Things done and left undone

    In fifth grade, each person in my class had to do a report on a state. I chose Tennessee. Much of my father’s family comes from The Smoky Mountains region southeast of Knoxville. My ancestors who fought in the Civil War fought for the Confederacy, and when it came time for the class to make our presentations, I was dressed in a grey wool jacket and a belt with a buckle that read CSA in block letters. I was quick to point out that Tennessee was the last state to secede and the first to rejoin the union, but there I was dressed like the ghost of racial oppressions past, in the middle of my elementary school, and no one blinked. Sunday morning, as we knelt and recited the confession, my mind flashed on that memory, as I said the words “things done, and left undone.” 
    Fascism and white supremacy are cancers that eat at the soul, not only of individuals, but of our society. They have metastasized out of the centuries of subjugation and genocide visited on those not of Western European ethnicity.  That subjugation built many parts of our country and society and  American churches were either complicit with, or actively participated in it. The church continues to suffer from that sin of our history, and we must not shy away from the truths of our many failings. It will not make them go away, but rather fester until we are infected with the same hate as we saw last weekend.
    Last weekend’s events in Charlottesville, VA should remind us of things done and things left undone. The hate and pain that were so evident on our screens Friday and Saturday call us to account. We have pledged in our baptism to strive for justice and peace, to respect the dignity of every human being. The gathering of white supremacists and fascists that descended on Charlottesville is an indication of how much work there is still to do in our own communities, and in our own hearts. We must start by acknowledging our own privilege: economic, cultural, religious, etc., and how we have benefited from the subjugation and genocide that are hallmarks of American history. Only when we have confronted that, can we take those advantages and turn them to reconciliation – to the restoration of dignity of those people at whose expense our advantage was wrought.
    And when I say reconciliation, what I mean is supporting those whom society mistreated for the last 400 years. I mean people of color, religious minorities, and those trapped in the cycle of inter-generational poverty. There have been calls in the aftermath of this past weekend for us to “consider both sides,” as if white supremacy and fascism should be giving equal intellectual footing with human dignity. Beyond the absurdity of that thought, the Gospel requires us, not to consider all the sides, but to choose the side of the oppressed and those who have no power – the side where we stand with Jesus.
What we saw at Charlottesville may seem like an insurmountable problem. It is not. It begins with us. We must confess the things done and left undone by us and on our behalf. Only then can we go about the work of reconciliation in our communities and country.

Ordinary Time

With the passing of Trinity Sunday, we come to that long middle section of the Liturgical calendar called either the Season after Pentecost, or Ordinary Time. To my mind, Ordinary Time is a little like saying bland cookie – I’m sure they exist, but it’s not a phrase that has any real meaning. The word ordinary is not used here to mean normal (whatever that is) but comes from the ordinal or numbered. These next many weeks are numbered, the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost , etc. But between the name and the color that marks Ordinary time, green, it’s easy to get lulled into thinking that this is the easy season, where things slow down until All Saints and Advent roll back around. I think that does this time a disservice.
    Leonel L. Mitchell, Episcopal Priest and Professor of Liturgy says, “These Sundays, sometimes called ‘Green Sundays,’ are not simply filler or ‘ordinary time.’ They are an integral part of the  year. …The season after Pentecost continues the Paschal cycle from the commemoration of the first Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles, to the  celebration of the final Advent or ’Second Coming,’ when Christ will come in glory.”
    Ordinary time is Green because it is the season where we work on growth. We have spent months recounting the story of God’s saving work in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and now it is time to see the good news take root in our community - both inside our walls and outside them.
    I went to wedding recently and was given a few packets of flower seeds. On the back they had the instructions: plant so deep, so many inches apart, flowers bloom in so many weeks. Ordinary time is like that. The seeds are planted. Now is working as the weeks tick by weeding and watering, waiting for God to give the growth.

Life, Death, and Everthing After

One of the things that I ask myself when I sit down to write a sermon is, "Do I have something to say, or do I just have to say something?" This week it was both. The bombing of the marathon and its aftermath, the exposion in West, Tx, and a hundred other things made me think about perspective on Good Shepherd Sunday. This is what I said

Life, Death, and Everything After

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Saftey is in the forefront of many of our minds this week. Safety from people who want to do us harm, the availability of a safe place to work, The ability to safely walk out our door; on a local, national, and international level it seems lately as if we are less safe than ever. A friend of mine  sent out a tweet a few days ago that that said, “could everthing just stop being horrible for one day this week?” The crowds in todays gospel feel similarly. Under the heel of Roman Occupation, with resentment and revolution boiling up in every dark alley in Jerusalem, with bandits and robers on the highways and byways, the crowds turn to Jesus and say If you are the messiah tell us. Let us know that you are going to make us safe. Do you have guns, tanks, drones? Whats your battleplan for Peace? How are you going to replace the violence of Pax Romana? The crowds want Jesus, if he is the messiah, how he is going to make them safe.

            I was at the airport last week, and was reminded that if you have been to the airport any time in the last decade, everything that you have to go through is, "for your safety." You might say that Saftey is the watchword of airports. In fact, I think that it is one to the obsessions of our culture. from our the safety of our online documents to the safety of our children, it is the  goal of our culture to to avoid pain and struggle, and we define that as safe, and for the average American that saftey means peace. The absence of the threat of pain, real or imagined, seems to provide a peace that we crave. We dont know how to react when this bubble of pseudo-saftey is burst and pain and suffering as they are so want to do, intrude. That is impart what makes the events in Boston so difficult, because they are only on example, one that reminds us of all of the aninverseries of other painful things that happended this week —the shootings at Columbine, the Oklahoma City Bombings, the raid on the Branch Davidian compound, and on and on. Not only was the bombing and the bloo and the death painful in its own right but it shatters the false saftey that we have set up for ourselves.

            In response to the questions of the crowd, Jesus offers an answers the deper need, the crowds desire for true peace, but not the question that they have asked. Jesus does not promise new military spending, bringing the Romans to justice, not even new social programs. Jesus promises the peace of God. Jesus promises that suffering is not the end, that war and violence, sin and death do not have the last word. Jesus promises that once in the hands of the Good Shepherd, nothing can budge us from the loving care of God.

            Notice that Jesus does not say anything about pain. The effort to equate peace with safety, and therefore, a lack of pain is of our own definition and construction.The 23rd psalm does not promise that God will save us from anthing that is dangerous or painful, rather it garuntees that we will at some point have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death —but it also promises that we need not fear because our Good Shepherd stands along side us and that we will pass through to something else. God’s peace is not painless, or effortless, much less safe. It certainly wasn’t safe for Jesus. Four weeks ago, we walked again along the passion way. We repeated the story, walked along that pathway again this year to remember that pain and suffering, sin and death, are a part of our life —whether its the in-your-face pain of bombs at a Marathon, or the smaller grind it out every day sufferings, livinging with cancer, or watching a loved one fade away piece by piece as Alheimers takes hold. But more importantly we remember that God is also there, and when the pain and the suffering and death have done their worst God is still there, to wipe away our tears, to wash us clean and to bring us, at length into his kingdom.

            During the summer that I spent as a VA hospital chaplain, I had the opportunity to stand at many bedsides as people prepared to die. One of the first was a veteran of the the second world war. He had seen action in the pacific theater, including some of the most painful and bloody battles of the war. He had taken shrapnel in his leg that remained there until his death. “I beat cancer twice,” he would tell me, “but not the third time. Not a bad average I guess. Maybe the Dodgers will take me.” The day he died, I came it to sit with him. He hadnt been lucid for a few days, but he I sat down, he opened his eyes and smiled at me. You know what the great thing about dieing is, he asked, no I replied quietly I don’t,  after the pain ends,he said  all that Love is still there. And thats when you know it’s not going anywhere.”

            It is interesting that today’s Gospel is the first in this easter season that is taken from Jeusus Pre - ressurection ministry. Much like the disciples, we are harkening back to his teaching amidst the joy of the ressurection, marveling at what Jesus taught and the depth of meaning it has taken on. In the light of this candle, we are able to see that beyond the passion, beyond the crucifixion lies the ressurection, a promise that God will bring us into his Kingdom where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing but life everlasting. In the light of this candle maybe we chance a little walk into the valley to tell the others walking through the story of our Good Shepherd. It wont be safe, but we may find peace.

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.