Pentecost 15/Proper 16

The Ven. Richard I Cluett
Matthew 16:13-2

Two weeks ago I stood here discussing the passage where Jesus said to Peter, “You of little faith”, focusing on the seemingly puny nature of his faith, at least in that moment of water walking. Today we have Peter’s shining moment when he proclaims the true identity of this Jesus of Nazareth. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Of course, if we read the story all the way through we know that Peter didn’t really have a clue what that identity would mean for Jesus, or for the disciples, or for the world. Next week he will get it wrong again, and Jesus will say to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”

So perhaps it would be good to note that Peter is not the point here. It would be useful to remember, I think, that old definition of what a saint seen in a stained glass window is. “A saint is someone the sun/the Son shines through.” And Peter was a capital S Saint.

It is also a pretty good description of what a disciple is, whether she be an ordinary day-to-day disciple or a capital D Disciple such as Peter. A disciple is someone Jesus, the Son, shines through. Maybe that’s the point here. What can we see of Jesus, what can we learn of Jesus in this person named Peter, or for that matter in the one named Alice or Bob or Sally or Fred or Rick, or…You?

Jesus asked, “Who do they say that I am.” Of course, “I am” is one of the names of God. So how many names can you come up with for Jesus; the ways people over the centuries have identified him. In scripture alone there are more than 100 names. If you are so moved, you can Google or Wiki “names for Jesus” and come up with a wagonload filled to overflowing. I could use today’s sermon time, and more, simply by reciting the names that come easily to mind.

Names such as Emmanuel, the Good Shepherd, the Great High Priest, the Anointed one, the Messiah, the Beloved, the Lamb, the Bridegroom and on and on and on. Not to worry, I am stopping.

Then Jesus asks Peter, the big one. “Who do you say that I am?”

We have been hearing all week about the great “Spectacle at Saddleback Church”, wherein Pastor Rick Warren examined the faith of the two presidential nominees, John McCain and Barack Obama. He sat them down one at a time on the stage of the church, in front of a couple thousand evangelical Christians, and some millions more watched on television. And he asked them direct questions about their faith in Jesus and how it affects their lives and how it will affect their presidency and the policies they work to put in place. The core question from which all other questions flowed was, “Who is Jesus Christ for you?”

The media pundits have parsed each word and examined each phrase. Conservatives have used their litmus tests, the liberals theirs, and the libertarians, too. I would expect that Muslims and Jews listened carefully as well, even though their names for God, Allah and Jehovah, never did come up.
Others have debated whether the questions put to the nominees for President of the United States of America were more important than the questions about leading the nation and their ideas and plans to work on problems of economy, justice, and world peace.
But for us, for you and me, regular day-to-day disciples of Jesus, the core question Jesus asked of Peter “Who do you say that I am?” is also our core question. “Who do you say Jesus is?”

What do you say to that? Can you answer that without having to resort to formulaic phrases, or if you do use them, can you explain what you mean by them? Who is Jesus for you? Really.

By virtue of being a disciple you are also a saint, one of the saints of God, someone the light is to shine through. (Light is another name for Jesus, “He is the light of the world.”) By looking at you what do we see of Jesus? By listening to you, what do we learn of Jesus?

Now, there we have it. There’s the rub. It’s come down to this, today. Can you tell us who Jesus is for you, not what others have said, but rather who he is for you? What can you say Jesus means to you? What difference is that faith making in your life? Specifically. Practically. In your real life, your day-to-day life, your behavior, your attitudes, your way of looking at things, at the world, what you do and how you do it. What can you say of Jesus? What can we see of Jesus… in you?

To whom do you testify, to what do you testify? What can Jesus build on your faith, on your life? Are you a rock? Or have you built your house on shifting sand. Wow! It’s starting to get personal, isn’t it? So much for bible stories of long, long ago. What faith story is being written by your faith in Jesus Christ?
That’s a bit daunting, isn’t it? Maybe it is too big for this relaxed time provided by the dog days of August, the last days of a summer’s respite. A bit too serious for this season of books on the beach, or hikes in the woods, or little round white balls on the golf course. Maybe we can come back to this in the fall, after vacation is over, when the kids are back in school? Maybe we can tell Jesus, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Or not. Actually, it’s true that there is no time like the present, no moment better than the now.

Do you remember that parable in Matthew 25 about the ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom (one of the ways of knowing Jesus), about being ready for him when he comes, having their lamps at the ready, oil filled, wicks trimmed, ready to be lighted at a moments notice? When he came, some were not ready and lost out.

“And while they went to buy (the oil), the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut… Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Matt 25:10, 13

Or in Luke 12:19-20 where the rich man says, “And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Some translations read, “… your soul is required of you.”

You get the point. The scripture brings us, today, this very day, to this question, “Who do you say Jesus is – for you?”

And how will you answer?

Pentecost 13/Proper 14A

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
August 10, 2008
1Kings 19:9-18 + Matthew 14:22-33

“You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Why, indeed.

All the evidence to the contrary – Jesus was right there on the water, and Peter doubted. That one little niggling doubt crept in and he was a goner – in the drink, floundering around, flailing away, and crying out in fear. Wanting to believe, trying to believe, believing that he did believe, still down he went. Dunked by doubt.

Anyone here identify with that sinking feeling Peter had? How many times has it happened to you? Why do you doubt? As the old song goes, “I don’t know why, I just do.”

You’re just sailing along in your life, secure in the faith that all is well, that all will be well, that whatever happens, even if there is a problem, it can be managed, it will be handled, you can take care of it.

But who are you fooling? Do you really know yourself to be that take charge guy, that supremely competent gal, that “come hell or high water” I-can-do-it person? Sure you are!

Or do you, deep down, have that cold, hard knot, or maybe for you it is instead a swirling, chaotic stomach churning mass, whichever it is, that area of doubt or fear that’s always there, waiting to creep in, right at the wrong moment, and there you go, down! Just like Peter. Dunked by Doubt.

Miracles are mysteries. We can profitably set our nets a little deeper to see what can be caught here. Let’s come at this story another way – through belief instead of doubt.

What do you mean when you say, “I believe…”? Are you saying that you believe and therefore your life will conform to that belief, and be guided by that belief, and that events will progress according to that belief, and all will be right with your world?

Or are you saying that you agree with or assent to a certain set of principles as in “I agree with Dr. Einstein that e=mc2”? And that life will follow along logically and orderly and well, based on that belief?

Or are you saying along with author Diane Eck that by saying “I believe…” you are saying, “I give my heart. I give my heart to God. I give my heart to this my beloved. I give my heart to Jesus. And because I give my heart to Jesus, I will do my best to live his way.”

Following Jesus gives us the best chance to live a life of meaning and purpose, and to be on the receiving end of mercy, forgiveness, grace, companionship, support and love. The more we follow him, the more we invest our heart, the more we are in his company, the more we walk in his way, the more we will experience the fruits of faith, and be able to trust the one to whom we give our heart.

Trust follows experience. When in your life have you experienced that grace, that mercy, that forgiveness? Would you have known those things had you not been seeking Jesus, enjoying his company, and being in communion with him and with his community?

Does faith, does belief, does trust guarantee success? Not hardly.

Many of you know that Tony and I do some conference work in an organization concerned with the well-being of people who work in the church. The name of the program is Credo, the Latin word that beings the creed, meaning “I believe”. What we do in that program is provide some resources and models so participants can get back in touch with what they meant when they give their heart to God and committed their lives to helping build the kingdom and care for God’s people. The clergy and professional church workers are living proof that it is possible to lose from time to time what we desire and prize so highly. And also possible to find it again.

If it can happen to Peter it can happen to you. If it can happen to Elijah the greatest of the prophets it can happen to you. What do you think Elijah was doing in that cave other than having a dark day of doubt, thinking for a brief moment that maybe Baal might indeed be the stronger god.

Let’s take the heart image a little further. A function of the heart is to move the flow of blood, the power of being, up to our head and down to our feet and out to our hands and fingers.

Faith and trust also have to do with movement. They come from that act of giving our heart to another, and that movement that leads to another and another and another and faith is thereby strengthened and trust is thereby built and life is can be lived in a way that gives life and makes us willing from time to time to risk.

That trust, that willingness to risk stepping outside the boat, to move closer to the one to whom he has given his heart is how I think of faith. And Peter has that.

So why does Jesus address him as "you of little faith"? Peter has a little faith. Like you and me. I’ve got a little, sometimes it is not enough, but most times it is what my father called an “elegant sufficiency”. Most of the time it is enough, sufficient for the day, even if every now and then, it wavers, it shrinks, it flounders, it flails, even to the point of sinking. Most days it moves me along in his way, sometimes it moves me outside my little zone of comfort, moves me to risk on behalf of God, God’s kingdom, and Jesus’ followers who he also calls people of “little faith.”

So how much faith do you need to make a difference in your life, or even to change the world? Just a little. You don't have to talk yourself into absolute confidence that anything in particular will happen. That's a good thing, since none of us really knows the future, or the heart of another person, much less the heart of God. Faith isn't about knowing that, faith is about knowing our own heart.

Faith is willingness to risk. It's willingness to take that step out of the boat, whether you think you'll sink or swim. It proceeds from the kind of love that, despite all of the butterflies in one's stomach, makes a person willing to say “I believe.”

The good news of today’s gospel is that even when the seas rise so high we are in danger of sinking, Jesus is there coming toward us, saying, “it’s me; don’t be afraid”. Jesus is there in that place, in that moment to calm, to quiet, to strengthen, to restore, to save. And that is a first-class miracle.

9 Pentecost ~ Proper 8

Sunday, July 6, 2008
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Zechariah 9:9-12 + Romans 7:15-25a + Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Sounds nice doesn’t it? Pretty good news, right? Well, let me complicate it a bit for you, as it has been for me.

On June 22nd we heard Jesus say, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

On June 15th he said, “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

A couple of weeks before that we heard, “Jesus said. "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven…”

And in the epistle lesson appointed for today we didn’t hear, we have even the great Apostle Paul burdened. “For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Does that sound like we would be wearing an easy yoke or carrying a light burden by following Jesus? Not on first hearing, not on second reading, or third… So let’s think about this for a minute to see if we can find that nugget of Gospel Truth, that Good News that Jesus says is “hidden from the wise and the intelligent and been revealed to infants.

After some serious pondering this week, where I have come to is this: This world we live in, you and I, is a tough place.

It can be physically dangerous. Some of us live in places in this valley where it is dangerous to be out and walking the streets at night. Our friends in Kajo Keji live, even today, with the constant threat of the violence of war invading their lives. In too many places and in too many lives physical danger is a daily fact of life.

Life can also be emotionally and relationally dangerous. Earning ones daily bread, providing for one’s family, is for many a boring or repetitious or incredibly stressful or dauntingly demanding or stultifying or seemingly endlessly taxing task. Never having quite enough.

Life seems to be getting too real, too earnest, too hard these days. Gas, heating oil, mortgages. Electricity rates are about to go through the roof. They will double or triple. The cost of living for so many people is rising from worrisome to burdensome levels. Life is hard and getting harder.

We learned this week that we are supposed to have 125% more income in our retirement than when we were working. For 99% of the people, good luck with that!

If getting to the top, or winning the prize in one’s chosen field is your goal, if grabbing the ring, if you are looking for that great payoff, that great payday, that golden retirement, that land of plenty that is just over the hill, just around the corner, this one or certainly the next or the next… if succeeding is one’s life’s goal… we know all too well that there can be huge costs involved.

These are burdens to be borne in the heat of the day. For those of us fortunate enough to be employed there are sacrifices that we will make, either intentionally or blindly. Often we will sacrifice our family at the same time as we try to provide the best we can for them. We deprive them of our very selves, their mother or father, husband or wife, our presence, our support, our care, our love. We are just not home. The kids bear the burden of growing up without us. They are taught by our drive to drive hard themselves to compete and to succeed.

Life is like that. Just ask the kids. How stressed are they? What burdens do they bear as they struggle to learn, to understand, to grow, to become competent, to fit in, to excel, to succeed? I think their burdens either meet or exceed that of their elders.

Are our elected leaders the right ones to lead us? It’s almost time for us in this nation of ours to take on the role of “The Decider.” Will new leaders take us into the Promised Land, or will they lead us deeper into conflict and contention with other powers and forces in the world, even more war, or deeper into economic difficulties? Will they work to preserve and protect and keep safe this generation’s young and the next and the next? To what yoke will they bind us as a nation?

On this 232nd birthday weekend of our country I turned to the counsel of our first president, George Washington, wrote in his Farewell Address, wondering as I read if our new leaders will hear it and attend to it. He wrote,

“Observe good faith and justice towards all … cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.”

Or will the new leaders continue the current policies that go in another way. Making these choices is no light matter. The burden of democracy, too, must be borne by those who prize its freedom. But bear it we must. Choose we must. And we better be right.

So, dear friends, it does not seem to me that it is the burden of Christ that is heavy and hard. Rather, it is life, itself, that can be burdensome, heavy, and hard, and complicated by our own human nature and our shortcomings.

It is Christ who can be the way and the truth and the light as we go through this life. It is by following him that we have the best chance to not only survive, but to thrive, living lives of purpose, possibility and peace, for one and for all. The yoke of Christ is the better, lighter, easier burden to seek and to willingly, even eagerly place upon ourselves.

A good priest named Dylan put it this way. “… we can say that Jesus' burden is easy and his yoke is light because it is. That I can opt out of the burdens my culture wants to place on me raises my hope that I might be able to opt in to something better, and the Good News is that the best option -- abundant, joyful life, freedom from anxiety, and real, deep, big-enough-for-the-world love is available to us in Christ Jesus.

“We bear (the yoke,) the Cross not as one person alone, but with the whole Body of Christ, and Christ's presence with us brings strength, courage, and peace. When we confess Jesus as Lord… even as we bear the Cross, (we are) restored and freed for eternal and abundant life in service and community with all whom God loves.”

And we can say with Paul, the Apostle “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

These new Christians, being baptized here today with their parents, friends, sponsors and Godparents have, themselves, discovered that way and decided to lead live in that same way.

How else will we make it through? We must take on willingly, even eagerly, that yoke, that cross, that love, and that Way of Christ.

Amen.

5 Pentecost ~ Proper 6 : Time and Again

June 15, 2008

The Ven. Richard I Cluett

Genesis 18:1-15 + Matthew 9:35-10:8

“History is not a straight line going from the beginning to the end, it loops and swirls eventually finding its way back to places it’s been before.” So it has been thought, written, and spoken aloud.

The proof is in today’s gospel reading. Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Tell me that is not a description of the crowds in our own day and time. Can you tell me that people are not harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd? Tell me that we are not, as a people, milling around, going to and fro, seeking here and seeking there for someone who will show us the way out of this difficult time we are in, someone who will provide answers to ALL the problems of the day. Tell me people are not weighted down by the cares and demands of daily life. Tell me job loss and a shrinking job market, decline in housing value, increase in food prices and decrease in food safety, rising gasoline and all energy prices do not rule the daily concerns of the people, to say nothing of ruling of the news media.

Can you tell me people are not harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd? I don’t think so, unless you point to the few who are privileged in the security of their wealth and position.

But I don’t think people are seeking a shepherd. I think people are seeking here, there, and everywhere for a Savior, for someone who will say, “it ain’t so.” Someone who will make it all right. Some-one who will take care of it for us and in the doing will take care of us as well. Think back over the comments and the discussions and the hopes that have surfaced during this political primary season. Who will save us? Do we really expect anyone to save us?

I have learned in my years – all my years – that when stress gets high enough, when the demands of living get hard enough, when the details of life become just tough enough, the ability to see options shrinks dramatically and exponentially.

So we feel distressed in ill-defined ways. We are besieged by anxiety, stress, and fatigue. Our relationships suffer. We have unexplained aches and pains. The flood of daily events seems beyond our control.

Our increasing inability to manage, much less control our lives causes a resulting decrease in our ability to cope, our ability to see options, our ability to plan a future, our ability to see possibilities, our ability to expect something other or better – in other words a decrease in our ability to hope, whether we be a person, a nation or an entire world.

A hard life will do that to you; limit possibilities, vision, and hope for a better future. That sounds like what was going on, too, for Abraham and Sarah. Life’s been hard, that original promise from God to be the beginning of a limitless future for them and their offspring.

“… the word of the Lord came to Abram, He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness… On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…” Genesis 15

But that was a long time ago and now here they sit, in a tent, in the desert, old and childless. Seemingly out of time, out of possibilities, out of hope – just sitting, surviving, waiting to see what will happen to them next – and they know it won’t be good.

Three travelers come, in need of hospitality and refreshment, which they provide. “Then one says, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed…”

Sarah laughed.

Apparently she laughed loudly enough and long enough to be heard. Maybe it was like that Hillary Clinton laugh that the media has enjoyed hearing and lampooning. A loud, hearty, even harsh laugh. In Sarah’s case, at least, she laughed out of disbelief that some-thing so preposterous, so outrageous, so good could finally be hers, could finally be theirs. “Yeah, Right!”

The very idea that God could, that God would… Ridiculous! Unbelievable!

And even here in the gospel, Jesus telling his disciples, “Proclaim the good news… cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”

The very idea! Is that your experience of your discipleship? Is that your expectation – that God could, God would? Is that what you expect from a disciple?

When I was your interim dean, I would get home at the end of a day and Patricia would ask, “How was your day, honey?” And I would say, “Oh, you know, the usual: Proclaimed the good news, cured the sick, raised the dead, cast our two demons. How about you?” And then we would laugh.

Have we so limited our vision; have we so diminished the possibility of the presence and the power of God in life, and in our own lives? Have we have so circumscribed God with the limitations of our own view of what is possible and probable in this world, in this life? I wonder if it is possible at all for us to see God’s hand at work in the world about us, or in ourselves, or even through us on behalf of others.

The Word, with a capital W, which scripture has for us today is that there is reason to hope and reason to expect.

Even if we “see through a glass darkly” at St. Paul puts it, God is God. God reigns. The kingdom is being built. Goodness abounds. Look for it. People are being healed. See it. We are being saved in all kinds of ways in all kinds of situations and problems. See it. Demons and powers are being thrown down – daily. Know it. God reigns.

No matter what it looks like. God reigns. No matter how it feels. God reigns. Should we fail or feel inadequate. God reigns. In our darkest hours. God reigns.

Even if the worst of the worst happens and someone we love dies. God reigns. How? Suffering is ended. Love has been known. We are surrounded by others who love us and are there for us. Even then. God reigns.

No matter what. God could. God would. God will. God reigns.

God reigns. Yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever. Amen.

Consider What Is Important

The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch

Isaiah 49:8-16a, Matthew 6:24-34

As if! As if it were possible. As if it were possible simply not to worry about your life. But we have it straight from Jesus himself, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will wear.” So now we all know. We have all heard it from the top. So that’s it then…no more worries. Right? As if!

Actually I prefer the translation, “Do not be anxious,” which is closer to the Greek text. Anxiety is more powerful than worry. Anxiety is what can knock us down flat, take over our lives, keep us up at night, or send us cowering in a corner. “Do not be anxious about your life,” Jesus says.

You know, yesterday was the perfect day for our youth car wash. You may remember that the first Nativity Youth Camp car wash was rained out. I was relieved, because it rescued me from a dilemma. The first date our car wash was scheduled, my daughters needed to be three places at the same time: here for the car wash and on two different softball fields at two different times for two different games. In addition, I had unwisely agreed to a sleepover the night before over in Allentown, which would make it a feat to get them here by the 8:30 am start time. That Saturday was also the day before the Bishop’s visit, so I had scheduled a baptism class and confirmation rehearsal here at the same time. After all, we were all going to be here anyway. It wasn’t doable. I was in a quandary. We had made a commitment to the car wash when we signed our kids up for camp--and we love the car wash. We had also made a commitment to playing softball. Yet, when we signed the girls up we did not know when the games would be scheduled. If we had never missed a softball game this season, it would not have been such an issue. But conflicts had come up more than once. I was anxious.

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, a rabbi and fabulous children’s author, said in a recent interview that “society does a very good job teaching us how to be consumers and society does a very good job teaching us how to be competitors.” But she goes on to say that most parents also want to know how do we teach our children’s souls? Parents want their children to be “gracious and grateful, to have courage in difficult times, to have a sense of joy and purpose.” I think it is not only parents that want this for their children. I think it is what we all want: to be gracious and generous, to have courage in difficult times, to have a sense of joy and purpose. But we are so skilled at being consumers and competitors that we neglect to nurture our souls. One of the things we consume in our society is activity. As a parent I know the trap of getting involved in too many activities (all of them good ones mind you) and the stress of trying to get it all done. But it is not only parents who are caught in this trap. Society affords each of us with so many opportunities--wonderful opportunities. But we think we can and should have them all. We have little trouble choosing between a good thing and a not so good thing. If I had had to choose between the car wash and cleaning out the basement, it would have been a no-brainer! But when two opportunities we desire pull at us, the temptation is to try to do it all. But we cannot serve two masters and we soon find ourselves on the slippery slope of shifting priorities. How can I choose between the camp carwash and not one but two little league softball games? I can’t. So I try to figure out how to do both. Thus I am relieved when they are all rained out!

I’m sure I am not the only one who lives in this world. We can be so busy getting it all done, that we miss what is important. A wise mentor once told me about sorting out what is urgent and important. Envision a square graph with one axis labeled “important” and the other labeled “urgent.” Most of our activities fall into one of four quadrants. There are those things that are important and urgent, like applying first aid to a bleeding injury. We usually pay attention to these things and get them done. Then there are those things that are unimportant and not urgent, like cleaning all the dust bunnies out from under the chairs in the attic. We are generally good at not giving too much of our time and talent to these things. But it is the other two categories that are misleading. Some things are urgent, but not important. Like those advertisements that I get over the email that offer free shipping if I order now and I feel I have to act even though I hadn’t been planning to buy anything. Or a cell phone that rings in the middle of…(you fill in the blank) and must be answered even though it could wait. Things in this category seduce us into giving them much more of our time and energy than is really needed.

Then there is the final category: those things that are important, but not urgent. Things we back-burner, like finding time to have coffee with a friend, or visiting someone who never gets out, or spending time with God. These things are very important, but because they do not seem urgent, they are easy for us to neglect. As the list of undone things gets longer and our in-boxes more full, our worries increase. A rainy day doesn’t always solve the dilemma.

About the only thing that seems to make me less anxious is age. Some things just don’t worry me as much as they used to because I have lived through them. But is that all there is? Is knowing that I will survive the only rope to grasp when worries about “what next” overwhelm me? Not according to Jesus. He asks us to look around us. Look at the birds of the air. No, really look at them--see them--think about them. What can we learn? This is the power behind his words. Consider the lilies of the fields (and the word here is really wildflowers). Consider-- observe well-- learn something—stop—look—contemplate. This is not about taking time to stop and smell the roses. It’s not about noticing beauty that we may otherwise miss. It is much more profound. Jesus calls our attention to things that are accessible to us, things that are all around us, things that are simply there, like wildflowers. What can wildflowers teach us? Probably much more than we can imagine. In God’s amazing creation, simple flowers display a complex biology that gathers sunlight, converts it into food and energy, and releases life-giving oxygen into the air. And they look pretty nice too. So when we stop and notice wildflowers, we stop and notice God. When we notice God, become aware of God, we know God just a little bit more. After all, knowing God is what it is all about for us.

Jesus reminds us of this ultimate priority, this most important opportunity of all. Do not worry, saying what will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear. Indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you as well. God is our best opportunity, our first priority, the source of our life. Worry distracts us from God. Anxiety distorts our relationships with others. It divorces us from who we really are. Anxiety gnaws at us, pulls us down into despair, mocks our desire to trust, and teaches us to fear as if fear is what is at the bottom of all life. But we do not profess a life based on fear. We profess a life based on the awesome love of God.

What does life look like when we remember that first and foremost we are loved? As long as we are noticing things, take note that Jesus did not say, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Combating anxiety is not that easy. After all, we are not promised that our days will be trouble free. Jesus doesn’t say, “Your troubles are over.” Rather he says there will be plenty of trouble, “Tomorrow will bring worries of its own, today’s trouble is enough for today.” Or there is the older translation, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” But no evil overcomes God’s love. If we want to be gracious and grateful, to have courage in difficult times, to have a sense of joy and purpose in life, God is a good place to start. God who does not forget us. God who knows that relationship with us is important. God who promises, “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” In anxious times, in pleasant times, we do not walk alone. God knows us. God knows what we need. Consider not what is urgent, but what is important. Consider the wildflowers. Take time to contemplate God’s love for you.

Trinity Sunday

May 18, 2008
A Jazz Eucharist
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Genesis 1:1-2:4a + 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 + Matthew 28:16-20

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
That could be the Sermon for Trinity Sunday right there. But, lest you get your hopes up… there is more.

As we were having coffee earlier this week, I said to the dean, “I think I will preach on the ineffable mystery of the One we worship as the Triune God.” The was an extended silence into which finally I said, “At least the congregation will awake refreshed and ready for the lively music of the Jazz Band.” At which point he let out his breath and relaxed. But the question for the preacher remained, “What do you say about the Trinity?”

Saint Augustine, one of the greatest minds of the Western World, put his head to thinking about the Trinity. Augustine, a master of words, took fifteen volumes to write his treatise “On the Trinity”, fifteen books that took him over a decade to write.

So what do WE say about these things in just a few homiletical minutes? I want to tell you what I think is the single most important learning about God – and ourselves – that comes from the Trinity. And I will do it this way:

First, a question and a clue: What was the first thing Jesus did when he came out of the desert wilderness after his 40 days learning his identity – that is, besides getting a bath and something to eat?

He called disciples and gathered a community around himself, and except for his final act of sacrifice, he lived in that community and counted on that community his entire ministry. We know that to get the best insight into the nature of God we look at Jesus, so what do we learn about God here, with Jesus in community?

Many years ago, Bishop Mark Dyer and I went one noonday to a regional clergy gathering for bible study. One of the clergy was waiting for him to tell him that he could not stay that day. He had to meet his wife and daughter at the doctor's to hear the results of some tests his daughter had undergone. If he could come later he would. He went off, the clergy gathered, Bishop Mark told them about the reasons for the absence, and the first thing we did was to hold that family in prayer - for quite some time. We then went on with lunch and bible study and sharing.

The priest came back 2-3 hours later, looking totally drained. The diagnosis was leukemia, in ad¬vanced stage, in his 22-year-old daughter. Devastating news. It is worthy of noting that after being with his wife and daughter in their shock and alarm he came back to his clergy community to share the news. There was shock, there were tears, there was prayer, there were hugs, there was advice from experience offered by a priest who had been an oncology nurse, there were stories of healing from two others whose fam¬ily members had leukemia. There was hope. There was even some healing from the shock for him, there was strengthening for the family; there was God there in that community. 

The God who creates us, and loves us, and strengthens us for the journey is found in community.

And every person who was there left that gathering thanking God for the gift of relationships and community.

Today there is a new or renewed awareness of the Trinity - of God as Being in Communion, which is the title of a wonderful book by Anglican Bishop John Zizioulas. He writes of God, the Trinity in whom there is no hierarchy, no subordination, nor use of power to exert control over another.

If God’s self is Being in Communion and we are made in the image of God, then we too are to be in communion with our God, and one another and all creation. Our identity is “to be in communion with…”

The gift we have received is the gift of relationship. We have been given one another.
We are learning that this truth is woven into the very fabric of creation. Ever since the 17th century and people like Isaac Newton, we have understood the nature of creation to be an assembly of parts. We have used machine imagery to try to understand God's creation.

In the machine model, things can be taken apart, dissected literally or figuratively as in compart¬mentalized institutions and corporations and vestries, and then put back together again. The assumption has been that by understanding the parts, the workings of each piece, the whole can be understood. The Newtonian model is characterized by a focus on things rather than relationships.

What the New Science has done in the words of Albert Einstein is to help us "see the world anew”, and I would add, to see God anew. The New Science has discovered that the basic building blocks of creation do not exist except in rela¬tionship to something else. It was from the mind of God, in the creation act of God, that relationships are a fundamental element of all creation. No “Unmoved Mover” here.

Nothing happens without something encountering something else. Nothing is independent of the relationships that occur. It is a world in process. It is a world of relationship. It is not a world of disparate, separate parts. It is a world in communion. It is a world of communities.

Another example: So many people have participated in the creation of this jazz Eucharist today, even more in its presentation and production, and even more than that in the acts of worship it inspires and enables. This Offering today culminates in the experience of being in God’s presence, of living in the midst of the God’s kingdom, of being in the community of the God who is at one and the same time the Lover, and the Beloved, and Love, itself.

As wonderful and Samuel Martin’s trumpet work is, and we heard last week just how wonderfully he plays, it is even more wonderful when it is played with the trumpets of Stephen and Alan and Jamie. And their trumpets are even more wonderful when they are joined by the instruments played by Charles, Emily, and Ed, Josh, Mary, Isaac, Henry, Chris and Jim, and James and Carl all led and blended by Carol and supported by the singing of Jenifer and Eve and Laura and Catherine and this congregation, and the heavenly chorus with whom we join – and then all of a sudden we are in that space where we are one with one another and one with the One who created us and the One who redeemed us and the One who sustains us in this life. In the presence of the One God and we make one wonderful communal Alleluia of Adoration and Offering.

And we will go from here created a new people, each of us chosen and sent and empowered by the Triune God in whose presence we have worshipped. Into a world full of his glory.

It is in community, in relationship, that we are most fundamentally true to our identity as God's creation. And in commu¬nity, in relationships, we share who we are in ways that enrich the Other and thereby we find our own true selves and we are enriched as well..

Thanks be to God the Father, and to God the Son, and to God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sixth Sunday of Easter ~ Called to Hope

The Cathedral Church of the Nativity ~ April 27, 2008
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
Acts 17:22-31 + 1 Peter 3:13-22 + John 14:15-21

Last Saturday the Diocese of Bethlehem celebrated the memorial Eucharist for Henry Pease, a priest of the church, and a very good man. His family members were there, his parishioners, his colleagues and his friends. I said in the funeral homily, “His death is akin to the passing of a tribal elder, the passing of the leader of his clan, the passing of a wise teacher, the passing of a beloved priest. It is the passing of a son – a child of God – who returns to the Father.”

The feelings at a time such as that are well known to everyone who has experienced the loss of someone loved and valued. Get in touch with those feelings within yourself. If you have known death, if you have known loss, if you have known a sense of abandonment, if you have ever been bereft… Remember what that was like.

It’s important because that is what is going on in John’s Gospel today. We continue to hear what is called the Last Discourse of Jesus – his farewell address to those with whom he has lived for all these months who have left everything for him. They have left their families, their work, and their homes. They have bet their all on him and he is going to leave them. You know what they are feeling. You know what they are thinking… and so does Jesus.

And he gives them a reason to hope. He tells them, “I will not leave you orphaned… I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

He tells them the truth and he gives them a word of hope. The truth is a word of hope. How important it is that people hear the truth that is a word of hope. How important it is that the world hears the truth that is a word of hope.

Writing in a time of danger and despair for the early church, Peter counsels, “…be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.”

I don’t think he is offering that counsel solely as a defense strategy. He is offering it because it is the truth that the world, the powers of the world need to hear, what people need to hear – the truth that is a word of hope.

In Ephesians 1:17-18, the apostle Paul writes:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints…

What we have here in these verses is the prayer that believers will know what their hope is and how powerful God can be in their lives. Whatever it may take, to ensure we have a foundation of hope.

Hope occupies the God-spot in our lives, just as God occupies the hope-spot. Hope gives us a sense that life is worth going on. It is not a hope we control by having knowledge about it. It either is or it is not.

Probably the greatest Oral Historian of our time is Studs Terkel. For 60 years he has listen to, annecdoted, recorded, reported and found meaning in the stories of people lives: work life, family life, love life, life-changing life, cataclysmic life, war-torn life, and life of epic and historic proportions.

His last book was intended to be Will the Circle Be Unbroken? – his oral history on death (and life). He finished this last book when he was 90. But he didn’t die right away (he’s not dead yet at the age of 96) and he found that after death in the list of human subjects comes the greatest subject of them all – and one well-timed to every moment – Hope. He had one more book to write.

Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times. It is a reminder that in good times, you can do nothing and still have hope, but in bad times, you have to act, take that first small step, in order to hope.

Hope is God-given. It is created in the human DNA, it is part of our being, as is, for instance, the ability to word things, to use language. But we know that language must be nurtured and taught, and used, and if those things don’t happen the language ability goes away, it dies. I have studied Latin, Greek, French, and a little German, along with English. Except for English, now they are all gone for me. I have no ability to use these languages, it is as if that ability was dead to me.

Hope may die last, but it can die, and it is a living death. You may have experienced a time when you were without hope, and how terrible that is. I know.

As disciples of this Jesus who lived and died and has risen, whose Ascension we remember in the week ahead, this Jesus who would not leaves his disciples or the world orphaned – this Jesus calls us to a Ministry of Hope to a world bereft of it, to people who have lost or are in danger of losing it, and for the salvation of our own souls.

As a safe example, let me mention Kajo Keji. After 50 years of war, exile, displacement, and loss you would think that the people there would have felt abandoned and been bereft in hopelessness. You would have thought that hope would have died. Certainly there was some flirting with hopelessness. But when we first went there found a people not without hope, but a people whose lives were based on hope that was founded in their faith in Jesus Christ.

And then a cathedral congregation in the US raised a few thousand dollars and sent it to them to build a well. That well bought in not only refreshing, life-giving water; it also brought refreshing life-giving hope. Hope that there can be a future there. Hope. How important is that? Priceless.

Bring-ers of hope. That is the ministry to which we have been called as the community of Jesus; that is the ministry to which each of us is called as a disciple – to be signs of hope for one another and for those we meet.

There can be for us nothing other than this faith and this hope; nothing other than to be ready to make our defense to anyone who demands from us, who needs from us, an accounting for the hope that is in us.

People need the eyes of their heart enlightened, so that they may know what is the hope to which Jesus has called them…” They need to know that that Jesus would not leave them orphaned. We cannot leave them orphaned. They must know the truth that is a word of hope, a word that can sustain, and be life-giving – even in the midst all the tough realities of life.

Soon we will celebrate Pentecost, remembering that God has sent the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Counselor. One translation of the Greek word for the Holy Spirit, Paraclete, also means the Encourager. Jesus would send us to be encouragers of one another. When we obey him, we know that he lives in us, and we in him.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of Jesus, to a ministry of encouragement, to a life of bringing life-giving hope wherever you go.

Annual Meeting 2008 - The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Barbara Crafton, well-known author of spiritual things and personally known to some of you, writes:

The Bible is full of people setting out into the unknown, and only with their faith in the goodness of the God who led them there. Here is Noah, getting started on the ark while the sun is still shining and there isn't a cloud in the sky. There is Abel offering a sacrifice of grain instead of meat without quite knowing why, foreshadowing a people that would leave hunting and gathering and become farmers. And there are Abram and Sarah, old and childless, absurdly promised an inheritance of children more numerous than the stars, and believing it.

Today going somewhere where you have not gone before – that is a scary thing to do. To do something new, something you have not done before – it takes guts.

Parents know about doing something new. They were once carefree people. They were once the masters of themselves, without someone depending on them for life itself. They were not born knowing how to be the awesome people parents must become, and I don't imagine they learned much about it before it came upon them. Unless they went to schools that were a lot more thorough than the ones most of us went to.

Do you remember, as I do, the strangeness of parenting at first? Did you count the baby's toes, just to be sure there were ten? Did you awake in fear at a cough that was new, call your mother at the appearance of a strange rash, worry excessively about the relative merits of different brands of strained carrots? Did you feel sometimes, as I did, late one night, before becoming a mother for the first time, that you just were not ready for this? "I can't do this," I sobbed in sheer panic, and a stern voice within me said, "But you're going to."

The church knows about this too. We all do. To all of us there come these moments in life: moments when it is clear that we must move forward in something quite new about which we know very little.

One of our great sources of pain and fear is this: Most of the important things about which we must decide in life are things about which we know next to nothing.

It must have been something for the disciples, whose lives we get glimpses of, to once again be in a place of trying to figure out what it is that Jesus is revealing to them again. It must have been something for them to have been so compelled by Jesus’ teaching to leave behind job and family and venture into a daily expedition into unknown places of geography, spirituality, and even political movement. There had to have been days when they wondered if they had chosen wisely to set out on their journey. They had to wonder if they were equipped not only for the job that Jesus seemed to be telling them was theirs (i.e. today’s Gospel “greater works than they had seen Jesus himself do,” yeah right!) but I assume they had to wonder even if they were equipped with tools to survive daily with no employment to provide shelter or food.

Day by day you realize a choice was made as the disciples awoke! Do I stay or do I go? One more day to decide to follow and in today’s story, yet one more puzzle to figure out? What do you mean there is a “place” prepared for me? A place that we will dwell with you always? Another “place” we must go? Thomas doesn’t know how to get there and I imagine they are tired of asking “where now Lord?” Phillip wants Jesus to put his cards on table, enough already! Show us where God’s heart is! This, after all, I believe is what compelled them to take the journey, thirsting after God’s heart! This, I pray, is why you and I take the journey as well, but can you imagine the disciples’ daily dilemma, “I don’t know exactly where this is going, how and where I shall choose to step?" We know something of these choices of life and the tension of faith at this Cathedral. We know as individuals who have made decisions in life. I’ve been with you as you’ve struggled and made choices. How should we best take care of our elderly parents? What is the best course of treatment for me as I face a newly diagnosed illness and will God be my companion on this journey? What job might we settle into that would best support me as a parent trying to raise my children? What gifts do I have to offer as part of this church’s mission and how am I going to make time for that? What if I’m not the right person or what if I don’t have the right gifts to teach Sunday School this year, or be part of the pastoral care team, or be a j2a leader, or …

What if we cannot figure an effective way to reach out to a dynamically-transitioning south side of Bethlehem? What if we cannot staff adequately to meet the mission needs ahead? What if we never have adequate parking? What if we can’t keep up with deferred maintenance projects in our lovely but aging properties? What if we run out of money? What if it all just doesn’t work out?? What if it does?

Barbara Crafton continues:

There is no way to know the outcome to any dilemma without going through it. But you have to decide yes or no before you have the benefit of this knowledge.

So we take a deep breath and choose, and then we live with the choice. No wonder we are nervous.

You can't wait until all the data is in before deciding on something new in your life. All the data cannot be in until you've gone ahead and done it. Then you know, and not until then.

Although there may be good reasons for deciding not to take a new path in life, the fact that you have never done such and such a thing before is not one of them. All of the things we do now were once new to us.

We are not impelled into new actions solely by the force of logic and experience. We are, finally, impelled into them by faith.

Today is our annual gathering and meeting, my first with you as Dean and Rector. We check in with one another formally, to review our journey in faith. We come together as individuals challenged with life decisions and as a community of faith faced with corporate decisions for the welfare of our mission as a congregation of Jesus Christ! Like in all life, we struggle with the “facts,” the data, the challenges and the opportunities. In our case we are bolstered by nearly 150 years of experience to learn from, build upon, and hopefully use as launching pad to boldly proclaim the Gospel well into the 21st century. Like the disciples encountering Jesus in John’s Gospel, we too are challenged with the opportunity to find in Jesus the truth about God’s saving action for our own lives and for the world. We are challenged with the opportunity to put our trust in a belief that Jesus is “pitching tent,” (abode), preparing room, creating a space for us so we may dwell together and know the power of God in our lives. I pray that knowing it as a community of faith here at the Cathedral those around us might know that power as well! In all of who we are and all of what we do, let us remember that we are HIS CHURCH and our greatest challenge is to daily claim the opportunity to surrender our lives to God’s power by meeting Jesus Christ who desires to dwell with us. This is always the place we start, from knowing and dwelling with Christ, and from this place we are impelled to move as Barbara Crafton reminds us in FAITH.

We move forward with our challenges and our opportunities, which I pray we all agree are great. But life and death they are not, life-giving I pray they may be. This, after all, seems to be what Jesus is getting at. Choices will be made. And like all life, some of these choices may turn out to be the right ones, and some may not in the end turn out to be so. But such is the life of faith, which is to choose first just simply to follow. May we do so, please, first believing Jesus has “pitched tent” with us, dwells with us, emboldens and empowers us. And may we live gently with one another stepping into the shadows of God’s grace.

One more time, Barbara Crafton:

While we may not know the outcome of a course upon which we embark, we know this: God accompanies us. God does not leave us to figure it out alone. God is prepared to bless and guide the courses we choose. God longs to pour peace and serenity over our anxious souls when we must choose.

Does this mean, then, that our choices will always be the right ones? No, we're not that good at it.

But with God's help and God's truth, there is a way to see the truth about where we are and where we're heading, and if we can see the truth we can speak it.

And if we can speak the truth to God and to those who love us, we can find within ourselves the courage to do the truth, however new and unfamiliar that truth may be.

Good Friday Reflection

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book “Overcoming Life’s Disappointments,” describes three types of experiences for human beings regarding dreams for their lives: 1. Those who dream boldly even as they realize their dreams may not come true. 2. Those who dream more modestly and fear that even their modest dreams will not come true. 3. Those who do not dream at all; lest they be disappointed.

A strange day that we Christians dare to call Good, is this day. Strange because today we live with the disciples in the deepest expression of disappointment and disillusionment as we are drawn into the agony and despair of Jesus. How do we affirm our innate nature to dream or how do we participate in God’s dream for humanity and the world when on this day we live a story of an execution of one who dares dream the world through God’s eyes, Jesus of Nazareth? The story is one whose themes we know oh so well. There are betrayal, false accusations, ultimate injustice, torture, and unspeakable acts of violence against another human being. Make no mistake, at the center of the day is an act of corporal punishment carried out by an occupying government, and the policy of this act is to keep an occupied people firmly rooted in a theme of disillusionment and disappointment.

What of us, Jesus’ disciples, on such a day we dare to call Good? What of Jesus’ disciples who have come to a crossroad in their faith and following of Jesus and the dream he boldly proclaims? How do they watch this abuse and what will become of the dream Jesus carefully implants in them? And what of us? Even as we strive to affirm the possibility that Jesus was victorious against death when at the same time we recount how his body was literally broken and crushed. The powers of death and destruction surround us, who would dare dream boldly? There is war, there is terror, and despite the rhetoric of the day where one is implied as an answer to the other, the result it seems is similar, that is despair and destruction. There is betrayal and there is injustice. There is inequality and there are false accusations. There is abuse and there is even torture in the most surprising of circumstances. There is neglect and there is suffering. There is, even in our day, similar governmental policies of execution and corporal punishment. Yes, it seems ironic as we carry all of this with us as it enfolds itself in the story of Jesus that we could call such a day as this good, even as we are tempted then to be among those who dare not dream at all, lest there be pure disappointment and disillusionment.

BUT, there is the dream, one dreamed boldly that comes in the sure and certain knowledge of God’s I AM. Ehyeh, Asher, Ehyeh, God says, I Am who I AM, I will be who I will be. God’s name, Rabbi Kushner suggests in the Hebrew translates, is I will be with You! For Jesus, the Son of God, Who are you who dares to die for the dream you embody? I AM Resurrection and Life, I will be with you in Resurrection and Life!

God’s dream embodied in Jesus takes on the insufferable ways of the world, takes on abuse, injustice, torture, neglect, not because these themes can be avoided in a world whose default setting sometimes seems to be darkness, BUT because and in spite of it. God’s dream of new life can only come into being by participating in our lives, in the brokenness of it, and by being present as the light that shines in the midst of darkness! Where do we find the strength to dare dream boldly a world of compassion and justice? A world where the dark default setting cannot be betrayal, false accusation, war, injustice, discrimination, abuse, torture, and the execution of our dreams for something better? We start by looking for the light of Christ even as it shines through the mysterious darkness of a day we dare call Good. Listen to words of compassion even from the cross: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Dreams of compassion start with our own lives. Even our own brokenness may not always be entwined in the powers and forces of all the world, but may even be as challenged by forces that break us down personally. Broken relationships, addictions, the breaking down of our bodies, and the unimagined fragility of our very lives! Yet shining, even in the shadow of the cross, is the I AM! I AM with you in Resurrection Jesus will promise! New life even in the midst of darkness! The Goodness of the day begins with a dream that death cannot conquer! Ehyeh, Asher, Ehyeh, I AM with you as light in the darkness and the darkness will never, ever overcome the light! We choose the light and call it Good. We move through the darkness toward the light as the light moves toward us.

1. WILL YOU THINK OF ANOTHER PERSON IN A FORGIVING OR AN ACCUSING WAY?

2. WILL YOU ACCEPT OR REJECT THOSE WHO ARE DIFFERENT THAN YOU ARE?

3. WILL YOU REACH OUT AND EMBRACE OTHERS OR HOLD BACK, PROTECTING YOURSELF AND YOUR EMOTIONS?

4. WILL YOU SHARE WHAT YOU HAVE OR WILL YOU HOARD?

5. WILL YOU, THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, LIFESTYLES, ATTITUDES, SEEK TO HURT OTHERS OR HEAL THE WORLD?

6. WILL YOU TAKE A STANCE OF LIFE THAT RESENTS OTHERS OR BE GRATEFUL FOR OTHERS?

7. WILL YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH A GENERAL SLANT THAT IS GLAD OR SAD? HOPEFUL OR DOOMFILLED?

Maundy Thursday

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

This night we find ourselves at a place in our Lenten Journey that is for some awkward and unbalancing. It is the night in which we live our liturgical drama in a way that challenges us to visit the story of Jesus and risk a bit of ourselves as Jesus has risked himself with us. Our Lenten journey is one that at its core is an opportunity to reflect on the deepest yearnings within us, that is the yearning to be connected with God intimately! Inviting God into the deepest parts of our beings, the broken parts of our beings, the parts of our beings that desire love and need love the most, for some of us that means dark and ugly parts!

There is no irony, just symbol and metaphor that on this night through our ritual we will expose (if we choose) in a spirit of vulnerability, our feet. Awkward as it may be, to deliver our feet, dirty and rough, or sensitive and smooth, or uneven and imperfect, is to lay symbolically a piece of our being bare! To lay ourselves bare in the end is what God desires of us, to open ourselves fully is to invite God intimately into our lives so that our lives are lived in the world as God would have them!

Intimacy! Intimacy defined means Intrinsic or essential. Belonging to or characterizing one’s deepest nature. Our ritual this night is found in the story of Jesus on the most intimate night of his life on earth. He gathered around him those he loved, among them one who would betray him. Jesus would seize the night before his death to give a sign (as John’s Gospel would have it) of what it would be for those who follow him to live as a community of believers in God’s dream for the world as they knew it. He would, in a moment of intimacy, wash their feet! Dirty and tired, aching and smelling, blistered and swollen, the master would engage in an act of servant hood, cleansing and washing their feet, inviting them once more into the fullness of what it is to be a follower of the dream! If they are to be keepers of the dream, they are to “love one another as Jesus loved them”! A “mandatum” is the Latin that gives us our title of this liturgy “Maundy,” a new commandment; to love one another the way Jesus loved them! How did Jesus love them – “intimately”! How will Jesus love us – “intimately”! The disciples’ “deepest nature” would be loved into being a “new community” that stood by the principles of servant hood and compassion, righteousness, and justice! The “deepest nature” of being loved so intimately would lead them not perfectly as a “new community,” but faithfully even as they would certainly watch the powers of the day execute their master! The “deepest nature” of being loved so intimately would lead them through what they would surely witness in the days ahead, that the dream would die on a cross on a hillside in Jerusalem, but that Christ himself would live with them in love as they loved one another and dared to live into Jesus “value system” of serving the most vulnerable and needy.

Raymond Brown, New Testament scholar wrote, “When we live into Jesus’ value system, we make him alive rather than just memorializing him.”

Tonight, our liturgy is a liturgy of intimacy! Our deepest nature yearns for God to love us “intimately”! We draw near this night to Jesus through the power of signs, feet laid bare to be washed in an act of servant hood and love! Our deepest nature yearning to be loved so intimately that God’s dream for our lives might live new, even in our brokenness and awkwardness. Our “mandatum” or commandment to love one another as Christ loved us perhaps draws us into an opportunity to make Christ alive by living into Jesus “Value system” of servant hood! St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” Come, draw near, and love one another as Christ has loved us.

Palm Sunday: Breathe

The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch

Matthew 21:1-11, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Matthew 27:11-54

Breathe.

“Breathe,” my colleague tells me as he senses my anxiety mount because one more thing has gone wrong with my day.

“Breathe,” my friend emails me, “Take care of yourself as Holy Week approaches...hope you can find a few breathing spaces here and there.”

“Breathe,” I tell my companion and I gift him with post-it notes that say, “Things I need to do today: 1) Breathe in. 2) Breathe out.”

Breathe. How simple…and how complex! Breathing, the act of respiration, is a complex chemical and biological process. It is the transformation of oxygen into carbon dioxide. Every cell needs to respire in order to produce the energy it needs. So, if breath is necessary for energy, why do we think of taking a deep breath when we want to calm down?

Perhaps we need energy to focus, to be. Lately I have been reading a book called Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabot-Zinn. He writes, “Bringing awareness to our breathing, we remind ourselves that we are here now so we might as well be fully awake for whatever is already happening.” (p. 18)

Wherever you go, there you are. So where are you this day, Palm Sunday? With the excitement of the palms? With the solemnity of the passion? Somewhere else completely? Wherever it is, breathe. Remind yourself that you are here and now. This is the moment that you encounter God.

The Fifth Sunday of Lent

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

In the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to John, Jesus reveals the promise that lives in him as he speaks to those who would listen: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will…Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live…Do not marvel at this: the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth…” Today then, a few chapters later, Jesus show us what he means in the long Gospel we just read.

A middle-aged man finds himself in an uncertain situation. Struggling with a depression, a recent fracture and separation from his spouse, a loss of his job, a struggle with alcohol and chemical addiction, he wakes in the middle of the night and becomes aware of his surroundings. The unfamiliar surroundings rise to his awareness, and he becomes fully conscious as he acclimates to the reality of the place he seeks refuge, the basement in his parents home. The despair of his life rises up almost choking him to death. Dead, in fact, is how he feels, and almost making friends with it, he moves from his temporary bed, a pull-out sofa, and lies on the cold ceramic floor. In the middle of the night, his refuge becomes almost tomblike, cold and damp, dark, despairing. Night after night, it seems this is the routine, awakened by despair, oriented to an unfamiliar surrounding, moving to the cold and damp floor. Family members keep vigilant watch: His parents and sisters, though polite and respectful, their broken hearts over their loved one’s despair, offered outside of “the tomb” as day by day they keep watch! How long will death surround? Lazarus, will you ever come out? “Do not marvel at this: the hour is coming when all who are in the tomb will hear his voice and come forth…” Lazarus, come out!

A door opens a crack, a familiar voice follows the light as it walks down the stairs to a tomblike basement, Come on, we’re going to Eucharist. Hymns are sung, a table prepared, a moment comes…Hands extended at an altar rail, a host placed gently, a chalice makes its way, Christ is coming toward, it seems! Lazarus, come out! Years of Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders, bible study partners, a crescendo of voices now seem to fill the heart, head and body, seemingly overcoming the once droll symphony of grief and anguish (like Mahler’s Fifth), that certainly was being offered as if by mourners standing outside a tomb. The voice returns...“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever believes in me shall never die.” Lazarus, come out! I am coming toward you! “Aionious” – the Greek word used in John’s Gospel, I have a “new life,” is promised!

How about you? How about me? Lazarus, come out! I am coming toward you!

“Aionious” – What new life is promised?

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

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.

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!