who had traveled with them and eaten with them turned out to be a betrayer. Soldiers came and dragged away their beloved rabbi, their friend and teacher in whom they had placed all of their hopes for a liberated future of peace and justice. The man for whom they had left their families and livelihood. An ear was cut off, there was panic. then they scattered. They hid and denied the very one they had named as Messiah.
It was a bad night.
there are some kinds of goodbyes we play over and over again in our minds. wishing for different outcomes. it gets mixed in with grief and loss.
its not hard at all to empathize with the post crucifixion heartbreak.
Not only the sorrow of never seeing Jesus again, but wishing to rewrite the last few days completely. Did they accuse each other, or merely turn it in on themselves? Oh if only I had…, If you had just…., Why didn’t we…
is that what they were doing when Mary Magdalene comes bursting in with the most crazy news ever?
oh joy of joys, the resurrection!!
Every hope we ever hoped for pales in comparison with the conquering of Death itself. This messiah who we loved has broken through every boundary and come back to us.
Can you imagine?
To have all of your regrets and shame face straight into the face of love that defied death and all the constraints of this world.
this Jesus is all new- some of us don’t even recognize him at first. And its not just because they aren’t expecting him. I mean it had only been three days.
the stories differ. About how long Jesus was with the disciples. what all happened in that time.
In the gospel of Luke it all happens in one crazy whirlwind day, On Easter he eats some fish with them and then opens up their minds to understand all of scriptures which I think was really nice of him. Then he tells them that they are to be witnesses to him and proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations.
In Acts he has forty days with the disciples. One assumes a lot more fish gets eaten in that time and he speaks more about the kingdom of God. but then on the 40th day he tells them to wait in Jerusalem for the holy spirit. and then the disciples ask him in one last desperate attempt to fit everything that has happened so far into a context that they can understand:
"Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?"
I want to believe at this point that our friend and Lord and savior Jesus Christ did not roll his eyes here, but I’m not sure.
have you heard anything I have said about the kingdom of God! and how it is here now present and among you?
“and now Lord will you fulfill our human understanding of justice. will you do what we have been hoping for in Israel now? will you restore us?"
poor Jesus-
its official
We really don't get it.
We can look into the face of resurrected LOVE and we are still going to want for you to enact our understanding of peace and freedom not yours.
We are still going to want this kingdom of God to happen for people a little more like ourselves and a little less like the other.
we are still going to on some level hope that being chosen, that being faithful, that being disciples means being on the right side of things. That we will be favored with rewards and not assignments.
These disciples, are the chosen ones, right? and what do they get? to go share this good news with the other - out of Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
that would be a no, then to the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel on earth as you were understanding it.
What the disciples are told to do is wait. Wait for the Holy Spirit.
So what if this week we wait for the Holy Spirit and try to open our hearts and minds to new understandings of things we have long assumed we knew.
lets try to wait for the spirit of God and not rush in too quickly with our Old Kingdom dreams.
What if the Holy Spirit for real comes upon us next week and transforms everything about how we are here at St. Michael’s and we are called into completely new and uncomfortable relationships. What if what God has in mind for the next 100 years for us is nothing like what we have in mind? Would we be okay with that or do we already know what we want from Jesus?
So Jesus drops a final blow on our expectations
And then Jesus leaves. And I don’t want to spend much time being anxious about the exact details of the Ascension; there are lots of great paintings with little Jesus toes at the top, and the crowd craning their necks at the bottom. But I think what we can say is that Jesus was with them for a time. This was a community that spent time with the resurrected Jesus. And he did not stay that way with them forever. Whatever it was exactly, that happened on Easter was not a permanent thing. it was a unique experience They got to see him again, but they had to say goodbye again. and I think that their second goodbye goes better.
In Acts they are left staring up into the sky and the guys in white come and say
" why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go."
which if he had really flown up skyward would only keep me craning my neck longer to see him come flying back the same way.
the end of Luke is the total opposite of Good Friday.
While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
No one is suffering, no one is ashamed. Everyone is there to wave goodbye to Jesus.
Why does Jesus have to go?
Couldn’t he have just stayed here with us for ever?
Maybe because there is no other way this part of the story can end, so the next part can begin.
Maybe he missed his dad.
Maybe we need to hold onto him in a way he couldn’t let us before he ascended.
but we aren’t left alone.
the Holy Spirit is coming.
Brace yourselves.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Holy Homesickness
Preached March 14th,2010 at St David of Wales
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Jesus, you are the older brother who rejoices with your father at each of our returns, let us feast with you as we welcome every lost son home.
Amen
On the second Friday of the month, I join a few other women from St. Michaels and go out to 82nd to Sts Peter and Paul. There, every Friday night the doors are open to women who for whatever reason find themselves on the street. We serve dinner and offer basic supplies, toilet paper and laundry soap. It’s not much, honestly in the face of pain and brokenness to say here you go my sister- a bowl of soup and a bar of soap. But it is a safe place. warm and dry and reliable. It is a refuge from the streets even if only for an hour or two, where there will be no men, no fear, no abuse. So this past Friday I was there and usually we are pretty much done by 9, and the three of us were sitting for a few more minutes before we started to clean up. It was a kind of slow night, there had maybe been 10 women. Some withdrawn and quiet, some high and manic. One woman who had to eat her soup slowly and carefully because of her split lip and swollen jaw.
as sometimes happens just when you think a night is over one more woman came in. She was wearing a thin shirt and was shivering and damp. After going out to the needle exchange van, she came and sat down to have a bowl of soup. And she began to tell us her story. Jennifer is 42 years old and first started working on the streets when she was 13. She figured she could start making some money off what her family had been taking for free. For years a pimp controlled her every move and got her well hooked on crack. In escaping from him she found heroin and impossibly things got worse. over the years things would get better and then worse. She told us how she has gotten clean many times before and how she wants to again. She wants to go home. She has two grown children, and a granddaughter. She was clean once for seven years. Finished school and became a drug and alcohol counselor, then relapsed. Most recently, she spent 9 months with her daughter and granddaughter. She had gone to her daughter’s door and knocked. Her daughter took her in and forgave her again. in less than a year she was back on the street.
Jennifer looked hard at us and asked “How many times do I ask my children to forgive me? How does a mother do this to her children? How can I ever go home again?”
In the reading from Joshua, the Israelites have finally made it home. It took them forty years and whole generation had grown up in the desert. The part we heard today comes right after they have all been circumcised. They are back into a right relationship with God. They are home. And God says "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt."
And after they celebrate Passover, they eat the fruit of the promised land. The exodus was over they no longer had manna to eat; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan from then on. They had made it home but they still have this huge conquest ahead of them. they are about to start circling Jericho, but just for now they feast and relish in their homecoming and forgiven state.
the psalmist tells us:
“Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, *
and whose sin is put away!”
I said," I will confess my transgressions to the LORD." *
Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin.
Why do we fear repentance? according to everything we have heard today it is good news. We will be happy, and welcomed and fed.
Which brings us to what is probably the best repentance story ever.
Now Jesus doesn’t name the parables but we do and one we have come to know this one as the prodigal son. It’s a parable that rings so true in all of its family dynamics and emotional weight. the lost son reunited with his father, the jealousy of the older brother who never did anything wrong and now seems to regret it. The love of the father- its all there.
We have been welcomed home and we will leave again. there is probably never a week that goes by that anyone can say with absolute certainty “Father, I have never disobeyed your command” but this brother also gets searched out by the father , he goes after the self righteous and indignant as well as the humble and broken.
During Lent we get to explore and live into this holy homesickness. We are called to long for a place where we will be known and fed. That longing is the beginning of repentance. We get to practice looking for places in our lives where we settling for pig food. We are called to dream of home and start heading towards it.
I would love for Jennifer’s story to end like the younger son’s. She comes home there is a celebration anyone not thrilled to see her gets a word from dad, and the party is lavish. But she has already done that and it didn’t last. She relapsed and ended up back on the streets.
this side of heaven we are all wounded and messy and sometimes homesick for a lifetime. In real life getting home is often the beginning of a longer harder story.
Faith is ongoing lifetime of repenting and continued reconciliation and yet we proclaim one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. this is one of the mysteries of faith : We are ultimately and profoundly reconciled with God, and yet still seeking ever greater union.
We have been given a stake in the kingdom and now we need to practice living like its true. Coming home is not the end, finally making it to Canaan is not the end. Good Friday is not the end. Easter is not the end. Even Pentecost is not the end.
there is no end on this side of the river.
After finishing her soup on Friday, Jennifer went and washed her hair in the bathroom sink got high again and headed out into the cold and rainy night on 82nd.
What does my faith do in these places? How do we proclaim a gospel of hope in a world that specializes in despair?
Practice.
Going to church and loving each other is kingdom practice. none of what Jesus asks of us comes easily none of it comes naturally and if we want to have any hope of responding spontaneously like Jesus its going to take a lot of practice.
The Eucharist is our welcome home feast. We do it over and over again because its such crazy good news we just might never recover.
“Tell me again” we say “the story of how you welcome me home.” we aren’t going to have the tidiness of parable lives, we are going to be like the prodigal son in relapse but we are liturgical people. and we can live this story over and over because we know how it ends. We know that there is feasting and rejoicing, hugs and reunion. and we know that after repentance there is forgiveness.
Every week we get to turn around again and set our faces for our Fathers house and brace ourselves for love.
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Jesus, you are the older brother who rejoices with your father at each of our returns, let us feast with you as we welcome every lost son home.
Amen
On the second Friday of the month, I join a few other women from St. Michaels and go out to 82nd to Sts Peter and Paul. There, every Friday night the doors are open to women who for whatever reason find themselves on the street. We serve dinner and offer basic supplies, toilet paper and laundry soap. It’s not much, honestly in the face of pain and brokenness to say here you go my sister- a bowl of soup and a bar of soap. But it is a safe place. warm and dry and reliable. It is a refuge from the streets even if only for an hour or two, where there will be no men, no fear, no abuse. So this past Friday I was there and usually we are pretty much done by 9, and the three of us were sitting for a few more minutes before we started to clean up. It was a kind of slow night, there had maybe been 10 women. Some withdrawn and quiet, some high and manic. One woman who had to eat her soup slowly and carefully because of her split lip and swollen jaw.
as sometimes happens just when you think a night is over one more woman came in. She was wearing a thin shirt and was shivering and damp. After going out to the needle exchange van, she came and sat down to have a bowl of soup. And she began to tell us her story. Jennifer is 42 years old and first started working on the streets when she was 13. She figured she could start making some money off what her family had been taking for free. For years a pimp controlled her every move and got her well hooked on crack. In escaping from him she found heroin and impossibly things got worse. over the years things would get better and then worse. She told us how she has gotten clean many times before and how she wants to again. She wants to go home. She has two grown children, and a granddaughter. She was clean once for seven years. Finished school and became a drug and alcohol counselor, then relapsed. Most recently, she spent 9 months with her daughter and granddaughter. She had gone to her daughter’s door and knocked. Her daughter took her in and forgave her again. in less than a year she was back on the street.
Jennifer looked hard at us and asked “How many times do I ask my children to forgive me? How does a mother do this to her children? How can I ever go home again?”
In the reading from Joshua, the Israelites have finally made it home. It took them forty years and whole generation had grown up in the desert. The part we heard today comes right after they have all been circumcised. They are back into a right relationship with God. They are home. And God says "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt."
And after they celebrate Passover, they eat the fruit of the promised land. The exodus was over they no longer had manna to eat; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan from then on. They had made it home but they still have this huge conquest ahead of them. they are about to start circling Jericho, but just for now they feast and relish in their homecoming and forgiven state.
the psalmist tells us:
“Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, *
and whose sin is put away!”
I said," I will confess my transgressions to the LORD." *
Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin.
Why do we fear repentance? according to everything we have heard today it is good news. We will be happy, and welcomed and fed.
Which brings us to what is probably the best repentance story ever.
Now Jesus doesn’t name the parables but we do and one we have come to know this one as the prodigal son. It’s a parable that rings so true in all of its family dynamics and emotional weight. the lost son reunited with his father, the jealousy of the older brother who never did anything wrong and now seems to regret it. The love of the father- its all there.
We have been welcomed home and we will leave again. there is probably never a week that goes by that anyone can say with absolute certainty “Father, I have never disobeyed your command” but this brother also gets searched out by the father , he goes after the self righteous and indignant as well as the humble and broken.
During Lent we get to explore and live into this holy homesickness. We are called to long for a place where we will be known and fed. That longing is the beginning of repentance. We get to practice looking for places in our lives where we settling for pig food. We are called to dream of home and start heading towards it.
I would love for Jennifer’s story to end like the younger son’s. She comes home there is a celebration anyone not thrilled to see her gets a word from dad, and the party is lavish. But she has already done that and it didn’t last. She relapsed and ended up back on the streets.
this side of heaven we are all wounded and messy and sometimes homesick for a lifetime. In real life getting home is often the beginning of a longer harder story.
Faith is ongoing lifetime of repenting and continued reconciliation and yet we proclaim one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. this is one of the mysteries of faith : We are ultimately and profoundly reconciled with God, and yet still seeking ever greater union.
We have been given a stake in the kingdom and now we need to practice living like its true. Coming home is not the end, finally making it to Canaan is not the end. Good Friday is not the end. Easter is not the end. Even Pentecost is not the end.
there is no end on this side of the river.
After finishing her soup on Friday, Jennifer went and washed her hair in the bathroom sink got high again and headed out into the cold and rainy night on 82nd.
What does my faith do in these places? How do we proclaim a gospel of hope in a world that specializes in despair?
Practice.
Going to church and loving each other is kingdom practice. none of what Jesus asks of us comes easily none of it comes naturally and if we want to have any hope of responding spontaneously like Jesus its going to take a lot of practice.
The Eucharist is our welcome home feast. We do it over and over again because its such crazy good news we just might never recover.
“Tell me again” we say “the story of how you welcome me home.” we aren’t going to have the tidiness of parable lives, we are going to be like the prodigal son in relapse but we are liturgical people. and we can live this story over and over because we know how it ends. We know that there is feasting and rejoicing, hugs and reunion. and we know that after repentance there is forgiveness.
Every week we get to turn around again and set our faces for our Fathers house and brace ourselves for love.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)