Stop and let the love happen

Recently while visiting with my family in Atlanta, I surprised my grandson, Emerson, by my arrival. He had just finished his breakfast and was in his mother’s arms getting ready to play. He reached for me (you know how my heart melted over that!) and I took him joyfully into my arms, preparing to sit on the floor for his favorite activity – reading a book.

When I received him into my arms, however, he put his head down on my shoulder and got very still. I waited, then realized he was loving me with his whole body. I had been prepared to get right to what we were going to do together, but Emerson had a different plan: he wanted to stop and let love happen first. I surrendered and we stayed in that embrace for a very, very long time.

This lesson from Emerson is one I have to learn over and over again: stop and let the love happen. Like so many in our culture, I am generally oriented toward getting things done. Our internal chronometers compel us to keep moving, keep accomplishing, mindful of the schedule for the day.

The first person to introduce me to this lesson was my Transition Minister from my home diocese of< Georgia. Born in Selma, AL, and a friend of my husband’s family, The Rev. Bob Carter was a slow (and I mean slow) talking Southerner. I was in the process of ordination at the time, so Bob would call me often. When I’d hear his melodic address: “Vaaalllori, this is Booobb Caaaahtuh” my internal chronometer would shut off and I’d stop what I was doing ready to listen for as long as it took. Bob was a loving man, a wise counselor, an experienced priest, and a valued friend. It was always worth attending fully to what he had to say – for as long as it took him to say it.

Relationships deepen when we stop to listen or to let love happen. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is let go of our schedule for the day and notice who or what is seeking our full, loving attention. It may be a hug from a precious baby, or a call from a slow-talking friend. It may be a bird whose song compels us to join it in creation, or a memory of a loved-one that draws us into prayer and remembrance.

There is nothing we can accomplish on our calendars that has more eternal significance than stopping to let love happen, it all its many forms. As we move into the many tasks calling for our attention, I pray we remember to stop and let the love happen and our relationships deepen.

5 Easter, 2019-C: It. Is. Done!

Lectionary: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35




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En el nombre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Sanctificador. Amen.

I begin with a prayer from Orison Marden which we shared at our third summit. It’s called “Divinely Empowered.”

Deep within humans dwell these slumbering powers,
powers that would astonish them,
that they never dreamed of possessing;
forces that would revolutionize their lives
if aroused and put into action.

This past week in my interim support group we discussed “pioneers” vs. “settlers,” terms used and defined by our mentor, The Rev. Dr. Rob Voyle. Our discussion focused on the context of individuals and church communities, and how those two groups – the pioneers and the settlers – can affect churches in transition.

Human systems are usually a mix of pioneers, who leave the safety of established cities, towns, and farm and head out into unknown territory. Settlers are those who follow the pioneers out then put down roots, make a home and build a culture where their new land.

When a church is in transition, it’s the pioneers who lead the way with vision and courage into a new promised land. Settlers help everyone figure out how to live there once they arrive.

In our story from Acts, Peter, who is a reluctant pioneer, pushes out into uncharted territory. Belonging to a people who have been conquered and oppressed for much of their history, the Jews learned to cope and survive by distinguishing themselves from the culture that conquered them. They accomplished this spiritually through their rituals and physically through circumcision; establishing an interior and exterior “them” and “us.”

As Peter grows in his understanding of who Jesus was and what he did, Peter struggles with the commandment Jesus gave him to love as he loved them. Peter knows loving as Jesus loved would mean violating Jewish law that restricted Jesus’ way of loving. The nascent Christian community is looking to Peter, the Rock to whom Jesus gave the metaphoric keys of the kingdom, to lead the way. Meanwhile, Paul is nipping at Peter’s heals pushing for full inclusion of Gentiles into their burgeoning community.

Trying to be faithful, Peter goes where the Spirit of God leads him – to a northern coastal town. As he arrives, a representative of the household of a Cornelius, a Roman officer, finds Peter and tells him that his master sends for him to come to his home.

Here it is… that moment the pioneer must make the choice to go or not go. Pioneers know that heading into the unknown is difficult, people will always complain about it (at first), and it requires summoning up the courage to face what comes and a profound trust in God to be near, guiding and protecting. Pioneers like Peter know that the path toward their goal isn’t clear; neither is the goal most of the time. The only thing that is certain is the voice of God telling them to go.

God shows up in a real way for Peter by speaking to him through a vision during a trance. Remembering what I preached last week, I wish more of us felt comfortable growing into this spiritual reality because when we are in this intimate a relationship with God, a relationship of mutuality is developed and we respond out of trust, not fear of retribution even when the world reacts negatively.

During this vision, Peter clearly hears God’s guidance: “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.” Once there, Peter witnessed God’s redeeming love and he understood that he and his people were safe to let go the defense mechanism they’d forged long ago for their survival.

Peter saw that “the Holy Spirit fell upon them [the Gentiles] just as it had upon us [the Jewish disciples at the first Pentecost]. Peter continues, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" In this moment, the slumbering powers within Peter began to awaken and he chose to push on in faith and enter this unknown territory.

Suddenly his path and goal were clear and he went fervently into the missionary field to which God was sending him, and the whole newly forming Christian community followed their pioneer into their shared divine purpose. In each new place, the settlers established ways of being a Christian community among the people they encountered there.

The harmonious co-existence of pioneers and settlers can be a powerful tool of transformation as the early church demonstrates. Problems arise when they disconnect from their divine inspirer or when they stop working together, prioritizing one group over the other.

In the church setting, pioneers who become disconnected from God can devolve into authoritarians who may resort to spiritual, emotional, or physical violence to protect their place of power, exerting power over rather than empowerment of; and their community of love becomes a personal or small group-controlled empire. Settlers can devolve into rules-makers and rules-enforcers, inhibiting the free movement of the Spirit among the settled community, stifling creativity and continued evolution of the community, eventually doing harm to people who don’t comply or who cry out against injustice.

I think of the awful experience of ordinary people during the Reformation, the Crusades, and the colonization of the “New World” - our own history – as the European monarchs and their church leadership enforced their version of correct belief and practice using some of the most horrifying tortures imaginable. I consider that our own present world society exhibits many of the same practices today.

Our civil leadership currently defends the use of torture, what is now euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation techniques” including “sleep deprivation, waterboarding, prolonged standing, and exposure to cold” for the purpose of national security. Currently, eight states have or are passing laws that will force women and girl children who’ve been raped to bear the child of the rape, even when her life (not to mention her mental health) are at risk.

The 20th century was one of the most violent periods in human history.

Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten. One in five women is raped at least once in her lifetime, and 40% of them are under the age of 18. The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%. If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40%.

This is our current reality and it isn’t in keeping with the way of love Jesus modeled for us. I love the description of that world found in our reading from the Revelation to John. It’s a vision of the ultimate reality of reconciliation in the world.

John, the visionary pioneer says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” one in which God dwells with mortals, one in which God wipes every tear from our eyes. “Death will be no more; crying and pain will be no more… See I am making all things new…”

But the most exciting statement to me in this revelation is when God said, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."

It is done, and God has done it. And God promises to give life, which is likened to a spring of water for those who are parched, imprisoned, assaulted, or tortured.

This is affirmed by Jesus in our gospel from John when he says, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.”

Now. Immediately. It is done.

God has been glorified in Jesus and Jesus has been glorified in God. Since Jesus has reconciled us to God, we also have been glorified in God. To be glorified is to be invested with dignity, honor, and importance.

Everyone is important and is to be treated with dignity - even an 11-year old girl made pregnant by her rapist… even a brown-skinned person who believes and practices differently… even a black or brown or white-skinned prisoner… even those who want to coerce or control them. Because through Jesus all humanity has been invested with dignity, honor, and importance.

In this season of Easter we remember together that Jesus comes to claim the here and now (as we will sing in our closing hymn) because It Is Done. The reconciliation of the whole world to God is happening now and we have been chosen to participate in its completion.

I close with a prayer we shared at our second summit: The Awareness Prayer

May there be peace within us today.
May we trust God that we are exactly where we are meant to be.
May we not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May we use those gifts that we have received, and pass on the love that has been given to us.
Me we be content in knowing that we are each a child of God.
May God’s presence settle into our bones and allow our souls the freedom to sing, dance, praise, love, and imagine.
Help us to see that this is true for each of us and for all of us.
Amen.

4 Easter, 2019-C: Abnormal for Christ

Lectionary: Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30



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En el nombre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Sanctificador. Amen.

I know a woman who is trying to come to terms with a lifetime of spiritual experiences that the world judges as “abnormal” but she knows deep within her to be truth – the truth about her and her oneness with God and all that is. Due to her fear of judgment by the world, this woman has learned over time to fear having these experiences in case someone might notice.

The experiences persist, however, so to cope she simply doesn’t talk about them anymore, which leaves her feeling a bit isolated. Over time she has come to see herself as physically broken and spiritually disjointed and incomplete. She is comforted by studying about persons in the communion of saints whose experiences seem something like her own.

The Good News I could share with this woman is that she is already whole in a marvelous way; that she is graced with the gift of experiences of divine unity many others never have. The result is she has a reconciling heart, strongly desiring that others share in the unifying love she knows so well.

This woman experiences oneness with God and all creation, and she always has. She also knows that the world is not open to hearing about her unusual experiences and will intervene to return her to the “normal” range of experience. It’s been done before.

Many Christians with mystical experiences or extraordinary gifts share this impression. I wonder if St. Francis of Assisi were around today what his fate might be; or how the world might diagnose Julian of Norwich who had shared experiences of the passion of Jesus on his cross. What if Mary Magdalene were to make her Easter proclamation today? They’d probably tuck her into a DSM category of people who see dead people.

What if Peter raised a child from the dead today? How would the world understand that? What would we do to him? Would anyone even consider the possibility that God was working through him? Does the modern world allow for a concept of God who can do that – much less a God who can bring the whole world to a place where we hunger and thirst no more, and where every tear is wiped away from our eyes?

The concept of God most often presented by the people of God in the world today seems to be a punishing, vengeful God, not the God of goodness and mercy described in the 23rd Psalm who spreads a feast before us far outpacing our hunger; who refreshes us and fills us to overflowing with divine love and mercy.

The world tends to be fearful of God and suspicious of people who live in union with the infinite love of God. Even the Christian world tends not to believe, despite our belief that we are formed in God’s own image and called to dwell in God’s infinite love.

When we encounter someone actually doing that, however, we generally respond by trying to force them back into the structures and patterns we have agreed are “normal” and acceptable. Our gospel shows us that the response was no different for the first person who lived in complete divine-human union: Jesus the Christ – the one who called us to live as he lived.

Jesus bent or completely blew away all kinds of “normal and acceptable’ structures in his day. He hung out with women, tax collectors, and known sinners; he touched dead bodies and healed lepers. Granted he was restoring them to life and health, but that must be overlooked in order to force him back into acceptable structures.

When the Jewish leadership confronted Jesus at the festival of the Dedication, that’s exactly what they were trying to do. We often read this as gospel story as if the Jews are actually seeking clarification from Jesus. In actuality, this is a threatening encounter. They have encircled Jesus, trapping him within their ranks as they tried to trap him in blasphemy in order to get him arrested.

Knowing what they’re up to, Jesus simply says: “I have told you, and you do not believe.” The Jewish leadership knows about Jesus; his reputation has spread far and wide along with news of crowds who gather in the thousands when he teaches. They know Jesus has healed lepers and demoniacs, cured a man born blind, and even raised his friend, Lazarus, from the dead and restored him back to life.

In fact, it was probably because of his works that Jesus was judged as “abnormal and unacceptable,” and needed to be stopped. That was the purpose of this conversation at the portico of Solomon: to stop him.

So, Jesus being Jesus, presses this conversation to the limit claiming the truth of his wholeness and oneness with God: “The Father and I are one" – a shockingly bold statement. The next line in this gospel, not included in our lectionary, is that the Jewish leadership took up stones and tried to stone him.

It’s a strange dilemma we’ve set up for ourselves – to strive in our Christian journey for union with God in Christ, in whose image we’re made and whose spirit dwells in us while at the same time counting the achievement of that, even in moments of our lives, as abnormal and unacceptable. It is fear that causes us to close in the walls around what is normal and acceptable – for God and for us. What is an attempt at spiritual safety, however, becomes a prison, and it is faith that sets us free.

We have nothing to fear when we lie down in the green pastures of the presence of God. Not even the valley of the shadow of death can harm or distract us from the divine feast that has been prepared for us by God, a feast that fills us to overflowing.

Each Sunday we partake of a tiny bit of that feast at Holy Communion. So come, share the feast and celebrate being abnormal and unacceptable to the world!

I close with the first verse and refrain from a song by Pink called, Wild hearts can’t be broken:

"I will have to die for this I fear
There's rage and terror and there's sickness here
I fight because I have to
I fight for us to know the truth
There's not enough rope to tie me down
There's not enough tape to shut this mouth
The stones you throw can make me bleed
But I won't stop until we're free
Wild hearts can't be broken
No, wild hearts can't be broken."

Amen.

3 Easter, 2019-C: Listen for the extraordinary

Lectionary: Acts 9:1-6, (7-20); Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19



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En el nombre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Sanctificador. Amen.

It can be difficult to connect the truth we know about the transformative effect of Jesus’ resurrection to how we live that in our present reality. Thankfully, today’s Scripture helps us make that connection.

This gospel from John illustrates so well the very human experience of getting on with life while still in that foggy state of consciousness that follows any extreme experience – in this case, the execution of the Messiah and then his appearances to them afterward. He’s dead and yet he lives. Imagine how hard it was for those first disciples to process this.

So, Peter does what most of us do – he makes a first step back into life as he knows it: “I’m going fishing” he says. There is nothing extraordinary about this statement. In fact, the beauty of it is its simplicity. Peter was a fisherman. He went fishing. He did what he does… in all the fogginess of his state of mind. Peter’s nascent leadership of this tribe of transforming souls is made evident by the others’ response: “We’re going with you.”

The gospel writer tells us they caught nothing. No surprise there. Going through the motions rarely generates any fruit, but it does help us carry on while the transformation from death to resurrection life is happening in us.

It’s interesting to note that Peter and the rest went fishing in the night. We know this because we’re told that it was just after daybreak that Jesus appeared to them. They went, therefore, from darkness to light as they processed what the resurrection of Jesus meant for them.

Not recognizing Jesus at first, even though they’d already seen him several times, and even though he called them “children” as he was wont to do, they obeyed the voice that spoke to them in their fogginess of mind, and the very ordinary thing they were doing became extraordinary. The fruit of their fishing was huge – so huge it broke the earthy container attempting to hold it.

Ever gently guiding them in this transformative process, Jesus stood on the beach and called them to come to him and eat food he had already prepared for them. Jesus was calling them from the waters of rebirth back into life on the earth. He fed them fish for their stomachs and bread for their souls. All the while they’re still in that liminal, foggy state of consciousness not daring to ask who he was because they knew it was the Lord, they just didn’t know how it could be…

Jesus questions to Peter grant him the real opportunity to repent of his betrayal and use the pain of it to transform his upcoming ministry which was to feed and tend the newly forming flock of the Good Shepherd. We all have humanity that gets in our way, but we also all have forgiveness that frees us to live into our divine purpose.

Also accomplished in this conversation was a redirection. Peter and the others (including us) keep looking for Jesus outside of ourselves. Jesus redirects Peter (and us) to find Jesus within ourselves, in our love and care for the flock of Christ.

Then Jesus issues a subtle warning that our divine path will take us where we do not wish to go. It took Jesus there. “Follow me,” he says. The comfort in this simple statement is that Jesus is always there, a step ahead of us, encouraging and empowering us as we do the ordinary things we do, transformed into extraordinary, by his spirit which dwells in us.

Peter was an ordinary fisherman who became an extraordinary fisher of people in the power of the transformative effect of Jesus’ resurrection in him. Whatever is ordinary in us, whatever we do in our lives, becomes extraordinary in the transformative effect of Jesus’ resurrection in us.

Some of us, however, get bogged down in the earthly. When that happens, God acts to set us free. The story from Acts illustrates this for us, showing how God restores us to a path of life when we are going down to the grave, as the psalmist says.

Saul was a Pharisee bent on protecting the Jewish tradition he loved. So zealous was he in his endeavor, that he found a way to justify hunting and killing those whom he thought threatened it, namely the followers of Jesus. So, God came to him and the brilliance of the light of love struck Saul blind, rendering him helpless to do anything but listen to God, then make a choice on how to respond.

How many of us have seen people whose eyes are open yet who see nothing? It’s a very human condition.

As God is sending Saul to a disciple of Jesus named Ananias, Ananias experiences a divine revelation. God asks Ananias to lay hands on and heal Saul, who is on his way to him. Ananias asks an important and familiar question to many of us: Are you sure, God? This one is pretty brutal.

God was sure, and Saul became Paul, an apostle of the resurrection – eyes opened in faith by the faithful and very human contact of the disciple Ananias.

As I said, it can be difficult to connect the truth we know about the transformative effect of Jesus’ resurrection to how we live that in our present reality. The only way I know to do that is to listen. For some of us it takes being struck blind and helpless as Saul was, or hopeless as the disciples were, to finally stop and listen.

In 1994, Steve and I took our family to live in his hometown of Selma, AL, in order to be present with his parents as his father was dying. We attended St. Paul’s Episcopal Church there – a synchronicity of the first order, as you’ll see. On Ash Wednesday of that year, as I stood in line for ashes, a draft of air from the floor vent on which I was standing rose up and I felt the brush of it on my face. Almost immediately, my eyes began to burn and tear.

The next morning, the pain was nearly unbearable so I went to the eye doctor and learned that my eyes and face had suffered severe chemical burns. I was blinded for two weeks, during which time I was bedridden. My children were 12, 3, and 2 years old. Steve, some friends, and our housekeeper kept our household functioning during my incapacity.

So, there I lay for two weeks, helpless to do anything but pray and listen to God. I found myself unable – finally - to avoid God’s continual call me to begin a path to ordained ministry.

Finding and walking our divine path doesn’t mean we suddenly lead lives of blessing and favor. That’s a false understanding, as Jesus made very clear to Peter, and as Paul’s life illustrates. These apostles of the resurrection were imprisoned and finally killed for speaking love into the world.

I know the author of the gospel indicates that Jesus’ statement points to the death Peter would suffer in the world, but I also hear in it that God may be the someone who takes us where we do not wish to go. Even Jesus experienced this as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane – until he let go his life and trusted in God’s plan of redemption working through him.

Living into our divine purpose means letting go of our lives and letting God’s plan of redemption work through us. The story of Saul being transformed into Paul shows how hard that is for us. Paul is an icon of answering Jesus’ call to lose our life in order to save it; of dying to self in order to live.

I close with an invitation: this week, let’s all make time to listen; real time we schedule on our calendars or adapt into our prayer and devotions time. During this time, let’s listen together, as a community, for this: what are the ordinary things do we do that God seeks to make extraordinary through the transforming power of the resurrection in us?

God bless us as we open ourselves to listen and make our choice to respond.

Amen.

Easter 2C: Recognize and connect with God

Lectionary: Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31



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En el nombre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Sactificador. Amen.

You’ve probably heard me say before that I hold the concept of the quest for individual salvation to be the besetting sin of current Christian culture, and it may be that it’s been the besetting sin throughout Christian history, or even before that.

But our Scriptures tell us that the plan of God’s salvation was, is, and has always been for the whole world, in fact, for all creation – the earth, the heavens, the whole cosmos. This plan also includes a personal, transformative relationship with God, based on the unique character and personality of each person, as evidenced throughout the stories in our Testaments, Old and New.

Focusing on “my own personal salvation” is a demonstration of unbelief. If Christ died once for all and made us a priesthood of believers who are commissioned, that is sent by God in Christ, to serve, to carry this message of God’s redeeming love to the world, then worrying about our own or anyone else’s personal salvation means we don’t believe Christ already obtained it for us.

Do we believe he did? That is the very basis of our Good News, isn’t it? And as Peter and those first disciples said to the council: we are witnessing to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who hear and respond.

Today’s lectionary demonstrates for us that the plan of God’s redemption (reclaiming) moves from the individual to the community who, through their individual relationships with Christ, are working together to make an expansive, inclusive “net” with which to “catch” people (as Jesus promised they would do).

This early community hiding out together in that upper room included women and men, faithful-ish Jews and tax collectors, mystics and the empirically-minded. The Spirit of Christ approaches each of them differently, as it does for us now, helping us all move from unbelief to belief.

Our Scripture shows us that there’s a moment that happens when we recognize and connect with the resurrected Christ on a deeply interior level. When that happens, it is our response to an invitation by God to draw close, in the way we are able to do that and connect.

In the midst of the beauty and glory of this personal connection, we experience a physical sensation, the first sign of the process of transformation happening within us. This is what we are hearing in our gospel story from John, over and over again.

For example, at the tomb that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene encountered the resurrected Christ, but didn’t recognize him at first. Pre-occupied and probably weighed down with the devastating disappointment that her beloved rabbi, to whom she was so devoted and who had given her so much hope through his inclusion of her while he lived, was now dead.

Did her hopes die with him? I imagine she was processing this very thing as she went to the tomb to anoint and prepare his body for proper burial. By now, a couple of days after being placed in the tomb, the body of her rabbi would be decaying and the smell would be strong.

Having worked as an oncology chaplain, I can tell you that when you know there will be a smell you have to steel yourself to carry out your ministry. I imagine Mary was doing that.

Then she encountered the risen Christ, but it wasn’t until he spoke her name, tapping into their personal relationship, and that she sighed her recognition of and connection to him: Rabbouni! At that moment, Mary moved from unbelief to belief.

She ran back to tell the others “I have seen the Lord!” but they didn’t believe her. So Jesus appears to them, at least ten of them: Judas was gone and for reasons not stated, Thomas wasn’t there.

Jesus spoke peace to them twice and breathed on them calling to mind God breathing life into Adam in Genesis; but in that case, God breathed life into one. In the gospel of John, God in Christ breathes life into the whole community.

Receive Holy Spirit, he says. The choice is still theirs, but it appears all accepted the invitation and they were all changed from unbelief to belief.

In today’s gospel, which takes place a week later, the disciples are again gathered in the upper room which is locked for their safety, and this time Thomas, the Twin, is with them. The disciples had proclaimed to Thomas that they had seen the Lord using the same words Mary Magdalene had used to proclaim it to them that first time. In keeping with the pattern, Thomas doesn’t believe, even though a whole community has proclaimed it to him.

He thinks he needs proof, so Thomas declares that unless he sees and can touch the wounds of Jesus, he won’t believe. Thomas doesn’t actually need proof. What he needs is that recognition of and personal connection with Jesus.

So Jesus gives it to him without scolding him or judging him. Jesus simply invites him to draw near and touch his wounds if that will lead him to believe. But, as I mentioned, that wasn’t what Thomas needed. In the presence of the love of God in the risen Christ, Thomas sighed his recognition saying: "My Lord and my God."

Powerful words.

In the Roman Catholic tradition in which I grew up, I was taught to repeat Thomas’ words at the elevation of the cup during the Eucharistic prayer. I still do that to this day. I breathe my recognition of and connection to Jesus, who is God in Christ in me and in the community with whom I share a Holy Communion.

It’s a necessary and great comfort to me to be part of a community of believers. After Jesus had given the disciples his peace (yet again), he told them something outright that they needed to hear: what you do in heaven will be done on earth (sound familiar?). If you forgive what separates and divide, it will be reconciled. If you don’t, it won’t.

Those few words contain a powerful teaching: remember how the world responded to the unfathomable love and mercy of God who seeks to reconcile the whole world to herself. They killed it. They killed the embodiment of divine love, yet from his cross he forgave them, reconciling even them into the community of love. You, my disciples, are now the embodiment of divine love on the earth. Love as I have loved. Forgive even from your crosses.

The early disciples understood this, as we can hear in their reply to the high priest: WE must obey God… WE are witnesses to these things, and they lived out their belief in their lives, and even in their deaths.

This is the new covenant of reconciliation established by Jesus. We have been reborn as a community – the fellowship of Christ’s body - and our commission is to show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith.

In order to do that, we must recognize and connect with God in Christ in a deep, interior, transforming way. God will invite us to this in whatever way will work for us as individuals and as a community, because it is Christ’s spirit in us that witnesses to the world, that forgives and reconciles what divides and separates, that drenches us in love at every shared Holy Communion.

I share with you this poem from the book “Episcopal Haiku” (p. 42):

A little girl drops
her wafer in the wine. She’s
soaking up God’s grace.

Soak it up – soak up the love and grace of God waiting to drench you, waiting to drench us – for WE have been commissioned to show forth in our lives what we believe. Amen.

Easter 2019: Hope is subversive

Lectionary: Isaiah 65:17-25; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18



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En el nombre del Dios: Creador, Redentor, y Sanctificador. Amen.

Happy Easter!

I want to share with you the closing statements of Martin Luther King, Jr’s prophetic “I have been to the mountaintop” speech, which he gave in Memphis TN the night before he was assassinated. Dr. King said: “Well, I don't know what will happen now; we've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter to with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life – longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Source

Like most prophets, Dr. King was a subversive. He challenged the established system and its practices which held African Americans in the bondage of racism. Dr. King’s message was subversive because it was a message of hope, and as theologian Walter Bruggeman says, “Hope is subversive.”

As a prophet, Dr. King gave hope not only to African Americans but to all Americans. He assured us that despite all appearances and the entrenched practices of the established system, we could live together as one people, in freedom and in unity. He knew this because he had “seen the Promised Land.”

As we continue on this journey of our life together, it is up to us to continually discover where the established system is divisive and oppressive and work to set those captives free. Freedom takes sacrifice; and if it is to be achieved, both the oppressor and the oppressed must work together to break those bonds that deny freedom.

Each age has a Promised Land to reach. Moses led the oppressed people of God out of bondage in Egypt to freedom in Canaan. In the 1960s Dr. King led us onto the path toward racial freedom. Today, God has made us aware of a variety of oppressed communities we can align with and work for their freedom and dignity too: gay and trans people, migrants of many nationalities, people of color, Native people, the poor – to name a few.

It’s a pattern that’s part of our spiritual DNA and one our Savior made eternally true for us. On the day Jesus stood up in the grave, shook loose his burial linens, and left that tomb empty, he made marching to the Promised Land a continual journey for us until his coming again.

It’s been this way from the beginning of our Christian narrative. As the women stood in Jesus’ tomb,
trying to understand how it could be empty, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes are standing with them, and they are terrified. But the two men simply ask the women a question, “Why are you here looking for the living among the dead?”

That might be an awfully strange question in almost every other circumstance, but not this time, and this is why: “Remember what Jesus told you…” the men said. The women did remember and returned to tell the others – who, of course, didn’t believe them.

They had all heard Jesus say these things, and yet, they still couldn’t comprehend it. So Peter runs off to see for himself. Finding it just as the women described it, Peter returned home amazed.

What amazed Peter? That Jesus hadn’t lied to them? That the women hadn’t lied to them? After all, this is the disciple who had been to the mountaintop with Jesus.

So what amazed Peter? Everything was just as Jesus said it was going to be.

I think what amazed Peter is that death was no longer what Peter thought it was – neither was life, for that matter. I think what amazed Peter was the power of the love he had witnessed in Jesus, the Messiah, now risen from the dead.

The resurrection ushered in a new thing, a new age, a new life - just as Jesus said it would, and it took some time for his followers to let go of what was and live fully into this new thing.

Luke tells us in the first chapter of Acts that the disciples were “constantly devoting themselves to prayer” in that upper room. The good news of Jesus’ resurrection isn’t something we can understand without devoting ourselves to continual prayer as a community.

The reason is, resurrection isn’t about bodies or breathing. It’s about presence. As we heard in Isaiah, God says, “Before they call I will answer.” God is present before, during, and after our understanding of anything. That is the hope we proclaim – living in the eternal presence of God - and it is, as Bruggeman said, subversive.

God, whose mercy endures forever, who is our strength and salvation, is always with us, dwelling in us, redeeming all things before we even recognize the need for it. In fact, that’s how we recognize the need for it. That’s how we know God is sending us on another march to another Promised Land.

As we go, it helps to remember that God shows no partiality. God didn’t pick Peter because he was so astute. Right? God chose Peter, gifted him, and sent him to live out his purpose. And Peter did just that – in all his imperfection.

God chooses each of us too. We were created and gifted for a purpose and that purpose is simple: to do God’s will.

And what is God’s will? According to our catechism, Episcopalians believe that it is the will of God that the whole world be reconciled to God in Christ. Reconciled people live in harmony and unity with one another and with God. The final destination of every march to every Promised Land is always reconciliation.

Sin is what separates us from God and one another. Sin builds walls between us and God, between us and one another.

Living the resurrected life Jesus gave us restores us to right relationship with God and one another, and all we have to do is remember. A way to understand this kind of re-membering is to think about how a surgeon re-attaches a body part that has been cut off. All the tissue, all the nerves, all the blood vessels have to be re-connected so that the blood of life can flow into that re-attached part.

Our purpose as Christians is to ‘re-member’ anyone who has been cut off from the body of Christ: the oppressed, exiled, or lost, and reattach them, reminding them and everyone who would exclude them that God shows no partiality - which means, neither can we.

My daughter told me of an online discussion she was having with a Christian friend who kept condemning a group of persons (in this case homosexuals) using the usual verses from the Bible to support their position.

Here was my daughter’s response (and I can’t make a better point on Easter Eve than this). She said, “All those words [in the Bible] are different ways of illustrating one message: lovelovelovelovelove. God is love. Period. You don't have to understand it. You don't have to agree with it. You can try to collect all the rules you want, and I'm sure that's a comfort. It's just not the point. I will say it until I die: God is love.”

We, the members of the body of Christ here at St. David’s, have been chosen and gifted to be a local embodiment of the Promised Land; a place where people gather to live in harmony; to confront and discuss the difficult issues of our time – the ones that tend to divide us – and find our way forward together in reconciliation and peace.

It’s a good day to be a Christian; the kind of Christian who will say until the day we die: God is love.

Happy Easter!

Amen.

Good Friday, 2019-C: Keeping it real

Lectionary:Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:42



Note: If the above player doesn't work on your device, click HERE for an alternative audio format.

While I was working on my doctorate from Sewanee, I took one course at Notre Dame and it was on rap and hip hop culture. In it we studied a book entitled: “Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop.”

I took it because listening to rap assaulted me and I hated it. The popularity of rap eluded me: it seemed so violent, misogynistic, immature, and focused on all the wrong goals – money, sex, fame…

I took this class because, while rap wasn’t my cup of tea, it was reaching young people in a big way and I wanted to know why. It felt like an important thing to know. And I was right.

This class taught me that rap worked for this generation like the Psalms worked for our Jewish forbears…like they work for us now. The poetry of rap, like the psalms, is a means of honestly expressing the human experience. No wonder it connected so well!

I remember living through my twenties, or as I call them, my “hell years” when I was being stalked (before there were stalking laws), threatened, followed by hired hit men, slandered on TV, in newspapers and magazines. I was innocent and in shock as my abusive first husband (may he rest in peace) the perpetrator of some of the worst crimes I could think of, was coming off looking like a golden boy as I remained silent, keeping steady on a path that would bring justice to my baby daughter. We got there finally, after nine years.

During that very dark time in my life, I found hope in the poetry of the Psalms. They spoke of a miserable reality I could connect with and they always led me to a place of hope, to the arms of God where I found love, safety, courage, and the will to go on, trusting in God’s love and desire to redeem even the hell I was living.

It seems that Jesus found the same kind of solace in the psalms. As he was dying a slow, miserable, unjust death on the cross, Jesus quoted from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?

Two things were happening here: 1) as a rabbi, Jesus was pointing his followers to the entirety of the psalm by stating just the first verse; and 2) Jesus was reminding himself of the truth of God’s redeeming, powerful love in his darkest moment on earth.

I offer you tonight this first-person meditation on Psalm 22 from one who has known what misery is.

Where are you, God? I feel so alone. Why have you abandoned me? Do you even hear me?

My people have trusted you for generations. Scripture tells me of your redeeming love for others. Where are you, God, for me?

It’s me, isn’t it? I’m not worthy. They scorn me, despise me, laugh at me, and lie about me. They obviously know that I’m not worthy of love, of friendship, of justice.

But then again, God, you brought me to this life and you’ve kept me safe upon your breast. Stay close to me! I’m afraid.

They’re like snarling beasts trying to tear me apart. They’re drooling for my death.

I’m twisted up; melting into a puddle of nothingness.

I’ve cried so much by now that I’m all dried up. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I’m dying and I feel like you’ve left me at my dusty grave.

But I’m innocent! They’re the evil ones and they surround me like packs of dogs. They taunt me and gamble my value away like it’s some game. They torture me; I’m fading into nothing.

Where are you, God?! Come and help me. Save me. Save my tired, wretched body. Save my weary soul.

Do I matter at all to you? … because you matter to me. You are the only strength I have left; the only hope there is.

Therefore, I will praise you, God, because I know you. I praise you in the presence of your people gathered for worship.

Praise God, you people! Because God does not hate or despise. And God hears our wretched cries. We shall be satisfied, justified, and we will live in eternal love, because God is servant of ALL.

Everyone, everywhere, and for all time will hear my words and know that God is God - and I choose to serve Her.

Hear me when I say it is to God alone the whole earth bows in worship, remembering and respecting our Creator who formed us in the power of Her love.

I know this absolutely, and my children and their children will know it too, because I will make this known to them and they will make it known to people yet unborn.

That is my purpose. That is my promise.

On Good Friday we, as a congregation and as individual members of it, live fully into the reality of the dusty, miserable, hopelessness of death, and choose life anyway, trusting in the redeeming power of God’s love to move us from whatever death we face to new life.

That is God’s promise and we are witnessing, experiencing, and embodying its fulfillment again as we move through Holy Week to Easter together.

I close with this prayer from the Hip Hop Prayer Book:


We pray to God, and we also pray to the church
For understanding our message, and helping us do our work
For giving us a place, where we can get down
And shout our voice, spread the message all around
For watchin out for us, and stayin aware
Inside your crib we can never be scared
Keepin it real for us and keeping it hot
Cause God don’t quit and God don’t stop.

We give it up to y’all for deliverin’ the truth
The words that you flow show us the proof
So we send out a blessin’ for bringin’ us the message
For keeping it real and showin’ us the lessons. Amen! WORD!