Sunday ~ November 17, 2013

Sunday ~ November 17, 2013

The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Luke 21:5-19

Abbey Dore was a Cistercian Abbey built in the golden valley near the Dore River in what is today Herfordshire in the U.K. The magnificent stones that would construct this grand physical plan began to be laid in 1147.  Over the next 100 years or so amazing structures would be built.  A refectory, Chapter house, a presbytery, two magnificent chapels each about twice the size of this Cathedral.  Transepts would spring forth from each side of these chapels, dormitories/cells for the Cistercian monks who would pray, live, and work here.

In its day it would tower above the farmlands and villages that surrounded it, standing tall in majesty, in promise of stability, security, and provide a home for sustenance, prayer, healing, wholeness, and sanctuary not just for the monks who lived there, but for the village residents who could see it from miles away.

Never would they imagine the view I had of it some few hundreds of years later.  The large rocks laying in ruin, scattered about in a distance. Enormous archways standing in ruin and in disarray giving just enough form to help one imagine the enormity of a once standing structure, or at least part of it.  And there also , thank goodness, a last standing structure, one of the chapels restored in the 1600’s where it continues as a parish church now.

One can only imagine if one would sit in that now much smaller enclosure the prayers said there, the hopes imagined there, the sanctuary found there, the sustenance taken in there by fields bearing fruit and vegetables, literal sustenance for so many.  One can only imagine generations looking at this majestic grandeur of stability and promise wondering what the future might hold for them and for that place.  And now, one looks upon it so many centuries later aware that those stones could only hold so long, that place fades away now laying in ruin. One sits and wonders in its presence now, what endures?

Jesus speaks dramatically to his disciples in our Gospel lesson today.  He speaks directly to them with a stark and startling message about how to live in a moment, what endures in time, and how to be in the midst of an uncertain future.

The life-size sermon illustration before the disciples’ eyes is the grand splendor and enormity of the Jewish Temple. A place that in its enormity and majesty spoke of permanence and stability.  Jesus message to the disciples, there are things about this Kingdom I have invited you to witness, that will call upon you to find endurance and resilience in things not seen. You see that temple, even that will fade away, and tumble down in a world that is sometimes difficult, if not brutal.  The things I have called you to are things that can and will unsettle some, and can threaten to loosen the foundation of many.

One can just feel the disciples uneasiness in this conversation as they ask, well when Jesus, when will all this happen?  Jesus seems less concerned with the when of uncertain futures and more concerned with the HOW will the disciples live in this turbulence brought on by faithful living into this Kingdom he speaks of.  You remember by the way that Kingdom, where the poor are lifted up and filled and the rich are sent away empty. Where the sick and untouchables are caressed and made whole, and where EVERYONE, not just the self-righteous, are considered to be precious Children of God!  How then, will you live in the reality of an uncertain and turbulent future? With trust in God that in challenging times there is opportunity to “testify” that is give narrative by word and example to God’s Kingdom. And by endurance…..for it is by enduring that one gains souls.

Today is a special day for the young people among us celebrating a ritual of their coming to a place in their spiritual, emotional, and physical maturity. Today our rite 13 celebrities come before this community of faith  and continue on a journey of faith toward adulthood. What can we say about their future?  What can we say about them? What can we say about their God?  We can say truly and honestly about their future that it is uncertain.  Unpredictable. WE can let them in on the secret that this will always be true really. That the future is just that really…unpredictable.  It was true at 7 true at 13 will be true at 21, 31, 46, 53, 75, you get the idea.  But we can also say to them that their future is solid, is full of hope, and will be as enduring and rich because God is going with them into this future. That means when times are good God delights, when times are challenging God will send light. We can say about them that if they lean heavily into the stuff they are made of, they will continue to discover at the end of every day that who they are ARE Beloved Children of God! And this is good stuff.  And finally what words do we have for them on this journey? Well today at least, Jesus words, be enduring on this journey.  Endurance means to weather the storms that come your way.  To keep at it even when something seeks to knock you off the path. I like the cousin of this word endurance.  Resilience.  Resilience means to come back into form. To find a strength deep inside that helps you thrive even and particularly in the midst of challenges.  Resilience means to find air to breathe and light to thrive!  Always.  Discovering the things that endure and grabbing on to them.

Sitting in among the ruins of Dore Abbey, a visitor can move inside the last existing structure. There one finds the fruits of a Christian community that still lives in that place and space.  A glance at the bulletin boards standing inside this ancient structure one with eyes of faith see the recognizable fruit of that Kingdom Jesus spoke to his disciples about so many many centuries ago.  Prayers you see are being said there still.  Healing for the sick is being administered there, Sanctuary for the longing souls of many is being provided for there, Sustenance, Food is being provided there for those who hunger.  Stones and fallen and lay in fields about that place. Wars have been in history there, famine, sickness, have taken its place throughout history, and the worlds powerful have fought for control of those lands……but what has endured…..Prayer….Healing….Sanctuary….Sustenance.

Sunday - September 22, 2013

The 18^th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 21C
Luke 16: 19-31

September 22, 2013
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Rev. Kimberly Reinholz

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Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.

Today’s gospel unfolds uniquely when compared to the other parables of Jesus.  It would seem that those to whom Jesus was speaking new Lazarus, they may have seen him sitting outside of the rich man’s home, sores oozing and dogs licking his wounds.  They themselves might be the rich man.  I say this because it is out of the ordinary that Jesus mentions anyone in his parables by name, we do not know the name of the prodigal son, or the Samaritan, or the wounded traveler, but we do know the name Lazarus.  Some biblical scholars argue that the name Lazarus is derived from the Hebrew name Eliezar which means “God helps” and this is why the name is used, but I don’t think this is the case.  If it was,  shouldn’t the rich man be named as well.  I am sure there is a Hebrew name which corresponds with the notion that “God punishes” perhaps a derivative of the word Nephilim which is associated with fallen angels, would be appropriate.  However Jesus doesn’t use this literary device leaving the rich man anonymous.

This anonymity could also be a way of protecting those who have wronged Lazarus because if Lazarus’ circumstances were as bad as what Jesus describes you can imagine that many people had to have ignored him, not just the rich man in order for him to suffer so terribly.  What I think happened is that Jesus saw Lazarus mistreated in the streets of Jerusalem and he used Lazarus circumstances to demonstrate what one of his followers ought not to do.

In some ways not much has changed since Jesus told his story.  I could walk across our parking lot and around the corner and find a soul similar to Lazarus suffering from illness and hunger in the New Bethany Residence.  The chasm between the New Bethany client and myself would be seem to be similarly insurmountable to that distance between the rich man with his fancy robes and daily feasts and Lazarus who longed to eat the scraps that fell from the table, the 500 feet from this cathedral’s doors to New Bethany’s doors can be conquered not by feats of daring and engineering but by simple acts of love.

We live in an era of transcontinental, transoceanic and extraterrestrial travel so the concept of an unbridgeable distance seems to us completely foreign.  Even images of such great chasms like the Grand Canyon and the Mariana’s Trench have been conquered by the likes of Nik Wallenda and his high wire, or James Cameron and his submersible, Deep Sea Challenger.  With all of our advances in technology and travel the distance between Lazarus and the rich man might seem equally surmountable.  But the truth is, without Jesus, we are no closer to traversing that chasm today than the people who first heard this parable nearly 2000 years ago. 

We neglect to notice that the chasm described is not a physical distance but spiritual one.  And like Abraham explains to the rich man without the teachings of Moses and the prophets even a resurrection won’t bridge that spiritual emptiness.  Without studying scripture, without engaging with the almighty, without caring for our neighbor the chasm between us and them remains impenetrable.

This is not a new lesson that Jesus is trying to teach.  He told his disciples, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and by anyone who followed in the footsteps of the apostles the same thing in many parables.  In simple terms – Love God and Love one another.  It isn’t rocket science.  It’s compassion. 

In this world, we can bridge what seems unbridgeable physically and we can do so spiritually if we are willing.  Just like it takes fortitude and ingenuity to walk across the grand canyon or dive to the deepest depths of the ocean so too does it take fortitude and ingenuity to lessen the gap between ourselves and our Lazarus.  This is what it means to follow Jesus, to do the work he has given us to do, to care for those who have less than you, and let’s be honest most people have less than you. 

If we talk dollars and cents for a second, here in Bethlehem, the average household income was $45,000 in 2011.  In relation to the rest of the world according to Global Rich List.com with this income the average household in Bethlehem falls in the top 0.37% which means that 99.63% of people in the world live on less than us.  This statistic is sobering as just recently we marked the second anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street Movement which proclaimed we are the 99%.  As a 20 something living in New York at the time many of my classmates and colleagues in ministry proclaimed this position loudly and I had begun to believe it.  But when I looked up the world-wide statistics this week I was forced to realize that despite my debts, I am indeed rich.  That was enough to stop me in my tracks.  I found myself struggling to know what to do with my “new found wealth” and wondered if our neighbors look at our cars and stained glass windows and think of us as Lazarus did longing for a scrap from our table when we can afford so much more. 

Financially we can find ways to support ministries that feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, comfort the sick, and rehabilitate the incarcerated.  We’ve all heard stewardship ideas like if you give up one cup of coffee per week at Starbucks you save over $250.00 in the year and that will provide clean water for a year to a family through Episcopal Relief and Development. But in reality it is spiritually that we cannot afford not to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, comfort the sick, and rehabilitate the incarcerated. It is not a question of what luxury we can afford to give up, rather it is a question of what part of our Christian mission can we ill afford to ignore.

This is what Jesus is trying to teach us today.  When we ignore the needs of others to pursue our own comforts we are the rich man who ignored Lazarus.  In the earthly world wealth is scarce, there is only so much money to go around, so it stands to reason that without giving up something we cannot bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.  If what we do in this life determines how we will be treated in the next.  

We cannot expect to have the chasm bridged between the haves and the have-nots in the next life because it is cemented by what action we take to lessen the gap now when it is surmountable now.  The only thing that is keeping us from caring for one another in our daily lives is our own greed, and blindness.  Even though it has begun to sound like the same old refrain, Love your neighbor as yourself, we like the disciples and the Pharisees don’t get it. There is always more that we can do, and should do.  It is great that we have pledged to raise $25,000 for the Habitat for Humanity project, we have been active in the New Hope Campaign, we have supported various ministries over the course of our life as a parish but there is still so much more to be done. 

There are still needs to be met and we can help to meet them, but we hesitate.  We hesitate just as the rich man did despite having the teachings of Moses and the prophets and all the learned Rabbis who interpreted the law.  He fell victim to eternal suffering,  because the gap between himself and Lazarus which on earth could have been overcome through compassion and mercy, remained and became unbreechable in the afterlife. 

We likewise have the teachings of Moses, prophets, rabbis, priests and more scholars who interpret scripture telling us the same thing, and we also have a resurrected son of God, telling us exactly what to do Love God, and love our neighbor. But like Abraham told the rich man, when he pleaded that Lazarus be sent to warn his brothers, what good are Moses, and all the prophets or even a resurrected man if no one listens to them?

I pray today that you will see your neighbor, and not just see them but help them and in so doing fulfill the calling that has come to us through scripture from Moses, the prophets and Christ himself our resurrected Lord, to love our neighbors who are in need.  Amen 

Sunday - September 15, 2013

The 17^th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 19 C
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Rev. Kimberly Reinholz
Luke 15:1-10

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                I love the game “Hide and Seek”.  I often play it with my nieces and nephews and look forward to playing it with my own children, but whenever I play I am reminded of a story I heard once of how quickly an innocent game of “Hide and Seek” escalated into something more serious, because not everyone involved knew there was a game being played. 

A little boy about 5 years old and his baby sitter went to a local department store.  The babysitter gets distracted for a moment and turns around to find the boy missing.  She is hysterical she starts tearing around the store looking for him.  She gets the manager and all the store employees looking for him.  The police are called.  In the mean-time the little boy has started his own game of hide and seek and is climbing in the clothing racks, sneaking from rack to rack whenever someone gets close.  Eventually he gets tired of running around and falls asleep on a pile of clothes in the fitting room, which is where they eventually find him.  All’s well that ends well right? Thank God this story has a happy ending. 

                Imagine what it must have felt like to be that baby sitter frantically missing the child for whom she was responsible.  It must have been horrible!

                Imagine what it felt like to be the boy who thought he was playing the best game of hide and seek ever.  It must have been awesome!

In the Gospel today Jesus tells about how valuable each and every one of us is.  When the Pharisees are disturbed by Jesus fraternizing with sinners and tax collectors, those who liked to ignore the laws which the Pharisees held sacred Jesus reminds them that people are more sacred than the law. 

                Jesus shares a pair of parables: the lost sheep and the lost coin which both end with rejoicing because what had been lost is now found. As Christians it is this rejoicing which we hope everyone has the opportunity to experience.  This exuberant welcoming home, this embrace, this celebration at being reunited with God, is like the little boy being swept up into the arms of the baby sitter when he is found resting in the fitting room, the lamb which is flung across the shoulders of the shepherd when it had wandered off, or the coin safely stored in the woman’s purse after it had been misplaced. 

It is wonderful to think that there will be rejoicing when the lost person or the lost item is returned to its rightful place, but how often are we ignorant of the fact that we are lost, how often do we think instead that we are playing a game of spiritual hide and seek from God the creator of us all?  How often do we fool ourselves into thinking that we don’t need to come to church , or join that small group, or participate in that ministry because God is everywhere not just in this building?  I know that many of my friends, family and colleagues in and outside of the church feel this way.  It is impossible to explain to those who have never been part of a congregation why it is important to come to church, because can’t you worship God in your garden or in your living room, why do you have to go to some stuffy old building to experience community?  I will admit that sometimes I am envious of people who sleep in, have brunch and do the crossword puzzle on most Sunday mornings.  That doesn’t sound like being lost to me, it sounds like a nice relaxing morning where I know exactly where I am, happily relaxing in my fluffy robe and bunny slippers and it sounds better than running around editing my sermon or looking for my clerical collar. 

I know that not everyone who isn’t here is enjoying a mimosa and scone.  I know that there are people who have to work elsewhere on Sundays.  I know that there are people who have other responsibilities which divert their attention from worship. Sometimes in our busy lives coming to church feels like it just one more thing to do, and we just can’t do anymore.   

I recognize that we are part of a culture which has moved away from the observation of a Sabbath.   But the truth is that observing the Sabbath, by coming to church, is exactly the opposite of having something else to do.  Yes we do a lot when we come to church we worship the Lord our God, celebrate the Eucharist, read scripture, recite prayers, seek intercession for our own needs and those of others, and come together in this holy space so that we can go out refreshed and renewed into a world that doesn’t understand us and feels like what we do here is a waste of valuable “down time”.  But in reality what we do when come here is we refocus on God- our gaze does not fall on ourselves, our children, our friends, or co-workers but in worship we turn our eyes, our hearts and our minds towards God. We stop and take stock of where we are, what we are doing and where we will be going next. 

This is orienteering essential. Only if we look towards Christ Jesus can we find our true north, can we find our true value, and we can discern who we are and what God expects us to be.  If we do not take this time regularly to focus on our creator, redeemer and sustainer we are deluding ourselves into thinking we are playing a game of Hide and Seek when in fact we are truly Lost. 

Like the shepherd seeks out the sheep, the woman scours for her coin, and the sitter panics as the loss of her charge so too Jesus searches for each and every soul of each and every person in creation.  In his searching Jesus rejoices exponentially more than the shepherd or the woman or the babysitter whenever a person, stops and takes a breath, looks up, focuses on God, and remembers that there is more to life than their calendar. In those moments when Jesus rejoices and all the company of heaven rejoices with Him, all of us who were playing at knowing what we are doing, realize that we were in reality lost are now are truly found. 

I think that the next time I feel like I might be wasting my time on Sunday morning by going to church, I might just ask myself am I really playing an intricate game of hide and seek with God?  If that is the case I know that I won’t be wasting my time in going to worship, I will just be reaffirming what has been sung time and time again in that beautiful hymn Amazing Grace- I once was lost but now am found was blind but now I see. 

Sunday, September 8, 2013

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Deuteronomy 30:15-30; Luke 14:25-33

John Arthur Nunes, newly appointed to a professorship of Christian values and Public life at Valparaiso University, recently wrote about the beginnings of his new adventure moving from his role as an executive director of a non-profit religious group providing a ministry of relief and care to those in need around the world to a new beginning as a teacher of Christian values in an academic setting.

He wrote, “A life transition—like any effort to follow Jesus—is stressful.  Packing, unpacking, moving from one set of commitments to another, focusing on a new future. It might be best summarized by the ancient North African Bishop Tertullian’s interpretation of Luke’s Gospel  (Take up your cross and follow me)  “Take up your Stress and Tortures”

Once again our scriptures bring us in a forceful way to the drama of what it was, and what it is, and what it might be to be a disciple, that is a follower of Jesus. Once again we are given the narrative that is ours to discern and discover of what speaks to our own “being”, our own experiences, our own narrative of patterns in life where we like Dr. Nunes, experience the “cost of discipleship”. That is the experience of that stress or conflict as we find ourselves in our own lives either literally or figuratively packing or unpacking, moving from one set of commitments to another, focusing on a new future.

For those literally following Jesus in that countryside where today’s Gospel lesson takes place, Jesus captures that sense of the dramatic (as he does in Luke’s Gospel), upping the ante for those who might not yet quite understand just how deep and broad the commitment to a new future of following him may be. To follow Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem, one will be entering a new focused circle of family, literally leaving behind relationships and yes even possessions. (Because you can’t take your mother or your herd with you on this journey to Jerusalem.) If you are following on this journey it is going to cost you some, so “do the math” as it were, consider the “price of admission” to this journey, and if you choose, pick up your cross, and follow me.

Imagine the “Packing and Unpacking” literal and figurative for those deciding in those moments to set their eyes and hearts on this new future and commitment.

But surely you do and have had the experience of your own, “packing and unpacking” as you yourself follow Jesus. You yourselves have known by the nature of being alive and the nature of your lives of faith, those times when you may have literally or figuratively “left home” to be in the company of others who would lead you to a new future. You yourselves in time and in place surely have at times done the “accounting” and have made decisions in life that have cost you something when following a path that you know has been informed by your relationship with Christ. Perhaps spend a bit of time this day or this week pondering these things.

Recently in my prayer time I have re-discovered the power of walking the labyrinth. If you don’t know the labyrinth, it is a patterned walk with one entrance and one exit that leads you on a journey to a defined center, then leads you back out again from the pattern. The labyrinth pattern is an ancient one, pre-dating Christianity, though adopted by Christians and non-Christians as a tool for meditation or prayer.

The walking of the labyrinth for me gives me a pattern of journey that allows me to shed those things that distract me from centering my heart on the presence of the holy, leading me to a center where I can leave those things and lift my eyes to see what the holy might bring. The journey then back out of the labyrinth reminding me that I take that unity of the sacred center back to the margins of life, where surely the “stressors and tortures” of following Christ are felt as they conflict the uncertain and unsteady forces of the world in which we live.

I share with you my journal from my walk in the labyrinth this week, pondering our Gospel lesson today.

“I have prayed again the labyrinth and there I was greeted again and again, as I pondered in my heart the faith of generations and the demands placed on that faith. And there I imagined their and my own struggle to find reconciliation of the conflict that exists between my own need and desire for a deep pool of peace, Grace, and Joy — that place I find in a sacred Center — where life is full, congruent, authentic, and at peace.

And the demands that this Jesus seems to place on us — Where we know that when we do the accounting of following Jesus’ way, it’s going to cost us something, the cost typically showing up in the “conflict” or “stress” of “carrying a cross” emboldened with an ethic Jesus has taught us.

Then I realize again as I walked the labyrinth, at least today, that the journey to the sacred center is that place of becoming aware of our “true selves”, that is the self as God sees it.

It is that place where all the fear, mistrust, doubts, desires, and distractions of life that impede the joining of souls and beings, are peeled away on this journey, and offered on the cold stone Altar, and there in that sacred center is the opportunity to join with beauty, love, hope, joy, awe.

I began the pathway back out of the labyrinth, now making my way back out to the edges, a distance growing from the “sacred center” now aware that this is exactly what is taken to the edges, the margins of life, the sacred center. Back to the complexities and challenges of life and the decisions that are to be made in it.

The accounting I have this day, the cost of the journey, a few shekels of doubt, fear, mistrust, uncertainty. The real cost I realize in following Christ to that “Sacred Center” of course is the offering of the true Self to the edges and margins of life/the world.  Full of joy, and awe, of peace, and of Quiet, of certitude and grounding. Back out here now on the edges, I do the “accounting”.  This is worth the price of admission.