III Pentecost

Readings are here.

Sermon notes for Holy Communion, Rock Springs.

A reflection in our EfM group and some sermon notes by Robert Cornmer, turned my thoughts to the comparison of the woman and the Pharisee in today's gospel. The two main characters are a study of us in many ways.

The woman comes to Jesus in her poverty. She is at the end of her rope and rushes in all hair and tears to offer everything she has. A woman of the city is a polite way to say a sex worker. Someone who earns her living selling her only commodity - her body. She is an object to be used by whomever has the money to pay, but looked down upon by all those who are the "good" people. She is like us when we are lost - do not know what else to do but turn to God and throw ourselves on the mercy of the one who created us. The person who has lost everything: family, wealth, status, home, mind, body, spirit. We are her when we have no security and no one to turn to, when our lives are out of control.

Simon, the Pharisee, on the other hand, has everything: position, power, wealth, family, even a name. He knows how to move in the circles of power, is respected in the community, a pillar of the synagogue (church). He follows the religious and purity laws in the most righteous of ways. He lives a life that does not encounter "sinners" - he stays in his own group. He is like us when we are feeling control of are lives, when our job and our lives are going well, we have health insurance, our families are not falling apart, when we have it all together.

Jesus comes into the picture as a bridge between these two. He offers his love to both. He asks them to see one another as he sees them. To the woman who comes with nothing he shows compassion and raises her status to a person of faith. For the Pharisee, he shows that although Simon considers himself a person of faith and person with everything - he really has as little as the woman - in fact perhaps less because his faith is built on an illusion of control. Whereas the woman realizes that she has no control in her life. She has so little that she is willing to break all the taboos of her time - coming uninvited into a dinner party of men - unbinding her hair - touching a man public, spending her money on alabaster and ointment. She does not see Simon as a person any more than Simon sees her as a person. They are both objects to one another if they notice at all. Jesus calls each of them to live into their humanity - that human image of God they were created to be.

Although as individuals we are like both the woman and the Pharisee - as the church, the body of Christ, we are called to be Christ in the world to make spaces for people to see one another as brothers and sisters in Christ - as God's beloved children. Your thrift shop for instance - provides people with clothing that allows them to feel good about their appearance - and it raises funds to support other opportunities for the community. Those who come for clothes and those who provide the clothes are the same in Christ's eyes. We are called to give without condescension but to respect the dignity of each person as we promise in our baptismal covenant. When we get to feeling "holier than thou" - we know we have moved out of following the one who tells us that the leader is the one who serves. We have become our own little gods when we think we have earned our own way - forgetting the gifts we have been given and the support along the way - the doors that have opened for us. When we feel less than others - we have also slipped away from God - that is not the humility of Christ but forgetting that we are the beloved and have a claim on a space of grace as much as any other person.

From today's Collect - the prayer before the readings --
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; -- may it be so. May we be a place where all are welcome and all feel the sense dignity and acceptance and the love of God.


additional thought --
I heard our Presiding Bishop quote this recently: The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning. This is our mission - creating spaces of grace - may it be so.

on the death of my brother

Today we hold the service celebrating my brother's life. Last week he was playing golf and this week he is dead. No one knew that the cancer was there - he lived life until he died. He had good relationships with his kids and grandkids and siblings. It is all just so stunning to us to think of not seeing him in this life. He asked me to do his service and I will. People from various parts of his life will speak, his children will offer their thoughts and I will say something like the following:

You have heard many aspects of my brother’s life from friends, colleagues and his daughter and son; and the empty space he leaves in our lives. The scriptures, however, call us not to lose heart in the midst of our loss and promise that the love we experience is not ended but changed. From now on we carry the memories of a life well lived and love freely given – we carry that on to the next generation and to one another.

The gospel of John speaks of many dwelling places. The words used are those of traveling – they refer to Jesus as the one who goes ahead on the journey to make arrangements and provide comfort for when we arrive, who leaves tracks and signs of how find our way. Steve has completed his part of the journey. We have ours to live. Steve showed us a one way to live – we each take a piece of that pattern and carry it with us. God, as creator stands at the beginning and end of our lives, God in Jesus is the path and companion, God as Spirit encourages us and gives us hope.

All week I have been thinking about the Parable of the Talents where people are given certain gifts to steward. Some do well with their gifts, others do not.

In Steve, we see one who took his gifts and talents and by giving to the world and to his family, multiplied them far beyond his knowing. As in the parable I hear God saying to Steve, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master.”

Readings are
Isaiah 40:28-31
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, 
 the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 
He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

23 Psalm
2 Corinthians 4:16-5:9
So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling— if indeed, when we have taken it off* we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.

John 14:1-6
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe* in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?* And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’* Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Trinity Sunday

Thoughts toward a sermon:
Readings are here.

There is a joke that was going around preaching circles last week as we pondered what to say this year about Trinity on this-- the celebration of this revelation.

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am? And his disciples answered and said, "Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah, or other of the old prophets." And Jesus answered and said, "But who do you say that I am?"

Peter answered and said, "You are the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."

And Jesus answering, said, "What?"

It is easy to fall into trying to solve the questions around the concept of The Trinity but the readings call us into something other than a logic problem and out into relationships, love, hope, dance, and poetry.

It has been said about the Trinity: They took poetry and made it into a rule.

Or as Karl Barth said: The Word became flesh, and theologians made it words again.

The readings encourage us to get out our heads into mystery -

Like John Donne in his poem on the Trinity --

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

Or Killian McDonnell:

God is not a problem
I need to solve, not an
algebraic polynomial equation
I find complete before me,

with positive and negative numbers
I can add, subtract, multiply.
God is not a fortress
I can lay siege to and reduce.

God is not a confusion
I can place in order by my logic.
God's boundaries cannot be set,
like marking trees to fell.

God is the presence in which
I live, where the line between
what is in me and what
before me is real, but only God

can draw it. God is the mystery
I meet on the street, but cannot
lay hold of from the outside,
for God is my situation,

the condition I cannot stand
beyond, cannot view from a distance,
the presence I cannot make an object,
only enter on my knees.

The reading from Proverbs sings of Lady Wisdom who was present and participated in creation – who tells us she can be found out on the street, in the town square or walking the beach on Memorial Day weekend:

she calls, and raises her voice
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
"To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.

She calls to all who live – she proclaims that God is not a secret knowledge only open to special people but there for all who live – calling them to deeper and greater life.

The Psalm continues with this joyous raucous call – singing of God who works wonders in creation – who offers it all to us as a gift and treasure. The creator whose creation is so grand and yet who holds each of us in the palm of the hand.
Considering each of us with the eyes of love and seeing each of us as worthy.

This same God revealed Paul’s letter to the Romans – who provides with hope
that does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Hope being the quality that calls us to the present and future and keeps us from despair.

This ever revealing nature of God is what Jesus speaks of in the Gospel of John – that we cannot know all at any one time in history – nothing is finished. What we think of as the end may only be a beginning – what me may think is a beginning may only be the continuation of things we do not even know.

As we contemplate the Trinity this day – perhaps we can see it in the image of the Celtic knot – an interweaving of the form – with not beginning or ending. More like a poem or a dance. Illusive and yet capturing something momentarily and then gone in a flash only to reappear. The Trinity offers us a relationship with God that is not static – but available to where we are each day. Some days we need the mysterious presence of the Spirit, some days a companion to walk with, some days a guardian or parent to offer guidance. All are aspects of God who desires to dance with us and make us creators of life for all who inhabit this earth.

In the bible often the word translated as Doers as in the gospel of James:
Be doers of the word not only hearers - Can also be translated
Be poets of the word not only hearers

Or as it says in the old country western song:

Life is a dance
With steps you don’t’ know
Join the dance
Learn as you go.

The Trinity represents the One who is waiting for us to join the dance – pick your partner – do si do.

Happy Birthday Mukhtar

Just for fun - some regular riders on Mukhtar the bus driver's route organized a flash mob for his birthday. Good news does happen



h/t Andrew Sullivan

an oldie but goodie - say no to all those "others"

Patrick Stewart on violence against women

Patrick Stewart talks about his personal experience of domestic violence at the launch of 'Created Equal', a new book on women's rights.





h/t to Simple Massing Priest

How do you say Eyjafjallajokull

How do you pronounce the name of the volcano causing all the travel trouble? An Icelandic singer helps:



Eyjafjallajokull - pronounced ay-uh-fyat-luh-yoe-kuutl-ul

Sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment in The Episcopal Church

From Episcopal Café:

Andrew Sullivan, writing on The Atlantic's Web site, has been praising the Episcopal Church for its actions on priests who commit sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment. In the comments on his column stories of quick action following the reporting of abuse have appeared. It is good to hear that our system is working for some people who have suffered at the hands of priests and bishops. I wish it had always been the case, but we have our own history of the abuse of power, secrecy, and denial. It was not until the ’70s and ’80s that these abuses were finally addressed by the Church and the General Convention began work on revising the canons and to encourage dioceses to provide procedures and training.

Women clergy began to hear the stories of child and youth sexual abuse by clergy in the late '70s and early '80s. Women had only been ordained since 1974. A few women across the denomination met to compare notes. In the meantime, lawsuits were beginning to emerge when the church would not respond to the suffering. The insurance companies were getting worried about providing liability insurance when churches knew about abuse and passed a priest on to another place. While I was serving on the Executive Council from 1985-91, Ellen Cooke, Treasurer of the denomination, reported to the Presiding Bishop and the Council that something needed to be done both for pastoral and fiduciary reasons.

General Convention began to act. In 1985, a resolution passed to request dioceses to conduct workshops on recognizing child sexual abuse. In 1991, a Committee on Sexual Exploitation was established. During this period several women clergy and some attorneys who had been providing legal counsel for abuse victims/survivors developed training for bishops and other leaders to teach the church about the issue and how to deal with perpetrators and victims/survivors. It was clear that TEC did not have canons or procedures to guide this work, so several of us proposed a resolution for the next General Convention.

The bishops did not think the time was right for this action but we pressed ahead. The women of the Episcopal Church – Episcopal Women’s Caucus, Episcopal Church Women, Daughters of the King, and others – mobilized to lobby both Houses and to talk to their bishops about the importance of immediate action by the church. Abuse victims/survivors came to testify, often the first time they had told their stories in public. 1997 saw a number of resolutions including the revision of Title IV (disciplinary canons) passed. (The history of resolutions is here.) The Bishop’s Pastoral Office led by the Rt. Rev. Harold (Hoppy) Hopkins was a key supporter of funding, education, developing training and facing the issues of abuses and exploitation.

In 2009 another revision of the Title IV canons was passed to set up a procedure that is more like the professional standards of conduct in other professions. The original revisions were based on the Military Code of Justice that while providing a way to deal with abuse and exploitation had proved very difficult to use.

Since the days of these early cases the work to stop abuse in the Episcopal Church has had a mixed record. In my work as a member of committees proposing and acting on guidelines for action and as a advocate for those who have suffered abuse and exploitation, I see the Episcopal Church is currently doing much better work but with areas that are still lacking.

Stopping child sexual abuse has the greatest success. Safeguarding God’s Children training is required of all clergy and all lay leaders especially anyone in the church working with children and youth. Congregations and parents are more aware of how to spot abuse and who to contact if it occurs. Church schools are vigilant about contact with children, requiring 2 adults present, windows in all offices, locking spaces where abuse might occur, and doing background checks on all employees and volunteers. Many dioceses are using online self-guided training and awareness programs which have increased participation 10 to 100 fold over the face to face training. We know that perpetrators will not stop abuse from taking training but the community can become vigilant and prevent incidents. Compliance is left to the dioceses to enforce but most have strict guidelines.

Exploitation of vulnerable adults and harassment has a more mixed success rate. Much depends on the local diocese and requirements for response and discipline. Although the canons are in place, it is often a hard road to get the canons enforced. Rather than viewing events as abuse of power, they are confused with “affairs” or the victim is blamed for the occurrence. Egregious, multiple offenses are usually dealt with eventually but justice is slow to be found for these abuses. Most professions realize that the person in power has the responsibility in any relationship – regardless of actions. The church is beginning to understand this. The discipline of bishops is the least successful area in the church.

The new revisions of the canons hold out the possibility that the procedures will be more available and easier to use with offending priests and deacons in dioceses. The canons have more options before taking the case to court. Child abuse, of course, must be reported to the police or county authorities by civil law. Training in adult exploitation and harassment is now available for congregations and dioceses. The Episcopal Church has learned that a church that faces abuse and exploitation promptly and with justice, restoration, and reconciliation can be a healthier safer place for all.

and a brave Catholic priest - I hope for voices like this in all churches:

Winning the Masters

I have all sorts of issues with Augusta and their leadership but the scene was grand:

2 Easter

Readings are here.

Thomas is mentioned twice in the Gospel of John. In the passage we read for today and in John 11:16. In the earlier appearance, Thomas is a man of action. Jesus' disciples think they should all stay away from Jerusalem and not go to see about Lazurus death because they are afraid of being killed. When Jesus says he is going anyway, Thomas says " "Let us also go, that we might die with him." It is clear that Thomas is brave and loyal to Jesus.

Thomas is also the patron saint of builders and architects. He is believed to have traveled to India and was the founder of the Mar Thoma church. It is these traditions that make me think he was a man of action and a practical man. Designing and building take knowledge. One cannot just put anything up and hope it will hang together. A builder has to know how things interact and how to make things stable and lasting. When we had our next house remodeled - it was discovered that the person or persons who had owned it before had built it with bits and pieces he had salvaged from the beach -- odd sheets of plywood salvaged off the beach, pieced together, police barricade boards tying the roof beams together. If we were to live in for the future - it had to be taken apart and rebuilt -- the contractor took out everything except the underfloor and the roof. Now the rooms work together instead of being a series of rabbit warrens - and the house is sturdy in the storms of the coast. Our builder knew what was needed. That is how I see Thomas. A person with the practical skills and the knowledge to put it all together.

Thomas in the passage we have today wants proof. His practical, action oriented personality cannot believe that which he has not seen, even though all his friends say they saw it. When Jesus appears Thomas does not really need to put his hand on the wounds - he is stunned and believes saying "My Lord and My God" - taking the story to a whole new level - this is "God" in their presence.

I think we need Thomases in our time. People who do not get swept up in the latest fad or alarmist news story. People who take time to check the facts. To see for themselves. Who do not take something as true just because "everyone" says it is or acts like it is. Thomas is not a doubter or unbeliever in the long run - he is a person who says "hold on" "wait a minute" "let's check this out." He does not refuse to believe but wants more information.

The wonderful thing about God is that we are met wherever we are on our journey in faith. God speaks to everyone regardless - the mystic who is seeking God in meditation and prayer, the Thomas who needs more proof, the unbelieving who live in faith nevertheless, those who are just born with an innate sense of belief, those who follow an ethical compassionate life regardless of belief systems. God is open to all. Jesus says in this reading "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." It is an easier path - but not the only one. Thomas demands to see the nail wounds and Jesus obliges him.

Psalm 150
1 Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy temple; *
praise him in the firmament of his power.
2 Praise him for his mighty acts; *
praise him for his excellent greatness.
3 Praise him with the blast of the ram's-horn; *
praise him with lyre and harp.
4 Praise him with timbrel and dance; *
praise him with strings and pipe.
5 Praise him with resounding cymbals; *
praise him with loud-clanging cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath *
praise the LORD.

¡Hallelujah!

Easter 2010

Readings for Easter Sunday are here

Thoughts toward a sermon:

The thing I notice about the Easter readings this year is how all are so resistant to seeing the Risen Christ. Resurrection seems to be impossible so they cannot see it. New life, when we are used to the same old same old, is invisible to us. Peter in the has to be awakened by his dream to see the new thing God is doing. He is so entrenched in his belief system that only the horror of God asking him to eat the repulsive unclean food can shock him into awareness.

Peter and the beloved disciple return to their homes after seeing the empty tomb. Their eyes are closed to any other idea than what they always knew. The tomb is empty - reason tells them - some one took the body - probably the terrifying power of Pontius Pilate's soldiers. Pilate had such a terrible reputation in those days that even Rome finally removed him from office. Go home and lock the doors lest this happen to us too.

Mary Magdalene, who knows the healing power of Jesus in her life - the freeing of her from her seven demons, does not want to leave the site where she last saw Jesus body. Lingering in the garden (In the Garden - is Magdalene's song), she encounters a person she believes is the gardener. Echoes of Adam and Eve in the garden remind us of the time when we lived in wholeness and right relationship with God, walking easily with all creation. God was the gardener there and here beside the empty tomb God in Christ appears as gardener. Magdalene cannot see this at first, her preconceptions and grief blind her to the resurrection standing before her.

These stories are our stories. The needs of daily life, the sorrows, the demands can shut down our senses to God appearing all around us. Life paves over us like the asphalt paves over the the earth. We can get in the habit of going through the motions of life and not really living in the fullness to which God calls us.

A few weeks ago I read about children in Haiti who make kites out of plastic bags. You know those bags - you see them hanging on the barb wire fences wherever the wind has blown them. I don't know about you but I see them as trash, an eyesore and I think - why don't people dispose of them properly. And it is true they are bad for wildlife and form great rafts of trash in our oceans. But in the midst of all the tragedy of Haiti - the children see a kite -- a toy that helps they soar in the sky when all around them is death. They take a few sticks and the flatten the bags for the kite then they tie the other bags together to make the string - and out of nothing - joy.

A favorite poem of mine is Manifesto: The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front by Wendell Berry. The last line is Practice Resurrection! And I believe that is a good idea. When we are children we are alive to life - have you ever walked with a small child. No point in trying to get where you are going - they see everything with the new eyes of a child. The least little stone is a delight and something to be explored. Every step you take with them is all new when seen with their eyes. Things you never noticed in walking that same old path is alive with newness.

So today as we go out to "rejoice in the power of the Spirit" let us also "rejoice in the power of the Resurrection" -- allow God to open our eyes to the places of resurrection - new life - that are all around us.

Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry

PS - today as I pulled up the blog to add to it - I noticed that I had comment moderation on and there were all these unmoderated notes. What a joy to read them and discover more thoughts added to mine, thoughts that stretched back to last fall attached to things I had forgotten I had even said. It is an example of how closed up I can become - not even seeing resurrection that is right here, now.

My Episcopal Church

I love the scene where ++Katharine is escorted into the House of Deputies following her election as Presiding Bishop: