Modeling St. Francis of Assisi

(Note: This article was written last week anticipating the feast day of this fascinating saint. Sorry for the delay in posting!)


This coming Sunday afternoon we will honor the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi with a traditional blessing of the animals at 4:00 p.m. in the churchyard. The blessing is always fun and amazingly peaceful given the number of animals unfamiliar with one another gathered together.

This tradition of blessing animals to honor St. Francis comes from his radical devotion to creation and his sense of relatedness to all that is created by God. Francis saw creation as sacramental, that is, an outward reflection of the grace of God. All things, therefore whether animate and inanimate, were to be treated with respect and reverence. Sitting by a river in the mountains of Western NC, is the best way I know to experience the sacramentality of creation and be filled with the wonder and joy of it. Some experience this witnessing a sunrise at the beach, or the brilliance of fall foliage.

Francis abhorred violence and war. Though he was a soldier in his young adulthood, Francis came to see all violence as an offence against Jesus’ commandment to love. He believed that to harm another person was to desecrate the image of God in them. In fact, it was his awareness of the image of God in all persons that led to Francis’ radical devotion to the poor.

So excited was Francis by the goodness of the Good News that he was compelled to share it with anyone and everyone who would listen – including animals. Some called him a fool for doing so, but Francis was no fool. As one theologian said, Francis’ “life and his relationship with the world – including animals, the elements, the poor and sick, as well as the princes and prelates, women as well as men, represented the breakthrough of a new model of human and cosmic community.”

The Church in Francis’ day was rich and powerful, as was Francis’ family. One day as he prayed, however, Francis heard Jesus speak to him, saying “Francis, repair my church which has fallen into disrepair as you can see.” Francis thought Jesus was asking him to fix the dilapidated San Damiano chapel in Assisi, which he did, but he soon realized that the “church” in disrepair was the larger Church, so Francis dedicated himself and his life to the “radical simplicity of the gospel, the spirit of poverty, and to the image of Christ in his poor.”

The wealthy and powerful people in Francis’ life, including his father, didn’t respond well to Francis’ decision. It was disruptive to their comfortable, justified way of life. The powers in the church didn’t respond well either for the same reason. Thankfully, the pope at that time, as worldly as he was, was moved by Francis and protected him.

As his life was coming to a close, Francis had his friars place him on a stone floor in his simple habit and called his community of friars and nuns to come near. As he prepared to welcome his own death, with certainty of the resurrection life that follows, Francis first blessed each of his followers saying: “I have done my part. May Christ teach you to do yours.”

Francis’ life was an embodiment of his faith. Our church and “the Church” today could use a dose of Francis’ foolishness of faith: his commitment to the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ, his detachment from wealth and power, and his devotion to the image of God in all persons and creation. May Christ teach us to do our part today.

Note: All quotes are taken from “All Saints, Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for our Time,” by Robert Ellsberg, Crossroads Publishing, 2002, pp 432-433.

Pentecost 19: Stand like Job

Lectionary: Job 1:1, 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4 ,2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16
Preacher: The Rev Dr. Valori Mulvey Sherer, Rector



(Note: these are sermon notes again this week, i.e. the full text is not written out)

If I were to begin this sermon by saying, “Once upon a time…” how would you understand what comes next? (A: a tale, fable, story)

This is how the story of Job begins: Once upon a time, there was a righteous man named: Job (which means ‘persecuted,’ or ‘one who weeps’).

OT theologian Bruce Birch reminds us that OT stories disclose realities in different ways, creating a world in which the teaching can be offered. A modern day example of this is the Harry Potter series in which J. K. Rowling creates a whole world in which good and evil struggle.

The story of Job addresses the false belief that the righteous are rewarded by God while the unrighteous, the sinners against God are punished. It was a common belief in the ancient world and it is as alive today as it was then. I hear it in conversations all the time with fellow clergy. We hear it preached by televangelists and we call it the Prosperity Gospel.

But it isn’t gospel at all – and that’s the message of the story of Job.

The world of Job takes us back and forth between the earthly realm where Job lives to a heavenly realm where God and the heavenly beings gather watching what goes on on the earth.

In the earthly realm there is Job – the perfect human: blameless, wealthy and successful. Job had 7 sons and 3 daughters (the number 10 symbolizing completeness).

In the heavenly realm we meet “ha’ satan,” which means The Adversary. OT theologian Elizabeth Achtemeier points out, “We must be very clear… that the translation Satan does not point to the devil or a demonic figure. There is a definite article before the word in Hebrew, indicating that it is not a name but a title.” In the world of Job, The Adversary’s job was to go about the earth accusing people before God. As Achtemeier says, he is a sort of heavenly “Attorney General sent by God to call sinners to account.” (“Preaching the Hard Texts of the Old Testament,” p 96.)

The Adversary doubts Job’s faith and asks God to test him by taking away all he had, his family, his wealth, even his identity, symbolized by his “skin,” and see if Job’s faith holds up. God allows this, which trips people up. How can God allow such awful stuff to happen to a faithful person.

But remember, this is a story, not an historical account. The metaphor won’t be perfect and is stretched to teach the lesson in the story. The story of Job addresses very common issues in faith: Why do awful things happen to faithful people? Where is God? Why doesn’t God step in to save?

But this story isn’t about God, it’s about Job, the human, the icon of faithfulness to God. In the midst of his worst suffering, Job continues to believes in the goodness of God. He continues to pray to God, inviting God to show him to make it through. How does he do that?

He performs the rituals he learned to help him grieve and cope. He trusts in God’s wisdom knowing he himself can’t understand it. And he reminds those who love him, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”

The rest of the story of Job shows us the long arc of salvation at the hand of our loving God. But we’ll save that for another Sunday. For this week, we’ll remember that God loves in a way humans can’t begin to understand.

We focus on what we do, whether or not we deserve love. God just loves us, and asks us to love one another as we are loved.

In the gospel story from Mark, Jesus demonstrates how to take down the boundaries to our love. This story is about divorce and children. Two seemingly different teachings, but really they aren’t.

Notice that in both, Jesus is lifting up as important and beloved someone the culture sees as unimportant and of little value. In the ancient world, a woman could not seek a divorce as she was the property of her husband. There was disagreement between religious groups about the ground upon which a man could seek a divorce. Some said for nearly any fault the husband found with his wife, others said only in cases where the wife committed adultery. The Pharisees were hoping to make Jesus choose which side he was on on this issue, thereby alienating the other group.

Jesus, however, goes a different direction. First he explains that Moses only allowed divorce because of their hardness of heart, then he blows away that hardness in an unexpected way, saying, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.” Against HER. You can almost hear their minds blowing up…

Jesus is giving the woman has equal standing in the eyes of God in marriage. Then Mark goes immediately to the story of the children being kept from Jesus. People wanted Jesus to touch and bless their children and the disciples were stern in turning them away – dismissing them as an intrusion in Jesus’ otherwise important work. But Jesus is indignant… with the disciples. “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

Women. Children. The unimportant. Outsiders. It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs - because God loves in a way humans can’t begin to understand.

Many commentators talk about this as Jesus saying that we need to be like a child: humble, dependent, powerless and therefore ready to receive God. That’s true. Jesus refers to us often as children of God.

But this particular story isn’t about us. It’s about God and how God loves: beyond our ability to understand. Jesus makes clear that the kingdom of God includes those we are likely to exclude: those who believe differently, those who don’t believe at all, those who look like they’re being punished by God, those whom we blame for their own suffering.

In a few minutes, since this is the first Sunday of the month, we will be offering anointing with holy oil, laying on of hands, and healing prayer as part of our worship service. At some time in each of our lives we will stand before God like Job, weeping over loss, scratching and scraping at the sores on our identity.

I hope we can let go the notion that good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is punished. That’s a human system of justice. God’s is different – and thank God for that. There is no perfect human, except the one who perfected humanity by his own death and resurrection. There is no perfect human system either, not even the church.

Thankfully, God loves us anyway – all of us, in all of our imperfection - and is with us suffering with us when we suffer, sharing our joy when we celebrate. Like Job, we must remember that we receive good and bad in the world, but God is always good, and always there with us.

Come then. You are invited to stand or kneel before God who waits faithfully, ready to feed us with holy food, to touch us with healing love, to give us an abundance of mercy. All we need to do is show up, approach God in humble prayer, and ask.

Amen.

Pentecost 18, 2015: The path of love

Lectionary: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22; Pslam 124: James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
Preacher: The Rev Dr. Valori Mulvey Sherer, Rector



Today's sermon was preached from the following notes:

En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.

Today’s Scripture speaks to us maturity of faith -

In the gospel from Mark, John, one of the sons of Zebedee lodges a complaint against someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name: “He doesn’t follow US.”

Jesus’ reply surprises John – and probably the others as well – but he is teaching then (and us) to move from a club-membership or clan mentality to kingdom mentality. The new age Jesus is ushering in is inclusive: there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free, for all… are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28).

We all follow JESUS and it’s about FAITH, not doctrine, clan membership, or status.

The exorcist is not the enemy – immaturity of faith is. Include him, don’t exclude him. Teach him, help him grow in faith. Show him the path of love.

Immaturity of faith has symptoms which include:
superiority (we know the truth, the right way to act, talk, believe, worship)
judgement (they are wrong, we are right; they are bad, we are good)
exclusion (they aren’t in our club)

Jesus teaches us that it isn’t our club – it’s his church, his body in the world, and being a stumbling block has consequences.

Millstone passage. Here’s how important this is to Jesus who says: If your hand, foot, eye causes you to stumble, cut it off.

HAND – our actions... Last Supper, Jesus said: the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table (Lk 22:21) – his betrayal of Jesus); Laying on of hands, re: healing prayer – the action of God; Jesus continual assertion that the kingdom of God is at hand - happening now

FOOT – our direction/path, where and how we go... "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who proclaim salvation." (Isa 52:7)

EYE – how we receive information, how we perceive and understand. E.g.: animal cruelty, child abuse/spouse abuse, self-abuse – all come from how we “see” the other in relation to ourselves.
Depersonalization –allows us to make an enemy of another person. They become a classification: illegal alien, rather than a brother or sister in the family of God
Superiority/hubris – enables us to harm creation: animals, resources over which God has given us dominion. Remember, RULE: God’s way is our sacrificial service to them; our way is their sacrificial service to us

Jesus’ is telling the disciples – if any of these things cause you to create a stumbling block, cut them off.

Commentator: We don’t take Jesus words literally but we do take them seriously. “Discipleship requires amputations. We need to amputate bad habits – resentments – ambitions that cause us to act unethically. The recovering alcoholic or drug addict needs to amputate old relationships that threaten to pull him/her back to a life of addiction. The rich young ruler needed to amputate his wallet. We need to amputate things that stand between us and God.” (Source: Dick Donovan, lectionary.org)

As we will pray together in our Eucharistic Prayer: “Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us…” (BCP, 372)

It is God’s work. How privileged we are to be instruments God uses. How sad – and risky – when we get in the way.

For everyone is salted with fire, Jesus says. Salt was used to preserve food. The purer the salt, the better the preservation of the food. And fire is the symbol for God. .. the burning bush, the pillar of fire…

Followers of Christ are salted with fire… we are preserved by God, with God and in God. What is preserved in us is the truth of the good news: salvation in Jesus Christ

If we allow the priorities of the world to corrupt our saltiness; if we act on behalf of a club we have built rather than working for the kingdom God is still building through us, then our eyes (our perceptions/understanding) will lead our collective feet on a path of action that is out of step with the will of God. We will have walked off the path of love, and we’ll know we are off the path of love by the lack of peace and goodwill among us.

As the commentator says: “peace is often threatened by Christians who insist on imposing their own agenda rather than working peaceably with others… Jesus is calling us to be at peace with others” and ourselves. (Source: Dick Donovan, lectionary.org)

This is maturity of faith. Trusting God. Allowing God to move us in directions that surprise us, maybe even scare us a little, as the kingdom is spread among us and through us.

As theologian Jim Marion says: “When the kingdom is established upon Earth everyone will be spiritually developed to the point of living effortlessly… In that Kingdom there will be no disease, no war, no suffering, no poverty, and no death. All humans will live in conscious union with God and with each other, each one manifesting Spirit in their own uniquely creative way (Mt 13:52). This creativity will continually deepen and find ever new and wondrous ways of expressing itself, for there is no end to the depths and riches of God, nor is there any end to the gifts God is prepared to shower on those who follow the path of love (1Cor 2:9).” (Source: “Putting on the Mind of Christ, The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality,” Hampton Roads Pub Co, 2011, pp 291-292)

This is the fullness of God’s grace to which we run, as we prayed in our Collect. There we find the heavenly treasure strewn abundantly, lavishly everywhere – on the path of love.

May we have salt in ourselves and be at peace with one another as we share our Holy Communion, where God acts to make us “one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.” (BCP, 372)

Amen.

Hardwired to survive

Note: Written 08/27/15 (forgot to post!)

I recently attended a training on the Community Resiliency Model – a means of aiding individuals and communities to live in what’s called “the resiliency zone” rather than in states of stress and/or shut-down by learning how to let our bodies do what they have been designed to do, namely, to gear up to survive a stressful event then to gear back down and restore a sense of peace and wellbeing.

We were marvelously designed to survive, knit that way in our mother’s wombs by our Creator (Ps 139). If we put our hand on a hot stove burner, for example, we reflexively take it off. We don’t need to think about what to do - our body senses the risk of harm and signals us to react, causing us to snatch our hand away from the hot burner.

If however, the stressor is something chronic like poverty, racism, oppression, or system dysfunction, our body will continue to sense the stress and signal us to respond (this is called the “fight or flight” response) but the stress isn’t resolved. It can’t be. What happens then is our bodies get stuck in fight mode or in flight mode. Sometimes, we end up in a freeze mode, a kind of coping paralysis, since our attempts at fight or flight have proven ineffective.

On any given day, circumstances lead us up and down through our resiliency zone: an emergency situation or a phone call bringing us bad news will activate us to cope (fight or flight). Prayer, time, and experience will restore our peace and well-being, enabling us to return to our resiliency zone and get on with our day. After a long day, being greeted by the smile of someone we love calms our nerves, and restores us to peace. Sitting with our beloved pets has been shown to reduce our heart rate and increase our sense of well-being. This is our resiliency zone.

We know that living in a constant state of stress affects our health: high blood pressure, heart problems, digestive issues, headaches, fatigue, sleeplessness, etc. The Community Resilience Model teaches us how to return to our “resiliency zone” a physical state which enables us to restore peace and wellbeing even when the stressors “out there” don’t change.

There’s one more component to this model that is really exciting – the brain science that supports it (you know I love this stuff!). When the body is in a fight or flight response, the thinking part of the brain is inhibited. As in the example of the hot stove burner, it isn’t helpful to consider the situation and how to respond when your hand is touching a hot stove. The brain naturally inhibits the thinking region to allow the reflexive response to happen.

When we sense a threat to our survival, we think less and react more. We’re hard-wired to do so.

If we can learn, then, to restore our bodies to our resiliency zone, our thinking brains can re-engage and we can reflect on what the problem is and how to address it from a place of peace and well-being, rather than from a state of agitation and reactiveness. This has amazing implications for individuals and communities – including our own.

The Community Resiliency Model was developed by the Trauma Research Institute.

Pentecost 15 - also End Racism Sunday: We're able, are we willing?

Lectionary: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2:1-10, (11-13) 14-17; Mark 7:24-37
Preacher: Rev Dr Valori Mulvey Sherer, Rector



I was led to offer an extemporaneous sermon today, so there is audio only again this week.

Meeting the Marks

On the website for TEC (The Episcopal Church), there is a page dedicated to The Five Marks of Mission, which says:

“We recognize with gratitude that the Five Marks of Mission, developed by the Anglican Consultative Council between 1984 and 1990 …have given parishes and dioceses around the world a practical and memorable "checklist" for mission activities.” Our Presiding Bishop, together with the Executive Council of TEC used these tenets as a guide for our financial stewardship as a church body, revising the format of the TEC budget and guiding our spending priorities within it. The Five Marks of Mission also informed the passage of many of the resolutions at our most recent General Convention.

Here are The Five Marks of Mission:

~ To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
~ To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
~ To respond to human need by loving service
~ To seek to transform unjust structures of society
~ To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

Focusing the lens from TEC to our parish, I commend the Five Marks of Mission to you as a “checklist” for our mission activities. The good news is: whatever struggles we may have, we are already hitting each of these marks well, and that says a lot.

We proclaim the Good News in our worship on Sundays and Wednesdays with meaningful liturgies supported by the altar guild, choir, liturgical ministries, clergy, and worship committee. Our Rosary ministry reaches well beyond our walls, sharing the Good News in Scriptural prayer with many in our community. We host the annual Community Thanksgiving service, supporting local service agencies as we promote Christian unity.

We nurture new believers holding Inquirers Classes two to three times each year as the need arises, averaging six participants and three instructors per class. Our Moveable Feasts offer spiritual nurture to young adults who are new believers. Christian formation, offered each Sunday, provides discussions that are lively and spiritually informative. Our children and youth formation remains a place we can grow together, and my hopes remain high as we make plans for the coming year.

We respond powerfully to the need around us through our premiere ministry: The Shepherd’s Table & Food Pantry. As you know, we serve food to nourish their bodies and friendship to feed their souls. Our community and herb gardens supply fresh food and flavor to our hot meal as well as opportunity for discussion on how to fix food that is healthy and delicious. Guests are now asking to take herbs for their use at home! The chaplain and other volunteers connect deeply with our guests, praying with them, laughing with them, suffering with them, and sometimes advocating for them. Our pastoral care team brings our holy food of Communion, prayer, and Scripture to members and friends who are shut-in, keeping them connected to God and the church.

We have been out front with TEC and the bishops in NC on the issues of anti-racism (holding a Dismantling Racism workshop here at our church), the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in church and in the world (our Pride Picnic and PFLAG), and calling for the stemming of gun violence. We’ve taken some criticism for it, but we’ve stood firm in our baptismal covenant and have witnessed amazing changes in marriage laws, new energy toward racial unity, and recently, the vestry passed a policy forbidding firearms in/on our church property.

We do our best to be good stewards of creation: our buildings have been reviewed and commended for our carbon-footprint awareness. We also hold an annual public blessing of the animals reminding our local community of the belovedness of all creation and supporting our local no-kill animal shelter.

As Christians who are members of the body of Christ, we are called to love and serve in the name of our Savior. As we discern our path forward, I hold up the faithfulness of our current path. Well done, good and faithful servants.

Pentecost 14 sermon: Be quick to listen

Lectionary: Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Valori Mulvey Sherer, Rector

Extemporaneous sermon today, so audio only this week. I preached from the narthex instead of up in the pulpit - my usual practice. Please excuse the moment or two of mic feedback. I fixed the audio issue afterwards. The pic is from our Pride Picnic yesterday. :)