Thats just not right: A Sermon Lent 5 C

          Eating a meal with my maternal grandmother was always an interesting affair. Grammy, as my brother and I called her, was the daughter of an Army General. She had been drilled through and through in what was right and proper. One morning, I came down to breakfast, grabbed the Los Angeles Yellow pages that doubled as a 6 inch booster seat, and propped my elbows on the table as I got seated. "Jed," came my Grammy's voice from behind the LA times, "would you have your elbows on the table if you were having breakfast with the Queen of England?" "If she was my Grammy, maybe," I replied. Grammy reached a long arm out from behind the paper and popped me on the back of the head. "No, you wouldn't," she continued, "because that is just not done in polite company."

            Polite company. That might be a good description of the dinner that Jesus is attending in today's gospel. Mary and Martha have pulled out all the stops for this dinner. They are celebrating Jesus and his resurrection of Lazarus. The sisters, but mostly Martha have dusted off the good china, picked up the Straubs best beef cut, ironed the linen, and now the guest of honor is here, sitting with his disciples and the very–recently–mostly–dead Lazarus. Its all turning out so well, right and proper.

            Mary’s actions, in context, seem strange, outlandish and a little awkward. Mary’s anointing of Jesus feet, on it's own, would have been a highly personal thing to do. But when Mary unbinds her hair and uses it to wipe away the super abundance of ointment that she has lavished on Jesus feet, she is doing something of such intimacy - especially with someone who is not her husband, that she brings the whole dinner to a screeching halt. As my grandmother would say, that is just not done. Interestingly it is Judas who probably breaks the awkward silence, chiding Mary, not for her intimacy with the teacher, not for this lavish intimate worship she displays, but for her financial extravagance.

            Judas, what ever his other motives is trying to save the situation. Judas chides Mary for not thinking of the poor. It’s not particularly surprising that one of Jesus followers, even this one, might be focused on the plight of the poor. Jesus does say a great deal about the poor and the identification of God with the poor. Judas is trying to help out this silly, benighted woman whom he thinks has missed the point of Jesus teaching. It’s about making the world a nicer kinder place to live and redistributing the wealth. After all, Mary should know better - she lives in Bethany, which literally means poor town. She is surrounded by people who are poor because of the brokenness of creation. Rather than saving up for this little bottle of odoriferous ointment, shouldn’t she have found something better to do with the funds - a tax deductible donation to the local food bank, or to Jesus own 501c3 for the poor? Judas is trying to turn this from an awkward moment into a teachable one.

            Jesus makes use of this moment. He uses it to teach Judas and the disciples and anyone else who will listen not about what is right, and proper but about what is meet and right. He did not come to make things a little bit nicer, a bit more bearable. Jesus has come to do, as Isaiah says, a new thing. Jesus has come grab hold of sin and death by the scruff of the neck and throw them out on their ear. He, the Word of God has come so that all people, rich, poor, and middle income might have what it is that they are all lacking – an imperishable inheritance of eternal life, their adoption by God as sons and daughters. Mary is the one who gets it. Mary understands what’s going on, what being a part of this kingdom is in a way that none of the other disciples seem to. And so she worships Jesus as Lord and God. She makes herself totally reliant, totally devoted to Jesus. She pours all of her self into her worship of her Lord, holding nothing in reserve, relying totally on Jesus grace and mercy, mercy meant not to make the world more bearable, kinder and gentler but to make it new.

Jesus praises Mary’s intimate vulnerable act of anointing. At some level, she understands that in order for Jesus to do bring this new thing, God’s kingdom to fulfillment, he has to die. Her outlandish, unrestrained, super abundant devotion to her Good Shepherd has become a prophetic act, acknowledging what Jesus is about to dive into in the upcoming week, the Upper room, the passion the cross.  She displays prophetic gratitude for what her Lord is willing to do for her, for all of them, for us. 

            For a long time after my parents got divorced, I tried to get my fathers attentions by showing him how together I had it. Of course to my father, I probably just seemed cocky and far too sure of myself. the spring of 5th grade, my cub scout troop was doing a pine would derby. I spent four days and used six kits trying to make, not the fastest car, but just a car that could make it all the way down the track without the wheels quite literally coming off. So, after I had gotten my seventh kit from the store, I walked down to my father’s house. I found my dad in the garage, putting away the lawn mower. “Dad, I need your help.” “ Of course,” my father said. “I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted holding up the little wooden car. “It’s OK,” my father said, “I do. ”

            Mary took a pound of costly perfume and anointed Jesus’ feet, and the house was filled with the fragrance. Mary’s reckless, vulnerable, intimate worship of Jesus certainly isn’t right and proper, but it is meet and right.  When we kneel before the altar and hold out our hands begging for Jesus to be with us, to fed on his body and his blood, to know him that intimately, it isn’t particularly proper either. It’s not dignified to kneel down, to take the place of servitude of vulnerability. It’s not right and proper, but it is meet and right.

Youth in Revolt

I have been a part of the governance of the church as some level since I was 15; I was selected by my rector as the first youth representative to the vestry of the parish. From that moment on, I have been told countless times that the youth are the future of the church. In fact I am still told fifteen years later, as an ordained priest, that I, as a youth, am the future of the church. What can I say; it’s an old church. The first time that someone said it, the phrase was empowering. I felt supported and included in the working of the church. As I have gone along, and heard every single variant of this phrase that you can imagine, I began to be troubled by it. I have come to a point in these latter days where I dislike the phrase intensely. Don’t get me wrong, young people are great. Much of my ministry has been in their midst and I have been immensely enriched by them. They are an integral part of the body of Christ. But they are not the Church’s future. That position is already filled. Christ is the churches past, present and future.

As the Church bless the paschal candle at the beginning of the Great Vigil of Easter, the celebrant marks the paschal candle with a cross, Alpha, Omega and year and says “Christ Yesterday, Christ today, the Beginning and the end the Alpha and the omega to him belongs time and the ages to Him be Glory and Empire throughout all ages of Eternity Amen.” This acclimation of the Kingship of the Risen Christ is for all time begins the celebration of the Resurrection when it is still dark. In the midst of the cloying dark we assert that Jesus is the lord of all time, the past present and future. Better him than me. If the future were really left up to me, I would weep for the fate of the world. No body wants me in charge of the future, most especially me. Youth, Young People, Those Damn Kids – what ever you call them – aren’t going to save the church; Christ is. We are not, cannot be savior. The position is filled. We can be only what we are, laborers in God’s vineyard, recipients of the grace of a merciful, faithful God, and heirs of a Kingdom we have no earthly right to.

The Episcopal Church just finished its triennial General Convention in Indianapolis. Having been a deputy to the House of Deputies I can tell you that it is thankless, sleepless, mostly delirious work, and I was left wondering whether what I did meant anything at all. I loved it and wanted to be there this time. There are many reports of what happened there. Some say it was a bold step forward, some, such as this commentator for the WSJ say that it was more of the decadent death of a church that has lost Jesus. Neither is true. We can’t know what happened in Indianapolis because it is more complex than an op-ed, and takes far longer to unfold than that machination of any one person. I met a priest once who suggested that it was possible that the Anglican expression of Christianity was only supposed to last 500 years, that it could only make it for so much longer, maybe 25 years. I didn’t like to hear that, because it made the work that I have been called to sound futile. As I have had time to chew on those words, let them get past my defenses, I have come to think that whether or not Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church survive is up to God. If we as a church have run our course, then God’s will be done. But, if we have not, then there is no power on earth that can really make it over. I cannot worry about the future, that is Christ’s domain. I can choose for Christ, to continue what has been started in me.

trying something new

When I went to college, lo these many years ago, I was informed that plagiarism was one of the scourges of humanity, along with malaria, Ebola, Republicans, and elbows on the table at dinner. That abiding fear of plagiarizing was reinforced in my studies of history, where everything should have a footnote, just in case. So I have resisted posting sermons on the interwebs for a long time because I borrow liberally from minds greater than mine and I don't really pay attention to citations. All of this to say, I have had a change of heart. namely if, on the off chance someone has accidentally stumbled onto this drab little corner of the information superhighway, and they should happen to read a sermon that I posted, they might have their hearts strangely warmed. Hey, stranger things have happened. After all its the Holy Spirit we're working with here. So, here for the first time, and hopefully not the last is sermonizing for Proper 17 Year A, with apologies to Stanley Hauerwas, NT Wright, and others.

 “I'm here for the flashlight” said the man to the clerk, proffering a coupon. I was at the hardware store standing in line at the checkout. The clerk took the coupon without comment, pulled out a small LED flashlight from some stash he had behind the counter, and scanned both the flashlight and the coupon. “That'll be 16 cents.” “What, I thought the flashlight was free.” said the man. The clerk let out a longsuffering sigh and said, obviously not for the first time, “It states on the coupon that the offer does not include taxes, so the flashlight is free plus tax.” Where exactly does it say that? Asked the man. The clerk pulled out a magnifying glass from another shelf under the counter, and held it up to the back of the coupon. “Right here” “that's writing?” replied the customer, “I thought it was a bar code.” “ Will there be anything else asked the clerk” “Yeah said the man, where do you keep the magnifying glasses?”

It’s always important to read the fine print. The squiggle at the bottom of the page is often the most important part. It's just so for Simon Peter, and the other disciples. Peter has just declared what they are all thinking, that Jesus is the Messiah. But there's some fine print about what that means. Jesus explains that being the Messiah means being handed over to the authorities, dying and being raised up. Jesus' confrontation of Simon Peter in today's gospel is about that fine print. Simon thinks, in fact is convinced, the messiah is the king of Israel that will get rid of the Romans, and usher in a new state of Israel that is favored by God as it was in the olden days. That's what the Messiah is. He thinks that everybody knows that. How, then can Jesus be talking about dying?

In Lewis Carroll's sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, everything is backwards. In order to move toward something, you have to walk away from it. If you want to eat, you have to put the food down. If you move it to your mouth it will never get there. To Peter, Jesus seemed to be operating on just such a looking Glass principle; saying that in order to win, the Messiah has to lose: lose to the religious authorities, lose to the Romans, even lose to death. Only then can the Messiah win. Such emptying of self, such giving up of control and power seems seems nonsensical to Peter.

But it fact it is Peter, along with most of humanity, that operates in the Looking Glass world. We have inhabited the environs the Looking Glass for so long that we have come to think of this Topsy-turvy world as normal. We see that might wins, that taking care of ourselves, feathering our own nest, is the only end that matters. When we see Jesus turning everything on its head, saying that in order to gain your life we must lose it, we think that he’s turning it upside-down, but in reality, he's really returning everything right-side-up. Jesus reminds the disciples, and by extension us, that it is not he that must conform to the world, but he that must transform the world so that it conforms to him and to Gods coming kingdom.

When I was in Grade school my friends and I would play a game called opposite day. Someone would come to school and declare “Your all looking horrible today”, and the game would commence. If someone wanted to use the stapler, he would have to say, Please don’t pass me the stapler. Of course, sometimes we would forget that it was opposite day, and sometimes we would inaugurate a new person into the game, because it was the most fun part. Can I see the book the new person might ask, and someone would reply of course, then pass the book in the opposite direction. The new person, or the person who had forgotten the rules of the game, couldn’t think their way into playing this game. You had to live within the game, mistakes and all in, to in order to follow along.

The whole point of Jesus' mission was to free us from the humanity from the shackles of sin, so that we could move from the Looking Glass world that we are in to the freedom of the right side up Kingdom of God. An important step in that plan is to get his first followers acting as if there were already citizens of the Right way round kingdom. That means getting them out of the Looking Glass mentality that says you have to understand something, be secure in your knowledge. Its not about thinking your way to heaven, that’s not really possible. Its about living into the Kingdom of God. Jesus points this out to Peter; “ You have your mind on earthly thinks not on things heavenly.” Therefore, says Jesus to his follower, along with every one who rebels against the real reality that Jesus represents, “Get behind me.”

This is not a rejection of Simon. Jesus tells Peter to get behind him, because that is the only place from which Peter can follow Jesus. Simon does not have to believe in what Jesus is saying without reservation or doubt. It doesn’t matter that in rebuking Jesus, Peter has thrown in his lot with Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness the resist and rebel against God. If Simon the rock, and stumbling block gets behind Jesus, if he follows where Jesus leads, if he walks in the pathway of Jesus, he will be led to the cross. The cross is the ultimate symbol of Gods right side round logic that we can understand. We can’t think our way into the cross; we can only take up the cross.

Not too long after he was baptized my father and I were having a conversation about faith. You know, my father said, I almost didn’t go through with the baptism in the end. Really I said, why? Well said my dad, I had doubts. What changed your Mind I asked. Peter. It's so weird that Peter could get everything so wrong sometimes and still be an apostle that I think that there must be hope for me in such and upside down Kingdom. It was time to stop thinking and just jump in the pool, so to speak.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Dietrich Bonheoffer observed that they only type of discipleship that there is when following Jesus is costly discipleship. To take up the cross is what Bonheoffer is talking about. It means getting behind Jesus, following Jesus – not trying to lead Jesus down the more convenient, conventional, comfortable route. Taking up the cross means complete obedience to following Jesus, abandoning what you thought you wanted for what God wants. It is all those things that Paul tells the Romans that they must do. It means loving those who hate you and doing good for those who speak ill of you. But there is also the fine print. Taking up the cross is also the only sure path to perfect freedom from sin as an adopted child of God. That's just the way it works in the right side up; right way round Kingdom of God.

I did it, God help me

Well the quest is now begun in earnest. I signed up for Ironman 70.3 Boise this weekend. The race is June 9th, 2012, in, obviously, Boise Idaho. I have a when and a where. Now I just need a how. What do I mean is, how on earth am I going to be ready. I really have good and scared myself this time. It being nearly $200 didn't help. So, you might be wondering, hows the training going...Okay no one cares, but Im going to speak about it anyway. I have managed to keep to the plan of 6-8 hours a week pretty well thus far. Bike and lift on Monday, Long run and swim Tuesday, repeat Tuesday and Thursday with a shorter run, Long Bike on Friday, off on Saturday and run and swim on Sunday. Now, though, I've made it past the mad scramble out of the gate, so to speak. Ive managed to heit all my goals for the month and I can feel the monotony beginning to set in. The results, weight loss to be exact is beginning to get harder to see and keeping up the diet and exercise is starting to be more of a challenge.
Constancy, or if you prefer stability, is something that I have been thinking about for a while now. It is one of the three taproot vows of the Benedictine order- not to jump around from order to order but to stay in place, in one rule of life. It's not something that I excel at. I often remind myself of Mr. Toad from The Wind in the Willows, with his manias; flights of fancy that pushed him from one extreme to the other. The challenge of maintaining a focus for a year on healthy eating and training for a serious endurance event, and not letting that focus consume me so utterly that I forget to balance my life, God, wife, work, etc. is something that I worry about. I have yet to display that type of discipline. I suppose there is a first time for everything.

new focus, new discipline, and maybe a plan

maybe its that I'm not naturally what you would call a "sharer." Maybe its that I lack the nessacary Hutspah to put my entire life on the web. Whatever the reason I make a really bad blogger. Its nothing against the internet. I cant keep a pen and paper journal to save my life either. I have been thinking lately that what this really is about is discipline. I've always thought that I'm about a hairs bredth from being ADD, I have always had trouble focusing on one thing. There's just too much going on, like right now I'm typing, but I'm also thinking about whats going on with the Red Sox, and anticipating the espresso that is brewing across the office...mmmhhh espresso, the Italians are so good sometimes - espresso, pizza, Biachi. There, see, there I go again. So you can guess from the preceding that the internet is the bane of my attentions existence. Discipline, right, have got much of it, but I've been thinking about it because in the last two weeks I've started something new, a long range type of thing with a big huge carrot at the end, metaphorically speaking - not that I dont like carrots, but....anyway, in the last two weeks, Ive averaged an hour working out a day, and Ive been eating a fairly strict diet of healthy food, which is not easy here in the Midwest, but it is, it's just not cheap, which is not so helpful. Anyway, all of this to say the "carrot" is a 70.3 next summer. I dont know where yet, but I will be figuring that out soon. My hope, prayer and true goal is to cultivate discipline in all of the aspects of my life, not just the physical. A balance of disciple across the spectrum that makes me a more complete human, husband, christian and priest.

WILL IT WORK?
God only knows. I sure hope so, but then I hope to win the lottery some days, and that hasnt happened yet. I believe it will though. I believe that it is in me to put to death the self-indulgant ego and open up more space in my life for the Holy Spirit to dwell, and move within me and through me. I desire that and I believe that is what I am called to do. I've talked about all of this for a while, but now I think I'm finally starting it.

I am Iron Priest...well...almost

Sooooo...I'm obviously not very good at blogging. Yes, I have a tremendous command of the obvious. Life is busy. But here I am to renew the epic struggle. Can I discipline myself to be a semi-regular contributor to the posterity of babble that our society is kareening rapidly toward? Well, I'm going to try. I have also decide to try and document something particular, my exploits in training. I get asked all the time why I would want to swim over a mile, bike 56 times that far and then run a half marathon. The easy answer is that I'm crazy. There are several longer answers, which fall short of expressing the truth. Really, I'm not really sure why I am doing this, but it's certainly not for my benefit. If I were training to make me happy, it would be easy, boost my vanity, take only a few hours a week. Well this training is not, it doesn't and, right now it eats up 3-4 hours a day. It takes discipline, which as you can guess from my lack of posting, is not something that I have in spades. But the discipline it takes to run 4 or 5 miles before breakfast is starting to bleed into other parts of my life. Hmmm...I wonder who's idea that is?

This is a brilliant article from Nicholas Knisely at Episcopal Cafe

We pray together. And that's enough

By W. Nicholas Knisely

A few months ago one of the staff here at the Cathedral forwarded an email to me with a request that I answer the question it posed as he had no idea what he should say. The email was very simple. It was from a person in the community who was looking for a new church home. But, before he would consider a congregation, it was very important for him to know where we stood on the question of blessing same-sex couples.

There wasn’t any hint in the email about whether or not the sender wanted us to say we were for blessing same-sex couples or opposed. Just that it was critically important to him that we give the right answer so that he wouldn’t waste his time unnecessarily.

I get letters or questions like this quite commonly. I think most Episcopal clergy do these days. It’s the BIG question that seems to be used as a way to sort through congregations and dioceses so that we can determine which ones are right-thinking and therefore worthy of support and which ones are wrong and worthy of nothing. What was different about this letter though was that I simply couldn’t figure out what the person wanted me to say.

So rather than trying to be pastoral and sensitive in trying to respond to the question behind the question (as is my wont), I decided to be bluntly honest.

“There are people in this congregation who are fully supportive of the Church’s blessing of same-gender unions. There are people in this congregation who are opposed to the Church’s blessing of same-gender unions. While the Episcopal Church as a denomination is on record as calling for equal protection under the law for all citizens, if you’re looking for a congregation that is of one mind on this issue, you’re going to be disappointed with this one. We don’t have agreement internally on this particular - or many - issues. Instead, we just agree to pray and worship together”

We don’t agree with each other. We pray together.

Friends of mine who are involved in the church growth movement offer me their sympathy every three years or so following our denomination’s General Convention. “It must be really hard to grow a church that spends so much time fighting” they say. In the past I’ve agreed with them. But I think I’ve decided that it’s time we as Episcopalians tell the truth about who we are though in a way that tries to explain to others why our struggles are not a “bug” - they’re a “feature”!

The Elizabethan Settlement, which for me is modeled at every Eucharist when I present the host to a communicant with the paradoxical words (to a person of Tudor England) “the body of Christ, the bread of Heaven”, is fundamental to our identity as Anglicans. We are willing to be in relationship with people who will gather with us around Jesus; whether they by free or slave, man or women, Jew or Greek. We are the anti-puritans caring less about clarity of theological categories than we do about loving relationship. “If you will pray to Jesus with me, I will pray to Jesus with you.”

At least we try to when we’re at our best. Which isn’t always that often admittedly.

In my mind, as an Episcopalian of catholic leanings and ecumenical enthusiasm, if there’s one thing that argues for the continued existence of an Anglican witness in the Universal Church - it’s our charism of holding firm to praying with those with whom we disagree no matter how hard that is to do.

Eusebius writes that in the latter days of his life, St. John the Evangelist would respond to repeated requests of visitors to “tell of us of Jesus” by only repeating again and again “Little children, love one another.” When asked by those caring for him why he would only say that he is supposed to have responded “Because if they do only that, it is enough.”

Episcopalians don’t agree to agree. We pray with each other. Because if we can manage to just do that, it seems to me, that we will have done enough.

What happened when I responded to my inquirer wanting to know where the Cathedral I serve stood on the question of same-gender blessings? I sent my short note off fully expecting to never hear from him again.

I got a note back a day later; “That’s so awesome. I’ll be there this Sunday.”