September 3, 2006
The Rev. Cn. Joel Atkinson
Preached at St. Barnabas, Kutztown, PA
After the crucifixion there was not a Christian church!
The earliest followers of the man who died upon that cross at Calvary
were Jews engaged in a Judaism
centered ’round the Temple in Jerusalem.
Those early followers saw no discontinuity
between the teachings of the Torah
and the teachings of the man
whom they had pledged their allegiance to.
It is true there was some discomfort
within the religious establishment of Judaism
and those out of the box thinking Jewish followers of Jesus
and with other developments taking place within the Judaism of their day.
Rather than seeking a middle way,
so typically human,
a game of blame the other came into play.
Another and perhaps better word
for this game is “scapegoating” those who held opposing views.
When we scapegoat we don’t take responsibility
for our contribution to the conflict between them and us.
Then there was Paul
and his zealous evangelism
among the uncircumcised,
that is, all those non-Jews out there.
As a consequence, a split occurred
between the Jewish and the Hellenist wings of our early church
threatening the existence of that early church.
“After all it was Paul’s fault,
that former Pharisee,”
the Jewish Christians said,
“He did it,” and fingers were waggled,
“for introducing Hellenistic views
into our so, so Christian Jewish community.”
Fortunately, a middle way was found
[The first Anglicans were born!]
and our church made it beyond
those raucous infant days.
Unfortunately, between the early Jewish Christians
and what was soon to be a synagogue-centered Judaism
a permanent split took place.
We were a rather aggravating lot!
On the other hand,
perhaps we’d not have become who we are today
if we’d not been booted out.
In all this mess,
those righteous Pharisees got a very bad press.
I use righteous
not intending a negative judgment
as it’s often used when associated with them,
but as actually complimentary
for those who sought to uphold the good order
of their particular religion.
Scapegoating has to have ones to fault
and in this conflict the Pharisees
were convenient targets.
With all the rancor and waggling fingers,
it was easy to ignore the message
of He who had died to set them free,
thus the reminder
in the message
contained in the lessons read today.
Therefore, I will not spend any time
in those ancient arguments
nor any we might have today.
I’ll not do any finger-waggling at the Pharisees!
I wonder how often today
the Good News is not heard
because we enter into such blaming, scapegoating games?
I wonder too how often opportunities
to be more fully God’s people
are not taken
because of our blaming and scapegoating ways?
This is not meant to deny
the conflicts Jesus had
with the religious authorities of his day.
His teachings pushed the edges of their theological thinking
and heaven forbid crowds of the faithful came to listen.
Naturally this led to conflicts
with those in power.
Honestly, folks,
doesn’t this sound familiar,
too often,
like our church today?
Enough is enough
now to the message
we are supposed to hear this day.
[Solomon 2:8-13]
The voice of my beloved! Look, He comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall. Gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
The intent of his metaphor
for us who will listen to these words
is God is the lover who calls
and we the beloved are asked to respond.
God is the one who rushes to us.
God is the one who desires for us to come away with God.
Our time of separation is over
and God calls for us to come away
into a new life only God can give.
What is it that keeps us from arising and going with God?
What is it that keeps us from truly living into all God calls us to be?
What is it that keeps us alienated from our lover?
Can you guess?
It is not those,
who in our opinion,
have replaced
those righteous Pharisees of old
nor is it those
who as Paul
push the edges of our theological understanding.
Rather the answer is our idolatry.
We think so much of ourselves
that we want to be in charge
rather than God!
We want to tell God who to be and what to be and how to be.
We want to box God in.
We want to catalog and categorize God
in order to better define
that which is beyond definition.
We make God into an idol of our creation,
something less than who God really is.
Then we worship our creation
seeking the Life only God can give –
how ironic.
God is beyond the boundaries of the universe
with its billions of galaxies
and the billions of suns within each
of those billions of galaxies.
Yet, in some ineffable way
God is as small as the smallest thing.
In all the enormity of the universe
I’ve described nothing is too small
for God not to be there.
God is with us each today
and into all the time to come.
Yet we constantly defile ourselves
with our idolatrous way.
We defile ourselves
when we blame others [when we scapegoat]
to avoid acknowledging our own sinful ways.
We defile ourselves
with idolatrous ways
when we move ourselves from God’s embrace
so that we might be in control.
God come to us this day.
Come that our eyes might be open to see.
Come that our ears might be open to hear.
Come that our minds might be open to learn.
Come that our hearts might be open to feel.
Open us to our lover’s presence.
Open us to listening to our lovers call.
Let us be open to the God
who comes into our lives
that we might find what it is we are called to do
as loved and forgiven children of God
commissioned to make known God’s love in a world
too often broken and alienated from our lover’s call.
Let us be open to the God who
comes to give us Life.
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
If some day you or I find ourselves drifting from the call of God,
don’t blame the Pharisees
or the Paul’s in our lives
who push the edges of our understanding of God.
Rather let us look to ourselves.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Pentecost 13: The Way of Life
September 3, 2006
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 17 ~ Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-9,21-23 Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
It was Groucho Marx who said when he was refused entrance into a club on Long Island, “I don’t want to belong to a club that would accept someone like me.”
Who’s in? Who’s out? On what basis are they in or out? Who decides?
It’s an age-old game. It’s been around as long as humans have been walking upright, maybe longer. Whenever more than one is gathered together there is an opportunity to play the game. Shall we let them into our circle or shall we not?
Are they the right kind to be in our circle? Do they walk like we do? Talk like we do? Eat what we do? Wear what we do? Like the same things we do? Act like we do? Believe what we do?
What are the signs that they are enough like us to be with us, to be one of us? What are the rules they have to follow to be one of us?
So here we have today two lessons that have to do with the rules and signs of identity and belonging. Moses is preaching a sermon about the importance of Torah, following the Law, the commandments.
Remember that Israel is on the banks of the Jordan River, on the verge of Jordan, ready to enter the long-promised land, and as a gift, as a gift, God gives them, through Moses, a way to live in this new place that will enable them to claim the promise, claim their destiny, claim their heritage, live out their identity as the people of the Lord God Jehovah.
God does not lay upon them a burden of the Law, but rather the gift of what they need to establish their identity as God’s people. By this, they will know that they are God’s people. By this they will show others that they are God’s people.
Not rules to confine, not laws to conform, but a way to live, to establish and claim their identity.
How will they know, how will others know who they are and whose they are? …By how they live.
But, my oh my, how they and we have perverted that gift of life and identity! By the time of Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees have made the law to be a heavy yoke to be borne around the necks of the children of God. Someone counted 613 commandments in the five books of Moses (the Torah).
These laws encompassed nearly every aspect of human life — birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and ethnicity. And the Gentiles were automatically considered impure.
Purity had become more important than prayer; ritual more important than reconciliation; conformity more important than compassion. Rules defined righteousness.
to impose and police the rules, to decide who was pure and who was impure, who was righteous and who was unrighteous, who was a good Jew and who was not a good Jew, and indeed who because of their behavior was not a Jew at all, because they had by their behavior removed themselves outside the circle of the chosen people of God.
As I said earlier, the game has been played ever since and is played to this day. Garrison Keillor speaks of his own Lutheran ancestors coming to this country and to the harsh winters of the northern mid-west. He says his forbearers left their homeland and came “seeking greater restrictions.”
The Anglican Communion today is in the full game-mode of deciding who is in and who is out, who is conforming and who is not. Are you Anglican enough, traditional enough, evangelical enough, scriptural enough, liberal enough, catholic enough, orthodox enough, pure enough?
And so the stage is set for the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. The law has become, not the gift of a way of life, but instead has become the yoke of oppression and the means of exclusion.
And Jesus says, “Enough!” Do not lay upon this, my people the burden of the laws. Let them live their lives out of their love for God and God’s ways.
The first verse of Psalm 15 poses the question, “Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle and who may abide on your holy hill?” The Pharisees would say, “only those who have completed all the ritual acts of purity.” But through the psalmist God replies in verse 2, “Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.”
From his heart, Jesus touched and healed a man with leprosy, a woman with a hemorrhage, the dead body of his friend Lazarus -- violations of every purity law. Jesus the Jew ignored the Sabbath laws relating to diet and activity. He consorted with sinners, and immediately after this week's story he healed two Gentiles.
Marcus Borg wrote that “the new community that Jesus announced is characterized by interior compassion for everyone, not external compliance to a purity code, by radical inclusivity rather than by hierarchical exclusivity, and by inward transformation rather than outward ritual. In place of the Leviticus injunction to ‘be holy, for I am holy’ (Lev. 19:2), Jesus deliberately substituted the call to "be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36).”
I want to belong to that community. I want my life to be a sign of that understanding. I want my heart to follow that path. I want to base my life on that truth. I want to live my life that according to that rule. I want to spend my time on those things. I want to bet my life on that God. I want to follow that way, the way of Jesus.
How about you?
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 17 ~ Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-9,21-23 Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
It was Groucho Marx who said when he was refused entrance into a club on Long Island, “I don’t want to belong to a club that would accept someone like me.”
Who’s in? Who’s out? On what basis are they in or out? Who decides?
It’s an age-old game. It’s been around as long as humans have been walking upright, maybe longer. Whenever more than one is gathered together there is an opportunity to play the game. Shall we let them into our circle or shall we not?
Are they the right kind to be in our circle? Do they walk like we do? Talk like we do? Eat what we do? Wear what we do? Like the same things we do? Act like we do? Believe what we do?
What are the signs that they are enough like us to be with us, to be one of us? What are the rules they have to follow to be one of us?
So here we have today two lessons that have to do with the rules and signs of identity and belonging. Moses is preaching a sermon about the importance of Torah, following the Law, the commandments.
Remember that Israel is on the banks of the Jordan River, on the verge of Jordan, ready to enter the long-promised land, and as a gift, as a gift, God gives them, through Moses, a way to live in this new place that will enable them to claim the promise, claim their destiny, claim their heritage, live out their identity as the people of the Lord God Jehovah.
God does not lay upon them a burden of the Law, but rather the gift of what they need to establish their identity as God’s people. By this, they will know that they are God’s people. By this they will show others that they are God’s people.
Not rules to confine, not laws to conform, but a way to live, to establish and claim their identity.
How will they know, how will others know who they are and whose they are? …By how they live.
But, my oh my, how they and we have perverted that gift of life and identity! By the time of Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees have made the law to be a heavy yoke to be borne around the necks of the children of God. Someone counted 613 commandments in the five books of Moses (the Torah).
These laws encompassed nearly every aspect of human life — birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and ethnicity. And the Gentiles were automatically considered impure.
Purity had become more important than prayer; ritual more important than reconciliation; conformity more important than compassion. Rules defined righteousness.
to impose and police the rules, to decide who was pure and who was impure, who was righteous and who was unrighteous, who was a good Jew and who was not a good Jew, and indeed who because of their behavior was not a Jew at all, because they had by their behavior removed themselves outside the circle of the chosen people of God.
As I said earlier, the game has been played ever since and is played to this day. Garrison Keillor speaks of his own Lutheran ancestors coming to this country and to the harsh winters of the northern mid-west. He says his forbearers left their homeland and came “seeking greater restrictions.”
The Anglican Communion today is in the full game-mode of deciding who is in and who is out, who is conforming and who is not. Are you Anglican enough, traditional enough, evangelical enough, scriptural enough, liberal enough, catholic enough, orthodox enough, pure enough?
And so the stage is set for the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. The law has become, not the gift of a way of life, but instead has become the yoke of oppression and the means of exclusion.
And Jesus says, “Enough!” Do not lay upon this, my people the burden of the laws. Let them live their lives out of their love for God and God’s ways.
The first verse of Psalm 15 poses the question, “Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle and who may abide on your holy hill?” The Pharisees would say, “only those who have completed all the ritual acts of purity.” But through the psalmist God replies in verse 2, “Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.”
From his heart, Jesus touched and healed a man with leprosy, a woman with a hemorrhage, the dead body of his friend Lazarus -- violations of every purity law. Jesus the Jew ignored the Sabbath laws relating to diet and activity. He consorted with sinners, and immediately after this week's story he healed two Gentiles.
Marcus Borg wrote that “the new community that Jesus announced is characterized by interior compassion for everyone, not external compliance to a purity code, by radical inclusivity rather than by hierarchical exclusivity, and by inward transformation rather than outward ritual. In place of the Leviticus injunction to ‘be holy, for I am holy’ (Lev. 19:2), Jesus deliberately substituted the call to "be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36).”
I want to belong to that community. I want my life to be a sign of that understanding. I want my heart to follow that path. I want to base my life on that truth. I want to live my life that according to that rule. I want to spend my time on those things. I want to bet my life on that God. I want to follow that way, the way of Jesus.
How about you?
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Pentecost 12:Longing for God
The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Proper 16 – 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84, John 6:56-69
In the early morning stillness that is not silent... soft patter of rain, the ticking of a clock, distant wail of a train whistle and wet tires on the street below, the surrounding world still asleep. In the exuberant bustle of an adolescent gathering...voices out-shouting one another in an enthusiastic cacophony coalescing finally into recognizable song. On the streets of Southside... faces of hunger and need met by hands offering food and compassion. In the ordered rows of Cathedral pews...familiar books, comfortable words, soothing rhythm. Prayer. Worship. People longing for, reaching out for connection to God. To loved ones. To others. In one place or another, in one pattern or not, with words and music and images, with silence and emptiness, with form or none at all people seek God. My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord prays the psalmist almost 3000 years ago.
What does your soul desire? How do you pray? I was born and baptized into an Episcopal church whose worship was bound in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. My early spirituality was formed by the shape and language and familiarity of that book. When I was confirmed at age 11(because that’s how we did it back then) my Godparents gave me a white leatherette prayer book with my name embossed on it in gold. The 1928 Prayer Book. But on Sunday mornings something else was happening. We worshiped out of the green book, the zebra book, and the purple book, named for the color of their covers. These “trial” liturgies were used on Sundays as the Episcopal church began to explore language and form heading for the 1979 BCP which you now find in your pew. So people who longed for the Lord, who raised their hearts and voices in worship, struggled with change. This struggle was a gift to the church, infusing our gathering with a richness and variety of liturgy. And it was a gift to me, allowing me to experience process and journey as the way to something full of possibility. I grew up thinking such change and variety were normal. My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
What do we long for? In part, being connected to God and one another in meaningful worship. What is God calling us to do? To renew that connection and tell others about it so that they can know a place to bring their longing hearts. In steady times and uncertain times, in transition times and new times, when we stand in the doorway or on the precipice, when we are confused or crystal clear our souls have a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
Around 960 BCE Solomon builds and dedicates the temple in Jerusalem and significantly moves the Ark of the Covenant into what is to be its permanent dwelling. This is no small thing. The Ark of the Covenant, considered the earthly dwelling place of God, built by Moses according to God’s instruction, is the most sacred symbol for the people of Israel. The Ark contains...holiness. It is said to have held the two stone tablets on which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments, or a pot of manna preserved from the wilderness journey, or scrolls of sacred writings. It was carried with the Israelites wherever they went had had no permanent place. But neither had the people. They had wandered through Canaan for generations before David built Jerusalem. Before that they wandered 40 years in the wilderness with Moses. And for the longest time before that they had been resident aliens in Egypt. And before that? There had been Jacob, Isaac and Abraham, all of them following God’s call as they wandered about the fertile crescent through what is modern day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine and Egypt. How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
Where is God’s dwelling place? In the heavens? In the Ark of the Covenant? In our hearts? When Solomon built the first permanent temple for God and placed the Ark in it people were asking, where is God’s dwelling place. In the heavens? In the Ark of the Covenant? In this temple? Journey and Exodus had defined them, been their reality for the longest time. God and the worship of God were not to be found in any one place (we sometimes struggle to remind ourselves that God is everywhere and not just within these wall son Sunday morning. They didn’t have that struggle). Yet Solomon builds the temple in faithful response to God’s call for him. And it left some of the people with questions. Can God hear in heaven the prayers we pray in this temple of stone? Can God dwell on earth?
So as Solomon dedicates the temple he prays. He prays that it will be OK to pray in this place. “Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today… hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place.” Solomon longs for God. He longs also to know that this change will be OK. His prayer of dedication is longer than the excerpt we have in our passage this morning. He asks for God to hear and act. He pleas, if someone sins, hear and act. When Israel is defeated by an enemy, hear and act. When drought comes, hear and act. When there is famine, hear and act. When even the foreigner prays, hear and act. All who pray are to be heard and the prayers acted upon so that the whole world will know the God of Israel, will know that God hears and acts. How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord. Where is God’s dwelling place? In the heavens? In the Ark of the Covenant? In our hearts, minds, souls? In this Cathedral? In this gathering? In Christ?
Solomon asked, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” Almost 1000 years after Solomon placed the Ark in the temple God indeed came to dwell on earth in a whole new way. Not in a temple, not on a throne, but embodied in humanity. Incarnate. In Christ. In Christ Jesus who had the audacity to claim to be the bread of life. Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.” This was such a shock, so difficult to grasp, that even some of his disciples stopped following him. I have no doubt that all of those disciples longed to be connected to God and that they had sung that hymn, How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord. Jesus knew from the first there would be those who would not believe. But that didn’t stop him from preaching the good news to them. And some people left because…because it was difficult? Because it was about eating flesh? Because they thought Jesus didn’t have what they longed for? Or perhaps because they thought Jesus was what they longed for?
Do you also wish to go away?
“Do you also wish to go away,” Jesus asks the twelve. Simon Peter answers, “Lord to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Where is God’s dwelling place? In the heavens? In our hearts? In this Cathedral? In this gathering, the very Body of Christ? In the early morning stillness? In a group of enthusiastically singing youth? In a soup kitchen on the Southside of Bethlehem? How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
© Anne E. Kitch 2006
Proper 16 – 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84, John 6:56-69
In the early morning stillness that is not silent... soft patter of rain, the ticking of a clock, distant wail of a train whistle and wet tires on the street below, the surrounding world still asleep. In the exuberant bustle of an adolescent gathering...voices out-shouting one another in an enthusiastic cacophony coalescing finally into recognizable song. On the streets of Southside... faces of hunger and need met by hands offering food and compassion. In the ordered rows of Cathedral pews...familiar books, comfortable words, soothing rhythm. Prayer. Worship. People longing for, reaching out for connection to God. To loved ones. To others. In one place or another, in one pattern or not, with words and music and images, with silence and emptiness, with form or none at all people seek God. My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord prays the psalmist almost 3000 years ago.
What does your soul desire? How do you pray? I was born and baptized into an Episcopal church whose worship was bound in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. My early spirituality was formed by the shape and language and familiarity of that book. When I was confirmed at age 11(because that’s how we did it back then) my Godparents gave me a white leatherette prayer book with my name embossed on it in gold. The 1928 Prayer Book. But on Sunday mornings something else was happening. We worshiped out of the green book, the zebra book, and the purple book, named for the color of their covers. These “trial” liturgies were used on Sundays as the Episcopal church began to explore language and form heading for the 1979 BCP which you now find in your pew. So people who longed for the Lord, who raised their hearts and voices in worship, struggled with change. This struggle was a gift to the church, infusing our gathering with a richness and variety of liturgy. And it was a gift to me, allowing me to experience process and journey as the way to something full of possibility. I grew up thinking such change and variety were normal. My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
What do we long for? In part, being connected to God and one another in meaningful worship. What is God calling us to do? To renew that connection and tell others about it so that they can know a place to bring their longing hearts. In steady times and uncertain times, in transition times and new times, when we stand in the doorway or on the precipice, when we are confused or crystal clear our souls have a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
Around 960 BCE Solomon builds and dedicates the temple in Jerusalem and significantly moves the Ark of the Covenant into what is to be its permanent dwelling. This is no small thing. The Ark of the Covenant, considered the earthly dwelling place of God, built by Moses according to God’s instruction, is the most sacred symbol for the people of Israel. The Ark contains...holiness. It is said to have held the two stone tablets on which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments, or a pot of manna preserved from the wilderness journey, or scrolls of sacred writings. It was carried with the Israelites wherever they went had had no permanent place. But neither had the people. They had wandered through Canaan for generations before David built Jerusalem. Before that they wandered 40 years in the wilderness with Moses. And for the longest time before that they had been resident aliens in Egypt. And before that? There had been Jacob, Isaac and Abraham, all of them following God’s call as they wandered about the fertile crescent through what is modern day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine and Egypt. How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
Where is God’s dwelling place? In the heavens? In the Ark of the Covenant? In our hearts? When Solomon built the first permanent temple for God and placed the Ark in it people were asking, where is God’s dwelling place. In the heavens? In the Ark of the Covenant? In this temple? Journey and Exodus had defined them, been their reality for the longest time. God and the worship of God were not to be found in any one place (we sometimes struggle to remind ourselves that God is everywhere and not just within these wall son Sunday morning. They didn’t have that struggle). Yet Solomon builds the temple in faithful response to God’s call for him. And it left some of the people with questions. Can God hear in heaven the prayers we pray in this temple of stone? Can God dwell on earth?
So as Solomon dedicates the temple he prays. He prays that it will be OK to pray in this place. “Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O Lord my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today… hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place.” Solomon longs for God. He longs also to know that this change will be OK. His prayer of dedication is longer than the excerpt we have in our passage this morning. He asks for God to hear and act. He pleas, if someone sins, hear and act. When Israel is defeated by an enemy, hear and act. When drought comes, hear and act. When there is famine, hear and act. When even the foreigner prays, hear and act. All who pray are to be heard and the prayers acted upon so that the whole world will know the God of Israel, will know that God hears and acts. How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord. Where is God’s dwelling place? In the heavens? In the Ark of the Covenant? In our hearts, minds, souls? In this Cathedral? In this gathering? In Christ?
Solomon asked, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” Almost 1000 years after Solomon placed the Ark in the temple God indeed came to dwell on earth in a whole new way. Not in a temple, not on a throne, but embodied in humanity. Incarnate. In Christ. In Christ Jesus who had the audacity to claim to be the bread of life. Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.” This was such a shock, so difficult to grasp, that even some of his disciples stopped following him. I have no doubt that all of those disciples longed to be connected to God and that they had sung that hymn, How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord. Jesus knew from the first there would be those who would not believe. But that didn’t stop him from preaching the good news to them. And some people left because…because it was difficult? Because it was about eating flesh? Because they thought Jesus didn’t have what they longed for? Or perhaps because they thought Jesus was what they longed for?
Do you also wish to go away?
“Do you also wish to go away,” Jesus asks the twelve. Simon Peter answers, “Lord to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Where is God’s dwelling place? In the heavens? In our hearts? In this Cathedral? In this gathering, the very Body of Christ? In the early morning stillness? In a group of enthusiastically singing youth? In a soup kitchen on the Southside of Bethlehem? How dear to me is your dwelling, O lord of hosts, my soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
© Anne E. Kitch 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
Pentecost 11: A Flesh & Blood Faith
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
August 20, 2006
Proper 15 ~ 1Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14, John 6:51-58
Do you remember when we first met David? King Saul had gone astray. Samuel, the prophet of the Lord had been sent to the home of Jesse the Bethlehemite to see if there was there one who had the potential to lead the House of Israel.
1 Samuel 16. 11 Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’ 12He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ 13Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
And today we encounter the time some 40 years later when David sleeps with his ancestors and the boy Solomon now sits on the throne of his father David.
Of all that he could ask of God, he asks this: And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?"
And God grants Solomon a wise and discerning mind, and so much more; that today we speak wishfully and wistfully, sometimes wantingly of the Wisdom of Solomon.
We can remember that David did walk faithfully with his God – some of the time. We remember, too, that there were serious lapses in his decorum, in his behavior, and in his deeds – murder, adultery, and more. But he always, always, always returned to the Lord in repentance, attempting once again to walk before God in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart.
And we know the story of Solomon as well. Marrying multiple wives to secure military alliances, he sacrificed on those high places less and less to the God of Israel and more and more to the gods of his wives; he walked less and less with his God, turning more often to the lesser gods of his wives. Until the days came when Jehovah finally would no longer walk with Solomon.
We can treat this history, these stories as if they were a “Days of Their Lives” soap opera, or some ancient Greek drama, or a more modern drama like the ”Perils of Pauline”, or we can learn from them.
It is important to remember that the great men and women of the Bible were just ordinary people like you and me; flesh and blood, fallible, mortal. Yet God could and would and did use them. If God could work in the world through a murderer like David, or an idolater like Solomon, then perhaps, in some way, he can use us.
So the question becomes how do we make it through this life walking in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart? How do we make it though the day? How do we make the right decision? How do we build a just society? How do we make peace in the world, in our community, in our homes, in our own hearts? How do we stay faithful?
We stay as close as possible to the Source of our strength, the Source of our Salvation, to the One who shows us the that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Jesus said, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
Just as David and Solomon and all the others were real flesh and blood, fallible, mortal human beings, so is this faith we ascribe to a flesh and blood faith; real life meeting real life. A real price was paid by Jesus of Nazareth, a blood price was paid for the soul of the world and for the souls of Rick and Mary and Sue and George and Trevor and William and each and every one of us.
Sarah Dylan Breuer writes: Flesh and blood are the seat of life -- life belonging only to God, life that can be claimed rightly only by God. And yet in Jesus, God has willingly poured out that life for the sake of the world -- not just the good people, the people who try hard to do the right thing, the people who praise and encourage the saints, but as much or more for the people who hate, and who act on their hatred...
He is… the Source of our eternal salvation and the Source of our daily strength. "Eternal God you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ and you have fed us with spiritual food in the sacrament of his Body and Blood."
The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven. The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.
The best chance we have for living grace-filled lives is to accept this incomparable gift of the body broken and the blood shed for us, and to accept it often and regularly so that as it strengthens our bodies and souls and minds and hearts, we can know that Christ dwells in us and we in him.
Time and again we can receive this holy food and drink of new and unending life. It is given for you. Take it and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.
A Baptismal Coda
As God selected David and Solomon as his chosen people, today God brings Trevor and William into His divine life, with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of being a child of God. It is imperative that parents and Godparents keep them close to the source of strength that will empower their lives each and every day and beyond, so they may walk in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart before their God all the days of their lives.
It is an awesome responsibility and this community is here to support you in it.
Amen.
August 20, 2006
Proper 15 ~ 1Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14, John 6:51-58
Do you remember when we first met David? King Saul had gone astray. Samuel, the prophet of the Lord had been sent to the home of Jesse the Bethlehemite to see if there was there one who had the potential to lead the House of Israel.
1 Samuel 16. 11 Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’ 12He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ 13Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
And today we encounter the time some 40 years later when David sleeps with his ancestors and the boy Solomon now sits on the throne of his father David.
Of all that he could ask of God, he asks this: And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?"
And God grants Solomon a wise and discerning mind, and so much more; that today we speak wishfully and wistfully, sometimes wantingly of the Wisdom of Solomon.
We can remember that David did walk faithfully with his God – some of the time. We remember, too, that there were serious lapses in his decorum, in his behavior, and in his deeds – murder, adultery, and more. But he always, always, always returned to the Lord in repentance, attempting once again to walk before God in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart.
And we know the story of Solomon as well. Marrying multiple wives to secure military alliances, he sacrificed on those high places less and less to the God of Israel and more and more to the gods of his wives; he walked less and less with his God, turning more often to the lesser gods of his wives. Until the days came when Jehovah finally would no longer walk with Solomon.
We can treat this history, these stories as if they were a “Days of Their Lives” soap opera, or some ancient Greek drama, or a more modern drama like the ”Perils of Pauline”, or we can learn from them.
It is important to remember that the great men and women of the Bible were just ordinary people like you and me; flesh and blood, fallible, mortal. Yet God could and would and did use them. If God could work in the world through a murderer like David, or an idolater like Solomon, then perhaps, in some way, he can use us.
So the question becomes how do we make it through this life walking in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart? How do we make it though the day? How do we make the right decision? How do we build a just society? How do we make peace in the world, in our community, in our homes, in our own hearts? How do we stay faithful?
We stay as close as possible to the Source of our strength, the Source of our Salvation, to the One who shows us the that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Jesus said, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
Just as David and Solomon and all the others were real flesh and blood, fallible, mortal human beings, so is this faith we ascribe to a flesh and blood faith; real life meeting real life. A real price was paid by Jesus of Nazareth, a blood price was paid for the soul of the world and for the souls of Rick and Mary and Sue and George and Trevor and William and each and every one of us.
Sarah Dylan Breuer writes: Flesh and blood are the seat of life -- life belonging only to God, life that can be claimed rightly only by God. And yet in Jesus, God has willingly poured out that life for the sake of the world -- not just the good people, the people who try hard to do the right thing, the people who praise and encourage the saints, but as much or more for the people who hate, and who act on their hatred...
He is… the Source of our eternal salvation and the Source of our daily strength. "Eternal God you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ and you have fed us with spiritual food in the sacrament of his Body and Blood."
The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven. The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.
The best chance we have for living grace-filled lives is to accept this incomparable gift of the body broken and the blood shed for us, and to accept it often and regularly so that as it strengthens our bodies and souls and minds and hearts, we can know that Christ dwells in us and we in him.
Time and again we can receive this holy food and drink of new and unending life. It is given for you. Take it and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.
A Baptismal Coda
As God selected David and Solomon as his chosen people, today God brings Trevor and William into His divine life, with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of being a child of God. It is imperative that parents and Godparents keep them close to the source of strength that will empower their lives each and every day and beyond, so they may walk in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart before their God all the days of their lives.
It is an awesome responsibility and this community is here to support you in it.
Amen.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Pentecost 10: Feeling Puny
August 12, 2006
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 14 ~ 1Kings 19:4-8, John 6:35. 41-51
My mother used to have an expression that she would use from time to time when she wasn’t feeling “up to par”. She would say, “I’m feeling kind of puny today.” Feeling puny… We took that expression up in our family, too. “You feeling okay? You’re looking a little puny.”
What she and we meant by that was just not feeling or being “up to it”, whatever it was. Feeling a little weak, not our usual robust self. You get the idea.
Well, in the lesson from the First Book of Kings, we meet up with Elijah who is feeling kind of puny, not his usual powerful, prophetic self, not up to the task, vulnerable to the whims and actions of other people, other powers, vulnerable to fate, itself.
Let me provide a little context for this unusual, for Elijah, but supremely common human situation.
To use a baseball analogy, Elijah had just pitched a no-hitter. He had just cleaned the clock of the prophets of Baal. Elijah was the last and only true prophet of Jehovah left and there were in that territory 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a showdown, actually a call-down, where the prophet of each god would call down from on high the power of their God to take up an offering.
It is written in 1Kings 18: “So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, ‘O Baal, answer us!’ But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.” (It is rather clear whose side the writer is on.)
Then it was Elijah’s turn. “At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, ‘O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.’”
It was a magnificent display of the power of God and the power of God’s prophet, and yet we find him in today’s lesson skulking off into the wilderness, feeling sorry for himself, feeling not up to the task, feeling downright puny, and wishing it all would end for him.
It could all be written off with a facile, “Oh, its only a post-miracle depression. It happens all the time. He’ll get over it.” Well, maybe it does happen all the time, but it is happening now, here with this person, and he is in great suffering, he is sick of it, even unto death.
I have not experienced a post-miracle depression, but I do know the feeling of “puny”. I do know the feeling of “it all being just too much”. I do know the feeling of just not being up to it, not having it. I do know the feeling of wishing it would just go away, if it would just pass me by, if I just didn’t have to do deal with it. I feel the puniest in the middle of the night.
Perhaps you have felt that way once or twice, or from time to time, or during some extended period. Feeling that what you know to be your gifts, your strengths, your powers… they are nowhere to be found. Your “getup and go” has gotten up and gone away. You’re running on empty.
Elijah and you and I need some Bread.
One way of looking at Elijah’s situation is to see that he has forgotten the Source. He has moved away from his center. He is relying solely on “what he brings to the table”. And he has given his all, given his best shot, and it still isn’t enough to do all that is needed, to provide all that is needed, to finish the job, to bring it to completion. He feels alone, bereft, and empty.
And it is then that the Angel of the Lord comes to him to point out what is needed. He is in need of Manna. He is starving for the bread of life. He hungers to be filled. He needs sustenance for his strength to be renewed. And the Angel of the Lord comes and provides bread enough.
“He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.”
And Jesus tells us, “I am the bread of life; they who come to me shall not hunger; and they who believe in me shall not thirst… even if they die, they shall live forever.” (Hymn 335)
Whenever we have moved from the center, whenever we have forgotten the Source, whenever we have spent all that we have, the Angel of the Lord comes, in whatever guise, to re-center our lives, to remind us of the source, and to replenish our supply of bread.
So we come weekly, regularly, to the Source, to the table, to the altar of God. As our friend Ann Fontaine says, “We come to the Eucharist to drink the wine of encouragement and eat the bread of sustenance.”
And we remember, “My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed, says the Lord. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood dwell in me and I in them, says the Lord.” (Anthem S169)
We find it to be, as my stepfather used to say, an “elegant sufficiency”. Bread sufficient for all the days of our life… and beyond.
You’re feeling a little puny today? Try some Bread.
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 14 ~ 1Kings 19:4-8, John 6:35. 41-51
My mother used to have an expression that she would use from time to time when she wasn’t feeling “up to par”. She would say, “I’m feeling kind of puny today.” Feeling puny… We took that expression up in our family, too. “You feeling okay? You’re looking a little puny.”
What she and we meant by that was just not feeling or being “up to it”, whatever it was. Feeling a little weak, not our usual robust self. You get the idea.
Well, in the lesson from the First Book of Kings, we meet up with Elijah who is feeling kind of puny, not his usual powerful, prophetic self, not up to the task, vulnerable to the whims and actions of other people, other powers, vulnerable to fate, itself.
Let me provide a little context for this unusual, for Elijah, but supremely common human situation.
To use a baseball analogy, Elijah had just pitched a no-hitter. He had just cleaned the clock of the prophets of Baal. Elijah was the last and only true prophet of Jehovah left and there were in that territory 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a showdown, actually a call-down, where the prophet of each god would call down from on high the power of their God to take up an offering.
It is written in 1Kings 18: “So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, ‘O Baal, answer us!’ But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.” (It is rather clear whose side the writer is on.)
Then it was Elijah’s turn. “At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, ‘O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.’”
It was a magnificent display of the power of God and the power of God’s prophet, and yet we find him in today’s lesson skulking off into the wilderness, feeling sorry for himself, feeling not up to the task, feeling downright puny, and wishing it all would end for him.
It could all be written off with a facile, “Oh, its only a post-miracle depression. It happens all the time. He’ll get over it.” Well, maybe it does happen all the time, but it is happening now, here with this person, and he is in great suffering, he is sick of it, even unto death.
I have not experienced a post-miracle depression, but I do know the feeling of “puny”. I do know the feeling of “it all being just too much”. I do know the feeling of just not being up to it, not having it. I do know the feeling of wishing it would just go away, if it would just pass me by, if I just didn’t have to do deal with it. I feel the puniest in the middle of the night.
Perhaps you have felt that way once or twice, or from time to time, or during some extended period. Feeling that what you know to be your gifts, your strengths, your powers… they are nowhere to be found. Your “getup and go” has gotten up and gone away. You’re running on empty.
Elijah and you and I need some Bread.
One way of looking at Elijah’s situation is to see that he has forgotten the Source. He has moved away from his center. He is relying solely on “what he brings to the table”. And he has given his all, given his best shot, and it still isn’t enough to do all that is needed, to provide all that is needed, to finish the job, to bring it to completion. He feels alone, bereft, and empty.
And it is then that the Angel of the Lord comes to him to point out what is needed. He is in need of Manna. He is starving for the bread of life. He hungers to be filled. He needs sustenance for his strength to be renewed. And the Angel of the Lord comes and provides bread enough.
“He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.”
And Jesus tells us, “I am the bread of life; they who come to me shall not hunger; and they who believe in me shall not thirst… even if they die, they shall live forever.” (Hymn 335)
Whenever we have moved from the center, whenever we have forgotten the Source, whenever we have spent all that we have, the Angel of the Lord comes, in whatever guise, to re-center our lives, to remind us of the source, and to replenish our supply of bread.
So we come weekly, regularly, to the Source, to the table, to the altar of God. As our friend Ann Fontaine says, “We come to the Eucharist to drink the wine of encouragement and eat the bread of sustenance.”
And we remember, “My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed, says the Lord. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood dwell in me and I in them, says the Lord.” (Anthem S169)
We find it to be, as my stepfather used to say, an “elegant sufficiency”. Bread sufficient for all the days of our life… and beyond.
You’re feeling a little puny today? Try some Bread.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Feast of the Transfiguration: Let Your Light Shine
The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Exodus 34:29-35
Luke 9:28-36
I have it under good authority that Transformers still exist; there is even an upcoming movie. These the toys that start out as human-like robots and then as the need arises they transform into something else. You fold in arms and legs and twist torsos around and suddenly you have race cars or jets or helicopters. There are also super heroes like Power Rangers, Wonder Woman, Superman living ordinary-looking human lives but when need arises they transform into something else; something greater , more powerful, stronger. Yet with all their super strength they do not cease to be who they are. They don’t permanently change into something else, rather they temporarily live into part of who they are. When they are done saving the world, they once again become ordinary youth, women and men. Well something like this happens to Jesus.
Jesus is transfigured. He goes up to a mountain top to pray, taking Peter and John and James with him. He is suddenly transfigured before their eyes; the appearance of his face changes and his clothes become dazzling white. Glory surrounds him. As preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes “While Jesus was praying, he caught fire from within.” In that moment, Jesus reveals his God-self. The glory of God shone from within him and all around him. Moses the great law-giver and Elijah the great prophet show up for a conference.
Now this was something Jesus’ friends had never seen before. Sure, at some level they knew he was the messiah and the son of God, Peter had even said the words aloud. But they had never seen it. They knew Jesus as their beloved friend and teacher. He did go around casting out demons and healing people, but he walked and talked and ate just like any other man. But now, here on the mountain, his Godself was revealed in all its glory. They must have been stunned.
Before we go any further, let me be clear that Jesus is not a super-hero. Jesus is the Son of God, fully human AND fully divine and very real. He is not a comic book hero or an invented character embodying the attributes of someone we all wish we could be. Rather he is perfect human. Someone without sin. Someone who lived connected to God every moment of everyday. Jesus did not have super strength or x-ray vision or spider sense. What he did have was love; and a sure and certain trust in God. I’m not sure he had love in greater amounts than the rest of us, but he was better able to live in that love and share it generously. He wasn’t impervious to pain and death—and that is the point. Remember what he and Moses and Elijah talked about while Jesus shone in all his glory? They talked about his departure, his exodus, his upcoming death. In the end it was not any super strength but his human vulnerability and love and the giving up of his very life that saved the world…and continues to save the world.
Jesus’ transfiguration was a moment when his divine nature shone out leaving no doubt about who he was. And the transfiguration was more. The power and significance of this event was not just that Peter and John and James saw the light, but that the light shone in the first place. God’s light. Jesus let them see God’s glory pouring out of him and so they knew; knew in ways that they had not perceived before just what kind of messiah they were dealing with. Just like God’s light shone in Moses as he came down Mt. Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments.
Moses may rightly be called one of the heroes of the Hebrew people. But he was no super hero. He was an ordinary human being, one who had been in a lot of trouble. In fact, he had broken more than one of those very commandments he bore. But in that moment when he walks down that mountain, his face shines because he had been with God. He had listened to God and done what God asked of him and lived in to all the giftedness that he had. He became the great law-giver. God’s light shone out of him so that all could see. Just like God’s light is in each of us.
Yes its true. We are not super heroes. But we don’t even have to be super human to shine like that. We have only to be ourselves, to be who God calls us to be. I have seen it. I have seen ordinary people transformed in moments when they do very ordinary feats of love. I have seen the light of Christ shine forth in youth of this parish at camp and in Sunday school classrooms. I have seen it people visiting and working with people in hospitals and nursing homes. I saw it last evening as members of this parish wearing yellow T-shirts went off to volunteer at Musicfest in the name of Share-Care. I have witnessed people living into their giftedness and letting the light shine from within them. They do not necessarily manage this all day everyday, but are able to grasp those moments, those opportunities, to save the world.
Just who are we called to be? What are we called to do? Scripture is full of guidance. How about those Ten Commandments that Moses was carrying. We are called to love God first, with all our hear and soul and mind, and have no other gods. We are not to make any idols for ourselves. We are supposed to speak God’s name lovingly and with awe rather than with malice and contempt. We are to remember the Sabbath day, and set aside time for worship and rest. We are to honor our father and mother. We are not supposed to kill people, or commit adultery, or steal. We are not supposed to lie or give false testimony. We are supposed to be satisfied with what we have and not covet what is not ours. Well, that is certainly a good place to start and we haven’t even gotten to Jesus yet. Jesus doesn’t so much add to this list as intensifies it. If we are to be his followers we are to feed the poor, help the wounded, work for justice, not ask for more than our due, not abuse people, and in some cases give away all our possessions. These are the things that being a follower of Christ are about. These are the things that being a Christian are all about. When we do these things, then the light of God shines out of us and that holiness transforms the world.
Now once Peter figured out what he was seeing on that mountain, he wanted to stay there in that transfigured place full of glory. But that’s not how it works. They didn’t stay there. They went down that mountain and got to work. The disciples had some healing to do and Jesus had the cross ahead of him. As Sr. Joan Chittester writes, “The purpose of holiness is not to protect us from our world. The purpose of holiness is to change the way we live in the world, not for our own sake but for the sake of others. Jesus demands the same thing.” When God’s light shines from within us, it is not for our sake but the sake of others. This is how we are called to live; not for our sake, but for the sake of others. To live a Christian life is not about seeking our own comfort. Do you remember the prayer of St. Francis? It does not go: Dear God, let me be loved and forgiven, remove my doubt, give me hope, light and joy. Rather it goes like this:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. (Book of Common Prayer p. 833)
It is a well-loved prayer. But I wonder if people really pay attention to how it so simply and beautifully outlines our call: to orient ourselves to the other. It also beautifully outlines the great gift: when we do these things, then we are filled and healed and comforted.
We do not live in the glory zone, but we can touch it. It can touch us. I believe this because it happens all the time. In my bible there is a section in Matthew that has the helpful heading “The Witness of the Disciples.” Under that heading comes this quote, “In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:16) To witness is to let the light of God shine forth from you, to do good for others that others can see that light. The glory is given not to you, but to God.
God does not ask us to be super heroes or even super human. God calls us to love, to again and again make loving choices toward all those around us. In the end it will not be our super strength but our human vulnerability and love and giving up of our very lives that will help transform the world. Go out from this place and be who you are called to be. Go out and serve others. Go with Christ saving the world, one loving choice at a time.
© Anne E. Kitch 2006
(Barbara Brown Taylor quoted from “Dazzling Darkness” The Christian Century 1998, Joan Chittester quoted from “30 Good Minutes” 1991)
Exodus 34:29-35
Luke 9:28-36
I have it under good authority that Transformers still exist; there is even an upcoming movie. These the toys that start out as human-like robots and then as the need arises they transform into something else. You fold in arms and legs and twist torsos around and suddenly you have race cars or jets or helicopters. There are also super heroes like Power Rangers, Wonder Woman, Superman living ordinary-looking human lives but when need arises they transform into something else; something greater , more powerful, stronger. Yet with all their super strength they do not cease to be who they are. They don’t permanently change into something else, rather they temporarily live into part of who they are. When they are done saving the world, they once again become ordinary youth, women and men. Well something like this happens to Jesus.
Jesus is transfigured. He goes up to a mountain top to pray, taking Peter and John and James with him. He is suddenly transfigured before their eyes; the appearance of his face changes and his clothes become dazzling white. Glory surrounds him. As preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes “While Jesus was praying, he caught fire from within.” In that moment, Jesus reveals his God-self. The glory of God shone from within him and all around him. Moses the great law-giver and Elijah the great prophet show up for a conference.
Now this was something Jesus’ friends had never seen before. Sure, at some level they knew he was the messiah and the son of God, Peter had even said the words aloud. But they had never seen it. They knew Jesus as their beloved friend and teacher. He did go around casting out demons and healing people, but he walked and talked and ate just like any other man. But now, here on the mountain, his Godself was revealed in all its glory. They must have been stunned.
Before we go any further, let me be clear that Jesus is not a super-hero. Jesus is the Son of God, fully human AND fully divine and very real. He is not a comic book hero or an invented character embodying the attributes of someone we all wish we could be. Rather he is perfect human. Someone without sin. Someone who lived connected to God every moment of everyday. Jesus did not have super strength or x-ray vision or spider sense. What he did have was love; and a sure and certain trust in God. I’m not sure he had love in greater amounts than the rest of us, but he was better able to live in that love and share it generously. He wasn’t impervious to pain and death—and that is the point. Remember what he and Moses and Elijah talked about while Jesus shone in all his glory? They talked about his departure, his exodus, his upcoming death. In the end it was not any super strength but his human vulnerability and love and the giving up of his very life that saved the world…and continues to save the world.
Jesus’ transfiguration was a moment when his divine nature shone out leaving no doubt about who he was. And the transfiguration was more. The power and significance of this event was not just that Peter and John and James saw the light, but that the light shone in the first place. God’s light. Jesus let them see God’s glory pouring out of him and so they knew; knew in ways that they had not perceived before just what kind of messiah they were dealing with. Just like God’s light shone in Moses as he came down Mt. Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments.
Moses may rightly be called one of the heroes of the Hebrew people. But he was no super hero. He was an ordinary human being, one who had been in a lot of trouble. In fact, he had broken more than one of those very commandments he bore. But in that moment when he walks down that mountain, his face shines because he had been with God. He had listened to God and done what God asked of him and lived in to all the giftedness that he had. He became the great law-giver. God’s light shone out of him so that all could see. Just like God’s light is in each of us.
Yes its true. We are not super heroes. But we don’t even have to be super human to shine like that. We have only to be ourselves, to be who God calls us to be. I have seen it. I have seen ordinary people transformed in moments when they do very ordinary feats of love. I have seen the light of Christ shine forth in youth of this parish at camp and in Sunday school classrooms. I have seen it people visiting and working with people in hospitals and nursing homes. I saw it last evening as members of this parish wearing yellow T-shirts went off to volunteer at Musicfest in the name of Share-Care. I have witnessed people living into their giftedness and letting the light shine from within them. They do not necessarily manage this all day everyday, but are able to grasp those moments, those opportunities, to save the world.
Just who are we called to be? What are we called to do? Scripture is full of guidance. How about those Ten Commandments that Moses was carrying. We are called to love God first, with all our hear and soul and mind, and have no other gods. We are not to make any idols for ourselves. We are supposed to speak God’s name lovingly and with awe rather than with malice and contempt. We are to remember the Sabbath day, and set aside time for worship and rest. We are to honor our father and mother. We are not supposed to kill people, or commit adultery, or steal. We are not supposed to lie or give false testimony. We are supposed to be satisfied with what we have and not covet what is not ours. Well, that is certainly a good place to start and we haven’t even gotten to Jesus yet. Jesus doesn’t so much add to this list as intensifies it. If we are to be his followers we are to feed the poor, help the wounded, work for justice, not ask for more than our due, not abuse people, and in some cases give away all our possessions. These are the things that being a follower of Christ are about. These are the things that being a Christian are all about. When we do these things, then the light of God shines out of us and that holiness transforms the world.
Now once Peter figured out what he was seeing on that mountain, he wanted to stay there in that transfigured place full of glory. But that’s not how it works. They didn’t stay there. They went down that mountain and got to work. The disciples had some healing to do and Jesus had the cross ahead of him. As Sr. Joan Chittester writes, “The purpose of holiness is not to protect us from our world. The purpose of holiness is to change the way we live in the world, not for our own sake but for the sake of others. Jesus demands the same thing.” When God’s light shines from within us, it is not for our sake but the sake of others. This is how we are called to live; not for our sake, but for the sake of others. To live a Christian life is not about seeking our own comfort. Do you remember the prayer of St. Francis? It does not go: Dear God, let me be loved and forgiven, remove my doubt, give me hope, light and joy. Rather it goes like this:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. (Book of Common Prayer p. 833)
It is a well-loved prayer. But I wonder if people really pay attention to how it so simply and beautifully outlines our call: to orient ourselves to the other. It also beautifully outlines the great gift: when we do these things, then we are filled and healed and comforted.
We do not live in the glory zone, but we can touch it. It can touch us. I believe this because it happens all the time. In my bible there is a section in Matthew that has the helpful heading “The Witness of the Disciples.” Under that heading comes this quote, “In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:16) To witness is to let the light of God shine forth from you, to do good for others that others can see that light. The glory is given not to you, but to God.
God does not ask us to be super heroes or even super human. God calls us to love, to again and again make loving choices toward all those around us. In the end it will not be our super strength but our human vulnerability and love and giving up of our very lives that will help transform the world. Go out from this place and be who you are called to be. Go out and serve others. Go with Christ saving the world, one loving choice at a time.
© Anne E. Kitch 2006
(Barbara Brown Taylor quoted from “Dazzling Darkness” The Christian Century 1998, Joan Chittester quoted from “30 Good Minutes” 1991)
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Pentecost 8: Filled with good things
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
July 30, 2006
Proper 12 ~ 2Kings 4:42-44 John 6:1-21
When our children were young, it was our family practice to help serve Thanksgiving dinner to others before we went home to serve ourselves.
In those days I was the archdeacon and so had no parochial responsibilities. Also in those days, long, long ago, we had a diocesan mission to the Hispanic community in Allentown. The vicar was a former archdeacon of the Diocese of Puerto Rico. His name was Father Rueben Rodriguez; the name of the mission was Capilla Santo Nombre de Jesus.
It was one of the things I was most happiest about in my ministry as archdeacon. The fact of its existence gave me great joy. It was true, authentic, important, serving a vital need for a community that in those days was voiceless, powerless, of no account in the great scheme of things. It was very much like our work in Kajo Keji, in Southern Sudan today, but then in our own neighborhood. And the church, our church, our diocese, was there, ministering, because God called it to be and we made it happen.
Santo Nombre was at the corner of Ridge and Gordon Streets in Allentown; a ghetto of poverty, joblessness, drugs, the homeless, and families desperate to make a living and a life for themselves. The people in that neighborhood, mainly Hispanic, in time came to look to that mission as their voice, as their power, as the sign of their identity, their worth, as the Source of their succour, their help when there was no other.
And they were hungry, so hungry for so many things. And being associated with Capilla Santo Nombre de Jesus, and with Father Ruben, they knew would give them a chance to be fed – in whatever way they needed. Santo Nombre was a place of hospitality, caring, help, reconciliation – even salvation.
And like many such ministries, an important sign of all that was the annual community Thanksgiving dinner which in this case was provided by the people of the Santo Nombre themselves; open to all and to any who were hungry – hungry for food, hungry for community, hungry for a sense of being cared about, hungry for a party, a celebration, hungry for an opportunity to be the one who serves others in need.
And they came. Dressed in their best clothes they came. Bringing a dish to share, they came. From small, crowded airless apartments or rooms shared with too many members of families near and extended, they came. From no jobs, from low-paying jobs, from too many jobs they came. From the ordeal of hard-scrabbling life, they came… to give thanks.
It was the people of Santo Nombre de Jesus, the people who had so little in the terms of our culture, our society, and our economy, it was the members of that chapel who provided all that was necessary for Thanksgiving dinner, from roast turkey with filling to fried plantains. Who would have thought that these people could produce such a beautifully decorated dining hall, could provide such a wonderful feast, could make their neighbors, including the homeless, and themselves into such a loud, joyous community celebration of God’s goodness – in the midst of such need, want and hunger. Who would have thought they could do that?
It was a miracle.
And it was a miracle that Puddy and I wanted our family to be a part of – for all the reasons you might imagine. We were hungry too; with a hunger to be of use, a hunger to share, a hunger to be part of life at its most basic, most essential core, a hunger to be fed by the courage, and faith and resourcefulness of the people of Santo Nombre.
So each year our family would come down from our mountainside home, go down into the valley, into the center of the city to be a part of this miracle: to help set-up, cook-up, serve-up and clean-up – and thereby each one of us (and I don’t mean just the Cluett’s), each one, each person there was lifted-up; lifted-up into the presence of the one, holy God, in the community of saints, and given an experience of how God intends it to be for all people in all times, including right there at that time on the corner of Ridge and Gordon Streets in Allentown, PA.
It was a miracle. It was God’s kingdom present, glimpsed and experienced in that moment.
We read about it in the Revelation to John (7:14-17):
“… These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
We hear those words at funerals, during requiems. But God doesn’t intend that vision to be realized when we die. God intends it for NOW.
So... Today we are reminded through these readings that God wants hungry people fed. There is no hunger, no need that is of little concern to God. The desire of God’s heart is that the hungry be filled with good things. And that we help provide the bread that is needed – in whatever form.
Do you believe that you are truly called by God to feed the hungry? I do.
Do you believe this cathedral congregation is truly called by God to feed the hungry, to be a sign of God’s presence, to be an instrument of Hope for those who have so little reason to hope? I do.
Do you believe God wants us to take care of these things, to be the provider of these miracles, to stand by, to work with and to lift up those who are bowed down? byu the ordeal of their lives? I do.
Do you believe that God will provide what we need to do the ministry God wants done?
I do.
I deeply and completely believe God calls each of us and this cathedral to this ministry of miracle-making – filling the hungry with good things. And I believe in the very depth of my being and that in the heart of God all things necessary will be provided; as they were in the time of Elisha, in the ministry of Jesus, and through the people of the Capilla Santo Nombre de Jesus.
As we do that, we will find that God fills our deepest hungers, our greatest needs, as well. That, too, is part of the miracle.
Gracias, El Senor.
July 30, 2006
Proper 12 ~ 2Kings 4:42-44 John 6:1-21
When our children were young, it was our family practice to help serve Thanksgiving dinner to others before we went home to serve ourselves.
In those days I was the archdeacon and so had no parochial responsibilities. Also in those days, long, long ago, we had a diocesan mission to the Hispanic community in Allentown. The vicar was a former archdeacon of the Diocese of Puerto Rico. His name was Father Rueben Rodriguez; the name of the mission was Capilla Santo Nombre de Jesus.
It was one of the things I was most happiest about in my ministry as archdeacon. The fact of its existence gave me great joy. It was true, authentic, important, serving a vital need for a community that in those days was voiceless, powerless, of no account in the great scheme of things. It was very much like our work in Kajo Keji, in Southern Sudan today, but then in our own neighborhood. And the church, our church, our diocese, was there, ministering, because God called it to be and we made it happen.
Santo Nombre was at the corner of Ridge and Gordon Streets in Allentown; a ghetto of poverty, joblessness, drugs, the homeless, and families desperate to make a living and a life for themselves. The people in that neighborhood, mainly Hispanic, in time came to look to that mission as their voice, as their power, as the sign of their identity, their worth, as the Source of their succour, their help when there was no other.
And they were hungry, so hungry for so many things. And being associated with Capilla Santo Nombre de Jesus, and with Father Ruben, they knew would give them a chance to be fed – in whatever way they needed. Santo Nombre was a place of hospitality, caring, help, reconciliation – even salvation.
And like many such ministries, an important sign of all that was the annual community Thanksgiving dinner which in this case was provided by the people of the Santo Nombre themselves; open to all and to any who were hungry – hungry for food, hungry for community, hungry for a sense of being cared about, hungry for a party, a celebration, hungry for an opportunity to be the one who serves others in need.
And they came. Dressed in their best clothes they came. Bringing a dish to share, they came. From small, crowded airless apartments or rooms shared with too many members of families near and extended, they came. From no jobs, from low-paying jobs, from too many jobs they came. From the ordeal of hard-scrabbling life, they came… to give thanks.
It was the people of Santo Nombre de Jesus, the people who had so little in the terms of our culture, our society, and our economy, it was the members of that chapel who provided all that was necessary for Thanksgiving dinner, from roast turkey with filling to fried plantains. Who would have thought that these people could produce such a beautifully decorated dining hall, could provide such a wonderful feast, could make their neighbors, including the homeless, and themselves into such a loud, joyous community celebration of God’s goodness – in the midst of such need, want and hunger. Who would have thought they could do that?
It was a miracle.
And it was a miracle that Puddy and I wanted our family to be a part of – for all the reasons you might imagine. We were hungry too; with a hunger to be of use, a hunger to share, a hunger to be part of life at its most basic, most essential core, a hunger to be fed by the courage, and faith and resourcefulness of the people of Santo Nombre.
So each year our family would come down from our mountainside home, go down into the valley, into the center of the city to be a part of this miracle: to help set-up, cook-up, serve-up and clean-up – and thereby each one of us (and I don’t mean just the Cluett’s), each one, each person there was lifted-up; lifted-up into the presence of the one, holy God, in the community of saints, and given an experience of how God intends it to be for all people in all times, including right there at that time on the corner of Ridge and Gordon Streets in Allentown, PA.
It was a miracle. It was God’s kingdom present, glimpsed and experienced in that moment.
We read about it in the Revelation to John (7:14-17):
“… These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
We hear those words at funerals, during requiems. But God doesn’t intend that vision to be realized when we die. God intends it for NOW.
So... Today we are reminded through these readings that God wants hungry people fed. There is no hunger, no need that is of little concern to God. The desire of God’s heart is that the hungry be filled with good things. And that we help provide the bread that is needed – in whatever form.
Do you believe that you are truly called by God to feed the hungry? I do.
Do you believe this cathedral congregation is truly called by God to feed the hungry, to be a sign of God’s presence, to be an instrument of Hope for those who have so little reason to hope? I do.
Do you believe God wants us to take care of these things, to be the provider of these miracles, to stand by, to work with and to lift up those who are bowed down? byu the ordeal of their lives? I do.
Do you believe that God will provide what we need to do the ministry God wants done?
I do.
I deeply and completely believe God calls each of us and this cathedral to this ministry of miracle-making – filling the hungry with good things. And I believe in the very depth of my being and that in the heart of God all things necessary will be provided; as they were in the time of Elisha, in the ministry of Jesus, and through the people of the Capilla Santo Nombre de Jesus.
As we do that, we will find that God fills our deepest hungers, our greatest needs, as well. That, too, is part of the miracle.
Gracias, El Senor.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Pentecost 7: Honoring the Questions
The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Proper 11B: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
July 23, 2006
Honoring the Questions
In my High School Latin class, I could spit out the future verb endings faster than anyone else. I know this for a fact because when we played quiz game on Fridays I always won that challenge. Now you may not all be familiar with Latin, but I bet you are familiar with class quizzes whether they come in the form of games or tests. I am sure more than one of you has at least witnessed, if not personally experienced, the reward given those for knowing the right answer and giving it faster than anyone else. In this country, our entire education system as well as most work places assigns high value on knowing the answers. Learning, whether in Kindergarten or tenth grade or on-the-job training, is mostly defined as finding the right answers and then committing them to memory so that you can use the information. Having the answers is valuable. Information is power.
But are answers the only information that counts? What about the questions? What if we lived in an economy where asking questions was valuable? Where the questions themselves were significant regardless of the answers? What does it look like to honor the question?
So much of our life and labor is spent looking for the answers: what should I be when I grow up, how can I get a better job, where can I find a life partner. From the time we begin our formal education in this country we spend at least the next 12 years learning the answers. We learn that answers are what we seek. Questions are only a vehicle to get us to the answer. But what would it look like if instead o spending our lives learning the answers, we spent them learning the questions?
What does it look like to honor the question? For the past two days I have been with a small group of people (some from Cathedral, some from our diocese, some from beyond our diocese), committed to nurturing youth in the church as we attended a training for mentors in our Journey to Adulthood Training. We began this training with a discussion about spiritual formation. How we are formed as spiritual people? Who are we as people in relationship to God and one another? What dies it look like to be people who seek God in all places in all times in all things? The grounding question for people who understand that relationship to God is primary, is: Where is God in this? This question assumes that God is. God is present. God is caring. God is where and when. If, as a spiritual person, as a Christian, a follower of Christ, I intend my life to be one lived in relationship to God (and God is in relationship to us whether we recognize it or no), then the foremost driving principle of my life becomes where am I in relation to God and God’s people?
The gift of spiritual formation lies not is discovering THE ANSWER to who I am or what God has planned for me, but rather in the process of discovery itself. The journey rather than the destination becomes key. Being intentional about our spiritual formation leads us to let go of a determination to get to the answer as quickly as possible and to take hold of a commitment to investigating the questions. To honor the question takes time. It is not as quick as learning the answers and having them at the ready. Spiritual formation often requires us to slow down. This often flies in the face of (or in the pace of) our fast-paced frenetic culture. We are so busy getting things done, getting from place to place, getting the answers, that we often miss the point.
Today’s Gospel lesson reflects this frenetic pace--but it wasn’t meant to. If you thought the grammar of the Gospel reading in your bulletin was a bit off, you would be right—it is not a typo. Part of the story is missing. While the reading comes from the 6th chapter of Mark, you will notice that several verses are omitted. It caught me up short when I first read the lesson in preparing for today. What is missing? Just the small matter of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus walking on water, and the stilling of the storm. Here’s how the full story goes. Jesus had called the twelve together and sent them out two-by-two. They went about proclaiming God’s word, casting out demons, and healing the sick. Then they report back. They gather around Jesus telling him all they have done. Jesus says come and rest, let’s go to a deserted place. They had been so busy they hadn’t even had time to eat. The only problem with this plan is that people see them going, take a short-cut, and the place is not so deserted when they get there. As Jesus goes ashore, he sees the great crowd and has compassion for them “and he began to teach them many things.” And our reading this morning continues “When they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat.”
In that gap, in that space between getting to one destination and the next, a lot of life happens. 5000 people are feed from five loaves and two fish. The disciples leave in a boat and get caught in a storm. Jesus walks across the lake to meet the disciples and stills the storm. Then they land at Genesseret. Without this middle part, without the meat of the story, our reading portrays a frenetic pace of going and going. No time to rest and look and see. I think it ironic that the editors cut it this way. I think this kind of editing is something we do all the time. We get to the point and get to it fast, but in doing so we miss so much. This reading also models the lives we lead. The editing of this story depicts Jesus’ ministry as going, going, going. Quickly moving from one destination to another with no time to eat or think or ponder life’s questions along the way.
Does that sound at all familiar to you? How often are we so focused on our destination, that we see nothing along the way? And what is between the destinations in our Gospel story? What is found along the way from the deserted place to the shores of Gennesaret? Well, Jesus for one thing. Along with food, fellowship and a miracle or two, Evidence of God’s power and sustaining love.
Now don’t despair. We will get the feeding story next week (although it will be John’s version). And we will get fed here today and it is not fast food. It is the sustaining food of community, of prayer, of God’s love.
What might we discover if we slow down enough along the way to see where we are? How might we be fed? Where might we encounter God if we pay attention to the in-between places? Make no mistake, Jesus is found in the frenzy as well and he offers healing there. But what more of God and ourselves is there for us to revel in if we remember the in-between places? What happens if we ponder the questions?
© Anne E. Kitch 2006
Proper 11B: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
July 23, 2006
Honoring the Questions
In my High School Latin class, I could spit out the future verb endings faster than anyone else. I know this for a fact because when we played quiz game on Fridays I always won that challenge. Now you may not all be familiar with Latin, but I bet you are familiar with class quizzes whether they come in the form of games or tests. I am sure more than one of you has at least witnessed, if not personally experienced, the reward given those for knowing the right answer and giving it faster than anyone else. In this country, our entire education system as well as most work places assigns high value on knowing the answers. Learning, whether in Kindergarten or tenth grade or on-the-job training, is mostly defined as finding the right answers and then committing them to memory so that you can use the information. Having the answers is valuable. Information is power.
But are answers the only information that counts? What about the questions? What if we lived in an economy where asking questions was valuable? Where the questions themselves were significant regardless of the answers? What does it look like to honor the question?
So much of our life and labor is spent looking for the answers: what should I be when I grow up, how can I get a better job, where can I find a life partner. From the time we begin our formal education in this country we spend at least the next 12 years learning the answers. We learn that answers are what we seek. Questions are only a vehicle to get us to the answer. But what would it look like if instead o spending our lives learning the answers, we spent them learning the questions?
What does it look like to honor the question? For the past two days I have been with a small group of people (some from Cathedral, some from our diocese, some from beyond our diocese), committed to nurturing youth in the church as we attended a training for mentors in our Journey to Adulthood Training. We began this training with a discussion about spiritual formation. How we are formed as spiritual people? Who are we as people in relationship to God and one another? What dies it look like to be people who seek God in all places in all times in all things? The grounding question for people who understand that relationship to God is primary, is: Where is God in this? This question assumes that God is. God is present. God is caring. God is where and when. If, as a spiritual person, as a Christian, a follower of Christ, I intend my life to be one lived in relationship to God (and God is in relationship to us whether we recognize it or no), then the foremost driving principle of my life becomes where am I in relation to God and God’s people?
The gift of spiritual formation lies not is discovering THE ANSWER to who I am or what God has planned for me, but rather in the process of discovery itself. The journey rather than the destination becomes key. Being intentional about our spiritual formation leads us to let go of a determination to get to the answer as quickly as possible and to take hold of a commitment to investigating the questions. To honor the question takes time. It is not as quick as learning the answers and having them at the ready. Spiritual formation often requires us to slow down. This often flies in the face of (or in the pace of) our fast-paced frenetic culture. We are so busy getting things done, getting from place to place, getting the answers, that we often miss the point.
Today’s Gospel lesson reflects this frenetic pace--but it wasn’t meant to. If you thought the grammar of the Gospel reading in your bulletin was a bit off, you would be right—it is not a typo. Part of the story is missing. While the reading comes from the 6th chapter of Mark, you will notice that several verses are omitted. It caught me up short when I first read the lesson in preparing for today. What is missing? Just the small matter of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus walking on water, and the stilling of the storm. Here’s how the full story goes. Jesus had called the twelve together and sent them out two-by-two. They went about proclaiming God’s word, casting out demons, and healing the sick. Then they report back. They gather around Jesus telling him all they have done. Jesus says come and rest, let’s go to a deserted place. They had been so busy they hadn’t even had time to eat. The only problem with this plan is that people see them going, take a short-cut, and the place is not so deserted when they get there. As Jesus goes ashore, he sees the great crowd and has compassion for them “and he began to teach them many things.” And our reading this morning continues “When they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat.”
In that gap, in that space between getting to one destination and the next, a lot of life happens. 5000 people are feed from five loaves and two fish. The disciples leave in a boat and get caught in a storm. Jesus walks across the lake to meet the disciples and stills the storm. Then they land at Genesseret. Without this middle part, without the meat of the story, our reading portrays a frenetic pace of going and going. No time to rest and look and see. I think it ironic that the editors cut it this way. I think this kind of editing is something we do all the time. We get to the point and get to it fast, but in doing so we miss so much. This reading also models the lives we lead. The editing of this story depicts Jesus’ ministry as going, going, going. Quickly moving from one destination to another with no time to eat or think or ponder life’s questions along the way.
Does that sound at all familiar to you? How often are we so focused on our destination, that we see nothing along the way? And what is between the destinations in our Gospel story? What is found along the way from the deserted place to the shores of Gennesaret? Well, Jesus for one thing. Along with food, fellowship and a miracle or two, Evidence of God’s power and sustaining love.
Now don’t despair. We will get the feeding story next week (although it will be John’s version). And we will get fed here today and it is not fast food. It is the sustaining food of community, of prayer, of God’s love.
What might we discover if we slow down enough along the way to see where we are? How might we be fed? Where might we encounter God if we pay attention to the in-between places? Make no mistake, Jesus is found in the frenzy as well and he offers healing there. But what more of God and ourselves is there for us to revel in if we remember the in-between places? What happens if we ponder the questions?
© Anne E. Kitch 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Pentecost 6: Standing Up
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
July 16. 2006
Proper 10 - 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19, Mark 6:14-29
I have been a priest for 36 years and have never been faced with preaching on this passage about the death of John the Baptist. Most parish clergy who are solo in a parish take their vacation from mid-July to mid-August. Now I see why. The church lectionary saves passages such as this for mid-summer so that, as important as it may be, both clergy and congregation have a good chance of being spared having to face it. If I had looked ahead when preparing the preaching schedule, you most likely would have found Canon Atkinson in this pulpit on this Sunday to take on this passage.
But here we are, priest and parishioner, on this Sunday so let’s gird our loins and see what God might be trying to say to us today in this sordid tale from so long ago.
And sordid is a good word here. It defines something as “involving ignoble actions and motives; arousing moral distaste and contempt.”
And indeed the death of John the Baptist does just that. It involves the basest of human motives, the grossest of human morals, the beastliest of human behaviors – and the horrible death of a holy man and a strong and true prophet of the Most High God.
But, how dare he confront the king with the truth about his actions. No wonder they put him in prison. How dare he publicly oppose the wishes of the king? How dare he oppose the actions and policies of the legal government? How dare he speak out, so loudly, in opposition to behaviors offensive to God? How dare he…! "He will pay!”
Joanna Adams wrote, “You can put your ear to the ground and listen as hard as you can, but you will not detect a single note of authentic joy or hope anywhere in the vicinity” of this story. I am not sure that I agree entirely, but it does feel that way, and you don’t find Jesus in this story either.
Mark has placed this story in his narrative right after we have heard of all the successes of the miracles stories, the disciples have been sent out to spread the Good News, and then we get this story. John’s death had happened in the past, mark could have placed it anywhere, but here it is close to the beginning. It sort of casts a pall over the whole enterprise, doesn’t it?
This new reign of God will come at some cost, some great cost to some. Didn’t Jesus warn his disciples that it wouldn’t be easy; that there would be costs to their being his disciples? Going out as lambs among wolves.
Some of you are old enough to remember what the Sergeant on the old TV show, Hill Street Blues, said when he sent his squad out into the streets at the beginning on each and every show, "Be careful, you can get hurt out there."
The world is a dangerous place. It is especially so for those who would be true to what they know of God and of God’s way. There is a reason the early church met underground, literally, and in secret. It was dangerous to live God’s way.
It has been so for anyone who would counter the evils of the world with the ways of God. The church calendar is full of people who paid the ultimate cost of discipleship, the cost of living counter to “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God” that we regularly renounce in our Baptismal Covenant.
What are some of the things we hear about the ways of the world that are counter to God’s ways? Dog eat dog. The rat race. The one with the most toys wins. The first shall be first. My way or the highway. Be number 1! We could go on ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
The people of God, the followers of Jesus are to live in direct opposition to that kind of world. And it can be dangerous today, too. Dangerous to confront behaviors that hurt, be they in a classroom, or on a street corner, or in a boardroom or a government office.
Throughout my adult life I have been very attentive to matters of inclusivity, and diversity. I recently saw this story told by Brian Stoffgren that lays out the discipleship issue pretty clearly. It comes from the civil rights era of the 1950’s.
There were two brothers in Georgia. One decided that in opposition to the dominant culture of the day, he was going to support and participate in the formation of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial inclusive community. The other worked as an attorney for a prominent law firm. Both were faithful Christians and attended church regularly.
As the community formed and social pressures eventually forced them into court proceedings, the one brother asked his attorney brother to help them with the legal work. The brother refused, saying that he could lose his job. The one increased the pressure to help with a reminder that he was a Christian. The lawyer responded, "I will follow Jesus to his cross, but it is his cross. I have no need to be crucified." To this his brother replied, "Then you are an admirer of Jesus, but not his disciple."
Perhaps you will remember this poem about the rise of Nazism written by Pastor Martin Niemoller.
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
I remember what a holy woman by the name of Verna Dozier taught in her book, The Dream of God. “The clear message of Jesus in the Gospels is to follow Him. But early on, the institutional church found this task too daunting, and decided it would just worship Him instead!”
The message of this gospel today is that we, too, must “Stand up for Jesus”.
We who believe, who know, who have seen, and have been touched by the power of Christ in our own lives; we are to stand up for Jesus, stand up for what is right and of God, stand up when those in power betray their calling, stand up when others can’t. Each of us can come up with our own list of reasons why we need to Stand Up.
For most of us the cost will be, perhaps, only some social isolation – but, then, we already know that we are always surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and the community of believers, and the whole host of heaven – and no matter what happens, God reigns.
If we stand up, God reigns. If we speak out, God reigns. If we should fall, God reigns. But, at the very least, we will know who reigns and rules our own heart, and soul, and mind, our strength – the Most High God reigns! For ever and ever. Amen.
July 16. 2006
Proper 10 - 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19, Mark 6:14-29
I have been a priest for 36 years and have never been faced with preaching on this passage about the death of John the Baptist. Most parish clergy who are solo in a parish take their vacation from mid-July to mid-August. Now I see why. The church lectionary saves passages such as this for mid-summer so that, as important as it may be, both clergy and congregation have a good chance of being spared having to face it. If I had looked ahead when preparing the preaching schedule, you most likely would have found Canon Atkinson in this pulpit on this Sunday to take on this passage.
But here we are, priest and parishioner, on this Sunday so let’s gird our loins and see what God might be trying to say to us today in this sordid tale from so long ago.
And sordid is a good word here. It defines something as “involving ignoble actions and motives; arousing moral distaste and contempt.”
And indeed the death of John the Baptist does just that. It involves the basest of human motives, the grossest of human morals, the beastliest of human behaviors – and the horrible death of a holy man and a strong and true prophet of the Most High God.
But, how dare he confront the king with the truth about his actions. No wonder they put him in prison. How dare he publicly oppose the wishes of the king? How dare he oppose the actions and policies of the legal government? How dare he speak out, so loudly, in opposition to behaviors offensive to God? How dare he…! "He will pay!”
Joanna Adams wrote, “You can put your ear to the ground and listen as hard as you can, but you will not detect a single note of authentic joy or hope anywhere in the vicinity” of this story. I am not sure that I agree entirely, but it does feel that way, and you don’t find Jesus in this story either.
Mark has placed this story in his narrative right after we have heard of all the successes of the miracles stories, the disciples have been sent out to spread the Good News, and then we get this story. John’s death had happened in the past, mark could have placed it anywhere, but here it is close to the beginning. It sort of casts a pall over the whole enterprise, doesn’t it?
This new reign of God will come at some cost, some great cost to some. Didn’t Jesus warn his disciples that it wouldn’t be easy; that there would be costs to their being his disciples? Going out as lambs among wolves.
Some of you are old enough to remember what the Sergeant on the old TV show, Hill Street Blues, said when he sent his squad out into the streets at the beginning on each and every show, "Be careful, you can get hurt out there."
The world is a dangerous place. It is especially so for those who would be true to what they know of God and of God’s way. There is a reason the early church met underground, literally, and in secret. It was dangerous to live God’s way.
It has been so for anyone who would counter the evils of the world with the ways of God. The church calendar is full of people who paid the ultimate cost of discipleship, the cost of living counter to “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God” that we regularly renounce in our Baptismal Covenant.
What are some of the things we hear about the ways of the world that are counter to God’s ways? Dog eat dog. The rat race. The one with the most toys wins. The first shall be first. My way or the highway. Be number 1! We could go on ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
The people of God, the followers of Jesus are to live in direct opposition to that kind of world. And it can be dangerous today, too. Dangerous to confront behaviors that hurt, be they in a classroom, or on a street corner, or in a boardroom or a government office.
Throughout my adult life I have been very attentive to matters of inclusivity, and diversity. I recently saw this story told by Brian Stoffgren that lays out the discipleship issue pretty clearly. It comes from the civil rights era of the 1950’s.
There were two brothers in Georgia. One decided that in opposition to the dominant culture of the day, he was going to support and participate in the formation of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial inclusive community. The other worked as an attorney for a prominent law firm. Both were faithful Christians and attended church regularly.
As the community formed and social pressures eventually forced them into court proceedings, the one brother asked his attorney brother to help them with the legal work. The brother refused, saying that he could lose his job. The one increased the pressure to help with a reminder that he was a Christian. The lawyer responded, "I will follow Jesus to his cross, but it is his cross. I have no need to be crucified." To this his brother replied, "Then you are an admirer of Jesus, but not his disciple."
Perhaps you will remember this poem about the rise of Nazism written by Pastor Martin Niemoller.
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
I remember what a holy woman by the name of Verna Dozier taught in her book, The Dream of God. “The clear message of Jesus in the Gospels is to follow Him. But early on, the institutional church found this task too daunting, and decided it would just worship Him instead!”
The message of this gospel today is that we, too, must “Stand up for Jesus”.
We who believe, who know, who have seen, and have been touched by the power of Christ in our own lives; we are to stand up for Jesus, stand up for what is right and of God, stand up when those in power betray their calling, stand up when others can’t. Each of us can come up with our own list of reasons why we need to Stand Up.
For most of us the cost will be, perhaps, only some social isolation – but, then, we already know that we are always surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and the community of believers, and the whole host of heaven – and no matter what happens, God reigns.
If we stand up, God reigns. If we speak out, God reigns. If we should fall, God reigns. But, at the very least, we will know who reigns and rules our own heart, and soul, and mind, our strength – the Most High God reigns! For ever and ever. Amen.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Pentecost 4: Miracle Interrupted
July 2, 2006
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 8 : 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27, Mark 5:21-43
Today we have a miracle of Jesus being interrupted by a miracle of Jesus. Two miracles where two people believe that Jesus has what can help them – the power to heal; for the wealthy leader the healing of his daughter, for the poor woman the healing of herself. The leader meets Jesus head-on; the woman who is an outcast, a nobody, because of her condition creeps up on him from behind. Both hoping beyond hope that there is power to heal
There is healing for both. There is restoration for both. The restoration of Jairus’ daughter to life and to health; the restoration of the woman to health and to a place in society.
We see here that in Jesus there is saving power. He makes the wounded whole. He brings what is dead back to life.
Of course, if Jesus hadn’t stopped to speak to the woman in the street, Jairus’ daughter wouldn’t have died. Couldn’t he just have noted that someone had touched his garment and hurried on to heal the young girl? Why did he have to stop?
It has been said that this passage encourages us to consider a “theology of interruptions”. God’s time is not our time. God’s schedule is not ruled by ours. God’s priorities are not our priorities. God is not bound by our human “oughts” and “should-have’s”.
God’s power is for each, for all. God attends to each in the particularity of her or his own need. God’s grace is sufficient for each and touches the whole person.
Jesus takes the time to address the woman before him. He meets her at the place of her greatest need. His power heals her physical condition, and he addresses this outcast, this nobody as “daughter” and thereby returns her to her rightful place in society and re-places her in relationships to those in her life.
God’s grace is at work in the interruptions.
Canon Charles Shreve, beloved canon of this cathedral, told us once of the time when he was canon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco when his secretary called him out to deal with a man who had come to ask for money.
Charles saw a man who was an obvious street drunk - dirty, unkempt, filthy clothes. But Charles is Charles and so he invited him into his office to sit and have some coffee or tea. The man told him a well-rehearsed story of his descent into his present condition. The man wanted money for food, he said. Charles asked him, "Isn't there anyone you could call for help."
He said that there was no one. He had a son whom he had not seen for several years, since his graduation from Stanford, and he had no idea where to find him, or even if it was worth finding him, given his present condition. When he mentioned that the son had graduated from Stanford, A possible way to trace the son crossed Charles mind. He asked for the name of his son.
The name he gave was the name of a man Charles knew. This young man was a kind of "Golden Boy." He was young, handsome, well educated, well employed, had a winning personality, a rising star, active in cathedral life and ministry. Charles asked the man if he would come back the next day at 12:00 noon, and said he would try to locate his son. The man agreed.
Charles called the son and told him the story of his father. The man said that he hadn't seen him since his graduation. His mother had divorced his father because of all the abuse involved in his addiction. He had lost track of him. He didn’t really want to see him, know him, and certainly he wasn’t about to forgive him. Charles talked with him for quite a while. Finally, “Yes”, he would certainly be at the cathedral at noon.
The old man arrived first and Charles invited him to wait in his office. Shortly afterward the son came in. Dressed in a beautiful, double-breasted Cashmere overcoat. The old man stood up and said, “Hello Son”. The young man said, “Hello Dad”. And he went over to him; to this dirty disheveled drunk who was his father. He took off his coat and placed it around the shoulders of his father - wrapped him up in it - and drew him into a warm embrace of love. Tears, all ‘round.
A moment of healing, of reconciliation, of redemption, of restoration. New life was begun. God’s grace was at work in the interruption.
As you and I are recipients of that grace, so God also calls us to be agents of grace as well. To be aware of the need for it in the day-to-day interruptions of what we would like to be our well-ordered lives.
You and I, yes even you and I, are empowered to defeat death, relieve suffering, and make the wounded whole… in the name of Jesus.
Amen
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 8 : 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27, Mark 5:21-43
Today we have a miracle of Jesus being interrupted by a miracle of Jesus. Two miracles where two people believe that Jesus has what can help them – the power to heal; for the wealthy leader the healing of his daughter, for the poor woman the healing of herself. The leader meets Jesus head-on; the woman who is an outcast, a nobody, because of her condition creeps up on him from behind. Both hoping beyond hope that there is power to heal
There is healing for both. There is restoration for both. The restoration of Jairus’ daughter to life and to health; the restoration of the woman to health and to a place in society.
We see here that in Jesus there is saving power. He makes the wounded whole. He brings what is dead back to life.
Of course, if Jesus hadn’t stopped to speak to the woman in the street, Jairus’ daughter wouldn’t have died. Couldn’t he just have noted that someone had touched his garment and hurried on to heal the young girl? Why did he have to stop?
It has been said that this passage encourages us to consider a “theology of interruptions”. God’s time is not our time. God’s schedule is not ruled by ours. God’s priorities are not our priorities. God is not bound by our human “oughts” and “should-have’s”.
God’s power is for each, for all. God attends to each in the particularity of her or his own need. God’s grace is sufficient for each and touches the whole person.
Jesus takes the time to address the woman before him. He meets her at the place of her greatest need. His power heals her physical condition, and he addresses this outcast, this nobody as “daughter” and thereby returns her to her rightful place in society and re-places her in relationships to those in her life.
God’s grace is at work in the interruptions.
Canon Charles Shreve, beloved canon of this cathedral, told us once of the time when he was canon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco when his secretary called him out to deal with a man who had come to ask for money.
Charles saw a man who was an obvious street drunk - dirty, unkempt, filthy clothes. But Charles is Charles and so he invited him into his office to sit and have some coffee or tea. The man told him a well-rehearsed story of his descent into his present condition. The man wanted money for food, he said. Charles asked him, "Isn't there anyone you could call for help."
He said that there was no one. He had a son whom he had not seen for several years, since his graduation from Stanford, and he had no idea where to find him, or even if it was worth finding him, given his present condition. When he mentioned that the son had graduated from Stanford, A possible way to trace the son crossed Charles mind. He asked for the name of his son.
The name he gave was the name of a man Charles knew. This young man was a kind of "Golden Boy." He was young, handsome, well educated, well employed, had a winning personality, a rising star, active in cathedral life and ministry. Charles asked the man if he would come back the next day at 12:00 noon, and said he would try to locate his son. The man agreed.
Charles called the son and told him the story of his father. The man said that he hadn't seen him since his graduation. His mother had divorced his father because of all the abuse involved in his addiction. He had lost track of him. He didn’t really want to see him, know him, and certainly he wasn’t about to forgive him. Charles talked with him for quite a while. Finally, “Yes”, he would certainly be at the cathedral at noon.
The old man arrived first and Charles invited him to wait in his office. Shortly afterward the son came in. Dressed in a beautiful, double-breasted Cashmere overcoat. The old man stood up and said, “Hello Son”. The young man said, “Hello Dad”. And he went over to him; to this dirty disheveled drunk who was his father. He took off his coat and placed it around the shoulders of his father - wrapped him up in it - and drew him into a warm embrace of love. Tears, all ‘round.
A moment of healing, of reconciliation, of redemption, of restoration. New life was begun. God’s grace was at work in the interruption.
As you and I are recipients of that grace, so God also calls us to be agents of grace as well. To be aware of the need for it in the day-to-day interruptions of what we would like to be our well-ordered lives.
You and I, yes even you and I, are empowered to defeat death, relieve suffering, and make the wounded whole… in the name of Jesus.
Amen
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Pentecost 3 : Two-Part Miracles
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
June 25, 2006 (Proper 7)
Job 38:1-11, Mark 4:35-41
Well, here is an old, old story of Jesus and his love.
Do you remember that old, old hymn:
I love to tell the story ... Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love. I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true; It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.
I love to tell the story, ’twill be my theme in glory, To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.
This is an old, old story of Jesus and the power of his love. Love strong enough to still the waves. Strong enough to move mountains. Strong enough to bridge over troubles waters. Strong enough to calm a raging fear. Strong enough to soothe an anxious heart.
I have been to Galilee and I have seen the Sea. I want to tell you it is a small, small sea, more a lake than an ocean; oval in shape, it is 13 miles long and 8 miles at is widest point.
I have been on a lake about that size when a storm has come up with a mighty and erratic wind that capsized my small sailing boat and threw me and my companions into the raging water a mile from shore. If I remember correctly, I think I was too busy surviving to call upon God for rescue, but if I had had the time, I know I would have done so with a mighty, and soulful cry.
A small boat in a stormy sea is a good metaphor for life, a good metaphor for faith. There’s nothing like a good, perfect storm to put our personal and human power into perspective. Perhaps I should say, to put the puny nature of our personal and human power into perspective.
There is good reason for the Sailor’s Prayer to be, “O LORD, watch over me for the sea is so great and my boat is so small.”
But isn’t the American ideal about exercising control over one’s life; being in control of our relationships, controlling our personal destiny?
Father Frank Wade writes: “Being in control of one's life is a virtue we admire greatly in this country. The discipline of the athlete, the successful professional, the wise investor, the accomplished artist. William Bennett's popular Book of Virtues fairly bulges with stories of responsible people in firm control of their lives.
“On the other hand, one of the harshest judgments we make is on people who are out of control in one way or another. To let your car get out of control is a crime...to let your emotions get out of control is an embarrassment...when your children are out of control it is considered a failure...with the mind out of control it is an illness. When our finances are out of control, they lead to bankruptcy and ruin. We take control very seriously in our community and rightly so.”
Control, and worrying about being out of control. Valuing an impossibility. Controlling life is an oxymoron.
Stress management experts say that only two percent of our "worrying time" is spent on things that might actually be helped by worrying. The other 98 percent of this time is spent thusly:
- 40% on things that never happen
- 35% on things that can't be changed
- 15% on things that turn out better than expected
- 8% on useless, petty worries
It is an old, old story.
But there are also times when we are so in touch with our limits, our frailty, our finitude that we anxiously wait for rescue, eagerly seek succor, hopefully expect salvation. And there is Jesus “in the stern asleep on the cushion”!
Where is a savior when you need one? Is God really a present help in trouble? Didn’t God say to Job,
"…(It was God who) who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb? --
when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, `Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?
“O LORD, watch over me for the sea is so great and my boat is so small.” Where are you? I need you now?
O LORD, my child is so sick! O LORD, I am so alone! O LORD, the world is such a mess! O LORD, I’ve lost my job! O LORD, I’ve lost my way! O LORD, I am sinking! O LORD, I don’t know what to do! O LORD, save me!
It is an old, old story. Who has not uttered such a prayer? Who has not called on the name of the LORD in utter distress? Who has not invoked the power of God to save? You? You have not? Then wait, you will.
And will the LORD come, mighty to save? Will the Lord calm the sea? Will the Lord still the wind? Yes, even within the raging storm we can see God at work.
Have you thought it through, though? Jesus calms the sea and stills the wind and there is a dead calm. Then what? Stilling the wind stops sailboats dead in the water. How are you going to get through? How are you going to get home? How are you going to get to the shore? Jesus isn’t Commander Scotty on Star Trek. He’s not gonna “beam you up.”
I think there is only one way, the only way is to row… to pull hard on the oars, to break a sweat, to use the God-given power we do have, to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the miracle at hand, to get to work, to pull hard and to row like hell.
We well can pray that Jesus would work miracles in our lives and in our world and in our church. We can count on that happening. We can count on Him. We also need to be prepared to do the work necessary to finish off the miracle, to bring it to fulfillment, to arrive safely on shore. Along with the sea and the wind, we, too, are called to obedience, to discipline, to work, to cooperate with the miracle of his love.
It is an old, old story about Jesus and his love and us. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
June 25, 2006 (Proper 7)
Job 38:1-11, Mark 4:35-41
Well, here is an old, old story of Jesus and his love.
Do you remember that old, old hymn:
I love to tell the story ... Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love. I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true; It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.
I love to tell the story, ’twill be my theme in glory, To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.
This is an old, old story of Jesus and the power of his love. Love strong enough to still the waves. Strong enough to move mountains. Strong enough to bridge over troubles waters. Strong enough to calm a raging fear. Strong enough to soothe an anxious heart.
I have been to Galilee and I have seen the Sea. I want to tell you it is a small, small sea, more a lake than an ocean; oval in shape, it is 13 miles long and 8 miles at is widest point.
I have been on a lake about that size when a storm has come up with a mighty and erratic wind that capsized my small sailing boat and threw me and my companions into the raging water a mile from shore. If I remember correctly, I think I was too busy surviving to call upon God for rescue, but if I had had the time, I know I would have done so with a mighty, and soulful cry.
A small boat in a stormy sea is a good metaphor for life, a good metaphor for faith. There’s nothing like a good, perfect storm to put our personal and human power into perspective. Perhaps I should say, to put the puny nature of our personal and human power into perspective.
There is good reason for the Sailor’s Prayer to be, “O LORD, watch over me for the sea is so great and my boat is so small.”
But isn’t the American ideal about exercising control over one’s life; being in control of our relationships, controlling our personal destiny?
Father Frank Wade writes: “Being in control of one's life is a virtue we admire greatly in this country. The discipline of the athlete, the successful professional, the wise investor, the accomplished artist. William Bennett's popular Book of Virtues fairly bulges with stories of responsible people in firm control of their lives.
“On the other hand, one of the harshest judgments we make is on people who are out of control in one way or another. To let your car get out of control is a crime...to let your emotions get out of control is an embarrassment...when your children are out of control it is considered a failure...with the mind out of control it is an illness. When our finances are out of control, they lead to bankruptcy and ruin. We take control very seriously in our community and rightly so.”
Control, and worrying about being out of control. Valuing an impossibility. Controlling life is an oxymoron.
Stress management experts say that only two percent of our "worrying time" is spent on things that might actually be helped by worrying. The other 98 percent of this time is spent thusly:
- 40% on things that never happen
- 35% on things that can't be changed
- 15% on things that turn out better than expected
- 8% on useless, petty worries
It is an old, old story.
But there are also times when we are so in touch with our limits, our frailty, our finitude that we anxiously wait for rescue, eagerly seek succor, hopefully expect salvation. And there is Jesus “in the stern asleep on the cushion”!
Where is a savior when you need one? Is God really a present help in trouble? Didn’t God say to Job,
"…(It was God who) who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb? --
when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, `Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?
“O LORD, watch over me for the sea is so great and my boat is so small.” Where are you? I need you now?
O LORD, my child is so sick! O LORD, I am so alone! O LORD, the world is such a mess! O LORD, I’ve lost my job! O LORD, I’ve lost my way! O LORD, I am sinking! O LORD, I don’t know what to do! O LORD, save me!
It is an old, old story. Who has not uttered such a prayer? Who has not called on the name of the LORD in utter distress? Who has not invoked the power of God to save? You? You have not? Then wait, you will.
And will the LORD come, mighty to save? Will the Lord calm the sea? Will the Lord still the wind? Yes, even within the raging storm we can see God at work.
Have you thought it through, though? Jesus calms the sea and stills the wind and there is a dead calm. Then what? Stilling the wind stops sailboats dead in the water. How are you going to get through? How are you going to get home? How are you going to get to the shore? Jesus isn’t Commander Scotty on Star Trek. He’s not gonna “beam you up.”
I think there is only one way, the only way is to row… to pull hard on the oars, to break a sweat, to use the God-given power we do have, to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the miracle at hand, to get to work, to pull hard and to row like hell.
We well can pray that Jesus would work miracles in our lives and in our world and in our church. We can count on that happening. We can count on Him. We also need to be prepared to do the work necessary to finish off the miracle, to bring it to fulfillment, to arrive safely on shore. Along with the sea and the wind, we, too, are called to obedience, to discipline, to work, to cooperate with the miracle of his love.
It is an old, old story about Jesus and his love and us. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
General Convention: Christian Formation Is a Life-long Process
The past 11 days our deputies and bishops have traveled the mountains and valleys together. And as some have remarked, we have limped across the finish line. Our grateful hearts are with our deputies and bishops as they travel home.
When I agreed to blog I knew that much of the work of GC would be overshadowed by the response to the Windsor Report. And, so I committed to keeping before me the fullness of the work of the Church. Here is a summary of those resolutions I promised to follow. I pray that we will continue to listen to the Holy Spirit and to do the work that God has brought before us.
Resolution A067 (amended) passed. This resolution approves, for experimental use, additional prayers and liturgies for transitions in life.
Resolution A070 passed. The Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music is asked to develop liturgies for pastoral issues that relate to the adoption of a child.
Resolution A089 (amended) passed. This resolution affirms the work of the Pastoral Leadership Search Effort (PLSE; pronounced "pulse"), and requests PB&F to allocate about $386,000 to the PLSE initiative.
Resolution A100 was not considered at GC 2006. This resolution identified Christian formation to be in a state of crisis and sought more adequate methods for reporting the state of Christian formation to General Convention.
Resolution A105 passed. This resolution establishes a Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Education and Formation.
I am awestruck by the stamina and commitment of our deputies and bishops. They have struggled through blood, sweat, and tears to respond to the Windsor Report in a way that expresses our desire to be in conversation with the Communion They have also picked up the multitude of legislation that needed to be attended to nurture our souls. I particularly appreciate the new prayers and liturgies that recognize the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in renewing the whole creation. Let us now go and tell what we have seen~share these prayers with our fellow Episcopalians and encourage their use at gatherings~at home or at church. In the Book of Occasional Prayers you will find prayers for becoming a big brother or sister, beginning a job, important birthdays (both young and old), and reclaiming health. Yes, we have the words to celebrate God's presence and blessings!
I am also thankful that GC established a Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Education and Formation. I was surprised by this resolution at first. Christian education and formation are foundational to ministry and mission;' why wasn't there already such a commission before?
Alas, this deficiency has been addressed. Amen to this resolution and hearty prayers for the work before them!
Thus ends the round-up. Truly, the Holy Spirit moves among us. And we need to continue to offer ourselves up to God for wholeness and healing so that we may witness to God's deep love for all creatures.
Almighty and most merciful God, grant that by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit we may be enlightened and strengthened for your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives, and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, on God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, p. 251)
In peace,
Jenifer
When I agreed to blog I knew that much of the work of GC would be overshadowed by the response to the Windsor Report. And, so I committed to keeping before me the fullness of the work of the Church. Here is a summary of those resolutions I promised to follow. I pray that we will continue to listen to the Holy Spirit and to do the work that God has brought before us.
Resolution A067 (amended) passed. This resolution approves, for experimental use, additional prayers and liturgies for transitions in life.
Resolution A070 passed. The Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music is asked to develop liturgies for pastoral issues that relate to the adoption of a child.
Resolution A089 (amended) passed. This resolution affirms the work of the Pastoral Leadership Search Effort (PLSE; pronounced "pulse"), and requests PB&F to allocate about $386,000 to the PLSE initiative.
Resolution A100 was not considered at GC 2006. This resolution identified Christian formation to be in a state of crisis and sought more adequate methods for reporting the state of Christian formation to General Convention.
Resolution A105 passed. This resolution establishes a Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Education and Formation.
I am awestruck by the stamina and commitment of our deputies and bishops. They have struggled through blood, sweat, and tears to respond to the Windsor Report in a way that expresses our desire to be in conversation with the Communion They have also picked up the multitude of legislation that needed to be attended to nurture our souls. I particularly appreciate the new prayers and liturgies that recognize the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in renewing the whole creation. Let us now go and tell what we have seen~share these prayers with our fellow Episcopalians and encourage their use at gatherings~at home or at church. In the Book of Occasional Prayers you will find prayers for becoming a big brother or sister, beginning a job, important birthdays (both young and old), and reclaiming health. Yes, we have the words to celebrate God's presence and blessings!
I am also thankful that GC established a Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Education and Formation. I was surprised by this resolution at first. Christian education and formation are foundational to ministry and mission;' why wasn't there already such a commission before?
Alas, this deficiency has been addressed. Amen to this resolution and hearty prayers for the work before them!
Thus ends the round-up. Truly, the Holy Spirit moves among us. And we need to continue to offer ourselves up to God for wholeness and healing so that we may witness to God's deep love for all creatures.
Almighty and most merciful God, grant that by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit we may be enlightened and strengthened for your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives, and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, on God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, p. 251)
In peace,
Jenifer
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
My teacher let me see again.
From back home in Bethlehem, PA it appears that night has fallen upon General Convention. My heart is heavy and prayers ever fervent for a way forward. A posting on the Bethlehem ecunet listserve speaks of blindness. Are we, like blind Bartimaeus, being asked "What do you want me to do for you?" Will we, like Bartimaeus ask, "My teacher let me see again." And, when given sight, will we, like Bartimaeus, leave the comfort of what is familiar to follow Jesus?
I offer this prayer for all of us this day:
Ever present God of light and darkness, help us to see our blindness.
Son who bears our blindness, give us courage to ask to see again.
Spirit of the truth and justice, give us strength to follow your Way.
(See Mark 10 for the full story of Bartimaeus' courage to ask and follow.)
Jenifer
I offer this prayer for all of us this day:
Ever present God of light and darkness, help us to see our blindness.
Son who bears our blindness, give us courage to ask to see again.
Spirit of the truth and justice, give us strength to follow your Way.
(See Mark 10 for the full story of Bartimaeus' courage to ask and follow.)
Jenifer
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Acknowledging pain, or changing direction?
It strikes me that it is important that the language of "regret" does not get mixed up with the word "repent". From what I heard at General Convention, particularly +Gene Robinson's moving sermon at the Integrity Eucharist (God loves us and asks us to respond by loving more) tells me that we do see the pain in the Communion and indeed weep because of it. We regret because we see the pain endured by God's children. The word "regret" seems to ring true. Looking at the etymology of the word "regret" has clarified this for me:
Middle English regretten, to lament, from Old French regreter: re-, re- + -greter, to weep (perhaps of Germanic origin) (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000)
Indeed we do weep and lament the consequences of our actions on the Communion. We weep for misunderstanding one another. We lament that we do not accept one another as made in the image of God....as whole people and of God. If we are being asked to say that we regret, we must search the depths of our hearts. We must feel the pain of our brothers and sisters in the Communion~the pain of those who see the brokenness of our common life. The brokenness of not being able to break bread together in our wholeness and in our brokennes. Asking for a statement of regret asks us to feel and witness to that pain.
Repent is altogether something different. I means to turn around, to walk in the opposite direction. I don't believe we can do this and live into the life that God is calling us. Turning around means changing behavior in a way that would deny the wholeness of God's people. We cannot repent the raising up of a bishop by the people of New Hampshire. It would deny the work of the Holy Spirit among us and the poeple of New Hampshire three years ago in 2003.
Some have suggested that we will be asked to regret the election of +Katharine Jefferts Shori. Perhaps this too will cause pain. From the request of different Primatial oversight by at least one PECUSA diocese, perhaps it has caused pain. Perhaps we will, again, take on the difficult work of listening to the pain. And perhaps we will let God do God's work of healing.
I do weep for the pain our actions have inflicted. We cannot fix that pain. We can, however, offer the pain to God and continue to offer ourselves to God for healing too.
Jenifer
Middle English regretten, to lament, from Old French regreter: re-, re- + -greter, to weep (perhaps of Germanic origin) (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000)
Indeed we do weep and lament the consequences of our actions on the Communion. We weep for misunderstanding one another. We lament that we do not accept one another as made in the image of God....as whole people and of God. If we are being asked to say that we regret, we must search the depths of our hearts. We must feel the pain of our brothers and sisters in the Communion~the pain of those who see the brokenness of our common life. The brokenness of not being able to break bread together in our wholeness and in our brokennes. Asking for a statement of regret asks us to feel and witness to that pain.
Repent is altogether something different. I means to turn around, to walk in the opposite direction. I don't believe we can do this and live into the life that God is calling us. Turning around means changing behavior in a way that would deny the wholeness of God's people. We cannot repent the raising up of a bishop by the people of New Hampshire. It would deny the work of the Holy Spirit among us and the poeple of New Hampshire three years ago in 2003.
Some have suggested that we will be asked to regret the election of +Katharine Jefferts Shori. Perhaps this too will cause pain. From the request of different Primatial oversight by at least one PECUSA diocese, perhaps it has caused pain. Perhaps we will, again, take on the difficult work of listening to the pain. And perhaps we will let God do God's work of healing.
I do weep for the pain our actions have inflicted. We cannot fix that pain. We can, however, offer the pain to God and continue to offer ourselves to God for healing too.
Jenifer
Monday, June 19, 2006
Pentecost 2: Small Seeds
The Ven. Howard Stringfellow III
June 18, 2006
I Samuel 15:34—16:13; Psalm 20; Saint Mark 4:26-34
In the Name of the True and Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I am delighted to be with you once again. Your healthy congregation, your healthy clergy, and your healthy staff are continuing to succeed in keeping me on the right side of the law. And I am grateful. I am a true church mouse. I would rather be here than at convention, or camp, or even the golf course.
Not lost on me today is that we have two tiny parables that begin with tiny seeds while it is Father’s Day, while the Cathedral’s campers are camping, and while conventioneers are conventioneering in Columbus. Amid all of these contexts we have tiny parables that begin with tiny seeds.
We begin today, also, the long sequence of Green Sundays, Sundays where we pretty well work our way through the Gospel of Saint Mark from chapter four to chapter thirteen from now until Advent Sunday, December 3.
It’s a time of year when we look at Jesus in the Gospel and see him as a teacher and a healer. We put aside, for a time, his identity as the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for us and for the sins of the whole world, and look to him as a teacher, a reconciler, and a healer.
And what do we see in him today? We see him teaching through two tiny parables some remarkable things, some things that may startle us by taking from us the control we may think we have.
He tells us, in the first parable, of seeds that are planted and then harvested. No human effort is required between the planting and the harvesting. That, to me, is very striking. The seed grows, as we hear, the planter “does not know how.” And also, in the second parable, the kingdom of God begins as the smallest of seeds and grows into “the greatest of all shrubs.”
I’m bound to tell you that the certainty of the harvest from nearly invisible beginnings with very little human effort appeals to my Type B personality and my tendency to under-function. The kingdom resists our control. We cannot sell it, market it, duplicate it, preach it, represent it, or otherwise do anything to make it grow. God does all these things. God’s work begins exactly where ours ends. We have been entrusted with tiny seeds to plant, and we plant them and harvest them as best we can. God does the rest. Type A personalities and over-functioners beware. Planters, real farmers, when they have finished irrigating, spraying, and fertilizing still wait in faith. They wait in the mystery of God’s time, and they wait in the unknown of God’s pleasure. The growth happens while they sleep and not as a result of their efforts.
Father’s Day, campers upon returning home, and even a contentious convention are opportunities, fields to plow and to plant for those of us who join in the celebrations and who stayed home. And we have some tiny, almost invisible, seeds, seeds that contain a certain harvest, seeds that certainly will grow into what God wants them to be. What more could we ask?
Who knows how some small gesture of friendship, some brief word of encouragement, some kind deed hastily done, or some small act of putting oneself out has grown in someone whom Christ dearly loves? Who knows how many people have seen their faith in Christ increase because they have received some tiny seeds? Nothing that we do in God’s name is too small to be used in his kingdom.
Silently and imperceptibly at times, perhaps, the kingdom grows. We can let, I think, all of our personalities go. What Jesus asks of us is not one type of personality or another, or one program of growth or another, but to rely upon the promise of the kingdom just as we know we have to rely upon God when we plant a seed. Seeds grow in the dark ground even when we cannot see them. Seeds grow in us and in our world, yearning for meaning and purpose, even when we cannot see them.
In Christ’s Name. Amen.
June 18, 2006
I Samuel 15:34—16:13; Psalm 20; Saint Mark 4:26-34
In the Name of the True and Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I am delighted to be with you once again. Your healthy congregation, your healthy clergy, and your healthy staff are continuing to succeed in keeping me on the right side of the law. And I am grateful. I am a true church mouse. I would rather be here than at convention, or camp, or even the golf course.
Not lost on me today is that we have two tiny parables that begin with tiny seeds while it is Father’s Day, while the Cathedral’s campers are camping, and while conventioneers are conventioneering in Columbus. Amid all of these contexts we have tiny parables that begin with tiny seeds.
We begin today, also, the long sequence of Green Sundays, Sundays where we pretty well work our way through the Gospel of Saint Mark from chapter four to chapter thirteen from now until Advent Sunday, December 3.
It’s a time of year when we look at Jesus in the Gospel and see him as a teacher and a healer. We put aside, for a time, his identity as the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for us and for the sins of the whole world, and look to him as a teacher, a reconciler, and a healer.
And what do we see in him today? We see him teaching through two tiny parables some remarkable things, some things that may startle us by taking from us the control we may think we have.
He tells us, in the first parable, of seeds that are planted and then harvested. No human effort is required between the planting and the harvesting. That, to me, is very striking. The seed grows, as we hear, the planter “does not know how.” And also, in the second parable, the kingdom of God begins as the smallest of seeds and grows into “the greatest of all shrubs.”
I’m bound to tell you that the certainty of the harvest from nearly invisible beginnings with very little human effort appeals to my Type B personality and my tendency to under-function. The kingdom resists our control. We cannot sell it, market it, duplicate it, preach it, represent it, or otherwise do anything to make it grow. God does all these things. God’s work begins exactly where ours ends. We have been entrusted with tiny seeds to plant, and we plant them and harvest them as best we can. God does the rest. Type A personalities and over-functioners beware. Planters, real farmers, when they have finished irrigating, spraying, and fertilizing still wait in faith. They wait in the mystery of God’s time, and they wait in the unknown of God’s pleasure. The growth happens while they sleep and not as a result of their efforts.
Father’s Day, campers upon returning home, and even a contentious convention are opportunities, fields to plow and to plant for those of us who join in the celebrations and who stayed home. And we have some tiny, almost invisible, seeds, seeds that contain a certain harvest, seeds that certainly will grow into what God wants them to be. What more could we ask?
Who knows how some small gesture of friendship, some brief word of encouragement, some kind deed hastily done, or some small act of putting oneself out has grown in someone whom Christ dearly loves? Who knows how many people have seen their faith in Christ increase because they have received some tiny seeds? Nothing that we do in God’s name is too small to be used in his kingdom.
Silently and imperceptibly at times, perhaps, the kingdom grows. We can let, I think, all of our personalities go. What Jesus asks of us is not one type of personality or another, or one program of growth or another, but to rely upon the promise of the kingdom just as we know we have to rely upon God when we plant a seed. Seeds grow in the dark ground even when we cannot see them. Seeds grow in us and in our world, yearning for meaning and purpose, even when we cannot see them.
In Christ’s Name. Amen.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Eucharists at Convention (Jenifer Gamber)
Celebrating Eucharist
After two flights ~one to D.C. and another to Columbus~I've arrived at my first Convention. I am here as a guest, but here nonetheless. Nick is right about the Convention Hall. Cavernous. Delegations have brought things to make it home for the week: the Star of Bethlehem sits atop the pole at the Bethlehem deputation. A chicken perches on the pole from the Diocese of Northwest Texas, a loon at Michigan's table and a lobster at Maryland. Yes, our deputations are open to holy humor, which brings me to my next GC topic~a rag by the name of "The unConventional Times: The Unofficial Journal of the 75th General Convention." Evidently we Episcopalians have been celebrating way too much. This is what The unConventional Times reported today:
"The U2charist. The General Convention's daily Eucharist. The Integrity Eucharist. Alternative Eucharists.... that are straight BCP ('28 or '79 we don't know). Everywhere you go at Convention there is a Eucharist taking place. The Episcopal predilection to celebrate Eucharist has spawned a new group called Episcopalians Newly United for Fewer Eucharists (ENUFE).
The rubrics say you must have two people to celebrate Eucharist, not when you have two people you must celebrate Eucharist," said a spokesperson for ENUFE. The group is also annoyed by all the services being held by special interest groups. In response, ENUFE will be holding a Nocharist. The service will be open to everyone."
I personally am sorry to have missed the U2charist. (Hmmm, maybe we'll have to celebrate one in Bethlehem.) I love Eucharist --gathering around the table and sharing a meal. Don't we need to gather to be nourished? And isn't it around the table that we really get to know one another? Just hours after arriving, my friend Ann Fontaine and I attended the Integrity Eucharist along with hundreds of people. It was packed~not just the nave, but the basement too. Tomorrow morning, I'll be taking communion again at 10 am. We sure do love to party. And Jesus does too...he's there every time.
~Jenifer
p.s. Saturday at 3pm I'll be signing copies of my book My Faith, My Life: A Teen's Guide to the Episcopal Churchk at the Church Publishing booth in the Exhibit Hall. I signed a book today for Angela, a teen from Florida who had been having a hard time finding a book for herself. Where are those books for teens? Makes me wonder.....why doesn't the Episcopal Church have books about faith for teens? Teens are asking.
After two flights ~one to D.C. and another to Columbus~I've arrived at my first Convention. I am here as a guest, but here nonetheless. Nick is right about the Convention Hall. Cavernous. Delegations have brought things to make it home for the week: the Star of Bethlehem sits atop the pole at the Bethlehem deputation. A chicken perches on the pole from the Diocese of Northwest Texas, a loon at Michigan's table and a lobster at Maryland. Yes, our deputations are open to holy humor, which brings me to my next GC topic~a rag by the name of "The unConventional Times: The Unofficial Journal of the 75th General Convention." Evidently we Episcopalians have been celebrating way too much. This is what The unConventional Times reported today:
"The U2charist. The General Convention's daily Eucharist. The Integrity Eucharist. Alternative Eucharists.... that are straight BCP ('28 or '79 we don't know). Everywhere you go at Convention there is a Eucharist taking place. The Episcopal predilection to celebrate Eucharist has spawned a new group called Episcopalians Newly United for Fewer Eucharists (ENUFE).
The rubrics say you must have two people to celebrate Eucharist, not when you have two people you must celebrate Eucharist," said a spokesperson for ENUFE. The group is also annoyed by all the services being held by special interest groups. In response, ENUFE will be holding a Nocharist. The service will be open to everyone."
I personally am sorry to have missed the U2charist. (Hmmm, maybe we'll have to celebrate one in Bethlehem.) I love Eucharist --gathering around the table and sharing a meal. Don't we need to gather to be nourished? And isn't it around the table that we really get to know one another? Just hours after arriving, my friend Ann Fontaine and I attended the Integrity Eucharist along with hundreds of people. It was packed~not just the nave, but the basement too. Tomorrow morning, I'll be taking communion again at 10 am. We sure do love to party. And Jesus does too...he's there every time.
~Jenifer
p.s. Saturday at 3pm I'll be signing copies of my book My Faith, My Life: A Teen's Guide to the Episcopal Churchk at the Church Publishing booth in the Exhibit Hall. I signed a book today for Angela, a teen from Florida who had been having a hard time finding a book for herself. Where are those books for teens? Makes me wonder.....why doesn't the Episcopal Church have books about faith for teens? Teens are asking.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
General Convention Humor
It appears that Episcopalians have roundly rejected the cucumber sandwich.
[I]n an exercise conducted to help deputies learn to use a touchpad voting system, deputies voted down a resolution to make the cucumber sandwich the official food of the Episcopal Church in an exercise conducted to help deputies learn to use a touchpad voting system, deputies voted down a resolution to make the cucumber sandwich the official food of the Episcopal Church. as reported by The Daily Episcopalian.
How about a vote on the proper placement of the dessert fork? (grin)
~Jenifer
[I]n an exercise conducted to help deputies learn to use a touchpad voting system, deputies voted down a resolution to make the cucumber sandwich the official food of the Episcopal Church in an exercise conducted to help deputies learn to use a touchpad voting system, deputies voted down a resolution to make the cucumber sandwich the official food of the Episcopal Church. as reported by The Daily Episcopalian.
How about a vote on the proper placement of the dessert fork? (grin)
~Jenifer
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
General Convention Resolutions about Children and Youth (Jenifer Gamber)
Well, I promised to post about resolutions. So, I'll cease my digression about Kanuga and get onto the task. This will be a quick and dirty summary:
Resolution A070 asks the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music to develop liturgies for pastoral issues that relate to the adoption of a child.
Resolution A089 seeks to affirm the work of the Pastoral Leadership Search Effort (PLSE; pronounced "pulse"), an organization that helps denominations and congregations identify and cultivate gifted young people interested in exploring the ministry as a possible vocation.
The resolution asks for GC to allocate about $386,000 to the PLSE initiative.
Resolution A100 identifies Christian formation to be in a state of crisis and seeks more adequate methods for reporting the state of Christian formation to General Convention. The resolution also asks for the development of special forms of prayers of the people and other resources to emphasize Christian formation and strategies for incorporating formation into all areas of parish life.
Resolution A105 seeks to establish a Standing Commission on Youth and Christian Formation that will develop policies for lifelong Christian formation. The resolution requests $48,000 to implement the resolution.
The National Association for Episcopal Christian Education Directors (NAECED) has published thoughtful position papers that include both appreciations for and concerns about specific resolutions regarding Christian formation. NAECED representatives urged the Joint Standing Committee for Program, Budget, and Finance at a Monday hearing to allocate additional funds to children's ministry and Christian education to provide more balanced funding with the budget allocation for Youth and Young Adults. The ENS covered the hearing.
~Jenifer Gamber
Resolution A070 asks the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music to develop liturgies for pastoral issues that relate to the adoption of a child.
Resolution A089 seeks to affirm the work of the Pastoral Leadership Search Effort (PLSE; pronounced "pulse"), an organization that helps denominations and congregations identify and cultivate gifted young people interested in exploring the ministry as a possible vocation.
The resolution asks for GC to allocate about $386,000 to the PLSE initiative.
Resolution A100 identifies Christian formation to be in a state of crisis and seeks more adequate methods for reporting the state of Christian formation to General Convention. The resolution also asks for the development of special forms of prayers of the people and other resources to emphasize Christian formation and strategies for incorporating formation into all areas of parish life.
Resolution A105 seeks to establish a Standing Commission on Youth and Christian Formation that will develop policies for lifelong Christian formation. The resolution requests $48,000 to implement the resolution.
The National Association for Episcopal Christian Education Directors (NAECED) has published thoughtful position papers that include both appreciations for and concerns about specific resolutions regarding Christian formation. NAECED representatives urged the Joint Standing Committee for Program, Budget, and Finance at a Monday hearing to allocate additional funds to children's ministry and Christian education to provide more balanced funding with the budget allocation for Youth and Young Adults. The ENS covered the hearing.
~Jenifer Gamber
General Convention and Faith Formation in the Home (Jenifer Gamber)
"Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?" "Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?" The celebrant asks the parents and godparents these two questions when they present a child for baptism. The parents answer them saying, "I will with God's help.
These questions and promises recognize the reality that parents carry the primary responsibility of growing faith in, and with, children. This is nothing new. The words that following the shema in Deuteronomy of the Hebrew Scripture command us to recite our faith and tell it to our children.
We began this morning at Kanuga with these promises and by recognizing the importance of faith formation in the home. The reality is Sunday School teachers see children for just one or two hours a week. It is in the rhythm of daily life at home and at school that children learn about who they are and who God is. Parents are the primary teachers. So, we shared family rituals that inform and form the faith in our families~daily devotions, a blessing cup, family covenants and intentional times for thanksgiving and intercession. Having caring conversations, telling stories, and intentionally recognizing one another as God's people opens our eyes and the eyes of our children to God's daily presence in our lives. We will bring these treasures home to share with our parents.
I am pleased to see that the resolutions being considered during the triennium also recognize the primary role of parents in faith formation.
The Resolution on the Rites of Passage asks the General Convention to offer opportunities to ask for God's blessings and offer that blessing to the Christian community during times of significant change. These opportunities are in the form of additional prayers and rites of passage in the Book of Occassional Services. The prayers provide the words to help parents recognize developmental moments for their children: becoming a big brother or sister, starting a school year, earning a driver's license, and graduating from high school.The rites of passage are liturgies to be celebrated during worship. The Rite of Passage for Young People and Their Parents affirms and upholds young people as they grow and mature and continues to reaffirm the important work of parenting. Two other proposed rites for young people include the celebration of a significant birthday and the declation of the intention for marriage. Truly, faith formation is a lifelong process. The resolution also offers prayers and rites for transitions in midlife and transitions of elders.
These prayers and rites recognize God's abiding grace in our lives and that much of our formation happens in the home and through daily life.
I'm off to Eucharist centered on images of Christ. The celebrant has been integrating projected images throughout our time together. Later this evening, I will tell more about resolutions at GC. See you then!
~Jenifer Gamber, reporting at the request of Rick Cluett, Interim Dean and Rector of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity
These questions and promises recognize the reality that parents carry the primary responsibility of growing faith in, and with, children. This is nothing new. The words that following the shema in Deuteronomy of the Hebrew Scripture command us to recite our faith and tell it to our children.
We began this morning at Kanuga with these promises and by recognizing the importance of faith formation in the home. The reality is Sunday School teachers see children for just one or two hours a week. It is in the rhythm of daily life at home and at school that children learn about who they are and who God is. Parents are the primary teachers. So, we shared family rituals that inform and form the faith in our families~daily devotions, a blessing cup, family covenants and intentional times for thanksgiving and intercession. Having caring conversations, telling stories, and intentionally recognizing one another as God's people opens our eyes and the eyes of our children to God's daily presence in our lives. We will bring these treasures home to share with our parents.
I am pleased to see that the resolutions being considered during the triennium also recognize the primary role of parents in faith formation.
The Resolution on the Rites of Passage asks the General Convention to offer opportunities to ask for God's blessings and offer that blessing to the Christian community during times of significant change. These opportunities are in the form of additional prayers and rites of passage in the Book of Occassional Services. The prayers provide the words to help parents recognize developmental moments for their children: becoming a big brother or sister, starting a school year, earning a driver's license, and graduating from high school.The rites of passage are liturgies to be celebrated during worship. The Rite of Passage for Young People and Their Parents affirms and upholds young people as they grow and mature and continues to reaffirm the important work of parenting. Two other proposed rites for young people include the celebration of a significant birthday and the declation of the intention for marriage. Truly, faith formation is a lifelong process. The resolution also offers prayers and rites for transitions in midlife and transitions of elders.
These prayers and rites recognize God's abiding grace in our lives and that much of our formation happens in the home and through daily life.
I'm off to Eucharist centered on images of Christ. The celebrant has been integrating projected images throughout our time together. Later this evening, I will tell more about resolutions at GC. See you then!
~Jenifer Gamber, reporting at the request of Rick Cluett, Interim Dean and Rector of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Jenifer Gamber Reporting on General Convention...from Kanuga for now
Greetings from Kanuga
Hello. This is Jenifer Gamber, parishoner of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, PA and author of My Faith, My Life: A Teenager's Guide to the Episcopal Church and the website myfaithmylife.org, a site for Episcopal teens, parents and youth leaders. Archdeacon Rick Cluett, Interim Dean and Rector at the Cathedral asked me to share my General Convention reporting posted on Entangledstates. I will report on General Convention on resolutions affecting the ministry of and with children and youth. A number of important resolutions concerning youth and Christian formation will be considered. I will provide a summary of these resolutions later today.
Youth are present at Convention! The Official Youth Presence is comprised of two youth from each of the nine provinces in the Episcopal Church, USA each with seat and voice at the House of Deputies at General Convention. Youth have also gathered for E3~Educate, Experience, Empower~to learn about Episcopal Church governance, experience General Convention, and become empowered to be agents of growth in their home parishes.
Until Friday, I will be watching General Convention from the Kanuga Conference Center where 80 Christian educators have gathered to "See the Big Picture" of Christian formation in our parishes. We're enjoying keynoter Tracey Herzer~listening to her story of being set afire by the Holy Spirit and saying "yes" to God and sharing our own "yes" stories. The more we listen to one another's faith stories, the more we might see that Big Picture. It is my prayer and hope that we continue to inquire and listen to one another. Through that listening we will come to know God's magnificent creation and discern our common life together in Christ.
Hello. This is Jenifer Gamber, parishoner of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, PA and author of My Faith, My Life: A Teenager's Guide to the Episcopal Church and the website myfaithmylife.org, a site for Episcopal teens, parents and youth leaders. Archdeacon Rick Cluett, Interim Dean and Rector at the Cathedral asked me to share my General Convention reporting posted on Entangledstates. I will report on General Convention on resolutions affecting the ministry of and with children and youth. A number of important resolutions concerning youth and Christian formation will be considered. I will provide a summary of these resolutions later today.
Youth are present at Convention! The Official Youth Presence is comprised of two youth from each of the nine provinces in the Episcopal Church, USA each with seat and voice at the House of Deputies at General Convention. Youth have also gathered for E3~Educate, Experience, Empower~to learn about Episcopal Church governance, experience General Convention, and become empowered to be agents of growth in their home parishes.
Until Friday, I will be watching General Convention from the Kanuga Conference Center where 80 Christian educators have gathered to "See the Big Picture" of Christian formation in our parishes. We're enjoying keynoter Tracey Herzer~listening to her story of being set afire by the Holy Spirit and saying "yes" to God and sharing our own "yes" stories. The more we listen to one another's faith stories, the more we might see that Big Picture. It is my prayer and hope that we continue to inquire and listen to one another. Through that listening we will come to know God's magnificent creation and discern our common life together in Christ.
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