Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Pastoral Letter from Bishop Paul Marshall

Pastoral Letter to be read at all services of worship this weekend, March 2

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ Jesus,

In a few weeks Easter will have dawned and we will again luxuriate in the light of the Lord’s Resurrection, celebrating the gift of new life that the Cross and Empty Tomb lavish on us.

As I celebrate Easter this year it will be with profound gratitude for what we as a diocesan family are doing. Construction has begun in Sudan and our Social Ministries Committee is preparing to make grants for new social ministries in our parishes. This work is possible because so many hearts have already responded with Christ’s own love for the weak and powerless.

With the active phase of the New Hope Campaign three-quarters over, we have gifts and pledges totaling $3,022,000 (as of February 24), putting us a bit ahead of schedule. Our goal of $3.6 million is well in sight.

Since last September I have been spending a few hours each week at the Trinity Soup Kitchen in Bethlehem, trying to be of use to some of Trinity’s guests for whom life has been harsh. I come away from Trinity each Monday and Friday more convinced than ever that our New Hope decision to assist parishes with seed money for social ministry is God-pleasing and necessary. I am aware of plans in Mt. Pocono and Scranton to undertake ministries of compassion, and know there are more being formulated. My own commitment to New Hope has increased because of this hands-on experience. I share this story as one paltry example of the grand truth that caring for others changes us, takes us out of ourselves, transform our souls. I know that many of you have had similar experiences of feeling that you have received a gift when you made an effort for those in need.

On this New Hope Renewal Sunday, I ask that you take a moment to listen silently to what God is calling you to do. If you are still waiting to make your commitment to New Hope, now would be the perfect time.

It is my growing hope that on Easter morning, 2008, we will have met our goal, and this is my heartfelt invitation to each of you to be as much a part of this ministry as God has enabled you.

This comes with my best wishes for the holy days ahead.

Faithfully yours,
+Paul

Sunday, February 24, 2008

A Sermon for The Third Sunday in Lent

By The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Exodus 17:1-7 Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Gen. 1:1)

Thank you, O God for the gift of Water. Water. The source of life. Water. Through water and blood we are born of a woman into this life. Through the water of baptism we are born to eternal life. Through the mingling of the water and blood of Jesus we are cleansed of all that pollutes ones life. By water and wine we are strengthened for daily life.

Through the waters of the Red Sea, Israel is saved from Egypt. By water from the Rock struck by Moses at Massah and Meribah, Israel is saved in the desert wilderness of Sinai. From the waters of the Jordan River, Jesus learns of his identity as God’s beloved son and the ministry that is his.

From a new well, called a borehole in the Bari language of the people of Kajo Keji, there is now refreshing, life-giving water in the hilltop village of Romogi, their new diocesan worship, administrative, and educational center thanks to the people of this cathedral community. Water that will assuage, refresh, cleanse, purify, irrigate, empower and baptize, bringing people to Christ and to a new fullness of life in his community. Water. Thank you, O God, for the gift of water.

For all its goodness water is also a source of power, a weapon of oppression, a reason for enmity. It is said that if water was abundant in the Israeli and Palestinian region, the other matters would soon fall away. That is a bit overly simple and hopeful, but the point is well taken that water, access to water, is a major source of division between those peoples. Indeed the Wall that is being build to fence in Palestinians meanders, not randomly, but meanly and meaningfully from water source to water source fencing in the water wells for Israeli communities.

In our own country the states of Georgia, Florida and Tennessee are in court battling over who may and may not have access to their water.

In the gospel selection from John today, we find Jesus traveling in foreign territory Samaria, stopping at a well where Jacob and his family drew their water. The enmity between Samaria and Judea was 600 years old. Each contending that salvation, the messiah of God, would come from them.

And Jesus’ need for water to drink provides the opportunity for him to demonstrate and proclaim some very important things about God’s kingdom.

He meets a woman who couldn't be more of an outsider in a people, the Samaritans, who are themselves outsiders for a good Jew, and he receives her as an insider, an intimate who has no cause for shame. He brings up her past, and her present, not to shame her, but to take away their power in showing how little they affect how Jesus and the God he proclaims receive her.

Jesus received the Samaritan woman with such love and such grace she was profoundly transformed that after meeting Jesus, she's bold enough to demand living water from him. “Sir (Man), give me this water.” By the end of the conversation, she's left her water jar behind and is rushing into the very center of the village, demanding to be heard by those who were once her tormentors. And she IS heard; many believe in Jesus because of the woman's bold testimony.

What transformed this woman could transform our world. The woman at the well was despised by her village, which was despised by Judeans, whose ancestors had been humiliated by Babylonians. From generation to generation, every humiliation, resentment, and violence had been recorded, numbered and passed down from parent to child keeping the score so that they could even it. Jesus sets all that aside.

He demonstrates in a living parable the truth that God has opened the kingdom to every race and nation and tribe and clan and family and person!

It is true for the na­tion of the homeless and the nation of the hungry and the nation of the imprisoned and the nation of the disenfranchised and the nation of the elderly, and the nation of the young. All those whom our society, the world, would separate or exclude out on account of their difference because they do not fit a particular category... all of them are included by Jesus in God's kingdom now, today and forever.

What is also true is that many, many people do not know this Good News. They can't prove it by their experience. Real life, the school of hard knocks, has taught them something else. And there are some who have never heard it and so can’t know it.

What God has done in the gift of his Son and the gift of the cross and the gift of the kingdom with living water is to give it to all of us for a purpose. And that purpose is to show others, demonstrate to others their worth, their purpose, their power, that they have wonderful gifts that come as graces from the God who loves them and has claimed them as his own; the beloved daughter, the beloved son - now, today and forever.

Sometimes, there are barriers that prevent people from hear­ing, believing, knowing this Good News. Sometimes, folks have to have their bellies filled first. Sometimes, folks have to have their bodies clothed first. Sometimes, folks have to have be sheltered first. Sometimes, folks have to have their fears acknowledged and quieted first. Sometimes, folks have to have their isolation broken through the presence of a caring person first;

Sometimes those things have to be taken care of first before they can know of this gracious goodness of God. Sometimes just in taking care of those things people have come to know because they can see and feel and hear it.

Every race, every nation, every man, every woman, every child must know that God's kingdom is theirs and that Jesus and life-giving water are available to them in ev­ery moment of their waking, working, sleep­ing, celebrating, suffering, caring, loving and being loved. Everyone, including you is to know that.

Please pray with me. O God, who created all peoples in your image, we thank you for the wonderful diversity of races and cultures in this world. Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of friendship, and show us your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of your love is made whole and perfect in our love for all your children. Amen.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Second Sunday in Lent: The Miraculous Spiral

The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Genesis 12:1-4, John 3:1-17

It’s called a logarithmic spiral. This particular kind of spiral curve is mathematically defined. In fact, if you look up its definition, you will find an equation. It has perfect proportions. In geometry it is known as the golden spiral and is built on the proportion of the golden rectangle. But it is more than a concept or something that can be computer generated. In the 17th century, mathematician Jacob Bernoulli called it the “spira mirabilis” which means miraculous spiral. It is miraculous because it is exquisitely beautiful math. And it is miraculous because it is also found in nature.

It is seen in the spiral path of a hawk as it descends on its prey. It is found in the shape of the Milky Way and other galaxies. It is familiar to us in that spiral of clouds of a low pressure system demonstrated so often on the weather channel. And it is found in the chambered nautilus.

This sea creature, a type of mollusk, builds its shell as it grows in this perfect spiral shape. When cut in half, the shell of this nautilus reveals a beautiful mother of pearl interior made of chamber after chamber. Each section is slightly larger than the last, in perfect proportion to the one before. The creature itself does not fill the entire shell. Rather, it lives in only one chamber at a time. While it lives and grows, it busily prepares the next chamber. When it outgrows that space in which it resides, it moves into the new chamber and seals the passageway behind it. But the old chamber, while left behind, is far from useless. The inner chambers are filled with gas and help the nautilus to maintain neutral buoyancy. When the nautilus needs to dive, it can exchange the gas with liquid in order to reach the depths. The chambered nautilus is considered to be a "living fossil" as it has undergone little change in over 400 million years. Perhaps it has the right idea.

Nicodemus did not quite have the right idea. A Pharisee and part of the leadership in the Israel of Jesus’ time, he was a respected teacher. I will venture to say that he was a man of some years, to have gained such wisdom and status. Perhaps he had become what he wanted to be when he grew up. Or perhaps not. Because he comes to Jesus at night seeking something. He knows there is something about Jesus, but what is it? He comes in the darkness approaching the one we know as the light of the world. So…this is how I imagine it goes.

Nic: Rabbi, can you explain one thing to me? See I know you can’t be apart from God because you do all these signs and things.

Jesus: Well, I tell you what. No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above…(or born again, because the Greek word means both).

Nic: Say what? OK for argument's sake, let's go with the born again theme. Just how do we do that after we have grown old?

Perhaps Nic is feeling his age. Perhaps he thinks he is too old to learn a new way of being. But Jesus goes on to call Nicodemus into a new kind of birth, one that will stretch his very soul. Jesus challenges Nicodemus to embark on a path that will lead him to new growth and eventually to the foot of the cross.

We know that Nicodemus was changed by this encounter. He moved beyond his set ways. He stepped beyond his familiar beaten path. A bit later we find him defending Jesus to the Pharisees and chief priests. They were ready to condemn Jesus and his teachings. They had sent their officers to arrest him and when these folks come back to the council without Jesus, the leadership is ready to act against him anyway. It is Nicodemus who speaks up, “Wait a minute, since when does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he is really about?” And on the day of the crucifixion, when Joseph of Arimathea comes to take away the body of Jesus for burial, it is Nicodemus who comes with myrrh and aloes to anoint the body and prepare it for burial according to custom. Nicodemus offers that last service of love and ritual.

Truly, I tell you, Nicodemus has moved from darkness into the light. He left behind the confines of his safe, but cramped, world of knowledge where the miracles of Jesus could not exist. He turned his face toward the light, and nurtured a faith that brought him new life.

What about us? Do we have the right idea? Where are you in your spiral of growth? Is it time to realize the confines of the space you are in? Is it time to move beyond this chamber and into the space waiting beyond? Is it time to be born again, from above, through water and spirit? In this time of Lent, what new life do we need to nurture, give space to, encourage? We can choose to move on, knowing that as we enter into new space all that is past remains a part of us, giving us buoyancy and allowing us to navigate the waters of this life. As the seasons roll on, as we grow up (and even grow old), we continue to have new space, new vistas, new understanding in front of us. After all, Abram was 75 when he set out from Haran following God’s lead. And God didn’t tell him where they were headed.

And finally, at last we move into the greatest chamber of all: the dwelling place in God’s house that has been prepared for us. We are truly nurtured within a miraculous spiral, which leads to light and life and God.

The poet Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94) had the right idea. Contemplating this amazing sea creature he composed The Chambered Nautilus. This is how his poem ends:

…Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

ASH WEDNESDAY

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY IN LONDON ONE WILL FIND A PAINTING OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ARTIST MICHAELANGELO MERISI, LATER KNOWN AS CARAVAGGIO, HAVING TAKEN ON THE NAME OF HIS BIRTHPLACE, A SMALL TOWN IN NORTHERN ITALY. THE PAINTING I REFER TO IS A DEPICTION OF ST. LUKE’S ACCOUNT OF THE ROAD TO EMMAUS STORY. YOU’LL REMEMBER THE STORY OF THE RISEN JESUS ENCOUNTERING TWO BROKEN-HEARTED FOLLOWERS WHO BELIEVED THE HOPES OF ISRAEL DASHED HAVING JUST WITNESSED JESUS’ CRUCIFIXION. THE TWO FOLLOWERS OF JESUS, NOT RECOGNIZING HIM IN THE MOMENT, SOON FIND THEMSELVES BREAKING BREAD WITH THIS “STRANGER ON THE ROAD” AND AS THEY DO, THEIR EYES ARE OPENED AND THEIR HEARTS BURN AGAIN, HAVING ENCOUNTERED NOW THE RISEN JESUS AND THE HOPE RENEWED FOR LIVES OF FREEDOM!

IN HIS PORTRAYAL OF THIS STORY CARAVAGGIO DEPICTS THE FOLLOWERS OF JESUS’ TIME IN THE FACES OF CONTEMPORARIES OF HIS. IN THE DEPICTION ONE CAN LOCATE A LARGE SCALLOP SHELL ON THE LAPEL OF ONE OF THE MEN WITNESSING THE RISEN JESUS. THE SCALLOP SHELL, OF COURSE, WAS WORN BY PILGRIMS IN CARRAVAGIO’S TIME AS A SIGN OR MARK, A SYMBOL OF BAPTISM TO BE RECOGNIZED BY OTHER PILGRIMS SO THAT THEIR JOURNEY TO DISCOVER A PLACE OF HOLINESS AND FREEDOM MIGHT BE RECOGNIZED, SUPPORTED, AND EVEN JOINED!

THE SCRIPTURES TELL US ON SUCH DAYS AS THIS, ASH WEDNESDAY, TO REND OUR HEARTS AND NOT OUR GARMENTS, A REMINDER FOR US TO CUT TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER. ON SUCH A DAY AS THIS, THE HEART OF THE MATTER IS WE BEGIN A LENTEN JOURNEY TO RE-CONNECT WITH OURSELVES, ONE ANOTHER, AND THE ONE WHO MADE US BY DARING TO EMBARK ON A PILGRIMAGE THAT WILL NECESSARILY LEAD US THROUGH DEATH, TO LIFE! WE, LIKE THOSE DEPICTED IN CARAVAGGIO’S BEAUTIFUL PAINTING, ARE ON A PILGRIM’S WAY!

MARCUS BORG, NEW TESTAMENT SCHOLAR, REMINDS US THAT LENT IS ESSENTIALLY A PILGRIM’S WAY! A WAY OF FOLLOWING THE PATH FROM DEATH TO LIFE! THAT WAY IS DISOVERED BY FOLLOWING JESUS! FOR THE NEXT FORTY DAYS WE WILL INTIMATELY STEP WITH JESUS. THROUGH STORY AND SONG, HEART AND PRAYER, WE WILL JOURNEY WITH JESUS FROM GALILEE TO JERUSALEM…FROM LIFE, MINISTRY, HEALING AND HOPE…TO THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS, THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE GIVEN IN PAIN AND SUFFERING, AND FINALLY TO AN EMPTY TOMB WHERE PARADOXICALLY, ITS EMPTINESS LEADS TO OUR FULLNESS OF NEW LIFE!

WE WILL FOLLOW JESUS, WE WILL PARTICIPATE IN HIS FINAL JOURNEY….A JOURNEY OF DEATH AND RESURRECTION. “LENT IS ABOUT DYING AND RISING,” MARCUS BORG REMINDS US, ABOUT “MORTALITY AND TRANSFORMATION”!

NOW I REALIZE THAT THESE ARE WORDS YOU MIGHT EXPECT TO HEAR FROM THE PREACHER, WORDS THAT ARE SOUND THEOLOGICALLY, ALMOST POETIC, CERTAINLY CHURCHY, BUT WHAT DO THEY MEAN FOR YOU, FOR US?

I ONCE DEVELOPED A PRAYERFUL RELATIONSHIP WITH A YOUNG WOMAN WHO WAS SEARCHING FOR SOME CONNECTION IN HER LIFE. WE BEGAN A LONG DISTANCE LETTER WRITING RELATIONSHIP. HER SEARCHING AND SEEKING TAPPED INTO MY OWN SPIRITUAL JOURNEY. I CAN REMEMBER SAYING SUCH WORDS TO HER AS, “TO FIND YOUR LIFE YOU MUST LOSE IT.” SHE, IN HER CANDOR AND HONESTY, SAID, “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN!”

SO IF WE SAY LENT IS A PATH TO DEATH, THEN WE SAY WE MUST DIE TO BE BORN AGAIN! WHAT IN GOD’S NAME DOES THAT MEAN?

PERHAPS WHAT I RECOGNIZED IN THAT YOUNG WOMAN AND IN MYSELF IS A TRUE DYNAMIC OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, A MATTER OF THE HEART AS IT WERE. WE ALL STRUGGLE WITH THE UNCERTAINTY OF WHAT LIFE PRESENTS US AND WHAT MAY BE BEFORE US. THIS PARTICULAR YOUNG WOMAN SET OFF ON A PILGRIMAGE THAT WOULD LEAD HER THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH: A LOSS OF A YOUNGER SISTER, THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER, THE UNCERTAINTY OF WHAT WAS NEXT IN HER PROFESSIONAL LIFE. IN HER PILGRIMAGE SHE ARTICULATED A TRUTH FOR ALL OF US, THAT ON HER PILGRIMAGE SHE DEMONSTRATED SHE COULD BEAR THE MYSTERIES OF DEATH SHE ENCOUNTERED IN THE VALLEY, BUT SHE COULD NOT BEAR HER LIFE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING IT, FINDING ITS MEANING, AND LIVING WITHOUT THE HOPE OF NEW LIFE ON THE OTHER END OF IT.

LENT IS OUR JOURNEY TO DISCOVER MEANING! MEANING OF A GOD WHO HAS PURPOSE FOR US. WHO CREATED US OUT OF DUST, BREATHED LIFE INTO US, AND NOW CALLS US ON A PILGRIM’S WAY TO EXPERIENCE DEATH AND NEW LIFE…MEANING IN OUR LIVES!
TONIGHT (TODAY) YOU WILL BE MARKED (IF YOU CHOOSE) WITH ASHES IN THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. ESSENTIALLY, YOU WILL BE REMINDED OF YOUR MORTALITY. NO, IN FACT, YOU WILL BE “MARKED FOR DEATH.” IN THE MARKING, HOWEVER, YOU ARE GIVEN THE SIGN OR SYMBOL TO BE ON YOUR PILGRIMAGE, THE PILGRIMAGE TO DISCOVER THAT REALLY, THE MARK IS YOUR GIFT TO FREEDOM. TO FOLLOW JESUS IS TO UNDERSTAND THAT THINGS MUST DIE TO GIVE WAY TO THAT WHICH IS NEW!

SO ON THE PILGRIMAGE WAY THIS LENT, ASK YOURSELF PERHAPS THESE QUESTIONS: WHAT NEEDS TO DIE? WHAT DEATH NEEDS TO OCCUR TO TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE?

MARCUS BORG OFFERS THESE QUESTIONS AND REFLECTIONS FOR OUR JOURNEY: “WHAT BEHAVIOR THAT HAS BECOME DESTRUCTIVE OR DYSFUNCTIONAL IN YOUR LIFE MUST DIE? WHAT RELATIONSHIP THAT HAS GONE BAD MUST CHANGE, OR DIE, WHAT UNRESOLVED GRIEF MUST DIE? WHAT STAGE OF LIFE MUST YOU PASS THROUGH AND DIE TO LIVE? PERHAPS IT IS SELF-PREOCCUPATION ITSELF THAT MUST DIE, OR IS THERE A DEADNESS IN YOUR LIFE THAT ITSELF MUST DIE FOR YOU TO LIVE?

OUR JOURNEY BEGINS THESE FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS. WE JOIN JESUS ON A PILGRIM’S WAY, MARKED FOR DEATH AND EXPECTING NEW LIFE!

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Last Sunday after Epiphany: We Are Hiking Together

The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch

Exodus 24:12-18, Matthew 17:1-9



(This sermon is not available electronically. Hard copies are available by contacting the Cathedral office.)