Epiphany 4C

A Sermon by The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Jeremiah 1:4-10 ~
 Corinthians 13:1-13 ~ 
Luke 4:21-30

You can read the bible time and time again, and you can still come across a little time-bomb that God has placed there especially for you on that day, and you find yourself exposed to a whole new perspective about God, the world or, most often, yourself.

The time bomb this week was planted in Jeremiah. “Jeremiah I have need of thee. I need you. I formed you in the womb – for a purpose. I have something for you to do.”

Perhaps the amazing miracle that Scripture reveals to us this week is not that God created everything in the cosmos, or even that God came into human life in Jesus. Maybe even more remarkable than all that is the realization ‘God, the Lord has need of us!” You. Me. Imagine that. And immediately like Jeremiah we think, “Oh Lord, I can’t. I am only – a boy.”

That’s a most terrible phrase, “I am only...” Isn’t that what the world tries so hard to teach us? “You are only… You are only a kid; – a woman; – a teenager; – a secretary; – a clerk; – a freshman; – a mechanic, or for me, you are only – a geezer. But, do fill in your own blank. I know you can. And so we begin to think, “I am - only…”

When I was a very young boy I decided to make my father a Christmas present, a leather wallet. Now I wasn’t going to do that from scratch, There are kits for making wallets. My mother and I went one day to the craft store and bought a wallet kit.

The kit contained several pieces of leather precut for a wallet and pre-punched for binding, with several feet of plastic binding. Making the wallet consisted of knitting the pieces of leather together in the right places in the right sequence with the plastic binding.

I spent hours and hours and hours and hours binding those floppy, slippery leather pieces together – and unbinding the mistakes – and rebinding and rebinding and rebinding. Finally, I had made a wallet.

It was pretty crude. It was lumpy in places. The binding was uneven in places. When it was folded over to go into a pocket, it was about an inch thick – empty! It was pretty crude.

I wrapped it up, put it under the Christmas tree and on Christmas morning with great seriousness and expectation – as well as a good bit of anxiety because I knew that it was crude, not perfect – I handed it to my father, “Merry Christmas, Dad”.

He opened the package and took out the wallet and with only a nano-second of hesitation, his face broke into a huge smile and he uttered words of awe and wonder that his son could have produced such a fine wallet, and how much work it must have taken, and how wonderful it was.

The message was given and the message was received. My crude gift announced to him my love for him and by his response I knew that he had gotten the message, and I got one, too. Love doesn’t have anything to do with perfection. It is pure gift.

Have you ever been invited to a home for dinner and arrived to find exquisite perfection in the decorating of the house, and precise formality of manners in the hosting of the dinner? How about going to a home where the hosting was warm and welcoming and the people and conversation engaging and you knew they were glad that you were there? And you never noticed the décor.

I had a clergy friend who wore baggy suits, needed a better barber, drove an old car - and loved his flock. I remember another who wore fine suits, had impeccable hair, drove a luxury car - and enjoyed looking great.

I remember a college professor I had who was brilliant, but judgmental about which of us were of his attention. I remember another who saw beyond my crude efforts and encouraged my curiosity.

I know of a parish church whose buildings are immaculate, only the loveliest of furnishings and finest of art in its windows. People speak in quiet, hushed tones. I know another parish where there are books and papers on tables and chairs and kids running around and their drawings on the walls to display their unique and wonderful talents and insights – even when they are crude.

I want to show you one of my favorite works of art in the whole world. It has hung on the wall of my office for more than 30 years. It is a mixture of media – some might say, a mess of media – pen and ink, crayon, and watercolor. It demonstrates a free and happy spirit. It’s also a bit crude. But it is a priceless work of art. My son Tyler made it when he was 5 years old.

Jeremiah the prophet was a crude affair. John the Baptist was a crude affair: both men of the wilderness, living off the land, rough in their preaching, treated roughly by the people. The crudeness of their appearance and the roughness of their prophecies provided excuses to marginalize each of them - as we often use appearance to marginalize people in our own day and time.

They served God by doing their answering their call, no matter how crude their efforts. They spoke God’s word to the people with whom they lived, regardless of lumps and uneven bindings.

Believers forever have wanted to see Jesus as perfect, beyond reproach, beyond any normal human failings, his every word a gem, his every step thoroughly planned. But what if Jesus was just a guy who said Yes to God, Yes to God’s purpose for him?

Think about it. What if Jesus really was tempted by Satan at the start? What if he was a bit grandiose in his teaching at Nazareth and stunned by their rejection? What if he learned messiah-ship while living into his Yes? What if he figured out the “suffering servant” role at the end in Gethsemane, and his glory was not in having known everything all along, but in his seeing the cross and saying Yes, responding to God’s love ready or not?

Jeremiah the prophet spoke these words (9:23-24): Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they know and love me, that I am the Lord; that I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.

What if God sees us as works in progress, too? What if that’s the miracle and our hope? What if this Christian adventure is about crude and imperfect affairs like Jeremiah, John and Jesus – and us, being embraced by a loving God?

What if the center of this Gospel enterprise is indeed the wounded caring for the wounded, the "least of these" loving the "least of these," the fallen raising themselves and others up, not the perfect bowing down to lift up losers, not the experts pretending perfect craftsmanship while scorning the uneven lumpy work of others?

The Incarnation is preceded by crude prophet after crude prophet. It began with birth in a crude stable to marginalized parents, followed by the crude figure of John announcing a miracle by the name of Jesus. It climaxed in the rough wood of the cross amidst the chaotic nattering of crude and confused disciples.

So, maybe the gospel is about love, and not perfection - and maybe, just maybe, we can trust there is room in it for us, for the likes of you and me, and even that God has need of thee and me.

I do believe it is so. Amen

Epiphany 3C

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 ~ Psalm 19 ~ 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a ~ Luke 4:14-21

I want to introduce you to Godwill. Godwill is a 10-year-old boy that I met in the Sudan, and I want you to hear Godwill’s voice. (Dean Pompa turns on recorder.) (Godwill sings.) “He’s in control all around the world. Master Jesus. He’s in control.” Meet Godwill, a 10-year-old boy whose father is a priest, one of the clergy of the Diocese of Kajo Keji, who has been living in exile since the civil war that has afflicted that people. His father is returning for the synod, the convention of the Diocese of Kajo Keji, considering his return to serve in that Diocese. Meet Godwill and meet the spirituality of a people returned from exile. He’s in control all around the world. Master Jesus. He’s in control. The people of Kajo Keji are like the people of Israel who have returned form Babylonian exile in the Old Testament lesson we read today. The people of Israel are returning from exile, the Babylonian exile, and they find in the Persian system of government a sympathetic system, one that has appointed Nehemiah the governor, Nehemiah being a faithful Israelite. Nehemiah, the governor, has been given permission by the Persian government to help rebuild the wall that surrounds the temple in Jerusalem.

The people who have been sent away in exile under the Babylonians now experience what they never imagined, but always hoped for–-that they could return to Jerusalem to the temple that they themselves would be bringing the materials and the stones that would rebuild that wall around the temple. But more so...many, of course, never imagined but always hoped that they would be in a place where they, too, would again be returned to their system of life, their rediscovery of the law that defined their relationship with God, a reconnection with that place of worship, a rediscovery of their spirituality, a spirituality that God is at the center of their lives, and that God himself is in control.

The people of Kajo Keji are among the 5% who are Christian in the Sudan, most of them being the South of the Sudan. They returned from the exile the civil war had forced upon them. You may have heard about this before from Archdeacon Cluett and others. It is hard for us to tell the story, hard even to comprehend unless you are there and see it. But short of chartering a number of jets, this is the best I can do.

A people who were forced into exile, fleeing from civil war, are returning home to their villages. Christian people are rediscovering that their humble infrastructure has been destroyed during that civil war. Their small churches, mostly made of mud and straw, have been empty for years and are now being repopulated and rediscovered.

Their bishop who was in exile now remains back in Kajo Keji and as they return and are slowly building again what most of us have taken for granted, that is their churches, literally the buildings of their churches and the structure to carry out the mission of the church. Actually their bishop in this geographic area that is their diocese is now leading that restructuring. Some churches are now being built out of cement block, and you know because we’ve partnered with them, that schools are now being built out of cement block as opposed to the schools that are made of mud and straw.

The bishop not only is leading that effort, but Bishop Poggo is now trying to build the very structures of what it means to be a church. He is building the Diocesan center where the leadership and the clergy can gather and be trained and educated, and sent to go and lead in the small villages around the Diocese. These villages are populated by the poor, and by the poor they are being built. We literally saw the beams being raised as we were there. Being built and raised are the beams of the Cathedral. At first Raymond Arcario, who was with me, and I looked at each other thinking–-it seems so counter-intuitive. Why not running water first? Why not a good system of food and transportation first? But why the beams of a Cathedral? As the week went on, we got it. Because the people there have to know, just like the people of Israel had to see the walls of the Temple being rebuilt, they had to know that the church was there, that the church was investing in them, and that they would have a place to worship, not only to worship, but to learn and to grow and to be taught and to be sent.

Indeed the Cathedral is being raised, a symbol and center for worship and education. Schools are being built to educate their children. Indeed, we attended more than one village gathering where, just like you, they attend PTA meetings. The parents of these children came with gratitude in their hearts that new schools were being built, and with a desire for their children to learn and grow and to become more than they had ever imagined.

Not only is infrastructure being built, but an economy is being built there–-places to train people, to teach them skills so that they might make things that can be traded or sold. Indeed, there is much being built in Kajo Keji after a return from exile. And like the people who stand at the water gate outside the Temple in Jerusalem, they return with an astounding hope, astounding hope. All of this rebuilding sits on a firm foundation of their understanding of spirituality. Jesus is in control.

Raymond Arcario, your Senior Warden, and I journeyed to Kajo Keji and we anointed ourselves ambassadors of joy. We’re ambassadors of joy.

I was there to represent the Bishop at their Diocesan convention and to teach a course on preaching in their leadership school. Raymond was there to be an ambassador of this Cathedral and to meet the people of Emmanuel Cathedral, our partner church. Our experience was that the firm foundation that we are building is, of course, built on relationships, and we were blessed to build relationships with a fiercely faithful, hopeful, resilient, and joyful people.

There we met Pianaleh, their Dean. We’ve been praying for him as Samuel. He prefers Pianaleh. (I’m going to change it in the prayers of the people and we’ll have a little crash course for all of the readers.) As a child Pianaleh, himself, chose to remain in his village during the civil war because his grandmother said to his family, “let us not flee to Uganda. We must remain here.” He now finds himself a spiritual leader in a rebuilding community.

Pianaleh is smart and sweet. He is compassionate and determined. These are gifts God has given him. There we met Anna Ponee and Peter Wanee, the other clergy of the Cathedral, joyous in spirit and committed to pastoral and educational ministries. There we met Seteracaw, an elder and a church teacher. His words were wise. His skin was weathered. His spirit was confident. There we met Longa Alex, the church warden, definitely a companion of Raymond Arcario. We met Jerry Joseph, the young worship leader who leads their Cathedral in youth ministry and leads their youth choir. Does this all sound familiar?

We met some of the women of the Cathedral: Rejoice Ponee, Roy Peta Adeta Colulee, Cecelia Wageia, who, by the way, we sang a little Simon & Garfunkel to--because that’s the only song I knew with Cecelia in it. I didn’t sing the whole thing, don’t worry. We met these committed women and we heard of their plans to expand their women's bible studies so that more women of the village of Romogi might have an opportunity to participate. Does this sound familiar?

And there we met Grace Taboo. Grace was the caretaker of all things, the coordinator of most things, the Bishop’s administrator, and a faithful member of the Cathedral’s women’s group. She offered us hospitality beyond measure. She laid scriptural foundation to our two Cathedrals’ budding relationship quoting Galatians 3:15 which, in summary, said that “when members of the Christian community come together in agreement on anything, no one can break it.”

There is a church, literally a church, being built before our very eyes, and how grateful I am that we can be part of that. This church is being built on faith and hope and a theological understanding that it is Jesus’ church and that Jesus is in control. It is a life attitude there. It has to be given all that they have experienced. They literally hand over their lives to God.

The physical structures that are coming to life because of our Diocesan partnership are important and vital-–a college, schools and churches. But the building up of the gospel is coming to life in the people there and our people here. The gifts that they have and what we have that we are willing to share with one another is where our relationship comes to life in the discovery of God’s wonder and gifts given and shared in one another.

In Corinthians today, St. Paul reminds the people of Corinth that there are many gifts that come from the same spirit. St. Paul knew, as Jesus knew, that to be the body of Christ, that is to be the hands and heart of Christ in the world, the people of the church must come to know their gifts and offer them to the world freely. St. Paul needed to remind the people of Corinth, and we need to be reminded that not one gift is greater than another, but the gifts woven together make a perfect tapestry that gives life and hope to the communities in which we live. This is the foundation in which our ministry and partnership comes to life on that side of the world and on this side.

The people of Kajo Keji asked one another in their synod, and by the way, if you’re wondering, their Diocesan convention is just like ours. Everybody is in a room, the bishop talks, gives an address, people offer not so much legislation, but things that need to be acted upon. It felt very much like any other church meeting of which I’ve been a part. And you know how much I love those. But in their Synod, these are the questions that they were asking of one another. How do we expand our ministry with youth? How do we become better evangelists? How do we become better stewards of what God has given us? Believe me, their understanding of what God has given them is amazing. How do we support the work of the church with our time and talent and our treasure? Does that sound familiar? Oh, and this one, I chuckled at this one. How do we understand ourselves as a Diocese? How do we move from an understanding of Diocese from that which a bishop and staff will do for us to an understanding of how we can support one another and our other churches in this Diocese with our gifts, our resources, and our talents shared?

There is a people, a church, returned from exile being born in the Sudan. The physical structures and support systems are coming to life before our very eyes, and our relationship is agreed upon. As it grows, I pray it will become strong. With that relationship, what it has to offer us is an authentic experience of what it literally means to be the body of Christ, a sharing of gifts to become the body of Christ. For now I recognize that we here in our own Cathedral face the same issues of being the church. We have our own issues of sustaining our physical presence in this place, a physical place where people can come and know that there is a Diocesan center, and a parish church where we can learn and grow and witness to the community in which we live. People need to know that we are here. They need to physically see us. We have challenges to keep the ship afloat, and we have ever-increasing opportunities for ministry. How do we expand our ministry with our youth? How do we live into a strategic and intentional ministry of evangelism, sharing the good news of Christ with the world and inviting others to come and join us to be part of this community? How do we continue to live as faithful stewards where we share our time, talents, and treasures, and support the work, the important work, of God’s church?

I pray we find our relationship with Emmanuel Cathedral. I pray that we discover a truth, a truth of spirituality that, in it all, we are not in control. God is in control. I pray that we can hand over our anxieties of how to keep the ship afloat, and accept and live out the gifts God has bestowed in each of us. Working together for the common purposes for which we have been called, I pray we may find yet another opportunity in this relationship with our brothers and sisters across the world to live into the questions of what it is to be the church, the body of Christ. I have a feeling that if we are faithful to that relationship with one another and with our brothers and sisters in Romogi, we will find ourselves affirmed that we, indeed, are the hands and hearts of Christ in the world.

Amen.

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

What can one really say, this day, about wedding feasts, and wine, about the Gospel, without acknowledging the catastrophe that is occurring in Haiti right now?

Haiti is the largest diocese of the Episcopal Church, and is the home of a Cathedral, a seminary, parishes and priests and thousands of faithful Episcopalians, in addition to missionaries from other dioceses throughout the United States. As lines of communication begin to open, we have learned that the seminary was perhaps destroyed, the cathedral damaged, at least four people were killed as they worshipped in a local parish, the bishop’s wife was injured, and many, many more people are still not accounted for, families are separated, and those who are not injured are trying to do what they can with limited supplies and resources to help the millions left homeless, hospital-less, lost.

More and more gruesome photographs and heartbreaking reports are emerging each day, and so we, here, must pray, as we weep with our brothers and sisters, with all in Haiti, as that already desperate nation tries to find sure footing in the midst of this tragedy.

Before coming to the Cathedral I served in a parish which sponsored a missioner in Port Au Prince. This woman, whose name is Kyle Evans, had been the church’s youth minister for many years and I was not surprised at all when she chose to answer God’s call and become a missioner for the national Church, and she packed up a few belongings and moved into a small dormitory with no hot water in a poverty stricken city half a world away which had recently made the news because the people were rioting because of food shortages. During her year of service she worked with students in the Episcopal seminary in Port au Prince, led art classes for children of the slums in that huge city, and through Kyle I came to know some of her students who finished their ordination preparation at Virginia Seminary. Some friends and I even went on a shopping trip for one student before he arrived one January, buying a winter coat, boots, gloves, scarves, sweaters- all the things a Haitian would need to live through his first Virginia winter. Upon arrival he immediately sent pictures to us and to home of himself, ankle deep in white snow on the seminary lawn, modeling I think all of his new wardrobe, layered against the cold. I imagine his family was aghast that he would travel to a place so frigid and so foreign, all on behalf of God, were afraid for his safety, much as we were afraid the first time Kyle told us she was going to Port Au Prince for a year. Kyle came back from Haiti late last November, shining like the sun with the power and joy of her time there, with the friendships she had made and the testimony to God’s love and grace she had experienced in the incredibly poor community she had been a part of, determined to go back as soon as possible.

As our Presiding Bishop noted in a statement earlier this week about the earthquake, the nation of Haiti was already in a desperate place economically, sometimes politically, well before this natural disaster struck. It has been the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere for generations. But Kyle’s experience, and that of many others who have had the chance to live there, serve there, or minister to Haitians in the US, is that faith was something the people of Haiti had in abundance. In the midst of all of this suffering, we can be sure that God is with the people of Haiti, and they continue to praise him in the midst of their pain and fear and anger. Several news reports from the most ravaged areas quote an often heard Creole phrase: Beni Swa L’eternal- which translates to Blessed Be the Lord.

Inevitably, this week, before the dust had even settled, before the first supply convoy landed, a small chorus of voices appeared in our own media, claiming to speak for God, and proclaiming this horrible tragedy a judgment on the people of Haiti for supposed sins of their forefathers and mothers. I admit that I was enraged at this, and appalled at this co-opting of the faith that I have chosen to devote my life to, and my response did not show much Christian charity. Cynically, I was sure that this was a simple bid for attention or viewers, born of the worst judgment imaginable, or perhaps an outright intentional manipulation of those seeking answers for political and personal gain. Luckily I have surrounded myself with good friends who are even better theologians (and the best of Christians), and one of these suggested a less cynical view. She thought that what we were seeing writ large across the national screen was a battle of Gospel-views. On the one hand, she pointed out, we had the perspective of the many missionaries drawn to Haiti before this tragedy and the hundreds of relief workers on their way there now:
“So many folks are transformed by the good news that God chose to be born into a world when there was no room for Him that they'll give up all our cozy American conveniences and move to the poorest country on this side of the globe. They'll risk their lives to serve people that maybe the world likes to think we just don't have room for- The Gospel is God's good news, God's glad tidings. People in comfortable lives give up everything to come serve [others] when [the]ir world falls apart? Sounds like good news to me. A (very) rich…guy with a cable TV show proclaims God's curse on a now homeless nation? Not so much.”*

Her explanation helped me to see through my anger and my shame at being lumped into some monolithic “Christianity” with folks who could not see the good in God’s message to us, and ultimately I was able to gain perspective, and that charity I had lacked.

Suddenly I could see these vocal critics as angry, frightened, living in a world where God’s love was finite, and since there simply wasn’t enough of God’s love to go around, when bad things happened, there must be fault, there must be blame, or else anyone might be at risk.
And at that moment I realized the gift that I have been given by God in my faith, in my unshakeable belief that his Grace and love are without limit. The God I serve made a covenant with Noah, after the flood, to never wreak such destruction on the world again, and he sealed it with a rainbow, and said that humankind would never have to fear Him. God made a promise to all of us of his love, and he sealed that covenant with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
What can one really preach, this day, except the abundant nature of God’s love for us? It flows like wine at that wedding feast in Cana, and there will always be enough for us all.

*Quoting from a post of Jan. 15, 2010 on www.moamy.org

The Second Sunday after Christmas

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

Intro:
A lot has happened since we last were all at church together. Happy New Year! I hope that you all had a safe and joyous celebration and are enjoying this 10th day of Christmas. You may have noticed our Three Wise Men making their way across the rood screen behind me, headed for the manger and the Christ child within. We have two more days of this most wondrous of seasons, and then the trees come down, the decorations go back into storage, we celebrate Epiphany and the next stop is Ash Wednesday and Lent. So we should relish these two more days of Christmastide, and Epiphany tide that follows.

The office was closed on Friday and so I celebrated the new year by sleeping in, making breakfast, and settling in to read the New York Times with several cups of coffee. This august publication devoted considerable space to the most pressing issue of our new year, and I was surprised that that issue was not related to safe air travel or economic planning or unrest in Iran and other countries, but was apparently what we call this year. Some said Two thousand and ten, others, arguing for brevity, Twenty Ten. Whole articles were devoted to parsing these two options and though I began the day without any particular allegiance I ended my reading of these fiercely persuasive arguments convinced that this might be the hot new issue of our time! Other, lesser, options were proposed: two thousand ten, 2K10, two oh one oh, one neo-Luddite even suggested MMX, pronounced em em ecks, as a tribute to our Roman forebears. Passions ran high and I ultimately decided to leave the fight up to greater linguistic minds than mine as I refilled my coffee cup and realized that no matter what we call it, this New Year is special because it is a New Beginning. Few of us are pining for the year we’ve now left behind, and I think most of us are embracing the possibilities of a brand new year, a fresh start, another chance. In a new year, everything is made new again, old habits can be put aside, disappointments can be forgotten, lessons can be considered learned and steps forward can be taken.

Health clubs and diet emporiums all over the Lehigh Valley are counting on it! This is the time when we make resolutions, forgive ourselves for falling short in the past and pledge to ourselves that we can do better, this will be the year that we get the exercise we know we need, this year we will take time to be with our family and friends regularly, we will stop smoking or will give up self-destructive habits, or we will smarten up our resume and start looking for that new job, or we will be more disciplined in our prayer. We all know that some of these resolutions will be more successful than others, but there is something about this time of year, the flipping over of the calendar to a fresh January, that makes all things seem possible. We have another chance, if only we will take it. We can make a fresh beginning.

I think this was God’s plan as well, when he decided to meet humanity in the form of Jesus in the dark days of winter, to come into our being in the form of a child, to embrace a new beginning with us, his beloved creation. St. Athanasius said, “God became human so that humans might become divine”, and I think we see the correctness of this in our Gospel today.
In our readings today we have parallel messages: we have a STORY-of Jesus’ life-and a PROMISE made to us, right now, in him.

We have the story of Jesus’ life. We’ve heard of his humble birth on Christmas Eve, his parents’ flight to Egypt, and today we jump ahead to his twelfth year, when he visits Jerusalem with his family. He stays behind when the others leave, and it takes his mother and father a day or so to realize his absence. Travel was dangerous in those times and so large groups moved together, safety was in numbers, but it also made it hard to keep track of a boy. When Jesus’ absence was realized his parents returned to the city and searched, we are told, for three days. After four days sick with worry they found him, sitting in the Temple, arguing Torah with rabbis and students. His mother admonishes him and his father probably scolded him and I imagine he pouted a little as he was forced to leave the excitement and head home. And so Jesus is fully human-a boy mischievously running off from his parents, excited by the big city, risking his safety for adventure. But Jesus is also divine-he was in his father’s house, pondering points of law, amazed at his parents’ concern. We hear the story of Jesus growing into manhood, into his role as teacher and leader.

But we also have in these readings a promise: the promise of salvation. In Jesus Christ we are no longer separated form God, we have achieved our full inheritance. Our sins are pardoned, our debts are paid, and all things have been made new again. Happy are those people whose strength is in God, whose hearts are set on the Pilgrim’s Way! For they know what is the hope to which God has called them.

And so, as we start this New Year, let us be fully awake to God’s plan for us, and fully aware of our rebirth in him, through Christ, as heirs of his eternal kingdom. Let us rejoice, and be glad in the Lord, and in the hope that we have been given in him. And may all our resolutions be grounded in God’s love. Amen.

Advent 2C

December 6, 2009

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Charles Dickens began his book, The Tale of Two Cities, with these words:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period…

Don’t those words have a ring of familiarity? He must have been reading this morning’s, NY Times. It does sound like a time not too dissimilar from our own time, our now. The lesson from Baruch is addressed to a people who also were living in such a time.

He was writing to people whose parents and grandparents had returned from exile in Babylon. They had come home to build futures for themselves and their people ... to find jobs, to build homes, to build new lives, new farms, new villages, a new Temple, a New Jerusalem.

But it had all turned sour. Some said, “The prophecies of Isaiah had been lies.” They were continually at war. The land was not giving forth her increase. Life was full of pain, unmet expectations, unfulfilled dreams, and hopes not realized. Life was full, but not of the fulfillment they had dreamed, hoped, worked, and prayed for. People were just trying to "hang in, hang on."

They were leaving the Promised Land in droves for the promise of work and security elsewhere. The chosen people were continuing to be dispersed, but now of their own accord, by their own will. The faith, the culture, the people themselves were blending into foreign faiths, foreign cultures, and foreign peoples. All was not right with the world, and the Lord seemed far distant from his people.

Into this setting came the words of Baruch. “Take off the gar­ment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem ... look toward the east and see your children gathered from the west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them … For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.”

Baruch presented to the Israelites, at home and abroad, the reason for their distress, the source of their redemption, and the certainty of their salvation. The return from exile had been but a foreshadow of the kingdom to come, “although eye cannot see, nor ear hear…”

God remembers and gathers Israel. God's faithfulness guides their return. God's compassion and justice accompany the people into God’s future and their future.

A few hundred years later, people again lived in such a time. A foreign power ruled in their land through vassal kings, princes, and governors. The poor had never been poorer. It seemed as if people were waiting in line to separate the people from their possessions, their land, their security.

And Luke tells us that again God sent a messenger to his people. He came out of the desert, having lived through nights than which there are no colder...land more barren than any... no security other than God. Out of the desert came John, prophet of God, to claim the future for God ... to reclaim God’s people by repentance and forgiveness ... to proclaim that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Out of the desert experience, salvation will come. In the cold and dark of human experience, God will fashion a new humanity. Through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, what has been promised BECOMES. The kingdom is begun, a New Jerusalem is being built … and the promise is that all flesh will see it."

My experience tells me that it is in the "winter of our discontent" that our dissatisfaction with our lives opens us up to the possibility of new life. My experience tells me that it is in the "dark night of the soul" that the glimmer of faith within us is rediscovered. My experience tells me that it is when we have gone astray and are lost that we are willing to be found.

It is in Advent that we hear the Good News of the Light that is coming into the world, whom we are blessed, to know is Jesus.

As Advent points to the Good News, so we witness to this world that Jesus is Lord – of this life and the life to come, the future. It is he who restores all things, even the ones in the cold and dark of human experience. It is he who is that salvation of God proclaimed by John and pointed to by Baruch. It is he whom Advent announces, and announces not just to the covenant people, but announces to all people ... even to us ... once again.

Therefore we and all people who turn to God can live in hope and in expectation that the way through the hard things in life will be found, and that in the living and in the searching for that way, we are known, we are loved, we are empowered – and in time,

“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” in the words of Dame Julian of Norwich.

Even in the hard times of life, “God’s glory will be revealed and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

And so we come back to the words of the Prophet Baruch,

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem…

For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low

And the valleys filled up, to make level ground,

so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God…

For God will lead Israel with joy,

in the light of his glory,

with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

We are the New Jerusalem, we are the new Israel, so listen to Baruch and to John and turn to our God in all seasons of your life, in “the best of times and the worst of times” and in all those everyday times in between, turn to God, made known to us in Jesus the Messiah, and live – live expectantly, live in hope, and receive the salvation and the mercy and the righteousness that come from God.

Christ the King Sunday

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

Yes, that was the correct gospel reading for today! We have not pressed fast-forward and gone directly to Lent, we are instead taking a little bit of a tour of our liturgical seasons as we hear what is ordinarily a Lenten reading on this last Sunday of the season of Pentecost, the Feast of Christ the King, as preparation for Advent. Did you get all that? If you are visiting the Episcopal Church for the first time today, please, do not despair-we do not always speak in code!

Pentecost, longest season, today would have been the 30th Sunday in the season. Gail in the office, who posts my sermons to the blog, will be glad that it is the end of my very clever joke-46th Sunday in Pentecost, 73rd Sunday in Pentecost.

So we have finally come to the end of that longest of seasons, and here we are, the Sunday of Christ the King, the Sunday before Advent begins, with a bit of the Passion story-Jesus being interrogated by Pontius Pilate. What is going on?

I think that we are given this low-point, this very un-kingly moment in Jesus’ life for two reasons. One is to balance the description of kingship we get in the reading from Daniel:

That Prophet says:

As I watched,
thrones were set in place,
and an Ancient One took his throne,
his clothing was white as snow…
his throne was fiery flames,
and its wheels were burning fire.
A stream of fire issued
and flowed out from his presence.
A thousand thousands served him,
and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.”

That is the sort of language we are used to in the describing of kings, that is the sort of majesty and opulence we associate with royalty. Royalty were considered God’s chosen rulers on earth, and so they were worthy of gold and silver and jewels and thousands upon thousands of servants. And so how much more stark is the contrast between this fantastical description and what we hear in the Gospel:

Jesus, God’s true son on Earth, handed over to a local governor and judged like a common criminal, interrogated about his kingship in this common context.

And that, I believe, is the second reason we are reading this particular passage from John today-because Jesus was in fact a king, and he came to turn the notion of kingship on its head. He was a king like no other-his kingdom was in heaven not in his earthly life, and so in this scene with Pilate we see Jesus redefine the very nature of kingship. This is very in line with his teachings during his life-the meek shall inherit the earth, the last shall be first-and the king must meet death to enter his kingdom.

I think that the wise people who designed our lectionary had all of that in mind when they set the readings for this day, and I think they also took this chance to inject a bit of drama into our Sunday. I say this because today is in fact the last day of Pentecost, which means that next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, which in another oddity of church time v. secular time is the beginning of our new year. Advent is the season of holy waiting, of prayer, study, fasting all in anticipation of the birth of our Savior at Christmas.

And so I think the readings today were chosen as a sort of bookend of the season to come-we see Jesus at the end of his earthly life as a bit of foreshadowing of what is to come in the life of this child we eagerly await.

In the last line of the Gospel passage Jesus says to Pilate:

"You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

If this Gospel was a movie we were watching in the theater, there would have been dramatic music-

And the camera would have cut away from the torch lit audience room in the imperial palace, and we suddenly would have found ourselves in dusk in Jerusalem, following a carpenter and his heavily pregnant wife as they walked from inn to inn in the dying light, seeking lodging, though none was to be found.

And our little film would end deep in the night, looking down on a manger as animals placidly chewed and a single lamp flickered, and the cry of a newborn King echoed in the night.
AMEN.

24th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 28
The Ven Richard I. Cluett

Imagine that you are living in a time of great conflict. The powers of chaos seem to rule. The temporal powers of nations and armies are warring around you. Revolutionary bands are mounting armed resistance to gain power over their own lives and freedom for their people. Chaos reigns. You expect the worst. You expect the end of life as you have known it. You are searching everywhere and anywhere for some way through this time. Some reason to hope.

You find yourself huddled in a cave with others and someone reads to you the words from the Book of Daniel. “The Lord spoke to Daniel in a vision and said, ‘… Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.’”

There will come a time when wars and rumors of wars will cease. There will be a time when swords are turned into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. There will come a time when Anguish will end.There will come a time when God will reign. And you live in hope, even in the worst of times.

A couple of centuries later, Jesus and his disciples stand in the courtyard of the magnificent Temple built by Solomon to the glory of God. But as we heard again last week it had become a place where the name of God was used to enrich a few at the expense of all others. Jesus had said, “They devour the houses of widows.”

And today he proclaims that the day will come when what had been perverted by greed will be laid waste, “Not one stone will be left here upon another, they will all be thrown down.” And that will be the beginning of the birth of the age in which truly God will reign.

And if you go to Jerusalem today and walk your way through the narrow streets of the Old City, you will eventually come to the site where the Temple stood. And you see that it has been thrown down, stone by stone, until all that is left is the wall of the foundation. Even if you have not seen it, you have heard of it. It is called The Wailing Wall.

As you stand looking down at it, you see devout people laying their pain, their worries and anxieties, laying their fears, placing the burdens of their hearts before God at the foot of the wall. Some literally placing them on little scraps of paper into the crevices between the remaining stones.

Leading up to that terrible time, in Mark’s Gospel we hear Jesus say that there will be many who would lead the people, including his disciples, astray. They would offer all kinds of false hopes. Perhaps claiming military engagement, or even promising eventual and complete victory. Some will try to speak with the voice of Jesus and get them to go “My way, this way, not that way. Go this way. Live according to my rules.”

And if you think this only happens in the rare cults we read about or see on television, I want to tell you that it has happened even in parishes and dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in the Christian Era. For the past year my work has been care for those who have been so led astray, used, abused, and finally left behind.

It was not only in the time of Daniel, nor only in the time of Jess, or solely in the time of the evangelist Mark, or the author of the Letter to the Hebrews that these things occurred.

The issue was then in those dangerous times and is now, where and how do we hear the voice of Jesus? Whose voice do we listen to? Which call do we follow? How do we follow in his way? Where do we seek our salvation? Do we have any reason at all to hope?

Did you ever wonder why the Bible has all those stories, the kind that inspired the Left Behind Series? All the apocalyptic stories of the fall of the Temple and Armageddon? All the prophecies in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures of doom and gloom?

This apocalyptic literature was written and has been preserved because they point to the worst circumstances of life. The authors weren’t prognosticating the future, no fortune telling, pointing to cataclysmic events that would be happening in the far and distant future. No reading of Tea leaves. They were reading the signs of their times. They were writing from the context of their lives. The stories were created out of their experience.

Have you known Anguish or Agony? Have you ever been truly afraid? Have you ever been terrorized by demons, or powers, or forces which you could not control? Have you ever been lost and not known which way to turn, or not known who, what or how to follow to get to safety? Have you suffered a great loss and been left feeling bereft, totally alone?

That’s what these stories are about. They are talking about the all too familiar perils and pitfalls of life, real life, all human life, our lives. Their subject is “When bad things happen to good people?”

They are a call, a reminder, a warning to stay close to the one who is the source of strength, the one whose way is true, the one with whose image we have been created, and redeemed and saved, and who is always present in every circumstance of life, and even we believe, present beyond this life, beyond the grave, the one in whom we can trust and in whom we will ultimately rest from all our labors, all our strivings, all our fears, all our wanderings, all our pain – and find perfect peace.

If you want to be reminded from time to time who that is, who has come in Jesus of Nazareth to announce and bring into being this new age, pull out your prayer book or your bible and slowly, quietly read Psalm 139 and receive the gift that is contained there for you. Listen.

I know you through and through - I know everything about you. The very hairs of your head I have numbered. Nothing in your life is unimportant to me, I have followed you through the years, and I have always loved you - even in your wanderings. I know every one of your problems. I know your need and your worries. And yes, I know all your sins. But I tell you again that I love you - not for what you have or haven't done - I love you for you. ~ With thanks to Mother Theresa.

There is a wonderful hymn that sings these truths:
Look around you, can you see?
Times are troubled, people grieve.
See the violence, feel the hardness,
all my people – weep with me.

Walk among them. I’ll go with you.
Reach out to them with my hands.
Suffer with me and together
we will serve them, help them stand.

Forgive us father; hear our prayer.
we would walk with you anywhere,
through your suffering – with forgiveness,
take your life into the world.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

The Good News in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is “God reigns – the Alpha and the Omega, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty." No matter what, God reigns.

All Saints' Day

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

I cannot help on days like this in our tradition, it is on All Saints Sunday, I cannot help but reflect on all of the Saints, the living and the dead. And, my reflection this week led me to remember and reflect upon those members of the Quilt Group here at the Cathedral, a ministry for many years shared by women of this church. Their quilt room was a sanctuary unto itself. Do not enter unless you bring with you the spirit and the gift and the talent and an occasional urge to smoke a cigarette. These were women some of you may remember, and if you’re newer to the Cathedral or visiting this day, these were women who were committed to being together each week for hours, sharing things in common, sharing this place in common, sharing their faith in God in common, sharing their lives in common, and sharing their passion for bringing together their abilities, their gifts, and their talents. Each year, indeed, they did bring together a beautiful patchwork of patterns that would be gifted to the Cathedral through the emergence of a beautiful quilt.

I remember early as a curate hoping and praying that some year one of those quilts would be for me. They were not.

I remember this group because one year, maybe because I was young and didn’t know any better or because God was bracing me, I agreed to drive them in the old church van to Lancaster to the quilt show. There, on that trip, I realized what it was all about. They loved each other, these women. They loved each other. They loved being together. They loved sharing their life stories together. They loved sharing their gifts and talents together. They just, plain and simply, loved each other. This, indeed, was a coming together of beautiful patterns. Beautiful patterns of their lives and their faith and the gifts that they had to offer one another.

This group, some are living now in the saints in heaven, and there are a few of you sitting out there, but on such days as All Saints, it is through relationships like this that we get a glimpse into what it is to be knit together as the Collect for this day speaks to us. That God has knit us together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ. This tradition of ours claims that we are knit together, both the living and the dead. That pattern of lives lived in history by those who have been created and gifted and sent, and those who are now living created and gifted and sent are, indeed, woven together in a fabric that emerges in Christ as a beautiful pattern.

This is such unique theological and existential worldview and is a gift to you and me. But the saints of God, the living and the dead, are patched together in a relationship that is alive, that is intimate, and is dynamic. Fred Beuchner reminds us that the power of this patchwork comes in the belief that in that communion even that death has sure enough put an end to some in this patchwork that death, sure enough, has not ended the relationships that we share with them. He says or however else those who have loved and died may now have come to life since. It is beyond a doubt that they still live in us. Memory is more than a looking back to a time that is no longer. It is a looking out into another kind of time altogether, where everything that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and change with the life that is in it still. The people we loved; the people who loved us, the people who, for good or ill, taught us things, dead and gone they may be. But as we come to understand them in new ways, it is as though they come to understand us, and through them, we come to understand ourselves in new ways, too.

On this All Saints’ Day, you may bring with you to this communion, that is to you and me with one another, you may bring with you those to whom you are connected and in relationship with, those who you love and those who love and love you, who indeed are living with the saints of God in heaven. And you may, indeed, I pray, come to understand that this is an intimate patchwork that makes you, you, and makes us a community of faith. It makes us who we are.

I confess to you that I love movies. You probably knew that. I also confess that I’m really trying hard to stay away from any baseball analogies today. But you may remember the two versions of The Night at the Museum movies. Anybody see any of those? Don’t be afraid. The two movies that live in me are The Night at the Museum 1 and 2 and also Where the Wild Things Are, but I haven’t seen the movie. I’m more about the book. I think you know The Night at the Museum is a story that takes place at the Natural History Museum in New York, and the second one takes place there and at the Smithsonian in Washington. This fictitious story is about the magic that happens in those places at night and of which the night watchman is privileged to partake when the doors are shut, the sun goes down, the people leave, and all of those people of history living in those places come to life. It’s fantastic! And the adventures they have as those people come to life and sort out their places and conditions continuously is a wonderful thing.

I confess when the doors are shut and the lights are out and I just need a place to be that I occasionally walk over into the sanctuary and sit in the dark. And I begin to imagine what it would be if we could have a Night at the Cathedral. Maybe we will. I imagine the memorials that are on these walls, or the stitch work that exists in the cushions or in the kneelers, or the fingerprints of DNA that have been left over the centuries on all of the wonderful things that we see and touch and experience here. I wonder if all of those who came through that door, and that door, and who were baptized in that font, might come to life. I literally imagine what it might be to experience a party, a communion with the Sayres and the Packers and the Butlers and the Jeters and the Lindermans and the Potters and the Whiteheads, and there are a few for whom I have some really interesting questions, but I’ll keep them out of this right now. All of those names, all of those people throughout the years who came to this place to meet Jesus, they came to this place to be knit together in a communion. How wonderful it would be, in fact, on All Saints’ Day – how wonderful it is.

Not only do we remember in such a gathering as this, but we recognize that the relationships continue to inform and strengthen us. The pattern, the patchwork, continues to be made new. On this day, we will be delighted because there are more threads being woven into the patchwork as we once again go to that font, as have thousands literally. We celebrate a new beginning as we welcome the newly baptized, and as we insert them into the patchwork that is you and I. And now, Where the Wild Things Are...you see, I believe with all my heart, I believe that we are, indeed, knit together in a communion of saints, the living and the dead. On this day together we gather for that great banquet, and we gather together celebrating that which is the divine. That which is, ties us together and that is the craftsperson, the creator; the one who made us, who celebrates with us as we pour water. And, as we eat bread and wine and we share our faith and our lives, and I hear, as that story in Where the Wild Things Are, I hear the great call to our journey. Let the rumpus begin. Amen.

Pentecost 21

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

I love a good story. Being an Episcopalian and a past English major, I really love a good story that involves God and history and drama and intrigue and pageantry and England.

So I was in luck a few weeks ago when this year’s Booker Prize winner was announced, and it was Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The Booker Prize is an annual prize for fiction awarded to a novel written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, or of a former colony, and has introduced me to a few of my favorite authors, including Salman Rushdie, A.S. Byatt, and Aravind Adiga. My copy of this year’s Booker arrived in its Amazon box about a week and a half ago. On Monday I finally let myself open it and I haven’t put it down since.

Wolf Hall is the story of Thomas Cromwell and traces the trajectory of his life from his origins as the son of an alcoholic blacksmith to a trusted confidante of Cardinal Wolsey, Roman Catholic prelate and Lord Chancellor of England during the reign of Henry VIII, and eventually to advisor to King Henry VIII himself when that king decides he would like to divorce his first wife, Katherine, and marry Lady Anne Boleyn, though the book ends shortly before that second marriage. Cromwell ultimately is one of the architects of what would become the Church of England, which would, of course, give rise to our Episcopal Church. So each night this week I have fallen asleep reading this book, with my head full of palace intrigue and papal edicts and rich descriptions of this time in our church’s history.

And all of that is why, around the middle of this week, I almost drove into a ditch when I heard on the radio that Pope Benedict had announced he would authorize a mechanism by which disaffected Episcopal clergy could “return to the Roman Catholic church”, maintaining their Anglican customs. Suddenly my night-time reading and my daily existence collided, and I had to remind myself that I was in fact living 500 years after medieval times. Because I am a modern priest, as soon as I got home I immediately set about emailing and reading blogs and updating facebook statuses, all to figure out what in the world was going on, why our church was suddenly enmeshed in a conversation that I thought had had its end in 1552.

Luckily, the gospel today has a good story in it, if you will allow me a little poetic license --

There was a man named Timaeus. He was a craftsman, he worked with his hands, and he lived in a small village near Jericho. His wife came to him one day and told him he would be a father, and Timaeus looked on with joy over the months as her belly grew, and finally, she gave birth to a son. In this son, named Bartimaeus, literally the son – bar, of Timaeus – Timaeus saw immortality for his family line, for his craft, and he was full of love for the Lord who had blessed him so. A few years went by, maybe ten, and Bartimaeus became his father’s apprentice in the workroom, began learning the skills that would allow him to support his own family one day. But then, one day, he felt weak. He took to his bed as a sickness swept through the village, and Timaeus sat at his son’s bedside for three days, praying as his son struggled against fever. Finally, on the morning of the third day, the fever broke and Timaeus rejoiced once again to the Lord for delivering his son through this peril. However, Bartimaeus’ mother noticed later that day that something wasn’t quite right, that the boy had survived his illness, but had not emerged unblemished. Bartimaeus was blind, and with his sight died the hopes of his father, his family. Bartimaeus continued to grow, no longer able to practice a craft, and eventually he wound up on the side of a road, sitting in the dirt of the gutter, able only to beg for his continued survival.

And this is where we find him, this day, sitting in the dusty roadside, calling out to travelers for a coin or two to spend on food. Someone calls to him, “Jesus, the healer of Nazareth is coming with his followers.” As he hears the group grow closer on the road, Bartimaeus calls out – “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

The disciples hear him and immediately hush him out of fear. Their master has been acting strangely lately. Three times he has foretold his own arrest in Jerusalem, has told of punishment, death, saying that he will rise again. The disciples do not understand what their teacher is saying. His stories often leave them confused and distressed, but they are on edge and on the look out for danger. They tell Bartimaeus to close his mouth, to leave them in peace. They know that the name he is using for Jesus – Son of God – is grounds for treason, as it implies that the messiah has come to earth, to free the Israelites from their Roman governors.

Bartimaeus ignores them, calls out again, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stops, there in the road, and he says to his disciples, “Call him here.” Bartimaeus leaps up from the ground and runs to Jesus’ side as Jesus asks, warily, wearily – “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus has posed this same question to James and John, only to be disappointed when they ask for worldly power, for the seats at his right and left hand in glory, proving that despite all of his preparations, they still just don’t get it, what he has been set on this earth to do, what awaits him in the last days of his ministry.

Bartimaeus asks, “My teacher, let me see again.”

Bartimaeus asks only for his sight, to be put whole once more, so that he no longer be a beggar -- he doesn’t ask for riches or power or fame -- but only to be returned to sight so that he may better follow Jesus, his teacher, his Lord, the Son of God.

Jesus answers him not with “You are healed” or “I give you your sight,” but he says, “Go. Your faith has made you well.” And Bartimaeus’ sight is restored in that instant, and the newly sighted man, we are told, falls into step behind his teacher, his Messiah, and follows him to certain death in Jerusalem.

May we all have such faith in our Lord, in this new time of papal intrigue and talk of schism, that we might only ask to be made whole, so that we may better follow him.

Proper 21 -- Psalm 19:7-14

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

The Philosopher Nietzsche said, “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

In a previous life in my vocation, having left the Diocese of Bethlehem as a missionary to the Diocese of Virginia, serving on the Bishop’s staff there, I was the Bishop’s assistant for Congregational and Ministry Development. It was my job to assist congregations with the tools that they felt they needed to better their mission. Traveling around that diocese and particularly spending a great deal of time in smaller congregations, there was a consistent question. And, the question was – “Show us the way to do it. Show us the way to grow our church. Show us the way to balance our budget. Show us the way to do evangelism. Show us the way to have a dynamic Sunday school. Show us the way to do group ministry. Tell us how to do it. Reveal to us the way.”

I spent much of my time in conversations like that and, because I was fortunate to be in a diocese that had some resources, I was fortunate to gather experts in their fields from all around the church, bringing them into the diocese to do workshops. Some of those experts came touting the way. They had the way. Some of the more humble came sharing some things that they have experienced along the way. What I realized and came to know, and knew intuitively, of course, from the beginning is there isn’t one way. There isn’t one thing that might work in one place that will work in another place.

I found myself ending all of my conversations with those I was with inviting them into a “yes and” world. It’s a “yes and” world I would say. It’s not an “either or” world. In other words, there’s more than one right answer. There’s more than one possibility.

I’m about to venture into a world that I shouldn’t venture into. But, quantum physics has something to teach us a bit about the fundamental nature of the world. How it’s ordered. How it operates. I promise I’ll be here briefly, particularly to those of you who know anything about physics. I apologize. What my neophyte understanding of quantum physics teaches us about the fundamental nature of energy is that energy is small and discreet in its units and that the elementary particles of that energy behaves like particles and like waves.

Where’s Tom Stone when I need him? The movement of these particles in quantum theory is inherently random. That is to say that as energy moves about us and in us and about the world we know that it operates randomly, but in relationship with one another. We don’t always know nor can we predict how energy will move, but quantum theory does teach us that in the end, energy is in relationship. In other words, it’s a “yes and” world. Energy does behave this way and that way. How am I doing, Tom? Just shake your head, please. Thank you.

This, of course, is in dialogue with plutonium physics, which is a cause and effect physics. This is the cause of that. It’s a “yes and” world. Quantum physics teaches us, not an “either or” world. And here comes the big leap.

There is a theme in the scriptures today. And it seems like our primary player in both the Old Testament and the Gospel lesson today seem to be stuck in a world view that is “either or,” as opposed to “yes and.”

For Moses, he is surrounded by the disgruntled. He is surrounded by those who have followed a vision that he has proclaimed on behalf of the God who anointed and called him, that is that their lives should be lived free. Following that dream, they find themselves out in the wilderness, pangs of hunger coming upon them, and growing quite bored with the menu of the day...manna.

The “either or” of the world in which they seem to be stuck is either we stay here in the wilderness and eat this boring manna every day and have our stomachs cringing with hunger, or we return to slavery in Egypt where we at least tasted some meat and some sweet melon. There is a profound limitation with this worldview for those in the wilderness. They cannot and do not see the options. And, they cannot and do not see the limitless nature of the God who has called them to freedom.

Even Moses himself seems limited in his worldview, and I myself am horribly sympathetic to Moses in this particular passage. Moses himself, never sure really of his call, questioning his call all the way along, now finds himself in the wilderness surrounded by a bunch of complainers. Surely, God, this isn’t the way you planned it he says.

He is stuck in this moment in an “either or” worldview. Either God you have brought us out here and promised us something new or I can’t possibly stand one more day with this clamoring. His very own worldview seems limited and small. Even having experienced the broadness of God. Both Moses and his people seem to be stuck in that “either or” worldview and God, it seems, once again is called upon to offer the “yes and.” “Yes, people of Israel, I have liberated you and you will not die and you will grow into a new nation and you will live and once again you will taste meat and sweet melon.” And, by the way, look up at the stars and be reminded. “Moses,” he says, “yes, you will continue to lead.” And here’s the punch line Moses, “you cannot do that alone.” “And, there will be one, no two, no three, no four, no five, no seventy...seventy elders who will gather around you and will help you do that and, by the way, there’s these other two who will also anoint in order to aid you. “Yes, Moses and.”

Our good friends the disciples in today’s gospel also seem to be rooted strongly in that “either or” worldview. They come across a man who, believe it or not, is casting out demons, quickly recognizing that he is not a follower of Jesus; he’s not in their group. They quickly do what they think they should do and that is to stop him. No evil spirits cast out today...sorry, say the disciples.

It seems they cannot fathom that God’s kingdom might be spread outside of their domain. It seems that Jesus’ response to them reminds them of the yes and the and. Jesus reminds them that if one casts out in his name that he cannot continue his life without understanding that he is acting on behalf of the principals of the kingdom of God. And then, of course, Jesus goes on with all of that other stuff. You know, the pluck out your eye stuff, the cut off your hand stuff. You see here’s what I think about that. I think Jesus is hacked. I think he is hacked off. I think as is the theme in Mark’s gospel the disciples once again aren’t getting it. They stopped someone from doing a kingdom thing. And, therefore, they’re not getting it again. And Jesus reminds them though he grabs their attention and reminds them of the most prolific imagery he can find and reminds them that God’s a yes and the Kingdom of God is expansive and that the very last and very least they cannot be a stumbling block to that. Get out of the way when it’s important and part of the plan. And if that means plucking out your eye or cutting off your hand then do it. He doesn’t mean literally. There is it seems a yes and way to the Kingdom of God being spread. So the question for you today is the question I live with this week and that is...is it either or...or is it yes and? Is your rule to the way you approach life the way you see the challenges and opportunities of life one that is either or? Or yes and?

When we’re trapped in an either or worldview and I sometimes, indeed, am trapped in that either or worldview, we come to a place where we are closed off. We are incapable of being expansive and creative. We lack the perception to see the options that are around us. And we may even miss one more opportunity to grow. Now we know why we get there, you and me. We get there because we’re tired. We get there because as psychologists now call it the cumulative stress in our lives is high. Cumulative stress is now the psychology for burnout. We get to that place because we’re stressed. We get to that place because our relationships are taxed. If I have to find one more part of my heart that allows me to forgive my father one more time I’m just going to spit. If my father has to come to one more place in his life where he has to find one more part of his heart to forgive me in our relationship he’s just going to spit. That’s on the cumulatively stressed high part of that relationship. We know that we live in difficult financial times, and if we ourselves are not financially taxed, many who we love and know are. That, of course, puts us sometimes in places that we believe is either or. And, sometimes we’re in those places where we are not appropriately seeking the stimulation that we need...that stimulation in our mind and our body and our spirit. Perhaps we have forgotten what brings us joy in what we read. Or, depth to our experience in our work place by what we discover. Perhaps we’ve forgotten how important that mile walk we take every morning is. Or perhaps we’ve lost the way to the gym all together. And perhaps we’re taxed in our spiritual lives. Perhaps we’ve come to that place where we’ve forgotten how to pray. Or, where we’ve forgotten whom it is and where those places those touchstone places are in our lives that bring a step to our spirit. And, as in the disciples’ case sometimes we get there because of our arrogance or of our own control needs.

I invite you to consider the yes and worldview for you and I in our vocations. Can we lead and discover, and love and be compassionate? In our relationships, can we really live in a way that we give more of ourselves only to discover that and we will find more about ourselves?

In our finances, can we really spend less and give more? In our spiritual lives can we really let go and discover a safe place to be? We’ve been having Stewardship desserts. If you’ve not been able to get to the one you’ve been invited to or if you have no idea what I’m talking about call the office.

Recently, as recently as last night in our small group, having dessert and enjoying it, we talked about together the power of the yes. What it is just to say “yes”. Yes. Say “yes and” to the way we approach our every day work. Say “yes and” to the way we approach our relationships. Say “yes and” to the way we approach our spiritual lives. And say “yes and” to the way God may be working through us as individuals and as a community of faith. Amen.

Pentecost 16 - Proper 20

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

This has been a hard week to be a Christian! Throughout our nation this week we have seen some startling behavior. A number of individuals that we hold up as icons, even role models in fields ranging from sports to entertainment to politics, have engaged in behavior we can only describe as rude, boorish, even angry outbursts and disgraceful, childish reactions, leading an associate from my old law firm to email me, asking if I was interested in starting a consulting business with her – we could market ourselves as behavioral consultants for celebrities and public figures, she said, with the motto, “We will teach you how not to show your behind in public.”

But this rash of bad behavior, crossing all lines – gender, race, creed, sportsmanship, professionalism – and the national reaction and discussion of the value of civility, have been yet another reminder to people of faith that we are truly pilgrims, singing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.

We have also seen behavior this week that was more brutish, more deeply troubling, though I’m not sure we have connected the two in our national debate – a young woman, brutally murdered, her body stuffed into a wall, with the only apparent explanation being anger boiling over into rage, unchecked emotion giving rise to unspeakable violence. Truly, we Christians are strangers in this land, where a fellow human being can be killed so thoughtlessly, and disposed of so easily, as if she were garbage to be tossed in a dumpster.

These have been sad days, disappointing days, but what we have seen, unfortunately, is nothing new in our history as humans. James describes it in the passage from the Epistle today: “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.”

And what was the offered solution, in the time of James?

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you…[for] Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom…
For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

That’s the solution: Gentleness, born of wisdom.

James speaks of ambition, calling it wicked and evil. This isn’t a value that we hold today; ambition is something that is admired and praised, and rightly so. And ambition is not a bad thing, but ambition without regard to others is unspiritual, devilish, and ambition at all cost is truly evil.

In Judaism, there is a concept called, in Hebrew, tikkun olum, which roughly translates to “repairing the world through personal action.” Jews are taught to strive towards tikkun olum in every action, every interaction, so that in making every exchange with another person holy, the division between God and the world will be worn away.

Psychologists have a similar concept, and it is called Transformational Change. The theory is that all anger, all aggression, finds its genesis in fear. When we find ourselves in an interaction that makes us afraid – whether it is fear for our physical body, fear of loneliness, fear of not being as important as we’d like to be, fear of not getting the respect that we need – that fear quickly resolves itself in anger, and aggression, and we lash out at whatever, whomever, is making us afraid.

In Transformational Change, the idea is that when we find ourselves in a situation where we are feeling fear, we hold onto it, we sit with it and let it resonate in ourselves until we figure out what is causing it, and then we decide how to respond appropriately, and make the conscious choice not to simply project our fear into the world as anger.

And so, as we enter out from this place today, as Christian pilgrims into a chaotic and sometimes harsh world, may we all have the courage to be the change we wish to see, may we repair the world in all of our actions, and may we be guided by gentleness, born of wisdom, all to the glory of God.

AMEN.