Thursday, July 26, 2012

8th Sunday after Pentecost
July 22, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Yet again we have another tragedy to contend with.  There’s yet one more opportunity in our experience to be confounded, confused, angry, and mystified. Most of all in the midst of the happenings in Colorado this past weekend, to be heartbroken again.  We have before us yet one more opportunity to try to make sense of what makes absolutely no sense.  We have one more opportunity to be invited perhaps into a sense of defeat, of despair, or even fear.
 Like many throughout the world and in the United States, we are invited by the barrage of media coverage and their attempt to make sense of a senseless act.  We are barraged as in such a way that we indeed have this trauma extended to us and indeed our hearts break.  Our anxiety rises and the horror of what is so foreign to us mystified us.  For we human beings, particularly for us gathered here in this place, in this context, we are a spiritual people, and once again we might be asking ourselves this question.  So where is our God anyway?  This might be a day we check in with the theology of our hearts. 
So how is it that a reigning God can allow such things to happen?  This might be one of those times as we listen to many who seek to make sense, and again I remind you, there is no making sense that we check our “gut” questions.  In light of these circumstances you might find yourself playing some some of those old theological tapes in response to horror and trauma like this.  “Is this a test dear God?”  Or some even straining to make sense of it might go here—“Perhaps this is God’s will in some way for us to find maybe some pearl that will invite us into a new understanding.”  Those of us who experience clinical pastoral education know that this is not a question or a mindset or a theology that bears much fruit.  For once again, we are faced with a reality of what it is to live in an imperfect world with imperfect people, where evil indeed does rare its head.  And it is as simple and as difficult as bad stuff happens.  So where are we?  We are spiritual people, trying to make sense of a world that is indeed sometimes senseless.  We are trying desperately to pursue a path that reveals some sort of concert with our God and our neighbors.
A friend of mine recently posted a quote from the Chaplain at Williams College whose adult child was killed.  The quote posted reads,   “I wish some people would get it through there otherwise intelligent heads that God does not go around the world with his fingers on triggers, his fist around knives, or his hands on steering wheels.  God is against all unnatural deaths and Christ spent an inordinate amount of time delivering people from paralysis, insanity, leprosy, and muteness.  The one thing that should not be said when someone dies senselessly or even at all is this.  It is the will of God.  Never do we know enough to say that.”

So where does that leave us faithful people, faithful disciples, helpless on this side of the country so distant from that horror yet so close?
I believe as faithful people we are once again asked to place ourselves in the heart of the gospel story.  As we seek to be faithful, living for the good in our society and in our lives, and in our relationships, we might very well once again on this day be like the disciples who have returned from spreading kingdom news.  In our story today in Mark we find that the disciples have returned from extending hands of help and healing and Jesus invites them to “come away to a deserted place and rest for a while.”
 We today might do well to be tempted to join Jesus in the deserted place.  Like the disciples we might also recognize that the world’s needs continue to impress upon us, just as the crowds followed them along the shore bank that day.  Like those disciples who slipped away with Jesus, we indeed do know the world’s needs and hurts are following us, they are inescapable. These needs it seems sometimes even may be trying to get ahead of us, much like the needs of the crowds scurrying ahead of Jesus and the disciples hoping to have already arrived on the shore where Jesus would land his first step. The hurts of the world and the needs of the world await us. 
Once again we’re just asked as disciples to get on the boat with Jesus to go across the shore and moor the boat.  Difficult as it is, we are once again asked to join with the brokenness and the hurt of the world and know that God’s will for us is to share in our brokenness and offer it a balm of healing and love.  Jesus words so powerful then and so powerful now, we indeed are like sheep without a shepherd. 
Jesus’ response to us today is as it was all those many years ago when he looks at us in our hurt, he has compassion upon us.  We find ourselves this day with an opportunity to responds to Jesus’ compassion as those in the crowd on that crowded shore; that is to  crowd around him seeking healing and wholeness even in the midst of things that are beyond our understanding and of which we will never be able to make rational sense of, regardless of the volume of media reporting. 
 Fellow disciples, may I beg you one more time, may I ask you one more time to reach out again in the midst of our broken hearts and spirits and  dare to touch again the fringe of the garment of our Lord.  Can we ask of one another again to believe in healing and in hope and in grace and in a peace that is beyond our understanding, especially in the midst of bitter confusion.  Perhaps in the midst of so many words filling the airwaves trying to make sense of the senseless, we who walk by faith may be best to reach our hands and speak few words;
Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.  Lord have mercy.

Monday, July 16, 2012

7th Sunday after Pentecost
July 15, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity

Good morning!
In the “Information age” in which we live, that is the era of newspapers, the era of blogging, the era of rapid and instantaneous information—not always accurate mind you, but information nonetheless; I find myself  wondering what is it that those who would have witnessed the Jesus event would have blogged or reported?  What would they have said about the life , teaching and the ministry of Jesus?  What would they say about his death and about his resurrection?  Perhaps one would have said something like this, “Government Forces quell radical movement of Jesus of Nazareth,  Religious and Political Insurrectionist.”  “Dream Dies on a Hillside.” 
At the same time, I wonder what those who actually witnessed the fullness of the story,  that is those who lived, followed, ate, and served with Jesus would have reported? Well we kind of know what they said, don’t we?  Something like this, “Our lives have been touched by a vision and a dream, and we are spellbound.  We are compelled by the one who indeed has conquered death and now we seek to live and work in a world for transformation.  We seek to live with courage even as the world would want us to fear, for the dream that we follow did not die on there on a hillside.  Those are two very different stories.  Two very different accounts, and I guarantee you, two accounts being reported at the time of Jesus’s life, his ministry, his death and his resurrection. 
Today we get a glimpse into stories about power and authority.  We get a glimpse into Herod’s experience of power and authority.  Herod’s experience of this Jesus and of John the Baptizer.  Herrod, who was drunk with power and a bully to keep it, was so intrigued with the truth that John the Baptizer had to offer him.  Herrod was treacherous.  He was brutal.  And, he was oppressive.  He ruled in such a way that those in whom he had power over would live in fear. 
One has to imagine Herrod rubbing his eyes, rubbing them hard, as he hears from people who come to him and say about Jesus, “There is one who is teaching with power and authority.”  Herod, only knowing John, says “How can this be?  Is John the Baptizer raised from the dead?”  And some who we might consider bloggers of the day think perhaps this power, this Jesus, who’s teaching might have been John who was raised from the dead, or might have been Elijah perhaps they said or perhaps a prophet of old.  Can’t you see it?  Can’t you read it written in  your favorite blog?  The accounts of such reported by those without any factual information.
  Dr. Suzanne Mets writes about today’s scripture, “ while todays’ Gospel passage is mostly a bit of history, we also get a glimpse into Paul and his letter to the Ephesians.  We get a glimpse into what the faithful witnesses of Jesus were saying about him in Herod’s time.  Paul helps us understand how we are connected to God.  Paul reminds us of the amazing gifts we are given because God loves us.  And Paul reminds us that instead of being afraid that Jesus is John raised from the dead, Paul says blessed be God who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven.  There is no fear here.  Just joyful gratitude that we are empowered by God’s blessing.  Paul goes on to tell us what some of those blessings are.  But, in the end, Paul reminds us that God’s grace is being lavished on us.  None of these things is a worldly gift.  They are all heavenly in nature.  And, we can, we can live our earthly lives with the spiritual authority in power as ones who understand themselves as lavishly graced and live in the world without fear, spreading the good news among our brothers and sisters.  In other words, being a witness and telling a story.  Our power and authority comes from being lavished by God’s blessings.  Like David, living into the full acceptance of Christ, of God’s presence, these blessings might cause us to dance, even in the face of what the world might consider us to be fearful of. 
I have just returned from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.  The 77th version thereof.  I’m still recovering from that event . . . literally.  I like some of you have already begun to read what the bloggers and the newspapers had to say—because trust me when you’re there you don’t have time to read those things.  I am mindful of what some may be saying about the convention, it’s spirit, and the actions taken there and I am mindful that like my question posed about what individuals would have written about the Christ event in ancient times, there is a diversity of reporting.
In light of this, I thought I would like to add my first  hand experience as a witness and participant to the Convention. I stand here then as  a witness, that is  as a person who was actually there, on the floor, interacting and taking my part in the councils of the Church.  One who worshipped, , taking the bread, taking the blood of Christ, engaging with brothers and sisters of this church of ours from across this country.   I’m here to tell you that we have been lavished by God’s blessings.  Our General Convention was organized around the five marks of mission.
 They are to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God.  They are to teach, baptize and nurture new believers.  They are to respond to human need by loving service.  They are to seek to transform unjust structures of society. They are to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.  So let me tell you what we actually did at General Convention. 
  We passed a $111-million national budget.  The majority of which seeks to empower our church in the pursuit of these five marks of mission.  We passed unanimously the creation of a special task force to help us forge ahead a new vision of the structure of our church to better enable us to pursue these marks of mission and better align our resources.  I can’t help but tell you that eight hundred and some deputies on the floor, a couple of hundred of bishops in the other house—it may be unprecedented but the vote to create such a task force was unanimous—in both houses.  I don’t think that’s ever happened.  The unanimous vote seemed so startling to the House of Deputies we stood and applauded ourselves and we sang a hymn, “We Are All In One Mission.”  And now I will tell you, I was a little disturbed by it, because you would have thought that we had just eradicated poverty as opposed to just agreeing that we need to do business a differently.  I just mention our self congratulations over this obvious need to change as perhaps a check on our ego’s and  a challenge for all of us as we consider the greater challenges before us.
We authorized, and I’m sure you saw this on CNN, the creation of rites for same-sex blessings.  Something that you know in this Diocese, we have been doing. At the same time that authorization respected those Dioceses and parishes that may find practicing such rites theologically incongruent.  I want you to know in the conversations and hearings around this issue, the tenor on all sides was respectful., prayerful, earnest, and honest.
We elected representation for the next committee for the selection of candidates for our next presiding bishop.  Our own Cathy Bailey stood for election in Province 3.  Next time we’ll get her elected.  We had an impassioned conversation about evangelism and about an open table,  that is an evangelism strategy that invites all persons to participate in our table fellowship, not just the baptized.
 We authorized rites for a pastoral response for those grieving the illness and death of their pets.  Something the Methodists and Presbyterians did a long time ago.  How nice to be following the Methodists and the Presbyterians. 
We elected new leadership.  The House of Deputies elected The Rev. Gay Jennings as the President of the House of Deputies.  Gay, some of you might remember, was the preacher here for my installation as your Dean and our celebration of new ministries.  Clearly I’m happy for my friend.  But I’m also lifted up by the wise discernment of our church to invest in someone who I and many know  lives with courage every day for the sake of the gospel.  We worshipped together at General Convention, and we listened to one another at General Convention.   We enjoyed one another at General Convention. And we were lifted up by one another at General Convention.  The conversations that I had with the leaders of our church were life giving.  All of them, most of them, were about the vision of a future and the mission that we’re called to.   I left General Convention alive, a little tired, but alive. I return to you  feeling that our church is vital and faithful. I recognize this may not be what you might have  read. 
I left General Convention realizing that I/ we have been lavishly blessed and that all of must live with a courageous vision of the kingdom in a new day.  We are lavishly, lavishly blessed.
 I am aware of  one opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal characterizing  General Convention as a carnival atmosphere;  I missed that because I like all there was busy worshipping our God, sharing a vision for the church.  Sharing in hospitality with my brothers and sisters in Christ,   being built up, connecting with friends and witnesses from generation to generation, all of whom stood proclaiming our Lord Jesus Christ as Lord.  Whenever I’m at such gatherings, I think about our congregation here in Bethlehem. I think about our stories, and I think about you. I think about how courageously everyday people in this parish witness to our Lord.  I think about our angels  perched upon our rood screen believing they are watching over us.   I’ve said this before and I’ll say it until I actually do it,  but someday these angels will  come to life for me in a book, I promise, and  in that book they will proclaim lavish blessings upon us as we are reminded of our mission. Lavishly blessed we are as a church, and in that spirit hear the angles bestowing this blessing in the word from author John O’Donahue, “A Blessing of the Angels”. 

May the angels in their beauty bless you.  May they turn toward you streams of blessing.  May the angel of awakening stir your heart to come alive to the eternal within you to all the invitations that quietly surround  you.  May the angel of healing turn your wounds into sources of refreshment.  May the angel of imagination enable you to stand on the true thresholds at ease with your ambivalence and drawn in new directions through the glow of your contradictions.  May the angel of compassion open your eyes to the unseen suffering around you.  May the angel of wildness disturb the places where your life is domesticated and safe and take you to the territories of true discovery.  Where all that is awkward in you can fall into its  own rhythm.  May the angel of Eros introduce you to the beauty of your senses, to celebrate your inheritance as a temple of the Holy Spirit.  May the angel of justice disturb you to take the side of the poor and the wronged.  May the angel of encouragement confirm you in worth and self-respect that you may live with the dignity that presides in your soul.  May the angel of death arrive only when your life is complete and you have brought every given gift to the threshold where its infinity can shine.  May all the angels be your sheltering and be your joyful guardians.  Amen.